Resident Evil:

The Whole Story.

Chapter Forty-One

Rebecca's first insticnt was to run, run as far and as fast in the other direction as she could but she didn't move an inch. She wished she could say that it was due to her own bravery, that her own principles wouldn't let her abandon Billy, but the truth of it was she was probably just to scared to move.

Billy kept the gun trained on the figure at the top of the stairs, his eyes were narrowed and Rebecca wondered if the gun would be able to hurt whatever it was at the top of the stairs, how many bullets it would it take to down it? Five? Ten? Every single bullet they had found in that study and even then that might not prove to be enough.

Whatever it was it certainly wasn't any sort of normal zombie, it had spoken to them but something about it spoke to it's hostlity. It's strange voice, they was it was just standing there looking down at them. And it had called them meat, that probably wasn't a very good sign.

"Who the fuck are you?" Billy barked, taking a step forward and raising the gun slightly higher so it was aimed more at the figure's head than it's chest. The figure laughed, it was wet and cruel and childlike and it was one of the worst sounds that Rebecca had ever heard in her life.

"Marcus, a memory of James Marcus." It spoke strangly, it's words stopping and starting but the words that it had spoken was enough to send a jolt through Rebecca's spine.

James Marcus.

That had been the name under the portrait back in the Training Facilty's main hall, one of Umbrella's three founders. The note she had found with Billy in the main labs had said that these secret labs belonged to James Marcus and it had been James Marcus who owned the journal she had found in the study only a few moments ago.

It had read like something out of a horror movie, it had been most coherent at first. It had been notes about certain experiments and what their results had been mixed in with a lot of paranoid raving about someone called Spencer coming to steal his research and his virus which then devolved into beliving that Spencer was going to kill him, just like he had done with someone else called Edward.

Then, it had gotten worse. The experiments he had been doing had been on leechs, he had used some sort of virus on them amd the results had been that their size had increased and they had become more blood thirsty and hungrier as well, ravenous was probably the better word and Doctor Marcus had taken to feeding them all of the time.

He started out feeding them other lab animals, rabbits for the most part before he started feeding them dogs and cats but according to the journal that hadn't been enough for them. They were still hungry and they were growing in number all the time, growing bigger and bigger to.

That was when he summoned one of the students from the training facility down into his private labs, someone who was both performing below the expectations of the managment so those higher up in Umbrella wouldn't care if they were missing as well as not having anyone in the world outside to raise a fuss if they never, ever came back.

It was reading that when all of it clicked into her head, exactly what she was reading. This was the origin of whatever had caused the zombies and that monster made of leeches back in the main lab, it had all started here. And she had wanted to get as far away from here as possible when she understood.

And now, the latest thing in their way to doing just that claimed to be James Marcus himself. A man who had fed people to his man eating leeches and he certainly did not seem...normal, to point it bluntly. He...it could speak but she didn't think that really meant anything, it felt wrong. It felt hostile.

"James Marcus was the father, James Marcus was the owner." The thing at the top of the stairs spoke, in answer to Billy's question. It was swaying slightly, side to side. In the dim gloom, Rebecca couldn't make out any features it might have had. It was like a living shadow was talking to them.

"He fed us, cared for us, made us strong." It let out a high pitched hum then, it made Rebecca's teeth ache. "We loved him, as he loved us. As I loved them, my precious children. They gave me such gifts in exchange for so very little." The voice of the thing had changed then, not so high pitched and more sure of it's words.

"But then Spencer came." With those words, the walkway that they were standing on seemed to grow darker as if the rage in the thing's words was enough to make the entire world react to it. "He sent those assassins, those thieves, to steal my research and to kill me. Albert and William, they would have been nothing without me and that was how they choose to repay me. Me! After all I had done for them!"

Albert and William, they had been mentioned in that journal as well. Apprently they had both been students at the training facilty that James Marcus had taken on as his proteges, in his own writing he had said that they were the only two that were actually worth anything.

If what this thing was saying was true, then clearly that high opinion had not been shared.

"I would have died, I did die." The voice changed then, uncertain and sad instead of hostile and full of rage. "I felt it, I felt the bullets as they shot through me. It hurt so much, and then it was so cold." A hint of anger entered it's voice as it spoke then. "And they were laughing at me as I died."

