Leon sat in the back garden, gazing across
the sun-dappled patio of the back garden, across the fresh green grass of the
lawn. He saw his children playing in the garden, leaping around a furiously
spinning sprinkler, lightly spraying the air with water that caught the rays of
the sun, making it explode in a rainbow of colour that rippled in the water
spray.
He smiled. So peaceful. Once upon a time, it wasn't like this. Once upon a time they fought for their lives, just to prevent Umbrella from getting to them. Once upon a time they'd been living in dirty, filthy hotels just so that they didn't arouse Umbrella's suspicions.
Leon felt satisfied with his life now,
something he could live for and know that the next day he could wake up without
having to fear for the life of his wife and children.
"Dad?"
Leon twisted his head to the right, to see
his pretty young daughter standing barefoot in the patio in swimsuit, wet feet
creating faint prints on the tiles.
When she grow
up… he thought She's
going to lookjust like her mother. She did indeed have Claire's hair, and
despite her chubby childishness was obviously going to evolve into something
the boys would go crazy for. Leon nearly flushed with pride. But…she wasn't
totally Claire. Yes, his eyes were there alright…and maybe…her ears…
He waved the thought away. It was
irrelevant.
He smiled, and pulled off his shades,
folding them up and then setting them neatly on the bright blue towel beside
him.
"Yeah, hon?"
She strolled up, sitting softly on his
knee. He'd done this many times before, when she was a tiny baby with a
penchant for wetting herself, a squeaking toddler who loved being cuddled and
bouncing on his knee, giggling incessantly.
Now she was ten. And she still loved
being cuddled.
"Can you…"
Ada faltered, the droning sounds of the bees
and of Hannah and Steve playing in the water sprinkler, and the sounds of the
spray lightly dusting the leaves of the bushes just entering her hearing range.
Amidst the quiet sounds of nature, a lawnmower growling its anger at a
particularly resistant lawn and Steve and Ada's tinkling laughter filling the
air…she wondered if everybody was listening.
"Yes, sweetie?"
She'd been building up a lot of courage
to ask this, and now she felt ready. But could she? How could she ask her own
father how he really lost his fifth finger on his left hand when he'd already
told her. Steve, Hannah and Ada had drawn straws to decide who'd ask.
Unfortunately, she was the one who'd taken the short one.
"Um…we…well I…"
Her dad looked at her with intense blue
eyes.
"Yes?" he asked softly "Is it
something embarrassing?"
She mentally deduced some points from
her total score so far, fumbling with her words was not a good sign, and her
dad was beginning to get worried about her.
"Dad…you see…we want to know…" she
took a breath, screwing up her courage as she took the breath "How did you
really lose your finger?"
Leon didn't stop smiling, but
Ada could see that in her father's eyes there was just a tiny
spark…something…like an unpleasant memory?
"I've told you haven't I? I lost it
when I went to the bank and some robbers hurt me bad"
Leon didn't feel too good about babying
up the truth, if that's what it now was, to his daughter, but he couldn't tell
her how it really happened. How the clone of himself, the maniac that he was
neatly sliced it off more than a decade ago, in a secret base in the
mountainous region above the town of Burkitt.
Leon had done some research about a
year ago about what had happened to Burkitt. Apparently, the radiation had died
down sufficiently for a town to be rebuilt. The new town was called Coopers
Hatch, and was steadily growing. How well history hid the scars of the past.
The T-Virus had burned out, and all the zombies were dead and gone…thank god.
"Well dad…" she said, sitting in her
dads lap and looking up into his eyes with the same eyes he possessed "…Aunt
Jill's got the same finger missing on her left hand too"
Leon tried not to panic. Had they worked
it out? While the fact wasn't exactly obscure, this was one step toward an
unpleasant truth he'd been carefully burying for many years, trying to hide
under years of playing the good man with an uninteresting past.
"Ada…" Leon wasn't sure how to answer the question "I know that
we don't keep any secrets from each other, but I can tell you that there's
nothing special about it. It's called a coincidence"
Ada knew the word, and what it
meant, but despite the slightly patronizing tone he'd used, she realized it was
like that for more than one reason. Something he was embarrassed or
uncomfortable to talk about?
She frowned inwardly. What could be so
uncomfortable he didn't want to talk about with his own daughter?
