Al's Rabbit Hole
patreon
Tie the Noose Chapter 7
🕑 Added 2025-08-16 03:36:17 +0000 UTCSaturday started early, painfully so.
Daniel had been waking up before sunrise for months now, the routine long ingrained. But today was different. There was no morning jog, no lifting weights, no leisurely breakfast spent stalling his day. Today was different in every way that mattered. He’d slept badly, tossing and turning through broken dreams of rotting flesh and cold, vacant eyes staring back at him. Nightmares born from a mind that, until recently, had never seen true violence or death. Yet now, those horrors invaded his rest like uninvited guests.
He dragged himself from bed, showered quickly, dressed mechanically, and stood at the kitchen counter, forcing down cold leftovers without bothering to reheat them. He chased it with a cup of bitter coffee, barely tasting either. Each action was deliberate, almost robotic, the weight of what awaited him pressing heavily against his shoulders.
By the time he stepped into the hallway, bags slung over his shoulder, he felt as though he’d already fought a battle. He closed the apartment door behind him quietly, locking it with practiced ease. It was early enough that he hadn’t expected anyone else to be awake, but as he turned to leave, he heard the sound of another door opening, followed by a familiar, sleepy yawn.
“Danny?”
He turned slowly, finding Rebecca standing at her apartment door, dressed in her crisp STARS uniform. Her short hair was slightly mussed from sleep, and she stretched her arms overhead, yawning widely.
“You’re up early,” she said, clearly surprised to see him, though a gentle smile softened her expression.
Daniel offered her a smile in return, though it felt thin and forced, never quite reaching his eyes. “Morning, Becca.”
Rebecca studied him for a moment, the warmth in her eyes fading into a gentle concern. She took a step closer, looking up at him carefully. “Are you okay? You look exhausted.”
Daniel shifted his weight, feeling exposed under her scrutiny. He rubbed the back of his neck, glancing down briefly before meeting her eyes again. “Yeah, I just didn’t sleep well. I have to head back home for the weekend, and deal with some family stuff. Nothing urgent, just one of those things, you know?”
She hesitated, eyes narrowing slightly as she considered his words. Her gaze took in the bags under his eyes, the tension coiling visibly in his posture, the tightness around his mouth that betrayed more stress than he admitted. Finally, she spoke softly. “Family stuff, huh?”
He nodded slowly, sighing as he tried to reinforce the casual tone. “It’s tiresome, but these things happen.”
Rebecca’s eyes softened further, a gentle sympathy shining through. Without another word, she stepped forward impulsively, wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug. Daniel froze at first, caught off guard, then slowly relaxed into her embrace, returning it gently. Her warmth was comforting, grounding him briefly in something real, something human amidst all his uncertainties.
She spoke quietly into his chest, her voice firm but gentle. “Whatever it is, Danny, you’ve got this. And when you get back, if you want to talk about it, let’s go grab some coffee, okay?”
He looked down at her, touched deeply by the sincerity in her voice, feeling the weight on his shoulders ease just a fraction. “Yeah,” he murmured quietly. “That sounds good. When I get back.”
Rebecca pulled back slightly, giving him her most confident smile, eyes bright with conviction. “It’ll be okay, you’ll see.”
Daniel nodded, returning her smile as best he could. “Thanks, Becca.”
They parted ways at the door, stepping into the early morning together, quiet but comfortably so. Daniel watched briefly as Rebecca walked off toward the station, then headed directly to his battered vehicle. He drove swiftly but cautiously to his hideout, where he retrieved the carefully packed duffel bags stored there, loading them into the trunk methodically.
An hour later, Daniel sat behind the wheel, watching Raccoon City shrink in the rearview mirror. His thoughts circled back to the hallway, to Rebecca’s gentle reassurance and the comforting strength of her embrace. He let himself hold onto that moment briefly, allowing its warmth to steady him, before carefully shelving it away.
There would be time later, perhaps, to dwell on those emotions. Right now, there were other, far more pressing things awaiting him. The city faded gradually behind him, the road stretching forward, leading him to whatever darkness lay ahead.
The drive wasn't terribly long, but it twisted and turned through increasingly rural terrain, passing small clusters of houses that grew progressively fewer and more rundown as Daniel approached his destination. The town, once vibrant and thriving around a now-defunct steel mill, had decayed into a barely breathing husk, a stark portrait of abandonment and economic ruin. Hooverville stood as a haunting reminder of what Raccoon City might have become without the influence and investment of Umbrella; an unsettling thought that lingered heavily in Daniel's mind.
The town appeared utterly desolate as Daniel slowly navigated its empty streets, a landscape of abandonment stretching out in every direction. The roads were deeply cracked and riddled with potholes, weeds thrusting stubbornly through the broken asphalt, reclaiming territory inch by inch. Sidewalks buckled beneath layers of accumulated grime and debris, almost invisible in places beneath tangled brush and wild grasses. Power lines drooped dangerously low, held aloft by rotting wooden poles leaning at precarious angles, their wires snarled and broken. The streetlights, skeletal frames with shattered bulbs and rusted fixtures, loomed uselessly overhead.
Buildings stood like forgotten relics, their facades peeling away in brittle strips of faded paint, revealing rotted wood and crumbling brick beneath. Windows, those not already boarded up, were cracked or shattered, jagged glass clinging stubbornly to splintered frames. Storefronts, once bright and welcoming, were reduced to ghostly husks, their interiors visible through layers of dirt and dust-caked windows, filled only with broken shelving and the occasional overturned chair. Rusted signs swung lazily in the faint breeze, their messages long since faded into illegibility.
In this wasteland, Daniel's battered station wagon seemed entirely unremarkable, blending effortlessly into the overwhelming decay, attracting no more attention than the rusted hulks of abandoned cars that dotted the town’s shadowy corners.
Navigating slowly, Daniel soon located the old high school. The building loomed at the end of a cracked thoroughfare, its silhouette stark against the overcast sky. The school's name, once proudly emblazoned on a freestanding sign near the front lawn, was now barely discernible beneath layers of rust and flaking paint. Only a few warped letters clung to the corroded metal, like teeth in a broken jaw. The chain-link fencing that once circled the property lay collapsed in several places, its posts bent and its gate missing entirely.
