Chapter 15: Pontification
"What madness speaks. What madness reeks. What madness leaks...from mouths and words that wage a war of lies.."
The Maze, Russia, April
There's a silence that pervades after death. It fills up a room like water in a cup. It shifts the dynamic of the room until it feels like those left behind are existing inside a bubble of grief and pain. Ada wasn't entirely sure she could draw a full breath.
She waited, watched, waited, watched and his chest didn't rise again. She should check his pupils…she should check his pupils for fixation and dilation. But she couldn't do it. She couldn't. She couldn't do it.
Leon stepped forward and checked for a pulse. The sound of ragged weeping from Claire was loud. It was the only sound. And it was horrible. He met Ada's eyes and shook his head.
She turned away and moved toward the door.
"We need to find something, anything, that might be a map of some kind."
Claire sobbed quietly into her hands. She was huddled on the floor, holding herself.
Leon shifted and looked at Jill. Jill was staring off into space as if listening to voices only she could hear. He figured he, Sherry, and Ada were the only three still remembering that they were in immediate and mortal danger. And it wasn't doing Chris any honors to stand here weeping.
It sounded so logical in his head…but he still hadn't taken his hand off the dead man's shoulder. If he moved his hand it was done. It was over. And that final thing was the most painful thing he'd ever done.
So he squeezed that shoulder, one more time, and then he let go.
Sherry touched his arm and Leon turned his head to meet her eyes. In the rush of things, he hadn't stopped to acknowledge how wonderful and awful it was that she was here too. Someone was playing a very dangerous game.
He squeezed her hand and held it for a long moment before letting it go. He started to search amongst the spilled documents for any kind of coordinates or something relevant to where they were and how to get where they needed to go.
Sherry began searching as well. Ada was already digging through the desk at the far side of the room. Leon moved to the door there and jiggled the knob.
Locked.
So he put a boot on it and kicked it open. The cheap lock gave with a snap and opened to an office. A dead body lay on the floor holding a revolver in its hand. Clearly, the person had hidden in here and put themselves out of their misery. The room was stocked with a fair amount of supplies from food to medical needs. Leon picked up the revolver and then started to dig amongst the files in the office.
The map of the island was pretty easy to find. There was even a little arrow and sticker on it that said YOU ARE HERE. It was clearly meant for visitors to the compound. And it showed what he'd already suspected.
They were on an island. The island was about ten miles wide from one end other. It was made up of about eight buildings from a cafeteria, an infirmary, the lab, the barracks. The overseer's home sat farther away and was backed by the lighthouse and the tower. The eighth building had been the testing ground.
The infirmary was about a half mile east of the overseer's home. Ten to one said it was a mansion. He had to agree with Barry…he was sick of mansions.
He came out of the office and went to show Chris the map.
And then he remembered that he was dead.
Chris Redfield was dead.
Everything they'd done and survived and this is where it ended. He ended up gutted like a fish bleeding to death in some god forsaken hell hole. Couldn't he have at least been granted the dignity to die old and in his bed with some woman's mouth around his cock?
Apparently not.
Claire was standing now and had finally stopped weeping although he could see the sobbing had taken its toll. He stepped forward and took her face in his hand. "When we get off this island, we will have a drink to honor him. We will tell stories and gnash our teeth and curse the heavens. But Claire, look at me."
She focused on his face. "We have to go on now. Staying here, dying with him, you know he wouldn't have any of it. He'd skin me alive if I let anything happen to you."
She nodded and seemed to draw strength from him. "I won't fail him. I'm ready."
Leon gestured. "I know you are. Good girl. I'm going to go out first, scout around. We need to know if the tyrant is still out there and Nemesis. Stay here, for now, stay together. Nobody venture out. I think we should go by the barracks first and try to find some damn weapons. There's got to be something out there we can use."
He gestured at the office. "The lab worker in there is female. Ada - I think her shoes might fit you."
Ada moved into the office to divest the corpse of anything useful.
And Leon disappeared out into the dark.
Ada emerged wearing the shoes. She passed the lab coat to Jill to put on over her ripped tank top. The four women were very, very quiet. But it was Jill that spoke first.
"I didn't know you were involved with him."
Ada said nothing.
"He never said a word about it."
