Chapter 20: Nothing On You
Jake's eyes opened slowly, a deep pain spread through his body as he tried to move; the impact had knocked him unconscious and sent him flying.
Where was everyone else?
He struggled to move the debris of metal pinning him against the floor, he twitched his toes in his boots to make sure he'd not broken anything, and moved his fingers too finding nothing out of place.
"Sh... Sherry?" He called out, voice raspy and dry, nothing but the crackling of fire and electricity greeted him.
"How the fuck am I supposed to get loose?" He muttered angrily trying to push himself up, to fall back again.
The weight was too much to shift.
A scream from far away was carried throughout the building, making his hairs stand on end... it sounded like Sherry.
A powerful surge of energy spurred deep within him at the very sound.
Forcefully, and with strength he didn't know he had, he pushed himself up, sending the debris flying.
Standing, he took a lasting look behind him at the broken lift, making sure Chris wasn't buried under the rubble. After deciding he was alone, he hopped through a hole in the crumpled door, and into a well lit cream painted corridor.
Instantly he grabbed his machine gun and began running in the direction the scream came from.
A small blood trail made a path, and not knowing whose it was he picked up the pace, following it.
As he ran into a small lab a twinge came from his leg, looking down he could see a piece of metal wedged into the back of his calf, and wondered how he'd not noticed it running here.
Slowing to a stop he bent down, grabbed the metal shrapnel and pulled it out with a horrid gurgle of blood. The pain made him grunt a little, while standing to his full height a chilling shuffle and moan came from behind him. Turning on the spot he saw that a regular zombie was crawling into the room using one arm.
Swiftly, Jake jumped into the air as the zombie lurched for his feet.
As he landed Jake brought the shrapnel from his own leg down and into the Zombies head, the sudden haemorrhage killed it instantly; bubbling into a sickening green liquid before sinking into the floor like it never existed.
He made a move for the next room, but the blood from his wound seemed to pour out, filling up his boot so that when he walked a horrid squelch followed him.
After a few steps, Jake realised that if he didn't clean and cover it, it could get infected, and not being Sherry, having her amazing healing powers he would have to do something about it.
Stopping again he reached into his pocket and brought out a large bandage and medical spray from his belt, gritting his teeth while he sprayed the medicine onto his leg and began wrapping it tightly hoping this would do, and that the others were alright.
A heavy sigh came from his mouth after kicking in a door that had the blood leading up to it, the vision of Sherry harmed, and abducted gripped and frightened him, when another scream came bounding through the rooms, jolting him from his thoughts to focus on the now.
As he continued his search and rescue, Jake wound up at a rusted door inside a boiler room.
Once he took his first steps into the dark dank room, he saw it was filled with small glowing cocoons; they were up the walls, the decaying bookcases and over what looked like a chair, all of them glowing and fading every few seconds, reminding him of fiber optic fad from the late 90's, and the blood trail continued through to the next room.
An aged table, untouched by the tiny chrysalids sat at one end of the room with a few papers on it, and although he knew he had to save Sherry the curiosity of the papers entranced him, beckoning him to look at their enigmatic pages.
The first page was just an introduction to the Chrysalid creatures that inhabited the room;
'...offspring of The Widow. At a certain time of day, the Widows in experimentation had come here, to "give birth" as it were. The litters of Mosqoths, of which some never hatched, were left in this well heated room to do as they pleased. Nevertheless, we have been keeping a distant check on them from the security tapes...'
As Jake finished reading the first two paragraphs of the first report, cracking came from behind him shortly followed by a small buzz.
His eyes relaxed and widened, cursing to himself mentally as he already knew what was coming, and regretfully turned around.
A small clump of the cocoons had hatched from one side of the wall.
The newborn insects were thankfully the smaller kind, that him and Sherry had encountered the first time around.
Nonetheless, they still looked as angry and as horrible as before.
"Fucking hummingbird monstrosities..." He muttered, glancing to the blood trail and the ajar door, calculating the best way to reach it before the other diseased ridden bugs emerged, or before the hatched ones attacked.
Either way, there was no way out of this without a small fight, the bugs were too close to the door.
Cricking his neck, Jake smiled cockily and raised the machine gun, and let loose on the bugs.
Instantaneously they started flying straight for his face.
Bullets reigned around the room, the small cries of the annihilated bugs were followed by thuds as they hit the floor, their wings fluttering at an incredible pace making it look like they were floating in the air.
Once half the pack was down Jake knew he could make it to the door.
Quickly, he dashed to for it, sliding in on the floor, then clambering to his knees to slam the door shut, just in time.
The Mosqoths had been right on his tail, from what he gathered, as they had all flown into the door from the small bangs he heard behind him.
Jake turned with a quick breath to find himself face to face with a maze of corroding animal cages all built up to the ceiling, a slight groan was heard from inside the room, and another scream not far away.
He was thankful he was closing in on the location of the screaming female, hoping it was Sherry.
Turning his attention to the floor, the smeared blood was fresh and he began to follow. Again it led him the correct way, turning and twisting through the confusing labyrinth of coppery metal and odd hooks on the ceiling.
From time to time, Jake took the time to glance swiftly at all the enclosures as he passed, making damn sure there was nothing in them that would hinder his mission.
'There's that noise again.' He thought with a scowl, as the low moan became louder as he neared whatever it was, 'Almost sounds like a person.'
