A Monster In Chains

Jill leapt off at the base of the ladder. She was surrounded by water on a narrow walkway now that circled a massive room. She glanced around, listening to the rushing and rolling of it. Her boots clanged over the metal as she moved to the only door on the metal walk way.

She glanced over the railing into the water as she moved. It was dark and impossible to see into the fathomless depths. She opened the door easily enough and stepped into a tiny room. There was a computer to one side and a MASSIVE root structure before her. It had over grown here. It was taking over the whole room. She felt like Tarzan in the jungle based on all the overgrowth. It was bowing the structural integrity of the room.

The glass wall beside her gave the viewer a nice look into the water. But again, the darkness from the lack of lighting showed nothing to the naked eye. Jill studied the root of the plant, searching for a place to dump the chemical Rebecca had given her.

There was trough at the base, close to the main fat stem, that seemed to be offering sustenance to the eager goliath it supported. Jill glanced over at the computer and moved to tap some keys. It clicked on, surprising her. It was recently used, clearly, based on what was on the screen. She clicked through the data.

It was monster data. It was scientist data. It was nerd stuff about lizard men and sharks and plants and…them. She froze, reading the files on it. Her. Barry. Chris. Rebecca. There was so much information on them. Someone…had been studying them.

Something cold shifted in her chest.

She eyed the data and didn't notice the creeping along the floor at her feet. Something snaked her ankle just as she clicked the keys to see the login name of the person who'd been here. She scrolled down, anticipating the name of the traitor amongst them…and she was jerked off her feet.

It was so fast. So fast. She was lifted off her feet and dangling upside down. It stole her breath. The plant smashed one of its massive roots into the computer and obliterated it with a burst of metal, spark of fire, and clatter of broken glass. Jill felt it shake her around above it, waving her madly as she dangled. She smashed into the wall, felt dizzy from it, and it threw her away.

Airborne, she crashed into the broken computer, rolled and pushed off at a run. She popped the top on the poison, ducked under a flailing root, and dumped the shit right into the trough at its base. It tried to knock her down and she rolled, missing the smash of another tentacle. It smashed into the ground where she'd been.

The poison kicked in quickly. It weakened it. It tossed its limb in fear and anger now. It was wild, throwing those massive tentacles around in desperate death throws. But it didn't die. Not exactly. It grabbed her and coiled around her like the snake had. It looped, looped, looped and stole her breath. She jerked, gasping, and felt the world go dark at the corners for the second time in one day.

The door burst open and in came Barry Burton. He shouted, rotated, and fire WHOOSHED out of his hands like a magician. He SPEWED fire at it, shouting. No…wait…the flamethrower in his hands was spewing. It struck the plant and set it ablaze. The world was suddenly burning as she was jerked clean and the fled the fire before it consumed them both.

She slammed the door to the room, they hurried toward the ladder they'd both come down on….and the walkway shifted, groaning with a metallic sound. Jill watched, in horror, as something leapt…flying…out of the water in the tank beside them.

She screamed. Barry ducked. And JAWS, rotting and roaring, landed on the walk way in front of them. Barry was thrown sideways into the water. Jill held on and slid over, inches closer to death.

The enormous shark belly flopped toward her, fast, so fast. She scuttled backward, slipping in the water, crying out. It leaped on her and knocked her to the floor while she fled. She went onto her back, threw up her arms, and felt those rows of teeth dive for her face.

Her knife drove into its oozing nostril, she scented copper, she felt fear ERUPT out of her in a blood curdling battle call. Her knife in its nose brought it up short from eating her face off. It reared back and Jill jerked the shotgun up where it was wedged between their pressing bodies. She shoved it under the roaring chin and pulled the trigger. The heavy round blew its face apart in a steaming wash of blood and horror. It obliterated that face and left a smoking, bleeding, bursting mess behind.

The body collapsed atop her, pinning her to the walkway. She heard movement and panicked, picturing another one coming for her. But Barry dragged her out from beneath the slimy, rubbery corpse and pulled her clear.

"You ok!?"

He shouted it. She realized he was bleeding from his left ear. Concerned, she touched him and he backed off, shaking his head. "It's ok. I hit the wall. I'm ok. Let's get out of here!"

