Occurs just before and alongside Chapter 17

Somewhere on the far side of the BOW level, Gary Jones was screaming.

He'd woke up here, in the dark lab. For a brief moment he'd wondered whether he'd drunk too much, or if something had made its way into that little shelter Don had set up for them on the other end of the level. The noise of the others' breathing, eating, quietly whispering had been loud in the warehouse space they'd been holed up in before. When he had woke, there had only been the slow, uneven sound of his own breathing, his head pounding in the dark space.

No - not just his own breathing. Someone else had been in there with him. A flashlight had been turned on, pointed directly into his face to obscure his vision, but the chuckle of the huge shadow of a man kneeling in front of him was unmistakable. Gary felt sobriety hit him as freezing water hit his face, and he finally realized that he couldn't move - something was binding his arms behind his back, and his feet together. "Mornin', sunshine. Thought you were gonna sleep right in and miss your shift."

"Wha…Don?! Th' fuck…wazz goan on?" There was something wrong with his voice. Sure, they were overworked, and his arthritis was starting to settle into his bones like constant intermittent needles fucking everywhere, but this wasn't the slur of the pleasantly wasted. This sounded more like when his uncle had had a stroke thirty years, and couldn't make his mouth quite work right anymore on the one side.

Something was wrong.

Don, on the other hand, had sounded positively merry. "Ah, it ain't personal, Jonesy. We just hit the point where it's gonna cost a little extra to keep the brass from blowin' the place up. Real monkey's paw situation, this." He'd laughed at his own joke. "I'd tell you this'll be quick, but I think we're past lying at this point. You'll last a little while. I'll leave you some light, at least."

"Wha- Don, no—" was all Gary had managed to choke out before a sharp blade bit deep into his guts, and was pulled downward several inches. A wet, horribly heavy sound came from that direction as his intestines began to slither out. Then the pain hit, and devoured him.

He didn't hear Don breath out with a sense of satisfied relief, nor see him collect the rags from the floor - now soaked in blood - like a fisherman preparing a chum bucket. Don would drop these in his path during his fast walk back to Noseferatu's cell before he unlocked that door for the first time in over fifteen years, and concealed himself.

It didn't matter now that Gary's legs were bound now - he was slowly bleeding out, and screaming himself hoarse. It didn't matter that it would draw…problems. The pain was too great to hold it back. He almost hoped one of those things would show up, if only to end things faster.

As Gary's voice grew weaker and the pain began to fade into a cold numbness, Gary realized he could hear a heavy, rhythmic step out in the hall. Whoever it was, they were calling for someone in a voice that sounded rough and mangled, but distinguishable all the same. "Help!" Gary croaked out. Maybe they had an extra bullet for him. He had no expectations that the infirmary staff would be able to manage this, even if they had the capacity.

Or were even still alive right now.

The footsteps paused at his cries, then resumed for what seemed an eternity. Don had left the flashlight on a lab table, pointing outward to illuminate as much as the room as possible. When the figure stepped into the doorframe, Gary faintly wondered if it would have been better to stay in darkness. "Oh fuck…" he breathed, going rigid with terror.

The BOW that the warehouse staff had dubbed 'Noseferatu' stepped through the door.

Nosferatu was hungry - starving - and the person on the floor who would soon cease being 'Gary' had already been partially unzipped, innards steaming in the freezing air.

Nosferatu followed the sounds of the man's whimpers and kneeled to partake of this first feast. Gary did not pass quickly, though the shock would soon, mercifully, overtake him.

After a few minutes, Don shut the laboratory door with a soft, firm click. Noseferatu neither noticed nor cared. Gary was beyond caring.

He'd have to move quick to set up the 'showroom floor', now that he's gotten the damned BOW out of it. That tweed jacket and red hair were a dead giveaway to the former identity of the creature - the little girl had turned damned cold after her da's 'mysterious' disappearance, and now he had a clear view as to why. He stepped carefully over a clump of black…vines?…that were pushing their way out through the walls. Those would bear monitoring. Grayson had had a point about leaving the ants alone earlier, and he'd take that lesson to heart with these little blighters.

Outside the BOW lab - old Edward's lab space - he had left his tools, and some wickedly sharp-looking iron implements. He walked past them, toward the service cart he's parked outside the little shelter. Fresh meat, in the form of drugged and bound warehouse workers, slept fitfully just beyond it. He'd have to ration out the feedings - riskier, but he'd need the time - but that merc outfit would be coming soon enough. Once he got his little feeding pen up and operable, then the real fun could start.

As unsettling as going into the opening volley of Raccoon City's outbreak had been two months earlier, she was oddly glad of her little expedition now. The 'dead' were swarming this level; those who hadn't converted were being feasted upon. She'd been fading in and put of her drugged fugue on Rockfort Island, enough for the infected to be mostly part of the scenery. Now…

Now her family's lab facility was a charnel house. The cold, dry air was enough to make her grateful that she ran hot. It also muted the worst of the smell.

The slight earthy odour coming from the hyphae worried her, though. Her sinus headache was steadily beginning to creep back - the one she'd learned to associate with Mold the few times she'd been around it. The sooner she finished her business down here, the better.

