Note: This fic is a fun, indulgent* project between friends. We were inspired by spicyroll's amazing Harperwong art to try our own hand at it. Originally, we had no intentions to post since the fic is a bit sloppy and probably inaccurate about certain things, but we figured we'd still like to share it with fellow Helena and/or Harperwong fans.

Disclaimer: The characters of the Resident Evil franchise and the world of Resident Evil 4 belong to Capcom. This story is made for entertainment, not profit, and we are not benefiting monetarily from it in any way.

* Expect to see instances of wish fulfillment, subtle breaking of the fourth wall, and moments of self-awareness promptly lost in the next paragraph or scene. Examples: the merchant gag, Ashley's (girl) crush on Helena.

Chapter 1: Pueblo, Part I

Helena Harper stared out of the dirty car window, making a mental map of the area as the local Spanish cop drove her and two other Secret Service agents to a village called Pueblo. Sitting up front with the driver was Jackson, recruited into the service young like her, though his impressive record didn't come with a giant asterisk. In the back with her, stuck as close to the other window as humanly possible, was Smith, a senior agent who on day one said to her face he opposed her hiring.

"We need professionals, people who have worked and trained and deserve to be here, people who know what discipline means," he told her with a sneer. "I've seen your record, Harper. I've seen what your bosses have said about you. I don't care how good you are with a gun. I don't care how smart you are and how many cases you've solved on your own. To me, you're nothing but a CIA throwaway who can't keep her shit together when her slut sister gets what's coming to her."

Helena barely kept from growling at the memory. Smith was goading her, but if Hunnigan hadn't been around, she would have punched his teeth in, damn the consequences at the time. She sighed. From the CIA's problem child to Ingrid Hunnigan's pet, she thought bitterly. It was certainly no way to thank the woman who had given her a job before the CIA had a chance to fire her.

Was this her punishment, she wondered, stuck in this dirty old van with Smith to chase a slim lead on the president's kidnapped daughter? She imagined Smith was stewing about being relegated to babysitting duty. Everyone knew they would turn up empty, that this was nothing more than a field trip for her and Jackson. What was strange was how Smith, a decorated agent better suited to work on the case with the likes of Leon Kennedy, wound up with them. Helena couldn't shake the feeling Hunnigan had something to do with it.

"Pueblo is just a ways past the bridge," she heard the driver tell Jackson in Spanish. She turned her eyes towards the windshield as the van made a turn and the bridge came into view.

Jackson let out a low whistle.

"You weren't kidding when you called it old," he remarked. "You sure that's going to hold us?"

"Yeah, man, don't worry about it," the driver said with a laugh. "That bridge is the only way to get in and outta this place. Used to have traffic back when the Salazar mine was up and running. Been a while, but it can hold one van."

"I read the mine was closed all of a sudden," Helena said, her Spanish as fluent as Jackson's, major factors that had put them both on this assignment. "It wasn't bankruptcy; the mine's profits were solid just days before it was shut down. Any word on Ramon Salazar since? He's left no paper trails since parting ways with his clients."

"Beats me, lady," the driver mumbled, shaking his head. "That kid's always been a weird one. You know, he pushed for the mine expansion and then, all of a sudden, he shut it down for no reason. Last I heard of him, he was getting some work done on that family castle of his."

"Wow, Harper," Jackson said, grinning playfully, "really did your homework, huh?"

"No more than you did," she responded nonchalantly, ignoring both Jackson's chuckle and Smith's scrutinizing glare.

Just past the bridge was a lone house, looking as neglected and unkempt as its front yard. As Helena mentally noted it as a landmark, she could have sworn she saw a man looking at them through one of the windows.

"Stop the car!" Helena barked at the driver when they drove by a small shack. "Stop the car!" she repeated, this time in Spanish.

"What the hell are you doing, Harper?" Smith demanded as he righted himself from the abrupt stop.

Helena didn't answer. Instead, she quickly exited the car and ran back to the shack. Jackson, Smith, and the driver followed. They found her prying open a bear trap that had caught a white wolf's hind leg.

