Chapter 70: Blood Trail

Once the dirty job was done, Rick and Jill exited the room to get inside a corridor going down a little bit. When something huge moved inside the vent up the ceiling and reshaped it, they stayed on their guards. Jill used the genesis to have a read on the big amount of blood that came from it at a choke point but got nothing conclusive beyond a trail.

They had encountered another dead crew member hanging off partially for another vent but there was one major difference from the others they encountered earlier. This one had begun mutating. Rick didn’t think twice about severing the head from the shoulders by cleaving at the neck.

The genesis led them through a cafeteria where things began taking a turn for the weirder. Much like in Raccoon City Police Station and the rest of Umbrella’s facilities. Some objects were in curious places. He thought the green herb they had found earlier had been a lucky find. Something dropped inadvertently by a member of the crew during the panic. Yet, the presence of a partially depleted box of 9mm ammunition inside a locker in what looked like to be a Dining Room was making him think otherwise.

Jill seemed to be of the same mind. “Huh. Do you have a flashback of the Spencer Mansion?” She picked up the box and filled it inside one of her two back pouches.

“Yes. And the R.P.D. and the sewers and Nest… It’s like… someone is… scattering resources. While I can understand the Mansion, since it was built by a lunatic and as a test ground for STARS. The other places? Makes no sense.” He shook his head in disbelief and confusion.

“Fear and panic makes you do some weird shit.”

On that, Rick agreed but that was some really weird shit. No paying anymore mind to it they crossed over to the next room which, without much surprise was the Kitchen. His eyes immediately darted around to find weapons.

“Jackpot.” He commented and while being cautious, made a bee line for the knives.

Jill didn’t understand what he meant at first but rolled her eyes skyward when the first thing he did was grab one specific cooking utensil. “You and your love for meat cleaver.”

She remembered clearly how he raided as many restaurants' kitchens on Terragrigia to arm himself with them. They were very useful, however, she wouldn’t deny it. Rick had taken down zombies and hunters by heaps with that improvised weapon. Then again, it was possible because it was Rick. No one in their right mind would fight any of those two types of B.O.W. in close quarters. It was too dangerous.

That was why the standard was a tactical knife, as it fit the role of a self-defense weapon more. If you had to use your knife it was to stab with it as a last resort. A meat cleaver couldn’t allow you to do that which was also why Rick was carrying three of those.

The first thing he did with one of the cleavers? Throw it at the head of the dead body on one of the tables. Jill simply took a deep breath and exhaled through her nose. She knew, she just knew Rick would stop at every single body to take care of it like this. There was caution behind this and it didn’t waste ammo so she wasn’t upset but that was borderline OCD in her opinion.

Looking down, she saw lots of blood pooling at the center of the room, falling down through a rectangular metallic grid. It looked heavy and protected some massive something she couldn’t determine. One thing was sure it was made of flesh.

“Rick?”

He turned to look at her and follow her line of sight. Walking away from the now almost empty rack of knives, he walked toward the plaque on the floor and easily removed it. To Jill it was as if he had just removed a lid of a tea pot and not something she might have needed help to move.

“You’re perhaps my best partner ever just for this.”

She gave him a teasing smile but once again he spoke no word in response. Not even a shrug of his shoulders. Instead he crouched down to have a better look. The change in attitude was really drastic and unsettled her a bit and she supposed that it was just because he was on admission and focused on the tasks at hand.

Pulling out the genesis she scanned the blob made of flesh and found something that looked like a gun. Taking a knee, she pulled the genesis away and plunged her arm into the disgusting and filthy organic matter. Unintentionally stirring it to grab what she had found, the stench of rot became stronger and attacked her nose making her want to gag.

Just as she got what she was looking for, she heard a loud thud followed by two loud gunshots. Looking up she saw Rick, his .45 in hand, aiming at something behind her. Looking around, she saw a humanoid gray mass of flesh on the ground. Cleary a B.O.W.. One which presented the same mutation as the crew members from the vent earlier. Its appearance however presented a done transformation.

“It didn’t leave for another part of the ship through the vent earlier. It just went stealthy.” Rick explained to her while he went to pick up his axe stuck on the end wall. “Been observing us ever since.”

Jill frowned. “How do you know? And why didn’t you tell me?”

Rick put back the tomahawk at his hip then tapped one of his ears then his nose. “I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know how intelligent it was and if it could understand us. It was smart enough to act when we were distracted. It slithered through the vent, landed silently…. Maybe it’s just instinct.”

This was a point she conceded and removed her arm from the pile of flesh, taking what she knew was a gun from touch alone. It was in fact a standard Glock 17 and still with the hand of its owner attached to the handle. Not being useful she just dropped it back into the pile.

“Alright, we’re dealing with sneaky B.O.W. , who can take quite a bit of damage.” She tried to see if one of the taps worked and cleaned her hand when water flowed.

