The Fate of Sherry Birkin

The incident, like so many others, began with a mistake. Planned or not, the 'accident' unfolded exactly as they wanted. Her yearly inoculation of flu shots had an additional, undetectable chemical enzyme mixed in, one which would trigger a fatal brain aneurysm when it met the other catalyst Dr. Hall was slipping it into her dinner. Best of all, the laced food could be given to her days later, so all suspicion regarding her shots would be left out of consideration. Not that anyone would be clamoring to perform an autopsy. Of course he would still perform one on his own, tearing through her young, unsullied body with his scalpel and bone saw, in the slim hopes of finding something worthwhile. But by then, any evidence of his deed would be wiped away by his own bloody hands, and documentation wouldn't matter because it too would be incinerated with young Sherry Birkin's body after he was done with it.

But for all his deliberate planning, the cunning doctor forgot one thing: a virus cannot die.

--

Dinner was the usual fare; a lump of processed mashed potatoes, a slab of grayish meat covered with watery gravy, and spongy, over-saturated string beans. Despite its bland appearance, it was surprisingly tasty, but the routine was beginning to wear on her. Kids her age were eating out on their own, stuffing fast food into their faces, worrying about acne, and wondering if a certain boy noticed how she did her hair that day. But she was no ordinary girl, a fact that would come back to haunt her day after day. Particularly on this day.

She first noticed something was wrong when her eyesight started to blur, the edges of her vision slowly fading out of focus and spreading slowly across her entire field of view. The unrelenting pace of the vision loss was unstoppable; she rubbed her eyes hard, digging her palms roughly against her sockets, hearing the squish of air as she forced it out. Still the blurring spread. Next she began to feel a numbness expanding through her neck, seeping into her shoulders. Her eyes began to burn, pain searing through the back of her eyeballs, and the ambient light of the room was suddenly blindingly bright. The throbbing pain in her forehead felt like someone was taking a hammer to her skull, and without warning, she vomited on the table and floor. The curious side of her wondered what color it was, as it tasted of rust and blood, but with her waning vision, she was unable to see much of anything. Even now, she could begin to feel her limbs go numb, sensations fading into weightlessness. Was this what it felt like to die, she wondered. Her lips moved lifelessly, and she heard the distant echoes of voices around her. Her vision sharpened for just a moment, and she saw Linda's worried face looking down at her, in a heated panic as tears ran down her face. She was yelling at the doctors around her to do something, but they could do nothing but watch as Sherry died.

--

"Dead at fifteen," marveled one of the doctors. Shaking his head in disbelief, he made sure to return to his dinner before it got cold.

"What is wrong with you people," yelled Linda, clutching Sherry in her arms. Everyone stared blankly at her. "You didn't do a damn thing to help her!"

"Even a first year med student recognizes an aneurysm," answered one of the younger doctors as he stepped forward from the crowd. "There is nothing you can do when it happens," he said gently, kneeling down beside her. He had always had a crush on Linda, despite everyone else's opinions of her. He admired her passion and toughness, the same things just about everyone else disliked about her.

"You didn't—you didn't even try," she sobbed.

"Come on, let's get her to the med center," he said, reaching to take Sherry from her arms. Linda pulled her away, lifting the girl's body herself. She went to the door without looking back. The young man quickly followed her when he saw no one else make a move to help.

In the hallway, Linda had composed herself some, wiping her mascara black tears with the back of her hand. "I'm sorry, Carter," she said, staring past him.

"It's ok," he replied. "I know how much Sherry meant—means to you." He reached out, and Linda gave up Sherry's inert body to him. Carter had never been what people would call a large man, but he held the small girl in his arms like she were a sleeping baby. Linda laughed, a sad, tearful laugh without joy or sorrow, the laugh of one who needs desperately to find humor at that moment.

"She never finished her food," she said, her words soft. "Even now, she looks just like a child."

"Come on," said Carter, and she followed him without saying another word.

"Stop right there," said a stern voice behind them. The two turned to face Dr. Hall, who had two unfamiliar men behind him, large and menacing enough to be considered goons. "What happened here?"