"Harper, are you insane? Get back in the damn car!" Smith hollered, his face red in anger. "That thing's a wild animal! It's going to turn on us the second you set it free!"

"She will if you don't shut up and back off," she snarled, though she didn't bother to face him, her attention on the trapped wolf.

Smith made a strangled noise in his throat, his face contorting further. When he saw the wolf ease its leg free of the trap, he stepped back, pulling out his gun as Jackson and the driver followed suit, expecting the worst.

"If that thing attacks you, it'll be your own damn fault, Harper," he muttered, narrowing his eyes at both her and the wolf.

The wolf, however, simply looked at her. It blinked slowly then limped away, disappearing into the woods. With the animal gone, Smith stalked towards her, looking ready to burst.

"What the fuck kind of stunt was that, Harper?" he bellowed, yelling so loud he just might draw an entire pack of wolves to their location. "You just risked all our lives to save a wild animal. What the fuck are you trying to prove to me, that you're some kind of wolf whisperer now?"

"I had my weapon ready, sir," she answered as calmly as she could manage, her voice a low growl. "I understood the risk I was taking and I took it alone. I didn't ask for backup. If the wolf turned on me, I would have put her down myself, but I couldn't just sit there and not do anything, sir. She must have been out here for days without food and water, and either the locals haven't checked their traps or they left her to die."

"It's none of your Goddamn business is what it is, Harper," Smith hissed, becoming more furious when she didn't back down from his glare. "I'm putting this bullshit in the report! See how impressive you think you are, Harper. Now, get back in the car and stay there until we reach the village."

Without waiting for her response, Smith turned his back on her and stormed back into the van, viciously slamming the door. Jackson lagged behind, his expression a mix of disbelief and amazement.

"Going a bit too far to piss him off, Harper," he mumbled, sounding more amused than anything. "Didn't figure you for having a way with animals."

"I don't," she said, glancing at the direction the wolf went. My father did, she added silently. "I just couldn't leave it like that."

"Now that, I pegged you for," he remarked, giving her a little smile.

"Heh," was all she could manage to say as thanks.

She and Jackson headed back to the van, both ignoring the dirty looks Smith sent their way. Their local cop escort wisely made no comment and resumed driving. Helena, turning her attention to actual concerns, made mental notes of their surroundings. Her eyes narrowed as they crossed another bridge, not missing the three men that hurried off upon seeing the van. They didn't look pleased to have visitors, she noted.

Just past the bridge and yet another shack that looked as unkempt and neglected as all the other structures she had seen, they came upon the village gate, though it was more like a thick metal barricade with a peculiar symbol on it. The driver excused himself and approached the gate, speaking loudly to the villagers inside.

"Why have you come here, stranger?" came the demand from the other side, nearly drowned out by a drone of angry, unintelligible snarls.

"This is the police, open the gate!" the driver shouted back.

The door slowly creaked open, just enough to reveal a man with a dirty face and filthier clothes. By the way the local cop cringed and failed to hold back a cough, the man must have smelled as bad as he looked.

"Americans," the man rumbled upon seeing them, his features twisted in disgust as he turned back to the local cop. "Be quick about your business. Your vehicle stays outside."

"What's he saying?" Smith snapped, not knowing a word of Spanish.

"He's letting us in, sir, but we're going on foot from here," Jackson said, already getting out of the car.

Before following, Helena decided to take with her her Hydra, a triple-barrel, sawed-off shotgun taken right out of the black market and authorized to only a few agents. She grabbed an entire pack of ammo, taking all the 10 gauge shells they brought with them. Smith gave her a disdainful, critical eye as she caught up with them, but he said nothing, the look on his face enough.

"Whoa, Harper, we're here to ask questions, not interrogate them," Jackson playfully teased. "Besides, you know this is a long shot. Anonymous tip catching a glimpse of a blonde girl? Pretty obscure."