They ran for the ladder. She was halfway up when they heard another one flop onto the landing. She threw herself up into the room above and reached down to help him clear. She watched it dive for his legs and miss by inches.

Shouting, she slammed the hatch down on the ladder, sealing it in.

Rebecca stood staring at them, wide eyed and frightened.

Jill said, softly, while Barry lay on the floor relearning to breathe, "The plant didn't have anything."

But Rebecca lifted her hands to show a small card key. "It was tangled in the dead plant with a guy in a lab coat. It's an access key for an elevator."

And Jill collapsed onto her back beside Barry to find a way to breathe.

Rebecca, above them, whispered, "There's an elevator off the kitchens on the main floor of the mansion."

The communicator on Rebecca's vest crackled, just once, and they heard it. They heard his voice. Their long lost captain, "...repeat…" Static and hissing. "…MONSTER IN CHAINS….over."

And the three of them took a moment to gather their resolve to keep going.

…

Chris paused in the foyer, typing his name on the type writer there.

He held Forest's dog tags in his grip, rolling them. He'd cleared the top floor without much luck. There were pieces everywhere, clues, things that Nancy Drew could have assembled. But he was just left with more questions.

Where was the lab? What was in the lab? Who was the person responsible for the infection that ran rampant around the mansion? Where were Jill and Rebecca? Was anyone else alive? Where was Barry? Where was the rest of Bravo team?

Where was Wesker?

The door on the landing opened and Chris aimed down his arm at it. But the answer to three of those questions emerged. Barry and Jill and Rebecca emerged and Chris lowered his pistol.

Rebecca hurried down the stairs toward him. "Are you ok?"

Chris nodded, silently.

Jill studied his face as she came down the stairs. She looked worse, clearly. She was soaked and covered in blood, and her beret looked less than pleasant. She looked bedraggled and harried and exhausted.

But Chris?

He looked half dead.

His eyes were haunted. His uniform was soaked in blood on the shoulder. She glanced at his hand, curled so tightly around something. And she saw the chain dangling there.

Her eyes lifted to his face. And she saw that too now. The grief. It was plastered on him. It was in the pale tint of his skin, in the puffiness of his eyes. She stopped and met his look. The pain clawed at her throat.

She whispered, "Who?"

And he answered, gruffly, "It doesn't matter. It's done."

He turned away from her.

Barry and Rebecca were moving toward the right side of the mansion. Jill moved forward and didn't wait. She slipped her arms around him from behind.

Chris froze in her arms. She put her cheek against his dirty back and held him. The pain of it clawed up his chest and tried to spill out of him. He shook his head, denying her. He unlooped her arms and stepped away.

Jill shifted again, "Who Chris?"

He dropped the dog tags on the ground and Jill bent to pick them up. She read them and rose. The tears sprang in her eyes. She looked at him and hurt for him. She hurt. He looked so stoic, he looked so raw. He looked so broken.

She breathed his name. She moved into him and he tried to back off. She shook her head and took his face. He resisted and she pressed their foreheads together.

"Don't," She whispered, "Don't pull away. Don't. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Chris made some sound and relented. He grabbed her shoulder holster in his fists and leaned into her. Jill felt the wet tears on her cheeks. "He was a good man."

It nearly broke him. He made some sound. She swept her thumbs over his cheeks to take away the two fat little tears that broke free. With sympathy, she remarked, "We'll make it right, Chris. We'll set it right."

He shook his head and stepped away. He swiped the heel of his hand over his cheek and rubbed the back of his neck. "Can't make it right," His voice was hoarse from tears but he didn't let anymore of them go, "But we can make them pay. What did you find out?"

Wanting to hold him more and knowing the timing was wrong, Jill said, "We have a card key. We'll head down there and see what we find. Chris…."

He turned back to her as they reached the kitchen where Barry and Rebecca waited. Jill studied his face. There was no humor there now. No light. He was so dark. He was so sad. Her guy. He was so sad.

She couldn't stand there and watch it kill him. But he had to know. "Someone was watching us. Someone was doing this…I think…to bring us here. On purpose. I think someone did this on purpose."