"Sherry had an aneurysm, doctor," replied Carter. "We're taking her to the med center for treatment."

"Why is that, Carter? You know as well as I that a brain aneurysm is fatal," Hall said absently, not realizing he'd said too much.

"How do you know…it was in her brain," asked Linda, the realization slowly dawning upon her. "You son of a bitch…YOU SON OF A BITCH!" she howled as she lunged at Hall, her fingers like talons as she clawed viciously at his squirming face. The two unknown men stepped forward, restraining her easily, as Hall fell down, panting furiously.

"Restrain yourself, Linda," he said, straightening his tie as he stood up. "These things happen," he calmly added as the woman struggled against the armed guards' hold.

Linda snarled wordlessly, her eyes burning hot with tears as she swore incoherently at Dr. Hall, spitting violently in the face of a man she had once respected and trusted. The men dragged her off, and Carter looked dumbly at Hall.

"It had to be like this," he finally asked, his words weakly faint.

"You know as well as I do, Carter," replied Hall, calmly wiping Linda's spit from his face with an expensive silk handkerchief. "That girl had to die."

--

Despite the dullness extending to every inch of her body, Sherry was completely aware of the world about her. Her senses seemed crystallized and focused, crossing with one another to create a hybrid blend of familiar sensations altered, like a light shining through a prism. She could see wafting smells, hear the sensation of touch, feel and taste the sounds about her. It was a delirium she had read about in one of Linda's psychological journals, and the symptoms matched those of chronic hallucinogen users. Lying there in Carter's arms, she heard the exchange between Linda and Hall, their words distantly hollow like an echo through a long, cavernous tunnel. She couldn't make out most of the words, but she could feel Linda's rage, her passion and energy. Hall was, as usual, icy, the emotion of apathy and disinterest pouring out of his heart. Somehow though, Sherry could taste his sweat, nervous energy shuddering through his body and running down his back in rivulets. She could see his heart beat quickening; an aura of weak, flickering energy about him.

The taste of her dinner still lingered in her nostrils, and yet she hadn't taken a single bite of it. She often pushed entire meals aside untouched, content with a soda and late night snack. Linda had often chastised her for nutrition's sake, but then she would later heat up hot chocolate for her and sneak her junk food after everyone else was asleep. It was a strange relationship. Sherry had never quite known if Linda truly cared for her, but now, with her burgeoning senses, she could feel Linda's loving aura, her compassionate energy. The realization mattered little now, however, for it was too late to matter.

--

The very concept of time was lost on Sherry in her state, despite the deafening tick of the clock reminding her. A buzzer sounded off every hour, but she had no memory of when the last one rang. Blank eyes stared down at her as she lay on the cool morgue slab, eyes emptier than her own peering intently at her tranquil face.

"Sherry, my dear," cooed the doctor, his bulging eyes creepily taking in her every detail. "Such a pretty girl," he added, stroking her hair gently. "So much like your mother…"

His touch felt oddly comforting, the static electricity of the contact sending a feeling throughout her body that wasn't entirely repugnant. And yet, trapped within the confines of her unmoving body, the young girl Sherry felt an overwhelming urge to scream.

"I loved her, you know," he said, turning to his rack of tools. "Your mother was such a driven woman, so devoted to that fool William. He may have been brilliant, but he had no idea of her wants, her needs." He held a needle up to the florescent light, admiring the amber colored fluid within the cylinder.

He sighed. "Such a tragedy; mother and daughter dying far before their time, and all because of one man's grandiose ambitions." His face was inches from hers now, and he breathed in her scent deeply. "But what they don't know won't hurt them, right my dear," he asked aloud, caressing her lifeless lips with his fingertips.

Sherry's eyes bore through the man. She could see veins and arteries in his bony face, the stream of blood as it coursed through his body, one place to another like a living wire. A thin filament of white skin disappeared under her eyes, the muscles like wax paper under her gaze. She could hear the sound of the needle digging into her cold flesh, the rumbling echo of the plunger forcing that strange fluid into her corpse.

