Resident Evil:

The Whole Story.

Chapter Thirty-Four.

"Fuck!" Kevin shouted as he brought his palms down on the control panel of the helicopter, ignoring the pain that blossomed from his palms, too frustrated by his inability to get the radio working to care about the pain at that moment. Bad enough that the helicopter wasn't working but they were completely cut off from the city and no way of letting them know that the helicopter wasn't working.

He knew that it wasn't exactly the end of the world, if they didn't get back in contact within twenty-four hours than the RPD would send the Alpha's after them and then they would get a ride back with them, they would probably need more than just Alpha's chopper however otherwise they would be packed in like sardines and he didn't think anyone would be able to survive a ride in the same helicopter with both Forest and Chris.

But all the same he didn't really love the idea of bunking down and waiting a whole day for the Alpha Team to come and look for them, Kevin had never been much of a nature lover and in truth when it had been announced that he was transferring to Raccoon City from New York to take up a job as police helicopter pilot, he had been dismayed to find out that it was surrounded on all sides by nature.

His entire life had been spent in New York, the concrete jungle with buildings on every side. He knew that some people didn't like it, it made them feel trapped and closed in when you looked up and could barely see the sky but Kevin had always loved it. There was life everywhere you looked, kids playing in the street and couples walking hand in hand and vendors trying to convince to buy, basically shoving hot dogs and burgers into your face.

God, what he would give for hot dog with mustard and ketchup and fried onions right about now. He might have skipped out on breakfast and for lunch back at the station he had just grabbed himself a bag of chips and a can of soda from one of the machines. Now he wished that he had actually packed a proper lunch or gone down to Emmy's to grab a burger or something.

No one starved to death in twenty four hours without food, Kevin was a cop and he was tough and he could handle it. But at the same time that didn't have to mean that he was looking forward to it. One thing he knew for sure that once they got back to the city he was ordering himself a pepperoni, bacon and cheese pizza with a stuffed crust all for himself.

Kevin set to twirling the screwdriver he had used to get into the radio's innards between his fingers for lack of anything better to do, Enrico had ordered him to stay with the chopper and until he heard different that was what he was going to do. To be honest, he was kind of glad for that. Kevin Dooley was, in his own completely unbiased opinion, the best helicopter pilot that the RPD had ever had.

But he was also probably the worst shot they had as well, he couldn't hit the broadside of a barn if it was right in front of him and it was a common joke back at the precinct that he was going to join the annual marksmanship contest that they had at the RPD and he was going to teach Speyer and Redfield a thing or two, fat chance. Redfield had won the damn contest three times running.

Thankfully, being the pilot meant that he didn't often need to actually get out and do any shooting, more often than not it was simply dropping the team off, pulling back to a minimum safe distance and then waiting for the signal to come and get them out. He had a few shots taken at him from time to time but nothing he couldn't handle.

Except bombs that had been planted on his helicopter, that was something that he was not used to handling. He still couldn't believe it, a few years back someone had had filled the cockpit with shaving cream and toilet paper and he had seen red and had marched down to the S.T.A.R.S Alpha office to have both Chris and Forest killed.

The fact that Forest was with him inside the Alpha office when he should have been at the Bravo office on the other side of the building was proof enough for Forest that they had been the ones to do it even though they had protested their innocence even as they were both smirking at him which was the only proof he needed that it had been them.

Thankfully, Captain Wesker had agreed with him. Kevin knew that a lot of his fellow officers really didn't like the captain much but Kevin respected him, the man was a professional. He run a tight ship sure but in Kevin's experience it was the tight ships that were the least likely to sink and when you had someone like Redfield working under you then you probably needed to be a bit of a hardass.

So he had ordered both of them to go and clean the helicopter up, with toothbrushes. The sight of that had been a happy memory that Kevin had cherished for a long time but that was the worst that either of those two idiots had done and in the end it really had been nothing, a harmless prank that was at the very worst irritating.

A bomb planted in the engine was not a harmless prank, the landing had been rough but he had just managed to pull them up enough so that it wasn't as bad as it could have been but even at his best they were lucky that no one had died. Speyer and Redfield could both be massive assholes when they wanted to be but Kevin knew that neither of them would try and kill them in the name of a sick joke.

So someone else had planted the bomb, but who? Kevin couldn't think of anyone who hated S.T.A.R.S enough to try and kill them all in a helicopter crash, certainly no one in the R.P.D. He knew that Ryeman was a little sore that he had been rejected from joining the unit twice but was that little bastard really so bitter about it that he would plant a bomb.

