Chapter 4

A sleepy haze gathered around the dull bridge, coming with a dreamy slumber that crept through the dead forest. The flakes of dusk started to be swept up in the failing morning sky. The air came with a tart freeze to it, noting the cold that early October brings. This day couldn't be mistaken for any other. It was a day that had death written all over it.

"We had to hurt it that last time." Shiro talked, his body starting to relax from the last fight.

"I wouldn't be too surprised if it doesn't come back, it seems to do that every time that it gets hurt. There is something that we're not seeing. This is something that we have never seen a B.O.W do before. Maybe that is why Umbrella has been pushing for this thing to be captured alive so badly. " Gong let his concern out as he examined the dismembered arm.

"It's time that we end this mission. Shiro, Gong, and James, I need you three to flush that thing out, leading it towards the town, where I will lay a trap for us to capture it alive." Hunk's ragged breathes came out hard, his body lurching with riveting pain as his lungs fill with each living breath. It wouldn't be long before he would be dead like the rest.

"I'll handle this by myself." James was quick with his words as he shoved pushed Hunk; batting his shoulder with Hunk's as he walked passed. James wasn't in the mood for teammates; he had no concern for anyone else. They were with Hunk, to James; they were Hunk's responsibility, since he was the one that would lead them to their deaths. There were over twenty Special Forces Members that had been killed on missions that were lead by Hunk. He had caused so much death in the ranks of the Special Forces, but he was talked about like he was immortality, able to complete any mission at the cost of his entire squad. Though, no one seemed to care about that, the death rates on missions of this caliber were always high, but there was an extra level of risk when Hunk was involved in them. The thoughts kept coming back to James, that Hunk was nothing more than a murderer.

"You two follow him." Hunk spoke with his nerves in check, he knew why James was mad, but Hunk knew that death was apart of the job and that he wasn't about to let it get to him.

Binding flesh clustered together, reconfiguring itself into twisting shapes. It was the eyes of evolution at work, no more would it have to suffer wounds or pain anymore, the virus had made it into an immortal being and Dr. Cameron would once again be whole. Her legs were missing, severed by the traveling metal and fire of an exploding grenade, though, evolution found the key to that problem, the standing forms of two dogs took their place, her knees melding into their backs like melted solder. The mindless dogs acted like they normally would, their jaws streaming with running foam as their brittle teeth snapping madly, they were nothing more than puppets now. Like a rising chariot of horses, Cameron reared her weight back, gaining full wealth of her new strength.

"I will finally be able to kill those Special Forces Members and from there I will be able to continue my research without the trouble of Umbrella. Once my looks return to normal, I will be able to elude them forever. They will never found me." Dr. Cameron promised herself, Umbrella would never be able to use her research for their own greedy ways.

The monstrous scientist glared within the empty woods, there was nothing more than the spread of the infection going on. Animals attacking other animals, Umbrella's own hands at work, the plans of another outbreak happening were once again high, even in a dim population like this. It would be hard to hide from the Special Forces in the open space of the woods; she had to found a way out. Cameron knew that the Special Forces were the most elite units that Umbrella deployed; they were the best of the best and were only used on mission that called for high priority. It would be hard for her to escape easily. There was only one thing that she could do and that was to extract her revenge on them, she had to kill them.

Sloshing footsteps trembled through the thick brush that covered the outskirts of the small town of Shellback. Each step was filled with unseen weight and pain, almost too heavy to be picked up and lowered respectively. These legs were too tired to carry the hefty load of their tired body, though the muscles that controlled them wouldn't stop until death, since they belonged to death itself. Hunk's mind swooped through the trees as he's body fell behind unable to even catch up with the quickness of his own thoughts as they balanced themselves on the mission. It was time to end it.

