Chapter 6
July 23, 1998 The Abandoned Umbrella Training Facility
I was panting as I collapsed onto the cold stone floor. Matt was standing in front of me, arms folded.
"What the hell, Matt? I could have died down there." I gasped, my breath obscuring most of my voice.
"I'm sorry Tina, really, I was in a hurry and I, I wasn't thinking straight." Matt looked down at the floor.
When Matt turned away from me, I gave him a dirty look. Whatever Matt had become, I certainly wasn't liking it. He's nearly gotten me killed twice, should I really still be trusting him? On the other hand, I kind of don't have a choice. I got up and immediately noticed a figure lying on the stone floor.
"Hey Matt, what's that?" I asked, pointing at the still figure.
On closer examination, the figure turned out to be a human body. The man appeared to be dead, as his flesh was rotting and gave off a foul smell. Matt cautiously walked closer to the body. As he kneeled closer to the body, the man's eyes flew open. The man grabbed Matt with both arms and tried to pull Matt towards him. I jumped back, surprised by the awakening of the previously dead man.
"Tina, help! It's a monster!" Matt cried, desperately trying to kick the rabid man away with his feet.
I fumbled, trying to take out my gun, but it kept slipping out of my hands.
"Shoot already!" Matt yelled, repeatedly pushing the man's head away from him.
I finally got a grip on my gun, I aimed as best as I could and shot at the man. My shot hit the pole next to Matt and the monster. I tried to shoot again, but my gun wouldn't fire. Then I checked the cartridge. Wesker said that these guns didn't need ammo. He lied.
"What are you waiting for?" Matt panicked, desperately trying to keep the monster off of him.
I didn't know what to do. My gun was empty, and I couldn't take on the monster with my bare hands. And then I remembered the knife. I pulled out my knife from my pocket and ran over to the monster. With everything I had, I stabbed my knife into the monster's head. The monster let out a ghostly groan and fell to the floor. Dark blood splattered onto Matt's face and vest. Matt steadily got up, brushing off the blood from his vest.
"A knife, seriously? You seriously think you can take on those things with just a knife?" Matt angrily gestured to the dead monster on the floor.
"I'm sorry Matt, but I was out of ammo. Wesker lied to us, our guns do need ammo." I showed him the magazine of my gun, now empty.
"I know. I'm sure he didn't mean it. I mean, there must have just been some sort of mistake." Matt calmly replied, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Anyways, here's some more ammo. I found a bunch of them on the train. I also found some different kind of ammo. I kept it just in case we might need it later." Matt said, showing me his collection of ammo.
The packages were labeled "Handgun ammo" and "Shotgun shells". The handgun ammo was red, while the shotgun ammo was yellow.
"What's a shotgun?" I asked, looking at the two packets of larger shotgun shells.
Matt shrugged.
"They're longer guns, and they're heavier too. I think there might have been one hanging on the wall at the mansion." Matt guessed.
"Speaking of the mansion, we need to find a way out of here." I suggested.
Matt and I tried to pry the hatch back open, but it appeared to be sealed from the other side. "Looks like we've got to find another way." Matt looked around.
Suddenly, a loudspeaker blared, its fuzzy sound echoing throughout the facility.
"Tina, Matthew this is Doctor Marcus. Do not be alarmed. Please report to the facility basement. I will guide you along the way." The intercom said.
Matt and I looked at each other. Who was Dr. Marcus? What should we do? Should we trust Dr. Marcus? How did he know us anyway?
"How do you know us?" Matt asked, his voice echoing through the room.
"I'll explain once you are in the basement. Now get moving, there is much to do." Dr. Marcus began guiding us through the facility.
This Dr. Marcus, he explained he was the general manager of this facility, yet the place seemed old and abandoned. Plus, there's that monster we ran into earlier. Were there more of them?
"May I ask a question Dr. Marcus?" I asked, as we ventured into what looked like a conference room.
"Ask away Tina." Dr. Marcus replied, his voice still clear on the intercom.
