He's dead. Colt is sure of it! He was hit, right in the face with a bullet being tugged back a foot and into the wall fast enough and hard enough to have the back of his skull pop a hole into the dry wall. There's blood, a lot of it! Its dripping down his face from the forehead all the way to his chin, leaving a mess of red dots on his shirt and red dashes to mark the droplets paths.
"Colt!?" Rebecca cried out.
His dead eyes snap open, and he's being shaken before he's hugged to the girl. 'I'm... not dead?' He wonders.
All his stilled-from-fright sense come to right then, and he can feel the girl's soft embrace, her warm tears dampening the back of his shirt, and the wetness on his face sticking to her skin where their cheeks are touching. His hazel gaze lowered to the floor and he notices that he had indeed been shot in the face... his other face. He let out a relieved breath. Had he not been a ninja, had his skill not moved him out of the way in time... he'd have a hole in his real face.
"We were so afraid for you," Rebecca is saying, never loosening her grip. "Where did you go? What happened?"
Colt can't speak.. not out loud anyway. He can only stare at the open door, as he struggles to remove himself from EVERYTHING! The abduction and being dragged under the house. The tea party. Realizing and seeing in the mirror that he has a woman's face! And... Lisa Trevor. Her deformed body, her gnashed voice with no words only sounds trying to form words. God... she had touched him. She sewwed that face onto his... she had fed him earlier, or at least she'd been trying to but... he was so afraid of her he took one look and passed out again. And then to wake up to the reality of it all.
"Are you ok?" Rebecca moves away to look at his blood soaked face. "Here, let me help you stop the bleeding. Do you know where its coming from?" Getting up from the floor, she pulls his arm to help him up.
Turning on the sink water, she grabs a rag that is hopefully clean. She doesn't want him getting an infection from dirt getting into the wound. Wetting it, she continues saying hushing, sweet things to him to calm his nerves. Rebecca doesn't blame him for being paralyzed, she'd almost shot him in the head! If she weren't such a terrible shot, if it had been one of the other S.T.A.R.S members... Colt would be dead. She looks at the hole in the wall eye level with the male; her eyes then look down at the thing she'd really shot. It looks like an old rubber mask, only its lined with Colt's blood.
'What on Earth happened to him that that thing was stuck on his face?' She wonders. Wiping Colt's face, her eyes grow wide when noticing the source of the injury is from tiny little needle points lining the entire shape of his face! 'Thread? Was that thing...? Was that sewn to his face?!' Her hand jumped up to her mouth to hold back tears and vomit. It just couldn't be true!
But, as Colt slowly began to snap out of his stupor, she realized it was exactly that. His body seemed to convulse with need to collapse, but Rebecca caught him against her. His hands are fist at his sides, white knuckled to the point that it seemed the skin would split apart to expose the bone; he just rest his head against the girl's shoulder and cried. It shook him as if she were shaking him; and Rebecca let him have his tears while she pats him on the back.
"Colt what happened to you?"
"This big THING grabbed me... she pulled me under the house into this cave," He backs away getting a damp cloth to the face to wipe his tears and continue cleaning the blood. Sniffling, he goes on. "She's not like the others... she's intellegent, she tried to speak to me. I hit her over the head and ran."
Rebecca wonders again about the false-face sitting on the floor. Colt seemed to be calming down the more his face became exposed. His gaze looks down at the floor then the wall, and he crumples once again.
"She sewwed that thing to my face... I think she thought I was girl because of my hair. She said Mom to me..." He sobs. "She's gonna be so mad when she sees that hole."
"Well, she won't see you with it. Come on," Steering him to the exit, the two make their ways out into the hall and into the safety of Gallery room where the boys had found the first floor map in the Goddess statue. "I found this room a little while ago when looking for you, there's only one way in and out. I think it would be better to stay in here until your brothers come back."
"Where are Rocky and Tum tum?" He asks, his voice still sounds so distant and small from the shock of it all still nestled into him like his own muscle and bone.