The dreary outlook of aged wood came against Hunk's tight and flexed back as he spooned against the side of the general store. Even the slightest break that Hunk took made his body fall into a lapse of sleep and numbness, as if his muscles wouldn't be able to even lift his gun to defend himself. A breath of heat waved over Hunk's body as a mild sweat bubbled against his skin under his jumpsuit. His fingers cramped with locking bones as their grip on his M800Cougar G handgun began to get lost in the pain. Slumping mass rode the cripple of the sturdy wall as Hunk sat against the rocky ground. Hunk was tough, but his body had been through too much during Raccoon City, for him to return so soon to the same environment. In order to complete the mission, he knew that he would have give into the whine of his body. Hunk's sagging head came under his left arm, hiding the sun away from the reflection of his goggles. There wasn't even a second traced thought about it; Hunk disappeared under the shade of sleep, even as the dead stumbled around him.

Everything was shut off from Hunk's senses, sight and hearing, where now useless to him. He allowed himself to fall too deep into the wicked grasp of exhaustion. There was a settle warmth that was surrounding him right now, the sweat from his body now gone, subsiding back into his pores. The sun now lived on his gray fatigues, letting them sooth with heat, a true comfort to Hunk's system. The shimmer of the sun seemed to fade away, like a curtain had been pulled across the sky. An unnatural feeling came to the calm setting, a coarse, but simple cold seemed to drape the area. Electricity snapped within Hunk's system, stinging his eyes with movement. His eyes sunk back into the holes they were placed in, burning them with a horrible throb. Blurred lines bended along with the light as colors mixed in a swirling tempest. The sight might not be there, too blurred to make out, but smell wasn't something that could be mistaken. Even through the heavy filter of the gas mask, the stretch of warm, dead wet flesh seethed in. It was of a putrid moldy smell, a mixture of sewer water and sour meat.

As the smell reached Hunk's olfactory, his eyes came clear with the disturbing image. Shuffling knees brooded in front of them; close enough to see the kneecap lock and pop back in place as the creature walked. It's wet and rotten flesh covered by the sheriff uniform that it wore, it's once old face was ravaged, not by age, but by disease as its lips were missing completely, allowing it to have a grinning smile.

Hunk's muscles came with an untamed pain that fumed with no remorse through his body as he tried to stand. His legs buckled and collapse under him, sending him to the ground again. Unable to even stand properly, Hunk knew that he would have to use his eyes to aim. He steadied his ragged breaths, closing his eyes as he let the cool air sooth his nerves. His strength started to return to him as he lifted his handgun. Hunk's arm traced the outline of the target, before the unlatching bullet cascading from the twirling barrel. A mist of drizzling blood gusted from the zombie's head as its flesh was caved in by the traveling bullet.

"I didn't realize that there were more virus carriers around." Hunk spoke as he rose himself to his feet again.

A throaty moan gurgled from the side of the general store as another set of wobbly feet came around the side of the elderly structure. Its frame shaked and wobbled as it lurched into sight. Sun torched moist flesh came pale and sickly as it covered the zombie's body, nearly translucence white. The tip of its brow came pass the wood planks of its shelter, though that is all that Hunk needed as he sent bullet faltering through the undead's forehead. Crumbling dead bones rested on the ground as the zombie fell.

Hunk stumbled to get his footing as he stepped away from the crutch of the wall. Restricting fingers squeezed into the heavy and thick material of the Kevlar vest that adorned Hunk's chest and back. The constriction of pressure seized on Hunk's shoulders as the fingers dug in. The zombie's grip tightened on the slick, course fabric as its head lurched down, jaws seized on the open air. Stressed muscles pressed back against the undead weight, battering the frail physique of the animated corpse brutally into the stale wooden wall. Hollow bones snap and shatter into powdery dust as intense force juts through the zombie's spine, loosening its grip from Hunk's Kevlar vest as the virus carrier's shoulder twisted inside its fleshy cover. It came into a crumpling heap, its chest folded on its legs without the aid of the stiffness of its spine. Its able arm trembled and crawled as it reached for Hunk's ankle. Hunk's sweeping foot shattered against the zombie's moaning face, seeping its flesh and bone into a tempest of fluid and blood. Shrieking moans of hunger and angst leaked from the dry wood that they hid behind, hinted to Hunk that he may have to pass his title down to someone worthy of the name, Mr. Death.

