Resident Evil:
The Whole Story.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Rebecca had sat herself down on the steps that lead up to the great portrait that seemed to dominate the great hall of the building that they had ended up in. It was so strange, it was like something out of a gothic horror novel and not for the first time tonight, she had to wonder if maybe she had been right the first time and she was still asleep and this was all just a dream.
She just hoped that it was her own bed that she was dreaming in and not in helicopter with her skull cracked open, Rebecca had never truly believed in the phenomena of a dying dream being an actual medical certainty, but she certainly hoped that if there was such a thing then it would be a nicer sight than dreaming she had wandered into a zombie movie, followed up by a train crash before watching as one of her teammates turned into a walking corpse all the while being stuck with a murderer.
God, poor Edward. It had been so terrible, the way he had stumbled towards them with his arms stretched out, his hair on fire with the smell that even the thought of it was enough to make her gag. Edward had not been someone she had liked all that much, he hadn't been very friendly to her and she could never really shake the sense that he didn't really want her on the team but even if that was so, he didn't deserve to die like that, he didn't deserved to die at all. She didn't know if he had anyone waiting for him at home, a wife or a girlfriend or children or even just a dog. And he would never come home to them.
But even if he didn't have anyone waiting for him, even if he was completely on his own that didn't mean that his death was any less sad, any less of a waste. But he wasn't dead, not really. He was still there in that partially collapsed tunnel, still walking around or maybe clawing at that solid metal door trying to get to them. The thought that he would be like that, walking corpse that was forever trying to eat and eat while he rotted for the rest of time, it turned her stomach to think about it but they had no other choice but to leave him like that.
Billy was staring out of one of the large windows that bordered either side of the large oak doors that seemed as though they were the main enterance into the building, he had already tried those doors a few moments ago and they seemed to be stuck shut, even though there did not seem to be a lock on the doors. He had taken to looking out of the windows, to see if there was anything unpleasent waiting for them outside before considering breaking the window for them to crawl out of.
She still didn't like this, having to work with a convicted murderer but she didn't really see what other choice she had at the moment. She had lost her gun when the train crashed, Billy had lost his as well but the man stood a full head if not more so taller than her but he was also made of pure muscle. If she tried to stop him from getting away from her then he would more than likely just be able to pick her up and snap her in half.
It made her wondered why he hadn't done that yet, if he decided that he wanted to kill her and run off then nothing she could do would be able to stop him. But he hadn't, maybe he just wanted to keep her around so if they did come across any more zombies or anything else then he could throw her to them in order to buy himself more time to get away.
It was the only explanation that she could think of that made any sense, but she wasn't going to run away from him. He was her prisoner and her responsibility, even if he wasn't wearing any handcuffs at the moment. If she ran away from him, then he could escape and go off and hurt someone else and she wasn't going to let that happen. No way in hell.
The only problem was, she wasn't sure exactly what she could do at the moment. The train had been going so fast and so far, they were probably miles away from where the train had stopped and while she did still have her radio on her she wasn't in range of the others so she had no way of contacting them. She was alone, unarmed and stuck with a serial killer with a bunch of walking corpses all around her.
All in all, it had been something of a bad first mission.
Billy letting out a heavy sigh made Rebecca looked up from where she was sitting, the convict moved away from the window and crossed his massive arms over his chest. "It's pitch black out there, can't see a damn thing. If I break the window for us to get out there, then anything that might be lurking out there will hear it and make both us a meal, well, it'll make me a meal. You're probably more like a snack, Princess."
"Call me Princess again and I'll break your nose." Rebecca said with a glare as she stood up and ran her hands down her trouser legs and stepped forward, glancing out the window as she approached. Billy was right, it was pitch black outside and if she was out there then Rebecca doubt she would be able to see much more than the front of her nose. Well, at least they were inside and not out there. That was something.
"So, what do you think that we should do?" She asked hesitantly, hating herself for seeming uncertain in front of the man but she was honestly drawing a blank on what they could be doing right now. If it was too dangerous for them to go outside then they were trapped in here and neither of them had any weapons. It wasn't a great situation to be stuck in, to say the least.
