Chapter 3

-Reliving a Nightmare-

"You have to shoot her in the head." Chris said to no one in particular. The pain in saying such a thing was obviously hurting him badly.

"What are you talking about? She's dead already. Why would you do such a thing?" Peter demanded to know.

Chris slowly turned to face Peter. He wiped the remaining tears from his eyes and resumed his tough, authoritative demeanor.

"If this place is anything like the mansion from ten years ago, then she's going to change into a zombie in an hour or maybe even sooner. The only way to kill the undead is with decapitation or a headshot. You have to destroy the brain." He shook his head after actually thinking straight for a second. "Wait, Jill's immune. We don't have to do it."

"I don't think there are any, um..so called zombies here." Mohinder commented, clearly skeptical about the whole idea of such creatures existing.

"You are incorrect," a female voice spoke up.

A girl had entered the room through the double doors on the left without anyone noticing. The girl looked to be around Claire's age. She couldn't have been taller than 5'2'', had straight blonde hair past her shoulders, and startlingly bright green eyes. She wore black combat pants, a black t-shirt, black combat boots, and a belt which held multiple items. She strode up to them and stopped next to Jill's body. Without warning, the girl pulled a handgun from a holster on her belt and fired a bullet into the head.

"What the hell!" Chris shouted in shock.

"You get emotional, you die," the girl said to him before putting away her gun.

"Who are you?!" Chris demanded, looking ready to pull his own gun despite her young age.

"My name is Eva Jane. I'm here to get you people out of this mansion."

"And why would you do that?" Noah Bennet asked her, always suspicious.

"Why do you want to know?"

Noah seemed startled by her question and so Eva spoke again. "When people ask a question, all that really matters is why they want to know the answer."

The man fell silent as he tried to make sense of what she had just told him.

"Chris Redfield?" she asked, turning her gaze to Chris.

"Yeah but how did you-"

"Don't ask because I won't answer. You are going to be the one to lead us out of this place and I'll assist. But you're the one who knows exactly what's going to happen, when and where."

Chris stared at her blankly. "What? How would I be able to do that?"

Eva spoke as if the answer were obvious. "Because Chris, this is the mansion. This is the exact mansion you were trapped in ten years ago."

There was a very long moment of silence as everyone took this in.

"That's impossible." Chris finally said.

The front door slammed open at that moment and three people stumbled in. They were see-through like though, fuzzy almost like they were on a video screen. All three were dressed in combat uniforms and each uniform had STARS across it. One of them was a woman in her early 20's and her hair was bunched up under her beret but everyone in the room recognized her face anyways. It was hard to forget the face of a person you just watched die. It was Jill. In fact, the image of Jill in her STARS uniform was standing right next to her actual body that laid on the floor in the foyer. The man on her left looked exactly like Chris, only younger. It was Chris ten years earlier. This Chris appeared so much more carefree and happy. He had no idea the nightmare this night was going to become. The final man in the foyer was also unmistakable. He was on Jill's right and had slicked back blonde hair and black sunglasses just like he still looked when they'd seen him earlier. It was Wesker.

"What is this?" Chris asked shocked. "How am I seeing what happened then?"

Eva explained. "Everything in this mansion is going to play out exactly as it did that night, ten years ago. We will use it to our advantage. It should help us find our way out of here."

Chris seemed lost. "But why...?"

This newcomer shrugged. "It's necessary. Just consider these ghosts of the past. Or spirits is probably a better choice seeing as some of those images aren't dead. Hmm..yes. Images is a good word for this."

The young girl seemed to be taking this in stride and none of them could understand how this was possible. Chris had the suspicion that she didn't really know why the images were appearing but didn't ask any more questions because the image of Jill was speaking now and he turned to watch.

"Wesker..where's Barry?" Jill asked, sounding worried as she searched around her.

The captain glanced towards the doors they had just come through. "He must be..."

"No.." Jill said, knowing that if Barry was still out there he was probably dead.

A gunshot rang out from a room somewhere further into the mansion, through the left double doors.

"Chris, go check it out." Wesker ordered.

Chris nodded and jogged over to the double doors but paused when Jill called out his name.

"Chris!"

He looked back at her. Jill seemed about to say something but instead she chose to speak different words.

"Be careful."

Her teammate nodded. "I will."

Then he turned and went through the doors. Eva watched Chris expectantly.

"So we follow the image of my past self and this is going to somehow get us to where we want to go?" Chris asked, trying to understand how that was true.

