Resident Evil:
The Whole Story.
Chapter Twenty.
Around 2:45 in the morning six large black helicopters, clearly designed for military use, flew over Raccoon City and made their way into the mountains. There was no insignia or identifying marks on either of the helicopters and their black bodies made it incredibly hard for anyone on the ground to see them at this time of night.
Captain Steven Tons officially did not exist, his names were on no papers, he had no drivers license or social security number or health insurance. The only mention of him in the entire world was on some computer server in the ass end of nowhere. It wasn't his real name anyway, no one in the U.S.S used their real names.
He was tall and intimidating, heavily muscled and had an ugly scar that went from the top of his left check, over his nose and down to the bottom of his right. He had gotten it from a kid in a bar when he was nineteen and the little shit had picked a fight. He had been beating the crap out of him when the kid drew a knife and caught him with a blind slash but he had repaid him for that with interest.
Umbrella had picked him up about ten years ago from the United States Marine Corps after he had been court martialled due to helping drug lords in Afghanistan and Iraq and several countries in Africa smuggle their product home, he imagined that he'd only just avoided a death sentence due to his otherwise exemplary service record.
Umbrella needed good soldiers and while they usually took their troops from disgraced military units or men on death row, they couldn't overlook a man with his experience. He only spent two years in the U.B.C.S before he was recruited into the U.S.S and then only another four years before he was promoted to captain.
He had one of the highest success rates in the U.S.S, he always got the job done. the only other person in the U.S.S who had a better success rate was HUNK and Steven at least managed to sometimes come away from missions with some of his team still alive.
His last mission, while a success from upper management's perspective, had him walking away the only survivor. As such he had a new team, apparently they were also survivors from disastrous missions.
His new second in command was a grey haired woman who looked to young to have that colour of hair, she was Captain Jenna Mincho and she had been in the U.S.S for six years. The woman was a bit of a cold hard ass but you had to be in the line of work if you wanted to survive.
He didn't know the rest of team which was composed of twelve other men and women raging from their late twenties to early forties and none of them were people that you wanted to run into in the middle of a dark alley.
This mission was something new to him, he and his team were part of a security detail of an investigation team. Only their helicopter was full of U.S.S members, the other two contained Umbrella researchers and the fourth contained equipment that would be used in the investigation.
There destination was the old Umbrella Management Training Facility in the Arklay Forest, it had been shut down in 89 after the death of James Marcus, attributed to his old age and a long illness but Steven knew the truth, after all he had been one of the solider's who had gunned him down all those years ago.
That's why he had been chosen for this mission, he knew the training facility layout and know the accesses codes for the elevator down to the labs and for the labs themselves, they wouldn't have been changed from what they were ten years ago.
In a few minutes the four helicopter's began to descend to the old courtyard of the training facility and soon as they touched the ground the soldiers jumped out of the helicopter from the back. As soon as their feet touched the ground the soldiers put on their black gasmasks, it was somewhat of a pointless as while some strains of the T-virus could go airborne it didn't remain infectious for very long, only about half an hour compared to fluid transfer which always remained infectious.
They were also dressed in the standard black body armour of the U.S.S and were armed with black machine guns with curved clips, they also all had a Glock 18 in a thigh holster as a side arm.
The courtyard was a wreck, Steven could remember when he was last here ten years ago and it had seemed like something out of an historical drama about rich people, but now the large fountain in the middle was cracked and ruined and while it had been filled with water all those years ago it had now long since dried up.
The gates and the iron fences that blocked the facility from the wilderness of the facility were now overrun with wild ivy and while back in the day the facility the grass that surrounded the facility was trimmed and kept neat by a gardening staff now it had reached half way up the fence.
The fifth and sixth helicopters landed a moment after theirs and Steven couldn't help but sneer as the passengers got out of one of them, the eggheads who thought they were so smart and the suits who only cared about how they would be able to use the situation to get a promotion.
The one who was in charge of the investigation team, at least he sort of was technically he was just in charge of the scientists and the investigators while Steven was in charge of the U.S.S so they were both meant to be in charge, was a young man, around his mid twenties, with brown hair and he was dressed in an expensive blue suit with Gucci loafers. he was desperately trying to project an aura authority through it clearly wasn't working.
"Alright!" The man spoke up to get everyone's attention. "None of us want to be here but we've got a job to do, Captain Ton please have your men secure the front hall, we will set up our equipment in there."
