Chapter 35 - Anxiety
December 5th, 2007
Dallas, Texas
9:57 PM
"There's just no sign of them."
Cecilia was in the hatch that led up onto the roof of the RV when she'd announced those words to Regan below, who'd come by to check on any updates. Though it was raining out, she had Regan's rifle set up and was currently standing on the retractable ladder that accessed the hatch a little less than halfway outside, keeping her head low and using the scope to check out the medical facility where Chris and Wesker had gone in the distance. With the device zoomed in, she could see the lot in the same way she could see it if she were standing on the other end of the access road. It was distant, but she could see well enough to be able to tell whenever they left the place.
Before then, Cecilia had waited inside with Regan for a while, gotten something to eat, and watched the mother caring for her sick daughter before Shannon finally fell asleep. Not long later, Regan had come into the living room area and mentioned to Cecilia that it had simply been too long since they'd heard anything and that she was starting to get worried. Cecilia was inclined to agree, but there wasn't anything either of them could do without potentially jeopardizing either Chris and Wesker, or Shannon—if not all three at once.
Cecilia could go in after them alone, but Regan really did need the help with making sure everything was safe because her eyes had to be focused on her ailing daughter so much. While Shannon wasn't what someone might call deathly ill, she was coughing quite a bit and it was obvious she wasn't doing very well. Not to mention, if the sickness wasn't taken care of, it could turn into a deathly illness pretty fast. So Cecilia didn't want to leave them out in the open like that, and besides, she realized that if she went in to try to help out the men traveling with them, she might upset an already bad or delicate situation—saying Chris and Wesker were in that kind of trouble.
Regan had an idea though, and she quietly began to pull the ladder down from the hatch that lead up onto the roof so she wouldn't wake Shannon. With her rifle, she climbed up and settled the weapon so that she could use the scope, and told Cecilia it would be a good idea to have it as a look out. Cecilia agreed, but told Regan to let her take the reigns because if Shannon woke, Regan would need to go look after her.
Once she'd taken over, Cecilia realized that she could see the lot of the medical facility through the scope of the weapon fairly easily, and she announced after a short while of watching it that she just didn't see anything. Every once and again, she would pan around and make certain nothing else was sneaking up on them, lift her head to see the same thing with her own two eyes, and eventually, she allowed Regan to climb up and take a look for a bit as well.
When they switched, Cecilia took some time to warm up from the cold, wet air, and then she heard Regan taking a silent shot with her weapon a moment later, which surprised her. Regan informed the woman that there was a single roaming zombie out in the fields heading in the direction of the medical facility. So she'd sniped it quietly to help keep the area clear of problems. She'd then looked around to make sure nothing else was coming before focusing her sights on the facility again.
Eventually, Cecilia took over once more, and Regan went to go use the bathroom and checked on Shannon, who was still sleeping—thankfully. She was rasping in her breaths a slight bit however, and knowing what her daughter could sleep through, Regan lifted her head gently by easing her fingers beneath her daughter's head and raised the pillow a bit more behind her, then laid her back down against it. Once a little more upright, the raspy breathing grew clearer, which would probably let Shannon sleep longer without coughing herself awake.
Regan didn't risk waking her by kissing her cheek, and just smiled and stood up straight, then turned and wandered over to the sectional in the living area of the RV. Once she'd sat down, she reached over and cracked open the window while tugging out the cigarettes she'd grabbed on the way so she could light one due to the anxious way she felt.
Once she had the lit cigarette in her lips, Regan put the lighter down and rested her elbows on the table after plucking the item from her mouth with her index and middle fingers. She then covered her eyes with her hand as she considered just how long they'd been waiting there, smoke wafting in the air around her while she rubbed her fingers into her closed lids and took a few slow, deep breaths.
She couldn't help her anxious state of being at that moment, after all. What if they were dead or hurt? Regan had to push the thought away before it drove her crazy, sticking the end of the cigarette into her mouth to take another drag with the effort, the activity helping to distract her.
She glanced at the cigarette once she'd tugged it from her lips as well, and considered that now that she knew Dallas was actually quarantined still, she was going to have to quit smoking a second time. That wouldn't be much of a problem for her though considering she hadn't smoked for very long when she first started and then quit. She just knew that if she had a chance at a longer life, and one for her daughter as well, there was no sense in killing herself prematurely.
But for now, quitting was the last thing she was worried about. She could get to Dallas first, then stop. Instead, her mind went back to her worries when her eyes caught sight of the clock over the stove in the kitchen, which now read 9:34. It had been an hour and a half, and that was taking just a bit longer than it should have just to grab some medicine.
Regan was even more concerned about the current raid than she normally would've been as well, and more than Cecilia was, because she was the reason they'd gone out there to begin with. Her daughter had gotten sick, and she personally couldn't do anything about it like she would've done normally as the child's mother. So not only was she worried, she also felt rather helpless.
Instead, Chris had gone out into potential danger to chase down what she needed, and they had to wait for some kind of word as to whether or not things had gone alright. Regan wasn't sure if it was the waiting or the helpless way she felt which grated on her nerves worse.