Kevin didn't think so but at the same time he couldn't rule it out either, it had to be someone with access to the helicopter and while plenty of police officers came up to the roof to smoke or to have their lunch or just to breath the air when they weren't on duty, only he, Brad and the other helicopter pilots at the RPD had keys to the helicopter maintenance shed.

It couldn't have been Brad, the Alpha pilot was kind of a coward and he was honestly surprised that he had even got a job as a cop but he wasn't the sort of guy to sabotage them, why would he? It was the same question he asked of every possible suspect that he could think up as he sat there waiting for any news, why would anyone want to bring down their chopper?

And the truth of it was that no matter how hard he tried he couldn't come up with a good reason why anyone would want to do it, maybe it was something that an individual S.T.A.R.S member had done to someone and that someone had planted the bomb on the engine to try and get rid of them, a murder didn't look like a murder when it looked like an accident and plenty of other people died around your victim.

But there were problems with that theory, if it was someone who just had a particular grudge on someone on the Bravo team then Kevin felt he would have a better idea who it was. The Raccoon City Police Department was well funded and had a large body of officers and it had over a dozen precients within the city but even so in the precient where the S.T.A.R.S teams were based out of at least, gossip traveled fast.

If someone had a grudge to bear, Kevin would have heard about it. The bomb itself was also like nothing he had ever seen before but he knew that it wasn't something someone would be able to whip up in their kitchen sink overnight, Richard had said that the detonator had been radio controlled and that must have meant that the signal had been close by, they had been high above the forest when it had blown.

But that mean that someone had to have come all the way out here in the middle of the woods and set something up to broadcast a signal for the bomb to respond to and Kevin couldn't understand how they would have been able to manage that, for one thing he had to imagine that the cannibal freaks who had taken up residence in the forest would probably have something to say about someone set up a radio broadcaster in their woods.

Unless...It was a stupid thought, it couldn't possibly be true, but what if the reason the cannibals wouldn't have any problem with someone setting it up was because they already knew about it. Maybe one of them had infiltrated the RPD beforehand and had planted the bomb when they had heard about the S.T.A.R.S mission to find them and take them out.

But as soon as he had thought of it Kevin dismissed that idea with a laugh, what was he thinking? A cannibal freak had managed to slip into the RPD and plant a bomb, he had seen some of the crime scene photos that had been taken at the Mitchell household and the Thompson summer house, whoever had been responsible for that carnage was on a whole different planet away from sane and there was no way in hell they could imitate a police officer, not without doing or saying something that would give them away.

And the murders and disappearances had only stared up a few weeks back and in that short amount of time there had been no new police officers joining the force, in fact he was fairly sure that Chambers was still the newest officer in the RPD. No, if the cannibals had sent someone to infiltrated the police force then it would have had to have been done months or years in advance and if that was the case then why did they wait till now to start killing?

No, it probably didn't have anything to do with them but if it wasn't one of them that had planted the bomb then Kevin had no idea who could have done it, it would have to be someone who wanted to wipe Bravo team out or to stop them from getting back in touch with the RPD but Kevin still had no idea why anyone would want to do that.

All in all, this had the makings of a really crappy day.

Kevin was sighing and tilting his head back and shutting his eyes, wondering if he could have a quick nap before anyone got back, it wasn't as if there was anything else he could do at the moment. Enrico had ordered him to stay with the helicopter and he had no issue with that but once it had become clear to him that he was not going to get anything working, a sense of heavy boredom began to set in.

When the helicopter door slid open behind him Kevin tilted his his head over his shoulder just in time to see Richard craning his head around the door. "Hey, Kevin. Listen, don't suppose there's any chance that you got the radio working again is it?" He asked, his face wet from the rain storm that was falling outside and making it sound like someone was throwing pebbles down at the roof.

"Nope, it's just as busted as the rest of our ride. Why did you come all the way back here to ask me that, you could have just gotten me on my hand radio." Every member of S.T.A.R.S had their own radio after all and all of them were powered by their own batteries, there wasn't any reason that none of them shouldn't be working.

But Kevin got a sinking feeling in his gut when Richard shook his head. "We tried, there is something really wrong going on tonight man. None of our radios are working and I know for a fact that I put a fresh battery in all of them before we left the station, there is no reason that they shouldn't be working. I've gotta be honest with you man, I'm kinda freaking out."