"But, I had the last laugh in the end. The alpha, larger than the others, stronger than the others, I had been working with it at the time and none of them had seen it as it made it's way into my pocket. When my body was thrown away like trash to rot, it entered my body and brought with it a way for my vengence to be brough..t forth on my murderers."

The voice shifted again. "Our Father died that night, but his memory lives on in us. Guides us, gives us purpose other than the hunger and the growing. But he grows fainter and fainter in us, we forget him more and more." Wet sounds, like someone slurping soup, filled the air as the shadow began to make it's way down the stairs.

As it came closer to them, Rebecca wasn't able to hold in the gasp. It was a similar creature to those ones in the main lab, black and mottled green in some spots but those things had been blank outlines, featureless in every sense. This was different.

This one looked like a man, an imitation of one. The silmy flesh had shaped itself into the silhouette of James Marcus, like some had poured tar into a mold of the man, it's flesh had even shaped itself into the suit that the man had been wearing in the picture that Rebecca and Billy had found in the main hall.

"I am Alpha. I am Queen. And I shall fulfil my Father's last wish, we shall rise up and strip the flesh from his enemies bones! We shall devour the world!" The voice descended down into an hysterical shriek and again the walkway seemed to dim even more, the atomsphere began to seem heavier and it was in that awful moment that Rebecca understood.

They were reacting to it's words, because every single inch of the walls were covered in leeches except for the door that lead into the study but even now Rebecca could see that they were begining to move to cover it. She couldn't speak, she didn't have the words, but she managed to make a chocked out noise that got Billy's attention.

He had been so busy keeping an eye on the imitation of Marcus that he hadn't noticed either but his eyes widened once he did and he only hesitated for a moment, reaching out to grab Rebecca's wrist. "Run!" He cried even as he began to drag Rebecca away from it.

The doorway to the study was fully blocked now, as was the doorway back to the tram that they had taken from the main labs and so they only had one direction where they could run and that was futher down the walkway and deeper and deeper into the facility.

Behind them, Rebecca could hear the monsterous leech man laughing and Rebecca had to briefly shut her eyes, grateful of that fact that Billy was leading her, in order to stop the tears from falling. This was too much, all of it was to much. A monster that shouldn't exist was going to kill her, was going to eat her, and she was going to die in a place that most people didn't even know existed.

Her eyes were still shut when Billy let go of her wrist and they both came to a stop, he started firing his gun before Rebecca opened them. When she did, she saw that Billy was shooting down the corridor at the imitation Marcus who seemed to be taking it's time, the bullets opening tiny holes that closed just as quickly.

"Goddamn it! Keep going!" Billy shouted and Rebecca didn't need to be told twice as she spun and kept running, Billy's heavier footsteps following behind her. Rebecca let out a curse under her breath when she saw that the walkway was going to end in an intersection which meant they were left with a choice, left or right.

Either way could be a dead end, either way could get them killed but was also going to get them killed to waste time thinking about the decision and so Rebecca didn't think about it, she turned left and kept running and it seemed Billy had decided to follow as her well as she could still hear his footsteps.

Her chest and legs were aching when they came to the stairwell but Rebecca didn't let herself think about it, practically throwing herself down them and letting out a desperate whimper when she saw solid looking door at the end of the corridor the stairs had led to.

There weren't any leechs covering it, if it wasn't locked then maybe they could block the door from the other side and wait the monster out. It wasn't a good plan, hell it was a pretty bad one, but it was also the only one that they had in that moment. "Billy! Come on!"

When the door opened on the first try, Rebecca didn't have time to be thankful as Billy was right behind her as he basically scooped her up and threw her in and then slammed the door behind them. "Find something to block the door! Now!" Billy shouted, a hint of desperation in his eyes.

It was a fairly large room on the other side of the door and it didn't look like a lab, the room was dominated by a large machine which was a sealed unit with heavy doors and had a ladder bolted on to the side of it which lead up to a metal walkway with what looked like a control panel up there but Rebecca doubted that climbing up there would keep them safe.

Billy, thankfully, in the precious seconds that they had manged to find something they could use. Two large oil drums standing close to the door, he was already dragging one in front of the door and Rebecca hurried to try and move the other one but it was full and she could barely budge it.

