Chapter 7: Directions Forward

A/N: Normally, I aim for 3,000 words a chapter. However, given the consistent pleas I have received, I decided to make an exception.

Jill startled back to waking as the helicopter landed on the helipad. The brown-haired woman stifled a groan as she forced herself back some semblance awareness. Part of that awareness warned her that her beret had fallen between her feet. She half-slumped over as she swiped it from the bare helicopter floor. She clambered out of her seat as she put the beret back on.

With bleary eyes, she saw the rest of Alpha Team wasn't much better. All of them shuffled out of the copter. The only two exceptions were Chris and Wesker. Chris powered through his exhaustion with steeled determination. Wesker was, well, Wesker. The man seemed inhuman.

The rest of them, however, were quite human.

They were half-asleep. Barry looked like he was about to fall asleep walking. Chris had to jab Joseph twice before the younger man stirred from his nap. The bandana-wearing cop yawned as he holstered his shotgun behind his back. None of them had gotten a full night's sleep. It had made it all the more difficult to fight the natural swaying of the helicopter in the light winds above the forest. They had all fought the urge, keeping a constant vigil for the members of Bravo Team.

It had proven fruitless.

Eight hours lost as they had swept over the entire forest, grid by grid. On Wesker's orders, they had started with the forest southeast of the city. Jill hadn't agreed with that decision; she believed it would have been wiser to start their search in the eastern portion of the forest. Bruce had gestured in that vague direction. Wesker had overruled her. Without a precise destination, he insisted the search would be as thorough as could be starting at the edge of the area indicated in case Bruce's memory was unreliable. Jill could not argue against Wesker's logic or counter his commands.

"Alpha Team, I want everyone to take one hour of rest. Recuperate however you need to. Then we'll continue the search," Wesker ordered as they filed off the landing pad.

"It only takes twenty minutes to refill the chopper," Chris pointed out.

"Chris," Brad groused. "We're all about to fall asleep on our feet. I can't fly the chopper like this."

Jill saw the anger heating up in Chris' eyes and placed a hand on his shoulder. A silent growl answered her as his gaze swiveled towards her. Jill did not react in the slightest as she softly shook her head. Chris glared at her for another second before taking a deep breath. "Right."

She stayed there, keeping her gaze on him. Chris took the hint and waited as the other STARS members entered the building. "Do you want to talk about it?"

The former Airman resisted at first. That in of itself was a bad sign. Two years of combating terrorism and the rougher cases of law enforcement had created a deep camaraderie among the STARS teams. Only two individuals didn't benefit from this bond. The first was Wesker, who had resisted it with his relentless professionalism. The second was Rebecca, who was too new to the teams.

For the rest? Jill knew where each of them lived, their birthdays, and most of their families. She had babysat Barry's daughters on more than one occasion. She had offered dating advice to Richard. And she had spent hours at the bar with Chris. She hadn't seen him this hostile in months.

His resistance melted beneath her caring eyes. "We should have gone first," he muttered.

She waited, her instincts sensing more.

"Bravo might be larger, but we have more expertise. We should have gone first. We've allowed a teenager, barely an adult, get sent into one of the most hostile situations we've had to deal with in the history of this department." He gritted his teeth. "And she along with the whole team might be dead because we didn't go as we should."

Jill laid a hand on Chris' shoulder, suppressing a shiver against the biting wind knifing across the helipad. "She reminds you of Claire, doesn't she?"

Chris shot Jill a morose look. "She's too young for this. It was supposed to be a light recon mission."

Jill leaned in closer as she patted his shoulder. She stifled her own anxiety over the situation as she said, "She understood the danger when she signed up."

"Wesker never should have agreed to it," Chris rumbled. "If anything happens to her…"

Jill squeezed his shoulder. "Get some sleep, Chris. You won't be able to help her like this."

Chris took a deep breath before he nodded. "Thanks, Jill."

Together, the two of them left the helipad as they stepped into the building. As she did so, Jill threw one last look over the forest surrounding her city. She said a silent prayer to whoever might be listening up there. In truth, she was as desperate to be out there as Chris was. In a way, she felt worse. Bruce had pleaded to her directly to save both Jill's comrades and his friends. He had given vital information to her. Trusted her to do use it to do good.

The door closed behind her as her heart threatened to sink beneath her failure.

For a third time, Daniel's stomach grumbled. In the back of his mind, he knew he could ignore it. The human body could go only a few days without water. It could go an entire month without food with the right amount of precaution. He was in no danger of staving himself any time soon.

None of this information stopped him from feeling like he was dying. The pain clawed at him from inside. With infinite patience, it carved and twisted his insides. Squeezing his stomach only reminded him how empty it was.

Ironically, drinking the creek water is what had triggered this pained state of existence. With his body no longer panicking over a quick demise at the hands of heat, it had remembered his other needs. Simple things, like food.

A squirrel scrambled above him, moving from tree to tree. His fingers tapped his rifle as he imagined himself eating raw meat. As a general rule, he liked his meat well cooked. Survival, however, had a funny way of affecting one's tastes. He glanced around the forest floor. Sticks and twigs weren't lacking.

