A/N: Things moving along here. The game and the story progress slightly apart for the next little bit. Should we see how many times we can kill Lucas before its all over?

Eveline and Mama will get some screen time in the next chapter.

How's everyone enjoying the bad assery? I like to show it as not TOO over the top. We want a little vulnerability. I'll play that out a bit here. Claire has a trigger. Leon has a trigger. Don't we all?

Coming up on the bugs soon...which...is the worst. The worst. The WORST. I hate the bugs. I'd leave the damn mansion and tell Mia to eat it if I was her husband with bugs the size of pomeranian dogs. NO. Peace and chicken grease.

I shouldn't laugh while writing. This is a scary game. But it's funny when you make it not some random dude in loafers. Which is ENTIRELY why the game was a random nobody. So we'd be scared.

As always - thanks to my steadfast reviewers - I read every word and write toward fulfilling it. Should we up the gore? I feel like there should be more gore?

Thanks for reading~~

-TLF


Seven: Over the River and through the Woods


Dulvey, Louisiana – 2017


The Baker Farm – Western River Entrance – 2018 (8:18 pm)

The lights went off. The dark spilled thick and deep.

And her hands shifted, lifted, and pulled free.

Idiot. Bastard. PIG. He couldn't hold her. He didn't know that Chris had taught her to shake loose of restraints when she was eleven years old. She could dislocate her right wrist and slip a knot like a pro.

Claire did so without compunction. The temporary pain of it cleared her head. She could feel Eveline in her skull but she had to get free. She couldn't stay here with Lucas. That fucking idiot, he'd find a way torture her while Leon was at the mercy of Jack and Marguerite and this house of horrors.

No.

She had to find him and prepare him. She had to find Zoe and make sure she found Leon too. Together, the two of them could get the D-Series pieces and make the serum. They had to HURRY and get off this goddamn farm.

Claire slipped from her chair in the dark while the idiot Lucas sat in his playroom and chortled.

His own arrogance was going to be his downfall.


The restraints had come loose.

The rage of it bubbled in his belly. That BITCH. She was free. She was running around the house somewhere now free. She was going to go find her asshole of a husband and start trying to kill him. He could FEEL it. Over his DEAD BODY. He was going to find that bitch and gut her. He was going to kill her faggoty ass husband first while she cried and then he was gonna stuff her while she screamed and stab her in the face while she cried; first with his dick and then with his knife.

He yelled, "CLAIRE! GET BACK HERE YOU COW! When I find you, I'm gonna fuck you then I'm gonna kill you! You hear me!?"

He stopped as he came around the corner.

He was no longer alone in the hallway.

The darkness was thick here in the back half of the plantation. It was mostly rotting wood and water in the boat house. He froze.

Two feet in front of him was a mountain.

Or a monster.

Not a mold one.

A male one.

In a big helmet.

Presumably NOT Darth Vader. But it kinda looked like him.

Lucas spit, "Who the fuck are you?"

And the mountain said, "I'm the other guy looking for Claire, you stupid little bastard. And the only person getting fucked in this house is you."

Lucas snorted out a high pitched laugh. "You must be as dumb as you are big. You can't kill m-"

Lucas had probably been punched twice in his whole life. Once by Roy Baker during a football game gone wrong in the third grade. And once by Maddie Summers when he'd put his hand up her skirt after the dance uninvited.

This was not like those times.

Nope.

Because the mountain didn't punch him trying to scare him.

The mountain punched him trying to kill him.

Apparently Claire hadn't been kidding; her brother was a fucking tank.

He could, indeed, kill a man with one hit.

Lucas squeaked and tried to duck, the punch hit him in the side of the face so hard he felt his jaw snap, felt his teeth crunch and literally fly out of his mouth; his head spun 360 like the fucking exorcist, and he heard the wet pop of bone breaking. All the lights went out as his body hit the floor.

