Chapter 5

Taking a look at their new surrounding, Jill felt like she was a character in a nightmare that had taken a turn into grand fantasy. Wild, howling monsters, Joseph's death, a terrifying run through the dark woods, and now this.

'Deserted, huh?'

It was a palace, pure and simple, what her father would have called a perfect score. The room was the epitome of lavish. It was huge, easily bigger than Jill's entire house, tile in gray-flecked marble and dominated by a wide, carpeted staircase that led to a second-floor balcony.

Arched marble pillars lined the ornate hall, supporting the dark, dense wood balustrade of the upper floor. Fluted wall sconces cast funnels of light across walls of cream, trimmed in oak and offset by the deep burnt ocher of the carpeting.

In short, it was magnificent.

"What is this?" Barry muttered, and no one answered him.

Jill took a deep breath and decided that she didn't like it. There was a sense of faulty to the vast room, an atmosphere of vague oppression. It felt haunted somehow, though by who or what, she couldn't make it.

'Better than got eaten by mutant dogs, I guess,' Jill thought, 'poor Joseph, we haven't got a chance to mourn him.'

She walked toward the stairs, clutching the handgun, her footsteps muffled by the plush carpet that led from the front door. There was an antique typewriter on a small table to the right of the steps, a blank sheet of paper spooled into the works.

A peculiar bit of decency, the expansive hall was otherwise empty.

She faced the others, wondering what their idea on all of this. Barry and Chris looked uncertain; the flushed-sweaty faces glanced around the room.

Wesker crouched by the front door, examining one of the latches.

Then, he stood up, his dark shade still in place, seeming as detached as ever.

"The wood around the lock is splintered. Somebody broke this door open before we got here."

Chris looked hopeful, "Maybe the Bravos?"

Wesker nodded, "That's what I'm thinking. Help should be on the way, assuming our 'friend' Mr. Vickers bothers to call them."

His voice dripped sarcasm, and Jill felt her anger kindling. Brad had screwed up big time, almost cost them their lives. There was no excuse for his action.

Wesker continued, walking across the room toward one of the two doors on the west wall. He rattled the handle, but it didn't open.

"It's not safe to go outside. Until the cavalry shows up, we might as well take a look around. It's obvious that somebody's been keeping the place up, though why and for how long."

He trailed off, walking back toward the group.

"How's your ammo?"

Jill ejected the clip from her Beretta and counted; three rounds left, plus the two loaded magazines on her belt, that'll make thirty-three shots left. Chris had twenty-two, Wesker seventeen. Barry had two racked speed loaders for his Colt, plus an extra handful of loose cartridges tucked into a hip pouch, nineteen rounds in all.

Jill thought about all they had left back on the helicopter and felt another rush of anger toward Brad. Boxes of ammunition, flashlights, walkie-talkies, shotguns, and medical supplies. That Beretta that Joseph had found in the field, the place, blood-spattered fingers still wrapped around it; a S.T.A.R.S team member, dead or dying, and thanks to Brad, they didn't even have a band-aid to offer.

*Thud!*

A sound of something big, sliding to the floor at somewhere near. In unison, they turned toward the single door on the east wall. Jill suddenly as if recalled every horror movie she had ever watched; a strange house and noise, all of it made her shiver, Jill decided at this moment that she will kick Brad's sorry ass when they got out of here.

"Chris, check it out and report back ASAP," Wesker said, "We'll wait here for the help. You run into any trouble, fire your weapon, and we'll rush immediately."

Chris nodded and walked toward the door; his boots clacked loudly against the marble floor.

Jill felt a sense of foreboding wash over her.

"Chris?"

His hand readied on the knob, looks at her with inquiry eyes.

She realized there was nothing she could tell him that made any sense. Everything happened so fast; so much wrong with this situation that she didn't even know where to begin.

Besides, Chris was a skilled professional, and so was she.

'Come on, act like one already.'

"Take care," she said finally. It wasn't what she wanted to say, but it would have enough.

