"Uuuuggghhh…!", agent Valentine groaned as she slowly opened her eyes, finding that simple act more difficult than it should've been.
Once both eyes were open wide, it took her several hazy seconds to realize that she was lying on her back, on top of something that was more comfortable than a stone or wooden floor, and that she was staring at a ceiling. She couldn't tell what this place was, much less how she ended up arriving here, and the less she knew of her current situation within this mansion, the more apprehensive the prospect made her. The Alpha agent tried to sit up while simultaneously reaching for her waist holster. She groaned again as she was rewarded with the painful combination of a headache and backache. But the second moan that escaped through her lips was less distressing because she could at least feel the presence of the 9mm Beretta that was still located at her hip.
"Did I end up staggering here and passing out or something?", she wondered as she planted her feet on the floor next to the bed.
Just to be safe, concern prompted her to withdraw the handgun for the sake of checking to see if it was still loaded. It was, with a full clip, while she could still feel two additional clips within her uniform.
Glad for it, Valentine returned the weapon to its holster and stood up, only to screech in new agony as she suddenly limped on her right leg due to feeling a sprained left ankle. The young woman wasn't able to immediately balance herself on only one leg, so she had to hold on to the edge of the bed to keep from falling back down as her head was still dizzy.
"How the hell did I get here?", she thought out loud as she surveyed her surroundings.
The STARS machinist couldn't remember anything after she had realized that she had been bitten by the gigantic snake, or as she called it, the living roller coaster. Maybe agent Aitken had carried her here if she passed out. But if so, then where was he now?
No, Valentine shook her head at the hypothesis. If the young Bravo officer had brought her unconscious figure here, he would've remained by her side till she woke up. At least she guessed he would since that's what she would've done if their roles were reversed. But then again, if Jill had been in Aitken's shoes, she wouldn't have confronted a snake huge enough to swallow them both with ease.
She shook her head again. If Aitken hadn't brought her here, then she had probably teetered away from the scene after being bitten and found this room without recalling it, before seeing the bed and passing out on its surface.
But where was Aitken?
Valentine's eyes and mouth widened when she realized that she might've tottered away from the living roller coaster while the brazen young man was still fighting it. In that case, was Aitken even alive any more, especially after she left him alone against that creature?
"Oh, god, no!", she ran her left fingers up from the bridge of her nose towards her forehead.
There was no time for this self-pity, she chastised herself after a few seconds. She didn't know how long she had been unconscious, but from the look of her injured arm, she could tell that the snake bite had fortunately not been lethal to the point where she had bled to death. Instead, the wound seemed to have clotted. Just strange how there was no blood on the bed itself, she thought before moving towards the only door to the room.
Agent Valentine didn't remember how she had gotten here, thus she wasn't sure how to return to the spot where she had originally met officer Aitken. But hopefully, her memory would be jumpstarted once she left this room, she reasoned as she wobbled towards the exit. She had to find Aitken, regardless of whether or not he had been the one to insist on facing the huge snake, and to be fair, she wasn't sure that he was dead. So until she could find his remains, she was planning on searching for a living colleague, along with anyone else she could find who didn't deserve to be shot in the stomach and watched as they bled to death because they were the mastermind behind this palace, of course.
Wincing in pain as she made her way closer to the door, the female agent noticed the large shotgun that was leaning against the wall, along with eight rounds that were lying near it on the floor. It was only then that she recalled even having the weapon when she and Aitken had faced off against the snake. So maybe she had left it by the door as she dizzily stumbled inside and then assumedly collapsed on the bed, she reasoned to herself as she reached for the weapon and picked it off the floor.
Still loaded with seven unused cartridges, she smiled for the first time after checking the inside of the shotgun. Wincing in more pain as she squatted to pick up the extra ammunition, she then stood back up and placed all eight rounds within a pocket of her uniform, not caring that they were getting mixed up with the two 9mm clips already there.
