Chapter 25: Last Moments
Phoenix could not remember the last time he wore such a fancy, well-suited dress. He was dressed in a prim and proper tuxedo, along with a bright blue bowtie, since Sara insisted. Other people were gave barely perceptible looks at his choice of colour, giving disapproving looks but saying nothing more. Sara probably wanted to attract some attention with this weird colour.
" Why the glum face?" Sara asked.
Phoenix was not really glum, he just hated all this attention. The tuxedo he wore was rented by Sara. He could not even afford the rental for a damned suit, but Sara insisted. If so, he decided to insist on something else.
" Not really…" he muttered, although it was more to himself.
It was close to midnight and almost all the restaurant's patrons had left already. Phoenix felt awkward that they both had the entire place to themselves, save for the servants that work around the place. He fingered the item in his pocket, just waiting for the right moment to use it.
" Right, Phoenix, we are mostly alone here, so what is the big fuss about waiting so long for some privacy?" Sara asked.
It took her by surprise when Phoenix got off his chair and walked towards her. She gave a look of utter amazement when he kneeled down next to her. He took out a small square box that was covered in velvet and opened it. There was a small ring in it, and on the top there was a solitaire diamond on it.
" I…well, how should I say this? Um…Sara, would you make me the happiest man in my life?" Phoenix blurted out.
He was about to slap his head in stupidity. Earlier this morning, he had written down a full one-minute speech on what he wanted to say to her during the moment like this. And now, all he could afford was a short question. He hoped it was enough.
Sara's hand went to her mouth, which was agape. Her eyes shifted from the ring to Phoenix, who was looking hopefully, then back to the ring, before circling the area looking at the vicinity in general. Phoenix felt the mood was disrupted by a couple of waiters who had caught his antics and were looking at him avidly.
" Phoenix…I…just don't know…what to say…" Sara stammered.
" Just say yes…." Phoenix replied. Ouch, what am I saying!
However, Sara Corrine's reply was not what he expected. She turned and looked aside with a dejected face, her lips trembling slightly. Phoenix looked at her, utterly taken aback by her reaction. Her lips parted, with the words " I can't" streaming out.
" Wait, what are you talking about?" Phoenix replied.
" I'm sorry, Phoenix. I can't…" she stammered, looking away.
Phoenix dropped his arms in dejection, wondering what went wrong. He was not sure how long he sat on the floor, even though his legs started aching. He felt something soft brush against his cheeks, and then pushing his face aside so that a kiss could be planted on his cheek.
" And to not make you the happiest man in your life, I'll marry you," Sara whispered into his ear softly, her voice coy and teasing. Phoenix would have loved to slap her for that trick she pulled, but instead, he gave her a big hug.
" And, so to make sure there is no misunderstanding upon the earlier issue, I read your speech this morning which you wrote down. Did you forget about it?" Sara asked.
---
Phoenix Grant and Sara Corrine got married in a local church, a small affair with only about a handful of guest, since Sara came from the orphanage and did not have too many friends, while Phoenix was a former mercenary who was hiding from Umbrella. They did not wanted it anyway, so most of the people there were just to witness their wedding.
Phoenix was in conflict with himself. Here he was, marrying a lecturer of a university while he was not working at all. Being a house husband was not something he really envisioned in his life. He could not work, or would not want to. It made him feel like he should not have joined Umbrella in the first place.
" Something on your mind?" Sara asked.
Phoenix woke up from his day-dream. He saw Sara standing in front of him, looking at him in a curious way. She was already dressed for work, her suitcase in her hand. Phoenix was busy cleaning a gun, a Beretta 92, a gun which Phoenix got for his birthday by Sara.
" What?" Phoenix asked.
" You seem very disorientated these days. Something on your mind?" she asked, feeling worried.
" Nothing's up," Phoenix said smiling. He placed the handgun on top of his desk. Sara smiled at him, then eyed the gun and gave him a look of disapproval.
" You know, I put up with you owning guns, alright. But leaving them around the house for people to pick up is just too much. Why can't you just keep them?" Sara scolded, her hands akimbo.
" They are not loaded," Phoenix defended himself.
" What if our kids decided to pick one up?" Sara rebutted.
" That is if we even have kids…" Phoenix said.
---
Phoenix sat up suddenly, his whole body sweating profoundly. He was not sure why, but he was gasping heavily for breath. Beads of sweat were dropping down from his forehead, dripping all over him. He turned over, and almost gave a cry of surprise as he saw Sara Corrine lying next to her, cuddled up in a fetal position, cooing softly in her sleep. He knew that was impossible, since he just saw her die in his sleep.
