Lord, it's a hard life
God makes you live
But without it
Baby don't doubt it
You don't even have
Your tears to give
The government never bothered to re-open the highways they had blockaded outside of Raccoon City. The view from the road was unimpressive; the towering pine trees that had made the quiet little city so quaint now served to hide its devastated remains. But there was a different road to take, one that lead up and away from the chain-link and barbed-wire fence to a small clearing on a jutting slope of one of the nearby peaks. The track was rutted beyond repair, the last mile or so easier to walk than to try to drive, but the vantage was worth the hike. From the rocky out-cropping the valley below stretched for miles, the dusty crater of the former town nestled in a surround of dark green. Even after years the forest still hesitated to reclaim that infectious plot.
In his mind, Chris could see the layout of the town overlaid as a roadmap. The rail lines, the clock tower, the bypass, the parks… They would never rebuild here; there had always been something foul in the soil. Things used to grow poorly in Raccoon City - Kathy always used to complain that her flowers never bloomed; Enrico always used to say that his kids never talked back before they moved into town. If nothing grew there anymore, twisted and stunted, it was no great loss.
Still, the survivors always came back. There was a kind of reassurance in the stark contrast of Raccoon City circa September 1998 and the present, a solace in the fact that none of the landmarks that served as the setting of so many nightmares remained on this earth. Of course, Chris Redfield didn't have nightmares about Raccoon City. He had them about a lot of things, of people, of places, monsters – but he wasn't there that night in late September and so, when his subconscious bowed down to terror, he didn't see the Kendo Gun Shop, the Raccoon City Hall, or even the police station where he spent so many hours trapped in front of a desk.
But Jill did. She saw all of those things and more. And although he could imagine, he could ask and be rebuffed, he could never fully grasp the horror of the abomination that had become the sleepy little town he once called home. He could never atone for the fact that he wasn't there. He looked over at the profile of the partner he had abandoned, her eyes focused beyond the wreckage below, a light wind feathering her hair across her cheek.
"It's such a waste," he said. "Such a goddamn waste of life."
Jill didn't say anything, just kicked a couple of stones over the edge.
"Sometimes I feel like we could have done more. Like we should have been able to tell that lab was laying under us in wait the whole time." It made him mad to think about all the years he had spent unknowing, underestimating.
"Oh, don't blame yourself, dearheart," she remained facing front, not looking over as she spoke, her tone sarcastic. Chris narrowed his eyes, his forehead furrowing.
"What…what did you just call me?"
Slowly, calmly, Jill finally turned towards him and Chris found himself taking an involuntary step backwards. The side of her face that had been turned away from him was a mangled wreck of flesh. Chunks of dark, rotted skin hung off of her exquisite bone structure in shreds, her blackened teeth and gums visible in a gruesome, unnatural gape in her cheek. In its decayed socket her eye glowed back at him a familiar, sickening cat-eye of red and gold.
"What's the matter Chris? Or can't you admire your own handiwork?" The still-human half of her face smiled at him, pulling at the dead flesh of the other side.
"What the fuck?!" He took another step back, trying to put as much space between them as possible. He had no weapon, nothing aside from the rocks below his booted feet to defend himself with. Could he even bring himself to use a gun, a knife, even a rock on a monstrosity that smiled back at him with the face of his partner?
"This is your fault, Chris." Jill began to come towards him, her movements smooth and methodical.
"I know, and I'm sorry! I'm so sorry."
"Don't be sorry, just come over here and man up to it. You were always one of my best men."
His heels came up against the edge of the out-cropping and he finally stopped, not daring to look behind at the steep, infinite drop below. He could throw himself off and end it, but he found he couldn't move, frozen in place. Before he could stumble, Jill stepped up to him and grabbed him by the throat, pulling him down into her knee. His ribs offered a meager resistance against the inhuman force and the sharp plate of bone, cracking painfully in his chest. She held him up by the throat, nails digging into the skin around his larynx.
"You have no idea how much I hate you." The voice was hers, but the words weren't. They came from before, from another nightmare, another antagonist. She threw him away and he stumbled back, his heel slipping past the edge of solid ground. He fell, free-form, tumbling down towards the mutilated remains of the town that had swallowed his life whole.
-
His hands slam against the padded plastic of the steering wheel as he violently comes back into consciousness. All along his neck the muscles scream protest at the awkward position he had dozed off in, his head resting against the driver's side window of his truck. He hadn't intended to fall asleep, had just taken a moment to collect his thoughts after the grueling drive down to Nellis Federal Prison Camp in Nevada. He doesn't sleep these days, not longer than a single sleep-cycle or two anyway, and he's beginning to feel the exhaustion of it in his bones.
There were a lot of people who had asked, or told, or recommended that he not come down here. The Alliance had people they paid to do this kind of thing, professionals who were a lot better equipped to deal with this situation. People who had maybe slept, or eaten something substantial in the past few days or so. But he wasn't prepared to outsource the death of his partner to some slick, overpaid, professional harbinger of doom who wouldn't know her from a hole in the ground. And so he sits in the sweltering greenhouse of his truck, in the middle of the desert, sweating through the shirt of his second-best suit with his heart still pounding wildly against the inside of his ribcage.
