Chapter 2 - A Place of Safety

The heavy wooden doors closed behind them, and they thought they were safe. The smell hit them almost straight away, the warm musty stench of a dead carcass, which succeeded in making Barry hungry again. Jill got her breath back and surveyed her surroundings. They were inside a huge hall. Opposite the entrance, stone stairs, covered with red carpet and numerous whoopee cushions, led to a small landing area, then climbed away from each other to the second floor. On the back wall, a huge painting was fixed, with a central door attached at its base. The giant canvas showed an image of many men and women, possibly the residents of this very mansion, giving each other wedgies. Jill admired its fine quality and splendour.

From the ground floor where they stood, three other doors could be seen, with a further four on the second floor. The walls were littered with numerous pieces of fine decor, elaborate oil paintings, cloves of garlic and burnt toast to name a few. The floor was made from what looked like Marble, but upon closer inspection it was badly painted plywood.

Barry was the first to break the silence, with a huge fart that knocked Wesker off his feet.

"What is this?" Barry continued.

"Well, it appears to be a mansion." Wesker replied, fumbling with his glasses and blinking stupidly.

Suddenly, the distinct 'pop' of a champagne bottle being opened echoed throughout the hall, each team member in turn looked towards the west wing doors, all except Barry, who took a few seconds more to register the mysterious sound.

"What is it?" Barry finally blurted out again.

"Maybe it's... Chris."

They all glanced around the room, to their surprise they realised Chris was no longer with them.

"Where the hell's Chris?" Jill screamed, clutching her beret and running round in circles.

"I'm sorry, but he's probably..." Wesker paused, his expression blank. When he noticed the other members looking at him with confusion, he simply shrugged.

"No!" Jill whimpered. She stopped to catch her breath, clutching her side as she made the wheezing noise of a dying turtle.

"Jill, quit being awkward and go check it out." Wesker commanded.

"I'm going with you." Barry said, while chewing on a chocolate muffin. "Chris was our old partner y'know."

Wesker then gave them the official S.T.A.R.S salute, which comprised of an armpit fart followed by simulating an epileptic fit. Jill and Barry did the same before making their way to the double doors on the left.

The wooden doors swung open, the creak of the heavy hinges gave the impression of a mouse being squished in a vice. They closed the doors behind them, and several dead rodents fell to the ground. Barry scanned the contents of the room, a large wooden table covered in table-wear; littered with candle sticks, plastic cutlery, spanners and other dining room related odds and ends. An antique inflatable grandfather clock ticked loudly on the right-hand wall. The sides of the room were littered with full size 2D cardboard cut-outs of movie characters, each one decapitated carelessly.

"Jesus." Jill whispered under her breath.

After a few minutes of silence, Barry finally spoke.

"A Dining Room!"

"Urh... yeah, thanks for that Barry." Jill replied whilst typing obscene messages on the typewriter, which for some reason stood on a gumball machine located near the double doors.

At the far end of the long room, a fireplace was burning away; the heat it gave off was amazing. Near the fireplace, a single wooden door stood further down from the grandfather clock. They slowly walked towards it; Barry holstered his gun and scrambled up onto the table clumsily, searching for food.

Just in front of the fireplace, a severed hand lay, oozing out a red substance. Barry rushed over, eyeing the pool suspiciously.

"What! What is this?" He barked, kicking the hand out of the way and into the roaring fire.

Jill made the effort to reply to the clumsy oaf. "Sigh! What is it?"

"It's blood Jill?"

"No shit." She whispered under her voice.

"Jill, why don't you do a completely pointless search, I'll be eating... uhh I mean, I'll be examining this. I hope this is not what's-his-name's blood!" Barry sat down next to the patch of warm blood and proceeded to fry eggs on the stone hearth. Jill cursed at Barry for being an idle sod before cracking a heavy candlestick over his head. When she realised that had no effect, she left the room through the single door.

She was in a long corridor; to her right, the passage continued, passing two doors along the way, both on the wall opposite her, the corridor ended with a pair of double doors. To her left, there was a sharp turn that led to a small area that couldn't be seen. The picture rail near the ceiling housed many speakers, all playing an eerie music. The corridor itself was very bland in design. White peeling wallpaper with patches of blood, vomit covered the wooden floor in places and an unbelievable stench lingered in the air, it reminded Jill of her grandma's house. A loud gurgle distracted the thoughts from Jill's mind. The distinct sound of chewing could be heard from the area to her left.

She proceeded to walk towards the noise, Berretta ready and her mind focused.

Jill edged herself around the corner, humming to the music. What she saw would stay in her mind forever. An old crusty man was giving Kenneth Sullivan, a highly respected member of Bravo team, a violent snog. Kenneth didn't seem to be complaining, but that may have been due to the fact that his throat had been torn out.

The strange man was crouched with his back to Jill, but as she gasped in astonishment, the man let out a quiet fart and slowly turned his head to look at her. His expression was that of great despair, his eyes seemed glazed over with a white substance, the skin that covered his balding head had many lumps and bloody masses of decay, and he wore a pink and yellow polka dot tie. His garments reeked with stench, it was then that Jill realised that this was no man; it was a zombie.

