Chapter 18: Redundancy
"Gesticulating. Gestating. Germinating lies. She breeds. She bleeds. She births a new destiny."
The Maze, Russia, April
The boom of the gun was so loud it echoed. The rushing beast that mostly canine was thrown up and back to smack into the wall with a crunch of bone and a burp of blood that sprayed the stone beyond it. As it twitched, Piers dispatched it with another clean shot through the rotting left eye.
Barry was standing the pathetic rain as it spurted more than dripped down their faces. He sniffed, a bloodhound with a scent, and tilted his head, "You get that, kid?"
Piers rose to listen in the lulling music of the ocean and the wind and the swirling island sky. Somebody, somewhere was sounding an air horn. They caught gazes over the darkened distance.
Barry smirked a little, "...Redfield."
Piers nodded, heart thumping in his breast. Redfield - but which one? His woman?..or his Captain? He kept picturing Claire covered in blood sounding that horn for her saviors. Did she really need one? Had she ever? She wasn't a woman who huddled in the dark and waited to be rescued.
She'd laugh if he even suggested it. Hell, she might smack the crap outta him for even implying she would consider it. She was a warrior woman- he could hear her battle cry in his head as she went to shield those softer and weaker than her. She was alive.
He wasn't sure how he knew it - instinct or faith or belief, but it was something she'd given him and ripped screaming from the depths of his despair. She was his lighthouse in this god forsaken storm..he was going to find her. He was going to bring her back. He didn't care if he had to tear this place down one goddamn brick at a time to do it.
Barry laid a hand on Piers' rumpled back and assured him, "That's one of our favorite people, I can promise you that. If Chris is alive, so is Claire. There's no way this place would still be standing if she was dead."
Piers nodded. He glanced toward the swirling beam from the light house. Someone had sent up a flare for help. Who? Chris? Claire? Kennedy? There were so many trapped on this island. How could they know who was still there and still doing their damnedest to survive?
Without another word, they hurried toward the fog and the final battle.
Chris raced through the same corridor he'd been down a time or two before. He was starting to panic. He could hear the screaming. He could smell the blood. He knew what he was facing was the inevitable murder of countless people by a pig faced nightmare...he just couldn't find his way out of this nightmare to save anyone.
The corridor to his left was empty save for a single door. The second he turned the knob, he knew what he'd find. Locked. Every door in this place was locked. He shouted, voice vibrating with rage, "You can't expect a good hunt if you lock the goddamn doors!"
A buzz sounded and the door in front of him opened.
Impressed, Chris barreled through - and nearly lost his head.
A hatchet swung an inch from his face. He backpedaled into the hallway and hit the wall with his back. The hatchet swung again, scraping skin off his biceps as he rolled away. His left fist swung and hit the pig man in the shoulder. With a grunt, his assailant swung the hatchet again.
It struck the wall, Chris spun back to elbow him twice in the face, and he followed it up with an upper cut coupled with sheer rage. He shouted, he powered his fist like Mega Man making a rocket, and he just let the other thing have it. The pig man reeled, rolling back on his feet to teeter totter. He squealed and lifted the hatchet. Chris kicked him twice in the groin, grabbed for those wrists and suppressed the swipe, and turned the hatchet back on his attacker.
They struggled, the enormous pig man squealing with rage, and Chris head butted him with a roar.
Crunch.
Bone always made a wickedly wet sound when it shattered.
Pig man collapsed forward and onto his face. Chris divested him of the hatchet and brought it down on the back of his head - once, twice, three times. Blood sprayed in a wet, red, geysering gush.
He spit on the corpse and kicked it twice.
"...asshole."
With a final finger to the body, Chris spun back into the room wielding the hatchet. To his horror, he found himself face to face with lumbering, snapping, still bleeding zombies. They came for him after recently being freed from their hooks. Sweet little Anna, that he put down with a clean strike to the center of her face.
A pretty girl with green eyes that met her death with a hard swipe to the throat and a solid punch to the face.
