Chapter 9
As the footsteps came slowly down the dusty stairway, Samantha picked herself up, wincing at the pain at her hips. Her gun was still shakily held at the heavy, gasping noise down below.
"D-Drake, Cliff?"
To her relief, there was a reply, a human reply.
"Sam, keep moving!" Drake shouted, the words echoing through the dim hall. More creatures could be heard from the upper floor, their hungry groans sounding savage and mindless, almost desperate.
Uhhhh. . .
The monster below had recovered and was sounding quite agitated.
"Get down!" Drake told Sam. Bam! Bam! With just two shots the vampire was out, its sharp cry lowering to a whispering pitch.
"Where are they all coming from?" Drake could easily hear the desperation in Sam's voice. But he knew that every second wasted meant the starved zombies gained a few more steps.
"Just go!"
Cliff helped Sam up, then led the way down the blood-soaked hall, Drake taking the rear. Luckily, the rotting creatures were not capable of understanding the concept of opening doors. Only a half dozen of them managed to enter, the last many banging pointlessly at the heavy metallic door.
Cliff turned the corner and past the dead body on the ground, holding Sam's arm tightly. He knelt down quickly upon seeing a dim streak of light across the floor. With Sam's flashlight in one hand, he searched the gray-walled hallway, noticing yet another turn, this time to the right. Hearing several more shots behind them, Sam pulled away, fearing for Drake.
"He's fighting them all by himself, do something!" she cried, her voice barely audible with the high pangs of Drake's gun ringing throughout.
"Over here," Cliff signaled to her, pointing to a gray, metal door on the right side of the wall, blending so well they both had overseen it. Soon enough, Drake peered from the corner, still blasting. Cliff opened it, his gun scanning the small room.
"It's safe, get in," Cliff verified, moving to where Drake currently stood. And Sam was alone, alone in a laboratory freak-show-of-a-room, feeling as useless as ever.
Damn it, can't defend myself, not too good with a gun, hell, and I don't even have a bandage to offer.
She took her mind off of that last thought and decided that she'd at least examine the room closer. The walls were all made of brick surprisingly, adding a cold, dank feel to the dim room. It had been quite lighter inside, probably some other form of light source hidden. A ventilation shaft's lid lay on the ground not too far from what appeared to be a generator of some sort. And right above it was the dark, gaping rectangular-shaped shaft, cob webs dancing limply on its edges.
Sam realized that she was in a storage room when she noticed the nicely stacked wooden crates against the back wall. With that idea still ripe in her mind, she felt a spark of hope and desperation that suddenly made her feel more of value to the little band they had. Within some of these boxes must be something, anything they could use for defense.
"Damn it, come on! There's gotta be something, a shotgun, magnum, even a goddamn cattle prod will do!"
The firing outside the rather small room died down at last. With that respect, came a deep feeling of trust that they had survived. As long as they cooperated, she strongly believed they had a chance.
The door opened, the squeal of the hinges lacking the creepy echos the hall provided. Cliff and Drake stepped in, the two men's faces filled with awed and fearful expressions, ones Sam's seen too many times in one day.
"Over here," she directed them, pointing to the crates. "This is a storage room, so maybe there's something here we could use."
"Worth a shot," Cliff said tiredly, his tone rather disappointed.
"I'll go make sure if there are any people left alive," Drake suggested, his back already turned to them. "They may all end up like that other doc."
"Wait," cried Sam. "We're going with you." She paused briefly, feeling almost hesitant to say it. "There's . . . something else down here."
"What do you mean?" Drake questioned, his face meeting hers evenly. Even Cliff's facial expression became distorted with concern.
"Yeah, we didn't see anything," Cliff added. "Wait, if you don't feel safe around me, I understand. I mean, there are other things lurking around each bend, but. . ."
"No. There's something other than the zombies upstairs and those vampires. Did you guys see that path of blood on the ground?" The two nodded, seeming uninterested and skeptical at first, but nonetheless worried.
"Well, the body next to the path wasn't the cause. Think about it. The vampire sucked it dry, so there shouldn't be blood smeared everywhere. And for something make someone bleed that much, and drag it down the entire hall. . ."
"The entire hall? But it was only a little further past this door." Cliff looked more confused, but Drake probably had gotten Sam's message by that time.
Sam's hands became a bit shakier, her voice struggling to keep cool in front of the others.
"The blood trail. . . it led past the body."
There was a moment of silence, one filled with nauseating dread. Sam gave the boxes one more quick glance and sighed, deciding to rummage through a bit more. The others did the same, going through endless piles of packed syringes, surgical tools, and other lab horrors. Less than a minute later, they all paused, feeling tension and panic circulate through their bodies.
