AN: Well, here's the second chapter. I really hope that I haven't lost the feel from the first. And thanks to everyone who thought the first chapter was good. I really wasn't expecting to get such a positive reaction.
Once again, I own nothing relating to Resident Evil and/or its distributors/etc…
"Where the hell's Wesker?" Chris asked, his voice shaking ever so slightly. Jill looked around the large room, but she couldn't find any sign of a struggle. The door seemed to still be locked, there was no blood, they hadn't heard anything coming from this direction…and yet, Barry and Wesker were missing.
"Wesker? Barry?" Jill's voice echoed through the empty chamber.
"Jill, look around, see if you can find anything. I'm going to check upstairs. But don't leave this hall." Chris's commanded; his voice laced with concern. Jill nodded and began looking for any sign of Barry and Wesker on the ground floor. She walked don the small set of stairs behind the main staircase and came a to a rust covered gate. Behind the gate was a dark, and apparently very long tunnel. As she stepped forward, her fingers wrapped around the gate, rust flaking off at her touch.
She pulled at the gate, but it barely moved. She shook it, to see if the rust had made it hard to open, but it still wouldn't open. The gate scraped against the floor. The screech was followed by an inhuman moan, coming from behind the gate. Jill heard chains being dragged along the ground, as the moans grew louder. Jill squinted into the darkness, hoping to see whatever was behind the gate before it saw her.
"What the hell was that?" Chris asked. Jill jumped and spun around, her hand slapping against Chris's chest.
"Don't fucking do that!"
"Did I scare you?" Chris asked, an innocent grin pasted on his face.
"Asshole," Jill said as she walked back up the stairs. "Did you find anything?"
"Nothing. It's like they just disappeared," Chris replied, the smile fading from his face.
"So, what now? Do we split up or search together?" Jill asked.
"Well, if we split up, that's twice the ground, but we could get lost. Stay together, and we would have a better chance of survival, however, it would take twice as long to search the entire mansion," Chris said, deliberating.
"How 'bout we split up and search around for about half an hour, then we meet back here and regroup to follow up on anything interesting the other found?" Jill suggested. She didn't really like the idea of splitting up after what she had seen and heard, but they needed to find the others fast.
"Fine," Chris sighed. He walked over to Jill, and being the taller of the two, looked down, "Be careful. I don't want to lose you too." He cupped her chin with his hand and bent down. Their lips touched lightly, but only for a second before Chris was walking back towards the dining room.
"Let's keep the searching to the first floor for now," he said, and then he was through the doors. Jill hadn't known how much she had really meant to Chris until that moment. She turned to face the blue doors on the east side of the mansion. As she walked to the doors, she felt her cheeks heat up a bit. She had always suspected that Chris might have been attracted to her, and the two had always acted like they were a couple anyway… Jill shook her head to clear those thoughts from her mind for the time being. Right now she needed to focus on finding the others.
Her hand wrapped around the cool metal of the door-handle and she pulled. The room seemed to be a small art gallery of sorts. Portraits and landscapes decorated the walls, but it didn't seem cluttered. In the middle of the room stood a marble statue of a woman holding a large vase. At the far left corner of the room was another small hallway that turned, the far right corner held a plain-looking wooden door. Jill decided to check the open hall first. With her gun pointed to the floor, both hands gripping the weapon tightly, she began to walk forward.
Chris knelt by the body of Kenneth Sullivan. His dark skin was covered in blood, a sight that made Chris sick to his stomach. He hated what he was doing, but it was necessary. His hand rifled through the pockets of Kenneth's vest, trying to find any extra ammunition. After he ran out of pockets, he had only found two extra clips, but it was better than nothing. He stood up and walked to his left, where the room branched off into a very short hall and led to another door.
He chose to make a sweep of the hall he was already in before going through another door. After a quick search and trying the doors, he realized that only the door leading back to the dining hall, and the door near Kenneth were the only ones unlocked. His options were very limited, and he began hoping that the mansion wasn't as large as they had originally thought. He stepped though his only real option and began walking down the dark hallway it had put him in. As he stepped around the corner, he saw a small staircase. He had told Jill to stay on the ground floor, but he decided that, since there weren't any other unlocked doors, the stars would be his only option.
Jill looked down at the bloodied body that had just attacked her. She managed to kill it rather quickly, since it had already been stabbed numerous times. Two bullets to the chest and it was down. After quickly searching its pockets she found a small golden key with a sword carved into it. She also found a small dagger embedded into its right shoulder. On the shelves at the end of the hall she found old art supplies and a few small statues.
After searching that small room, she walked to the door she saw earlier. She turned the knob, but it barely moved. She knelt down to inspect the doorknob. The golden metal had a small sword carved into it. The lock looked rather old anyway, and she suspected that she could pick it if necessary, but it would take much longer than using the key she found.
How convenient.
