This chapter will be the last one for a while. We've blown through 3 months of writing in just the past three weeks, LOL! No two year hiatus this time, though. I hope to be back in another two or three months with new chapters. The 1080p remake of Resident Evil 2 is dropping at the end of January and I can't wait. More trash for the soggy, burning dumpster upon which I sit enthroned!

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"What the hell?"

Chris had witnessed some putrid things in his time, but this was by far the worst. For a moment, all he could do was look at the flailing appendages in disgust, his gut wrenching at the smell of infected flesh. I killed this thing already!

Bloody tentacles lashed at the display cabinets, flecking the crème-colored walls with scarlet. Chris jammed the shotgun into his shoulder, trying to decide what to shoot: the writhing mass, or the canine puppet lolling around beneath. The beam of Wesker's taclight swept across the dog's murderous red eyes. The pupils did not contract. Oh, fuck this right in the ear!

Chris squeezed off a round without a second thought. To his horror, the animal lurched to the side with fiendish speed, missing nearly all of the shot. Glass shattered, shelves collapsed, and the dog bounded at them with a snarl. Wesker opened fire, hitting it twice. The dog plowed right through as though they were BBs and leapt into Chris' chest, its massive weight knocking him flat. Chris frantically jammed his arm in the way to prevent its bloody, glistering teeth from sinking into his face.

"Chris!" Jill leveled her Beretta, but was too afraid to open fire.

Huge paws scrabbled on his parka, knocking the wind out of him. Pain shot through his wrist. Chris prayed the thing's teeth hadn't actually found skin. He let go of the shotgun, seized the mutt by the collar and wrenched, breaking its attempt to tear his face off his skull just long enough to force his boot under the thing's gut. He kicked hard, and the dog flew back a couple of feet. Jill and Wesker opened fire in unison, moving diagonal across the hall to give him some cover.

Chris scrambled back and seized the shotgun, rolling quickly to his feet. There was blood on his sleeve; his or the dog's, he couldn't tell. He checked his target and fired again, watching as the shot tore through the dog's left haunch- and still it refused to die, climbing back up on shaky, mangled limbs. One of the writhing tentacles seemed to lengthen, whipping across Jill's forehead hard enough to split skin.

"Aim for its chest cavity!" Wesker shouted, leaping backwards.

The order made no particular sense to Chris, but then again, there wasn't much head left for him to aim at. He pumped the shotgun and fired low, opening a fountain in the dog's throat. Another pump, and its left front leg shattered like a chicken bone. The animal flopped onto the carpet, emitting a noise that seemed to climb well out of the range of human hearing. Chris pointed his shotgun at the base of the tentacles. Gore and great spurts of putrescent flesh blasted out to paint the display cases. Severed tentacles flopped, squirming, to the carpet. The dog's legs gave one last twitch, running in midair… and then the creature was still.

Chris fired one more time anyway. Just to make sure.

After the riot of gunfire, the silence that flowed in was deafening. Chris chambered another shell, the empty one clattering to the floor by his boot. The three of them waited in silence, not taking their eyes off the corpse. Freezing wind gusted through the shattered windows. On the floor, fragments of glass gleamed like broken teeth.

"Motherfucker," Chris snarled, holding his arm up for inspection. The fabric of his parka was torn and leaking curls of stuffing, but pulling back his sleeve revealed no blood or obvious open wounds, just bruises forming in the shape of the dog's jaws. "What the hell was that?!"

Wesker gave the animal a long look. "I would surmise we're looking at the parasite after it's reached full maturity," he said darkly.

"You mean that's inside me?!"

"I would assume so."

Chris swallowed bile. He looked at the corpse on the floor, particularly the limp tentacles surrounding it. As far as he was concerned, "parasites" were little intestinal worms and the red, welted rash caused by scabies – not flailing octopus monsters several feet long. Where would such a nightmare thing even exist in nature? And how the hell had he been infected by it in the first place? It's got to be manufactured. Got to be! Probably some GMO squid Umbrella cooked up in a lab somewhere. I remember Jill saying something about Nemesis having tentacles…

He glanced sidelong at Wesker.

