Chapter Four-More more!
Big shout out and major thanks and props to my reviewers! I love all of you! Stay tuned for the contest at the end of this chapter!
Disclaimer: Yes, sadly, I am not an employee of Capcom Japan, Capcom US, or The Second (Or First) Resident Evil Movie. Would you like to know what that means?
Sherry: You don' own squat!
Author: XP actually, that's not true, I have a DVD, a Gamecube, and some of the games. But as to rights and titles…you're correct. I own nothing * weeps *
NOTE: I also borrowed some stuff from the trailer to Cabin Fever (out September 12) about yet another creepy virus, in the woods, infecting people, zombies-
Birkin: There does seem to be a rash of those going around.
Author: -_-;
Sherry: Yeah, its almost as if the public's gotten infected by horror movies…
Birkin: Tis a Pandemic!
Author: Shut up.
Birkin: Now, now, don't get a fever about this-
I'll stop now, I could go on and on with jokes. On with the show!
Phil- other members of STARS do make an appearance-but a lot of them don't really work for STARS yet…as you'll see later. Also, I know Barry may be a bit young-but all the ages are kinda off *sigh *
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Paris France.
The same day
"This is the third murder." Wesker's voice was quiet, "I need to know what's going on…NOW!"
The last part was spoken with such an explanative, that the figure in the chair before him drew back. Albert Wesker stood, hands clenched at his sides, foaming at figurative bit.
"Please…calm yourself." The chief of development said, "Albert…you have to understand that this is classified-what Paris is developing is top secret and owned by at least three governments!"
"And the fact that I work here doesn't mean a thing?"
"No." The man's voice was curt, "IT doesn't. Do you have a problem with that?"
Yes. Albert bit back a nasty response and shook his head, numb. They had found the teenagers that morning-actually two drunken policemen could lay claim to that honor.
Wordlessly he turned on his heel and stalked back down from the executive caves and away from the labs. The land outside was perpetually gray-it alternated between shades of red gray and shades of gray-gray.
Depressing.
"Monsieur…"
Wesker turned to see a thin woman clutching a ragged bundle of flowers. The French were far too waif-like for his taste, and all of them seemed bohemian to the core, moody and depressive.
"Oui?"
The woman took a few cautious steps foreward, "My name is Lena." She said in a slow voice, " My sister's daughter…" she paused and looked up at Wesker with dark, sad eyes, "My sister's daughter is in my care now."
Grieving family members… he had delt with them before, but in few numbers. Lena did not seem to be grieving, more like she was fuming at the unfair nature of the universe.
"Can you assure me that you'll kill this creature?" The woman moved foreward and gripped his hand, "Please! Will you do the right thing?"
Wesker smiled, nodded, and patted her on the shoulder.
"I'll try." He patted her shoulder. If I can try…
This thing apparently eluded all searches-employees who went looking for it didn't come back. He hadn't gone out with those parties, I'm not even sure what the fuck I'm doing here…
"GET OUT OF THE FUCKIN' WAY!"
"Watch it asshole!" Wesker cried. A group of teenagers-American Teenagers apparently, sped past in a large convertible. The French calmly stepped aside as the car went careening through cafes and down the end of the street-where it made a wide turn and promptly disappeared from his vision.
"Why the fuck do you put up with that?" Wesker grabbed the nearest Umbrella security guard and gestured widely at the swath of destruction and chaos that his American brethren had cleaved through the once peaceful street.
"What?"
Wesker counted to ten.
"That! Those teenagers nearly killed at least three of our people! Why do you allow teenagers to be so reckless!"?
The French man smiled sardonically, "They're American."
(A/N: I have nothing against American Teenagers, we're crazy and proud of it, long live USA)
Wesker shook his head and walked into a café, ordered a drink, and washed his troubles away with a steady flood of alcohol.
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Raccoon City HQ-
STARS offices
Lisa Sunderland stuck her head in and stared about, seeking some sort of life within these dreary walls.
"Hello?"
"HELLO!"
"ACK!" she jumped back and was distinctly reminded of Claire as a woman (Who couldn't have been any older then her) waved merrily and returned to the silver coffeepot that had been occupying her earlier.
Wow. People downtown sure are friendly.
"Hello…" Lisa said cautiously, "My name is Lisa-"
"Sunderland! I know." The woman took a swig of brown liquid from the tiny paper cup and gagged. Without pausing she tossed the still full cup away-ignoring the brown stain that it left upon the wall. Lisa backed off a few feet. Scary…. and she'd delt with scary people, Callista Redfield was scary. Her army boss was scary, her boyfriends could be scary…
But this woman…
"Jessica Chambers." Jessica stuck out a thin, pale hand, "STARS Alpha Team Medic." Her bright green eyes sparkled with charisma, which caused Lisa to back up a few more feet before reaching foreward to grab her hand.
