Chapter 3: The Man with a Tomahawk

Brimstone Asylum

South-West Hallways

1996

Damien was sifting through the asylum, finding the corpses of many dead men and women. They all looked appalling, and enough to make you throw-up your most recent meal. The walls had a splatter of blood here and a little spatter there, like most of the halls throughout the asylum, where zombies had passed.

Such a sight gave macabre images of the massacre that took place here. Dawn of the dead must have taken place here, because some zombie heads were blown off or had a blade dig into the head, and some police men were held up in here.

These police men were not really with the police, they were deputies. Brimstone was too small of a community to have a police station.

All the way out here in the Louisiana bayou, it was more like a country-side area. These deputies were of the Brimstone sheriff's department. Going through all pistols, Damien figured out they were pillaged of their clips and one was missing. The shotguns must have been left in their cars or taken as well. Going through the hallways, Damien continued to feel like he was in a horror move.

'What does this make me? Ripley?' He thought to himself; and after seeing how Ripley's story played out, he was hoping the answer was a firm hell no.

Looking for Clarke was still his priority, he just was taking it slow and steady. He was willing to take a chance, just not an insane chance. That was good thinking for a man who spent the past nine months living among crazies in this insane asylum.

Suddenly a zombie, cowardly playing possum, pounced on Damien. He was on the ground, wrestling the zombie for control in the struggle, and trying to grab his hunting knife. He dropped it when the zombie attack, but was still within arm's reach.

The left arm pressed against the zombie's neck, and under the jaw, while his right arm reached for the weapon. This zombie was a real fighter with a jaw that would bite open and shut like one of those wind-up teeth toys.

In a moment of one of his psychotic episodes, Damien saw the zombie change from a decaying brunet, and into a decaying blond. It looked just like Sarah, with all the other attributes of the zombies; even blood shot eyes. Then it turned back into the zombie again.

It was so irritating to Damien. "I don't have time for this shit!" he barked at the zombie.

'So close and so far' he thought while trying to reach for the knife. He could practically see door, and was sure that it was the doctor's office. Now he was likely to be a meal for one of these literal brain dead monsters.

Could he head butt it like he did the first one? Maybe kick it off him? Or perhaps if he let the zombie bit down on his arm it would give him some time to grab for the knife? No, none of these were any good. The first two failed, the last was not an option. There was no way in hell Damien would voluntarily turn into one of these things.

He just needed to resume reaching for the knife.

Reaching for it was a pain in the ass and arm, obviously on account of him reaching so hard for the knife, and a strain on his muscles. It was all he could do to reach for the weapon while holding the zombie head back from his own.

Some drool coming down on, or near, his face did not make things any easier for him.

Finally Damien was able to grab the knife; the crucible was near its end. He looked up at the zombie, still biting at him ferociously and desperately for a bite, and he lunges for the temple of the skull. There was a faint crack sound to be heard within the head, as the knife went through, and various other sounds as the zombie drew its last gargle and died.

He had no hesitation about using his weapon; the zombie would have bitten down on him and not think twice about it, and was glad that it was finally done with; after he pushed the body off to the side and took in a sigh of relief.

Quickly he pulled himself up from the ground; he could feel his heart beating like a drum. He was still jumpy from the experience and wanted to move on from it. As he was standing up, he witnessed the zombie turn into Sarah one last time, and it was over.

"I'm sorry, Sarah." He said to the wraith that continued to haunt him and scar his soul.
Only one thought came to mind while standing in the hallway, and recovering from the episode of horror and that was get to Clarke's office, and then the thought to follow was for him to get the hell out of dodge.

This asylum always had a dark feeling to it, but this feeling, Damien was having now, and it was evil; the kind of evil only a demon should be able to make you feel.