"And you're sure it's not another of your little black-book projects?"

Wesker ignored him. Chris pushed his sleeve back down with a grimace and reached into his pocket for a handful of shells, loading them into the shotgun before they were pounced on by another surprise. The broken windows faced the street, and provided no protection against anything outside. If they ever had to double back this way, Chris was certain it'd be through several undead.

"Come on," he muttered. That was another little something he'd picked up from Arklay: keep moving. Heading deeper into the insanity was still preferable to waiting for it to catch up, because escape could be just around the next corner. Over the river and through the woods, to Wesker's funhouse we go!

A manic grin split his face. He cocked the shotgun with a snap.

Half a dozen steps later, he reached the door at the far end of the hall. Over the river and through the woods, and straight through the graveyard gate. Oh, it seems to go so dreadfully slow… Chris put his hand on the doorknob and turned, the carol orbiting feverishly inside his head. Over the river and through the woods, now it's Wesker's glasses I spy!

The door opened onto a huge lounge filled with chairs. Utilitarian to the extreme, it had little in the way of decoration or embellishments save for the same padded red carpet and wrought-iron candle holders scattered artfully about. It's like a boxcar somebody tried to make into a room, thought Chris, panning his flashlight over grey brick walls. The lounge felt deserted, but he moved through it slowly, sweeping the knots of chairs and tables where stacks of magazines and more of the loud purple flyers were stacked up in plastic holders, waiting for perusal.

Candles are lit here, too, Chris observed. Choir boys making their rounds?

The ivory tapers were still nearly eight inches tall, indicated they'd only been lit for an hour or two. Chris rolled his shoulders, trying to shake the anxiety off the back of his neck. The Spencer Estate had been filled with candles and candleholders, too, but at least Wesker hadn't spent a couple hours scurrying around with Zippo just to set the mood.

"You know, I've been wondering," Chris began in a low voice, checking the sides of the room. "When exactly did you have time to take it up the ass with Umbrella when you were working a 9-to-5 shift with the rest of us? Weekends? All-nighters? Seriously, when?"

A draft sighed through the lounge, stirring the candles.

"Finding a day or two every couple of months was hardly a detriment to my schedule," said Wesker.

"A day or two? That's it?"

"My work at Arklay was concluded before my enrollment with the RPD."

Chris' brow furrowed, his expression twisting into a frown. How old is the prick again? Going on forty? He was in his early thirties when he was with us, so that means… so that means what? That he was poking at viruses in his teens and twenties? The idea of a young Wesker unnerved him, so he dropped the image and kicked it away.

"Concluded, my ass," said Chris. "You're STILL with Umbrella."

He waved a hand to get Jill's attention, then pointed to the door midway up the lounge. There was no time to stop and chat, but he could definitely walk and chew bubblegum at the same time, the questions in his head desperate for an outlet.

"When STARS was formed, Spencer immediately identified them as a potential threat that might expose the company, should evidence of Umbrella's experiments go public," Wesker continued. "He was also aware that should a containment breach ever occur, STARS would be the one called to respond due to our proximity to both the Training Facility and the Hive. Multiple solutions were proposed, but an internal informant was decided to be the most effective means of control."

Chris was caught off guard by the length of the response, but Wesker wasn't done. "Volunteering myself for the position was a viable means of escape," he added quietly. "I had my own plans, and STARS enabled me to distance myself from Spencer's scrutiny long enough to implement them."

If Wesker was good at anything it was picking and choosing his words, and the word escape stuck out like an unwelcome splinter, a sliver of glass that Claire's voice was only too happy to pick at. Did you know Umbrella had him forced into a supersolider program? He's messed up, I'll admit it, but he's not the monster you think he is.

"What plans?" Chris demanded sharply. "Taking us out back to die?"

"Preparations had been made, but your deaths were not part of them," Wesker snapped, his tone signaling the end of the conversation. Chris grit his teeth, but knew better than to turn around and argue. Ducking the question by offering half-answers was one the man's most infuriating habits, but even so, something felt off. What the hell does that even mean?! That Arklay was an accident? Pfft! Does he actually think he's gonna spoon-feed me this ration of shit and I'll eat it up like my sister did?

