File #4

Captured, Escaped, Hunted

I came to what felt like hours later tied up in a chair. My phone was gone, my pistol was gone, my shades were gone and my fuckin' patience was gone. What the hell just happened? One minute I'm at Esmark Park and now here I am tied to a chair in a dark room that smelled like B.O., burnt flesh and cherry blossoms (for some reason). This was not good. Not because of the trouble I'm in now...but the trouble I'm going to be in when I get home to Laura, Jenna and Mom? Hoo boy. Remember how I said you don't want to see Jill Valentine angry? Imagine how pissed she's gonna be after she finds out I fell for one of the oldest tricks in the book. I tried to break free...which turned out to be the easiest shit ever. One yank skywards was all it took for the ropes binding my arms to break.

"Really? Does no one know how to tie knots anymore?" I whispered to myself as I undid the ones around my legs. I almost got up out of the chair before I heard conversations from outside. I quickly made it so it looked like I was still tied to the chair and pretended to be unconscious before I heard about 5 people enter the room.

"Wake him up," some male voice said. He sounded like he was wearing a mask. Someone came over and smacked me in the face. My eyes opened on quite the terrifying sight. I was correct about 5 people entering the room. I saw what looked to be the leader of these bozos pretty much in front of me weaning a black and gold suit (like a fucking douche) along with a mettalic gold mask in the shape of a skull. It even had the facial tattoos those Disciples of Azrael guys had. To this guy's left there was that scarecrow dude leaning up against the wall with his arms crossed. I nearly jumped when I saw the clown. I fuckin' hate clowns...especially ones that are pretty much sexually assaulting me by rubbing their hands across my arms, chest and face. If it touched my dick I was going to kill it with my bare hands immediately. I couldn't tell what the gender of the clown was but it looked female.

"Can I play with him now?" the clown said in a high pitched voice. Yep, definitely female. Didn't expect that to be honest.

"No Jessie. Not yet" the skull dude answered.

"AWW!" the clown named Jessie said and backed off. She was wearing a dirty black and red harlequin outfit with a matching mask. Didn't really have time to admire Jessie (because she clearly wanted me to) because I noticed her friend. This woman was dressed in a chalk white robe and had long fingernails and floor length black hair that covered her face. When she moved, she looked like she was gliding rather than walking. The last of these bozos was...a samurai. Like straight out of feudal Japan. His armor was black and red and his face was covered by a traditional helmet and mempo mask in the shape of a demon.

"What's this then, Comic Con?" I said before cringing internally. That was totally something Uncle Leon would say. You're cooler than that Zack, come on man! The woman in the white robe let out a shriek that nearly ruptured my eardrums. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. Also this woman was a fuckin' banshee?! Are you kidding me?!

"Funny guy. Real funny. We'll see how funny you are when you replace daddy as the primary donor," the skull man told me.

"Ok, what? Also who the fuck are you?" I answered while discreetly surveying the room. It had a few windows and I was clearly on the bottom floor of what looked like a farmhouse.

"Oh dear, silly me. I forgot to introduce myself, didn't I? I am Grim. The leader of the Disciples of Azrael," Grim said and took a mock bow. "These are my lieutenants, Adrian, Jessie, Clío and Nobunaga." Grim pointed to the scarecrow guy, then the clown, then the banshee and finally the samurai.

"As to your first question, I thought that was clear. We are going to use you to replace your dying father," Grim continued.

"My dad's alive?!" I exclaimed. I knew it. I knew that guy I saw in the parking lot wasn't really Dad. Adrian laughed.

"You fell for it little Zacky. It's called fear. And because of that fear I instilled in you that Mr Chris Redfield was dead, I was able to overpower you and bring you to my home in the mountains," he rattled off and gestured around the room. Ok asshole, you die first. No one uses my tactics against me.

