Deadly Silence: Resident Evil

Chapter Eleven: Full Circle

Letting out a short sigh of relief after reaching the top of the stairs without drawing the attention of the remaining zombie, Redfield now had to shield his eyes because of how bright everything was on the second floor of the mansion. Not that there was any more lighting that usual, just a single small wooden chandelier with a dozen lightbulbs illuminating the stairwell, along with the walkway that sort of wrapped around it in a circle.

Well, it was more like a rectangular path that started from the top of the stairs, where the paths split between that and another short hallway, then going around past a small window, before looping around to another door. The reason the young man had to shield his eyes, though, was because of how bright yellow and glossy the wallpaper was, reflecting the light from the chandelier into his eyes.

Even with as hard as it was to look around, there didn't seem to be any more of those zombies in this section, at least as long the one downstairs didn't wander its way back up, allowing the two of them to focus on checking out the side doors, since the main hallway was already clear. They would have to be quiet, though, walking slowly and carefully toward the short hallway, with Redfield continuously looking back toward the top of the stairs while reaching for the knob of the first door.

"Locked." He whispered, rattling it a couple times. "Hey, at least this one's got a keyhole… I don't suppose you know how to pick locks?"

"Pick locks?" Chambers asked, sounding almost like she was offended by the idea. "Sorry, Chris, I was too busy getting my Master's Degree, to learn how to be a common street thug."

Wow, geez, he must've struck a nerve, the young man thought while dropping the subject. All right, they definitely weren't getting into this door without Valentine, who was going to love the street thug comment, by the way, so the two of them continued down the short hallway to the other door at the end… but this one was different. Instead of decorated wood like the others, it was made of dark brown metal, and where the last door had a keyhole, this one had an electronic keypad.

"Well, the good news is that we don't need a key." Redfield commented, looking at it. "I'm not trying to offend you this time, Rebecca, but if you can't pick locks, how are you at guessing number combinations?"

"Are you serious right now?" The short haired girl asked after looking at the keypad. "Chris, there's space on that display for like… eight different numbers; that's like… twenty thousand possible combinations… you'd need a computer, or the actual combination."

As far as the young man was concerned, there was no harm in tying, so he typed in a series of eight random numbers, the pad producing a hard click with each push of a button, and then… nothing happened. Trying again, this time with different numbers, and then making a third attempt, each time the display simply went blank after each attempt, with the door remaining locked.

"Look, I'm sorry about seeming… snappy." Chambers said after his fourth attempt failed. "It's just, this isn't working, and… and I'm scared, okay. I got a really bad feeling that something, well… bad is going to happen to our teams is we don't find them soon."

The short haired girl was right, since there was no way of warning the others about the things lurking inside this house without finding them, so Redfield abandoned the locked door, and resumed walking quietly, this time along the walkway that wrapped around the stairs. He stopped for a moment in order to look out the small window, but aside from the rain hitting the glass, and even more rain hitting the trees the next time lightning flashed, there really wasn't a lot to see outside.

More thunder rumbled as the two of them continued around to the only other door left for them to try, with the young man making a mental note to try and find Chambers a better weapon than the small fire extinguisher she was carrying around. Regardless of how deadly she was with it, he didn't like the idea of getting into any more close up fights with these zombie things, but then again, what were the odds of finding another gun lying around in this place?

Redfield was relieved that this door was unlocked, unlike the others that he had seen so far on this floor, and also that it was a bit darker inside the very large chamber that it opened up into. The floor felt out of place, though, more like wooden planks on a dock than the flooring of a house, and it circled the whole chamber kind of like the stone walkway above the main hall back at the RPD. A wooden guardrail was the only decoration that this area possessed, but when the young man walked to the edge and looked down, a smile crossed his face.

"Rebecca, this is it!" He exclaimed, starting to pull her along. "That's the big dining room down there, where me and Jill came in, so that main hall's right through that… Rebecca, what are you doing?"

