Chapter 13

The Hero

The script was written. The characters assembled. The scene set. He stood before a mirror in his tux and tie. Clean-shaven. Scrubbed. Pressed, dressed, and ready to go. His uncooperative armpits sweat circles beneath his tailored jacket.

The day threatened rain. An overcast sky grumbled with the weight of swollen clouds.

He imagined her standing at the stained glass window in her walnut paneled chamber down the hall, cursing spring for its defiance and its audacity to disobey a year of her well laid plans. Murphy was a heartless bastard and his Law never favored joy.

In truth, and in secret, he favored a simple service. A casual affair catered to relatives and a culled list of close friends. Friends so close he'd trust them with a straight edge to shave the pubic hair on his balls.

But, with a mother with too much time on her hands, and a father with more money than he could ever spend, the simple service dreams had taken an ostentatious turn to pomp and superfluous decadence.

They'd invited everyone from the pool man to the insurance agent. Procured a Versace gown that cost five times more than the gas sipper commuter Corolla he drove when inclement weather forced him to fancy four wheels instead of two. Rented a three-story river rock and ivy covered Chateau-booked nine months in advance-in the boondocks. One-day admission to the venue the price he paid his landlord in twelve months rent.

The dinner menu was French. Fucking French! Foie Gras, Poitrine de canard rotie aux epices, if he couldn't pronounce it he sure as hell didn't want to eat it. A direct bitch slap to the face of the cocktail weenie and beer connoisseur crowd he'd invited and another not so subtle jab at his lower class upbringing courtesy of the always, call a golf ball white and he'd call it black just to spite you, Arthur, and the always, women excuse themselves from a room when they burp, proper, Dina Valentine.

He knew there'd be trouble when he saw the gift registry lists. Stores with exorbitant price tags that shot his stomach straight out his ass.

Knives were knives. Ten dollars. Four hundred dollars. They all worked the same. You cut shit with them. Grab one from a drawer; peel potatoes, cut tomatoes, dice a steak, and done.

There was nothing wrong with his four-slice toaster. Two of the slots worked fine. Nothing wrong with his three dollar, blue light special, towels either. They were wide enough to cover a backside, his butt cheeks weren't flapping in the wind, and thick enough for a quick after shower pat down. Mopping skin or sopping an oil stain, they served their purpose.

The love of his life had never baked a pie in her life. No reason to start now. The money invested in the bake ware set designed to grant her non-tart making ass success would be better spent on a box of frozen burritos and a year supply of Ramen noodles.

Morning essentials, at least in his mind, were not two hundred dollar juicers and five hundred dollar espresso machines. A quick fuck to tame his wood, a cup of Folgers's instant, and a wad of moderately soft two-ply, was all his body required to start the day off right.

There was a soft rap at the door, and before he could grant entrance, Claire poked her head into the room.

"Are you decent?"

His breath held in his throat. Concrete and stucco folded over the paneled walls, cutting the room in half. The oil paintings sucked beneath hot rod and bikini babe calendar girl pin up posters. The polished cherry hardwood furnishings dissolved into a twin bed.

He was sprawled on a camouflage pattern comforter, Playboy in hand, pants around his ankles, when there came a tap at his door. He realized, much too late to absolve an embarrassing situation, he'd forgotten to lock the door.

'Are you decent?' She nudged the door open, without the requisite pause to give him the option of a simple yes or no. 'I need you to run to the mar-'

There he lay. Hand on dick. Red on face.

Her eyes went wide and then instantly, mercifully, her head slipped back behind the frame.

'Geez!' he'd shouted as he hiked up his pants. "Can't a guy be left alone!'

'I'm sorry, Christopher,' she'd said. 'I need you to run down to the market and fetch me a quart of cream.' There was a long pause. For a moment he'd assumed she'd walked away. Then he heard the floorboards creak beneath her weight. 'Oh, and by the way, I think you'll find that activity is more enjoyable with a girl. Please return your father's magazine to the bottom drawer of his nightstand when you're finished.'

He'd learned two very important things that day. His mother had more 'Grace' than Grace Kelly, and to always, always, lock the damn door when his trousers were down.

"Chris? Is everything ok?"

Ok? It was better than ok.

In Claire's voice, in the loose curls piled on top of her head, in the delicate cheekbone hollows and the gentle tilt of her eyebrows over her Caribbean ocean eyes, there stood a living, breathing, flesh and bone carbon copy of their mother. The one-person gut wrenchingly absent on an otherwise perfect day.