He'd never thought of Claire as an easy mark, but then again, neither was STARS.

"You should've been an actor," said Chris bitterly. "You'd probably have an Oscar by now."

He tossed open the door. To his left was a dark wooden staircase leading to the second floor, while directly ahead was another long corridor exactly like the one they'd passed through before, if noticeably much wider. Oil paintings in heavy gilt frames adorned the walls, depicting carousel horses and naked, grotesque figures that seemed only partially human. The biggest of them was a six-foot portrait of a man in hooded velvet cassock. After a moment, Chris recognized him from the TV; Osmund Saddler certainly been on it enough. You'd think somebody would've told him he looks Emperor Palpatine, he thought, disgusted.

A thick, rotten smell was on the air here, like a refrigerator filled with bad food. Jill wrinkled her nose and toed open a set of rubber swinging doors, panning her flashlight into the space beyond. Chris caught a glimpse of huge, industrial sized appliances and piles of food-encrusted dished piled in the sink. The putrid scent wafted out, stronger than before.

"Oh, good God."

Morbid curiosity won out, and Chris backtracked a step to peer around her. A body was sprawled on the low metal counter, one arm dangling over the edge. At some point in the last several hours, blood had run down the pale length of her arm and dripped the tips of her fingers to form a coagulated puddle on the tile. Her chest had been ripped open.

Chris swallowed his rising gorge, his eyes hard. Despite the filthy kitchen, this was no zombie attack, no half-eaten corpse propped in a moldy corner. The way the corpse was laid out on the counter lifted the hairs on the back of his neck, the entire scene reminiscent of sacrificial altar. The idea that the same fate potentially awaited his sister was enough to make him sick.

"The T-Virus didn't do this," he pointed out ominously.

"She looks like… like she was sacrificed or something," Jill added, her voice thin.

"Yeah… my thoughts exactly. What kind of freaky shit is going on around here?"

Wesker held up his hand for silence.

"What?" Chris whispered after a moment.

"Voices," Wesker intoned in a low voice, pointing up the hall.

Chris didn't hear a thing, but his heart immediately began to beat faster. With one last look at the corpse, he moved slowly down the hall, thankful that the carpet muffled the sound of his boots. He wondered which was crazier, that Wesker might actually have a genuine stake in all of this, or the possibility that they'd wandered straight into the mouth of a cult. He wracked his brains trying to remember what had been printed on the leaflets. Something about begging for devotion?

They passed more curio cases filled with jewel-encrusted beersteins and chunks of stone bearing the fossilized imprints of a creature with long, winding tendrils. Two dark wooden tables framed a set of double-doors about halfway up the passageway. The nearest held an old, antique typewriter, the paper spooling from the top covered in dozens of names and dates. Spiffy guestbook.

It was not a compliment.

He heard the voices now; they were coming from behind the doors.

Bastard's got the ears of a Rottweiler, Chris marveled sourly, stacking up on the left side of the door. He wondered how big a scene it would cause when three heavily armed persons came crashing into a late-night mass filled with nice, ordinary folk who gathered to weather the nightmare outside – then decided he didn't care one way or another. He put a hand on the door. Wesker gave a nod.

In one smooth motion, Chris hurled the door open and shouldered his way inside.

His impression of the chamber beyond processed in fragments, realized, stored and forgotten in favor of new information. The sanctuary was massive, a vaulted cathedral nave transplanted from the Old World and rendered in concrete and gleaming metal. There were no pews. Instead, upholstered grey chairs filled the floor in tightly packed rows – but not a single one was occupied. Instead, a crowd of forty or so stood in the middle of the aisles, swaying back and forth as though in a deep trance, droning something in a language Chris did not immediately recognize.