She started resisting being pulled from the moment the young man grabbed her arm, and although she was trying to say something, Redfield didn't get the message until he looked in the direction that she was pointing… where a zombie was slowly walking toward them through the darkness. This was fine, though, he thought as they started backing away… but then they heard the soft groan of the second shambling monster as it came toward them from the other side.

"Shit." The young man said to himself, looking back and forth between the two approaching pursuers. "Shit, shit, shit."

To be fair, taking out either one of the approaching zombies would have cleared the way for their escape, but from the weight of his pistol there weren't very many bullets left, and if the second one caught up to them when he ran out… no, there had to be a better way, one that didn't involve trying to fight them off with a damn fire extinguisher. But what were they supposed to do, grow wings and fly over the monsters' heads?

"What about down there?" Chambers suddenly asked, looking over the rail as the zombies got closer. "The table is pretty tall; do you think we can climb down?"

It was a pretty risky plan, but it was better than staying up there with the two approaching zombies… of course, it was still quite a drop. No, too risky for them to simply dive over the edge like a couple of circus performers, so… they would have to work together. Bang! Bang! Squeezing off two more bullets before his pistol clicked empty, each one slamming into the leg of an approaching zombie, the monsters didn't fall over, but they were certainly slowed down, giving the two of them more time.

The only logical way for this plan to work was for the short haired girl to help Redfield climb down onto the table, using all of her strength to lower him down an extra foot or so, for him to only have to drop maybe two feet onto the table while she was lying on the floor with her arms going between the guardrail posts. Redfield was a lot bigger than she was, and this effort put an enormous strain on her, but it was all so that the second part of the plan would work… calling for her to dive over the guardrail just before the two zombies reached her.

If she had been lowered down first, then Redfield would have had to be the one leaping, without someone to lower him down, and there was no way that the short haired girl could have caught him. This way, it was her, weighing a whopping hundred and five pounds, and easily being caught in the young man's arms as he stood on top of the dining table… which broke in half under their combined weight, sending them both falling to the floor.

"Oh, my God." He groaned, sitting up with a sore back after breaking her fall. "Rebecca, how much do you weigh?"

"A hundred and five, smartass." Chambers replied, trying to help him up after standing up, herself. "Next time, try standing on one of the supports."

Both of them were feeling sore when they finally got to their feet, but thankfully the two zombies on the upstairs walkway couldn't figure out how to go over the railing themselves, meaning that again the two of them were safe for the moment… that is, until they saw the body lying near the fireplace. It was definitely one of the zombies, from the discolored skin and glazed over eyes, but part of its head was missing, which was a plus in this situation.

"Wait a second, is this the one from the stairs?" Redfield asked, suddenly getting concerned. "Aw, shit, Jill must've gotten the door open, and went after me… come on, we gotta stop her before she gets too far."

Rushing through the small door into the next hall, the young man tried to shoulder the door he had originally gone through open, but it didn't budge. Two more times he tried to get it open, but it was still just as stuck as when it had first closed, and then Chambers pointed out the blood trail on the floor. It didn't go into the door he was trying to open, but down the hallway and around the corner, into a small sitting room where Kenneth Sullivan's decapitated body was lying still.

"Oh, my God, Kenneth!" The short haired girl exclaimed, kneeling down near him, but then immediately stumbling over to the corner and vomiting onto a large plant. "Hey… what's this?"

Coughing as she spoke those words, Chambers reached down underneath the sofa she was leaning on, and pulled out a 9mm pistol identical to Redfield's. It must have been Sullivan's, the young man thought, having slid under the sofa during his… his decapitation, but at least now the short haired girl had a weapon, and… and there were still a couple clips for it on their dead comrade's belt.

"Ugh… I'm real sorry about this, Kenneth." He said, trying not to look at the blood or severed head as he took the ammo. "Oh, God, this is awful."

The smell was the worst part; kind of like rust, expired meat, and rotten eggs, making him very happy to be able to back away from the corpse. Chambers joined him, and the two tried their best not to look at the carnage of the room while reloading their weapons. Now that they had a way to defend themselves again, it was time to get back to the main hall of the mansion, where Redfield was sure that Valentine, Burton, and Wesker were eagerly awaiting his report… and what a report it was.