For all disclaimers: See chapters 1 and 2.
Note: This symbol denotes radio communication. A Y stands for a page break-blame , you don't get them otherwise.
CHAPTER EIGHT Lost Souls/June 8th 1996, central Iraq/
On hearing Tom's call as relayed by Chris, Serena Baccarin stood very still and quiet for a long moment. Then, without blinking an eye or even attempting to wake up the unconscious Stamper, who was still hung across her shoulders, let alone explain just what had happened in the sealed room, she ran. She ran straight towards the location of Tom, Webb and Aaron so fast that Chris Redfield actually lost sight of her, puffing and panting like a steam engine as he tried to simply keep her in sight. He was in pretty good shape, he knew this for a fact. Serena existed on a different level of physical development to him, he now knew that for a fact as well, as though he hadn't before...
Y
Serena's sharp ears, so sharp some people had been known to joke that she was part Wolf sometimes, caught the slightest traces of a "Thumph" of sound in the near distance, as though something very big and heavy had just collided with something else solid with considerable force. If she was any judge, the object which had been collided with had lost and was now lying somewhere in pieces on the floor, trampled underfoot. Not heavy enough for explosives-and she'd know. No firearm she'd ever heard the report of either-and she knew a lot of those. Internal collapse due to structural damage? Possibly, but then what could cause the kind of damage that would make part of the roof or a wall collapse short of combat or deliberate human intent? An Act of God?
A Zombie abruptly loomed in front of her, stepping out of a doorway with a door hanging loose in it it had evidently broken the lock of. With no time to waste she used the unconscious Stamper as a weapon, slamming his feet into its chest so hard she heard ribs snap before a spinning high strike smashed it completely off of its feet. She finished it off herself with a precise boot heel to the back of the head, her strike smashing its neck and nearly ripping its head off even as its skull fractured everywhere, brain spilling out. She flicked her boot to get the worst off before sprinting on.
She guessed the route they'd have taken, but lack of choice made it easy. What made it complicated was what she saw when she got there. It took a great deal to make her /really/ angry-killing was just something she did because she had a talent for it-but that sight did it...
Y
/Ten minutes earlier/
"-IT!" shouted Tom and Aaron together, even as, in another part of the complex, Professor Robert Creig smiled at the sight on CCTV as his little prize woke up. It occurred to him that the Hound had never been field-tested before against armed, trained professional soldiers. Well, better late than never...
The creature that had been held out of view on the stretcher suspended from the ceiling, where an awful stench had been coming from that no part of any of the three men's minds wanted to remember even remotely it had been so indescribably awful in nature, was moving. That it wasn't your standard Zombie Tom had no doubt a moment later, as its steel restraints shattered with an audible crack of overstressed metal being suddenly and forcefully snapped right out of the stretcher, bits of metal striking in all directions like Shrapnel. Webb, who had been staring out of the window in what seemed to be some sick fascination with the Undead trying to break in, had seen it shift first-it also quickly became clear that he'd gotten something of a look at it as it started to shift, to. The awful expression on his face said the rest.
The thing on the suspended stretcher rolled off of it and hit the floor a second later on its feet with perfect balance, absorbing a ten-foot fall with the kind of ease most people displayed taking a step forwards on the straight and narrow. It stood up straight right in front of them, then looked directly at Webb. Webb's expression already defied description at this point, when the thing looked at him he simply didn't have an expression any more.
Six foot tall, humanoid with a long, lean form, the things stood, moved and looked like your standard Bipedal Homo Sapiens Sapiens as far as that went. It was the rest of it that made people scream until they died. Its eyes were so deep-sunken into its face they were no more than brilliant dots of lights inside its skull, it had no lips, its teeth and raw red gums being terribly evident as drool slipped from its mouth. Utterly bald, it was missing skin entirely, being no more than thick, heavy muscle, ropes of sinew and tendrils of meat wrapped around a heavy skeleton. Its internal organs were visibly pulsing underneath its wraparound flesh and muscle, even though parts of it were black with rot and decay and its movements were...odd, somehow, its too-long arms and legs making it seem like a Simian crossed with a Human crossed with something else...