"Morir es vivir… morir es vivir… morir es vivir…"

The chant died suddenly, cut off as everyone swiveled to look at the intruders. There were no stragglers, no ex-military vet a little quicker on the draw than his compatriots, no doddering old grandmother who continued to murmur hymns long after silence had fell over the others. Instead, the congregation limply rotated towards the door as though they'd been practicing the motion for a Broadway musical. Perfectly in synch. Perfectly in tune. A shiver went down Chris' spine, and he was seized by the ridiculous notion that he wasn't looking at a crowd of thirty people, but rather a single organism with sixty eyes.

"Claire!" he bellowed. "Claire, are you here?"

There was no response.

Chris felt the cloying heat of embarrassment start to rise in his cheeks, but he forced it down. He was supposed to be here. Wesker said he was supposed to be here! The crowd continued to stare at them in silence, and in that silence, the absurdity of the situation pressed in with ruthless force. Chris started to turn, screaming at himself for placing even the barest minimum of trust in Wesker, and eager to smash those insufferable glasses from the man's face-

-but then he froze. The crowd had not moved, but in the dim light, each and every one of their eyes gleamed with a harsh, unnatural glow. A small group of priests stood at the altar at the far end of the nave, surrounding the imposing man Chris had seen in the portrait. Saddler gave Chris a cool, calculating look and smiled, the promise of cruelty embedded in the soft parting of his lips. The red-robed priest lifted a finger and pointed.

"!Mátenlos!"

As one, the crowd began to press in with murderous intent.

Chris fumbled to get his shotgun back up to bear. "Freeze!" he hollered, startled. "I said freeze!"

Wesker opened fire. Chris jerked, startled by the man's sudden, callous disregard for human life, but the feeling was submerged under an even worse realization. Someone at the front of the crowd staggered and clasped at his chest as the parabellum round tore through his ribs, but despite the spurt of blood, his momentum barely slowed at all. Wesker emptied what was left of his magazine, then reached beneath his jacket for its replacement.

"Fall back!" he ordered, shedding the empty magazine into his pocket.

Chris took one look at the crowd and decided not to argue. What the hell?! They're not zombies- they're still alive, still normal! Backing backwards out of the nave, Wesker slapped his second magazine into place and racked the slide with a well-oiled snick. Two more rounds hurtled into the crowd. Two more hostiles refused to fall. Something whooshed over Chris' head and shattered against the wall.

No, not normal. Not even close.

Chris slid his finger into the trigger guard and squeezed, aiming high. The head of the nearest person exploded into a fine red mist. There were no screams. No hesitation. Nobody in the crowd reacted to being painted in blood, treating the corpse only as an inconvenience to stagger over. It's like they're half-asleep or something!

Chris pumped off another round, wondering crazily how he was going to explain this while bent over the hood of a police cruiser. Sorry, officer. I ran into this here church looking for my sister and found a cult of murderous psychopaths instead! You gotta believe me, it was self-defense!

"I will kill you!" An old man snarled, spittle flying from lips that looked half-rotten. Halitosis and sour body odor washed into Chris' face, nearly making him gag. He pointed the shotgun at the man's chest and blew a gaping hole through his ribs. The body slumped back into the mob and was trampled.

They backed out into the hall, retreating the way they'd came as the crowd poured into the passageway. Chris urgently looked around for someplace to defend. "Wesker, Jill, upstairs!" he hollered.

The ex-STARS members took the stairs two at a time, racing headlong into the darkness above. For a minute, Chris had a wild image of a fifty-foot snake lunging out to bite him in half, but then Jill fumbled for the light switch and the world solidified into reality. The room was nondescript and unimportant, a mirror image to the hallway below. Angry voices followed them up the stairs.

"Stand your ground here," said Wesker coldly. "We can't risk been driven."

Chris gave the man a look, then found himself nodding grimly. There were no doors or windows to barricade, but that didn't mean he had to make it easy for the mob. He lobbed the shotgun at Jill and seized hold of a display case, tipping the entire thing around the banister and down the stairs. Glass shattered and split with a thunderous crash, spilling artifacts into the hall below and leaving a tangled mess of cabinetry heaped at the bottom of the stairs.

"Shoot 'em as they climb over," he told Jill darkly.