"Anyway, we've been using your father for the past 3 months trying to develop a new strand of the T-Virus that will combine it with the Redfield bloodline in order to create intelligent and unstoppable BOWs that we will use to conquer the world!" Grim said. This guy was like every other dipshit badguy my parents had told me about over the years. Grim moved away from the door as he started to monologue about how he had captured my father and I noticed my pistol laying on a table in the hallway along with some spare mags.

"This strand, called the Red-Virus, has been tested on various communities for weeks now and is nearly ready for a nationwide release. The only problem is that most subjects reject the transformation and turn into Redfield-zombie hybrids with almost no intelligence...so pretty much like Chris anyway," Grim continued as he paced around the room.

"HEY! DON''T YOU SAY THAT ABOUT MY DAD!" I shouted. Jessie cackled.

"I like 'em fiery!" she told me seductively. To be honest, I expected someone that acted like this to be more scantily clad but hey, it is was it is...wait, what the fuck am I saying?! This bitch probably has a 10th degree black belt in Ca-Razy!... For fucks sake Zack, stop channeling your Uncle Leon's bad one liners you MORON!

"These 4 have pretty much accepted the transformation albeit with some unforeseen side effects," Grim said to me and glanced at each of the other lieutenants. Jessie hissed at him. "I think using you as the replacement will be essential as you also contain the blood of one Jill Valentine. A subject in many viral testing experiments by Albert Wesker many years ago." Time was running out for me to make my escape. I needed to do something and fast or I was going to be chucked in a lab and my blood was going to be extracted. Grim continued to talk about the science mumbo jumbo behind the experiments and I made my move when his back was to me. I leaped out of the chair and threw it at Grim. I was already past the guy and out the door by the time any of the others could react. I grabbed my gun off the table, loaded the mag, turned and fired back toward the door. I missed my target but I heard someone yell in pain but I didn't really have time to look. I jumped out the window and sprinted into the darkness while the Comic Con Cosplayers shouted obscenities at me from the window.

I made haste to the first good hiding place I saw. Turned out to be behind a good patch of trees. I could hear shouting in the distance. It sounded like the bozos were attempting to figure out what to do after I had escaped. They were after me now. I had 2 objectives now. Find Dad and get the fuck out of here but not before killing all 5 of these morons. I looked to my right and saw what looked like an entrance to an underground lab.

"Huh...convenient…" I said to myself and walked over to inspect it. It was locked because of course it fucking was and it looked like it needed multiple keycards in order to access it. Didn't really have time to admire it though as I heard voices approaching. Thinking quickly, I covered myself with mud, sticks and leaves and layed on the ground perfectly still but still within sight of this doorway. Sure enough, Grim, Adrian, Jessie, Chlío and Nobunaga were walking towards it arguing about what to do.

"I say we just kill him. Go after his sister or mommy instead,"

"NO! I was told I could have my fun with him before we extracted his blood! He's pretty much a younger Chris!"

"SHUT UP!" Grim suddenly shouted and everyone else did at once. "Look, there is no way he's gotten far. Just go back to your assigned sectors of these mountains and eventually he'll stumble into one of them. He'll have to. Plus he's determined to save his father and the only way for him to do that is to get into this lab which needs all 4 of your key cards or mine to access. Just go, I'll be having a chat with Senior Redfield in the meantime. I want him to die knowing his son will be next. I give him another week at max before he dies. Perhaps when we capture Zack, we'll make him watch him die too. That sounds fun. Anyway, go. Now" Grim ordered. The others walked away from the area, mumbling and cursing as Grim swiped his own keycard and stepped inside the door. It closed as soon as he crossed the threshold so I couldn't have attempted to jump through even if I planned to. Great. Now I have to go with plan B. Get the other 4 keycards. Why does everything have to be so needlessly complicated? Dad had mentioned something about getting 4 different pieces of a slate to open a door on his mission in Africa once. Dad, you're built like a tree, just kick the damn thing open. I would have tried that tactic on this door but it was solid metal so most likely a bad idea. I laid in my hiding spot for a couple more minutes before determining it was safe to reveal myself. It was. Excellent. Plus I now had vague ideas as to where the other 4 were going. They each walked off in different directions with Adrian going back the way I had just come from. I decided to start with him, after all I had said that he gets to die first.