"Yeah," Smith agreed with a grunt. "While Kennedy's out there tracking the kidnapper, we're here snuffing out weak leads. Let's get this over with. I want to go back to doing my real job."

Though Jackson joked, he, like her, came fully prepared, both of them equipped with an operations utility belt, cargo pants pockets filled with extra ammunition, and shoulder holsters for either extra weapons or a combat knife. As rookies, they were expected to take the mission seriously, despite it being just procedure. Smith, however, simply went with a suit and a single sidearm.

Placing her hydra on her hip holster, Helena watched as the villager pushed the heavy gate further with surprising ease, a feat that seemed impossible for a man his age and health. A line of villagers stood watching them as they entered, their pale, dirty faces blank of expression. With a mumble, each of them walked away, returning to their daily, mundane routine as though nothing had happened.

"That was weird," Jackson murmured, his hand going to his own sidearm.

Smith shrugged and proceeded to follow the man who had opened the gate, meaning to question him. Helena did a quick scan of the village, seeing two other paths leading out of it, both with the same metal gates. A tower was at the northeast, though she didn't see a bell at the top. Next to the tower was a small structure, the same peculiar symbol on its door. Villagers milled about, raking hay and tending to the cows that appeared more cared-for than the humans.

"Harper, where the hell do you think you're going?" Smith barked, seeing that she wasn't going with them.

"Questioning another local, sir," she said, her eyes already scanning the crowd. "The more people we speak with, the sooner we can leave." She turned to the local cop, asking in Spanish, "Would you accompany me?"

"Of course," he obliged, walking up to her.

Smith left with Jackson, no doubt muttering about her piss poor ability to work with a team. She silently agreed, having heard the same thing since her days as a detective. Since joining the service, Hunnigan often drilled into her head the value of building good relationships with the other agents, not the easiest task with the likes of Smith hovering in the workplace.

It didn't matter, she thought. She didn't need to make nice with Smith to question these locals.

Leading her escort, she knocked on the lone house to the east, past the barn with two cows. The door, unlocked, inched open. Helena shared a wary look with the Spanish cop and cautiously entered. The small house was empty and sparse of furniture, only having an old, worn cabinet and a dresser. The only other room had its door padlocked and knocking on it yielded no response.

Going back outside, Helena rounded the two houses to the west and found a woman feeding chickens. Helena let out an involuntary cough, the horrible smell starting to affect her. The house had smelled like rotten food and, if she were to be honest with herself, it also smelled like rotting flesh. Outside, it was barely better, filled with the stench of body odor and animal waste.

"Excuse me, ma'am," she said in Spanish, trying to get the woman's attention.

The woman glanced at her, then simply continued to feed the chickens.

"Ma'am, the lady wishes to speak with you," the Spanish cop said, gently grasping the woman's arm. "She just wants to ask you a few questions."

The woman stilled for a moment, but finally straightened to face them.

"What is it?" she hissed, her yellow teeth flashing, her voice high-pitched and raspy.

Helena pulled out a picture of the president's daughter and showed it to the woman.

"Have you seen this girl in the area?" she asked, watching the woman's face intently. "We received a call claiming a girl of this description was seen in your village a few days ago."

The woman eyed the picture with no interest, mumbling under her breath.

"What was that, ma'am?" the Spanish cop pressed, keeping his grip on her arm. "Please repeat what you said."

The woman slowly blinked her eyes, her free hand casually reaching behind her back.

"Watch out!" Helena shouted.

The cop started, releasing the woman's arm as he turned to stare at Helena in confusion. Everything happened in slow motion: she reached for her Picador while the woman rounded on the distracted cop, a knife in her hand.

Flicking the safety off, Helena aimed her sights at the woman.

"Stop! Put the kni-"

The woman's face remained blank as she plunged the knife into the cop's chest without a second's hesitation. He stared down in shock at the protruding handle, the woman's hand still wrapped around it, then made a horrible gurgling noise.

