Grayson was relieved when Alexia stepped through the door.
"What happened?" she asked, taking off her coat.
"Dad's gone," he said.
Alexia stared at him, then asked, a hitch in her voice, "Dead?"
"No," replied Grayson, watching her expression relax. "Gone. He left the house."
"He drove ?"
Grayson nodded. He didn't understand it himself, and told Alexia so. "He wasn't responding to me when I was trying to find out where he was going," he said, darting a look at the door, frowning. "He looked bad, Lex. Worse than before. Shivering real bad, like he was going through some kinda withdrawal."
"Do you have any idea where he's gone?" she asked.
"If I did, I would have told you over the phone," he said.
They didn't worry for long. Twenty minutes later, his dad stepped through the door, looking alert, more filled out. He also looked guilty, fingering something in the pocket of his jacket. In his other hand was a plastic bag filled with cleaning supplies. "You two look pretty mad," said his father, and smiled in a way that betrayed the fact he knew they were mad at him but hoped a friendly smile would be enough to smooth things over. "My nonna always said a good mood starts with good food. I could whip something up?"
"Where the fuck did you go?" asked Alexia, because she had a much shorter temper than Grayson did.
"That's no way for a lady to talk, princess. Especially an Ashford," chided his dad, pursing his lips in disapproval. He hefted the bag of cleaning supplies. "I needed to pick up some things in town, because Grayson," and he shot him a look, "forgot to do it."
"Scott, you were bloody catatonic this morning," said Alexia, holding on to her anger like some starving junkyard pooch. "You were confused, kept humming our lullaby and talking to yourself."
"Look," said his father, "I'm going to make us something to eat. Let me just put these supplies away." He brushed past them and strode off across the foyer, disappearing through the archway that led past the parlor and all the way back to the kitchen and dining room.
Alexia glowered at him. Grayson shrugged, helpless. "Maybe it was an Origin flare-up," he suggested, not entirely convinced, but not entirely dismissing the idea either. "I mean, it was prototypal right? Gave him heart cancer. Maybe it has other weird side-effects, or maybe heart cancer's like that."
"I think it's time we asked Scott about Origin," said Alexia, and before Grayson could tell her to leave things alone, she was already gone. He sighed, jogged after her.
"Can't you just leave it alone, Lex?" pleaded Grayson.
"No," she replied. "I think it's time I got him that live-in nurse."
"What's a live-in nurse gonna do for him?" asked Grayson, walking alongside her. "Anyway, I don't like the idea of some random asshole from Umbrella taking care of him. He looks fine now."
She stopped walking, and so did he. "You know something dodgy is going on, Grayson," said Alexia. "And if it's Origin, perhaps Scott's team was working on some sort of antifungal for it, just in case. Even the T-Virus had a vaccine." She stared at him for a long time, eyes steely and cold, and said, "Besides, you were perfectly fine with Alfred sending him off to the hospital."
"I was in Raccoon City," he said, stupidly.
"Right," said Alexia. "You abandoned Scott and Alfred."
Grayson wanted to tell her that was unfair, that she was wrong. But Alexia wasn't wrong, and that rankled him. "You're right," he admitted, after a moment. "I did abandon them. Fine, we'll do things your way."
Alexia furnished him with a sympathetic look, then said, "I understand why you did it, if that's any consolation."
He nodded.
"I think anyone would have done the same in your position," said Alexia. "Even me."
They resumed the long walk to the kitchen, and Grayson said, as he often did in his more sentimental moments, "I missed you so much. And Alfred was your twin. It was hard seeing him come apart like that."
"I understand, Grayson," she replied, looking at him.
"Next time you decide to sleep in a tank for fifteen years, tell me, not Alfred."
Alexia took his hand and squeezed, pressing herself into his side. "I'm never doing that again," she assured him as they walked, hand-in-hand, to the kitchen, her head on his shoulder.
