The Long Dark
XXII.
Post Mortem
Jill and Kevin had gotten separated in a cavern section while running. The crumbling ice around them had sent Jill skidding hard into a wall and sliding down an embankment. When Kevin called down to her to make sure she was ok, she saw it - the chunk of the ceiling broke free and came for him.
Jill shouted. He dove out of the way, and the ceiling collapsed where he'd been. She had no idea if he was alive.
She picked her way through the cold and couldn't feel her fingertips or toes. She was in trouble here. She was headed deeper and deeper into the ice, and her eyelashes were starting to freeze. If she was sluggish in the early stages of hypothermia, Kat would easily kill her if she found her.
Jill walked until the light on her flashlight gave a pathetic flicker and died. And she was alone in the dark. She put on her thermal goggles to attempt to see anything. But there were heat signatures everywhere, stuffed in the walls and the floor. She was walking through a landmine of parasites.
When she emerged into an open area, she felt like she'd wandered into Times Square at Christmas. The walls glittered with plagas. With the goggles on, it was almost pretty. Distracted by it, brain fog settling over her from the cold, she stared.
And she didn't hear the person who came up behind her.
"Boo."
Jill started to turn, and Kat hit her in the side with a closed fit. It knocked the wind out of Jill and sent her skidding on her ass over the icy floor. She smacked into the wall laden with sleeping plagas, and Kat crouched in front of her.
The punch in the face hurt. It whipped Jill's head back and made her ears ring. When she struggled to move, Kat backhanded her and sent her to her side, swallowing a mouthful of blood and trying to remember how to breathe.
Jill raised the gun, unsure if she even had any ammo left even to attempt to kill the other woman, but she was too slow. Her reflexes were retarded by chilling blood. Kat knocked it from her hands and grabbed her chin, forcing Jill's face up. She leaned over, looking like a demon in the thermal goggles, and she cooed, "I don't need light anymore, mouse. I can see you perfectly in the dark. That's part of the gift, you see, the ability to use the shadows as you use the sun."
Jill slid her hand down her thigh, gripped the knife there, and readied it as Kat squeezed her jaw, pursing her lips and forcing Jill's mouth open into a receptive "o". "I was going to kill you because what's left of the old Kat in here was jealous of you. She has a thing for the wolf you're both chasing."
Kat jerked her upright and slammed her into the ice, making Jill's head spin and the nausea creep up her throat. The redhead leaned over Jill until their lips brushed, hers warm, Jill's deathly cold. "But I want to give you the gift, Jill. I want you to join me. And then this body will be at his side forever...and so will yours."
Whose side?
And what did that even mean?
Jill answered, voice sluggish, but strong, "...I don't stand to the side, bitch, I lead."
She drove the knife up into Kat's sternum. The woman grunted, jerked her to her feet, and slammed her into the wall so hard Jill felt the goggles shake on her face, and her back screamed in pain. Kat pressed her bleeding body into Jill's until the hilt of the knife ground into the other woman and forced a cry of pain out of Jill's mouth.
"Only the shell which is perishable passes away, Jill," Kat cooed as Jill struggled and felt the hilt try to pierce her stomach with force exerted by the woman clutching her. She ripped the knife from her own body in a gush of blood and drove it into Jill's shoulder, pinning her to the ice while the former thief screamed in pain, "the plagas is eternal...deathless."
"Pretty sure you got that quote wrong, you fugly meat suit," Kevin hit Kat so hard in the side of the head with the butt of his empty rifle that she was thrown to the side. She dropped Jill, slid over the ice like a runner headed for home, and circled twice before she stopped on her side on the ground.
Jill gasped, hand slipping on the knife handle, "I'm stuck, Kevin...I'm stuck. I can't get it loose."
"I know, I'm sorry." He meant it. Because this wouldn't be easy on either of them. He'd hurt her worse trying to free her. He was damn sure of that.
