Chapter 29
The path continues through the thick foliage and twists around to lead straight to the fountain where Chris and the others await.
That was quick. For some reason, I thought it would take longer.
The group stands when we arrive, and I scan the area for danger. Lots of water and vegetation, but the closest zombies are a comfortable distance away. I detect no trace of the Ashfords, other than Alexis, and that's a good thing because I am not in the mood to get in a battle with Alexia just now.
All I want to do is find everyone and get home as quickly as possible. Maybe take a nice hot shower and eat a decent meal.
Chris and Claire are more than a little surprised to see their dad approach with a sad frown.
" Dad! How did you...what did…" Claire starts.
Thomas sighs, an attentive circle gathering around him.
Most of then look tired.
Carlos's outfit is coated in rips and tears, as if he were running through a briar patch all day long. His hair is likewise disheveled, and in addition to blood it is caked with bits of dried mud and tree bark. He's weary, but alert. He knows better than to let his guard down. I wonder how long the dogs were chasing him before he found the tree?
Steve is sopping wet. He has no visible cuts or scrapes, and his clothes are in much better condition than the rest of us, but he's missing his gun. Despite this, he manages to keep a positive outlook regardless of his obvious discomfort. I must give him credit--he's handling it better than I would. I absolutely detest being wet outside of a shower or swimming environment. Running in soggy clothes is the definition of agony.
Jill, naturally, is the freshest of the group, and still manages to look as if she'd just stepped out of a beauty parlor. Her reddish hair glints with gold in the mid-morning sunlight, and her face is fresh and unscathed. She's very worried about the situation, and it shows in her demeanor. She must really care for her husband and friends to leave her kids with a friend and come out here for even a short time.
Chris and Claire, of course, both look like they've been to Hell and back.
" Chris, Claire, I have something to tell you." Thomas confesses, his grim tone matching his mood, " Something that I probably should've told you a long time ago." He pauses a moment, as if to build excitement, and looks around.
Get on with it!
I think, anxious to know how this could've happened." Well? " Chris crosses his arms, no more patient with his father than I am.
Thomas shakes his head sadly, his withered gray eyes coming to rest upon his kids. " It all happened a long time ago shortly after your mother and I first met. At the time, she was only fourteen years old and I was sixteen. We…we were both too young to have children, but it happened anyway. We had a daughter, but we couldn't keep her and neither of our families wanted her. You have to understand that those were some tough times back then. Our families were still feeling the effects of the Great Depression, and money was scarce. So your mother's parents decided to put our child up for adoption. A good family…the Mc Clays…adopted her, and even decided to keep the name we'd given her. We used to visit them sometimes just to see how everything was going before they moved away. Years later, when we were older, wiser, and all-around better-off, your mother and I got married and had you kids. Since your sister lived so far away, and since she was getting along rather well, we decided not to intervene and never told you about her. After all, it'd been so long since our last visit anyway…we thought we were doing the right thing." Tears well in Thomas's eyes, and his next words are rough and forced, " Your sister…her name was Clarice. We named Claire after her, in fact. But now…now…" His voice breaks, and he buries his face in his hands and sobs uncontrollably.
" What?! What happened?! " Chris presses, completely shocked.
Claire is quicker to put it together. " Clarice…Alan, Spade, wasn't that the name of your moth…"
" It's true," Thomas interrupts, tearing his hands away from his eyes and regaining a normal posture, " Clarice is…was…Spade and Alan's mother. That would make them your niece and nephew, I guess. But like Alan said…Clarice is dead. I heard her husband was around here somewhere, I'll have to tell him the news."
" No! " I gush, " That's not a good idea! "
Thomas cocks an eyebrow at me. " Why not? "
" My dad…you see, he…" I search for a tactful way to put it, " doesn't like Redfields. I mean really, really doesn't like Redfields."
" This is impossible! " Chris declares, his face so priceless I almost laugh, " Wesker's my brother-in-law?! "
Steve grins and elbows him good-naturedly. " Small world, 'ey? "
" But…" Chris's eyes are as wide as saucers. He focuses them on me, and I can't stop my smile.
" Hi Uncle."
He bites his lower lip and just keeps shaking his head in disbelief, staring at me as if I were an alien from another planet rather than his nephew.
Claire's reaction is quite different. " Oh, this is rich! " She laughs, " My brother-in-law tried to kill me, and my nephew has a supervirus! "
" Supervirus? " Thomas echoes, totally stumped.
I shake my head. " Long story."
