Chapter 17
Immediately Hernandez pushed the door shut behind him and Tripper. He could hear numerous nails tearing at the wood and high-pitch screams of terror coming outside. Hernandez gulped and turned around. Tripper took up the front and saw Arynn standing minutes away from Ashford's massive liquefied body. His transformation was complete. He was no longer the reckless scientist; he was now a product of his own experiments—a new terror on the genetic line.
"Ahh," the black substance gurgled, "The cavalry has arrived…"
"Get the hell away from her now!" Tripper shouted.
"No, why don't you…" Ashford hissed as he lashed out tentacle limbs towards the soldiers. He wrapped his oozing arms around Tripper's chest and lifted the man clear off the floor.
"No!" Arynn screamed as she ran towards him.
"Get back!" Tripper shouted to her.
Hernandez immediately grabbed the woman and dragged her away. "Let him take care of this, Arynn," he advised. She struggled with the soldier and he let her go. The two watched in horror as Peter dangled Tripper around like a rag doll.
"I have no need for you anymore…" Peter said.
"Let her go," Tripper continued to say as he breathed heavily.
"If it wasn't for me," Peter began, "you'd still be locked away. Don't forget—you answer to me."
Arynn narrowed her eyes. "Joe, what is he talking about?" She called out.
Tripper and Peter looked at the woman and a smile formed on Peter's dark menacing face. "Oh that's right…" the black substance gleefully chuckled, "she doesn't know about your past…"
Tripper narrowed his eyes at Ashford. He stabbed the creature with his knife and sliced its tentacle off. The Lead Commando jumped down and ran back towards the Lieutenant and the woman. Peter screamed in agony as he grabbed his bleeding stub of liquid flesh. The pain was short-lived and already the dark limb was regenerating. Peter stood back up facing the three individuals.
"Tripper dropped the bomb on your precious city." Peter called.
"I know," Arynn replied.
"Are you sure that you know everything about Captain Joseph Tripper?" Peter asked.
Arynn didn't answer. She watched the Dorus hybrid slither along the floor leaving a small residue of secretion as if it was a slug. She looked away in disgust and saw that Peter was looking at her. She wondered what the creature would say. Was there more to the Lead Commando than what she was led to believe? She narrowed her eyes and waited for Peter to continue.
"See there's just some things you don't understand about what I've been doing here." He started, "As I tried to finish where my uncle left off, I came to realize that I needed help…" The creature took in a deep sigh then began to pace the floor. "You see as my research continued, I found that I needed to expand the Residvius strand. I needed more individuals like you, Arynn, to replicate my findings."
"What is he talking about?" Hernandez whispered to Arynn.
"I don't know." She replied.
"Arynn…" Peter continued, "Did you think you were the only one? Did you think that I did not have others like you?" the creature replied. "Well I did. And where my uncle failed in his attempt to create other unique individuals of special interest, I successfully completed the task. Unfortunately, I could not match my uncle's use of fetus manipulation. So I went for certain family lines that already possessed the dormant gene. Your genealogy tree presented the way to more findings and I was able to look for these traits in other viable family lineages…"
"Don't listen to him," Tripper whispered.
Hernandez and Arynn looked at the soldier but continued to give Ashford the floor. Arynn avoided Tripper's eyes altogether. She wanted to get to the bottom of this once and for all.
"Yes," Peter continued, "I made sure to utilize my uncle's genetic research well. Why make one elite soldier, when you can have a whole elite force to use at will?" the monster said as it cracked a smile. "I could only make two other specimen with the equal abilities necessary to match yourself, Arynn…and you're looking at one of them…" Peter came to a stop and glared at Tripper.
Arynn turned to Tripper with a scornful look, "What is he talking about?" She demanded.
"Arynn," the Lead Commando began. "I had to be sure that you were who you were—" He said before he was abruptly cut off.
"Save it!" She yelled. "I don't want to know about you or what you did." She crossed her arms and walked up to him closely, "What about what you said in the room?" she asked fighting back the emotional rollercoaster that she did not want to endure.
Peter laughed and at once started for the three. They backed away towards the double door.
"I didn't want to tell you like this," Tripper continued.
"Thanks for heads up, then." Arynn sarcastically replied.
"All your files were put under my supervision at headquarters." the Commando began, "I was to eliminate all documents pertaining to you or any of your…blood ties…your children...your siblings…your grandfather." The Commando confessed. "But when I met you, you became more to me than just documents and papers, you were a living breathing person who was just like me. I just needed to be sure that I could help you and you could help me…"
Arynn looked away folding her arms. Tripper cleared his throat, "And the Raccoon City bomb was planned…"
Arynn looked at the man with bewildered eyes. Her heart was racing. She knew that he was the one who dropped the nuke under orders from the government as a last resort but the bomb being planned left her with an uneasy feeling.