As she thought about it, she realized that she couldn't profess to having much of a worry for Wesker. Apparently he could go through a sewer plant and come out smelling like roses somehow from what she'd been told—and seen as well. Not that she wanted something to happen to him, but she was ambiguous about him in general. Certainly, he could be a big help, but knowing how much he hated Chris and seeing the way they'd fought the other night briefly, Regan knew he probably wouldn't go out of his way to ensure Chris's safety, at least, not not like someone who didn't have a personal vendetta against him would.
So it was Chris that Regan was much more worried for. Experienced or not, she was starting to really fear the worst for the man the longer they sat there. She found it ironically humorous that she wanted to thank him and kick his ass for his efforts at the same time. The thought finally got her to smirk just a little, and she remembered him asking if she'd mind his coming by to see her sometime in Dallas. Hell, as far as she was concerned, he could have a damned key to wherever she ended up living for everything he'd done for them now if he wanted one.
With a soft snort of amusement over the silly notion, Regan shook her head and let out a sigh of breath. As she drifted off in thought, getting to the end of her cigarette before she put it out, she inevitably thought she heard distant gunfire going off. The sounds made her brow crease, and she listened more carefully. Surely enough, there was a faraway pop of sound, and it got her to stand up and head toward the ladder where Cecilia was perched currently.
Looking up at the woman, she asked, "Do you see anything? Because I'm hearing something."
"Yes. I see them," Cecilia replied. She hadn't informed Regan sooner though because of what she'd seen happening—a car flying through the air almost as soon as she'd spotted the men walking through the lot wasn't something she'd been expecting—and she decided to keep watching so she would know what was going on before she said anything at all. Not to mention, she had no idea if Regan was close enough to hear her, and yelling down to the woman was a bad idea in general.
Regan's brows shot up over the news, and hearing the distant shots fired, though they were very spontaneous and not at all regular, she asked, "What's happening?"
"I'm almost afraid to commentate," Cecilia replied. "But it's that thing that was following Wesker, the tyrant. They're fighting it now."
Cecilia let a sigh of breath, still watching through the scope, only lifting her head every once and again to look around the immediate area before she went back to watching the distant battle taking place. She couldn't see everything due to blocks in her line of sight like the cars in the lot mostly, but she'd seen enough to know that Chris and Wesker were likely going to be sore later.
"What?," Regan asked on a pronounced tone of voice when she heard the news, unable to help her surprise over the matter.
"Don't worry, they're putting up a good fight from what I can see," Cecilia informed the woman. She didn't want to continue though and worry Regan with the fact that she had no idea what had happened to Chris, and now, she could see Wesker being approached by the tyrant, and the man wasn't getting up—why he wasn't though she had no idea. The tyrant was closing in on him now, but he was simply crouched and unmoving.
As she tried to figure it out, something suddenly happened that got Cecilia to cuss, "Oh! Holy shit!"
"What!," Regan asked much more loudly than she'd meant to, then slapped a hand over her mouth, hoping she hadn't woken Shannon while peering into the back briefly. She couldn't help herself though. For all she knew, someone had just been killed, and she did not want to hear that.
"Chris just used a bulldozer to hit the tyrant. I had no idea where he went before, but there's the answer, and he's about to run it over from the looks of it."
Running the tyrant over with a bulldozer would mean killing it, or so Regan hoped as she had no idea from the way it sounded what it might take to bring something like that down. But in hearing that Chris and Wesker were alive, and in hearing they were getting the upper hand, she felt a weight of anxiety being released from her chest while continuing to listen intently to Cecilia's next words.
"It must be dead now because Chris just got out of the bulldozer and he looks pretty casual. Hurt, but casual."
"Hurt how?"
"He's favoring his side. I can't tell much besides that though. His shirt looks dirty but it might just be mud, it's hard to say."
Regan took that in while she watched, looking up at the woman in the hatch and waiting for more information. She briefly wondered what might've happened and how bad the injury was, but if Chris was walking, then it couldn't have been too bad.
Cecilia interrupted her thoughts over it however when she suddenly commented, "What the hell? Wesker just fell over for no reason." She then paused uncertainly, and added, "Or so it looks anyway."
"He fell over?"
"Yeah, just collapsed. I can't tell what's going on though. Chris is just standing there, and...okay, now he's...," she trailed, watching for a moment, then finally told Regan as if she were completely confused, "he's pulling Wesker to a dumpster...and just threw him in. Alright, what in the hell is going on out there?"
"A dumpster?"
"Yeah, he just threw...oh, wait, it looks like he's trying to hide from something out there."
Regan's brows narrowed over her eyes in confusion and her lips parted for a moment in silence before she asked, "Like what? Do you see anything else?"
"No, I don't see a damned thing. Chris is hiding behind the dumpster and looking around the side of it now though, so he probably sees something I can't from here."