Thankfully Billy came over to help and together they got both drums in front of the door, just in time as well as suddenly there was a large thump from the other side like something very big and very heavy had rammned into it and Rebecca found herself taking a step back from it. "Do you think that will keep it out?"

Billy shook his head, glancing down at the gun in his hand. "Not likely, we might have bought ourselves a few minutes but not more than that. Is there any other way out of here?"

Rebecca took a closer look around this time but when she didn't see anything the knowledge settled into her gut heavily. "No, it doesn't look like it." She sighed heavily. "Billy...I'm sorry, this is all my fault. If we hadn't checked out the passage behind the portrait, if we had just gone back outside and tried to escape that way then maybe we would have made it."

"Maybe, and maybe something lurking in the woods would have gotten us instead, it's not your fault Rebecca. I don't blame you." Billy smiled at her then and, in spite of everything, Rebecca found herself smiling back at him. The smile fell then when another loud bang sounded out through the room.

"Listen," Billy began, rubbing the back of his head. "When it breaks down the door, I'll draw it's attention. The gun might not hurt it but it's more likely to come after me than it is you, while it's busy with me you can slip out and get out of here. Don't look back, okay? Just keep running for it."

"No, fuck that, no."

"Rebecca-"

"No! I am not going anywhere without you, do you hear me? We either get out of here together or neither of us do."

Billy frowned at her but didn't say anything, turning his attention back on to the door. Rebecca turned away as well and walked over to the machine for lack of anything better to do. As she stepped closer, she noticed a small wooden table with a round top at the side of it with what looked like an instruction manuel on top of that.

Rebecca picked it up and her eyes widend when she saw what was written on the front page.

"No fucking way."

"What? What is it?" Before Rebecca could answer him there was the scream of metal on metal as the top of the door peeled inward, folding it on it self and dozens of leeches began to flood into the room. Billy cursed and raise his gun, blasting at individual leeches that got to close but it did nothing to stem the tide.

Rebecca had to be quick. "Billy, get back and get in front of the machine and don't waste all your bullets! Just trust me!" She cried as she ran around the machine to the ladder at the side with the manual stored under her armpit and began to climb it up to the walkway, praying all the time that she wasn't making a massive mistake.

"That's a lot easier said then done!" Billy shouted over the sound of two more gunshots, how many bullets had he fired so far? They had found more bullets in the study but he would need to manually load them into the gun and he wouldn't have time to do that before the leeches overwhelmed him.

Rebecca made it up to the walkway and ran over to the control panel and slammed the manual down on to it and began to flip through the pages, there was a light on the panel which seemed to suggest it was getting power and there was a silver key jammed into a slot, she had to be quick.

"I can do this! I can do this!"

Another groan of metal as the door was finally broken down and the oil barrels were knocked over, the fuel spilling everywhere as the imitation of Marcus was carried into the room on a flood of leeches and it was making it's way over to Billy quickly. "Rebecca! Whatever your plan is you better do it fast!"

She twisted the key, flipped switches and pulled leavers. Half from quick flipping through the book and half from guessing. "Just a few more seconds!" The doors of the unit began to open, the grinding sound was horrible from what had to have been years and years of misuse going from the sound of it.

"Hungry! Hungry!" The imitation shirked as it got closer to Billy.

"Billy, now!" Rebecca shouted, hoping that Billy was smart enough to understand from the context around him what she wanted him to do and thankfully it seemed that he was as Billy lunged out of the way as the monster swung a heavy arm down at him and once he was out of the way, he twisted and kicked the monster in the back which sent it shrieking into the back of the unit."

Rebecca didn't waste any time, slamming the button which slide the doors shut again. "Oh, great, it's trapped but there's still a good few hundred leeches down here Rebecca!" Billy shouted as the leeches began to approach him, an endless black sea that had him pinned against the wall and would be on him in seconds. On top of that, the imitation of Marcus was banging from the inside of the unit.

Rebecca didn't answer Billy, she simply grabbed the heavy duty lever that had so far gone untouched and shoved up into a poistion and a for a dreadful few moments nothing happened and Rebecca was certain she had gotten them both killed but then there was a clanging from inside the machine, then a woosh and then a horrible screaming that sounded like it came straight from the depths of hell.

The leeches on the ground began to scream as well, a horrible high pitched noise that made it sound like someone had struck a drill into her head. "What the hell?" Billy asked as he stared at the horrible things while Rebecca made her way over to the ladder and began to climb back down.