"Understood." Steven said and he couldn't help but smirk as he saw the annoyed expression on the younger mans face and was thankful the gas mask hid it from him, clearly he was expecting him to give him a salute and was pissed he didn't get one, the kid was full of shit and he didn't have time to sooth his ego.
The soldiers nodded at one another and rushed other to the double wooden doors of the main entrance, keeping low to the ground just in case there were any hostiles inside with the actual intelligence to recognise enemy soldiers. Though they would've been warned by the helicopters coming.
Steven and Jenna stood at either side of the door with the other twelve soldiers standing at the side of the windows, looking inside but not being able to see anything due to how dark it was. Steven nodded at his second in commanded and then together they both kicked at the doors, hard.
And then something odd happened, he had been expecting the doors to resist and crack and they would have to kicking them until the broke through but the doors had flown open. Almost as if they had been unlocked.
The hall was dark and empty and there was a thick layer of dust on everything, clearly if someone was here then they had been very careful in covering their tracks. The portrait of Doctor Marcus which covered the hidden stairwell was still there, the old man's grim face staring out of the picture. His grey eyes cruel and full of judgement.
"Nice to see you again Doctor." Steven muttered under his breath as the other soldiers slowly spread out, keeping their guns raised their training teaching them to be prepared for anything and to assume that there was always danger.
The executive's and the scientists were waiting just outside the main hall, the one in charge wore a heavy frown. "This door shouldn't have been unlocked, something's wrong."
"What tipped you off? The walking corpse's and who knows what else wandering around the forest outside?" Steven muttered again and it was clear that he had offended him but he didn't really care. "What's your name again?"
The man frowned heavily before he spoke. "Sven, Sven Novak."
"Well then mister Novak, our job is to find out how that happened so lets get to work, you four." He pointed at four of the soldiers who snapped to attention when he addressed them. "I want you to go out and keep an eye on the outside, we know there are confirmed hostiles out in the woods and if some come this way I want them dealt with, inform me if they start to come this way in large numbers."
They gave him a salute and they rushed out the front door, not caring about the fact that the scientists and investigators were in the way and had to jump out of the way to avoid getting knocked down, Steven turned to the rest of the soldiers. "As for the rest of you, I want a full sweep of the area and I want it done now."
"Wait a moment!" Sven shouted. "What about the helicopter holding all the equipment? It needs unloading if we're going to do any proper work!"
"I am sure it does but that isn't out job." Steven said before he pointed at another solider. "I want you to stay here and keep an eye on this lot, there shouldn't be a problem but it would be best to cover all of basis's."
"Yes sir." The solider said, his voice muffled by the gas mask. Sven had an ugly sneer on his face and looked like he wanted to say something but he eventually just shook his head and left the main hall leading the rest of the investigation team out.
The remaining soldiers all picked a direction, three going up the stairs to check out the second floor. Jenna and two other soliders went to the double doors on the left side of the hall and went through, two went into a small single door that was on the other side and Steven began to go up the staircase but didn't go up either of the two small side staircases, instead grabbing the edge of the portrait and pulling it, revealing the hidden staircase.
The hidden stairwell was still as dark as he remembered but there was a flashlight mounted under the barrel of his gun so it wasn't really a problem, he slowly but surely began to make his way down the staircase.
He arrived at the bottom and walked forward, not that he really had much choice in the matter the corridor only went straight. He kept walking and the elevator was waiting for him at the end. He punched in the old code and he smirked and the elevator gave the ping that meant the code had been accepted, maybe with a bit of luck this mission would be smooth sailing.
He stepped in to the elevator and hit the down button, there were only two buttons one up and one down as the elevator only had the two stops, and the elevator began to descend. As it went down he took out his radio and pressed down on the talk button. "This is Captain Ton, I am descending into the main laboratories. I want a status update."
"This is Captain Mincho, It looks like were in a dining room. It doesn't look large enough for all the recruits here so I would say it was probably only for the senior staff. There's no sign that anyone's been in here and years. There's a few other doors in here so we will check them out." The woman's clipped voice spoke clearly through the radio.
"This is Lieutenant Keita, I'm in an office on the second floor. I think it might've been Doctor Marcus's office. Nothing out of the ordinary, bare furniture covered in a shit ton of dust." The voice on the other side of the radio. "There is a locked drawer in here though and it won't move, like it's been glued to floor. I might try and get it open to see what's inside."
