Resident Evil:

The Whole Story.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Billy had finished building a fire in the small library they had taken cover in and as he stepped back from it, Rebecca let out a sigh as she allowed the warmth to seep into her bones. For half a moment as she relaxed on the comfortable couch in front of the sofa she could feel herself starting to nod off before she remembered where she was and that it wasn't safe to go to sleep there.

She was certain that when she did finally get back to Raccoon City she was going to have a warn bath and a long nap, as soon as she was away from here. As soon as she knew that she was safe. But it was odd, at that moment tucked in this room with Billy, she more safe than she had at any other point tonight.

Billy was glancing back and forth between both doors that lead into the small library, ready to react if anything came into the room. The pool cue that he had taken from the bar room was gone, having broken it over the head of the zombie that had been attacking her so Rebecca wasn't sure what he would do if a zombie managed to find their way into the room but she was certain that Billy would find a way to handle it.

It was odd how not even twenty minutes ago she had been terrified of the man, had thought that he was going to kill her. Now, while she couldn't say she trusted him, she was certain that he wasn't going to kill her and right now that was more than good enough for her.

Billy spared a glance between both doors before he sighed and turned walked over to the sofa that was placed opposite to the one that Rebecca was sitting on. "Listen, if you're feeling any better we should probably get moving soon. We have two exits and both of those doors seem pretty solid but at the same time I don't think it'd be a good idea for us to stay here too long."

Rebecca nodded absentmindedly, she knew that she should be paying more attention to what Billy was saying but there was something eating away inside of her and she knew that she had to ask him, she needed to know the truth before they went any further. "Look, you saved my life out there and I am grateful for that. Like, really grateful but I need to know the truth. You're a convicted murderer, I read the file in that wrecked military jeep that you were being transported in and it said that you killed fifty-seven people, members of your own squad and people in an African village, it said that you were due to be...to be-"

"Executed, yeah I was." Billy said with a sigh and his blue eyes turned an even darker shade in the light of the fire, the man turning his head to look deeper into the flames. "But I didn't murder anyone, look, it's a long story and this really is not the time for it."

"Make it a short story then." Rebecca said as she leaned forward and tried to catch Billy's gaze once again. "I am not taking a single step unless you tell me what really happened, so, unless you would like to carry me..."

"Fine, are you always this much of a pain in the ass?" Billy said with another sigh before he brought his hand up to run through his hair. "Look, my squad and I were sent on a mission to Niger after we had received reports of an terrorist cell operating inside of the country, our orders were to find them and take them out and we had info the pointed to what we thought was the right location."

"But intel dropped the ball, we didn't find a highly secured compound of terrorists. We found a village, a few dozen houses around a well filled with men, women and children. Our CO he...He had his issues, he was a nasty son of a bitch with a hair trigger temper and he had a record. There were rumors that he was smuggling drugs, some assault charges."

"When he realized that we weren't at the right place he just...he snapped, it must have been something brewing for a long time. He just snapped off the safety on his rifle and started to shoot. He screamed, god, it was like a wild animal had been stabbed. He ordered for the rest of us to start shooting, to kill them all. That was what he said."

"I tried to stop him, I ran over to him and tried to get the gun out of his hands but he slammed the butt of it into my mouth and that knocked me down to the ground and once I was down on the ground he hit me again. Everything turned black and when I woke up again everyone that had been in the village was dead and so were four of the men who had come with us."

"They had tried to stop it as well but they got a bullet for it, I probably would have gotten a bullet in my own head if not for the fact that they would need someone to blame for it. We got back home and everything was pinned on me, how apparently I was able to kill an entire village and four of my own comrades before anyone could stop me was something that was not to deeply looked into once everyone else on the squad had confessed that it was me that had done it."

"To be honest with you, I think they were all just terrified of the CO. He had a lot of family in high up places, that was probably the reason why his record had never caused that much of a problem for him when he had served. So it was all done and dusted, I was court martialed and sentenced to death and you know the rest of it."

Rebecca was silent as she considered all that Billy had said to her, for half a moment she couldn't believe it, that an entire squad of soldiers would massacre a village just because their CO got angry and ordered them to do it, but then she remembered that people could do terrible things for the stupidest of reasons and Billy had saved her life when he could have just let her die.

At the moment, maybe it didn't really matter to her. Rebecca knew that her chances of surviving through this nightmare were better if Billy was with her and maybe it was just the fact that he had saved her life but he didn't seem like a killer, earlier in the night he had seemed so intimidating and she had not forgotten the fact that he had grabbed her and had used her as a human shield when Edward had threatened to shoot him but that had been before...everything had happened.