"Umbrella employees posing at Washington officials made the call. Umbrella wanted to get rid of evidence of an outbreak and embryonic manipulation. And I was a part of it…" The Lead Commando continued.
"Are you kidding me?" Hernandez shouted. "All this talk about being stripped of your rank and the guilt and being locked away for something that you had nothing to do with?" Hernandez started, "Was that all a lie?"
Tripper looked at the Lieutenant then looked away without a word. Hernandez balled his fists tightly as the rage inside him was taking over his reasoning and judgment. He couldn't hide his anger nor fight the idea of his best friend's betrayal anymore. Immediately he punched Tripper. The Commando went down. He got up slowly wiping a drop of blood from his lower lip. Arynn held Hernandez back from any more lashing out.
"Everything that I've been through, that I've seen, that I've lost!" The soldier shrieked, "It was all because of you!" He shouted as his eyes became glossy and he ripped his arms a loose from Arynn. He stood by himself putting his fists to his face. He held back the tears of the memories of Gene Patterson.
"I didn't want to put anyone in jeopardy." Tripper replied.
"Jeopardy?" Hernandez shouted in anger.
The Lieutenant started for the Commando again this time ready to inflict more damage on the soldier.
Arynn paused and looked at Peter. She could see that patches of liquid mass were falling from his body to the floor revealing human skin. The liquid that remained was not as glistening as it was before the injection. The serum was starting to affect him.
"It's working…" Arynn whispered cutting through Hernandez's rage. He stopped and turned to her immediately.
"What's working?" he asked.
"The viricide…" she said. Hernandez looked on and saw the liquid receding on the mutated man's arms and legs. A smile formed on the Lieutenant's face.
Tripper turned and caught sight of the reverse mitosis. "The infected cells are dying off." He commented.
Peter's smile faded and a blank look formed on his face. He looked at his hands and saw that his human form was coming back. In anger the half creature half man rushed up to the group and grabbed Arynn by the neck.
"What have you done to me?" He shouted with an inhuman voice.
Arynn grinned and remained quiet. Peter looked at Tripper then to Hernandez and gave a twisted look. He shook at the woman and once again demanded an answer.
"What did you inject me with?" he pleaded.
"I injected you with the O viricide…" She stated.
"But that's impossible." He murmured aloud. "That can't be. It was only supposed to be the anti-virus…"
He grabbed at his chest, clutching the organ that beat inside. His breathing was erratic and sounded as if he were gulping for air. As his Dorian liquid coating dripped from his skin, the flesh that remained was translucent and fragile.
"What's happening to him?" Arynn asked.
"I don't know..." Tripper whispered watching the ex-researcher fall to the floor raving in pain.
"Arynn, you don't know what you're doing!" The ex-researcher shouted.
A shrill voice came from the other end of the room and everyone looked towards the direction of the noise. Page limped from out of the darkness and leaned against the wall holding her stomach in pain. A streak of blood was trickling down the side of her lips. Hernandez looked on in shock. She should've been dead.
"The serum is breaking down his cellular structure. The Dorus strand is leaving his body and it's killing him…" She started to walk and immediately went down. Hernandez rushed to catch her just in time.
"Glad you could make it…" The soldier said.
"Thanks," Page replied as she strained get up. Hernandez helped her to the others.
"How in the hell did you get here?" He whispered.
"I told yea I'd join you soon…" Page whispered back.
Peter sprang up from his puddle of decayed flesh and mucus fluid on all fours. His abrupt movement caught the group off guard. Arynn pushed everyone back immediately and took the lead.
"Get back!" she shouted taking out her knife. "I'll be the one to take him out."
As Peter smiled, parts of his lips drooped under the weight of his translucent skin giving off a twisted deformity. A gurgled laugh escaped his mouth and at once he was face to face with Arynn.
"You can't get rid of me that easily." He whispered. Arynn was ready for whatever he was going to throw at her. She could see that he was in bad shape—it was clear by his limping and the erratic twitching of his limbs—that every step he took brought more pain to him that what he was ready to handle.
Peter yelled in agony as the remaining layer of ooze and black slime fell from his body revealing his lucid skin and the visible organs and blood inside. Arynn almost wanted to vomit but she held back the urge.
The creatures from outside continued to bang against the door, clawing at its fragile wooden frame, dying to get in. One stalker punched a hole clear through and the others joined in.
Hernandez's eyes lit up as he watched the hand of a stalker rupture through the thick wood. He immediately jumped back from the door. Tripper cautiously backed away as he tried to keep his attention on the squirming Peter and Arynn.
"We gotta get the hell out of here!" Hernandez shouted. He looked down at Page and gave her a slight smile. "How'd you get in here?" he questioned her.