Regan thought about the situation, trying to figure it all out. Maybe there were zombies out there and he had to hide because Wesker was incapacitated. Regan knew he wouldn't be able to just drag the man back if something was around anyway—Chris wasn't a small guy, but neither was Wesker, and dragging the man would only encumber him and get him killed.
As she tried to figure it out, Cecilia suddenly informed her, "He's moving."
"Is he coming back?"
"Looks like it. I'm going to keep a watch on him until he gets close enough. Do we have any bandages?"
"Yeah, there's a few in the first aide kit in the bathroom."
"You should probably get it out for him."
Regan did like Cecilia suggested and went to grab the kit. By the time she'd found it, checked the contents, and went back to the kitchen, the door of the RV was opening and Chris was coming inside. Regan realized Cecilia was right about his physical condition the moment she saw him—the side of his face was trailed with lines of red and the lower left side of his gray shirt was a matching color from his back downwards and around to the front.
He was soaked through as well and he looked cold, but he was alive. As he shut the door and headed inside, Regan asked him, "Are you alright?"
Chris didn't say anything at first, only went to the counter to put his shotgun down on it before he leaned against it and caught his breath, though he'd started nodding his head silently. He'd busted his ass to get back to the RV as quickly and silently as possible, and after a moment or two, he finally began to speak.
"Yeah. We came across a few problems, but I'm fine, it's just a gash on my back." He looked over at her and then asked, "Did you guys see what went on from the hatch?"
"Cecilia told me that tyrant caught up to you. She saw you fighting it, and said that Wesker passed out and you threw him in a dumpster."
Cecilia was still on the ladder now, further watching the area, and Chris didn't seem to mind it because of what was out there, explaining the situation instead, and he started by walking toward the ladder and addressing Cecilia directly.
"If you see something out there, something big, let me know, Cecilia." He didn't explain that further just then however, and looked over at Regan to add to the comment "The tyrant managed to knock Wesker unconscious with a sedative, so I had to leave him behind because there's something else out there, and it's dangerous."
With that explanation in place, he lifted his hand out and told Regan, "Give me your radio."
Regan reached for the device and handed it over without question, though she had a confused expression on her face as she did so because she had no idea what could've been out there that Chris wouldn't refer to as zombies. It seemed like it could've been anything however, and she was just hoping that whatever it was, it wouldn't end up causing them too much trouble.
But she didn't ask about it while Chris put the device she'd handed him to his mouth and pressed the button, asking into it, "Wesker, do you copy?"
No response. That made Chris roll his eyes, and when he lowered the radio, he looked up at the roof where he could see Cecilia's lower half still settled on the ladder because he'd heard her saying, "Uh...Chris?"
"What?," Chris asked, walking back over to the ladder.
"I don't even know. You said to look out for something big," she enunciated, "and I see something pretty fucking big in the parking lot now."
Groaning, Chris cussed out, "Damn. I was hoping it would wander away."
"Oh god, is that an eyeball?," Cecilia asked at random to no one in particular from her perch.
The words got Regan to give a completely confused look. Turning that expression from the ladder and back at Chris, she asked, "What the hell is it?"
Before Chris answered her, he told Cecilia, "Just keep a watch out up there, and do not let it see you. Stay low and let me know if it starts heading this way."
"On it," Cecilia replied. "So far it's just wandering in the lot though."
Hearing that, Chris turned his attention back over to Regan, finally giving her a slightly more thorough answer. "It's a G Type, but don't worry about the specifics. I've never encountered one personally, I just know that it's bad news and killing it is going to take a lot more than we've got right now. Not to mention, if it finds out where we are, it'll chase us down, and I know this hummer won't be able to outrun it fast enough unless we managed to get a damned good head start."
The women both listened, and Regan commented by cussing the words, "Fucking hell," on a sigh of breath. "Where did something like that come from?"
"Long story. For now, we're just going to have to keep our eyes open and wait for Wesker to wake up, then hope that he can get back here on his own."
Cecilia and Regan both knew there was nothing to be done about it now except exactly what Chris had said. They would have to wait and hope that this thing out there didn't find them and attack them, which left an air of discomfort and anxiety lingering around them all. Chris was unpacking the medicine he'd gotten for Shannon onto the kitchen counter while they were considering it, and then he reached up to the side of his face once the bottles were settled and wiped his hand across his cheek.
He pulled it back to see fresh blood staining his fingers, and let out a short groan. "Shit, I need to go patch myself up before something else happens."
Regan knew he did, and she stepped around behind him, saying, "Lift your shirt, let me see how bad it is."
Chris reached down and did as she'd requested without hesitating, knowing he wasn't going to be able to see the gash by himself. He tugged it up over the wound and let Regan take a closer look while saying, "It was glass, so I just hope there's not still any in it."
It was a long cut, also still bleeding, and she could tell it'd been glass that had cut him because there was a hole in his shirt right where the wound was located for more or less, probably made whenever he'd been cut. But she didn't mention that part and only announced to Chris, "That looks like it might need some thread, but it's hard to tell with all the blood. You should probably tie your shirt around it for now to keep the bleeding down."
