Resident Evil
Shadows on the Wall - Part 2
"Hey, Ethan," Waylan whispered from across the other side of the dark, dusty living area. Ethan took a moment from his meticulous examination of a fading black and white picture hung crookedly over the long unused fire place, and looked over his shoulder to answer his partner.
"What?" Ethan replied coarsely.
"Come check this out. I think I found something."
"What is it this time?" Ethan walked heavily towards where Waylan was bending over trying to decide what he was looking at. "It better not be another dead rat."
"No, it's some sort of liquid."
"So what is it, blood?"
"No, it's not blood."
"Then what is it?"
"I don't know."
"Let me have a look." Ethan pushed Waylan out of the way and observed the rather large puddle of liquid pooled in the corner of the room. He squinted at the stuff, and crinkled his nose when he realized a pungent fishy stench was emanating from it. His hands went to his belt and unstrapped his night stick from it. He stuck the tip of the night stick into the puddle and slowly stirred it. The liquid was not runny like water. It had a thick, gravy like quality to it. After a few more seconds, Ethan came to his conclusion.
"You're a fucking idiot, you know that?" Ethan sighed.
"What?"
"It's just a puddle of stagnant water." Ethan replaced his night stick and headed back to the picture over the fire place. There was something about it that did not seem right.
"Well, it could have been something," Waylan mumbled as he disappeared into the kitchen area. Ethan smirked to himself and went back to the picture. There were six members in the family, a mother, a father, two older sons, and a girl and a boy, who looked strikingly like eachother. Twins, most likely. The whole family was dressed in a black suit or a black dress respectively. The strange part about the whole picture was that there were six digits marked in black ink over there heads. At first Ethan thought they were birthdates, but then that meant that the two kids were not twins at all. "023191" over the girl and "041893" over the boy. 1991... that was about seven years ago, and the two kids definitely did look about that age, but he was also sure that these two were twins. So maybe the numbers were not dates, but just numbers of some sort. Most of the other numbers above the other family members were smudged and beyond recognition. Ethan finally tore himself away from the picture and joined Waylan in the kitchen.
"Lights don't work," Waylan reported as Ethan stepped into the room. Ethan's partner was quickly scanning the dust covered room with his flashlight.
"I doubt the power even works in this place," Ethan said. "Even if it did, the power in this part of town has been out for hours." Waylan did not seem to be paying attention. He was more interested in the kitchen walls.
"This may sound kind of weird," Waylan began, "but it looks like someone was walking on the walls." Ethan looked at Waylan strangely. He was not completely sure that his partner was all there.
"Are you feeling all right, Waylan?" Ethan asked.
"So now you think I'm crazy, huh?" Waylan replied bitterly. "Take a look for yourself." Ethan groaned to himself but took out his flashlight anyways. He flipped it on and threw light onto the kitchen's walls. A strange trail of undusted wall ran around half of the kitchen and led back out into the living area. It looked like someone had jumped up onto the wall and dragged their feet across it.
"Maybe a bird flew through the room," Ethan whispered.
"Doesn't look like a bird could have done something like this."
"Well, what do you think?"
"I don't know, but I'm going to see where this trail goes." Waylan walked purposefully out of the kitchen and back into the living area. After a few moments, Ethan followed him. There was nothing left to look at in the kitchen anyway. The undusted trail moved from the right wall of the living area and up to the ceiling. There was not a visible trail of removed dust, and for a moment Ethan thought that was as far as it went. Then Waylan discovered the trail coming down again from the ceiling and unto the left side of the wall, and straight into the hallway where all the rooms were located. It was not too long of a hallway, just two rooms on either side and a door straight ahead. That's where the trail ended. Waylan tucked away his flashlight and tried the knob. The door did not move. Waylan sized up the door for a few seconds, then thrust his shoulder into it forcefully. It was not long before he admitted defeat.
"Damn thing won't budge," Waylan muttered.
"Here, let me try," Ethan offered, producing a lockpick kit decorated with the Raccoon Scutum Security Service name and logo.
"I didn't know they issued us lockpicks," Waylan commented as Ethan jammed a pick into the keyhole.
