Author's Notes: Greetings, readers. I am hoping that you are getting as much enjoyment out of reading this as I am writing this. I particularly like this story since I get to employ the use of the former second lieutenant, ex-marine, Billy Coen—a character whom I hope is brought back in a future Resident Evil title due to the interesting background of his character? And so without further ado, I give you chapter 3 of REmake 0. Enjoy.
Addendum: Oh and guys? I really feel utterly disgusted with myself. I myself hate it when I find a kick-ass story that seems to have been abandoned to the merciless tides of time, and I was about to do it myself.
If I ever become this lazy again, feel entirely free to e-mail me a verbal ass kicking and tell me to get my act together, okay? Just be sure to put the subject as RE or Resident Evil, else wise my filter will condemn it to the hells of spam-dom.
Enrico walked up the steps up the stairway leading down to the crematory, flanked on either side by the walls of the claustrophobic hallway. He had a worried look on his face. Things did not look good: He had no idea how many of his men (and a woman) had made it to the manor and not been ripped to shreds by the pack of wild dogs in the woods; there was an escaped murderer on the premises; and some, if not all of the inhabitants of the Spencer Estate were infected by some kind of flesh eating disease that made them insane.
And the fact that Coen had his only weapon was just a happy little bonus to his current situation.
Thos people—they had to be sick, right? The S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team leader was studiously ignoring the little voice in the back of his mind; the one that said he was just feeding himself a load of bullshit; the one that pointed out that he had shot the man three times in the gut without him so much as flinching and that the man had part of his brain exposed.
The voice that kept saying one verbatim, over and over in his head: Zombie.
Enrico didn't have much more time to ponder his contemplations of stereotypical Hollywood horror creatures as he stepped into the cool night air, hearing the sound of a few crickets chirping and singing out into the night from the thick curtain of trees that laid beyond the gate that surrounded the cemetery. He had only taken a few steps along the stone plinth, his gaze downcast, wondering just what he was going to do, when his eyes saw an object lying just on the edge of the platform that was a sight for sore eyes. His gun.
The S.T.A.R.S. member stopped and stared at the gun, not really believing his luck. Was it even luck? Had Coen accidentally dropped it without knowing—without hearing the loud clatter of the 9mm projectile weapon's plastic frame against the stone in the silent night?
Bending down, Enrico scooped it up, and looking it over he noticed that the magazine that he had dropped underground had been loaded into the weapon. The mind of the superior officer of the Bravo Team raced through theories on how the gun had gotten there, discarding them each as fast as they came. And after a short moment of creating scenarios in his head, and dismissing them just as quickly, Enrico Marini was left with only one probable conclusion, impossible as it seemed to him.
Billy Coen, a sociopath who had murdered a village of twenty-three people, had seemingly loaded the weapon and left it for him.
But it made no sense. What good could an escaped felon obtain by assisting a law enforcement official? Enrico let out a sigh, massaging his temples with his free hand as he holstered his reacquired weapon, deciding it was better to not think the matter through any further and just accept his good fortune that he wouldn't be left with only a combat knife in the mansion, as he had thought a few minutes ago. This situation was messed up enough without adding Coen and the possible reasons he did things into the equation. He had better things to do—like finding out if any of his boys had made it to the mansion in one piece.
Little did he and the incoming S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team know, they were about to have their question answered very, very soon . . ..
Deep within the mansion, in a small room, which was located underground and darted with candles, a dull, plodding thumping could be heard, accompanied by the grating screech of metal along stone as the sounds' source continued to move. A rattling moan akin to a creature in anguish issued out and lingered in the air as an echo, a the sound a grim harmony to the morbid environment.
Billy glanced around the main foyer of the Spencer Estate, frowning at all the doors he saw leading into various parts of the mansion from the second story balcony as well as the first floor. Great, he drawled sarcastically in his mind as his eyes darted about the foyer, his grip on his gun still tense. This place looks even larger than the Training Facility, and somehow I doubt that the queen of a bunch of parasites is going to leave the keys to this place lying around and the doors open like in the Training Facility. But on the bright side, he reasoned to himself in his mind, this place is better lit than the Training Facility, and there won't be any damn leeches or leech-zombies. . . . And I'm talking to myself in my head, aren't I? Just great. At this rate I'll be back in the nut house, but for insanity this time instead of supposedly committing mass homicide.