"OK, Richie", she grimaced while opening the door and travelling into the hallway outside, "You better be alive so I can slap you when I find you".
"Aitken! AITKEEEN!", agent Valentine called out twice, using a loud whisper as she proceeded down the well-lit hallway.
No sign of life was encountered, human or otherwise, either in front or behind her, while she took several right turns along the path of this corridor.
The reason for the direction picked was because she had initially gone left upon leaving the room where she had woken up, only to come across a set of double windows that had a handful of zombies banging on the glass from the outside. She couldn't tell how many of those monsters were eagerly trying to come through the window. But she wasn't in the mood to agitate them by walking into their line of vision, thus leading them to burst through the window and forcing a showdown when there didn't need to be one. That was especially true since she wanted to keep the shotgun strapped to her back in case she ran into the giant snake, and she wasn't sure how effective the handheld 9mm Beretta would be against several zombies at once. Thus, she had gone in the opposite direction, the whole time hoping that she would remember the way she came to be on the bed, and getting increasingly frustrated when her recollection was just a blank. The pain from her left ankle was also exacerbating the situation since it made the mere act of walking more difficult.
"That's it, Jill, just call out his goddamn name", she reprimanded herself while checking behind her, always ensuring that no one and nothing could deliver a sneak attack when her back was turned, "As if this fucking place isn't dangerous enough as it is. You wanna make these freaks and the ones who magically created them aware that you're around the corner and coming their way".
She sighed at what she considered to be unprofessional behaviour on her part.
"Get a damn grip, already!", Valentine was still thinking out loud when she came across two closed wooden doors that were perpendicular to each other.
The STARS agent gripped the closer doorknob and pushed the door open while staying next to the entryway. The only sight that greeted her was the gold-coloured statue of a 3-foot tall tiger that rested on a waist-high pedestal. There was absolutely nothing else within the tiny room that the first door led to.
"Uh, yeah", she sarcastically waved her left index finger towards the statue before closing the door and carefully proceeding towards the second entryway.
Warily opening the second door, the police officer spotted a fairly large bedroom, though it was smaller than the room she had woken up in a few minutes ago.
The light was off, assuming it was still working. But there was enough illumination coming in through the open doorway to let her see that there was no movement within this area. However, Valentine held her breath when she realized there was the figure of an adult person lying on the bed, even if she couldn't tell what gender it was. The prone individual was definitely not moving, as the Alpha agent waited a few seconds, all the while anxiously looking over her shoulder, but never saw his or her chest rising, which indicated to her that the person was dead, or a zombie.
Agent Valentine proceeded further into the dark room, Beretta always ready while her free hand apprehensively searched for a lightswitch along the wall next to the doorway. Upon finding it, she quickly turned it on and involuntarily gasped as she saw that the man who was on the bed was lying on his back and missing the skin off his face, a stripped and bloodied skull almost grinning maniacally at the ceiling. She reflexively left the door open behind her as she ventured inside, trying hard to look over the rest of the area without being distracted by the grisly sight that permanently rested on the bed.
The only other furniture in the room was a wooden desk and chair combination that was thankfully a few steps away from the bed. So Valentine limped towards it in the hope of finding something useful, whether that was weapons, tools, a usable phone, or any information that would help identify the disturbed individuals who created this nightmarish place. She stood behind the chair and began examining the items that were in front of her. Along the surface of the desk were several pens, notebooks with scientific jargon that she couldn't understand, an unused lamp, a framed photo of a smiling, fit, middle-aged man who was standing in the wilderness among a small group of large, friendly dogs.
The photo drew her attention, if only for an instant, because she noticed something familiar about it. Picking it up with her left hand and bringing the picture closer to her face, Valentine recognized that one of the sociable dogs in it was wearing the same collar that she had removed from the large dog after having killed it earlier tonight.
