Stay Together
Jill lifted her hand up. "Oh my god…"
Rebecca stroked her face a little with such sympathy on her pixie face. "Jill, it's not your fault. None of this. You tried. We all tried. You can't fall apart now. Not yet."
Chris knelt beside her. He knelt in the blood. Chris Redfield knelt in the blood and didn't flinch. It ran around the knee of his uniform and he blocked it from touching her any more. The significance wasn't lost on her. She blinked at him.
And he sat her beret back on her head.
She felt her mouth tilt up in a smile. It trembled. He cupped her face and didn't like how cold she was.
Rebecca said, softly, "She's shocky. Jill?"
Jill kept staring at him. Her head was fuzzy. Her belly rolled with nausea. Chris took her arms and lifted her to stand. He rubbed her arms briskly and shook them. Jill stumbled and he shifted his hands to butt to keep her from falling over.
Her eyebrows went up into her hair. "Whoa. Groped in blood…a new experience."
She turned her face toward him. He was rubbing her back briskly. Her cold lips slid against his chin. He turned his head to her. Those eyes, she thought wildly, like a peacock or something. All kinds of blue and green and swirly. She said, "You found my hat."
"I did. You look drunk, Valentine. Feeling fuzzy?"
"I am. Richard…he was ripped in half, Chris. He was ripped in half. I wanted to save him. But there was a snake…" He smacked her ass when she tried to put her tongue in his ear. "…ow."
"Focus, kid. I'm sorry about Richard. I'm sorry as hell. But I can't have you going into a fucking coma or something from shock Jill. You're better then this. Get it together."
Jill laughed a little breathily. "Better, he says. I just fought a snake as big as a double decker bus. I saw Joseph ripped apart. I saw Richard ripped apart. I watched zombies try to eat me. What is this, Chris? What is this? This isn't what I signed up for. This is wrong. It's bad. I want to go home. Take me home. Take me home ok? Just take me home."
Her eyes glittered with tears.
These girls, he thought wildly, they were trying to rip his heart out with their pain. Jill was trying to kill him with fear for her. Rebecca and her sweet denial of the horror here. They were good girls, good girls that just wanted to be heroes. Here was the chance, for all of them, to stop something awful from leaking beyond this place. They just…had to survive.
He cupped her face now to held that droopy gaze. "Jill, look here. Look at me."
She whispered, "I'm looking at you. Don't you get it? I'm always looking at you. I can't stand here and watch a snake rip you in half. I won't survive it! I won't make it. I can't protect you, Chris. I can't protect anyone. All the training? All the simulations? They are USELESS. Where is Captain Wesker? Where is Barry? WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?! How could this happen inches from our city and NO ONE KNEW!?"
Chris soothed her, glancing at Rebecca with worry on his face. Jill slumped against him, breathing too fast.
Rebecca said, "We need to get her blood pressure up, quickly. Lay her down over here."
Chris lifted her and carried her over to the dusty blanket Rebecca laid against the far wall. Jill watched him shift her legs and push them up. She giggled.
Chris glanced at Rebecca with something like horror. "She just giggled."
"I heard."
Jill made a desperate gasp as the nausea rolled in her belly. "Let go! I'm gonna blow!"
She rolled to the side and dry heaved. Rebecca patted her back gently. Nothing came up, thank god. But the forceful heaving helped clear her head.
She slumped a little and Chris helped her to her feet.
"You ok?"
She gave him a thumbs up and reminded him of Rebecca. And he'd seen that fucking snake three inches from her face. The fear still shivered in his chest like butterfly wings. She was right about one thing: they couldn't protect each other. Unless they STAYED TOGETHER.
And that was proving hard to do with so much happening.
Rebecca rose from the floor. She eyed them both. "I can tell you we have to find the truth here. We have to. Whoever did this? They can't get away with this. We can't let our friends have died for nothing."
Chris was already nodding. Jill was looking at Richard's body on the floor. Chris picked up the blanket on the floor and put it over his body. Jill crouched and jerked his dog tags free.
She rose and breathed, slow and steady. "Thank you, both of you. For that. I'm sorry you just bore witness to my panic attack. It won't happen again."
Chris met her swirling gaze. He smiled a little. "We all did it. All of us."
Rebecca was nodding sharply. "Yep. On the train. And again when Chris saved me before this. It's ok, Jill. It's ok. We can't survive this without falling apart first. It's how you build yourself back up. You break; you glue it back together."
Jill looked at her tiny form. What a girl. Brave. The brave little mouse.
