Rock992: I definitely wanted an uncomfortable, eerie feeling to the hospital section and certain other parts, instead of optimistic, light or outright action packed. The image of them infiltrating a hospital/Umbrella laboratory is an evocative one to me, didn't want to bog down the potential with just a run and gun to the vaccine, but taking their time, not knowing what's lurking around the next corner, what experiment they'll stumble into next. Dread. The dark, bleak humor about the insanity of the situation is for a human element on Carlos's part, instead of it being nihilistic. They are there with a goal and reason, but as the more 'human' of the two, Carlos and HUNK, Carlos is going to feel and be exasperated by the madness of the hospital, feels like he's going mad himself, stepping into HUNK's world. And I definitely wanted the violence to have weight in the story. The fact that it's so normal to HUNK, how casual he does it and is while surrounded by horror and experiments at the hospital, corpses everywhere, unphased, it is telling about his character, and is not meant to be considered a good thing, as 'cool' as he comes across on a superficial level. The fact that Carlos is still horrified after his time in Raccoon City, everything plaguing him that he sees, shows the difference between the two. Carlos is still young and 'innocent', and a good person, HUNK mostly fell off the deep end a long time ago, but is gradually discovering how far he fell, finding the man he was again. Doesn't mean he'll ever get to be that young man again, but he is realizing how deeply he has been sleeping since joining Umbrella. Younger Umbrella employees like Carlos have looked up to and adulated him as awesome, a legend, cool, but Carlos is getting to see first hand what his world is, and it's anything but admirable. It is messy, frightening and uncomfortable, and it says something about the kind of man who has adapted to that, the toll it has taken. Carlos is realizing that he doesn't want to be like HUNK, isn't like him, and that being a legend carries a high price, and isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Akira-Hayama: It's why Nikolai is a good foil for HUNK in this story. Both are the best at what they do within Umbrella, U.S.S. Agent and U.B.C.S. Monitor, and while HUNK in his prime is the better of the two, HUNK is currently in a weakened state physically and mentally compared to usual while Nikolai is thriving and doing just fine in Raccoon City. Loves it, where HUNK does not, and is coming to feel doubt about everything, doubt Nikolai doesn't have. Nikolai is a manipulative cold blooded bastard, who quickly assessed and took advantage of the situation to sow hesitation in his own favor. Works every angle he can possibly exploit, is much more cunning than HUNK. He has more tricks up his sleeves going forward as well, and represents a different sort of villain/threat from the Nemesis. A human one, with a personality, a wildcard, impeding, compared to the more predictable Nemesis whose Terminator-like pursuing presence hangs over the story. The Nemesis is more powerful, but Nikolai is potentially more dangerous to the heroes when all is said and done. Damn great villain, enjoyed writing his role that he has in my story, looking forward to getting back to him, in due time.
I felt like the human focal point of the story was already well established, HUNK, Jill, Carlos and Nikolai, and that making Tyrell a more main character or hero would impede what I was getting at, didn't want to juggle more main characters, four is plenty as is, and it's not really his story. He served other story functions, in regards to Nikolai, Carlos and HUNK, an effect on them and the story, thematically. Tyrell's true identity and death will weigh on Carlos going forward, and speaks volumes about Nikolai, while it makes HUNK ponder the Monitors a bit more, his rivalry with Nikolai. I wanted him to remain a Monitor like the original, but have more of an effect than he did in that game.
What I like with their interactions is I can have HUNK just saying nothing at all sometimes, as the less talkative outside the mission of the two, the more focused, and Carlos can just ramble on, joke, and it still makes sense. There are parts where I just limited HUNK's dialogue and kept his presence, from Carlos's perspective it feels like he's talking to a brick wall sometimes, but HUNK is really listening to every word, I'm just not revealing everything he thinks about what Carlos is saying, limiting the time spent in HUNK's head. So when we do go back inside his head, we can see it more clearly. I like depicting HUNK from outside eyes, seeming like this imposing inhuman being, and then clashing it with a human POV from him, the truth nobody else knows, though a truth Jill and Carlos are coming to understand about him. Slowly but surely.
I wanted the hospital section, along with others I will get to later, to feel like HUNK and Carlos walked into the middle of or tail end of a horror movie. They are interlopers, there for a reason, the vaccine, but weren't there during the downfall and battles that took place there. Specifically, the events of the Resident Evil: Outbreak scenario The Hive, set at that very hospital. The survivors of that are long gone, and left the hospital as is in their wake. The two are passing through, and seeing the madness that happened before they arrived, and having to deal with it while getting what they are after. I definitely wanted a more eerie atmosphere/feeling to the place, instead of the corridors choked with corpses and zombies, an action movie, running and gunning their way to the goal. A slow, unsettling journey I felt would carry more weight in numerous ways.
evolution-500: Much appreciated, as ever, glad you're continuing to enjoy it, and the HUNK and Carlos dynamic. A different but just as important dynamic as the one between HUNK and Jill, and I wrote this hospital section with them both going to address that.
cipher66: I'm happy I've captured the feeling I was aiming for at the hospital, the dread and eeriness, not knowing what is around the corner. As for the other thing, all I'm going to say about that is... enjoy ;).
