Resident Evil - Voracious
Chapter Four
Charmaine DuChamp lived on the outskirts of town, and was as unlikeable as her name. Thirty years old but possessing the mind of an adolescent, the woman with the perpetual leer and low-cut shirts exposing the tops of her usually bruised breasts was the unlikely owner of a prime piece of real estate. Parking at the curb, Anthony Watt paused a moment before getting out to admire the view, as well as to delay the inevitable confrontation.
The DuChamps, that is, Charmaine's mother and father, at least before their deaths nearly a decade earlier, had been highly respected members of the town, running a profitable winery on their sizeable bit of land. When Anthony had been a child, the twelve acres had been painstakingly maintained, but at the same time had given off an air of wildness, aided by the enroaching forest, long shadows falling across the rolling grass even at the highest point of the day. He could remember yearly parties thrown at Halloween, where the adults would gather to gossip and the gardens would be converted into a massive outdoor haunted house, the children shrieking with delight at convincing ghosts hung up amidst the grape vines and trellises. He had always admired the sleek lines of the cozy four bedroom house as well, the interior filled with elegant mahogany and real hardwood floors never without a loving gleam.
These days, he cringed inwardly to think of the state of the disrepair Charmaine must have allowed the home to fall into. How could someone have so little care for their family's legacy?
Anthony climbed the winding path to the now battered front door as slowly as possible, already rehearsing possible conversations in his head. If Ina was there, she was likely to be about as cooperative as a wounded bear, her pride hurting from last night, and her head throbbing from any number of drinks. Charmaine was only too happy to play hostess to the younger woman, living vicariously through her, and frequently fanning the flames of Ina's already considerable temper whenever she sensed a show might be in the works. Anthony thought Bill was lucky Ina hadn't returned sometime in the middle of the night, Charmaine in tow, and left a few personal messages on his car courtesy of her house keys.
When Anthony rang the bell, the door swung open almost immediately, and he jumped in surprise. "Saw you coming up the walk, hon." Charmaine said with an exaggeratedly accomodating grin. Once, Charmaine had been a woman of startling beauty, elegant enough in her younger years to turn the heads of men with desire, and women with envy. Now, however, a decade and a half of solid drinking and smoking and other harder vices had left their mark on her, turning her once sculpted cheeks into jowls, her red hair lackluster and dingy, and her skin sallow and unpleasant. Only her eyes remained the same, bright with potential malice and the glitter of cruel, reptillian intelligence.
There had once been a movement to forcibly evict the woman from the town limits five years ago after she had shown up drunk and half naked to the junior highschool dance. The movement had been cut short -- garrotted, really -- after Charmaine had paid a private visit to the mayor and sherriff. Anthony didn't know what had been said, but ever since the woman had been left to her own devices, and the town tried it's best to look the other way whenever she paid them a visit.
"Afternoon, Ms DuChamp." Anthony said cautiously. She was wearing a mottled red velvet tank top and too-tight jeans; behind her, he could see the dim shapes of broken bottles on the floor in the gloom. "How are you doing?"
"That's sweet, Tony. That's real sweet of you to ask." She grinned at him, sharp as a viper. He watched her eyes; were they redder than usual, had she been doing drugs, or just drinking? "I'm doing just fine."
Anthony hesitated, and the silence spun out awkwardly as she studied him. After a moment, he decided to dispense with the pleasantries and plunged ahead. "I don't mean to bother you, but is Ina here? Only, she didn't come home last night . . . "
"Nope." As she spoke, Charmaine fished into her pocket and pulled out a battered cigarette, lighting it with a practiced flick of her wrist from a lighter sharped like an eagle's head. "I asked, but she said she was going over to the kid's place. Waste of time, if you ask me." She inhaled, eyelids fluttering shut, and blew a stream of smoke over both their heads. "A dick's only about when it wants the one thing we've got, but try telling that to kids these days." She winked, her gaze dropping down to the front of his jeans.
A grimace tried to rise on Anthony's face, and he managed to pull it back before it saw it's birth. "She went there, but she . . . well, Bill called it quits. I thought she might've come here."
Raising her eyes, the older woman's nostrils flared, the corners of her mouth turning down. "Huh. Well, she didn't. But it figures. I told her so often enough that she's probably afraid to come here, like I'm gonna say 'I told you so' or something."
