Chapter 19
Peter grabbed the woman by the neck and flung her towards the metal stairs. Her back hit one of the stairs and she groaned in pain.
"Arynn!" Tripper shouted mid way up the staircase. He strained turn and go back down the stairs.
"No!" She shouted to him, "Don't come down here. I don't need your help!"
Peter laughed. "Looks like she's all grown up!" he commented.
"Shut up!" She screamed.
"You're running out of options, Arynn!" Peter said as he swiftly started for her. He grabbed her by the neck again and brought her back to his large group of monsters. "Joseph!" He called. Tripper looked at him. "I'll need your assistance again…"
"No, I will not help you anymore." The Lead Commando said.
"Oh but you will…" Peter said with a smile. "Once the growth is ready, you'll remove it from her."
Arynn's eyes widened, her face was terrified and she looked up to Tripper who stood his ground on the stairs.
"There is no growth!" Tripper shouted back.
"Of course there is," Peter quickly said as he loosened his grip around Arynn's neck and took her over to one of the lab tables at the corner of the room.
"He's right," Arynn said, "There was never any growth."
Peter laughed off her comment. He threw her onto to the table and tore the fabric that covered her stomach.
"She's telling the truth, Ashford." Tripper replied as he stepped down from the staircase and limped over holding his side. "I couldn't do it. I would never lay any harm to her no matter the circumstances…"
Peter's face changed drastically, it narrowed with disappointment and twisted with rage. He immediately hit Tripper with his sharp limb and sent the soldier flying into a corner of the room. The impact knocked the Lead Commando unconscious and immediately a few of the stalkers ran to his where his body remained.
"Leave him!" Peter shouted, "I'll just have to consume him after I'm done consuming her." He looked down at Arynn and snarled. "You disappoint me." He hissed. "I had plans for you and our future but now I'll just have to continue alone." He immediately unhinged his jaw and extended his mouth.
Arynn screamed as his limbs turned into tentacles and kept her down to the table. His mouth started for her head. Many thoughts ran through her mind as she closed her eyes tight. Was this it? Was she going to be another victim in Peter's psychotic plan to rule the world? She prayed that something would happen…
The Stalkers gathered around the soldier's limp body waiting for the chance to kill him. Their mouths opened with anticipation. The leader called out from behind the group and immediately the group left the man's body alone. Joseph opened his eyes and looked around slowly. His vision was blurry and his hearing was slowly coming back. He didn't know how much shock his body could take. As he struggled to push his body off of the floor, his arms shook from the pressure and buckled. His face hit the concrete floor hard. His strength had failed him and he lay on the floor unable to move.
As a highly decorated officer, Joseph Tripper completed many missions; missions that not only challenged his morals but also challenged his humanity. Seeing what had taken place in the ruins of Raccoon City and in this medical facility left the soldier with an unsettling feeling. He had to stop Peter from spreading his infectious plan on the world. Whatever these Stalkers were, Tripper had a feeling that Ashford would probably not be able to keep command over them for long and they would wreak havoc on anyone, including their own creator. Those monsters weren't just another B.O.W. they were evolved Tyrants who could reason and recollect. They weren't just mindless beasts, they were aware of everything around them—this scared the Lead Commando. Creating another living-breathing being was one thing but manifesting another intelligent species meant that eventually, they would want a world of their own…
Tripper strained to get up. He ignored his wobbling arms and concentrated on helping Arynn and killing Ashford. He had to do this—he couldn't let his frail condition get in the way. Get up! Move! He shouted to himself.
As Peter struggled with Arynn to keep her from fleeing, a remote device fell from his last shred of human clothing. It connected with the floor echoing throughout the laboratory. Arynn's eyes narrowed. It had to be the same device that controlled the stasis tanks and the grid at the top of the ceiling. Immediately she tried to reach for the device but it was too far.
"Ashford!" shouted a now standing Tripper from the other side of the room.
Peter stopped struggling with the dark-skinned woman and turned his attention to the hunched over soldier. A disappointing smile formed on his face as he watched.
Arynn immediately picked up the device. As Peter's grip on her arms and legs loosened, she immediately bit a few of them.
Peter screamed in agony taking back his limbs.
"I'm sorry, Peter, but you just can't have me." Arynn replied as she jumped away from the table and started pressing multiple buttons on the digital device.