He grabbed the hilt and jerked it hard. It ripped out of her flesh with a squelch and a squirt of blood that made her body spasm as she screamed, unable to quiet herself or resist. The pain radiated down her side. It made her eyes flash with white stars. Her blood was hot on her chest and belly as it spilled, red and bright on the icy ground. The wound steamed, hot compared to the freezing cold that clutched them in their merciless grip.
Kevin put his hand down and jerked Jill to her feet as Kat stirred. Without bullets, they were outmatched here. They both knew it. All they could do was keep running.
They ran down the only open path and curved twice through tunnels before randomly going down a left one. Jill staggered, losing her footing, and Kevin hoisted her arm around his shoulders to help her run. For the first time, she wished she was as big as Kevin, Chris, or even Leon. Muscle and mass kept him warmer, allowing him to soldier on when she felt like she was half dead and waiting for her body to finish shutting down.
It was too soon after her last battle with hypothermia. She just wasn't up to it. But she gave it everything she had.
Her blood made a trail behind them as they ran. Afraid, he told her, "Cover the wound with your hand, Jill; put pressure on it. Stop the bleeding."
Right. She'd forgotten basic first-aid. She wasn't doing well. Her mind was slower and trying to shut off to protect her from the pain. Her heat was all being sent to her core to save her life, but it left her weak, nearly useless, and a burden. She hated herself for it.
But she put a hand over her bleeding shoulder to try to stop the blood and quit leaving a perfect trail for what hunted them to follow.
Kat's laughter chased them down the tunnel they were in. Kevin hoisted his empty weapon in his left hand, his right secure around Jill's waist, and grunted, "This bitch...I'm gonna enjoy killing her."
Jill's cold lips laughed sarcastically, "With what? Bad jokes? You gonna throw shade at her and see if she dies?"
"Why not...it worked to kill my love life."
They whipped around a corner to find a figure waiting for them. Jill's thermal goggles lit up. Kevin froze. And the face in the fog became clear.
Voice-breaking, Jill cried, "Rebecca?!"
The girl scientist had the stick in one hand and a determined look on her face. She looked like she'd been dead for three days. But her red eyes were filled with her, and not the thing that rode in her body like a passenger on a bus that wouldn't get off.
Rebecca mused, "Apparently, the experimental compound I shot myself up with to test it has retarded the growth in me. But it's gauze over a gushing wound. Eventually, it's gonna burst."
"How did you get here?!"
"The caves run together. All of them. They aren't entirely natural, Jill. They're passages, subway systems, to connect the plagas to each other. And they're legion. Tell Leon that even the smallest detonation could unleash everything for miles and miles. Whatever you do, don't bomb. Ever," Rebecca surged forward and shuddered, stopping, "...you smell so good."
Jill felt a shiver of fear as Kevin teased, "Like the stink of desperation, do ya, dollface?"
Rebecca gave him a sad look. "It works on you," She quipped and had him smiling before she added, "you gotta go now. Now. I can hold her off, but I don't know for how long... find Leon. Get out."
"He's here?" Jill wanted to reach out, to touch her, but she knew it was wrong. If Rebecca were fighting as Leon had, heightened emotion could bring on the change faster.
"He's here," Rebecca tilted her head like she was listening, "he's close. Run down this passage to my right. Keep running. Take the stairs at the end. You'll find him there. Go."
Jill hesitated as they passed her. "Rebecca...I love you."
Rebecca gave her a sad laugh, "You wait your whole life to hear someone say it, and it's somebody with the wrong equipment between their legs," she laughed wetly and shook her head, "I love you too, Jill. You were a better friend to me than I deserved," she looked at Kevin and commanded, "take care of her for me."
Kevin nodded and answered, voice gruff, "You should come with us...if you do, maybe we can-"
"There's no time," Rebecca stepped around them and stood in the hallway like a sentry, "this is twice I get to be the hero, and that never happens for me. Don't spoil it."
Kevin half-carried Jill as she called, "Rebecca, what happens if Kat gets passed you!?"