Eva nodded. "Correct. Let's go."

"Just answer me this. How old are you?" Chris asked out of nowhere.

Eva stared at him for a long moment before answering. "Seventeen. Now can we go?"

"Yeah. Now we can go." Chris said with a small smile.

He seemed happy that he had at least gotten something out of this secretive young girl. Chris commanded his men to take the rear and the rest followed behind Chris and Eva. Before Chris went through the doors, he paused and looked back at Jill's body one last time. Then they entered the next room which turned out to be a dining hall and suddenly Eva stopped as her cell phone rang.

"Yes." Eva spoke into her cell.

Chris stared at the blonde haired girl. The way she had answered the phone made him study her features more closely. Why did she seem so familiar to him? Chris was certain he had never met this girl before in his life. So then why did he feel as if he recognized her from somewhere? He couldn't place it...

As Eva listened to whomever was on the other line, her face fell slightly.

"So there's someone else playing a role in this then..." Eva said into the phone. "Understood. I will be there shortly."

"Who was that? What's wrong?" Chris asked her.

"I must go."

"Go? This was your idea!" he exclaimed.

Eva was barely listening. She was looking upwards as if searching for something.

"I will find you," she said before leaving quickly through the double doors.

"Eva!" he yelled after her but received no answer.

"Chris, there's blood," one of his soldiers, Martin, pointed out.

Martin was the furthest one in the room and he stood over by a fireplace built into the wall opposite of the doors they had come through. Chris jogged over but his expression became calmer when he saw the puddle of blood.

"That's not a normal expression for someone looking at a puddle of blood on the floor." Mohinder commented, staring at Chris a little put off.

Chris didn't seem to notice how the other man was disturbed. "This blood was here that night. It's not really there now."

As if to prove his point, he reached down and placed a finger into the pool of blood. He withdrew the finger and held it up for them to see. There was no blood on his finger so it was indeed not real.

"Creepy." Claire muttered.

Her father glanced at her but said nothing. Silently, he was agreeing with her. Chris started to lead them out of the room but he hesitated in the doorway.

"What is it?" Matt asked him.

"I found Kenneth right after this. Come to think of it, this was probably his blood."

He moved into the hallway and immediately went to the left. The group soon saw what Chris had been telling them. A hideously rotting creature in what looked like a worn and decayed suit was bent over a uniformed body. The disgusting slurping sounds that emanated from where the zombie was biting the dead man's neck was horrible. Claire got a look at the victim's face and gasped. His eyes and mouth were open in terror and pain. He had died in immense agony. The zombie most likely had bitten into his neck until he bled out. Protectively, Noah blocked the corpse from his daughter's view.

Impatiently, Noah asked, "Can we continue now?"

He clearly seemed anxious to get out of that room. In fact, everyone was feeling that way. Chris couldn't believe how real it all seemed. He could even swear he smelled the rotting flesh of the undead creature but that had to have been his imagination. Even Sylar stared down at the sight, unable to take his eyes from it.

"How disgusting." Sylar commented.

The people that knew the terrible things the man had done and still did, glanced at him with disbelieving eyes.

He took in their looks without much outward reaction. "What? I don't eat the people I kill."

Chris raised an eyebrow at Sylar's blatant admittance that he killed people. "I'm sorry. Who do you kill?"

Before anyone else could answer, one of Danko's men spoke up nervously.

"Um..sir, I think it's noticing us."

Danko appeared confused. "What are you talking-"

He stopped short when he saw what his soldier meant. The zombie had halted its eating and was turning its head slowly to look at them. Chris was confused.

"Where did my past self go? The zombie's supposed to come after me and I run and report to Wesker. Well I was going to, but Wesker and Jill had disappeared.."

No one knew how to answer that. They didn't know what was supposed to happen any more than he did. The zombie was standing upright now and it turned towards the closest one which happened to be Danko's man who had spoken up earlier.

"Huanghh.."

The zombie groaned pitifully and then its rotting hands latched onto the soldier's shoulders and threw its head against his neck and bit down. Danko's man screamed out in agony as the zombie started chowing down on his neck.

"Holy shit that thing's real!" Chris shouted in horror and disbelief.

Extremely annoyed, Danko lifted his handgun and fired a round at point blank range, straight into the zombie's head. The undead creature's skull exploded in a spray of brain matter and gore against the opposite wall from the hall and it fell to the carpet and ceased further movement. Danko's man stumbled back against the far wall and sank into a sitting position, clutching the hole in his neck. He was clearly in tremendous pain.