Leon gently pushed her off his knee, and
with a sweet smile on his face.
"Go on. Have a good time, and don't
bother yourself with silly things like that, okay?"
Ada was about to open her mouth, but she
knew that pushing her dad wouldn't work. It'd probably just annoy him.
She nodded.
"Okay daddy"
He smiled, and stepped into the house
through the French doors. Ada watched him disappear into the shade of the
house, and then walked back to the other two.
In the kitchen, Claire turned to see Leon
come in.
"Mm…hey there Leon" she said, sultrily,
allowing his arms to encircle her as he kissed her.
"Hey baby" he replied, kissing her gently
on her upper lip.
As she clung to him, she looked him in the
eyes. She furrowed her eyebrows.
"Something worrying you?"
"Well…" Leon seemed indecisive "Yeah…"
"What is it?"
Leon gently squeezed Claire.
"Ada started asking questions about my hand
again"
Claire nodded, understanding.
"I see"
"Sometimes" Leon began "I think I should
just tell them, but…how could I? I couldn't tell them what really happened all
those years ago…"
"Don't worry…you're right. We elected not
to tell them for precisely those reasons, we don't want them getting involved
in anything they shouldn't"
There was the familiar monotonal ding-dong
from the door.
"I'll get it" Leon said, letting go of
Claire and walking to the door.
Claire grinned, mischievously.
"Only in those?"
Leon realized he was only wearing
swim-shorts.
"Yeah…well why not? Scare the ladies
collecting for charity, huh?"
He cackled as he ducked the shirt thrown
in his general direction, winked at his wife and then ran to the door, grabbing
the white T-Shirt as he did.
Leon pulled at the handle, and pulled
open the door.
"Hey!" Leon said, grinning.
"Just coming to see if our daughter was
in?" Chris said, arm around Jill.
Chris was dressed in a T-shirt, combat
trousers, a pair of shades and a huge monkey grin. He was older, but certainly
no more mature than he'd ever been. Hannah had her mother's looks, her hair was
even the same, but certainly owed more to her dad in more than just
personality. Jill was as beautiful as ever, more tanned than usual, wearing a
blue T-shirt atop a black skirt down to about knee length. They dressed more
maturely when they had to, but when they didn't have to, on occasions such as
this one, they contrived to look as immature as possible.
"She certainly is" Leon thumbed over his
shoulder "In the back garden, with Steve and Ada"
"As usual" Jill laughed "We came to pick
her up"
Leon drew in his breath.
"Ooh I don't know about that…" he said
mysteriously "She might not like that…"
Chris and Jill rolled their eyes, lips
stretched into grins.
He allowed the couple in, closing the
door and then calling
"Hey Claire! Your brother's here! I think
he's hungry!"
Chris playfully punched Leon on the
shoulder.
"Watch it!" Chris warned, jokingly.
As Chris and Jill walked through, Claire
stopped eating her sandwich, and turned to see her brother and his wife walk
into the sitting room. She leaned on her hip, looking bemused.
"So…here to collect the mutual
daughter, huh?" she asked.
"Yup" Jill said, smiling "Although it
looks like she's having a pretty good time right now" she observed her daughter
tackling Steve on the ground, both laughing as she ground his back into the
grass.
Claire snapped her fingers.
"Tell you what" she said "Why don't you
hang around, we have a barbecue or something this evening, and then you take
Hannah home afterwards?"
Chris and Jill nodded, their faces
showing they were enthusiastic at the idea.
"Sure!" Chris said "It'll make a change!"
Jill gave Chris a playful glare.
"Oh, so what we eat at home isn't good
enough, huh?"
Chris grinned, and squeezed his wife.
"Please" Jill said, trying not to laugh
"That'd be great"
Leon leaned against the wall.
"Why don't I tell them? Sure they'd love
to hear that" Leon said.
"Okay then" Claire said "Go then!" she
said the second part of her statement in a comical, over-the-top way. Leon
grinned, winked again and walked out into the hot afternoon sun.
The operation room was clean, white and
silent, apart from the laboured breathing of what the surgeons knew to be 'Xp.
D1' lying like a discarded sack of flesh on the operating table.
Blackman stood at the glass window,
clipboard ever ready in his hand as he observed the three blue clad surgeons on
the inside of the chamber standing tentatively above the decomposing body.
