The Untold Story Pt. 6

Chapter Six: The Woman in the Well

He checked the map again. The path he was on wasn't marked. He was guessing he was about halfway between the mansion's back door and the security checkpoint at the rear gate. Or maybe he'd missed it, and was wandering around Raccoon Forest. As he stumbled deeper into the darkness, it was growing harder and harder to keep track of his progress.

Some outdoorsman you turned out to be. Why don't you navigate by the stars? Check a tree for fungus?

He sighed and itched at his beard, balling a fist around the paper in his hand. He'd made it out of the mansion, but nothing seemed to have improved. At first, he thought he'd been lucky to keep hold of the emblem needed to unlock the back door. Wesker had the second pair and it looked like they were home free.

Except that the Captain had other plans, other places he needed to investigate. And other puzzle pieces he needed to find to do it.

He'd sent Barry to search the checkpoint a way off from the mansion, while he roamed the grounds. According to him, the items he needed could have been anywhere, squirreled away by the research or security staff after the outbreak to protect the lab from intruders. If only they'd done the rest of their job so effectively.

He'd had misgivings about the plan from the start. Now he was wishing he'd grabbed the rope and gone back for Jill.

No. She's safer where she is. Just wish I could say the same.

The moonlight was falling through the branches overhanging the path in sparse patches of silver. It turned the world pale, almost monochrome. He glanced up through a gap in the leaves and spied the moon hanging full in the colourless sky above. Somewhere, a dog howled.

He was getting that horror movie feeling again.

Something hissed in the darkness ahead, loud enough to be heard over the chorus of chirping crickets. His head snapped around, gun rising in his hands. A red eye winked back at him. Another hiss. He took a step back, hands clenching tighter on his revolver.

It winked again.

He edged forward, aiming his flashlight beam at the base of the tree where the light had appeared. There was something slumped amid the roots and fallen leaves. A body, wearing the shredded remains of a navy blue jacket. One of the company's security officers, maybe?

The corpse's legs had been stripped to bones. One of its arms was missing. Most of its face had been eaten away, tattered shreds of meat hanging around its exposed skull.

What had the researcher's letter said? Men with guns keeping them trapped inside? The others plotting to release the dogs?

"Bastards," he grunted, "not like it did them any good."

The radio strapped to the dead man's shoulder winked and burbled static. So that was all it was. He'd wound himself up tight for no reason.

Still, better wound up tight and alive than relaxed and dead.

Something broke through the crackle of interference, a smoother, less artificial noise. A voice.

He snatched for the radio. His hand closed around saliva-slick plastic, pocked with bitemark craters. The dogs had bitten the damn thing. Probably screwed up all the circuitry in the process. And he didn't think he had a hope in hell of getting a signal with it now.

Jill could make it work.

He sighed and put the thought out of his head. A twist of the dials didn't yield much of a result. Just a change in the pitch of the whining it was emitting. It occured to him that if he wasn't careful he'd summon the dogs, so he switched it off and slipped it into his pocket.

He was lucky it was still functioning at all, and he didn't want to run the battery flat before he could find a way to get it working again.

Through the tangle of nature ahead, he could see light, artificial and orange. And it looked like the path was heading that way anyway.

Was that the checkpoint? He'd been closer than he thought.

He followed the dirt track as it snaked over uneven ground, through overgrown shrubs and under dangling boughs. There was a familiar order to the way everything had been disturbed. This path had been the main thoroughfare through the tangle of trees, bushes and tall grass at the back of the mansion.

He wondered if maybe this had been a garden, before the place stopped being a summer home. If it had ever been a summer home.

He pulled back a curtain of leaves and got his first good look at the cabin. There was no sign of the perimeter fence Wesker had told him about. This couldn't be the checkpoint. And it looked too rustic to be used for security. It was a ramshackle little hut made of a hodge-podge of lumber in varying sizes, colourations and shapes. It looked more like the treehouse he'd built Polly in the back yard a few summers back. Real amateur work.

There was a porchlight fixed to the awning above the front steps. Cables coiled around a beam and then snaked off through the undergrowth. Connecting it to the mansion, he guessed.

A collection of overgrown pot plants littered the porch, spilling out into conflict with the wild shrubs besieging their perch. Cobwebs hugged to the wood. More light shone from within, through gaps between the boards and a single window on the front wall. A dirty curtain, anchored in place by a dozen different webs, obscured his view inside.

He pushed open the door, wincing as its hinges creaked. He swung Miranda in a slow arc, taking in the interior at a glance.

In here, the disuse was less obvious. Shelves laden with books that weren't covered in dust. Corners that were spider-free. Rugs that were worn but clean. This place felt like one of those old shops that sold knicknacks only because the owner wanted money to buy more crap.

He'd bought Sarah's wedding ring from a place like this. She'd found the little silver band sitting in a box behind a stack of first editions and dragged him away from the war biographies to buy it for her. It had cost them five dollars.

But he'd have paid a whole lot more, if she'd asked.