The brunette handed his weapon back just as the congregation reached the stairs. A woman of about 20 was the first to climb over the wreckage, lolling slightly as though drunk. Chris set his jaw and forced himself not to think. He squeezed the trigger and watched the corpse land in a heap, still twitching, not quite dead. A middle aged man scrabbled over the body, his lips peeled back from bad teeth and cherry-red gums. The unwashed stench of the mob pressed in, and Chris suddenly understood why the church seemed drenched in Lysol and jasmine oil. The shotgun bucked in his hands, ejecting another empty shell onto the carpet. The dark-haired woman was stirring again.

Jill got down on one knee and steadied her Beretta with both hands, choosing each and every shot. One of the men in the crowd lurched up the stairs with a frightening burst of speed. Chris blew a hole in his gut, doubling him over, and a follow-up bullet from Jill sent him toppling back down the stairs. The stench of blood and shit pulled on the back of Chris' throat. He clamped his teeth and held it down. Smoke curled from the end of the shotgun, adding the scent of gunpowder to the mélange.

"I'm out!" he shouted, reaching into his pocket.

There was a sudden bang from the upstairs hall. Chris snapped his head to the side to look. To his horror, four or five people came loping down the hall – emerging from God only knew where. There's another way up. Goddammit, they've got us pinned!

Wesker turned to face them. The sound of his gun was a familiar one to Chris, heavy, metallic, and slightly muffled on account of the modded Brigadier slide. We all fiddled with them, had them customized or had shit replaced. Even him. Chris rammed a set of fresh shells into his shotgun and chambered the first with a snap, fighting the memories sucking at his ankles like a dangerous riptide. Mine had a lighter trigger so I could compete.

He pointed the shotgun back down the stairs. He'd been so damn proud, so eager to show-up the rest of Alpha and Bravo – especially Forest. Poor murdered Forest. Chris squeezed the trigger, thinking of the smell of gunpowder. Three stairs below him, an overweight, stocky women in a suit went tumbling back with a crash that shook the broken cabinet, so very different from the blued paper targets they'd aimed for down at the gun range. I was so naïve.

He risked a sideways glance down the hall and counted four bodies on the ground and another four hurrying down the corridor. Two of the men were holding huge, gleaming blades pulled from the kitchen block downstairs. One of them raised a cleaver as if to throw it. Wesker put a bullet through the man's hand with almost supernatural precision, then stepped sideways to better cover the stairs from future projectiles. His Samurai Edge bucked in his grasp, shedding gleaming brass casings.

I always wondered if I was better then him.

Chris felt a hand close around his ankle and he jumped, returning his gaze to the stairwell just in time to see the dirty fingers hooked into the pantleg. The goth teen was missing half his face. Chris lowered the shotgun and blew the rest off in a chunky blast of gore. The bodies were starting to pile like cordwood, forcing the living to crawl and stumble over them. But stumble on they did. A wine bottle hurtled up the stairs. Chris smacked it aside with the shotgun and felt it shatter, little droplets of alcohol peppering his face like bloody tears.

"Reloading!" Jill cried.

Another hand pawed at his ankle. Chris kicked out and felt the hard-edged toe of his boot connect with someone's face. He tried not to think about the sensation of their teeth breaking. A blonde woman shoved her way through the mob, her mouth hanging slightly agape, dressed in a black silk dress so thin it almost qualified as negligee. In the dim light of the stairs, her eyes blazed with chemical fire. Jill slapped a fresh magazine into her Beretta and fired.

The blonde's head popped back so hard it nearly tapped the back of her shoulders. Chris watched as the skin of her throat split open like a rotten melon and a writhing mass of tentacles burst through the gap, shiny with blood and white, glistening mucus. The body continued to stumble forward.

"Jesus Christ, what is that?!" Jill exclaimed, horrified.

Chris whole-heartedly agreed with the sentiment. He trained his shotgun on the mass but didn't fire. His last two shots had to count for all they were worth. Jill squeezed several rounds into the pulpy tentacles, but it had no visible effect other than making them writhe faster, the thickest one still trying to unfurl from the woman's neck. Chris caught the barest glimpse of a scythe-like crescent of cartilage before it came whipping towards him. Startled, he squeezed the trigger. The appendage jerked back with a screech.