Anthony had never been quite certain what to make of his older sister. Perpetually agressive, unhappy, and loud, Ina had effectively siezed control of the household after their mother had left, dropping out of school without a backward glance except to flip the bird over her shoulder. Ina had always reacted badly to any form of authority, so her first act as reigning queen of the house had been to render all rules null and void -- although she had been oddly militant about insisting Anthony continue to attend school. They had never been close, precisely; conversation was often strained due to a wide gap in personalities, and Ina was rarely at home to talk to anyway.
Nevertheless, Anthony felt a brief tug of fear in the pit of his stomach at Charmaine's words. If Ina wasn't here, where was she? As unreliable as she was, Ina had never really been the sort of person to vanish, unheard of for so long. If there was one thing the young woman thrived on, it was making her presence known as loudly as possible.
Eyeing him through a haze of smoke, Charmaine's lips twisted in what might have been intended to be a reassuring smile. "You know Ina." she said flippantly. "If Billy-Boy cut her strings then she's probably off licking her wounds somewhere. She'll come slinking back in a few hours, angry and meaner than ever. The young pups always do."
Fantastic, Anthony thought. Out loud, he said, "You're probably right. I just thought I heard her come by last night, and I thought maybe she'd gotten herself in some sort of trouble . . . "
Charmaine shrugged, the movement putting more strain on her shirt. "Hon, Ina is some sort of trouble. Haven't you figured that out by now? That's what makes her so much fun." She licked the palm of her hand suddenly and stubbed her cigarette out on it; Anthony winced. "You wanna come in? Maybe wait for her a bit, hang out?"
Despite the bored tone the invitation had been issued in, Anthony found himself recoiling from it. He'd heard things about Charmaine DuChamp, many of them out of the mouth of his own sister after returning from a long night of partying with the woman. He might still have been a young man, but he did have standards, and he didn't like the way Charmaine's gaze often lingered on him whenever she was around, like an oil slick under his skin.
Something of this must have shown on his face, for Charmaine abruptly chuckled without humour. "Car vous l'auriez, petit garçon. Whatever you want. If the girl comes by, I'll let her know you're looking." She flicked the remains of her cigarette over his shoulder and into the grass. Anthony turned his head briefly to follow it's descent, and when he turned back, the door had shut soundlessly before he could thank her.
He was tempted to knock on the door again, to apologise for possibly offending her, but he knew not to push his luck. Charmaine's moods were unpredictable, and the last thing he wanted was to wind up retreating ignobly from a screaming attack. Turning, he hurried back down to his car. An unpleasant prickling sensation on the nape of his neck let him know he was still being watched as he climbed in. Somehow, he doubted Charmaine DuChamp had much more to do these days than watch people.
Then again, depending on what you saw, that could be profitable, too.
She's right, though. Anthony thought as he turned on the car, as much lulled by the steady purr of the engine as he had been oddly reassured by Charmaine's assessment of his sister. She'll be back.
Anthony allowed himself to slump back into the seat as he pulled away from the curb and headed back towards the heart of the town. It was already approaching late afternoon, the white quality of the light of the sky changing subtly to a pale gold and painting the entire landscape with richer colours than earlier in the day. The streets were still alive, but already it seemed the activity was dropping off, one final stretch before the town went back to sleep for the night. Anthony found himself amazed more often lately on how the days flew by without his noticing now that he was out of school. Moreso when he wasn't working. Even with his job at the hardware store to break up the pattern of days, more often than not they poured by like liquid, some recogniseable from others only by the size of the ripples in them.
He knew a lot of people his age and younger who were frustrated by the quality of life in Rhodes. Even in the tourist season, things were often quiet, and Anthony had spent many days listening to the frustrations of his friends who constantly paged through glossy magazines and lusted after the faster lives contained inside. Personally, he didn't see the appeal. Ina called him a settler, and he supposed it was true. Everything he really needed, wanted out of life was right here. Why go elsewhere?
Less than a century old, the town had originally been built as a private resort for a rich couple and their friends before a conflict in land ownership had forced them to open it up to other people. It was beautiful land, of course, and in a beautiful location, and it hadn't been long before other people had bought land or simply snuck in unnoticed to build their own homesteads. Although Anthony's mother had long claimed their small house and it's little patch of land had been a gift from a wealthy friend of the family, he suspected his grandparents had simply siezed the plot and taken up greedy residence. He was attached to the house of his youth, but he also planned to get his own one day, to actually have a piece of paper that laid claim to the ground beneath his feet earned by his own hands.