The doctor's back was turned when she sat up suddenly on the morgue slab. The white sheet he had laid across her naked body fell to the ground, and he turned at the sound. His eyes opened in surprise, an elated joy like he had known this would happen. He opened his mouth to tell her that this was how he pictured it happening, but her fingers were already jammed into his mouth, reaching down into the back of his throat.

He felt the cold rush of flesh in his mouth, tasting the soap she had used early in the mornings to scrub her skin clean, and began to gag as her fingers dug deeper and deeper. No, it wasn't so much her reaching in, but the fingers growing. No human hands could reach as far down as hers were; he could feel her nails tickling the base of his esophagus. But there was no such gentleness to it. A squirt of icy cold fluid shot down into his stomach, and he began to lurch even more.

A vague smile touched the girl's lips, the grayish color beginning to fade as lifeblood began to once again flow through her veins. She brought her other hand up to the gasping man's mouth, grasping one side of his mouth with each hand. Her eyes glowed yellow for a moment as she pulled her hands apart sharply, peeling the man's face in two. The doctor collapsed in a heap, his senses reeling as he choked on his own blood. He watched as she walked slowly away, her dainty footsteps burning smoking imprints into the tiled surface of the floor before she cast one last, smoldering look over her sleek shoulder at his dying form. It was in that moment that he saw she was truly her mother's daughter.

The thing that had once been Sherry Birkin stopped when it caught its reflection in a long mirror. Color was slowly returning to her pale flesh, but more of a green hue than a healthy human red. The veins stood out against her ashen skin, a purple color running through the network of blood vessels. Appearance mattered little to the creature, however, as it stepped into the main hallway and began to walk silently towards the residence hall.

--

"Carter, did you know about this," asked Linda, her hands clutching the bars of her holding cell so tightly her knuckles turned white.

"How can you even ask me that, Linda," he answered, seated on the open side of the bars. "I've never been so bored about a project as to want to kill someone over it."

"It's not about being bored, it's about covering your own ass."

"I have no fears. Moreover, I have no culpability when it came to this project. My brother is a lawyer, and told me I have plausible deniability regarding this case…if it ever were a case, of course."

"So you were looking out for yourself…"

"Of course. Anytime you play in a shady area of the law, it's best to get advice beforehand."

"Morality be damned, is that it?"

"You worked here too, Linda," he reminded her. "It's not like what we were doing was morally wrong, or inherently evil."

"Maybe so, but—" she began, her words cut off by a shrill cry from the hallway.

"Holy shit, what was that," he asked, rising from his chair and walking to the door. Pressing his face against the small glass panel of the door, he looked side to side down the long hallway. With his hand on the door, he turned back to Linda, herself pressed anxiously at the bars.

"What was it, Carter?"

"I don't know, I—" his voice turned to a scream as he tumbled out of her field of view, disappearing through the swinging hallway door as his petrified screams faded away to silence.

--

Chaos had overtaken the facility. Fires raged out of control, dying sprinklers futilely dribbling water, broken rubble strewn across once spotless floors. Researcher and doctor alike fell about in a blind panic, running for their lives from the monsters that had seemingly appeared out of thin air.

The Birkin creature strode down the main hallway now, her body ablaze with vengeful fire as she butchered person after person. The doctor that had hurried back to his meal when she lay dying felt her hand rip into his stomach, sharp claw-like appendages tearing his intestines out and spilling them onto the floor in a wet splash. His cries of pain went unheeded, except when she stopped to stick a dangling tendril of her own growing flesh into his open mouth, planting another seed. Those that she seemingly spared were chased down by the hatching parasites; small, lightning fast blobs of green flesh that birthed in a splattering spray of blood.

Carnage raged throughout the entire complex, the doctors and researchers trapped in the small residence section, those lucky enough to reach the exit pounding feebly against steel enforced doors held shut by a lump of pulsing green flesh. Like rats in a cage, Sherry and her newly hatched spawn took their time decimating the scientists, their weeping pleas for mercy falling deafly on inhuman ears.