"We've all been scrambling looking for you, I haven't seen them for a while but I do know they've gone outside-.." She gasps when realizing something. "The radio! We can call them with it." Closing the door to the hidden room that, like in the main hall, looked like a 3D mural; Rebecca removes her radio from the clip on her pant leg. "Guys, can you hear me? This is Rebecca..."
Static.
"Shit... they must be near some sort of interference. I might have to try them from a different room."
"Don't leave me alone." He says in a near panic.
"No, its ok. The place is cleared out mostly, at least it is down here. And this floor is solid marble."
"I can't be alone..." He rephrases.
"I'm sorry... it was rude of me to suggest. Come on, we'll go up to the balcony and try them again."
Colt got up from the seat he'd planted himself on then collapsed to the floor. All adrenaline gone, ease trying to claim control over his tension, he just could not stay on his feet anymore. Not to mention he hasn't eaten or had a proper drink in days, just a few dozen handfuls from the sink faucet whenever he passes the bathroom and that was only before he was taken.
Rebecca looked him over and knew it was fatigue that's knocked him out, poor guy is just famished. There's a kitchen around here, she saw sometime ago when looking for him. 'I don't wanna leave him alone again, but... he needs something to eat and drink. Maybe just for a moment... I'll baracade the door.'
Exiting the room after lifting Colt one half of his body at a time to lay him down on the loveseat in the back of the walk-in closet sized room, she shoved the wooden display case against the door to keep anything bad out. Making her way to the dining hall, she passes through it with high nerves and for good reason too. Upon entering the hall that will lead her to the kitchen, she comes across a broken window. Anything could have come through there, this is now a dangerous hall, she'd better hurry up before the bad out there finds its way inside once again.
"I hope this food isn't bad..." She sorts through the fridge for something dated this year.
It was amazing the find, everything is edible and fresh! Despite the decay in the house, and the cobwebs here and there, the food and drinks are fresh.
"These people must have recently turned if all this food is as old as two days ago." She says to herself. She'd already checked around, there's only one mangled body laid out on the floor and he isn't moving at all. 'What to cook?' She wonders. 'I don't even know how to make much... I'll just throw some spaghetti together. Pasta was always an easy dish for my Mom.'
Removing some frozen meatballs from the freezer, she then locates a pan dumping them over. The large oven should cook them quickly enough, and that thought got her prepping the rest of the meal. The sauce is poured into a pan, the noodles are waiting for the water to boil. She spent a few minutes wondering if they go into the water before it boils or after and finally just decided to wait it out. The smell in the air from the meatballs is refreshing, and the sauce coming in when its warmed up really helped to battle back the stink of decay and feces from the dead bodies. Just thinking about it makes her stomach churn over eating with corpse and stench in the air.
...
"Mmm." Tum tum says when putting his nose into air. "Do you smell that? It smells like food!" He says to his brother and their saviors.
The small group have gotten outside of the tiny house and are now on their way into the main building. The mansion, depsite being cleared, looks even more menacing than usual.
"How can that be, who's cooking?" Jill asks.
"Could be Colt!" Tum tum declared with hope. "He knew I'd smell it and come running" He sniffs the air again. "Mmm, and it smells like spaghetti! Come on!"
"You go ahead, I wanna finish checking out this cabin first." A red haired man named Barry says.
"What do you mean?"
"There are still rooms in there that need to be looked at, we would have finished if we hadn't run into these two." He explains with his gruff tone, beard bristling as if with each word.
"But Barry, we just found each other... we shouldn't split up anymore."
"Its okay, you two can go together. We know the way back to the mansion- at least, the way we came in." Rocky says. "If its Colt, that'll be good... if its someone else, that'll be good too." He touches the gun's handle resting outside the top of his jean's waistband. "We found some ammo before, so we're covered for the moment."
Jill looked very skeptical, even Barry who was ready to go off on his own. Could they really let the kids go off on their own?
"We'll be fine... trust us."