Claire studied Ada and there was something on her face. It was hard and angry and mean.
"Please tell me you're not the reason he's dead."
Ada met that angry gaze. And her face was tight and very blank.
"You backstabbing bitch…it's your fault he's here. They took him to get to you, didn't they? Are these people you worked for once? Old friends, Ada? Did you steal something from them and now they want revenge?" Claire shoved her and Ada stumbled but didn't back down.
Jill tried to intervene. "Whoa whoa, Claire. Hold on. We don't know anything about what's going on here. If they just wanted Ada, why are we all here?"
"I don't know," Claire shoved her again, "But I know this. Somebody stole this bitch while she was in bed with my brother. From the moment he let her come to work for him, we've had nothing but messes to clean up in her wake. She's lied, stolen, backstabbed and betrayed every person she's ever met. Did you betray him, you bitch?"
And finally, Ada answered, quietly, "I don't know."
"You don't know?! My brother is DEAD! I think it's about time you figured it out!"
Sherry grabbed Claire's arm as she went to slap Ada. "Claire! It's not her fault. Stop it! She's in this too ok? And someone wants us all. Just stop it!"
Claire spat on the floor at Ada's feet. "Dangling Leon off your claws all these years wasn't enough huh? You had to add my brother to the notches on your bedpost. You fucking black widow…you kill everyone who gets too close to you."
Ada said nothing as Sherry dragged Claire away from her. She stayed there, leaning against the wall where she'd been pushed. Jill spoke gently into the silence.
"She's wrong. She's crazy with grief and wrong," She met Ada's eyes, "I saw how you looked at him. I saw him look at you. If she wasn't blind right now, she'd see it too. Help me get revenge for him."
They held eyes for a long, long moment and finally, Ada nodded. Jill said, softly, "I loved him too. Sometimes it feels like all my life. I loved him too."
The women joined hands and squeezed. It said more than a hug. Two beautiful women joined in grief over the body of the man they'd both loved.
The door eased open and Leon moved into the room again.
"The way is clear from here to the barracks. For now. The doors locked and I can't just bust it down. There's a window above it but I need one of you lovely ladies to volunteer to get boosted up there."
Ada turned away and let them talk it out. She moved back toward where Chris lay, still and quiet. He was pale, so pale, but besides that was the peace that had settled around him. The great and wide and awful darkness in him was gone now. He wouldn't suffer anymore. There was only peace here. He'd been chasing it for so long.
Part of her was glad he'd found it.
She leaned down and pressed a kiss to his cold, cold mouth and whispered, "I will avenge you. I swear on my life, I will avenge you."
Her hand trembled as she laid it on his cold cheek. She put her mouth to his ear to whisper her last words to him and she lifted his hand to lay it on her belly. "This isn't your end, Chris Redfield. I will avenge you."
Her narrow shoulders collapsed around her, just for a moment, a brief moment...a second...a flutter...of wings...and all the grief she'd allow herself. All the time she'd let herself hold on. Just a breath. Just a goodbye.
Just a kiss.
She rose and turned, moving toward the door. Claire was watching her through narrowed eyes. Sherry and Jill were both watching her with sympathy. She stopped beside Leon and turned her eyes to him.
"I'll go through the window."
He nodded. And there was something on his face that was sympathetic as well. She'd expected jealousy or anger. But he was looking at her with understanding and pity. And grief. And she wanted to fall against him and weep.
Because it was nearly a physical ache, she moved out of the door and into the darkness beyond.
Leon paced beside her as they moved.
When they paused and she prepared to go up, his hand settled on her arm and held, lightly. "Did he know?"
They held eyes in the quiet dark.
A loaded question. "Know what?"
Leon's look was long-suffering look. "Don't play games, Ada."
"Life is a game, Leon. You know that."
His look was cool and patient.
Sighing with frustration, Ada mused shrewdly and shook her head, "No. How did you?"
His eyes were very blue in the moonlight, "Must be all that keen intellect I'm known for."
Ada said nothing.
He held her dark gaze, "I have to protect you, Ada. It's what he'd want."
"I don't need your protection, Leon. I never have. Put me through the window."