Arkham Knight: I wanted to give Colonel Vladimir his due in this story, even if most of his villain presence will be off screen and him being talked about. He was a damn good and important character/villain within Umbrella. The Tyrants were genetically modeled after him, he is Spencer's right hand man, created the U.B.C.S. and Monitors, Nikolai's old friend, is sent to recover B.O.W.'s from the Arklay Mountains, along with Umbrella's most important system core data from Raccoon City, is Wesker's biggest rival of that era, and is ultimately the one who goes down with the sinking ship trying to revive Umbrella, the most insanely loyal to the company and Spencer. That last one makes him a good foil to HUNK who is steadily questioning his loyalty and gaining contempt for Umbrella and Spencer, despite his reputation of absolute loyalty. Basically there's a competition in Lord Spencer's mind who should be his 'Darth Vader' figure, essentially. HUNK, Vladimir or Wesker. Wesker have no wish to be, HUNK is drifting away from the idea, while Vladimir wants that position. And I wanted him to be a foil/counterpart to the character I created of War, HUNK's mentor, Lord Spencer's former right hand woman, and tie into the U.S.S. vs U.B.C.S. rivalry. There was a great deal I was able to do with the character, connecting him to the various befitting plot threads and other characters, a web of layers, he was one more of character I wanted to explore the potential of. Unfortunately, despite being such a damn important character tied into Umbrella's history, somehow Capcom was stupid enough to only include him in Umbrella Chronicles, and promptly forgot him in every game after, even the ones set when he was still alive and an important figure in the company. So, like with HUNK, I'm trying to remedy that. I enjoyed writing the political feuds within Umbrella among the various characters, took on a life of its own. Wanted to show there was something more going on in the company, and I have the chance to tell a great deal about Umbrella through HUNK's POV. He has seen and knows a lot, and is our insider basically, in his position. As for a confrontation/interaction between HUNK and the Colonel at some point, well who knows? ;). Thanks again.
Reptaliator: Much appreciated, as noted to another reviewer, with Tyrell, given I was going with the original game lore mostly, I wanted to keep it intact as is, while adding more context to him, and having an effect on the others. I was juggling enough main characters as it were without having him survive and go off with them. That's not what I envisioned the story being about, because the three heroes are already the focal point of the story, with Nikolai as the human antagonist. Any recurring supporting characters were best left to HUNK's support team outside Raccoon City, so I could increase focus on the three.
I went with the blonde look for a number of reasons... though the main one was to maintain the Umbrella tradition. Pretty much all Umbrella villains/characters are varying shades of blonde/light toned hair. Anti villain in HUNK's case, but an anti villain is still a villain. Just one dipping his toes in anti heroism. I didn't go with the Umbrella Chronicles one in part because of how hazy it was, but what I could see he wasn't rugged enough, nor had any facial hair, and the Outbreak one, as you say, was too smooth, clean shaven, and looks too much like Nikolai. I leaned more towards the original Resident Evil 3 Epilogue File of HUNK sitting on the chopper, though not necessarily exactly like that. A close approximation of that. Rugged, darker blonde hair, facial hair, chiseled, manly man. A hunk lol, true to his codename. And since his eye color isn't visible, I came up with a fitting tone to them, reflecting his character and nature. I had a very particular idea of how HUNK looked in my head as I developed him and the story, and blonde reflected it best. Also further separates him from the heroes, Jill and Carlos, among others.
As for the Bella/War backstory, it's coming, you'll learn more. Learn what I think is enough for the purposes of the story. It's a vital, complicated dynamic to HUNK and the story, as such I had to let it trickle in over time and a big section of it to come at a fitting pace and in a fitting form. In this story I don't do exact full on flashbacks as in dialogue/scenes between the characters and set of the past, because I thought it would be jarring to the pace of the story to just stop everything like slamming the brakes and cutting to ten years ago, some scene that took place back then. Also robs some element of the mystery by nailing it all down to exactly what happened. It was about getting HUNK's biased POV. I had to tie HUNK's memories/dreams/nightmares to the present for story and character purposes, relevance, instead of turning it all into an aside. Cutting away from the present, you know? I hope you'll enjoy what I chose to do, I feel it was the best way to present it. You will get some more awkward young man HUNK who was still learning, and very very much out of his depth in the world of Umbrella. In a way, he still is on some level, despite time and learning, he just hides it behind a mask and a legend, an intimidating air about him. Young HUNK thrown into the middle of Umbrella, seeing its upper echelons thanks to Bella giving him a major status boost, taking him under her wing... and more, will be shown. Along with finding out who she is. HUNK as the solitary POV within Umbrella was an essential element to the story to me. The man knows how that world operates, the ins and outs, humanizing Umbrella and the characters within it. Meanwhile to Jill, who sees them from the outside, Umbrella is a vast monolithic entity, the enemy, but she has never been inside that world. And is better off for it, fighting it instead. Though she is learning there is something more within through HUNK, seeing him defy her expectations and Umbrella prejudices. Even Carlos is more of an outsider to Umbrella, even though he works for them and has seen a few things. He's so low on the status tier at the company as a rookie that he doesn't really know anything, except what he has seen at Raccoon City, which is certainly enough lol.
Thank you all for the reviews, as ever. As you can see this chapter is indeed shorter than usual. Call it something of an interlude, and a love letter to an element of the Outbreak games I quite enjoyed. Of the unpleasant variety I couldn't resist ;).
September 30th, 1998, 10:41PM
Room 402, Raccoon General Hospital, Northern Raccoon City
The muffled echo of the door banging shut behind HUNK passed through the room, before fading away into quiet, save only the patter of the rain outside against the windows. The distant moans of the infected out in the streets. And Oliveira's mocking laughter at his expense, of course, suddenly braver about doing so the moment the agent stepped out of the hall and into the room. The sound of it too faded away quickly enough. Jaw tightening over the young man's words and manner, his attempts to be humorous in a situation like this one, he scanned the interior closely from behind the gas mask. The red glow of his submachine gun's laser sight moving freely over the surfaces, reflecting now and again off metal, glinting. Deeming it all clear again, and noticeably cleaner and well kept in a way the last room had not been in the least, he slowly lowered the weapon, but kept his grip on it as he surveyed the area. The layout of the room, and its contents, was not entirely dissimilar from that of Room 401... it made sense, he supposed, just about every hospital room was the same when it came down to it. There were the same medical posters, charts and papers on some of the walls, including a calendar positioned around the area around him. The most obvious difference was a simple one, in that the position of most of the contents were reversed in their locations. Where the bed and all around it had been positioned against the left wall in 401, in 402 it was up against the right hand side.
