On the wall directly across from Rebecca Chamber's office desk was the single painting she had kept from the offices former tenant. The black swirls upon a splashed red and white canvas were almost hypnotic if stared at long enough. Staring, as she was prone to do after a twenty hour day that seemed as if it would never end. It was the kind of day that others may have complained about, but she met with little more than a smile; Rebecca knew how much worse days like this could get.
When she'd arrived in Nevada three years ago, she had never expected to find work in a hospital. It probably would have been much smarter on her part to have sought employment in another field—perhaps meat packing. She gave a small chuckle at that and shook her head. Such thoughts were morbid, and though they'd shocked her when she'd first begun to have them, time had worn down her will to either resist or scold herself for them. After all that she'd been through, Rebecca doubted that anyone would blame her for giving into the macabre.
Not that anyone knew about that.
Her name plates, on both her office and desktop, as well as her license, diploma, and birth certificate, and all other such items was now "Rosemarie Franks" and had been for quite some time. Though she hadn't been with S.T.A.R.S. for terribly long before its unfortunate... incident, it had still been time enough to know key names of the underworld. Names that had, in the same ironic fashion which shaped the rest of her life, ultimately saved her from incarceration... or worse.
Lips pursing, the sweet taste of her apple chap stick bursting against the tip of her tongue, Rebecca's eyes were once more drawn to that lovely, damnable painting. Six months after she'd begun work as an R.N. her skills had been noticed by the hospital administration. A seriously wounded patient had come in—attacked by a dog—and Rebecca's quick hands had been the ones to staunch the bleeding and call shots the doctor himself had been to slow to do. Others may have been offended by her presumption, but luck had been on Rebecca's side that day. The doctor she'd been working with was one that had already been under review for nervous behavior and her actions had saved that boy's life. Of course they had. If anyone knew how serious dog bites could be...
Once more her thoughts strayed down that well paved path. No, not paved. A path such as that would be dirt, packed hard in spots and overgrown at others, crowded on both sides by trees twisted and bent, with cold boney fingers that reached and grasped for hair and shirt and pants. The kind of path that held no sound save a crow's call and the crunch of your own boots upon the dead, rotting bracken that covered the ground. It was that kind of path which plagued the back of her mind, even now, and howled and scraped at her insides every time she saw the bleeding, the wounded, the dying. Or the dead.
Sometimes, in her dreams, she could still hear the clicking of claws upon the ground, the ragged breathing, and the snarls that seemed no different from one another, no matter if they came from the throat of man or beast. It had been worse three years ago, when she'd still needed medicine in order to sleep— yet had feared to use for the thought of what might happen while she was under. It turned out, she was right to fear.
The phone rang and Rebecca jumped with a girlish squeak which would have surprised any of her colleagues. Her eyes blurred for a moment before snapping back into focus with a headache in tow. Rebecca hadn't realized just how hard she had been staring at that painting until that moment, and she lifted a hand to rub uselessly at her temples. The phone rang again, but she ignored it, choosing instead to fumble with one of the drawers on the left side of her desk. When it wouldn't open after a few tugs she remembered past the throbbing pain that it was still locked.
She swore—another thing which would have shocked any nurse in the place, for swearing was something "Doctor Franks" never did, and sat up straight to pull the thin, though surprisingly durable, gold chain from under her shirt collar and over her head. Suspended upon it was a tiny key, like one which may have belonged to a child's diary, but far more valuable. Most people assumed it was a keep sake, none had the faintest idea that it went to her office desk.
Though the majority of the doctors at Ailand Memorial kept their desk drawers locked for a variety of reasons (personal documents, patient records, prescription pads, and the like) none of them seemed to care as much about their privacy as Rosemarie Franks. It wasn't her prescription pads she was worried about though. Had some of them gone missing—which they never did—she would have lost her job, and while that was important, in a way, she'd learned the hardest way that it wasn't everything. She'd already been stripped of her identity, her naivety, and everyone she'd ever loved, but she'd survived. If she lost this job, or this identity, she would still survive. He had taught her that, as much as her further experiences had.
