It was a ssssnake…Owwww….
Finally, Jill shouted.
"Red! Boots up and kick it high!"
He drove his boots into the stomach of it and tossed it up. It grabbed his vest and tried to bring him with it and there was a loud BOOM of sound in the small chamber. It hurt his ears. They started ringing and he threw his arm up to blow his face as the face of the zombie exploded. It was instant pink mist beneath the heavy shotgun round.
There was a splatter and scatter of bone and burnt tissues against his arm. Shuddering, he shoved the body off him. He started to roll to his feet, saying, "This place is the fucking shits, Jill. Seriously. What kind of sick psycho shit is this?! I'm in a god damn George A. Romero movie."
He brushed off his knees and turned to get to his feet from his crouch . Jill slid onto her knees and in between his arms. Surprised, he let her wrap him close. She was trembling.
Concerned, he stayed kneeling and held her shoulders. "Hey. I'm ok. What's this?"
She said, "It nearly got you twice. Twice. God. We're gonna die here, Chris. What the hell is happening?"
And now he cupped her face. "Hey. This is bad. I see that. You see that. It's really fucking bad, Jill. But we're not dead. Until we are? You keep fighting. Don't give up because it's scary. And if I go down.."
She shook her head at him and tried to move away, denying. He held her face. "Look at me, Jill."
Resisting, she met his eyes. He looked so calm. It steadied her. He said again, "If I go down, Jill, you keep fighting. That's how this works. It's the only way it works. You agreed when you joined STARS to keep on fighting. So you keep going."
She finally understood what had happened to him in the woods when he'd seen that man on her. She finally understood. And she saw why loving each other was so scary. Because it came with knowing that one of them could die.
And the other would have to keep on going.
Jill said, "I owe you an apology. I was so mad at you. You pulled away. I couldn't figure out why." She shifted her hands to his face, holding on. "I couldn't figure out why you'd give up just because things got tricky. But you didn't give up. You just…kept on going. You protected yourself and me in the only way you knew how…by walking away."
It was the wrong time for this kind of thing. So wrong. And so right. Because they could be dead soon. They could die in a moment. In a flash. In a second. It was the right time.
She finished, "You're the only thing in my life, besides Dog, that matters to me, Chris Redfield. Don't fucking die on me. Maybe I can't have you forever but I can't even begin to understand what it means to not have you in my life. Don't die on me."
Chris' eyes went back and forth over her face, scanning, searching…and finally he nodded a little. "It cuts both ways, Jill. Stay alive. No matter what else happens. Stay alive. You get lost, I will find you. Do you understand?"
Jill nodded, rapidly. "Same. Same. You get lost, you wait for me. Promise?"
"I swear. I won't leave you behind. Ever. I'll keep searching until I find you. Always."
"I believe you…and ditto, kiddo." He studied her face in the flickering torch light. There was blood and death and fear all around them. They were awash in it, lost in it, buried under it. They didn't know if they'd get out alive. They didn't know anything. The who, the why, the when…it was coming together.
The picture was terrifying. The picture was corrupt. The picture was corporation big. It was conspiracy big. It was bad. It was really scary.
And they were sinking deeper in it every minute.
There was no time for any of it.
Which is exactly why he jerked her up and kissed her. Because that's all he had anyway. And if he died, he wanted to die with her taste in his mouth to drown out the taste of terror.
She opened her mouth and met him with a ferocity that excited them both. It was wet, tongue and teeth and taking. It was full of love and need and hunger. Her arms wrapped around his neck and clung.
He rose to his feet with her against him. Her feet dangled as they clung to each other. Finally, they came up for air. He set her down. Jill shivered.
Chris shivered.
And there was a clink of metal as something tumbled out of the empty coffin and landed amongst the blood.
They both looked at the tiny metal octagonal piece. Jill said, "Another puzzle?"
"Looks that way. Let's take it with us. I need to get back and check on Rebecca and Richard. You'll come with me?"
"Are you kidding? Why would we separate now?"
Chris nodded and they turned back to the stairs. They moved slowly up them and Jill said, at the top, "…I love you."
Surprised, he glanced down at her. She scanned his face. "I do. I love you. I watched Joseph go down and all I can think is how Maggie will feel. How she'll feel without him. You're my best friend. My guy. I love you. I agree that we can't be together. Not now. But I love you. I want you to know that."
