Mournful Pursuit / The Lost Veronica

After dealing with the Plant 43 and saying goodbye to a friend, Claire finally makes it to the lab holding the DEVIL. Yet, a never-resting evil keeps pursuing them...

Chapter 10 - Mournful Pursuit

Claire chopped off the vines covering the gate and opened it with the senior staff clearance.

Behind the gate was the bioreactor chamber. It is a large area separated into two levels, while the upper level served as a bridge connecting the the greenhouse and the Level 4 testing lab, and the lower one stored numerous tanks of biofuels, a by-product of the Plant 43 research.

Claire rushed through the bridge and went inside the lab. The lights in the room were still on, but no one was in here, not even a vampire. It seemed like not many people bothered to read that e-mail when everything went wrong, huh.

Although, she did find a high-voltage stun gun, the Spark Shot, in one of the lockers. It belonged to one of the members of the animal testing team.

Through the glass she saw one already synthesized DEVIL in the storage tank at the end of the room, but she couldn’t open it, even with her level 3 clearance. The antiviral agent Sherry needed was right in front of her, within her grasp, yet she couldn’t get it.

“Damn it!” She punched on the shell and lowered her head with frustration.

It was at this moment that she saw the icon on the panel below. It was an incomplete pattern of a double-headed serpent, with a round keyhole in the middle and a triangle in the background. By the three edges of the triangle carved words, “reincarnation”, “creation”, and “metamorphosis”, which were exactly the ideal William Birkin had bestowed on his life’s work.

“Wait...that pattern...” Claire frowned for a moment and picked up Sherry’s pendant from her pocket, recognizing the same pattern on it, “Oh...look at that...Alright.”

She put the pendant into the keyhole and switched it, completing the patterned. Within seconds the tank before her opened.

“Hell yeah!” Claire almost jumped with joy once she held the intact dose of DEVIL in her hand, “The antiviral agent...Got it!”

According to the instructions inside the tank, the DEVIL and the G-Virus sample were supposed to be stored in the area, but she didn’t see the latter in here.

She remembered Annette mentioned that the G-Virus sample was in the West Area. Did someone move them before this? Well, that didn’t really matter now.

“Gotta get back to Sherry...” Claire carefully put the DEVIL in her pocket and doubled back.

The moment she crossed the bridge, the ceiling of the bioreactor chamber broke and G2 dropped behind her. It had several new wounds all over its body, but its form was basically the same as when she encountered it beneath the orphanage.

“Your ass again!?” Angry with its untimely intrusion, Claire pointed her larger caliber pistol at it.

“William!” Annette appeared from behind with blood on her coat and wounds on her stomach, stumbled to her side and aimed at the abomination with a grenade pistol, “This ends NOW!”

A concentrated acid round was fired at the human head on G2’s chest and its skin quickly melted. It cried painful screams and slowly lay to the ground. Seconds later, it was completely silent. Claire and Annette cautiously walked towards it to check if it was truly dead.

“What the hell is this thing!?” After having a closer look, Claire was shocked by its malformation.

“That was my husband.” Annette felt relieved at last, “When he was mortally wounded by those bastards, he injected himself with the G-Virus and took ****. When he was walking away, I picked up the gun on the floor. I should’ve killed him while I had the chance...I don’t know why...I just...couldn’t do it.”

“He was your husband.” Claire sighed.

“Honestly...we were more married to out work than each other.” Annette said calmly. She didn’t feel much hurt. Her husband has already died that night, and all she did now was to rest his soul.

“But what about Sherry - how could you just leave her all alone? And while Raccoon City burned to hell?” Claire condemned Annette’s incompetence with anger and sadness. If her mother was around, Sherry would’ve never suffered all the pain.

“I couldn’t let my daughter grow up in a world with the G-Virus in it.” Annette was still justifying herself.

“But that’s no excuse to-”

While the two were arguing, they didn’t notice that the giant eyes on G2’s shoulder has opened again. Suddenly, it grabbed Annette with its huge claw and squeezed her, breaking her ribs and causing her massive internal bleeding. Before they could do anything, she was thrown away and crashed heavily on the wall.

