Nemesis: Resident Evil III

Chapter Sixteen: Falling STARS

The first floor of the RPD was just as silent as it had been before as Jill crept down the carpeted staircase, followed uncomfortably closely by Brad, at least as far as movement. There was a new sound, however, like air moving around from the recently turned on Air Conditioning system… however, Chief Irons only allowed the AC to be turned on in the middle of summer, and the heat in winter time. So where was the moving air coming from, she wondered while reaching the corner where the stairs turned.

Now the air was moving around a lot, and there was more light coming into the corridor than there had been before… which was probably because the window right next to the stairs on the first floor had been broken out. No, not broken out, the young woman discovered when she got there and took a closer look, judging by all of the glass on the floor near the end of the stairs, it had been broken in. And not just glass, but wood from the frame, and a good amount of drywall from the window as if something… really… big… had…

Standing right there looking at the fenced in rear courtyard of the precinct through the hole, a knot formed in Jill's stomach, exchanging terrified expressions with the pilot as they seemed to realize what had caused this at the same time… and then they heard the growl from behind. Something was standing there in the corridor, right behind them… something big… so Jill spun around, planning to start shooting as soon as she saw it… but all she saw was a flash of movement as a very large and powerful hand grabbed her by the throat.

"Sstarss." The deep, inhuman voice from before said as the grip tightened.

Brad let out a high pitch shriek as he threw himself out the broken window, but another hand reached out and caught him by the back of the jacket, effortlessly pulling him back into the precinct while lifting the young woman off her feet. In another flash of movement, the hands tossed the two of them away; Jill hitting the floor down the hall toward the evidence room, and the pilot flying right into the closed darkroom door hard enough to break right through with a loud crash as the wooden pieces rained down on him.

The young woman was dazed from being tossed like that, but she shook her head to clear her vision, aimed the pistol to start fighting back… and then froze like a rookie when she finally got a good look at the monster. Seven feet tall, with a massive, muscular frame that she had only ever seen before on Tyrant back at the Spencer Estate, the least frightening feature about this abomination was that it was wearing heavy boots, pants, and a kind of long trench coat that were all made of black leather.

Every exposed part of its skin; hands, arms, neck and head were completely covered with extensive burns and scars, but the worst part was its head. Bald, scarred and burned like the rest of it, there was a discolored graft over most of the right side that was attached with oversized metal staples like it were a last minute thing, leaving the monster without a nose, ears, and only a single eye that was completely white. It might have had lips once, but they were surgically pulled back so that its large white… human looking teeth with discolored gums were always exposed, and she could see the tops of… some kind of purplish… veins or tentacles sticking out from under the coat near its shoulders.

There was another stark difference between this thing and Tyrant, though, besides being shorter and having two hands instead of a claw: Wesker had claimed that Tyrant was the ultimate biological weapon, but that monster had been obviously a work in progress, like an unfinished experiment, while this thing… my God, this one looked complete. Bang! Bang! Forcing herself out of the paralysis, the young woman started pulling the trigger, firing her pistol again and again, with each bullet striking a different part of the monster's body while it… just stood there?

Grunting and growling a little each time it was shot, the beast kept turning its head to look at where both she and Brad had fallen, starting to take a step toward one of them but then stopping, as if… as if it were trying to decide which one of them it wanted. Bang! Another gunshot, this time from off to the side as Brad finally joined in the fight by shooting the monster in the side of the head, and then the pilot screamed while trying to make a kind of stumbling run around the corner to get past it.

"No!" He shrieked when the beast reached out and grabbed him by the back of the shirt. "Jill, help! Help me!"

She was on her feet again, aiming her pistol to try and save him, but the pilot's body was in the way as the monster lifted him off his feet so that they were at eye level. Brad kicked and screamed as the beast held him there, but now as the young woman tried to aim around him, she realized that the monster wasn't looking at him… it was looking at her. Not only that, but each time she tried to line up a shot, the beast growled a little while moving the pilot so that he stayed in the way like a shield, but… but how could it know how to do that?

