Disclaimer - I own no legal rights to any of the copyrighted or trademarked elements of this Resident Evil fanfiction.
Will kept struggling with the door handle and trying to press on the heavy freezer door.
"It's not opening!" he yelled. "It's not opening!"
His teeth chattered as he ran back and forth, scanning the shelves for something, anything, to give him hope they'd make it out of this.
"Will," Ashley said.
"There's got to be some jackets. Or some blankets. Or some way we can rearrange the items on these shelves that will secretly reveal a way out."
"Will!" Ashley said again.
Will frantically started grabbing at random, loose food items on the shelves and throwing them to the floor.
"Will!"
He turned to where Ashley was standing, calm and still, in the middle of the freezer, starting straight at him.
"Hold me," she said.
Will blinked at her, thinking for a moment that he'd misheard her, or just imagined her saying anything at all.
Ashley stretched her arms out towards him.
"Survival 101," she said. "If we share body warmth, we may be able to stave off hypothermia a little longer."
Will wrapped his arms around her, loosely at first, until he felt how tightly she was clinging to him. Then he embraced her as tightly as he could.
She buried her face in his shoulder, letting out what sounded like an almost content sigh.
Will kept staring at the door, wondering if there was anything on the other side of it, and if whatever it could do to them would be worse than slowly freezing to death.
He looked down at Ashley. She was still and silent, her eyes shut tight.
Will shook her by the shoulders.
"Ashley," he said. "I don't think it's a good idea if we fall asleep in this cold."
"Of course it's not," Ashley said, yawning. "I was just resting my eyes."
She buried her face back in his shoulder. Another minute or so passed in total silence before Will shook her again.
"You're being too quiet," he said. "You're never this quiet. I get worried when I don't hear that big mouth of yours."
Ashley let out one of her gleeful, angelic laughs.
"You know me so well," she said. "Probably better than anyone."
She looked up at him, and there was a special kind of glow in her golden eyes.
"That's probably because I write . . ."
Ashley cut Will off by putting a finger to his lips.
"Shut up," she said.
Slowly, they each brought their face closer to each other's, until, finally, their lips met.
The kiss ended when they heard something pulling on the door.
They held each other even tighter, slowly backing away.
Then the door opened, and four familiar faces greeted them. Jill and Carlos lowered their guns.
"Are we interrupting something?" Carlos asked.
"Yes!" Will said, at the same time Ashley said, "No."
They looked at each other for a second, then back at the others.
"Yes!" Ashley said, at the same time as Will said, "No."
Ashley groaned in frustration and walked out of the freezer, Will close behind her.
"I believe what my colleague and I are trying to say," she said, "is what the hell took you so long? We almost froze to death."
"I'll go get some blankets and towels," Rosita said.
The storm had stopped. The floor of the restaurant was covered in puddles of rain water and broken glass, as well as a few monster carcasses, but the air was humid, which felt nice after nearly dying of hypothermia.
"How'd you know to look for us in here?"
"We didn't," Jill admitted. "We were just checking to see if anything was hiding in there. We had no idea it would be you guys."
Rosita returned with a stack of linen from the nearest storage closet, and Ashley and Will gratefully wrapped themselves in the fresh linen. She turned to Carlos and they chatted away pleasantly in Spanish.
Jill walked over to the bar, looked it up and down, and then grabbed a bottle.
"Fifty year old Scotch," she said. "Would be a shame to just let it go to waste."
The others joined her. Jill reached behind the bar and lined up several crystal glasses.
"Is now really the best time to get drunk?" Pierce asked.
"If not now, when?" Carlos said, taking one of the glasses Jill poured.
"None for me, thank you," Rosita said, waving one away and gripping the her cross necklace.
Ashley and Will each took a glass. Jill took a long, easy swallow from her drink. Ashley took a cautious sip. Will took a swallow and immediately made a face as he tasted the Scotch.
"He's adorable," Jill said.
"Back off," Ashley responded. "He's mine."
Pierce picked up a glass and held it out towards Jill, evidently having changed his mind about getting drunk right now. Jill responded by pouring the rest of the bottle into the other four glasses.
"Sorry," she said. "All out."
Will continued taking tiny sips of his drink, attempting to enjoy it, while Jill walked over to a nearby piano. She sat down on the bench, setting her drink down on a nearby counter, then cracked her knuckles and began playing "Heart and Soul."
Ashley walked over, took a seat next to her, and began playing the other half of the duet.
Pierce looked at them in panic.
"You're too loud!" he said. "Aren't you afraid of attracting those . . . things?"
"Remember how we've been talking about a 'tactically sound position'?" Jill said, still tickling the ivories. "This is it. We've got a clear view of all possible entrances and exits and enough artillery to wage a small war. If we were ever going to make a stand tonight, this is as good a place as any."
She took another drink from her glass and then went back to a piano.
"Are we having a little party?" a stranger's voice suddenly said. "Woo-hoo?"
Everyone leaped to their feet and turned towards the voice. A man in a beret and tinted glasses was standing behind the bar.
"Don't mind me," he said in a smarmy French accent. "I was just grabbing a bottle of wine. This place actually served a very decent charcuterie board. Pity there's no one here to prepare it for you."
"Who are you?" Jill demanded.
She, Carlos, and Ashley all had their guns drawn and aimed at the stranger.
He bowed his head.
"My name is Daniel," he said. "And I am the architect of this nightmare."
"Architect?" Ashley said. "Like, you built this hotel?"
Daniel's face twisted and hands balled up in seething rage.
"No, you fools! I am . . . I am . . ."
"The guy who's been watching us on all those cameras," Carlos said. "And unleashing all these monsters."
Daniel acknowledged the statement with a slight flick of the wrist.
"At last we meet, Mademoiselle Valentine," he said, looking at Jill again. "And her little fan club."
"Jill's Valentines," Will suggested quickly. "Or is that a little too on the nose?"
"But in a good way, I think," Jill said to Will, without taking her eyes off of Daniel.
"That's why I keep him on the payroll," Ashley said.
"I'm a fan as well," Daniel said. "The Spencer Mansion. The Nemesis project. Even the Queen Zenobia. Tell me, how does tonight rank compared to your other adventures? I, of course, am partial to my own brand of mayhem, but . . ."
"Someday, when I look back over my life," Jill said, "I probably won't even remember tonight at all."
Daniel's face contorted in anger again.
"Then you'd better look back over your life now, because it ends soon!"
He flipped a switch somewhere and secret panels began to open around the room.
Jill ran at him, colliding with the strong panel of glass between Daniel and the bar as he disappeared into the shadows with his bottle of wine.
Monsters were pouring into the restaurant from all sides.
And Minos was struggling to fit through the main entryway. He'd mutated further since the last time Ashley had seen him. His figure was barely even humanoid anymore, and when he entered the room and stretched to his full height, he practically rubbed up against the ceiling.