Chapter 3

Context Time: Beginning of Spencer Mansion Incident; Location: Cleveland, Ohio; Headquarters of White Umbrella; Hour: 0530

Gables, Franklin, Magnus, and Beaumont had just seated themselves at the large round table in the room, when their secretary came bursting in through the heavy French doors.

"Sirs," she began in a panicked tone, "we have a Class-1 emergency in the Spencer mansion labs in Raccoon. We have just received the call from the Head of Affairs there, Daniel Griffith."

The four gentlemen exchanged surprised glances, while dismissing the secretary. This was a serious matter, indeed. Gables spoke first.

"Of course, Griffith must know the protocols. They are drilled into all lab overseers." It was more like he was thinking aloud than actually addressing anyone. Another few minutes passed before Gables picked up the phone and pressed the single button that connected him to the Spencer labs.

Of course, it was Daniel who picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"You are in the middle of a Class-1 emergency. Explain," commanded Gables. He was in no mood to mess around. He wanted to be as concise as possible in order to gain more time to remedy the situation.

"Uhh, about an hour ago I received a call from a scientist still in the lab. He said that eight Hunter 121s were loose and that the T-Virus was leaking, although the leak was small-"

"There is no such thing as a 'small' leak, Griffith," reprimanded Gables.

"Right, sorry sir," apologized Griffith. "Anyway, because the lab and the mansion share a common air filtration system, I am under the assumption that the virus is leaking into the house. All phones have been taken out, the workers are all in hazmat suits, and the guards have been told to let no one leave. In an hour, I am personally going to lead a team down into the lab to fully assess the situation and possibly recapture the freed Hunters."

"As you are aware, Griffith, you probably will not walk away from this situation with your life. Even if you survive the Hunters, the virus may kill you," Gables told him.

There was a pause. "I know, sir. I knew that when I first signed up for this position."

"You are a brave man, Griffith. I am sorry for your position." Actually, he didn't care if the man died or not, what he really cared about was the loss of the virus and possibly the loss of eight Hunter 121s. "Now, you must know what to do. Call here every twelve hours with updates on the situation of your men and the containment of the virus. Keep everyone under close surveillance, and if anything out of the ordinary happens, let me know immediately." After relaying these instructions to Griffith, Gables hung up the phone.

Magnus spoke up. "How bad is it?"

Gables sighed. "Well, now we are going to get first-hand information on the T-Virus' effect on humans." After another long pause between the four men, Gables added, "The information about this crisis must not leave this room. Simply, no one tell Alfred Ashford."

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Context Time: Beginning of Spencer Mansion Incident; Location: Raccoon City; Spencer Mansion; Hour: 1845

Adam Shapiro was so tired. It had been a few days after he found out about the spill…and Ben's death. Many of the scientists had been sent to the sick bay, and many others were already dead. Adam himself felt like dying. His skin always itched, and was flaking terribly. Internally, he just felt terrible. There were no words for it. It seemed as though everyone in the mansion had the same symptoms. Now he knew why the virus was never used on humans.

He was slowly walking through the labs. The Hunters had been successfully returned to their cages, but other creatures had broken free. For instance, the shark had broken out of its cage, as had the arachnids and snakes. What was next, the Chimaeras and Plant 42? Adam sighed.

Turning the corner, he saw two scientists kneeling on the ground, with many scattered papers around them. Adam assumed that they had carelessly bumped into each other and were now picking up their papers. He was about to keep walking until he heard a soft moan.

"Uuuhhhhnnn..."

Frozen with fear, Adam turned to face the two scientists. From this angle, Adam could see what they were doing. They weren't picking up papers, they were eating a body that was on the ground, a fellow scientist. Adam watched as one of the crouching figures rose and stumbled towards him. Adam gasped when he saw the condition of the figure.