Brad's screaming and flailing continued until he must have realized that he was still holding his pistol, because he aimed it right into the monsters face and pulled the trigger, making the beast twitch a little… before the pilot screamed when the monster grabbed his arm and broke it at the elbow as easily as if it were snapping a twig. The pistol fell to the floor as Brad started screaming again, this time his pleas for help coming out as incoherent sobs while tears streamed down his face and a large wet stain formed on his pants.

"Stop it!" Jill screamed, shooting the beast in the leg, since it was the only opening she had. "Let him go!"

Bang! Bang! Pulling the trigger again and again until the weapon clicked empty, all of her bullets had done nothing but make the monster twitch a little, and it kept eye contact with her the whole time… seeming to smile a little when it pulled its free arm back and slammed its fist into Brad's torso hard enough so that she could hear bones cracking while the pilot coughed up a bunch of blood. This was going beyond killing… this thing wasn't just some brainless viral monster who was following instinct… it was torturing Brad… and it wanted to make Jill watch.

Fumbling to reload her pistol, the young woman was determined to save her comrade somehow, even if it meant giving him the mercy of a quick death, but by the time her shaking hands managed to put in a new clip and pull back the chamber, it was too late. As if somehow sensing what she was about to do, the monster suddenly pushed the pilot against the wall, put its large hand right in front of his face, and then Brad convulsed when a long purplish tentacle with a pointed end was stabbed right through his mouth… and into the wall behind him after breaking through the back of his skull. The pilot gagged and twitched for a couple seconds before becoming still, and then the beast tossed his body out the broken window like a cigarette butt.

"Sstarss." It said slowly, seeming to smile again while turning its body to face her.

She expected it to attack right away, a million horrible scenarios flashing through the young woman's mind as to how she was going to keep it from doing to her what it had done to Brad, but instead of coming right at her, it just stood there like it had done before. What the hell was it waiting for, she wondered as they just stared at each other for what must have been several seconds? It was like one of those Animal Planet shows that Forest Speyer of Bravo Team used to watch where the tiger just watched its prey before the chase started, and…

Oh, my God, was that what it was waiting for? For Jill to run away so that it could… chase her? No, that wasn't possible, this thing was just another monster, and from the surgical marks and scars, created in an Umbrella laboratory just like Tyrant. Okay, so what was she going to do? The shotgun across her back was empty, and her pistol was proven ineffective, but maybe there was something in the hallway around her that could be used for…

Suddenly the monster threw its head back and roared hard enough to rattle the remaining windows; a long drawn out bellow that not only made Jill jump, but also filled her with so much terror that the forgot all about making a plan, instead turning heel and running back toward the evidence room. For several seconds the roar continued, long enough for her to reach the door and pull it open, and then a moment of silence before the monster started running after her. The hallway was long, but so were the beast's legs, meaning that even after slamming the door shut, there were only going to be a couple seconds before it caught up to her.

Maybe it could be slowed down, Jill thought as its thundering footsteps got closer. The rows of stacked evidence lockers were right next to the door, and head to weigh a few hundred pounds each, so she ran around the other side of the last one before the door to Traffic Division, and pushed it with all of her strength. With as small as she was, there was no way in hell the young woman was going to slide any of them across the floor, let alone in time to block the monster's way, but they were top heavy thanks to the most important, and weightiest evidence getting put into the highest lockers, so maybe… she could… knock one… over.

Yes! The whole rack was tilting, but although her plan was to use them to block the door, what actually happened turned out to be even better. Just as the first rack was crashing into the next, the monster rammed its way right through the closed door; skidding to a stop and turning to face the young woman just as every row of lockers became caught up in a domino effect. Bam. Bam! BAM! The beast tried to catch the last row as it fell right toward him, but the combined force of that one and all the others behind it was too much, causing it to growl with strain as it was tackled to the floor, and pinned there under the lockers.

"Sstarss!" It yelled angrily while trying to push them back up enough to free itself.

Jill thought about trying to kill it again by emptying another clip right into its face, but it was unlikely to work, and if she got out of the precinct, she was going to need the ammo in order to deal with everything else that was lurking around the city. So she ran, throwing open the door to Traffic Division and running across the room toward the main hall while the monster slowly worked to free itself.