Helena fired. The woman barely stumbled back, her shoulder exploding in a shower of red and yellow. Helena didn't have time to wonder why there was yellow in the blood because the woman's hand was still holding the knife. She completely ignored Helena and her bullet wound to pull the knife out. The cop dropped to the ground, blood seeping around his wound to stain his uniform.

He wasn't going to make it. Helena sucked in her breath and kept her gun trained on the woman.

"Drop the knife!" she ordered. "I will shoot again! Drop the weapon now!".

The woman showed no signs of understanding the warning, despite Helena's fluent Spanish, her mangled shoulder freely bled a sickening mix of red and yellow. That was when Helena heard the unmistakable sound of rustling grass and footsteps surrounding her. Villagers steadily approached them, armed with pitchforks, sickles and machetes.

The woman said something guttural that Helena couldn't understand. Her pounding heart slowed as she assessed her situation with lightning speed. Nobody at the academy could beat her instincts and real-time analysis.

She was alone, surrounded, armed with a pistol and shotgun. She had enough ammo to probably get her out of the village on her own, but probably not enough to get to Smith and Jackson. Presumably, they had also been attacked or maybe dead already. The Spanish cop was a goner, no way around that. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see his color going papery white and his chest moving only very slightly.

There was something seriously wrong with these villagers; she wouldn't be surprised if the rest of them had the same strange yellow coloration in their blood. The woman should have been screaming in pain from that shot, but there she was still standing and looking ready to launch another attack.

While Helena's mind raced, at the back of it was just the slightest feeling of triumph because it meant this lead was good. There was something going on here, and no matter what happened, she wasn't leaving until she found out what, provided she stay alive long enough to find out.

Her mind made up, she snapped off a shot into the woman's head.

Not waiting to inspect her marksmanship, she spun on her heel and bolted for an opening between two villagers. One swung his pitchfork wide while the other attempted to slash at her with a rusty machete. Their aim terrible, she managed to dodge them and headed back towards the village. She wasn't going to leave Smith and Jackson behind.

She was nearing the town square when she noticed how empty the village was. She surveyed the dilapidated houses for signs of movement, for someone lurking behind a shutter or doorway, but all she found were skinny chickens ambling about the dirt roads and ramshackle yards.

They were gathered somewhere and she had a bad feeling that Smith and Jackson might be the center of their attention. She cursed under her breath. The villagers who had surrounded her hadn't caught up yet, but she couldn't waste time looking through every house either. As she deliberated her next step, she heard a very loud whirring noise coming from the far corner of the square. She went rigid.

That whirring sounded very much like a chainsaw starting up.

Her blood ran cold, but she was already sprinting towards the source, praying that it wasn't what she thought it was.

She found the house where the noise was coming from. It looked equally decrepit as the rest of the village, but she at least knew where all the inhabitants went. They shuffled aimlessly around the house, their expressions disturbingly blank. She ducked into a small shack behind the neighboring house and cursed when a bloodcurdling scream mixed with the whirring noise.

That definitely was a chainsaw and that scream sounded too similar to Smith. The chainsaw kept going long after the scream had died, which meant that Jackson was next if he wasn't already dead.

Taking a quick look to make sure the coast was clear, she ran to the neighboring house and shoved a window open. She hustled in, making quick sweeps of the rooms, but it was blessedly empty. She bolted up the stairs to the second floor and ran into a bedroom with a window facing the house where she heard the chainsaw. She could see a few villagers wandering in the space between the two houses and swore again.

If she couldn't move fast enough, Jackson was going to die.

Grateful that she wasn't afraid of heights, she braced a boot on the window sill and carefully stood, angling her shoulders out of the window and grabbed the upper frame. She glanced down to make sure they hadn't noticed her, then surveyed the outside of the house above the window she was perched on. She could see the frame of the roof exposed, the shingles falling apart from neglect and erosion.

Not having the luxury of time to think about it, she bent her knees and jumped.

Splinters bit into her fingers and the frame made an alarming groaning sound, but it held. Another glance down showed the villagers still standing about cluelessly, so she carefully pulled herself up.