"It is now," he said.

"I wanted to check on you. See how you're holding up. It's almost show time. Nervous?"

"Chris Redfield, nervous? You've got the wrong guy."

"Your tie's crooked."

He looked down. Lopsided as a limp dick. I'll be damned. He loosened the navy blue knot and evened out the strand ends as he chanted a rhyme in his head. Put fatty over thinny, bring fatty around again, bring fatty through the loop and tuck him down the drain.

Claire hitched the length of her teal, chiffon dress up to her ankles and crossed the room, head held high and shoulders back, in a stride reminiscent of their mother.

If she had any doubts. Questions. A lingering obsession to discover the personality and mannerisms she shared with the woman who gave them life, Claire need look no further than her reflection.

She gently pushed his hands out of the way. "Here, I'll do it."

"Since when do you know how to tie a tie?" He didn't really want the answer to the question, but she obliged him anyway.

"Oh, I know a gentleman who finds my expert tie-knotting abilities come in quite handy every once in a blue moon."

"Perhaps you'd care to introduce him. I'll knot him a tie."

"I said 'tie', not noose."

"Then you'd better tell Leon, oops did I say that out loud…I meant your gentleman friend, to start wearing a clip on."

"I should say the same thing to you. Who on earth taught you, Sir Fumble Fingers?"

"Pop."

Her hands dropped to his lapels. Fresh pain threshed from a festered wound and ground into glacial silence between them.

Damn it to hell! He was tired of treading ninja steps around her shattered heart. Tired of apologizing for the privilege of being born first and guardian of the memories that matched the family snapshots in the faded Polaroid's stored in a box and rested on the top shelf of his closet. Here it comes.

"Must have been nice." She jabbed fatty through the loop and cinched the knot to asphyxiation levels around his neck.

The most dangerous four words in her barb arsenal. Her envy lock and loaded, targeted to rip him a new guilt sized hole.

"Claire-"

"Oh, don't bother. I already know where this is going."

He clasped his hands over hers. "I'm all ears. Where, Miss Clairvoyant Claire, do you think this conversation is headed?"

"I'm being childish. Over reacting. Ruining your wedding day."

"Wrong. Come here." He guided her to a chaise lounge. "Have a seat. There's something I want to say."

"You always have something to say."

"Fair enough." He patted the space beside him. "Join me anyway."

"Chris, don't. Not today. Let it go."

"That's what I want to talk to you about." He hung his head and sighed. "The thing is, I'd love to 'let it go'. Be able to look back on my childhood with some semblance of peace and fondness." All or nothing, Redfield. "You won't let me, Claire."

"Me? I'm not stopping you."

"The truth of the matter is, I knew them and you're resentful because you didn't."

She yanked her hand away. "How dare you!"

"Please, Claire. Let me finish. Hear me out."

"Like I need another lecture."

"I'm not trying to hammer home a sermon. Listen to me. Talk to me, not as your older brother, but as a friend. Two adults engaged in conversation. Is it so much too ask?"

Her gaze drifted toward the door and shifted to the chaise. He knew he had her. The irresistible invitation to speak with him as an equal conquered her urge to run.

He leaned forward, rested his forearms on his thighs, palmed his hands, and twirled one thumb slowly around the other. "If I could trade, I would."

"Chris-"

"If I could give you the memory of a mother brushing the tangles from your hair, or a father tucking you in at night with your favorite bedtime story, I would. Point me in the direction of the nearest time machine and dial it back to my conception. You can go first. Be first. Fail first."

"You're not a failure," she whispered.

"Maybe not in your eyes." He paused, gaze held unblinking, steady, on a fixed point on the wall. "You don't know how I've prayed for a chance to go back to that night. I want to relive it. Not as some scrawny, acne-faced pussy hiding in a closet with a little girl because she's too small to jump from a second story window and I can't leave her behind, but as I am now. If today were yesterday those bastards don't get past the front door. Mom and Pop would still be alive. You would have a lifetime of memories, and a better example than me to call your family."

"That's not true. You're the best brother a girl could have. You're the best man I know."

"I see. So, every time you threw a teen temper tantrum when I said no, you really meant you loved me when you said you hated me and slammed your bedroom door in my face? Well, now I know. Silly me. I could have sworn it was the exact opposite." And, you're wrong. Pop was the best man I knew.