They drew strength in their semi-circle and they moved together into the hallway. Chris offered Jill the only spare ammo left for her pistol. He had two rounds in the shotgun and eight in his pistol. Rebecca had a full clip for her gun. They were…screwed…really if they came up on another snake.
They moved into an adjacent room. A piano waited there and a beautiful bar stocked with expensive liquor. The wall beyond the bar was a long, flawless mirror. A painting of a beautiful castle like estate adorned the farthest wall from them. Beside it, a picture of a bunch of scientists showed happy, laughing, excited faces. Two of the faces were rubbed out as if the viewer had been enraged by them.
Jill touched the ivory keys. A piece of sheet music was sitting on the beautiful grand piano. A Steinway, it rolled her blood to see it. She hadn't touched one since the last foster home she'd been in. They'd gotten her lessons. Good people, they hadn't been able to keep her. Henri had come and taken her just as they'd discussed adoption.
She tickled the keys and listened to the beautiful and haunting strains of Moonlight Sonata. The music was torn and unfinished but Rebecca stepped up beside her and helped her play now. They worked together, piecing the music together.
Chris watched them play. The mirror reflected back the view of them. Rebecca, small and skinny, sweet and strong in her way. Jill, beautiful and determined, able to break and come back stronger and harder. Survivors? They were something. They all were.
He was the weakest person in the room. Surely they knew that. Maybe he was bigger…but he'd never be stronger. He suspected he might be the biggest coward of the bunch under the muscle.
The wall behind the bar made a sound of releasing. They stopped playing. They all turned, slowly. The wall became a door and opened to show a small room beyond.
Jill laid her hand on his arm and Chris realized…he'd aimed his weapon without thinking. He was just covering them on instinct. It had been a long night.
Rebecca stepped into the small room and picked up a jewelry box sitting there. She tilted it and inspected it. He watched her work the puzzle on it. It tinkled musically and the top opened. Inside was a tiny little gold plate with a picture of wind on it.
She lifted it, showing it to them.
Chris said, "These fucking puzzles. Keep it. Let's head back to the foyer. I just had a brain fart on where I saw a similar shape."
They moved back into the foyer. Jill went to type their names and the time on the typewriter and Chris crossed with Rebecca around the back side of the huge entryway. There was a metal gate there built into the back of the stairs…and two empty octagonal slots on either side.
Rebecca made a sound and poked the wind disk in one but it was too small. Mouth pursed, she sighed. Jill joined them and stared, blinked, and pulled the little red and white disk that had fallen out of the coffin in the cemetery tomb. She poked it in one opening. It clicked, settled, and from somewhere down the stairs on the other side of the locked gate…something let out a pitiful, frightening, hungry moan.
They glanced at each other with trepidation.
Chris quipped, "So, we need the other disk to get in there….maybe we don't find it. Maybe we just…don't."
Rebecca chuckled. Jill snorted a little. "Big baby."
"Potentially. Maybe I just want to go home too."
"Shit. Makes three of us." Rebecca grinned at them. Her little voice saying shit made them both laugh.
Chris led them back into the foyer. "So we need to potentially clear the upstairs and head out through the courtyard. The map I found in one of those rooms indicates there's a dormitory across the courtyard through the woods."
"…you want to go out into the woods in the dark, the rain, and with packs of rotting dogs out there?"
The wry amusement in Jill's voice wasn't lost on anyone. Chris eyed her with a smirk. "No. No I don't. I want to go home, play with dog, eat a burrito, and take a shit followed by a butt naked nap…that's what I WANT to do. Sadly, I don't think that's happening."
Rebecca giggled a little.
Jill said, "I will go across the courtyard and start checking it out."
Chris paused, blinking at her. "You gotta be kidding. You want to split up again?"
Rebecca intoned, "I will go with her. Chris…together? We'll be ok. We can't stay together in threes like this. It will take forever for us to cover the whole area. Clear the top floor and come meet us. We have the communicators. We have guns. No one is going to freak out again…we'll be ok."
Chris studied them. Jill smiled at him a little. "We'll be ok, big guy. We will. Us itty bitty girls? We'll be just fine."
Amused, he twitched his mouth. "Fucking RUN from any snakes, Jill. What about the lizard men? You find one? You'll end up gutted."
He tossed her the shotgun. She caught it, watching his face. "What about you? You gonna kill it with a handgun?"
"I'll punch the shit out of it or something. Don't worry about me."
"….you can't punch everything you come across, Chris. It doesn't work that way."
"Try me. I'd fight an airplane…or a giant…or a cat if I had to. I promise you."