Sentimental old geezer, aren't you?

He walked out of the little entrance hall he was standing in and into what looked like a living room. He was surprised to find a red brick chimney breast protruding from the wooden wall. The rest of the cabin seemed to have been built around it.

Except it wasn't a chimney. It looked more like a well descending into the ground, complete with a winch.

There was a bucket sitting beside it. Full of bones.

"What the hell? What is this place?"

Stop talking to yourself.

A door on the left led through a curtain into what looked like a bedroom. He glimpsed a bed and desk. But he was preoccupied by the shelves lining the back wall. They were filled with books, year numbers stamped across their spines starting from 1975 and ending with last year.

He took 1975 off its shelf and flipped it open.

June 3rd.
0900 Fed the subject.
1230 Fed the subject.
1700 Fed the subject.
2200 Fed the subject.
No further observations.

And that was it. Page after page of "no further observations". Sometimes a "subject seemed agitated" or a "subject acted aggressively". But days, weeks, months went by and nothing the "subject" did seemed worthy of comment.

He put the book back. A chill hit him hard in the spine. What the hell was he reading?

He picked up 1997, dreading what he'd find between the crumpled covers.

Jan. 24th.
Lisa woke me in the night. I think she must have been dreaming again. She'd calmed down by breakfast. The usual today. Mostly just scraps from the kennels. I'm still petitioning Fae for a more palatable diet for her, but without much luck.

I threw in some potatoes from last night's dinner and she gobbled them up. It doesn't seem right to feed someone who can and will eat vegetables solely on raw meat.

We finished "Pinnochio" last night, so I decided to start on "Alice in Wonderland" again today. She always seems to enjoy it, even if she's heard it a hundred times over the years. I'm glad, to be honest. It was Cathy's favourite too. I wonder where little sister is now. I wonder what she'd think of Lisa.

She's been getting a lot of use out of those crayons I gave her. This morning she sent up an outline of her hand in the bucket. It was extraordinary. But her fingers. They're misshapen. Maybe even broken.

I'd like to ask the staff medic to take a look at her, but I already know what they'll say. They just want her contained. They think she's a monster, some byproduct of the company's sordid past that they can't seem to get rid of.

But she's smarter than they think. After everything she's been through, I think she understands. I think she could crawl up this shaft in a second if she wanted.

I hope I can make life down there tolerable for her, at very least. Then maybe it'll never come to that.

Same handwriting. Different sentiment. Like reverse Stockholm Syndrome, the jailor developing feelings for his prisoner. The way he wrote about her, it was like she was his daughter. Or his kid sister. Maybe years in this cabin, doing this job, had driven him to adopt her in his head.

That still left the question: what was Lisa?

Barry shot a wary glance at the hole.

And was "she" still down there?

Either way, the books weren't useful. They were just more evidence that needed to be destroyed. Wesker had sounded pretty certain that if they could reach the laboratory under the mansion, they'd be able to activate the failsafe and, in his words, "eliminate all potential threats to security" in one blow.

That sounded good to him. The sooner they wiped this place off the map, turned it into nothing but history and bad memories, the better. For him, his friends and his family. And probably for everyone else too.

He stepped into the bedroom, sweeping aside the curtain. The wall above the desk was plastered with crayon drawings.

Most of them were just arrays of smudges. Some looked like the stick figure drawings his own kids had produced before they'd been old enough for school. The kind you had to be real careful about identifying, in case you got it wrong and they got upset. One depicted a smiling stick at the top of a ledge, and another smiling stick in a dress at the bottom.

The handprint he'd read about was there. So was the word "Lisa" scribbled over and over on various sheets.

The desk itself had a journal, labelled 1998, and a stash of pens. There was a cluster of rocks too - smooth pebbles, shiny pebbles, pebbles with weird colours.

Gifts from Lisa?

And the bed. Someone was lying on the bed. The sheet was stained with dry blood. He held Miranda to the sleeper's head and took the corner of the cover. Then, he pulled it back.

A mangled head lay on the pillow, its face beaten to an unrecognisable pulp. He staggered away, slamming back into the desk, as a waft of rot hit him full in the nose. Pebbles dropped like heavy rain onto the floor. He'd gotten so used to the clean air outside the mansion that he'd almost forgotten how strong that stench could be.

Maybe Lisa hadn't been as friendly as the guy had made out. Except...

Except that the body was bitten. Right on the shoulder.

Just like Forest. Infected by the virus. Already dead.

Was this a mercy killing he was looking at?

And the sheet? Preserving his dignity? The act of someone who'd cared for him or...?

He heard a noise outside the shack. A thump, followed by a scrape as something was dragged through the dirt. Chain links rattling. A deep, ragged groan. Sounded like a woman, too pained and emotional to be a zombie.

He waited, listening. It was a way off, somewhere amid the trees outside. What was it doing out there?

And then a scream. A girl's scream. Too high to be Jill. Too scared to be the creature named Lisa.

There was someone else out there with it.

