Familiar Hauntings
Chapter Ten
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Claire and Bobbye dropped a few more stray zombies as they walked through a dimly lit corridor of the Biology Building.
"Maybe it was Devon?" The two girls had been discussing who it was that had fired the jarring blast.
"But where would Devon get a weapon like that? That was some sort of shotgun or something, from the way it sounded. Big firepower."
"So, who do you think it is?"
"…I don't know." Claire shook her head. "I guess it's not important right now. We have bigger things to be concerned with at the moment."
Their attention was brought to the situation at hand.
"Claire, I'm thinking that there's no other way to get to the basement other than that elevator. This is my third year here, and I've never seen another elevator in the building."
"Yeah, I think you're right." She looked at her watch. "It's almost four now. I say we just suck it up and find a way to reach that elevator." Bobbye was silent, so Claire continued. "Besides, it may be a lot easier getting to it from the back instead of the front entrance."
The two continued to walk down the corridor, killing a couple more of the undead. They rounded a corner, and as Claire was reloading her handgun, the main hall came into view. The collective moaning of the zombies could be heard echoing through the entire complex. They peeked into the room and saw that the majority of the zombies were in fact gathering at the front of the glass. There were only roughly twenty zombies in the thirty-foot stretch to the elevator. They appeared to just be standing there, oblivious to what was going on around them.
"We might be able to just move around the remaining zombies," Bobbye offered, her hand waving in front of her face in a futile attempt to clear the air of rotting flesh.
"There's still quite a few around there, though. Trust me, when they get agitated, they move in fast."
Bobbye halfway joked with her, as she fitted her scrunchie: a sure sign she was preparing for action. "You scared, Claire?"
"Yes, but I'm just being cautious at the moment."
"Good, because I'm scared to death. But I think that's our only way in there."
"Okay…" Claire trailed off, "How do we want to do it?
Bobbye was silent for a moment before hatching a sketchy plan. "Okay, I think I got it. I'll run up and press the button before they can react, and I'll run a bit closer to the front doors. That way, the remaining ones will follow me, and that will get them out of your way. When the doors open, find a way to lure them off me from behind. We should both be okay then. Just make sure those doors don't shut on us. Sound good?"
Claire halfway laughed at her friend. "That's a horrible, horrible plan, Bobbye."
Bobbye smiled back. "It'll do, though."
"Right. Okay, on three. Ready?"
Bobbye nodded.
"One…Two…"
Bobbye crouched into a track runner's three-point stance.
"Three!"
With that, she sprinted to the doors; her speed was no match for the lumbering undead. With only a few close grazes, she was at the elevator. She pressed the button, and ran towards the front doors. Even from Claire's position, she could hear Bobbye's every move due to the crunching glass beneath her feet. All the display cabinets had been destroyed; their contents spilled onto the tiled floor below. Bobbye turned on her heel in an attempt to avoid another of the zombies. She jogged into a clearing as the creatures began to close in on her.
"Claire! Go now!"
Bobbye had been successful; the path to the elevator had been cleared. She ran to the doors, but they had not opened yet. She pressed the button again for good measure, and went to go help out her friend. Fighting back her fear, she kicked one of the zombies that had been trailing Bobbye in the back. It stumbled forward, before sprawling out on the broken glass.
"Hurry, Bobbye! Get out of there!"
She looked around nervously. Claire's attempt at diverting their attention wasn't working. The rotting, outstretched hands were still seeking her. To make matters worse, the wave of zombies at the front door had seen her, and began shuffling after her from the other side. She could have sworn that the floor shook beneath her feet. Her mind raced furiously for a way out. To her surprise, she began running before she had decided what to do. Instinctively, she sprinted towards a group of zombies before sliding between them at the last second, out of the reach of their arms. She grimaced as she felt broken glass dig into the side of her right leg. She cursed herself as she rose to her feet, and sprinted around another group of zombies. As she ran, she fired her gun in front of her to clear a path for her to escape. However, much to her horror, she had tripped over something that caused her to go sprawling on the floor. Again, she felt the tearing of her skin from the glass. She looked back and gasped as she saw that the object she had tripped on were the remains of what looked like a man in a lab coat. He was cleaned straight to the skeleton; bits of stringy flesh that clung to the thin frame of bone were all that remained. She looked above to see an eager zombie toppling on top of her, and she rolled out of the way and froze just long enough to empty a couple of bullets into its head before she heard the startling clicking of her gun; the sound of an empty chamber. She leapt back onto her feet, and after dashing into one of the unsuspecting undead and spinning off it to avoid another group of three, she found that nothing stood between her and the elevator. As Claire motioned her over, her heart stopped at her latest realization: the elevator was still closed.