There was a bedside cabinet and table right beside it, with a couple folded up chairs lain against it. On the opposite side, he glimpsed over the hand grip railing on the bed, was another small table with a plugged in black television sitting upon it, though the screen quite blank. His gaze drifted on slowly, watching for a second the rain run down the window between the cracks in the drawn blinds, and then towards the wall on his left, to the sink opposite the bed. There was nothing altogether remarkable about the place on first glance, that much was clear. Yet, its contents, wherever they were, certainly were. He moved further into the room, boots tapping across the floor until he reached the bed, and stood in the center of the area. He scanned for any oddities at all... and he found them, in the form of four metallic small surfaces, no bigger than one of the floor tiles, in each corner of the room. Unless he was mistaken, and he had no reason to think he was, the exact same four had been in the corners of Room 401. The instructions he had taken, read and discarded from the doctor's corpse had told him how to solve the puzzle.
The large control panel on the other side of the bed had to be placed on each of the metal tiles in a certain order to activate an electrical charge within them. In turn, this charge would send a signal to reveal the whereabouts of the safe containing the Vaccine Base. He pondered it over for a few moments, and then wearily shook his head. So elaborate. And so unnecessarily so. He, like Oliveira and Valentine, had nearly begun thinking such an eccentricity was only among the indigenous population of Raccoon City... but he this unnecessary puzzle had been the creation of not mere citizens, but Umbrella scientists, Umbrella personnel. Like the company's President himself. He found himself silently disappointed, and not for the first time. He turned away from the window, having been peering towards the rain flecked window, and towards the wall opposite the bed. He strode over to it, towards the lone painting in the room, one that hadn't been in 401. He scanned it briefly... it was of the mountains and forest outside Raccoon City, in vivid detail, close to the unpleasantly familiar Spencer Mansion. There was even a name at the bottom of the painting, emboldened.
ARKLAY
"Home sweet home..."
Well... one of the Spencer family's many homes around the world. Just not one of his. If he had to hazard a guess, it was a fairly old painting... done around the time the mansion had been built... maybe even worth something. It looked as though it should have been hanging up in one of Lord Spencer's homes. It did justice to the place that had existed there in those mountains before its destruction. It looked as it had that summer night ten years ago, when she had summoned him there. After Marcus. All that was missing were the guards at the gates and the many party guests on the grounds, masked and otherwise. The laughter... the inebriation among them. The hands of the female guests that had touched him and the flirtatious comments and compliments on the mask and dark suit she had given him to wear. He remembered the music... and other memories threatened... especially the ones her eyes brought back... all the familiar and alien faces waiting for him in that dining hall, looking back up at him as he entered it. Her sitting at Lord Spencer's right hand, gazing back up at the young man the way she had... but he pulled himself forcefully from the reverie. Replacing those alluring green eyes of hers with a pained blue pair, and focusing himself on them. The present. The mission. Not the past. He had managed to go quite some time without thinking about it, that memory. It wouldn't do him any good to drift back there.
And certainly not to that night.
Rather unceremoniously, he grabbed the corner of the painting and tore it right off the wall with ease, throwing it aside, the glass over top of it shattering as it hit the ground, and revealing the smooth light toned metal of the safe that had been hiding behind it. It was almost laughable. More than that, the effort of attempting to use a puzzle to help find it was rather pathetic. He remembered many other missions collecting biological samples and data that had been hidden much better. Protected better. Even Birkin had taken more precautions, for all his madness, the NEST more difficult to infiltrate. He studied the small safe carefully, noting the number based buttons upon it for the password. It was small but sturdy, the safe... it would probably take some decent explosives to open without the code or hacking tools, though explosives would have been out of the question anyway, considering its valuable contents. It had been another story ordering one of his teams to breach the outer layer of Birkin's laboratory with explosive charges and their hacking devices, but in that case doing so had been necessary. A shortcut to avoid most of the NEST security. Not that they had been able to avoid them all. He remembered the firefights that had taken place... how one sided they had been, the agents taking the NEST security by surprise. They had moved swiftly to avoid most of the fighting, but some of it had been unavoidable. Still, it hadn't been long before the remaining security was more focused on the outbreak down there, than the rapid U.S.S. infiltration.
HUNK was about to type in the three digit code to the safe, when the communicator in his armor signaled him, and he stopped. Remaining where he was, he rose a hand and activated it. The ever present tone on the other side filling his ears when he did.
"NIGHTHAWK to Alpha Team Leader, come in."
"You're back fast, NIGHTHAWK."
"Happens when we have a super genius on the company payroll. Alex found plenty, forwarded it to our support team, and is searching for more. She was glad to help, but says you owe her one."
"Of course she does. Tell her I'll add it to my to do list."
"I will. Don't worry, I won't tell Doctor Radames about her. Last thing she needs to hear is that she has more competition."
"Isn't like that with her. Focus, NIGHTHAWK. What have you got? Or rather, what did she dig up?"
"The U.B.C.S. databases were simple to access. They would be to her even if they were better encrypted. Where would you like me to start?"
"Tyrell. What did you find on him? Who was he, how long had he been a Monitor?"
"Full name of our dead Monitor was Tyrell Peter Patrick, approximately thirty two years old and positioned in the U.B.C.S.'s Bravo Platoon. Born of African and Surinamese heritage. Blood type AB, six foot one inch in height, a hundred and ninety eight in weight."
"He was, anyway. Pull up a record of his service... how he entered the employ of Umbrella."
"Got that right here, Mr Death. He was born in the Surinamese Republic, grew up there, before moving to Holland and joining the French Foreign Legion. Record was initially spotless, made it up to Corporal, but like everyone hired for the U.B.C.S, it soon became marred. Got involved with the Black Market trade, selling weapons, explosives, ammunition and equipment supplied by the Legion. His weaponry was found by Interpol to have been involved in several genocides going on around Africa, including Rwanda in 94'. Figures Interpol would get the job done there, and not those assholes at the U.N sitting around and watching it play out."
