Author's Note:
Alright, I've finally reached the end of my rope. I don't have any more chapters prewritten, so I don't know how long it'll take me to get them posted from now on lol, esp with school starting and everything. I'll try to update at least semi-regularly.
We're coming to the close of Resident Evil 0/ Resident Evil UC- Trail Derailment, which means it's a free for all for me with Billy! Rebecca still has to go through the mansion, but I can plot Billy's life :D
Almost
It seemed like the moment they stepped from the room, they were swarmed by creatures. They looked like fucking apes. They managed to shoot them down, with the shotgun and the pistol. Billy didn't want to use the magnum yet. They might need it.
Billy opened a door at random and saw it led to an outer level. "Outside!" his relief was evident in his voice. "Thank fucking god."
He slammed the door shut, hoping that there'd be nothing out here to attack them.
Rebecca sounded disappointed. "I think this is more of a courtyard. This place is gigantic."
That meant no escape. Shit. Billy slumped his shoulders. "Guess we better keep going." Wandering around this fucking maze. They were just getting deeper into the thick of it. This wasn't even a fucking maze. It was a goddamn labyrinth.
Billy strode forward. "Is that a church?" he asked quietly, pointing.
Rebecca squinted. "Yeah, it is. What is a church doing here? In this place?"
Billy almost ran to it. He stood at the enormous double-doors, sizing it up. He opened the door, checking immediately for creatures. When there were none, he slowly sat in a pew, wondering how long this place had been abandoned.
Rebecca watched forlornly as Billy prayed. She had never had time for religion, and he was devoting himself in the middle of hell. He must get a sense of peace in here, she realized. It was lit at the altar, the only light in here.
There was dust and grime covering the floor and walls, but a beautiful stained glass window rested at the front of the church. Rebecca was entranced by the pattern.
Until she heard a screech.
Billy jumped up immediately, and they looked around frantically, searching for the cause of the noise. Rebecca pointed. "There!"
As if called to her, the creature began to squeal again. "Holy shit!" Billy breathed. They lifted their weapons and shot at it, Billy pulling out the magnum.
It was down in three shots.
"Jesus Christ!" Billy swore. "We can't catch a break. A giant fucking bat."
Rebecca went over to the creature. "This bat is probably ten feet long," she said in wonder.
Billy slumped onto a pew again. "Shit. I'm exhausted." He admitted, his voice gruff and annoyed.
Rebecca agreed wholeheartedly. "I just need some air, quickly." She lied and rushed out the church door.
"Enrico?" she asked hesitantly as a figure suddenly appeared. The man jumped, and pulled out his gun.
"Rebecca?" he asked cautiously. "Is that you?"
"Oh, Enrico! Where are the others?" she hardly dared believe it was him. She and Billy—
Billy.
"I've lost them all." Enrico admitted. "I'm assuming most of them have headed to the abandoned mansion to rendezvous. We should go now too."
"But—Enrico, I found Billy Coen."
"You apprehended the criminal?" He didn't bother to hide his disbelief. Rebecca was a small rookie medic.
"Yes, but we got separated! Please sir, I can't let him die out here!" she implored him desperately.
Enrico's rough face looked upset for a moment, then angry, as if he was going to command her to follow him, as team leader. "Alright, Rebecca." He relented. "Just make sure you find your way to the mansion soon. There are all sorts of horrendous things here. The sooner you make it out, the better."
His reluctant acceptance made Rebecca want to cry. He trusted her. He was showing her he had faith in her judgment and her ability to carry out her promise.
Enrico walked away slowly, giving her time to reconsider. She quickly re-entered the church, surprised at his acceptance and utterly relieved that he hadn't found Billy.
Billy stood up. "You look like you've seen a ghost," he quipped ironically. "Was anything out there?"
"No, just—the bat scared me." She lied lamely. Billy didn't need to know how close they had come.
She should've gone with Enrico, but then Billy would be in danger of capture. She couldn't betray him, not after everything he'd done for her. She trusted Enrico to survive and meet her at the mansion. She felt sick to her stomach at her constant duplicity. She was a liar.
She blinked back tears, and was grateful when Billy ignored them. "So, you ready to go?" he asked her brusquely.