It was still closed.
"What's the problem?" Bobbye asked, out of breath, "Why is it not open yet?!"
"I don't know!" Claire yelled back as Bobbye desperately pressed the button repeatedly, "I think it's stuck!"
"No…It can't be stuck!" She turned, her back leaning on the doors, and she patted herself down for another clip for her handgun. She didn't find one. She was out. "Claire, do you have an extra clip I can borrow?"
Claire shook her head vigorously as she watched the wall of the living dead advancing on them at an alarming rate. It was then that they heard a shrill scream slice the atmosphere. Something was moving through the undead at an alarming rate, as limbs and gore were thrown into the air as if something was traveling below them. The girls' eyes were fixed on the carnage that was taking place. Claire drew her gun, waiting to see the culprit. The zombies stopped their advance on the girls to face the intruder among their own ranks. However, they did not attempt to attack the source. They simply stared, as if transfixed.
The hunter emerged, basked in red gore.
"You've got to be kidding me." Bobbye trailed off, as she instinctively searched for a clip on her body once again.
The hunter stood roughly fifteen feet away, staring at the girls with cold, sadistic eyes. For several seconds, it didn't move; it merely watched its prey as their fearful eyes locked with its own. It smirked, showing several yellow serrated teeth. It decided to let the prey have the first move, and then it would attack.
The crowd of the undead stood some five feet behind the hunter, apparently afraid of the beast. Then, one rather dense zombie ambled by, disregarding the reptilian monster in front of it. Its arms were outstretched to the girls, its eyes sunken back and pasty white. It began to twitch with anticipation as it passed by the reptilian humanoid.
The hunter cut its eyes at the creature.
With astounding speed, it leapt onto the zombie, tearing it to pieces within seconds. It then flipped off it, and stared at the crowd before returning its arrogant gaze back towards Claire and Bobbye.
"It's showing off," Claire thought, "It's showing us what it's made of. It's trying to scare us." It was working. Claire swallowed hard; her gun fixed on the hunter's brow. She wasn't sure how many bullets she had left in her weapon; she just prayed it was enough to do what she needed to do. "I always hate fighting these things without any real weapons," she thought.
The familiar sound of the elevator rang out and the doors opened swiftly, causing the two to fall into the elevator and yell out at the unexpected event. It was then that the hunter made its move.
Within two bounds it was at the elevator. It was in the process of pouncing on top of them before Claire had managed to pull the shot off. The bullet struck it in the chest, causing it to change its trajectory just as it leapt off the ground for the kill. It slammed noisily into the external elevator console, shrieking and cursing the girl in the red jacket.
Claire shot again as Bobbye mashed the 'close doors' button in the elevator. The demon stumbled back, falling on its back and flailing. From what Claire could tell, she had shot it in the face, and she hoped it was enough for the kill. As the doors began to shut, the hunter cried out once again, and in a valiant leap, it stuck its giant clawed hand inside as it shut. The claws dug into the skin just below Claire's collarbone, and she hit the back wall, stunned. The elevator doors began to grind due to the strain, and the creature frantically worked its hand in pain, screaming all the while. Between the crack of the doors, Bobbye could see the bloody hole slightly above the creature's brow. However, the creature seemed to pay almost no attention to it. Bobbye began to kick at the side of the hunter's forearm in the aspirations of breaking it.
"Claire!" Bobbye yelled, "Kill it! Kill it!"
Still dazed, Claire raised her gun slowly and aimed it at its head once again, and pulled the trigger.
No bullet fired, however.