In the year that he'd known her, she'd been anywhere from a pain in the ass to the only thing in his world that mattered. She was both now and would always be. She was the cat's pajamas and his best friend. She was the love of his life and his partner in crime. Love? A dumb word. But it would seem all they had at the moment.
"I love you, Jill. Always. Always. You and me?" He lifted his fingers and crossed them. "Twined up, kid."
Jill nodded and rubbed his arm. "Yeah. Yeah. Twined up. Twin souls?"
"That's the rumor. You get me. I dig you. That's all I got."
His headset buzzed. Hers did too. And a voice cried out, "Chris! Hurry! Oh hurry! I left Richard...I had to get more serum. I'm stuck! It's coming and I'm so scared! Oh GOD! I'm in the study on the first floor...it's COMING!"
Chris grabbed Jill to him. "I have to go after her. Jill...Richard is on the second floor, end of a long hallway with a broken door. Get him. Get him and get to the lobby. I will get Rebecca and meet you there. Say yes."
"Yes. Go. Go. I will find you. I'll get Richard. I'll get him to safety. Hurry!"
He turned and ran. He turned back at the door. He pointed to his chest, "In here. That's where you are. Stay alive, Jill."
And he was gone through the door. The night was hot and humid. The night was wet.
And so were the frightened tears that shimmered in her eyes.
So in hindsight, cardio might have been a better place to focus then strength training.
As he ran, breathing fast and hard, Chris Redfield was very aware, painfully aware, that he was might be too fucking slow to get there in time. He could hear Rebecca in his headset making little sounds of fear. He could hear Jill as she ran toward Richard to hopefully bring him to safety.
He could hear his own heartbeat which thundered loud and fast and desperate in his ears. The expression swallowing your heart came to mind. He'd never really understood it until now. He kept picturing Rebecca eaten alive by zombies. He ran faster.
And he was still bone deep, blood pounding afraid he'd be too late.
In the hallway, the thing in front of Rebecca was making a warbling sound, it sounded like a chittering and clicking mixed with some kind of gibberish. It was short, squat, ugly and had an arm with claws as long as a man's arm. It had scaly flesh like a snake or a toad. It hunkered a little as it stalked her, snapping its razor sharp teeth.
She lifted the little Beretta she had, aiming it shakily. "Please don't?"
It charged at her, shrieking.
She screamed, turned, and started running.
The hallway, old and musty, with peeling wall paper and mold; seemed long and endless. She raced, her heart slamming behind her ribs. The first slash of its clawed hand missed her head by an inch and took a chunk of her hair with it.
Rebecca screamed again and shoved through the door at the end of the hallway. She pushed it closed behind her, throwing the lock on it. The hunter smashed into it, roaring. She heard it hit, felt the door shiver beneath the assault, and it hit again. Dust shook loose from the strength of the blow.
She whimpered and turned, studying the room. It was a small L shaped office. There was an old desk with some books and a lamp on it. There were a few shelves beyond it with dusty hard back literature. She ran to the opposite door and turned the knob.
Locked.
Terrified, horrified, she threw her small frame against it. The door didn't even budge. She kicked it, feeling the first bubbling burst of tears. "Oh please! Oh god!"
The other door rattled on its hinges. It wouldn't hold long. She turned and desperately started digging through the desk for a key, a tire iron, a flame thrower…a chance. No such luck. The drawers were useless; drawers with a letter opener, an ink pen, a small journal and a bottle of scotch.
Rebecca let out a quiet sob. This was it. This was the moment she would die huddled in this dirty old mansion torn to shreds by some monster. She'd survived so much to get here. She'd left Billy. She was a tougher, better, faster.
The door rattled and the thing roared.
Her bravado crumbled and she stumbled back, aiming the wavering pistol at the rattling door. She was going to die fighting at least. It was all she could do.
The communicator on her vest buzzed static for a moment and then a voice filled it, distant but familiar, "…there?"
She grabbed it and pressed the button, "I'm trapped on the second floor in an office. I need help!"
"Rebecca!"
And now she recognized the voice. He sounded closer? Closer than he'd been previously? "Chris!"
"Are you alright?"
"Oh Chris! Hurry! I don't know how long I can keep it out!"
"Rebecca, hold on! I'm coming! Listen to me, if it breaks through the door AIM FOR THE FACE!"
"OK." She whispered it, keeping the gun aimed on that rattling door. The absence of his voice felt like a death knell. The door jerked, shook, splintered and burst open smashing into the opposite wall. Rebecca let out a shout and fired the pistol.