She nodded and led the way out the door.
They followed the path back indoors. Exhausted and emotional, Rebecca was silent. Billy didn't break the quiet, as their footsteps beat in tune with each other, rhythmically pounding with Rebecca's pit-pat and Billy's clomping tread.
Rebecca was used to all-nighters, but usually she had coffee and wasn't exerting herself. Although adrenaline kept her from collapsing, she hadn't known it was possible to be this tired. It must be ten times worse for Billy, she mused.
They entered a hallway that seemed deserted- but the instant the door closed behind them, an enormous creature rose up.
"What the hell?" Billy breathed.
Rebecca almost began to hyperventilate. The thing came from nowhere: its gray skin seeming even more sickly underneath the dingy lights, what looked like open wounds marring the enormous body.
The thing was at least eight feet tall, with a spike for an arm. It let out a furious roar, and instinctively, Billy moved slightly to his left, trying to somewhat shield Rebecca from the monster.
Without waiting for it to attack, Billy broke out his magnum and threw a shot at it.
At the same time, Rebecca's shotgun went off, jerking her back. The monster went down almost immediately. Without waiting to see if it was dead, Billy ran through the door, grabbing Rebecca and dragging her along with him. He didn't know what the hell it was, or if it were dead, but he was goddamn sick of giant creatures.
A gunshot from Rebecca interrupted his thoughts, as another white ape fell in front of them, dead. He looked up at Rebecca's delicate form, holding the shotgun like a professional. He'd noticed earlier that the gun bucked when she shot it, the power of the weapon knocking her back a little.
Her small face was hard, her jaw tensed and her short hair matted. He felt guilty: she didn't belong in a nightmare like this. She should be in bed right now, or at a stupid fucking party, living it up. Christ, how fast had her life transformed?
This wasn't exactly something people could fucking get over easily.
He was almost overcome for a second: how hard her grip was on the gun, her knuckles white, and her slender fingers gripping the lethal weapon: how terrified and alert her green eyes were, scanning the area for threats.
He felt goddamn guilty.
She wasn't his responsibility: she was a full-grown woman for chrissake. But for some reason, she seemed so young: so naïve and innocent in some ways…
Until he watched her kill with precision and strength.
He wondered if Anna'd be able to do this. If she'd be able to overcome her inhibitions and react solely to save her life, and everything else be damned.
She wouldn't.
Anna would be too stunned to react in the first seconds of the nightmare. The first and final seconds.
And even if she survived longer, she wouldn't be able to bear killing anything, not even a monster like the fucking ones they faced.
Rebecca interrupted his trance as she stepped forward. "Come on, Billy." Her tone was brittle and hard, close to the breaking point.
Billy gazed at the door. The enormous monster looming towards them had been horrifying, and in an instant, Rebecca's terror had reached its peak. She wasn't a frightened young girl any longer- she wouldn't cry again. She was a woman who fully had lived through the trials of life… unlike Anna, who had been Rebecca's age at her death.
Rebecca shot him a tight smile, and he noticed the way her closed lips curved upwards, her false smile not reaching her eyes. God, it took hours of this shit to break her, to force her chipper, sparky, feistiness into a façade rather than her true personality.
She was all grown up.
He looked at Rebecca, recognizing fully, perhaps for the first time, that she was a woman. The way she held her gun, the glint in her soft hazel-green eyes, the curves and muscles of her small body—she was a woman, not a little girl, not a doll.
As he stepped on yet another leech, his attention was drawn to the path before them. Rebecca led the way this time, but the door in front of them gave her pause.
"There's… slime on the door." her disgust evident in her voice. "Ugh!"
She wiped her hand on her pants, and poked at the knob anxiously with her gun.
Billy rolled his eyes and turned the slippery knob, wiping his hands on his new outfit. Christ, he couldn't wait till his real clothes dried.
Thank fucking god he'd changed, because the second they'd stepped into the goddamn room, leeches started crawling up their skin, the slimy creatures leaving residue all over their skin and clothes.
Rebecca's scream broke him from his disgust and he looked at her, batting pathetically at the creatures as they wiggled their way on her.