Blackman pulled out a Biro with a warped
tip, and casually scribbled down
'Decomposition evident…'
The first surgeon looked through the
glass at Blackman, eyes safely protected in standard issue plastic goggles,
mouth covered by a disposable mask.
"Would you like us to begin, Dr.
Blackman?"
"If you would be so kind, Janusz"
Blackman said, clicking off his biro and settling down to watch the dissection.
Incisions…the first surgeon took a scalpel to the creature, sawing it gently
through blackening, rotting flesh and into the skull with a papery crunch. One
of the surgeons looked disgusted, but his feelings of nausea were ill contained
as he turned slightly pale.
"Jeez, that is sick…" the man said,
watching as the ever professional Janusz carefully carved up the creature's
head.
"Anything new?" Blackman asked.
"Not much…" Janusz admitted "Although
the virus has had little impact on its main sensory motor functions, I think
the virus has actually controlled the parts of the brain we predicted it may"
Blackman beamed in triumph.
I was right he thought I
was right after all! Now if only that…
He tried to think of her name. That
freelance operative, called herself Miss. DuJill or something…when she was able
to provide him with the last piece of equipment he needed to be able to further
his research then he'd be on the verge of a scientific breakthrough. A
controlled virus…not a wild, uncontrollable virus that did whatever it want but
a real, live-
"AAAARGH!"
Blackman was snatched out of thoughts by
the blood-curdling scream. It came from within the operating theatre, where the
surgeons were backing away from the corpse…that was sitting up, unspeakable
fluids drooling from its dissected brain. It opened its dissolving mouth,
showing rows of jagged, horrible teeth and greyish drool that leaked from the
corners of its mouth.
Blackman shouted
"Just kill the damned thing!!"
Janusz nodded, fearfully, and pulled out a
Beretta that it was now ordered for all Neo-Umbrella employees to own, and
fired three shots at point blank range into the creatures skull, every thundering
shot smacking hard into its flesh, spraying blood across onto the window, the
scarlet fluid dribbling down the window. Blackman's face creased in disgust,
the blood masking his view. The creature moaned a horrible death cry before it
collapsed on its back, finally dead.
Blackman breathed. Oh well, at
least the subject was no longer troublesome. He went back to his previous
thoughts. Yes…and those young people who were the old Umbrella's enemies…they
were going to have a little attention paid to them too…
It was a warm evening, with a sweet
warm breeze just to make the evening perfect for them. Leon gently swirled his
champagne in his glass, the liquid gently lapping the crystal glass insides. He
was standing on the back porch, looking up at the stars. He did this rather a
lot, he realized, perhaps it all went back to the time when he first fell in
love with Claire. He sipped the drink a little, to savor its sweet taste.
It tasted good. He heard soft footsteps, to
see his beautiful wife approach him.
"Hey" he said, slipping his arm around
her, and kissing her softly on the cheek.
"Hey" she replied, leaning gently on his
shoulder "…I love it when it's peaceful"
"Me too" he said, and looked into her eyes.
They smiled, and kissed her. There was a
disgusted noise from inside, and the married couple turned to see both Steve
and Hannah on the doorstep.
"Mom, dad…could you PLEASE cut out the
kissing?" Steve asked, in a manner too mature for his age.
Claire raised an eyebrow.
"Stevey…your father and I are enjoying a
few moments together" she said, hugging Leon hard.
"Uch…" Steve said, folding his arms and
wrinkling his nose.
There was a sudden loud knock on the
door. Leon rolled his eyes theatrically.
"I'll get it" he said, and walked back
inside to where Jill, Chris and Sherry were still talking over their champagne.
Leon went to the door, a little
annoyed that somebody was calling on them at this time, especially since they
were having such a good evening. Leon pulled open the door, to see a familiar
face.
The face in question was bearded, slightly
grey and aged since Leon had last seen it, but he was looking younger than most
men of his age. The man smiled.
"Hey there" Barry said, in his deep voice "Remember me?"
"How couldn't we, old guy?" Leon said,
patting him on the shoulder "Good to see ya! Come on in!"
"Thanks" Barry replied, smiling broadly
as he stepped inside.
Leon led Barry into the sitting room,
where everybody else was sitting and talking. As soon as they saw Barry, they
leapt to their feet in a frenzy of 'Is that you?' and 'My god, it's Barry!',
his arrival having the same effect of surprise and delight on everybody in the room.