Was that all another dream?
He looked around. He had fallen asleep on the cold, hard floor of the pool area. He wondered when he had dozed off. He remembered staying up for a while, but he was unaware that he had fallen asleep. Someone had kindly placed a blanket over him to keep him warm, and Phoenix could see who.
" Did you just see a ghost?" Max asked playfully.
He had been busy packing most of their stuff in whatever bags he could find. He had lined-up and loaded all the rifles and guns they had. Having finished the job, he was now sitting down chewing on a piece of bread. He was smiling at Phoenix, grinning sheepishly when Phoenix looked his way.
" Bad dream, huh? I get that once in a while…" Max replied. He handed out his arm to Phoenix, offering him his half-chewed bread. " Want some? There's only a little more left."
" Wait a second…how can you…" Phoenix started stammering. Max looked at him quizzically.
" Aren't you wounded? How can you move about like that?" Phoenix exclaimed, getting to his feet, although he made sure that he got up quietly and spoke softly so that he would not wake the others, but it was ineffective. Rick suddenly rubbed his eyes and sat up, loudly saying " What's going on here?" This made everyone wake up.
" What's all the noise about? Hey, Max…wait, you are alright now?" Kimmy said, her eyes opened wide as she saw Max moving about.
Max got up and started jumping around. Phoenix was almost waiting in anticipation for his wounds to somehow open and causing him to collapse on the floor. Besides having his upper body only covered in bandages, he looked great. " Man, that's one hell of a stuff you gave me!" he exclaimed, before suddenly clutching his side in pain. Kimmy was already up next to him as he dropped to his knees before saying, " Ouch, maybe I over did that."
Dalton was laughing about as hard as he could, rolling all over the floor. Phoenix sniggered at Max, before saying " Idiot."
" Well, I guess that serum worked better than I expected," Mercury concluded.
" Damn, I'm thinking I'm ready to move," Max exclaimed.
" That's great," Dalton said " It's morning already, 7 a.m. to be exact. Let's get ready to move out!"
-
Everyone got ready to leave. They ate the last remaining pieces of food Max had brought from the train. Everyone was quiet, probably trying to conserve their energy, or either that nobody was in the mood to talk.
" Are you sure you are alright?" Kimmy asked, stroking Max on the back gently.
" Look, I'm fine, alright. Don't worry about me," Max replied, finishing his last piece of bread.
" Well guys, I'll go check the area outside, just to make sure everything is alright," Dalton said. He got up and picked u a rifle as he walked to the front entrance. The rest of them got to their feet and started picking up their belongings. However, it was not long before they heard the sound of footsteps coming in their direction.
Everyone turned to see Dalton running back into the pool area as fast as he could, with his hand clasped to his mouth. Before they could ask what was wrong, he suddenly dropped his rifle, dropped to his knees and skidded to the edge of the pool where he started vomiting the remains of whatever he had eat earlier into the pool, which came out in a small brown glob.
" Hey, are you alright?" Iris asked, rubbing his back as he started coughing.
" Disgusting…" was all he could muster out of his mouth.
Mercury eyed the front door, which Dalton had left open after running back. He set off to see what had caused Dalton to barf. Kimmy and Phoenix followed him slowly. They reached the front entrance and took a look outside.
The first thing that greeted them was an intense, thick putrid smell, which smelt like a mix of rotten bodies and sulfur dioxide. It was so intense, Kimmy had to close her nostrils and breathe through her mouth. Even with that, it was still disgusting.
" I see…" Mercury said.
Several blocks down, the three of them could see the road being lined up with a ton of zombie corpses. It looked like they had been there since last night. Around them were several hunters, who looked like they were patrolling the area, watching out for any further arrivals from the zombies. The hunters were probably responsible for killing off the zombies since last night, causing their bodies to rot and decay over some time.
" Mercury, the thing you asked me to throw last night…" Kimmy started.
" Yes, it attracts both zombie and hunter alike. Since it was possible, I used it to attract both of them to the same spot. The hunters would easily kill off the zombies around this area, giving us some space to move around. The only drawback I did not consider was the smell," Mercury admitted.
" I'm not complaining," Phoenix said.
" Hey!" Kimmy suddenly exclaimed.
It started raining all of a sudden. It was not heavy, just a mere drizzle. Both Kimmy and Mercury looked into the sky. There were not many clouds in the sky, which was good news since they did not want to run in a heavy rain. The rain did not bother the hunters, as they continued to pace around the area.
