Recommended BGM:

1. Resident Evil (Remake) - Creatures of the Night

2. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (1999) - The Beginning of Nightmare

3. Resident Evil Zero - Adrenaline Rush

Chapter 5

Woods signaled the team to spread out and search north, where the crash site would most likely be located from their location. Wesker, Barry, and Chris were on his left, while Jill and Joseph were on his right, all of their flashlights cutting through the foliage as the dark plume of smoke was obscuring their surroundings. The smell of burning fuel grew stronger with each step they took, the acrid odor overpowering the warm scents of nature itself. Jill's sense of direction was becoming narrower by the second inside the woods and tall, brittle grass until all of a sudden—

"Twelve o'clock! Dead ahead!"

Jill's heart felt as if it skipped a beat and quickly filled with adrenaline as she, along with the rest of the group, hurried to follow Woods' voice, trying to catch up with the eldest of the group. She emerged from a few downed thick branches, Joseph following next to her. Woods was already searching the downed chopper, with Chris, Wesker, and Barry right behind him, waiting for anything. Smoke was still emanating from the wreck itself, but it was now beginning to fade away. If there was any fire, it would've already died out.

The copter itself didn't seem like it was completely totaled, however. Most of its long, wide body was largely intact, with only a few deep scratches on it, possibly due to some of the foliage and branches hitting it along the way. The end result seemed like a rough landing, with the port landing rail completely bent, but the main cause of failure didn't seem completely obvious to any of them at all. At least none of them died in a resulting explosion…

"Oh, shit…"

The Alpha team froze for a brief second, not wanting to hear the news of what Woods may have discovered inside the chopper. Joseph's spine tingled like electricity, slowly flowing in an uncomfortable downwards position, his mind still being more curious than ever.

"What happened?" He asked nervously, representing everyone's exact thoughts.

"The pilot… he's dead," said Woods morbidly, still looking at the corpse inside.

"Forest?" Chris asked, not wanting to even hear the answer at all. However, he felt that he had an obligation to know, regardless of whether or not it was actually his best friend. There was no answer, but after a few excruciating seconds of waiting, Woods gave an answer that might've made everyone even more worried than before.

"I can't even identify him," said Woods as his expression slowly grew more concerned. "His face is all, but unrecognizable. He seems to have been mauled violently by some kind of… wild animal. Their pilot looks more like an ordinary RPD officer."

Much to everyone's horror, this meant that they weren't safe in the vicinity at all. They'd have to keep their guards up at all times and based on the circumstances, it didn't increase the chances of any of the Bravo team members being alive. Barry and Wesker searched the back cabin thoroughly and found most of their equipment was still inside, seemingly left abandoned in a hurry.

Chris went to further check the pilot's body, afraid to know who it could even be. As he got a closer look at the corpse, he finally recognized the vest's printed initials on his back, hidden underneath a small crease near the collar.

"Oh, Christ… it's Kevin," said Chris as his voice cracked up a bit due to the stench of the body itself, trying not to throw up in the process. His whole body was covered in blood. Chunks of flesh have seemingly been ripped apart on his jugular and face alike. Worst of all, it didn't seem like he was killed by one attacker, but by multiple, possibly a pack of those "wild dogs" that were mentioned in the witness reports.

Chris knew him ever since he joined STARS, though they would only ever speak once in a while at J's Bar. Besides himself, Forest, or Mason, Kevin was one hell of a pilot on his own. After all, he was also a part of the US Air Force in a completely different squad from Chris or Barry. It is no wonder that the chopper didn't suffer any more damage than it did.

After the news hit them, no one wanted to speak as they continued surveying the scene around the chopper, their fears slowly turning into reality in front of them. Barry was feeling more ill by the minute as he continued thinking about the whereabouts of his great friend, Enrico. Marini's wife had baby-sat for his girls, more times than Barry could count, and was friends with Kathy. The thought of him being dead by a pack of rabid creatures…

Wherever you are, stay safe out there, buddy. We're coming…

But where were they? It has only been a little over fifteen minutes since their last transmission and it already seemed like they could be far away from their current position. However, if they had left in a hurry, Barry was sure they couldn't have gotten far on foot without any sort of alternative transportation. As he continued the search with Wesker, they found out that everything seemed to be in order, except for just about everything electronic. They were all completely fried. As nothing much was found, they finally decided to head back and tell the others.

"All systems seem to be fried," Barry announced to everyone as he began to frown. "Nothing more other than a cabin, full of abandoned STARS equipment."