"Hey there everybody" Barry boomed, Chris
running up and shaking his hand vigorously.
"Barry" Chris said, grinning "You just
don't die, do you?"
"Nah" Barry replied "Body won't let me"
"Well" Chris said "Sit down, have a drink
and tell us what you've been up to lately"
"Hey Barry!" Steve said.
"Hiya Barry!" Ada replied, waving a
little.
"Hello Barry!" Hannah chirped up.
Barry turned to the kids, smiling kindly.
"Hey kids! Being good are you?"
"Yessir" they said in unison.
"Having fun now the holidays have
started?"
"Yessir!" they replied, with more
enthusiasm.
"Good!" he said "Glad to hear it"
Barry turned to Chris.
"Actually, I'm here for a reason" he
said, a little more seriously "But I'll explain once the kids have gone to
bed"
"Aww…" Steve complained, and folded his
arms in a dead sulk.
"Speaking of bedtime" Claire said,
sweetly "I think it's time Steve and Ada got ready for bed"
"What about me?" Hannah asked.
Leon smiled brightly.
"You can stay over if you want to" he
announced, cheerfully.
Steve and Ada's faces lit up, as did
Hannah's.
"Can she?" they asked, in unison.
"It's fine with me" Leon said, and
turned to Jill "How about you?"
Jill nodded, smiling.
"Sure she can. I'll drive back and grab
your pyjamas, sleeping bag and washbag…." Jill waved her finger at her
daughter.
"But go to sleep when Uncle Leon and
Auntie Claire tell you to, okay?"
Hannah nodded.
"I will, mom"
"Then we'll drop her off tomorrow
morning" Leon added.
Steve, Ada and Hannah scampered up the
stairs, giggling and talking as they disappeared into their room.
Barry watched them go, and lowered his
voice.
"Jill, you get Hannah's stuff. We'll wait for
you in the dining room"
Jill nodded, confused, and grabbed her keys,
heading for the door, still confused as to what the hell was going on.
Soon, they were all seated around the table,
almost as conspiratorially as they had done when they were still Umbrella's
public enemy number one. Except that this time, Sherry was somewhat taller.
The table had a red tablecloth, the table
itself quite sturdy, oak and quite decorative around the edges.
Jill twiddled her thumbs as Barry pulled out a sheaf of papers,
and with a loud THUMP, dropped them on
the tabletop.
The collective group of eyes stared
at the meaningless pile of paper, blankly.
"This…is what?" Leon asked, flatly.
"What I've gathered" Barry replied "Over
the last year this is my research"
Claire raised an eyebrow as she grasped a
volume of paper that was thicker than most encyclopaedias they knew of, and
looked it over quizzically.
"I haven't got seven or eight hours of
reading time to go through this" Chris said, coolly "What is it we have to
know?"
"Take a look at the brief sheets with the
photos and other reports – It sums everything up"
Leon took one of the brief papers, and
eyed it critically. Written in the first paragraph was:
'…through the destruction of White Umbrella,
Neo-Umbrella rises like a phoenix. Our group is now rising in power, research
has continued unperturbed for seven years since the town of Burkitt was
destroyed with much of White Umbrella and its administration…'
Leon didn't need to read anymore. He let go
of the sheet, it drifting down onto the polished wooden tabletop, almost sadly.
Leon's hand was shaking. He looked deathly
pale.
"What is it?" Claire asked, placing one
warm hand on his. The sheet was passed around as Leon spoke.
"Somehow…" he muttered "…I just knew it
wasn't over. Things never end as easily as that"
"No shit" Chris said, shaking his head
after reading the brief.
"How can they still exist?" Jill asked,
as Claire read the paper. Her hand crumpled it, her face creased in shock.
"Yeah, how?" Sherry asked, puzzled.
"I don't know" Barry said "But that's
not the worst of it"
He pulled out a photo and tossed it to
Leon. Everybody bent over to peer at it. It was a slightly blurry black and
white photo, a security camera photo. The picture was of a control room,
modern, utilitarian looking. It looked eerily familiar. On the floor lay a
body. It looked like Leon, but Leon was standing across the room with a knife
in hand, Claire on his arm. Jill too was there…one by Chris and a still
twelve-year old Sherry, the other by the dying figure on the floor.