She slipped the smooth key into the lock and twisted. With a light click the door moved slightly. Jill turned the knob and pushed the door open. The entire room seemed bright, but somehow still dull. The walls were a pale golden-yellow and the carpet was a beige color. It matched, but still seemed to clash all at the same time. Placed sporadically along the wall were small display cases. As Jill peered into each of them, she realized whoever had decorated the mansion had a very twisted sense of style. The cases displayed bones, mostly indistinguishable to Jill, but some she could tell belonged to hands. There also seemed to be pieces of oily-looking leather, which Jill eventually realized were dried pieces of flesh.
As she came to the end of the hall, Jill heard something slam against the glass window she had just passed. She turned around slowly, afraid of what she might see. Suddenly, a dog crashed through the glass. Fur and skin were peeling from the dog, and blood-tainted saliva dripped from its bared teeth. The monster growled, a low and menacing sound, primal. Jill slowly backed towards the door as the creature advanced on her. She heard the sound of more shattering glass. Her hands moved very slowly behind her, trying to find the wood of the door. Finally, her hand touched the smoothness of the door. She began to slide it slowly along the wood, now searching for the door handle. Her fingers touched the cool metal, and they wrapped themselves around it. Suddenly, the dog lunged for her. She quickly spun around and threw her through the door, kicking it shut behind her.
The hall she had stepped into had a green-floral pattern over pale yellow as the wallpaper. The floor was wood. To her right was a metal door, which she assumed led outside. She didn't feel like facing any more canines for the time being. She jumped slightly as something slammed against the wooden door, hard enough to crack it slightly. She quickly walked away from the door, and opened the white wooden door around the corner. Inside there was a small bath-tub/shower combo and a sink. There was a small enclave that she assumed held the toilet. As she walked closer, she noticed that the tub was filled with very murky water. Her curiosity overpowering her better reasoning, she stuck her hand into the tub and searched around for the plug. She found it rather quickly, and easily pulled it from the drain.
She stared into the dark-brown liquid, but after only a few seconds, a hand shot out of the water and its dissolving fingers scraped against her cheek, leaving disgusting gray trails. She leapt back, but lost her balance and fell to the floor. The dissolving zombie slid out of the tub and began crawling towards Jill. She quickly got back to her feet, but the dissolving hand had already wrapped itself around her ankle. She struggled, but despite its current state, the zombie had a death-grip. Finally, deciding it was her only option; she pulled her foot into the air, and then slammed it down onto the zombie's head. With only a slight crunch and a rather large amount of squilch, the zombie stopped moving and brain oozed out of the numerous cracks and holes in its head. Jill took a few deep breaths, and then felt bile rise quickly out of her stomach. She ran to the toilet, and all of the disgusting things she had seen from that night were released into the toilet.
Chris fell back against the cold marble wall, his heart beating faster than he thought possible. He had seen a key that was fit neatly into a raised area of the floor. He looked down and noticed that a chest plate was carved into it. He figured it would be worth it to keep the key, so he pulled it from its place. As soon as he did so, he heard gears begin to turn under him, and suddenly the walls closed, making the hallway much more narrow than it had been. A suit of armor also blocked the area behind him. He began to walk forward, but stopped dead when another suit of armor came around the corner, except this one had a spike shield with spinning blades.
The fuck…?
Chris quickly ran back to the key's original spot. He tried to shove the key back in, but his fingers kept slipping. Eventually, he managed to put the key back in its rightful place, and everything reversed itself. After ten minutes, his heart had slipped back into a somewhat normal pace, and he decided he should meet back with Jill. As he walked down the corridor, he looked down at the body he had passed a few minutes ago. He didn't worry about it getting back up. Ten holes were visible in its back, and he didn't need anymore proof that there were still survivors in this place.
As his hand touched the doorknob, he heard shuffling behind him. He turned back around to see that the "dead body" had gotten to its feet. But it looked different than the other zombies he had killed, (not that he felt he was an expert). The creature was drenched in blood, and it looked like it's skin was peeling off. (More than the other zombies.) Its eyes, instead of the milky shade of their original color, were completely white and somewhat shrunken. It had large portions of bone that had ripped through his fingertips, and now formed talons. Its teeth had become much sharper, almost needle-like. The creature didn't moan either, it made a raspy breathing noise that was somewhere between asthma attack and a roar. With no warning, the creature ran at Chris. He quickly pulled his gun out and fired a bullet at the monster's skull, but it somehow dodged the bullet. Chris rolled under its arm as it swiped at him, its claws tearing through the door like it was paper.
Chris took aim at the creature again and fired, but, like last time, the creature simply dodged the bullet. Chris pulled the trigger again, but only an empty click was heard.
Shit.
The creature had closed the distance between the two in a fraction of a second, and its clawed hand was swinging down at Chris's face. Blood sprayed the wall, and Chris fell back, slamming his head against the door behind him. His vision went black save for the few stars that had flashed into his vision, but then they too were gone. Thoughts swam through Chris's mind, and then everything stopped.
AN: Oooo, cliffhanger. One again, I appreciate all of the positive comments I've been getting, and I hoped I lived up to your expectations after the first chapter, although I feel like I lost that same feel I had in the first chapter, but maybe this one will be okay. I'm going to try to put out a new chapter every month, but shit happens, so that may not always be possible.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Please review!