"They used to about ten years back," Ethan told him as he began his work. "I guess the company thought we would hardly ever use these things." Ethan worked fiercely to get the tumblers to move inside the lock. It had been quite a time since he had last used this skill, and he was not quite sure he would be able to do it.
"I don't know why the RPD had us come here," Waylan grumbled. "There's nothing in this abandoned house anyway."
"They're all too busy dealing with all the riots going on around town," Ethan said. "Come to think of it, the RPD has had calls to this place before. They never find anything, but I doubt they've gone into the basement."
"Why's that?"
"Chief Irons always tells them to just do a quick five minute assessment, and by the relatively good condition of this door, I think it's safe to say that they haven't gone through here before."
"Well, I hope we get paid for doing all this extra work." There was a silence for awhile as Ethan tried as hard as he could to concentrate on the lock. He wiped the sweat out of his bushy grey brow with the back of his hand and continued working. The whole house was silent, save for the clicking and moving of the tumblers. Ethan was about to give up when the lock let out an audible click.
"Me, too," Ethan replied. He pushed the door open slowly, and instinctavely went for the light switch. He cursed under his breath for forgetting about the power situation and turned on his flashlight. Waylan did the same. The basment was just as dusty and rotten as the rest of the house, but there was something else different about this place. There were strange whirring and humming noises, and it reeked of death. Ethan's hand slowly crept to his handgun. Something told him that something was down there, something was waiting. When they hit the ground floor, they saw four large air filters at either corner, on at full power and whirring loudly. The floor was littered with large cables and tubes leading to three square canisters in the middle of the floor. They were all lit up with flashy dials and knobs, but two of them seemed to had been ripped apart from the inside.
"What is this place?" Waylan breathed. "Some kind of lab?"
"Your guess is as good as mine," Ethan replied, taking a closer look at one of the canisters. It was a pretty sturdy canister, made out of thick steel. He did not even want to know what had the kind of strength to tear through something as dense as that canister.
"You all right, Ethan?" Waylan asked.
"Of course," Ethan replied, a little annoyed. "Why?"
"I can hear you breathing from here."
"What?" That's when Ethan heard the low raspy breathing echoing throughout the tiny basement. He looked around, aiming his light at every possible place. "Is that one of the machines?"
"Sounds a lot like breathing to me," Waylan whispered. The breathing sound was implemented with a slow, steady clicking noise. The two security officers franticly searched the room for the source of the noise, but could find none. The creepy, scratchy breathing continued, and Ethan felt his heart rate escalating as the smell of death attacked his nostrils.
"What the hell is that smell?" Waylan cried in disgust. Ethan's gaze slowly went to the ground.
"Look," was all he said. Waylan looked down to where Ethan was staring and noticed something that was never there before.
"It's like that pool of stagnant water we saw upstairs, but.." Waylan stopped as he noticed the water was dripping down from the ceiling. Both of their flashlights snapped to the ceiling and stopped on a man hanging from the ceiling. Only it was not a man. It had the figure of a man, but it was bending and twisting in an odd fashion. It had no skin, and its brain was exposed. Ethan swore he could see the brain pulse. Huge sharp claws stretched out from its hands, and a monstrously whip-like tongue dangled out of its razor sharp tooth filled mouth. What had been dripping down was its own foul saliva. Without more than a moment's hesitation, Ethan drew his gun and fired at it. The thing seemed to have sensed the danger and let go of the ceiling it fell rapidly to the floor and landed with an ominous clacking sound. Waylan reached for his weapon, but the thing whipped out its tongue and struck him across the face. Ethan's partner cried out in surprise and crashed into one of the filters. The thing hissed at Ethan and bared its teeth. Ethan fired at the creature again and hit it square in the shoulder. It screamed in pain and whipped its tongue at him. The tongue quickly snapped at Ethan's hands, and forced him to drop his weapon. The creature hissed in triumph and jumped on Waylan. The security guard screamed in pain as the creature dug its claws into his chest again and again. Ethan watched as Waylan's chest spurt out blood like a water balloon full of pin holes. Waylan slumped down dead and the creature began to tear out chunks of his flesh. Ethan