"Jill, back up! Back up, back up!"

There was nowhere to back up. Wesker shot a glance over his shoulder, then whirled to point over the banister, shooting directly down into the mass. The scythe-tentacle whirled, leaving a deep groove in the wall and chipping wood from the newel posts. Chris' finger twitched against the trigger. Come on, come on…

Jill switched her aim to the creature's chest. The thing staggered, listing sideways into the wall and arching its spine like an overextended rubber band. Chris squeezed the trigger. Buckshot tore through the base of the tentacles, vaporizing the smallest and severing two of the larger ones. With a high-pitched shriek, the entire creature began to topple. Wesker kept firing until his Samurai Edge locked back with a snap. The blonde's pale white legs folded. She collapsed like a marionette whose strings had just been cut, tentacles curling and writhing, and slid back down the mountain of bodies.

Something moved out of the corner of his Chris' eye. He quickly swiveled his head to look. Wesker had cleared the upper corridor save for one bearded individual – either having dismissed him in favor of a more dangerous target, or because he'd emerged into the hall after Wesker had turned away. Snarling, the man lunged with both hands outstretched…

Chris let the shotgun fall. His hand blurred to his waistband, hearing a buzzer long since reduced to nuclear ash. The Beretta slotted into his hand. He chambered the first round and fired. By then, Wesker had already turned partway, sensing or hearing the danger at his back. The bearded man's head popped backwards, a neat round hole blooming between his eyes. Blood leapt and sprayed, spattering Wesker's glasses as the corpses' own momentum hurled him forward into the blond's chest. Wesker didn't even twitch, as if he were used to bloody corpses lunging at him, and with a soft gurgle, the man slid down Wesker's front to collapse at his feet.

For the first time in nearly ten minutes, the church was utterly silent.

Wesker slowly rotated to look at him.

"Nice shot, Chris."

Thank you, sir. The thought arouse spontaneously and unbidden, and Chris choked on his own air. His face heated, the pain in his throat undeniably real. He lowered the handgun. What the fuck was that? What the hell is wrong with me?!

Movement drew his eyes again. Osmund Saddler was standing in the doorway at the far end of the hall, looking around like a man who just couldn't believe what'd happened. Chris felt something snap. With a roar, he took off down the corridor, leaping the piles of bodies which somehow, impossibly, had already begun to soften into viscous glue. His boots slid on the carpet. He righted himself and kept running.

"Chris!"

"Redfield, wait!"

Saddler whirled and tried to run. Chris hurled himself through the doorway and tackled him around the waist, throwing them both into the next room. Furniture crashed and stacks of paper went flying. Air belted from Saddler's lungs in an audible whoosh as Chris' much heavier frame landed atop him. In one quick motion, he seized Saddler's arm and levered it against his body, rolling upright to brutally plant his knee across the man's neck. He'd received basic CQC training in the Air Force, and it hadn't been so long since he and the other members of Alpha had faced down across a sticky gym mat.

Not so very long at all.

The only thing missing was Wesker standing nearby with a kid's pneumatic air rifle, a nasty smirk on his face and a penchant for popping the loser in the ass. Negative reinforcement, he'd called it.

Saddler let out a pained screech, twitching and struggling against the carpet. The skin of his throat rippled as if something was moving inside his esophagus, and something dark and fleshy peeked at the corner of his mouth. Chris leaned a little harder on his knee. "Try it and I'll snap your arm," he threatened, too furious be disgusted, too desperate to be afraid. It was time for a little negative reinforcement of his own. "Where's my sister? Where is Claire?!"

Wesker and Jill ducked through onto the balcony, weapons trained on the scene.

Saddler made a wet choking sound in the back of his throat. "I- I don't know any Claire!" His voice was thick with a foreign accent, the syllables stretched thin with panic. "Please, you misunderstand! I am just the minister of-"

"Minster of what?" Chris interrupted. "A church full of BOWs? Cut the crap, you sonuvabitch. I want my sister and I want her now! About 5'6", red hair, blue eyes. Ringing any bells? Answer me!" He levered Saddler's arm until the man screamed.