The bloody path ended at a cell right by the exit door.
Gripping his gun tightly, taking a large breath he took large strides to the entrance of the old fashioned prison cell camouflaged into the surrounding cages, one key was needed for the door, 'Or I could just shoot it out.' He mused, straining his eyes into the dark to make out what was making the grunting sound.
An abrupt and excited moan came from the back of the cage with rattling chains, and a loud thud followed by pained groans.
Squinting harder into the darkness, Jake could just make out the silhouette of a person on the blooded floor. He was cautious about the form, because of not being able to distinguish it from human or undead.
Again an eager moan came from the thing, as if it were trying to say something, and another moan, but this time a frustrated one.
"Err... Do you need help?" Jake asked with a grimace, betraying his own mind as it shouted at him to leave and find Sherry.
"Mmm! Mmm! Mmmm!" The person moaned, managing to wriggle into the light like a worm.
"Chris?!" Jake exclaimed seeing the BSAA uniform all bloodied, the short brown hair, huge muscles and mouth gagged. "Get out the way, I'm gonna shoot the lock!"
Chris rolled slowly back into the darkness, and once Jake was sure Chris was a safe distance away he blew the lock out with one bullet, and kicked the door in. The door making a loud crash of metal on concrete, that echoed loudly throughout the huge warehouse room, and Chris rolled back into view mumbling and moaning.
"Alright! Alright, already! Geez Redfield, gimmie a second." Jake huffed, as he took a large step over the door to aid his comrade.
Chris had been bound and gagged, and the wounds from what Jake believed the elevator crash weren't serious but, all this blood?
"Ah!" Chris gasped when Jake removed the gag from his mouth, "I didn't think you were going to stop."
"I wasn't." Jake smirked whilst taking a look at the handcuffs attached to Redfield and the wall.
"Typical." Chris muttered dejectedly.
"Hey, I didn't know it was you Jarhead I thought it was another Widow."
A small click of the trigger, and bullets sprang Chris from his binds.
"This isn't good." Chris muttered once pushing himself from the floor and looking to his wrists, the silver cuffs were still on him.
"I could shoot them off." Jake smiled, "Though I might take off your hands."
Chris raised his eyebrows at Jake and shook his head.
"Right we need to get moving." Chris suggested, before Jake handed him two guns.
"Thanks, didn't know you were so nice."
"Yeah well don't get used to it, I haven't forgotten you killed my father." Jake glowered, taking a step past Chris.
"Jake, when you find out what he-"
"We don't have the time!" Jake shouted, blue eyes glinting in the light darkly.
"You're right, we need to find Piers."
Jake snorted.
"No, we need to find Sherry, screw Nivans."
"What?" Chris asked taken back, "We're here for Piers."
"So what! Sherry's missing, and those screams you keep hearing Redfield, I'm pretty damn sure their Sherry's! So when I say we need to find her, I mean it."
Chris stayed quiet, knowing that Jake was as adamant of finding Sherry as he himself was Piers.
"Fine." Chris murmured, limping after Jake as he moved out.
"You injured?" Jake asked over his shoulder, seeing the trail of blood Chris was leaving.
"Yeah, but it'll be fine."
Jake groaned out loud and sighed, turning on the spot, again reaching for a med spray and bandage.
"Thanks. You really didn't have to."
"Save it. We need to find Sherry." As Jake spoke he found it odd that the screams had stopped since him finding Chris. 'Almost.' He frowned as a louder scream than before sounded.
"Jill!" Claire shouted as she came across Jill running down a corridor towards her, looking fraught.
At the sight of Claire, Jill broke down into fits of tears blubbering about sending Chris and the others to their deaths.
She'd not been able to fix the breaks in time, rushed to find a staircase to the crash site, and once she'd found it nobody was there, just a blood trail that led to an empty prison cell, and she had been trying to find them ever since, as well as hearing the blood curdling screams.
Claire nodded and agreed with her about hearing them too, and once calming Jill down to her usual BSAA self, they started their own journey towards the fluctuating cries.
"What about Leon?" Jill asked suddenly looking around randomly. "Where's Leon?"
"We split up to cover more ground... I haven't seen or heard from him in almost 2 hours, but my guts telling me he's partnered up with Ada."
"Ada Wong?"
'Shit, I'm coming Sherry!' Jake thought continually every time the screams reached the two men's ears, which seemed to be every few seconds now.
Chris and himself had spoken of the incidents following the lift crash: Chris had been knocked out just as Jake had. He'd woken up just as an illustrious man locked the door to his cell, but his vision being blurry he didn't see who it was clearly.
"Jake, I'm going this way." Chris spoke suddenly when they came to a forked path.
Jake frowned not really understanding his words, his brain being focused on finding Sherry.
"I'll be fine." Chris smiled reassuringly, "I need to find Jill anyway, then I'll go after Piers. You go save Sherry, then get yourselves out."
"Be... careful, alright Redfield?" Jake said through gritted teeth when an unknown feeling of brotherly love tightened in his chest. 'Geez Muller, you think you'd bonded with the man.' He thought shaking his head once Chris jogged off down the opposite corridor, and out of sight. 'Wanting to save Sherry is messing you up.'
UPDATED: 15/01/2015 - Spelling & Grammar, Minor Story changes.