"Yes."
"When they found out, he was court marshaled and sentenced to life imprisonment. They locked him up and threw away the keys. Naturally Colonel Vladimir was doing its usual world wide recruitment drive, got a hold of his record, saw his skills and made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Used his connections to to spring him. By 96' he was with the U.B.C.S., starting out as an observer. Guess Vladimir was impressed with the way he kept his activities beneath the Legion's nose for awhile, and figured he'd make a good Monitor. Espionage and the like. The Colonel put him into more training, slipped him among the other mercs to keep an eye on them. He did a fine job of it, apparently... not quite in Nikolai's league, but could hold his own. Especially considering he was still alive within half an hour ago after everything that has unfolded to this point."
"He probably believed there honor among his fellow thieves. Underestimated the greed of others, despite his own, and paid the price. Poetic fate of his own making."
"Swimming with the sharks at its finest... if Nikolai is cutting through each of the Monitors, taking their own recovered information, he'll be stockpiling it. Moreover, I bet if Umbrella doesn't offer him enough for all of it, buddy of Vladimir's or not, he'd be more than happy to take it to the U.S. Government. They'll be needing all the evidence they can get after this, and would pay handsomely. Or maybe some other client, plenty of company's, rivals and enemies out there that would like to see Umbrella go belly up, even if they can't publicly admit it. Federation of Pharmaceuticals. Tricell. Shén Yā Pharmaceutical. You name it. Cut throat world of back room politics and corporate bullshit."
"I'm going to need a list of names of Monitors involved in this operation. Statuses. Objectives. Their positions in the U.B.C.S. Hell, we know the Colonel doesn't just place Monitors in the U.B.C.S., track down every one you can, regardless of their position. It's all related. Everything that can be scrounged up. If we're going through all this trouble for the company, it will not involve our being kept in the dark in the middle of the battlefield. Information is a tool, a weapon, and one required. Especially now. The mission changed, and so have the perimeters. Time I used the authority Lord Spencer has granted me."
"Alex is still scanning the records, using decryption software on them, and the files related to this particular operation, and others. She scrounged up a name for this one, at least. Operation Watchdog. We're going to need a little more time to...-"
There came then the sudden staccato of automatic fire, loud yet muffled from the outside hall. The shots of an M4, along with a muffled yelling. He no longer heard NIGHTHAWK, snapping on the spot, raising the modified MP5 to the door, laser sight settling over it. The rifle fire ceased quickly, and seconds later it was followed by the rapports of a pistol, and his communication link picked up another signal, from within his proximity. HUNK activated the signal, switching over to the next channel, as a contorted, terrified, accented voice overtook the line, and HUNK listened in silently. Not only was there his familiar tone... but sickly noises on the other end of the line... not dissimilar from the squishing movements of the mutated worms.
"-...HUNK... need backup, now god damn it! It's not slowing! Falling back to... elevator... fuck is this thing!? It's breaking into the...-"
Static filled the line, the voice vanishing beneath it, as the gunshots continued from out in the corridor. There were muffled shouts as well. A young man's screams. HUNK immediately switched over back to NIGHTHAWK's channel and spoke, tone low, deadly and terse into the communicator.
"You'll have it. Radio silence until my return. Area compromised. Moving to secure. Over and out."
Snapping off the communicator, he kicked aside the Arklay painting in his way, which smashed against the wall the safe was connected to, landing below it, and he strode towards the door quickly and burst through it with more force than he had kicking out the lock. Making a turn, he swiftly tore down the hallway with the MP5 raised to his shoulder, laser sight flashing ahead, ready to turn the subsequent corner beyond and contain whatever horror awaited him. He saw the assault rifle laying on the floor, the turned over trolley with the assorted medical supplies spilled on the floor... and the shell casings of the rifle and impact marks along the floor, walls and ceiling. And a thick trail of grime and muck on the floor. Boot prints tracking through them. His own pair kicking through the shell casings as he moved. In his mind's eye, he saw the omnipresent Tyrant Pursuer, mutated, lumbering through the hallways... imagined the growls as it tore down walls... but Oliveira's words gave him doubt. And the sounds emanating from around the corner were not those of the Pursuer. And within seconds his own two eyes disproved the idea altogether. In comparison to what he actually did see around that corner on the far end, its back to him and breaking into the elevator Oliveira had taken cover within... the reminder of the past and his role in it, what he had done... he almost wished that it had been the Tyrant.
He adjusted quickly to the unpleasant sight though, always did nowadays... like the flip of a switch, taking aim through the scope... and did what he was best at. What she had trained him to do. Bringing his title upon the enemy, regardless of the form that enemy took. Be it an insane old scientist hovering over his latest creation, or an abomination that might as well have been one of his children, in the same way the Tyrants were the Colonel's.
Without hesitation, the red laser sight meeting its target, Death squeezed down on the trigger.
"You've gotta be fucking kidding me..."
The stunned words were the first thing that burst out when Carlos managed to rediscover his lungs. The smell of it... the nausea inducing scent of it in his proximity was the first thing to hit him. The second thing that hit him was its writhing arm. With a curse, Carlos swung the rifle in its direction, he had no more than squeezed down on the trigger, when it struck out at the rifle, sending most of the shots wild and into the ceiling, floor and wall, none of them hitting the thing. The sling of the modified M4 dropped from his shoulder and it slid across the ground over against the wall. Dust rained about freely wherever the powerful rounds struck, forming a light cloud, in which the thing stood, albeit not thick enough to disguise or obscure the horror of it as much as he wished it did. Rather, the light cloud of gradually dispersing dust served only to highlight the obvious... how little it belonged in its surroundings, and how much it perverted them, standing in the midst of a hospital as though it belonged there.
As though it belonged in the world.
