Biohazard: Resident Evil VII

Chapter Fourteen: Cage Fight

The only nice thing about how many times Ethan had been thrown or kicked around lately, was that it was never too far of a fall. However, this did not mean that the landings couldn't still be painful, especially when it involved his back and head slamming into the metal grated floor of an enclosed cage inside of a human slaughterhouse. Of course, this time there wasn't much opportunity to further explore his surroundings, because Ethan had just barely rolled to a stop, when Jack Baker jumped down into the cage with him.

"Where you gonna run now, city-boy?" The strange man asked, landing gracefully on his feet while Ethan scrambled to get up. "I tell ya, son, you open your home to ungrateful shits like you'an Mia, hopin' that a good family life will be enough to make'em change their ways, but it never works, does it? Ya'll jus' run away or call for help… well, neither one gonna help you much down here."

"Jack, listen to yourself." Ethan replied once he was on his feet. "Zoe told me that things weren't always like this… the Bakers were a good family… you were nice people, once. Try to remember the way you were before… before I guess you just… found Eveline and Mia. Would you have hurt so many people back then, Jack? Can you even remember?"

Trying to appeal to anything that might have been left of the strange man's humanity was the only thing that Ethan could think to do, since as far as he could see, Jack was right about his surroundings. There was literally nowhere for him to run, and it didn't look like Zoe would be able to do much for him this time. Honestly, given the effect that Zoe said Eveline had on people, he didn't expect his strategy to work, but instead of attacking him like usual, the strange man remained where he was, just standing there with a look of sadness on his face.

"I wanted you to be part of the family, son." Jack continued. "Zoe seems real sweet on you, and God knows Lucas could use a big brother… help him pull his head outa his ass. But you see, Ethan… Eveline's startin' to doubt me… startin' to wonder if I'm the best man to be her daddy. So you and me, we're gonna settle this right here, by havin' us a good ol' fashion country ass-whoopin'… and I'll even let you hit me first… before I go rippin' your lungs out, that is."

Well, it seemed like words had failed, and now the strange man was walking toward him, after giving him the redneck equivalent of throwing down the gauntlet. However, instead of grabbing him right away, Jack stopped and stood still once he had reached Ethan, apparently having told the truth about letting him make the first hit. There didn't seem to be much choice in the matter, and there was no doubt that he was meant the join the other victims of the slaughterhouse, so Ethan balled up his fist, and punched the strange man in the mouth as hard as he could.

Jack's head was tilted backwards a little, but that was it, so Ethan punched him again, this time in the side of the face, causing the strange man's head to turn a little, but nothing else. His plan had been to surprise him with how hard he could hit, and then use the time bought from knocking him down to find a way out of the cage… but clearly this plan wasn't going to work, since Jack was barely reacting to the hits. Trying one more time to knock him down, Ethan swung, but this time the strange man grabbed his fist, twisted it around behind Ethan's back, and shoved him forward.

"I gotta be honest with you, son." Jack said as Ethan fell to the floor after stumbling a few steps. "Now, I don't wanna be rude by sayin' that you hit like a girl, but that's purdy hard to do, seein' as, well, you hit like a girl. It's all that soft city livin' you done, gone and made you a wuss… now, let me show you how a man throws himself a punch."

The strange man advanced once he was done talking, putting up his fists, and taking a swung at Ethan once he was close enough. Ethan managed to avoid it by ducking down, and circling around behind him, but Jack spun around and swung at him again before he could do anything else. This time the blow connected, hitting Ethan in the side of the head, and causing him to fall against the nearby wall, but the strange man wasn't quite finished yet.

Ethan had managed to stay on his feet, using the barred wall as a support, but this became pointless when Jack threw a right hook into his stomach, knocking the wind out of Ethan as he fell to his hands and knees. The strange man then grabbed him by the hair and forced him to stand back up, and maintained this grip so that Ethan couldn't fall down even after being hit in the stomach another three times. Grabbing onto Jack's wrist with both hands in an attempt to stop him from attacking, Ethan struggled to give himself a single second to catch his breath, but was stopped when the strange man head-butted him.

His vision going white for a second after taking the blow to his forehead, Ethan was only dimly aware of Jack punching him in the face, and even less aware that the grip on his hair had been released, until his vision came back into focus, and Ethan realized that he was now lying on the floor. At this point it was becoming pretty obvious that he was no match for Jack in a fair fight, but what else could he do? At the rate he was going, the strange man was going to beat him to death before too long, but there was nothing that…

Shifting onto his side in an attempt to get up, Ethan felt something in his pocket, making him remember that even though his pistol was gone for good, he still had Zoe's pocket knife. This fact gave him a somewhat better chance at getting out of this situation alive, so he remained on the floor, stealthily taking out the weapon, and opening the blade as the strange man approached.