Without turning to look at them, Rebecca returned, "Then Wesker gets his sample," she inhaled and let the wash of the thing inside of her give her strength to stay in this god-forsaken place and die like a shield meant to guard the world above, "so pray that I channel Chuck Norris and find a way to stop her."
"Rebecca...I'm sorry."
The girl scientist flickered around the eyes. She shivered with a smile, "Sorry's a game, Jill, and games don't have anything to do with real life. Find Leon...help him. What he's doing...he'll need the help. Hurry."
Hurry - the story of their lives.
Their boots and breath echoed as they moved, as they left her again - left her again. Jill felt the shiver of grief as they hurried. Kevin, half carrying her, told her, "Don't."
Jill shook her head, "...she's my friend."
"I know that, I do," He hoisted her up and declared, "but she knows what she's doing. Let her do it, and don't let it be for nothing."
They pushed through the cold and followed the path Rebecca had given them. Leon was exactly where Rebecca said he would be when they emerged into a large room. He was standing, it seemed, in front of an enormous wall of ice. It towered, it curved, it curled over the room in a nearly perfect frozen tidal wave, offering the idea it might, at any time, collapse atop you and finish you off.
Or, finally, offer you peace.
He had one palm lying on that ice, flattened, while he watched whatever was obscured within it as a child might a unicorn glimpsed in the wild...or the monster under the bed. Kevin set Jill on her feet as they approached and called softly, "Yo, boss man, we gotta go."
Leon's eyes flicked over the ice wall. What was within was a glimpse of something half-formed, unfinished, or simply a suggestion of what lingered in the back of your mind like an errant memory of what waited in the shadows- a twisted mass of bone and blood, casting an orange glow through the cavern. A snarled hand stuck out through the ice, fingers broken and splintered. Not much more was discernible through the opaque ice, but it was clearly a humanoid form, a large humanoid form.
Had he imagined Daedalus in human form touching him? Had his mind slid illusion over him to lessen the fear? Was this what he'd always been...a twisted nightmare encased in ice? It's first host that wasn't a dinosaur. It's first touch of what would become human intelligence but not entirely, not completely, because it didn't know how to survive the storm, which left it frozen forever in a sanctuary...and a prison.
A creature so old that there are no stories about it that it didn't start itself. The thing that thrives in the dark memories of mankind. That moment where your hair just suddenly stands on end when you are alone? Whispers from the void.
It sent out its first splinters before it became entombed, alive, in that wall of ice. And maybe that was where the birth of the saying began - one whisper, added to a thousand others, becomes a roar of discontent. It wanted to whisper...it wanted to spread.
It wanted to live.
And it needed a host to help it.
Unnerved by his silence, Jill touched Leon's arm. And when he kept staring at that ice with his hand flat, his eyes riveted, she gripped his forearm and jerked. He turned slowly, sluggish, as if he were moving through air that turned thick and sticky. Concerned, she transferred her hands to his vest at the shoulders, jerked on him, and commanded, "Move. You hear me? I move, you move, now."
In a voice low and gravely, he answered, "I'm here...I'm still me."
Alarmed, Kevin glanced at Jill, "Who the hell else would you be?"
Jill just nodded, "Yeah, you're still you. Help us...please."
Leon nodded, "...let's go."
He kicked into action like someone had thrown a switch. Kevin glanced at him as Leon eyed Jill and determined, "You're hurt?"
"No," She shook her head, "No. Freezing, but not seriously hurt. I'll live."
Hopefully. If hypothermia didn't kill her first. Jill took the heavy swath of gauze Leon passed her from his pack. She thrust it between her shirt, vest, and wound, creating a pressure bandage from the combined weight.
Kevin added, "We're dry. And Kat? She's having a knockdown drag-out fight with Rebecca right now."
Leon narrowed his eyes, "Rebecca...she's alive?"
Jill nodded. Kevin shook his head - no. So, they weren't in agreement there. But Leon knew what they meant, "Kat's dead?"