The forest crept with even footsteps, heavy, but light placed steps. Even under the delicate dry leaves, their feet didn't make a noise. They're eyes reached for yards beyond them, searching for a clue to what escaped them. Their voices were no more; they used their hands to talk. It was like looking for a shadow in a world of darkness.

Shiro halted his advancing footing, melding his back against the trunk of hulking tree. With a nod of his head, he gave a call to James' watching eyes. A single finger stood up, positioning itself up to the canopy of branches and leaves that made an obscure coat to hide behind. James's head flaunted from side to side, his expression clear under his mask that he didn't approve of that idea. The air seemed to disagree with him as it released a flutter of falling leaves against the morning sky. Shiro's eyes came stunned with promptness as he stared at the tumbling leaves, their rust brown coloring fading against the reddish orange of the scorched forest. There was something about the leaves that captivated Shiro's mindset, he knew that something was there, but he couldn't register it within the blotch of fall colors. His fingers wanted to depress the trigger, sending a violent spread of melting steel into the trees above, but he knew that it would just be a waste. He would have to use his training, more than his instincts; he knew they would lead him to his death.

The slightest ting of dropping liquid echoed in Shiro's ear, it could have been a mile away, but to him it sounded like it was right next to him. His ears lead his eyes to the sound, to something came seemed to faintly standout from the rest of the colors that it hid in. Shiro bent his knees, lowering his weight to the ground. His hand scanned over the area where he heard the splash. A slimly, dark prodding liquid blotted against the sunburned leaves as Shiro watched it as it rolled.

"Above!" Shiro's lips rumbled with fright as his body rolled on its back, the barrel of his sub-machine gun thumping with a rhythm line of expelling bullets.

In a spell of raining dead leaves, Cameron bounded from the shelter of hiding. Her massive torso came impacted by the even flow of popping bullets from Shiro's gun as Cameron descended upon him. The once scientist grotesque frame came over Shiro's laying form, his legs pinned under her sheer weight. Desperation sank into his fingers as dropping shells expended from the running rounds that ignited from his MP-5. Sweltering bolts of metal slipped through the slinky tissues of the zombie dogs that made up Dr. Cameron's legs. They bowed with frothing pain as if they acted dependently from Cameron's command as their flesh was sheared by the twist of bullets. The cling of falling empty shells drummed against the ground, it was all that came from the gun as its chamber cleaned itself of the last bullet. Wrenching lips rolled with nasty snarls, curved and jagged canine teeth lined up in rank before they opened. Teeth dipped and ranked through the soft and portly fleshy tissue on Shiro's arms, slipping off rounded chucks of gummy muscles from his limbs.

"Ahhh, Shit!" Shiro's scream dripped from his mouth as his teeth clenched with biting pain. The trapped solider did what he had to as he lifted his left arm, letting the twin mouths of the dogs bite into it, freeing his right arm. His fingers touched upon the leather pouch that hung on his hip, collapsing against the broad handle of the survival knife that he carried. With a speedy thrust of muscle, the thin blade slipped into an envelope of flesh as it came through the bottom of the animal's jaw, the tip of the blade sneering from the top of its head. Curling bends of strength came from Shiro arm has it pulled against the embedded blade, stripping sinew and hide as the dog's rotten head came loose. The gristly head locked loosely on the sharpened blade, separated from its body, before it fling free from the knife.

"I'm not going down like this." Shiro slipped his dagger back, letting its rush into the other zombie's dogs head. Its canine ear came filled with steel as the knife slithered through the slimy tunnel before it pierced its dead brain. Thumping muscles lumped simple against Shiro's arm, its dragging teeth still fastened into its flesh. Shiro pinched his fingers around the top of the undead canine's muzzle, paring it loose from his ravaged arm. Shiro gazed at his devastated arms, the number of teeth marks were no more, as they came in groups, gashing out chucks of crimson tissue. The Japanese-American mumbled jumbled words to himself as he laid on the ground, falls of blood escaping from his torn arms.