It opened its mouth and screamed.
The sound didn't belong on Earth. Webb nearly died the second he heard it, every single part of his brain crashing like a computer with a Virus as the sound drilled into his mind and ripped out his sanity by the roots. As a catastrophic last-ditch attempt to save his mind his brain simply shut down, trying to block out /everything/ as he fell into peaceful darkness...
Aaron had immense reserves of both physical and mental stamina, one had to have in his job to both withstand and absorb everything that came your way in every way shape and size all day, every day. He was the kind of man who could and would withstand any and every kind of pressure to get the job, because doing so was part of the job and he /could/ do it. His eyes widened to their possible extent, blood trickled from both nostrils and both ears, his breathing accelerating to the point that he should have had a Heart Attack, only his exceptional physical resilience saving his life. He stood and took the assault like the soldier he was.
Tom had encountered sonic weapons before, he had Special Forces training to deal with pain, to force aside physical and mental disability to enable him to continue to function. Unlike anyone else, other than Serena, he knew what to do-not that he'd ever expected, ever imagined that he might actually have to use it like this. He took a long moment to concentrate, to focus absolutely on a single point. Then he let his mind go free entirely, drifting away from his own consciousness as he escaped deep into a Delta Trance. Blood trickled from his ears and nostrils, a blood vessel ruptured inside his cheek, blood dripping from his lips, but the only symptoms he suffered were physical and his body, so tough and toned it was a weapon by itself, had withstood worse. He was ready for what came next.
The Howl was an Ares Hounds main weapon, a literally physically and mentally devastating sonic weapon built into it that could and would kill if anything organic was exposed to it for too long. The other enhancements built into it were, however, entirely physical. The Hound leapt forwards-and crashed into the Shatterproof glass protecting the three men inside the small room, which buckled in its frame as though hit by a small car. Supposedly unbreakable glass cracked in a thousand places, instantly rousing Tom from his trance even as a groggy Aaron slowly became aware of the threat. Too late, as he nearly died when the Hounds fist smashed right through the glass as though powered by massive hydraulic pistons and slammed dead centre into his chest.
It was like taking a full-frontal shot from a battering ram mounted on a speeding car. Aaron was thrown backwards with the kind of strength nothing the Hounds size had any business possessing, ribs snapping, his left arm breaking even as his head hit the wall with an awful crack. He slumped to the floor in a moment of complete agony, a long, dark streak of blood trailing down the wall from where his head had connected as he groaned audibly.
All he could do was glare hatred at the creature as it kicked out the remaining glass and stepped inside-Tom levelled his huge Magnum pistol at the things head so close that it pressed into the bone. He pulled the trigger before the Hound even registered what was happening, the powerful guns shot simply ripping the Hounds head clean off, spraying meat, muscle, bone and brain in all directions. The thing was dead before it hit the floor. Tom didn't even blink an eye as he spat on it before blowing its heart out for good measure. "Eat /that/, shmuck" he muttered, never having been the type to warn someone before he killed them.
A Zombie stuck its head through the opening before trying to advance over broken glass, cutting its feet to ribbons as it did. Tom shot it in the face at point-blank range with his Magnum, the blast catapulting the dead-again Corpse back out of the room with such force that it knocked over every Zombie nearby. Unfortunately there were still more than twenty left and the one's left standing didn't even break stride as rotting, broken hands and arms reached for him in a moment. He switched weapons back to his AK-47 and fired off a series of controlled bursts, but he almost emptied his magazine to no real effect as the Zombies staggered backwards or momentarily fell only to recover and start moving forwards again.
He used language that would have made his long-dead mother die of shame all over again-there was no way he could stop these things by himself. He quickly resorted to the only other option he had left, kicking Webb in the ribs to wake him up while holding off the Undead however he could. "WEBB! WAKE UP YOU USELESS-!" he roared, too busy staying alive to think up any really creative insults...