He shifts his gaze back to Claire. " You've met Clarice's husband before? "
Chris snorts. " Yeah. We knew him pretty well…bad news. Stay as far away from him as you can; he's a murderer. Killed over half of S.T.A.R.S. and tried to kill me and Claire on more than one occasion. Remember that time I had to go to surgery because I had a pipe rammed through my gut? He did that. I gave the nurses a phony story about falling off a house because the truth was too unbelievable. He hates me with a vengeance, all because I ruined his plans. "
Now Thomas is surprised. " He did all that?! I heard he was a jerk but that was it. Sounds like he should be turned over to the authorities and given the death sentence."
Carlos nods. " That would work…if you could catch him."
" He has a supervirus," I explain, " one that makes him superhumanly strong and fast. Believe me, you'd have better luck bear-hunting with a stick than trying to take him into custody."
Thomas turns to me. " A supervirus? Like yours? "
I am truthful. " Yep. Just like mine. Only I'm not bent on killing everyone."
Chris nods in my direction. " Alan, give him a demonstration." He turns to his father, " Watch closely."
A demonstration. Ok. My eyes catch the marble angel at the center of the fountain, made to look as if it were pouring water from a vase. The structure is easily life-size, and firmly attached to the bottom of the pool by a sturdy cement column. That will work perfectly.
Like lightning, I zip over and leap onto the supporting ledge. Once I am sure everyone is watching, I rip the angel right off it's stony platform and toss it up into the air like a beach ball. When it falls, I strike out with one arm and smack it over a hundred feet where it collides with a tree and crashes to the ground. All with the ease of a kitten batting a ball of yarn. It's actually kind of fun destroying Umbrella's property.
For my next act, I reach down and pick up a fragment of white marble that shattered off with the removal of the statue. With it in hand, I leap back and land right in front of Thomas. I open my hand and allow him to see it. " Real marble. Go ahead, touch it."
He does. " You're right." He says, awestruck.
I close my hand and squeeze. When I next open it, there is nothing but white powder.
Thomas backs away from me, probably fearing I might do the same to him.
" See? I am very strong. My father has the same powers. We both have a rare virus in our blood."
" Wow." Thomas marvels, reminding me of a small child who just saw a scary movie, " If your dad can do all of that, and he's half as bad as you say he is, I can see why you'd want to stay away from him."
I nod, glad to have cleared that up. Dad's going to be bummed enough when he finds out he married his worst enemy's sister, he'll kill Thomas in a heartbeat.
Thomas shakes his head. " Zombies, superviruses, horrible mutations…what's going on here? This place…this place is impossible. How'd this all happen? "
" In a nutshell? Umbrella, HCF, and a host of other mad-scientist groups we may not even know about yet concocted a couple of really nasty viruses that turn people into zombies. They also used them to make bio-weapons." Chris frowns, " But…there'll be time for the full story later. Right now, I still have a friend missing. Have you seen a young woman around here by the name of Rebecca Chambers? "
Thomas shakes his head. " No."
The thunderous crack of trees and bushes being mowed over by something big makes me jump. Seconds later, and the others hear it too. We all turn our heads in the direction of the noise. I can't see through all the leafy trees and plants, but I don't get a good feeling. The ground trembles beneath my feet.
" Run! " I call, " Whatever it is, it can't be good! "
They don't wait to be told twice. We run in the direction of the mansion.
" Hhhhrrraaaahhh!! " I look back to see a mountain of hideous gray flesh bursting through the trees, literally mowing them over like an oversized bulldozer.
My first thought is that this creature is too big to be an elephant, and my second is that it's too hideous. But with a long hose of a rotting trunk split into two at the end, four tusks, and a gaping maw filled with row after row of deformed razor-teeth, this creature may once have been an elephant. It's face is a pink and gray mess of flesh with two pure red eyes hanging right out of their sockets. One of it's huge ears is in tatters, the other is almost gone. Once it has fully emerged, I notice huge spikes or protrusions of bone sticking out of it's back covered in a rancid yellow goo. It's hindlegs have mutated into something resembling furless lion's paws, and the tail is nothing but a long extension of bone swathed with little bits of decaying flesh and gelled blood. Ugly beyond all reason. Definitely not the work of the T-virus. G-virus, perhaps?
No wonder Mr. Elephant is not happy. " Hhhraaahhh! " It bellows. Making the point all the more clear. It raises it's double-trunk and spits a purple spray at me. I dodge, and the stuff hits a tree, quickly dissolving the bark and leaves.
Acid! It's spitting some kind of acid!
Ahead, my friends hurry into the mansion with me and the mutant elephant hot on their heels.
" What the…" I barely have time to hear Alfred say as we spill into the main room in a panicked herd.
" Gang way! " Steve calls from up front, pushing past a startled Alfred and Ash who happened to be standing in the way and heading for the front door.
The rest of us hurry by; Alfred and Ash just standing and watching like a pair of dimwits, utterly confused. I think I will laugh my head off when they get trampled to a pulpy pancake.
