Disclaimer - I own no legal rights to any of the copyrighted or trademarked elements of this Resident Evil fanfiction.
The storm had picked up again, and harder than before. The sky through the windows in the hallway was pitch black. Then again, Jill had already lost track of whether it was day or night hours ago. Flashes of lightning were followed immediately by loud roars of thunder. Rain and wind rattled the windows.
Rosita was still shaking from a mix of fear and anger.
"We could have been sliced into a million tiny pieces," she said, giving Pierce a pointed look. "All because you had to sit your lazy ass in a chair."
"The important thing is we escaped," Jill said. "By a hair. Well, several hairs."
Rosita rolled her eyes at Jill and again tugged at her hair, a significantly shorter 'do than the one she'd started that evening with thanks to the booby trapped laser grid.
"Some day we're all going to look back at this and laugh," Jill assured her.
"Is that true?" Pierce asked.
Jill looked back at them and massaged her chin.
"No," she finally said. "Not really. I'd recommend you both seek psychiatric help after we make it through this. As soon as possible. That giant goldfish was kind of weird though, right?"
She couldn't turn it off. The attitude. The sarcasm. The quips. She couldn't have made it through her strange youth without developing a twisted sense of humor. Raised by a cat burglar father to join the family business. Only to lie about her age to run off and join the army, quickly being brought into the Delta Force, honing her breaking and entering skills even further as well as becoming quite the expert on how to deal with high explosives. Then early retirement, followed by recruitment by Albert Wesker into the R.P.D. and then to the elite S.T.A.R.S. division, again at an absurdly young age.
That's when the sense of humor had really been essential. S.T.A.R.S. was serious business, and its members had the attitude to reflect that. She wasn't sure if she'd ever heard so much as a chuckle from anyone on the team besides Barry Burton.
Partnered up with Chris Redfield, it was clear she'd need to have a sense of humor big enough for the both of them. If the situation called for it, Chris Redfield could be pleasant, charming, even. But Jill didn't think she'd ever heard him crack a joke. It was always clear he was going to be the straight man of their duo. And that left her to be the comic relief.
Of course, the dynamic was completely different when she was with Carlos. In that partnership, Jill liked to think she was the grown up of the two. It was still hard for her to wrap her head around the idea of Carlos raising children.
Like her, Carlos had needed to develop that sense of humor to keep himself going early on. He'd been pulled in to a life of violence at an even more absurdly young age than she had.
She hoped he was okay, wherever he was. She could far too easily imagine Carlos making some kind of awful pun right before being devoured by mutant fish or vivisected by lasers, one last attempt to spite this cruel world by going out with a smile on his face.
She was about to make another attempt to lighten the mood when she thought she heard a nearby roar, and not from thunder.
Jill motioned for the others to stay still, then ducked under a nearby archway into the next section of hallway.
There was a Licker sinking its claws into the wall, staring right at her. That is, if you could accuse a face without eyes of "staring." There were two others climbing on the ceiling above it. And at least three more crawling back and forth across from the wall opposite it. A whole pack of them.
But none of them were aware of her presence. If they just stayed quiet and tiptoed slowly, they could walk right past them as if they weren't even there.
Jill turned around and put a finger to her lips, ready to tell her companions exactly that.
Then a Licker dropped from the ceiling to the floor behind her, and Pierce immediately screamed at the top of his lungs and began running away as fast as he could.
Jill drew her pistol and turned around in one quick motion, firing at the Licker sprinting towards her. The bullet knocked the creature out of the air as it pounced and it fell to the side of the hallway, temporarily stunned. She side-stepped and fired again as another one of the Lickers sprinted her way. The other Lickers charged right past her.
Rosita was huddled in a corner, hands shielding her head. Clever girl. The Lickers were ignoring her and continuing to run towards Pierce, who was still stomping down the hallway and screaming like an idiot.
One of the Lickers Jill had shot was getting back up. She aimed at its head and kept firing until it was down for good, then tried to change clips as the other recovered. She backed away as she shot at it.
Pierce was still screaming, which meant he hadn't managed to get himself killed. Yet. Jill turned on her heels and ran after him.
She fired at the one that was gaining on him fastest. It seemed to get its attention off of him and on to her, at least. She kept firing as Pierce disappeared around the next corner, three of the Lickers still at his heels. She just hoped there weren't anymore nearby, because the gunshots and screaming would draw them in for sure.
She turned around the next corner, jumping back when she found herself face to face with one of the Lickers, its claw just barely missing as it swung at her. Even at point blank range, it took the rest of her clip to put it down.
Beyond that, another Licker was rearing up in the air, winding up its arm to swipe at Pierce.
Suddenly, Ashley Graham stepped around the opposite corner, carrying a .357 Magnum. She aimed and fired. The shot sent the Licker flying back from Pierce. It also threw Ashley off her feet and on to her ass.
As the Licker lunged forward again, Ashley picked herself back up and shot it a couple more times in the head, killing it. Then she turned to the other Licker and fired her Magnum at that one as well.