Sighing, the Alpha agent placed the photo back down on the surface of the desk, continuing her search of anything out of the ordinary. She soon came upon several pages that contained handwriting that was in English instead of the diagrams and abbreviations that she couldn't read. So she folded those pages and placed them inside her trousers pocket without delay, not wanting to waste time reading them just yet. She was about to turn away and leave this area due to not having found anything practical, when something else that was found underneath the pages she had just picked up caught her attention. Scratched out of the varnish of the desk, most likely done with a pen due to the faint traces of ink that were also visible, were the words 'ITCHY' and 'TASTY'.
Agent Valentine shuddered for the first time since waking up at connecting those words to the faceless body that was in the room with her. It took her several seconds to bring her trembling under control, in which time she began heading towards the door to leave this awful room behind. She limped past the bed, aiming for a straight line to the open doorway, when she was interrupted by noise that sounded like someone or something sniffing. The Alpha officer's face grew even more tense with worry as she looked over at the horizontal body that remained on the bed.
"Uh, no, that wasn't you", she talked to the dead body, "So who?".
Almost in response to her question, the closed closet door that was on the other side of the bed, which she had carelessly not noticed when scanning this room, burst open and a slobbering zombie marched out of it. Valentine's eyes and mouth widened in a wordless cry as she was now locking eyes with a creature who couldn't think of her as anything other than food. She should've simply taken aim with the handgun and pulled the trigger. That would've ended this short-term threat quickly because the zombie was still several steps away from her. But something unnamed changed within agent Valentine's mind as she found herself becoming angrier at being threatened by this creature, and all the others like it who had killed agent Frost and dozens of civilians within Raccoon City. Thus, in a violation of protocol which she would've never thought doing before today, the STARS employee decided to be more creative and save her handgun ammunition for later.
Holstering the Beretta, she swiftly reached for and gripped the back of the chair that was in front of the desk. Valentine lifted the chair by her side before horizontally swinging it in a semi-circle. The chair's legs smashed into the zombie's torso without breaking apart, prompting the monster to moan louder as it temporarily lost its balance. Not surprisingly, though, it quickly regained its footing and continued its march towards her. Its refusal to lie down and play dead only infuriated her more, so agent Valentine rested the majority of her bodyweight on her right leg before delivering a front kick into its stomach. The blow could've been effective if not for her twisted left ankle, but instead, her attack sent a jolt of fresh pain travelling through her left leg.
"AAAAAAAH! FUCKER!", she furiously retreated a pair of steps before lifting the chair over the level of her head with both hands.
As the creature staggered closer to her, Valentine swung the chair downward in a perfect vertical semi-circle, crashing it against the zombie's head and breaking it into three pieces. She was irately wheezing as she saw that her antagonist had twisted around as a result of the impact and then had fallen on its back. But again, not surprisingly, the resilient zombie gave a pathetic moan as it tried to sit back up.
"I hope Joseph has fun kicking your ass in the afterlife", the STARS agent calmed down enough to make the next statement in her usual tone of voice as she withdrew the Beretta.
She reached down and pushed the muzzle of the handgun past the zombie's lips and into its mouth while undoing the weapon's safety mechanism. With one pull of the trigger, a muffled noise escaped from the back of the monster's head and sprayed the floor underneath it with a dark red stain. The zombie itself didn't make any more sounds as it collapsed on its back for the second time, and stayed immobile while a pool of blood gathered behind its head.
"Hmmm…", agent Redfield narrowed his eyelids as he was reviewing the map he held with both hands.
As far as he could tell, the chart indicated that a door was located out of this room and leading towards the basement. But looking ahead of him now, the young man could tell that he was in a wardrobe room that led nowhere, and was thus a dead end. The only sight in front of him was two large hangers that were full of items of clothing, some for men, others for women, and covering as many ranges as the officer could think of.