After making the suggestion, she stood up straight and added as she walked over to the counter, "I'll go give Shannon some of the medicine and come help you with it when I'm done."
"Okay," Chris returned, grabbing the first aide kit and heading into the bathroom so he could get started on his the gash above his eye. He just hoped the wound on his back would prove to be shallow, but either way, he didn't have the time to stitch it up, and they didn't have the resources to do it either. He'd just have to take tedious care of the gash if it turned out to be too deep to heal well on its own without help until they got to Dallas.
Regan watched him going, and then looked over at the medicine he'd settled onto the counter along with a thermometer. Suddenly, she felt overwhelmed with the urge to say thank you, but there was a problem—how the hell did you thank someone for something like this? He'd put his life on the line and it hadn't been pretty, all to get her little girl some medicine. Regan honestly had no idea of how to even try to show him the kind of gratitude she felt over that, and just saying thank you almost seemed insulting in a way. Hey, thanks for almost getting killed to get my daughter the medicine she needs. Yeah, that wasn't precisely something Regan wanted to just say.
Still, she owed Chris for this, and she'd find some way to repay him somehow. But now just wasn't the time to try anyway. Shannon needed the medicine, and Chris needed help—a good way to start showing a little gratitude, she figured—so she could consider it all later.
Getting the things for Shannon in hand, she pocketed the thermometer, and that was when she heard Shannon coughing and trying to call her name on a raspy voice that sounded desperate and scared. It got Regan to head into the bedroom quickly, and as soon as Shannon saw her coming in, the little girl reached for her with tears in her eyes.
Sitting the medicine down on the blankets first, Regan settled on the bed next to the bottles and drew her daughter over into a hug, kissing the top of her head. She didn't know why Shannon was close to tears, but she didn't hesitate to ask her, "What's wrong, honey?"
"I had a bad dream," the child replied, and it was hard to hear her because she was crying and raspy on top of it. "I...feel...so...bad."
"Shush," Regan replied, rocking back and forth as Shannon sobbed against her chest. "It's okay, I'm here Squirt, and guess what? Chris got some medicine for you."
"He...," she choked on a sob before she could get the question out, "he did?"
"Yep. Cough syrup too, the nice yummy stuff you like the taste of so much."
Shannon got quiet, and Regan slowly smiled, unable to see her child's face when it was buried against her chest, but she knew her daughter had just grimaced. So she added, "I'm going to give you two big teaspoons so you can really remember how good it is," on an amused tone of voice, trying to help the girl feel a little better. "It'll be as good as those homemade egg rolls I tried to make that time and ended up burning them."
Suddenly, Shannon started to giggle very softly, sitting back slowly and wiping her eyes before looking up at her mother with a bit of scrutiny. "You're not right," she finally rasped out after a moment, then turned her head suddenly and started coughing again.
Smirking, Regan lifted her up a bit and scooted toward the table, pulling out the Amoxicillin first. Getting one of the pills out, she handed it to Shannon and grabbed the bottle of orange juice to chase the antibiotic with. It took Shannon a little doing, and she gagged, but the medicine went down finally.
Before more could be done, the eight year old lowered the bottle from her mouth and made a request of her mother with the item out to her. "Refill this, mama, before I take the syrup, okay?"
"Okay," Regan replied, "and here, you keep this in your mouth until I'm back." Regan lifted the thermometer up and pulled it out of the wrapping, then stuck it under Shannon's tongue after brushing some of her red hair back and out of her face. When the item was in the girl's mouth, she slipped Shannon off of her lap and stood to go back to the kitchen. There wasn't much left of the orange juice anymore, but there was still enough for at least two glasses.
A few minutes later, Regan went back to the bedroom and administered the rest of the medicine to her child, checking the reading on the digital thermometer while Shannon grumbled about the taste of the syrup. It said 101.3. Hopefully that would start to go down now that she had something to take for it.
"Well, you've still got a fever, but it's low grade. You just rest for now though, let that medicine kick in, and I'm going to go check on Chris, alright?"
Shannon gave a slow nod of her head, laying back down against the pillows as Regan settled the bottles on the table for the time being and then pulled a blanket over Shannon's chest and swept her hair back so it wouldn't be in her face. Once done, she moved from the bedroom and toward the bathroom door where Chris had gone earlier.
Reaching up a hand, she knocked on the door and asked, "How's everything going in there?"
"You can come in," came his response.
Taking the knob, Regan opened the door open and stepped into the bathroom, seeing that Chris was holding a gauze against his forehead and had his shirt tied around his lower mid waist by the sleeves in order to keep the gash on his back from bleeding too much like she'd suggested earlier. The gray shirt was already ruined anyway, so it wasn't going to matter if there was even more blood sopped up into it.
"You got some extra painkillers I saw," Regan started in reminder to him as she stepped inside, "need some?"
"Maybe later, after this is patched up."