Above him, Chris shook his hand to send the feeling back to it and looked at the broken mess on the floor below him. Sniveling little turd, he had some fucking balls shouting about raping Claire in this shit pit of a house. The good news was: that meant Claire was ALIVE and HERE and LOOSE. The bad news was: Chris had no idea where.

But at least this fucker was dead. So that was one less Baker to worry about.

It had to be the boy, Lucas. He was too young to be Jack Baker. He was skinny as a rail and looked pale, sallow, and sickly. Clearly infection had made him insane too if he thought Claire was going to come back and let some little pervert hump on her. Either way, he was deader than disco now. So it was irrelevant.

He knelt next to the body and pulled a syringe from his vest. He pulled a blood sample from the body of Lucas Baker, labeled it, and poked it back in his vest. Never hurt to take samples. The more, the merrier when it came to bio-weapons.

Chris pulled his little phone from his pocket. He messaged the number he'd gotten the text from earlier. Nothing. But it didn't hurt to hope.

Easing out of the boat house, he started up the grassy rise to the big palatial estate.

Something shivered in the woods and had the hair on the back of his neck popping up. He slipped on his helmet, clicked on his night vision, and waited to see what other stupid shit was going to pop up and get it's faced punched.

The trees rustled again, a burst of rain splattered as the sky cut loose, and something small came rushing out toward him. He nearly shot it before he realized it wasn't a zombie…not exactly.

And then it smashed the poker in its hands into his left biceps and sent him staggering and he didn't care anymore. Lightning flashed over the crazy demon. It had fury all over its skinny form.

He didn't care what the hell it was.

He was going to kill it anyway.

He lifted the assault rifle to kill it and it didn't run.

It kicked him clean in the balls.


The Baker Plantation House – Cellar Containment Area – 1945 (7:45 pm)

The moldy corpse was blasted off its feet in a spray of stinky black fluid. The shotgun was the greatest creation in the history of the world. It was supreme. It was fantastic.

It was like a dick with a barrel. It was just that fun to play with it.

Chuckling a little, Leon stepped off the corpse of the fallen moldy monster. Zoe was moving through a small boiler room now. He followed her, considering things here. The drugs in his body were kicking around, sure, but what was that really doing to make his brain scramble around like it was? He felt about eighteen. He was so busy watching Zoe's little butt in those jeans that he didn't see the monster spill out from the dark corner until it was nearly on top of her.

He shouted, she fell to her butt on the dirty floor, one claw swiped against her chest and she gasped, and Leon obliterated the bastard with the shotgun. It was thrown into the boiler behind it, making a sizzling hiss of sound as it struck the burning tank and caught fire. It squealed or something, started melting, and Zoe scrambled away. Another peeped around the corner, Leon shifted and blew it into a puddle of piss and mold as it turned, and a third one emerged behind him.

Zoe shouted, bleeding pretty badly from her chest, and shot it over his left shoulder. It was a brave fucking shot from her ass on the floor. It whizzed past his cheek, struck the surging nasty monster, and spun it around. Leon threw the butt of the shotgun over his shoulder to hit it twice more in its face, dropped low and foot swept it, and delivered a back kick into its tumbling form to send it spinning through the doorway into the room beyond.

He crouched, finished turning, and blew it away before it could get back to its feet.

Zoe gasped from the floor, throwing her hands over her chest to staunch the blood. Leon swung the shotgun to his back, hurried to pick her up under the arm pits, and he sat her on the table to his right. The heat in the room was incredible. It left the world wavering with too much humidity. It was almost surreal.

She shivered blood thick and wet on her dirty tank top. Leon dumped powder on her, slapped gauze over her weeping chest, and she whispered, "A change of roles huh?"

"Seemingly. You ok?"

Her hands came up and slid over his on her chest. His eyes lifted from the pressure he was putting on the twin slices above her breasts and a bead of sweat slid down his nose. Zoe rolled her lip under and shifted, "….mmm. Better now."