Everything from casual civilian clothes to nurses' outfits and even some police officer uniforms were on display. But apart from the massive clothe hangers that made up the entire wall of the room he was in, there was nothing to indicate to him as far as how he needed to get out of here, not without retracing his steps and starting over, anyway. And that wasn't an idea he liked, either, not when he was getting increasingly irritated at his inability to find any of his colleagues in the last thirty minutes since he had left agent Chambers in a lab and closed the door behind him. The Alpha officer would've preferred to lock the door, thus ensuring that the younger woman would've been the only person to open it from inside. But Chambers had insisted that the mixture of chemicals she'd be working with needed to allow her access to air, and the lack of usable windows necessitated that she have the door unlocked so as to air out the place every once in a while. So Redfield had grudgingly agreed to those terms and reminded her to shoot anything that didn't greet her in a friendly tone for half a dozen times before promising to return in exactly sixty minutes.
That was half an hour ago, and since then, canvassing the first and second floors of this maze that pretended to be a house led nowhere. No Alpha members, no Bravo members, no Jill, nothing, so Redfield growled under his breath as he had been looking forward to trying his luck with the basement below the ground floor. He had to admit that he clearly hadn't covered every single room and corridor that the first and second floors contained, but at this point, a change in venue seemed to be in order. That's because the lack of noise, whether by itself or in response to him calling out people's names, was irritating him.
The young man did remember reading something about how the basement was now flooded since one of these nutjob scientists had gone mad and destroyed it somehow. As if it was possible for them to be getting even closer to insanity than they were while working on this virus, he shook his head in disgust at the thought. But he wasn't about to let a little water deter him from finding Jill, Barry or the Alpha team captain.
"Besides, how bad can it be? Just don't be stupid enough to walk up to any loose power lines that are in the damn water", he had confidently thought out loud while following the only path to the basement that he could see on the map.
Except that, here he was, and as far as he could tell, the path wasn't. The young man was getting dangerously close to punching inanimate objects.
"Easy, Chris, save it for the freaks or their masters,
OK?", he consoled himself in an effort to calm down,
"Besides, Becca's right. At this rate, you're not gonna live long enough to see whoever's behind this shit brought to justice".
With those words, the police officer walked up to the clothes stands that were in front of the end wall of the room he was currently in. He had to check this place out close-up before deciding that there were no items or paths here for him to use. After all, if there was anything that the puzzle with the books that created a picture of the aspiring Playboy model taught him, it was that nothing in this house was as simple as it should've been.
"So why does the map say one thing while the room shows another?", he asked himself while casually inspecting the garments themselves, "Do I have to wear a maid's outfit or something, and that opens up yet another secret passage here?".
Nothing interesting about the clothes, except that the civilian and police outfits seemed out of place in an area that pretended to be all about science, experiments and lab work. Ironically, there wasn't a single white lab coat to be found anywhere, but except for that fact, Redfield couldn't find anything unusual. So he huffed as he pushed past the clothes and made his way to the back panel of the wardrobe in a last-ditch effort to examine it. Maybe there was a button to push somewhere, one that wasn't immediately visible to a casual scan of the area, which then led to a door opening that could take him to the basement.
Wondering about his theory, the Alpha agent energetically knocked on the wooden back panel. The echo he heard on the other side confirmed his suspicions that this definitely wasn't the end of the trail for him. The area behind the back panel was hollow, so it was just a matter of time to get past it to continue his search.
The idea of simply shooting or punching his way through the clothes hangers came and went, Redfield deciding to take another minute to see if there was another, more quiet way that didn't use as much of his precious ammunition.
"But could it be? Is the answer that goddamn obvious?", he asked himself while leaning the flamethrower against the wall and using both his hands to take a strong hold of the edge of the right hanger.
The young man pulled the hanger towards him, not caring that its flat bottom scraped against the floor, causing a sound that was an eerie imitation of fingernails on a chalkboard. He kept pulling until the heavy panel was four feet in front of its previous position, and exhaled loudly as he found nothing behind it but a stone wall.
"Fucking hell!", the officer swore under his breath, looking behind him for good measure.