The shot went wild, hitting the thing in the shoulder. It roared, spun off course but not for long. It bunched up its muscles, prepared to leap. She aimed again, steadied herself…and her gun jammed.
She froze, horrified. Her hands desperately tried to fix the jam. The thing leapt, high and fast. She dropped to the floor, screaming, and rolled. It landed where she'd been and missed killing her by a breath. She scrambled across the floor, toward the other side of the room and the open door.
It swiped at her again and it was too close, the room too narrow. It caught her medipack on her back and sliced it clean away. The bag tumbled, broken, but had probably saved her life. She was almost to the door and it landed on her.
The world slowed down as she fell to her face, screaming. She rolled to her back as it shrieked at her, trumpeting its victory cry on putrid, reeking breath. She threw her arms over her face, still screaming and waited for it to kill her.
The claw flew up; the arm trembled, and down it came toward her face.
The other door flew open, kicked fast and wide by the man beyond it. The shotgun blast was so loud it blocked out all other sound but the cacophonus roar of steel and 12 gauges. It didn't just hit the thing on top of her, it blasted it off its feet. The hunter was blown off her and smashed into the wall beyond.
Rebecca scrambled away, screaming.
Chris Redfield didn't stop, didn't blink. He jacked another shell into the chamber and took another step into the room. The hunter twitched, trying to rise. "I don't think so, you stupid fuck." And he blasted it again, blowing apart its face and stomach from less than three feet away. Bone and blood sprayed in a geyser, splattering the room around it. The room smelled now of sulfur and death.
It didn't move again.
The silence was so loud it was painful. He turned and looked down at her. She was still on the floor, lying on her back looking up at him. It was the first moment she'd seen the face of a hero. He put his hand down to her, offering her a way up. "You ok?"
He was so young and handsome. His boyish good looks and impish sense of humor had made him both well liked and crush worthy by more than a few girls around the RPD. And he'd given her the sweetest little kiss anyone had ever offered. He was her friend…and apparently her savior. He played it off like he wasn't looking. But that was just because he was ALWAYS looking at Jill Valentine. Everyone…sorta knew about it. She wasn't aware that HE knew. But everyone else? They knew.
Rebecca got to her feet, holding his hand.
He said, "Sorry it took so long. I got turned around for a minute. Turns out I'm better at point and shoot than I am at navigation. Don't tell Jill, she'll never let me live it down."
She laughed, desperately, "I think you got here just in time."
"I saw it on top of you, scared twenty fucking years off my life."
"Mine too."
He smiled at her, "You sure you're ok?"
She was shaking so badly she thought she'd pass out from it. "I'm fine. Really. Although I think it got my pack." She moved to pick it up off the floor. The pack was completely split in half. It was perfectly bisected and all the contents littered the floor between them.
It could have been her face. She stared at the mess and started crying.
And the hero who'd saved her life looped the shotgun over his back, took her in his arms, and held her. He scooped her against him and she fit there, tiny and sobbing. Undone, Chris leaned on the desk and patted her while she hiccupped cutely and miserably.
She stuttered, adorably, as she sobbed, "It was a FROG! Or a LIZARD! OR a DEMON! It was so mean! Why did it want to kill me!? Why?! I asked it to LEAVE ME ALONE!"
Trying not find her…probably the cutest thing on earth…Chris patted her back a little and couldn't stop the laugh. "Oh honey…honey…I don't think it works that way."
"What did they do here, Chris? What did they do? They made MONSTERS! Like Frankenstein. Like God. They made monsters. How do we survive that?" She sobbed wetly into his neck, her skinny arms wrapped around his chest. He wished he knew the answer. He wished he knew anything.
But staring at the still smoking corpse of the dead…lizard hunter man…he couldn't offer her any solace. So he just kept holding…just for a little longer.
...
Jill found the room where Richard was…not. He was NOT there. He had, apparently, gotten tired of waiting. There was blood on the floor and shit tons of spider webs…in hindsight, she might have taken that as a bad omen and NOT gone through the door that was ajar beside the blood on the floor.
Also, it had seemed a good idea at the time to give Chris her shotgun. It had. He was off to save Rebecca, she was just trying to get Richard back to the foyer. No big deal. Right? Right?
WRONG.
She eased open the slightly ajar door and found Richard. She found him…sorta. Half of him. Half…half of Richard. She made a sound of horror as her eyes made sense of what she was seeing. He was STILL ALIVE!