"Yes, yes, the red-haired woman!" the man sobbed. The smell of urine was suddenly hot on the air. "He gave us orders to follow her out of city and take her alive! Please, I swear! Mister Vladimir was very specific; we were told not to harm her!"

"Where'd they take her?"

"I- I don't-"

"WHERE!?"

"Not here! He wanted her brought to headquarters-"

Wesker let out a furious snarl. He put his expensive Chelsea boot over Saddler's twitching ankle and leaned on it until they heard something snap. Jill flinched. Chris did not. "And just where is that, exactly?" Wesker demanded, his tone deadly.

"!Cabrόn! The WilPharma building! There- there is a tram, between here and the ritual chamber! We use it to take the worthy, to give them our gifts! You share the same blood as us, mi hermano. Surely you understand! Your sister has been chosen, too!"

A shudder crawled it way across Chris' skin. Looking down into what little he could see of Saddler's chalky face, he felt his gorge rise at seeing the pious moisture in his eyes. "You're sick," he declared flatly. "Tell me where the tram is."

"It is downstairs, in the sanctuary," Saddler whispered feebly, tears dribbling down his cheeks. "Behind the rectory. We will need my key. I will take you there and you will see! You will see what an honor it is!"

Chris looked up at Wesker and a silent communication passed between them, heavy with things both subtle and implied. Wesker slowly took his boot from Saddler's ankle and in one swift motion, Chris rose to his feet, dragging the sobbing minister with him. "Alright, move," he ordered bluntly, keeping one hand fisted in the man's heavy velvet hood. With his other, he carefully pointed his Beretta between the man's shoulders, right where he could feel the ache growing in his own chest.

Limping horribly, Saddler shuffled from the room, turning left and leading them towards a narrow staircase. So that's how they were getting up behind us.

At the bottom was the nave they'd barged into earlier, the staircase concealed by a clever fold in the wall. Chris risked a glance up and saw the choir loft they'd occupied earlier jutting out above his head, a dark blot against an even darker ceiling. He held tighter to Saddler's hood.

"Our power is astounding," the minister continued. "You'll see. They have already hatched, have they not? I can sense it. Soon one will mature and you will see the beauty of our faith!"

"Yeah, I'm sure I will," Chris deadpanned, shoving him forward, but the pit of his stomach was cold. He thought of the squirming tentacles growing inside him, pushing his organs around to make itself cozy, and was suddenly afraid. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't. Who's going to take care of Claire?

Saddler hobbled up the steps to the sanctuary, leading them past low table draped with a bright purple cloth. There was a dark stain in the center of it, gleaming wetly in the light. Chris had a bad feeling it wasn't wine.

"This way," Saddler told them, reaching into his robes. Chris tensed, ready to shake his captive like a dog, but Saddler only withdrew an angular metal key. Reaching the main altar, he curled his spidery fingers beneath the edge and pressed something underneath. There was a click and a panel of wood slid smoothly away, revealing a keyhole and a numbered panel. The irony of the situation was not lost on Chris. He resisted the insane urge to laugh.

"It is natural to be afraid," said Saddler. He slid the key into the lock and turned. The keypad began to glow a luminous green. "Embrace the path you have been fated to walk, revel in the circumstances that brought you here!"

"Stop talking and get the door open."

Saddler's fingers moved across the pad and there was a bright chime of acceptance. It took every ounce of willpower for Chris to remain still as there was an answering click inside the altar, the sound of a metal weight changing positions. Never in Chris' life had such a sound been associated with anything good. He grit his teeth as part of the altar suddenly began to sink away from them, opening a rectangular doorway. Fluorescent strip bulbs flickered to life with an audible buzz, revealing a narrow concrete passageway slopping swiftly down from their position. Ah, the manic voice in Chris' head observed. Ain't that just perfect?

"And this leads to the WilPharma building?" Wesker questioned in a low voice.

"It is our direct line to him, yes," Saddler explained. "Come, come!"