Finding no movement anywhere, he decided to try one more idea before leaving this place and resuming his search elsewhere. Maybe he'd torch the room once he left it, he grimaced as he set about the task of moving the left-side clothes hanger.
"God knows they deserve a lot worse", he thought of the mansion's inhabitants as he began pushing the second hanger parallel to the wall behind it, towards the spot where the first one used to be.
Redfield laughed out loud in satisfaction as he noticed a metal ladder that originated on the floor behind the left hanger and led downwards. The top of the ladder was a semi-circle which was embedded into the floor itself, ensuring that it would stay in place regardless of the weight of anyone who was using it. The STARS officer quickly looked down the crevice that it led to, wishing he had access to a flashlight since he couldn't see a lot of details due to the darkness below. To make matters worse, he'd have to keep the less lethal Beretta in his hand while climbing down the steps and strap the flamethrower to his back due to his inability to manoeuvre on the ladder with the giant weapon in his arms. And ever since getting used to the stopping power that the flamethrower had, the idea of facing whatever he was sure was lurking down there with only a 9mm handgun wasn't an uplifting one.
"Oh well", he sighed as he began securing the 3-foot long flamethrower to his back, "Here's hoping that the freaks are asleep when I'm headin' down. How long will it take me to pull that thing out once I'm at the bottom, anyway?".
Hoping he wouldn't be made to regret his bravado, the young man then withdrew his handgun and, keeping it in his right grip, began climbing down the ladder, doing his best to make as little noise as possible.
"Well, this will do me a lot of good if I fall in", Redfield moaned as he was looking at the path ahead of him.
The good news was that no creatures or hostile human beings greeted him as he set foot at the bottom of the ladder. So the Alpha agent was able to holster his handgun and re-use his trusty flamethrower while investigating the basement area. That same flamethrower was now turned on, the 5-inch tongue of bluish fire waiting patiently at its tip, almost eager to be used when he pulled the trigger. But Redfield hadn't run into anything alive while making his way to this spot here.
This place, on the other hand, was a hallway where the entire section in front of him was a 20-yard long path of deep water. He couldn't tell the depth of the liquid as the green water was too dirty and dark to see all the way to the bottom. But it was definitely deeper than his height, as three square-shaped wooden crates that were five yards long each were easily floating on its surface. So Redfield had the choice of trying to jump from one crate to another, knowing full well that he'd have to swim the rest of the way if he lost his balance and fell off, or he could just turn around and head back to the ground floor above.
"Oh, fuck that, came too far to quit now", he decided as he turned the flamethrower off and repositioned it on his upper back, knowing full well that it'd be useless if he were to fall into the water and something was living at the bottom of this liquid hole.
Beretta in hand, the young man took a running leap, always keeping his eyes on the edge of the first crate, and surprised himself with the ease in which he landed on the wobbly wooden surface. He anxiously spread his arms parallel to the floor in an effort to not fall down, and while the crate itself shook at the impact, at least it didn't sink or overturn like it could've. So the officer was grateful as he made his way to the end of the crate and eyed the beginning of the second one that was less than two yards away.
Two more jumps led him to the other side of the watery obstacle, and Redfield proudly congratulated himself as he holstered the handgun and withdrew the flamethrower for the second time, turning the powerful weapon on as he walked. He made his way down this corridor, noticing that he was constantly walking downhill as he did. Coming to a right turn, he took it with the same caution he always had on the job, and proceeded down to the end of this hallway, wondering why it was an even steeper descent than the first. Redfield didn't think about that mystery for long, though, because he soon came upon clear water that signalled the beginning of a major flood on the other side of the massive, metal double doors. He had reached the end of this hallway and the beginning of whatever was flooded on the other side. He gripped the flamethrower at a ready position, confident that he could fry any zombie who was walking about in waist-high water, and then carefully opened the left side of the double doors.
