CHAPTER TWO
Chris couldn't open the door that lead in the direction of the front door. It was locked by some strange type of lock he'd never seen before. He knew that Jill was good with lock picking, but she was on the other side of the door. He'd decided to go the other route, turning the corner and going to the left. He caught a glimpse of something shiny underneath the glass cabinet along the wall to his left. He moved the cabinet and found the shiny item to be a small dagger.
Ya never know, he thought, stuffing his find into a safe area on his belt.
He turned the corner and noticed another glass cabinet. Again, something shiny was underneath it. He walked toward it―
―only to stop in his tracks when something hit the window to his right.
He whipped around, aiming his Samurai Edge at the window. A small hairline crack was going diagonally upward from the lower right corner. If it had been the dogs, he didn't see why they didn't just jump in through the window he'd come from.
He reached the cabinet and pushed it back. Underneath was a magazine for a Beretta. He picked it up and checked it―a full fifteen rounds. Who would leave a handgun magazine underneath a cabinet? It was slightly obvious that there had been someone in the house recently. Maybe somebody had dropped it and it slid under the cabinet.
But that didn't sell. Unless the person had bled either in the room through the locked door or the room through the door to his right, there had been no one wounded in this room―no blood stains. That had to mean that the magazine was deliberately placed there...
But he didn't dwell on it. He had bigger problems than Who left the nine-mil mag under the cabinet, so he walked over to the door and checked it. Not locked. He slowly turned the doorknob and looked into the room. It lead into another hallway. There was a metal door ahead and on the right wall that seemed to go outside, based on its look. A wooden door ahead and to the left, on the wall opposite him.
He walked out into the hallway carefully, checking the metal door first. Locked. Next came the wooden door. It opened into a nicely antique bathroom that was relatively clean except for the rot. The bathtub in front of him was still full, the ceiling fan rotating above him, the mirror recently wiped off.
Who had been in this house?
He walked over to the tub and noticed what looked like another one of those daggers like the one he'd picked up earlier. He reached in to grab for it―
―and a decayed, partial hand reached out of the tub, grabbing for his face.
Chris fell back, into the counter behind him. A man with shaggy brown hair―or what had once been shaggy brown hair―sat up in the tub and looked at him with rolled back eyes. The man couldn't have been alive underneath that water, unless he'd just gotten in there. And the hand―there were only two fingers of the right hand. The other three appeared to have been eaten off. A large section of flesh was torn away from the area around the left eye―making it white in the middle of red.
He raised the Samurai Edge and pointed it at the man's chest.
He's like a fuckin' zombie... Chris thought, looking the man square in the dead eyes. That was the only thing that seemed to connect with him about this man, zombie.
He didn't attempt to make contact with this man, something about him told Chris that he wouldn't speak. The man had the chain for the drain plug around his neck, as if he'd been choked by it. The water in the tub was draining out. Chris could clearly see the object he'd glimpsed earlier: a small key.
But his attention was drawn away from the key and at the man―the zombie―in front of him. It had tried to get out of the tub and fallen onto the floor in front of him. Chris slid to the left, to the door. He kept his Samurai Edge trained on the creature in front of him. It didn't stand up, however. One quick inspection of its legs told him that it wasn't going to get up any time soon―both were broken and decayed.
Whew...
He opened the door and eased out, shutting it behind him. That bathroom was off-limits, now.
He continued down the hall―which was a right turn, then a left turn coming out into a sitting area, then another left turn which had a wooden door. He opened it up, discovering a square room with an intricate design on the wall. On all four walls. And the floor, and the ceiling. The whole room was an intricate design. He walked toward the other door on the opposite side of the room. It opened into a small sitting room with a fireplace on one wall, a coffee table, two chairs and a couch. On the table was a set of ink ribbons and another of those daggers like Chris had found earlier.
On the wall opposite him was a shotgun.
He walked over to it, holstered his Samurai Edge, and pulled it off of the wall. The two racks that had held it up lifted with it.
What the hell?
He checked it for ammunition―it was full―and then walked to the door and left the room. A trickle of dust hit his shoulder, a sound caught his attention. On both, he looked upward and saw the ceiling with the intricate design lowering.
The room was a death trap.
He ran to the door that went out into the hallway. It was locked. Who in the hell had locked the door?! Then he thought about it: the ceiling had begun to lower when he took the shotgun, the door must have locked as well, further adding to the trap. He ran back to the other door and went back into the room. He could still hear the sliding of the stone the ceiling was made out of. He walked back over to the racks the shotgun was placed on and put it back. They lowered under the weight, then the sounds of the ceiling raising to its original spot could be heard through the wall.
Thank God.
He'd need to find a counter-weight to use in place of the shotgun, that way he could take it and not have a Raiders of the Lost Ark trap kill him.
He left the room, exited out the death room, then reentered the hallway. There was a double door in front of him, he took that. It opened into yet another hallway (the house was starting to seem less like a house than a building with multiple interconnecting hallways) that had three doors that he could see, with an offshoot to the right at the end of the hall. The first door on the right was unlocked, so Chris left it alone for the moment. The second door on the right was locked, some kind of elegant design carved on the handle. The third door, on the left and across from the offshoot, was also locked and this one had an armor design on the lock.