The structure itself was a decaying monument to a time when Hooverville had hope. The brick walls, once red and clean, had faded into a sickly ochre streaked with mold and soot. Water damage marred large swaths of the structure, bleeding downward from the roof in black vertical stains. Vines climbed aggressively up one side of the building, weaving into shattered window panes and prying into the forgotten halls beyond. Some windows remained intact but were dulled by grime and time, while others were simply holes, jagged and yawning.
He sat for a minute, staring through the windshield. Somewhere inside those ruined halls was the hidden entrance to a Cold War-era fallout shelter, long since converted into something far more sinister. He didn’t try to find it now. That came later. For now, he just needed to know what surrounded it. From the outside, the high school was everything someone hiding from Umbrella would want. A ruin in a dead town that nobody would notice or care about.
He drove on, circling away and resuming his search for a place to stage the operation. Somewhere he could observe unseen, plan in silence, and watch for signs that the building wasn’t as abandoned as it looked.
A solution emerged half a neighborhood away in a row of derelict houses lining a narrow, overgrown street. Their windows and doors had been hastily boarded up, and roofs sagged under the weight of neglect. Among them was a two-story house with an attached garage missing its door entirely. Daniel turned into the driveway slowly, checking the surrounding area carefully. No movement, no watchers, only silence and decay.
He guided his car into the garage, shutting off the engine and sitting quietly for a moment, allowing the heavy stillness to settle around him. Satisfied no eyes followed, he stepped out, retrieving his gear swiftly and methodically from the trunk. He moved into the house cautiously, each step eliciting protesting creaks from aged wooden flooring. Dust and cobwebs hung heavily in the air, disturbed by his passage.
The interior of the house was gutted, no furniture, no appliances, not even curtains left behind. Bare walls were marked with faded outlines and rust-colored stains where picture frames or shelves had once hung. The carpet had long since been stripped out, leaving behind warped floorboards coated in dust. Daniel moved with slow, deliberate steps, his boots creaking against the wood as he ascended the staircase. The banister was splintered and the steps groaned under his weight, but the structure held.
Upstairs, he found a small room at the front corner of the house. The door hung loose on its hinges and the window glass was cracked, but the frame still held. From this vantage point, he could see the school clearly. The broken crown of its roof jutted above the tree line, and the building’s full front facade stretched into view. The elevation was high enough to give him sightlines over most of the perimeter.
He dropped his gear beside the window and crouched to test the angle. After adjusting slightly, he gave a quiet, satisfied nod. This would work. He drew out the binoculars, sweeping across the building’s face with patient, trained passes. Then came the Gridlink, now detached from its sleeve, flipped open with a heavy click. The screen flickered on, projecting his location on a static mini-map, the layout of the town spreading out like a spiderweb around him.
He didn’t expect much movement during the day, but this was when patterns revealed themselves. Missing boards, tracks in dirt, odd shifts in vegetation… any small sign that the school wasn’t quite as abandoned as it seemed. His fingers moved automatically now, tagging key features, entrances, corners with cover, and darkened glass that might hide cameras.
Night would be the time to move. That much he’d already decided. But every hour spent watching from here, documenting, double-checking, and planning, would narrow the risk to him. He watched the screen update in ghostly green lines, slowly drawing out a digital skeleton of the school’s shell, and exhaled through his nose.
Night came slowly.
It always did, on days like this, where anticipation ran a slow circuit through the body, pooling low in the gut and whispering at the back of the neck. Daniel had gone through the motions to stay busy. Laid out the gear, checked each magazine by hand, cinched the armor until it hugged just right. He even reran the checklist from memory twice, pacing softly on the upper floor of the abandoned house, as if movement could coax time forward.
But none of it helped. The day still dragged with the heavy crawl of dread. Not panic. Just a constant, unpleasant pressure, the kind that made you feel like you were waiting for a cancer diagnosis, or that a loved one died, because you knew something painful was coming and you weren’t prepared enough.
He didn’t want to think too hard about what might be under that school. Armed guards, maybe. That was honestly the best-case scenario. Men with rifles could be scared. They were human, well trained, but still men. They bled and ran and shouted when surprised. Predictable.
But that was the best case. The other option was far worse. Creatures that didn’t sleep, didn’t bargain, didn’t even recognize human fear for what it was. If this Hargreave bastard had gone rogue, and the Survivalist’s information sure made it sound like he had, then it was even worse. A guy too far gone for Umbrella was probably too far gone for humanity altogether. What he kept down there was anyone’s guess.
Daniel leaned against the window ledge and swept the darkened school again with the binoculars. Still no movement. No lights. No glint of hidden lenses in the glass. No signs of patrols on rotation. If there were cameras, they were well hidden, or more likely, inside the lab itself. Either way, it bought him some confidence, but not comfort.
The sun finally dipped below the tree line, dragging a band of fading orange behind it. The last warmth of the day slipped from the room. Shadows stretched across the floorboards, bleeding slowly into the long corners of the abandoned house like a slow spill of ink.
He sat down beside his pack and pulled out an MRE, hot and heavy in his hand. It tasted like cardboard and mush, but that was fine. It was packed with everything a body needed. He peeled it open and ate it as fast as his jaw allowed, the drink mix tangy and citrus sour to his taste buds, but the entree? It was hard to tell what it was, despite the words Chili Mac printed on the side. The flavor didn’t matter. Only the calories did. He washed it down with whatever was left in the water bottle. He was glad he'd thought to grab a few before he left earlier today, even if they'd gone lukewarm by now.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his glove, Daniel rose and stretched his shoulders. The ache was already setting in from sitting too long in partial gear. That was fine, though. The sun was low enough that he could wait out the last few slivers of light dressed for the dance.
The armor went on first, tight, secure, an old friend by now. The Phalanx vest locked over his torso in layers of carbon-titanium, weight settling deep into his back and shoulders like a closing promise. The bracers, knee and elbow guards all slid on securely. The Jericho sat high on his leg in the thigh holster, already loaded. The P90 slid across his chest on the sling, compact and balanced. Spare mags rode tight in the belt pouches, heavy with purpose.
He paused only once, pulling the old K-pot helmet from the duffel. It was standard issue in a hundred different militaries, dated, heavy, but trustworthy. The MCU-2P mask clipped onto his belt, unneeded just yet. He knew it would be vital later, once he got into the guts of the school. God only knew how much mold, crap and old asbestos was floating around in the air there.