She shifted. Her nose bumped over his. He thought, back up, and he didn't. Zoe rubbed their noses together. One hand stayed on their compressing pile of fingers, the other slid up the back of one of his sweaty arms. She murmured, "Leon?"

He should move.

He didn't move.

It was interesting. "Yeah?" A little hoarse.

Interesting.

"Tell me why I shouldn't try to kiss you."

This was a good request.

He was trying to figure out why his brain was stalling. In his defense, it had been A LONG TIME since a woman had looked at him. Or at least looked at him like THAT.

He wasn't exactly NOT interested. Shit, he was a mess. The adrenaline had been fucking with him all his life. In the beginning, it was easy enough to throw down a pretty young girl and give her a good fucking to take the pressure off. After Claire had become his wife, he'd been happy to channel that pent up sexual frustration into surviving, saving the day, and coming home to drill his wife.

But he was pretty sure his wife was somewhere in the house hoping to kill him.

So it was a fucking mess.

But she was still his wife. This pretty little girl was NOT his wife. So, the answer here was simple…and complicated. But the reason why he didn't kiss pretty girls…that was a one word answer he'd been spouting for twelve years.

He muttered, "Claire?"

But he let the pretty girl on the table nuzzle at his mouth anyway. Because he was higher than a kite and there was no Claire. He'd kill someone to have Claire back. But that thing in this house…it wasn't Claire. So he let the skinny little girl on the table nudge his face up to hers.

He was actually curious if he'd like it. He'd been kissing Claire for so long. He hadn't kissed ANYONE in years now…maybe he'd like it? Shit, he'd probably like kissing a mold monster if it tried he was so hard up.

Zoe's mouth lifted in a small smile, she shifted to angle her face to his, and then her eyes went over his shoulder.

And she whispered, "….Claire!?"

Leon nodded a little, "Right. Claire. Right. Shit." He shook himself, feeling the first little tugs of guilt. Honestly, this wasn't doing anything right? It was flirting and feeling like he wasn't half dead. And letting a pretty girl less than half his age tempt him. It was cool.

It was fine.

It was bullshit. He felt bad about it. Which was ENTIRELY about Claire.

Zoe grabbed his chin and turned his face, "No. No. I mean yes…I mean…CLAIRE."

Well shit.

There was Claire alright.

She was standing in the doorway of the boiler room. She was in some ugly set of overalls and a white tank top. She looked like hammered shit. She was all bloody and carrying a shovel.

She looked like an angry evil farmer.

She fit right in apparently.

Leon turned toward her. He had the Magnum in his hands. When had he drawn it? He didn't know. It didn't matter. He spoke slow and easy, "Claire? Are you in there?"

Claire turned her eyes to him, ignored him, and focused on Zoe.

"You bitch."

Zoe shifted off the table. "Claire…hold on. Just…it's not what it looks like."

"Yeah? Yeah!? Looks like you trying to fuck what's mine. You ungrateful cunt. MINE. Do you hear me!? SHE NEEDS A DADDY! YOU WILL NOT TAKE HER DADDY!"

So, not exactly Claire.

Leon shouted at her, "HEY! Nothing is happening here, Claire! Look at me!"

She didn't.

She didn't care about him.

She was all about Zoe.

Leon moved to touch her and she just…she slapped him. It was a backhand. It was all power. It threw him into the far wall like he was nothing.

"ADULTERER! You won't touch me! First I'll kill your whore! Then I'll punish you!"

So, definitely not Claire. Claire would have come upon that scene and not been thrilled, true, but if Claire was ACTUALLY Claire THAT wouldn't have happened anyway. Lord it was a mess. Claire was not a jealous woman usually. She was aware he was a hopeless flirt. She was aware he pushed the edges of playing around. She was aware she the only woman in the world he wanted.

She wasn't Claire.

Not anymore.

