Disclaimer - This is strictly fanfiction and I own no legal rights to any of the trademarked IP within. Capcom, please don't sue me.
A/N – So, I was kinda relieved my fears that Infinite Darkness was going to give us more canon details of post-RE4 Ashley that went against my vision of her were unfounded. And that her dad actually seemed like a decent president. But I'm also actually disappointed, because part of my was hoping this was going to be Ashley's biggest appearance since RE4, and all we got was a still shot of a picture of her and the knowledge that she's a dog person. Overall, my biggest problem was the same one I have with all the other RE CGI-stuff. I can't help feeling like it's an extended cutscene and being disappointed that I can't pick up my controller and play.
This chapter's called "The Ninth Floor." Now I'm realizing I should have called Chapter 13 "The Fourteenth Floor," because of tall building humor, but I think I had all of our main characters at ground level or lower at that point, so that would have required quite a few plot deviations as well.
The gunshots grew louder as Ashley and Will climbed the stairs. There was a corpse crumpled over the steps right in front of the stairwell door with the "9" on it. He was holding a rifle, and the baseball cap he was wearing had a picture of a gun with the words "Pry It From" above & "My Cold Dead Hands" beneath it.
Ashley checked the gun, found it empty, then checked the body for anything useful. She found some hard candies, a hunting knife, and an empty wallet. Then she pushed the body out of the way, watching it fall down the steps and keeping a wary eye on it to make sure it didn't get back up.
From the other side of the door, there came a loud scream and then the shooting stopped. Ashley slowly pushed open the door, just in time for her and Will to watch a Hunter disappear around the corner. They surveyed the carnage. The Hunter's last victim's torso slid away from the legs of the body and went splat in the middle of the hallway. The corridor was covered in blood and littered in corpses, both human and bioweapon.
A tattered banner hanging from the ceiling said "Welcome Defenders Backing American Gunowners."
"These guys sent my family so many death threats," Ashley said. "They fucking hate my dad. Sure do love their guns, though."
She bent over and picked up a .357 Magnum revolver. There was still a hand attached to it, though that hand had been severed from the rest of the body at the wrist. Ashley groaned in disgust as she pried the fingers away until the bloody appendage fell to the ground.
She looked grossed out as she stared at the hand on the floor and the carnage all around it, but not as grossed out as most would have been. She was getting alarmingly used to this. Will was surprised to realize that he was, too.
Ashley flipped open the revolver's chamber, noted it was empty, then flicked it shut again and tucked the gun into her waistband.
She crept into the nearest room, Will right behind her. Two bodies were in bloody heaps on the other side of the room, one in a chair pointing a shotgun where his own face had once been. Wind was screaming through the broken window behind him, and the floor was already completely soaked from the rain pouring in.
Will watched Ashley's face, not completely devoid of sympathy, as she read the murder-suicide note left on a nearby end table.
"They put up a fight," Ashley explained. "But by the time they realized what they were dealing with, it was too late. Several of them had already been infected. Those infected started infecting the others. Then they started having to kill each other. Plus those monsters kept attacking. These two realized they were already turning, so they took themselves out of the equation."
"How long has this been going on?" Will asked.
"At least a couple days before we got here," Ashley said. "According to the note, they'd been trying to hold the creatures off all weekend."
"Just what the hell is going on here?"
"I think it's some kind of experiment," Ashley said. "Whoever's behind this unleashes the virus in the hotel. They can use the guests as some kind of sample group. Observe how the virus affects them, how long it takes the infection to spread, symptoms to show. How well they're able to fight against each other and all the other monsters, and how that changes at different points of the infection. And it's a hotel on a remote island, so they can try to keep it contained."
She looked out through the doorway into the hallway, spotted a security camera, then stuck her arm out towards it and extended her middle finger.
"What was that for?" Will asked.
"If it's an experiment, the people running it must be monitoring everything somehow," Ashley said. "Like with those cameras."