"I am not going down like this!" Standing anger filled in Shiro as he raised the glimmering blade of his knife to the reminding reflection that was of his own as Cameron hung over him, the shiny metal tainted under the tarnished blood that laid slickly over it.

A gush of discharging blood and bone seethed from Shiro's chest as a reaching mauve colored tentacle breached from his expose ribcage. The Special Forces member's body riveted with uncontrollable spasms as his body let loose with anguish and torture.

"Death is Umbrella." Dr. Jillian Cameron humbled her words against the dead man's ears. Transferring cells came as her tentacles merged into Shiro's body, slowly merging the two into a genetic pool of muscle and tissue.

"Well, Umbrella gave me this." James voiced as the sticky and oily discharging flames that disgorged from his flame unit. The fires came as a blanket, draping Dr. Cameron's grotesque form and Shiro's dead body into one as their remains dispelled into thickening clouds of choking smoke. Vital screams came from Dr. Cameron, her skin unlatching itself from her hold as it liquefied against the swarm of flames. Deepening sorrow bent Cameron's body down, slopping to the ground. The rash of stinging flames flowed on, James not even letting the area cool down against the rising heat, his own body faltering against the roasting temperatures. The once form that Cameron took was now gone, the image that she had stolen from Ed and made gruesome had become a sizzling husk of chucky pinkish flesh.

"We were supposed to capture it alive!" Gong's even steps came up behind James as he watched the sucking flames dispose of what was left of the creature.

"The bitch is still alive." James sneered with wicked lips as he dropped the empty flame-thrower. "We need to call in for the constraints, to secure that she doesn't escape again."

A shudder of floating rose-tinted flesh stumbled from the messy pile that once was Cameron, the heap of material dissolved, spewing out blood and fluid as it shrink in size. Gong gave quiet paces as he walked towards it, his MP-5 trained evenly on the dripping pool of gore.

"I think she's dead." It came out cold and bitter, almost if Gong didn't want the creature to die that easily.

From the distilled puddle of blood-spattered flesh, something turned, sponging together to form a face, the face of woman's. "I will continue to live forever."

Leathery binds of purple flesh poured endlessly from Cameron's mouth as they seeped through the tiny holes of the heavy filter on Gong's chemical mask, slithering into his mouth, along his rough teeth and down his throat. There was no need for her to merge her body with his, since she was nothing more than a pile of cells, she could just easily take over his body and mind. In seconds, Cameron once again cheated the graces of death and Umbrella.

A veering force bolted against Dr. Cameron's newly formed head and neck, shuttering her mind into unconsciousness, something that she didn't take into account as she melded with a human body, her weakness were theirs. The jolting blow that James was able to deliver with the butt of his M800Cougar G handgun easily dispatched the doctor long enough that he could finally be able to insure that she would never be able to reform again.

The wind swept through the square of downtown Shellback, taking with it the stale decay that hung in the air. The once empty square was scattered with the reanimated bodies of its residents, a single hole was slugged through their foreheads, all done by a powerful handgun. Sheltered from the sting of the rising sun, Hunk held himself against the corner of the church; once again sleep had come for him. The dead had been after him for the last three weeks; it was his time to finally join their ranks.

A scarp of plastic seized against Hunk's lowered helmet, even without the aid of his eyes he knew what the sound was and didn't even bothered raising his head to look up.

"It seems that you will be able to sleep forever now." James quietly chuckled the simple words as he heaved the handgun against his former leader's head. Behind him, laid his former teammate, Gong shackled with chains that he found in a near by barn and on those chains, three frag grenades tethered with the chains, their pins set to explode if the chains were ever to be broken.

"You're legacy lives on. But I will be taking over the name of Mr. Death from now on."

Hunk left his head lowered; he knew that death was never far away from him.