The Madness Of Brian Irons

Part Two - Running Blood

*********************

Irons crouched with satisfaction over the slumped form of Ray Oliver, the twenty-six year old beat-cop from Kansas. The body was still warm, the blood still seeping from the small but fatal puncture in the man’s abdomen, and from the corners of his half-open mouth. He’d passed out from shock and would soon be dead... but at least he would never become a zombie. Irons figured he owed Ray something for his troubles, but a nice, clean death was a little too generous.

“Weren’t you going to make them suffer?” the Voice whispered sharply – accusingly - in the Chief’s fevered mind. “How can they suffer when they’re dead? They have to feel pain, pain like you have.”

Irons grunted in agreement, and checked the clip in John’s gun. Twelve shiny bullets….. more than enough for the ragtag band of survivors he knew were still wandering around the Station. One bullet each... let's make it fun.

“What about the rest of them?” hissed the Voice, urgently.

“They won’t get far. I’ve moved everything around, including the weapons,” he snapped back. “It’s Ed and Branagh I want.”

“No!” the Voice barked fearfully. “They all saw the photographs. They all KNOW. So you’ve got to kill them all. Every last one...”

Stepping up from Oliver’s still-cooling corpse in the West Office, Irons made his back toward the main corridor beyond. They couldn’t be far away... they’ll be close, trying to hail the chopper, he thought, the thrill of the chase beginning to work on his heavy limbs, aiding him in speed. He could hardly feel the pain in his hip now; adrenaline can work wonders sometimes. It had been a good while since his last hunt in the woods, and only now did he realise how much he missed all that - the stalking, the aim, that tense moment of silence before he pulled the trigger, when he held in his own hands the power to let live or grant death.

Now the hunt was on again - and what a hunt! Man against man, brains against brains; surely the hunt of his life. Turn brother against brother – the Devil’s work indeed – and how gladly Umbrella had shouldered the burden of his labours! Never a staunchly religious man, despite a firm Catholic upbringing, Irons did sometimes wonder...

“Wonder?” scolded the familiar, cajoling entity inside his head. “What’s to wonder? Umbrella have destroyed Raccoon, and soon others will come to wipe it clean, clean from the face off the Earth. Brian Irons is gone, finished. Everything he lived and worked for. Now there’s nothing but death! And even those who still live will become zombies. There’s nothing to wonder anymore, my friend, no.”

Yes -

Umbrella had taken everything away, but they had set him free now – no more money, no more politics, just raw and frenzied instinct. This is how it should be, he reflected contentedly, the memory of Oliver’s shocked and pleading face passing through his mind again. Not fast enough, boy. Too trusting.

He heard a sound to his right, and tensed. There was Ed, not twenty feet away, close to the vending machines and the ‘smoker’s corner’; his back was turned and he was cursing to himself softly, trying to stuff a number of chestnut-sized objects back into a small plastic box. Shotgun shells - for the Remington he had slung over his back, no doubt. He must have dropped them in his hurry to get away -

“Shoot him,” hissed the Voice in Irons’ head savagely. “He doesn’t see you; shoot him now!”

Irons crept closer, soft footsteps barely making a sound as he inched toward Ed’s back. The muzzle of the Beretta rose slowly, levelling itself with the officer’s oblivious head...

“Not there,” the Voice ordered. “The heart...”

Ah, the heart. Just like when he hunted deer. One didn’t want to spoil to skin, especially the head. Ed’s head would made a fine addition to his collection...

“No time,” the Voice commanded. “He’ll turn, and he’ll see you. Do it!”

Ed heard the shot; even registered the muzzle flash reflected back at him, and the sudden ugly red stain appear on the tiled walls in front. Then he was on his knees, falling, knocking over the ashtray stand with a clash.

Writhing, his vision clouded with the crippling pain – Ed felt something had burst inside of him. He landed on his stomach, mouth working convulsively as if to speak, or perhaps choking on his own blood. His shirt was a spreading flower of blossoming red, and the floor beneath quickly turning crimson as the life ebbed swift and silent.

“What’s the matter, Ed?” Irons gloated, tasting a heady rush of gruesome satisfaction he’d never quite felt before, not even with his deer. “Didn’t think the Chief would be the one that got you, eh? I know you were after my job, Ed. I know they all wanted you instead of me, but it seems we’ve both had a pretty bad day.”

Ed’s eyes were still open, unblinking in agony, trying to place the heavy, crushing pain, trying to figure out why his body wouldn’t move right and his breath wouldn’t come. Trying to place that thick, coppery smell...

Irons laughed; he could hardly help himself. Ed reminded him of a moose he’d shot illegally once, and watched stumble for over a hundred yards on failing limbs, dragging a trail of blood behind it, staggering and lumbering toward him with no real purpose or resolve – it simply didn’t know what had happened to itself. Ed was just the same, if not more amusing, because he ought to have known; but he began to crawl anyway, with excruciating slowness; away from Irons’ blurred and leering frame, dragging himself with his nails and elbows, smearing a thick trail of scarlet behind.

“You see,” the Voice scoffed. “The look on his face – it’s priceless!”

And it was. A few moments later, Ed was dead, or as good as: lying with one hand to his chest, the other still clutching at air, a glassy death-gaze settling on his now tranquil face. He’d just managed to flip over onto his back before the end, perhaps to catch a glimpse of his killer - if he hadn’t already placed the sneering voice.

...Beautiful.