A memory sprung to his mind. He was back in high school. The class was walking outside the building to go somewhere. Were they going to the music room? Assembling in front of the building for a class photo? The reason escaped him.

He remembered the weather being pleasant, temperate. Not as murderous as the summer heat wave suffocating him now.

Jessica and he were chatting. She had asked him if he could survive out in the wild after boot camp. He had laughed. "We're not the rangers," he had pointed out.

"What if you need to eat?" She had countered.

"That's what the MREs are for," he had answered as they kept walking.

"And if you get lost? Do you know how to read the forest to figure out where you're going?"

He had snorted. "I'll need a compass, protractor, and a map. If I don't have those, I'm hopeless."

Hopeless indeed, he thought sourly to himself. At this particular moment, he would not have minded some survival training. Could he start a fire like they did in all of those old videos with two sticks? He didn't have a lighter. Maybe he should have asked Billy for his before separating. Not much point in thinking about that scenario now.

He stepped around a particular thick batch of trees and shrubs. He froze as his green eyes went wide.

In front of him was an all-too-familiar humvee. It had not escaped lying on its back since the last time he had seen it. A hideous stench wafted around the overturned vehicle. The corpses of the two ex-zombies laid where he and Jessica had killed them. It had been his first kill.

He had nearly botched the entire thing.

Holding his rifle at a low ready, he circled around the spot. The corpses were damaged. Not only from gunfire, but something had gnawed at them, exposing rotting muscle and sinew.

His stomach held nothing and nearly revolted at the sight and smell anyway. He forced the queasiness down as he muttered, "The infection continues to spread."

He had not wanted to come here again. The poetry of coming back to where his adventure had begun did not entertain him.

But perhaps it could do him some good.

The terror and adrenaline of last night had crafted strong memories for him to call upon. He could picture his past self, unbloodied and with an immaculate uniform, leading his friends onward toward the train. They would find Rebecca, and two of his friends would die.

He turned to the opposite direction. Moving with a quick step, he knew what was waiting for him that way. He considered the humvee the start of everything because that's where he had made his first kill. Yet, one could argue it had begun a little earlier.

When he had met a certain pilot, the first person he had interacted with in this dimension.

The soldier broke through the forest into a familiar clearing. The sight of something familiar raised his spirits. Sitting in the center of it was a helicopter. Bravo Team's helicopter had weathered the night and storm without issue. That suited Daniel just fine as he ambled over to it.

As he approached, he glanced at the exhaust beneath the propellers. They showed signs of fire damage; Wesker's sabotage manifested. The windows, however, weren't broken as they were seen in the start of the original Resident Evil game. Without Kevin to feed them, the zombie dogs never came here to attack and kill the pilot.

Or, at least, they hadn't shown up yet.

Daniel wasn't too concerned about it as he slid open the helicopter's side door. His friends had killed one pack last night. In the Resident Evil 0 game, no dogs had attacked the train Rebecca had found at the start of things. That had not held true last night. The pack had assaulted the train in what Daniel suspected was a consequence to saving Kevin's life.

It had cost the life of Daniel's comrade, Bart, who had died gasping for air out of a ripped throat.

At least Kevin is alive, Daniel consoled himself as he searched the copter. STARS was the elite force of Raccoon City. Daniel hoped their reputation included a preparation for every situation. With a smile, his eyes laid upon a box underneath one of the seats.

He pulled it out before seating himself on the copter bench. Throwing open its latch, he opened the box to reveal emergency flares and emergency rations. His stomach howled with anger, and Daniel snatched the first ration bar. He tore open the wrapper and took a monstrous bite, almost eating the entire bar in one go.

He chewed a few times before leaning backwards in utter relief. He raised the bar remains as he resumed eating. "To survival," he mumbled to himself.

One painful need on the way to resolution, Daniel looked toward the future. The second major advantage of finding the helicopter was to anchor his sense of navigation. He knew from the games the mansion could be found by traveling from the Bravo helicopter. Since he knew the direction he came from would lead him back to the humvee, all he had to do was travel in the opposite direction.

He finished off the first bar and started on the second as he thought. It shouldn't be too far away. If I walk for thirty minutes, I should see something familiar. If I don't, that means I missed it. I'll just walk back to the chopper and orient in a different direction. I should be at the mansion, at worst, in two hours.

He was eagerly looking forward to rejoining Jessica and Rebecca. Being alone all day had been its own kind of stress. Companionship, even in the face of danger, would be a welcome change of pace.

His fingers landed on the third and final ration bar. He hesitated. Would there be food at the mansion? Or should he eat now to give him the most energy?

The question became moot with one, terrifying howl.

"No," he breathed as his eyes went wide.

He scrambled to the helicopter door and slammed it shut. "They're supposed to be dead," he hissed as he swung his M16 into his hands.

Another howl.

Much closer.

How much ammo did he have?

Before he could check, a new sound rushed towards his temporary sanctuary: running paws. Daniel flipped his rifle's mode from 'Safe' to 'Burst' and locked his gaze at the helicopter's windows.

I did not come here just to replace the corpse in this chopper.