"Good," said Grayson, "because if you do, you better make room for me." He grinned.
"If we can manage to share a shower, I think we can manage to share a tank," she teased.
His father was busying himself in the kitchen, and when they entered, he looked at them. Sensing they were about to ask him several uncomfortable questions, his dad sighed, wiped his hands on a dish towel. "What is it?" he asked, the question mostly directed at Alexia. He tossed the towel over his shoulder and rounded the island, where, not very long ago, his dad had cut off, then subsequently reattached, his finger.
"What's going on, Scott?" demanded Alexia.
Grayson added, "I know that finger shit was done deliberately, dad."
His dad sighed. "Look," he said, "I want to tell you both, but I can't."
"Why?" asked Alexia, quickly losing her patience. "You don't need to keep bloody secrets from us, Scott."
"It's for your own good, princess," said his dad. "There's… things going on. Bad things. Really, really bad things. I'm trying to protect you, but she's making it difficult."
"She?" asked Grayson, remembering what Sherry had said in the car about his dad, about a woman he might have met somewhere.
"Don't worry about it, kiddo."
"You can't just say some cryptic shit like that and expect us to leave it alone, dad."
"Look," said his dad, "it's bad stuff. Leave well enough alone, Grayson."
Grayson felt a twinge of frustration. "I'm not just some kid you can—"
Alexia interrupted him. "Is this about Origin, Scott?"
His dad's expression collapsed. He stared at the cutting board on the island, then stared out the window looking out into the woods. He walked over and drew the curtains shut, and said, "Yes, and no." His father looked over at them, like a man pleading for his life. "Just… don't. Please."
"Scott," said Alexia, "you can talk to us. We want to help you."
"There's no helping me, princess," he said. His dad was quiet for a long time, and then he said, "Come with me."
He and Alexia exchanged looks, then followed his father. His dad led them back into the hallway, out to the foyer, through the set of double doors where, had this mansion been the Spencer Estate it was modeled after, the art gallery would have been. But in this mansion it was a lounge with large windows, which his father drew the curtains on before leading them through another door, down a hall lined with portraits of long-dead Ashfords, and around the corner.
They stopped in front of Edward's study, the Ashford's coat-of-arms elaborately carved into the wood. His dad took out his key-ring and unlocked the door, pushing it open with some effort, the thing creaking on its old hinges. He flipped the light on, revealing a room that hadn't been touched since Edward had been alive. It smelled of stale cigars, of old wood and books. Antique, hand-made furniture furnished the room, and an inert marble fireplace stood on the far side of the floorboards, a stuffed elk's head above it, its glassy, vacant eyes staring at nothing.
"Edward told me, years ago, that he didn't want anyone in here," said his dad. "Wanted it to be a tomb for his mistakes, I suppose." He paused, surveying the room with an almost penitent look. "That's what he came to call his research. Our research. A mistake." He looked at them, then said, "I was young, horribly misguided. I know that's not much of an excuse, but I really, truly am sorry for everything, you two." His dad looked at him, just him, adding, "What I did to you was wrong, Grayson. No amount of apologizing will change that, but I want you to know, I wish I'd never involved you in Project Darwin. I wish I'd never involved you or Alexia."
Grayson didn't know what to say. The way his dad spoke was like someone saying their good-byes on their deathbed, and he felt a deep hurt in his chest. "Dad," he said, his voice uncharacteristically small, "why are you talking like you're going away?"
His dad didn't answer him. "Maybe you and Alexia will find some answers here," said his dad. "This room was Edward's sanctuary when he was in Arklay."
"Scott…"
"Alexia, please," said his dad. "Look around. You might find something." He smiled, then retreated from the doorway and quietly shut the door behind him.
The Royal (known, Claire had been told by the clerk at the Mizoil she'd stopped at, as The Oil by the locals, since the "R" had shorted out) was a seedy-looking motel on the outskirts of Alder, near the Pine Shade Trailer Park, and was the sort of place that rented by the hour if you knew how to ask. The front-office was a cramped, grimy space carpeted in soiled polypropylene, populated by synthetic ferns that still, somehow, managed to look wilted.