Rebecca looked at the gate by the stairs. "Punch that. Maybe it will work."
Shrugging, Chris lifted his boot and kicked it so hard that it echoed through the foyer. Rebecca jumped. Jill chuckled.
The gate stayed closed.
Rebecca shrugged, "It never hurts to hope."
They turned toward the door leading into the courtyard. Jill glanced back as Chris mounted the stairs. She called, "Hey Redfield?"
He glanced at her from the landing, looking down at her.
"Don't…be a hero, ok? Just…punch it and run."
Chris grinned at her and then he stopped, considering. He reached up around his neck and unhooked his St. Christopher medal that he wore. His Mom had given it to him after he'd graduated flight school. He dropped it and it tumbled, musically, to be caught in her gloved hand.
She glanced at it and at him again.
He said, "I have your penny. You take my faith. Seems fair right?"
A little choked up, Jill looped it over her neck and tucked it into her uniform. "Seems fair," She agreed softly, "Hurry back ok?"
Chris grinned a little. "Cheese and rice, Valentine. Can't you stand to be away from me for even a little while?"
Jill snorted out a laugh. "Keep it, Red. Make this a lot easier on me."
"You can oogle my sweet ass when I get back, kid. I promise."
"I'm gonna kick your sweet ass when you get back. I promise."
Grinning, he disappeared through a far door. Jill waited, listening to the sound of a ticking clock somewhere. Rebecca glanced at her.
They held gazes.
Rebecca said, "You love him. It's all over you. Why aren't you together?"
Jill laughed a little and they moved into the courtyard. They cleared as they moved and she spoke softly, "This is why. Look how he's mixed in with me. I'm a mess for him. Loving him is one thing, loving him and being with him? It's just another mess. He's my best friend. We're both trying to figure out what that means."
They followed a small path through a short patch of woods and came out by a beautiful, burbling, glistening fountain. Crows cawed and hung around it, sipping the pretty crystalline water. Jill and Rebecca moved gingerly toward the far side of the wide open courtyard.
There was a large building that waited for them. Not nearly as big as the mansion, it looked more like a clubhouse or something. They eased open the door and stepped inside. It was cool inside, indicating that either the air conditioning was still working or that the source of the coolness came from somewhere else.
The walls were papered in pretty fleur delis in dark cranberry. The staging of the building had the same feel as the mansion, old but stately. A manor or something. A gothic estate with antique furniture and pretty glistening wood.
A type writer sat on an old, perfectly oiled secretariat. Jill moved to it and typed her name, the time, and her location. "Where are we?"
Rebecca glanced up at her. "This looks like a gathering room…so I'd guess this was the living quarters?"
"Ok…so….dormitory?"
"Sure."
They cleared the main room and opened the first door there. It was, indeed, a row of bunk beds and chests that were meant to hold belongings. They picked through the room looking for anything useful.
Rebecca took a moment to scan a diary left on a bed. She was shaking her head sadly as she read. Jill glanced over at her.
"Bad?"
"It mentions an outbreak. It talks about the lab becoming over run. The person writing it died after being bitten by a dog. They turned and ate their friend. The cognitive function of the brain allowed them to continue to write in this diary after the infection started…"
"Which means?"
"It means you have time before you turn. Time to understand you're dying. It means, without disabling the brain, if you're bitten…you turn."
They held gazes. Jill nodded, sadly. "So don't get bitten."
"I would suggest, based on the nature of things, don't have any blood contact with it. Any of it. If it gets in an open sore…exposed tissues…like the eyes or the nose or the mouth…you're probably done for."
Again, they held gazes. Jill queried, "Airborne?"
"Doesn't appear that way, no. But I wouldn't trust the water anywhere around here."
"I'm not drinking water from a tap EVER again."
They moved toward a door labeled 002. They could hear the muted sounds of talking beyond the door. Jill lifted her hand to hold Rebecca at bay and they crouched, listening against the wood. It was muffled and impossible to discern much.
Finally, Jill mouthed to Rebecca, "Barry?"
And Rebecca nodded.
They opened the door and stepped inside just as he shouted, loudly, "I WON'T DO IT! YOU HEAR ME!?"
Barry stood inside the room alone. He was talking to no one. He was, apparently, talking to himself. He jumped when he saw them, gasped, and dropped the bottle in his hands. It clattered to the floor and rolled.
Rebecca picked it up to look at it.
Around them, bottles lined the walls. Beakers of things were full of colorful liquids. Rebecca moved to study the piles of papers on the desk there. Barry was staring at them in horror.