Tom's screams somehow penetrated Webb's almost comatose brain, echoing around inside the other man's mind. Webb feebly stirred, twitched-then his eyes shot open and he screamed, hideously, Tom having to focus very hard to ignore him. A second later he sprang to his feet, grabbed his M-16 and started shooting in blind fury at head height on fully automatic, raking the Zombies with a brutal hail of lead. Several fell and not all of them got up again. A Zombie dog, a Doberman, appeared. He kicked it in the head so hard he snapped its lower and upper jawbones as well as driving his boot right into and through its brains. He staggered as it fell, nearly falling-then pulled his Desert Eagle and snapped off shots as though he was on a Shooting Range, perfect headshots dropping Zombies left and right. The Desert Eagle ran dry, so he grabbed the nearest Zombie with his bare hands, viciously head butted it then grabbed it in a professional hold and smoothly broke its neck. He leapt out to get the rest a second later.
Tom went out right behind him, emptying his AK-47 with headshots to drop a couple of Zombies following Webb's lead. Out of ammo with his main weapon, he pulled his Magnum and blasted everything within three feet and dead in the head, staying close to the demented Webb, dropping six more. In mere minutes of fighting he and Webb had cut the Zombie numbers in half, not bad going Tom couldn't help but think. Then he saw the horse, just as his Magnum ran dry...
Tom pulled his hunting knife and dived left as the horse thundered in, rearing at the last moment to flash lethal, heavy hooves and snap at him with black teeth, red eyes glaring at him. He slashed his knife across the upper left foreleg and the leg buckled, but its strength wasn't anything close to ordinary and it forced its way into another assault with three legs, body slamming him as he ducked another Zombie human trying to bite him. The horses weight and mass cracked a rib, catapulting both him and his other attacker from their feet, leaving him and the Zombie tangled in each other's arms as they rolled over and over.
He wrenched clear and rammed the knife right into the Zombies brain from under its jaw, killing it, tore loose of the rotting dead-again corpse and threw himself over again and again in a frantic roll as the horse tried to stamp on him. He fought like a madman to get a clear shot without further injury and managed to nail its lower right foreleg. The horse collapsed to its knees with a clang, its front legs not functioning, but it still tried to bite and flail at him. His final assault cleanly severed its spinal column at the base of the skull, killing it instantly.
Jumping backwards to get a wall behind him, he holstered his Magnum and pulled out his knuckledusters. He didn't have ammunition to waste, after all... It occurred to him that the wound he'd received from the woman "Corpse" at the start of all this should have congealed and stopped bleeding by now, but it still ran freely with thick red blood...
Webb swept through the Zombies like a madman, crashing through the rotting Corpses where they stood, punching out the one in front of him with a crack of breaking bone as it fell. Taking his M-16 in his hands by the barrel like a club he flailed it around as though he knew what he was doing, the guns steel and wood frame making for a potent weapon as limbs and heads snapped and cracked with awful regularity. The Demented Webb halfway had himself convinced that he was wielding a Baseball bat against a group of street Thugs before reality finally fought its way back into his brain and he realised, with cold, hard clarity, that he was cut off in the midst of the fifteen odd remaining Undead with only Tom, who was fighting hand-to-hand, for Backup. In a moment, he made the only decision he could-he span and ran for his life back into the secure room Aaron was still slumped in.
"WEBB?!" bellowed Tom, not believing what he was seeing as Webb openly panicked and ran for his life-just before Tom's momentary lapse of concentration let the last Zombie dog, an Alsatian, sink its teeth deep into his left leg. Tom roared in pain, before slashing down and across with his knife so hard that he literally decapitated the dog, its severed head left biting into his wound alone. A Knuckleduster punch smashed enough bones that its fell away, but Tom abruptly found himself limping, alone and badly outnumbered with at least fifteen Zombies left relatively intact and mobile, three, maybe four, still being dangerous. He wished Serena was here, she'd have taken this many bad guys apart with her bare hands in a minute flat, Zombies or not...