Billy looked surprised that she was asking him, but he didn't bring it up. After a moment, he sighed and rubbed at the back of his head. "I'm not sure. I guess we'd better do some exploring, maybe we'll find some weapons or something. A phone we can use to call for help? Worst case, we find a balcony and we might be able to get our bearings and get a better look at the outside to see if it's safe to get out of here."
Rebecca nodded, it was as good a plan as any and while they might be safer inside than out that didn't mean that Rebecca wanted to stay here any longer than they had too. Something felt wrong about the building, there was something heavy in the air like a thunderstorm was just about to strike, and there was a smell as well. Rot, it had been something she had been smelling a lot as of late, ever since she had gotten on the train, but there was a sharper edge to this smell. Something terrible had happened her.
And it was not just the smell that had spoken to that, all about the hall there was scattered equipment, it didn't look that old in fact if Rebecca was any judge it looked brand new. There were computers and diagnostic equipment, stuff that you would be more like to find in a lab but most of it was un assembled and there was no power to the equipment that had been assembled.
But that was not the most obvious sign that someone had been there, there were dark brown stains on the marble floor that could only be dried blood, and by the large amount on the floors Rebecca knew that anyone who had lost that much could not have survived it. She hadn't noticed the stains and the equipments in the hall when she and Billy had entered from the hatch in the floor, she had been too absorbed by the architecture of the mansion and the grand picture of a stately looking older man staring down at them from the top of the stairs.
He was Doctor James Marcus, at least he was according to the plaque at the bottom of the picture. According to the same plaque, he was the direction of the Umbrella Managment Training Facility which if Rebecca had to take a guess was what the building they were standing in was. She didn't know what it all meant, she couldn't fit the pieces together fully in her head but Umbrella had something to do with this.
It could be just a coincidence that they had ended up here, after all the train had been going out of control and they had just happened to end up derailed in that tunnel beneath this mansion but the Eliptic Express had been owned by Umbrella as well and that was too big a coincidence for her to ignore, she still didn't know what had caused the train to stop.
Umbrella was a massive multination corporation but it had a larger than average presence inside Racoon and around the Arklay Region, something like seventy precent of the working population of Raccoon City was directly employed by Umbrella and another twenty percent was indirectly employed, working with an affiliate company or working in a place where Umbrella had sunked a great deal of money, such as the steelworks, in the medical field or in the park service.
Zombies were something that belonged in horror movies, but they were real and walking around. She had seen them, she had killed them, assuming you could kill something that was already dead. But how were they walking around, it had to be a diease but no natural one could have done the things she had seen. It had to be manmade, inside a lab with a lot of funding.
Perhaps they had been working on a cure for a illness but had made a diease by mistake and then it had escaped or something like that. If she had to guess Umbrella had been the ones to bring the equipment here. If they knew that their diease had escaped then maybe they were trying to get ahold of it, stop it from spreading, but if all of the murder victaims and missing persons over the past few weeks had all been due to zombies then they had been a bad job when it came to it.
With a heavy sigh, Rebecca realised that it didn't really matter. All of it was conjecture anyway, she couldn't even disprove that the train and this place weren't just strange coincidences. And even if they weren't and Umbrella did have something to do with all that had been going on, there was nothing that she could do until they made it back to Raccoon City, if they made it back to the city.
She let out another sigh. "I think you're right, okay so let's see if we can find a balcony first. Lead the way." She told Billy as she tilted her head towards the staircase, Billy nodded and marched over to the stairs and Rebecca followed him up the main staircase up to the landing where the picture stood and then they both went up the the smaller staircase to the walkway that went all around the second floor of the building.
Billy strode with purpouse over to the nearest door to them, the wood was white and splintering at the edges and the doorknob itself was brass. The convict reached out and took hold of the door knob and then held his hand up to her and performed two quick gestures, Rebecca vaugely knew that they were millitary gestures though she blanked on what they meant at the moment. Her confusion must have shown on her face because Billy rolled his eyes and repeted them while speaking in a whisper. "Follow me and stay low."
Rebecca nodded and Billy turned the knob, a sharp click that sounded as large as a thunder clap filled the silence of the hall, they shared a glance between one another as Billy pushed the door open and walked in crouched, Rebecca following him while trying to make herself look as small as possible.