The truth of that was killing him. It was worse than being in this fucking house. It was all pain. It was all hurt. And it was KILLING him.

He leaned against the wall where he'd hit trying to relearn how to feel anything but that god damn pain.

Zoe shouted a little, "Claire! This isn't you! There was nothing happening here! Ok…ok…so that's a little bit of a lie! I was flirting with your husband."

"WHORE!"

Jesus. Leon tried to relearn where his hands were. His head was ringing. He scrambled for his gun.

Claire swung the shovel. Zoe ducked with a squeak and it clanged loudly into the boiler tank behind her. She lifted the pistol in her hands at Claire. "PLEASE! Don't make me shoot you! EVELINE! GET OUT OF HER! OUT! CLAIRE look at him. Look at me. Nothing is happening. We're trying to find the cure. He's all YOURS. I SWEAR!"

The shovel swung again. It smashed into the table where Zoe had been sitting. It missed her by an inch. Zoe scrambled, the shovel swung again and hit the tank behind her head, and she was on her hands knees crawling away now.

On the floor, Leon SAW it happen. The shape of his wife shifted, it flickered, and there was a little girl there where she'd been. He could see the film of "Eveline" all over her. Claire wasn't a jealous woman by nature. She would have come upon that little scene, slapped him upside the head, given Zoe the stink eye and rolled her own. She knew he was a hopeless flirt.

She knew it was harmless.

And it had been THREE YEARS.

She wouldn't have tried to kill some poor little thing with a shovel.

Claire raised the shovel to bring it down on Zoe and smash her into the floor and Leon shot from the floor. The bullet hit the tank an inch from Claire's nose. It blew a hole in the boiler and spilled scalding water down in a steaming, tumbling spray. Claire backed off, hissing like some kind of snake.

And Leon, all joking lost, shouted, "RUN ZOE! NOW!"

"I can't leave you with her!"

"I can handle it. GO!"

Zoe looked at him in horror, Claire started to advance, and Leon shot her in the leg. She went down, losing the shovel, and Zoe backed up. "I'm sorry!"

"Not your fault! Stick to the plan! Meet me at the fall back point!"

"Ok…OK. I'm sorry Claire!" She turned and fled.

He could hear her running through the cellar. Claire, bleeding, turned her head toward him. "You PIG! You faithless BASTARD! I've been here WAITING for you! And this is how you repay that patience!? I am your WIFE!"

"No…nope. It's her BODY. Kinda. She's never enjoyed being stick skinny really but we'll fix that. But you? You aren't my wife. Get out of her body and come face me one on one. Coward. Wherever you're hiding? I'm gonna find you and destroy you."

Claire grabbed the shovel. She rose shakily to her feet. "You're alive because she loves you, you faithless pig. You MAN. I should KILL you for her."

"She knows me, you little bitch. She KNOWS me. I'm here for her. She knows that. Let her go. Let them both go. They aren't your family. And neither am I."

Claire staggered. The image of the little girl wavered over her. And she whispered, "Leon…LEON…did I…is Zoe….?"

He shifted, holding his gun on her. And shook his head, "She's fine. She's ok. Where is Eveline, Claire? Where is she? Let me go after her. Let me end it. Now."

Claire shook her head, she lifted a hand. "She's playing on my jealousy. She's amping it up. She's too powerful. You can't win. She'll just turn you against me and have me kill you. I can't. I won't."

"Claire…Zoe's a good girl. Lonely. And scared. There's nothing to be jealous of there."

Claire shook a little, hands tunneling into her shaggy hair. "I've missed you. I broke away from Lucas trying to find you. And she…and you…I saw you. I saw you look at her. I saw you."

Jesus.

The guilt had teeth.

Leon gained his feet. He holstered the Magnum. He held his hands out. "Claire…I'm not dead. I'm still me. It was NOTHING. I'm HERE. I'm trying to save you. HELP ME. TRUST ME. Please."