Chris gave her a lopsided grin, then raised his Beretta and stepped through the doorway.

Jill heard the ticking of a clock, right before Chris closed the door behind him.

Barry caught her gaze and smiled at her, a look that told her not to worry, but Jill couldn't shake the feeling of certainty.

That Chris wouldn't come back.

(***)

Chris swept the room, taking in the stately elegance of the environment as he realized he was alone; whoever had made the noise, they weren't here.

The solemn ticking of an antique clock filled the cold air, echoing on the shining black and white tiles.

He was in a dining hall, the kind he had only seen in movies about rich people. Like the front room, this one had an incredibly high ceiling and a second-floor balcony, but it also decorated with expensive-looking art and inset fireplace at the far end, complete with a coat of arms and crossed swords hung over the mantle.

There wasn't seem a way to climb into the second floor, but he saw a door on the right side of the fireplace.

Chris lowered his weapon and stepped for the door, still awed by the wealth of the "abandoned" mansion that S.T.A.R.S had stumbled. The dining room had polished red-wood trim and expensive-looking artwork on the beige stucco walls, surrounding a long wooden table that ran the length of the room. The table had to seat at least twenty, though it only set for a handful of people.

From the dust on the lacy placemats, nothing had been serving for weeks.

Except no one is supposed to have been here for thirty years, let alone hosted a formal dinner! Spencer had shut the mansion before anyone could live here.

Chris shook his head; obviously, someone had reopened the mansion a long time ago, so how was it that everyone in Raccoon City believed the Spencer Mansion to be boarded up, a crumbling ruin out int he woods? More importantly, why Umbrella lied to Irons about its condition?

Murders, disappearances, Umbrella, Jill.

It was frustrating; he felt like had some answers, but wasn't exactly sure about it.

Chris reached the door and turned the knob slowly, listening for any sound of movement on the other side. He couldn't hear anything over the ticking of the old clock; it set against the wall and each movement of the second hand reverberated hollowly, amplified by the cavernous room.

The door opened into one side of a narrow corridor, dimly lit by antique light fixtures. Chris checked both directions. To the right, maybe ten meters of hardwood hall, a couple of doors across from him and a door at the of the corridor. To the left, the hallway took a sharp turn away from where he stood, widening out. He saw the edge of a patterned brown run of the floor there.

He wrinkled his nose, frowning. There was a vague odor in the air, a faint scent of something unpleasant, also familiar. He stood in the doorway for another moment, trying to recall the smell.

It was summer, back when he still a toddler, the chain of his bike had come off, he ended up in a ditch about six inches away from a choice bit of roadkill and found dried-up, pulpy remains of what once might have been a woodchuck.

Time and the summer heat had dissipated most of the smell, though what had remained was grave enough. Much to the amusement of his friends, he had vomited his lunch all over the carcass, taken a deep breath, then puked again. He still remembered the sun-baked scent of drying rot, like thickly soured milk and bile; the same smell that lingered in the corridor now feels like a bad dream.

*Fummp*

A soft, shuffling noise from behind the first door to his right, like a padded fist sliding across a wall. There was someone on the other side.

Chris edged into the hallway and moved toward the door, careful not to turn his back to the unsecured area. As he got closer, the gentle sounds of movement stopped, and he could see that the door hadn't closed all the way.

'No time like the present.'

With an easy tap, the door swung inward, into a dim hall of green flecked wallpaper. A broad-shouldered man was standing twenty feet away, half-hidden in shadow, his back to Chris.

He turned around slowly, the careful shuffling of someone drunk or injured, and the smell that Chris noticed before came from this man's thick and noxious waves. His clothes were tattered and stained, the back of head patchy with sparse, scraggly hair.

'Maybe he was sick, or perhaps dying.'

Whatever wrong with him, Chris didn't like it; his instincts were screaming at him to do something. He stepped into the corridor and trained his Beretta on the man's torso.

"Hold it, don't move!'