Swinging onto the road home, Anthony found himself driving past the row of cabins Stanton Saxon rented out. One, he saw, looked occupied, and even as he looked curiously, pausing at a stoplight, the door opened and several people came out. A woman, a man, and two young girls. The woman was pretty enough; city-bred, no doubt, but looking comfortable in a light dress, dark hair arranged artfully around a face that seemed suited to thoughtfull repose. The man, however, would have been at home swinging at axe at a lodge in the hills, a massive fellow with rough hewn features partially obscured by the bristle of a reddish-brown beard. As Anthony watched, the younger of the two girls, clutching tight to her father's hand, noticed him; her features immediately broke into such a smile that she might have seen a relative or close friend, and she waved enthusiastically. Amused, Anthony waved back even as he pulled ahead.
He envied them, a little. He didn't know if his current relationship would work out, but one day he intended to have that, a happy, carefree family, connected like a circle.
He hoped that Ina would want to be a part of it.
"Did you get a hold of Chris?"
Despite the calm tone she used to ask, Barry knew Kathy well enough to know the earlier phone call had upset her. Unlike some other women, Kathy was typically extremely forthwright with her feelings -- most especially anger. Worry, however, was not something she was comfortable in expressing, as though she expected some predator was lurking just outside of the circle of their family, waiting for the first scent of weakness.
She was worried, though. They both were. The message from Chris Redfield had been waiting for them when they'd gotten back from shopping, a note sticking out of the mailbox delivered by the cabin manager after the S.T.A.R.S. marksman had apparently called the main office. Barry cursed himself for not having been there to receive the call, even though he knew Chris would have tried a lot harder to reach them if something was going south.
Truthfully, Barry felt a little guilty about not being off with the others -- Chris, Jill, Rebecca, David -- while they gathered information on Umbrella. Okay, a lot guilty. But they'd already made their decision to leave without him; they'd looked uncomfortably at one another when he'd expressed his eagerness to go with them, to finally do something. But . . .
"You've got a family, Barry." Rebecca had said, twisting her hands nervously but still unusually firm. "This is just a look around sort of thing."
"You've all got families too." Barry had said, more harshly than he'd intended. Although he knew they were trying to be kind to him, to give him time with his family he might not . . . get later, the exclusion had still stung.
"Yeah. But ours aren't threatening with divorce." Chris had been deliberately blunt, but it had served to push aside Barry's objections. Smash aside, more likely. He'd been telling Chris his worries about his marriage for a while then, ever since the Spencer Estate, and to hear someone say that word he'd been worried was looming inside Kathy's mind was nothing short of devastating.
Still, a niggling doubt remained in his mind, even after he'd given them his blessing and made them swear to keep in close contact. Was that really the reason why they'd decided not to take him?
Or was his betrayal, even if it had been forced, still fresh in their minds?
"No." Barry said now as he drove. "No, I couldn't. I tried the number he'd left, but they were already gone." To the children, who were listening closely in the backseat, and immensely fond of 'Uncle Chris', he said, "Chris is on a vacation of his own."
"He should have come with us." Poly Anne said. "Then he could have fun like we're having. He's not gonna have fun all by himself."
No, Barry thought, no, he certainly isn't going to have any fun at all.
Just thinking about it, what might be happening over in Europe without his knowing, was making his nerves sing. It was a relief to park the car.
"I still can't believe he lives there." Kathy said, climbing out, the tension easing away from her face to make room for soft amazement.
"I still can't believe he bought our groceries." Barry said, helping out the girls. "It's like something out of a bad romance novel. Maybe I should be jealous. It's classic. Man meets woman, woman loses money, man gallantly offers to pay . . . "
"Invites woman and her husband and two children to dinner?" Kathy snickered. "I'm sorry, I don't believe that one ever made it to the shelves, tawdry as you make it sound. Maybe you should write it down."
Barry laughed. Truthfully, he didn't find the whole situation as odd as Kathy did. She had been all but bursting with it when he'd arrived to pick her up with the girls, comically wide-eyed with disbelief. For his part, Barry had spent much of his life in towns smaller than this one, where the community seemed to think of itself more as a family than anything else. And besides, Kathy did happen to look pretty good; was it really so strange that someone would extend a dinner invitation?