“Don’t do that anymore.”

Jill turned her head in puzzlement. “Do what?”

“Plunge your hand into organic matter like this or use the water of the ship. We’re working with a new virus, Jugs. Who knows how it infects people? The less you’re directly in contact with it, the better.”

Grabbing a dirty and stained cloth to dry her hand, she agreed that what she had done had not been the brightest of ideas. Rick picked the genesis from her hips and scanned her hands. Getting a result, he silently put it back where he took it. His lack of comment, and worry told her everything she needed to know about any possible contamination.

What he did next baffled her. He crouched down and picked up the discarded gun. With the same piece of cloth she dried her hands with. The hand still grabbing it was removed and the weapon cleaned from all the filth on it.

“Really?” She gave him a flat look.

“Yes.” He checked to see if the gun could work without a thorough cleaning. The answer was no, the chamber was completely obstructed but it still could be useful. “You might lose your gun, it could be used as a back up… Could have if we had the time and the tools to clean it properly. At the very least…” He pulled out the mag and checked the numbers of bullets. “I count eleven.”

Once again, Jill found it weird. His attitude. She was well aware he was a hoarder and didn’t waste resources but this was going a bit too far for her.

“At least we know it’s not Chris, nor Jessica.” He commented, as he put the handgun inside one of his pouches.

Jill agreed in Chris’ case. Her partner and ex-boyfriend used the same model as she did and the one they found was a Glock. She didn’t know anything about Jessica however.

“Are you sure about her?”

“She’s using a G18.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because she’s suspicious and rubs me the wrong way, so I watch her like a hawk. She quit the F.B.C. for the BSAA—”

Jill interrupted him then. “So did Parker.”

“And he’s suspicious too but less.” Rick’s answer made her do a double take. Parker Luciani was a good man, she got along very well with and it shocked her that Rick was wary of him. “Jessica is materialistic. If she wanted money to have the finer things in life, leaving the F.B.C. makes no sense as they are paid 30% more and with better insurance. She’s a gossip, always putting her nose where it doesn’t belong and she’s too casual for the work we do.”

“You say that because she’s constantly flirting with you and Chris.”

“I say that because she’s wearing a mask. I don’t know what her game is but I don’t believe it’s anything good for the BSAA.”

Jill chose to leave the conversation at that and scanned the dead monster instead. The results revealed it was close to the blobs they had found on the beach earlier in the day. Once done, she went for the door and got curious when Rick simply rummaged around. Her expression turned blank when he pulled out a dirty box of 9mm from a massive cooking pot against the wall.

“Why the hell…”

Rick began checking its content. “Don’t know, don’t care. There are five bullets and that’s all that matters. With the six from that guy’s corpse and the three from that small box over here, it’s almost enough for a whole mag.” Putting them all into the same pouch he put the 5.56 earlier, he walked towards the door leading to an unexplored part of the ship.

Jill fell into steps behind him. “We’re going to have a talk about you rummaging and picking up everything you find when we get back home, Rick. I know some habits die hard but you’re not a street kid collecting everything you find to survive anymore.”

“If you can’t see the importance of collecting everything useful, Jugs then I can’t help you. Tell you what, if by the end of the mission, I didn’t prove that my ‘habit’ has been needed, then I’ll hear your lecture. If not—”

“What then?”

“I’m giving you a lecture and training you in it.”

“Faire enough, although I don’t see myself losing.”

Rick didn’t comment on this and simply went through the door. It presented them with a short corridor which turned left and continued a bit further. At the end of it there were two doors. A red one in front of them and a blue one to their right a few feet away.

Jill tried to check the red door but it was locked. It had a narrow hatch on it and she lifted it up to peek inside.

“Chris!”

Rick got behind her to have a look “Unlikely.” What he saw was a man on a chair, with hands tied behind his back. He admitted it looked like Chris from behind with the same haircut and build.

Jill turned her head with a scowl. “It’s him!”. Before she could say anything more and call out to her ex-boyfriend Rick closed the hatch not caring about her furry.

“It doesn’t have a heartbeat.”

That brought Jill up to a stop and he quickly explained himself by tapping his ear for the second tile since they boarded the Queen Zenobia. “You can even hear—”

“In utter silence and if I focus on my hearing? Yes.” He nodded. “Not far but that man is close enough.”

Her heart sank then she suddenly remembered that Rick had thought it was unlikely to be Chris. “How can you be sure it’s not…”

“I don’t smell shit.” Seeing her blink in total abstenmindedness secretly amused him.

“Right.” Jill’s cop training finally kicked in. “If he’s dead, his body would have relaxed and released… No shit but no heartbeat… What does… That makes no sense.”