picked up his weapon and fired inaccurately. The creature screamed and jumped unto the stairs. It hissed at Ethan before crawling out of the basement. Ethan quickly chased the monster up the stairs. He chased it out of the house and down the street. Obviously it's scared of me, Ethan thought. Otherwise it would have killed me back in the basement. The creature hissed at Ethan again before jumping over a low fence surrounding a one story house. Ethan stopped at the gate and readied his gun. He moved into the yard slowly. Everything was dark, and that made him uneasy. He had not seen where the creature had gone and he knew it was just waiting for him to get close. There was a constant banging noise coming from somewhere inside the house. Maybe the creature had gotten stuck somewhere trying to get in. He looked down at the base of the house. The basment window was wide open. The banging stopped. Ethan waited for a few minutes, waiting for the noise to start up again. When it did not, Ethan tried turning the door knob. No success. Ethan dug around in his pocket for his lockpick kit, hoping he would be able to get this door open faster than the last. He jammed the pick into the key hole and began working it. That's when he heard the low, raspy breathing sound, steadily echoing throughout the cold night air. Ethan turned his head to left and the creature's tongue darted out of the dog house hidden in the darkness and into his eye. Ethan let out a low grunt as crumbled on the welcome mat. His gun and his lockpick kit clattered on the cement landing noisily, and hot blood gushed out of his eye socket and onto the ground. He felt the creature land on him and sink its jaws into his cheek and tear it off. Ethan wanted to scream, but he could not. All he could think about was that the creature was pretty heavy, and that it might crush him to death. His thoughts were all jumbled, and he could not think straight. It was like he was in a bad dream. Then the creature bit into his neck and ripped it apart. Blood burst out of his neck and splattered onto the door, the mat, everywhere. Ethan lay dead, his nerves still making his corpse twitch. The creature was still not satisfied. It sensed something and jumped up onto the side of the house. The creature scurried around the side of the house for awhile, the clicking of its claws harmonious with the orchestra of the moans of the undead. It finally found a window, and crawled inside the house.
Shadows on the Wall - Part 2
"Hey, Ethan," Waylan whispered from across the other side of the dark, dusty living area. Ethan took a moment from his meticulous examination of a fading black and white picture hung crookedly over the long unused fire place, and looked over his shoulder to answer his partner.
"What?" Ethan replied coarsely.
"Come check this out. I think I found something."
"What is it this time?" Ethan walked heavily towards where Waylan was bending over trying to decide what he was looking at. "It better not be another dead rat."
"No, it's some sort of liquid."
"So what is it, blood?"
"No, it's not blood."
"Then what is it?"
"I don't know."
"Let me have a look." Ethan pushed Waylan out of the way and observed the rather large puddle of liquid pooled in the corner of the room. He squinted at the stuff, and crinkled his nose when he realized a pungent fishy stench was emanating from it. His hands went to his belt and unstrapped his night stick from it. He stuck the tip of the night stick into the puddle and slowly stirred it. The liquid was not runny like water. It had a thick, gravy like quality to it. After a few more seconds, Ethan came to his conclusion.
"You're a fucking idiot, you know that?" Ethan sighed.
"What?"
"It's just a puddle of stagnant water." Ethan replaced his night stick and headed back to the picture over the fire place. There was something about it that did not seem right.
"Well, it could have been something," Waylan mumbled as he disappeared into the kitchen area. Ethan smirked to himself and went back to the picture. There were six members in the family, a mother, a father, two older sons, and a girl and a boy, who looked strikingly like eachother. Twins, most likely. The whole family was dressed in a black suit or a black dress respectively. The strange part about the whole picture was that there were six digits marked in black ink over there heads. At first Ethan thought they were birthdates, but then that meant that the two kids were not twins at all. "023191" over the girl and "041893" over the boy. 1991... that was about seven years ago, and the two kids definitely did look about that age, but he was also sure that these two were twins. So maybe the numbers were not dates, but just numbers of some sort. Most of the other numbers above the other family members were smudged and beyond recognition. Ethan finally tore himself away from the picture and joined Waylan in the kitchen.