The truth of it was, she could not afford not to trust him right now. So, she nodded and reached out to lay her hand on Billy's shoulder and he turned his head back to look at her and she had to admit that in the firelight his dark blue eyes were kinda hard to look away from and underneath her hand the firmness of his shoulder felt pretty nice.

Oh no.

She pulled her hand away like he had burned her and spun on her feet, hoping that he didn't see the blush on her face. What the hell was wrong with her? Now was not the time for this, this was exactly the worst possible time for this. She was trapped in some crazy rich kids prep school from hell in the middle of a zombie infested woods, her teammates were lost somewhere in the woods and probably had no idea where she was or that Edward was dead and her radio didn't work so she had no way of getting back in touch with them.

This was not the time and she was not a stupid little girl who was going to get take in by a sob story, even if it was true. Chances were he was just using it in order to try and convince her to let him go once they got to safety. But then again, she had been the one who had asked him about it and surely if he wanted a chance to get his freedom than all he would have had to do was to let that zombie kill her and then go off on his own.

Maybe it was just as simple he thought that his chances of surviving went down if he had to go on his own as well but Rebecca wasn't sure of that, Billy was quick on his feet and he was stronger than her and not that long ago she had been a mess. as much as she hated the word she couldn't think of a better one than hysterical for the state she had been in, she had hardly been pulling her weight so far in their partnership.

Well, either way that was going to change. She wasn't going to fall apart again and they were going to get out here together and once they were somewhere safe...well, then she'd decide what she would do with Billy. Rebecca cleared her throat and turned back around to face Billy. "I'm sorry that happened to you Billy, really I am. But...that doesn't matter right now, what matters is that we get out of here and we can't do it alone. So, if you're ready to go then so am I."

Billy nodded and stood up from the sofa and the both of them made their way over to the door farthest from where they had been sitting and made their way out into the corridor, there was a thick layer of dust on the floor but Rebecca could still see that the floors were made out of marble and she had to wonder how much money had gone into building this place.

An obscene amount of money probably, at least it would be to her or anyone that she knew but if this place was built by Umbrella then it was more than likely a drop in a bucket for them. Rebecca knew that the Spencer Estate was in the woods as well but that was apparently just a vacation home for high up members of Umbrella's executive board that never got used and had been boarded up and abandoned and if Umbrella had cared about all the money they had wasted on building it they never showed it.

So this place meant that Umbrella had two expensive looking buildings in the same general area and considering all the dust that had been on everything this place had been abandoned for a long time but everyone in the city at least had a general sense that the Spencer Estate was out there, somewhere in the woods but Rebecca had never heard about this place before.

Zombies. Monster dogs. A giant corporation that was most well known for it's pharmaceutical division and a secret building out in the middle of nowhere. It was the sort of stuff conspiracy theorists dreamed up in the middle of the night but Rebecca was right in the middle of it and Rebecca couldn't deny that there had to be some sort of...something.

God, she was going over and over herself again. She could barely think, her system had a flush of adrenaline after nearly dying but now she was starting to crash and all she wanted to do was lie down, go to sleep and maybe never wake up again but she knew that she couldn't. She had to keep going until they were safe and she was back with her team.

"So, what is the plan?" Rebecca asked they carried on down the corridors, Billy kept his attention forward staying alert for any zombies or whatever else might decide to jump out at them. "Are we going to try and go outside? It's still really coming down hard and it's still really dark out there, I'm not sure it's safe to go out there."

"I agree, I still think our best plan for the moment is to wait until daylight and then try and find a road or something. I just didn't like the idea of staying in that library, neither of those doors lock and something could break in and I don't have any weapons to fight anything off that might come in." Billy didn't break his stride as he spoke, his eyes alert for any sort of movement. "I think we should head back to that bar we found, it's off the ground and we can lock the door and if we have to we might be able to get out by climbing the balcony."

It sounded like the best plan they had so Rebecca said nothing and merely nodded her head in agreement as they walked, the only problem was she wasn't sure how they were going to get back to the bar from where they were, they had gotten to this part of the mansion by climbing the ladder she had found in the storeroom but when Billy had gone to check it he had found that the hatch had slammed shut and he wasn't able to get it open.

There had to be a passage or something, that storeroom had been on the first floor and the ladder wasn't that tall so they must be on the same floor that the bar had been which meant that they didn't need to use any stairs or anything to get back, they just had to find a passage that lead back to the main hall and they would be golden.

Sadly, it seemed that they we're going to have to try every door in the place to find it. The first door they had tried lead into a small closet with the lingering smell of cleaning chemicals in the air but other than that it was empty of anything that might have been called useful so quickly they moved on, the next door had been locked but they didn't have the key for the door on the key ring that they had found earlier.