“Annette!” Claire anxiously ran towards her to check her wounds.

“I got this...” Annette struggled to reload her pistol with another round and got up.

G2 was quickly mutating. Its skin turned gray while it grew another huge claw on its left side. The human head on its chest has disappeared and the monster head became more sinister, with its eyes all turned red and a pair of fangs came down its jaw. It has become the third malformation of the G creature, aka G3.

“No...It was...” When Claire stared at G3’s eyes, she immediately felt the mind controlling power trying to pierce her brain.

Annette was right. It was cross-infected with the vampire virus, and this mutation made it obtain more power from it. Was it because Katherine bit it beneath the orphanage?

Annette shot another acid around at G3, but it was less useful. The gray skin covering G3’s body granted him a certain level of resistance to acid, preventing it from being taken down like the last time. It was a perfect organism, indeed.

She was going to try another around, but when she looked up at G3’s eyes, she was immediately taken by its power and slowly walked towards it. In her eyes, her husband was happily waving his one hand at her while the other holding her daughter's.

“No!” Claire urgently pushed her backwards while punching the button on the panel beside her.

“What...” After the connection being severed, Annette snapped out of the illusion and saw the bridge lowering down.

“I got this.” Claire handed the DEVIL to Annette before jumping down on the bridge, “You should take care of Sherry.”

“You don’t know what you’re up against.” Annette climbed up staring at the fearless girl with shock.

“I have a pretty damn good idea.” Claire checked the ammo in all her weapons.

“Whatever you do, don’t stop until it’s finished.” Annette yelled before leaving the room.

“Trust me.” Claire turned around to face the angry G3 on the lower level, “This ends now.”

“Class A breach detected. Lab quarantined until target is neutralized.” The female synthetic voice echoed in the room.

The fight between a creation challenging the realm of God and a girl with the lethal weapons of mankind soon turned the place upside down.

Flame rounds and acid rounds rained on G3 while it tried to throw the tanks full of biofuels at the girl. The eyes on its shoulder, its ankle and its back were destroyed by swarms of bullets, then regenerated, and then destroyed again.

G3 was larger, more fierce and powerful, but slower, and while Claire was somewhat immune to its mind control ability, it didn’t have the upper hand against her. The fight became a war of attrition as soon as Claire realized that.

Actually, the biofuels in the area could be craft into simple flame rounds. That gave her a huge advantage. G3 didn’t have much chance to attack as it was constantly being burnt and needed to regenerate.

And its regenerating ability had a limit, eventually. The numerous eyes on its chest started to pop as soon as it ran out of juice and fell down. Claire gasped heavily in the hot air while the quarantined was lifted.

“Just stay dead this time...alright?” She was exhausted, but there was more for her to do, “Gotta get back...”

She felt like she had enough of fights today and even walking a little faster made her out of breath. Luckily there wasn’t anymore vampire ambushing her on the way back.

When she went back into the security room, Annette was **** by the bed while Sherry was resting quietly. She rushed towards the bed to check if the duo was OK, when Sherry opened her clear and innocent blue eyes and smiled at her. The scars on her face has already healed.

“Hey!” Claire cried out of joy. Sherry was fine, that’s all that mattered.

“I knew you’d make it...” Sherry was still weak, but she would recover, “My mom...needs help...”

“Annette?” Claire carefully lay her hand on Annette’s shoulder, which immediately woke her up.

“Uh...” She was suffering from the internal bleeding, “Sh...Sherry...How are you?”

“OK...” Sherry replied with a somewhat sad face, “But you don’t look so good...”

Annette turned towards the monitor beside the bedroom, but the short distance of walk almost killed her.

“Mommy!?” Sherry sat up on the bed, worrying, while Claire quickly helped Annette up.

“Hey...look at the screen...” Annette climbed up on the desk with all her strength to read the diagnosis and smiled, “Oh, thank god...”

“So, Sherry’s gonna be alright?” Claire asked.