With the phone still ringing with its insistent, shrill scream, and the headache still throbbing through her skull, intent on breaking free, Rebecca finally managed the lock on the second drawer down and pulled it loose. The bottle of pain killers was directly on top, rattling about with the force of the moving drawer. She reached for it, but her fingers brushed something cold as she did and the women couldn't help but bringing that item out with it.
Her old S.T.A.R.S. badge gleamed in the blue-white light shining through the windows from the outside parking lot lights. Her face reflected in its still shiny surface, somehow highlighting the years that had added themselves there. She wasn't old by anyone's standards, but it seemed to her that she'd lived through ten times what most people faced in their lifetimes.
The phone had been ringing for ages now, but finally the voice mail picked it up. Her own voice broke the silence following the last ring, hollowly cheerful and dead to her own ears. It didn't even sound like her anymore.
"You've reached the office of Doctor Franks. I'm not in at the moment, but if you would leave a short message with your name and number I'll be certain to get back to you as soon as I can. If your problem is an emergency, please dial the hospital's main line and speak to a nurse on duty."
Rebecca popped the cap on the pill bottle, preparing to swallow her usual three and then pick the phone up. No matter who was on the other end, it was always an emergency, she thought with a bitterness that would have surprised her at any other time. There was something about the night that made her a little more irritable, more nervous, and ultimately more true to herself. They would leave a message anyway, those irritated thought continued, and then call the nurse. Because telling me once wasn't enough.
The voice mail gave a low-toned beep and then the sound of static filled the room. A frown wrinkled between Rebecca's brows, slowly deepening into a scowl as the buzzing noise only continued. With one hand she popped all three pills into her mouth and swallowed them dry, a habit born of long practice, then reached for the receiver. No point in picking up, really, she'd just end it—
"Rebecca?"
The carpet dulled the sound of the pill bottle when it hit, but the pills sounded like rain as they bounced inside of it and then spilt soundlessly out its mouth. She ignored the mess, her attention on the little black box spilling its static and her secrets as if they were one and the same.
Hand still poised over the receiver, the pad of her middle finger barely touching it—like the softest of lover's caresses—she stared at dark slots which masked the speaker as if through it she could see the man on the other side. Static still, and nothing else. Was that breathing?
"Rebecca."
The voice was there, nearly drowned in the noise, but it was there! She breathed again, and had no idea when she'd stopped, but the air felt like a knife in her throat. Wild eyes rose to that painting—that damned painting—quickly tracing the dark lines smeared across its canvas. Then, just as suddenly, the static cut short.
For a moment, Rebecca didn't know what had happened. She sat staring, transfixed again, at the painting. Was she dreaming? Was she really back in her apartment, curled upon the mattress, knife under the pillow? Or had she been awake so long that dreaming and reality had blurred together? This wouldn't be the first time that had happened, after all. When had she come into work today?
Rebecca racked her brain, willing it to work though it didn't want to settle into any form of logic. It was funny—in that maddening, macabre way—that she would have been far more able to handle this had it come with rising corpses in tow. Of course, imminent death had that way of effecting people; you either learned think without thinking, or you died trying to rationalize. Billy had always been rational, if somewhat maddening.
Once again she pulled her eyes away from that tribal blackness and focused them upon the offending phone. Had he hung up or—no. Her voice mail had cut off. Of course it had cut off. The red light blinked at her teasingly, as if taunting her with the non-message she knew she'd hear if she played it. Following her own advice, Rebecca reached for the phone without bothering to think about it. Shaking ivory fingers reached for the key pad, carefully pressing the three buttons she needed with a sharp, no-nonsense manner that ensured they would be registered. Star. Six. Nine.
The phone rang once in her ear.
It rang again, and she pursed her lips.