The room seemed to be a study of somesort, like something you would see in one of those shows or movies set in the Victorian age, a desk was at the head of the room underneath a stuffed moose head which was hanging on the wall above it. An empty fishtank was almost directly parallel to the desk, bookcases stuffed with large textbooks were on either side of the desk and a large pool table took up the rest of the space.
Rebecca closed the door as Billy walked over to the pool table and picked up the lone pool cue that had been left abandoned, testing the weight of it for a moment and then gave a nod as he looked up at Rebecca. "Better than nothing, at the very least." He spoke before he walked over to a large window, trying to peer out at the darkness.
While he was busy with that, Rebecca walked over to the desk. There was a lamp on the desk, and when she touched the button she wasn't shocked to see that the light didn't turn on. Why would a place like this still have power after all? Though it did make her wonder how the people that had brought the new equpiment was going to power it all up, perhaps they were going to bring their own generators or maybe they were planning on getting the building's own power back on, somehow.
Rebecca was about to reach for her flashlight but then she remembered that she had lost it when the train had crashed along with her handgun, a frustrated groan at the back of her throat had to be stifled quickly. She moved around the desk and fumbled with getting the drawers open, the top two drawers were empty and the bottom left only had another book in it, it wasn't anything useful. It was about molecular biology which at any other time she might have found it interesting, but she had been hoping for something a little more useful.
Thankfully, her hopes were answered when she checked in the other drawer. When she had opened it at first, she thought that it was empty as well because it was too dark to see anything but when she reached in and ran her fingers around to check, they brushed against something cool and metal. Rebecca stood up then, grining as she clutched a golden cigerrete lighter in her hands, the orange flame it cast causing an orange glow to fill the room.
Billy, ever alert, spun around with the cue raised but once he saw what was casting the light; he nodded. "Well, that's something at least. Coming in here wasn't a complete waste of time, I don't think there's anything in here we can actually use. Unless you want to get close enough to zombie to hit one of them with these books. Let's go, and turn the lighter off till we need it, don't know how much oil it's got left in it."
Rebecca nodded and turned the lighter off and placed it in her pocket, it wasn't as good as a flashlight but at least they weren't going to be lost in the dark if it came to it. The two of them then exited the room and moved further down the walkway to the next door.
The next door was in fact locked and was the one next too it, there were only two more doors on the level and they were on the otherside of the walkway. As they made that way over to that side, a loud thunder clap struck at the same time as a lightning flash, both of which together made Rebecca jump. Half a moment later, there was the sound of heavy rain pounding against the roof.
Billy hadn't stopped at all and Rebecca hurried to catch up with him, the next door was not locked and this one had a golden plaque in the middle of it. It read that the room belonged to the facility administrator, and the administrator was one Doctor James Marcus. Billy opened the door, the click of the knob turning was swallowed up by another thunder clap and then he strode in, the cue held high ready to strike if needed, Rebecca followed him in after him.
She honestly didn't know what she had been expecting from the office, but it wasn't this in truth. For a room that must have belonged to the senior most member of this facility, it was bare. All the books had been striped from the bookcases, there were cleaner squares on the walls where pictures that had hanged had been taken down. There was something in the air that made her want to gag, it smelt like cleaning chemicals.
Why had this room been given this treatment? The last room had thick layers of dust on everything but everything had been left where it was, it was clear to see that someone had lived and worked there but in this room it looked as though someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to make it look as though noone had ever been here.
Perhaps all the other rooms had been destined for this fate, and this was the only one that had been done before they had abandoned this place before coming back for it later? None of this made any sense. Rebecca withdrew her lighter and flicked it on, the same almost comforting orange glow filled the room but aside from making her feel a little better it didn't reveal anything new to her.
Billy was the one to walk over to the desk this time, resting the pool cue on top of it. For half a moment Rebecca considering grabbing the que while she could. She refrained from doing it however, even if she could grab it before Billy noticed and could stop her he was still massive compared to her and could probably rip the que right out of her hands and smash her skull in with it before she had anytime to regret her choices.
