Ah, a new chapter – finally. I was going to update weeks ago, but I haven't been doing much work on my stories for a few weeks. I have some odd ideas for this installment (although that's sort of the norm) and where they'll lead the plot, I'm not sure, but they'll be interesting either way. I had an idea for a zombie Julia Childs, though I don't know if I'll go anywhere with that yet… Actually, I'm not sure where any of this is going, yet…And for some reason, I keep getting "Admiral Akbar Cereal" from the Star Wars episode of Robot Chicken going in my head…I think I might rearrange where some items are a little, because I sort of forgot the item placement in the Director's Cut – I haven't played it in a long while, and I really need to get back to it.
Ooh, I don't like the looks of that forecast… Apparently we're getting hit with a blizzard tomorrow. How fun. Ah well, I like snow.
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Chapter Five: Sickening Stew
The group headed down a small corridor within the room, aspirin crunching under their feet as they walked towards a lone door. They entered a small room that was dark and the only sound was that of water running and the long vines of a plant in the center of the room swishing back and forth.
"What the hell is that thing?" Jill asked, eyeing it weird.
"It looks almost like a cross between a jungle vine and a spider plant," Petshez replied, walking towards it.
"Um, maybe you shouldn't - "
One of the vines snapped up and hit the teacher in the face, knocking him backwards.
"Wow, that's one mean plant!" he said, just a little too cheerfully. "I knew plants could technically think, but not hostilely!"
"You never taught us that plants could attack people," Alex said, looking around for something to throw at it.
"They can't. It's just our luck we find one that can," Lynn murmured. "It's guarding something."
"Like what? Plant food?" Brian asked, and she rolled her eyes.
"Look at the wall, stupid."
Indeed, there was something on the wall.
"Hm, maybe it would feel better after having something to eat," Brian said, walking over to the water pump, where the lid had been left open, pulling out a white bag and dumping the contents in the water.
"Where did you get that?" Jill questioned, wondering why he'd been carrying around a heavy bag of something all this time.
"It was outside, next to a boiler."
The plant suddenly turned red and shrieked, flailing its vines around before it shriveled up.
"I guess it didn't like it."
"Brian, that's herbicide," Petshez said, pointing at the words on the bag, "See, it says right there."
"… Oops."
"Well, now we can get to the wall," Jill said, not concerned in the least about the plant, as she went to step over the vines.
"Maybe we could revive it," Brian suggested to Petshez, who seemed to like the idea.
"There's a possibility that giving it fresh water might do something. Look, a hose!"
"Guys, don't even think about it," Jill began, but they ignored her, putting the hose into the water pump.
She looked at what seemed to be a crest set in the wall, and she began picking at it until it fell out… And then a key fell out, too.
"Huh, I wonder what these are for…"
All of a sudden, the plant screeched and wrapped a vine around Jill's wrist, trying to get her to drop the two items.
"No plant pushes me around!" she shouted, reaching into the water where the body of the plant was submerged and punching it repeatedly.
The others just watched in silence, rather disturbed and maybe slightly amused by the very odd spectacle.
As if the situation couldn't get any more bizarre, the plant unexpectedly donned boxing gloves on two of its vines and began punching Jill in the face.
In another part of the mansion…
Wesker stood in the hallway, tapping his foot impatiently on the floor while the two imbeciles were using the bathroom… together.
The door finally opened, and they came out, Grompone dripping wet.
"What took you idiots so long?" Wesker muttered, and Grompone shook his head like a dog, splattering water on everything nearby. Including his two companions.
"I had to take a shower," Grompone answered, and O'Shinsky nodded enthusiastically.
"And I had to make sure that Norman Bates didn't show up to stab him!"
Wesker wanted to shoot himself.
"Now we're hungry. Is there a Burger King here?"
"No," he said, wondering what planet this kid was from, "But there is a kitchen."
"Can we go there? If I don't get something to eat, I might die," Grompone explained.
"I wish."
"What?"
"Nothing," Wesker replied, "If I take you to the kitchen, will you quit it with the retarded shenanigans?"
"Is that a trick question?"
"Okay then, never mind. Just shut up and follow me."
Back in the plant room…
Jill was ripping vines off left and right, getting covered in some kind of purple-ish goo that appeared to have once been some form of congealed blood.
"Hey, Petshez, do you have any toast points? I think that plant is bleeding grape jelly."
Petshez, being the idiot he is, decided to taste-test it. Then he spit it out. "BLAH! Wait…" Then tasted it again, and spit it out again. "Yeah, it's still disgusting."
Jill stomped on what was left of the shrieking plant until it fell silent, and the pool of water was full of purple goo.
"Damn plant, trying to mug me," she murmured, wiping goo off of her clothes as she stepped over severed vines covering the floor.
"You're a complete psycho," Lynn said, "And I thought those two soldiers I dated were bad."
"Heh," Brian laughed, "Instead of 'Semper Fidelis', your motto should be 'Semper Fu - "
"Don't even go there, asshole!"
" –ck."
"I am going to kill you when you least expect it…" Lynn grumbled, and Brian just sniggered.
"Well, now I'm going to be expecting it, because you just warned me."
"Come on, be nice to each other," Petshez pleaded, "We need to work together!"
"We can work together to kill him," Alex said.
"This key has a helmet on it," Jill said, changing the subject. "What do you think that means?"
"That it's the key to that thing the Man in the Iron Mask had to wear?" Brian suggested.
