Biohazard: Resident Evil VII

Chapter Twelve: The Molded

Now that both Jack and the little girl were gone, this… morgue was almost completely silent, aside from the light fixture that was making a low creak as it slowly swung back and forth. It bothered Ethan how much the two of them had emphasized him getting the key out of the locker, since it seemed like a relatively simple task… but then again, so had going to dinner before he had met the Bakers.

Was it some kind of a trap? Was it some kind of awkward test? Eveline had mentioned that she would be talking to him again after finishing her nap, making him doubt that whatever was going to happen would kill him, but still it seemed better to be cautious, especially in a place like this. So he took another look around the room for a hidden key, or anything else that could be useful in any way, but aside from the chairs and bloodstained table, the whole place was empty.

"This is stupid." He whispered to himself, looking at the locker. "You can't just stand here forever, Ethan… Mia needs you… Zoe needs you. Okay… here we go."

Hesitating again in the middle of taking the first step, Ethan growled in frustration as he forced himself to keep walking, and then he grabbed the locker's handle, pulling it open before his mind could convince him that this was a bad idea. Well, nothing stabbed him when it opened, which was good, but the smell was a different story. As soon as the locker was slid open, his nostrils were assaulted by the overpowering odor of stagnant, black mold, forcing him to step away, while coughing heavily.

A couple seconds later the coughing stopped, but the odor of the mold, along with the lingering rusty stench of the room, nearly made him vomit. Leaning against the open lockers on the other side of the room, Ethan took several deep breaths in order to get his stomach back under control, and then he looked into the formerly closed locker, making sure to lean back to avoid the smell.

The inside bottom and walls were caked heavily with a black moldy substance that looked, and smelled like exactly what it was. However, the one distinctive feature was a small metal object that might have once been shiny, and once Ethan leaned in closer, he saw that the object was a small key which rested on a thin metal chain. For a moment he mentally kicked himself for having been so nervous, since Jack was clearly fucking with him again, so he reached for the key, only to gasp as a blackened, skeletal hand reached up and grabbed onto his wrist.

Ethan tried to pull away, but the grip on his wrist was too strong for him to break, and now all of the mold in the locker was beginning to shift. The most solid parts seemed to temporarily liquefy as they swirled around, solidifying again once it had covered the skeletal hand, as well as every inch of the boney arm that followed as… something… started to sit up inside the locker. Each new part that was exposed simply looked like a blackened human skeleton, but as the mold covered it, the height and mass was increasing, and it maintained its grip on his wrist as it slowly climbed out of the locker.

The… monster… was now nearly seven feet tall, and built like a linebacker once its moldy exoskeleton finished solidifying, leaving no trace of the human bones underneath. Long claws had also formed at the end of its enlarged hands, and similar sharpened objects now filled the mouth of its slightly elongated head. It now made sense for the key to be on a chain, since it now hung tightly around the monster's neck, but there was no time to reach for it, as the other clawed arm made an attempt on his life.

Still unable to break the grip on his wrist, Ethan leaned back as far as he could to avoid the attack, but the very tips of them were still able to cut across his cheek. There was no time to react to this, since the monster immediately pulled back its arm for another try, and this time Ethan dropped down to avoid it. The claws missed entirely, flying through the air about a foot above him, and although he was still unable to free himself, Ethan had managed to put the creature off balance enough to make it stumble forward.

Until this very moment, Ethan had been convinced that the Bakers couldn't surprise him anymore, but this… this was just madness. It was difficult for his mind to accept that he was locked inside someone's private morgue, fighting for his life again a creature that seemed to be made of human bones and mold… of course, he would have sounded insane trying to describe this to anyone else, and now he understood why Zoe had been hesitant.

Figuring that this was his only chance to free himself, he pulled on the monster's arm in the opposite direction, hoping to make it have to choose between holding him or falling down, but instead it didn't even look before slashing backwards at him with its free hand. The bad news was that the claws hit him this time, sinking deeply into his shoulder, but the good news, for once, was that in using this blind attack, the creature ended up falling forward after completely severing its own forearm.

This was the one that had been holding him, so he fell on his ass while the creature fell on its face, and Ethan was not going to waste this opportunity to escape. Starting toward the door, he stopped when he remembered that the creature still had the key, but in a matter of seconds it would be on its feet again, so what was he going to do? He still had Zoe's knife, but didn't like the idea of getting that close to the monster, with or without the loss of its one hand, and aside from that, the only usable things in the room were the chairs.