I made my way towards the building I just jumped out of not 45 minutes ago. The building itself was an old fashioned farmhouse with a large wrap around porch. I couldn't really tell what color but that's unimportant. I started to see a lot of scarecrows perched around the building because this guy apparently had a hard on for dudes made of straw. I was close enough to examine one of them and nearly hurled. It was not made of straw. Remember how this guy told me that he hunted for his meals and then ate them? Like a cannibal? Yeah. Well this scarecrow was a mutilated corpse. Chunks of flesh were missing and I could see bones and tendons. The smell was absolutely nauseating. I looked at this guy's face because I needed to confirm something. I was correct. He looked pretty much like those BOWs my squad and I had encountered in Buffalo. His original face was fused with my father's.

"Jesus Christ," I said to myself which turned out to be a bad move because his eyes snapped open, saw me and screamed

"JIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLL!" I have no idea why it yelled my mom's name but I shut him up with 3 bullets. The guy's bottom half fell away from his top half and his entrails spilled onto the ground bringing an even more pungent smell with it.

"Mr. Redfield! I'm glad you came back!" Adrian's voice boomed over some kind of speaker nearby. I jumped into the tall grass and laid on my stomach again as Adrian continued. "Hunting you will be quite the task! You actually caught me in a good mood! I'm going to give you 15 minutes for you to select a hiding place and then I will set out to hunt you! If you evade me until morning, I will give you my keycard and I will not bother you again. Your time starts now!" Yeah right he was going to give me his keycard and bullshit I'm hiding until morning. Miss me with that nonsense. I saw a small little shack nearby and began to make my way toward it. On the way, I began to see extra pistol ammo and some First Aid Sprays scattered on the ground.

"This shit keeps getting more and more weird by the second," I said out loud and picked the items up. Now I know what Mom, Dad, Uncle Leon and Auntie Claire meant when they told me they always seemed to find ammo in the weirdest places. Uncle Leon tells me that on his mission to Europe, he threw a flash grenade at a group of birds and made a couple hundred bucks and scored one or two GRENADES. Yes. The BIRDS were carrying GRENADES. Fucking what?! I entered the shed only to be greeted by more of those zombie things that looked like my father. I'm gonna call them Red-Zombies from now on. I guess I didn't hear them scratching at the door and windows and they ran at me when I walked in. Again, I dropped them easily but I used a nearby hunting knife instead of my gun due to the fact that I was supposed to be hiding from Adrian. After removing the blade from one of the Red-Zombie's skulls, I attached it to the empty pocket on my hip. They'd taken my original knife. I began to glance around the room and my eyes rested on an M40A7 sniper rifle. Outstanding. A bit outdated in 2037 but it was still a deadly weapon. I walked over and examined it for potential traps. Yep. Tripwires. I followed the wires to an explosive trap mounted under the table the rifle was sitting on. If I had picked up the rifle, the absence of its weight would trigger the explosive device and I'd be blown in half. I looked around the room for something to use as the new source of weight. I decided to use one of the dead Red-Zombies and lifted it's putrid body in my arms. God DAMN am I gonna need a shower later lemme tell ya. I propped the zombie against the weight mechanism and removed the sniper. As I did, I draped the zombie's top half on the mechanism which seemed to have worked. Nice Zack. Weapon acquired. This thing even had a shoulder strap so I could wear it on my back. I checked the mag and saw it was full of 10 rounds. Nice. It had an extended magazine too. There were a few spares on the nearby table too...along with another First Aid Spray. I gathered all of the items into my various pockets and checked my watch. I burned about 10 minutes of my allotted 15. Dammit. Ok new plan, gonna wait until he comes out of the house and snipe him with this rifle.

Minutes later I was perched on a rock with my new rifle aimed at the front door of the farmhouse. I figured that Adrian would come out this way so I waited for him to show his face.