A third ring, and then a click. Static again, and the same, low pulsing from the other side that she thought was breathing. Her heart raged against her ribs like a wild thing, insistent on breaking through to freedom. Her hands sweated, and she made her free one into a fist to press firmly against one knee. That manicure thought was so nice to get was painful now, cutting into her skin so surely that it was a blessing she was so practiced at removing blood from them.
"Billy?" Her breathless whisper sounded foreign even to her, for it had been a long time since she'd last truly heard herself come from her own mouth.
Rebecca wasn't certain what she was expecting. The last she'd heard from Billy, or about Billy, was the fact that no one had ever found him after the incident with Raccoon City. Though she'd run, rather than be questioned for her association with him, she had managed to stay on top of the search for him. Old friends dropped information without questioning her motives—or if they did, they never asked her why. It had been years since she'd dared to contact them, and she had never dreamed that he might come seeking her. After all, what reason did he have to do that?
"It's you, isn't it?" Rebecca continued when the person on the other side didn't seem inclined to respond. Her voice shook with emotions she had no name for, nor time to reflect upon, but this was not Rosemarie Franks speaking. For the first time in three years, she was free to be Rebecca Chambers, and those emotions were long due to be aired. "What is it? Are you in trouble? You know there isn't much I can do—I'm not even in S.T.A—"
"I know." The sharp, flat statement cut her off mid sentence. A flash of irritation, the kind few had ever inspired in her—among which he ranked near the top of the offenders list—ripped through her and her mouth closed in a snap. It was just as well, for his voice was low and hard to hear as the connection worsened.
"Listen to me. There isn't much time." Wherever he was, Billy was still himself. Beyond the initial silence he wasn't wasting his time on pleasantries or nonsense. He didn't even wait to be prompted for the rest. "I managed to track you down, but so will they, if they haven't already. I'm of the mind that they have, and they may even have this line bugged as we speak. Some key news surrounding Raccoon City has started to leak. It hasn't hit public airwaves yet, but its becoming a heavy governmental issue."
Rebecca frowned. The medicine wasn't working at all for her headache and this wasn't helping it at all. That same sarcastic thought in the back of her mind whispered that a headache was the last thing she should worry about now, but the throbbing was impossible to ignore. "I don't see what this has to do with me."
"The government is going to want people who know what happened to speak. You know what happened, and Umbrella knows that." He didn't need to say anything more. The revelation spread through her body like a tsunami breaking upon the shore. All at once Rebecca was grateful she was sitting down. It seemed as if a pad of prescriptions was the least of her worries right now.
"Billy, I—"
"Don't. Go to your home. Pack your bags. Run." With that clipped, urgent message the phone went dead and this time the buzzing wasn't only in her head. A minute of blankness followed, then Rebecca settled the receiver upon its stand once more with a dull click. It seemed all she could do to stare at the phone as if it were a ghost, a dull spirit of days of horror long gone. As flippantly as she thought of what would happen to her, were she ever needed to abandon yet another life, the reality of it was much harder than she ever expected. At least in that first moment.
In the next she'd risen, taken the second drawer on her left out of his sheath entirely and tucked it under her arm. Her purse was thrown into it, and one-handed she dug out a small pistol she kept in it at all times. That weapon went in her front pocket, under her jacket until she got out of the hospital. And in the few seconds it took for her to do this she had picked up all that really belonged of Rebecca Chambers in this office.
Rebecca did not look back as she left Rosemarie Franks sitting in her office chair, staring dejectedly at her painting. The painting that reminded her of Billy, and the life she'd never wanted to leave.
Authors note:
This was written at about four in the morning after a night of Resident Evil: Zero with friends. While I went into it intending to write a short about where Rebecca's been since we last saw her in Resident Evil, it took a bit of a turn in the end. Im not sure if Ill follow it up with anything else, but the odds are great if I find myself in need of a break from school or work.