The next door they did have the key for but when they pushed the door open and saw three zombies standing around, gently swaying on their feet, they quickly shut the door again and Billy locked it before they hurried on down the corridor. Rebecca comforted herself by telling herself that even if she could hear the zombie's restless moans as they banged on the door, there was no way they would be able to break it down.

They didn't bother with trying any of the other doors, not until they reached the end of the corridor and found a door painted white waiting for them blocking their way, it took them awhile but they found the key for it on the ring and Rebecca smiled as Billy unlocked the door, walked through it and found themselves back in the great hall once again.

Rebecca was about to make her way across to the opposite landing so they could get into the bar but before she could take a step Billy reached out and grabbed her by the wrist and when she looked back to see why he had done it, he said nothing to her and simply pointed.

When Rebecca saw that it was the painting he was pointing at, for a moment she was confused as to what she was meant to see and why Billy had stopped her but then she saw it. The painting was built on a hinge, like it was a door, and it was open a crack. Rebecca pulled her hand free from Billy's grasp and slowly walked over to the paint, grabbing hold of the edge of it and pulling it open.

Darkness met her gaze and when Rebecca glanced down she saw a grey stone staircase descending down into it. She took a step back and glanced up at Billy as he approached her. "Okay, so now there's a hidden passage behind a painting? I swear, we must be in some sort of bad video game because none of this happens in the real world."

"Real world or not, a zombie didn't open this. You've seen they, they can't figure out how to work a door handle and they just pound on the doors hoping they they'll break. This wasn't broken down, this was opened." Billy frowned as he took a step closer to examine the opening. "Which means one of two things, either there's a monster out there that's smart enough to open doors or there's someone still alive and they went down their to hide, not sure which one I'd rather it be."

"Do you think that we should head down their?" Rebecca asked as she stepped closer to Billy, trying to peek over his shoulder. "I mean, from what we've seen so far it doesn't look like any of the monsters are smart enough to open doors. And if it is a person, then maybe they can tell us what happened here? Maybe they know a way out? Maybe this is a way out?"

"Maybe, but maybe it leads to a dead end and...hang on, I'm going inside and I want you to push the painting closed behind me all right? I want to see if I can open it from the other side." Rebecca nodded and wait until Billy descended a little way down the stairs before she pushed the painting door closed on him before she stepped back.

A few moments later, the door pushed open from the other side and Billy stepped back up into the main hall. "Well, at least we know we can open it from the other side if it happens to close on us but I still don't like the idea of going down there without some sort of weapon. If we run into something down there, then it could be the end."

"Yeah, but there's no guarantee that there are any weapons up here either and if we keep looking for them, we might run into something up here." Rebecca pointed out and then chewed on her lip as she stared back down into the darkness before taking a deep breath. "I'm not normally one to just go with my gut but I say we go for it."

Billy looked at her and then down the steps and blew out a sigh. "Fuck it, I was never one for sitting and waiting anyway. I'll take point, stay behind me." And that was that and Billy began to head down the stairs with Rebecca at his back, moving slowly so they didn't tumble down the stairs and break their necks.

They soon reached the end of the stairs and the ground leveled into a passage way and it was a narrow one, so narrow that Rebecca was certain that the only way to walk in it would be single file and she couldn't see around Billy at all. She didn't know how long they had been walking when Billy went still in front of her and for a moment, she expected to hear the command to turn and run.

And Billy did run, but not backward, forward. As he ran Rebecca noticed that she could hear something, like doors closing and as Billy ran further down the corridor Rebecca could just make out what was in front of him. An elevator, and it's doors were closing.

Billy stuck out his arm and for a moment Rebecca was terrified that it would sever his arm but that didn't happen, the doors merely pressed against his arm for a moment before they went back into the walls. Billy was panting roughly and Rebecca wondered how much more of this he was going to be able to take, Rebecca already felt dead on her feet.

"This elevator's got a code lock, if it had closed we wouldn't have been able to get into it." Billy spoke as she approached him and he got his breath back. "I think it's more likely whoever came this way was a person, they would need to know the code after all. But they must have already taken it down and sent it back up, why would they do that?"

"Maybe so they can find more alive people? A zombie wouldn't be able to work it, right?" Rebecca asked as she stared into the elevator, there was dust in their as well but she could just make out her own hazy reflection in the back. "So, are we going down?"

"Why not? We came this far and we aren't dead yet." Billy muttered and they both climbed into the elevator and Billy hit the down button on the panel and the elevator began to descend. "Abandon hope."

"Shut up."

"Yes Ma'am."

End of Chapter Thirty-Five


So, who else really enjoyed the remake of Resident Evil 2? I wouldn't call it my dream remake but it had a lot about it that I really did enjoy and I loved the style of it and I really hope that Resident Evil 8 follows on in a similar style.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter and will consider following, favouriting and reviewing.

With a ton of love,

Discordant Symphony