Kevin could see that, at first glanced he had thought that Richard had looked pale but he had just assumed it was do to the darkness of the night and maybe the chill of standing in the rain storm but now that he could take a closer look he could see that Richard did look a little freaked out, he kept glancing over his shoulder like he expected to see someone watching them. "Okay, so what's the plan?" Kevin asked to bring Richard's attention back to him and to keep him focused. "What does Enrico want me to do? Does he want me to come and help you guys search?"

"No, he told me to come and tell you that he wants you to stay with the helicopter, Alpha is probably going to be able to see how we broke through the trees when we came down and they will find us that way." Richard's face became more serious and any trace of the nervousness he had been feeling was gone. "But listen, we have a bigger problem. We can't find Rebecca and Edward."

Ah shit, that was a problem. Edward could take care of himself but Rebecca was just a kid, he didn't know whose idea it was to even offer her a spot on the team. The kid certainly seemed smart but she was just a kid, and a small one at that she looked like a strong breeze would snap her in half, and now the pair of them were lost out in the woods some where.

Even before people had started trying to eat themselves out here dozens of missing persons reports had come down from the forest every year and plenty of them over the years had never been found, now both of them were out there in the dark with no way of getting back in touch with them. If they tried to find them in the dark with just their flashlights then chances were the rest of Bravo would wind up getting lost as well.

What they would normally do would be to radio back to the RPD to ask for helicopter support to search by the air but they couldn't so that was useless, yeah, this had turned out to be a real shitty night.

"Look, we can't worry about that right now. We saw a light through some of the trees and Enrico thinks it might be the old Spencer Estate so we're going to carry on with the mission as planned as best as we can, check out the estate to see if it's being used as a base of operations and then...well, the rest of the plan kinda assumed we would have the chopper fully operational but we'll figure it out."

"Listen, if Edward and Rebecca manage to find their way back here let them know where we went, okay? They should know roughly where the estate is and they'll probably follow the light." Kevin nodded and with a quick snap of a salute Richard pulled back and shut the helicopter door from the outside and Kevin watched until his disappeared into the thickness of the trees.

And just like that, he was on his own again. An hour passed slowly and there was still no sign of Edward or Rebecca, off in the distance a wolf was howling at the moon.

More time passed and nature started to call, there was a bottle of water but it was full and he didn't want to empty it considering they were probably going to be out in the woods for the long haul so it looked like he was going to have to go on a tree. How lucky for him that he had such an extensive selection from which to choose from.

The rain was still coming down something fierce and Kevin was soaked to the bone in a matter of moments, he hurried over to the tree line and rushed to pull his zip down so he could get this done with as soon as possible when he heard a twig snap, followed by a low snarl. He looked up, but soon found that he wished he hadn't.

Out of the darkness, pale white eyes that captured the moonlight peered back at him. What said eyes belonged too stepped forward and Kevin's breath froze in his chest, dogs, at least a dozen of them. But they weren't dogs, they were hounds from hell, all of them missing chunks of flesh, one had it's entire rib cage expose, another was missing one of it's eyes and both of it's ears and one almost looked like it had been completely flayed.

The warmth of the piss running down his leg shook Kevin out of his stupor and he took a step back and the hounds closed the distance by taking a step forward, Kevin didn't wait to play this game, spinning on his feet and talking off back to the safety of his helicopter. The dogs were right behind him, on his heels, their barking was as loud as a war drum and he was certain he could smell their breath.

He threw himself into his chopper and slammed the sliding door shut into the face of the nearest one, it pressed it's blood muzzle against the glass and snarled at him and Kevin scurried over to the cockpit and slumped down into his seat as all around him the helicopter began to shake from the force of the monstrous dogs slamming the bodies into the metal.

He knew it wouldn't work, but fear and desperation to survive took over and Kevin picked up the handset of the helicopter radio and held down the talk button. "Help me! This is Officer Kevin Dooley of the RPD S.T.A.R.S Bravo Team, I am under attack by...God, I don't know what!? Please help me, please-

A snarl, a far too close one, interrupted his pleading and Kevin slowly turned his head and there, in the co-pilot seat, was one of the hounds. It stared at him and Kevin stared back.

The hound lunged and clamped it's jaws and around the Bravo Pilot's neck and Kevin drowned in his own blood as the dog ripped out his throat.

End of Chapter Thirty-Four.

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With love,

DiscordantSymphony