Biohazard: Resident Evil VII

Chapter Twenty: Lost Lantern

The bang that followed him pulling the trigger was several times louder than it had been with the pistol, and the amount of kick that came with it surprised Ethan to the point where he had to take a step backwards in order to keep his balance. However, while he was stepping back, Marguerite was crying out in surprise as she flew forward; her feet completely leaving the ground, and part of her back exploding as she was sent right over the edge.

Both the cackling woman, and the lantern she was carrying, hit the shallow water below with a hard splash, but after having dealt with Jack, he knew that the conflict with her would not be resolved so easily. So deciding not to give Marguerite the chance to recover, Ethan walked to the edge of the floor, cocked the shotgun like Zoe had showed him, and fired another shell into the cackling woman as she flailed around in the water.

Chick-click-boom, chick-click-boom, chick-click-boom, Ethan fired shell after shell into her body, each one making her move a lot slower, until finally his shotgun was empty. What he had done seemed to be enough though, since the cackling woman was no longer moving, instead simply floating on the surface of the water while the slow moving current pushed her around with each low wave that came through.

It was nice to be in control for once, especially after being pushed around by Jack, Eveline, Marguerite, and Lucas, so for the first time since arriving at the Baker estate… Ethan was left feeling good… as if there really was a chance for him to get out of this alive. Unfortunately, the assault on Marguerite had left his shotgun empty, so he was unarmed if there were any more surprises waiting for him in the rest of the house, so his moment of confidence was partially ruined.

Either way, Marguerite was down, and it seemed like the only part of the house left to explore was the upstairs, so he walked away from the floating cackling woman, and headed over to the final door. There was a short staircase leading up to it, and thankfully the door was unlocked, since he didn't want to have to search around for another key, like he had done in the main house. Taking another look back to make sure that Marguerite was still down before walking through, Ethan shut the door behind him, and now found himself at the beginning of a short hallway that opened up into a larger room.

There were even more holes in the roof on the second floor, letting in a lot more daylight, but also a lot more water. So much, in fact, that Ethan had to continually wipe it from his eyes as he made his way into the larger chamber at the end of the short hallway. It was another sitting room, sort of like the one that Zoe had used for them to briefly hide from Lucas, but with far less furniture. There was an old broken cabinet, a pile of wood that might have once been a chair, and a shelf near the only other door that had some kind of old scale on top of it.

However, there was no sign of the green case that Zoe had described, so Ethan moved on, walking up to the only other door and pushing it open… except it didn't open. In fact, it didn't even budge, or shake, or anything when he tried to force it. This was strange, since there didn't appear to be a knob, or visible lock… and it was then that he noticed how sturdy the door had been built. Whoever had reinforced the back door of the main house, had apparently worked on this one as well, since it looked just as sturdy, if not even more so, but he didn't see a keyhole, or anything else that would…

"Oh, no." Ethan whispered, taking a closer look at the old, metal scale. "You've got to be fucking kidding me."

The scale seemed to be connected to something toward the top of the door by a thin electric cable, and the device was tipped all the way to one side. As ridiculous as it sounded, he suspected that the door would open when the scales were balanced, but only one end of the scale was holding something. The weighted end was being held down by a metal, unlit lantern… and there had been only one other place where he had seen another metal, unlit lantern.

"Shit!" He exclaimed, running out of the room, and back down the hallway. "Shit, shit, shit, shit!"

Shouldering the door back to the first floor open, Ethan nearly fell down the short flight of stairs on his way back to the edge of the floor, where he looked down into the water and saw… nothing. Marguerite was no longer floating on top of the water, nor was she, or her lantern anywhere to be found. Looking around helplessly for any sign of her, but still finding none, it seemed that Ethan's only choice was to climb down into the water.

After all, the current might have simply pushed the cackling woman to where he couldn't see her, so after setting the shotgun down on the floor, he swung his legs over the side in order to carefully lower himself down. This attempt ended when the part of the floor he was holding on to broke off in his hand, causing Ethan to scream as he fell into the water. There was a splash before he went under, and he had never been much of a swimmer, so he started to thrash around… before realizing that the water was only a couple feet deep.