An explosion rocked the entire wing as Hall's squad blew the exit doors apart. He had eighteen of the best trained soldiers money could buy, and they were armed to the teeth, ready to take on this creature. Hall cowered behind them, eventually deciding to watch from the safety of the security center. The men lined up in two rows at the only exit, the front nine kneeling as they raised their assault rifles. A dead silence fell over the entire area, the spurt of electricity from a torn out socket the only sound. Small, scattered fires roared quietly throughout the wing, and the death gurgles of the last few scientists echoed softly through the halls.

A figure suddenly appeared around the corner, clad in a stark white coat that suddenly exploded in a spatter of red under the relentless hail of gunfire from the soldiers. The scientist fell to the ground, dead several times over. The men didn't dwell on their mistake, nor hesitate as they reloaded their rifles. A long shadow stretched around the corner, someone slowly approaching their position. Then it stopped, standing still just out of their view.

The soldiers shook with anticipation, knowing their target was just around that corner, fighting their desire to chase it down and kill it. Wiping the sweat from his eyes, the unit commander silently ordered them to hold position with a wave of his hand. He then used the extra time to load his hollow-point rounds, and instructed the back nine fire team to do the same. Hall could go to hell with his demand for a live sample. Anything that can do what he had seen was better off erased from existence. And these bullets would help; with this amount of firepower, they could reduce a boulder to dust.

He noticed something, then, along the floor. It was a thin, winding crack that ran the entire length of the hallway, and it was quickly expanding as it stretched towards them. Too late, he realized what it was, as a shard of snaking bone erupted from the floor's crack, tearing their ranks apart as it easily impaled three of his men. Whatever professionalism the men had exhibited vanished in that moment, firing their automatics into their own ranks, trying to stop that twisting worm of death. The dying men barely had a chance to scream before it was gone, disappearing back into the hole it had come through. As the survivors fought to collect themselves, the ceiling above them collapsed in a shower of hungry parasites that fell upon the men, feasting and gorging on their flesh. The shadow began to move again, and the Birkin creature leaned against the corner, its entire body caked with blood as it smiled distantly at the ensuing carnage.

--

"Holy mother of god," gasped a terrified Dr. Hall. He had seen the whole massacre unfold via security camera, and his body shuddered at what he had witnessed. An entire battalion of soldiers wiped out by a single girl? This was getting way over his head. He reached for the communication panel and dialed a number hastily. A familiar face appeared on the screen, a face he knew from long ago that had changed little over the years.

"Wesker, my god…she's become active…you have to help me," he begged, all his earlier pride gone.

"And who might that be, doctor?"

"Christ, you know who! Birkin's daughter—Sherry…mutated and is butchering everyone here!"

"Oh my, what a dreadful situation. But what could someone like me do about something like that?"

"I don't know, but you gotta help me," he pleaded, panic giving way to cold, cunning logic. "I don't—I don't want to have to tell people what I know about you, or your silent partner—"

"Threats, Richard? How very unlike you," Wesker interrupted. "You must be in more trouble than I thought," he said, something like sympathy seeping into his words.

A ray of light. "So you'll help?"

"How long have we known each other, Richard?"

"Since our university days, Albert. And I've always held you in high regard…"

"And in all that time, have you ever known me to help someone when they could offer me nothing of value…? Although…I should thank you for reminding me that you are already far too versed regarding my…business relationships. So why, pray tell, should I help you when I benefit so much more from your death?"

"I know things, Albert…things I never told anyone! Things of great value to you! Please…"

"Perhaps. But those things are already available to me…"

"What do you mean?"

Wesker laughed, a cold heartless chuckle. "You honestly think you were the only person I bought off in your little project, considering the risks of our business? Let's not insult one another now, not after all we've been through…"

And there it was: the last bit of hope snatched away. "You son of a bitch! Fuck you Wesker! You dickless piece of maggot shit cocksucker motherfucker! You—"

"Goodbye, Richard," Wesker said somberly. "Oh, and if you try to use another outside connection after this, bear in mind that I already have seized control of your com-line. So no more phone calls, please. Try dying with some dignity."

As Hall launched into another tirade aimed at Wesker, he saw the screen turn blank as the link died. Turning the power switch futilely, he heard only dead static. The monitors surrounding him shut off a moment later, leaving him in the dim darkness of the room. Wesker had cut the lines.