She dropped, trying to drag..half of him…out the door with her. Richard's lower body was entirely gone. Gone. GONE. It was ripped away until his intestines spilled like putrid snakes all over the floor around him. He had no hips, he had no legs, he was squelching and squishing in blood and fluids and gore.
Richard grabbed for her shoulders and gasped, blood GUSHING from his open mouth. The terror, the fear, the horror bled into her belly and made her feel nauseaus and light headed. He gasped, gasped, gurgled and it came out wet and awful, "Jill…it was a snaaakkkeee…..owww…."
It should have been comic. He hissed it. He hissed his last words like…a snake. But it was awful. Jill tried to hold on to him but how did you stop the bleeding when it was everywhere? "Richard….please…"
But he was dead. He was staring glassy eyed and fixed at her face. She felt her body start to shake. She was shaking so badly. She was shaking and crying.
Crying?
Crying.
She tucked him against her and dragged his bloody corpse from the room. She laid him on the floor against the wall. She was keening in her throat. It was bad. Her hands were cold. Her brain? It was locked in a state of shock. She knew that, objectively, as she tried to find something to cover up Richard's dead body. She was trying to feel something but she was so cold.
There were tears on her face, her arms and belly were trembling. She stepped back into the room where she'd found him dead on the floor to try to find something to cover him up, to give him….just a little dignity. Kevin, Joseph, Kenneth…Richard….their faces as they laughed. Their faces as they joked. Their faces as they all sat together and played hacky sack. Her heart. HER HEART….she was going to have a heart attack in this god forsaken place.
She put the heel of her hand to her breastbone and rubbed roughly. She gave herself a sternum rub and stole her own breath. She found an old blanket on the shelf in the attic where she found herself. Jill picked it up and tucked its dusty folds under her arm.
She turned back to return it to the body of her fallen friend…
…and she was no longer alone.
She was staring into the eyes of a snake. A snake, he'd said…a snake. If she hadn't been knee deep in shock, she'd have known what he meant. Not a small garden snake. No. Not a cobra…a basilisk. A snake that was twenty feet long with a head as big as a man…with fingers as long as an arm. It coiled, it curled, it hissed and flicked its horrid tongue at her.
She'd invaded its hidey hole. She'd entered its nest. She'd pissed it off.
And she had a fucking handgun. Not even drawn. Not drawn. Her gun? Tucked into her holster while she carried the blanket.
Jill said, softly, "Please don't."
And the snake struck.
She screamed. She screamed, no lie there. And she threw the blanket at it.
In the lobby where they waited, after putting down the time and their names on the typewriter, Chris and Rebecca both heard her screaming on the radio. They locked eyes and started running.
Jill rolled as the enormous fangs missed her shoulder by inches. It struck into the bookshelf where she'd been. It shattered and splintered wood and sent items to the floor in a horrible racket. It shook the whole floor beneath her as she rolled, stumbled, and ran for the door.
The blanket was on its stupid face, blocking it for just a handful of seconds. It tossed its head wildly, roaring. If a snake could roar? It was roaring.
It's coiled tail whipped at her and caught her full body. It hit her and threw her across the room. As she flipped and smashed into the wall, Jill felt her whole body collapse in pain. She slid down the wall and tried to relearn how to breathe.
She fumbled her gun from holster and shot at it. She shot at it as it whipped its head trying to restore its vision from the beneath the blanket. It flicked its tail at her again and she ducked, feeling it smash into the wall above her head. It cracked the sheetrock and dry wall peppered down on her face.
Jill crawled away and pushed to her feet. It whipped that tail once more and she leapt, tucked, and flipped over it. She skidded toward the door, caught the knob and jerked the door open. And the snake? It was free of the blanket now.
It dove at her.
She screamed, fell on her butt in a less impressive moment, and shot it right in its open mouth. Blood erupted, spraying everywhere, as it took a mouth full of rounds. It whipped its head in pain and Jill rolled sideways out of the door. She was breathing so hard that it was making her light headed.
She scrambled toward the other door in the small room and the snake burst through the door where she'd come from. It ripped apart the door frame and the room shivered, shaking like an earthquake. The noise was so loud it hurt the ears. Jill turned back to see it dive for her and she…shoved Richard at it.