"Not dead, but not Kat either, " Kevin explained, "And we gotta go. Right now."
"Yeah," Leon tossed the gun he carried to Kevin, "Cover us. And let's get out of here."
He looped Jill's arm over his shoulder and drew his sidearm with the other hand that didn't wrap at her waist. She slumped, having a deja vu moment from Spain so bad it nearly left her dizzy, of her carrying him as well as she could toward that laser to try to save his life. But he was boiling warm in the freezing cold. The moment their bodies touched, she gasped at the difference.
And she knew.
She understood.
He was infected. He had to be. There was no other way he could run so hot.
What had he done? What?
Alarmed and afraid, she still said nothing. She didn't alert Kevin. She didn't say a word as they ran, with Leon leading the charge and Kevin covering them. They ran, and he easily supported her weight without breaking stride - putting all that muscle and his parasite-gifted strength to use.
What came from the ice had never seen sunlight. It was things half-glimpsed, lies whispered, horrors ignored. It wanted to be free, and it didn't care how it got there. Kevin shot, he shot again, Leon fired and held her - easily - no effort.
They climbed up a long tunnel with things breeding in the dark around them, chittering, clamoring, and singing. Terrified, Jill breathed, "...what is it?"
And Leon said, "...the long dark."
Right.
The long dark - the thing that shivered inside of all of us. The worst of us. The perverted shadows of a pretty forest turned black with malice. Eventually, it whispered, everything fell into the dark. Flee, fight, try like hell to escape it - but there was no escape. The dark was everywhere. It was around you.
It was inside you.
And you couldn't run forever.
When something surged toward them, Jill shouted in fear. It raced at her like it would eat them both, and Leon tucked her closer to his side and told it, "...no."
It stopped. It considered. Its tentacles and bulging eyes and lipless hungry mouth garbled as it drooled. It reached for her again, and he leveled his gun on it and commanded, "No."
He fired. It squealed and retreated, the heavy round taking a chunk of its head as it fled. Feeling a roll of fear, Kevin stood behind them and urged quietly, "...keep going. Go."
They went.
In Leon's head, that voice offered, "Ask me...ask me to make them stop...ask me to hold them back...ask me...and understand my commitment to our deal...ask...me...and accept."
Things rushed them, raining from the walls, scuttling along the floor, racing, roaring, and singing. Singing.
Singing.
They'd never get out. They were surrounded. They were trapped.
Entombed.
Forsaken.
Kevin shouted in rage and battle; he fought, kicked, stabbed, and survived. He bled when tentacles whipped and razor-sharp appendages punctured. Jill cried out in remorse and desperation when Leon's gun kicked empty. He lowered it, heart pounding. He fought with his hands, with his knife, without fail.
Without hope.
Jill surged into the fight and left his side. She tried. She was so weak. She bled; she tore into the fray like a hero - willing to go down fighting.
Kevin was against the wall with one on his face trying to infect him. He was covered in spiders like a blanket made of cosmic horror. Jill was trying to rip them off him. They climbed up her legs; they went for her face; they forced her to abandon her hope of helping her fallen comrade and try to save herself. But she never stopped. She let them climb her as she desperately attempted to free Kevin from the things that scaled his body like eager climbers on a mountain.
Jill screamed, "Get off him! Leon!"
And Leon whispered, "...let them live."
The voice in his head returned, "...accept me...completely...accept me..."
And that was the moment Leon understood. The first plagas, you had to embrace it for it to thrive completely. Not just to let it inside of you, you had to let it become you. Without that, it had to overtake you. And when it did, it shattered the mind, and what was left was a shell of what it might have been. It needed a host that wanted it to avoid making one that failed its purpose.
As long as he never dropped his shields within himself. As long as he resisted...it would never really have him. Unless it was willing to drive him insane to do it. Unless it was willing to thwart what might be its last chance at escape from that tomb where it found itself.