Grabbing onto the nearest wooden support to help him stand up, Ethan rubbed his eyes before looking around for Marguerite, but didn't see her anywhere. The whole north side was open, allowing direct access to the bayou, but he didn't see her floating around out there. He was about to give up, and go back to the trailer to see if Zoe knew any other way to get through that door, when he turned around and saw something toward the southern side of the old house.

Where most of the water came up against solid dirt where the house met the land, there was some light coming through near the right side, where it almost looked like some kind of tunnel had been dug out, possibly for drainage during floods or something. As unremarkable as this seemed at first, Ethan squinted his eyes, and noticed that on top of daylight coming through the tunnel, the bottom of it was also marked up by what looked like drag-marks in the mud. Could Marguerite have gone out that way?

It was the only lead that he had so far, so Ethan started toward the tunnel, before stopping when he realized that once again he had nearly forgotten the shotgun. It took a few jumps, since the intact part of the old house's floor was just a little higher than he could reach, but eventually his hand closed around the barrel. He even managed to keep from dropping the weapon into the water when he landed, and now it was time to see where the tunnel led.

Turns out that it was only about thirty feet long, and the most difficult part about passing through was keeping the shotgun out of the mud as he crawled on his hands and knees. There was also the fear that the tunnel would collapse on top of him, and thankfully it didn't, since there was nothing that he could have done to save himself if it had, and it was raining even harder when he reached the other side.

Well, maybe it was raining the same, and being inside the old house shielded him from most of it, but he was still able to see that the muddy drag-marks continued on well into the grass beyond the tunnel as if Marguerite had been… crawling even after getting out. The trails were easy to follow, even more so after Ethan stood up, and the muddy path continued across the wet, overgrown grass until stopping at another building.

It took him a second to realize what building it was; the largest he had seen from Zoe's trailer, looking like some kind of huge greenhouse, and he was about to continue tracking Marguerite, when he stopped as logic took over. If the cackling woman had taken refuge in there, she would no doubt see him coming, in in the reverse, the building was big, meaning that she could be hiding anywhere inside. On top of all this, he was unarmed, so before making any attempt to follow the cackling woman, Ethan needed to stop back at the trailer.

The path that led back to the trailer was short, so less than a minute later he was able to get a break from the rain. Water dripped all over the floor as he walked into the trailer, but he didn't care, since his mind was focused on finding the box of shells that he had seen Zoe with before he had fallen asleep. It wasn't too hard to find, just kind of sitting there inside the small bathroom, but as he sat down and reloaded the weapon, his only regret was that Zoe wasn't around.

Honestly, he had been hoping to see her before heading into the greenhouse, mostly to see if she had any advice for handling her mother, but mostly just to… you know… see her. As desperate as Ethan was to rescue his wife, Zoe Baker had become the most, and well… the only pleasant thing about this whole nightmare. His thoughts were now drifting to her; how she smelled, her voice... how good she looked in just her bra... it would be so nice to be able to spend some time with her after they escaped, and then they... wait a second… no.

Having finished reloading the shotgun, and putting the rest of the shells in his pocket, Ethan realized that once the three of them escaped from Eveline and the Bakers, he and Zoe wouldn't really have a future, now would they? He would go back to his life with Mia, as much as could be salvaged anyway, and Zoe would… actually, he had no idea what Zoe was going to do after all this was over, and that made him… sad.

Ethan didn't want to think about the short-haired woman as much as he was, and knew that it couldn't lead to anything but trouble… especially with Mia. So what was he supposed to do? Whatever the solution was, he needed to get that lantern back from Marguerite before any future plans could be made, so he got up, and walked out the trailer door, back into the rain. That horrible, cackling, insect-puking woman was waiting for him in the greenhouse, and like with Jack down in the slaughterhouse… he had a feeling that only one of them would be coming back out alive.