So lost was he in his rabid panic, Hall never noticed the door behind him begin to open.

--

Darkness fell over the eastern wing at a slow, deliberate pace. The rows of lights died like falling dominoes, one after another, so by the time the last bit of luminescence faded in the holding cells, Linda was already waiting for the gloom. It did little to assuage the oppressive feeling of claustrophobia threatening to overtake her, however, so she forced herself to take deep breaths. Despite her short medical career, she had seen countless patients panic, and she had always advised them to first control their breathing; it was only fair she take her own advice when faced with the same situation. But when she felt something brush lightly against her hand, her lungs struggled to leap from her very chest.

It wasn't real, she told herself, just a frightened psyche playing with her. She had hoped her eyes would eventually focus in the murkiness of the dark, but after countless minutes in the breathless dark, she began to wonder if she would spend the rest of her life surrounded by inky blackness.

Again, she felt movement in the room, this time closer. It was like a wisp of wind, swift and invisible, but she could feel it, as certain as she felt the terror in her heart…there was something in the room with her, something homing in on her position. What had pulled Carter into the hallway? From her vantage point, she had seen nothing, only heard desperate pleas for help that never came. But that door never swung open again; her keen ears would have picked up on that in an instant. No, whatever was in here was in here already. Perhaps a rat? No, the facility had an elaborate vermin eliminator system; she had never seen so much as a cockroach in her years there.

Behind her now, a whisper of air. Whatever it was, it had somehow gotten behind her and trapped itself in the corner of her cell. Linda backed away until the bars bit into the flesh of her back, the realization that she was trapped in a locked cell with something, something that had possibly killed Carter ravaging her every thought process. She wanted to scream so badly that it came out in a voiceless shriek, her need unfulfilled. Fumbling through her pockets, she searched anxiously for anything of use. The guards had frisked her earlier before depositing her in the cell, but that logical memory gave way to raw, desperate panic. Her fingers closed around something small, and by the time she drew out her hand, she knew what it was: a withered pack of matches.

Timidly lighting one, she stepped cautiously towards the rear of her cell. The flickering glow of the match shuddered despite the still air in the room, and the dim light was sputtering as it burned downwards. Realizing it was going to go out soon, she tossed the still lit match in the direction of the noise. It died before landing, draping the cell again in murky darkness.

Taking one more step forward, she drew another match from the pack, striking it against the flint. Another step and she was a mere three feet from the dark corner, the only place the thing could be. The light began to wilt, and she recoiled in pain as she felt the searing lick of the match dying between her fingers. She cursed silently, instinctively bringing the fingers to her mouth. Drawing them out, she again reached into the pack, removing the last match.

The tip exploded in a tiny ball of fire, and her eyes peered into that corner. Nothing. There was absolutely nothing there. As she began to turn away, she saw what she had thought to be a piece of the wall suddenly peel away and dart past her. Spinning to follow its path, she came to face a person she never thought she would see again, someone she had took for dead. Able to find her voice this time, she used it and screamed.


Note: I have to admit, I loved some of gorier parts of this chapter. The creepiest part for me to write was the doctor about to perform the autopsy; I had thought about taking it a bit further, but I thought the implication was enough. I think my favorite scene in this chapter is when Linda realizes what Hall did. I honestly welled up with emotion when I wrote those few lines, a mixture of anger and sadness. I hope you felt some suspense in that scene with Linda in the dark. I've never really tried scaring the audience, but figure it's a good thing to learn. So if you felt fear or boredom, let me know!

For observant File 2 players, you'll notice I used the names Linda and Carter from "End of the Road" for two of the doctors. It's just in name only, especially if you consider how that scenario ended. I took most of the doctor's descriptions and names from people I know. And the Hall I know is actually a nice guy who loves kids. ;)

I decided to dedicate this entire chapter to Sherry and the researchers. I was thinking of having Leon and Claire looking over the burnt out remains of the facility, but instead opted to jump around with the main players within the facility. Only one is from a canon RE game (besides Wesker's short cameo), but I hope you found the interaction interesting still.