"I only said the things I did to hurt you."

"Bravo. Mission accomplished. It stung, Claire. Knowing I was all you had and I wasn't enough."

"You were always 'enough'. I just…just…"

"Needed more? I get it. I do. A girl shouldn't learn how to paint her nails, figure out how to braid her hair, or shop for a prom dress with her brother. I'm sorry to say I did the best I could, and my best wasn't, isn't, good enough. I don't measure up, Claire. I didn't inherit half of Pop's spirit, or come within a mile of Mom's generosity and empathy. I can admit it. It ain't easy, but it's the truth. I'm afraid I've been a piss poor substitute as a parent."

"I am the woman I am because of you."

God, damn! I need a cigarette. "No, Claire. You are the woman you are because of them, and in spite of me. You're the reason my nightmare will never end. Don't you understand? In your walk, in your smile, in your laughter, in your scowl, you are the embodiment of everything they were. When I hear you, I hear him. When I look at you, I see her. You are a constant reminder of everything we've lost. My failure. I wasn't old enough, tall enough, strong enough, to save them."

She leaned her head onto his shoulder. "It's not your fault. You did nothing wrong. You can't keep blaming yourself."

"Not when I have you to do it for me." He rose. "If you need a pillar to lean on, I can be your column. If you need a mountain to shelter you from the wind, I can be your peak, but what I cannot do is continue to walk on eggshells around you whenever their name is mentioned. I'm sorry you got the short end of the stick. I'm sorry you'll never know them in the way that I did. I'm begging you, Claire. I'm pleading with you from the bottom of my heart to let me share them without you turning into a teary-eyed gargoyle. I'll be better for it. You'll be better for it."

For the second time in the space of five minutes there was a knock on the door.

Claire quickly swiped her hand under her eyes. Chris gestured to her nose and passed her a tissue from a box on the sideboard.

"It's open."

Surprise visitor number two was Barry. Broad as a sea captain, with more grays in his beard than he had on his head, he too was dressed in his better than Sunday best and ready to cart Chris down his marital road.

"They want to start in five…"

"It's ok. Come on in, Barry."

Barry's gaze traveled from Chris to Claire and back to Chris. "You sure? I didn't mean to interrupt."

Chris grinned. "You know how women are. They're not happy at a wedding unless they're crying."

"Uh-huh. I just came to get you. They wanna start in five minutes. The natives are getting restless. We've got to get you married so we can all get something to eat. I'm starved."

"A fine day when the best man is more worried about his empty stomach than his best friend."

Barry patted his ever-expanding waist. "Gotta feed the beast."

"Well, I hate to disappoint you. Chili cheese dogs and fries are not on the menu."

"I don't care what I shovel as long as it's free."

###

The guests were assembled on the back lawn. The scent of rain and fresh cut grass mingled with the gentle warm up strums of rosined bows across violin strings.

Her attendees were seated on the right. The bride overflow shuffled across a paved brick walkway and settled into the nearly empty rows on the left. His rows.

Heads turned as he and Barry ambled down the rose petal lined avenue.

Chris ran a shaky hand through his hair. Grit? Sand? His fingernails embedded with tiny grains beneath the clipped tips.

The wind shifted, and with it came an ocean brine salted tang. A seagull flock swooped down beneath the clouds, circled the chateau, and disappeared over the top of the oak trees.

His collar pressed into his windpipe. Chris gripped his tie, looped a finger into the knot, and gave it a swift tug.

Barry leaned in. "Chris?"

"I can't breathe. I think Claire pulled it too tight."

"It's fine, Chris. It's nerves. Happens to everyone on their wedding day."

Pain pierced his side. The weight of his tread rolled a stabbing jab shockwave through his ankle.

The alter, a pulpit set atop a raised platform at the end of the walkway, swam in blur. The priest, facial features devoured in haze, diverged into two halves and melted back together with a blink of his eye.

"I think I'm gonna be sick."

"And they say only bride's get the jitters. Don't worry, Chris, not much longer. You'll feel a lot better after it's over and we get some food in you."

"Something's wrong, Barry," Chris groaned between ragged gasps for air, a touch of his hand upon the older man's shoulder to lend his suddenly aching leg support.

"Keep it together. Stand fast. In ten minutes you'll be a new man."

In ten minutes, I'll be a dead man.

The orchestra struck up the Wedding March. The nameless faces turned to a balcony on the third floor. Jill emerged through the french doors and began her decent down a vine wrapped, wrought iron staircase.