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Barry leapt from the porch and crashed into the treeline. A low branch stung him on the cheek. Another swiped at his knees. He kept his grip tight on Miranda and swung his flashlight across the undergrowth crowding around him.

"Anyone out here?" he yelled, "hey, can anyone hear me?"

Something moved to his right. He spun, moving his light and his revolver as one.

A face flew at him out of the darkness. A dozen faces, all attached to the same head.

He cried out. Two fists slammed into his stomach, driving the wind out of him and throwing him to the ground. His flashlight beam whipped about, throwing crazy shadows across the forest. Then it centred on the thing standing over him.

Its back was hunched and bloated with what looked like tumours. The tattered remains of a filthy dress that might have been white once hung loose on its near-skeletal frame. Its wrists and ankles were swollen with sores from heavy, rust-clad shackles. And its head was bowed beneath a mask of what looked like human faces, rubbery, colourless skin pulled taut and grotesque around its skull. A red eye shone in the hollow of a screaming mouth.

"Oh, Jesus!"

It screamed. The noise was like metal on metal, sharp and strident. It made his ears ache.

The creature lifted its hands to its face, like it was trying to block out the light. Or maybe it was rearing back to smash him to pieces, just like the man in the cabin.

A Beretta fired somewhere in the darkness. Three shots. One burst on the monster's back in a spray of blood. It shrieked and wheeled around, like it had forgotten about him.

He didn't stop to think. He whipped Miranda up and pulled the trigger.

The .44 slug punched it between the shoulder blades and threw it down into the dirt. It didn't try to get up.

He scrambled to his feet, keeping the pistol trained on it.

"H-hello?" someone said, "a-are you okay?"

He stepped toward the voice, but didn't turn away from the prone body. Just in case. "Yeah, over here."

There was a rustle and then a figure pushed its way out of the trees. A girl - didn't seem right to call her a woman - with short hair and wearing the fatigues of a STARS officer. The white jacket meant she was the medic.

The expert Wesker sent for? She's just a kid. What the hell were they thinking?

"Rebecca Chambers, STARS Bravo Team," she said, with an enthusiastic salute, before glancing down at the creature, "i-is it...?"

"You should reload," he told her. She looked up at him, eyes wide, like he'd caught her shoplifting. "Your gun. Reload it whenever you get a chance. Don't walk around with a clip half-empty, or you might run out of bullets when you need it."

She nodded, first slow, then emphatic. She slipped the magazine from her Beretta and thumbed a couple of new bullets into the top. She was so clumsy that he was surprised when she didn't drop any. At least she knew how.

"Okay. Now keep your gun trained on her while I reload. I don't wanna take any chances."

She did as he asked. So even if she didn't have experience on her side, she followed orders and learned quick. That was good.

He'd never worked with a kid this young before. Maybe a few wet behind the ears recruits fresh out of the academy, but even the youngest had been older than this girl.

First things first. Get to someplace safe. Then find out what she's doing out here.

"Okay, Rebecca. My name's Barry Burton, Alpha Team. I need you to come with me back to the mansion and..."

"What?! No! I need to find Chris! I need to tell him about Richard."

"Hey, slow down there. We can figure this out when we're not out in the open like this, deal?"

She didn't answer. Not at first. She was too busy looking at the monster at her feet. "It's moving."

It was. Groaning as it pushed itself up.

That thing took a .44 centre mass. It shouldn't have anything to groan with.

He grabbed the girl by the forearm. "Come on."

She followed without protest, letting herself be dragged back in the direction of the house. Or what he hoped was the direction of the house. Behind them, the creature was getting to its feet, grunting and breathing heavy like a wounded animal.

They needed to get out of there. Now. He'd seen that thing move and it wasn't any zombie. It'd catch up to them in a heartbeat if they let it.

He pushed aside branches and trampled shrubs. Rebecca trailed in his wake, doing her best to keep up.

He glimpsed a light through the trees. A string of lights, each a white beacon beckoning them through the wilderness. He put his head down and kept running.

They burst out of the forest onto the path he'd followed from the mansion. It wound away into the trees in both directions. He recognised the string of lights from the beginning of the trail. And, now they were out from under the canopy, he could see the building a few hundred metres away.

"Let's go," he said, releasing her arm and letting her go ahead.

Their order reversed, they hurried along the track and ducked into the storeroom at the mansion's rear.

Barry collapsed against the door, breathing hard. That was the second time he'd run like that tonight. It was playing havoc on the old ticker beating out a triple-time rhythm behind his ribs.

Rebecca sat down on a crate and adjusted the headband keeping her hair in place. Her arms were red with welts where they'd been stung by branches during the run through the woods.

"You okay?" he asked her.

"Yes, sir," she said, "are you alright?"

"Yeah, fine." He tapped his chest. "Just not as young as I used to be. You've got all that to look forward to."

"I hope so."

He couldn't help smiling at that. But then reality crashed down around him.

"You said something about finding Chris," he said, "you mean Chris Redfield, right?"

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