Chapter 10: Fyers
Brimstone Bayou
Beneath a church
1996
Damien creeps in the darkness at the bottom of the stairs, finding it to be the darkest basement in the history of basements. If there was one of many things Damien Snow knew it was basements; his step-father used to lock him in them every night until he was old enough to pick the locks.
The revolver and flashlight aimed in front of him, Damien searched every milk and cranny of this depressing crap hole while listening to the sound of gun fire upstairs; more than likely Logan and the rest killing the zombies to great effect.
Whatever the Creeper was doing down here, it was clear to Damien as day that things did not end well for its victims. Grotesque works of art made of human body parts were plastered on the walls in this lair with a record player found on a table where it more than likely did most of the work in this disturbing hobby.
Damien put his revolver down and saw the record labeled Jeepers Creepers, a 1938 song for jazz tune; the kind Snow pictured his grandfather or great-grandfather listened to.
"That's an old record," Sarah's ghost guesses. "Wonder why it likes this one song,"
"It's not that old," Damien replies, though he wondered the appeal himself before playing it in the dark.
Jeepers, creepers, where'd you get those peepers; the song played over in the lyrics. Instantly they struck a chord with Damien; as it reminded him of his grandfather, Sean, who occasionally played the song in his study.
The ghost of Michael stood next to the record player and looking over at his step-son with an angry glare. "This is a new bastard level, even for you, boy."
"You know me dad; I do love to disappoint you."
Readying the revolver to move for another search, Damien hears a faint snarl. When he turns to face it, the Creeper's razor sharp teeth forming a wicked smile was the first thing to be seen before a fist punches him into a wall and he passes out cold.
Military Bunker
Damien Snow's Cell
1999
"You were captured by Umbrella a second time," Leon stated his best guess.
Damien stairs at his lighter with a gritting smug expression, agreeing with his sentiment, "The Creeper caught me this time, not Umbrella, but yes I was,"
"While Logan was outside dealing with the Wendigo horde, the Creeper took me out through another basement door to meet up with some friends. It took me a while to come to."
Hearing Snow say that word over and over again in the story, Wendigo, Leon grows more curious to what its mean is. "Why do you keep referring to the zombies that way; why do you call them Wendigos?"
After the question is asked, Damien opens the lighter and closes it one more time before he faces Kennedy and asks a question of his own. "Do you know anything about Native American folklore?"
Leon never responds, only giving a clueless expression.
"I suppose not; you look more like the kind of guy who wasted his time giving geeks wedgies and scoring touchdowns on and off the field."
Damien then shows Leon a look, notifying him he was kidding, before clarifying. "The northern tribes tell this story about an evil spirit called the Wendigo; it preys on people in a Donner party scenario and tempts them to cannibalism; once you give in, you'll always be hungry with an endless craving for human flesh and it never ends."
"That's what you thought the zombies were: an evil cannibal spirit?" Leon asked with a laugh.
"No, I just called one of them that and the name kind of stuck."
Silence one again hung between the agent and prisoner. Leon looked into his eyes as Damien stared at the lighter before asking "How did you escape from Umbrella that time?"
"That's a bit ahead of a few important details." Damien responds and stands of from his bed to lean against the wall. "The answer to it goes to my friend Caleb."
"Where was he?" Leon asked.
"Tearing through what was left of the soldier's guard the White Umbrella outpost." Damien spoke back, "That's where it starts now."
White Umbrella research outpost
Somewhere in the Brimstone Bayou
1996
Caleb Wilson found his way to the Umbrella outpost, based on what Ada told him over the radio, no problem and quickly took shelter with the shadows of the Cave's darkness. He waited some time before making his move.
Guerilla style warfare became his choice of going at them. He waits for the opportunity to arise, while studying their activities, and then pounces on them like a panther on its prey.
Drawing his swords Caleb tears through the Umbrella forces with his two blades; not leaving one thing still standing in his path. Every soldier was cut down within seconds of their fellows. If guns were used, Caleb would just use the environment or one of them for cover.
"This is CLEAN UP to W.U. we're under attack. We need reinforcements A.S.A-AW" The soldier talking into the radio never got to finish his statement as a razor sharp blade tore into his back and came out of his chest.
He was skewered.
The swords cut through their numbers in seconds, decimating them. Limbs were cut, heads were decapitated and spirits were crushed.
When Caleb was finished cleaning house only a bloody mess remained of the soldiers with corpses lined on the ground in packs to make a small army.
He made on swing of his swords, to throw some of the blood off, and sheaths his weapons to look around. Looking at the passing bodies of his victims, Wilson feels no guilt over what he has done and no joy in killing the soldiers, they are enemy combatants and he is their enemy, it is nothing personal only fair game in war and his mission is survival.