"All right... we'll trust you. We're on radio frequency four if you need us." Jill pats her radio. "Its always on, so please only use it if you really need help. These things respond to sound and heat, if nothing else, we wouldn't want our positions given away if we're trying to ambush them."
"We'll be careful not to over use it." Rocky assures.
Waving, the four separate and go their own ways. The two remember the snakes dropping from the trees and they both prepare themselves to run. The metal elevator was trembling less than them as it pulled the two up to the second level of the large concrete backyard. The snakes from before slithered off into the forest or back up into the trees, wherever they've gone they're no longer on the ground. It didn't mean the two were gonna loiter around and wait for them though.
"On my mark.." Rocky says taking his little brother's hand. "Ready... go!"
They dart from the elevator and down through the walkway. The device slamming into place behind them alerted the reptiles to activity going on around them and they dropped out of the trees like arrows fired from a bow. Tum tum shrieked when one brushed past him, and thankfully just brushed past him. It hit the ground, like the others, very audibly with a thick thump.
Rocky releases his brother's hand to instead drape himself around the boy's back for cover, while keeping beside him so their feet don't trip over each others. They don't waste time with climbing down each rung of the ladder into the large body of water's walk walkway. Rocky jumped stair down, and held his arms out.
"Tum, jump!" He orders.
Tum tum pinched his nose as if he's about to go for a canon ball, then he jumps into his brother's arms. "Sorry." He says when hearing him grunt from the weight of his catch. He isn't heavy, but he knows that Rocky isn't feeling well at the moment.
The snakes came down after them at any area of the large crater of a pool, some land on the walkway, which the two are clearing, and others dive head first into the water; it was odd if you didn't know anything about snakes, but the cold water seemed to pacify them, sending them down into the deepness of the pool water boxed in at the side of the walkway. Being reptiles the cold water was almost like a tasing to them, and they lost all control of theirself and just sank.
Rocky ushered his little brother up the ladder, giving him a shove to get him along faster, before he's able to climb up himself. There wasn't anything that could be done about the repulsive reptiles to help Jill and Barry out, so they can only hope the two have an easy time with the remaining trouble in the trees.
"Rocky, do you really think its Colt?" He adjust the heavy shotgun in his arms so he can get a better speed at running towards the house- especially the food.
The two enter through the large double doors and into the gardening shed. The large slap of parchment paper on the wall was obvious even to a blind man in L.A.
"What's it say?" Tum tum asks approaching it behind his brother.
"Its from that guy Wesker... it says here's some supplies for your wounds. Use them sparingly; and he fixed the door knob in the hall from here."
"That's a relief." He smiles. "The smell is getting stronger, come on."
The feet pound like a stampede of horses on the cold concrete, its vision blurred at the edges like it has tunnel vision. A hiss of a voice comes grinding out of it as it rounds the corner of the garden climbing the pipes of the open elevator. It thumps along the path of the garden stamping snakes into the ground like they aren't even there. One came down and took a bite out of it, but the snake only wound up being pulled free from its speed having the wind tugging its fangs out.
Its in the house now and coming up behind...
The two ninjas hear its ear piercing cry before they see what made it; the door opening didn't alert them, they only believed it was Jill and Barry, or even Wesker who left them the note. But they were not expecting a very large, 5'11", thick as a defense football player reptile to charge up behind them! Hunched forward like an ape, it ran at them at a great speed. Its over-sized hand rear back, splaying the forearm-sized claws out like a paperless fans frame.
"Aaaahhh!" Tum tum and Rocky scream when it leapt up into the air over their heads.
The blast from the shot gun rang out, it clipped the tail-less flat-face gator in the knee, dragging it back a distance into the wall. Though blown-out the reptile seemed not to notice nor care as it got itself up from the floor and charged again.
The shot had knocked them back onto the floor before, and wasn't any easier on them with Rocky's help holding onto his brother's stance. Legs parted and sideways, Tum tum rests the guns weight on his small thighs.
"Rocky, the trigger!" He commands.