Admittedly, though, Barry would never have suspected that the expensive looking cottage Poly Anne had been so taken by would belong to one of the two old men whom he'd seen bickering over five dollars in the diner. He'd known people who were frugal, but this? With every light on in every window now as they approached the door, Poly Anne and Moira wide-eyed between them, the place looked like a small getaway for royalty, or even another gateway to Narnia. Absently, Barry smoothed the front of the shirt he was wearing. Kathy had wanted him to wear a suit, and the girls, fully supportive of being dressed like little princesses for "a real dinner", had joined the battle. In the end, however, Barry had won out; he had always suspected he looked more than a little ridiculous in a suit, like a bear wearing a top hat at the circus.
Kathy had barely pressed the doorbell when the door was pulled open. The man on the other side looked shocked to find them there, twisting around to look behind him as though he half expected to find someone sneaking up behind him as well. He was fairly young, tall and thin, with straggly black hair and a rumpled appearance, but shadows under his eyes made him look older. With a briefcase in one hand and a faded black jacket on askew, it was clear he was on his way out. "Uh, may I . . . help you?"
Kathy looked off-balance for only a moment before sliding a smile into place. Barry had always admired her in social situations; he usually got along well with people, but rarely saw the point in dressing himself up for any occasion. "Hello. I'm Kathy Bristow, and this is my husband Barry, and my children Moira, and Poly Anne." Barry saw the briefest of flickers in her eyes when she used the false last name they had agreed upon several days before. "We were invited to dinner by Mister Council Riddick?"
From the expression on the young man's face, you might have thought Kathy had just told him she intended to come in and dance naked atop the dinner table while Barry set fire to the valuables. "Dinner? By . . . who? You said . . . " He paused, licking his lips nervously. He appeared to notice the girls for the first time and jumped slightly, his free hand flying to tug anxiously at the ugly brown tie he wore. "Oh, I'm not so sure . . . "
"Edward, you self-imposed shut-in, let them in!"
This time, the young man wasn't the only one to jump as the voice trumpted from inside the house. The door was wrenched open wider, and one of the old men from the diner jostled him aside. "Bunch over. Bunch. Over!" he snapped, sounding for all the world like a parrot having it's feathers plucked out. "Were you raised inna barn? That what you do to guests? Edward!"
Reddening, Edward jerked his head stiffly from side to side. "I didn't . . . I didn't know you were expecting anyone. I thought maybe they were solicitors."
Looking blank, Moira said, "I'm not. I'm eight."
Ignoring the younger man -- his son? -- the old fellow focused on Moira and smiled, bending forward with a slight wheeze. "Are you? I woulda thought you were at least eleventy-teen."
Looking embarassed but pleased, the girl shuffled slightly and dipped her head, smiling. "Nossir. I'm Moira, and I'm just eight."
"But a very smart eight." Barry said, stepping forward and extending one hand. "Nice to meet you."
The old man had a surprisingly powerful grip. "Council Riddick. Call me Council." He looked down at the kids again. "You young ladies can call me The Count, if you want, like everyone else." And he bared imaginary fangs and white dentures. The girls giggled, Poly Anne looking awed; she'd always been a fan of the Count on Sesame Street. Abruptly, Council seemed to remember Edward standing nervously off to one side, and he jerked his head in the younger man's direction. "And this is my nephew, Edward."
Unlike his uncle, Edward Riddick had a loose, shakey grip, and he broke the handshake almost immediately after the most perfunctory of touches. It seemed to be taking all his willpower not to wipe his hand on his pants aftwerwards. "Nice to . . . yeah. I mean, yes. Well. I should get going." Without another word, he brushed past them down the steps, taking great pains not to come into contact with Kathy, and walked briskly away. Barry watched him go; the man walked like he had a steel rod strapped to his back . . . or one up his ass.
"Don't mind the boy." Council was saying. "Kid'd run from a fallin' leaf. But I bet you guys are hungry."
"I hope you didn't go to any trouble." Kathy said as he lead them down a low-ceilinged hall furnished in comforting earthen tones and unobtrusive but elegant gas-look electric lamps.
"Nah. No trouble at all."
They turned the corner, and suddenly Barry found himself wishing he'd bothered to dress up after all, bear or no.