As long as he could resist it, he could find a way to eradicate it while it lay inside of him. He could stop it. He could win. Unless it was willing to destroy him to rule him...and destroy itself by extension.
It wanted to prove its power. It wanted to let Jill and Kevin die, and turn, to show what it would do to his world if he denied it. It wanted to start cultivating him by killing the things that mattered and show how little value they had.
It didn't understand human emotion. It didn't understand the concept of what ultimately drove the hosts it chose. It only saw power - and it thought it could prove itself with threats.
It didn't understand Leon Kennedy.
And that would be the thing that destroyed it.
He didn't accept. He would never accept. He'd taken it into himself to stop it. And that's what he would do. And he would never, ever stop fighting.
He threw the last flashbang on his belt. It hit, and the world exploded in white and bright.
He ran into the middle of the monsters. They parted, like the red sea, unsure if they should hurt him. He ripped and rended, stabbed and slashed, and they hesitated - afraid now, afraid of him. When one latched onto Jill's face, he roared, "No!"
And it released her, tumbling to the floor to scurry back like a scolded child. Jill jerked the one-off Kevin's face and demanded, "Oh, god...did it-"
He shook his head. He slapped at the ones still mounting him and called, "We need a fucking miracle here!"
And just like that, the cavern around them lit up like it had been doused in sun. It was so immediate, unexpected, and bright that it made you cower and cover your eyes. The creatures halted. They hissed. They trembled. And they started to retreat.
After all, the dark couldn't stand up to the light.
Not really.
Not ever.
It wasn't a miracle; it was a human tank. And he came out of the shadows with stadium-grade lights to lead his way. He was bloody. He was filthy. He wore gore and glory somehow simultaneously.
And he called, "I'm not a fucking dog. Nobody tells me to sit and stay. Now move!"
They ran toward the light. They left the darkness behind. It lingered, grieving, as it watched them go.
And it waited, whispering, wishing...and patient...for the light to leave it once again.
Out in the rising sun, Kevin staggered and went to one knee. Two medics surged in to help him up. He slapped at their hands and stated, "I'm not a goddamn cripple."
He wasn't, but he sounded like a wounded bear. Leon helped Jill to the back of a truck and eased her down on the open tail bed. She sat, shaking, freezing, and filthy. Blood streaked her face, and pieces of things no one could guess at. She moaned pitifully as he pulled the latches on her vest.
"Easy," His tone was so soothing it made fresh tears spring in her eyes, "Easy. You're ok."
She would not break. Not here. Not now. Not yet - the chorus of their lives. Not yet. Not yet...not yet...
She nodded as Chris joined them and urged, "Rebecca...Rebecca was back there. She's infected. She needs help. She was still her."
When Chris held her look, Jill urged desperately, "What are you still standing here for!? We don't leave men behind, Redfield! Go! Go get her!"
He said nothing. Leon didn't either. He took the medic's kit and started cleaning her shoulder himself. Jill used her good hand and pressed on Leon's chest to get him to look at her. "Go get her."
They held eyes, and she saw it. She understood it. She knew it. She did this fucking job for a living; she knew what their faces said. She knew the risk of going back in there. She heard the sounds of the cave being sealed. She knew what that meant.
And she begged anyway. "Please don't leave her in there."
She glanced at Chris who gave her a tense jaw and flickering eyes. But he remained stoic. After a moment, he looked away, turning his head - unable to face her desperation or his own regret. He looked off at the horizon.
And Jill switched her gaze to Leon again, with his hand pressed against her shoulder with a fresh bandage soaked in antiseptic. She gripped his vest at the shoulder and jerked a little. She tried again, "...please. Please do this for me."
Softly, he answered, "...it's overrun, Jill. There's nothing left in there to save."
Jill jerked on his vest, shook her head, jerked on his vest, shook her head. Denying. "Please...please don't leave her...please?"
She almost couldn't stand the sympathy on his face. The filth and the misery, the loss and regret, it mingled on his face with pity and remorse. She tried one last time, "...please...she's all alone..."