Reaching around him, Rocky squeezes the trigger and not only does their foe go flying backward but so do they, and right into the double doors behind them. It was only a matter of seconds before the zombies that are outside caught wind of the activity and came in for some of the dinner buffet. Rocky removed his hand gun and fired at one through the window, pegging it in the head after four missed shots.
The foreign creature rest slumped in the corner of the hall, but not out. It bobbed up and down on the floor like it were having a seizure, before it again stands up. Rocky pulled him brother from the floor and ran them through the hallway where the zombies are lining up around the shattered open windows. Better the enemy you know than a stranger you'll have to learn about. And so far Rocky has learned this thing can really take a hit!
One look over his shoulder and he could tell this thing meant business, it isn't gonna wander around aimlessly like the zombies, its hunting them... and enjoying it. A couple zombies that made it through the window were thrown aside like rag dolls of a child done playing with it, one even got its head tore clean off by the large claws of the green beast- and that was just from pushing it aside! Rocky could only imagine what the thing could and would do to them.
Shoving through another door, he pulls it closed just as the claws came slicing down. The door is shredded, but it bought them enough time to aim again and fire! But instead of flopping to the floor and hurling himself up, Rocky removed his hand gun again and began blasting off bullet after bullet into the things face. It screamed in pain, the sound was like knives scraping glass over and over. Its thrashing scarred the beautiful walls with thick gashes as if they were bed sheets torn by scissors... then finally... when the noise coming from it died down... it bled out.
The two don't even get a chance to rest their nerves when they hear Colt calling to them. Colt! Their grins were practically ugly they exploded so instantly on their relieved faces. Their missing brother ran over to them, grabbing the two up like they were the ones missing all this time.
"I'm glad you guys are ok." He says into Rocky's shoulder.
"We're glad you're ok! Where were you?" Rocky squeezes his brother tightly to him.
"Come on, we need to get to cover... I'll tell you everything once we get there."
The three reunited brothers make their way out of the hall and into the gallery, where Colt leads them into the dressing room behind the mural.
Tum tum's first destination was for the large serving bowl of spaghetti sitting on the seat in the dressing room. He removed the fork from his brother's empty plate and dug right in after serving some to his brother Rocky, by forking some over onto the empty plate- he can eat with his hands, Rocky needs to learn how to live a little. Handing the plate over, he eats with gusto while listening to Colt talk.
"So you're saying that Lisa took you?" Rocky asks with concern.
"You've seen her!"
"Let's just say Tum tum and me had a close encounter of the whack to the head kind. She belted us one in the cabin out in the woods. When we came to she seemed to be making a fire..." Rocky sighs. "She's frighteningly strong, and we just barely made it away... you're saying that she took you?"
"Yeah... let's just say she likes my long hair." Colt gently touched his longish hair, feeling a shutter run through him over the memory of getting his hair brushed and ponytailed by the monsterous girl.
"I'm sorry that happened to you, it just means we have to get out of here more than ever." Rocky pinches a fingerfull of pasta into his mouth.
"This is really good, did you make it?" Asks the younger of the three.
"No. Rebecca did."
"Where is she?" Rocky wonders, noting that she isn't in the tiny dressing room.
"I don't know. I woke up and found that bowl sitting next to me... ten minutes later, you two were in the hall." Colt sighs. Looking at Rocky he asks. "What happened to you two?"
"We searched for you, we were everywhere outside in tiny cabins. There's a butler's home not far from the house, you weren't there but we found Jill and this guy Barry."
"Where are they now?"
"Still at the cabin, they said there might be something there that they'd understand that we might not." He scratches his cheek.
"I found this key... I think its for the mansion, it looks like the other one anyway." Tum tum pulls the silver key from his pocket. "It might open the doors that we couldn't before."
"Guys," Rocky says solemnly. "I think Dad might not be here, wherever he is, he would have heard us and come out. Scared or not, Dad wouldn't allow us to be in this place without his protection. So whatever we find in those rooms, it won't be him. We can only hope that he's found the lab and is waiting for us to do the same. Maybe he's been captured."