No, Billy had not show any intention that he intended to kill her yet and Rebecca intended to keep it that way. If she was going to survive this than she had to do it by being smart and waiting for the right moment.
"Oh fuck yeah." Billy exclaimed and he jumped up from behind the desk, a massive grin on his face. Hanging around one finger was a key ring, around forty some keys must be hanging off of it and despite everything that had happened up to now, Rebecca couldn't help but feeling herself smile as well. Maybe things were starting to look up after all.
Once they had both left the room they made their way back over to the two locked doors, it took them twenty tries to find the right key but eventually they did and pushed it open to walk into the next room. It was another study, more furnished than the one they had just come from but that wasn't saying much at all, there was no desk in this room and so they only did a quick glance around before deciding that there was nothing of use and quickly decided to check the other door.
This time, they only needed to go to the second key on the ring before they unlocked the door and walked in. This was not a study, in fact at a glance it reminded Rebecca of one of the student bars she had liked to go to. There were to pinball machines in the corner and a long bar that stretched the length of the room. No bottles of anything at the back though, and a few tables with chairs piled up on.
But the most exciting thing was a door to the back of the room which lead outside, to a small covered balcony which must have been used for the students of this place if they wanted to come outside to have a drink. Billy almost directly headed straight for that door with a single minded focus and Rebecca followed after him as quickly as she could.
She was glad that the balcony was covered, if it wasn't then the storm that was raging outside would have soaked her to the bone in a matter of seconds. But she was glad for the storm too, the air seemed freasher and seemed to wash away the scent of smoke and rot that had been clinging to her for awhile. She knew it was childish and that she needed to stay focused, but even so she couldn't help herself from reaching out and sticking her arms out across the railing of the balcony and into the downpoor, the feeling of rain on her arms was the best thing she had felt in hours.
After a moment of that however, she felt a pair of eyes on her and when she saw Billy staring at her she pulled her arms back and crossed them over her chest, trying her hardest not to blush. And being thankful for it being so dark that the convict probably couldn't see it anyway if she was. "Do you see anything? Anything useful I mean?"
Billy slowly turned his head back to look out over the railing and across the tree tops, and maybe it was just a trick of the light but Rebecca was certain that she saw a smirk, after a moment of looking Billy let out a heavy sigh and rolled his shoulders. "No damn good, it's still too damn dark for me to see a goddamn thing and this storm is not helping things, at all. I think we're just going to have to bite the bullet and accept the fact that we're just going to have to take a chance and go outside."
It wasn't a plan that exactly filled Rebecca with confidence but she couldn't deny that Billy had a point at the end of the day, they could certainly explore more of the Mansion first and maybe try and find some people who were still around who could tell them what was going on and maybe even find some better weapons for the both of them as well but the only way they were going to get out of here was if they were going to go across the courtyard.
Still, Rebecca didn't plan on going anywhere in this rain. On top of everything else she did not need either herself or Billy coming down with Phenomia or falling down and breaking their neck because of wet ground. If they could find a well secure room, they could barricade themselves inside and wait for daybreak. Once the sun was shinning, they could figure out what their plan should be.
Rebecca had chosen that moment to turn around to see if the small bar would be a good choice for such a room, on the surface it certainly seemed that it would be. There was only the one door that connected it to the rest of the mansion and they had they key to lock it with them, they could barricade it from the inside with the tables and the chairs and if something happened which meant that couldn't get out through that door, they could use the door to get on to the balcony and jump from the railing, it didn't look that far down at all.
But as she turned around and looked through the window, her heart lept into her throat. Standing in the doorway of the door into the bar, the door that she hadn't close when they had walk inside, was the hunched over figure of a man. The darkness of the bar and it's hunched over posture meant that Rebecca couldn't make out any details but she knew a Zombie when she saw it by now.
She said nothing, simply patted Billy on the shoulder and when he looked at her she pointed through the window. He frowned and tightened his grip on the cue and walked through the door back into the bar area, Rebecca followed him.