Jill spoke to him like he was, possibly, insane, "You ok, big guy?"
Barry laughed nervously and shifted. "This place huh? It's starting to wear on me. I think I might be hallucinating."
Rebecca glanced at him shrewdly, "You get bitten?"
"No. Why?"
"Just checking."
Barry looked between them. "You guys ok?"
Jill studied him, crossing her arms over her chest. "We're fine but Richard…didn't make it."
Barry made a sound of distress and turned away to stare at the bed in the room. Jill turned to Rebecca who was holding the bottle he'd dropped. She lifted her gaze.
"Barry…do you know what this is?"
He was shaking his head. He looked so pale. He was twitchy and jumpy and weird. Just weird. Jill kept watching him like a cat with a mouse. He was freaking out. Why? What the hell had he seen?
It was bad. It was all bad. But this wasn't like Barry at ALL.
Rebecca replied, "It's a component for something called V-Jolt. This paperwork here insists it's how you stop the Dia Abhor AKA Plant 42."
Jill lifted a brow, "That what?"
Barry answered, "It's in the next room. The next one over. It's…something to see. It's the evil plant from Little Shop of Horrors on crack. Fifteen tentacles…they could crush you. Each one is as thick as your waist. You're saying we can kill it?"
Rebecca was reading the instructions. "I can according to this. Just give me a bit here to mix it together."
Jill nodded and turned to the door. "I'll go take a look at it. You two wait here."
She moved back into the hallway and headed toward room 003. She touched the knob and turned it…and there it was. Barry was right. It was ten feet tall and had a bulbous base like a plant…that was infected. It pussed, it pulsed, it dripped infection onto the ground from the disgusting blobs that grew off its fat stem. The tentacles were sliding and slipping like snakes over the ground. There was a watering system set up around it, feeding it…blood. Potentially blood.
Horrified, Jill eased the door closed and turned back to the other room.
Rebecca was shaking a bottle as she entered. Barry was gone.
"Where did he go this time!?"
"He said he knew where Enrico might be. Does he seem off to you?"
Jill sighed. She shifted to see what Rebecca was doing. "He does. He seems nervous or too scared. It's weird right? I know this is AWFUL. I know it's terrifying. But Barry is totally wussing out."
"He's so big. I forget that big guys can be…"
"Weak?"
Always the softie, Rebecca shook her head. "No. Not weak. GENTLE. He's a big squish."
"I know the type." Jill sat down on the bed and felt it shift just a little. Her eyebrows went up into her hair. She leaned over to look under the bed…and saw a ladder.
Curious, she shifted the bed further. And sure enough, there was a ladder beneath it.
"Bec?"
"Hmm?"
"What…the…fuck…"
Rebecca turned back to her. She blinked. They held gazes and both looked at the ladder. "So…" Rebecca said in a sing song voice, "That explains the part of the instructions that say to poison the ROOT system of the plant huh?"
"Do we need to kill the plant? Seriously? Can't we just leave?"
"What if it has the other piece we need?"
SHIT, Jill thought
Jill sighed. She said, "SHIT. Shit shit and double shit." Since just thinking it wasn't doing anyone any good.
Rebecca nodded. She offered the bottle. "This should work though."
They held eyes.
Jill asked, drolly, "It should work? As in, POSSIBLY?"
"Theoretically."
"…..you want me to go down a ladder into the unknown to try to poison something based on theoretical knowledge?" Jill thought it sounded stupid just saying it out loud. Stupid. Insane. Ridiculous.
"Why not? We're in a mansion surrounded by the undead."
The medic had a good point.
Jill took the bottle and put it in her pack. "You want to come with me?"
"You want me to?"
"Honestly? Yeah. But you should wait here. Clear the rest of this manor if you want but BE CAREFUL."
Rebecca nodded, watching her descend. "Hey Jill?"
Jill paused on the ladder, "Hmm?"
"I…like Chris. I like him. If we survive this…do you mind if I…maybe…would it be ok with you if I just….you know.." Rebecca was blushing so sweetly. Jill paused, watching her.
"You want to ask him out?"
Rebecca gnawed her lip a little. "I wouldn't ordinarily bring it up like this…but we could be dead soon so…you're my friend…but he's…." She trailed off and lifted her hands.
Yeah, Jill thought, he's something alright. She smiled at her. "Becs, he's not my boyfriend. You go for it. He could do worse, I promise you."
And Jill went down the ladder while Rebecca watched her with owl eyes.