He looked like someone out of a shooter, or a movie, and felt about as one too. But that was the deal. There wasn't any stopping now, not after the last several months, the hours and tens of thousands of rounds at the range, the physical conditioning, the study, the research, the casing and tracking and everything else. He had committed so much to be right where he was, and he wasn't going to trip right in front of the first hurdle.
Daniel moved out carefully, drifting through the garage to toss the empty duffels and his trash into the back of his car. Nothing doing for the disturbed dust but leaving as little as possible elsewise was just smart. He also piled a bit of debris in front of it, just to hide it a bit better, not that he expected locals to stumble across it. Half this town was a forgotten ruin. A few had closed-off windows and smoke curling from old chimneys, but he doubted anyone in Hooverville gave a damn about trespassers, let alone had the means to report them.
Still, the people who did worry him wouldn’t come with questions or innocent curiosity.
He kept off the roads, cutting through yards and skirting around collapsed fences. The wind rustled the overgrown lots, stirring old leaves and trash through gutter streams, but otherwise the world was silent. It wasn’t eerie silence… it was the kind that came with rot. The quiet of mold in drywall. Of hollow staircases that nobody climbed anymore. The street lights didn't even flicker on as the sun finally set, the world bathed in darkness and the light of the rising moon.
His boots found good footing as he picked a slow, cautious path downhill. He’d parked far enough away that he had line of sight on the school without being caught in any kind of surveillance cone, if one existed. Distance was safety. It meant he wouldn’t be pinpointed from a dead angle or caught in a crossfire if things went loud. And if things went loud… well. At least there was room to maneuver.
The weight on his back felt manageable, the bag with the laptop tight against his spine and hooked cleanly into the rest of his webbing. No loose straps there, or flopping cases. The real test, though, was what waited below.
He stopped once, just before clearing the last hedgerow overlooking the school’s west wing. Knelt. Listened. The wind shifted slightly, carrying with it the faint smell of mildew and rust. No dogs. No engines. No voices. He held still, waiting for even the suggestion of movement, then resumed.
The dark swallowed him as he slipped into position. Every step now felt heavier. Not from the gear, but from knowing that when he took the next one, it wouldn’t be practice anymore. Just the lab, the scientist, and whatever forces, or horrors, he had to bring to bear, in the dark below.
Daniel kept low as he approached the old high school, boots crunching softly over gravel and broken glass. His breath fogged slightly in the night air, not from cold, but from the tight rhythm of tension working itself through his chest. The approach had gone smoothly so far; no lights, no movement, no voices. Hooverville remained dead to the world.
Daniel shifted his focus to the west wing of the school, weaving between clusters of weeds and patches of cracked pavement. Moist grass brushed against his boots as he moved, damp from the lingering humidity that clung to everything like sweat. The scent of wet soil and old iron hung faint in the air. Each step was quiet but deliberate, weight evenly distributed, posture low.
The building loomed ahead, a darker shape against the night, crouched like a broken spine behind the sagging treeline. The crumbled wall he’d marked earlier was still there, hidden between the collapsed dumpster and the overgrowth. No new footprints. No sign of movement. Just the soft creak of the wind brushing over broken glass.
Daniel stopped a moment, letting the night speak. A low chorus of crickets buzzed distantly, broken only by the occasional drip of water from a cracked gutter. The humidity had shifted slightly, the chill of evening beginning to take hold, settling cold along the back of his neck.
He made his final approach, eyes scanning every shadow, then slipped into the breach without a sound. Instead, he focused on the school’s western wing, a stretch of wall half-hidden behind a collapsed dumpster and a line of scraggly bushes. He’d scouted it earlier with binoculars. A corner of the wall had crumbled inward near a side maintenance corridor. No windows. No light. No line of sight from the street. Perfect.
Daniel slid up to the gap, checked it once more, then slipped through.
Inside, the air changed immediately. Cooler. Still. Tainted by mold and decay. He paused to let his eyes adjust, blinking into the dark with one hand on the P90, the other tapping through the Gridlink menu. He toggled the mapping overlay and activated the directional scanner. The screen’s dull green glow cast faint light on the rust-streaked tiles beneath his feet.
It was silent in here, deeply, uncannily so. Even the building seemed hesitant to breathe.
He didn’t want to risk a flashlight. Too bright, too obvious. The darkness felt heavy, but not suffocating. Just enough moonlight filtered through the occasional broken window to trace shapes: toppled desks, rows of skeletal lockers, a rusted cart lying on its side with wheels torn off. The floors were uneven, some warped from water damage, others just missing entirely. More than once he saw whole corridors collapsed, swallowed by the rot.
He stepped carefully, his boots scraping softly as he moved forward. Dust clung to everything. Posters on the walls hung in tatters, corners curled and stained. A bulletin board displayed a faded calendar from 1983. In one room, student desks were still arranged in rows, as if class had only just ended, but most were broken, twisted frames jutting up like ribs.
The Gridlink screen filled slowly as he advanced, creating a wireframe map of the rooms he passed through. He swept the P90 left and right with each new space, careful not to relax. Abandoned didn’t mean safe.
Eventually, the path led him down a narrow corridor with missing ceiling tiles and exposed pipework. The map indicated the area was beneath the admin wing, a place where the blueprints suggested a break in the floorplan. The notes were vague, but the indication, at least to him, was that this was where the entrance should be.
The hallway ended in a storage alcove lined with broken janitorial equipment. A heavy door sagged on rusted hinges at the far end, its placard still clinging by one screw: “Custodial.”
Daniel frowned.
This was it?
He stepped forward and nudged the door open with the side of his boot, its rusted hinges groaning softly in protest. The janitor’s closet was smaller than he expected and narrow enough that he could touch both side walls if he stretched his arms. The shelving on the left was warped and sagging, still clinging to a few rusted brackets. A mop bucket lay on its side, wheels missing, coated in a film of old detergent dust. The chemical rack opposite it was bare, save for a single cracked bottle with no label, long dried inside.
He swept the cramped space with his flashlight in a quick pass, painting the clutter in stark contrasts of light and shadow, then killed the beam just as fast. It felt too empty. Too... off. He stood there a moment longer, breathing slow behind his teeth, letting his eyes roam over the dark.
It was the wall at the back that finally caught his attention. The brickwork didn’t line up right; not just old, but wrong. Uneven seams. Too much moisture in a building that hadn’t had running water in decades. The stains that marked it trailed vertically in runnels, almost like something behind it had been sweating.