Inside the bar, she was able to get a much better look at the zombie though she wished that she hadn't. He was a young man, probably around her own age with messy and dirty brown hair. His eyes were the solid white of all of the zombies she seen so far had, those that still had eyes at least. His left cheek was gone, completely chewed away, only a long red string of tendon connected the upper jaw with the lower. The sight was enough to turn her stomach.
Billy did not seem as affected, he marched over to the zombie even when Rebecca had come to a stop. The zombie lifted it's head in Billy's direction and let out a low groan and lifted it's arm out towards him lethargically. Billy responded by smashing the pool cue into the his cheek the was still intact, knocking him down on to the floor.
He waisted no time, quickly standing over the zombie as it lay on the ground and rising the pool que and bringing it down on to his head, doing it over and over and over again. The Zombie's head was nothing more than a mass of rotten meat and shattered bone fragments in a matter of minutes, Billy's chest was rising and falling with effort as he stood away from the creature, still clutching the que with his knuckles turning white.
It was too much. It was all too much, she could feel the tears running down her checks. A ragged sob riped from her throat before she could stop it and she was out of the room, hearing Billy call after her. Her tears basically blinded her and she had no idea how she had made it down the stairs without tripping and falling but she did, throwing herself at the front doors and pulling at them with all her might.
She heard Billy then, calling after her and coming after her with the que in his hands. Blood staining the end of it. He was going to kill her. He was going to kill her.
Rebecca glanced around rapidly, despertly looking for anything she could use to defend herself when she saw it. One of the doors on the ground level was open, it must have been where the zombie had come from. It must have heard them, pushed open the door and followed their voices as they had been speaking.
It wasn't safe. If one zombie had come from that way then without a doubt there would be more, but zombies were dumb and slow. Billy had killed dozens of people and he was coming for her and getting close. She half ran and half scrambled for the door and ran through the long, L shaped corridor that waited for her. There were other doors but she didn't try any of them, half for fear of what could be on the other side of them and half for terror that Billy might catch up with her.
The corridor ended with a single door, Rebecca didn't try the knob, she simply ramed it with her shoulder. The splintering sound she heard when she burst through almost defeaned her. Her shoulder burned and for a moment she thought that she might have dislocated it or broken it but there wasn't time. Every second spent lying there was another second Billy could gain on her.
The room was dim, it resembled a storeroom with large metal shelves filled with filing boxes. Nothing to use as a weapon and Rebecca didn't spend a lot of time checking, she dashed around the corner of one of the shelves and ran down the length of the room.
The first thing she noticed was that there was no door out of the room, but there was a ladder that lead up to a hatch in the celing. Rebecca threw herself on to the ladder, her only thought going through her mind at that moment was a desperate prayer that the hatch wouldn't be locked. With a shove, the hatch flew open and Rebecca crawled out into the storm.
The water from the storm going in her eyes only made her sight worse but she couldn't go back now, she quickly turned and slammed the trapdoor down as Billy reached the ladder. She had caught sight of his face when he glanced up at her, she had seen the rage in those blue eyes of his, he was going to kill her. She was sure of it.
She got to her feet and ran, having to hold her hands in front of her face as she stumbled across the stone balcony that seemed to go all around the second floor of the mansion, she turned a corner and then behind her, barely audible over raging wind and rain, she heard the slam of the trap door being flung open behind her.
She made it a few more steps till she felt a pair of arms clamping on her shoulders and a terrible low moan being groaned into her ear, a scream erupting from her own mouth as she struggled against the zombie.
Suddenly, the zombie jolted as though it had been hit and Rebecca found that the ground had slid out from under her, a moment later the marble railing of the walkway slammed into her back and knocked all of the breath out of her before she went tilting back over it, the whole world upside down and in freefall.
Someone clamped their hand tight around her wrist and began to pull her up, as though her body weighed nothing at all. She was over the bannister and in Billy Coen's arms as they fell to the ground together, the rotting body of the zombie laying nearby with the pool que laying next to it and Rebecca was sheltered from the worst of the storm, thinking one thing over and over again.
He saved me.
End of Chapter Thirty-Three
Another chapter done.
Next time, well, we see how the rest of Bravo is doing.
I hope you enjoyed, please follow, favourite and review if so. Constructive Critcism is always welcome.
With much love,
DiscordantSymphony