"You're saying someone lured us here and killed all these people…for what?"

The derision in his voice. He couldn't believe someone would be that awful. Didn't he understand what was happening here? They were being played. They were being manipulated like chess pieces. They were being pushed into a trap of some kind.

The question was…why?

They emerged into the stairwell and found the elevator…

And it was only Rebecca waiting for them there.

Chris blinked, "Where's Barry?"

Rebecca was watching them with wide eyes. "He said something about Wesker. He said he had to find Wesker. He just…took off."

Jill felt that shiver in her stomach again. She turned her eyes to Chris. His face didn't echo it back. Of course not. Chris was so good. He'd never believe someone so close would be capable of betraying them. Never.

And not Barry.

Chris and Barry were old friends. Friends from the service. Buddies. Pals. Compadres. They were Forest and Chris over twenty years of friendship. Barry would never betray Chris.

Barry would never do that.

The shiver in her belly said otherwise.

They stepped into the elevator. It creaked and groaned. It was more of an old fashioned lift then an elevator. It lowered with a rickety clunk of sound. It sounded vaguely like train tracks – clack, clack, clack…clack, clack, clack…

The sounds filled the silence.

Rebecca studied the two of them. There was something in Chris' eyes now. There was some level of pain or grief that was haunting him. It was bad enough he was staying away from Jill. Jill looked wounded by his separation from her. Rebecca was into Chris.

There was no getting around that. She was into him. It was inappropriate to consider while they were ass deep in conspiracy and seeking fast. But she figured it would distract her from the horrors they'd seen to just…think about him. He never looked at her like that. He never looked anywhere like that…except for Jill. He looked at Jill in a way Rebecca had never been looked at.

She wondered if she'd die waiting for him to look at her like that.

The elevator chugged and lowered with a grinding thump to the floor. The three of them stood in a semi-circle looking out at the weeping, seeping, stagnant walls of the cave that spilled empty, cavernous, and damp before them. The rampant rolling smell of musty water infiltrated the nostrils with a noxious assault.

The first question that came to mind was really rather simple: Why was there a watery cave that required an elevator to reach it beneath the kitchen of the mansion? What kind of fucking place was this? What kind of conspiracy laden bullshit was it that required one to place a cave adjacent to a laboratory? What science fiction horror show was playing in their own backyard? Didn't they understand that people were having barbecues and jumping in sprinklers miles away from where they were cooking up death in beakers like twisted drug dealers?

Who was the mastermind behind this Steven King style shit show?

Chris didn't make a joke. He didn't make a snarky comment. He just got off the elevator.

Hurt, afraid, Jill followed him.

The cave was so cool, almost cold. A stalactite brushed against her shoulder as they moved. Rebecca stuck close to her side. They were both very aware that Chris was not himself. The change was startling and somewhat alarming.

The cave came to a split. A fork in the road awaited them. Jill glanced down the left way. Chris glanced right. She said, softly, "We should split up right?"

Rebecca hesitated.

Chris looked down both tunnels. The silence, it was so loud. How could silence be loud? It was, when you were with a man who was so broken. Where was his humor? Where was his light? Who was this man who traveled with them now, a shadow of his former self? This nightmare had done more than murder their friends….it had killed Chris Redfield in ways that were still unclear. He was walking, he was talking, his body was there…but what made him Chris? That…was dead or dying…or on life support.

Jill was more afraid of that than any monster they'd yet found to battle.

Finally, he spoke, "Stay together. Don't go TOO far. Stay close enough to hear each other."

He'd just put Rebecca and Jill together again. They glanced at each other. Jill went to say something and a rattling sound drew their attention. They turned back the way they'd come.

Standing in the opening to the tunnel was something that might have been human once. It was human in size and skinny with a hunched back and filthy clothes on its shambling body. Its face was rotted naked bone and papyrus like flesh. Scraggly black hair trailed filthy and greasy down its skeletal back. Its hands were secured in a heavy square cement restraint, binding them before it like handcuffs. Its ankles were encased in steels cuffs with the remnants of broken chains that dragged noisily, almost musically, over the slick rock beneath it. Gripped in one hand, a chain dangled and something trailed into the darkness on the chain behind it.