"Jesus, boy, you fight like Zoe." Jack said, walking up to him. "Wait, that's not fair… I reckon she's a bit better at it, but still, you figure even a sissy little city-boy like you would be a bit tougher when it came to fightin' for your…

The strange man's words stopped, and became an outcry of surprise as he bent down to grab him, and Ethan shoved the knife right into his eye. He pushed the blade in as far as he could, and Jack reacted by stumbling backwards, giving Ethan another opportunity to fight back. Jumping to his feet, he punched the strange man in the mouth, and once in the stomach, seeming to have a lot more effect on his opponent since he was focused on pulling the knife out of his eye.

Now running at him, Ethan ducked down and rammed his shoulder into Jack's stomach, forcing him back against the other wall, and he was going to continue the attack, but was stopped when the strange man simply grabbed him by the ripped shirt, and tossed him backwards. Ethan flew several feet backwards before crashing to the grated floor, and he didn't even have a chance to get back up before Jack was able to rip the knife out of his eye.

"All right, that tears it." The strange man said angrily, snapping the knife in half and dropping the pieces down through the grating. "You go and give someone a fair fight, and then what do they do? They go stabbin' you in the eye, first chance they get. But that's fine, son… you like to play with blades… good… me, too."

Ethan had expected him to attack again, but instead Jack walked away from him, toward another part of the cage, where a chain-link fence sectioned off another small area before the barred wall. Ethan had seen this earlier, but hadn't paid it much attention… at least not until the strange man ripped away the chain-link fence, and picked up something that was hanging on the back wall. That thing was a chainsaw… a very large, industrial chainsaw, much larger than the one that Mia had used on Travis in the other house.

"Groovy." Jack said, pulling the starter, and revving the engine. "What you gonna do now, city-boy?"

Now, Ethan was in real trouble, since he doubted that anyone was about to come to his rescue like Travis had done before. Looking around desperately for something he could defend himself with, the only thing he saw were the hanging chains with human meat… but it was better than nothing. So he grabbed a hanging leg, and swung it at the strange man, with his chainsaw easily slicing through both the leg and the chain with a quick shower of sparks.

The only thing he could do was swing more meat at him, so Ethan grabbed chain after chain, and more sparks flew as Jack sliced each one down while… laughing about it. However, the next time that the chainsaw was used, the chain seemed to get caught in the blade, bringing the whole thing to a halt and stalling the motor. The strange man cursed at the weapon, pulling on it until freeing it from the chain, but as he started pulling on the starter to get it working again, he seemed to forget all about Ethan.

This was probably his only chance to save himself, since he was dead if Jack got the saw working again, so he circled around behind the strange man, and ran forward, slamming his shoulder into Jack's lower back just as he got the chainsaw working again. This caused the strange man to stumble forward into the barred wall, but the fully revving saw made contact with it first, bringing the blade up, and making Jack scream as it sunk right into his face.

Blood and flesh sprayed across the bars as the strange man tried to remove the blade, but Ethan just rammed into his back again… and again, each time driving the saw further into his face. Eventually, Jack was able to turn around, where he let go of the saw's trigger, but Ethan wasn't about to let his chance at survival slip away. He grabbed onto the saw's base while the strange man was trying to pull out the blade, and squeezed the trigger, causing more blood and flesh to spray all over them both.

Jack screamed as his hands were torn to shreds, leaving him unable to defend himself while Ethan drove the blade further into his skull, cutting it vertically in half, before continuing down into the strange man's torso. A couple times it seemed like the chainsaw was going to stall out, but it kept going, and Ethan kept pressing until the saw blade exited the body between the strange man's legs… leaving Jack completely cut in half, and more importantly no longer moving as each half fell to the floor.

Breathing heavily, and his arms starting to go numb from the effort of what he had just done, the chainsaw fell out of Ethan's now shaking hands, where it rattled on the grated floor for a couple seconds before finally stalling out. His knees were shaking as well, and now he was starting to feel each of the hits that he had taken during the fight with Jack, leaving Ethan feeling weak and sore as he slowly sunk to his knees. But even with as bad of shape that he was in, he was still alive… he had beaten Jack Baker… and this time his enemy didn't seem to be getting up.

"Stay… fucking… dead." Ethan said between breaths.