"Jesus!" Bobbye cried, as she beat the creatures limb incessantly. Claire slowly reached for the back of her head, still in shock, and when she pulled it back, she found spots of blood on a couple of her fingers. In her swirled vision, she saw the flailing arm of the hunter, and she heard the dull grinding of elevator gears. Bobbye yelled out to her, "Claire! What are you doing?! Help me out here!" Claire took her handgun, and proceeded to hit the monster with it. To make matters worse, the zombies had begun to advance and grope around for the two inside the elevator. Instead of one arm reaching inside, there were roughly fifteen. Fear and adrenaline fueled the girls' energy. Summoning her courage, Claire grabbed the monsters arm, and shoved it forcefully outside the elevator. She had succeeded in doing so, until all that remained were the last two inches of its claws, and the frantic fingers of the zombies. With one powerful kick, Bobbye shoved the claws out of the elevator, and the doors finally closed, severing off various zombie appendages in the process. The hunter emitted one final scream of defeat, before it began to relentlessly pound the outside doors in vain to open them up again.
Bobbye stood by the console, breathing wildly and staring at the appendages on the floor, and listening to the hunter's assault. "Wow, it worked."
Claire gingerly touched the back of her head. "You didn't think it would?"
Bobbye shook her head. "No, I didn't."
"That makes two of us."
"We're going to the basement floor then?" Bobbye said it as nonchalantly as possible.
"Unless you have somewhere else more important to be at the moment."
Bobbye smiled. "Basement floor it is." In a very disturbing and twisted way, she was beginning to enjoy beating the odds each time.
The elevator shook and jolted, and began its descent to the floor below.
****
"Jim, we have to find Claire and the other girls before we go!" Devon persisted. "I'm not leaving them behind to die!"
"What the hell have I been telling you?" Jim growled back. "They're probably dead, Devon. Let's just do what we need to do and get out of here before we join them."
The three survivors walked across a grassy field surrounded by giant, one hundred year-old oak trees. They were nearing the Biology Building.
"And, what exactly is it that 'we're' supposed to do, Jim?" Demi's voice was quite defiant, a rarity for her demeanor.
"We've got to get a disk out of the BioLab in the basement, okay?"
"What disk?" Devon began to question his old friend's motives.
"It's not important, don't worry about it." Bowman was looking to end the conversation. Devon smirked as he mused to himself. "If it's not that important, then why are we risking our lives to go down and get it?" Devon shook his head, as he began to reload his shotgun. The three circled wide around a slow moving bunch of zombies, paying them as little attention as possible. Demi had slightly tightened her grip on Devon's sleeve, however.
The reached the stairs of the front of the Biology Building, and marveled at the sheer number of the undead swarming the area where the elevator was located.
"Jim, there's too many of them. We're not going to be able to break through."
Bowman stared strangely at Devon. "What the hell are you talking about? Of course we will."
"We'll die!" Demi cried, "There's no way we can do that Jim. There must be fifty of those things." She looked at Devon. "Devon, I don't want to go. Please, let's find another way in."
"Damn it Demi!" Bowman cursed, "Stop being such a whiny bitch! Let's go!"
Devon had enough of his attitude. He stepped between Demi and Jim, slightly pushing the latter. His face was solid, menacing. "Now you listen to me, Jim. You do not call Demi names. She has done nothing to you, she's just scared. I'm scared. I will not sit back and let you do that, and if you do it again, we're going to have problems. Fact of the matter is, you haven't had to go through what we've been put through here in the past few hours. I've had way too many of my friends die, and right now, I'm not taking blind orders from you unless you give me a very good reason to. Right now, I don't want to go in there, risking my life, not to mention Demi's, if this 'disk' is for your own personal gain." Devon swallowed, as he stared into Jim's slightly taken-aback face. "Before we do anything, I want you to tell me why you're after the disk. Something tells me that's the real reason you're here." Devon was silent, waiting for an answer.
Jim glared into his eyes, as they were still fighting through expression. Finally, Jim gave in. "You're wrong about my reasons to come down here. Yeah, the disk is important, but damn it, Devon, I came down to make sure you were okay. That was the most important thing to me. Besides, I have no one to keep me in line if you die, and I don't want to end up doing something stupid, so I need you around. We're best friends, right?" Jim's features lightened, as he tried to lead Devon away from the purpose of his visit.