"Am I gonna turn into one of those things?!" the young soldier asked, panicking.

"Is there a cure of some kind?" Mohinder questioned.

Chris shook his head. "Not here and there's no way he'd make it long enough for us to find and administer the cure."

Peter hesitated before deciding he couldn't just let this man suffer such a fate.

"I can fly. Tell me where to get it and I'll fly there and find it. I could make it back in time."

Chris stared incredulously at him. "Fly? That's a joke, right?"

Nathan quickly defended him. "He's not lying. I'm his brother and I can fly too."

Noah interceded. "Take them at their word. They're telling you the truth."

Claire seemed to want to avoid the usual 'surprise we have powers' charade and she spoke to Chris, filling him in on everything. "And while we're telling the truth. I pretty much can't die because I heal, Mohinder has strength, Matt can read people's minds and control what they do or see, and Sylar has many abilities such as moving objects with his mind and healing himself like me, but he's a murderer so I'd watch your back."

Noah stared at her with a frown. "Okay I think that's enough Claire."

Chris and his team were looking at all of them like they were insane. Rolling his eyes, Sylar lifted a hand and the zombie's corpse levitated in the air.

"See, ability. Can we move on now? I don't plan on spending the rest of my life with you people in this place."

Sylar let his hand fall back to his side and the corpse collapsed back onto the carpet. Chris aimed his weapon at him but also the whole group in general.

"Who are you people? More experiments of Umbrella?" he demanded in a hostile tone.

"No! We were just born this way! Well..most of us anyways. We're not a threat right now!" Claire insisted.

"Oh God..I don't wanna turn into one of those things.."

Danko's injured man murmured, putting the distrust among the group aside for the moment. He seemed completely out of it from the pain and shock of being bitten.

Peter prodded Chris for an answer. "Come on. Tell me where I can find the cure."

Chris looked apologetically at him. "I believe you can fly, okay. But it's a thin line between finding a cure for a virus or using it as a biological weapon."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Noah had been studying the BSAA agent's eyes as he said those words and he answered Peter for Chris. "It means he doesn't know where the cure is."

Peter asked Chris for confirmation. "Is that true?"

It was Ethan who answered him. "Course it's true. Do ya think they're gonna just tell anybody where it is? If you got the cure for the T-Virus then ya might as well be holding the key to makin' the virus as well."

"I'm not gonna become one of those freaks.." Danko's injured soldier muttered.

Danko glanced at his soldier when he spoke and his eyes widened as he saw what the injured man was about to do to himself.

"No, don't!" he shouted, helplessly.

But it was no use. The bleeding soldier pointed his gun under his chin and fired, quickly ending his life. Chris looked on without much expression. If anything, his eyes just seemed to grow more tired.

"If every one of the monsters are back in this mansion...we may not even make it out of here at all."

Noah's expression became grave. "What other kinds of creatures are in this place?"

Chris slowly lifted his eyes to meet his gaze. "Come on. We should keep moving."

It didn't escape Bennet, that he had failed to answer his question which worried him a bit. Chris lead them through the the door connected to the room which now contained three dead bodies and into the next room. The sounds of birds crowing insistently echoed throughout the dimly lit room. As they filed through, several crows sat around on top of high shelves. The birds stared at them intently as they came through and Chris glanced up at them with a sharp glare.

"Careful. They may not look it, but in groups those infected crows will tear you to shreds. Forrest learned that the hard way," the agent warned.

There were a set of stairs which Chris led them up and he took them through the next door. He walked inside a few feet and came to an immediate halt. They were in what appeared to be an attic style room which was very dusty and rather dark.

"This isn't right. This room shouldn't be here." Chris told them. "This room was on the second floor on the other side of the mansion. Not here..."

"This appears to be a dead end anyways. Let's go back through the other door." David suggested.

Chris was still frozen in place, staring into the room.

"Chris?" Ethan said, concerned.

"We have to get that mask," he said.

Everyone looked at what he meant and sure enough, on the other side of the room there was a gray-white mask glinting slightly in the moonlight coming in from the small windows near the ceiling.

Peter glanced at Chris and then the mask. "Okay then let's get it."

He started forward and Chris grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

"What?" he asked, slightly annoyed.

"This is where the giant snake was. I'll get the mask. You guys should get out of here." Chris warned them.

Peter didn't seem to agree. "We can help."

The BSAA agent wasn't convinced. "How? By flying at it? I don't think that's going to scare it."