“She’ll be weak for a little while but...Yes, she’s free of the G-Virus...” Annette nodded, but the other readings on the screen weren’t very good.

She looked at Sherry and Claire with a bleak smile before turning off the monitor and collapsing on the ground painfully. She was hiding something about Sherry’s condition, and she meant to take it to her grave.

“What happened to her?” Sherry got off the bed and knelt down beside her mother.

“She was attacked by that monster...” Claire didn’t know what to say.

“Don’t...Don’t worry about me...Take my daughter...to safety...” Annette interrupted them by handing the administrator clearance chip to Claire with her shaking hand. She caressed her daughter’s face one last time with remorse, “I’m sorry, Sherry...for everything...Your life is what is important now-”

“We can’t just leave her here!” Sherry was scared as she realized her mother could barely breathe. The only one she could turn to was Claire.

“You’re right. We can’t-” Claire knew what was coming, but she still tried to hold Annette up.

“Attention: Unauthorized removal of a Level 4 virus detected.” The female synthetic voice was like a **** bell now, “Facility lockdown initiated. Self-destruct sequence will begin when lockdown is complete.”

“What does that mean!?”

“It’s the...self-destruct code...In case the G-Virus leaves the building...” Annette’s voice was faint, but in her last moments she only thought of Sherry’s safety, “Please...Save my daughter...”

“No!” Sherry burst into tears as Annette drew her last breath and fell completely ****. She leaned on her mother’s chest and felt her heartbeats gradually slowing down.

“Sherry...Sherry...we gotta say goodbye to your mom. Come on. Please say goodbye.” Claire comforted Sherry with a crying tone. She knew it was cruel for the little girl, but they didn’t have much time. The structure was already shaking from the self-destruct sequence.

“Please Sherry, listen...She loved you, OK?” She gently held Sherry’s shoulder, “We really gotta get going...Come on.”

With her teary eyes, Sherry kissed her mother’s cheek for one last time before getting up and holding Claire.

“You were right about this jacket.” She looked up at Claire’s face, “I’m so lucky to have you.”

“Listen, we can talk more about that later.” Claire looked around and realized that the shaking was becoming stronger, “We gotta hurry now. Come on.”

Although she really didn’t want to rush Sherry, but time wasn’t on their side right now. Under the lockdown, their only way out was the central elevator in the Main Shaft. And with the level 4 clearance, they could actually use it.

“Um...Claire?” Sherry was quite nervous when she saw the reactor burning like hell.

“Yeah?” Claire was not much better, to be honest.

“Thank you for being so nice to me...For helping me...” Sherry smiled at her, “I’m really glad I met you.”

“I’m really glad I met you too, Sherry.” She returned the smile, “But save your thanks until I get you out of this place.”

Once the elevator took them to the B3 level, the duo rushed across the central monitor room, the steam pump room and the duct area without engaging in much fight. Sherry was even brave enough to climb through a small vent alone to open a locked door for Claire. “I’m good at climbing through vents,” she said confidently. Given how they met, Claire would totally agree.

They eventually reached the turntable area, where a cargo train for emergencies, Galaxie 5000, was present. Claire and Sherry went up the train and found a pair of joint plugs inside.

“Sherry, I need you to stay right here, OK?” Claire picked up the joint plugs and headed to the control room outside, “I’m gonna get this train moving.”

“OK. I promise I won’t move.” Sherry nodded, “Be careful!”

“Always.”

After placing the joint plugs onto the control panel, the cargo train was power up and the platform was ready to move down towards the B4 level where the runway was available.

To her surprise, she found a minigun with a full cartridge of 7.62mm NATO rounds in the room. She joyfully grabbed it and felt its weight with her arms, and it actually was quite handy. She didn’t even dream of having such a weapon in her hands. Chris always said it was too dangerous to be played with...

“Claire!” Just when she was about to start the sequence, a familiar male voice came through the monitor.

“Leon?” She stared at the monitor and saw the face of a wounded Leon, “Are you alright? Where are you?”

“I’m in the monitor room!” Leon was very worried about the situation, “The whole place is coming down. You need to get out! Fast!”