A man who died tripping on his own intestines with a swift break of the neck to give him peace.
In all his time fighting the nightmares, Chris had never seen so much horror. He was frozen for a moment until Sherry's voice startled him out of the fog. "HELP! Chris!"
Kennedy was on the ground with a hand on his forearm. Blood was soaking through the pants he wore where he sat against the wall. He had a hatchet wound on one leg at the thigh, deep and bleeding badly. Sherry was using the shirts of the dead to bind it. She kept smearing her blood on him and making him grunt.
Pale, he shrugged a shoulder at Chris as the other man slid to the ground to put pressure on the wound on his leg. "...too slow, you son of a bitch."
Chris shook his head, "I'm here. It's ok. It's not over. Sherry?"
She handed him another piece of clothing to try to bind the arm but Leon shook his head, "...it's done. It's not a hatchet wound..."
Sherry froze. Chris pried away the other man's hands to find the bite was deep and fresh. Leon laughed and shrugged, looking amused and resolute, "...not god after all I guess...the great Kennedy, brought low by a single zombie...that's what I get for turning my back, right?"
Sherry, stricken, whispered, "...it was half a dozen and he-the pig man...I tried. He left me dangling. I couldn't get down. I finally snapped the neck of one of the dead and ripped his spine out to saw myself free with it."
Chris' head swirled with the horror of that.
Leon, lips pale, chuckled, "...helluva thing to see."
Chris slung his arm around those big shoulders and rose, carrying the other man's weight as he instructed Sherry, "Grab the hatchet and cover me."
She did, nodding rapidly, "...it'll work right? My blood? It'll heal him?"
Neither man said anything in response. Leon, calmly, instructed, "You should leave me."
Chris ignored him as they hurried into the hallway. He cut left through the maze, rushing toward the next locked door. Sherry kept pace until Leon tried again, "...leave me. I'll slow down whoever is chasing you."
Chris denied that again with a simple shake of his head. Sherry told Leon, "Shut up, stupid hero."
Leon laughed, trembling with blood loss, "Bossy bitch...when'd you get so bossy?"
She patted his ass and simply kicked the door in front of them. The metal bowed and was throw wide open. Chris glanced at her, impressed, and approved, "Good girl. Stay close...I need you."
Somewhere in the compound, laughter tinkled musically, "...how fast can you run carrying the wounded!? I smell you...RUN! Run for four...fun fun fun...run run run..."
They went down the hallway, racing. Chris furrowed his brow, "...four? Who else is left?"
Leon shrugged a shoulder, "...I don't know...no one? I didn't see anyone else."
Sherry filled the quiet, "...she means me."
Chris let her kick down the next door. They rushed through and the smell of the sea filled his nose. Close. They were close to the outside. He sped up, Kennedy getting heavier with each rapidly step. Their feet echoed.
And Sherry told them, "...I'm carrying someone too."
Chris froze. Leon stared at her, pale and purplish now around the eyes. He finally let out a loud laugh. He sagged against Chris and remarked, "...that's what happens when you fuck a chic without rubbers...just in case you were curious..."
Quietly, feeling a shiver of something he couldn't name, Chris told him, "...Claire is pregnant too...what does this mean?"
Brows winging up, Leon mused, "...it means none of us know how to slap on a condom."
Softly, Sherry whispered, "...I'm sorry."
After a handful of seconds, Leon returned, "...I'm not."
She looked surprised and he added, "...I'm not. Shitty timing, sure...but not a shitty thing. I like it...I think I like it."
Chris dragged him to the final door and Sherry kicked it so hard it simply flew off the hinges and splatted into the mud beyond. He told him, "Good. Let's keep you alive to enjoy it."
They hurried into the rain. The roar of something was close behind them. They headed toward the darkness. What chance did they have against things that chased them? They had a wounded warrior, a pregnant B.O.W., and a hatchet.
It was the worst trio of talent in the business.