For the first few months in the asylum, Damien would often hear rumors about the asylum from some of the other patients, Bobby and David, of the numerous murders that happened here over the years. Some times they said it was a hospital for people dying a deadly disease in the early 1900's; at other times people said a wealthy family once made this their homes until one of their sons went off the rocker and killed every one there or they all killed themselves by a hanging; the last one was that in the early 1970's a cult owned the asylum, and they tried to summon a demon into the world by sacrificing virgins kidnapped from the locals. Later the police came to arrest them; the gun fight between the cultists and the police lasted five hours into the night before finally they killed themselves in a last ditched attempt to complete the ritual. Some rumors persisted over the years that their last sacrifice brought a demon, Azazel, into the world, and now it torments some of the patients and doctors in the asylum.

Damien never put stock in such idle gossip like the others did; he always brushed it off as bullshit, but now there were literally dead men walking around, so he was starting to think it might be time to reevaluate what is possible to be real.

A creak was heard coming from the door to Clarke's office door. It was opening up and something, or someone, was coming out. When the door opened up, a bald headed man walked out. This man, he wore a long black coat, boots, even gloves with only square of flesh showing from the hands. It had no facial features, not even a mouth, only dark red eyes.

One more thing about this man caught Damien's attention. He was holding a military issued tomahawk, still dripping blood from a victim.

The man took one look at Damien, and then he walked away.

Before leaving, Damien was prepared to fight. He was tightening the grip on his knife for a tough fight, only to have the man put a finger in front of where the mouth should have been and made a gesture of a shush.

"Monsters in the bayou," Damien scoffed as it walked down the hall, with its boots making large stomping sounds with every step. "Zombies in the asylum, monster with strange peers walking around holding a tomahawk; strange times we live in."
It was such a queer thing to see these things occur.
All Damien's life, he knew of strange tales from various folklores and legends of monsters and demons in remote regions in the world.

James and some of the other older brothers, Oliver, Jon and Aiden, would love to scare him with these stories when he was a little boy. Hell hounds, The Rake, Moth man, Creeper, Werewolves, even the blue albino woman; all of them were stories he heard, and more. This was something else; it was like being in one of his brothers' stories and it was worse.

The creature scared him in a way no story ever could.

'At least I have some good news' Damien thought to himself. With the creature gone, he felt one small weight lift from his shoulder. After all, with that monster running around, the zombies would be focusing on something else.

It was no time to think about things too much; Damien walked closer to the office.
Doctor Clarke's office, room one hundred and one, was dead quiet with no sounds of life. He was not a very excited or hyper man, and a lousy person at heart, yet even he was human and could not help to make any kind of noise, even breathing.

The closer Damien came to the door, he would still hear nothing; and he has good hearing. It was so quiet he could drop a pin and only hear the pit hitting the ground. As his steps brought him closer to the doorway, Damien nervously prepared his knife for any zombie that could be inside; he had no way to foresee what was waiting on the other side: Doctor Thomas Clarke's corpse. He was not killed by the teeth and claws of zombies but by a sharp blade; it was probably done by the monster's tomahawk.
His approaching death must have been what the yelling was about.

The body was lying back in the chair of his desk. There was blood on and around the body, and it was all his. He suffered one horrible of a death.

"Jesus, Clarke," he said while looking at the remains of the doctor. "I always thought karma was a bitch, but this was overkill!"

Clarke was never good to Damien, or any of the patients here in the asylum. He took delight in making sure a stay in Brimstone was worse for them than it normally would be. He was the Tiller of the asylum; this was his Alcatraz, and he was its deputy warden, so it was bad luck to have him on you. Even in questioning, Clarke was rude to Snow, and he used restraint during the recorded conversations, and after that his façade of good nature was no more.

Examining the body, Damien could not help but feel sorry for the doctor. He may have been a cynic, but even he had empathy. His body took one hit to the arm two, hits in the upper left side of the chest, and one final one to the center of the forehead. Most of the deputies' missing ammunition was to be found in the room, with the clip in the doctor's gun empty. Even in death he was still gripping the Beretta 92FS, that was taken off one of the dead deputies.

"Thanks for the gift, Dr. Dick head." He insulted the corpse as he took the Beretta out of the dead man's hand; formally brushing off whatever sympathies he was feeling. This may not have been what Damien imagined happening to him, but either way, the bad this man did came back to haunt him, finally. There was also a holster on the body to take; probably to use in case he had to make a run for the town. Damien put his knife way in is scabbard, and then after putting the berretta in the holster, sets the holsters close to the knife on the right side of his pants.

