RESIDENT EVIL

CHAPTER FIVE: Dining Hall

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil

To one who is striking at the root.

-Henry David Thoreau

The team moved quickly down the steps on their constant mission of getting away from those things. Lucky for them, the creatures behind them moved slowly and with very little grace.

“How much further?” Giselle asked. Her hand was still covering the wound on her neck. A clan chunk of her skin and muscle was stripped brutally by the creature’s dull teeth. And the wound itched like hell. Blood still seeped between her clenching fingers and down off her shoulders.

“We’re almost there.” Misty bellowed back.

You could tell she was the leader just by how she spoke to people. She had a type of control over people and a respect that people awarded to her as if she were some war hero. Then again, after this mess she will be, if she stays alive.

Misty was always a tough girl, but Ash never knew she was this tough. Being only a year older than he, Misty was the commander of a special task force team for the Pokemon League. She was the person who kept this underworld in check. Though somehow she obviously failed and this was the effect. The two civilians could see that this would affect many innocent people. And all for money. Look what greed can lead to.

Ash was well-built for a nineteen year old. He was an excellent runner; climber, hiker, and he knew how to take care of himself. But for Giselle, this was all too much. The constant running, screaming, and avoiding near death experiences was way too much. In time her body would just shut down. And then what would become of her? Misty didn’t seem to care.

“The door is right here.” Ritchie stopped at the bottom level and leaned up against a wall just a foot from the door. Misty did like wise and Brock kicked the door open while the two immediately swung in and scanned the room with their guns ready to fire.

“Clear!” Misty announced.

The room ahead was pitch-black. The air reeked of obvious death and decay. There was a casual drip drop effect that seemed to echo oh too easily. From the vast sound of such small occurrences the room must have been vast in size...and empty.

“Oh God. What’s that smell?” Giselle instantly covered her mouth with her sweater’s sleeve and coughed into it. “It’s horrible.”

“I know what you mean.” Misty replied in a disgusted and sick tone as if she were about to vomit any minute.

“What is it?”

“God only knows.”

“The computer says this is the dining room.” Brock said examining the mini computer attached to his left arm. The screen was small and showed Umbrella’s ingenuity. In comparison, the screen would be that of a small cellular phone.

“The smell couldn’t be from food. The incident occurred a few hours ago.”

Ash turned to Richie and glared at him. No one should be giving Giselle ideas on what could be in such a dank and dark room.

“How do we turn on the light?”

“Flip of the switch.” Brock told Misty with an uncertain glimmer in his eyes.

Misty caught this so called glimmer and acknowledged his suspicions with a glare toward Ash and Giselle.

Ash was the last person Giselle saw before her sweater’s hood was pulled down over her face and pulled tight so she couldn’t see anything at all. Her only defense was to scream, but thankfully the high pitched drivel was muted by the cotton.

“Misty! What are you doing?” Ash beckoned while trying to free Giselle.

“Leave her. Do you want her to see whatever is in that room?”

Ash immediately shook his head. He had no idea what was in that room ahead and neither did Misty. But she was right in covering Giselle’s eyes from seeing such a gruesome scene. If there was one.

“Don’t worry Giselle. We’ll let you out when we get through this room. Until then, move where Ash directs you and don’t make a noise. I don’t care if you hear the most gruesome sounds imaginable. If you scream,” Misty cocked her Walther P99, “you die.”

“Misty!” Ash bellowed again.

“I’m sorry. That’s just the way it is.”

The other three were already waiting up by the doorway, with their MP5s locked and loaded. It was then that Misty turned away from Ash and pulled her hair up in a tight bun when he noticed the white and red logo on the top center of her uniform. It was the Umbrella Corporation’s logo. This made him start to think, but nothing kicked in.

“Commander?” Tracey prodded with a noticeable fear.

It was then that Misty rose up her two pistols did she nod her head.

Brock immediately pivoted around the corner and into the room to where he flipped a switch only four feet from the door. He remained trapped in the darkness for several seconds. He suddenly had the fear of a power outage, but then why was there power everywhere else.

And God said ‘let there be light.’

The team gasped and nearly collapsed to the floor. The sight was absolutely barbaric. All the smells were now images that would forever be locked in their minds.

Misty fell hard to the floor and gagged with such force that she vomited on the reddened stained white tile floor.

Tracey’s reaction wasn’t far from Misty’s. Though he didn’t vomit, but he held it down as hard as he could. He even stumbled a great distance and happened to reach the dining portion of the zone where he stumbled over a chair and collapsed onto the twenty one foot long wooden table. And he witnessed the worst sight. As he lay on the table he felt a drop of liquid drip onto his left cheek. Another one he felt. Yet another after that. Now he even heard the sound and traced it to the source. It was absolutely God-awful: a large wooden bowl, perhaps for salads, was overflowing with thick blood. But where did the blood come from?

“Oh my God!”

“What?” Richie asked through a harsh gag. It was then that he set his eyes upon the image as well. “Commander!”

“What?” vomit was still dripping from her now blue lips that trembled like a rattling drum. Her face was pale, like flour had been dumped onto her head.

The three looked up at the sixteen foot ceiling and all gasped. It was nothing easy to witness or to stare at, but they had to stare on in disbelief.

Blood was dripping from the ceiling at a great pace. The ceiling looked to be a cold colored white but was now red with blood that seeped through from the above level. It followed along the ceiling in no in particular pattern, but it did drip from every place possible. That was what the dripping noise was, and that was why it was so loud.

“What is it?” Ash yelled in to the room. He had not yet entered at the risk of seeing the gruesome scene. He was even looking away with Giselle’s head pressed against his shoulder.

“What’s above us?” Misty asked Brock while still looking up at the ceiling. Blood was now dripping onto her face and running down to her shoulders and uniform.

“I don’t know. There’s some code locking me out of the data. Something’s hacking me.”

Misty looked over to Brock’s arm attached computer and witnessed for herself the high definition screen being morphed into a wave of disarray. Each shade of color changed into a fading pixel. And a bar suddenly appeared on the screen with the text ‘DATA TERMINATION 0%’, and it continued to drop until it reached what the screen said, ‘DATA TERMINATION 100%’.

“The information is all gone!” Brock bellowed. Sweat drops dripped down his cheeks and poured from his temples. Without the computer, there was no map of the Hive.

Misty looked around in fear for any enemy, computer, device, or camera. The Red Queen!

Ash!

Without even a sudden thought of her actions Misty found herself charging toward Ash and Giselle. But she wasn’t under the impression that she had been followed by Richie. And she wasn’t under the impression that Ash had pulled Giselle further from the room and out of Misty’s reach. So she did what she only could do. She ran out of the room and stopped with her foot between the door-way.

“Ash! Get over here!” Misty yelled to Ash.

He turned and saw her standing so close to the room, as if something bad were to happen if she stood too far away from the dining hall.

“Now!” Richie ordered in a raspy tone that seemed to echo hundreds of times through the Hive’s main stairwell.

“Misty!”

She turned toward her partner, Brock Slate. He was dashing toward her as fast as he could. Something seemed to be wrong by his expression and his tone of voice, as if they were about to be-

“Look out!”

It was too late.