"Understood, proceed." He told Lieutenant Keita before letting go of the talk button again.
"This is Lieutenant Totah, I am in one of the main meeting rooms. There is dust on most of the things in here but there are some tracks in the dust, someone has definitely been in here recently. I'd say maybe a day or two ago." The solider on the radio said, the man's thick south African accent and the deteriorating quality of the radio reception as Ton descended further down in the elevator meant he had to struggle to make out the words.
"Understood, I want you to look in the other meeting rooms but be careful, there could be hostiles in the area. Understood?" He asked but he didn't get any reply, simply a burst of static and Ton sighed heavily, he was too far underground now. The signal had been lost.
As soon as he holstered his radio the elevator came to a stop and Ton raised his gun before the elevator doors slid open. The corridor beyond was clear and he slowly inched out, pointing his gun in both directions.
It had been a very long time since he had been in these corridors but nothing had changed since then, the only difference this time was that he wasn't part of a small team and he was down here on his own. He couldn't hear anything expect for the sound of his footsteps and his own breathing, it was kind of unnerving.
If he remembered correctly then Marcus's personal lab was two floors down but there were no more elevators on this floor, he would have to find the stairwell. He wasn't sure why he wanted to go to Doctor Marcus's lab but he supposed that would be as good a place as any to start searching for anything unusual.
As he walked down the corridor however he was stopped by the sound of footsteps, they sound wrong like the person who was moving was wearing shoes full of water. The sound was coming from a lab which door had been left slightly open, Ton began to slowly step towards and pulled the door open and pointed his gun inside.
But there was nothing, the room was empty. Well, that wasn't completely true, there were no people in the room but there was a large tank at the back of the room and it was full. It looked like a high tech fish tank which had some old, but still functioning, monitoring equipment attached to it. At first glance he had thought that it was only full of dirty water but once he took a closer look it was clear to him that it wasn't water at all.
Leaches, ever single inch of the tank was cover in large, fat leeches.
He was suddenly thrust back ten years ago when he and his old team and those two doctors, what had their names been? He supposed it didn't really matter right now, approached Marcus's personal lab. It had been filled with tanks just like this and they had been almost this full, it was like someone had lifted the tank right out of his memory.
Was who ever was here now trying to continue Doctor Marcus's research? That didn't make any sense as the whole purpose of his research had been to make a new virus from the original Progenitor Virus, Marcus created the T-virus by fusing Progenitor with leech DNA if he remember correctly. The only people who knew of this facility were Umbrella employees and they had plenty of accesses to both Progenitor, Tyrant and plenty of leeches as lab animals so if they were trying to recreate Marcus's research then they could simply done it in a facility with more update equipment.
Unless they were trying to hide it from upper management for some reason, it was an unused facility and upper management didn't care about it anymore so it would be easy to hide any research that they didn't want them to know about.
Still there were no signs of any researchers or any life aside from the footprints that Totah had found, no signs of any research aside from the lab tank and there were no signs of any way that the virus could've leaked. None of it added up.
He needed to get back to his team, he suddenly didn't feel like exploring the labs on his own. He turned to leave but then stopped in shock at what he saw standing in front of him.
It looked like a man, at least in general outline but that was were the similarity ended, it was covered in leeches from head to toe, not one single inch of skin left uncovered in fact at first glance he had thought that creature had simply been made of leeches but there was no way that leeches could mimic a human form, could they?
The creature seemed to sway slightly from left to right, as if it wasn't used to standing up right and it seemed to stare at him despite the fact that any eyes it might have had were covered by the leeches. It was wrong, Ton had seen a great deal of monstrous things in his time with Umbrella, monsters from the darkest dreams but nothing had been as horrible as what was in front of him.
For a moment they just stood there staring at one another, he was trying to comprehend it and perhaps it was trying to comprehend him. And then it shambled forward, it drew it's arm back and swung it toward him and it stretched out like a piece of elastic.
Ton ducked and rolled to the side, his years of experience had made him prepared for anything and while this thing was monstrous it could be killed just like the other freak shows the eggheads cooked up in their labs. He raised his machine gun and pulled the trigger, the kick of the gun forcing him to step back a little.
The bullets ripped into the creature's slimy black flesh, large chunks of which fell to the floor and Ton realised that the pieces were moving and the leeches were still alive and independent from the moving nest. The creature drew it's arm back and again and swung in a wide arch.