Peter's eyes lit up and he and his Stalker minions started for the dark-skinned woman.
"No go after the soldier!" Peter shouted, "I'll take care of the woman!"
"Come on!" Arynn shouted to the remote, "Do something!"
Almost as a response, the robotic voice overhead started to talk. There was something odd about the voice's tone—its speech was scrambled and incoherent.
"Give that to me!" Peter demanded but Arynn hesitated and quickly moved away from him. Peter pointed to her and called the Stalkers after her.
Immediately Arynn dodged the raging monstrosities as she continued to jam the buttons of the device. She hoped and prayed that somehow the computer that controlled the incubation room would malfunction.
As the swift stalkers ran towards Tripper, he could feel his strength returning and he was ready to fight them all if he needed to.
"Come on, you bastards!" He shouted. The man collided with the Stalkers and at once bone-snapping and slashing occurred.
"Joe!" Arynn screamed as she tried to make out where his body had disappeared into the bundle of rage-driven stalkers. She hoped that he was okay.
System error. System error. The robotic voice rang overhead.
Finally, Arynn thought to herself.
Stasis tanks unstable, repeat Stasis tanks unstable. The robotic voice continued.
Arynn could see the grid that was fixated near the ceiling was starting to move. She must've confused the system so much that it wasn't sure to keep the grid up or release it.
Come On! She thought. Fall!
"You don't know what you're doing!" Peter shouted, "Give that back to me!"
"Go to hell, Peter!" Arynn screamed back. She pushed another button on the device and immediately a loud shriek came from above.
"Look what you've done!" Peter shouted
"I know!" Arynn said with a smile as she ran from the mutated man. She threw the remote to the floor and he caught it. She immediately went for the commotion ahead. She had to find Tripper and get out of the room.
"Joe, we gotta get going!" She shouted as soon as she saw him come in to view.
"Right behind you!" The soldier called as he snapped the neck of the last stalker and threw its body down to the floor.
The two ran up the stairs as fast as they could. A gurgle of voices rang overhead. The central computer that controlled all functions of the room was experiencing system malfunctions on a grand scale.
"What did you do?" The soldier called as they neared the top hall.
"Gave the computer a 'virus'!" Arynn said.
Tripper cracked a smile.
"No!" Peter shouted as the stasis grid came crashing down, crushing both him and any of the surviving stalkers.
The impact was so fierce and powerful that it sent the soldier and woman reeling towards the end of the hall. Debris rushed up from the ground floor burying whatever remained alive below. The floor above came crashing down creating a tomb of destruction.
Tripper looked up and turned to look down the hall. To his surprise the hall was still intact but he could see a mountain of wreckage had formed where the laboratory once was. It would be a miracle if anything survived the collision.
He turned back to Arynn and saw that she was knocked out. He nudged her but she didn't respond. He got up and dusted off his pants. As he looked around, he saw that the hall came to an end at a steel ladder that led up to a manhole. He wondered what awaited him and Arynn on the surface. He wondered if Eddie and Page made it out alive. Tripper picked up the woman's body and turned to take a step up when he heard some commotion coming from behind him. As he turned to look his eyes lit up with horror…
"You thought you could get rid of me that fast…" gurgled a familiar voice.
Arynn slowly opened her eyes and as they readjusted themselves, they fell on the twisted-mangled-mass that use to be Peter Ashford. She shrieked at the terrifying site.
"Why won't you die…?" Tripper questioned under his breath. Arynn looked at the soldier with the same idea.
The two stared back at the 9foot tall translucent mass that no longer had a physical human body but was completely liquid with sharp blades for limbs. The mutated man's head had long disappeared into his liquefied body and only ominous slits for eyes remained. Whatever was left of the human side of Peter died in the debris.
"If you can't give me the offspring, then I'll just have to consume the both of you." The mass hissed. It started to slide it's oozing body along the concrete floor inching closer to Tripper and a barely conscious Arynn.
"Arynn, I need you to help me out here…" Tripper whispered.
"I'll try…" she whispered back.
He put her to the ladder and helped her up.
"Go." He said.
"What about you?" She questioned.
"There's no time," he said, "I'll hold Ashford off here."
"But—" She started.