A footstep behind him.
Chris spun around, whipping the Samurai Edge in that direction. Another 'zombie' was walking toward him. He had no hesitation; he squeezed the trigger and split his right eye open.
Another door was just past the corpse of the zombie. It was a metal door, similar to the one he'd passed in the other hall that was locked.
Might be a way out. Better check it out.
He walked over to it, turned the knob.
The door opened.
He walked outside―in a manner of speaking. He was in some kind of garden corridor. It was blocked off from the forest by a greenhouse-like plant holding wall. At the other end was another door. On the wall a few feet from the other door was an indentation with another indentation inside of it―the latter octagonal. He walked over to it, inspecting the indentations. There was writing on the larger indentation, to the side of the octagonal one. It was worn, however, and illegible.
Damn...
He checked the door. Locked. There went the way out. The door inside, however, might lead him to something needed to open this door. So he turned around, reentered the mansion, and entered through the unlocked door. It lead to a small hallway with paintings hanging on the walls, then a more open area that Chris couldn't see all of. He could see the first few steps of a flight of stairs. He walked into the more open area―
―and ended up face-to-face with another zombie.
Before Chris could raise the Samurai Edge to kill it, it locked arms with him. Chris fought off, making sure the black, gnarled teeth of the zombie never reached him. If these zombies were like the ones in movies, he'd die and become a zombie if bitten by one.
The dagger! His brain shouted at him. But it wouldn't work―if he let go of the zombie, it'd be closer to biting him.
So, instead, he pushed it away, making it hit the wall. Then he raised the Samurai Edge and squeezed the trigger. A smattering of blood hit the wall behind it, while it slumped against the wall.
He heard a thump from above him. He looked along the stair railing, then up at the second floor of the room. Nothing.
Then a zombie stepped into view, leaning against the railing.
Chris decided to avoid it until he checked out the small door in the wall across from the stairs―which he hadn't noticed until he swept the Samurai Edge across the room. The door knob turned, the door opened. The room was small―a storeroom―with a large trunk on the wall opposite, a set of boxes directly ahead, a typewriter on a table to his right, and cleaning/gardening supplies next to the trunk and on a shelf above the trunk.
He checked out the trunk, found a can of ink ribbon, a green plant that he deduced was a mountain herb, another Beretta magazine―which he pocketed―and another dagger like the one he'd found earlier. He took the dagger, as well, then closed the trunk. The plant and ink ribbons wouldn't help.
Just a zombie to deal with upstairs.
Jill knelt down next to Kenneth's corpse. A rush of sadness overwhelmed her, she almost cried.
But she didn't have that luxury.
When she and Barry had gone back to the main hall, Wesker had been gone. They spent a few moments looking for him, but found nothing. They'd decided that the main hall would be their rendezvous point―in case something happened. Then Barry gave her one of her old lockpicks she'd given him. Jill had a S.T.A.R.S. reputation as being the Master of Unlocking, which she despised.
Barry had gone back through the dining room doors, while Jill had taken the other room. A locked door and a chest in front of an open doorway told her that this was not yet the way to go.
So she went back to the dining hall. Barry was no where to be found―he must have gone into the hall that Kenneth's body was laying in―so Jill was on her own. When she entered the hall and saw that Barry was no where to be found, she figured he'd gone through one of the other doors.
So she stopped to pay her respects to Kenneth before moving on.
She stood up, taking a glance at the door to her left. The others down the hall were locked―either by some weird setup using medieval objects or just from the other side of the door. The only one left to check was the one to her left. The doorknob turned, the door opened. The creek was a little too loud, but nothing was around to get in her way. She was in a hallway, now, with a desk or dresser of some kind a few feet ahead of her. A corner at the desk, with a table down the hall that way. A flight of stairs was just in front of her, which went around the room. There was a Beretta magazine on the table, along with a bird cage. Jill wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so she jammed the mag into her hip pouch.
A corpse was propped up against the wall to her right. A man, possibly in his mid-thirties, but undeterminable due to the rot that covered his body. Jill immediately thought of the cannibal that had killed Kenneth. Whoever these cannibals were, they were going to get some S.T.A.R.S. justice once the entire team regrouped.
No other doors or anything in the room, she'd have to take the stairs. She went up, taking a look at the top of the stairs from the middle platform. There was a door up there, but that was it. She took a deep breath, continued up the stairs, and then through the door.
On the floor directly ahead of her was a corpse.
This one, however, was different from the others. Its skin some kind of pale red color, as if it had been dipped in blood. The tips of its fingers seemed to be...claws.
She forced herself to look away from it and saw the door down the hall from it. She made a mental note of its location, then turned to her right, toward another door.
And another cannibal.
This one was worse than the last―his entire left arm was gone. His plaid sweater-vest was discolored with blood. What was wrong with these guys if they could take these large wounds without so much as a look of pain on their faces?