He boosted her up without any trouble and she crawled through the window at the barracks. The well-lit room was similar to the infirmary. It was rows and rows of bunk beds and side tables with lamps on it. It was surprisingly well maintained. There was nary a corpse or an overturned table to be seen.
She undid the lock and opened the door.
A set of stairs sat off to the left that led down to the second floor. Ada moved down the stairs with Leon behind her. Claire, Sherry, and Jill began searching amongst the beds on the first floor. If there was anything worth finding, they'd find it.
The second level was where everyone had fled to die. The stench of rotting meat met you the moment you hit the bottom three steps. Ada shuddered but kept moving.
Bodies were piled atop each other in various states of decay. Most he been dispatched by a quick bullet to the head. Ada stepped over two dead women and moved toward the far side of the basement. A door was slightly ajar with a man's body keeping it open and wedged in between. Ada shifted the door open farther and stepped into the room.
This was where all the weapons were. They were piled up on a desk. There were pistols and revolvers, a shotgun was propped against the desk, and a freaking katana lay bloody and sharp on the floor. Ada lifted a brow at Leon.
"Well, obviously Michonne has been here."
Ada picked up the katana. A quick check and combining of available rounds gave them enough weapons to give one each to their group. Of course, Ada wouldn't have a gun. But she had a sword. Sadly this seemed inadequate against the Nemesis. But she was betting she and Leon were the only ones with any formal training to use it.
Leon said, "Chris was aces with a katana."
Surprised, she lifted her gaze from the sword. He held her look, quietly, "Yep. The guys was a fucking samurai in his soul. I thought he was messing around. He dressed like one for Halloween one year. I challenged him to a duel..."
He laughed a little, shaking his head, "My mistake. For a big guy, mother fucker is fast as hell."
His smile froze, "...was. He was fast as hell."
Ada whispered, softly, "...not fast enough it seems. Not nearly fast enough."
The sword spilled from her hand to the table with a clank of metal. She put her face in her hands and hunched, just a little, around herself. Her body bowed in and curled.
He moved without thinking, scooping her in against him. Ada looped her fingers into his tank top and squeezed. Her face pressed into his chest. Leon thought, he'd never in his life seen anything worse than Ada Wong weeping.
She clung, almost desperately. Leon couldn't remember ever hugging her. In all the time he'd known her, how many times had they even touched?
And here she stood, grieving for Chris Redfield in his arms. Surreal.
She did it so softly. Almost silently. Her body jerked in little spasms against his. Leon stroked her back and put his cheek on her head, rocking a little. "It's alright, Ada. It'll be alright."
Claire was frozen on the stairs, watching.
Maybe she was blind with grief, but she wasn't stupid. Ada Wong was grieving for her brother.
It made the pain of it hurt just a little less to know that Ada Wong had loved him. Ada Wong had loved her brother.
Whatever good it did, he'd died loved.
He still deserved better.
Leon cupped her face and turned it up to him. His thumbs swiped away the tears on her cheeks. Beautiful, he thought, when she cried, when she was vulnerable - the formidable Ada Wong was beautiful when she was human.
"Not yet. Let's avenge him. First, vengeance, Ada. Then grief."
She nodded, nodded again, and tugged his hands from her face. She swiped the heels of her palms over her cheeks, wiping away the tears. "Thank you. I apologize for that. I'm ready now."
He said nothing as they moved back to the stairs.
They gave Sherry and Claire each a pistol as they reached the top floor again. Jill was given the shotgun. The small, bloody, tired group looked amongst each other and nodded. They moved to head back out into the cold and clammy night.
And the intercom sparked to life.
"So far so good! A shame about Chris! I really thought he'd be the hero again! But such is the way of things! The good news is you've made it this far, the bad news is time is running out. You are each equipped with a tracker implanted in your neck. It tells me where you are and where you are going. It also acts a detonator should you try to escape my playground here. So don't get any bright ideas about that. The devices are on a timer, they will detonate themselves at dawn. So that leaves you…seven hours to find me, kill me, and save yourselves! Tick tock!"
The voice faded away again.
Claire spoke first. "I'm going to end that bitch."
They stepped out into the darkness…and came face to face with three hunters. Each group was surprised, the human and non-human alike. The hunters began to roar in excitement.