"Back there…" she pointed. Everyone followed her gaze to a dark passage that lied beyond the murky wall. "There's a hidden tunnel…" She paused and coughed.
"Let's go!" Hernandez shouted as he started for the other side of the room.
"I'm staying here." Arynn replied locked in a cold stare with Peter, watching him start to convulse.
"What?" Tripper said as he immediately came over to her.
"I need to see him die." She said, "I need this."
"What about those things out there?" Tripper asked pointing to the bodies of Stalkers now appearing in the hole of the destroyed door.
"They won't hurt me…." She said.
"Arynn," the Lead commando said lightly. She looked at him with a blank expression, "We'll wait for you…"
"I'll be right behind you." She whispered as she folded her arms and looked silently way.
The soldier backed away and followed Hernandez and Page into the darkness. Tripper took one last look and saw that the creatures were now inside the room and creeping towards Arynn.
"Wait," he commanded Hernandez.
"You can't help her. She can only do this herself," the Lieutenant said as he continued into the tunnel.
Tripper waited for a few seconds then turned his back. He was about to walk out but not before he took out the Stalkers. He tore through all three creatures with ease, ripping the flesh from their necks and crushing their tracheas. One Stalker remained standing. It watched the soldier come towards it. Tripper started for the creature but Arynn stopped him.
"You've done enough," she said as she pressed the palms of her hands against his chest, separating him from the monster.
A chuckle escaped Peter's dark lips. Arynn left Tripper where he stood and came back to the frail mutated man.
"What's so funny?" she sternly asked.
"Watching you…" Peter half whispered as he grabbed his abdomen to fight the pain that surged throughout his body.
"You're one to laugh…" Tripper said under his breath.
"It won't matter if I die," the ex-researcher said, "There will always be another person out there who will continue where I left off…you're just postponing the inevitable."
"I don't care…" Arynn stated as she drew out her knife and took a breath. Tripper watched her silently.
"Arynn, let me take care of him," Tripper said putting his hand over her knife.
"No…" She said.
He looked towards the quiet Stalker who watched and tried to understand the situation. Tripper wondered what was going through the creature's mind—if the creature could even think—if the creature could understand that it's creator was about to die…Did Peter grant the Stalker the idea of death or did he simply miss that altogether?
"You were always my uncle's best kept secret, Arynn," Peter said with a smile. "I am glad that I had the honor of meeting you…"
There was a silence that mustered between the four as each one studied the implications of the demise of the other. It was a silence that Arynn never thought she would ever hear—the silence of a man about to die. As she raised her arm for the fatal blow, the memories of her family and of the soldiers who perished in ground zero surfaced. Their cries of agony echoed in her cranium, literally impairing her hearing, as if they lived in her head and had watched every waking moment of her existence since their deaths. And suddenly, in unison, they fell silent…
Peter caught her at the precise moment that she was going to inflict the most painful penetration of his life. His human arms caught hers and they were locked in a struggling battle between life and death.
Tripper's eyes widened and he reached to interfere but the last Stalker broke through and grabbed him by the neck. He struggled to get free of the quiet menace.
As Arynn seized the knife and forced her arm down towards Peter's shoulder, she could feel that the man's strength remained the same as before.
"Why aren't you weak?" She managed to say.
Peter laughed but flinched as his body continued to give him pain. "I am evolution, Arynn. I am you and what you could've been. Part Dorus, Part Sabriel but more…"
He opened his mouth and strained to extend his jaw to feast upon the woman's head. He was still bent on devouring her!
"Joseph, help me and keep her still!" Peter shouted as he tried to get the knife out of Arynn's hands.
"Do it yourself!" the Lead Commando shouted as he swung around the Stalker's body and punched it hard in its spine leaving the Stalker temporarily paralyzed on the barren floor. The soldier rose and stabbed Peter in the shoulder. The man cried out in pain scurrying away into the darkness.
Arynn got up panting. She looked around looking for the once human Ashford. Tripper looked around too. Both were on alert for Peter to reappear.
"You can't hide, Ashford!" the Lead Commando shouted ready to take a swing at anything that such as moved.
"Peter, you are dead to me and I will make sure that you stay that way!" Arynn screamed.
"You cannot defeat me!" A hissing voice called from somewhere at the top of the room.
So many things were going through Arynn's mind as she tried to understand why the injection didn't make Peter completely human and vulnerable.
"I don't understand," she said.
"Don't understand what?" Tripper asked still looking around the large room.
"The injection…it didn't weaken him."
"Yes it did," he said.
"But Peter is still running around. It doesn't make sense."
"It takes time. The virus had already merged with his DNA it wasn't completely destroyed."
"So what are we gonna do now?" she asked the soldier.
"Take care of him the old-fashioned way," he said as he gave her a reassured smile. He kept his knife ready to strike. Arynn too readied herself and waited for Peter to show himself…