"We were attacked by a monster when we first got here. It was human, except it was dead. It attacked Matt, but we killed it." I told him, wondering if he even knew that his facility was crawling with monsters.
"Did it bite Matt?" Dr. Marcus urgently asked, sounding excited.
"No, but do you know what they are?" I asked, not quite understanding his urgency.
"Oh, I see. Well those "monsters" are escaped experiments of a highly infectious disease. You two won't have to worry about them for now though. I've mostly contained them in another area of the facility." Dr. Marcus replied.
Why would Umbrella be experimenting with a "highly infectious disease"? They were a pharmaceutical company, so maybe they were looking into a cure. But they could also be…
"Alright children, I'll have to cut off for now, but get to the facility basement. I'd love to meet you in person." The loudspeaker shut off.
Matt and I looked at each other. Dr. Marcus had given us directions to the basement elevator, but should we follow? We were told to never question orders, but this was different. We barely knew this man, how did he know us anyway? Suddenly, Matt's walky-talky turned on.
"Matthew? Are you there? Matthew?" Wesker's voice was heard from Matt's walky-talky.
Matt picked it up and turned on the microphone.
"Yes, I'm here, and Tina's still here too. We just received a message from a man named Dr. Marcus, who is he?" Matt asked, speaking clearly into the microphone.
"Dr. Marcus? Was this message a recording?" Wesker asked, sounding surprised.
"No, he could understand everything we were saying. I think he might have cameras hooked up in the facility." Matt replied.
"I was afraid this would happen. You two must be in the old training facility. It was closed down quite some time ago, so some of our, experiments may be loose. Be careful, and find a way out of there." Wesker sternly ordered.
There they go with the "experiments" again. If this place was closed a while ago, why didn't Umbrella come and round up their "experiments"? And if there are more of them, what if the leeches we encountered are also experiments?
"Yes, sir." Matt replied in an equally serious voice.
I peered at Matt suspiciously. He had never called anyone "sir", let alone actually sound serious around anyone else. What's happened to him?
"Dr. Marcus on the other hand has been deceased for some time now. I think someone is trying to impersonate him. What has he told you to do?" Wesker asked.
"He told us to go to the facility basement to meet him in person." Tina told Wesker.
"Hmm, I suggest you follow his orders. Contact me when you've made contact with him. Use caution, he might be dangerous. Wesker, out." Wesker saluted and his face disappeared from the screen.
"Should we really be trusting Wesker? I mean, he lied to us about our guns, he could be leading us into a trap for all we know." I told Matt.
"We should follow Wesker's orders. What else can we do?" Matt countered, defending Wesker.
"We could get out of here is what we could do!" I yelled back at Matt.
Matt's lips moved a bit, and his eyes darted back and forth, as if he was thinking.
"Well, but then where would we start? We know where the basement is, so we should go there. Plus, we don't want to run into anymore of those things." Matt finally replied, pointing to the dead corpse.
I gave in, and we started through the facility. Matt and I continued through the facility undisturbed. The whole way through I thought about Dr. Marcus and Wesker. Dr. Marcus claimed to have good intentions, but why have I never heard of him before? Wesker, on the other hand, says that Dr. Marcus died some time ago and that the person we were speaking to was an imposter. If he was an imposter, who would impersonate him? But there was also the possibility that he wasn't an imposter, what would explain his death? I began to consider the possibility that Dr. Marcus was one of those monsters. But the monsters couldn't talk and didn't appear to have a very high intelligence level. Either way, it was still a possibility. And Matt, he seemed very persistent about going to the basement to meet Dr. Marcus. Now Matt is the only friend I have next to Sherry, and I've known him for much longer. But over these past few hours he's changed so much. Should I really be trusting him anymore?
"Hey, I found the elevator!" Matt shouted from afar. He must have gone ahead of me without my noticing. I quickly caught up to Matt, who was standing in front of a rusty elevator.
"Are you ready?" he asked.
I shrugged, "As ready as I'll ever be."
And we stepped into the elevator.