The man completed his turn and lumbered at Chris, shambling toward the light. His-its- face was deathly pale, except for the blood around its rotting lips. Flaps of dried skin hung from its sunken cheeks, and the dark wells of the creature's eye sockets glittered with hunger as it reached out with skeletal hands.

Chris fired, three shots that smacked into the creature's upper chest in a fine spray of crimson. With a gasping moan, it crumpled to the floor, dead. He staggered back, his thoughts racing in time with his hammering heart. He hit the door with one shoulder, was vaguely aware that it latched closed behind him as he stared at the fallen, stinking heap.

'That thing's the walking-goddamn-dead!'

The cannibal attacks in Raccoon, all of them near the forest. He had seen enough late night movies to know what he was looking at, but he still couldn't believe it.

Zombies.

No, no way, that was fiction, maybe some kind of disease, mimicking the symptoms.

He had to tell the other.

Chris turned and grabbed at the handle, but the heavy door wouldn't move, it must have locked itself when he hit it before.

Behind him, a wet movement. Chris spun, eyes wide as the twitching creature clawed at the wooden floor, pulling itself toward him in eager, single-minded silence.

He realized the creature was drooling, and the sight of the sticky pink rivulets pooling to the wood floor finally spurred him to action. He fired again, two shots into the thing's decaying, upturned face. Dark holes opened up its knobby skull, sending tiny rivers of fluid and fleshy tissue through its lower jaw.

With a heavy sigh, the rotting thing settled to the floor in a spreading red lake. Chris didn't want to make any bets on it staying down. He gave one more futile yank on the door before stepped carefully past the body, moving down the corridor.

He rattled the handle of a door on his left, but it was locked. There was a tiny etching in the key place, what looked like a sword; he filed that bit of information into his confused, whirling thoughts and continued, gripping the Beretta tightly. There was an offshoot to his right with a single door, but he ignored it, wanting to find a way to circle back to the front hall.

The other must have heard the shots, but he had to assume more creatures were running around here like the one he had killed. The rest of the team might have their hands full.

There was a door at the end of the hall on the left, where the corridor turned. Chris hurried toward it, the putrid scent of the creature- the zombie, whatever they are, making him want to gag.

Chris drew close to the door, but he realized that the smell was getting worse, intensifying with each step.

He heard the soft, hungry moan as he touched the knob, even as it registered that he only had two bullets left in his clip. In the shadows to his right, there was a movement.

'Must reload and get somewhere safe.'

Chris jerked the door open and stepped into the arms of the shambling creature that waited on the others side, its peeling fingers grasping at him as it lunged for his throat.

(***)

Three shots. Seconds later, two more, the sounds distant but distinct in the palatial lobby.

"Chris!"

"Jill, why don't you-" Wesker said but Barry didn't let him finish.

"I'm going too," he said, proceeding for the door on the east wall.

"Chris wouldn't waste shots like that unless had to; he need help."

Wesker nodded, "Go, I'll wait here."

Barry opened the door, Jill followed, they walked into a huge dining room, not as wide as the front hall but at least as long. There was another door at the opposite end, past an antique clock that ticked loudly in the frigid, dusty air.

Barry jogged toward the door, revolver in hand, feeling tense and worried.

What a balls-up this operation was! S.T.A.R.S teams were often sent into risky situations with unusual circumstances but this was the first time since he had been a rookie that Barry felt like things had gone out of control; Joseph was dead, chickenhearted Vickers had left them to be eaten by dogs from hell, and now Chris was in trouble. Wesker shouldn't have sent him alone.

Jill reached the door first, touching the hande with slim fingers and looking at him. Barry nodded and she pushed it open, going in low and left. Barry took the other side, both of them sweeping an empty corridor.

"Chris?" Jill said quietly but got no response.

Barry scowled, sniffing the air, smells like rotting fruit.

"I'll check the doors," Barry said.

Jill nodded and edged to the left, alert and focused.

Barry moved toward the first door, feeling good that Jill was at his back. He had thought she was kind of bitchy when she first transferred, but she was proving to be a bright and capable soldier, a welcome addition to the Alphas.