He stepped closer and ran a gloved hand down the wall. The texture was soft. Crumbly. Not just rot, but decay with something hollow behind it. He gave a short grunt, unclipped the crowbar from his belt, and gave the wall a gentle rap.
It thudded. Not the solid sound of brick, but more like a drum.
Daniel narrowed his eyes, dropped to a knee, and pressed his ear against the lower corner. Nothing. But the instinct itched anyway.
He leaned back, jammed the flat end of the crowbar into a weak seam, and started to pry.
The wall cracked louder than he liked, splitting at the joint with less resistance than expected. Mortar flaked away like a brittle scab. With a second push, the entire section collapsed inward with a dull snap and a burst of dust, revealing a yawning space beyond, black as pitch, and absolutely still.
A glance inside with a flashlight revealed a stairwell.
The walls were rough concrete, painted at some point, now stained black and green with age. Webs thick as gauze clung to the upper corners. A metal sign, rusted and streaked, still hung from a chain above the passage: "Civil Defense Shelter."
Daniel exhaled slowly.
“Bingo.”
The stairs were a mess. The first few steps had warped with water, and further down, broken chunks of concrete left wide gaps. Some rebar jutted out like broken bones. A dead cat lay crumpled midway down, matted fur sunken into the step, ribs visible under thinning hide. He stepped over it carefully, the soles of his boots gripping firm despite the debris.
About halfway down, Daniel paused, feeling the shift in the air as clearly as if someone had opened a rusted furnace door. The scent had turned, and no longer just mold and old stone, but something heavier. Tangible. The kind of rot that stuck to the tongue and nestled at the back of the sinuses. He could taste it now, gritty and sour, like wet insulation steeped in corpse water.
He pulled the respirator from his hip, running a quick check on the filters with a practiced eye. A fine layer of dust settled on the lens of his visor, and he wiped it clean with a gloved thumb before strapping the mask over his face. The straps clicked tight behind his head. A breath. Filtered, dry. Better.
He exhaled slowly through the purge valve, the hiss soft in the dark.
He secured the mask with practiced ease, checked the seal, and kept moving. The bottom of the stairwell ended in a downward-sloping ramp, its edges flaking from long exposure. At the end, a solid metal door loomed in the dark, no markings, no handle, just a sealed bulkhead sunk into the concrete frame.
He pressed against it. Nothing. Locked by corrosion or time.
Daniel slung the P90 over his shoulder, unclipped the crowbar from his belt, and wedged the tool into the narrow seam between the bulkhead and the frame. He put his weight into it immediately, shoulder braced against the metal, arms straining. The door didn’t so much resist as endure, the corroded hinges and old hydraulics locked in place by decades of rust.
He grunted through clenched teeth and leaned harder, shifting his grip to dig in deeper. The crowbar flexed slightly under the torque. His boots slid half an inch across the dusty ramp floor as he forced more of himself into the motion, breath hissing behind the respirator with each effort.
A groan echoed down the hallway, deep and sharp like the hull of a sinking ship. Then a crack. Another grinding pull, and the seal finally gave with a high-pitched shriek of metal.
The door shifted, just barely. He drove his shoulder into it one last time, and it creaked open enough to release a wave of stale, pressurized air that curled out like breath from a tomb.
He slipped through without a word.
If anyone hadn't known he was coming before, they sure as hell did now.
Daniel stepped into darkness and steel. The door behind him sealed with a dull thud, the kind that felt more final than mechanical. A soft echo rolled outward from the impact, swallowed quickly by the dead air ahead. The hallway opened into a short corridor that fed into a T-junction. Directly in front of him stood a massive steel door, thick, reinforced, and fitted with industrial mooring bars that locked it down like a bank vault. No keypad. No hinges visible. Just cold certainty: he wasn’t opening that.
But there were two other doors, one to each side of the large vault. The one on the left was pristine. New frame. Electronic card reader. Red light blinking softly like a heartbeat. It was clean in a way the rest of the shelter wasn’t, and clearly reinforced, modern, and likely beyond his ability to brute force. The other door, opposite it, sagged slightly on its hinges, bent inward just enough to show it had been forced open from the inside. Blood smeared across the handle, dark and crusted, and a thick drag mark trailed away into the hallway beyond.
Daniel stared at it for a beat and muttered under his breath, "Fantastic."
He checked the card reader again. It was solid construction, with no signs of damage. The casing was metal, the internal locking mechanism well beyond anything his crowbar could pry through quietly. Maybe even at all. That left the bloody door. He didn’t like it. But then, he didn’t have to like it. He just had to keep moving.
He shouldered his weapon and stepped through.
The hallway beyond extended about thirty feet, barely wide enough to maneuver with the P90 at a proper ready. The drag mark was still visible, if faint in some places, more like a streak of rust than blood, but clear enough to follow. It led around a sharp bend to the left.
He moved slow. Controlled. Muzzle forward, eyes sweeping. As he rounded the corner, two things stopped him.
The first was a tunnel collapse. About ten feet down, the corridor simply ended in a spill of broken concrete and rebar, the remains of a cave-in long past. From the state of it, no fresh cracks, no dust or recent rubble, it looked like it had been this way for decades. Probably part of the original shelter.
The second was the body.
A man sat slumped against the rubble, legs sprawled and back resting on the tilted mound of debris. His uniform was torn, but intact enough to mark him as security. A ruined pistol rested loosely in his right hand, twisted and blackened from damage. In his left was a half-spent magazine, 9mm rounds still shining faintly inside.
Daniel knelt beside the corpse. There was no question the man was dead, his skin mottled and pale, lips shriveled back from his teeth. But the name stitched to his vest was still readable.
C. Brady.
A security badge hung clipped to his chest. Daniel popped it loose and turned it over. There was a magnetic strip on the back, an access badge, then.
He pocketed it without hesitation.
He paused long enough to strip the magazine of loose 9mm rounds, sliding them into one of his belt pouches. The mag itself was incompatible with his Jericho, but ammo was ammo, and he'd remember the man's last gift.
As he started to stand, something caught his eye.
Along the side of Brady’s neck, just above the collar, were clusters of pale white blisters. They ran along his jawline like a rash, fluid-filled and tense against the skin. Daniel leaned closer, but not too close. The skin around them looked wrong, heavily discolored, almost waxy.
“Jesus,” he muttered.
The mask hissed faintly with his breath. Thank God for filters.