Horrified but desperate, she picked up the half eaten body of her fallen comrade and shoved him into its waiting jaws. It snapped those fangs shut on him and ripped him from her hands. It tossed him around, impaled on those awful spurting fangs and blood sprayed and splashed the walls as if a paint sprayer was throwing red around them.
Jill emptied her clip at it as it tried to dislodge Richard from its fangs. Jill grabbed the door knob behind her and it whipped its tail at her. She ducked right and the tail smashed the door, bowing it outward. She jerked and it wouldn't budge.
She was trapped here with the snake. Trapped.
Trapped.
She holstered her empty gun and pulled her knife. She turned back, watching it whip its head and throw the body of Richard Aiken clear with a wet slurp of torn flesh, muscle, and blood. The blood. The blood would haunt her.
The snake dove at her face while the walls shook.
She waited, timed it, and rolled right. She felt the air split where she'd been standing, the snake struck the wall with its fangs, and she rolled into it. She drove her knife into it. She knifed its ugly eyes while it lodged there and hissed, whipping and hissing and trying to break free of its own entrapment.
Jill leapt on the back of its head, avoided losing her legs to its whipping body, and two fisted her blade. She brought it down in a stabbing arch. She took its eyes in the first round, listening to it roar, and aimed for its brain.
But it had had enough. Enough. It ripped its fangs from the wall where it had been trapped and the impact of it threw her. She was tossed up toward the ceiling. She hit the ceiling and gasped but held onto the knife. She tumbled back to the floor and the now blinded snake caught her. It caught and wrapped her in its curling, coiled, awful body. The muscle of the snaking body stole her fight.
It curled around her like a cobra and bound her arms and legs to her sides. The blind snake rose above her, gushing blood from its decimated eyes, spilling it from its half shattered mouth. It still had one good fang to impale her. It had what it needed.
Jill closed her eyes and waited for it.
She thought of Dog. She thought of all the things she'd never done. She thought of Chris, of course, and the way he laughed. The fear turned her body to stone but her mind? Her mind pictured his face. And the first time he'd told her he loved her.
I love you, Jill. He'd said it so simply. The coils tightened again and it was almost peaceful now. It cut off the blood flow to her head. She felt herself slipping toward the darkness as it compressed her central nervous system and left her weak and empty. And her eyes opened to see it almost dance with that bleeding face. A big blob of blood splattered on her shoulder and arm. It reared back and came in for the final bl—
The broken door erupted off its hinges. The splintered wood wasn't just pushed open, it was kicked down so hard it spun across the floor. She felt almost surreal watching it.
And when he stepped through, jerking the shotgun in one hand like a video game hero, she remembered something important…Chris was a door kicker. He kicked in doors. It was his thing.
Thank god.
Rebecca let out a cry of fright, she hesitated. Chris? He didn't hesitate. He rolled that shotgun in his hands put a heavy round into the diving face of the snake. He blew apart the side of its head three inches from her face. It roared, it whipped that body toward them. Rebecca shot it with her handgun, the tail caught her legs and tripped her. She went down and drove her knife into its rolling body while she did it. The little Valkyrie.
Chris stepped over it like Schwarzenegger or something and kept walking toward it. He did that…movie hero thing…he jerked shells into it with one hand and fired at it while he walked. He looked…maybe it was the shock…but she could see something all over him she'd missed before. The shadow of something else…something great. And he didn't look afraid. No. More than that? He looked like this is where he belonged. He belonged here…fighting the monsters.
He blasted it again and again and again. Jill felt it plop and ooze as it shivered, as its face was obliterated in red wash of bone and rot. And the coiled body relaxed. The body twitched, gave one last spasm of death, and flopped bonelessly to the floor. Jill, cold with shock, spilled to one side.
Chris caught her and lifted her. She curled around his front like a monkey. He carried her to the far wall and set her gently against it. Rebecca knelt beside her to inspect her for wounds.
Jill glanced up at them. She was so pale. She glanced over to see the body of Richard there on the floor a few feet away. She whispered, "I couldn't save him. I tried…I tried…"
Rebecca soothed her softly, clucking her tongue. She petted her hair. Little mother, Jill thought, watching her young face, look at you.
Chris turned back to the body of the snake. He was digging in the coils for something. Jill felt Rebecca put a plunger against her arm. She glanced down in surprise. Rebecca looked a little sheepish, "Tetanus shot…can't hurt right?"
Jill chuckled a little and Richard's blood seeped over from his body and touched her hand. It was cold. She lifted her hand to see it. His blood…on her hands.