"You mean they've been watching us this whole time?" Will said.
"I guess that means I'm not the only one who's been watching you be a total badass all night."
"But I'm not a . . ."
"Come on, Will. You survived a plane crash. And that was just for starters."
Will thought back to the plane crash. And then his mind went back to visiting the hospital with Ashley right before it, seeing the virus ravaging patients there.
"But the experiment wasn't contained," Will said. "We saw it on the mainland, in that hospital. And if the infection works this fast . . ."
Ashley's fists clenched in the same frustration Will remembered her showing during that fateful flight.
"We can't think about that right now," Ashley said. "Jill and Carlos will know what to do. That's, like, their job, right? We just have to find them first."
She took one of the dead men's phones off their charger, looking at the conspiracy theory website on it and scoffing at the headline "Werewolves, sea monster, and ten foot tall vampire MILF spotted in Romania." Then she plugged her own smartphone in, hoping to give it even another few minutes before completely dying.
She pulled the shotgun out of the dead man's hands, then removed a holster from his waist that looked like it would fit the Magnum. There was a duffel bag nearby, and when Ashley unzipped it and pulled aside the flap she was happy to see that it was stuffed completely with boxes of ammunition for various guns. She sat and reloaded the shotgun, the revolver, and finally the 9mm pistol she'd been using all night, before holstering the handguns and strapping the shotgun across her back.
Next she began selecting boxes of ammo from the bag and stuffing them into her own ammo pouch. Taking the whole bag would only weigh her down. If they still needed more firepower after this, she knew exactly where to beeline back to.
Ashley and Will left the room and entered the next one, searching to see if anything useful had been left behind.
Something had destroyed a huge section of floor, leaving a hole leading straight down to the room below. Ashley and Will carefully circled around it, and then Ashley examined the small arsenal that had been left behind.
She picked up a small caliber pistol and tossed it to Will.
"I can't carry all of these guns by myself."
"But I've never really used one before," Will said.
"It's pretty easy," Ashley said. "I'll even forgive you if you miss. Just as long as you don't shoot me."
Then they heard a thump and turned around.
There was another thump and the closet door shuddered. They both stared at the handle, wondering if they should just go ahead and open it.
But during that split second they were trying to decide, the zombie burst straight through the door.
Will was startled enough to jump back, not all the way in to the hole, but close enough that the loose floorboards around it snapped under his feet, sending him hurtling downwards.
Ashley took the shotgun off her back and fired it directly into the zombie's face. Its decaying corpse fell back into the closet. Then she peered down through the hole.
The bed directly beneath had cushioned Will's fall. But he wasn't alone down there. A throng of zombies quickly surrounded him. Will was leaning over the mattress, desperately looking for the gun Ashley just gave him.
Ashley instinctively drew the 9mm she had been relying on all night, then aimed down and started picking the zombies off, but more kept appearing around Will. He picked his gun back up then looked above, silently pleading with her for help or guidance.
"Will!" she yelled down. "Just run! I promise I'll find you."
He nodded and sprinted through a gap in the horde she'd just created for him. Several of the zombies climbed up into the bed, stretching their arms towards her, but the hole above their head was still too high to reach.
Ashley could hear the sound of Will trying to shoot his way through the horde, but soon the sound faded, and Ashley was left in silence except for the thunderstorm outside and the moans and growls of the undead below.
With Will out of sight, Ashley was the most alone and scared she'd felt since Saddler had locked her in the dungeon of that creepy church in Spain. Except this time, the fear she felt wasn't for herself.
"So, what's with this rooftop restaurant?" Pierce asked. "What happened to you finding us someplace safe from the monsters or the approaching hurricane or whatever?"
"I'm still trying to figure that out," Jill said. "But getting a hold of that statue in that restaurant at least gives us a goal to move towards. Maybe we'll come up with something on the way. I think better when I'm working."