" Run! " Alexis warns, and seconds later the entire front-end of the mansion explodes inward in an eruption of wood, metal, and dust.
" Hhhhraaahhh! " The wall didn't even slow the creature down.
The others hurry through the closest door, and I deliberately slow my pace, watching to see what the Ashfords will do.
" Gah! " Ash exclaims, horrified.
With reflexes like these, it's a wonder these jerks didn't die years ago. The elephant is almost standing on top of them before they attempt to run.
Right then, the floor-boards creak and moan under the massive weight before giving way altogether. The giant elephant-thing crashes right through the floor with a piercing trumpet of surprise, taking a screaming Ash and Alfred with it. The whole action is about as quiet as a 747 jumbo-jet flying straight through the room, and I have to cover my ears or risk going deaf.
Crash! Smash! Boom! The elephant falls through more than one floor. If the male Ashfords survived, they're going to be in some serious pain. If the elephant survives, it's going to have a very hard time sneaking up on anyone inside a facility where the typical rooms are nowhere near big enough to accommodate a creature of it's size.
Snickering quietly at the ineptness of Alfred and his lame son, I turn and head for the door everyone else was in such a hurry to get to. To my surprise, it is locked. Right, like a little thing like a locked door is going to stand between a wall-wrecking elephant-monster and it's victims. And how did they find the time to lock the door in the first place?
Weird sounds emit from the room--like something grinding, and the others scream.
What in the name of all things holy is going on in there? I yank the door open, and am literally ran over by Natasha and Steve. I step aside in the nick of time and narrowly avoid being trampled by everyone else.
" The walls are closing in! " Claire explains, the last one out, " Thank God you opened the door! We couldn't get it open! " There is a dull thud as the left and right walls inside the room slam together. " That is the last time you pick the room." She pants, eyeing Steve like a jinx.
There is a brief silence as everyone's eyes sweep over the huge pit now decorating the floor, the deep burgundy carpeting hiding the weak spots along the edge where the floor may be ready to cave in.
" Mr. Mutated Elephant was too heavy for his own good." I explain light-heartedly, sensing the impending questions, " Alfred and Ash were a little slow on the draw, and they went through too."
" Wow, that's…" Natasha approaches the lip of the hole to look down against all the good sense God could've given her.
" Don't…" Chris starts, but the advice comes too late as the flimsy wood Natasha is standing on gives way, and she begins to fall into the hole with a scream.
In a flash I am there, grabbing her arm and hoisting her back over the edge. All in less than two seconds. I can only pray the section of floor I'm standing on doesn't also fall in.
" Don't you ever listen? " I hiss softly once she is up and back in the safe-zone.
" Nice save! " Spade cheers, giving me a thumbs-up.
I don't reply. There are sounds coming from below.
" Ugh, let's not tell Mother about this." I hear Ash groan.
" I don't plan on it. Come on." Alfred's painful reply.
So they did survive. But they're hurt. I can hear it in their voices. They must be two floors below us. There is the creak of a door being opened, then their retreating footsteps into another room.
I hear nothing to indicate the elephant-thing is still alive--then again, perhaps it is merely stunned? Hard to kill a virus-infected creature of that size. Unless it landed at just the right angle on something sharp and pointy.
Then…footsteps! The door to the far right…they're quick and light, like someone or something running.
" Alan, what are you…"
I am at the door in a blur of speed. The footsteps are getting closer….closer…I tense up, ready to attack if necessary. I have no idea who or what could be coming, only that they're obviously light.
The door flies open and I nearly swipe Rebecca's head off.
Rebecca! I back off and allow her room, embarrassed to have acted so quickly. It was a good thing I caught myself.
She's in much better condition than when I last saw her--her cuts are healing quite nicely, and she seems to have no trouble walking. But she's winded, probably from running a long way, and she kneels forward, resting her hands on her knees.
" Rebecca! You're alright! " Carlos beams, relieved.
" Yes but…" Rebecca huffs, breathing fast and heavy, " Alexandra's…in trouble! "
Chris's smile at seeing Rebecca okay evaporates. " What do you mean? "
Rebecca straightens, her heart beating rapidly, " Acid Rain…they caught her--shot her up with something that made her sleep--when I tried to help her, they sent those dogs after me."
The hurried clicking of claws against linoleum alerts me to the opened door Rebecca just ran through where a pack of German Shepherds rounds the corner of the black-and-white checkered hall, tongues lolling and teeth bared. Perhaps the weirdest thing about these dogs is that there is nothing weird at all about them. They look completely normal--black and tan fur, the legs, ears, noses, and eyes all where they should be and in the correct number. They're even wearing collars with dog-tags.
The leader of the pack, Rex, stops about halfway down the hall and a good fifty feet away from me. The rest of the pack--I count five altogether-- freeze behind him. I watch as the dogs study me curiously, not daring to move an inch.