Well, it was better than nothing, so against his instincts, Ethan rushed back toward the creature, and picked up one of the metal chairs. The fresh wound to his shoulder made this a bit harder to do as he raised the chair above his head, but it was all worth it when he brought it down on the monster's back with a hollow thud, forcing it back down to its hand and knees. There was no outcry of pain, nor any sound of annoyance or even anger when he lifted the chair and struck it a second time, and in fact, aside from its movements, the creature made no sounds at all.

It also showed no signs of feeling pain, or of even being aware that something was hitting it, and even after a fourth hit to its back, the monster was starting to recover just as quickly as it had after the first. Ethan knew that he wouldn't be able to keep this up for long, and it was getting difficult for him to even pick up the chair anymore, so he made a desperate grab for the key. His fingers wrapped around the chain and pulled, but for some reason the thin, rusted metal didn't break.

Ethan pulled on it as hard as he could, but had no luck, and then he found himself crying out loudly when he felt the back of the creature's claws tear his shirt open as they raked across his chest. The force of this blow was enough to throw him backwards, and even though he had been hit with the back of the claws, a fact which probably saved his life, the burning pain that he now felt was excruciating.

Unfortunately, the monster seemed fine as it got to its feet, slowly turning toward Ethan as he tried to figure out how the hell he was going to get that key now, but then he realized that there was something in his hand. Taking a quick look as the creature approached, he couldn't believe his eyes when he saw that he now had the key along with the now broken chain, figuring that it must've broken when he took that last hit. Of course, now he had to get back to the door and use it, so he kicked the monster in the ankle, hoping to at least slow it down for a second while he scrambled under the table.

However, the kick barely did anything, and the monster was already halfway around the table by the time he got to the other side and up to his hands and knees. Rather than take the time to stand up, Ethan crawled across the floor as quickly as he could, reaching the barred door with plenty of time to spare… that is, if he could've gotten his hands to cooperate. Trying to keep his fumbling hands steady was hard enough without hearing the creature's heavy footsteps slowly approaching from behind.

"Come on, come on!" He pleaded, trying to get the key in the hole. "Damn it, go in!"

Grabbing his wrist with his other hand in an attempt to steady it, the footsteps were getting even closer by the time that the key was put into the lock, so he turned it and pulled the door open just in time for the monster to make another attack. This time its claws struck the door at the same time that Ethan was crawling through, temporarily pinning him until the creature had to pull its arm back, this time allowing him to get all the way through. This time when the monster's claws hit the door, it closed all the way with an echoing bang.

Reaching through the bars to pull the key out, Ethan tossed it down the hallway while scooting backwards against the far wall, and the creature struck the door one more time before stopping. No more attacking, no more advancing, no nothing… it just stood there for several second before slowly turning away, lurching itself back over toward the locker, but only making it about halfway before just… collapsing. In far less time than it had taken to form, the monster was reduced into a pile of black mold and human bones, leaving the basement once again silent.

Looking left and right, there didn't seem to be any more of those monsters around, nor was there any sign of Jack or Eveline, so Ethan just leaned back against the wall and sighed with relief. Now that he had a second to relax, the pain in his shoulder and chest was getting worse, although once he got a chance to take a look at the wounds, they didn't appear to be that deep… although they probably needed to be cleaned out unless he wanted to get an…

Freezing in place when his mind passed over the possibility of an infection, Ethan couldn't help but worry about himself getting infected in the same manner that Zoe had described happening to her family, Mia, and even herself. Was that even how it worked? There had been so little time for explanations, but he didn't want to risk the possibility, so he pulled himself to his feet… had to keep moving. Of course, as he continued moving down the hallway, he wondered if there even was a way to cure… whatever the infection actually was.

The more he thought about it, the more nervous it made him, so Ethan was trying to keep his mind focused on finding the key in the slaughterhouse… wherever that was, when he found his thoughts interrupted. It was while moving through one of the long dark stretches between hanging lights, when his legs bumped into something… something that was easily moved forward away from him. It made a kind of familiar squeaking sound as it moved further away, but it wasn't until the object moved into the nearby light beam, that he realized that it was a… wheelchair?

Yes, it was a wheelchair that rolled to a stop under the next hanging light, and slumped over on that chair, fast asleep, was the elderly woman, Granny Baker, that he had seen at the dinner table. Ethan couldn't help wondering why they would leave an elderly woman down there all by herself, but he couldn't stop to help her, since she might raise the alarm if she woke up and was startled by him. So with mixed feelings, Ethan quietly moved around the wheelchair, and tried not to make any noise as he rounded the next corner.