"Alright, everyone!" Wesker called for the Alpha's attention as both he and Barry got out of the wrecked helicopter. "Spread out and look for clues, tracks, shell casings, anything in particular. Report to me or Frank if you find anything. Stay alert!"

Jill stood for a moment longer, staring at the downed 'copter as she wondered exactly what happened to them. Alex said it had something to do with a malfunction; so that explains the fried electronics and rough landing. Kevin may have either stayed behind and either the attacks started with him, or the entire group was attacked by those wild animals from the reports and got to Kevin first before everyone left in a hurry, explaining the abandoned equipment in the chopper. The real question that kept haunting her mind was; where could they be now if the vastness of the forest was too much to cover on foot?

The only place she could possibly think of was the abandoned mansion Chris, Barry, and Frank kept telling her about. If so, where would it be? Even while they were in the air, she had never seen the mansion anywhere close by, and even if it was, it could easily be camouflaged with growing foliage around it and the forest would be hiding it deep within, especially if it was abandoned for many decades.

Dissatisfied and exhausted with growing theories, she joined up with Joseph as he began turning on his portable camera and placing it on his left shoulder, strapped across his chest. It would not only serve as actual evidence of their surroundings but should he end up in trouble, his teammates could pick up where he last left off or if worse comes to worst, someone out there could pick it up and expose what happened to them out here. As tensed as they were, they slowly began spreading apart from the crash site, carefully on guard as they fully checked all their surroundings and on the ground for any clues, regarding Bravo's disappearance.

Chris and Barry scanned their surroundings on the opposite side from where they were, with Woods and Wesker covering the rest of the unchecked routes in between the pairs as they slowly began spreading meters apart from one another with each step they took. Beams of flashlights were cutting through every direction outwards, almost forming a dark circle with the Bravo's helicopter wreck in the center of the diameter.

Joseph's thoughts were going wild. Where could Forest and the others be? Were they safe? Were they in danger? Could those cannibalistic murders have gotten to them first? So many questions and yet there was no answer to any of them. The woods just seemed like an endless maze with virtually empty sounds of an unnatural forest. It was the middle of summer; where were the animals, the chirping of insects? The Arklay Forest felt completely out of place, unmoving, silent, the only sounds being that of his own footsteps through the crackling noises of dry weeds and fallen twigs.

Then he spotted something even more unsettling…

Blood?

And there was quite a lot of it. He was even more surprised at the fact that they completely missed this as the trail stretched from the helicopter crash site, all the way to—

"What the…?"

As he began focusing his flashlight on the ground next to him for a deeper look, he saw what he may never be able to forget in his life; a disembodied human limb that may have been from one of his Bravo teammates. He checked the gun that the mutilated hand was holding and it was definitely a STARS gun, his eyes widened in horror. He was just about to announce his findings to his Alpha teammates until—

There was a deep growling. An unusual guttural sound came from behind him.

He instinctively spun around, trying to scan the source of the unnatural animalistic noise, his body becoming fully tense, his gun pointing in the direction he thought he'd heard the noise from. As he didn't see anything through the beam of his own flashlight, he turned to look through the camera sitting on his shoulder, scanning the foliage and underbrush to see if there was anything he might've missed with the naked eye. Even with his camera's night vision turned on, there was nothing he could pinpoint the noise from. Whatever it was, it could still be there, waiting for the right moment… As he stood there for a good amount of seconds, he then lowered his gun, thinking it might've simply been his imagination running rampant as he was already half-scared to death.

Suddenly, there was a growing sound of dry leaves and twigs being trampled; of someone or something running directly at him. But as he turned to face what it was, it was already too late. A dark, but gruesome creature appeared right in front of him as its ghastly jaws were wide open, ready to take a good chunk out of him as it viciously lunged forward, knocking him to the ground before he could have any chance of reacting. More vicious raging beasts came out of the underbrushes, ambushing a panicked Joseph as he tried his hardest to shoot the disfigured rabid canine with hanging flesh stuck in its jaw as if it had just finished up its gruesome dinner somewhere else. However, more were already taking a grasp on Joseph, tearing him apart as he frantically began to scream in agony and horror. Through the blinding sting of pain, he was able to hear and feel his own flesh being violently ripped apart by the ghoulish creatures that seemingly acted as though they've been hungry for centuries; the dropped camera capturing Joseph's last moments of his life.

Jill turned around at the sound of gunshots and agonizing screams being heard and ran towards the source. She was the closest STARS member on-site, while the others were still fairly far away from their current location.

As soon as she saw the horror that was happening right before her eyes, she couldn't believe what she was just seeing.