"Lights don't work," Waylan reported as Ethan stepped into the room. Ethan's partner was quickly scanning the dust covered room with his flashlight.
"I doubt the power even works in this place," Ethan said. "Even if it did, the power in this part of town has been out for hours." Waylan did not seem to be paying attention. He was more interested in the kitchen walls.
"This may sound kind of weird," Waylan began, "but it looks like someone was walking on the walls." Ethan looked at Waylan strangely. He was not completely sure that his partner was all there.
"Are you feeling all right, Waylan?" Ethan asked.
"So now you think I'm crazy, huh?" Waylan replied bitterly. "Take a look for yourself." Ethan groaned to himself but took out his flashlight anyways. He flipped it on and threw light onto the kitchen's walls. A strange trail of undusted wall ran around half of the kitchen and led back out into the living area. It looked like someone had jumped up onto the wall and dragged their feet across it.
"Maybe a bird flew through the room," Ethan whispered.
"Doesn't look like a bird could have done something like this."
"Well, what do you think?"
"I don't know, but I'm going to see where this trail goes." Waylan walked purposefully out of the kitchen and back into the living area. After a few moments, Ethan followed him. There was nothing left to look at in the kitchen anyway. The undusted trail moved from the right wall of the living area and up to the ceiling. There was not a visible trail of removed dust, and for a moment Ethan thought that was as far as it went. Then Waylan discovered the trail coming down again from the ceiling and unto the left side of the wall, and straight into the hallway where all the rooms were located. It was not too long of a hallway, just two rooms on either side and a door straight ahead. That's where the trail ended. Waylan tucked away his flashlight and tried the knob. The door did not move. Waylan sized up the door for a few seconds, then thrust his shoulder into it forcefully. It was not long before he admitted defeat.
"Damn thing won't budge," Waylan muttered.
"Here, let me try," Ethan offered, producing a lockpick kit decorated with the Raccoon Scutum Security Service name and logo.
"I didn't know they issued us lockpicks," Waylan commented as Ethan jammed a pick into the keyhole.
"They used to about ten years back," Ethan told him as he began his work. "I guess the company thought we would hardly ever use these things." Ethan worked fiercely to get the tumblers to move inside the lock. It had been quite a time since he had last used this skill, and he was not quite sure he would be able to do it.
"I don't know why the RPD had us come here," Waylan grumbled. "There's nothing in this abandoned house anyway."
"They're all too busy dealing with all the riots going on around town," Ethan said. "Come to think of it, the RPD has had calls to this place before. They never find anything, but I doubt they've gone into the basement."
"Why's that?"
"Chief Irons always tells them to just do a quick five minute assessment, and by the relatively good condition of this door, I think it's safe to say that they haven't gone through here before."
"Well, I hope we get paid for doing all this extra work." There was a silence for awhile as Ethan tried as hard as he could to concentrate on the lock. He wiped the sweat out of his bushy grey brow with the back of his hand and continued working. The whole house was silent, save for the clicking and moving of the tumblers. Ethan was about to give up when the lock let out an audible click.
"Me, too," Ethan replied. He pushed the door open slowly, and instinctavely went for the light switch. He cursed under his breath for forgetting about the power situation and turned on his flashlight. Waylan did the same. The basment was just as dusty and rotten as the rest of the house, but there was something else different about this place. There were strange whirring and humming noises, and it reeked of death. Ethan's hand slowly crept to his handgun. Something told him that something was down there, something was waiting. When they hit the ground floor, they saw four large air filters at either corner, on at full power and whirring loudly. The floor was littered with large cables and tubes leading to three square canisters in the middle of the floor. They were all lit up with flashy dials and knobs, but two of them seemed to had been ripped apart from the inside.
"What is this place?" Waylan breathed. "Some kind of lab?"
"Your guess is as good as mine," Ethan replied, taking a closer look at one of the canisters. It was a pretty sturdy canister, made out of thick steel. He did not even want to know what had the kind of strength to tear through something as dense as that canister.
"You all right, Ethan?" Waylan asked.
"Of course," Ethan replied, a little annoyed. "Why?"