"That's a nice story Jim, but I know that work comes first with you, it always has. Just tell me why you need the disk."
Jim threw his hand up in defeat. "Fine. Damn, you're persistent. Okay, well, I'm in the Air Force, as you know, but what I do there is a bit more confidential." Jim hated the idea of giving up some of his best secrets. "I work under a branch of the Air Force that deals with specialized military intelligence retrieval. The rest of the Air Force doesn't even know we exist, really. We cover up our true motives so the corrupt officials don't find out about us. Our job is to find out what Umbrella is up to, and put a stop to them before the screw over everyone. For a while, we were just like everyone else. We thought that Umbrella was just a pharmaceutical and chemical company. Truth is, they are, just not the types of pharmaceutics and chemicals that are exactly 'environmentally safe.'" Jim shifted his stare from Devon to Demi as he continued. "I got assigned to a new flight about a month ago, and got to meet a few people in charge of special tactics. The commander was impressed with my abilities, so he secretly 'recruited' me into the branch I work for now. We serve as the military link between the Air Force and the S.T.A.R.S., and the Air Force doesn't even know it.
"S.T.A.R.S…" Demi trailed off, "isn't that what Claire used to be in?"
"Claire who? Claire Redfield?"
"Yeah," Devon nodded. "She was in the S.T.A.R.S. for a while before her brother made her quit."
"Chris Redfield," Bowman said. "Tough as damn nails, that's for sure. He's one of those guys that'd I'd never want to mess with. I'm trying to get him to notice my skills so he'll move me into the S.T.A.R.S. That's where all the real fun is, and that's one of the major reasons I'm down here. That and the disk."
Devon was about to say something but Jim interrupted him. "Yeah, you want to know what's on the disk. In all fairness, I'm not quite sure, because Umbrella switched to its new archive, and no one really knows how to break into it at the moment. But I did get into the old one, and apparently, your school and Karl Jansen of the Chicago branch of Umbrella had a little deal going on."
The same group of zombies they had evaded a few minutes earlier wandered towards the stairs after them. Jim casually put another cigarette into his mouth and lit it. Satisfied with that first drag, he brought his M-16 to eye level, firing round after round of lead into their brains. Satisfied they weren't getting up again, he continued his story as if nothing had happened.
"Apparently, your school has been helping Umbrella develop a new virus on the campus…Something called the Delta Virus. There were a couple of other ones before it, but this one's mutation rate is supposed to be off the scales. I haven't seen its advancements over the other ones yet, other than the creatures spawned from it are a little bit more resilient. Nothing drastic though. I'm beginning to think the Delta Virus is a failure. Anyway, I'm here to gather information on it, regardless. There are a lot of things that have gone on here that not even S.T.A.R.S. know about. So, I've got to find out what it is. I'm telling you the truth when I say that I don't know what's on the disk. Only Umbrella does. And if you don't hurry your ass up, we're going to be shot down by Umbrella themselves, because I'm sure they're around here somewhere trying to get the disk before we do. I'm sure my cover's blown, by now."
Devon and Demi simply stared at their friend. Devon had no idea what was really going on here. It was hard for him to process all the information in his current state, but he was convinced Jim was telling the truth. "Okay, Jim. I believe you. But, how are we going to get down there? Look at that in there." Devon pointed towards the mass of dead bodies inside.
"If there's any way possible we can avoid those guys in there…" Demi trailed off, her voice shaking from her anxiety.
"We'll be fine. Trust me." Jim reached into his pockets, handing Demi a few extra clips. I have enough firepower to be a small country, trust me. Devon pocketed a bunch of shells from Jim's backpack as Jim showed Demi how to reload a machine gun.
"You just pull this back here…feed this in…slam the cartridge into the gun like this, and there you go. Just be sure to hold on to it a bit better, and shoot it from the shoulder, not your waist."
She held the machine gun against her shoulder, and eyed Bowman for a look of approval. She dropped the gun back at her waist, allowing all its weight to fall on the shoulder strap. Devon smiled to her.