His heart wrenched as he answered, "...she's gone, Jill...she's gone."
Jill shoved at his chest with her hand. She shoved him away and shimmied her hips to try to slide off the tailbed. She was so weak it made her dizzy, but she demanded, "Give me a weapon."
The people hovering around looked confused. She shouted, "Give me a weapon!"
A few looked at Chris, who shook his head -no. And now she was livid as she roared, "Don't look at him! You hear me!? You look at me! And give me a goddamn weapon - right now!"
She staggered off the truck. She grabbed the weapon from the closest agent. He resisted, looked helplessly at Chris, and Chris told him, "It's ok. Give it to her. Stand down."
Jill jerked the rifle into her hands and limped toward the caves. The men were setting charges to close the mouth and seal the opening. She shouted, "Stop! You hear me!? Stop!"
Concerned where he was being treated, Kevin whipped a look at Leon. He started to get up, and Leon lifted a hand at him to have him stay put.
When Jill reached the mouth of the caves, she angled the weapon at the men still working. They froze, horrified, and lifted their hands as she demanded, "I fucking said stop! Back up...back off...I mean it! Now!"
She started toward the opening in the cave and Leon simply stepped in front of her. Annoyed, she angled the gun at him, "Move, Leon. Now."
"No."
Angry, she released the safety on the weapon. It sounded loud in the cold air. "Get out of the way...I mean it."
"No."
Shaking badly, she aimed the weapon at his face. Her breath hitched, her labored breathing looking like smoke from her tired lungs. Her body felt so fragile. She was afraid she couldn't do this alone.
But she would. She would. She would do whatever it took.
She wasn't weak.
She wasn't.
"I will shoot you," She warned desperately, "I will hurt you."
Not kill you, he thought, hurt you. She wouldn't do either. He was positive about that. "No, you won't," He lifted his hands beside his head to show himself unarmed, "But I can't let you go in there, Jill. It's suicide."
Trembling with fatigue, pain, and loss, Jill avowed, "I'm getting her back. I'm bringing her home."
With nothing but understanding and empathy on his face, Leon answered, "...you can't, Jill. You can't. I'm sorry."
Denying, Jill shouted, "Shut up! For god's sake, shut up, Leon! And move!"
"No." So calm. He just kept saying it. She hated that fucking word.
She started to threaten him again, and Chris stepped up beside him on his left, and Kevin emerged to stand on his right, creating a wall, stopping her, thwarting her, killing her where she stood.
And killing Rebecca where she waited.
Terrified, Jill screamed, "Get out of my way, goddamn you all!"
Chris, on one side, shook his head, looking stalwart and determined. Kevin, on the other, looked at her with pity and regret. Leon stood in the middle with nothing but calm deterrence.
When she let out a cry of defeat, the dam broke as she lamented, "...fuck you all..."
The barrel came down as she sank to her knees in the snow. The gun bumped on the ground as she covered her face with her hands.
When someone went to move her out of the way of the cave, Chris snapped in a gruff voice, "Leave her the fuck alone, you hear me?!"
"I was going to restrain he-"
"You don't touch her," His voice was husky with emotion as he commanded, "or I'll feed you that gun you're wearing."
Unnerved, the agent answered quietly, "Y-yes, Captain. Of course."
It was best to let her kneel in the snow and feel it - all of it. Men didn't do this in front of everyone, exposed and naked in their feelings. She had to be better than this. She had to be better than the men.
She didn't cry, and that was the best they were going to get from her.
Rebecca would have agreed.
But she couldn't. Because Rebecca was dead. She was gone.
Shenmei was standing in the lights a distance away looking at her like Jill had just taken a shit on the face of the feminist movement and lost all her respect. That was fine. It didn't matter because Rebecca was dead.
Jill was too tired to "man up". She was too tired to hide the pain and soldier on. She was too tired, too wounded, too sad. So, she knelt in the snow and hurt. And she didn't give a damn if they judged her for it.