Alfred had begun to shake and sweat again when she'd gone to check on him before heading down, quietly talking to himself in his sister's voice. That hadn't been a mere ruse then- Alfred had gone fully dissociative in his attempt to cope in the absence of…well, nearly everyone. Alexia's comment on what Alexander had done suddenly had a very different light.

"You do understand. Even if you don't want to," Alexia had said to her. She'd known something unusual had happened. There had never been any talk of the mother. Their isolation had always worried her, but her focus had always been on the external threats, in securing their place in the company, that it had taken a long time to see the potential problems.

Alexander's note had provided her a list of potential solutions he'd been looking into so that she could move down here and help him manage. High on the list was a chelator- something to draw out and bind the toxins the roses produced so that they could be flushed out naturally. The bite had a similar effect, she thought, with a small ping of guilt. Given Alfred's behaviour, chronic toxic neuropathy - toxins periodically flooding the brain, made worse with the drinking, stress-induced weight loss, and amphetamines his liver was trying - and failing- to process at the same time.

It wouldn't fix everything. But it might pull him out of the spiral for long enough to get real help.

Alexia had drawn her a map with a list of the more mundane items she'd need- case, phials, reagents, centrifuge. She'd had to work through several labs on an upper research level to get them.

A small lab on a tucked away wing had a spare generator that she could use, with just enough fuel to power the centrifuge for a while. As soon as she was inside, she spotted a camera over a lab bench on the far wall, draped with hyphae. Setting her items down by the door, she drew her sidearm and shot the bloody thing down. Alexia would lose access to it, but so would anyone else watching down here. The ceiling tiles were light, but just sturdy enough to hold the little treasures she had brought in.

Besides, her niece could "see" well enough down here.

The ants were another issue entirely. Several bodies were teeming with them, like fish to a coral reef. They were something to be avoided, of course, but she managed to hug the walls near the carpets of hyphae. The ants seemed to stay away from there, and so long as she didn't tread on them, they seemed to pay her little mind. Some rooms were so full of them that it was slow going, getting to those walls. The infirmary was particularly bad. On the plus side, touching them seemed to set off some sort of pheromone response to ward the ants away.

All the while, the infected wandered, feasting on those who had been too badly maimed to rise again. Marigold kept her eyes trained forward, weaving through the throngs like a pedestrian on a busy city sidewalk. If she didn't look at them too hard, she could almost avoid thinking about them. A few began to trail behind her on her second trip, attracted by the sound of the shot. Injectors, stabilizers and adjuvant salts were scattered all around that level, and there seemed to be a critical mass of a few stragglers growing to a small horde.

"I'm not the Pied bloody Piper," she muttered under her breath. She picked up the pace, shoving the contents of her second haul at the top of a cabinet. Several zombies wandered in after her and began to mill about aimlessly.

Marigold sighed, drawing her blade to but them down quietly - then hesitated. If she were the only one these creatures didn't react to, she should take advantage of that. Doing a quick headcount- six had made it inside - she headed back out to the hallway and shut them inside. If anyone tried to get inside, she'd know on returning.

Marigold leaned against the door, looking around. The crowd of undead, such as they were, had grown thicker with all of her activity. It would good cover later- people would want to avoid it, she hoped.

Next stop would have to be the BOW level, and perhaps the research level of time permitted. Her father's old lab space was sealed off, of course, but the rest should be-

There was a sound overhead. Some sort of large jet was coming in. Marigold stilled, listening hard. She was doubtful that it was rescue.

She had really, really hoped she had had more time.

Enough messing about then. She would have to get what she came down here for - the active ingredients for the and get out. Once everyone was back safe at the mansion, once she had treated Alfred, then she could go digging through the research levels for Alexander's notes.

Voices drifted down the hall towards Marigold. She squinted into the darkness, then took a breath and focused.

Around her, the undead began to still.

"Whoa," Claire said, pulling Steve back. He threw an annoyed look at her before realizing what she was seeing.

The horde of zombies had been getting more numerous as they worked their way through the level. Several had been staggering towards them, helpfully announcing their positions while unhelpfully broadcasting it to every other infected within earshot.

Except now they had stopped. They'd gone still, save for the very few closest within a few feet of them. Claire finished these with her knife, then continued to stare. "What the fuck?"

Steve gave the group a contemplative look. "Easy pickings, yeah?" He looked to Claire to get what he had assumed who be clear approval, then stopped at the look in her face.

Claire shook her head. "You see this with birds."

"What?"

Claire shook her head. "Birds go quiet when there's a big predator nearby. It's a 'dark forest' kind of thing. If we don't have to deal with it, I'd rather not. Let's head back towards the infirmary and find the elevator." She threw a significant look at Steve's arm. He'd been favoring his other arm for shooting since Alexia had burned it before taking Grayson back with her. Weird as that had been, Alexia had pulled back with some convincing- and Grayson had been willing to help her find the satphone. "I'd rather use the reprieve for something useful than poke another hornet's nest this soon after the last one."