"JOOOSSEEEPH!" She screamed in terror, trying to aim at the violent, skinless creatures that were shrieking and snapping in a horrible frenzy of bloodlust she's never seen on an animal before.

But she couldn't…

Her muscles tensed and froze for almost through the entire ordeal, forced to look at the atrocious sight of the ongoing murder as her stance was slowly dropping to a blind, total shock. She's never felt this kind of fear before. Her eyes began to widen almost uncontrollably. Her expression was frozen, incapable of showing the growing amount of endless torment she was feeling inside. Tears began to drop down her cheeks. Whether it was due to sadness or her state of complete mental shock, she could not tell. She felt as though her actions were hampered by fear itself. She could not move, even if she wanted to; her mind telling her to not move a muscle as she could be their next victim, her heart telling her to shoot off Joseph's attackers, her gut telling her to run and call for backup. Jill was conflicted. She couldn't do anything but watch in absolute horror as Joseph had already stopped screaming, becoming limp and unmoving, his ambushers having already killed him, with the sounds of jaws gnashing on the chunks of his bloodied body. Part of his ribcage was already exposed.

Then after an excruciating amount of time, waiting for anything to happen now, Jill saw one of the dog-like creatures that were chewing on the flesh of what used to be part of Joseph's throat, seeing her with bloodlust, ghoulish eyes, as if taking chunks of Joseph's flesh wasn't enough for its current intake. Seeing those deathly eyes stare almost directly into her soul had finally made Jill slowly back away as the creature drew closer to her before it soon began to rush at her, ready to take its next meal of the night. She briskly aimed at the creature, but as she tripped over a sudden lump of fallen twigs, she found herself falling to the ground, her aim quickly becoming lost. In that brief window of time, she came to realize that was it for her.

A gunshot was heard at a distance; the rabid canine quickly became dispatched by someone who was now aware of the terrible circumstances that were happening around her, the blood of the creature having been sprayed on her left cheek. Jill was stunned, not by the disgusting blood of the creature, but by the fact that the creature was slowly getting up as if the gunshot it had received was merely just a nuisance.

"C'mon!" Said Woods roughly, trying to help her stand up as she immediately snapped out of whatever state she was in and did as she was told. Jill began to feel extreme guilt over the fact that she didn't do anything to save Joseph as reality began to settle in on her.

The gnashing jaws of the rabid pack of ghoulish canines suddenly came to a halt as they now saw a group of running prey, fresh meat to be feasted upon. Skipping over Joseph's now dead mutilated body, they quickly followed after the pair, running faster than almost any other ordinary species of dogs known to man.

Jill and Woods found themselves running for their lives; the skinless dogs running for their next violent, gory feast, blinded by the white color of bloodlust behind their gaze upon the pair of human prey. They tried their hardest to shoot back at the predatory creatures, but their powerful agility was proving too much to follow, even for a highly experienced combatant like Frank Woods. He was trained to deal with K9 units, but this wasn't any ordinary K9 unit. This was a pack of grotesque hellhounds, seemingly infected with some sort of disease that seemed to make them more dangerous, faster, and powerful, despite their deceiving starved-looking appearance. The longer the chase was going, the more howls filled the warm air of the night. Hopefully, Brad might've heard the shots himself and tried preparing their only exit out of there.

There was a sudden rush of wind coming from behind them. The roaring engine of the flying copter caught their eyes above them, their prayers seemingly answered now that Brad would fly them out of there as he'd land the chopper in the direction they were running at. In just under a couple of seconds, however, Woods instantly became aware that Vickers wasn't exactly trying to land the chopper elsewhere, but was actually putting as much distance as he possibly could from the area. Woods quickly became enraged at the now panicked pilot, being able to briefly see his face through the reflection of one of the chopper's mirrors, driven by an expression of fear and anxiety.

"BRAD! COME BACK HERE! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING!?" He yelled harshly, knowing the possibility of being heard by the frightened Alpha was extremely slim as the chopper's engine that was passing by overpowered any noise being made in the vicinity.

But it was too late. The chopper had already gained enough distance from them, almost a whole mile away, fading through the darkness of the night sky.

Damn you for leaving us behind, Vickers!

As Woods turned to face their attackers once more, the one in the lead had already begun to jump as it closed in for an imminent attack. Before Woods was able to put his finger on the gun's trigger, the hellhound immediately dropped to the ground with a high-pitched puppy-like whimper as it received a bullet through its chest, relieved that he was saved from a fate similar to Joseph's.