“Hm…”

Rick picked up one of the kitchen knives he stored earlier, opened the hatch and threw it into Chris’ look alike shoulder. Hard enough to make the body fall forward. From the sound of the blow alone it was clear to him whoever that was it wasn’t a human or even organic. The hell bouncing and rolling on the ground more than confirmed it to Jill’s relief.

“Well… one thing is sure. We stepped right into someone’s trap.”

Jill understood that too and realized that the danger they were in may be more lethal than a simple outbreak of a new unknown virus. Someone wanted her here, on this ship and that made it personal.

The Chris mannequin’s existence didn’t paint a pretty picture for O’Brian. He had been the one who gave them the coordinates to the Queen Zenobia, saying it was the last known position of Chris and Jessica. He was also the one to send Jill knowing the relationship she had with Chris.

More questions without clear answers but one thing was sure O’Brian was involved. Why the interest in Jill however? That was the main question in Rick’s mind. The most important one.

“Can you…” Jill used her hands to sign Rick just demolishing the door as if he was a charging bull or ram.

“Yes but I won’t.” He explained himself before she could ask why. “It’s a trap Jill. A whole ship, so we’re probably being watched. The less they know about what I can do…”

She immediately understood his point. “The better the surprise for them.”

“I also don’t want an enemy to have recordings of me being… me. Who knows if that can communicate with the outside and sell them. I’d be in big trouble.”

“Fair point. What do we do then?”

Rick thought about it for a moment. “We have two options… We play the clueless ones and get on with the plan of whoever is after us. Or we flip over their script completely and fuck them over. That room,” He pointed at the red door. “Is clear bait. They want us to get inside. Whatever’s awaiting us in there is not in our best interest.”

“Let’s… continue to explore.” Jill finally said after a moment of hesitation. “They want us to take the blue door anyway. Maybe we’d find more clues.”

Giving her a nod of agreement, Rick took point. Going through the door led them to a staircase. The path leading down was completely destroyed and minus another green herb what was at the bottom were simply clutter of metal leading to nowhere. With no choice but to go up a deck, they arrived in a long corridor going through a good part of the length of the ship. Unfortunately it was completely blocked by enough piled up furniture that going through the door right on the left to explore was better.

The room behind it was a bunkhouse. On the left and right bunkbed against the walls. Like the rest of the ship everything was dirty and filthy. The opposite end led to a shower room. Rick pulled out his shotgun and shot through a stall on the left twice. Jill watched with attention as a B.O.W. fell dead onto the wet and flooded floor.

“I’m both very glad you’re with me and absolutely jealous of what you can do.” Jill was looking at the corpse.

Rick didn’t say anything, too busy taking two shells from his bandoliers and loading them in his weapon. It peeved her a bit, his silence, but let it go. Moving forward they picked up more 9mm ammunition here and there and through another bunkhouse to arrive back in the corridor on the other side of the clutter from earlier.

Continuing down the path they looked at the door to the left before a sharp turn in the same direction. It was locked and from the lock they weren’t about to pick it any time soon so they didn’t waste more time on it. Reaching the end of the corridor they went through the door and heard a scream.

Rick moved as fast as he could then. To Jill, one moment he was there, one moment he wasn’t. To him he felt like he was too slow. He had already climbed down the stairs in less than two seconds when a regular human would take almost ten.

Right in front of him, behind a huge bay window was Rachel, surrounded by two B.O.W. One of them holding her in the neck by the neck and with its mouth releasing something looking like a lamprey heel. From the teeth on that thing, Rick understood it was this that sucked the crew members out of their blood and left marks on their body.

Without thinking he charged through the window, way faster than the monster could move. He grabbed its head, its appendage an inch from Rachel’s face, and pushed it back so hard it was tackled to the floor, releasing her.

With his free hand, Rick threw his tomahawk behind him, knowing exactly where the other creature was while he began to rip the eel. He then drew the knife on his shoulder and stabbed the creature until it died. Turning back he saw Rachel had pushed down her own opponent against a table and was hitting it over and over again with his axe. It was a gory dead mess but she kept at it.

Standing up he called out to her by her name but to no avail. Getting closer he used her former codename. “LIQUID!”

Rachel turned on the spot and tried to whack him too. Rick’s perception made it so she was very slow and his reflexes gave him the possibility to grab her wrist and lock it in place.

“Enough.”

He saw the one lone eye of the blonde woman widened in shock, her body freezing on the spot. It took half a second to recognize who he was and her body relaxed on the spot.

“Roach?”

“FREEZE! Drop your—”

Jill’s sudden intervention ramped up Rachel’s engine again and she turned to the now broken window to throw the tomahawk in her hand. Thankfully, Rick was still holding her arm and nothing happened.

“We’re all on the same side here.” He told both women and loosened his grip a bit on his ex-partner who didn’t make any move to attack again. “So you’re all calming down and we’re having a talk.”