A laugh echoed above them, and the leeches crawled away, towards the noise, leaving only their trails of water and mucus.
The swarms were everywhere, illuminated by candlelight, nesting in their own messes all across the room, which had once likely been beautiful and clean. Rebecca's disgust and fear was evident, and he felt the urge to punch a fucking wall.
"So glad you could join the party…" a whisper-soft voice echoed about the walls.
The source of the words was a young man in a white robe, and Billy was eerily reminded of the strange singing. "You are the guests of honor…" it drawled, the young man turning to face them, his face strong and striking.
"…After all… it is your wake." Maniacal laughter followed and he turned. Billy recognized the face immediately.
"Marcus?" he demanded, eyes wide. Next to him, Rebecca choked on a surprised gasp. This couldn't be real. This wasn't fucking real.
He never knew that people could actually 'gasp' in surprise, but this was a damn good reason to do it.
He glanced at Rebecca and saw her fingers touching her open mouth, her horror evident in her eyes. "It can't be…" she breathed, gazing up at the young and very much alive man in front of them.
Suddenly, his grin transformed, until he was the zombie from the train. An old man: but still alive. How was this even possible? Rebecca's mind raced desperately.
"What's going on?" she wondered desperately, as he smirked down at them. Had all of their journey been for absolutely nothing?
Was he going to kill them?
He smirked. "Ten years ago, Spencer had me assassinated." He closed his eyes as if remembering, and Rebecca took an unconscious step towards Billy, watching the emotions crossing Marcus' face.
"But then—something wondrous happened. It took the T-virus inside my queen years to procreate… my new life.
"I live… and now… I shall have my revenge on Umbrella… and the world will burn with an inferno of hate!" he spat maliciously, laughing cruelly at the insanity inside his head.
"You'll pay!" Billy spat, the rage on his features visible, frightening even Rebecca.
"We'll see who lives!" His laughter was hysterical, manic, until suddenly, he gagged. He leaned forward and tried to cough—but instead, three leeches crawled up from his throat.
Shock and disgust took over, then terror, as five more, then ten more came tumbling out of his mouth, gagging him, suffocating him.
But all emotion faded as slowly, his skin was covered in a shining sheen of sweat—and mucus, until it wasn't human any longer, but the squishy slimy flesh of a leech, of a monster.
His entire body transformed, becoming a creature that Rebecca knew would haunt her nightmares.
Marcus leapt from above and landed in front of them. With a rough shove, Billy pushed Rebecca out of the way, moving his body in the opposite direction.
He pulled out his pistol and shot: his pistol would do damage at close quarters and he had plenty of ammo- the magnum, only a single bullet remained and he'd only use it in absolute desperation.
Rebecca used the shotgun, dealing slower, but more potent damage at Marcus. As the thing—Marcus—leapt at her, she shrieked and jumped out of the way. Billy let out a shout as an arm sliced him across the arm, resulting in a stinging welt. If he had been any closer, the thing would've sliced his neck.
He heard Rebecca yelp in pain as another one hit her. He saw her double over in pain, and blood staining her shoe. Shit. He reloaded as fast as he could and shot another whole magazine into the thing, and it turned, letting out a howl that sounded unearthly, inhuman.
Billy grabbed Rebecca, and she ran with him, ignoring the pain in her ankle. The terror that filled him was paused: he was concerned with living. Emotion was shoved to the back of his mind for later.
"Left…" a soft voice told him, and trusting Anna, he pulled Rebecca to the left.
"An elevator!" his relief was palpable. He began fiddling with the control panel of it, and slowly, goddamn slowly, began a steady journey upwards.
The platform elevator was simply a sheet of metal with a control panel, designed to send up at least fifteen people at a time. Rebecca was in a trance, storing little details that didn't matter, terrified out of her mind.
Suddenly, as they neared the halfway point, the vehicle shook. Rebecca could've cried.
Billy spared a glance down. "It's the queen!" he shouted in horror.
The monster below struggled to follow them, its bloodlust overpowering it. It wiggled and squirmed, growing what seemed like millions of tentacles every second.
