Resident Evil:

The Whole Story.

Chapter Forty-Three

Rebecca felt her hands shaking as she tried to catch her breath, it had been a terrible battle and all she wanted to do was sit down but she did not trust any of the chairs within the room that they were standing in, considering they were all coated with spider webs as thick as cotton candy.

She took a step back as the thick green blood of the giant spider oozed closer to her, it was dead but it was still an unpleasant sight. It had taken half a clip to down one, and it's brothers had been just as hard to kill, it had cost her three whole clips to properly defend herself and if not for Richard then she did not doubt that she wouldn't have survived the attack.

Speaking of Richard he was reloading his shotgun with a practiced ease, she had been so glad to find him as when she had reached the mansion and found it to be almost eerily quiet and for a time she had been terrified that the other team members had left back to the city without her, she had been missing for most of the night after all. The thought wasn't logical of course, their helicopter was still a ruin after all but she had been so terrified that fear seemed logical at the time.

She had found Richard on the second floor of the mansion, searching a small study and when she had seen him she had thrown herself into his arms and looking back on it she was a little embarrassed but she had been so glad to find another living person after parting ways with Billy that she hadn't been able to help herself.

Richard had been unarmed when she found him, he had lost his gun in a struggle with one of the zombies and Rebecca had been more than happy to rearm him. After a long, long hike through the woods she had finally managed to get back to the helicopter but any hope she had of being safe had died when she saw all that was left of Kevin in the pilot's seat.

She had ended his suffering by taking a handgun from the weapon locker and took another one from it as well along with a combat shotgun, she had given it to Richard as he was more comfortable with the larger gun and she gave him her other handgun as well. Together they had managed to make it out of the main mansion of the estate with little trouble and then crossed the grounds to get to the other house.

It was clearly no safer here, Rebecca sighed and stepped back from the spider corpse. "Are you okay?" She asked Richard.

"I'm fine, what about you?" Richard asked as he slung the shotgun over his shoulder and made his way over to the doors to the bar area and Rebecca was quick to follow him, she didn't want to stay here.

"I'm fine too," the air in the hallway was stale but compared to where they had just come from it was like stepping into a fresh spring morning, there were other doors in the hallway that they had yet to try and yet considering what had been waiting for them behind the doors they had picked Rebecca suddenly felt less inclined to check the others.

"Maybe we should head back to the mansion? There were some other rooms that we didn't check yet, maybe the others are still there," it was a rationalization but she didn't care, there had been no giant spiders in the other house and that made it so much better than staying here.

Richard nodded. "Yeah, I think that's a good idea." He glanced down at his wrist and when he looked back up at her he had a warm smile on his face that always made her feel better ever since she had joined the S.T.A.R.S. "Hey, I think it's been over twenty-four hours since we've been in contact with the RPD, standard operating procedure for us is if a team doesn't break radio silence for over a day then the other team comes and helps us out, if they're here then we need to meet up with them."

"Gives us another reason to head back then," Rebecca pointed out and Richard nodded and they both made their way out into the grounds, the air was fresher and Rebecca filled her lungs. Despite all the horror around them, it was a beautiful night with the moon high in the sky and the song of crickets on the wind and it was comforting, reminders that there was still a normal world to get back to when all of this was done.

The grounds were wide and while there was nothing that Rebecca could see that would be a threat that did not meant that they weren't there, there were long shadows cast by the light of the moon and it felt like something could have jumped out at them at any moment.

And yet nothing did, and soon enough they were at the back of the mansion. To get back inside they had to pass through an old storage shed and then through a long covered walkway before finally reaching a door that lead into a dark hallway and, despite wanting to come back here, Rebecca suddenly remembered how terrifying the massive mansion was and she had to steel herself before following Richard in.

"I think we should make our way back to the main hall," Richard spoke, raising his handgun as he slowly crept forward. "If the alphas come here then they are going to go through there, we need to be there so we can warn them about this place and how to deal with those zombies."

Rebecca nodded, wondering if the others would believe them. Would she? If it had been the other way around and she hadn't seen what she had already seen yesterday and today? She didn't know, but she knew they had to try.

"There's some zombies between us and there if we take the ground floor, we can get to the second floor from that staircase outside the storage room and then I think one of those doors leads to a hallway that connects back to the main hall, I think," Richard sighed and glanced back at her. "You ready?"

"I'm right behind you," Rebecca said and followed behind him, her hands tightening on the grip of her gun as she readied herself to raise it at any moment, they found the staircase and climbed it to the balcony and then turned a corner and walked through a door which lead into a hallway with dull red wallpaper, the dim electric lights made them seem even darker, like the walls were coated with blood.

They had nearly reached the end of the hallway when a loud thump sound came from the other side of a door to their left. "What was that?" Richard said with a frown, his eyebrows furrowing.

"It was probably just a zombie bumping into something."

"Yeah, but what if it's one of the others?" Richard asked and then sighed heavily. "I'm going to go and take a look, you go to the main hall and wait there for me."

"I am not letting you go alone! What if you get attacked and need help?" Rebecca shook her head. "If you go, then I'm going."

"As anyone ever told you that you are really stubborn?"

"No, most everyone tells me that I am delightful," Richard chuckled at that and the sound made Rebecca smile. "Come on, one quick look and then we'll get to the hall, agreed?"

"Agreed."

And with that they both walked through the door, leading into a small hallway that was empty but lead to another door which lead to a few steps which lead to wooden door that looked very old and very much not looked after compared to the rest of the doors in the mansion, there was another door at the end of a long hallway which split off from the door they came through but that one was locked.

So they only had one way to go, Richard opened the door and went in first and Rebecca followed after him, it was an attic and Rebecca found herself very grateful that she had never suffered from allergies because if she did then the amount of dust in the room would no doubt have her sneezing until her nose would fly off of her face.

"There's a lot of old junk in here," Rebecca said, walking over to examine a lamp that had been placed on top of a wooden crate, fake jewels were dangling from the shade which had large holes in the fabric. "Something probably just tumbled off and fell to the ground and that was that noise."

"Yeah, you're probably right," Richard said and Rebecca turned to face him and her breath caught in her throat when she saw a great shadowy shape rising up from behind Richard, yellow eyes glinting in the darkness. The top of the shadow parted and fangs the size of Rebecca's arm poked out of the darkness, pale as milk and the air was filled with a soft hiss as a fork tongue lashed at the air.

Richard heard it, of course he heard it, and he began to turn but the giant snake was faster, far to fast that anything that size should but then no snake could grow to be that size, it's fangs sunk into Richard's arm and it was tossing him back and forth in his mouth like a dog with bone, Richard's screams were filling the attic and for a moment Rebecca was too horrified to do anything else but watch.

The shock ended and she raised her gun, terrified that she would hit Richard by mistake but knowing she had to try. She pulled the trigger, the gunshots were louder than normal in the confined space of the attic and the bullets hit the snake, blasting of chunks of scales and flesh until it threw Richard aside, her follow S.T.A.R.S officer hitting the wall with a sickening thud.

Rebecca didn't wait, she ran over to Richard and grabbed him by his shoulders and dragged him over to the door as the snake thrashed and hissed in the middle of the attic. As soon as they were through the door Rebecca slammed it shut and knelt down by Richard's side, his eyes were shut and Rebecca quickly felt for a pulse, sobbing when she found it.

He was pale and his arm was soaked with with blood and Rebecca hurried to open her medkit, pulling out her supplies.

In that moment, nothing else mattered. All that mattered was keeping Richard alive.

The others would come for them, they had to.

End of Chapter Forty-Three