"By who? What do you mean?" Colt cocks his head.
"Tum tum and me met up with this weird guy named Wesker... I know he's Jill's captain, but... I don't know, I got a weird vibe from him."
Tum tum nods.
"So we'll look out for him," Colt assures. Smiling, he says again. "I'm really glad you guys are back... that I'm back."
"Us too." Rocky pats his brother's leg, casually wiping the sauce from his finger tips.
"Bastard!" Colt shoves him playfully. "Watch the merchandise." He brushes the mess from his pant leg.
"So where should we start looking first?" Tum tum asks.
"There's a locked room right by here. We'll try that one first, hopefully Rebecca will catch up with us in a little bit. I don't like that that big green thing came after us; who knows where it came from or if it were even the only one." Rocky stands, ready to get moving. Any one of these locked rooms could have the path to the lab in them. Why else hide the key so far from the main house? "I wanna get out of here, sooner than later. If Lisa still has interest in Colt, she might come back for him. We have keep moving so we're not an easy target."
"Got it." Colt agrees.
Tum tum gives him a thumbs up.
The room is right next to the gallery doors, and Tum tum felt he should be incharge of the key because he had found it. Sticking the ash covered thing into the slot, he gives it an unsure turn in the lock hole. A smile spread across his face when a click sounded. The three ready their guns and step inside.
Its certainly not what they expected to see when greeted with a large illuminated globe, and a luxury vanity across the room made from the finest mohagany wood. An armless statue is beside the vanity smiling at the intruders with a seductive look on her face. A blue cushion couch is on the right wall, decorated with silver swirls all over it, and to the left is a long row of shelves holding jars of perfume, from what the can smell, and other things that look more bio geared, and there's even a jar filled with sentipedes... or maybe its one giant sentipede? Rocky was the only one brave enough to venture forward to look.
Tum tum gaped at his haggared, tired, appearance in the mirror and just shook his head. He can't believe he actually wants to take a bath! Rocky rounds a corner at the end of the shelving unit which opens up like a hall's entrance beside the vanity. There's a tiny drawer back there that he goes to investigate.
Colt, on the other hand, is still shaken up and would rather plant himself on the couch. He's latched onto the arm of the chair like grim death, with his gaze upon the door they just came through incase something chooses to come through it. The chair isn't the only thing he's got a death grip on, his hand gun is gonna be perminantly molded in his fingers likeness after they leave this place.
"Tum tum, here. These should fit in Richard's gun."
"Richard's gun?" Colt asks while watching his little brother try figuring out how to load the big silver thing. "What happened to Richard?"
"Well, looking for you, and us... he got eaten by a shark."
"What?!"
"There was a broken tank under the butler's house... those things could have made Jaws piss himself."
Colt didn't say that he'd rather of taken his chances with them than Lisa, but he could tell his brothers have really been through something terrible, so he kept his feelings to himself.
Loud foot steps pound the floor above their heads; all three boys look up and wonder what the commotion could be from. If Rocky could take a guess, he'd say that dead thing in the hall has friends. Putting his finger to his lips, he waves an arm over his shoulder for his brothers to follow him.
They move quietly down the hall around the corner of the shelf. It leads them to a door that opens up to a perfect square of a room, that has one wall covered in a full length corner to corner mirror, that's got a large red curtain draped over half of it. On the right wall is a sort of decorative cabinet that has a music box on it. Colt remembered seeing one just like it in Lisa's room. He couldn't help reaching out to touch it, but when tugging it he found it wouldn't open.
"Looks like a dance studio... a small one, but a studio all the same. What do you think its for?"
"Beats me." Colt looks around the near empty room.
The three brothers hear the strangest sound behind them, its sort of like a rich throaty sound similar to someone getting the last bits of drink from the bottom of the cup through a straw.
"Tum tum..." Rocky whispered to his little brother, who is slowly positioning himself to fire the large shotgun off.