"Don't be shy!" Jessica smiled, "I don't bite! I'm exuberant-as my mother says." She smiled again and strode away from Lisa, heading for pink grease stained box-containing donuts.
"You're-You're-"
"Lemme guess." Jessica lifted a donut out of the box, "You're a bit perturbed because of the age thing right?"
Actually, the fact that Jessica Chambers had two pink streaks that went down the side of her head in braids was perturbing-but yes, age was a factor.
"You're-" What the hell is wrong with me? "My age?" Lisa ignored her berating inner conscious, " My age?"
Jessica smiled, and whirled about, "NO! you're looking at a genuine child prodigy-although we're not as rare as we seem…" she frowned at this, seemingly considering something, "I'm eighteen! Just got Outta College!"
Lisa froze.
"Surprised? Don't worry it baffles my mom too." Jessica inspected the donut before taking a bite, "ACK! Why the hell doesn't Barry get fresh donuts? These are older then Regan…" she took another bite and sighed, "Ah, such is my lot in life-and my younger sister's lot as well." She sighed, then turned her attention to Jessica again, "Of course Rebecca's 3,000 miles away in California with my dad. He teaches at UCSD-professor of something-"
"Where is Mr. Burton?" I'd best interrupt this before it gets ugly. Even if this…Jessica Chambers was a prodigy, she had the mind of an eleven year old.
"Barry was talking to chief Irons" Jessica inspected another donut and threw it against the wall, "Something about the hospital-did you hear about the woman who got shot yesterday?" she turned away from the box and focused her attention on Lisa with her unnaturally bright eyes, "That woman got shot yesterday! She worked for Umbrella and Barry's trying to get Irons to let us have the case."
Shot? That was something that normally occurred in a big city, in a small town like Raccoon such things were as uncommon as porn clubs…
"Jessie…" Lisa looked up at the sound of a man's voice. A tall man entered and brushed back his semi-long hair, "Dad's going to freak."
"Is he your brother?" Lisa studied the boy intently. He couldn't be more then seventeen.
"Brother?" Jessica and the boy exchanged looks before they began to laugh hysterically. Lisa's lip set itself in a tight line as she clenched her hands at her side.
She hated being left out of jokes.
"Everybody shut up." She jumped again and threw herself across a nearby desk, which only made Jessica and the boy laugh harder. Lisa chuckled herself as she picked her body up off of the floor and came face to face with a tall, vaguely Mexican looking man.
"You must be Sunderland." The man held out a hand and smiled warmly, "You'll have to ignore the children here, Forest isn't supposed to be here-are you forest?"
The boy now known as Forest shook his head and waved to Jessica, saluting Lisa before leaving.
"Are you Barry Burton?" This is confusing… at least in the military ranks and order had been strictly defined, here the easygoing atmosphere would take some getting used to.
"I'm Enrico Marini-kind of unofficial STARS leader at the moment." The man gestured about them, "We're heavily understaffed-along with the police department. Raccoon is a small town so everybody pulls double duty."
"Like ME!" Jessica bounced foreward, "I'm medic for both teams!"
"You." Enrico said in a tone that offered no rebuttal, "Are annoying. Go get Barry."
"Hey, Gallows humor." Lisa mustered a weak laugh, bolstered by Jessica's easy grin. Enrico shook his head and motioned for her to leave.
"Don't encourage her." He jerked his thumb at Jessica's retreating form, "Brilliant kid, and really bright-but crazy as a loon. Two sides of the same coin I guess." He sighed, "Parents are divorced, apparently her father took a job teaching out west-he used to work for Arklay out here."
Lisa looked confused, "Arklay?"
"The Umbrella lab." Enrico pointed out a window over the town to the dense forest beyond, "Anyway-her mom still lives here-teaches at the local high school. Dad took her younger sister with him…that hit Jessica really hard. She loved her sister."
"She seems like fun." Albeit crazy. Lisa said, "I'm looking foreward to working with everyone."
"We're just happy to be getting some more staff. Kyle Vickers was working communications-now he can go back to Homicide. That'll please him." Enrico sighed, "Barry's on loan from Silent Hill. They have more then enough people jumping at the bit to serve and protect-he'll only be here for a few more weeks."
"Ah." Lisa said, "He seemed like a nice person."