In the cloud of dust, tinged red by a nearby glowing fire alarm, it writhed and twitched unnaturally... though if its head was doing so, if it even had one buried away, Carlos couldn't tell. Everything save its limbs were obscured, and not by the dispersing smoke. A concentrated bulk comprised most of its upper body, to the point even its arms were difficult to make out, beyond the exposed, dirty hands and wrists. Its legs were partly visibly as well, its tattered worn out pants and dirty boots it had been wearing before... before whatever it was that had happened to it. A trail of sludge and footprints had been tracked up the floor it had walked. That suckling sound, squirming... if it had been obvious back in Room 401, now it was deafening where he stood, pounding into his consciousness. It stood there, moving on the spot in front of him, unable to stay still. And why should it? Considering the many thousands of thickly swollen, mutated black leeches were embedded into most of its entire exterior, tails collectively flicking back and forth. As one, they fed on flesh and liquid, the latter of which, along with dirty dark water, trickled freely from it. Oozing blood and the sewage covering it. A walking, bipedal swarm existed before him... not a sole threat, but a countless number, concentrated together into one.
It was legion.
If the Tyrant were a perfect example of what could be made in a lab... this thing could have only formed... mutated... down within a cesspool of infectious vileness he didn't even want to consider. He couldn't consider it, for all that he was was focused on it. He felt himself paling, sickening, stomach churning at the combined sight and smell, and terror he felt. Worse than Room 402. It shuddered, and it stepped forward, shambling, one after another. Backing up quickly, Carlos fell back against the trolley, tripped over it and hit the ground along with it heavily, the noise echoing throughout the corridor as the medical supplies on it fell every which way. His mind and body grew detached and separate with the surge of adrenaline... he barely even felt hitting the ground, but he sure as hell saw what was looming over him. Scrambling back to his feet and whipping out his remaining sidearm, he aimed and fired into its center bulk as he rose unsteadily, several times.
The force of the rounds wasn't even enough to stagger it as the rounds tore into leech flesh, exploding and dislodging a few of them writhing at its feet. It was too thick, a biological body armor enveloping it. Where the leeches had exploded new ones formed over top of it. Replenishing its own armor. The shell casings clattered alongside them on the floor as Carlos backed up further down the hall, wanting as much space between he and it. Still firing, it was unaffected, and continued lurching forward, yet not mindless as the zombies were. There was far more to this thing... a stalking intellect, something rudimentary at least, where its movements were deliberate and purposeful. It loomed inexorably towards him, the suckling misshapen mass, knowing it had him backed up and would overwhelm him.
On pure instinct, Carlos activated his radio and got some static as he reached out for the only backup he had in hospital, shouting, panicked, into it for help from the man on the other end of the line as he fired and retreated back to the elevator, still facing the thing. The last thing he wanted was to present his back to it... if he was going to die here, and now at its hands, it would not be seeing anything other than what he was struggling against. His heart beat in his ears as he gasped through the static, frantically hitting the call button of the elevator between shots. By now it had passed the trolley and stood no more than a few feet from him. The seconds it took for the elevator doors to respond lasted far longer as he backed up to and into the elevator shaft. His attention for the most part left the radio, which he kept activated as he fell against the wall of the elevator, scrambling towards the panel of buttons to close the door. As it responded, he was not even given a moment to breath.
It lunged towards the doors, perhaps sensing its prey might escape, and got its arm trapped between the doors. Yet, it was enough to keep the doors partially opened. and he felt the force of its hand push with unnatural strength against the front of his vest, sending him flying back against the metal wall of the interior, and sliding down to the ground, hitting it heavily. This impact he felt as well, every already painful ache only worsening from each... and the act of shoving him had dislodged several more leeches, landing in the elevator shaft with him and squirming around at his boots, writhing and squealing audibly. They did things, made noises... that only a nightmare could conjure.
Quickly he squished a couple with his boots as the long, thick creatures began to right themselves and wriggle towards their fresh, panting meal, leaving slime and sewage in their wake. He didn't give them a chance... whatever it took, he was not ending up like that thing. He raised his pistol again, and ignored the potential consequences of firing a weapon in an enclosed metal space such as an elevator shaft, squeezing the trigger. He fired the remainder of his rounds in the magazine into the leeches on the floor, and the bouncing of shell casings, and the ricochets of bullets joined in with the squishing sounds of the thing with its arm pinned in the doorway. Maybe he was still screaming into the radio, maybe he was silent... he just didn't know anymore, as the deafening echo of the rounds filled his senses and began to overwhelm them. He felt himself lose his mind... lose all sense and comprehension of what was surrounding him.
"No... no... not like... this..."
With the last of the rounds spent, his vision grew hazy when something sparked and an impact even more powerful than its arm slammed into his front, knocking all the air out of his lungs. He hadn't been prepared for its incredible strength, couldn't even gasp, as he tried to breath, and time truly did slow for him as he watched his trained hands instinctively eject the magazine in his pistol, unable to hear it clatter to the floor among the liquid stains of the leeches. The world, the light of the elevator, went dim around him. No... he couldn't black out... if he did, it was all over. He had to concentrate, had to survive. He hadn't come all this way to die now. Somehow he drew a fresh magazine from his vest and slid and locked it into place, raising it again, and this time taking proper aim at the gap in the doors, filled with the dark swarm.