Ton ducked and the stretching arm swept various dusty beakers and test tubes on the floor, some of them breaking. Ton ended up in front of the door and kept firing, he could just run out and shut the door behind him but he didn't want to leave this thing alive if it could follow him out. He kept up the rate of fire even as the creature stumbled further and further towards him.
And then something happened, the creature suddenly stilled and it's fleshed seemed to ripple. It's middle expanded outward and Ton cursed and dived for the door as he realised what was about to happen.
He just managed to get through the door and slam it shut behind him when the creature popped like a balloon, even from outside the room Ton could hear the leaches that had been sent flying colliding with the wall with wet plops. Even now he could here them sliding down the wall and slithering all over the floor and walls.
He may have destroyed the body the leeches were controlling but he hadn't killed all the leeches, they were still alive.
Something struck him like a bolt of lightning, if there was a B.O.W down here then there were probably more up in the training facility.
He turned on his feet and ran all the way back to the elevator, slamming his palm down on the button that would open the doors and rushed in, hitting the button that would take him back up. As the elevator ascended he ripped his radio out of his holster and held down the talk button. "We have one confirmed B.O.W! I repeat, we have a confirmed B.O.W! I need a report now!"
But there was nothing, simply static. Ton couldn't help but gulp as he shakily put the radio away and readied his machine gun, it had taken half a clip to stop that monster down below and if there were more of them...
He only had three clips as reload and his Glock only had one clip as it was a side arm so if the rest of his team and the suits were dead then he had very little chance of escaping the facility and even if he managed to get out there was the problem of getting out of the forest.
His radio wasn't powerful enough to reach HQ and while there was more powerful radio equipment in the helicopters they would most likely have flown off by now, only to come back when they were ready for pick up. And there was no way he could hike through the woods to Raccoon, it would take him at least two days and there was god knows what waiting for him out there.
His only hope was that the helicopter that was holding the equipment hadn't left yet, he know it was a slim hope but he didn't see how else he was getting out of this one alive, he knew how to fly a helicopter and he could just fly away and give a report to what happened to upper management in person.
The doors slid open and Ton half expected a crowd of zombies to be waiting for him but there was nothing, he hurried out of the elevator with his gun raised. He hurried up the stairs and stopped when he reached the top of them, the sight he saw freezing the blood in his veins for a moment.
Even before he had joined Umbrella Ton had seen some truly awful things, defenceless women beaten and raped by his own comrades, child soldiers so hopped up on drugs that they barely seemed to register when they had been shot, mass graves the result of ethnic cleansings.
But even all of that didn't compare to the scene in front of him, it was a slaughter. The suits were scattered left and right, their expensive blue and black suits were stained red with their blood, some of them were missing limbs while others had their guts hanging out of them. He could see Sven Novak, well, what was left of him on the floor both his legs were missing and rest of his body was being slowly devoured by a giant insect that looked like a cross between a cockroach and a praying mantis.
The scientists were dead as well, he could see more of the giant insects around their bodies with blood on their mandibles and pincers and he didn't need to guess that was how they had died, they were slowly being devoured as well.
The solider he had left to watch over them was dead as well, his neck was twisted and his body was surprising well in tact, perhaps the creatures couldn't bite through it? How he had died was a concern as the bugs clearly hadn't done it. He couldn't see the rest of his men as they had gone to scout out other parts of the building but they were more than likely dead.
Above him on the bannisters that went all the way around the main hall he could hear the slimly sound of those leach monsters moving around.
The one good thing was that none of them seemed to have noticed him and he had a straight shot for the main doors, the problem was that he couldn't see if the helicopter was still there or not.
It didn't matter, it was his only chance, he had to go for it.
He was about to run down the stairs and to the door but he was stopped when he felt a hand on his back, he was about to turn and see what it was but whatever it was hit his back hard and he went flying of off the stairway, flew across the room and collided hard with one of the room's pillars, he registered that he felt something snap as he fell to the floor.
He was in a great deal of pain and he recognised that he had probably punctured a lung but he found that he didn't really care all that much to be honest, the world was going dark but he didn't really care about that much either, at the moment all he cared about was seeing what had hit him.
He could hear footsteps approaching him and when he saw who was standing above him his already laboured breathing caught in his throat, it wasn't possible! It couldn't be...
"Doctor...Marcus..." Ton spluttered and then spoke no more.
End of Chapter Twenty
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