Outside the air is a little fresher, if a little hotter. It feels nice against his face; he's felt so chilled for days. But inside the prison its cold again, the air conditioning cranked up to high. He's only been here once before, and never this far inside – he waited out near the main doors, joking with the guards while Jill visited with her father. Despite his untimely discharge from the Air Force, Chris had always found something comfortable about the atmosphere of a base, but even the familiarity of the setting can't stop his nerves from twisting up his stomach.
It's not a high-security establishment, intended to house those who were a nuisance to a particular, well-connected demographic rather than those who were truly dangerous or deranged. Such was the sad story of the notorious Dick Valentine. The man whose wife had run out on him only a few years after the birth of their daughter; who had struggled to make ends meet, working long hours as a carpet cleaner to the extremely wealthy finding only setback after setback to keep him down; the man who had gambled in using his honest face and light fingers to make a better life for his daughter and lost. The man who didn't know it yet, but had lost his only child.
It had taken Chris years to pry the details of her childhood out of his stone-faced partner. And it had come at a high price – for every chapter of her life she gave to him, she expected one of his in return. But they were partners. No secrets, no lies. Period.
There's a rattling of chain, a low rumble of voices, and the other door to the visiting area opens, admitting a prisoner in the standard tan-coloured uniform and a pair of guards. Jill took after her father in more than just lock-picking. They have the same shape of face, the same eyes, the same straight nose. They might have had the same hair-colour at one point, but Dick has long gone gray. Still, he looks good for a man his age; the endless routine of prison life kept him in good shape if not good spirits. The two men have only met once before, in a different prison, years ago when he and Jill still lived half their lives underground. She had wanted her father to know who to look out for, who he could trust to tell him the truth in case something happened to her. Something unthinkable.
Something like this.
Dick sits heavily into the chair across from him, his eyes already schooled into a glare. In another time, another life maybe, he might have liked Chris Redfield. He might have considered that the crisp, clean-cut young man with the rock-solid morals and impeccable judgment was a suitable acquaintance for the jewel that was his daughter. But Dick has seen enough clean-cut, well-built young men with sweet smiles for the pretty wives and short tempers for the harried, incarcerated husbands to have acquired a distain for them.
Chris shifts in his seat, pulling the cuff of one shirtsleeve out a bit with the opposite hand. He doesn't have to look up into the sire of Jill's eyes to feel her father trying to burn a hole through him with hate. They both know there's no good reason for him to be here. Only bad, bad reasons. Chris swallows hard and then clears his throat.
"Mr. Valentine…" he doesn't have to look up, but he does. He wants to do the right thing and look the other man in the eyes, regardless of how chillingly familiar they are.
"Where's my daughter?" The older man interrupts. With every passing moment his face his face grows a little tighter, a little older.
"Mr. Valentine, sir, I-"
"You killed her? Didn't you? Didn't you, you sack of shit?" The words start quietly and then crescendo. Dick is vibrating with the rage, the anguish of the thought, his lips twisting up into something horrible. One of the guards by the door coughs, a reminder to keep it under control. But it's hard to maintain self-control when the world had just revealed its true, cruel nature.
"I…" Chris' mouth goes dry. There are no words to explain. Dick was right; he did kill her, he was a sack of shit – all he had to do now was admit it. Still, the words don't come. He doesn't know how to describe a pain he can barely abide; doesn't know how to define the events that inspire his nightmares. And so he defaults, he rolls back to the textbook. "I'm terribly sorry for your loss…"
The next thing he knows he's laying flat on his back, a pair of fists pummeling his face.
"Don't you dare fucking apologize to me you son of a bitch! You fucking sack of shit son of a bitch! You think a fucking apology is going to bring her back?!"
There's as much spittle as there is verbal language pouring out at him, as many tears as curses. Although Dick manages to land a couple of decent hits, he's too enraged, too devastated to do any real damage before the guards pull him away, batons in hand. Chris could have easily thrown him off – he does this kind of thing for a living – but he just lays back and lets it happen, lets the kind of agony that he can't feel smash its way into the bones of his face.
The guards drag Dick off, still twisting and kicking out at him. Chris steps in before they can work him over too badly, but he knows he can only put off the treatment for as long as they stay on this side of the steel door at the back of the room. The older man is still yelling, half-sobbing, even as they maneuver him outside.
"I told her you were bad news – I told her right from the start!" One of the guards nearly sends him tumbling with a shove, but, like his daughter was, he's light on his feet. "You'll fucking burn for this Redfield. You will fucking burn in hell for this!"
The door closes and Chris straightens his tie, helping the remaining guard turn the table back over. The other man is young, just out of high school from the looks of it, and he looks a little ashamed at having let the situation get out of control. Chris doesn't mind, he's glad someone finally had the nerve to bust him up a bit – at least it's something tangible.
He's never been a religious man, but there is a hell, he knows – he's already living in it.