Claire grabbed him so quick he jerked like he'd fight her off. She shook her head, shoved her hand under his shirt and laid her palm over his heart. Her other hand grabbed his hair and jerked him to her. Admittedly, it was the first time he'd been jack hammer kissed by a half insane woman.

So there was a first time for everything.

She tried to eat his face…or something. Which was really out of place. And worked like a charm because his hands were all over her bloody little body anyway.

The drugs in his system were happy to turn adrenaline to testosterone and remind him how much he'd miss the taste of a woman. THIS woman. HIS woman.

And then she shoved him so hard he stumbled into the wall again.

"I trust you. IDIOT. I trust you. But you can't trust ME! LEAVE ME HERE! Take Zoe, get the cure, and RUN AWAY! You hear me? She's a good girl, you're right. Go make babies on her and get the fuck out of here."

And now he laughed. He had to. She was so stupid.

"You kidding? You scared the piss out of that girl. She won't ever touch me again, I promise you. I don't want her, Claire. I want you. Shut up about this stupid shit and help me. Where is Eveline?"

Claire was shaking. "You need the D-Series to make the serum. Right? Right?"

He nodded, watching her. "The old house, Leon. Mama guards it like a maniac. Like a madman. Stop Mama. Get the head. GET THE HEAD. Get the serum. I'll…try to keep Eveline away."

She shifted, blinking. She trembled.

He took her face and she turned her lips to his palm, kissing it. "You idiot. You dirty old man. You like flirting with that young thing? Can't blame her. Can't blame you. I want to poke your eyes out for it though."

He laughed, brokenly, "Claire…stay with me. Stay with me. We'll do it together. I'll never look at another young thing again."

She turned into him. They hugged and both of them were trembling now.

"I'm sorry, Leon. I'm sorry you're here. Tell Zoe…I'm sorry. I can't blame her. Jesus, look at you. I fucking missed you."

She shifted, he shifted, her face came up. It was a good kiss. Smooth and wet. She quivered.

She breathed, "What happened to you? Your body…what happened?"

They nuzzled faces a little and he whispered, "Not so pretty now, huh?"

And she licked his mouth…which…made him hard. And it was so goddamn confusing for them both. She answered, "You're so stupid. I don't care about that. I love you, baby. I love you."

"Claire…stay with me. Stay."

She shook her head ran her hands under his shirt and all over his scarred back, "Lord. I love the scars. And I hate that you're here."

"Yeah? The groping says otherwise."

Claire laughed, shivered, jerked and he could FEEL the fight in her. Eveline. She was all over his wife like a bad smell.

Claire whispered, "Get rid of Mama. Chris…is here."

Surprised, Leon watched her let go of him and back off. She was shaking. She threw the shovel in the corner and grabbed her own hair, jerking. "Chris is here, Leon. I can feel him. Get out of this fucking house. Get the serum. Hurry. STOP THIS BITCH. And watch out for Lucas."

"Don't leave me, Claire. Please."

"I can't protect you any other way. Stop Daddy. You can stop Daddy…if you cut him the fuck up. I love you, baby. I love you. Protect yourself. Zoe? She'll find Chris. He'll take care of her. She'll take care of him. You? You take care of Mama and Daddy. If I find Lucas, he's all mine. You old flirt. I've missed you."

She took off like a shot, running the way Zoe had gone.

Jesus.

He wanted to chase her.

He stayed where he was.

His heart hurt. His fucking chest hurt. His goddamn soul. Who the fuck was he in this house? He had no clue. He was trapped here like she was. Like Zoe. Like Chris was about to be.

God.

The only way out was to get that last dog head.

The only way out was through the mother fucking Bakers.

He turned toward the door to the dissection room and jammed the key in the lock.

He had no idea what he was about to find inside it.


Zoe raced up the stairs, breathing fast and low. She rounded the corner, running. She was so stupid. Making googoo eyes at Claire's man. What had she thought?