The scientist's skin was a steel gray color, and his eyes were a contrastingly stark white. The flaking of the skin was so bad that Adam could actually see red muscle and white bone underneath. Its hair was falling out, and it walked with a heavy limp because of its missing left foot. Adam could see it lying off to the side of the corridor. Also, there was blood on seemingly every visible portion of its body. Behind the shambling scientist, the other crouching one rose and shuffled toward Adam. What was even scarier was that the body they were eating twitched and jerked, and then flipped itself onto its stomach and started crawling toward Adam.

This made Adam scream and turn around. Just as he was going to begin running, he saw a fourth figure stumble out from the T-Virus storage bay. Squinting, he saw that the figure had a set of five bloody furrows across the right side of his chest, and another set running from his neck to his stomach. On closer observation, he recognized the figure as…

"…Ben?" he questioned weakly. He could only stare in horror as Ben, or what was left of him, came too close and sank his teeth into Adam's neck. Screaming more out fear than pain, Adam backed up, only to land right into the arms of the scientist with the missing foot.

Adam's screams were drowned out by the hungry moans of the once-humans as they munched on him. Finally, his screaming stopped altogether, and the four scientists left his crumpled body there, searching for a new meal.

About a minute later, Adam's corpse got up, too.

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Daniel Griffith scratched at his peeling skin. So that's what happened to infected humans. They became zombies. Daniel had locked himself into his room when he was attacked by a large group of seven zombies. He knew he was going to die, but he didn't want a painful death by being eaten alive. He'd rather just sit here and slowly rot away, literally.

He had just placed a call to the White Umbrella Board, and this time he spoke to Beaumont. When he told Beaumont what happened to infected people, Beaumont had put a man named William Birkin, who supposedly invented the T-Virus, on the phone. Birkin asked him all kinds of scientific questions and wanted to know about every detail of the zombies. This was because Birkin was in the process of developing a new "G-Virus," and didn't want the same effects that the T-Virus had on humans.

Daniel had told him everything he needed to know, and then asked if there was any hope for his or any others' survival. Beaumont came back on the phone and told him that there was a cure, and that he would send in a large group of the U.B.C.S., or Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service, to help the victims. Of course, Beaumont did have an antivirus, but he would never give it to them, but he just wanted to appease Daniel somewhat.

But something in Beaumont's voice betrayed the fact that he was lying to Daniel, so Daniel didn't tell him a disturbing bit of information. Because of the lack of fencing around the grounds of the Spencer estate, some of the already zombified workers and some zombie Cerberus K-9 units had escaped into the surrounding woods a few days ago. Although Daniel didn't want any innocent people in nearby Raccoon or Arklay to get hurt, he did want to punish Beaumont for lying to him, so he didn't mention the subject.

Now, Daniel was just sitting on his bed, feeling worse and worse every second. Suddenly, his body started convulsing. Then an idea struck him. Maybe someone on the Board knew of a way to stall the effects of the virus. That way, he could retain his humanity when, or if, the U.B.C.S. arrived.

With his still-shaking hands, he put the phone to his ear. Someone from the Board picked up, but Daniel couldn't discern who it was. All he could think about was how hungry he was.

"Hello?!" questioned the voice on the other end.

Daniel replied in the only way he knew how at the moment: a hungry wail. "Uuuuuhhhhh…" Then he dropped the phone, and began to aimlessly stumble around his room.

From the earpiece of the dropped phone, a voice could be heard saying, "No, they are all dead at the mansion."

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"No, they are all dead at the mansion," Beaumont told the other three Board members. He hung up the phone. He inhaled deeply, and then exhaled slowly. "What do you propose that we do about it?"

Magnus had an immediate answer. "Send in Wesker and his branch of the S.T.A.R.S. We stationed him there for this exact reason: to keep an eye on the mansion and possibly act as a clean-up crew. Have Wesker recover a sample of the virus, make sure all the workers and specimens are locked up, and then have him destroy the mansion and labs."

The others nodded their approval of the plan. Gables then picked up the phone, and called the S.T.A.R.S. office in the RPD. While the phone was ringing, he looked at the others and told them, "Remember, not one word of this to Alfred." The others nodded again.

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End notes: So what do you think? Chapter 4 is on the way.

Kompressor