Deadly Silence: Resident Evil

Chapter Fourteen: From Cradle to Grave

From what Valentine could see after leaving the office, the hallway made one last turn before ending at a metal door that was technically on Burton's designated side, leaving only one remaining door for her to investigate before they could move onto the next section of the house. Even more cautious since reading that letter in the office, the young woman very slowly opened the door, finding that it led into a very brightly lit room where there were a bunch of painted portraits on the wall.

The wooden floor was sealed and highly polished, while the light in the room came from not a single source, but several spotlight fixtures, one shining on each portrait as if this room was some kind of art gallery. A wall partially divided the room, with more portraits hung on the other side when she made her way around, with the collection ending at a much larger portrait with a metal plate directly underneath, which read:

THE END OF LIFE

An odd title for a painting, but one that made more sense once she saw that the depicted scene was that of an elderly man lying in bed surrounded by people who must've been family members. Of course, now that Valentine took a second look at the others hanging around the gallery, she saw that each one was a depiction of different stages of a man's life… and stranger, still, was the fact that there was a little button underneath the bottom of the frame of each one, including the big one she had examined.

There was also one that the young woman hadn't seen when first entering the gallery, one that was behind the door, equal in size to the one called end of life, but brighter and more cherry; blue skies and angles floating around the clouds, while some kind of celebration was happening down in the village below. Unlike all the other portraits, there was no small button underneath, but there was a metal plate that read:

FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE

So what was with the whole life theme and the buttons underneath the other portraits? If they were switches to control the individual lights, then why did the very first one not have a button, so what was this all about? Suddenly a loud knocking sound grabbed her attention, making the young woman gasp while looking up toward it, at first seeing only a window that wrapped around the whole room just below the ceiling, but the glass only maybe… five or six inches tall.

But where had the knocking sound come from? Looking up at the window, Valentine could only see darkness, not even falling rain… at least until the next lightning flash. In that brief flash of light, the young woman was able to see that there were birds, at least a couple dozen little black birds sitting on the small ledge just outside the glass, most likely where they were protected from the storm by the window's upper ledge. The disturbing part about all this, though was that they were all facing the glass and looking down… looking at her.

With the window acting as a barrier, there was no danger of the birds getting inside… of course, why did she suddenly feel like a bunch of crows were any kind of threat in the first place? They were just birds looking for shelter from the storm, and Valentine was about to dismiss it as such, but then there was a another even harder knocking sound, followed by a barely audible crack when one of the birds pecked the glass hard enough to break off part of its beak to damage the window… and not reacting to the pain.

Okay, maybe shouldn't spend too much time in this room, she thought, regardless of whether or not the bad feeling she was getting from the birds was justified. After all, Burton was out in the hall waiting for her, so if she was going to figure out what was going on with this gallery, it was going to have to be done fast. Moving over to the wall right under the window with her back against it so that the birds could no longer see her, Valentine went over what little information she had in her head.

"Two portraits, end of life and cradle to grave." She said to herself, next looking at the other pictures. "A whole bunch of other pictures showing different stages of life, and buttons under each one, almost like…

An idea about the buttons and portraits now popped into her head, but it was honestly kind of stupid. What if… what if instead of being an art gallery, this was some kind of overly elaborate way for a rich person to hide something valuable, like… like Jesus, Valentine thought to herself, she was starting to sound like one of her dad's old Bond films. Next she'd be imagining that this whole place was owned by Dr. No, and that a missile was about to be launched.

Then again, if she were a rich old woman with nothing better to do than come up with weird ways to hide her valuables, this was exactly the kind of thing that could be used with no one ever caring enough to investigate, so why not? The only thing that she could think of to do was follow the timeline represented in the pictures, starting with the one with the youngest subject, a newborn baby, and pushing the button.

Still not wanting to take her eyes off the birds in the window, Valentine was startled when the light cast over the portrait turned orange with the click of the button, but nothing else happened, aside from some of the crows starting to caw a little more frequently. Continuing to follow the timeline while trying not to excite the birds with any more movement than necessary, the young woman kept following the timeline, moving through the subject's childhood, into adulthood, and through middle-aged so that eventually every light had been changed to orange, leaving only the end of life.

