Chapter Ten: Spider's Web

Tyler watched Jill work, waiting for her to say she'd unlocked the door. He glaced up quickly caught sight of Chris looking at him, with his eyes narrowed suspiciously. When Chris noticed that he had been seen, he quickly looked away. Tyler rolled his eyes, and went back to watching Jill.

Chris, when he was sure that Tyler was no longer looking at him, resumed his glaring. He was about to say somehing when Jill stood, and said "There you go, Majesty. The door is open."

Chris looked puzzled at the hint of annoyance her voice, but didn't comment on it. "Thanks," he muttered. And motioned for the others to follow him. Time to be on the move again.

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Krauser grinned as he sliced his way through zombie after zombie. If he place a swing just right he could cut several clean in half as he went. This was a way to entertain himslef as he searched for Leon and Ada. The girl had been just a little entertainment. Something other than zombies. He would have killed the others as well, but the look on the man's face of utter disbelief, and then rage was too hilarious. He had watched from a distance when they thought he was gone. It was all rather amusing. They had left eventually, with one of the women in tears. He'd thought about following them, but had changed his mind after a moment. He would find his targets eventually. For now he could have a little bit of fun.

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Where was Spencer's office? She couldn't remember. She had pushed this place out of her mind. It had worked a little to well. She was on the 4th floor. His office had to be here or on the 5th floor. Spencer always made sure his office was on or close to the top floor. She was stilll scolding herself for panicking earlier. Maybe if she stopped, she'd have an easier time remembering.

"Hehehehe!" A child-like laugh sounded behind her.

It's nothing...just your imagination...Don't look back. Don't look back. But the laugh came again, and Ada couldn't help herself. She slowly turned around, butthere was nothing there. Get a grip. You're going to drive yourself crzy like this! She continued on her original path. She ignored the pitter-patter of feet behind her. Ignored the occaisional laugh. All by telling herself she was imgaining it. Finally she couldn't stand it any more. She spun around as fast as she could, and caught sight of a tiny for ducking behind a curtian.

So she wants to play games huh? Fine. She'll be sorry. the little bitch has started a game she is going to lose.

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For a moment, Rebecca panicked. She let out a yelp of surprise, and began to try and get away from what ever it was. But when she heard a woman's voice, she stopped. Clutching at her feet was a young brunnette. Her lab coat was torn and bloodstained, though she didn't appear to be injured. Leon and Billy came rushing around the corner just as Rebecca knelt to pull the woman to her feet. A tag on the front of her coat read "A. Rivers"

"Thank God!" she said, "I thought I was the only person left alive in this place! I'm Abigail Rivers."

"I'm-" Rebecca began, but Abigail stopped her.

"Yes, I know who you are. You're Rebecca Chambers, and he's Billy Coen. Not sure who you are though," she added, nodding at Leon.

"Leon Kennedy," he said.

"Were these normal times," said Abigail, "I'd have the guards down here in a second. But since this isn't normal, and since there are no guards left, what say we put out differences aside for now and get out of here?"

All three of them stared at her, shocked. Well at least she was honest about it Billy thought, smirking. Leon glanced at him, as if asking his opinion. He simply shrugged in reply. Rebecca did the same.

Abigail didn't seem to need Leon to tell her their decision. "Well, what're we waiting for? Let's get out of here. The sooner the better. And I know a way out too, I just hadn't gone yet cuz I was alone, and had no way to defend myself.."

"Not so fast," said Leon, "There are more of us. We have to find them before we leave. Any idea where Spencer is?"

"Spencer?" she asked, raising an eyebrow, "why do you want to know?"

"Because that's who Ada was after. We find Spencer, we find Ada."

"Ada...You mean Ada Wong? You mean after all these years she's still holding a grudge against Albert and Spencer? The woman's got problems."

She saw his puzzled expression and began to laugh. She laughed even harder when she saw identical looks on Billy and Becky's faces. It was few minutes before she had herself under control.

"Oh I know about her little Sob Story. You might say Wesker is a family friend. I know who he's killed, who he's employeed, who he's betrayed, ect. I don't think he's ever actually put 2 and 2 together when it comes to Ada, though. i knew who she was the day she showed up. Unlike Albert, I payed attention to things that went on outside of Umbrella," she told them smugly.

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Wesker once again wandered through the halls, not really looking for the intruders. He didn't really care at that moment. If a creature killed them, fine. If not, he could kill them when he found them. He was more concerened with who he had seen earlier...Jack Krauser. Krauser hadn't seen him at least, but Wesker had seen him. If Krauser was here to cause trouble, then the STARS were of little importance. He had seen Redfield's body, so Krauser hadn't been keeping to himself all this time.

Thinking about the body, Wesker couldn't help but laugh. It must have torn Chris apart to see his sister dead. And if he hadn't seen her yet, he would, and then it would tear him apart.

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Amber watched and waited for her chance to get away from the group...And her chance came in the form of spider the size of a large dog.

They had stumbled on the hall filled with webs earlier, but there had been several dead ones there. So they had continued, trying not to get stuck in the webs that covered the walls. None of them had heard the spider silently desending on them.

When the giant Black Widow landed on Phyllis, none of them were prepared for her. Amber surprised herself by actually saving her team mate. As the widow lowered herself to bite the struggling woman, Amber shot her, distracting her long enough for Phyllis to get out of the way. The spider let out a sound resembling a hiss, and sped towards Amber as bullets rained down on her. Amber moved out of the way, and the widow turned her attention to Jill.