"Barry? He's a big kitten. " Enrico sighed, "I'm sorry we'll be loosing him soon, but we've put enough pressure on the SHPD." He looked at Lisa and studied her intently, "What about you?"
"Me?"
Enrico nodded.
"I was stationed at Miramar airbase for two years-right after High school." Lisa began, "I then went to college, studied overtime to get my degrees in communications from SDSU."
"Ah! Mostly West Coast then." Enrico nodded, "Fun."
"And…here I am." She shrugged helplessly, putting her hands up, "I wanted to look into doing law enforcement, and since I did my two tours oversees as an MP…"
"You decided to become a cop."
Lisa stiffened slightly, "Yes. A cop."
Enrico sighed, "Well, that's not half bad…" he stuck out his hand, "Welcome to the team." He waited patiently for Lisa to take it, ignoring her unsure looks as she grasped it firmly.
"Marini! Look what I found!" Jessica Chamber's voice echoed through the breakroom, "Mr. Burton!"
Barry Burton stepped into the room, sighed audibly, and leaned heavily against the wall. Lisa looked up reassured to see a somewhat familiar face amongst the insanity of her new workplace.
"Hey Lisa." Barry said tiredly, "You'll have to forgive me, I was just arguing once again with Chief Irons."
"About that shooting?" Seems weird…a shooting in such a small town…
"Yeah. Barry's spooked cause of all the disappearances." Jessica said nonchalantly, "Of course the fact that it was over two months ago means nothing…"
"Disappearances?" they hadn't said anything about disappearances. Small town news rarely made the front pages-but they must have been quite a story to get Barry Burton away from Silent Hill…
"Animal disappearances-hiker disappearances." Burton raised a hand and flung it away carelessly, as if he was trying to shake the thoughts from his head, "Long story."
"So…Barry thinks that this guy is hiding in the hospital." Jessica said, "And he wants permission to go and check it out-but Irons won't let him because he says that the hospital is off limits to people cause it used to be a government faculty."
Lisa looked confused, "Raccoon has a hospital?"
The three STARS employees exchanged glances.
"Well…"Enrico said nervously, "Its not really a hospital…"
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Raccoon City Hospital
Formerly: "Our Lady of Grace" Mental Institution.
JD Roper was a patient man; he delt with computers-and in dealing with computers patience was a virtue that you couldn't afford to be without.
But this was too much.
"So you're telling me that there's nothing over room 2336?"
"That would be Annette Birkin's room?" The orderly moved like a turtle in jello, slow, and ridiculous, "Let me see-"
"No." JD said flatly, "Don't bother, I'll do it myself." He reached over and made to grab the file from the orderly's hand.
"Stop!" She slapped him away in a sudden rush of speed, "Only hospital employees can look at hospital records."
"I'm an Umbrella employee, does that count."
The woman's eyes narrowed. She flipped open the manila folder again and moved slower, just to provoke him.
"Over room 2336-storage spaces and air conditioning-that's probably all that your Mrs. Birkin heard." She closed the folder and stared at him with calm eyes, "Will that be all?"
JD nodded silently.
He left the records room and turned left. Much of the institution was empty-considering that only a small amount of rooms were needed to maintain a working hospital. It was getting late now, the light tendrils of evening making the place far creepier then it had any right to be.
Help!
JD froze. He stood directly in the middle of a tiled-silent hallway.
Help! Help Fire!
Fire? He didn't smell smoke…
Fire! Get us out!
"I'm hearing things." He shook off the voice and started walking again. Down another hallway and to the elevators…
Fire! Oh help! God please! It's burning! Burning! Burning!
JD's fingers were inches away from the button to go up back to the world of the living. The records office was an odd sort of purgatory…
Burning! The fire! They locked us down here! Fire! Fire-The door slid open and JD Screamed.
"Hey!"
He opened his eyes, staring face to face with that annoying attendant of Katie's. What was her last name?
"Are you alright?"
JD shook the voices out of his head. Bad sign, hearing noises. He studied the girl instead and sighed loudly.
"Yes." He said, "I just-just thought I heard something."
Big mistake.
Her eyes got starry, "GHOSTS?" she peered around him, "What did you hear? What happened?" She turned her head back and forth quickly, searching for some sign of a fleeing specter or apparition.
"Nothing!" Hearing voices…the dead walk…what the fuck is the world coming to?
"Are you sure?" she sounded disappointed, "Did you know there was a big-"
"Fire?"
They stared at each other for a moment. Without something to do, or a part to add to the conversation the elevator door slid shut and went about its business. The startling fact that both Daniela and JD were aware of the same event happening filled the room around them and vanished as quickly as it had come.