Then, with fearful eyes and a loud 'yipe', rex turns and runs back the way he came; the rest of the pack following with their tails stuck between their legs.
What was that all about? Perhaps the dogs sensed I was not what I seemed?
It's likely--I recall all the times I had to break into complexes with guard-dogs present; and in almost all of the cases the dogs either ignored me or ran and hid from me. Of course, the few that actually attacked I either killed or injured. But it always made me kinda sad. I generally like dogs, and I hate killing normal dogs of any sort and try to avoid it if I can. After all, they're only doing what they were trained to do.
" Ok, that was weird." Rebecca remarks, noting the fleeing dogs, " I've heard of scaredy-cats, but scaredy-dogs? " She shakes her head, then turns to meet Chris's gaze dead-on. " We have to save Alexandra."
Chris furrows his brows, and I can tell he doesn't really want to do it. " But Rebecca, we're finally altogether now. We're running low on ammunition and stamina, and we've already over-stayed our welcome. And don't forget--Wesker and Alexia are still running around out there. We need to go now. I'm sure Alexandra's parents will look after her. I'm sure she's probably…"
" " Gonna die! " Alexis finishes, running to Rebecca, " Do you know where they're at? " She asks, face pale with worry.
Rebecca nods mechanically. " Yes, down that hallway…I could show you! "
Chris shakes his head in disapproval. " I'm afraid there's no time." He doesn't want to get involved. He doesn't want to mess with the Ashfords. Now that everyone's in one place, for once, all Chris wants to do is get out of this bloody city. He probably figures the Ashfords can take care of themselves. I can see where he's coming from--he doesn't mean to sound cruel, but people have already died and he doesn't want to risk anyone else. He's just doing what a good leader should do and making the tough decisions.
" Jill, is the chopper ready? " He turns to his wife, mentally perceiving the discussion over.
Jill nods grimly. " Yes. I made sure it was big enough for everyone in case something like this happened." She starts out around the gaping hole in the middle of the room. " It's this way."
Thomas, Carlos, Natasha, Spade, and Claire follow; some more reluctantly than others.
" I can see why it wouldn't matter to you, but I'm going to help my sister! " Alexis declares, shooting Chris an I've-made-up-my-mind-so-don't-even-try-and-stop-me look.
" I'll go with her." I say before Chris can object.
" Yeah, and we know where an extra jet is." Alexis adds.
Chris softens. " Alright. Here." He reaches into his pocket and tosses me a small dart-pistol. " In case you run into Alexia. The dart with the cure is loaded and ready. Watch yourselves."
I nod, shoving the pistol into my pocket. " Thanks."
" I'm going too! " Rebecca pipes, " I can…"
" No." Chris counters firmly, " Alan and Alexis can do the job just fine. You're still hurt."
He does have a point. I don't really want Rebecca with us either--she's sweet and cheerful and everything, but not much of an asset in a fight. That, plus the fact that she's wounded…my mind floods with the images of me having to save her from my dad, Alexia, and any other nasty we may happen to encounter. Really, I think, what good could she do? On the bright side, at least my blood didn't mutate her or anything. That's good to know.
" Alright." Rebecca gives in with a defeated sigh, " Go down the hall and keep going straight until you get to the staircase. Take the first door on the left, and you'll be in a blue kitchen…"
" A blue kitchen? " Alexis echoes.
" That's right. Anyway, you'll see an open hatch near the stove with a metal ladder going down, go down and you'll end up in a rec-room with a big swimming pool. The door to your left will lead into the room Acid Rain first surprised Alexandra and I in. I can't promise they stayed there, though."
" Wait a minute," I say, " If those dogs were chasing you the whole way, how did they manage to follow you up the ladder? Or through closed doors either, for that matter? "
Rebecca pauses, perplexed. " I don't know. I never thought about it before, but now that you mention it, yeah, that is weird."
" The wonder-animals of Umbrella," Chris drawls, " they're just full of surprises."
" Actually, I think those dogs were more Acid Rain type," I gently correct, " I've been down in their labs and they specialize in non-mutated super-smart animals."
Alexis suddenly takes off down the hall at full speed. " Alan, come on! "
" Gotta go! " I say my goodbyes to Chris and Rebecca before darting off after her.
But I do catch what Chris's words as I leave: " Come on, 'Becca. Let's get out of here before we have another encounter with my brother-in-law." He hisses the words brother-in-law like curse-words. Who could blame him? I'd sure hate to have an evil brother-in-law, but now that my mother is dead, I wonder if they'd still even be in-laws. Hmm. I'll have to look into that some time when I'm not rushing to the rescue.
Now it's just me and Alexis. I really hope little Alexandra is alright.
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It's countdown time: Only a few chapters left to go…..