Now, she had a jump of ten feet to make it to the next rooftop. With a running lead, Helena could land it easily enough, and she judged the structure adequately secured. Backing up a few steps, she took a running leap.

Helena landed somewhat ungracefully on a knee, somersaulted over her back, and nearly sailed off the other end of the roof, but instinct had her reaching out and bracing her feet in the midst of sliding to stop herself. Her knee throbbed, but she made it.

There was a ladder propped up against the side of the house, so she climbed down to an open window and clambered inside.

The first thing she noticed was the smell. Granted, the entire village smelled like many things had died and rotted, but this smell… it was the scent of fresh death. Her stomach churned, because while she wasn't foreign to blood and death, her sensitive sense of smell had yet to acclimate.

She went to the open doorway and strained to listen for any sounds of life. There was loud shuffling and grunting coming from the lower level, like someone was moving furniture around. Helena crept down the stairs, her gun out and ready. She couldn't see anyone immediately, but checked what appeared to be an open living room and an adjoining study, all empty aside from rickety and dusty furniture. There were dark smears and stains on the wooden floors. She put them to the back of her mind and pressed her back against the wall by the opening to the kitchen.

There was some kind of fire coming from the kitchen; she could hear the pop and crackle of it as someone moved around, throwing shadows into the opposite wall. She peeked around the corner.

A large man was standing at a table, his back to her. He raised his arm and she could see a large cleaver in his hand. It looked like he was cutting something, something that looked like a leg. A human leg.

Helena clenched her jaw. She couldn't see Jackson anywhere. Raising her gun, she aimed at the butcher's head, but was momentarily taken off guard when she noticed his head was covered in a burlap sack.

The butcher stood up straight. Helena's finger twitched on the trigger. At this range, it would be a clean headshot, sack or no. She didn't think reason or warnings would work on any of these people, but she didn't have a silencer, and the villagers would hear the gunshot. She had gotten away last time, but she didn't think she'd be so lucky if she was trapped in a house with limited ammo and no way out.

As though he heard her thoughts, the butcher put his cleaver down, tossed the leg aside, and shuffled through a door to outside.

Helena stared. She waited a few seconds.

Trying not to overthink this random bout of luck, she swiftly entered the kitchen and held her breath to keep from catching the scent of fresh, chopped limbs in the corner. She quickly scanned the room and found an alcove: propped inside that alcove was Smith.

"Smith!" she whispered, eyes wide.

She ran to him, her hand automatically going to his pulse. He still felt warm. He seemed unharmed until she pulled up for a closer look at his torso and saw the deep gouge that ran from his shoulder diagonally down nearly to his opposite hip. The flesh was torn and ragged and the wound black from how much blood there was.

She pulled her hand away. The butcher had taken a chainsaw to him. Smith was dead.

She hadn't liked him in the least and he'd definitely been a certified asshole to her, but he didn't deserve this. She searched the room again, but couldn't find any signs of Jackson. The body parts in the corner were too decomposed to be his.

Helena had to decide where to go from here. She had no idea where Jackson could be and she couldn't keep dodging villagers this way: she was going to be found one way or another. She returned to Smith's body and carefully went through his pockets, soon finding reassuring weight of his gun still in its holster, right along with a spare magazine. She tucked his gun against the small of her back under her belt and fished out his wallet and service badge.

She couldn't help him, but she was going to make sure she had something to bring back to his family. She tucked it away into a spare pocket, then heard the heavy tread of large footfalls just outside the door again. In her momentary distraction, she hadn't been listening close enough to the outside. The door opened just as she turned towards it.

The huge lumberjack stopped short just beyond the threshold. Helena couldn't be sure if he noticed her or not because of the sack on his head, but his aggressive reaching to crank the chainsaw might as well have confirmed it. Helena leveled her Hydra and shot him.

He didn't budge. A dark stain spread across his broad chest, but he simply yanked again, and the chainsaw started. She steadied her grip, braced her stance, and fired two more rounds. The butcher shrugged them off like he did the first one, raised the chainsaw over his head and walked towards her.