"That was why they shut down the instituion." Daniela said, her voice small and weak "There-was a fire-in the lower levels."
"Why? Electrical fire?" Such things are common.
Daniela shook her head.
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Upstairs
Annette Birkin's room
Annette lay in a dreamless waking.
"There's a way to cover up the mistakes."
She stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by men in lab coats-much like most of her days at work.
Am I at work? Was getting shot, finding out she was pregnant, all a dream?
"How?" What? Her mouth moved of its own violation, "David has gone too far this time."
"Can you blame him?" The woman who spoke looked an awful lot like Dr. Woods, "These people are society rejects, if he chooses to use them to better those of us who are in charge…"
"You sound like that Umbrella freak." A woman with short black hair said, "That Ashford who's building-"
"Its Spencer." The man at the head of the table spoke, "And in any case, what Umbrella is doing doesn't matter. Do they really think that bioweapons will catch on? You can take out something with a gun at least."
"Crippling the enemy-"
What the hell is this? Sunlight streamed through the windows, all around her-including herself-were dressed in old style clothing-from the fifties and sixties.
"We lock employees and Dr. Markin in the basement, burn them."
"Burn them?" choirs of disbelief echoed around them.
"That is correct." The man at the end of the table said, "We burn them alive. Who's to miss them? We'll all be safe."
"Unethical…amoral…"
The man at the end of the table snapped his fingers, a thin woman in a Chinese style dress moved towards him carrying an ice-drink.
Wesker's face moved from the darkness, "Who's to know?"
Annette awoke, sweating.
Wearily she stumbled to the bathroom, throwing open the door and leaning over the toilet. What the fuck… her side ached as she readily rid herself of her breakfast-and her meals of the past five days. She rolled to the side and stared at the ceiling, reaching to her side-
"Shit."
Her pale feminine fingers came away with blood. Apparently, in the excitement of throwing up, she'd re-opened her seams.
"Shit."
I wonder where William is… thoughts of her husband were pushed out of her head. Wearily she reached up to wipe the sweat from her brow-
"Blood. From my side." Her hand came away bloodier then before. She looked up-
The body that hung from the ceiling was swinging, back and forth-putting her in mind of her dream. A crude rope caused it to swing back and forth as it's disfigured face stared down at her-
She fainted.
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Joe's Bar and Grill.
Mark took another drink and tried to ignore the couple at the end of the bar.
Kids. The woman wasn't any older then his own daughter. Her boyfriend-with long hair and a hippie daze-two college kids Damn kids.
"What can I get you Mark?"
"Scotch, Rocks, you know the drill Joe."
"Rough day?"
Mark paused for a moment, trying to decide how to answer that question. The dim, smoky atmosphere did nothing to ease his mood.
"I keep thinking about that woman Joe." Joe, with the stoic attitude of a bartender, nodded to his customer as he filled his drink, "The one who got shot?"
"You know something about that?" Mark frowned at the man who moved forward, his light blond hair and feverish blue eyes said miscreant-but his expensive looking shirt and tie said "Drunken businessman."
"Yeah…you aren't a reporter are you?"
"I-" the man scrunched his eyes up, "I'm her husband."
"I'm sorry." Mark ignored Joe as he set down his drink and studied the man harder, "Is she doing alright?"
"She's fine-Listen, did you see who or what it was?"
Mark frowned, "What do you mean?"
William Birkin counted to ten and tried to disengage himself from the stupidity of the people around him.
"The-the man who shot her-"
"Pal, I just found the body, and I drove the kids who looked after her home-that was about it."
"Kids? What kids?" William leaned foreward, "Please…the police aren't doing anything about this…I want to find out who shot my wife." I swore I'd protect Annette and I let her get shot!
Mark frowned, "Here, I wrote their names down…"
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Hospital offices.
Late evening.
Katie picked up the phone on the first ring.
"Hello?"
Silence, Katie listened carefully to the voice on the phone.
"Ah, hello Ada…"
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YAY! On to Chapter Five! Now For the Contest…
NAME-The Five teenagers!
You saw the five teenagers in the beginning of this chapter? Well they're going to become EXTREMELY important in the next few chapters. You- (SHOULD YOU WIN) gets to name them!
ANSWER-THIS QUESTION
Who…do you think Alyssa was sitting with in the bar? (Yes, there is a correct answer; I'll give you a hint-think first chapter contest)
FIRST PERSON TO ANSWER! Gets to name the five teenagers in a review. There will be one more contest as the story progresses-so ENJOY!