"You mean a mask?" Jill questioned, with a weird expression. "No, it's a helmet. It must go to a specific door, but there are so many doors in this place."
"I think that's because no one was meant to leave," Lynn replied, and the entire group turned to look at her.
"You're really creepy now. What happened?" Alex asked, and Lynn turned to exit the room.
"Everything and nothing."
"Of all the kids in the world, I get stuck with one who talks in morbid and confusing riddles," Jill sighed.
Petshez took on a sympathetic tone. "Hey, it could be worse."
Elsewhere in the mansion…
"Why is it every time we go through a door with one of those funny symbols on it, you lock it afterwards?" O'Shinsky asked, watching Wesker pocket a key ring with four keys on it, each with a different design.
"Because."
"Because why?"
"Do you want to die?"
"Haha, that rhymed!" Grompone said happily.
O'Shinsky wasn't satisfied with not knowing much about this place. "Why did they use armor, helmet, shield and sword designs?"
"It might be because the guy who owns the place descended from European nobility – and nobility includes knights."
"Who owns this place?"
"The most illusive person in the world."
"More illusive than a chupacabra?"
"Yes."
"Do you know him?"
"Sort of."
"Are you friends?"
"No."
"Do you have any friends?"
"One."
"How did you meet your friend?"
"We worked together, with this complete weirdo named – wait, why am I telling you this?" he asked, stopping in his tracks. "No more questions. The kitchen is right through here."
He pushed the door open and the three walked into the kitchen to find… Zombie Julia Childs!
"Helloooo!" she said cheerfully in her bubbly British accent. "You're just in time! I was about to begin!"
Wesker raised an eyebrow, being rather disturbed for someone who doesn't scare very easily. "Begin what?"
"Cooking, silly! Come, come, take a seat! I'll make you some lunch!" she ushered them towards a row of bar stools that were lining the table in the middle of the room, her hands very cold and slimy feeling.
They sat down, not really sure what else to do in such an odd situation, and she went around to the other side of the table where numerous bowls and ingredients were laid out.
"Now, today I will be making a traditional stew!"
Wesker looked from Julia to the two morons, who were watching the undead woman with thrilled expressions.
"Now, first you take a bottle of wine, you pour half of it in a pot and you drink the other half." She downed the wine faster than is remotely possible for a normal living person.
"Add some blood." She dumped a bowl of thickening blood into the pot of wine.
"Five month old milk." She turned the carton of milk over, but nothing came out, so she bit into it and tore the cardboard open with her teeth. A solid white blob smelling of sulfur fell into the pot.
"Now for the solid ingredients! Human eyeballs – harvested from dead humans, of course," she added, noticing the looks she got from the three living humans she was cooking for. The human eyeballs, all with different colored irises, floated in the liquid, eerily peering up at them.
"A rotten carrot." She began chopping it, and in the process, chopped off the end of her finger. "Oops. Well, more to enjoy!" she said merrily, throwing it in the pot with the chopped carrot.
"The diced liver of a Hunter."
"What's a Hunter?" Grompone asked, looking to Wesker.
"A giant, muscular frog, more or less."
"The meat-like substance cut from the body of a Hall Monitor," Julia said, tossing black, fuzzy skin into the pot.
"What's a Hall Monitor? One of those uptight assholes that patrol the halls in our school?" O'Shinsky asked.
"No. It's sort of like a fly and a human had – forget it."
"Leeches," Julia said, dumping leeches that were still alive into the pot.
"Err," Wesker said, "Where did you get those? There definitely aren't any to be found here."
"I commuted here on a train in the middle of the woods," Julia replied with a smile, which made them nauseous at the sight of her green and black teeth stained with blood (hey, whoever said zombies had good dental work?).
"And the final ingredient, purple goo from plant 42!"
"Ha, she did a rhyme too!" Grompone clapped his hands together.
"The stew is all ready now! You, the blond chap, you get to taste it first." She held the pot up and on sight of the concoction inside, Wesker jumped off the stool and started backing for the door.
"Sorry, but we need to be going – I have to meet this guy, and blackmail him into killing people for me."
"Smashing! He can have some stew, too!"
"Well, him I really don't care about… But I'm not touching that stuff."
"But it looks so good!" O'Shinsky said, trying to convince Wesker to give it a shot.
"Boys," he said slowly, trying to think of some excuse to leave that didn't reveal more of his evil plot. "I don't have time. We have to go… have a meeting… in Mexico… with Ronald McDonald!"
"Ronald McDonald? Sweet!" the two retards said in unison, getting up and heading for the door.
"Just have a taste! You'll love it!" Julia called after them joyfully, as they ran away as fast as they could.
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I was going to cover more ground with Jill, but I got going with that kitchen thing and just ran with it. It seemed like a good place to leave off – albeit a disturbing one. Damn, when I try to come up with something gross for a recipe it gets really, really weird. And for anyone who hasn't played the original version of RE, a "Hall Monitor" is this thing that looks like a cross between a human and a fly – and swings from the ceiling like a monkey. I had no idea what they were until I read a guide for the original game that referred to them by name. Actually, that was the only reference I've ever found to them – they're not even mentioned in my Archives book (which cites the Gamecube versions, so I'm not surprised). I dunno why they were only in the original and the Director's Cut. I guess someone making the later versions didn't like them or something. They scare the hell out of me, that's for sure.
Well, that's all for this chapter. Hopefully I'll update this sooner than I have been lately. Okay, you know what to do – leave me a review and let me know what you think!