He swung. Helena dodged past him and bolted to the open door. Villagers were looking at the house and some even spotted her. They pointed, picked up their weapons, and slowly began to swarm.

Adrenaline drummed through her system. She could clearly hear the man with the chainsaw barreling his way behind her while dozens of crazed villagers clumsily gathered around the house. She made a split decision and slammed the door shut, figuring a single butcher was better than a whole village of them. Helena rammed a chair under the door and faced the butcher once again.

He swung wildly again, but his movements were slow and clumsy. Helena easily evaded as he buried the chainsaw into the wall. She pulled some bullets from her belt, snapped open her Hydra, and reloaded quickly. He yanked the chainsaw out just as she aimed a blast into the back of his knee that nearly blew his leg clean off.

He grunted and let go of the chainsaw. She carefully kicked it away and blasted him in the face again with her Hydra.

Amazingly, he managed to stay on his feet and even lunged for her. He caught her left arm and she grappled with him. It was like five shotgun rounds had been nothing to him.

She kicked him in the gut and heard something crack, but he didn't even flinch. With a jerk, she managed to free her gun arm and aimed her Hydra square in his face, squeezing the trigger point blank.

His body was thrown into the wall from the blast. This time, when he hit it, he slid down to the floor limply. Outside the door, the villagers pounded on the wood and windows. The sound of breaking glass had her head swiveling to see a man breaking through a window to crawl in. She didn't waste a second; turning her back on the butcher, she ran up the stairs to the second floor landing.

Halfway up the stairs, she heard the door slam open. At the top of the stairs, she saw one villager glare up at her. Helena heaved a bookcase down the stairs and shut herself in the room she'd entered from.

Instincts more than anything kicking in, Helena hurried to the window, latched onto the ladder, and climbed back up.

She'd just cleared the roof when she looked over her shoulder and saw a head poke out the window and another villager on the ground pointing up at her and alerting the others.

She grabbed the ladder to pull it up, but whoever was at the window pulled back with startling strength that almost yanked her from the roof. Another villager latched on. At a disadvantage from above, Helena pulled free her Picador and shot both of them. She pulled up the ladder after firing a few rounds and laid it safely out of reach on the roof.

Now, she was stuck on a roof and would need to get to another roof again. She could hear more villagers gathering below and even saw a few carrying spare ladders.

Helena shook her head and readied to jump back to the original roof she had been on, but that option was cut quickly. Looking across the way to it, the other house wasn't empty. There were more villagers inside it and they had burning torches with them.

When a ladder was placed against the roof edge, Helena kicked it over, sending a couple of villagers down with it, but as soon as one of those torches landed, she'd be done for. The villagers were already lighting up a pile in the middle of town, and even at this distance, Helena made out Jackson's familiar mission gear in the middle of the pyre.

Helena didn't have time to think about it. She reached for her utility belt and snapped off a grenade. It was a bad route: she only had two, and it clearly wasn't enough to wipe out the whole village, but if she could blow open a big enough path, she knew she could outrun them.

Just as she was about to pull the pin and drop the first grenade, a bell tolled. The villagers all froze and looked towards the sky, as though it was where the sound came from. The bell continued to ring. The villagers dropped everything: pitchforks and scythes, machetes and hoes, their torches, too, and headed towards the tower with the peculiar symbol on its door.

Helena swore quietly, spotting one torch roll abruptly close to the corner of the wooden house. She hurriedly lowered the ladder, again not questioning the great stroke of luck, then quickly descended once the villagers were out of sight. She kicked the torch away from the house to keep it from going up in a full blaze, then looked after the door where the villagers had disappeared.

She didn't know what was going on, but she was going to find out.

With the last of the villagers gone and the immediate threat removed, Helena made her way back into the house with her gun drawn, and sure enough, she found the butcher still slumped on the floor against the wall. Helena approached him cautiously, not trusting anything in this village to follow the normal rules anymore, not when its people shrugged off bullet wounds like they were nothing and displayed strength that rivaled her own.