That the other woman would just chuckle and wink at her?

It was, in one hand, harmless.

But it was stupid.

Eveline was using that normal jealousy and making it manic.

She was going to use it to have Claire kill her.

There was a pounding behind her. And that voice called, "I HEAR YOU LITTLE BITCH! I HEAR YOU! You think you can run!?"

Claire had run off from her husband and chased the bitch who'd been trying to suck his face.

JESUS.

Was he ok!?

Zoe ducked through the hidey hole behind the sofa in the living area and skimmed through into the foyer of the house. She raced over the floor toward the main living area. She didn't stop until she'd dropped down into the hatch off the dining room. She eased through the darkness listening to Claire pound after her screaming.

Jesus.

Terrified, Zoe moved the rusted lawnmower from its position and went down into the mud. The small tunnel was barely wide enough for a child. She pushed through it like a worm, breathing shallow and hard. She heard Claire drop into the passage and pushed on.

If she stopped now, she was dead.

Scared but determined, Zoe reached the end of her makeshift tunnel. She pushed up through the dark, heavy, cloying mud to find the patch of twigs and moss that made the "lid" of her tunnel. She was outside now. Near the boathouse.

There was no way from here to her trailer. None. It was a useless victory. But it got her out of the house. She'd go back when Claire was gone or Leon had opened the main door. She couldn't out run Claire. Couldn't fight her. And wouldn't survive it.

She had to avoid her.

Rising from the mud, Zoe closed the hidey hole lid of twigs and scurried into the woods.

It was just one of a dozen different escape routes she had set up.

She had yet to make another from the foyer to her trailer. She had four in place from her trailer to the old house, to the back side of Lucas playground, to the barn, and to the pasture. But she couldn't dig one that didn't collapse from the trailer to the boathouse. The ground was simply too boggy.

The only way in or out was through the fucking Cerberus door.

Zoe raced through the breeze, the rain started to pour down on her, and she burst into the clearing to find she wasn't alone. There was a giant in black waiting there to kill her. It looked like a masked monster.

She'd seen pictures of something on Claire's little iPod. Files from Raccoon City. It looked like something on those files. It was the bad guys. The bad guys were there. Why? To get Eveline probably. Or to get THEM ALL.

She shouted, "HUNK!?"

And hit it.

She hit it with the poker in her hands.

The HUNK man grunted. She didn't think she really hurt him anyway. He was HUGE. He lifted that enormous gun in his hands and she panicked. She kicked him in the balls, hoping he wasn't wearing armor THERE at least, and he wheezed.

Nope.

No armor.

He staggered, she turned, and she started running.

She didn't get far.

He grabbed a handful of her retreating hair and slung her to the ground while she shrieked.

Zoe grabbed the poker, started swinging it madly as she went down, and he caught it in one gloved hand. From within the mask, his Darth Vader voice commanded, "STOP TRYING TO HIT ME, GIRL! BE STILL!"

"I will kill you HUNK! You won't TAKE ME ALIVE!"

He jerked the poker away, slung her over on her face, and put his boot on her back to hold her down. She panicked, face in the mud, and started jerking around.

The Vader voice asked, "Are you Zoe Baker?"

"No! I'm Claire Redfield!"

Hunk went still above her. And then he said, "Liar. I know Claire Redfield."

"Oh yeah!? Who's the liar now!? I'M Claire!"

"No you aren't."

"I am too! How do you know I'm not?"

"Because I used to give her baths."

Zoe blinked in the mud. What the fuck did that mean?

He added, "When she was two. And we share DNA. She's my SISTER."

Oh.

Oh-oh-oh.

Zoe went still. The rain was a storm now. It whipped and thundered madly. It threw lightning around them in crackling bursts of light and fire. From the ground, she called out, "Oh yeah? PROVE IT!"