Before Peter could defend himself, Chris started for the other side of the room at a slow jog to grab the mask. He was nearly to it when suddenly the roof broke and a snake bigger than any of them had ever seen before slithered out of the hole, its head right in front of him. The snake hissed, its enormous mouth opening to expose fangs glistening with poison. Its mouth was easily large enough to swallow Chris whole.

"Shit!" Ethan shouted and opened fire on the snake.

Chris threw himself out of the way as the snake reared its head back and attacked him. The snake missed him and was then hit by a spatter of bullets which only seemed to anger it. The snake's eyes locked on the gunmen and it dropped fully onto the floor, easily taking up most of the ground with its giant form.

"Aaaughh!" Martin screeched as the snake picked him up in its mouth.

The soldier was swallowed whole and his screams were abruptly silenced.

"You motherfucker!" Ethan cursed and fired at the snake with anger.

Running out of bullets, Ethan pulled out a combat knife and charged the giant creature. Chris saw what he was going to do.

"Ethan, No!"

The snake bit into Ethan's mid-section and lifted him to swallow him up. Before the snake could do so, Sylar lifted a hand and blue electricity shot from it, hitting the snake. The giant serpent released Ethan with a screech of anger and pain and Ethan fell to the ground and lied still. Sylar continued to fry the snake with his lightning and after a minute or so the writhing snake gave a final cry of anguish before collapsing onto the ground, rendered motionless. The snake's eyes were still open but only the whites of the eyes could be seen and its mouth was partially open, tongue hanging limply out one side. It was definitely dead.

Chris had grabbed the mask while all of this went on and was now by Ethan's side. Mohinder and Peter were there as well, as they knew how to supply medical aid but the damage was too much. Both of the snake's giant fangs had gone through Ethan's stomach, and besides the deadly poison that was working its way through the soldier's body, he had also lost far too much blood. Ethan wheezed loudly, desperately trying to gain air into his lungs but it was a losing battle. Peter felt Ethan's chest and placed his head close to him, listening.

"One of the fangs punctured a lung." Peter told Chris grimly.

Chris merely nodded and held Ethan until his last breath escaped him and he moved no more. Peter and Mohinder stood back up and Chris followed their example. He picked up Ethan's knife which had fallen beside its owner and with a frustrated cry of fury he threw the knife into the far wall. The act was followed by a string of curses.

"Why do I have to relive this nightmare? Why?!" he screamed at no one in particular.

David came forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, man. Let's get out of here."

Chris kicked the head of the dead snake before he picked up the mask two of his men had died in order to procure.

"If we have to find the other three masks so help me God.." he muttered.

Mohinder and Peter exchanged looks. Three more masks? Indeed, God help them. Fortunately, there was no need to find any more masks. When they left the way they had come, instead of being back in the room with the crows, they were in a room lit only by a boiler and a couple torches that hung on the wall. Immediately to their left were statues with four different faces carved in. Three masks were already on three of the statues and Chris moved over to them and placed the final mask onto the last statue.

"So what happens now?" Danko asked Chris.

Chris didn't need to answer. As soon as the mask was in place, a horrible grinding sound came from above and behind the group. They all turned to watch as a metal coffin, leaking what appeared to be blood, fell to the stone floor with a resounding crash. Danko started towards the metal box with a frown. He didn't see how this could help them.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. That coffin contains what used to be Trevor."

"And who is this Trevor?" Danko asked, approaching the coffin cautiously.

"The mansion we're in. It's better known as the Trevor mansion. It's the place he designed, remember. His wife and daughter were the ones who were experimented on. I hope we don't run into his daughter Lisa Trevor. I already told you what she became because of the virus. I don't want to have to kill that poor child again.." Chris trailed off.

Danko didn't seem to understand why any of it mattered.

"So the architect of the mansion's corpse is in there, big deal. Why should I be afraid?"

David seemed upset as he snapped at the other man. "Have you seen what happens to things that die around here, huh? Are you that big of an idiot?"

Chris could tell David was getting riled up. He was already permanently on edge because of what had happened to their fellow teammates. Danko hesitated just as he reached the coffin and looked back at Chris.

"What's in there?" Danko queried.

"A crimson head, or rather, a superzombie." Chris answered.

"There are superzombies now?" Danko asked, an eyebrow raised.

Chris sighed tiredly. "You don't even want to know what I've all had to fight in my entire life. Why do you think I so easily believe some of you people have abilities as you so brashly claim. I've seen a lot in my life. I guess it just becomes simpler to believe eventually, though it's never easier to accept."

