Chapter 5
Goodbye
His stride matched hers. Sure-footed steps galloped side by side. The threat of something wicked this way comes riding their backside like the wind propelling them down the drive.
"Front or back?"
"You tell me," he huffed. "You're in charge."
"I asked for an opinion, Redfield, not a smart ass comment."
"I tried to share one earlier."
"It's never too late."
"Nice day right," he said between breaths. "Or it was, until Mother Nature decided to pop a squat and take a piss."
"Get to the point."
"Point is someone, the gardener, spent a shitload of time out here today. Where is he?"
"Maybe he finished for the day and didn't want to get caught in the storm?"
They jumped over a shrub cluster. "We're not talking about some kid mowin' lawns for video game money. We're talking about a professional groundskeeper. Professionals take pride in their work, their tools. They store their shit."
"Point noted."
They sprinted up to the Audi back end and dove behind the bumper.
Jill brushed a stray, wet lock of hair from her eyes.
"Windows are open. You think the cleaning staff is as careless as our friend the gardener? You think they forgot to shut the rain out." He glanced at the patio balcony. All, or some. Technically, she was his superior. He owed her his full assessment.
"Fourth floor. Center window."
Jill's head popped up over the trunk. "I see movement."
"I thought I saw something, I don't know, maybe someone earlier."
"Spencer?"
Chris motioned her to follow. They dashed up to the side of the house and pressed their backs against the wall.
"I don't know. Maybe it was Spencer. Maybe it was a trick of light. Maybe it was nothing at all." Please, let it be nothing. His gut instinct said, 'wishful thinking, dumbass', and his gut had never lied.
Was the revelation of Spencer's current residence good timing, or coincidence? An orchestrated opportunity for an all too familiar sociopath to cross two people off a very short to do list.
Intel gave Wesker's last known location as South America. Jungle swamps and malaria were a far cry from the Queen Mother and fish and chips. There was no reason he should be in England, unless Chris flattered himself enough to believe that Wesker's contempt for him merited a special let's see who has the bigger balls guns and ammo reunion.
A part of him wished Wesker were here, the stupid and reckless part. Bag two contemptible masterminds for the price of one.
Wesker, alive, meant a commendation and a medal. Wesker, dead, was worth a whole lot more than peace of mind. Every rag tag, suitcase livin' mercenary in the business wanted a piece of his leather lovin' hide. A finger alone was worth a cool million to the right, and ready to pony up the dough, party.
In some twisted, sick way Chris almost felt sorry for Wesker. Bad enough to have a monkey on your back let alone ten monkeys on your tail.
The sane part, buried beneath a bulky don't fuck with me or I'll fuck you up exterior, wrapped in whispers spoken in shuttered rooms with his best gal curled up beside him, knew better than to hope for a tango with Satan in a crowded ballroom filled with innocent bystanders.
They shuffled down a rose bush lined flagstone path.
Chris Redfield didn't believe in prayers, divine intervention, or even simple luck. Men controlled their own fate. He drew faith in self-reliance and a gun. Useless words uttered to an empirical being with a grand master plan got you shit in one hand and manure in the other.
He'd asked for a miracle, once, and got a doctor who said, 'I'm sorry,' the responsibility of a sister too young to tie her laces, and two caskets paid for in one hundred ninety nine dollars down, and thirty six easy payments of one hundred dollars a month, by a congregation of humble, decent folks who couldn't give them a home, but gave half his family decent velvet lined boxes to rest their bones.
I'll tux up and dance with the devil all night long; just don't let it be tonight. Tonight, his dance card was full. He now had magenta on his mind, and the man responsible for Umbrella's atrocities, and its ghoulish global bio weapon enterprises.
Tonight, he'd come to drop the scales of justice on Oswall Spencer's head, not dip and strut with a madman with a possibly pregnant woman riding shotgun.
He lifted the latch on a gate. They passed quickly beneath an arched trellis wrapped in intertwined vines.
In the back of the house an open door bumped a lifeless lump slumped in its entry.
Jill raced up a set of stairs. "She's dead."
A crimson stain trailed out into the yard. Chris knelt down next to another figure sprawled out beside a tool shed. Grass stains on his pant legs and breeze blown leaves rain plastered to his whisker stubbled face.
Chris closed the mans eyelids. "He's gone," he shouted over the wind.
Jill stepped around the woman. She waved him forward. "Hurry. Come on."
He sprinted up behind her. Something wicked this way came. It had wrought destruction in its slithery wake. A smoke filled kitchen. A pot bubbled over onto a stove. Random pieces of furniture shattered on thinly mortared stone. Its menacing presence loomed larger than the life size paintings and tapestries on the walls.
A scream echoed through the deserted halls.