Rebecca really didn't like the idea of walking over the leeches but the pain seemed to have crippled them so they did not pay her any mind in their pain. "They were reacting to everything that Marcus said and did back on the walkway, they suggested there's some kind of connection between them, when the manuel told me that this was an incinerator I figured if we could trick it in then maybe burning it would hurt them to. Maybe even kill them, it did say it was the Queen after all."

"Nice thinking." Billy panted.

"Thanks, but I'm not sure if it will kill them or the pain's just shocked them so how about we get the hell out of here. Like, now." Rebecca said and jerked her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the now empty doorway.

"Sounds goddamn great to me." Billy walked over to met her and they both ran over towards the door, down the corridor and up the stairs back to the intersection and then they just kept running till they were back at the stairs that the imitation of Marcus had been standing at the top of and then they just kept going.

There were no zombies, no more leeches. It almost felt safe and yet Rebecca did not stop for even a single second, because each second could be the second that made or broke them.

They came to a small area that looked like it was used for storage, heavy duty industrial chemicals and papers were scattered about on splintered wooden tables. The only thing that seemed like it could be of any use was a metal crowbar which Billy picked up and handed to her. "Here Princess, I'll shoot and you can bash them over the head."

"I hate you."

There were more stares which ended in doors that reminded her of a basement hatch and Billy was about to push them open when there was a loud bang from somewhere deep below them, it echoed in pain and range and in a matter of moments there was the smell of burning in the air.

"Oh god, it's still alive. It broke it's way out." Rebecca said with a whimper and suddenly there was just silence before there was another scream of rage and the smell of burning seem to intensify, as did the first whispers of smoke that had already began to reach.

"The hell?" Billy asked.

"The oil drums, the leeches knocked them over. Maybe...Maybe that will finally kill them?" Rebecca asked, hoping against hope that it would be true.

"Yeah, well I'm not sticking around to find out." Billy said as he turned and pushed open the hatch and the freshest air that Rebecca had ever tasted reached out to greet them.

They had made it, they were outside.

Billy climbed out first, helped her out and then slammed the doors shut. Rebecca didn't waste any time and slammed the crowbar in between the handles to bar anything from opening it. Billy raised an eyebrow at her. "You don't have any weapons now, crowbars don't grown on trees you know."

"Yeah, well, I'd rather it keep that thing stuck down there, if it's still alive." Rebecca said and then fell on to her ass, looking up at the sky.

It had to be early morning, the sky was grey but there were hints of the first light of dawn poking through the clouds. Billy came to sat down next to her and they just...waited.

An hour passed and the sky began to lighten even more, patchs of blue and gold smiled down at her and there was no sign that the imitation was still alive and following them but there was black smoke creeping out from the gaps in the hatch and there had been for the last half an hour, when she got back to the city she would need to remeber to alert the fire department.

"So, now what?" Billy asked.

Rebecca sighed and climbed to her feet. "I have to try and find my team, I have no idea where exactly I am but I have to try. They could be in danger, they probably are in danger and if I can help them then I have to try and do that." Rebecca sighed again. "Billy...I...just go, I'll tell them that you're dead, you died in the train crash, it will be all right."

Billy rose to his feet as well and stared at her with his deep, blue eyes and for probably the first time in all the time that Rebecca had known him he smiled a smile that was actually genuine and free of any other worries. "Rebecca, thank you. I won't make you regret this, I promise." He held out the gun for her to take.

"No, you keep it. If I can find our helicopter then we had more guns stored. Just go, don't worry about me." Billy stared at her for a long moment and then nodded before he brought up his hand to slaute her.

"Officer Chambers."

Rebecca smiled and saluted back.

"Lieutenant Coen."

Billy let his fall first and Rebecca watched him go and didn't stop until she lost sight of him in the tree line.

Rebecca sighed, turned, and began to walk deeper into the woods.

End of Chapter Forty-One

And there we have it, forty-one chapters and a prologue as well as six years of writing there about and we have finally completed the events of one of the games. I have to admit, I think I struggled with Zero and I don't find it a very enjoyable game and I don't really care for Billy as a character.

But, now we move on to the mansion incident.

Well, not just yet as we head back to Raccoon to see how some other characters are doing.

With a lot of love,

DiscordantSymphony