The putrefying figure stood up, and moonwalked his way towards Jill, drooling, moaning and bumping into walls. A small puddle of blood and saliva began to form at the zombies' feet. Jill screamed and fell backwards, a look of pure disgust passed over her face. She grabbed at her belt and pulled out a handkerchief from her side pack, and started wiping madly at the constant dribble that was issuing forth from the zombies lower lip.

"Phew, that's better." Jill relaxed and admired her handy work. Her expression changed when she realised that the gruesome individual didn't even thank her, and continued limping forwards, it's fluffy bunny slippers scratching across the wooden floor. It slipped on its own drool and fell backwards, the zombies leg snapped at the shin, it's right arm twisted around and split open. At first she thought this was an attempt at break dancing, but was shocked to see that the man gave no indication that he was in pain, not even when he began to slowly rise up again.

Oh my god, it looks dead, but...

Jill didn't give it another moment's thought; she had to get out of there. She spun around quickly and smacked head first into the wall; her head throbbed in pain. Feeling a little dazed, she stumbled around in the hallway for a few minutes before falling backwards into the door she came in by.

Barry heard the knock, and as he approached the single door, it burst open and Jill fell into the room, clutching her head and making a high pitched whining noise like a foghorn. Barry looked at the writhing individual with awe, before being distracted by the strange looking man approaching Jill with hungry eyes.

"Watch out, it's a monster!" Jill scrambled to her feet and cowered behind Barry's huge mass, digging her nails into his red combat vest. The zombie looked about the room, before focusing it's attention on the rather delicious looking omelette on the stone hearth.

"Look out Jill, he's insane!" Barry yelled before unloading several rounds into the zombies upper chest. The power of Barry's Colt was incredible; the zombies' chest exploded, and the drooling figure was sent reeling back, before it slumped to the floor and lay still.

"What is it?" Barry muttered before picking up his omelette and stuffing it into his mouth.

"Kenneth was being abused by this thing. Let's report this to Wesker."

They made their way back to the main hall, unaware that the zombie they had left for dead began to rise up. It quietly tiptoed over to the single door, exaggerating every step with a prancing ballet leg raise, then tripping over a broken chair on the way and snapping its foot off at the ankle.

"Urhhh!" He groaned before limping out the room and slamming the door behind him. Jill glanced over her shoulder when she heard the noise, but saw nothing.

They stepped into the main hall; they both scanned the room with confusion in their eyes. Wesker was gone.

"Wesker! Help me look for him Jill, and don't leave this hall for the time being." Barry blurted out. He ran all around the outside of the room, looking behind every picture, before darting over to the centre of the hall and proceeded to look under the carpet. Jill just stood and looked at the sweating fat man with pity. She wandered casually over to the stairs and took a couple of steps up, and looked around the room. She noticed that Barry was scrambling under the carpet, obviously lost and yelping for help. She stepped down and kicked the huge lump; Barry emerged with a stupid look on his face.

"Find anything Jill?"

"Oh Nothing!" Jill said unconvincingly, remembering that she hadn't even bothered to look. "Anyway, what is this all about, I can't figure it out at all?"

"Beats the piss outta me Jill." Barry panted "But it can't be helped. Let's search for him separately, I'll check the dining room again."

"Uhh... why? We just came from there." Jill said in a suspicious tone.

"I know, but I left my box of donuts in there." Barry massaged his round protruding belly.

"Okay, I'll try the door on the opposite side."

Jill sighed, first Chris and now Wesker. True, she thought Wesker was an absolute dipshit, and deserved to be ripped apart by chainsaw wielding badgers, but for him to disappear without word was, without doubt, very rude. Chris on the other hand, was a good friend, if he was dead, she would feel very lonely and helpless. The S.T.A.R.S office wouldn't be the same without Chris, no more practical jokes involving adhesives and Barry's workstation. She remembered the time Chris glued Barry's head to his computer monitor, then put him in a shopping trolley and pushed him out the window, oh how we laughed. But those thoughts were distracted from Jill's mind when Barry started talking again.

"Oh Jill." Barry reached down the back of his trousers and shuffled around in an awkward manner for a few seconds, the way his eyes rolled into the back if his head gave the sign of great discomfort. He pranced about the hall before pulling something shiny from his dirt box.

"Here's a lock-pick." He continued "It might be handy if you, the master of unlocking, take it with you."

"Barry, how many times have I told you not to carry it down there?" Jill said with disgust as she took the badly out-of-shape paper clip from Barry's paw. Barry just blushed, stifling a grin.

"Let's Hurry!" He finally said, and strode over to the Dining Room doors, opened them and disappeared inside. Jill was alone; she took one last look around, getting slightly irritated from the smell of faeces issuing forth from the small implement in her hands, before walking over to the double blue doors opposite the Dining Room ones, and walked inside.