She thought about it as she climbed. She didn't like the idea of him with anyone. That part was true. But she'd meant the friendship thing. That meant dealing with the jealousy. She figured it would always be complicated with them but she'd meant the other part too. He could do worse then Rebecca Chambers.
…
Currently, he was doing worse.
He had managed to avoid death by dogs on the balcony of the mansion. It was cool up on the second floor and the sound of crickets were nearly musical. Two dead dogs lay around in their own rot and gore. One had been a clean shot to the face. The other had leaped on him and taken him down to receive an unceremonious knife to the side of the head.
Chris moved around the corner, pistol raised, and heard the cawing. The crows were gathered in force. They were also murder…literally a murder of crows. Because Forest Speyer was leaning against the far wall…or what was left of him.
Chris made some sound. Forest was almost his best dude friend. Almost. They'd gone fishing and bowling and racing bikes. They were friendly competitors on the range. They were wingmen sometimes at the bar. They played darts and drilled farts at each other to stink the other out. They were bros.
Forest was being plucked clean by the crows around his corpse. His face was naked bone with pieces of flesh still chunked on it in bleeding hunks. His eyes were gone, his lips were missing…his hair was scraggly in its stupid ponytail. His sniper rifle sat beside him, useless. The crows cawed at Chris as they took notice of him. He moved toward the body of his friend and they flew away, flapping and crying their discontent to the night.
Chris knelt beside Forest's body. He put his hand on his shoulder. The last time he'd seen him, Forest had spent the evening making jokes and trying to light his farts. He was as immature as they came. And loyal. He was loyal. He was always on Chris' side in a fight, in a dispute, in a throw down. They'd gotten into a fist fight with two rednecks at J's Bar one night. Forest, tall and skinny, had thrown punches and whooped like a warrior while they tussled in the alley behind the bar.
"I gotcha BACK, Redddddfieeelld!" He was always drawing out Chris' name like that. Sing song and silly. And then he'd howl like a wolf. He was always shouting BROS BEFORE HOOOOOES! He was always hitting on girls and crashing and burning.
Chris had never had a brother…but Forest Speyer had been close enough.
Chris gripped his dog tags and jerked them clean. He picked up the sniper rifle and rose. He felt numb, empty, and there were no jokes now to ease the pain of it. He turned toward the door to leave the balcony and Forest moaned.
Concerned, Chris turned back to him. But he was dead. Of course, he was dead. He was undead. He shambled slowly to his feet, naked face making that sound that was so familiar now. So awful and familiar.
Chris set the sniper rifle down and drew his knife. Forest lumbered toward him. He said, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Forest? I'm sorry."
The corpse of Forest Speyer lunged for him and Chris caught his throat, made a sound of regret, and drove his combat knife into the back of his head. Forest collapsed against him, bleeding on his uniform. Chris sunk to his knees, holding the body.
The body.
The dead body.
He made a sound again. He knew he was holding a corpse. He knew it. He held on for a long moment, breathing. Forest slid down his front and onto his face on the wrought iron beneath them. He had a tattoo of their STARS badge at the base of his skull beneath his oily, thin, overly long hair. That stupid mullet of his was something else.
Chris stayed kneeling beside him. This is what it looked like to lose everyone. To wonder into a nightmare and watch it all fall apart. He was pushing on. He was pushing through. He was trying so hard to laugh and move and breath and live.
And they were dying. They were all dying. They were dying in this mansion. In this place. In this hellhole. How long before it was Jill? Rebecca? Him?
He glanced down at his dead best friend.
How long before someone put a knife in his head to give him peace? Would anyone be left alive to offer him that? Or would he shamble around in the bowels of this infected freakshow until he simply…rotted away?
In his head, he heard Forest answer the question, "I gotcha BACK, Reeddddfielllldd!"
The grief choked him. It nearly killed him. It swelled up around him to obliterate his conscious thought. It arrowed into his body and brought about a need for revenge so swift, so deep, and so painful that it stole his breath. It hollowed him out and left justice in its place.
He was going to burn this place to the ground and piss on the ashes.
He was going to find the man responsible and destroy him.
He was going to get up and go do that…right now. Right…now.
The body of Forest Speyer was still warm beside him. And he didn't rise to help. He didn't rise at all. Because he had a knife in the back of his head.
And Chris had one in his heart.
The grief came out of his mouth in a quiet moan.
And Chris Redfield put his face in his hands and broke, crying softly there on the wrought iron balcony beside the body of his buddy, while the crickets chirped and the crows cawed out their need to devour what was left of those left behind.