The boot came off her back. One gloved hand grabbed her arm and jerked her to her feet. She practically FLEW up from the force of it. She tried to hold her feet and he used his other hand to rip off his helmet.

The lightning flashed across his face.

Admittedly, it wasn't Claire's face.

Which…was surprising considering he was claiming to be her brother. There was nothing of Claire on him. He was DARK, for one thing. No pale Irish rose. This guy was burly and swarthy and thick and black haired and not delicate at all like his sister.

There was no way it was her br—

Zoe stopped panicking and REALLY looked at him.

And her memory kicked in.

"Who's the red haired kid?"

"Oh, that's Steve."

"He looks kinda like you."

"Yeah. I hear that a lot. But he's not my brother."

"No? Who's your brother?"

"….Chris." She showed the small tattoo on her left wrist. His name in a Celtic scrawl, "We did this after I graduated highschool. It keeps us together, ya know? When we aren't."

Zoe shouted, "What's your name?!"

"Chris Redfield. Who the fuck are you?"

She grabbed at his arm, which surprised the shit out of him, and jerked up the sleeve of his gear. He thought she was half nuts before he realized what she was looking for.

His sister's name tattooed on the inside curve of his left wrist.

Her thumb found it and traced.

Her other hand grabbed his vest and jerked him down to her. "You're LATE."

The storm was so bad it was obscuring everything. The skinny little thing grabbing him was shaking so badly. And then he heard the shouting. It was more like…screaming?

"ZOEEEEE! I KNOW YOU'RE OUT HERE GIRL!"

She grabbed him with her other hand, "It's Mama. It's Mama. We need to run."

Chris blinked at her. "I'll fucking kill her. Where is she?"

"It won't work. You need fire. We need to run. Before she goes off to find Lucas."

Curious, he studied her face, "I killed Lucas Baker."

Her eyes snapped to his face, "What?"

"He came running around in that damn boat house screaming for Claire. Talking about raping her. I broke his fucking neck."

Zoe opened her mouth to say something else and that voice shouted, "ZOEEE! YOU LITTLE BITCH! You better come out of the rain! You gonna make Daddy so mad!"

Zoe grabbed him, watching the lantern bobble in the pouring rain. She breathed, "No time now. Listen to me, come with me. Now. Now. Claire is alive. Leon is alive. We need to move quickly. You have to trust me. I'm Zoe. I sent you the message. I need your help. And I need you to come with me…now. Please."

He studied her in the pouring rain.

The lantern bobbed closer.

And the voice saw them. Because it shrieked, "I SEE YOU GIRL! Who's that with you!? WHO'S THAT WITH YOU WHORE!?"

Chris let the assault rifle spill to his back, pulled his side arm, and turned into the lantern light.

Zoe made a small sound and he fired through the pouring rain.

Mama shrieked in rage and the lantern went out with a pop and a sizzle.

She was over a hundred yards away.

And he'd shot her lantern in the pouring rain, in the dark, in the wind and the lightning and the storm.

Zoe breathed, "He said you were something else."

"Who?"

"Leon. He said you were just that good."

Chris opened his mouth to answer and Mama screamed into the night, "ZOE! I'm gonna KILL you girl! And your boyfriend! You keeping him for yourself!? You know she don't like THAT!"

Zoe tugged on his vest, desperate. "She'll get another lantern. Please. You can't kill her now. Trust me. We have to move."

And then it was bugs.

The bugs started buzzing. The horror on her face did it. He wasn't in the least concerned about some old bitch shouting in the rain. The bugs scared the skinny girl in front of him though. He needed the ally here. So, he answered the fear on her face.

He scooped up his helmet, plopped it on her head, and grabbed her. She made a small sound and let him. Pinned to his front, holding on, she let him carry her at a surprisingly fast run. Her arms and legs looped around him. He was fucking fast for a big guy. She whispered, into his ear, and sounded like Darth Vader, "The woods, turn at the gnarled maple, there's a passage there. Hurry. I'll tell you everything. And you can help me get the fuck out of here."