Whatever he interrupted, Caleb was glad he did. Fires were being facilitated to burn papers and files that were of some vague importance. He quickly checks the one file that caught his attention. As he reads it, Caleb's eyes widen in shock as he says "Christ,"
Suddenly he hears a voice come from his radio. "Caleb, it's Peyton, we lost Snow,"
"What do you mean lost?" Caleb asks raucously while still reading the file.
"We found Luke, but then zombies started piling up outside and we needed someone to check the basement, but when he didn't come back we discovered someone took him out a second entrance to the basement." Logan tries his best to explain. But the details in the story didn't matter; Caleb was already packing the file in a pouch on his uniform and heading out.
"Return to camp, Peyton, I'll get Damien back."
"We're leaving now," Logan responds before hanging up.
Caleb walks back across the bodies to leave when he notices one soldier still alive and trying to pull up his rifle and kills him with his pistol, instead of using a sword, and continues his departure to find where Damien has gone off to.
Meanwhile
"Damien Snow"
Damien finds himself in an armed escort of commandos wearing blue cameo with black balaclava, vests, boots, and fingerless gloves; and all of them carried M4A1s with ACOG scopes. The Creeper handed him over after kidnapping him from the church, and then it went off somewhere else.
This group was different from the soldiers who captured him the first time; they were more organized elites, but they certainly two of the same people. Both had the logo of the Umbrella on them somewhere and both work with the Mutes, Deadpool and Wintergreen.
When he tries to halt to catch a breath, one of the commandos pushes him. "Move," he ordered him with a cantankerous attitude.
"Come on, man, just give me a break. I've been walking for hours." Damien pleads with the soldiers for a moment of relaxation to no avail.
"I said move," He ordered more harshly this time and Damien relents.
Spotting his crossbow, Damien sees Wintergreen carrying it in a free hand and a sword, like Caleb's, sheathed on his back. All four bolts were still inside the built-in quiver and the fifth one still on the bow-string to be fired.
Wintergreen was the only one with the escort. Deadpool went up ahead of them to clear the way of any zombies or Cerberus'. They passed most of his handy work on the way. While walking Damien never once heard the boulder of a man utter a single sound.
Finally the soldier pushing Snow to move more and more crossed the point of no return with his patience. Without thinking things through, Damien impulsively looks back to headbutt him in retaliation and smiles once he does. All it accomplished was pissing the man off and getting himself his with the stock of his rifle.
"Remind me again why we need this asshole alive," the one Damien head-butted angrily replies to the assault by aiming his rifle for Snow's head.
Damien looks up, seeing the side, as the weapon is aimed at him. The feeling of the moment sends a chill shooting up and down his spine. Jon, Oliver, and James often told about how it feels to stare down a gun. It is just as they described, aside from the part where his life flashes before his eyes.
Another one of the commandos aims his own M4A1 at the same one who has his weapon trained on Damien."Put the gun down, Jack," he orders his comrade. "Fyers said to bring in Snow alive, not like the title to some New Jersey band's song."
Damien picks up on the joke right away. The few soldiers who get it make sniggers among themselves. Wintergreen, as always, remained stone cold silent. It made Damien think he had his tongue cut out or lost his voice. Obviously a cat didn't have his tongue. He didn't see one pinching down on it with sharp claws.
"Really, Cloud," the soldier called Jack asks in disbelief while still aimed at Damien. "You're going to stick up for this piece of white trash?"
The one called Cloud remains convicted in preventing Snow's demise. His weapon aimed for Jack's head. Jack meanwhile looks down at his possible victim and then Damien says "Screw you, Jackie." That was the last straw for the commando. He instantly prepares to kill his hostage but Cloud shoots him before he has the chance.
Damien is not sure if he is appalled or grateful by what has just happened, but he had little time to react as Wintergreen gestures them to move on. The other commandos did not even respond to their comrade's death.
Where he came from if a soldier dies the men he serves with at the very least give him a burial—but not for Jack—he is left to rot where zombies will be lured away from the walking path.
As the escort leads Damien even further they pass more re-dead zombies. These were different from the corpses the other mute littered around, they were killed by a blade in the head, and these were picked off by a rifle. This was not done by a hunting rifle either, some of the heads were blown off, and only a military grade rifle could do such damage at a certain range.
"I see Lawton's been busy," Cloud says to one of his coworkers. That one responds back "You know how Deadshot loves his target practice, Sergeant."
This Lawton is certainly infamous, Damien thought.
Finally this trail of no tears but blood, a beating, and corpses came to an end as Damien sees their base-camp up ahead. They have one large fortified gate too keep some of the scarce zombies out, like Caleb's camp. What separates them is that this one has soldiers and Commandos running around—not a bunch of yahoos running around playing survivors and zombies.