Another body in the foyer dressed in a black suit and tie. The torso bent over a busted banister and legs that twitched in a final death throe.
Jill looked at Chris, and they both looked up.
"Fourth floor."
They bounded up a staircase. Their boot heals clacked stone. One, two, three steps at a time.
"Promise me. "
"Anything."
"We walk out of here together."
"Deal."
They careened around a corner and raced down a red-carpeted corridor lit in candle and bright lightening pulses.
Breadcrumb trail blood drops stopped at the end of the hall.
Jill nodded. Chris nodded.
His heart thumped a marching band rhythm in his chest. He'd craved this moment more than the first time a girl let him lift her skirt.
Tomorrow he'd wake in a world bigger, brighter, and full of possibilities he hadn't considered since Raccoon City. Jill's magenta problem the delectable icing on his Chris Redfield cake.
He took a deep breath and did the one thing he vowed he'd never do again. Please, Lord, let me be wrong. Let it be nothing. Just this once. Let me walk away with my best gal, and Spencer in tow, and I'll be the first man pew side every Sunday for the rest of our lives.
He threw his shoulder against the door. It flew open in a splintered spray. "B.S.A.A. Hands up. Don't move." The words were automatic. He said them before his eyes adjusted to the lack of light in the room.
Thunder roared. Wind blown curtains billowed in the tangy sea breeze.
A black flutter. A tipped over mahogany desk streaked in bouncing fireplace flame. Laughter.
"Good evening, Christopher. Nice of you to finally join us."
"Wesker." His heart drummed faster. Something wicked standing right in front of them.
"Oh God," Jill exhaled in a slow whisper.
"The one and only." He pivoted, and opened his trench coat folds in one fluid, sweeping motion.
An elderly man lay at his feet; an oxygen mask askew on his face. His lifeless eyes as glassy as the orbs that looked down upon them from the stuffed animals mounted on the walls.
Chris swallowed the lump, and the taste of cheap burrito, in his throat. For a solitary second he wished he'd eaten something more fitting as a possible last meal. Filet Mignon. Porterhouse steak. A man could die happy with a choice cut of beef in his stomach.
"Christopher Redfield, Jill Valentine, allow me to introduce Oswall Spencer."
Jill maneuvered around Chris. "You killed him."
"Your powers of deduction are astounding. What gives it away the blank expression on his face, or his rather inarticulate greeting?" He stepped over Spencer's still body as though it were nothing more than a crack in the ground and moved toward the center of the room in slow, deliberate steps.
Jill leveled her gun on Wesker's chest. "Don't do this, Wesker. Give it up. Come peacefully."
"And spend the remainder of my life locked in a government research facility. Sounds positively enchanting."
"Not as enchanting as the sound of your brains splattering walls."
"Chris, don't."
Wesker removed his glasses. He plucked a spotless white handkerchief from his pocket. "Please, by all means, let him continue." He blew on the lenses and rubbed the cloth over their reflective surface. "His ignorance astounds me. It is beyond all statistical measure of incompetence."
Do it! I can't. You've got all the reason you need lying on the floor, and three innocent people coffin bound knocking on pearly gates. Sorry, Bucko, it doesn't work that way. Damn, he wished it did. His finger twitched against the trigger.
Wesker slowly folded the frames and deftly deposited them on a side table. "I was beginning to wonder if you would show. Took you long enough. I grew tired of waiting."
"Better late than never. I don't care if I'm the last one to the party as long as I'm not the first to leave."
"Spoken like a man familiar with second place. I am fairly certain if Spencer and company were still able to exhale carbon dioxide they would disagree with your rather lax sentiment. Remind me never to count on your untimely assistance if I am ever in dire need."
"You'll be in dire need of a good mortician to sew your face back together when I'm finished."
Wesker laced his fingers together and gave his knuckles a stiff crack.
"Chris, stop! No one else needs to die here today."
"Incredibly noble, incredibly foolish, and incredibly incorrect."
It happened faster than he anticipated. In a half heartbeat thump his world grinded to a halt. Action and reaction dealt in slow motion.
A black-flocked smear sucked the fireplace flames horizontal. A funnel twist blur; and a flap of trench coat on thigh slicing through the air, spun in the gap between them.
Chris fired. Jill fired. A vase shattered. The front face of a grandfather clock exploded in glass shards. The chandelier rocked on its ceiling hinges.
Muzzle flash and smoke. Acrid gunpowder funneled down his throat. Empty clip clicks. Reload. Reload.
A fist emerged from the whirlwind. Chris snapped his head sideways to dodge the incoming blow and dipped his shoulder back. His spine bent like a limbo dancer going under a not so low pole. Wesker speared air. A leather glove skimmed his chin.
The whirlwind dissolved into Wesker. No! He blinked. Wesker's body had caught up to his arms.