He filed it away. Whatever killed Brady hadn’t been quick. But it wasn’t a mystery he could afford to solve right now. He breathed in, checked his corners, and made his way back to the junction.
Time to see if the badge worked.
He approached the secure door again and slid the badge through the reader.
A soft beep. The red light turned green.
The door clicked open, swinging inward.
And Daniel immediately staggered back, a hand clenching over his chest like he’d been hit with a defibrillator paddle, his heart skipping a beat.
The stench didn’t just hit- it invaded. Thick and meaty, a stew of rot and decay that clung to his mask and filled every crevice of his sinuses with the stink of death. Copper, bile, sour human waste, the ammonia sting of ruptured intestines, it all mixed together into a reeking, humid cloud that coated the inside of his throat like moldy gauze. His vision blurred for a second as his stomach rolled hard against the back of his ribs.
He stumbled back into the hallway, fumbled at the edge of the mask’s seal and cracked it open just enough to suck in a few raw gulps of stale, dust-heavy air from the corridor.
He didn’t puke. He wanted to. God, he wanted to. But somehow he swallowed it down, breath quivering behind the filter.
The room beyond was hell.
It was worse than any horror movie he’d ever seen. Horror movies were divorced from the reality of it, and this was all real. Too real.
Blood was everywhere, soaking the tiles in overlapping, coagulated lakes. Bits of viscera clung to the walls like someone had tried to repaint with stomach lining. Spines snapped like twigs jutted from torsos that were flayed open, ribs cracked and splayed. Fingers, hands, jawbones, all scattered as if a storm had blown through. One head, still mostly intact, stared up at the ceiling with clouded, glassy eyes that seemed to follow him as he stepped inside.
His boots made soft, sticky noises with each move. Once he almost slipped on what might’ve been a kidney. He caught himself on the wall, and immediately yanked his hand away, fingers slick with something gelatinous he couldn’t identify. The feeling seemed to seep through his gloves.
It took everything he had not to let panic bloom.
He kept moving. One step. Another. Slow, precise, balancing the P90 like it was a lifeline. The bodies, or what was left of them, wore shredded tactical vests, some with tattered Umbrella Security Services patches still visible through the blood. It was clear he wasn’t the first one to come here, but whoever was sent wound up as mulch and worm food.
When he reached the back wall, he found the control panel smashed and canted at an angle, glass from the monitor screens crunching under his boots. Whoever had been here last hadn’t just died. They’d been erased, and Daniel suspected that whatever had done the killing wasn’t even close to human. That alone almost made him turn back.
And on the wall above the desk was a plaque.
It stood out like a wet fart at a funeral.
A brushed metal rectangle, once polished to a mirror shine, now dulled with age and grime. It proudly proclaimed some kind of achievement; Daniel didn’t bother reading the words. The language was all corporate fluff, the kind of nonsense he’d heard back in breakroom announcements and forgotten the second they ended. But what caught his eye was what sat at its center: a gem, roughly the size of a walnut, warm yellow and glassy even in the low light. Citrine, maybe. He’d seen something like it on a show a lifetime ago.
He stepped closer, reached up, and gave it a gentle twist. It wiggled in its socket.
Another tug, and the gemstone popped free with a soft snap.
Daniel turned it over in his fingers. Smooth. Solid. Heavier than it looked. No inscription. Just a little ornamental bauble. It felt absurdly out of place in the blood-soaked ruin behind him. like someone tried to pin a smiley face on a severed head.
He tucked it into one of his pockets without another thought.
No need to dwell. The dead behind him weren’t going anywhere.
To the east, a door waited. Modern. Another card reader blinked with its silent red eye.
Daniel swiped the badge.
A beep. The light turned green.
The lock disengaged with a click, and the door slid open on quiet hinges, revealing a narrow corridor hewn from the rock itself.
Daniel paused at the threshold, letting the silence settle over him like wet cloth. The air here was still, almost unnaturally so, and it made each creak of his boots sound too loud. He adjusted his grip on the P90, bringing it up into position with careful hands, his grip shaking slightly as he felt his heart rate spike. The hiss of his respirator was echoing in the silent halls lit by sterile, flickering fluorescent light.
He cleared the entryway with a practiced sweep. He'd done it a million times before, practicing entering imaginary rooms with imaginary doors and walls, but there was nothing imaginary around these corners. He knew something had gone terribly wrong here, and from the sounds of it, whatever it was could be hiding anywhere. The reality of it was almost like ice in his veins as his focus narrowed, only to unclench as he forced himself to breathe again. Slow and steady was all he needed. Nothing more, nothing less.
He checked the angle one last time, then stepped in, one foot at a time, careful to plant his steps. Eyes up. Mind sharp.
Whatever was down here, it wouldn’t be clean. And it sure as hell wouldn’t wait for him to get comfortable.
He adjusted his stance, exhaled slow through the mask, and stepped inside, counting each footfall like it was borrowed time.
Daniel moved down the hallway with his shoulders tight and his eyes twitching toward every vent, seam, and shadow like they were waiting to lunge. The fluorescent lighting above sputtered at irregular intervals, casting the walls in a pallid strobe that made everything feel just a second out of sync. His boots whispered against the floor tiles, the rubberized soles nearly silent, but even that felt too loud in the stillness.
Signs of violence lined the walls; bullet holes in scattered clusters, drag marks, and long gouges carved through plaster and paint. Blood stains, mostly dried, formed jagged trails beneath the brass littering the corridor like thrown confetti. It wasn't a war zone. It was an execution ground. Or rather, the aftermath of one.
The hallway turned sharply right, and as Daniel swept around the corner, his eyes caught the crumpled form of a body laid out chest-down in the corridor. The white lab coat was stained dark in the middle of the back, and the limbs were splayed at awkward angles. No movement. No sound. Just another corpse.
He stepped in close, crouching low and reaching out with one gloved hand. The lab coat felt damp beneath his fingers, and as he gripped the shoulder to turn the body, something in his gut twisted.
The corpse lurched upward with a violent, unnatural snap.
Daniel hit the floor hard, breath punching out of him as he scrambled away, boots kicking at loose brass and slick tile. The thing staggered forward, arms flailing like soggy ropes, its torso dragging a mess of glistening, ropey entrails between its legs. Its jaw stretched unnaturally wide, unhinging with a crack, rows of yellowed teeth snapping in air thick with decay. The skin of its face was stretched taut, waxen and sickly, and along its neck and arms bloomed clusters of white, swollen tumors, bulging and pulsing in time with its jerky movements.