"Times up Zacky boi! Ready or not, here I come!" Adrian's voice shouted. Come on asshole, come out the door so I can blow- BANG! A bullet missed my shoulder by inches and I quickly rolled off the rock and hid behind it.

"Oh dear! I missed. No matter! I know where you are now Zacky boi! You thought I would come out the door like a moron?! I knew you would try that you little marksman you! It appears you're trapped! I can smell your terror from here!" Adrian shouted from the house. Fuck. He was right, if I moved, I was pretty much dead. I needed an idea. What would dad do? Well, he'd run full speed at the house to be honest...bad idea. What would mom do? Find a way to distract him. Wait...mom confuses me with dad all the time! And these Red-Zombies look like dad! But how the hell am I going to get one over here.

"Rrrrrrrrrr…SHEEEEEVAAAAAA!" a low voice said from off to my left. A Red-Zombie was making its way toward me. Again...convenient. I felt like Wil Wheaton from Star Trek with the amount of convenient things that were happening right now. Oh yeah...this dude liked to hunt shit. Makes sense as to why there were just an ass load of zombies everywhere right now.

"Come on. I'm right here," I whispered to the Red-Zombie. When it was within 5 feet of me I slammed my hunting knife into its stomach. It made a gasping sound before crumpling. This victim of the Red-Virus was wearing a jacket, which I took off of its now lifeless body and put it on myself. It was all moldy and smelled terrible. I then picked up the corpse and showed the Redfield side of its face towards the house and out of cover. Immediately, it was shot in the chest. I yelled as if I was shot which caused Adrian to say.

"50 POINTS! OH GOODIE! I CAN'T WAIT TO SEND YOUR MOTHER A PIECE OF YOU EVERY WEEK!" Oh you are so fucking dead now douchebag. I heard the door of the farm house open and I began to imitate one of the Red-Zombies by meandering around aimlessly as Adrian approached. I hid in the shadows of a nearby tree and watched him examine "my corpse." He turned it over with his foot but then yelled in rage.

"OH YOU SNEAKY LITTLE FUCKER!" he yelled and began to look around. Another idea struck me. Imitate a scarecrow. Thankfully (again) there was an empty stand nearby, plus it was the one I shot earlier so I mean, bonus. As Adrian threw his little tantrum, I climbed up on the stand and hooked my arms around the top bar. The sniper was slung over my right arm and was concealed behind my back as well as by the darkness. Adrian still had his back to me and began to fire his own rifle randomly at the Red-Zombies stumbling around the area. He began to walk in my direction. As he passed his other scarecrows, they each yelled something at him. Stuff like "Wesker", "Claire" and even "Ethan." Speaking of Ethan, I remember his daughter Rosemary being around a lot during my childhood too. But that's not important right now. I was in the middle of fucking nowhere hiding from a cannibalistic scarecrow. Adrian walked by me and froze because I didn't say anything. He slowly turned toward me and I could tell from his eyes that he was pissed.

"Well?!" Adrian yelled at me.

"Boo," I said. Adrian turned away, walked two steps before realizing what just happened. By the time he turned back, I was already off the pole and aimed my rifle at his head.

"Do you fear death?" I said before pulling the trigger. I expected the rifle to jam but no, the 7.62×51mm NATO round had fired flawlessly into the side of Adrian's head. It made a squelching sound and he crumpled to the ground. I took off that gnarly jacket and walked over to Adrian's body. The bullet had blown his scarecrow mask off and I could see that, like most of the things in this area, his original face was fused with my fathers. Adrian's real face was long and lanky and lacked facial hair. As I went to search his body for his keycard, I heard the sound of bones breaking and flesh ripping. Adrian's eyes snapped open and fixed on me.