Chris ducked under the second swipe at his head. He tossed his gun and came up swinging. He pounded a quick blow into Wesker's gut and a tooth-rattling uppercut into Wesker's jaw.
Jill unleashed a swift roundhouse. Right leg first. Her boot scraped flesh from his leering face. Her left leg smash follow up clocked Wesker ten ways from Sunday in the nose. His face sprang a leak and his malevolent smile turned into bloody, crimson frown.
Wesker staggered, teetered on his heels, regained his balance, and barreled forward. Superhuman movement not even a superhero could dodge. The collision knocked Chris off his feet. Wesker's shoulder drove them backward. Rib bones snapped like a candy cane and punctured Chris's lung. His spine spiked a bookshelf and he felt his crumpled body jerked upright by sharp tug on his vest.
The clap of fresh rounds slammed into a chamber. Bullets shredded air in the gap between their faces. A direct hit to Wesker's bicep. Leather bits blown across his chest.
Chris flung his head down on Wesker's forehead. The grip on his vest was released. Gravity sucked him to the floor. He landed with a double pop onto his knees. Papers cascaded like feathers.
Wesker clutched his arm. His pupils flared orange. He spun around. A black streaked dash deposited him next to Jill. "Pathetic." He cracked a backhand across her cheek. She stumbled.
Jill. Get up Redfield. Stabbing pain riddled his side. Rapid gasps dragged through deflated lung, the equivalent of sucking air through a straw, left him breathless. Lightheaded.
Wesker latched onto her neck. He thrust her body upward toward the rafters. Her slim fingers frantically tugged at his arm. Her boot tips jabbed his thighs.
Wesker yanked her within inches from his face. "In reference for future altercations might I make a suggestion, Miss Valentine? Pick a partner who is capable of upholding their end of the deal, or do not bother to bring one at all."
Jill. He pushed himself onto his feet. Whisked his combat knife from its worn leather sheath.
Wesker swung his arm back and cast her airborne.
A panic rush flooded his veins. Chris Redfield's heart torn from his chest and shoved into his windpipe.
He charged. Slammed his body into Wesker's side and sunk the knife to its hilt in his leg. They toppled onto the floor. Chris on top. Wesker on the bottom. He grabbed Wesker's head and pounded it onto the rug.
Jill struck a marble statue, ricocheted off its sculpted breast, and landed on a pile of books. She rolled onto her side and clutched her midsection.
Wesker hitched his leg over Chris's waist. Chris went for the throat. He locked his arm around Wesker's neck in a forearm chokehold. Every ounce of energy channeled into his bicep.
Wesker looped his foot around Chris's ankle, and gave a quick twist. Pain surfed up his leg and collided with the repeated, throbbing waves coursing through his side.
Wesker wrenched the knife from his leg. He swung it down over his shoulder. Blood drops fell on Chris's face. The tip took a chunk of Chris's vest and an even bigger chunk of his arm. His arms recoiled.
Wesker planted his hands, palm side down, wrist up, on the side of his head. He swung his legs upward and preformed a back handspring. A hazy black blur somersaulted over Chris's head like a well-trained gymnast.
He landed with a graceful pounce and straightened himself to his full height. He brushed debris from his pants.
Chris rolled onto his stomach. Get up Redfield.
Wesker clapped his hands. "Bravo, Christopher. I applaud you at yet another lackluster attempt at ending my existence."
Chris tried to push his chest off the floor. His hands gave way beneath him. "We're not finished," he rasped. Get up Redfield. He dug his fingernails into the rug.
"Do us both a favor, Christopher. Stay down. Admit your defeat, and I will spare you the humiliation Spencer suffered before he breathed his last word."
He dug his nails deeper. Get up Redfield.
Wesker's boots crunched glass. His shadow fell across the length of carpet.
"Go to hell." Chris whispered into the soft fibers stuck to the corners of his mouth in a pink tinged mixture of spit and blood.
Wesker shoved Chris onto his back with his boot.
A silver barrel danced in his blurred vision.
"Send me an invitation, and someday I will be sure to drop by." He pulled the hammer back.
Suddenly, there was movement. Wesker whisked away by a lithe body in green fatigues that hit him like a battering ram.
Jill.
Chris rolled onto his side and raised himself to his knees.
She had her arms wrapped around his waist and enough momentum to lift them off their feet. They sailed toward the open window.
His eyes went wide as lidless pool balls. He scrambled toward the balcony. "Jill!"
Their bodies struck the balcony rail, and they both toppled over the side.
Their feet upended, and they hung suspended for a moment above the empty expanse, and then, in the blink of an eye, they were gone.
"Jill!"
Two figures plummeted toward the rocks.
Another prayer unanswered; Chris Redfield's world tumbled end over end into mist.