Chris twisted his fingers into the man's hood, meeting Wesker's eyes. Again, something cold and dark passed between them, startling in its intensity. They'd butted heads together a lot at the RPD, over budget cuts, lazy precinct bureaucrats – anything that got under his skin, really. But when they hadn't been squabbling, they'd shared looks like those before, communicating without the need for words. Chris set his jaw. He didn't need Wesker's permission for jack squat, but in the moment, it didn't occur to him to question the man's approval.

In one smooth motion, he pulled the trigger on his Beretta.

Dark, putrescent gore leapt into the passageway and Saddler slumped forward with a groan. Chris let go of his hood and let the body fall, watching himself carefully for any sign of life. A tiny, pathetic-looking tendril wormed from the bloody hole in his back, twitched, and then fell utterly still. Jill gave him an openly horrified look.

"Chris!"

"What?" he demanded coldly. "He's a BOW. Or would you rather I grab an extension cord and tie him up out here so he could grow a few ass-rape tentacles and come barreling down after us, or tip somebody off that we're coming. I've got enough shit to worry about!"

Jill closed her mouth, staring at him with a troubled expression as Wesker swept to the hidden entrance and peered inside. "Looks clear," he reported. He moved to go inside, but Chris was close enough to seize him by the arm, fingers digging into the soft leather of his coat. Wesker turned slowly to face him, his face hard.

"My eyes," Chris stated bluntly. "They glowing, too?"

He felt rather than saw Wesker blink.

"Yes."

Chris didn't let go of Wesker's arm. Seeing the BOWs in the church, seeing the luminescent gleam in Saddler's eyes, it'd made him remember something. Or rather, it'd brought it back to the forefront of his mind. He'd never forget that afternoon, never forget the sight of blood mixed in with the vomit in the toilet, or the sight of those incandescent eyes peering helplessly at him through matted, sweat-soaked red hair. Begging for help he could not give.

"Claire had it, too, didn't she? Before you took her."

The tension in Wesker's body loosened. "That has become my assumption as well, yes," he answered in a low voice. "At some point during the summer, I suspect that she was exposed to the parasite – likely in the same manner you were. Unlike you, however, the dormant T-Veronica in her body triggered a massive immune response, resulting in a runaway cascade of symptoms that destroyed the parasite but also left her system in a state of severe shock."

All this time, I figured you'd shot her full of something just to see us suffer.

"She worked just down the street, you know – just half a block," Chris continued, almost to himself. After Rockfort Island, it'd been his idea to settle in Harvardville in the first place, when the funds in his wallet and the gas in Jill's Subaru had begun to peter out. 1,000 miles away from Raccoon City, and I STILL manage to find us another conspiracy. I sure know how to pick em, don't I?

His grip on Wesker's arm loosened. He let his hand fall.

"On point, Redfield," said Wesker. "We need to move."

Without another word, Chris reached over and wrenched Saddler's key from the lock before moving into the cold mouth of the tunnel. The shells in his pocket were gone, and the shotgun had been left behind somewhere on the stairs. There was no need to check the magazine of his Beretta. Fifteen minus two left thirteen, plus the loaded magazine in the pocket of his jeans made for twenty eight rounds total.

He had to believe it was going to be enough.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxx-O-xxxxxxxxxxxxX

TRIVIA: Chris' sudden burst of ruthlessness is actually based on my personal experience with him. In both the GameCube REmake at the Spencer Estate and Code: Veronica, Chris is relatively young and naïve, and just surviving the bullshit. Enter Resident Evil 5 and he's a calm, determined professional already starting to get weighed down by the shit he's seen. Twenty minutes into the game, I headshot a Majini, see the button prompt for melee, and jump on it. Without hesitation, Chris swivels behind the guy and breaks his neck in one clean, brutal twist.

We've all heard the sound of that. It startled me, to be honest. I wasn't expecting it and well, there it was. Chris wasn't the man I'd known from the previous two games, and never would be again.

Also, if Saddler doesn't have the Control Plaga… then I think we can all guess who does.

*evil laughter while the T-Virus theme plays in the distance*