The night-clerk, a bored middle-aged man with thinning hair who, under the harsh fluorescents, looked like someone with a terminal illness, took her money without a word. He dropped the key onto the desk—didn't even bother handing it to her—and grunted something about enjoying her stay without looking up from his Sports Illustrated.
Claire made her way down the walkway, past a chugging Coke machine and an ice-machine with a hand-lettered sign taped to it that read BROKEN, to Room 13. The key didn't fit that well in the lock, and it took some jiggling and shoving to finally get the door open. Jill followed her inside.
The room felt dank, smelled vaguely of mildew. The cheap bedspreads were patterned in faded florals, and innocuous reprints of landscapes and flowers decorated the peach drywall. The carpet, like the front-office, was polypropylene, stained here and there with dark spots. An ancient wood-paneled television, like the one Claire had had as a kid, sat on the thrift-store bureau opposite the beds.
"We need a plan," said Claire, locking the door and pulling the curtains shut on the parking lot.
"No shit," said Jill, peeling off her clothes and walking into the bathroom. She turned the knob and filled the tub with steaming water.
"What the fuck are you doing?" asked Claire, behind her.
"What if that thing's tracking us through spores, or something?" Jill dumped the bottles of complementary shampoo into the water and agitated it with her hand. "We don't really know how this shit works."
Claire hadn't considered that. "It never touched us," she said. "And the clothes we wore down in the mines, we tossed them out. Including Chris's Indian Motorcycles hat." She paused, adding, "He's not gonna be happy when I finally tell him."
"Spores are airborne. Maybe being around the thing is enough," said Jill. Then she said, "Take off your clothes, Claire."
Once they'd finished washing their clothes, they wrung them out and hung them to dry on the retractable clothesline in the bathroom. But not before taking turns to shower and scrub themselves raw, soap off whatever microscopic fuckery that might have hitched a ride with them.
When their clothes were dry enough, they dressed and called for pizza, then sat down to discuss their next move. "We're gonna have to go back down to the mines," said Jill. "I think that might be that thing's nest."
Claire nodded, not particularly relishing the idea. But they didn't really have a choice, not if they wanted to end this. "Even if that's the case," she said, "we're gonna need help opening that door."
Jill nodded. "Maybe Grayson can give us a hand," she said.
"He's strong, sure. But that door looks pretty fucking solid," said Claire.
"Need a controlled explosion, maybe," said Jill. She was silent for what felt like an eternity, then said, "I can't believe that fucking thing looked like Brad." Jill shook her head, sadly. "How? How would it even know?"
"It also looked like Toast, at one point," said Claire. "Both dead. Can this fucking thing mimic the dead? Use genetic material to make itself into a simulacrum? Remember all those bones we saw, down in the mines."
"What if those bones were from Raccoon City?" asked Jill, suddenly.
"Wouldn't the missiles have vaporized all of them?" asked Claire.
"Not necessarily," said Jill. "In Nagasaki and Hiroshima, there were plenty of skeletons left after the bombs dropped. The bones are probably from other places, too."
Claire didn't like the implication of a fungus, potentially a sentient fungus, using genetic material to create copies of the dead. Did that mean people like Brian Irons and William Birkin were down there, their bones or some other part of them feeding the fucking mold? Would they emerge from the mold next, the next faces for this thing to wear? Claire shuddered, felt a sensation like cold water trickling down her spine. "Who did Alexia use to make that thing?" she asked. "Do you think it was… anyone we might have known?"
"I don't really wanna think about it," said Jill. "I don't wanna imagine my former teammates down there. Forest, Richard, Kenneth…"
"Fucking Umbrella," said Claire.
"Maybe you're wrong," said Jill, but she didn't sound convinced.