The appropriate "ooh's" and "ahh's" lost in the ear grating wail of out of tune instruments. The cellist stroking the sound of crashing waves rolled onto a storm-rocked seashore.

Jill, hand draped over Arthur's arm, marched toward the platform in slow, even steps. Her dress billowed in the breeze. The layers swept from the front. She wasn't stepping. She was gliding. Walking on air.

I'm going fucking crazy. Her feet floated above the paving stones. Water dripped from the tips of her sequined shoes. Wet splotches trailed in her wake.

"Barry, what the fuck is going on?" Chris turned. He stumbled backward and wrapped his arms around one of the platform's wooden rails to keep himself from falling. "Jesus Christ!"

In the limbs of the nearest tree Barry was strung up like a butchered hog. Flayed open from chest to pelvis. His entrails wrapped around his head like a noose, his body swaying in the breeze.

The preacher spread his arms. "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today…"

Chris spun around. It can't be! "Pop?"

His father, rising up and over the pulpit, as though the church vestments he wore were fashioned out of helium infused cloth.

Jill hovered up the steps. Her veil folded in wavy ripples over her face. She hummed the off key orchestra beat. The words garbled. Butchered as Barry.

Here comes the bride... Here comes the bride…. Here comes the bride his ass! Here goes the groom! Chris scrambled to his feet.

She lifted the veil's hem and tossed the headpiece to the wind.

His scream, ready for him to push play, was stuck on pause in his throat. The double check-should I be shitting myself while I run for the hills-this is weird, but maybe it will all work itself out, delay between his eyes and his vocal chords.

The skin on her face was cracked, peeling. The flesh on her cheeks balled up on the ends like little strips of shaved wood. Eye socket hollows bleeding wet sand on the platform at his feet.

"Lckk…" She gagged, coughing water.

Small fragment shards pelted his face. He rubbed his thumb over the broken, ridged surfaces. Seashells.

"See…" Her stomach heaved. "What…" Her lower jaw fell open and a geyser of water, and a muck riddled strand of seaweed rushed out. "You've done to me."

His father's body spiraled upward, spinning faster and faster. The robes unfurled in a blinding, white glare explosion that shook the platform on its hastily erected foundation. Black smoke streaks spread out across the horizon, rubbing pockets of sunlight from the clouds.

"Like father, like son." A familiar voice heckled.

His nemesis erected in his father's place. Albert-who the fuck invited him-Wesker sucked out of the haze, levitating in the thick, charcoal stained wisps curled up and around his waist.

Gray and red dots plopped into the foreground. A dozen pinstriped umbrellas floated to the ground.

Chris squinted. Not umbrellas. Parachutes. Men in bio suits. Men with guns. Machine guns.

Chris dove for the ground and was plucked, thrown, into the air. His legs shuffled and his arms twisted, turned, pawed at the mist, searching for an invisible handhold to break his fall.

A greasy, slick tentacle, darker than the smoke, shot out of Wesker's hand and latched onto Chris's leg. In a wrist flick he found his back flush with Wesker's back. The tentacle coiled around them like a chain.

In his left ear. "Pay attention, Christopher. This is the best part."

The squadron opened fire. And there was blood. Pandemonium. Women screaming. Chairs upended. Men on their knees begging for their lives.

Good old Art Valentine took one between the eyes. Dame Dina a quadruple shot to her legs that blew them clean off.

Claire's cries rose above the ting of bullets ricocheted off the wrought iron fence. She had broken away from the sheep being cut down on the lawn target practice shooting range. She ran hells bells for the trees. Two soldiers in pursuit.

In his right ear. "What do you think, Christopher, shall I give chase or let the drones have all the fun?"

###

"Med Two to base, do you copy?"

"Copy Med Two, base is reading you loud and clear, over?"

"We are inbound. ETA, ten minutes. Three stable, one critical for transport, over."

"Copy Med Two. Three stable. One crit. for transfer. Med One is enroute. Will rendezvous on the ground."

"Copy base. Requesting air evacuation for crit. patient, over."

"Request acknowledged, Med Two. Bird is in the air."

"Copy base, Chambers over and out."

She leaned over to make out the words mumbled behind the oxygen mask. Something ill? Followed immediately by something air? Repeated over and over. She pried the sheet from his clenched fists, placed her hand in his, and squeezed. "Almost home, Chris. Hang, on."