"Alright. Well, let me get my hands washed so I can clean that gash up. Just hope it doesn't need thread since we don't have any."
"Trust me, I know," Chris replied as he stepped back so she could reach the sink and wash her hands. He finished getting the bandage taped to his forehead while she did, and when they were both done, Regan moved behind Chris with the peroxide in one hand and waited for him to untie the shirt from around his waist, which she took in her free hand.
She used the bloody garment to stop the flow of the clear liquid down his back from getting all over his pants, pouring it along the wound evenly and watching the red, bloody line bubble up to a nice, pinkish froth while considering to herself that she was thankful she wasn't squeamish. After letting the wound fizz up for a moment, Regan poured the peroxide over the wound a second time to try to clean it as thoroughly as possible, and heard a few slight hisses of breath that were almost inaudible, telling her the thing probably stung like a bitch.
"Shit," Chris grumbled suddenly, "damned glass." Letting a slight groan of breath, he heard a soft snicker coming from behind him, and glanced back briefly, asking, "What's so funny?"
"You just remind me of Shannon and how she likes to cuss her cuts and scrapes whenever she gets them."
Chris remembered her doing that, and he smirked over the thought. "I just hate the cleaning part. I can handle the actual injury better."
"Oh, I know how that goes. I was in a car accident two years ago and got a shard of metal stuck in my thigh. But I was completely fine with it by the time we arrived at the hospital, content to live the rest of my life just leaving it alone. Sadly, the doctors didn't think leaving it alone was the best idea." Regan said the sarcastic words with a good bit of humor in her voice as she examined the wound she was tending to a little more closely, and heard Chris letting a soft chuckle.
As she inspected, more blood had began to flow out of it, and she asked him for a gauze before she patted it down gently, looking for any tiny shards of glass she might've been able to find and warn him about before she started to try to get them out.
There was one that she noticed sticking out of the wound just slightly, but it wasn't going to be easy to get to because it wasn't too big, but big enough to get with her fingers if she could work it out of the skin. So she warned him before she went to slowly work it out of the wound as easy as possible, until the tip was jutting out just enough that she managed to get her fingers on it and pull it out. Chris couldn't help but cringe every time he felt her pressing, clenching his teeth and gripping the edge of the sink while she did this until he tensed when he felt the glass coming loose as she freed it from the cut.
"Damn, wide edge on this, no wonder it got stuck," Regan said when she saw it, then tossed it into the sink, which made a short clatter before settling.
Chris groaned when he spied the sharp shard of glass she'd just pulled out of him laying there, still bloody, muttering out on a slight pant that came with the relief of no longer being prodded so much, "Please don't tell me you see more."
"No, thankfully, that was all, and I know that hurt. I'm sorry."
"As long as it's not still in me, I don't care," he replied on a gravelly tone of voice because of the throb that was surging through his back now and the relief of knowing she wasn't going to have to do that again.
"Well, the good news is that it's starting to stop bleeding except the spot I just cleared glass from. Still, it's going to need looking after, but it's not too deep. Hand me a bandage and the ointment."
Chris lowered his gaze and reached to grab one from the first aide kit on the sink's counter, then lifted it back to give to her, followed by the ointment. When she had the items and was working on getting them prepared, he asked her as he waited, "How's Shannon anyway? I heard her crying."
"Better now," Regan replied, still focusing on what she was doing. "She had a bad dream and it scared her. But her temperature is low grade, a hundred and one point three. I think the medicine will have her back to at least semi normal in no time."
"That's good," Chris replied, then cringed and jolted when he felt Regan pressing the bandage over the slice on his back with the ointment on it.
Regan felt the way he tensed when she did that, and looked up to his face from where she could see it in the mirror over the sink in front of him to ask, "Too hard?"
"No, that ointment's cold."
"Oh," she replied with a chuckle of sound in her voice. "Sorry. Is it throbbing?"
"Like a son of bitch," Chris admitted plainly. With a sigh of breath, he went on to say, "But I've honestly had worse."
Regan could only imagine that was probably the truth. Still, she felt the need to direct him with the words, "Yeah, well, don't get all tough guy on me. If it ever starts bothering you, let me know."
"Who says I wouldn't?," he asked curiously, and there was a hint of amusement in his voice.
Regan smirked over the way he'd asked that, tugging some tape off for the gauze as she replied, "You just don't strike me as the type who lets anyone know when he's feeling bad all the time, that's all."
Chris looked down at the sink and smirked. She was right, he didn't always point out the pain he was in. He could admit that as well, though he also reminded her, "Maybe, but I couldn't hide this from you if I want to anyway. I can't even see it, so I'm going to have to get a little help changing the bandages."
"True," she conceded, still smirking in amusement as she smoothed some tape over the gauze, trying to be light about her ministrations to keep from jarring the wound any. That was when her smirk faded as a more serious thought came to mind which she put to him.
"So what about Wesker? I mean, how long can we stay here and wait for him? Or could you take Cecilia and go back to get him?"