Hand shaking, he fired again, hearing the muffled distant echo of rapports, reduced now by the haziness gripping Carlos's mind. With all he had left, he tried to make sure every bullet struck the thing... and they did, not that it was making a difference. He shot it in the hand grasping desperately at him, and the impact did little more than jolt it. Killing more leeches that were also quickly replaced by the horde of them. It was inevitable... the thing would break through and into the elevator, and consume him... or do to him whatever the leeches had done to it. Turn him into their puppet... burrowing away into his flesh, into his brain... turning him into something unfathomable. An abomination. No. He could not let that happen. Would not let that happen. He would save the last bullet in the magazine for himself. If death was even enough to save him from it... for all he knew it would burrow into him, revive him... and use him anyways. He fired the pistol, fired it, over and over for what seemed an eternity. When the doors finally parted for it, and it prepared to step inside for its feast as he ran low of ammunition, Carlos turned the gun on himself, finger upon the trigger, hand shaking upon the sidearm. He began to pray for forgiveness for the mortal sin he was about to perform. But before he could summon the courage... the will... to squeeze the trigger, he watched, numbly, as a streaming red light flashed into existence and settled upon the thing's back. Something distant echoed a number of times, out in the corridor.
Then, in an instant, it burst into flames, and began to scream at the top of its lungs.
An inhuman howl overwhelmed everything else, including the squirming and ringing in Carlos's ears worse than the gunshots had, as fire engulfed and rippled along the bulky mass, smoke pouring off it instantly. It turned from the doorway, burning leeches starting to detach from its body, no longer seeing him, and no longer staggered or lurched. It ran. Back down towards the hallway from which it had come. Through the smoke, the red light flashed and moved about, over the various surfaces... and in the doorway a new blurry, dark shape appeared to replace the one that had preceded it. Inhuman as well, but mercifully less so than the thing. It moved quickly, with surgical precision, purpose in every step as it entered the elevator through the smoke. As Carlos coughed and attempted to make out what he saw in the spinning world a pair of glinting red, reflective eyes met him, and he found himself staring back at his own pained reflection in each of them, one of the eyes cracked like glass. It had a trio of white, claw-like jagged scars running down the top of its dented head... and a strange mouth on its dark face... three of them, metal, protruding from the face. A deep, muffled voice emerged from the unmoving mouths, but he couldn't hear the words over the ringing and the screaming outside in the hall. And then he felt something grip him by the battered vest.
Staring back at his own disheveled, stunned features in the reflective red eyes, he was pulled, dragged by his backpack partially out of the elevator across the floor, at least enough that he lay in the doorway of the shaft, on his right side. Coughing and retching. He felt a strong hand grasping at his neck, and for a moment thought himself being throttled. Instead, it retrieved something he had been carrying... an apple shaped object with a metal pin stuck inside it... one of the dozen he'd recovered on a belt and promptly forgotten he was carrying. He heard himself laugh slightly, a distant echo, as he watched the maddening scene play out from where he lay dazed. The tall, shadowy shape with red eyes left Carlos in the doorway, pursuing the fire consumed thing that tore down the hallway, still rippling smoke every which way.
He would take its continued inhuman screeching and screams to the grave with him, he noted calmly as his coughing went on. The madness of what he watched. Writhing leeches fell off the main bulk of its body steadily, each one still ablaze and creating a fire strewn path along the marble floor as they died one after another. The thing stopped all of a sudden in the midst of its running, directly in front of the light illuminating past the turned over trolley. With unexpected perception, it smashed its hand through the fire alarm there, activating the glowing red button, and in turn, it began to rain all over the hospital floor. A powerful siren erupted on the floor of the hospital, an echo as great as its screams and his gunshots had been. The sprinkler system burst forth as it activated and began to douse all of them with cold water, the flames of the fallen leeches going out gradually. The freshness of the water hit his face, soaked his form all over again, and began to clear the smoke, his coughing subsiding slowly, and replaced with fresh air. He gasped out desperately for it, drank the water as it streamed down his face... knowing the hospital had its own water tanks and purifier, yet through all of it, his eyes never left the hallway.
The inferno rippling over its body gradually started to dissipate on the bulky, burnt thing that remained where it was in front of the alarm, perhaps recovering its self. The screaming subsided, and perhaps it savored the water, the cooling as much or perhaps more so even than Carlos did in that instant. Its form shuddered again as it was rejuvenated. It was a short lived pleasure. The moment the fire went out altogether, that red light settled over its crispy, blackened, writhing exterior again... and with a series of echoing clicks carrying over the siren, it promptly relit the blaze. Spent brass hit the floor, the force and power of the rounds punching through it, slamming it against the wall. It fell away from the wall, leaving bullet impacts broken into it, and smears of blood and slime on the wall that the downpour was washing away already. The force of the rounds nearly knocking it over to the ground... and then as it staggered back upright it began to scream again. Fire rippling up over its body from whatever was in the rounds. Blue flames among the rising blaze. Pained death howls, guttural, and screeches.
This time, it ran and it didn't stop running, all the way to the end of the hall, to... how had he not seen it before? There was a spacious hole, about knee high in the cracked and battered wall they had passed earlier. At some point before, as he'd been distracted considering Room 401, it had burrowed through... up from somewhere. There was only darkness beyond it... and based on the position of the floor, it could not have come from far beyond it. It could have only climbed, burrowed up from somewhere. The idea of it climbing through the various levels... maybe even through vents, through the hospital horrified him, as much as it didn't surprise him.
Wherever it went, the thing was going to take it, its last means of escape. Fleeing its red eyed pursuer in blinded terror. It knelt down on the floor, still ablaze and losing leeches steadily, and wriggled inhumanly over the floor like a snake, sinking into and legs disappearing down the hole, smoke still rising up into the downpour. The armored figure, running down after the vanishing thing made it to the hole in the wall and knelt down beside it, submachine gun in one hand, grenade in the other. For a single moment he thought the agent was going to crawl down after it, pursue his prey as inexorably as it had Carlos. To go after the leech... thing. No... it wasn't just a thing, that was too easy to write it off as. A mere 'thing' did not scream in pain. Did not move as it had, so calculating... had that level of intelligence. Instead of pursuing it down the hole himself, the figure ripped off the pin of the grenade and dropped it down the hole after the fleeing monster. Letting the explosive device pursue it for him.