"I'll make sure to be extra careful." Danko said patronizingly.

He kicked the lid off of the coffin but the decaying corpse did not move. He glanced back up at Chris.

"Guess you were wrong."

"Ngauuh."

An unsettling sound emanated from the corpse in the coffin and it bolted upright quickly and reached to grab Danko at much faster speed than the other zombie they had encountered.

"Oh no you don't!" Danko shouted.

He turned, aimed quickly, and fired two rounds into the superzombie's skull. The creature crumpled to the stone floor, falling out of its coffin.

"Quick bastard," he cursed.

"Told you." Chris said.

But the man missed Chris's last comment as he had spotted something in the coffin.

"What's this?" Danko muttered, reaching in to retrieve the item.

He held up a small journal. Chris walked over, accepting the book and flipped it open to the last few entries.

"It's Trevor's diary..." Chris told them.

"Read it," one of Danko's remaining two men said.

Surprised eyes moved to him. The man hadn't spoken the entire time they were there. Chris glanced at him and then at the others. No one moved to object to the idea so Chris cleared his throat before reading out loud from

the diary.

"November 24, 1967. Eleven days have passed since arriving on this estate. How did I end up like this? A guy in a lab coat came with a plate of skimpy meal and said to me, "Sorry to put you through this, but it's for security reasons." That's when it hit me. It all makes sense now. There are only two people that know the secret of this mansion, Sir Spencer and myself. If they kill me, Sir Spencer will be the only person that knows the secret. But for what purpose? It doesn't matter now. It's too dangerous here. My family...I hope they are all right. I've decided to escape...Jessica, Lisa, I pray you are safe. November 26, 1967. How could I be so careless? I lost my favorite lighter-the one Jessica gave me for my birthday. Now it's going to be that much harder to get out of this dark place. November 13th, the date when my fate was sealed. My aunt was hospitalized just three days before that. Jessica and Lisa said that they were going to visit her. I wish I could be there with them. But wait, even as I'm writing my memory is coming back to me more vividly. Just before I passed out, I remember the men in the lab coats said something like, "Most likely your family is already..." I pray for their safety."

"Is this really necessary? The ramblings of a dead man?" Danko asked impatiently.

"With all do respect sir, shut the fuck up. I want to hear this. Maybe we can learn something useful," his man said with complete seriousness.

Danko's eyes widened in surprise. "Fine, Jefferson. We'll hear the rest, calm down."

Chris lowered his gaze back to the diary pages and continued reading.

"November 27, 1967. Somehow I managed to get out of that room. But getting out of this mansion won't be as easy. I have to get past all the booby traps. Tiger eyes, Gold Emblem...I have to try and remember for my own sake. November 29, 1967. I can't get out. I have tried every possible way to escape but only to be faced with the reality that I'm trapped. I've been everywhere. The laboratory with the large glass tubes filled with formaldehyde and those dark, wet and eerie caves...What can I do? At first I didn't want to believe my eyes. But that familiar high-heeled shoe in the corridor...It was like reflex. One name came to my mind, Jessica! I don't want to believe they share the same fate as me. No! I can't give up hope. I have to hope they're alive. November 30, 1967. I haven't had anything to eat or drink for the past few days I feel like I'm going crazy. Why is this happening to me? Why do I have to die like this? I was too obsessed with designing this ghastly mansion. I should have known better. November 31, 1967. It was a dark and damp underground tunnel. And another dead end. But even in the darkness something caught my eye. Carefully, I lit the last match, I had to see what it was. A grave! But deeply engraved into the stone was my name! "George Trevor". At that instant, it all became clear to me. Those bastards knew from the beginning that I'd die here and I fell right into their trap. But it's too late now. I'm losing it. Everything is becoming so far away. Jessica...Lisa...Forgive me. Because of my ego, I got both of you involved in this whole damn conspiracy. Forgive me. May God justify my death in exchange for your safety. George Trevor."

He slowly closed the diary and gazed down at the zombified remains of George Trevor.

"Poor bastard..." Danko's soldier murmured.

Chris frowned. He'd felt something in the back of the book. He tilted the diary slightly and something shiny fell to the floor with a metal clang. He bent down and picked it up.

"A key?" Noah spoke out loud.

"A gold key." Chris confirmed, he thought hard on where that door might have been.

Great. Now they just had to find a door which unlocked with a gold key...