A huge, bloody and yellow-speckled mess, the man remained still, but Helena refused to let her guard down. She moved around his feet slowly and kicked a leg. It budged as a dead limb would. She kicked again, harder and higher near the hip this time. His head slumped off his shoulder and he fell forward like a ragdoll, something rolling off his person. Helena glanced at it and saw a large bloodred stone. She switched her eyes back to the corpse and, still holding her gun up, inched towards the stone.

She grabbed it quickly, realizing it was a ruby almost the full size of her fist. She pocketed it without too much thought given and finally made her exit. Everything around her lay still and unmoving, save for the soft flicker of the fire dwindling around the body pit.

It wasn't too big yet, not really catching on the flesh or logs very well without tending, which allowed Helena to bend over Jackson's body and search him. She removed some useable ammunition, but the villagers had taken his gun, grenades, and utility belt. It seemed they had the sense to do that.

A name stuck to her as she rifled through Jackson's remaining belongings, spoken reverently by one of the men as he ambled his way to the door. Lord Saddler, the man had said.

Helena didn't know the name by anything she had read before coming here, but she kept the name at the back of her mind in case she came across it again.

She made her way to the south gate where she had come in, thinking it the safest place to call back to base and report in, but the gate was down and lined by barbed wire at the top. Seeing that it was impossible to climb, she doubled back to the village. She found the gate to the east also blocked, but the one north was open. Before heading out, she climbed to the top of the tower; it would make a great vantage point in case more villagers showed up. Figuring it was the safest she was going to be, she took out her handheld and finally answered the call she had been getting since the fight broke out.

Hunnigan's worried face appeared on the screen.

"Helena, there you are!" the older woman exclaimed, looking much like someone who just found her runaway puppy. "I've been trying to contact the three of you for the past half hour. Did something happen? Wh- oh, my God, what happened to you?"

She imagined she didn't look well with her face covered in dirt, sweat, and blood, but not one drop was hers.

"Hunnigan," she breathed, a small sense of relief filling her at the familiar sight of her handler. "Smith and Jackson are dead. A woman attacked me after I asked about the president's daughter, and the rest of the villagers went after them. There was a man with a chainsaw; he killed Smith. And the others, they burned Jackson in a pyre. Hunnigan, these people are acting weird, not like zombies but it's like they're possessed or under some kind of spell. I think they're infected, there's some kind of yellow substance in their blood."

"Infected? Are you safe, Helena?" Hunnigan asked anxiously.

"For now," she said, though she did look out the tower's windows to double check. "They would have gotten me, too, but some church bell - I don't know where it was coming from - it started ringing and they all just left. One of them said a name. Saddler."

"I'll see what I can find, Helena. You need to get out of there now. I'm going to send an extraction team for you."

"Hunnigan, I think the president's daughter is here," Helena said, ignoring the fretful expression on Hunnigan's face. "I'm going to look into it."

"Not without backup, you're not. Helena, the rest of your team is dead and you may be dealing with BOWs. Your priority is to head to the extraction point. Look for a tower-"

"I don't want to lose this lead, Hunnigan. If the president's daughter is here, I'm not leaving her behind."

With that, she cut the connection along with Hunnigan's protest. She surveyed the area one last time before climbing down the ladder. She checked the door with the symbol, not surprised to find it locked. Using her handheld, she took a picture of the symbol and sent it to Hunnigan, asking her to look it up, despite knowing a stern lecture was coming.

She wiped her face clean with the sleeve of her jacket, then checked to make sure both of her weapons were loaded. Searching Smith and Jackson's packs had doubled her handgun ammo, added two hand grenades, an incendiary, and an extra sidearm, but neither of them had any shotgun shells, leaving her with 44.

Picador in hand, Helena headed out the north gate, hoping she wouldn't run into another man with a chainsaw.

The singular path lead to a farm, the people there going about their chores like the villagers had been. Helena ducked into the nearest shack where she could see two men at the barn just ahead of her and another man raking hay outside the the other barn to her right.