Chris hoisted his slumping sometimes savior higher up and demanded, "...the wall of the mountain...it saved me once. Let's get you there and pray to god whatever is back there can't climb."
They hurried. He prayed Claire was still safe.
He prayed Ada was still alive.
And he wondered if she was fighting for two.
Claire and Jill were trying to find a way over the divide. The bridge dangled sadly before them into the dark. There was nothing but wind and whistling death down below.
Ada leaned on the post and stared into the gorge beneath them. The addition of the redhead gave them one more partner to try to find their way out of the maze. Claire had simply been tossed into a room and seconds later, the door had burst open to find her former nemesis and her brother's sometimes partner blinking at her.
Somebody had too much control on this compound. They knew how to drop someone off in the middle of nowhere ahead of a pack of survivors. They joined up, rushing toward nothing and everything and probably their own death.
And here they were on...the far side of a pit into nowhere.
It was daunting and upsetting and had Jill shouting, "COME ON! This is the first thing we've found that wasn't a complete cluster fuck...what the hell do we do now!?"
Claire narrowed her gaze across the opening. Too far to jump. Too far to take a chance on climbing down and crossing at the bottom. They had to go back the way they'd come...right?
Right?
She started to ask the question and the dark shimmered across from them.
They were suddenly on opposite sides of the greatest divide in history with her brother, Kennedy, and Sherry on the other.
Jill shouted, "Chris! My god! Is he alright!?"
Sherry answered, "He's fading! Something is after us...do you have any way across?!"
Ada called back, "Leave him! He's done! Let him be the bait and run!"
Sherry gave her the filthiest look before Leon shouted, "See!? Ada's the only one with any balls here. I agree! Give me the hatchet and run. Let me take that bitch with me...let me do that for all of us."
Jill warned, "Idiot! Shut up!"
Claire, trembling with anger, remarked, "Don't listen to this bitch!" She shoved Ada who turned on her with her hands raised to prevent a fight, "She's as cold as she is practical. She'd risk every one of us for herself."
The silence dragged out before Chris told them, "You're wrong, Claire...she's not just protecting herself anymore...are you, Ada?"
They stared at each other..
Jill arched her brows.
Claire went very, very still. Leon, dangling a little, laughed loudly, "You sacrificing me for a bun in your oven, Ada? Don't get maternal on me...I'll lose all hope!"
Jill finally whispered, "...you pregnant with his kid, Ada?"
She said nothing. She didn't have to. Her silence spoke for her.
Sherry called, "...that makes two of us..."
Jill whistled. Leon mused, "...apparently, I never miss...no matter what part of me is aiming."
Chris snorted. Claire fought against a smile. She stared at her brother. He wasn't the type to risk a pregnancy like this. He'd never been a man who went bare with a woman.. What was it about Ada Wong that had made him lose his fucking mind?
It was no secret that Claire had always wanted children...but her brother? He wasn't...he wasn't exactly...he just-he'd never really been the type to chase fatherhood. What kind of life would this kid have?
She was maternal. Sherry was maternal. That was half the battle there...but Ada? That kid was gonna need all kinds of therapy.
Quietly, Claire mused, "...that's three of us. How-How did-did she know!? She knew about me. Does she know about the others?"
No one had an answer. She hadn't really expected one.
She started to shout at her brother about being an idiot and the cavern filled with a roar so loud that it shook dust from the ceiling.
Leon shouted, "We're out of time! Give me the fucking hatchet!"
Somewhere in the dark, a voice roared, "Claire!"
She froze. Her heart hammered. She yelled back, "PIERS!?"
No answer.
Her belly seized. She hurried to the edge of the ravine. One way or the other, the man in question was down. The voice had come from down. Something was trying to kill them. It might find him first if she didn't.
She had to hurry.
She had to save him.
She was about to be a mother. She was about to be an aunt.
She'd damned if she also became a widow...especially since she'd yet to even become a wife.