Along with the doctor's body was a collection of papers and files; all of them were on Damien Snow and his blood word. Along with these was a recorder, like the ones doctors use in their sessions, and so first Damien closed the door. He took whatever he could find in the room to muffle the noise from being loud enough to attract any zombies.

"Alright, dear old doc; what the heck were you doing in here?" Damien asked with to the corpse, now in the corner, as he prepared to play the recording. He pressed the play button and quickly did his best to muffle the noise it made, only to realize the voice whispering, and all the noise was too low to attract any attention and pulled off of it.

"My name is Doctor Thomas Clarke, of the Brimstone county asylum," the voice of the recording box said; it was Doctor Clarke's voice. He was whispering in a hushed tone, and it was easy to tell he was very frightened by whatever was going on. His sense of superiority was crushed under such intense fear and paranoia, like Emil was.

"For a few days now, the asylum has been besieged by the undead. Walking corpses have roamed the halls of this asylum, searching for any person to bite and consume in a glutinous feast. My colleagues and patients have been killed and turned into these things, and wander the halls to join them in killing any other survivors. I believe them all of them to be dead, except for Snow; he is still locked in his room."

'Days' Damien wondered to himself after pausing the recording and asks "How long was I asleep?" Then begins the recording again. The doctor's voice came back on in a second and continued on speaking with whatever was happening in his final moments.

"I've hold myself up in my office, because it is the most familiar to me. I had hoped Umbrella's U.S.S. team would reach me, but so far they've failed to live up on their end. What few deputies that made it to the asylum have been killed."

For Clarke to be waiting up for help to arrive from Umbrella did not surprise Damien. He had been in there pockets for years, and was in contact with some of the employees in a town called Raccoon city. But to hear the mention of the U.S.S. was a surprise. James worked in that bunch for several years now, and for them to be making a promise of rescue to some stooge like Clarke seemed out of character for them.

"For the past few weeks, I've received instructions from Wesker in Raccoon City. This happened before the walking dead started happening, so I doubt this was intentionally caused. I was told to do tests on a subject's blood; one Damien Snow. They've had me send my findings on psychological and physical state of being. I do not know what for, but I've come to this conclusion; he must have some connection to the Dr. Birkin's experiment in Brimstone."

"Wesker, Birkin." Damien repeated the name while trying to make sense of what was happening.

Why would Umbrella want my blood? Damien thought to himself in confusion. It was hard to fathom what connection he could possibly have with this Dr. Birkin or any experiment they were conducting. Then there was the matter of this Wesker person who ordered his blood-work.

All good questions but of no real relevance to him escaping from here; one silver lining did come out of this, he knew something was going on in Brimstone.

There was nothing left to hear on the recording, other than Clarke ramble on about the zombies and his final moments before his death, and he presses the pause button. He put the recorder down and turned to face Clarke's corpse.

What Damien turned to face Clarke, it was nothing like he thought to see. Instead of seeing the corpse, he sees Sarah run up to him with a screwdriver. If Damien had not caught her hands, then he would have been down one eye ball. Instead he had the tip of the screwdriver close to his eye as Sarah continued try and gouge his eye with it. Snow fought it with all his strength.

Finally it ended. The apparition halted its homicidal attempts to kill Damien, and it simply vanished from existence. There was still a screwdriver close to his eye, but only because he was holding it that close to begin with. Only he remained in the room; just him and the corpse.

"What the hell is going on with me?" Snow asked himself while dropping the knife. The hallucination had him sweating like a hooker in church, and was causing him to lose his grasp of reality. He wondered if he was going crazy or if there was something wrong with his brain.

These hallucinations were getting more and more violent.

Damien did not want to be in the room a second longer and left, and had one last stop before leaving the coo-coo shack he found himself in. That would be the storage room up front, where all the weapons found on new patients are kept.