"You thought it would be that easy Zacky boy?! I WILL SHOW YOU FEAR!" he yelled as his arms and legs began to stretch into long thin limbs. His fingers and toes grew large talons while his chest and shoulders broadened. I backed away as Adrian transformed into...well a scarebeast I guess. Don't really have another word for it other than "WHAT THE FUCKING SHIT IS THAT THING?!" Adrian the scarebeast finished his transformation and turned toward me. His face nearly made me shit my pants. It was unrecognizable. Like a melted mass of flesh colored mozzarella cheese. He roared at me and charged.

I turned and ran for my life. Fuck. FUCK! How the hell am I supposed to kill that thing with a sniper and a pistol?! Find some kind of totally obvious weak spot and shoot that repeatedly while dodging its very telegraphed attacks?! Yeah fucking right my guy! My tactical retreat was cut short when I ran into a clearing surrounded by trees and Red-Zombies. The scarebeast was still hot on my tail and crashed into the clearing as well. It turned in a circle...WHILE BREATHING FUCKING FIRE and completely cut off my exit anywhere and it even burned the Red-Zombies to a crisp. Most of the Red-Zombies dropped spare pistol and rifle magazines for some strange reason. The scarebeast focused its gaze on me and I heard it make a guttural laugh before charging me. I rolled out of the way and it barrelled towards the fire it had just made and ran into a tree that was alight with flames. It roared and flailed its limbs, trying to put the fire out. Ironic. This thing could breathe fire but it wasn't immune to it. The fire burned off the rest of Adrian's clothes (thankfully, I didn't have to see scarebeast junk) and I saw a glowing red spot on its chest that was pulsating rapidly. Wow. I really had to shoot this thing's weak spot while fighting in a small area I couldn't escape from. Fucking Christ. I aimed my rifle at the heart (I mean that's what it looked like to me, I'm gonna call it that ok?) and fired 3 more shots at it. One missed but the other two must have done significant damage because the scarebeast roared in pain. The fire around its body was out now and the heart was no longer exposed. The scarebeast swung its taloned hands at me. I dodged one but the second swipe grazed my lower back and I felt myself begin to bleed. The sticky red stuff was dripping down my back and into my pants. I'd patch myself up later. I was fine. No need to be cautious yet. I wasn't in danger. Again the scarebeast charged me and again I dodged out of the way and it careened into the fire. This thing was big but its brain must have shrunk because there was no way an intelligent creature would try something like that more than heart exposed itself again and I fired more high powered sniper rounds into it. This time I hit all 3 shots. The scarebeast was beginning to grow tired of me and spewed fire in my direction. I hadn't been expecting this and most of the flames hit me. That shit fucking HURT. I had to be cautious now. At least the flames didn't stay on my body for long because they extinguished themselves with help from me smacking parts of my body where the flames were. The scarebeast's heart was still exposed as it began to breathe fire again. This time I dodged all of it and took aim at the heart again. One shot, two shots, three shots. As my third shot connected, the heart burst into a stream of red and orange liquid. The scarebeast clutched its chest and roared in pain. It reached out towards me as it caught on fire and its flesh began to melt off. It's heart must have been the thing that protected the scarebeasts body on the inside from its own fire or something. I don't know. Do I look like a scientist or doctor to you? I ejected the spent magazine and loaded a new one. The bolt made a very satisfying sound as I pushed it forward and it readied another round.

"50 points," I said and squeezed the rifle's trigger again. The bullet flew into the beast's face and its whole head exploded in a spectacular explosion of red, pink and orange. The melted flesh made slapping sounds when it hit the ground. The thing kept screaming in agony and stumbling towards me as if it wanted to take me to hell with it. As if douchebag. Soon enough, a headless skeleton with long limbs and a huge midsection was now standing in the spot where the scarebeast was moments ago. It fell to pieces as the last of its pained screams echoed throughout the clearing and the flames surrounding the area extinguished on their own. I took out one of the first aid sprays, shook it a little and sprayed it across my body. Instantly my wounds healed and I stopped bleeding.

"Consider yourself fired," I said (deciding to channel Uncle Leon a little bit this time) and left the clearing and made my way towards the farmhouse.