Stepping backwards, away from the advancing Zombies who weren't chasing Webb or going after the immobilised Aaron, Tom sheathed his knife and dropped the used clip in his AK-47, slapping home a new one and ramming a round in position in one long, smooth movement. It had to be perfect, he'd only get one chance at this. He raised the gun as the first one came on and aimed at its face, dead centre. He grinned, he'd had worse odds. "Eat /THIS/, Mother-!" he screamed, pulling the trigger and blasting the nearest Zombies brains out the back of its head, followed by its pulped teeth since he'd shot it in the mouth, the roar of automatic fire drowning out his last words...
In the secure room-not that it was any more-Aaron saw Webb and Tom charge the Undead from behind a red veil made of pain and blood, shock simply finishing his ability to move. He was absolutely sure he had a serious skull fracture on top of broken ribs and possible internal injuries, not to mention a broken arm, so he wasn't going anywhere in a hurry. Maybe he was /never/ going anywhere again given the state he was in, a cynical part of his mind made him think... Then Webb turned and, smashing Zombies out of his way through brute force, leapt into the room.
Without pausing, he ejected the empty clip from his M-16, slapped home a new one, turned-and killed the nearest humanoid creature with a single perfect shot between the eyes as it reached for him. That one was already in the room, so Webb smoothly switched position with a textbook perfect shift and turn and dropped the next one too. He made no move at all to get back outside or do anything but defend himself and his position-even as the sound of automatic gunfire erupted outside, forcing through the pain to even Aaron's slowed brain that Tom was cut off, surrounded and almost certainly badly injured outside. Screw /that/, Aaron thought in a moment.
Everything hurt, but that didn't mean it didn't work. He couldn't use his Combat Shotgun with only one functional arm, even he wasn't that strong-so what? He had other options. Besides which, as far as he was concerned Webb could Damn well look after himself for the rest of his short life as far as he was concerned. Tom was one of those "Cold Fish" bastards you occasionally met in the forces, yes, the kind you never ask questions who always get the job done, the type who don't have social lives or families, but he'd still take that man nine times out of ten over a scumbag like Webb. Webb was the type of career military who had got where he was by screwing over everyone who got in the way by fair means or foul, that he had some talent barely mattered. With someone like that to watch your back, you'd be advised to make out your Will before the mission as far as Aaron and most people he knew were concerned.
Simple willpower got him on his feet, his entire body trembling with the strain, sweat running down him all over as though he was in the Sahara in Arctic gear. White-faced and almost screaming in pain, his jaw clenched so hard that it hurt, he pulled his Desert Eagle and stepped forwards. Webb heard the heavy tread behind him over the heavy rattle of gunfire and risked a glance behind him-his jaw dropped at the sight of Aaron on his feet. Without blinking an eye, Aaron pistol-whipped Webb out of the way by slashing his weapon across the back of Webb's head with a resounding thud then stepped over the writhing man as calmly and steadily as he could.
He heard a final rattle of gunfire from Tom's last position, turned and started shooting his way forwards. He dropped six more Zombies before his clip ran dry, after which he punched the nearest in the face so hard that its neck broke and it fell too. He caught a glance of a bloody, badly wounded Tom barely standing, trying feebly to fend off two attacking creatures. The three others still upright and moving were coming for him and he was in no state to even and try and stop them hand-to-hand. Nonetheless, he switched grips on his weapon and stood ready to use it like a club, he was going to go down fighting no matter what...
Five sharp shots rang out, the creatures all fell in a heap with chunks of their skulls and large pieces of their brains missing. Aaron slowly registered the fact that, as darkness clawed at the edges of his vision, Webb was standing next to him, his M-16 smoking even as blood ran down his cheeks and the back of his head. Before he could even sense the movement Webb slammed the butt of his M-16 into his stomach, so hard that he came within inches of cracking his skull against the floor as he doubled over and fell to his knees with a "Whoof" of expelled air exploding from his lungs-only the furious Webb followed through with a double-handed strike, hands on barrel and butt of his M-16, smashing the guns metal centre up and into Aaron's jaw with an awful crack. Aaron felt his jaw go with an awful finality as everything went utterly black-and wondered whether this was what Death felt like...