"That's…" Claire said "…that's…"
"Precisely. A security photo from the Burkitt
Umbrella base, ten years ago almost to the day"
"Our last confrontation with Umbrella…"
Jill murmured "…when we fought Leon and mines clones"
Leon looked up.
"Why are you showing me this?" he asked.
"This photo" Barry said, solemnly removing
another photo and tossing it to Leon "Was taken two days ago. A contact dug it
out for me"
They all stared at the photo. A crisper
picture of course, but it was from the wall of a base, a view of a tree.
Standing in the photo was a figure who looked all too familiar. Her face, as
cold as ever created a droplet of fear and resentment that spread through their
collective being like a cancer.
Jill II.
"She's back" Leon said at last, when the
silence had almost become piercing "The bitch is back to bite us"
"She didn't die" Jill said, hand on her
forehead "She didn't. I just knew that she'd come back some day"
"We weren't prepared then" Chris said
determinedly, holding his wife close "But we are now"
Leon looked up.
"What about the kids?" he asked "Ada,
Steve and Hannah? What are we going to do with them? If Neo-Umbrella or
whatever they're called are trying to find us then they'll go for the kids…like
last time"
They all nodded, Claire and Leon squeezed
each other. They remembered their hellish voyage into Finzustown to rescue
Steve and Ada when they were babies, how distressed and anguished they'd felt
when they were gone. Leon squeezed Claire's hand.
"It's not going to happen again" he
spat, in contempt of Umbrella "I won't let it. I will not disappear quietly
into the night, I will not run, I will not hide. This time, I'm going to
protect my children if it's the last thing I do"
"I'll fight with you" Claire
whispered, holding her husband tight.
Leon held onto her.
"Let's wait for them to come to us"
he said "And we'll show them"
Chris folded his arms.
"I say we keep the kids with us at
all times now. If we're to protect them, we can't send them away. I know
they'll be in danger with us, but with anybody else they'll be in even more
danger"
Their discussions continued long
into the night, over what should be done.
"I say we skip town for a few weeks,
lie low, something like that" Chris suggested.
"They don't even know where we are
now" Leon pointed out "I felt that that should give us an advantage"
"We've got to lead the conflict away
from town" Jill said "I think Chris is right. But the question is where"
"Hmm…" Claire scratched her head
"…there is that place in that lake on near the Washington state coast, that me
and Leon bought a while back…"
Chris and Jill stared at her.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Chris asked.
"It was going to be a surprise to the
kids, so we didn't tell you either…hell, we only bought it two weeks ago"
"Okay then" Jill said "That sounds like
the best place, although I think we'd like to know what it is first"
"A cabin, which we made sure could
accommodate extra visitors. We paid a visit to it a little while ago, to give
it a check" Leon said "I can assure you there's enough for eight people"
Chris slapped a hand on the table.
"I guess we've got our destination
then!"
Outside the doorway, a small pair of feet slowly crept
upstairs, unnoticed by the rest of the adults.
"What do you mean, we're all going
away?" Ada asked, as the new generation of Redfield's and Kennedy's settled
down to discuss what they had heard.
"That's what I heard" Steve whispered
"Apparently, there's this big company after our mom and dad and your mom and
dad too"
"Really?" Hannah replied, in an
inquisitive and almost excited tone.
"Yeah, and we're going on holiday
to…lie low or something like that"
Ada looked a bit pale.
"What's wrong?" Steve asked.
"The thought…" she murmured "…It's
scary. I mean, what if dad and mom are in trouble?"
Hannah shrugged. She had a tendency to
breeze things off, very much like her father.
"I don't think anything that doesn't
point a gun in your face isn't of any immediate danger" she said, nonchalantly.
Ada and Steve stared at her in
disbelief.
"Well, that's what dad says" Hannah
explained.
"What other kinds of things does he say
like that?" Steve asked.
"Oh, 'live on the edge, that's the best
way to do it; take things as they come'"
"No
comment" Ada muttered.
"Well, if they are in danger…" Steve
said "We've gotta protect 'em, right?"
"Right" Hannah said.
Ada felt more cautious, however.
"Yeah,
but we've got to look out; for now, let's play dumb and pretend we haven't
heard anything, okay?"
The other two nodded.
"Right"