"Well, here goes." She said, pushing the last button. "Hopefully this does something useful."

After nearly getting crushed to death trying to get the shotgun from the other room, the young woman was ready to run after hearing the final click, but instead of the walls collapsing or the floor falling out from under her, there was a sliding sound from behind the portrait. The whole thing swung open an instant later as if the door to a small hidden safe, revealing a hidden shelf with… something odd sitting there. It looked kind of like a long nail with a really big, rounded head, but the whole thing was a dark blue color, looking like colored glass, but sturdy and metal, while the head was made in the shape of a kind of… cat eye?

She didn't really understand what the purpose of this blue object was, but after going through that whole puzzle, she stowed the item inside one of the empty pouches on her belt, but then more glass was heard cracking as Valentine started toward the door. The crows outside were fluttering around as if in a frenzy during the next lightning flash, and that same bird who broke its beak trying to get through into the house, was now throwing itself at the glass like a madman in a mental asylum, until there was a tiny splatter of blood when it broke through.

The crow that actually put the hole in the window crashed lifelessly to the floor, but the others immediately started pushing and climbing over each other to get through the opening, with a steady line of them all cawing like mad while flying right toward her. Boom! Raising her shotgun and pulling the trigger, the nearest crow and all the others behind it were destroyed in a cloud of blood and feathers, but the shell had also hit the glass, creating an even bigger entrance for the birds to get in.

With the room now filling with caws and feathers, the young woman ran for her life, not bothering to stop long enough to shoot again, and throwing the door open as soon as she reached it. Stumbling out into the hall, there was a startled squawk when she slammed the door right onto one of the pursuing birds, and thankfully the birds were easier to push back with a door than the dogs had been. Forcing it closed, and then sitting down on the floor while leaning against it, Valentine could hear the crows still flying around and cawing through the gallery, mostly at the door, but at least now they couldn't get to her, and with Burton to watch her back…

"Barry?" She called, looking up and down the hallway. "Hey, Barry, where'd you go?"

No response, and now aside from the slowly fading sounds of the crows inside the gallery, everything was falling silent again. No problem, she thought while slowly getting to her feet, the big man was probably just investigating the last door on his side of the hallway, so Valentine followed it around the corner to the metal door at the very end, pushing it open, and… wait a second, this door was locked. Feeling even sturdier than the one she had lost Redfield behind, the slightly rusted metal barrier didn't budge at all when she tried it, but instead of finding some kind of keyhole, there was a weird impression in a metal plate on the wall next to it.

At first the young woman thought maybe it was for the blue object that she found, but it wasn't even close to the right shape, so… where had Burton gone? Just to make sure, she pounded on the door, calling his name loudly a few times, but stopping after there was still no response. He wouldn't have backtracked without telling her, so if he hadn't gone through this door, and wasn't inside the others the two of them had checked, this left only that door he said went into another hallway.

"Barry?" She called, trying to be quiet while opening it. "Barry, come on, where are you?"

She didn't want to move onto another area without knowing where Burton was, but there was little choice since he wasn't answering, forcing the young woman to step into a corridor that was decorated in a kind of dull, yellowish-brown wallpaper that… no sane person could have possibly wanted. No lights at first, though, leaving the first stretch of hallway darkened until it opened up into a tall, carpeted stairwell.

There was a large chandelier at the top, and although not as grand as the one inside the main hall, it lit up the whole stairwell, the part of the walkway above that she could see… and the small door behind the stairs that Valentine had almost missed completely. Maybe Burton had gone inside the small door, and was planning on coming back with whatever he found, so the young woman opened the door to find… nothing.

Aside from a few bags of old fertilizer, and a lightbulb above the door that was flickering, there was nothing inside this small storage room, most importantly not the big man she was looking for. Now Valentine was starting to get worried about him, and also… honestly, she really did not want to be alone in this place again. Why? Why did he have to just run off like that, the young woman wondered as she went back into the stairwell?

Looks like there was nowhere for her to go but up at this point.