They were almost to the stairwell door when a stain on the carpet caught Jill's eye. This blood was still bright red. Fresh. And it was smeared down the hallway, leaving a trail.
Jill turned to follow it.
"Where are we going now?"
"That blood could be from another survivor," Jill said. "They could be hurt and need our help."
"Or it could be from a zombie bite, and they could be ready to eat us as soon as we find them," Pierce argued.
"He may be an asshole," Rosita said. "But he may be right."
"And even if they're not a zombie, how many more people can we afford to carry around with us?" Pierce asked. "Won't we just draw more in if we have too many people with us? Do we really need to make ourselves a four course meal?"
"Maybe," Rosita said, "we can just leave you behind and take them instead."
But Jill was undeterred. She kept following the trail as the blood became redder and thicker. It left a wide smear in the carpet. It hadn't been drip-dropping from a single injury as somebody plodded along on their own two legs. They were smearing it as they went, probably crawling on their belly.
What was left of the body was holding a door open. There wasn't much left below the waist. The zombies that had been making a snack of his legs must have abandoned him for the promise of fresh meat outside of Wong's. They'd probably joined the throng Jill had to mow down to get here.
"There you have it," Pierce said. "Not a survivor. Can we go now?"
Jill gave the body a once-over. They were wearing body armor with the familiar Umbrella logo, giving Jill that same intense rage in the pit of her stomach she'd felt since her night at the Spencer manor, and especially since watching her beloved home town turn turned in to a crater by a mushroom cloud. She stepped over it and into the suite.
They entered immediately into a sitting room with several different chairs and a few small tables. The only light was coming from the hotel hallway. Jill took a breath before deciding to flip the light switch right by the doorway, praying it didn't trigger some booby trap or unleash some kind of especially aggravated monster.
The lights on the ceiling fan and several lamps throughout the room flickered on dimly. There was a kitchenette in one corner, a bathroom in another, and a bedroom off to either side. Jill walked through each quickly, surveying them for any immediate threats.
An especially loud clap of thunder made Pierce and Rosita jump and even sent a shiver down Jill's spine. It was almost immediately followed by a flash of lightning outside the bedroom window, which was constantly rattling from the rain pounding against it.
"This doesn't seem like a bad place to bunker down for a while," Pierce observed, stepping back into the sitting room. "Or at least take a load off for a second."
It did look squeaky clean. Probably completely unoccupied when the bioweapons were unleashed in the hotel. The Umbrella op must have just opened it. There were no windows in the living area. If they could close the bedroom and bathroom doors it would probably provide adequate protection against the elements, even when the storm eventually took out those bedroom windows. They'd just need to barricade the doors for protection from everything else.
Pierce walked over to the biggest chair in the room, ready to relax.
Jill's eyes turned back to the dead Umbrella op. One arm was stretched out across the floor, almost pointing, at the wall opposite the door. It was empty, except for a single framed painting.
She couldn't see anything significant about it just by looking at it. It was just a painting of the planet Earth.
Pierce put a hand on the armrest of the chair he'd been making his way to. The painting seemed to flutter.
Jill quickly turned to Pierce and put a hand out to motion him to stop. He had halfway lowered himself in to the chair.
"Stop!" she yelled aloud, when he appeared reluctant to accept her hand signal. "Stand up!"
"But my legs are tired," Pierce whined.
"But they're still attached to your body," Jill said. "Which is more than I can guarantee if you keep going around touching the furniture in here."
She gestured towards the body that was serving as a doorstop, hoping maybe it would force Pierce to visualize himself with a couple missing limbs.
Pierce moved away from the chair. Jill cautiously placed one hand gently on the back of it and then, ever so slightly, tilted it.
The painting inched up in the frame. Jill could see part of a different picture peaking out in one of the lower corners. There was a larger painting than visible back there, and the way the furniture moved was causing it to scroll.
She moved to the chair next to it, then tilted that as well. The painting began scrolling in a different direction.