His gruff voice was soft in the slamming rain, "Deal."

And the sound of Mama shrieking and coming for them chased them into the crumbling woods.


The Baker Plantation House – Dissection Room – 2020 (8:20 p.m.)

The room was a mess. Was there ever one that wasn't? It was littered with boxes and tools and a shelf half falling over and covered in tarps and bloody remains.

Dissection was literal in this house.

There were PIECES of people on the shelves.

There was also the missing dog head.

It was just lying there.

Leon reached for it and missed it by a breath. Because Jack Baker grabbed it first. The shelf was crowded with shit, it was over packed with garbage and boxes, and so Jack didn't see him. He didn't know. He was muttering as he pocketed the dog head.

He was talking to a body hung on the wall. The body of the dead cop from the garage. He'd survived long enough to get killed anyway. What a fucking waste.

Jack, glimpsed between the shelves, murmured, "…wants him to be her GODDAMN Daddy. I'll show her who's the Daddy. You'll help me," He was talking to the dead body, apparently, "I'll show him too. Piece of shit…little asshole…mother fu-"

He exited the little room and left the body of the cop hanging on the wall.

Leon eased down the small stairwell to his left. The narrow hallway curved up and around, offering a view into some kind of cage. It was littered with hanging bodies in bags. They dangled like ugly Christmas ornaments. The ragged red lighting cast the room in sharp relief. The drugs in his system showed the blood stained corpses to be slightly swaying as if in a gentle breeze.

Lord have mercy.

This place was fucking disgusting.

Rusty chains looped over the chain link fence that surrounded the weird pit below the stairwell that Leon went up. He cleared into the room where Jack had been minutes before but there was no sign of "Daddy". The body of the cop was all kinds of fucked up. It was beaten, bloody, and looked burnt. They'd caught him and tortured him. He should have just let Jack kill him quickly in the garage. Saving him had gotten him a WORSE fate.

Jesus.

Leon moved out of the small room and toward the far side of the walkway where he stood. It emptied over a railing into that weird pit below. The dangling bodies were echoed on the top floor where stood. They were paired with a table covered in a half eviscerated corpse. Guts and blood and carnage was scattered a steel slab as if tossed by careless hands. An enormous scythe was cleaved into the body, offering the handle to the next person inclined to take a whack at the mess of it.

"Seriously? Whackos."

Leon glanced to the left and the dangling dog head was there just…waiting. It was tucked into a loop of chain over a hook that dangled a little over the pit. Goosebumps sprang up on his body, alerting him to the trap. If someone had jumped out of the closest door and shouted it, it wouldn't have been more obvious.

But Leon grabbed the head anyway and tucked it into his pocket.

And then?

He heard the laughter.

Leon turned and Jack rose from behind the dead body on the table. He was bathed in blood. He was too close.

Leon shifted and realized the only way out of this moment was through Jack, or behind him into the pit.

Just like that, the trap was sprung.

Jack drove a kick from the hip, Leon flipped back ward to avoid it, and went down into the pit like a gymnast.

He jacked a shell into the shotgun, turned into the mess of dangling bodies, and waited for Jack Baker to join the party.

Beyond the row of chain link fence to his left, Leon glimpsed two things:

The worlds biggest set of shears (clearly big enough to cleave a man in two).

And a chainsaw.

He wanted the chainsaw. He needed Jack to open the fence and make it easy.

Jack jumped down, Leon kicked the closest corpse and it swung at his falling body, and it hit him broadside as he landed. Jack staggered, stumbled into the fence, turned and ripped it open with his bare hands.

The good news was, he could get the chainsaw.

The bad news was, Jack had the shears now.

And the pit was small. Narrow. And filled with bodies.

Jack laughed with delight, "Who's fucked now, boy!?"

Leon raised the shotgun, grinned, and pulled the trigger.