"Did you hear that, too?" Sam whispered, her attention shifting immediately toward the ceiling.
"Yeah, it's right above. . ."
Drake trailed off, following the metal bumping sound, the clawing, and the uneven breathing of someone, something. Whatever it was, it was struggling to get out of some tight spot, so it wasn't upstairs.
"Oh, my God . . ." Sam muttered shakily. Her eyes wandering elsewhere.
"W-What is it?" Cliff's voice was just as loose.
"The shaft, the ventilation shaft!" Drake shouted before Sam could get out another word. And before either of them could move an inch, a loud noise filtered through from outside the hall. The lid to something in the hall must have fallen, or so it sounded like it. There was a thud of something hefty hitting the ground, just outside the hall.
As they heard the unnerving entrance of the thing just feet away from the room, the sloshing and bumping noise against thin metal became more easily heard, the sound reaching the ventilation hole crawling beneath Sam's skin. They held up their guns, pointing at the blackness of the dusty hole-
-and a human-shape hand stuck out, each finger a yellow, gross color. The other hand reach out to the other end as it fought to pull itself out, or more accurately, slither out. And out lurched its head, an abomination without a name. The bald creature's "face" appeared to have been torn off, but not by a monster's claws or teeth. It didn't have any nostrils, or lips, or eyelids. In fact, it didn't seem like the top torso was reacting in any way, just its arms.
"What in God's name. . ."
They waited, not out of patience, but more out of terror and shock. But it wasn't until its arms pulled out the rest of itself, the horribly large load, that their jaws dropped. The lower torso of the pus-covered monster was dripping and slimy, like that of a slug's body. Tentacles whipped out around its shapeless blob-like lower body, having features of some kind of leech. But at the end of the repulsive abdomen was the hips and legs of the "human" part of its body.
In about ten seconds, the creature stood up, nearly eleven, twelve feet in height, its upper torso atop of the gelly innards, all lifted by pale, dead legs. An eye opened at the center of the body, inside the mucous holding the mutant's limp upper parts.
"Oh, shit, shit, shit!" Sam became frantic, her gun shaky and aiming wildly at the looming corpse that shouldn't, couldn't possibly be alive. Drake had already begun firing, the shots puncturing through the mucous, then closing right up. In response, the eye shut close and the whip-like appendages swung around frantically to catch the gunfire. Each of his bullets were quickly stopped short by the slimy tentacles, the thing wobbling its unbalanced body closer to them.
The hybrid's gel body seemed to open from somewhere beneath, strands of sticky, dark sinew thinning to reveal a wide, toothy mouth of some sort, foreboding their painful demise.
The ceremony was close to completion, but it seemed that a band of rogues were disturbing their preparations. The U.S. agents, of course. It seemed that they would have to refer to "Plan B". As much as he opposed it, "Randolph" imagined he had no choice. They already finished unearthing the enormous, heavy thing. It was only a matter of distracting the Americans long enough to carry the structure to a much hospitable area. And then there was that sly Wesker to worry about. He walked through the secret castle chamber, approaching a pale woman with long, straight jet-black hair.
"How goes our little relocation project?" he asked, a stern expression on his barely visible face.
"Gracefully, my lord. We'll have it transported in approximately one to two hours, depending on outside obstacles." He grimaced for a brief moment, then resiliently stood, shaking his head.
"And what are these obstacles you speak of, Effeminette?"
"Albert Wesker has released yet another cache of wretched bio weapons. They are scattered throughout the forests, and are expert hunters. We've also overheard the fools speaking via communication device. We managed to intercept their lines just enough to listen to a ten-minute conversation, then lost connection."
"Interesting. You shall have tell me more. Who was he speaking to?"
"It was a female, although I couldn't say for sure. He called her by the name of 'Torque', presumably her codename." Effeminette paused to fix her silky smooth hair, the dark tint adding a morbid beauty along with her haunting face and her small black dress and cape. "They spoke of a plan that involved an American. Wesker said he needed for him to cut us off from our selected path."
"Wait," he said all of a sudden, "I may know who his spy friend is. The only person I've been able to see a few times. We're being followed. Get Hisaru. You and him must stop this spy as quickly as possible. Wesker's little wench is detrimental to our plans. With all eyes gauged, we shall purge this ridiculous world of its idle conflicts. Ah, a world without obligations or meaningless values! We shall strike down those who threaten this dream! I've held on to this moment for to many lifetimes, Effeminette. Go, and make His Highness proud."
Several armed men followed her down a narrow hall, and back into the confines of the castle's basic rooms. Things were complicated, but he knew he would be able to handle it. It was a plan that was nearly four hundred years in the making. And who knew? Maybe this American nuisance would make a suitable new host for his next life.