The U.S.S. Agent rose in the midst of the sprinkler above him, water pouring off his form, the water making his uniform look black again, and turning from the hole, before the explosion even went off, he moved through the puddles, boots sloshing. A few seconds later, the explosion rang out from somewhere below, and a great cloud of dust and smoke engulfed the agent down on the far end of the hall, obscuring him for a few moments, before he continued to stride through it, dark form and pace unphased. The Grim Reaper of the stories walking inexorably towards Carlos, eyes burning red in the light, like a machine. The dust settled gradually, helped by the downpour, and silently the agent continued on. Behind him, the wall had collapsed in on its self from the force of the explosion, sealing up the hole the monster had come from. Carlos's senses were all gradually returning, along with the rippling pain passing through his form, and he moaned under his breath. Until now, he hadn't even been aware the elevator doors had closed on him, against his backpack and vest, the force of it intensifying the pain... but he couldn't move much, in his exhausted, dazed state.
As his senses cleared bit by bit, he also realized he'd left his radio on, the static joining in on the noise around them... and with the effort he could muster, he flicked it off, and slumped back against the ground, arm weighing too damn much. He watched the agent stop for a moment at the turned over trolley, kneel again and retrieve something from among the fallen medical supplies, slipping it into a pouch and rising again as though he hadn't paused. He did this one more time, albeit this time the item he retrieved was obvious and familiar. The agent tilted his head slightly over to the bullet stricken wall and floor, courtesy of the discharging of Carlos's rifle, which lay in its original place against the wall. Grasping the shoulder strap, lifting the rifle off the ground from amid the water and shell casings, he continued marching back down towards Carlos.
All the while, languidly slinging the modified submachine gun he had somehow used to torch the thing, he moved over all the small twitching, burnt, dying bodies of the swollen leeches among the water, crushing a few of them under his boots in the process. Bursting them, staining the water puddles with their infected blood. His form calmly striding to Carlos's position in the elevator doorway. Grabbing the Corporal by the collar, Carlos was pulled with ease from the doors, which finally closed, and was slid over the soaked floor and lain down against the wall opposite the elevator, sitting in the puddle. Breathing with difficulty, Carlos attempted to look down at the source of impact amidst the continued steady downpour of water... knowing damn well by now he had shot himself trying to fend off the abomination. Before he could examine himself, HUNK did it for him, kneeling down and examining his front, removing the vest and studying the front of his uniform. The agent set the rifle against the wall beside Carlos, freeing up both of his hands to work. For the first time, Carlos did shut his eyes tightly, not much wishing to see the blood that would be trailing down from his wound. He felt the gloved hand examining him carefully, pressing against the point of impact on his torso, and he winced at the movement, uttering a low unsteady, pained breath. Forcing himself to speak again, with effort.
"I... I... fucked up real bad... didn't I?"
"Your self awareness is intact at least, rookie.", Returned the wonderfully familiar low, muffled tone, still calm and subdued over the ringing of the sirens around them. It carried through with ease as it delivered its assessment. He felt his uniform part, and a sting as something far colder than the water pressed against his flesh beneath, the agony coursing through him intensifying. Like a cold shock. "Fortunately for you, the vest hasn't been compromised either. It took the round. Nor have you been bitten. What the fuck were you thinking firing inside an elevator shaft? Do you have something to say for yourself, Oliveira?"
Carlos slowly opened his eyes, to find HUNK zipping back up the front of Carlos's uniform, and tucking away a bottle of First Aid Spray. While stained, his uniform was stained with water, not blood, the water beneath him not turning scarlet. Carlos caught a glimpse of his badly bruised midsection, the swelling the spray would fight, already turning an ugly purple sure to worsen. He drew in another breath, and glanced at the olive green shirt and dark vest as HUNK lowered the shirt again and fastened the vest back into place and tightened it, causing the Corporal to wince again painfully at the pressure. The slug was still embedded into it, and partially flattened, not having made its way through all the layers of the vest. At this point, it was almost surprising Umbrella had provided him and his unit with equipment that worked. Considering every other way they had been trying to sabotage the platoons since the start of this operation. He breathed again with nothing less than raw relief, and slowly shook his head, leaning back against the wall, and groggily answering, with a hint nonetheless of mirth mixing in steadily with his words.
"Yeah... I do have... something to say. See why... you didn't take the... flamethrower. Had one... already. Holy shit, man. That was... that was..."
Impatiently, the agent merely grunted with irritation of his words, waved a dismissive hand and stood back up, looming over the Corporal as the young man broke out in a loopy grin. It was all he knew to do in that moment, from the sheer insanity of what he had just narrowly survived through. He was in what felt a stuck daze, his vision wonky, and he closed his eyes again tightly, then blinking over and over, attempting to clear it. Finding himself starting to laugh... wheezing at the pain it caused, but unable to help himself. It seemed to only irritate the agent further.
"Keep laying there laughing like a jackass if you must. Could have blown your own brains out firing in there. Had you any to lose. At least you had the sense not to use the grenades. Stay put and stay conscious. Moving will give you some trouble for awhile. I had not finished retrieving the Vaccine Base, when you interrupted me."
"Fair... enough. Take your time, then.", Carlos wheezed, his laughter gradually managing to subside, heart beating rapidly in his ears over the pain. Eyes remaining looking up at the masked man, grinning at him wearily. "Where would I... go anyways?"
"Keep your rifle close, this time. If anyone or anything not me comes here again, empty your magazine into them. Use a grenade shell for good measure. I am not pulling your boots out of the fire again. We are now even."
"Thanks... but pretty damn sure you started that fire, man. What the... hell did you use... on it?"
"Armor piercing incendiary rounds. Mixed napalm and white phosphorus gel capsules within the tips. Round makes contact, the two mix and ignite under the force of impact. QUARTERMASTER special. One of his many, anyways. That thing was more flammable than I expected."
"Thank that... crazy old bastard for me... when you get back to the Leviathan..."
"I will."
"Where did it... where the hell did it... that... Leech Man... come from? Where did it... go?"