“I know. I found a way out. I think...I think we can all make it. ”

“Claire, are you still there? Don’t worry about me, just-”

“Leon? I’m sorry you’re breaking up! Leon!” Claire yelled at the monitor but the signal was already lost, “Damn!”

She started the descend sequence and walked out the room. The platform was slowly lowering down towards the bottom. Just when she was about to get back inside the cargo train, a monstrous shout from above startled her.

A further mutated G creature dropped onto the cargo train. Its body size was twice larger than before, so its head was quite unspectacular among its sharp fangs and red eyes all over its body.

The much larger size made it regularly more slower, however, it could use all its four limbs to charge at Claire with a high speed. There was no doubt that the G creature has reached its fourth malformation.

Although she dodged G4’s charge by chance, but the situation was just going to get worse in such a small area, with no other resources that could be used. She had **** but to fight it head on.

“Why can’t you just die!?” Claire pulled the trigger and overwhelm the monster with minigun bullets. And when the bullets ran out, she used the Spark Shot to give G4 powerful shocks.

What made Claire terrified was that G4 could climbed on the walls and made a lethal leap attack. The cargo train was quite helpful for her to dodge the attack, however, every time G4 crashed on top of the train she could hear Sherry screaming inside.

“Don’t you fucking dare...” Claire used up all her ammo and put the monster down once again.

The platform finally reached the B4 level and the train was landed on the runway. The cars behind has docked and they were ready to go. Claire was going to wait for Leon for a while, but the facility was already exploding. It was now or never.

Claire pulled lever with all her strength. In the sound of the whistle, the train slowly started and accelerated, racing towards the emergency exit.

The nightmare was over, finally.

Claire breathed a sigh of relief and went back to the car where Sherry was on. She was sitting at the corner, thinking something, but as soon as she saw Claire she was happy.

“So what’s the first thing you wanna do when we get outta here?” Claire knelt down beside her with a smile.

“I want to see where you live.” Sherry paused for a moment before she answered.

“Good, cause I...need to take a shower.” Claire held both of her hands to help her up.

“Yeah...” Sherry smirked.

“Really? That bad...oh, yeah...” Claire got a smell of herself and had a better idea now.

The door from the back of the car suddenly opened.

“Claire!” Leon walked in and was happy to see both of them alive.

“Leon!” Claire was surprised and joyful, “It’s so good to see you.”

“I told you we’d make it, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

The Darkside Chapter - The Lost Veronica

Annette was lying on the floor in the security room. Her vision darkened and she gradually felt numb.

In her final moments, she hoped Sherry could make it out alive.

But something weird happened. She felt like something had stabbed on her stomach. It was extremely painful at first and she didn’t even have the strength to scream, but it slowly turned into a flood of warmth that ran all over her body.

In mere seconds she felt her strength coming back. She opened her eyes and saw a man in a black cloak sitting next to her, licking the fresh blood on his hand. She couldn’t see the man’s face, not like it was too dark in the room, but there was a cloud of dark mist surrounding his face, preventing her from seeing clearly.

“What...” Annette was terrified at the man. She has never seen such things. She looked down with horror when she saw herself completely naked and a wound on her stomach was slowly healing.

“Haha. Don’t worry. I put some of my saliva in your body to stop the internal bleeding.” The Dark Man laughed at her, showing a pair of bloody fangs in his mouth. His voice was sexy, melodious, enthralling...

“By the way, your blood is so sweet, Mrs. Birkin.”

“Who the hell-”

“Shh...” The Dark Man put a finger on her lips and gazed into her eyes, “You shouldn’t talk that much. I don’t want you to die before I finish.”

Annette tried her best to open her mouth, but even she did she couldn’t pronounce a single word. All she could do was to watch the Dark Man took off his cloak and revealed his perfect, pale body.

“You see, Mrs. Birkin, among all the men or women who wants to play god, William has most of my appreciation. He’s young and ambitious, and the G-Virus, or the God Virus as he called it himself, is a masterpiece.” The Dark Man slowly stood up and reached out his hand to her, “So, defiling you will be most delicious.”