However, the rain signified something else for Phoenix. He raised an open palm to the rain, feeling the small drops of water hitting his skin. He felt it wash all over his hand, soaking his palm under the rain. It felt cold, unutterably cold, just like the time before…
---
It was drizzling slightly, but that did not bother Phoenix one bit.
The whole crowd of people was running into the opposite direction, away from danger and towards safety, but Phoenix was doing the opposite. He ran through the mess of panicky people, needing to pass them. He had to forcefully push his way through the crowd. One man tried to stop him from going back into the danger zone, but all he received from Phoenix was a strong punch on his jaw.
" Please, no…don't let it happen…" Phoenix sobbed.
Phoenix was still cleaning his gun when he saw on the television that there was a robbery going on. A number of highly armed bandits have stormed into a bank and were stealing money from it. The police arrived in time to corner them in the bank, but not before they took some hostages. He would not have bothered about such news, but Sara was supposed to be there.
The crowd around the bank started to disperse when the desperate robbers started firing their weapons at the police. As Phoenix made his way into the crowd, he could see the fight going on. The policemen, who had surrounded the building, were of no match to the robbers in terms of firepower since the robbers were armed with sub-machineguns while the police had to settle with the lowly pistols they were issued with.
Many policemen lay in the streets, dead from multiple gunshot wounds. Several others who were wounded were gunned down by the frantic robbers who were now storming out of the building, trying to get away. They managed to take over several police cars and took off, leaving the policemen in a mess.
The place then became eerily quiet after the robbers left, only the sound of falling rain could be audibly heard by everyone. Phoenix slowly moved into the bank, ignoring the protest of a police officer not to enter. He paid him no heed, and he moved himself like an anchor into the building, dreading what he thought he would see.
In their fit of panic, the robbers had decided that their hostages were now not of anymore use. They had fired at everybody and everyone in the bank, young and old alike, before they left. The place was now in a bloody mess, with dead bodies laying everywhere all over the place. The marble walls had been damaged and broken off by the shots fired. A side of the wall was painted bright red as one of the robbers decided to put a bullet through the head of a lady.
Phoenix started searching the area, looking for someone. He stopped dead in his tracks as he saw her.
Sara lay on her side on the floor, her arms crumpled beneath her and her legs askew. There was a bullet wound to her left temple and since there was no exit wound, the bullet had stayed in her head. There was a small pool of blood that surrounded her head. Unlike most of the other corpses he had seen, Sara's face was not contorted in terror like the rest of them. She was probably one of the first few people who had been hit in the attack. She died instantly without pain from a shot to the head.
But all of this was of little condolence to Phoenix. Sara Corrine was dead.
He picked up her body slowly in his arms, holding her limp head close to his heart. He couldn't care less that he was messing up his shirt with her blood. There was no warmth in her body, only an empty, solitary coldness that was left inside. It was not long before he started howling loudly in despair.
Now that the danger had passed, the natural human curiosity took over. A small crowd of people had now gathered at the entrance of the bank, looking at the gory spectacle inside the bank. The remaining policemen were doing what they could to keep the crowd back.
Everyone was now looking at the lone man howling in the bank, cradling a dead woman in his arms.
---
Phoenix felt someone nudge him and he spun around. Iris stared at him quizzically, wondering if he was alright since she saw him zoning out all of a sudden. Phoenix was not sure why he suddenly felt a cold drop of sweat roll down his forehead.
" Are you alright?" Iris asked.
" …I think I'm fine," Phoenix replied after a while.
" You don't look too good," Max rebuked.
" I said I'm fine, damn it," Phoenix said a little more loudly than he would have wanted.
" Keep your voice down, or the hunters might hear you," Mercury warned.
Dalton hobbled out to the front entrance, looking rather sickly after vomiting his breakfast. He started gagging as he smelt the putrid smell again, feeling the bile rising to his throat, but he fought the urge to barf if out again. Mercury glanced around to look for a place to move out from.
" You don't look too well," Max replied.
" You are just imagining things," Phoenix replied.
Max thought for a while before adding, " Sure you don't want to talk about it?"
" No."
Writer's note: Yeah, a little bit about Phoenix's past and his life with Sara. I planned for him to have flashbacks throughout the entire story, but that did not work out and I still needed some background story for him, so I placed it in a singular chapter here.
I kinda like this chapter, gives a feel of my character Phoenix and his usual moody behavior.