Even while prepared for anything he might've seen, the young man's eyes bulged at the sight of a circular aquarium that was at least 100 yards in diameter. But as he had guessed, the green water level was only high enough to be reaching his waistline if he continued walking for several more yards, and this time, it was clear enough that he could see the floor. So nothing could've snuck up on him from the bottom while he walked, which was all the encouragement he needed to proceed. The STARS officer took several steps into the aquaring, gradually getting water up to his knees, but he then froze when he finally noticed the creatures who were occupying this area. Instead of the standard zombie that he expected to face off against, Redfield's mouth dropped open when he saw three fins that were freely swimming around the ring. Sharks, unlike zombies, wouldn't have to come out of the water to attack him, and their home under water meant that his flamethrower was useless. But what about his handgun?
A quick scan of the surroundings told him that there were three giant fish in the water, and as far as he could tell, all three had broken out of a circular glass container that was placed at the middle of the flooded ring. That was easy enough to guess because that same middle container had a large hole in its side, one that was big enough for even a great white shark to pass through, and the water level within it was the same colour as the one that was flooding the ring now. So the sharks had taken advantage of whatever chaos had created the hole in the side of their aquarium to bust out of the glass cage and then took over the ring that surrounded it once enough water had flooded that space.
Redfield quickly tried to judge how big the creatures were even as he saw that the fins began turning and swimming in his direction, so his presence had already been spotted. He especially wanted to know if they were large enough to be destroyed by using his Beretta pistol. The one nearest him, closing in from thirty yards away, must've been about 6 to 8 feet long, which shouldn't be too difficult to kill with 9mm rounds if he was careful when aiming for it. The second one, that was about ten yards behind the first fish, was about the same size, so the STARS agent began trying to remember how many extra pistol clips he had within his uniform. If he could lure them close to him while standing at the safety of the doorway where the sharks couldn't swim, he should be able to shoot all three of them dead without being touched by any of the monsters.
Which brought him to the whereabouts and size of the third shark there. As the young man spotted it on the other side of the ring, an involuntary gasp escaped his lips when he realized that the third fin was more than twice as big as the first two.
"Holy shit! How big ARE you?!", Redfield exclaimed while the first two, smaller sharks got even closer to him.
In response to his question, the third shark burst its head out of the surface of the water, aiming its gaping mouth towards the ceiling and prompting the Alpha agent to involuntarily shriek again. This creature had to have been at least 20 feet long, possibly even reaching 25. Redfield couldn't tell for sure due to the distance between himself and it, but also because he was too busy being shocked by the hundreds of giant teeth its open mouth contained.
"No", he remarked as he shook his head in a calmer fashion, then turned around and rushed out of the shallow water while the first two sharks were closing in on him.
Standing two steps outside of the open double doors, the water level only reaching up to the level of his boots, Redfield's mouth stayed open while he surveyed the watery monsters ahead of him. Noticing that the target left their domain, the two smaller sharks swam as far as they could towards him and then smoothly turned back, swimming deeper into the middle of the ring.
"Fuck all three of you", the young man continued talking, "I'm taking my shit and getting the hell outta here".
He was about to turn around and make his way back through the obstacle of crates and up the ladder to the first floor, chalking up this experience to a mistake that cost him some time. But he then noticed something that was floating on the surface of the water that wasn't a shark or a piece of wood, steel or glass. Instead, Redfield angrily observed that he was looking at a severed arm. There were no sleeves or any other pieces of clothing to identify who the body part belonged to, but its owner had died only a short time ago, as the arm's skin colour still made it apparent that it came from a White, Hispanic or Asian man.
Redfield licked his lips, asking himself if that arm could've belonged to someone from Bravo team. Truth is that he just didn't know. He was returning to agent
Chambers in a little while, and agents Speyer, Dooley, Sullivan and Dewey were unfortunately confirmed dead.
But he didn't know the fate of the remaining two Bravo members, as team leader Marini and agent Aitken were still unaccounted for. So was he going to turn his back and retreat from these giant man-eater sharks who might've killed someone he once knew and worked with?