They were fairly spread out, she noted, reaching for the combat knife on her holster. There was a good chance she could get through the farm without using a single bullet. These weren't innocent, helpless civilians, she told herself. These farmers had the same empty, trance-like looks she had seen on the villagers. There would be no reasoning with them.

After making quick and quiet work of the farmers, Helena took the east door, as the west door was locked from the other side and was far too tall to scale without equipment.

Outside led to downward path along the mountainside. The first thing she noticed was a peculiar signpost. She remembered that she had seen it twice before: the first in the area where she had helped the wolf and second right after she exited the village. All three signposts were unreadable, but the human skulls adorning this one was telling enough.

Slowly, she began to make her way down the path, and put the knife away to switch back to her prefered Picador. After a few more steps, she heard a rustle from above and huge rocks dropped behind her, barely missing her. Another large boulder fell towards her.

Helena rolled forward to avoid the impact, then scrambled back to her feet and sprinted ahead, outrunning the rolling boulder as best she could. The moment the path opened up wide enough, she leapt out of the way, safely avoiding it when the boulder smashed into the side of the mountain.

Breathing hard, she trained her gun at the path and waited to see if anyone would come rushing down to attack her. She wouldn't put it past these people to jump from that high up and survive after what she'd seen earlier. When nothing turned up, Helena checked out her newest surroundings to see what was ahead of her. A short tunnel, it seemed, that lead to another open area with two houses.

Unlike the last two areas, this one seemed unoccupied by the locals. Still, she advanced carefully, taking slow, short steps. There were no other exits besides the one behind her. This place made the perfect trap. A faint flash of light caught her eye, revealing a sloppily planted tripwire on a shack's entrance. Inside the shack, she saw, were three bear traps.

The house closest to her was heavily rigged, but empty. She made it to the next house, easily missing the bear traps and trip wires haphazardly placed around it. She entered through the window, thinking the door was boobytrapped and she was right.

Once inside, she heard a faint, muffled noise that seemed to be coming from a few rooms away. She followed the sound, easily ducking under the tripwires on every doorway until she came upon the last room in the house. The noise came a wardrobe that had been shoved to the very corner of the room, the frantic struggling from inside making it shake, but not enough to force the lock open.

Sensing a possible ally, but still guarded, Helena leaned against one of the doors, putting herself in a safe, advantageous position. With a simple flick of her wrist, she popped the lock, sending a body crashing to the ground and wriggling frantically like a fish out of water. She turned the man on his back using her foot, her Picador aimed at his head.

The man, his mouth taped, shook his head wildly, his panicked pleas muffled.

Deeming he wasn't a threat like the villagers, Helena unceremoniously yanked the tape off his mouth, making him squeak in pain.

"Like it rough, don't you, senorita?" he drawled, amazingly going from utterly terrified to shamelessly flirting in an instant.

Helena rolled her eyes and nudged him back on his stomach, ignoring his further protests about her rough handling.

"You are not like them, I hope," he said conversationally as she undid the bounds on his hands. "What a shame that would be."

"I'm not," she answered gruffly, seriously considering slapping the tape back on him. "Who are you? Why haven't they killed you?"

Freed, the man sat up, rubbing his sore wrists.

"Now I could really use a smoke," he drawled lewdly, waggling his eyebrows at her. "You wouldn't happen to have a cigarette, would you, senorita?"

"Answer the damn questions or I'm throwing you back in the wardrobe," she growled, her patience already gone, "and I'll light it on fire."

The threat, while delivered with convincing intimidation, was immediately forgotten when they heard footfalls outside the room. It was too close for them to hide, so Helena leveled her Picador at the doorway instead.

The door slapped open and a giant stepped inside. Helena fired immediately upon seeing him. The man, at least eight feet tall, wore a trench coat and had a beard that reached his chest. The giant shrugged off her bullets just as easily as the man with the chainsaw had, drew a hand back, and hit her hard enough to have her vision go briefly gray, then black.