Jill let out a high-pitched gasp of surprise and Barry spun, the scent of decay suddenly thick in the narrow hall.

She was backing away from an opening at the end of the corridor, her weapon trained on something Barry couldn't see.

"Stop!" Her voice was high and shaky, her expression horrified.

Then, she fired, once, twice, still backing toward Barry, her breathing fast and shallow.

"Get clear, left!" he raised the Colt as she moved out of the way, as a tall man stepped into view. The figure's arms were stretched out like a sleepwalker's, the hands frail and grasping.

Barry saw the creature's face, and he shot him without hesitation, the .357 round peeled the top of its ashen skull away in an explosive burst, blood coursing down its strange, terrible features and staining the cataracts of its pale, rolling eyes.

It pitched back, sprawling face-up at Jill's feet.

Barry hurried to her side, stunned.

"What-" he said before his eyes caught something on the carpet in front of them, laying in the small sitting area that marked the end of the corridor.

For a moment, Barry thought it was Chris, then he saw the S.T.A.R.S Bravo insignia on the vest, and felt a different kind of horror set in as he struggled to recognize the features. The Bravo had lost his head; it rested a foot away from the corpse, the face completely covered in gore.

Oh damn, it's Ken.

Kenneth Sullivan, one of the best field scouts Barry had ever known and a hell of a nice guy. There was a gaping, ragged wound in his chest, chunks of partly eaten tissue and gut strewn around the bloody hole. His left hand was missing, and there was no weapon nearby; it must have been his gun that Joseph had found out in the woods.

Barry looked away, sickened. Ken had been a quiet, decent sort, did a lot of work in chemistry. He would have a teenaged son who lived with his ex in California. Barry thought of his girls at home, Moira and Poly, and felt a surge of helpless fear for them. He wasn't afraid of death, but the thought of them growing up without a father.

Jill dropped into a crouch next to his ravaged body and rifled quickly through the belt pack. She shot an apologetic look at Barry, but he gave her a slight nod. They needed the ammo; Ken certainly didn't. She came up with two clips for a nine-millimeter and tucked them into her hip pocket. Barry turned and stared down Ken's killer in disgust and wonder.

No doubt he was looking at one of the cannibal killers that haunted Raccoon City. It had a crusty scum of red around its mouth and gore-encrusted nails, as well as a ragged shirt that was stiff with dried blood.

What was weird was how- dead it looked.

Barry had once done a covert hostage rescue in Ecuador, where a group of farmers had been held for weeks by a band of insane guerrilla rebels. Several of the hostages had been killed early in the siege, and after S.T.A.R.S managed to capture the rebels, Barry had gone with one of the survivors to record the deaths.

The four victims had been shot, their bodies dumped behind the small wooden shack that the rebels had taken over. After three weeks in the South America sun, the skin on their faces had shriveled, the cracking, lined flesh pulling away from the sinew and bone. He still remembered those faces clearly and saw them again now as he looked down at the fallen creature.

It wore the face of death.

Besides which, it smells like a slaughterhouse on a hot day. Somebody forgot to tell this guy that dead people don't walk around.

He could see the same sickened confusion on Jill's face, the same questions in her eyes, but for now, there weren't any answers; they had to find Chris and regroup.

Together, they moved back down the corridor, and checked all three doors, rattling handles and pushing at the heavy wooden frames. All securely locked, but Chris had to have gone through one of them, there's nowhere else he could have gone.

It didn't make sense, and short of breaking the doors down, there was nothing they could do about it.

"We should report back to Wesker," Jill said, and Barry nodded in agreement.

If they would go into the hiding place of the killers, they were going to need a plan of attack.

They ran back through the dining room, the stale air of relief after the corridor's reek of blood and decay.

Reaching for the door back to the main hall, they went passed through it as Barry wondered what the captain would make of all this. It was downright-

Barry stopped, searching the elegant, empty hall and feeling like the butt of some practical joke that simply wasn't funny.

Wesker was gone.