The group scattered as one leaped and landed in the middle of them. Jill answered its screaming jaws with a blast from the shotgun. It was tossed off its feet by the short distance below, thrown away to writhe and die on the ground a few feet away.
The second made a swipe at Ada and she severed its arm at the elbow with an easy blow from the katana. It retreated, spraying blood as it ran. The third eyed her, considering.
"Don't be stupid. Follow your friend."
It hissed, gnashed its teeth, and charged her.
She felt the air shift as it leaped and came down toward her. Ada parried, waited, and thrust the sword straight through its chest as it landed on her. It drove them both to the ground with its weight and she used that momentum to drive the blade home, feeling it burst free from the back of the hunter in a gush of blood.
It roared and she twisted that blade, jerked it back and forth, shredding the heart and doing as much damage as she could. It was dead atop her after no more than a few moments. She struggled out from beneath it and kicked the body over. With an angry jerk, she pulled her blade free.
"I told you to run, you idiot."
Soaked in blood, she joined the others. And they moved toward the tower in the distance.
They were almost to the mansion when they saw the horde. It was gathered around the base of the gate to the building beating at the bars. Hundreds of zombies, mewling and moaning, searching for food and relief. There was no logical way through. None.
And no way they could kill all those zombies their selves.
As if to answer the question, the roar went up into the night. "STARZZZZ!"
The Nemesis came around the edge of the building toward them. With no other option, they raced toward the horde.
Jill drew its attention, she rushed into the biggest mass of bodies. They grabbed for her and she ducked, pushed, dodged and the let the Nemesis open fire. They were like a putrid, stinking, rotting human shield. Their bodies began to absorb bullets and fall, smashing into each other. She crouched and moved amongst their dancing bodies, heading toward the gate. The gate was locked, tight, but the wall beside it was crumbling.
Jill jerked at rocks, knocking away zombie hands and desperation until she could climb through the small hole she'd made. On the other side of the fence, she moved to unlock the gate. Sherry, Ada, Claire and Leon barreled through the tiny opening she made and she threw the lock again, feeling the rotting teeth of a zombie on her hands as she did. They ducked and crouched, running low to the ground toward the building.
The Nemesis was now wading into the zombies, tossing them aside as it tried to locate Jill.
They burst through the doors into the mansion. It was beautiful and very, very open. A chandelier as wide as a bus dangled over the shiny, mirror floor casting jeweled daggers of light. The mirror beneath their feet was spotless and reflected their fear back at them as they ran toward the stairs. The staircase split in the middle and opened up to run up either side of the giant fountain in between. The fountain was a twisted metal creation of copper and iron.
There was nowhere to go at the top of the stairs. The one door was locked tight.
"Where now?!" Sherry cried and the Nemesis burst into the mansion, roaring.
Zombies began to pour in around it. Annoyed, the Nemesis did something amazing…it became their unlikely ally. It started to kill the undead around it. Its programming told it to eliminate all threats. And the zombies were trying to eat it.
It turned the gun on them and opened fire.
Leon was trying to get the door open. But it was obvious it was on some kind of mechanism or timer. It wasn't budging. He started feeling for secret panels or levers. And then his eyes turned to the chandelier.
He and Ada had the same thought at the same time.
He moved toward it, judging the distance. Sherry, realizing what madness he was planning, shook her head. "Are you crazy?"
"It will take out most of them in one move. And we need the Nemesis to open that door for us. You three get out of the way. Jill…get ready to lead it up here toward that door." Leon handed Ada his pistol and took the katana. He backed up to the wall and started running, full speed.
At the edge of the balcony, he jumped. It seemed a handful of long moments passed with him airborne before he landed, grabbing the edge of the chandelier and hoisting himself up on it. He climbed upward, hearing the tinkle of crystal. At the top, he studied the way it was bound to the ceiling. Without a screwdriver, he wasn't going to get the bolts off. He stuck the blade of the katana against the plate that held it and dangled, using his body weight to jerk it free. It protested but shifted, showing the internal components of wire and cable that held it in place. Leon began to saw at it with the sword.
The chandelier began to shift, began to list to one side, and the weight of itself began to pull it free of its bindings. Leon swung back and forth on it, like Tarzan on a vine in the jungle and leaped free to land on the railing again.