The dining room -- did people really have dining rooms anymore? -- was larger than he'd expected, seeing the outside of the building. The far end was dominated by a massive fireplace that looked to have been hewn from real white marble over which a large portrait hung, a small fire already burning behind a grate worked to resemble an ornate iron R. The walls were enormous windows, ceiling to floor, partially obscured by red velvet curtains that looked thick enough to jump off the roof of a building onto if folded up. There was a chandelier, but it was an amazing thing, a spiderweb thin network of expertly worked golden metal -- surely not real gold -- that criss-crossed and interlaced overhead like thread dropped by the hand of God, supporting dozens of tiny glass bulbs that glowed with a surprisingly comforting light given their ostentatious setting. And then there was the table; an enormous round beast of a thing, groaning under the weight of a roast beef that would have fed Barry's entire family on leftovers for almost a week, dishes piled high with steaming corn on the cob, dark gravy, mashed potatoes, and more.
"Well," said Council, ignoring their stunned expressions, "let's eat."
The girls whooped and clapped in delight.
"Who's that?"
Barry could hardly move. His limbs felt weighted down with food, every bit of it good enough to grace the tables of any four-star restaurant. Despite their surroundings, dinner had been casual, and in no time Barry had found himself relaxed and chatting with Council Riddick even as between the two of them they managed to make a siezeable chunk into the roast, while Moira and Poly Anne had spent the first fifteen minutes entranced by first the room, then the sheer amount of food presented before them. Barry suspected he might have to quell a few stomach-ache induced nightmares tonight, but he suspected the girls would think it worth it.
Now, however, Moira was twisted around in her chair, pointing. Curious, Barry looked, and found her indicating the portrait above the fireplace. For the first time, he really looked at it. The artist had definitely had some skill; no DaVinci or Fabri, certainly, but enough to devote loving detail to the subject, a young woman. Surprisingly, given the mood of the portrait, she was dressed in a simple cranberry red sweater and razor-straight black slacks. She was standing in front of a bookcase, holding a slender volume in her hands, and looking back over her shoulder. Her skin was like deep chocolate, and her face was round and pleasing, the sort of face you immediately felt you could tell your problems to, framed by poker-straight carmel coloured hair. The artist had clearly devoted a great deal of time to the eyes, infusing them with a warmth, kindness, and courage, and adding a remarkable amount of detail to the odd green-blue colour of them.
"That," said Council, leaning back in his chair with a grunt, "is Fisseha." He pronounced the name awkwardly, looking embarassed as he did so. "Never could get that right."
"She's very pretty." Kathy said, stacking plates in an attempt to clean the table. Council swatted at her hands when she tried to take his, and she sat back down sheepishly.
"You're guests. Don't be stupid." Despite the words, there was no harm in them, and he looked more interested in the painting than anything else. "But she was a good looking one, wasn't she?"
"Sure is. I like mine though." Barry said graciously, and Kathy gave him a wry, indulgent smile.
Looking amused, Council said, "We all think that about our own, I guess, and when we do, it's always true."
"Is she your girlfriend?" Moira asked, and Barry was surprised by her chatty behaviour. Usually, Moira was almost painfully shy around new people, but all throughout dinner she had kept Council's mouth moving when it wasn't chewing answering her questions about everything from his house ("A place to hang my hat, that's all") and Edward ("Boy's got his head stuck right down in the sand.").
"Something like that." Council replied, and in the words if not the face, Barry read a stamp of loss that made him uncomfortable. He liked the old man, sure, would like to get to know him better, but he didn't feel comfortable prying into his private life after they'd just eaten his food. He opened his mouth to distract Moira before she could continue her questioning, but didn't get the chance to.
That was when the sirens began.
The room was suddenly awash with alternating red and blue, and for a moment Barry thought inanely, This isn't really his house. The real owners are here to take it back now.
Kathy, however, was already at the windows, the girls clustering tight to her sides. "Something's happening across the street." she said in a voice tight with alarm.
Frowning, Barry came over to stand behind her. It was later in the evening now, and the night was lit up with the flashing lights from two police cruisers parked across the street in front of a two-story house with darkened windows. They didn't seem to have gone in yet, however; Barry could see the shapes of the officers standing on the walk, gesturing angrily to one another.
"It was nice while it lasted." Council said from behind them, and it was then that Barry realised the man hadn't even bothered to get out of his seat. With an air of dismissal to the noise outside, he turned back to the roast and began cutting another slice.