Billy shook his head, not wanting to dredge up the bitter memories from the dark recess in his mind where he had stored them away to rot. Walking down the rugged stairs, noting that this mansion, like the now-destroyed Training Facility, had ostentatious displays of opulence all about it. And with any luck, this place will have obscure puzzles designed to chop your head off if you didn't get them right on the first try. Turning left as he feet touched down upon the marble of the first floor, he headed towards a set of double doors that looked as good as way as any to start his search for the medic of Bravo Team, all the while wondering once more on the idea that if Umbrella felt the need to be so damn clever, why couldn't they just stick to damn crossword puzzles.
Pulling on the door he found it to be unlocked and began to enter into the room that had been revealed to be a dining room with a long oak table acting as the centerpiece of the room. His progress was stopped as a faint sound that was more of a dull echo of a buzz than anything reached his ears. He stopped, not making a sound, straining his hearing as the impression of the sound reached him, his mind racing to bring up possible things that the sound could be matched up with. Failing in his mental task, Billy merely tightened his grip over the handle of the military-issue firearm and listened; it seemed to be coming from outside the walls of the mansion.
He debated whether or not he should open the entrance doors of the foyer to try to get a better hearing of the noise, but this notion was quickly dismissed. Fuck that, the ex- marine and lieutenant thought to himself in the privacy of his thoughts. It's dark out, and who knows what kind of whacked out shit escaped from the Facility.
Entering the dinning room and shutting the door behind him, Billy continued on, ignorant of the copter touching down in the woods outside of the mansion.
The world was viewed in a dark and watery haze by the beings—or, rather, being—that lurked obscured by the forms of the skeletal trees around them. A multitude of watery eyes regarded the fleeing figures, flinching slightly whenever one of them turned around a fired a shot—issuing a bright flare of fire from the muzzle of the gun—at one of the decomposing canines that chased them.
The collective of beings debated to itself, mewing softly in a watery gurgle that went unheard by all but them, if it should just kill the new intruders right now. Gazing at the fleeing figures, it saw that they, too, were heading towards the mansion in the distance—where the murders were. . ..
Turning about and moving towards the looming mansion on a trail of slime, the collection of leeches decided to leave the newcomers alone for the time being. They weren't important. The murders were.
Rebecca winced slightly as she poured the disinfectant over the wound she had suffered from the reptilian beast in the Training Facility, though she doubted the alcohol would do little good if the virus had entered her.
After wondering around, and leaving a few undead that had been in her way with quarter-sized holes in their heads, she had found this small, well lit room off into an alcove by a set of stairs at the end of a hallway, which led up to the second story of the mansion. Sitting down on the bed alongside the wall, Rebecca heard the faint jingle of a handful of loose bullets in her pockets. Reaching into her pocket, she removed the Parabellum rounds; ejecting the clip from her gun, she reloaded it and counted her remaining ammo. With the remaining rounds, the fully loaded clip, and the bullet in the chamber of the weapon, she had seventeen rounds.
The medic's head hung in slight despair. She only had seventeen handgun rounds left; sure that seemed to be a lot, and would do well against the zombies, which only took one well aimed shot to the head to fell, but what if there were more of the humanoid reptiles in this place, or, worse yet, the leech humanoids? Handgun bullets wouldn't be likely to do much damage to the thick skin of the reptiles, and the leech-beings would just absorb the slugs as if they were nothing. She knew for a fact that there were at least four shotgun rounds in her back pocket, but little good they did her when their weapon was laying out in front of the mansion, bent into a twisted heap good for little more than a club.
The suffocating tides of despair began to close in on Rebecca, as her situation seemed to only get worse, compounding upon itself in her fatigued mind. She was going to die in this hell house. She was wounded, hadn't slept for at least fifteen hours time, and was low on ammo in an extremely hostile environment. She had barely survived the Ecliptic Express, the Training Facility, and the sewage treatment plant—and that had been with the help of Billy. And he wasn't here now.