"Frank, this way!" Wesker instructed as both Barry and Chris followed after, providing covering fire for Jill and Frank as they headed in the trio's direction, killing at least two more members of the pack. The three of them had heard the shots since the very beginning, but as they ran to help, they also ran into trouble when a few of the ghoulish canines came after them as well, preventing them from getting there in time. Though as they tried taking out the pack one by one, more of them kept coming to replace them as they ran through parts of the woods in which several of the nasty creatures resided, the piercing shrieks of the mutant dogs urging them faster to find someplace to hide.

The Alphas were just perplexed at how the ghastly beasts could take in up to at least four handgun shots to be put down for good. Barry's magnum was their only hope at getting rid of the dogs with one full blast, though he couldn't keep his Colt steady enough, while at the same time, trying to suppress the powerful recoil within the grip of only one hand as he desperately ran with the others. These dogs didn't look any bigger than a German Shepherd. Their physiology was comparable to that of what would seem to be like walking dead corpses; their rib cages exposed, muscles and flesh even hanging from their bloodied bones, and yet they were much alive as though their fierce bloodlust was the only thing that kept them going. It simply couldn't be any more surreal.

At this rate, they wouldn't last for much longer and the general idea of what happened to the Bravo team was becoming clearer as the chase went on. The mutant canines were brutally fast and unforgiving as they barely faltered with each shot that any of them were taking at this point, only keeping them at bay for some time.

"The mansion!" Wesker announced as he spotted the giant building through the thick trees around them; the building's silhouette overtaking much of the forest in front of them. "Keep running ahead!"

Jill struggled to keep up. She couldn't stop thinking about the violent murder, Joseph went through by those damn monsters. The screams, the horrific sounds of his gashed, torn flesh. She couldn't keep it out of her head, causing her to slowly exhaust herself both mentally physically, her panting becoming louder by the second as she desperately ran for her life, her expression still etched with terror from that fateful moment.

"C'mon Jill! Run for that house!" Shouted Chris, still trying to keep their pursuers at bay as he was met with a quick nod by a terrorized Jill.

"I'm out!" Shouted Woods as he quickly began the process of swapping out his freshly hot magazine, feeling relieved that he didn't have to do this twice over if it wasn't for the Samurai Edge's bigger capacity than that of most other side-arms he's had over the years.

"Reloading!" Wesker followed.

Barry and Chris took over on the defense as the howls of the pack were louder than ever, raised to a chilling pitch as it drove the mutants to excitement with each passing second of the ongoing chase. They were now closing in on the mansion that was slowly giving its true form out of the darkness it was once shrouded upon.

From the outside, it looked abandoned. However, there wasn't any plant growth anywhere on the building's structure, as though it had only recently been abandoned for a few months, at best. Luckily for them, there was a massive front porch, equipped with a set of seemingly heavy wooden double doors that led inside the mansion; their only hope of escape now.

Seeing a possibility of escape and what seemed to be the same place Bravo team could be in, there was a sudden rush of adrenaline inside Jill's body, somehow giving her the strength to run faster than anyone else on her team.

As she reached the double doors first, she quickly realized that the doors were already opened as she turned the handle and slammed herself against one of them, quickly crashing wide open. The brightness of the dim-lit mansion spilled out across the porch behind her, lighting the path just enough for the others to be able to see through the darkness of the forest. Without any hesitation, she turned and started providing firing cover for her gasping teammates as the four men ran towards the light in front of them.

Before the mutant creatures could catch up to any of them, they immediately piled up into the mansion, with Barry closing the door behind them and throwing himself against the double doors, with the sound of the creatures snarling back at them as they tried pushing the doors open. As Barry collapsed to the ground in extreme exhaustion but still using his considerable bulk to prevent the hellhounds from entering, Chris helped him slide the entry's steel deadbolt and took a deep breath beside him, kneeling as he did so.

They finally made it. The mansion itself was completely silent, with the exception of the dogs howling and paws pounding in vain against the pair of heavy wooden doors.

Woods hadn't gone through so much in one night like this in such a long time. He was now finding himself taking more deep breaths than back when he was younger, giving him the harsh realization that age was already taking a heavy toll on him.

He didn't bother looking at his surroundings right then and there. All he needed right now was to take a small rest as he bent down, holding his sore knees while taking all the cool air he could get. Immediately, he silently cursed at Brad once more and began wondering if he and the rest of the team were better off inside the mansion than out in the forest…

Author's Note: And there you have it! Our entire crew has finally arrived at the mansion, where the real fun begins! If that isn't entering a world of survival horror, I don't know what is...

Thank you to everyone who has read up to this point! And also thanks to those who have favorited, gave a follow, and reviewed as well! You're all the best!!!