After the gate opens and closes Wintergreen hands over the crossbow to one of his men as they enter a tent with Cloud pushing Damien to follow behind the scary looking man. Wintergreen comes back out and takes custody of Snow from him and forces him inside.
Once he was in, Damien finds a man sitting at a desk with an exposed pistol in plain view. Whoever he is staring at now, this man was the obvious sheriff in town.
Military Bunker
Damien Snow's Cell
1999
Damien felt like he wanted to throw up after his story reached Fyers. Leon could tell by the expression on his face the encounter was not pleasant.
"I swear Kennedy, these guys the Creeper handed me off to they were different then the U.S.S. guys who had me two days before. They were more militarized. But Wintergreen was in charge of them, him and the Deadpool."
"Was Alex with them?" Leon asks, feeling like he needs some popcorn and a soft drink.
Damien nods his head. "No, he left by then. White Umbrella was there to do a real quick test on me and their B.O.W's. Then when they realized Wilson was still alive, Alex left his forces behind to deal with him and the other survivors…the one in charge now was this guy called Fyers, him and a scientist named Baltar."
"What did he want with you?"
Damien then says "A little chat about two of the fugitives they were after."
"Ada?" Leon guessed. He guessed correctly by the painful glare in Snow's eye.
"They brought me into this tent in the camp and that's where the painful part started."
White Umbrella Camp
Brimstone Bayou
1996
Edward Fyers was at the desk of his tent when Wintergreen walks in. He had been reading up on some of the individuals in the area; particularly Damien Snow and Caleb Wilson. Now low and behold his star mercenary with one of those very individuals he was interested in.
He maintained a sullen composure while putting the file away and Wintergreen leaves the two alone at the nod of a head.
Damien was cautious to the older man. He was certainly not what was expected to be running things here. Snow had thought it would have been someone bigger, meaner and more intimidating then even Wintergreen was.
"Please sit," Fyers gestures his hand at the desk across his table. "You're making me feel inhospitable."
There was no choice but to listen. What was his other option besides try to run and get shot in the back less than a few feet from the tent? So he pulls back on the chair and sits, strait up in a focused position, and Fyers pours himself a drink in the a glass cup.
His body felt worn out from the long walk here, it was nice to finally rest his legs.
Looking over as the drink drops into the glass, Damien gets a good look at his captor. Fyers was old as Caleb, possibly older, with light blond hair and eyes with a blue-greenish coloration and dark inner irises. He also wore a black operational uniform.
"I must apologize for my men's mistreatment of you, they've developed certain ruthlessness qualities these past few days and now their acting like its Vietnam." Fyers says to his "guest" before taking a long sip. It must have been hours since his last drink, because he gulped it down to nothing.
"Oh that's okay; I loved the trail of tears death march." Damien sarcastically mocked before asking "Is there a reason I'm sitting here, other than watching you gargle down a beverage?"
Fyers pretended to be amused by the tone of Damien's demeanor, or was censer, as he makes a suppressed smirk. "Yes, the glib of "the you could give a crap right now" persona. Such a hollow void, you are. No ambition, no lust for beautiful women, no care for self-preservation, not even gluttony; just a hollow smart-ass shell; must be a byproduct of your abandonment issues along with the other one and the guilt over your girlfriend dying."
He had the jist of things. Damien had to guess it was from the files he saw him reading through.
"But that's not important right now," Fyers cut away from emasculating him. He then picks up two pictures off a crate. "I'm looking for some people, Mr. Snow. Do you know where I might find these two?"
The One photo was a slap to Damien's face: it was of Caleb in a United States military uniform a few years ago. It was confirmation that he was an American after-all.
The second photo shows a woman of Chinese heritage and a few years Damien's senior with short black hair and brown eyes wearing a one-piece dress with black tights and a belt, black fingerless gloves, red heels, along with loafers and a watch.
The first one was older, from about five or six years ago, while the second one looked fresh, as if it was taken a couple days ago; most likely taken around the time before all this madness began plaguing Brimstone.
Looking back up, Damien asks "Should these two mean something to me?"
Resigning to go along with the perceived game of ignorance, Fyers says "These two are Caleb Wilson and Ada Wong. One is a former colleague of mine and the other works for a rival party that I wish to learn on and both have decided to play freedom fighter."
Hearing Ada's name was a surprise. He knew the woman on the radio was named Ada, but never knew what she looked like. Now he did. He wanted to hide his glad expression but now it was impossible, and Fyers saw it in a second.
She's hot, Damien thought to himself while examining the woman's face.
This was his ally and if these people were looking for her he knew that cooperation was not an option. "I don't know them." He lied.
"I was so hoping you wouldn't say that," Fyers said before getting up and walking to the tent exit. "He's all yours!" the yells caused Wintergreen to walk in and Damien just knew things were not going to get easier from here.