"Shit-!" Daniel's voice cracked with raw fear as he fumbled for the P90, hands shaking.
The sling snagged on his elbow, almost tangling him as he yanked the weapon up from his chest in a clumsy, desperate motion. He didn’t bother trying to stand, he just braced himself on one elbow and fired wildly.
The hallway detonated with sound, the compact machine gun roaring in brutal, frantic bursts. Rounds ripped into the thing’s chest, chunks of flesh bursting outward, but it kept coming until a shot finally took it in the head. The skull burst in a wet, meaty crunch and the body collapsed in a twitching heap.
Then the air bloomed white.
Every pustule burst at once, releasing a misty spray of thick, reeking fluid that hissed as it struck Daniel’s arms and gloves. He threw himself back again, instinct overriding thought, shielding his mask with one hand as he pressed himself against the wall.
It burned, but not like fire, but like a slow, crawling acid where it touched exposed skin. The irritation flared around the cuff of his gloves and the edge of his collar, anywhere not fully sealed. His clothing blocked the worst of it, and the mask kept the mist out of his lungs, but the itching was immediate and unmistakable. It wasn’t agony, but it was a clear warning: this stuff didn’t play nice.
And then, from somewhere deeper in the corridor, a moan.
He froze.
Another moan. And another.
Shuffling steps scraped against tile, slow and dragging. Shapes emerged from the bend in the hallway- one, then two, then three more. All of them were wrong. Wrong in the way dead things shouldn’t move. Half-rotten, bloated, their skin streaked with blood and tumors. Some wore lab coats. Others wore bloody, mutilated security armor, hanging off their ruined frames.
He counted six in total.
Daniel forced himself to his feet. His hands found the P90 and brought it level.
"Come on," he muttered through clenched teeth. "Come on, then."
He squeezed the trigger, the first burst catching the lead creature in the chest.
It kept coming.
He aimed higher. Another burst punched through the skull. The thing dropped in a heap, splashing the tile in more of that awful fluid. The mist hissed as it dispersed.
He shifted targets. Another went down. Then a third.
Click.
He yanked at the magazine. It caught, the box scraping against the feed.
"No no no-" He scrambled backward, trying to stay upright while fighting the PDW. He ripped the magazine free on the second tug, letting it clatter to the floor. Another pulled from his belt. In. Locked.
The fourth zombie was almost on him.
He didn’t think, he just fired.
The burst took it in the head. It pitched forward and collapsed at his feet.
Daniel turned and lunged for the door at the end of the hallway, grabbed the handle… and swore.
Locked.
No keypad. No reader. Not even a bolt lever. Nothing.
"Goddamn it!" He screamed in panic.
He spun as the fifth zombie advanced, this one in ragged armor. Rounds sparked off the helmet until one found the soft target of its left eye. It collapsed, twitching.
The sixth was already grabbing him.
Its hands clutched at his vest, and the stink of rot and fluid filled the filter again. The creature’s mouth snapped inches from his neck, gnashing in mindless hunger. Its nails scraped across his chest plate with metallic screeches.
It didn’t stop. It snarled, foul breath venting through its ruined mouth as it pushed in closer.
Gritting his teeth, Daniel braced his forearm across the zombie’s throat and heaved forward, muscles screaming with effort. The thing weighed a ton, its throat rasping as it fought back, its boots dragging screeches from the tile. His shoulders strained and his feet slid until he finally forced it off balance, staggering it backward a few feet.
With the brief space he'd earned, he dropped his shoulder, yanked the P90 back up, and fired three rounds into the side of its skull from point-blank range.
The zombie folded like a marionette with its strings cut, crashing to the floor in a mess of twitching limbs and boiling mist.
The hallway was silent again, save for his ragged breathing.
The strange, coiling expulsion curled and drifted around him like the breath of damned. It clung to the filters. He wiped them, but it was thick, viscous and clinging, like chunky mucus.
He didn’t want to think about what that gunk could do to his lungs.
Daniel stood in the silence, the static roar of adrenaline still ringing in his head. He burned through a full magazine and half of another. He wasn’t hurt. Not really. But it felt like someone had reached inside him and twisted something hard.
The door was locked. Still.
He checked it again. No give. It looked just a solid on this side as it did the front. If he wanted out he would need to find another way. This one was a dead end.
He turned back to the corpses. Slowly. Cautiously.
None of them so much as twitched.
He moved among the bodies, careful not to step in the puddles or touch what he didn’t have to. Most of them were unarmed. Just ruined scraps of what used to be people.
But one of the security guards had something shining in a belt pouch.
He rifled the pockets and pulled out a handful of 12-gauge shells. Red and brass.
Daniel stared at them for a second, turning them in his gloved palm.
If the ammo was here, then maybe the shotgun was too.
And in tight hallways like these, a shotgun suddenly seemed like the best friend he hadn’t met yet.
Daniel leaned against the wall, shoulders rising and falling with deep, steadying breaths. The silence in the hallway crept back in, no groans, no footsteps, just the low mechanical hum of unseen systems and the stink of burnt propellant hanging in the air. He wiped his gloves down on his thighs, then crouched to recover the magazine he’d dropped earlier.
He ejected the current mag from the P90, half full, maybe a bit more, and slid it into an empty mag pouch before pulling a fresh one from his belt. The motion was smoother now, but his hands trembled a little, the aftershocks of the fight still buzzing through his arms. He clicked the new mag into place, gave it a confirming tug, and adjusted the sling.
“Stop squeezing the damn trigger,” he muttered under his breath. “It’s a two-stage. You know that.”
The P90’s trigger gave him the option to fire semi-auto if he applied a gentler squeeze. He’d practiced that. Hell, he'd trained for it. But panic didn’t care about discipline. He had six magazines left. Well, six and a half. If he kept firing like a scared idiot, though, he'd be bone dry in just a few more fights, and he had no idea how big this place was.
The mist had cleared, thinning in slow curls that drifted toward the ceiling and pooled against the floor before finally fading into nothing. Daniel held still as the last of it dissipated, waiting to see if his skin would itch again, his wrist and the strip of neck beneath his collar tingled faintly, but the burn was gone.
He wiped at the residue with a slow, methodical swipe of his glove. It came away clean, no corrosion, no sticking film, just a faint trace of something that smelled faintly like bleach and decay. He checked the filters one last time, swapped and sealed. Nothing left to do but keep moving.
