Resident Evil
The Whole Story
Chapter Seven.
The natural quiet of the forest was disturbed by the sound of many pairs of feet kicking up dirt and breaking branches underfoot. It seemed as if almost half the police force had come out to try and find the ruined campsite that Miss Anderson had told them about.
Jill was currently with Chris, Joseph and Rosa searching the area, Miss Anderson had tried to show them where the campsite was but it had been late at night and very dark so she hadn't been able to show them exactly where it was but she did show them where she went off of the path when she had heard the moans so they were in the rough area.
Rosa sighed and rolled her shoulders. "We've been out here for two hours, you'd think we would have found something by now." She said as she pressed closer to Chris, who grinned and throw his arm over her shoulder.
"There's a lot of forest to look through Rosa." Chris remarked. "Even if we had the whole police department out here looking it would still take us hours to search the whole area."
Rosa rolled her eyes. "I know that, I just wish we had a more specific idea of where this campsite is that's all." She muttered as she kicked a large stone that was in her path, sending it flying until it collided with an old tree.
Chris chuckled and shook his head before he started to walk off before Rosa and Joseph followed him, Jill looked around the area for a moment longer before she realised there was nothing to note in the area and hurried after them.
The group arrived in a large clearing were around ten other officers were looking around, in the forest, through the trees Jill could see other officers searching, using their arms to wade through the tall grass.
She also noticed that there were three members of S.T.A.R.S Bravo team in the clearing, aiding the search however they could.
The first one she noticed was Kenneth Sullivan, a black man of average height with cropped black hair and strong arms, He was Bravo team's forensic officer and until Rebecca had joined them had been acting as their team's medic when Jessica was unavailable or they had been forced to take on solo missions.
Kenneth was solemn and professional, putting the job before anything and Jill respected that if nothing else, she couldn't say that she liked him but she respected him and like her father always said sometimes respecting someone is a lot better than liking them.
At the moment he was speaking to a blond female officer that Jill had never seen before, they were most likely going over the investigation and discussing what they had already found, which if they were having the same luck as they were would be almost nothing.
Speaking of the new girl, Rebecca was one of the two other members of Bravo team that was in the clearing. What struck Jill immediately was just how young the girl was, according to all of her paperwork she was twenty-two years old, only two years younger than Jill but the woman could quite easily pass for eighteen. Honestly, the girl looked like she should be at a collage bar not a crime scene.
But her reference had been glowing and her scores from the academy were beyond incredible, coming first in all most all of her classes and so far she seemed to be fitting in well enough but Jill had never really had the chance to talk to her, only seeing her at the police station from a distance.
The final member in the clearing was Forest Spryer. Forest was Bravo Team's sniper and like Rose would often act as forward scout for Bravo Team along with their communication specialist Richard Aiken.
Forest kind of looked like a biker guy out of a bad romance novel for lonely housewives, long hair with a mullet and tattoos the covered the entirety of his arms and dark eyes that showed an intense sadness that was begging to be healed, eyes that whispered "Save me"
It was bullshit, Forest didn't need to be saved and he wasn't sad, he just know how his appearance made him look and he played the part of the sad biker guy, it was a massive goof. Forest was a joker and anyone who knew him would tell he would laugh many more times than he would cry.
Forest was currently smoking a cigarette and was helping the investigation by staying out of the way or as he would put it. "Providing tactical moral support." He was lucky he was such a skilled officer when it counted otherwise she imagined that he would've had to turn his badge a long time ago.
He raised his hand when he saw Chris, Forest and Chris were pretty close and would often go out drinking on a Saturday night and they would often spend breaks at the police station going out for a smoke.
Jill would honestly think that the two of them might have something if it wasn't for the fact that Chris was with Rosa in everything but name and more than once she had caught Forest staring at her ass which was not her favourite thing in the world and she swore if she caught him doing it one more time he would find himself not being able to see anything ever again.
Chris raised his hand when he saw Forest and walked over to him while Rosa and Joseph joined the police officers in the clearing looking for any evidence that anyone had camped recently.