"Home. If it survived. The sewers, beneath the hospital. Not our problem anymore. Glad we didn't take a shortcut through them?"
At long last, eyes opening all the way in the midst of the downpour, Carlos looked up at the man and broke out again in laughter again, unable to repress it, coughing and laughing, the pain offering no deterrence. He looked slowly away from the tall agent, and down to the far end of the hall, focusing on the caved in wall occupying the space the Leech Man had come from. In his minds eye, down below the rubble, below the hospital, he saw the festering sewer. The shadows stirring about it... and he didn't want to know what else lurked down there with it. One monstrosity from below had been more than enough, too much for a lifetime. Was it alone? Had there been others like it, either down there, or already in the hospital? Its persistence... disturbed him, the way it had burrowed all the way up patiently, floor after floor, ascending the Hospital from the lowest possible point. And why shouldn't it? Those things had to feed as much as he did, surely. Whether or not it actually needed to feed to survive was another story.
"You could... say that.", Carlos wheezed as good naturedly as he could pretend, taking his time between breaths, hand moving over his vest and remaining there. Very slowly, his head rolled aside, away from the far wall and back to HUNK... or rather, his legs, being too tired to even raise his head all the way. "Fucking hate... leeches. Always have... since I was a kid."
"Not so fond myself."
"Had a bad... experience with them. Never forgot it."
"Likewise."
"Think there's a... Queen for those things too, down in the sewer? A hive?"
"Most likely."
"Fucking great news."
"Perhaps other survivors passing through here have dealt with it already. Either way, we aren't staying. It isn't our problem."
"Don't be so... sure. If it's not one thing, it's another. Go on. Hurry up... or some other random mutated freak... will gladly happen along. No shortage... around here... none at all..."
The masked agent did not reply to this detached trailing off, merely continued peering back at the both amused and subdued Corporal a moment longer, perceiving the mental trauma on clear display. Carlos nodded slightly at him, for him to return to his mission, then looked right down, kind of zoning out, though remaining aware of his surroundings, every sound he could, regardless of the fact the fire alarm remained dominant. He was aware when the dark armored uniform of the agent turned slowly and stepped out of his sight, leaving him staring at the elevator doors. Amidst the alarm, and pouring of water, he heard the splashing of boots making their way back to Room 402. It was followed right after by the firm closing of the door behind him, which echoed throughout the hallways and back down to Carlos's position.
Staring blankly ahead, he still heard the abomination... even trying to shut it out. It was like a whine in his ear, growing progressively, growing unbearable. In moments, it drove out all the other sounds around him, even the alarms growing fainter. That squishing... the writhing of black sleek leeches moving as one. Like a hive mind collective, operating through the filthy, stained corpse of whatever poor bastard had been their host. Swarming over him. Changing him steadily. In his ears, all over, he heard the screaming... his own and the thing's. The gunfire pounding in his ears, his own rifle and pistol... and the echoing clicking of HUNK's incendiary ammunition fired through the weapon's silencer. With each constant ache of his stomach, he felt the bullet slam into himself over and over again and knocking the wind out of him. Reminding him of how close it had been. Though not as close as he had been to blowing his own brains out.
He saw the monstrosity trying to claw its way into the elevator... ablaze and running down the hall, breaking and activating the fire alarm on purpose. Screaming, and other actions of a human, from a zombie. Or was it even a zombie, with what the leeches had turned it into? What had the mutations done to the leeches, and to what they had latched to? It hadn't been made in a lab... programmed with intelligence as the Tyrant had. It had demonstrated a worrisome intellect all the same, that cast doubt into Carlos's mind, about just how mindless they all were. It reminded him uncomfortably of the way the eyeless pale things in the horde had watched them pass on the train, where their less mutated and more numerous cousins had tried swarming the train, pressing their rotting hands and bodies against either side of it. Intelligence... too damn much of it for a monster. What the hell was the T-Virus? What were its limits? Did it have any? Had Umbrella experimented with leeches before? Was this their work, or a happenstance of the outbreak? Only now, faintly processing what had unfolded, all of it returning in flashes playing out dancing and hazy in his unblinking eyes, penetrating his ears, did he come to the realization that probably frightened him most of all. The implications of it. Even as the water streamed down his face, he felt heated, sweating, faintly aware his hand at his side was trembling of its own accord. By now, what had occurred in Room 401 had been dwarfed, in comparison to the water soaked hallway he resided in.
Or rather, it stacked its self on top of that horror. One after another, fitting together like pieces that matched. And left him worse off by far.
The Leech Man could think. Feel. It had felt pain, screamed, and reacted accordingly. It had fled the legendary U.S.S. Agent fearfully. Pulled the fire alarm. And if it could feel what it had... how many of the other monsters did? How intelligent were they all... or potentially? He had no true wish to know, yet the curiosity didn't fade. It didn't matter, in the end. All that mattered was surviving them. Carlos leaned his head back against the wall, peering up at the ceiling, to the spurting water sprinklers... and he slowly closed his eyes, feeling the water run down his face. The siren rang on... buzzing in his ears... the sound of its screams and the images of its writhing form bearing down on him... and withdrawing his cross necklace, he began praying silently for it all to fade away.
I loved the Leech Man in Outbreak, scary as hell, visually impressive and awesome concept, the struggle it gave to the survivors of that game, who were woefully unprepared, unequipped and untrained to be dealing with it. Stalking them through the corridors of the hospital. That said, the Grim Reaper eats the Leech Man for breakfast. I wanted to depict how horrifying the latter is from Carlos's POV... yet for all that the former dwarfs even it. Someone trained and prepared to battle something like it, and depict that clash from Carlos's eyes. One Umbrella 'creation'/'monster' devouring another. There's always a bigger fish. And of course there's the tieback in my story between HUNK and Doctor Marcus, his leeches. Anyways, interlude of ass kicking over, now back to the mission next.