"With that thing out there, no, I'm not risking that. Wesker will know what happened when he wakes up, or he should at least get the picture."
"He'd better wake the hell up soon," Regan muttered, pressing more tape over the bandage as evenly as she could considering the natural curve of Chris's back. "I want to get going."
"Same here," Chris replied, and no sooner than he said the words, he heard his radio going off.
"Chris, I hope you had a good reason for throwing me in a dumpster. Over."
Regan could see Chris's expression in the mirror across from him as she was applying tape to the bandage, and he was grinning nearly from ear to ear over the blandly spoken comment they'd just heard as he lifted the radio from where he'd settled it on the counter near the sink. Somehow, she got the feeling that the line had made Chris's day despite any pain he'd just gone through, and it got her to grin in turn.
Pressing the button, he replied, "Yeah, I did. The G Type left the building only a few moments after you passed out, so I hid you and hightailed it back to the hummer without a choice." More pointedly, he added, "You're welcome. Over."
Silence came from the other end, probably because Wesker was checking out the world outside the dumpster, and Chris didn't say more until he'd gotten a response. Regan announced that she was finished in the meantime and quietly told Chris, "I'll get you another shirt," before she left the bathroom. When she was gone, Wesker finally responded.
"I'm not detecting anything outside. It may have wandered off. I'm still weary however, so it will take me some time to get back undetected. Over."
"As long as you don't draw any attention, that shouldn't be a problem. We have a lookout here, Cecilia's on the roof with the rifle keeping watch, over."
Before Chris could say more, Regan came back into the room and she had a somewhat dire look on her face. Without question, she told Chris, "Whatever Wesker said, tell him to stay put. Cecilia said that thing is wandering closer to the dumpsters right now."
"Shit," Chris cussed, lifting the radio up and adding, "Going silent, you've got someone outside judging by our lookout."
"Copy that."
Wesker didn't say anymore, and Chris knew he would just have to keep the radio with him for now. If Wesker needed something, he'd ask for it. So in the meantime, Chris took the shirt that Regan had just come back in with and tugged it up and over his head, a simple green one with short sleeves that Regan had probably just grabbed at random. He pulled the garment down quickly before he grabbed the radio and headed into the kitchen area once again.
Meanwhile, Wesker was considering to himself that he'd been in several situations before, some tense, some not so much—but he'd never found himself in one quite like this.
He lowered the radio from his mouth after sending a message to Chris in the hummer and peered back outside of the dumpster he'd been thrown in to hide him from the G Type. As he'd said before, there was nothing about that he could see, and he was ready to climb out of the damned waste disposal bin—Chris and his so called ingenuity, he thought with a scoff—so that he could make a break for the RV, when he heard what Chris had said about the G Type being right outside.
He'd only cracked the door of the dumpster a little when he'd woken up, enough that he could see out of it, and nearly as soon as he'd looked back outside, something had very suddenly blocked his path. It was too close to be able to recognize right away, but Wesker didn't need to see to know what it was.
Cecilia had been right. The G Type was on his proverbial doorstep.
Wesker stayed silent as the hulking creature stepped into his sights from outside of the container with heavy footfalls, but he wasn't afraid like a normal person would have been—he was irritated. Had William Birkin been alive in that moment, he would've happily throttled his old friend faster than someone could bat an eyelash. To think the scientist's actual fate, however, lie in becoming such a creature was somewhat sadly ironic—not to mention a loss in Wesker's opinion as William was brilliant when he wasn't falling prey to his own emotions and ambitions. But seeing this creature, a product of that man's research, standing in his way now only annoyed Wesker instead of impressing him.
Perhaps it didn't matter if he couldn't leave immediately though. Wesker could still feel himself recovering from the effects of the sedative, though they were fading fast. He was a patient man as well, and he could wait for the roaming B.O.W. to move away long enough to give him an exit.
Though, he thought rather blandly as he glanced at his current surroundings, the setting was just as irritating as the roadblocks in his path. He could only imagine that Chris had wished the dumpster he'd picked to throw him into was filled with trash rather than simple, broken down cardboard to be taken off for recycling. So Wesker did count himself fortunate in a way—at least it wasn't filthy in particular. But a dumpster was still a dumpster, no getting past that little fact.
Outside, Wesker heard a few more thudding footfalls and grunts of breath. He watched quietly from the crack he'd made in the door to witness the G Type moving off far enough that he could see the parking lot and the medical facility beyond it. The dumpster was facing away from the access road—a tactical disadvantage for him in escaping. But with the G Type moving off now, it might've been the chance he needed to get away undetected.
It was when he was waiting for his opportunity that a new element presented itself to the game, and it was rather significant—the sound of rotary blades could be heard in the distance overhead.
With a sigh of breath that was inaudible for the most part, Wesker got the very express feeling that search and rescue was close by, close enough to flag down had they been on the highway instead of raiding a medical facility for the sake of a child who was no asset—though Wesker had found use in the endeavor after all, as surprising as it was for him to consider. Still, they were deadlocked in a situation where even Wesker's abilities wouldn't change the course. They might've brought a balance certainly, but this was a G Type, and killing it would only mutate it further.