Jill approached her.
"So that's what it feels like to be Dirty Harry," Ashley said, reloading the revolver.
"Not quite," Jill replied. "But you should meet my friend Barry. I think the two of you would really get a kick out of each other."
She turned around and looked at the carcasses of the dead monsters.
"Nice job with the Lickers," Jill said.
"Lickers?" Ashley said. "Oh, yeah. Because of their tongues. I get it. I've just been thinking of them as 'Brain guys.'"
Rosita approached, muttering softly in Spanish.
Ashley gasped and then immediately lifted the gun to Rosita's head. Rosita continued speaking in Spanish, her eyes towards the ceiling as she prayed.
Jill pushed down on Ashley's wrist, forcing her to lower the gun.
"You too?" she said.
"Oh my God!" Ashley said, completely mortified. "I'm so, so sorry. I was just flashing back to this near-death experience. You see, back when I was in college, I was on spring break, and I was abducted and taken to this little village in Spain, and all these locals had these bug-things in their head and they kept trying to kill me and . . . And . . . You know, my father is actually very pro-immigration and . . ."
Jill patted her gently on the arm.
"You can stop talking now, sweetie."
"Aren't you President Graham's daughter?" Pierce asked, joining them.
Ashley nodded.
"I never voted for that commie," Pierce said.
"That's just your whole thing, huh?" Jill said. "You have to make sure everyone hates you as soon as they meet you?"
Jill introduced Pierce and Rosita to Ashley.
"There was someone else," Ashley said. "But there . . . there were these dogs . . . I don't want to talk about it."
She shuddered and looked at the floor as she remembered Lee's demise.
"I'm glad to see you're still okay," Jill said. "What happened to the guy you were with?"
"We got separated," Ashley said. She let out an aggravated sigh. "He . . . he fell through a hole. And then . . ."
"Ashley?"
They looked up towards the voice as Will walked out from around the next corner. He and Ashley ran towards each other and eagerly embraced.
Carlos walked over, and Jill felt the desire to run up and hug him. Instead, they just offered each other a small nod.
"Valentine."
"Oliveira."
Carlos looked at Rosita and Pierce.
"Leave it to you to use this opportunity to make new friends," Carlos said. "I made one, too. Dr. Carver says what we're dealing with is called the 'Alpha Virus.'" He showed Jill the container of vials and pulled out a piece of paper that had been tucked in with them, covered in hastily scrawled notes. "And this is the cure."
Jill eyed it skeptically.
"And you trust this guy?"
Carlos only hesitated a moment before nodding.
"Completely."
Then the window shattered, glass flying everywhere, as a palm branch flew in and crashed into the wall.
Rain poured in, along with a flock of zombie seagulls.
Jill and Carlos backed away, firing into the air at the birds.
Then an entire palm tree collapsed, crashing through the wall and separating Ashley and Will from the others.
Ashley ran for the nearest stairwell, Will right on her heels. She kicked open the door and was immediately greeted by the sight of one of the giant bedbugs climbing up the wall. She aimed her revolver and fired, spraying her and Will with slime as the bug exploded.
Another bug was climbing up the stairway behind them. They climbed the stairs backwards, Ashley firing at the approaching bug.
The sound of the blast caught the attention of a nearby Licker. Ashley spun around and shot it in the face. Now they were running up the stairs faster.
The stairwell could have been the perfect place to seek shelter from the storm, if it wasn't for the cacophony of growls and snarls and roars of monsters climbing closer and closer to them.
Will had his gun drawn, and Ashley tossed more ammunition.
Zombies poured out of the next doorway into the stairwell. Ashley swung the revolver into the nearest one, striking them on the head and sending them sprawling back, bowling over the zombies behind them. A Hunter ran down the stairs from the floor above, and Ashley emptied the rest of her chamber into it before running up and reloading while the zombies she had knocked over crawled up the stairs towards her. Will had reloaded his gun, and was putting bullets in the slowly-moving targets.
Another zombie was waiting above. Ashley shot it and then continued climbing. At the top of the stairs, the walls and ceiling were swarming with giant bedbugs. Ashley ignored them and threw open the door.
The rooftop restaurant was covered in broken glass from all of the wall-to-wall windows. The wind was a loud, steady roar and the rain was ice cold. They pelted Ashley and Will so that it was a struggle just to move. Crouching and fighting against the storm, they managed to make it across the restaurant to the kitchen.
A Hunter lurched towards them at the same time Will spotted the walk-in freezer and pointed it out. They managed to run to it, yank open the door, and throw themselves in before the wind caused the door to slam shut again.
They could hear the Hunter clawing at the other side of the door, but soon the scratching stopped. Even the sound of the fierce winds was blocked out by the heavy door. They were in total silence.
Ashley let out a breath and watched it turn into fog. She dropped to her haunches and wrapped her arms around her chest.
"At least I think we're safe from the storm and the monsters for now," she said, her teeth already starting to chatter.
Will was already violently shivering from the cold.
"But how long do you think we can stay in here?"