Tom had been bitten on both arms and forearms, left shoulder and neck as he was overwhelmed by sheer numbers trying to hold off the Zombies. He was bleeding heavily, badly bruised and-worryingly-didn't feel at all right, as though something was running through his veins that had no business being there, something that was making him feel very sick. His eyes were bloodshot-the pain told him that-and his eyesight wasn't right, he could feel that, nothing seemed as distinct as it should have been. He seemed to be almost shut off from the world, as though he was swimming underwater, noises, even feelings fading in and out. He'd been seriously injured and lost a great deal of blood in the field before now, he knew the difference between the effects of injury and other ailments. Whatever was effecting him it was something else and, although he'd never admit it, that terrified him. Given the state of the human remains in this place, the kind of weapon they were here to deal with... Just what kind of muck was floating around inside of him...?
Despite everything he didn't miss Webb hit Aaron so hard that he knocked the seriously injured man unconscious and over like a felled tree, Aaron crashing to the ground with a massive thud. He just wasn't in any state to do anything about it, or he'd have broken both of Webb's arms at the very least. He barely even noticed the blood on Webb's face and in his hair, even as Webb reloaded his Desert Eagle and pointedly finished off the remaining incapacitated but still dangerous Zombies with perfect headshots. Webb reloaded his M-16 as well, checking both weapons before walking over to stand in front of the doors. He didn't move for a long moment-then, even as Tom's failing eyesight finally picked up the red dot that signified a miniaturised Security Camera over the door, the door lock symbol shifted to green and the heavy, massive door swung slowly open.
He was hanging onto consciousness by his fingernails, but Tom knew deep down that they'd all been screwed the moment this happened. Nothing wanted to work, he was only on his feet because he'd locked his knees and braced himself against the wall, his back pressing against cold steel, but he tried to speak. His voice was a whisper, he felt blood in his throat and knew no one at all had heard him. He coughed, choked-spat out the blood, this time managed a weak shout. "WEBB...!" he called out, his voice barely carrying at all.
Webb heard him, stopped at the door, turned around and smiled the kind of reptilian smile that said everything. Only he was going to get out of here, because none of the rest of them had a damn clue and he knew what all of them didn't. /He/ was the /survivor/...
Webb pulled his Desert Eagle and, without even the slightest hesitation, shot out Tom's left knee, muscle, bone and blood erupting everywhere. Tom was too far gone to do anything but howl even as he collapsed, the only thing keeping him conscious a jagged edge of pain suddenly searing through his mind and body. Webb disappeared and the door began to close-Tom saw a chance for at least one of them to survive.
With fumbling fingers he slipped one, two, three rounds into his Magnum before he ran out of time. Aiming as best he could at the locking plate, where the lock had to seal and electronics were almost certainly concealed, darkness and light fought for dominion over his failing mind and body. Biting his lip caused new pain, enough to keep him awake that little bit longer. With a quick Prayer, he cocked the gun-then fired three times straight at the place he'd chosen from memory. A hideous screech sounded, followed by an explosion of bright sparks and torn-up wiring ripping loose even he couldn't miss. Evidently he'd succeeded, but there was only one way to be sure...
As everything slowly fell away from him for the last time, he rolled his ruined body over so he fell to his chest on the floor. Dragging his mutilated leg, he fought his way across the floor, digging in with fingers, fingernails, the toes in his good leg, even elbows and knees. He didn't notice the thick trail of red blood that traced behind him, he barely even noticed the door when his head smacked into it, but managed to find the edge by instinct and scraped his way around it. He'd been right, it wasn't locked, or even shut. He kept going as long as he could, making it six feet down the corridor before he could only roll helplessly onto his back, breathing blood in lungs flooding with it, everything fading away.
The slightest of smiles crossed his face, he'd always known violence would kill him.
Taking the deepest breath left to him, he took a final satisfaction in reciting the Shiloh just before he died...
Seconds later, Serena Baccarin arrived at a sprint and took in the awful sight in front of her. She dropped Stamper without even registering the fact, his head bouncing off of the steel floor as he slammed down to Earth. Chris Redfield arrived a little later-and simply stopped dead.
It was the first time he ever saw Serena cry...
/End of Chapter Eight. All Reviews welcomed/