"I can hear you breathing from here."
"What?" That's when Ethan heard the low raspy breathing echoing throughout the tiny basement. He looked around, aiming his light at every possible place. "Is that one of the machines?"
"Sounds a lot like breathing to me," Waylan whispered. The breathing sound was implemented with a slow, steady clicking noise. The two security officers franticly searched the room for the source of the noise, but could find none. The creepy, scratchy breathing continued, and Ethan felt his heart rate escalating as the smell of death attacked his nostrils.
"What the hell is that smell?" Waylan cried in disgust. Ethan's gaze slowly went to the ground.
"Look," was all he said. Waylan looked down to where Ethan was staring and noticed something that was never there before.
"It's like that pool of stagnant water we saw upstairs, but.." Waylan stopped as he noticed the water was dripping down from the ceiling. Both of their flashlights snapped to the ceiling and stopped on a man hanging from the ceiling. Only it was not a man. It had the figure of a man, but it was bending and twisting in an odd fashion. It had no skin, and its brain was exposed. Ethan swore he could see the brain pulse. Huge sharp claws stretched out from its hands, and a monstrously whip-like tongue dangled out of its razor sharp tooth filled mouth. What had been dripping down was its own foul saliva. Without more than a moment's hesitation, Ethan drew his gun and fired at it. The thing seemed to have sensed the danger and let go of the ceiling it fell rapidly to the floor and landed with an ominous clacking sound. Waylan reached for his weapon, but the thing whipped out its tongue and struck him across the face. Ethan's partner cried out in surprise and crashed into one of the filters. The thing hissed at Ethan and bared its teeth. Ethan fired at the creature again and hit it square in the shoulder. It screamed in pain and whipped its tongue at him. The tongue quickly snapped at Ethan's hands, and forced him to drop his weapon. The creature hissed in triumph and jumped on Waylan. The security guard screamed in pain as the creature dug its claws into his chest again and again. Ethan watched as Waylan's chest spurt out blood like a water balloon full of pin holes. Waylan slumped down dead and the creature began to tear out chunks of his flesh. Ethan picked up his weapon and fired inaccurately. The creature screamed and jumped unto the stairs. It hissed at Ethan before crawling out of the basement. Ethan quickly chased the monster up the stairs. He chased it out of the house and down the street. Obviously it's scared of me, Ethan thought. Otherwise it would have killed me back in the basement. The creature hissed at Ethan again before jumping over a low fence surrounding a one story house. Ethan stopped at the gate and readied his gun. He moved into the yard slowly. Everything was dark, and that made him uneasy. He had not seen where the creature had gone and he knew it was just waiting for him to get close. There was a constant banging noise coming from somewhere inside the house. Maybe the creature had gotten stuck somewhere trying to get in. He looked down at the base of the house. The basment window was wide open. The banging stopped. Ethan waited for a few minutes, waiting for the noise to start up again. When it did not, Ethan tried turning the door knob. No success. Ethan dug around in his pocket for his lockpick kit, hoping he would be able to get this door open faster than the last. He jammed the pick into the key hole and began working it. That's when he heard the low, raspy breathing sound, steadily echoing throughout the cold night air. Ethan turned his head to left and the creature's tongue darted out of the dog house hidden in the darkness and into his eye. Ethan let out a low grunt as crumbled on the welcome mat. His gun and his lockpick kit clattered on the cement landing noisily, and hot blood gushed out of his eye socket and onto the ground. He felt the creature land on him and sink its jaws into his cheek and tear it off. Ethan wanted to scream, but he could not. All he could think about was that the creature was pretty heavy, and that it might crush him to death. His thoughts were all jumbled, and he could not think straight. It was like he was in a bad dream. Then the creature bit into his neck and ripped it apart. Blood burst out of his neck and splattered onto the door, the mat, everywhere. Ethan lay dead, his nerves still making his corpse twitch. The creature was still not satisfied. It sensed something and jumped up onto the side of the house. The creature scurried around the side of the house for awhile, the clicking of its claws harmonious with the orchestra of the moans of the undead. It finally found a window, and crawled inside the house.