It saw them and stood there, eyeing them.

Rebecca made a small sound and finally spoke, "….are you ok?"

And the thing moaned. It moaned so pitifully. It moaned and moved toward them. And it didn't move slow. It moved hungrily. And the chain in its hand was revealed as it did.

Heads. It had heads on the chain. It had human heads impaled on the metal rings. The eyes were open, the mouths feasting on the rusting length of it. The thing had taken heads…as trophies? And bound them to the chain.

Jill whispered, "Jesus Christ."

And the thing swung the chain with the heads at them.

Rebecca shouted and rolled. Jill dove left. Chris ducked and went right. They split apart and ran down the tunnels. Jill was alone as Rebecca followed Chris.

Chris and Rebecca ducked and moved swiftly as the cave narrowed and wound. They couldn't stop to wait for Jill, they just moved. When it split again, they hurried down the right tunnel without looking back. There was no way to know which of them was being pursued by the monster in chains.

They ran around a bend and slid to a stop. Rebecca bumped into Chris' back and spilled onto her butt on the floor behind him. And Chris stood facing Enrico Marini, the Bravo team captain. He was slumped on the floor, holding his stomach. He was bleeding badly and breathing hard. He also had his pistol aimed at Chris.

Chris lifted his hands to show himself unarmed.

Enrico kept the gun on him.

He coughed and blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. "…come to finish me off?"

Chris couldn't answer because Rebecca let out a shout of surprise and hurried around him. Enrico, seeing her, lowered his gun as she rushed to his side and slid on the wet ground. She put her hand over his stomach to put pressure on his wound.

Something like shock was on his face as she looked at her. "Rebecca…you're alive."

Rebecca nodded, opening her first aid pack to gather what she needed. "I am. I am. Thanks to Chris and Jill. They found me after I got here. You made it too."

Enrico glanced at Chris as Rebecca started patching him up. He held gazes with the alpha team point man. Redfield was a good man. He was having trouble believing he might be a traitor. If he was…why was he protecting Rebecca? Enrico knew who the traitor was. He knew it. He just didn't know if Redfield was in it with him.

He spoke, softly now, "Umbrella planted a traitor in STARS. They put them there to lead us here and to…" He coughed, cringing in pain.

Rebecca soothed him, rubbing his arm.

"…to…stop us if we figured it out. If we got too far. If we learned too much." He glanced up at Chris' stoic countenance. "We'll never get out of here. We're done. If you keep going down this way…there's nothing there to save you. Or us. We are fucked."

Rebecca shook her head, smoothing his hair back. "Shh. You're scared. You're talking crazy. We'll get out of here. We'll make it. Just breathe."

Chris held his glassy and desperate gaze. "Tell me what you know."

Enrico nodded, shifting on the wall. "I found files. Lots of files. They talked about infection, experimentation. They mentioned names…names of people in Raccoon City. At first, I didn't believe it…but then I found the memo. A memo to the STARS office. It detailed the plan to use us as guinea pigs for biological weapon testing. We're in their playground, Chris. We're the rats here. And what's worse? We followed the pied piper right to our own deaths."

Chris knelt now, watching his face eagerly. "Who is it, Enrico? Who's the traitor?"

Enrico grabbed his hand and held it, hard. "It's C—"

The sound of the gun erupting scared them all. The muzzle flashed in the darkness. Rebecca cried out and threw up her arm. Chris ducked. But they weren't the target.

The target was Enrico Marini.

And he was dead.

Dead.

Shot between the eyes.

His gaze stared emptily at the wall before him. Rebecca made a sound of horror and kept staring at him. She made a keen of sound.

Chris was already running away. He was chasing the gun men. He was running hard and fast. But it was a fruitless endeavor. He ran back into the tunnel where they'd come from and found nothing. No one. Not a trail, not a sound, nothing.

He spun, spun, spun and listened. He listened for anything. A sound, a sign, a slap of boots…but there was nothing but silence. With a cry of rage, he turned down the other tunnel and started running toward where Jill had gone.