Jill followed Chris over to where Forest was leaning against a tree, she was just in time to overhear the last of their conversation.
"Nothing so far, I'm starting to think she must have been doing drugs, maybe smoking herbs." Forest said as he took out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to both Chris and Jill. Chris took one and Jill held up her hand and shook her head.
Chris took his lighter out of his pocket and lit his cigarette with it. "I don't know, I was there when she came in and she didn't look drunk, she didn't slur her words and she did submit to a breathalyser test and it wasn't as if we could force her to let us test her urine but I don't think she's on drugs either. I think we should give her the benefit of the doubt."
Forest shrugged and dropped his cigarette to the forest floor before stepping on it. "If you say so man but being attacked by a woman without a face? I still think it's just a massive waste of time and resources being out here."
"Thank you for your opinion Forest." A gruff voice said from behind, Enrico Marini, Bravo Team's captain stepped into the clearing. A tall Mexican man who had been working for S.T.A.R.S almost as long as Barry, Jake and William. "Thankfully you don't get decided how we use our resources or use our time, if you did we wouldn't get anything done." He said as he stared at him sternly.
"Yes sir, sorry sir." Forest quickly apologised with his head and bent and looking suitably chastised, even a joker like Forest had a great deal of respect for Enrico and did his best to impress him.
Enrico nodded. "All right then." He turned his head to look at Jill and nodded his head respectfully. "Valentine." When his eyes landed on Chris a small frown appeared on his face before he acknowledge him. "Redfield."
No one knew for what reason but for some reason Enrico really did not like Chris at all, Wesker treated Chris the same way he treated everyone else, with contempt but Enrico really hated Chris for a reason no one could ever quite work out.
Jill at first thought it was because that Chris was a slacker, a total slob and a tiny bit of an insufferable, cocky jerk. But all those things could easily be applied to someone like Forest and Enrico had no personal problems with him and they even worked on the same team.
To Chris's credit he never seemed to be bothered by it at all, he just shrugged his shoulders and accepted the fact that sometimes in life you would meet people that you wouldn't get along with no matter if you did anything wrong or not.
And to Enrico's credit he never used his higher rank to deal out the hard tasks to Chris, he would evaluate a situation and determine its risks before assigning them jobs and he always made sure that Chris's job was something he could do, Jill had to admit however it was probably just because he wanted to make sure everyone got home safe rather than him not wanting to abuse his power as the higher ranking officer.
"Any luck finding anything yet?" Enrico asked as he crossed his arms and looked around the clearing.
"No, not yet. I don't think there's many more places in the immediate area that we can search." Jill pointed out, starting to see Rosa's point, they had been out here for a little over two hours now according to her watch and they hadn't found even a trace of the campsite Miss Anderson had mentioned.
Jill didn't think she was lying or making it up but she was starting to consider the possibility that she might have just been on drugs and had a vivid and violent hallucination.
But as soon as the thought crossed her mind she discarded it, she had been there last night when she came in and saw the woman's eyes. They were fearful but the irises were normal and there was no sign that she was on drugs and she sounded so sure, her instincts were telling her that she was telling the truth.
"I think I'm going to head back to the path and see how Miss Anderson is doing, if that's okay with you Enrico." She asked.
When Enrico nodded she turned and walked back into the forest with her destination in mind, it took her about five minutes to get back to the path and she spotted Miss Anderson sitting down on a small foldout chair that had been brought out to her, there were about half a dozen other officers milling around the area.
Sitting next to her in her own chair was a young female officer with blond hair and green eyes, Rita was her name and she was one of the youngest members of the police force only being twenty years old, she was speaking to Miss Anderson softly about something that Jill couldn't overhear.
Jill walked over to the two woman and they both looked up as she approached. Rita nodded and smiled brightly at her. "Hello Officer Valentine, any luck yet?" She asked and Jill couldn't help but noticed the faint hopeful expression that had just appeared on Miss Anderson's face.