"Don't touch anything," Jill reiterated. "Why can't they just hide all their stuff behind a combination lock like normal people? I've had it up to here with all this escape room crap."
She walked over to the body in the doorway and knelt over it, keeping a close eye on its mouth. The skin was showing signs of decay way too fast for how fresh the blood was. The virus was already causing the body to mutate, and it wouldn't be long before it reanimated.
She checked all the pockets and compartments she could find on the corpse's back, before flipping it over and continuing to examine it.
"What are you looking for?" Rosita asked.
"Clues," Jill replied.
"What kind of clues?"
"We need something to tell us how this thing with the chairs is supposed to work. If we move them around, it's going to make something happen."
"What do you mean 'something'?"
"I don't know," Jill admitted. "Just 'something.' A hypothetical 'something.' Based on all my experience with this kind of thing, if we do this right it could be a good hypothetical something, but if we screw anything up, it will probably be a very, very bad hypothetical something."
She looked at Pierce and Rosita's faces and could tell they still wanted more elaboration.
"Like, for example, the ceiling will start closing in on us," she added. "Or a python the size of this whole room will come in through a false wall."
"Wouldn't it be better if we just left it alone, then?" Rosita asked.
The Umbrella op made a loud hissing sound and gnashed his teeth. Jill immediately lowered the heavy sole of her boot down on his skull, smashing it in to the carpet. She wiped the bottom of her foot on the wall. The two civilians looked nauseous as they tried to take their eyes off of the stain she'd left behind.
"This guy right here thought whatever was in here was worth spending his dying breath to get to," Jill said. "I have to know what it is."
She stood back up and began studying her surroundings more carefully.
"So look," she said. "But, whatever you do, don't touch."
Daniel removed the headset and gloves and tossed them on the desk, looking smugger than ever.
"Terrence found something, did he?" Jasmine said.
Daniel didn't answer her, but instead picked up the phone on his desk.
"I have reason to believe Cassius Carver is a traitor. Search his office immediately. Find me his location. I need to interrogate him."
He slammed the phone down, probably not even waiting for an answer, still grinning.
The grin faded when he looked at the monitors.
He reached out towards them, his mouth moving but no words coming. He stood up, paced around, waved frantically at the monitors, still working his mouth with nothing coming out.
Rage was contorting his carefully styled appearance into something ugly. He was still trying to speak, but all that came out was half-formed words and shouts of rage.
Jasmine just stared at the older man with the quiet disapproval and embarrassment of a mother watching their child throw a tantrum in the toy aisle of a department store.
Daniel pounded both fists on the desk, looked back at the monitors, tugged on his mullet, threw his hands in the air, and then pounded his fists down on the desk again.
"Wh—where . . . where is Valentine? Wh—what . . . what has happened . . . what has happened to my monitors?"
Jasmine looked at the static displayed across several of Daniel's screens.
"I think I saw her shooting a camera."
Daniel let out an almost inhuman shriek and then stuck his face in Jasmine's, rapidly clenching and unclenching his fists. Spit flecked his lips and ran down his chin.
"How long has this been going on? Are you so stupid that you just now noticed? Or did you just not tell me?"
"Miss Graham's caught on to them as well," Jasmine said, examining her nails rather than looking Daniel in the eyes. "But she hasn't been destroying them. Just making obscene gestures in their direction."
Daniel wiped his saliva on the back of his leather glove.
"H-h-how long? Grrrr! Did you . . . did you . . . at least notice some kind of pattern? Ugghh! Maybe I can still figure out where she . . . Damn it all to . . . Merde. Were you even paying attention?"
Jasmine calmly slid off the corner of the desk and smoothed her skirt back down.
"That's not my job," she said. "I think you're starting to forget that I'm not your assistant; I'm your boss. And I have other important items in the air I need to attend to. Let's try to have things sorted by the time I come back, yeah?"