Red lights began flashing as the queen continued her struggle. "Self destruct system has been activated." The voice beeped tonelessly, repetitively.
Somehow this scared Rebecca more than anything else had. "Who activated the self destruct system?" she demanded fearfully, hysteria seeping into her voice.
Billy bashed on the control panel. "Can't this thing go any faster?"
The queen was gaining on them. She skittered up quickly, no longer a leech, but some kind of monstrous deformed tentacle creature, enormous and powerful—and pissed off.
The queen rammed straight into the elevator with a force Billy had never known before. "Shit!" he spat, an instant before he and Rebecca went flying. They both let out shouts as they were tossed into the air like goddamn rag dolls.
They landed a good thirty feet away from the platform, the queen meeting them.
Yet she stopped, writhing in pain. An idea overcame Rebecca as she got up groggily.
"Billy! Sunlight! She can't stand sunlight!" her realization tumbled over her like a godsend. "We have to open the windows!"
Billy looked around. They seemed to be in a warehouse. He nodded. "Work on the windows!" he yelled, furiously running towards her: but not before he grabbed Rebecca's shotgun.
He danced around the queen, barely avoiding her, getting his cheek sliced open by the force of one of her tentacles.
He rolled away the instant before another one came to slay him.
Rebecca was making slow progress, finding levers to open up the windows. She was almost there… her hands blistered as she tugged on the rusty wheels.
Finally the last one opened. If Billy could only…
"Billy!" she screamed. "The magnum!" She dove into a corner to retrieve the gun that had flown from his grasp during their attack.
He looked up helplessly, out of shotgun bullets. The creature was injured: maybe fatally. But they didn't have a chance until she was one hundred percent dead.
She threw it at him, and he ran to catch it, desperate. She was distracted by the agony the light caused her, and he used to his advantage.
He caught the gun easily and flipped it in his fingers, aiming carefully at the creature.
"Hey, Queenie!" he shouted at it. It turned to face him, squealing in agony. Remembering him, she slowly eased towards him. But he had other ideas. "Feast on this!" he spat, and fired.
Billy could've sworn it happened in slow motion: the morning light reflecting off the gun's shining surface as it spiraled towards the queen, her insides blowing from the heat, the agony, and the magnum.
"Self-destruct system has been activated." The voice droned, and Billy realized that there was next to no time left.
The dying squeal of the monster was blocked out by the beeps of the system.
"Billy!" Rebecca ran towards him, in a terror.
Ignoring the fear in her eyes, he grabbed her. "Rebecca! Hurry!" he implored, dragging her along with him as he ran. He felt heat on his back and swore to himself, pulling Rebecca along as fast as he could.
The suit slightly inhibited his movements, but he tore through the seams in his frantic footsteps, panting, his throat on fire.
But better his throat then his whole goddamn body.
Billy ran past trees, as far as he could go, until they reached a cliff. He heard the explosion behind him and sighed in relief, sinking down on the grass.
Rebecca laid down next to him, and he could hear her heavy breathing. She must've been as exhausted as him.
But they were out now.
God, it felt fucking surreal. Like it couldn't have happened.
But it had. It was morning now, the sunrise beautiful and perfect. The air smelled like smoke and trees and Rebecca's sweat.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a stream. "Rebecca," he croaked, gesturing her eyes towards it.
She looked at it with such a forlorn look, Billy would've laughed if he wasn't so goddamn tired. He knew exactly how she felt. The lure of water… and the lure of passing out right then and there. He pulled her up and staged towards it. He pulled his still-damp jeans and shirt from the inside pockets of his enormous jacket, and tossed them on a rock. He unbuttoned his shirt and tugged it off, then collapsed in the stream, letting the semi-cool water flow over him.
He heard Rebecca hesitate before pulling off her shirt and pants and doing the same. He heard her sigh of relief as the water ran over all her aches and bumps. They both drank from the stream gratefully and sat in silence for a few moments until Rebecca spoke, her tone laced with disapproval. "You know, Billy, you should really let me change your bandage before it gets infected." She sighed at him. In his mind's eye, he could see her shaking her head and rolling her eyes.
"You have too now, anyway." He heard the smirk in her voice. "I took off my shirt."