Rebecca shook her head sharply, berating herself sharply in her mind for being so pathetic. What would Billy think if he could see her like this? Her fingers tightened around the handle of her S.T.A.R.S.-issue pistol in a white-knuckled grip, and she clenched her teeth. Getting off the bed, she walked over to the shelf where she had gotten the disinfectant and scanned her eyes over the labels of the containers that rested on the shelf, noting a slight film of dust settled upon them as she searched for something other that could be of benefit to her in her situation.
Grabbing another bottle of disinfectant, this one appearing only to be half full, she went over to the bed and undid her first-aid kit. Removing the roll of bandages from the kit, she glanced down to her arm, her mind, for the first time, taking note of the slight stinging that the alcohol caused on the wound as she watched the surface bubble up before spilling down the length of her arm in a wet trail.
Gripping the sheet of the bed, she wiped her arm dry before wrapping a bandage around her arm and fastening it with a clip. Storing away the cleansing alcohol in the kit, she pocketed her loose ammo once more, re-holstered her gun, and headed towards the door with a determined air.
She would make it out of this place. She would live to see another day—or she would die trying.
Jill ran through the darkened forest, the snarls of hunger and the patter of feet on fallen leaves dogging her from only a few feet behind. Occasionally one of teammates would falter in their stride to turn back and take a shot at the pursuing "dogs."
"Dogs;" they could hardly be called "dogs" anymore—doglike was more appropriate, or better yet, "demonic." Indeed the beasts that were chasing them through the forest were something that nature couldn't, and would never, produce naturally—they were hellhounds spawned forth from the loins of the very underworld itself.
Her lungs burning with in her, her legs screaming out avid protest, Jill Valentine of the S.T.A.R.S. Bravo team continued to move as if her very life depended upon it—for it did. All the while, she was, as she was sure her all of her teammates were also, cursing Brad "Chicken heart" Vickers to the furthest depths of Hell, and she made a mental to beat his scrawny ass black and blue if she out of here alive—though she was sure that she would have to take a place in line behind Wesker, Chris, and Barry before she got her chance to do it.
The wet slapping sound of intestine and peeling muscles faintly registered in her consciousness, and, had she not been directing all of her efforts into running away from the source of the sounds, she was sure she would have shuddered in revulsion. Chris, Barry, and Wesker had already made it past the rusted gates that surrounded the perimeter of the mansion, and as she sprinted through, she felt herself trip up in her step and go sprawling to the ground.
She vaguely heard Chris yell out in concern, but all she saw was the one dog-demon that managed to make it through the gates before Wesker and Barry managed to slam them close, the later sliding a garden rake from a nearby discarded pile of gardening tools through the slots to bar the gate close against the dogs that jumped against it in rapid hunger.
The world seemed to slow to crawl, as if everything had been covered in molasses as she saw the face of the dog that should by all rights not be alive come closer and closer to her. It's face was a grinning rictus of horror: strips of loose flesh (whether it was the dog's or not, Jill wasn't sure) hung from its bloody gums; it stared through one eye, the other just a bloody socket, as it snapped its snarling jaws at her, long strands of crimson tinged saliva hanging from its jaws.
She saw Chris running forward to assist her, but she knew that he would never make it in time; she looked about the darkened lawn for something to defend herself with. She saw what looked like a long, bent metal rod lying on the grass within arms reach. Slapping her hand out frantically, she closed her palm around the cool metal and swung it at the oncoming dog, a grim sense of satisfaction welling up inside of her as she heard the grinding crack of the metal connecting with dogs jaw, and the following whelp of pain as it went flying to the side, its flight path altered by blow.
Scrambling to her feet, she did not bother to glance at the now-still dog that lay upon the cool lawn of the mansion, its neck broken and dark ichor oozing from its mouth. Running towards the form of Wesker, who stood beside the open front of doors of the mansion, gesturing to her to hurry with his arm as he watched the gates strain against the onslaught of the dogs that were assaulting them, Jill hurried. Her captain was yelling something out to her, and it she should've have well been able to hear and understand him at this distance, but his voice was just a muted blur of sound, the only sound that her mind focused on at that moment was the groaning of the wooden rake, soon followed by the sharp cracking sound of the wood finally splintering.