Though that would give them time, they likely didn't have enough ammunition to pull it off.
With the consideration in mind, suddenly, the radio in his hand went off without warning. Wesker definitely hadn't expected that because Chris wouldn't just pick it up when the group was running silent for the time being. But the signal wasn't clear, even screeching loudly a bit due to bad reception. That meant an outside source was being picked up, very likely from the search and rescue teams that weren't too far away from the sound of it, and Wesker turned the radio down before it could make too much noise.
Sadly, he hadn't done so before the G Type outside of the dumpster turned around to face the large, blue container. With a slight groan of breath when he saw the movement, Wesker got on the radio and told Chris to get the hummer started now.
10:37 AM
Things were mostly quiet inside of the RV. Cecilia had made the suggestion that someone go and wait in the hummer, which was an idea that Chris was kicking around because it wasn't an easy choice to make. Just before he could give it much thought though, they all heard the distant sound of helicopters, and Chris headed toward the ladder.
"You see anything up there?"
"Not yet," Cecilia replied, looking up into the cloudy sky to try to spot whatever she could. Before she could get too much time in on looking though, she heard Wesker coming in on the radio below without much warning.
"Chris, don't ask questions, just get the hummer started, now, and don't wait for me."
Chris narrowed his brows over the command, but the sound of Wesker's voice had been serious enough that he decided to just listen. "Shit," he cussed, turning to grab his shotgun from the counter without question. He'd put his gun harnesses back around his shoulders now that his back was taken care of, so he already had his handgun, and his ammunition was in his belt pouch, so he was ready to go.
Except for the keys. Coming to a stop, he looked back, ready to ask if Regan or Cecilia had them when he noticed Cecilia getting down from the ladder while saying, "Go on, I've got the keys, just get outside."
Chris listened and turned to go, and Cecilia handed Regan the rifle and moved in behind him quickly, tugging the keys to the hummer from her pocket on the way outside. Once she'd opened the door and started moving toward the car, she asked Chris, "Why does he want us to get started without him?"
"He's probably wants us to get moving so he can catch up and we can escape," Chris replied as he moved around the back of the hummer where it was hitched to the RV and around to the driver's side, reaching a hand up over the hood to catch the keys when Cecilia tossed them across to him.
Snatching them out of the air, Chris opened the door and climbed in behind the wheel while Cecilia got into the passenger's seat, and he started the car up.
Without question, he put the gear into drive and hit the gas pedal, and no sooner than he'd done that, he looked into the rear view mirror to see something coming up on them from behind in a swift blur of speed. The car had already started rolling down the road by the time he'd looked, and the blur Chris saw, which was Wesker coming to join them like Chris had suggested he would do before, began to slow down until it became a more clear image of the black clad man.
Chris didn't slow down as Wesker reached the backdoor before too much more speed could be gained. Once he was there, he opened it and tugged himself up to get inside with the car still moving.
In the distance behind him was the G Type, which Chris also noticed in the mirror easily after Wesker pulled himself inside. So before the door could even be shut, Chris put the gas pedal all the way to the floor, though he didn't have much to push considering how hard he'd been pressing it already.
In the backseat now, Wesker asked without consideration of anything else in that moment, "Are there any grenades in the hummer? Something that might slow it down?"
Chris remembered he'd left the vest in the RV, but he still had one of the two he'd taken with them to the facility earlier in his belt's pouch. Reaching down, he snagged it and passed it back before he looked in the mirror again to see that the G Type was still running in behind them, but it seemed to be loosing to their gaining speed.
Chris then looked ahead to judge how much more road they could use to continue traveling in a straight path away from it. That was when he said, "We've got another problem."
There was a curve in the road up ahead. It wasn't too sharp, but it did bear hard to the left and would prevent them from actually speeding away from the G Type formerly known as Stan according to the doctor in the medical facility who was probably dead now. Chris prepared himself as they neared the curve to try to keep their speed going while turning with it. To do so, the turn had to be made a bit early, and Chris did just that as they reached the winding roadway, keeping the hummer as steady as he could along the changing path as they went at the speed they were driving in now.
He didn't bother looking in the rear view mirror again because of the turn, but the G Type had suddenly jumped into the air as if it knew that, with the curve in the road, they wouldn't get away so quickly. So it used the momentum it had gained in running to propel itself forward and catch up to the retreating vehicle traveling down the roadway now.
The G Type landed only a moment later about ten yards away from its target—much closer than it had been previously because they were traveling down the road in a horizontal line in conjunction to the G Type's position instead of speeding away like they needed to.
This allowed the monster to get much too close for comfort. But Wesker had already opened the window of the door next to him and pulled himself halfway out of the door while they were continuously moving. He'd used his left hand to grab one of the two thin rails lining the hood of the vehicle in order to steady himself there. In his right hand, he held the grenade, and he pulled the pin out of it, waiting for the right opportunity. When the G Type had leapt, Wesker saw it, and that was the perfect time.