"There's no time!" He shouted. He pushed her up the ladder and she climbed as fast as she could. She reached up to move the manhole but it was too heavy to move on her own. Her arm was buckling under the pressure and she was running out of time.
"Open, dammit!" she shouted. She tried one more time to push the door and suddenly it flew off the hole. "Come on, Joe!" She shouted as she reached down to him. He caught her arm as Peter's body was about to splash onto him.
The two quickly climbed up the ladder and rushed on to the surface level of what appeared to be the downtown strip of a city.
"Quickly!" The soldier shouted as he grabbed Arynn by the arm and dragged her towards a nearby building. They ran through double doors that had been blown out and towards a check-in booth at the center of the floor. As they ducked to hide, they saw Ashford's body slowly creep up from the manhole. It took the time to look around and investigate the eerily quiet strip. As it did, it's gaze landed on the building that the two had taken refuge in and it stood there examining the surroundings. Arynn prayed that it would not take any step closer. She closed her eyes and waited for the being to find her. For what seemed like moments, she opened her eyes and looked back. The being had turned and started to slide along the gravel of the street bypassing the soldier and woman altogether. Tripper immediately took in a breath and laid himself out on the marble floor. Arynn leaned up against the desk and wiped the sweat away from her forehead.
Tripper leaned up and looked at her. "Thank you for helping me out back there," He said.
Arynn looked at him with a smile. "Just didn't want to see you go to waste." She said.
"Sure, you didn't," he said as he reached in and kissed her. When he was done, he got up and helped her off the floor.
"You were saving that one, weren't you?" she questioned wiping off her pants.
"You could say that…" He replied leading her out towards the entrance.
The two came back out into the opened strip. Various papers were all over the sidewalks and cars were left in their lanes as if suspended in lost time. There was no sign of anyone from what the couple could see. The scene was straight out of a horror movie. There were bloody bodies straddled in the street and human remains dangling from various areas. If anyone had survived the outbreak, they sure didn't stick around. Fires burned from gas lines and the smell of flesh and sewer wreaked the atmosphere.
"We gotta find Hernandez and Page," Tripper said.
"We gotta find my son…" Arynn added.
"But first," The soldier continued, "We need firepower."
The two turned and faced the very building that they had hid in. It was a financial institute. There was bound to be some type of shotgun or rifle inside. As they went back inside, they heard a noise coming from one of the back rooms next to the teller booths. Tripper held Arynn back and together they investigated. Now was not the time for zombies—now was the time to get out of this place once and for all.
Tripper went for the room first and Arynn followed closely behind. The two sighed when they stumbled upon familiar faces.
Hernandez was rummaging through desk drawers and Page was leaning up against a nearby wall when the two looked up and saw the Lead Commando and Arynn come into the room. Hernandez chuckled and immediately came over.
"Man, I thought you guys would never get out of there." He gave his friend a short hug. "What took you guys so long?" he sarcastically chuckled as he hugged Arynn.
"We took out Ashford's lab." Tripper replied.
"Nice." The latino said.
"But Peter's not dead." Arynn added, "he followed us to the surface."
"Damn…" the soldier replied.
"He's gonna absorb anyone he comes in contact with." Page said.
"Not possible," Tripper stated, "there is no one left. Only dead bodies."
"I didn't say they had to be alive." She slowly replied.
The three turned and looked at her with blank faces.
"Are you sh***ing me?" Hernandez commented.
"No," Page continued, "Once he absorbs any human living or dead, he can reanimate them and they will be just like him…"
"Oh my god." Arynn said thinking back to the human remains left in the streets and in the buildings.
"So what are you saying?" Hernandez asked.
"We need to kill Ashford," Page recommened, "and get the hell out of here immediately."
"Okay I can agree with that." The soldier said.
"Not without Adam." Arynn suggested.
"Of course," Page said. "We have to find him first before Peter does. If Peter absorbs him, then he will be virtually invincible."
"Okay" Tripper said, "Let's first get some weapons then search the building for him."
"We'll search every one of these buildings if we have to—" Arynn started.
"We won't have to," Page suggested. "Peter put a beacon on the boy," The young woman revealed a small device in her pocket. "Which I have."
"Nice," Hernandez nodded. "You never cease to amaze me," he winked.
"Good." She smiled.
Tripper cleared his throat and 'eyed' Arynn. She smiled and looked away. "Let's get moving." He commanded.