Moving with speed she had not previously know she had possessed, Jill dove through door as Wesker fired two rounds into the group of oncoming dogs, the metal bar that she had not let go off scraped against the marble flooring of the foyer.
Panting with exertion, Jill flipped over onto her back and stared up at the high, vaulted ceiling of the mansion far above her, her chest heaving as her burning lungs sucked in large gulps of oxygen greedily.
Her body aching, Jill was aware of only one fact as she lay upon the cold stone floor of the foyer: that she was still alive.
Billy was examining a pool of blood by the fire place, wondering if it belonged to one of the monsters, or one of the S.T.A.R.S. members, or possibly even a survivor—or Rebecca, but he refused to entertain the last thought and pushed it resolutely from his mind.
His attention was drawn from the buddle of sanguine liquid when he heard a commotion from somewhere outside the main foyer, followed by the sound of the door opening, frantic voices, the fire of gunshots, and a feral bark that he knew all too well.
Billy kneeled there by the puddle, listening to the muted voices in the foyer that he could not well make out with the crackling of the fire and the closed door of the dining room. As such, he did not notice the door across from him swing open, nor did he notice the figure staring at him with a look of shock, followed by fear on his face. And Billy Coen raised his head in time to see the figure pointing a handgun in his direction.
Letting out a sharp curse, Billy threw himself to the side, prostrate on the floor just as two rounds slammed into the wall in the same area where his head had been a few seconds before. He heard the dry click of a firing pin striking and finding only an empty chamber, and he looked up to the retreating figure of a dark-skinned man retreating into a hallway. Getting up, Billy grabbed his gun and hurried after him. He had just entered the white painted hall when he heard a scream to his left, and turned and saw the man standing in a small, open carpeted area, his eyes wide as a zombie lurched towards him a few feet away.
Raising his weapon and taking aim on the stalking figure of the ghoul, Billy pulled his finger over the trigger, fully expecting to hear the familiar discharge of a metal slug being sent through the air followed by the wet slap of it piercing rotten flesh, instead he heard a strange sound come from his gun.
Looking down at the military weapon in panic, the ex-lieutenant pulled the trigger again, only to receive the same sound as a reward for his efforts. Fumbling with his gun, which he now realized had jammed, Billy's mind raced frantically as he stared at the zombie which was now only three feet from man, who had backed into a sofa against the wall and was now huddled in fear as he pointed an empty gun at the advancing monster and pulled the trigger with no result whatsoever.
In that instance, Billy felt the metal of the .50 caliber magnum pressing against his lower back from where he had tucked into the back of his waistband. Dropping his handgun, he reached around for the magnum and fumbled to get it out, and when he did he leveled the barrel of the weapon on the monster. But at this time, the man's hitherto constant scream of terror had turned into a wet gurgle sort of wheeze, and Billy beheld the zombie embracing man in a rotting embrace, as its head and ripped the man's throat out.
Staring in horror, Billy could only watch in shock as the man—a S.T.A.R.S. member, one of Rebecca's teammates Billy's hazy mind registered from the vest the man was wearing—convulsed and struggled the undead denizen of the mansion, his feet dancing a small tattoo on the wooden flooring. But his struggles soon slowed, and his mutilated scream died to a small, faint gurgle and then to silence as his body stopped moving altogether, and Billy still could only watch in numb shock as the zombie continued to tear into the deceased man's flesh with a slobbering, wet ripping sound.
Billy was only torn from his macabre vigil by the sound of one of the dining room doors opening and the sound of footsteps approaching. Casting one last look to the now-dead S.T.A.R.S. member, Billy crouched down and retrieved his gun before running down the hall the opposite way of the zombie, and opening the door to a room before shutting and propping is weight against it.
And Billy could only listen as he heard the footsteps come closer; a shout of grim surprise as the person found the zombie feasting on their comrade—assuming that it was another S.T.A.R.S. member, which is more than likely was—and a trio of gunshots, one after another, followed by the sound of a form of the zombie slowly collapsing to the floor.
And then, even after the person had gone, Billy stood there, listening to the sad solitude of silence that the room offered.