They don't have to wait long for the intruder to show itself, because the door came crashing to the floor! And there, on top of it, stands another of those aligator mutations. Rocky and Tum tum turn a ghostly white when they see a mangled snake hanging limply from its teeth; there's no way. There's just no way! Did they bring those things into the house when they worked up those snakes? Did their falling into that dingy awaken these things, bringing them into the home in search of a more promising meal than a skrawny snake.
"Shoot! Why are you just standing there?!" Colt barks.
Reaching for the gun himself, he pulls the trigger. The three ninjas slammed into the wall behind them, and the gator-like creature wasn't the least bit phased by the missing arm. Firing again the other arm is blasted off, but that didn't stop the threat.
Rocky tried to pin it down by shooting with his handgun but it leapt into the air and out of his fire. The gator's legs wind back and forth like its running in the air, when really its using its feet to slice and dice through the air with the long claws poised to shred whatever it hits before it lands. And if the weight of their steps is anything to go by, having that thing land on them would undoubtedly crack some bones.
Colt pulled the trigger again, and the scattered shot bursts the reptile's face wide open, the blast didn't send it flying back like the last time, though. The giant man reptile fell heavily between the three separating Rocky from Colt and Tum tum.
"Move away, move away!" Rocky says to them when the thing starts bucking and convulsing between them. Armless or not, the feet could splay out in any direction and cut them, and if it could do that much damage to a wall, it would surely take them apart.
Colt's hand slipped in he blood dropping him to lay in the thick mucus-like drool of red. Tum tum set the gun down on the floor and helped his brother up.
"Are you ok?"
"I've been better." Standing, he looks disgusted at himself. He's half red!
"We'd better get out of here before more show up." Rocky says after inspecting the thing.
"Ugh, can I change first... I think I've had enough blood on me to last me a life time." Colt shakes his soaked hand out.
"We don't have time for you to shower." Rocky says crossing the room, looking out into the powder room.
"No, some of the clothes in that little dressing closet looked like they could fit me. I'll be real quick, then we can go." He catches up to his brother's exit.
"Okay.. but you have to be quick."
They sneak back into the dressing room with more than enough nerves keeping their eyes everywhere for danger. Colt was true to his word about changing quickly, and he grabbed some army fatigue pants and a purple t-shirt; these clothes must have belonged to the scientists and chemists that stay here to do research. They're all men's clothing and of various sizes. Strange set-up for a dressing room for sure, but useful all the same.
"I wanna chan-.." Tum tum is cut off by a loud scream!
"AAAAAHHHH!"
"That sounded like Rebecca!" Colt declared.
"But where is it coming from?" Rocky looks around as if trying to remember which direction the long gone scream had come from.
When she screamed again, they got the location for sure. She's upstairs!
"Come on!"
The three boys fly up the stairs and in the direction of the office at the end of the long pink hall. Thankfully they didn't run into any trouble along the way, but only because the trouble was too busy with a less equipt target. Rocky pulled the door open, but Colt pushed through see what is going on. Rebecca is backed against the far door, hidden by the book shelf, but they can see the hunter stalking toward her at an agonizing pace.
"I'll open the door from the other side!" Colt declared rushing through the door beside them into the hall where that particular door opens. He can hear shots ringing out both loud and softer before he pulls the door open. A body fell to the floor... but it wasn't inhuman.
"Re..." Was all Colt could get out before dropping to his knees on the floor.
Rocky and Tum tum killed the beast, but the bullets killed it too slowly, and a headless Rebecca lay bleeding at his knees.
...
Author's Note: Eeeee *index fingertip tapping* sorry about that. Ahahaha, I hope your enjoying this and I'm also glad that you're enjoying it. I thought it would be too out there, so it means a lot to me that you like it.
^_^ thank you Tessy I'm gonna add some more home-front scenes next chapter.
And MaddieSakuraHaru thank you so much for that cause I read so many awesome stories and wonder if I've got what it takes any time I do something. So thank you very much.