Raising his arm, he chucked the explosive outwards towards the area where the G Type had leapt toward. The result was for the grenade to come down only a few feet from where the monster had also landed only a moment beforehand, and as the monster was ready to charge them down and likely catch up to them, it went off.
Dust and grass suddenly tore through the air violently, and the G Type turned and put up it's claw to try to protect itself as much as it could. The hit wasn't direct, but it stopped the monster from charging them down so soon and allowed the hummer to take off down the roadway a good bit further before giving the monster a completely good shot at stopping them.
As the hummer moved, Wesker stayed right where he was, half of his trench coat billowing before him while his hair became mussed about in the wind as the gusts rushed over him from behind. But he stayed focused on the G Type as the monster began to recover, and then began to address Cecilia.
"Give me your handgun."
Cecilia didn't hesitate to do so, handing Wesker her weapon as he'd reached for it, and Wesker pulled it up and took aim—specifically at the oversized eyeball in the monster's shoulder—but he didn't pull the trigger right away. He waited until the G Type showed signs of following them down, and after a moment, it did just that.
Wesker fired, and though his vision was extremely good, it wasn't easy to get a shot when you were sitting in the open window of a moving vehicle while traveling away from your target, no matter how big it was. For that reason, he fired the handgun more than once, sending bullets sailing back toward the monster.
The bullets tore through the air, heading right at the G Type, whizzing past at differing distances, one heading completely over the target's head, the other right by it's enlarged shoulder. Then, two of them rammed into the enlarged eye, one in the pupil, while the last slammed into the arm. The bullets made the G Type slow down a bit in its pace, buying them all precious time, but it didn't stop running.
Chris, still driving and able to see this in the rear view, looked ahead and noticed a much wider turn than before, this time going to the right. So he didn't worry much about slowing down because the turn wasn't sharp at all, though he did yell out to Wesker to hold on.
Wesker looked back and noticed that Chris was about to turn, but stayed silent and turned his sights to the monster following them once more. The distance was growing greater and greater now, but he didn't attempt to climb back inside of the hummer until they'd rounded the next turn completely and the G Type was too far off in the distance to catch up with them easily at all unless they stopped moving for no reason.
As they finally managed to escape the monster's grasp, all three of them breathed more easily, and Chris glanced into the overhead mirror and at Wesker as the man climbed back inside. Wesker handed Cecilia her weapon back, and smoothed out his hair a bit after rolling the window up when he heard Chris asking him a question.
"How the hell did it find you?"
"You didn't hear the helicopters?"
"Yeah, we heard them, why?"
"Because my radio began to go off without warning. I was picking up a bad signal that was high pitched. That got his attention."
Groaning, Chris looked ahead again. "At least we got enough of a head start that the damned thing can't catch up to us, and I'm not touching the break unless I have no other choice, so if anyone has to pee, go in your pants."
"Why not, I've already almost shit myself," Cecilia grumbled out while reloading her handgun. Once she was done, she looked back at Wesker and asked, "Did you manage to hear anything on the radio before it found you?"
"Sadly, no. I didn't try to listen either."
Nodding her head, she looked back out of the front window again and mentioned, "Still, I don't like that this thing spotted us. How the hell long will it track us down for?"
"Probably long enough to give us a run for our money with our current condition," Chris replied. "I haven't met a B.O.W. yet who'd give up easily anyway. I just hope that the search and rescue teams don't come across it, and if they do, they don't get in trouble for it."
"Right," Cecilia replied, then looked back at Wesker again. "Do you think we might pick up more radio signals from them?"
Wesker had already taken the radio into his hand to start looking through the signals, and he replied, "That's what I'm attempting to find out." He was twisting the knob on the side to try to find a better frequency than he'd had before. Some of them gave nothing, some gave static, and others made a squeal of sound which was like nails across a chalkboard.
"It's possible that we're already out of range," Chris spoke up after a few minutes of that kind of thing.
Wesker stopped when he spoke, setting the channel back on the same one it had been on before, and then put the radio to the side. It wouldn't matter for the moment if they did manage to contact the search and rescue teams. With the G Type possibly trying to follow them, they couldn't stop, and who knew how well armed the helicopters might've been. Then again, Wesker surmised that any government agency in this world wouldn't risk sending out any teams without arming them to the teeth.
Quite a day it'd been so far, though. Wesker looked ahead, having lost his shades in the battle with the Tyrant, so his eyes were showing through as plain as day, and he just stared at the road. More and more he was starting to doubt Sherry Birkin as being the mastermind behind these setups. From everything he'd witnessed so far, evidence was suggesting there wasn't a sole individual at all, but rather a group of people who had perhaps gone awry, and if that were the case, he wondered just how many of them might've been dead already.
Time would tell both the cause and the reasons however. For now, anxiety persisted to follow them as they traveled along, questioning whether or not they would be caught up with, or manage to make it anywhere at all before everything decided to come to a close.