"No not yet Rita and you can call me Jill." She pointed out and she felt a bit bad as she watched the hopeful expression on Miss Anderson's face fade away only for it to be replaced by an expression of disappointment.
"Rita, I think Marvin mentioned that he needed your help with something. If you go and see him I can stay here and keep Miss Anderson company." It was a bit of a dirty trick using the young officer's obvious crush on her superior officer against her but she wanted to talk to her on her own.
Besides Marvin's search party had both Kevin Ryeman and David Ford, there was no way in hell he didn't need all the help he could get.
Rita nodded with a bright smile as she bounced out of her chair and went in the direction that Marvin's search party had gone. Jill sat down in the now vacant chair and looked at the woman in the other. "How are you doing Miss Anderson?"
"My name's Lisa." The woman said as she stared down at her feet. "None of you believe me do you I don't blame you, I don't think that I would believe me either but it's true." She said glumly, her face reflecting her sadness.
"I believe you, I do but are you sure this is the area where you went off of the path?" Jill asked, it was a possibility after all. "I mean it was very late and pretty dark last night."
"I've been walking this path since I was a little girl, I know it like the back of my hand I know that this is where I went off it, that campsite has to be around here somewhere, I mean it was wrecked when I found it, it can't be like someone came by and cleaned it up, right?" She asked, looking hopefully at Jill.
"I'm sure will find it soon, they aren't many more places we can look and if we don't find it then we will just have too-"Before Jill could finish what she was saying an overweight officer who looked like a sketch of an officer out of a satirical comic strip.
"They found it! They found the campsite!" He shouted as he wheezed to try and catch his breath.
"Show us!" Jill exclaimed as she shot out of her chair, followed shortly by Lisa. The officer nodded and spun on his feet before leading Jill, Lisa and the rest of officers into the forest.
It took them five minutes to arrive in a clearing where around thirty officers were standing around and examining the scene, there were three tents that looked like a bear had been clawing at them, they looked ripped apart. Jill noticed that Wesker, Barry, Brad and Jessica were both standing in the clearing.
Lisa looked relived and smiled. "I was right, I told you."
Wesker looked up and frowned heavily. "You were right about there being a ruined campsite Miss Anderson but I have yet to see a woman with half a face." He said as he pushed his glasses up his nose.
Lisa looked like she was ready to hit him and Jill couldn't blame her, most of them had the desire to punch Wesker at least once but none of them had the guts to actually do it, as tempting as it was.
More officers were arriving in the clearing, including Chris, Rosa, Enrico, Kenneth, Joseph, Forest and Rebecca. "Jesus, someone didn't like these people." Forest muttered as he looked at the remains of the tents.
"Couldn't it have just been a bear?" Rebecca asked quietly, sounding more like she was asking the question to herself rather than asking it to Forest.
Chris was the one who answered however. "No, me and my sister used to go camping all the time when we younger and there were a lot of bears where we used to go camping and normally if you don't bother them then they won't bother you, this is different."
"Plus bears claw at tents, these look like they've been ripped not clawed." Chris said as he got a closer look at the rips.
"I agree." Kenneth said as he looked through rips to see into the tent. "We got blood in here, quite a lot of it."
"Yes, thank you officer Sullivan we have noticed that, we weren't just sitting around waiting for you to tell us there was blood in ruined tents." Wesker said as he was examining another tent.
"Sorry sir." Kenneth grunted as he shot a glare at Wesker's back.
"Regardless there is something here, I think we should head back to the department and conduct a full investigation into what-"Before Enrico could finish what he was saying a loud scream sounded out from the forest, it was so loud that it made almost everybody present jump, Chris, Forest, Barry, Jill, Enrico, Kenneth and about a dozen non S.T.A.R.S officers pulled out their handguns and even Wesker raised an eyebrow at the noise.
For a moment there was nothing but silence until a sharp burst out of the forest, it was a little girl with long dark hair in pigtails and dressed in overalls and a green shirt, her left arm was a mess of bites and blood and she was sobbing her eyes out.