Annette couldn’t control herself but grab his hand and kneel before him, swallowing his big, cold dick. She was very afraid of what’s happening to her and what would happen to her, but there was nothing she could do. A drop of tear slid from the corner of her eye, yet she kept licking the Dark Man’s penis with a smile on her face.

“That’s it...” The Dark Man moaned between his words, “I see that you’re still vigorous in every way, Mrs. Birkin.”

Annette raised her hand to caress his breast. He held her hand with one hand, and grabbed the back of her head with the other, making his erected penis dive deeper in her throat.

She felt like she was suffocating but she didn’t feel any pain but only pleasure. Just when she thought she was about to pass out, she was released.

The Dark Man simply pointed a finger at the floor and her body reacted. She slowly lay down on the floor and spread her legs wide. He gently knelt down and slid his manhood into her vagina.

Annette moaned with pleasure. She hasn’t felt this kind of intoxicating sensation since William became more obsessed with the G-Virus.

The Dark Man thrust her hard while grabbing both of her breasts. She was overwhelmed by the sense of pleasure and embarrassment. She blushed to admit that she actually enjoyed this, which her husband couldn’t give her.

She put a finger in her mouth and suckled it. She was reaching her climax when the Dark Man was thrusting more voraciously. She sat up and rode on him in a lotus position, while hugging him passionately.

“You have impressed me, Mrs. Birkin.” The Dark Man whispered in her ear, “And I have other plans for you.”

No...Annette was terrified in her mind, but she smiled and replied, “Yes...”

A pair of sharp fangs stabbed in the artery in her neck. Instantly she couldn’t scream or breathe. But the pain withered swiftly. She felt a more stimulating orgasm and came. There was nothing in the world that could bring her more pleasure than being bitten by a vampire, by him.

She just calmly rode on him, listening to the swallowing sound in his throat as he fed on her. He was still holding her body and thrusting her juicy vagina, taking everything she could offer. The moment he unloaded a batch of undead semen in her womb, he pulled his fangs out of her neck and growled with joy.

Blood was still dripping out of the wounds on her neck when she slowly collapsed on the floor. Life was flowing away from her again, but to her surprise, she actually desired to be taken one more time.

“Delicious, as I said...” The Dark Man wiped the blood around his mouth with his finger, licked it clean and smiled. He pulled his penis out of the scientist and stood up, looking down at his most precious artwork today, “Beautiful. Elegant. Fragile...”

Annette didn’t feel the fever. But the reports on the ν strain victims...Putting those together, she finally realized that the man before her was not a ν strain vampire turned by the Umbrella engineered virus, but a true vampire like that bitch in red.

“Now, I humbly invite you to participate in my experiment, Dr. Birkin.” The Dark Man dressed in his black cloak in an inhuman speed, and grabbed a syringe filled with orange liquid under it, “An acquaintance of mine has been infected with this virus by his defective son. He became a mindless monster and was chained underground by his own offspring. They called him ‘Nosferatu’...What a wonderful name. I always like the names you humans make up.”

Nosferatu...The moment Annette heard the name she remembered some rumors about a virus project in the Umbrella Antarctic branch.

What was the name of that virus again...That, she couldn’t remember.

“So, I stole a sample of that virus and combined it with my blood.” The Dark Man shook the little syringe in his hand and giggled, “I really want to see what this can do. Well, congratulations, Dr. Birkin. You, are the precious test subject.”

Annette was terrified but she couldn’t even move when the Dark Man injected the vampire blood contaminated virus in her vein. Immediately she felt like her whole body was being burnt from the inside. Soon pain was all she could feel, but she couldn’t scream.

“Now, rise, Mrs. Birkin. Go get your prize.” The Dark Man disappeared in a blink, yet his voice was still echoing in the room, “Your daughter wants to see you again! Indulge her, will you?”

Under the Dark Man’s mind control power and the influence of his vampire blood, she joyfully smiled as her ribs and limbs started to twitch and crack.