His breathing settled. Not calm, but managed. One problem down. Hopefully not the last he’d survive today.
The hallway split ahead. Left was a dead end; collapsed, with a jagged wall of rubble and rusted rebar blocking the way. Nothing useful there. His only option was the keycard door on the right.
He stepped up to it, swiped the badge, and the lock disengaged with a thunk.
A wave of icy air rolled out the moment the door opened, washing over him like walking into a meat locker. Frost rimed the edges of the threshold. The tiles inside were veiled in a fine mist of ice crystals, and the walls were coated in heavy sheets of frozen condensation. His breath fogged instantly as he exhaled.
Daniel stepped inside cautiously, eyes scanning.
The entire far wall was taken up by a massive steel door- the same one he’d seen earlier from the other side, with no controls to open it. He approached, hoping for a panel, or switch, or lever, but found nothing.
“Figures.”
But something moved in the mist.
Two figures, shuffling. Slow. Awkward. Their limbs jerked like frozen sticks, arms barely lifting with each step. Scientists, or what was left of them. The cold had slowed them down, maybe even preserved them. But he wasn’t interested in finding out what they’d do once they warmed up.
He circled wide through the freezing fog, brought the P90 up, and took careful aim.
A single shot cracked through the chilled air. The first creature’s head popped like a partially -thawed fruit. No gas this time, just frozen slurry. It collapsed in a heap.
The second turned, groaning, arms lifting. Daniel didn’t hesitate. Another round. Another clean shot. It dropped with a muted thud, and the mist settled again.
The room was quiet. The kill was clean.
He moved in further, scanning as he went. Near the right-hand wall, a metal table stood beside two tall glass tubes, their interiors coated in thick layers of frost. He wiped a hand across one, but it was too clouded to see what was inside.
On the table, though, sat something odd.
A compact metal case, about the size of a lunchbox. Inside was a strange little kit; half grinder, half chemical set. Compartments for vials the size of cigars, and a faded sticker on the lid with diagrams of plant leaves and measurements. Instructions for combining herbs native to the area, each labeled with different effects: pain relief, coagulation, stamina restoration.
The stencilled, engraved name on the front of the box called it an “Ancillary Medical Supplement Kit - For Emergency Use Only’.
Weird, but potentially valuable. He tucked it into his pack.
Near the back wall, half-buried under old lab notes, he found a compact cold case. Inside, sealed in a vial, was a chunk of raw biological tissue. It pulsed faintly, even through the glass; sickly and pale, covered in small, waxy, white growths. It clearly wasn’t natural, and definitely looked like the kind of thing he would find in this mad scientist’s little paradise.
He sealed the case and dropped it into his bag.
As he turned, something fell off the edge of the table. A USB drive, scratched and dusty.
He picked it up just as the monitors on the south wall blinked to life.
A man’s face filled the screen, looking gaunt, his sharp features tight against sunken cheeks and thinning hair. His pale skin was stretched too tight over bone, but his eyes… his eyes shone bright, glinting with barely hidden insanity. Daniel recognized him from the scattered reports and notes: Dr. Hargreave.
The voice that followed was brittle and filled with contempt.
"So. They’ve sent another dog."
Daniel narrowed his eyes, silent, slipping the little USB into his pocket and lifting the P90.
“You think you can just walk in here, take what you want, and leave? You think Umbrella owns my work? My legacy?”
Hargreave sneered, his voice rising. “You’re just another pair of hands sent to steal from a mind you’ll never understand. The P-Prototype Strain is beyond your comprehension. And you won’t be taking it back to your masters.”
Daniel didn’t speak. There was nothing worth saying to a man like this.
“But you can have a demonstration,” Hargreave continued, eyes wide with feverish joy. “You came for my work? How lucky for you. You’ll get a front-row seat.”
With a sharp hiss, steam erupted from the corners of the room, thick plumes jetting out from hidden vents like the breath of an unseen corpse waking from hibernation. The air shifted with alarming speed, the frozen bite gave way to clinging warmth, the sudden humidity curdling into a choking fog that rolled across the floor and coiled around Daniel’s boots.
The mist thickened with every second, devouring the lights, swallowing the walls. What was once cold clarity became smothered and close. The whine of the defrost system echoed like distant howls through the fogbank, accompanied by wet, gurgling hisses as ice cracked and dripped onto the tile.
Visibility dropped to nothing. The world, reduced to vapor and breath.
Then came the sound. The scream of metal being torn, not cut. A wet shriek, like steel pulled through bone.
A blade dragged across something hard. And something alive.
A claw, curved and nearly four feet long, scythed out from the mist like a guillotine. It struck Daniel dead center, the impact knocking the breath out of him as sparks flew. The blade screeched across the carbon-titanium plates of his Phalanx vest, scraping a molten line across the armor before the momentum hurled him backward.
He crashed into the monitors behind him. The screens shattered on impact, glass exploding outward as he landed hard in the wreckage. Somewhere above, Hargreave laughed; a thin, high, squealing sound spilling from the intercom like broken music.
Daniel groaned, coughing into his mask.
The room swam with white.
Daniel rolled hard, instinct detonating into motion as raw panic screamed through every nerve. A massive scything claw slammed down beside him, carving through tile and concrete like paper, the impact kicking a cloud of dust and debris into the air. The gouge it left was deep, the power behind more than enough to take his head if he’d been just one second slower.
He hit the floor hard, skidding on his side, knees scraping against the frost-slick tile as he twisted his body in a desperate scramble. His breath came in ragged gasps, chest tight, arms flailing for balance. The P90 slapped against his vest as he grabbed it, yanked it forward, and shouldered it with a grunt, hands clenched so tight they ached.
What he saw emerging from the mist wasn’t just inhuman, it was a nightmare made manifest.
It moved like a puppet with its strings pulled wrong, its frame vaguely man-shaped but grotesquely distorted, limbs elongated and jointed in too many places. Instead of forearms, each upper limb ended in a monstrous, curved blade nearly four feet long, and more like cleavers sculpted for butchery than weapons meant to fit a body. Its chest was a patchwork of bone armor, ivory plates warped and fused like tumor growths, bulging beneath gnarled stretches of leathery skin. And where a face might have been, there was only a yawning bloom of meat, the petals of exposed muscle and tissue unfurling like a carnivorous plant, a long, sinewy tongue snaking from the pulsing center, tasting the air with twitching hunger.