When she saw the people in the clearing, most of them pointing guns at her, she screamed and turned on her feet and tried to run, thankfully an officer manged to grab her arm and stop her from running off.
The girl tried to break the hold and hit and kicked the officer who was holding her back. "Let me go! Let me go!"
Barry quickly stepped forward and put his gun away before shooting a look at the officer that told him to loosen his hold. The girl was able to pull away but didn't run she simply stared at the ground as tears welled up in her eyes.
"Hey there sweetie." Barry said warmly as he knelt in front of the little girl. "Are you alright? What's your name?" He asked gently.
"Jenny, my name's Jenny." The said quietly as she gently rubbed her wounded arm, wincing every time she grazed over the large bite marks on her hands.
"Nice to meet you Jenny, my name's Barry." Barry frowned as he looked at the wounds on the girl's arm. Those teeth marks didn't look they came from an animal. Barry turned his head and nodded for Jessica to come forward.
Jessica knelt in front of the little girl and took out her medical park and started to get her supplies out to treat the wounds on Jenny's arm.
"This is Jessica, she's going take care of those wonders on your arm." Barry said gently to try and get rid of the fearful look on the girl's face. "How old are you sweetie?"
"I'm ten." Jenny said quietly.
"I've got two little girls, my eldest Moria is only six and my youngest Polly's four." Barry said gently. "Can you tell us what scared you sweetie?" He asked as Jessica pulled out a bottle of antiseptic.
"The monster." Jenny said quietly.
"This might sting a little but I bet you're a brave girl, I bet you can handle it." Jessica said as she started to clean the girl's wounds.
The little girl girt her teeth but she didn't scream. Jessica laughed. "You could teach some of our officers a thing about being tough, Barry here can't get so much as a scratch without starting to scream for me to come and fix it."
"Hey shut up, you're embarrassing me in front of Jenny." Barry teased gently as Jessica picked up some bandages and started to wrap them around the girl's arm. "You are tough, I can tell. So a monster did this to you? Where did this happen?"
Jenny nodded. "It was a monster, it killed my Daddy and my brothers." The girl started to sob. "And my grandparents…we only came up to stay for the weekend, they have a cabin in the woods but that woman hurt them and killed Daddy and my big brother tried to help him and she killed him too and me and my other brother tried to run but there was something wrong with my grandparents, they were hurt but they attacked us and grandma kept biting and I only got away because I hit her with a rock."
It was too much for the girl and she started to sob her heart out. Barry sighed and wrapped his arms around the girl as Jessica stood up and walked back to the others.
"I assume the rest of you heard all that." Jessica said as she crossed her arms. "Poor kid."
"Is she going to be okay?" Jill asked as she stared at the bandages on the little girl's arm, they were already turning red.
"I've done what I've can for her but she needs to go to the hospital." Jessica took a glance back at the girl who was still sobbing her heart out. "I saw signs of an infection as I was treating her but I couldn't be sure."
"I'll order an ambulance." Enrico said as he took out a cell phone from his pocket. "Barry, why don't you take Jenny back to trail?" He said as he gestured at the phone.
Barry got the message and started to carry the girl out of the forest. Lisa turned to face the rest of them with a satisfied look on her face. "Don't tell me those things aren't connected, I get attacked by a woman with half a face and that little girl and her family get attacked by a woman who bite them, I'll bet money they are one and the same."
"There may be a connection." Wesker admitted, grudgingly however. "Even so Miss Anderson we can't do anything about it now we must go back to the station and you must return home, this is a police matter now."
Lisa frowned but nodded, she really didn't want to be out here anymore. She was just glad at they were finally taking her at least somewhat seriously.
As the large group as one made their way back to the trail they didn't notice a man dressed in a filthy lab coat smiling darkly.
Wesker was here, Marcus didn't know why he was playing at being a police officer but it didn't matter. This made things so much easier, all he had to do was follow his plan through and Wesker was sure to come to him.
And then the world would burn.
And so would Umbrella.
End of Chapter Seven.