He climbed over, turned, and watched. With a groan of steel and surrender, the chandelier jerked free of its bindings. It plummeted into the waiting bodies below and struck with a scream of breaking crystal and twisting metal. The fountain bowed and broke beneath the assault, spewing water all over the smashed corpses beneath, sloughing skin and congealed blood off in a burst of wet and horror.
Only a few stragglers remained and the Nemesis cut them down in a spray of blood and bullets. It had been smart enough to move aside of the falling threat. The silence was golden now and loud in the previously cacophonous roar of death and breaking chandelier.
The Nemesis stepped through water and ruin, moving to mount the stairs and follow them.
It lifted its arm to take aim with that gun and Leon brought the sword down. It arced, sliced, and bit into the arm of the Nemesis above that gun. With something like surprise, the Nemesis turned its attention but was too slow. Leon hacked at it again, and again, and the arm fell away, clunking and clanking on the stairs, bisected from its body.
The Nemesis let out a roar of anger and backhanded him. Leon was lifted up and tossed. He went over the edge of the railing and tumbled down into the mass of a mess below. The fall should have killed him but he was cushioned by the dead gathered like a fleshy pillow beneath. It took his breath away and his body told him he'd be in a lot more pain later when the adrenaline wore off. But it was worth it. The Nemesis had lost its gun.
It leveled the playing field a little.
He picked up the sword and moved, stumbling a little as he hurried toward the stairs. He could hear the women yelling, fighting.
And he heard the Nemesis burst through the door, just like they'd planned.
As he came around the corner he saw that it had Jill. It had its hand around her throat and was dangling her.
"STARZZZZZ!"
Something horrible was emerging from it now. Tentacles, fat, purple and horrible tentacles were whipping around it like Slender Man gone wrong. One slapped at Sherry as she rushed forward and knocked her into a roll that left her very, very still on the floor ten feet away.
Claire was a little better at avoiding them. She ducked and rolled. She even managed to leap onto the back of the Nemesis and attempt to choke it.
But one of those tentacles wrapped around her three times and dangled her, upside down away from its body. It was crushing her to death now. Leon lifted the sword and brought it down, cleanly severing that tentacle.
The Nemesis turned, roaring. It dropped Jill who crawled away, coughing.
It knocked the sword from his hand and wrapped a tentacle around him now. Leon struggled but futilely. It lifted him and smashed him into the wall, once, twice, three times. He felt his body sing with the pain of it. And then it squeezed him.
The pressure built in his torso, it compressed his lungs and chest. He felt his bones began to bend start to head toward breaking. He wondered if his eyeballs were popping out of his skull from it. He had become the Nemesis' damnit doll. It was almost amusing. There was the loud blast of the shotgun firing.
And then the pressure released, slowly. He felt air rush into his lungs, painfully, as he was lowered toward the ground. The Nemesis jerked, spastically. And its head tumbled from its neck, cleaved from its body.
It went down on its face, dropping him to the ground. And its back was raw hamburger from the shotgun blast.
Ada stood over it, holding the sword. Jill was ranged beside her, holding the shotgun on the still body.
Ada drove the sword into it again, over its chest. It sparked and surged, a surge of electricity ran through the control panel as it short-circuited.
Sherry was climbing to her feet. "It has a backup power source."
Ada nodded. "That's going to be at the main control room. This will disable it for now. We've got some time before it will revive."
Leon studied it and asked the obvious question. "Is it dangerous without its head?"
Ada gave him a long-suffering look. He shrugged. "Just felt like I should ask."
They moved over the balcony, deeper into the mansion. A long hallway stretched before them. It was empty save for suits of armor on either side. The last time suits of armor had been around, they'd been dangerous.
Leon kept the women in a straight line as they walked, as far from the hatchets and axes as they could get. He was very, very aware of the danger they were in as they moved.
The door at the end of the hallway was locked. Of course.
And the door from which they came slammed shut and locked.
A metal grinding sound drew their eyes upward. The ceiling flipped and showed long, deadly, dangerous spikes. And the suits of armor shivered, shook, and started to step in poofs of dust from where they stood sentinel.
They moved with clanks and clangs of metal toward the waiting group. And the ceiling began to lower, one painful inch at a time.