Seeing her chance to get away, Amber turned away from the fight, ran back down the hall. She had to report to Wesker. She turned the corner, and used her knife to cut the thick sticky webs away from the wall. There was door that they had all missed. But Amber had known it was there. When enough of the wb was gone to open the door, she slipped through. Once inside the room, she busied herselfwith pulling strings of web off of her clothes. She glanced around to make sure of where she was,and saw that she was in the trophy room. Animal heads stared down at her. Boars, deer, antolope, even a rhino. A large bearskin rug was set in front of the fire place. Stuffed raccoons, rabbits, snakes, foxes, birds of prey, and other aninmals were on shelves. Their glass eyes seemed to follow her as she moved forward.

Not paying attention to what was ahead of her, she walked right into one of the larger animals. When she realized what it was, she yelped in surprise,and jumped back. It wasn't an animal. This had to be one of either Spencer's or Albert's sick jokes. In front of her was one of the failed experiments. They had never been given an actual name, but they had been called by the employees "living statues" as they could stand perfectly still, and make their bodies perfectly stiff. They were maybe 6 feet tall when they stretched to their full height. The thing in front of her was one of the last ones ever experimented on. It's large snake-like body was coiled up, it's bird-like head drawn back to strike.

There was something wrong though...Its eyes didn't have that dead look like the glass should have had. And when she had bumped into it, it had been warm instead of cold like it should have been.

Realization dawned on her as the 'dead' creatured moved to strike.

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Abigail, or Abby as she told them to call her, turned out to be more of an annoyance then anything else. She constantly chattered away, not caring if they were listening or not. None of the three had any real idea of what she was going on about, nor did they care.

I'm gonna put a bullet in her head if she doesn't either shut up, or get eaten soon, Leon thought, trying his best to block her out. She was as bad as one of his cousins had been. Miranda. She had never shut up either, and it had literally ended up getting her killed. But this was Abby, not Miranda. Finally, he turned to face her,

"Abby...I don't mean to seem rude, but could you please shut the hell up?"

His bluntness stopped her for a moment. Billy and Rebecca snickered at her look of amazement. She looked as if no one had ever said anything rude to her in her life. That, or had never challenged her authority. Without waiting for her to regain her ability to speak, he said in a very sarcastic tone, "Thank you," and continued forward.

She said nothing more, for now at least, though she wore a look that suggested there were quite a few things she wanted to say. But they had an advantage over her. She needed their help. They didn't need hers. If she forced them to leave her behind, she would be helpless against any creatures that might attack her, and she knew it. Hows it feel to be at the mercy of those you would have had killed? He wanted to ask, Huh? How's it feel to be helpless against these creatures that you've created? But he held his tongue. Turning his anger on her would do no good, though it would have made him feel better. He heard Rebecca scolding her, behind him, but he didn't intervene. He wasn't going to bawl her out, but he wasn't going to help her either.

Billy sped up so that he was beside Leon, "Rebecca's quite a little spitfire when she wants to be," he said in an amused way, as the argument between the women continued.

Leon nodded in agreement, but didn't say anything. In truth, he didn't know Rebecca very well. He had gotten the feeling that she had kept herself out of the loop when it came to Umbrella. Maybe because she had just wanted to forget it and move on with her life. Leon couldn't blame her. He would have liked to do the same. He cast a sidelong glance at Billy. There was something about him, something he kept hidden. But Rebecca trusted him, and for now, that was enough.

A shriek from behind them signaled the arrival of a silencer.

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"Where's Amber?" Tyler was the first to ask when the spider was dead, "She was here a moment ago.."

All of them shrugged. They had been to occupied with the now dead arachnid to pay much attention to Amber.

"Amber can take care of herself, Tyler," Phyllis pointed out, "We have to keep going and try to find Ada, Tim, and Justin..."

Tyler sighed, and nodded in agreement. Jill and Chris looked reluctant to say a word either way. Though it was obvious that they wanted to keep looking for their companions. Nothing else was said as they continued, Tyler looking very worried. Jill wondered how he could seem so worried, and not want to go searching for his lost team mate. And Phyllis didn't look as if she cared at all... Not that Jill could blame her much. She didn't care either. She didn't like Amber. Good riddance in her opinion. She grimaced at this thought, she hated to think like that, but she couldn't help it. Something about the woman irked her, and she didn't quite trust her. Though she hadn't quite trusted the others either. But that had changed for now.

By the time they were away from the spider webs, Amber had still not returned. They kept going anyway. Jill wondered just how big this place was. Tyler had told her earlier that there were five floors, but she had not seen another stair case since the one they had taken that had led them to the 4th floor. But then, this place had to be huge, if they had been in there as long as it felt like they had.

And indeed the place was huge. Huge enough for someone to easily get lost and stay that way for hours. If it was their first time there, that is. Phyllis had gotten lost once, and she hadn't enjoyed the experience...She had been in this area of the mansion for hours before she had found the stairs down. The mansion had been empty at that point, and quite eerie from the silence. When she had finally found her way back to the first floor, she had been wandering around for a good 10 hours. She was pulled out of her thoughts when someone ahead of her yelled in surprise. The yell was followed by a loud splash.

Phyllis stifled a laugh. Chris had found the pool.

Both she and Jill knelt down as Chris came to the surface. "Really, Chris, this isn't the time for fun," she said.

He glared at her as he lifted himself from the water. Phyl couldn't see how he'd fallen in. He should have seen the water. She said so.

"He was walking backwards," said Jill, laughing, "I tried to warn him, but he didn't listen. Did you?"

Chris didn't answer either of them. He shook his head as hard as he could, sending water on to both of them. Tyler, at least, avioded getting wet, as he had stood far enough back. Chris stood up, his feet making squelching noises.

"well...So long as there's no more surprises, can we get going?" he asked,starting forward anyway.

"Sure, just don't slip," said Jill, sarcastically, as she too started forward