Daniel’s stomach turned. He staggered a step back, barely holding down a surge of bile.
“Fuck me sideways,” he snarled. “What the actual hell is that?”
He opened fire.
The P90 bucked violently in his grip, muzzle flash strobing the fog as he unleashed a blistering burst. The rounds hammered into the creature’s chest with brutal force, but most of them skipped off the bone armor in sharp, echoing pings that sparked like ricochets. A few found purchase, punching through exposed joints and tender seams, burrowing into wet muscle.
The monster let out a sound that wasn't a scream, it was a detonation of rage and pain, a keening shriek that rattled the walls and split the air like a live wire humming inside his skull.
Then it lunged, blade-arms raised, murder behind every twitching joint.
Daniel barely ducked. One of the scything claws swept across his helmet with a deafening screech, the impact jarring his neck and sending stars across his vision. He stumbled sideways, momentum carrying him behind a row of overturned equipment. The creature hit the wall where he’d been, carving a deep scar through the steel plating.
Adrenaline slammed through his veins like a floodgate torn open. Daniel blinked away the haze, forcing his vision to refocus through the pounding in his skull. If the thing’s chest was a fortress, then he needed to take its legs.
He dropped to one knee and dragged the P90’s sights down, bracing hard as he squeezed the trigger in a staccato burst.
Rounds tore through the creature’s thighs with wet, cracking force, shredding sinew and punching through jointed muscle. Thick, dark blood burst across the tile like spoiled oil as one of its legs collapsed inward at an unnatural angle. Bone gave with a sharp pop, and the thing dropped hard, crashing into the floor in a whirl of flailing blades and wet, choking screeches.
Even grounded, it didn’t relent. The creature twisted violently, driving one of its scythes through a nearby lab table in a shriek of splintering steel and composite, while the other claw carved a gouge into the wall deep enough to spray sparks and flay the conduit beneath. Overhead, Hargreave shrieked through the speaker, frothing with glee.
“You’re nothing! Nothing but meat in a TIN CAN! My work- my children- will rip the truth from your bones and laugh as you choke on your own screams!”
Daniel fell back, bracing against the side of a console. He fired again, rounds chewing into the creature’s spine. It roared, ripping its talon free and lunging. The next swipe caught him across the side. Hard. Pain exploded through his ribs as he screamed, air shoved from his lungs. He flew backward, slamming against the floor with bone-jarring force.
Something felt like it shifted in a way it wasn't supposed to inside his torso.
Another swipe came, this one too fast. He forced his body into a desperate dive, rolling just clear as the blade dug a trench beside him.
Gritting his teeth, he raised the PDW, sighted low, and emptied the mag into its hips.
The sternum cracked. Bone and meat split. The creature collapsed in a writhing heap, its legs shredded into ruin. Still alive, but no longer mobile.
Daniel let the P90 hang and yanked his pistol free.
"You want a show, asshole? Fine. Have an execution." He growled, his ribs aching.
He stepped forward to finish it, slow, deliberate, pistol aimed at the writhing mass of bone and ruin on the ground. His finger tightened on the trigger.
The room hissed.
Not the low whisper of venting pressure, either. This was a sharp, predatory hiss, and it came from all around him. The walls screamed with it.
Defrosting gas burst from the corners like jets from ruptured steam lines, flooding the chamber in dense, choking clouds. The temperature soared as freezing air turned humid, every breath thick in Daniel’s lungs, every surface now slick with condensation.
Visibility imploded. The room vanished into a soupy blur of gray.
Then came the sound of glass straining. Creaking.
Cracking.
And then, shattering.
Daniel spun toward the source, gun raised.
The second containment tube cracked, then exploded outward as something inside lunged forward in a tangle of amniotic fluid and shrapnel. It hit the floor with a wet crunch and dragged the crippled creature away into the mist.
Daniel cursed and snapped a shot into the fog. Nothing. He backed off, pistol still raised. If this freak was anything like the other one... he made a snap decision.
He holstered the Jericho and drew up the P90, yanking the dry mag out and slipping it into his dump pouch, eyes watching everything he could see through the mist. The fresh mag slipped into his hand, and the reload was clean this time. His hands were still shaking, but he was getting used to the raw adrenaline in his system.
The room was hot now, the rapid defrost leaving a warm mist clinging to his armor, and dripping down his helmet. He could feel the sweat forming behind the mask.
He moved slowly, sweeping left, then right, eyes straining against the swirling haze, the weight of his breath loud in his ears. Every step was deliberate. He kept his shoulders low, gun up, listening for anything like movement, or a breath, or even the silent scratch of talons.
He almost didn’t hear it.
The impact came from above and behind, smashing into his upper back like a sledgehammer. His boots skidded out from under him, vision whipped sideways as he hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud. He rolled fast, a choked gasp escaping as his armor ground against the slick floor.
The first monster came down like a falling guillotine, its scythes cleaving the air just inches from his face. One sheared a trail of sparks from the concrete, the other slicing past his shoulder with enough force to stir the mist around them into a swirl of motion.
Another form burst from the fog- the second monster!
Daniel scrambled back, just avoiding the blades.
This one was worse; so much worse.
It had the vague outline of a humanoid, but any resemblance to a person ended at the twisted silhouette. Instead of limbs, it skittered on four spiderlike appendages, joints backward and double-jointed, the skin sagging and glossy with some kind of translucent slime. Each limb ended in a nest of tapering fingers, six on each hand, the ends curved into six-inch talons that glistened like wet obsidian.
Its ribcage had erupted outward into a tangled, grotesque lattice of bone and gristle, warped like tree roots wrapping its chest in a cage of calcified horror. Between the bonework, mucus-slick flesh pulsed with the twitching movement of something barely restrained. The spine jutted up in sharp, uneven plates, vertebrae stretched and swollen into blade-like ridges.
Where a neck or head should have been was only a gaping vertical maw, raw, glistening, and ringed with dozens of hyperextended needle teeth. The throat flexed as if tasting the air, threads of saliva dangling from the jagged edges, stretching and breaking in the swirling mist. Every time it breathed, it made a sucking, wet noise like lungs drowning in jelly.
The creature lunged forward on all fours, moving with sickening speed and fluidity.
Daniel stumbled back toward the rear of the room, pinned between nightmares.
Hargreave’s voice echoed above him, calm now, mocking.
“Let’s see how long you last, little dog.”