Then she remembered that she'd compared the first one to a zombie―maybe she wasn't so far off.
She raised her Samurai Edge and aimed squarely at the man's forehead. A trigger squeeze later, and he was down on the ground.
Easy enough, right, Jill? She asked herself. Something told her that there was a bit more beneath the surface of this.
She tried the door next to the one she'd just shot. Locked. There was a bit more hallway to check, judging by the look into the mirror. She turned the corner and continued. Down the hall a bit and on the left side was a small statue on a pedestal. The statue was holding a small golden arrow. At the tip of the arrow was an arrowhead made out of some emerald looking object.
Important, maybe?
Jill took the arrow, then twisted the arrowhead off. It came off easily, telling her that it was a part of some puzzle.
The question is: Where's the puzzle?
She looked down at the ground in front of another mirror. There was a second handgun magazine lying there. She took it, placed it and the arrowhead in her side pack, and continued on down the hall.
The third door she'd come to was locked, and the fourth opened into the balcony of the dining room. It was darker upstairs―the only light coming from downstairs―but she could see just as well. S.T.A.R.S. training involved nighttime combat, so her eyes could easily adjust.
There was a cannibal/zombie walking by a statue on the other side of the room. It was a man, anywhere between twenty and forty, and he was just wandering around aimlessly, as if nothing was going on. He hit the railing at one point, then stopped, just hanging over it.
Should I take care of him now, or later?
She decided now was the time, so she took careful aim and fired right at the back of his raggy head. He slumped further foreward and fell to the dining room below. One less to worry about.
A door was to her right, but it was locked. Jill sighed and shook her head. Sword emblem beneath the lock. What was it with this house and these damned locks? She disregared the thought and walked toward the double doors that would take her back into the main hall.
Once she was back in the light of the main hall, her eyes readjusted and she took a breath. This was the only room in the house, it seemed, that didn't smell like rotted shit.
A glint of metal at the mid point on the stairway between the first and second floor caught her eye. It looked like...a doorknob? A door was hidden amidst the large picture that took up that wall? It was worth checking out. She walked down the stairs and saw that, indeed, there was a door there. She opened it.
There was a graveyard beyond the door. An outdoor graveyard. There were very few windows on this interior side of the mansion, so she couldn't see if anybody was in any of the other rooms. There was a small fenced-off area in front of her, and a little trail leading to the largest grave ahead and to the left.
She took the trail and saw that a portion of another fence was broken off, this small area leading to a heavy grouping of trees. She made a mental note, and then continued toward the large grave.
There was an image carved into the grave. It looked suspiciously familar―then it clicked, the place she'd taken the arrowhead. She withdrew it from her side pack and held it up to the gravestone. Sure enough, there was the hole to set it in. Whoever made this place was obviously either a genious with traps and puzzles, or a complete fucking whacko.
The grave began to move. Jill backed away from it just as it backed away from her. In its place there was now a large opening in the ground, with a staircase leading down.
Do I take the low road or stay here?
She knelt down and saw that there was at least some kind of light down there. It was probably like the fireplace in the dining room, because shadows and orange light were bouncing all over the base of the stairs. There were sounds of some kind of wheel turning. The whole thing looked very medieval.
I can afford a look.
She walked down the stairs and entered what looked to be, for all intents and purposes, a dungeon. To her left were four stone faces coming out of the walls, each different. One was missing a nose, another its eyes, the third the mouth, and the last all three. In the middle of the room, hanging from the ceiling by four chains, was a coffin. It looked to be at least thirty years old. On the far side of the room was a small pedistal with something small and flat on top of it. She carefully passed under the old coffin and saw that the small, flat object was a book of some kind. Purple, with a strap around the side to keep it closed, and not nearly as old as the rest of the room.
Jill picked up the book and turned it around. On the back was a key with a diamond on the end opposite the tip. She took it out of its place and turned it around in her hand. There was a sword engraved into the diamond.
The weird medieval locks. This is one of those keys.
She pocketed the key, then found that the strap was now loose. She pulled the book open and found three capital words on the first page.
BOOK OF CURSE
The next page had more writing on it.
the four masks...
a mask that speaks no evil...
a mask that smells no evil...
a mask that sees no evil...
a mask that cannot speak, see
or smell evil...
when all four fall into place,
evil will awaken
She didn't know what to make of it, but it was certainly disturbing. Jill shut the book and put it down on the pedistal upon which she found it. Hopefully, the four masks that it talked about were easy to find or useless, either one.
She looked back at the faces on the wall.
The masks must go on those faces. She shivered thinking about what those masks looked like. The faces on the walls were creepy as hell.
Jill walked back up the stairs and back out into the graveyard. She walked over the the fenced off area and saw something on the ground inside the fence. It was round, about the size of... a face. It was one of the masks! She put her arm through the fence and tried to reach inside, but her arms were too short. The mask was over six feet away. She walked over to the fence gate and tried to pry it open, but the lock was too strong.
Well... I guess I'll have to find some other way inside.
She leaned against the fence and let out a sigh. This was destined to be a long night.