"Wow," he joked, "something about you holding that machine gun makes you look kinda…sexy." He was trying to lighten the mood for her.
She smiled back at him. "I think you just have weird taste."
"Maybe…But if that was the only thing you were wearing…well!" In all fairness, he was only half-joking. However, she gave him that jaw-dropping look, as she always did if he said something uncharacteristic of himself. "Well, I guess I am pretty sexy…" She laughed at her own words. It was the little things like that which Devon found her to be irresistible.
"Well," Jim interjected, "I hate to be the one to break up this innuendo-filled party, but we've got some work to do…"
"Yeah," Devon said, "you're right. Is everyone ready?"
Demi swallowed and nodded as bravely as she could.
"Let's do it Devon." With that, Jim walked right into the Biology Building doors, kicking them open and shattering glass everywhere.
"Crap," Devon muttered as Jim opened fire on the opposing party. Jim was using a six-round .45 Colt revolver, and was popping the heads off the zombies he hit with ease. Slowly, the mass began to realize what was going on, and they started their clumsy advance on the new prey. Devon opened fire with his high-powered shotgun, bringing zombies down in groups of five or six at a time. Even Demi had the eyes of battle, her ferocious gaze being rattled about by the recoil of her weapon. Despite their already apparent losses the wave kept advancing.
"I'm going to thin them out from the other side!" Bowman yelled to his friends.
"What?!" Devon exclaimed. "How?!"
Jim smirked as he re-holstered his Colt and pulled out of his backpack something that looked like a stainless steel riot shotgun with nearly no barrel at all. Whatever it was, Devon was sure it was fairly illegal. "This is my baby. She'll do the job." With that, he fired the first shot, a splitting sound that seemed to shake the very atmosphere in the room. It mowed down a swath of zombies from the immediate vicinity, and he casually walked his way into the newly formed gore. As the zombies began to close on him, he fired again. He looked back to see his friends dumbfounded with his apparently foolish act of bravery. "Well, are you coming or not? I'm sure you don't want to be on the receiving end of this thing.
The couple was quick to follow behind him, clearing out any zombies from the sides that were too close to comfort. Jim shot a few more blasts, and then walked his way out of the rest of the masses, and spotted a predominantly green creature, which appeared to be wounded. "Wow," he said, in a monotone voice as he reloaded his gun. "I didn't know they had brought out hunters here. They apparently wanted someone dead."
"What is that?" Devon stared at the new creature, wide-eyed. "What is that!"
"It's a hunter. Watch out though. They tend to have a bad habit of killing people." With that, he shot it with his shotgun as Devon and Demi kept the zombies at bay. The hunter went soaring backwards from the blast, it's cry evidence of the damage it had suffered. Jim walked over to it as it desperately tried to right itself. Jim stood above the creature, and pointed the business end of his firearm at its face. The creature snarled with hatred in its eyes as Jim pulled the trigger, shattering the creature's skull. Demi attempted to reload her weapon as Devon did his best to keep the remaining zombies at bay.
"Hey, Dem!" he yelled to her, "I've only got a couple of shots left before I reload! Hurry with that gun!"
"I'm trying! I'm trying!" She fumbled around, turning the clip over in her hand, trying to remember which way the clip was fed into the weapon. At last, she heard the rewarding click of the reload, and she opened fire once again. As Devon fired the last of his shots and began to reload, Jim walked up between them. He calculated there were only fifteen or so left. This was easier than he had thought.
The three survivors stood their ground, and eradicated the last of the threats.
Bowman couldn't help but feel the surge of pure power and control run through his veins. He looked around the bullet-ridden room and its blood splattered walls. His eyes fell on the convulsing blood red floor. And he laughed to himself.
"We just did what a troop of Umbrella soldiers couldn't do." He kicked the remnants of one of the bodies. "Pathetic."
"Well, let's get down to the BioLab before the rest of Umbrella comes looking for us, okay?" Devon checked his environments for any other threats. He was sure that much attraction would attract something, be it human or not.
Demi walked to the elevator, and pressed the button. The three waited to enter the area containing most of Umbrella's new secrets, and Jim, along with his friends, were about to claim them.
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