Ah! The moment of death had always fascinated Irons; that thin sliver between life and movement and vibrancy, and between its cessation and onset of decay. To preserve it - that had always been his pleasure, which was, perhaps, why he loved taxidermy. Ed had passed beyond it now, and nothing would save him from the terrible rot but a careful and practiced hand in the crafts of preservation. But not now - there were other more important matters to take care of.

Branagh. The others.

And Beverley, of course.

Irons shuddered to think the terrible stinking decay that infested Raccoon should touch her delicate features, so perfectly made, so perfectly balanced.

“Not while you still have breath,” the Voice seethed unceasingly in his brain. “She’ll never be spoiled if your clever hands were to show her what it’s like to be eternally young, eternally lovely...”

With a strange and growing feeling of glee, Irons turned his back on the bleeding man at his feet, even forgetting Branagh for a moment, as the smile crept wider and wider across his pale, sweating face.


*********************************************************************


“Where are we going?” Beverley protested, watching Branagh let down the emergency ladder in the main lobby. “Where is everybody?”

“They oughta be here already,” answered the cop, anxiously. The lobby was empty, and Ed should have been back by now. What did he go for, again? Shotgun shells. Yeah, that was it -

“Hey Ed, come in,” he rapped over the radio. “I’ve cleared the passage to the roof. Get your ass back here fast, we gotta move.”

Silence and crackling static greeted him on the radio.

“Come in, damnit,” he repeated, exasperated. Beverley’s face began to crease in confusion and fear; something about the cop’s tone and the way he was talking made her fear the worst, and yet –

“Where’re all the other cops?” she asked, this time trembling. “Where’s Uncle Brian?”

“Dead,” Branagh snapped stiffly, his voice gritty with recent and painful memory. “This place is crawling with Umbrella freaks – cannibal zombie things - I don’t know where Irons went. Here, I’ll go first.”

Beverley cradled her head as the cop climbed down the ladder, trying to take in what he’d just said. Zombies? Umbrella? What was this, some kind of sick April Fool’s joke?

It’s not April Fool’s day, Beverley...

“You’re lying!” she shouted back. “Uncle Brian told me it was a riot.”

“Your Uncle told us a lot of things,” Branagh answered, hardly caring to keep the loathing from his voice. “Now get down here, sweetheart, where it’s safe.”

Beverley hesistated at the top rung of the ladder, casting her sceptical glance about the eerie, empty lobby, its huge marbled walls seeming unnaturally quiet, almost secretive – so different from when she’d first come there. At that point, the sun had been up and the lobby had been teeming with cops and an atmosphere of nervous confidence and hurried conversations. She’d paid it no mind, of course; police stations were busy places, always full of tension. But now the place was lifeless, dead as a derelict museum in a ghost town in the middle of a desert. It was just wrong.

“I’m not coming down till you tell me where my Uncle is,” she threatened, through gritted teeth.

“We don’t have time for this,” Branagh answered sharply, his patience already whittled to the bone, grazed with desperation. “We need to hook up with the others, but I can’t do that if I’ve gotta leave you here, alone.”

It was true enough. They were wasting precious time. Time that would be better spent clearing a path to the chopper - or failing that, the unsavoury prospect of the sewers. Rickman had looked pretty rough when Branagh left him to check out the upper floors, not to mention some of the others...

“Is Uncle Brian coming with you?”

Suddenly sensing a way to coerce the girl, Branagh lied and nodded. “If you come down, we can look for him together.”

“Alright then,” she offered warily, a look of distrust on her haughty face as she climbed delicately down. Her dress hem caught on a screw in the top rung, loudly snaring a strip of the soft fabric; it clung to there like a miniature white flag. Beverley scowled.

“Now look what you made me do. You know how must this dress cost? It’s a Gucci you know.”

“Hurry up,” Branagh warned, ignoring the girl’s complaints. With zombies and freaks running free everywhere and all she can do is bitch about her dress –

When Beverley finally got to the bottom, she could only squeak with alarm as Branagh grabbed her wrist and made for the nearest door on the right. He seemed in a fearsome hurry, and she was about to ask him what it was when she realised that they were in some kind of office, decked out with party gear, hats and bottles of soda. It was a mess.

“Whose party?” she wondered, glancing at the unused plastic cups and uneaten food.

“New guy,” Branagh shot back as he jogged to his own office at the far end of the room. “What the - holy shit!”

“What is it?”

“Rickman? Rickman, you okay?”

A cop was sprawled face down on the floor behind the desk, his neck open and bloody, ravaged. There was a heavy smell of panic and death in the air, and something else – a strong, sickly rotting reek. “Jesus, what a mess…..”

“Oh my god,” Beverley breathed, hands cupping her mouth with shock and disgust. “Is he…?”

At that moment, she saw something she’d only ever seen before in cheesy horror movies. The dead guy’s hand shot up, grabbing Branagh’s shirt, pulling up a hideous malformed face that looked more than anything as though it had been chewed on - and bit him, hard. Branagh cried out in shock, ripping himself free and stumbling backwards. The zombie-man staggered up, grinning stupidly, face a mask of dumb hunger, while his eyes, clogged and suppurating, fell on Beverley close by. Emitting a shivering moan, the creature lurched towards her, hands outstretched.

“Run!” Branagh cried out, voice serrated with pain.

Frozen with fear, Beverley stared wide-eyed into the face of the undead, her brain rejecting what was simply impossible, what just couldn’t physically happen. The man’s face was half ripped off... and his NECK –

The zombie reeled towards her, stumbling on its bloodless legs, and then she felt it - felt the cold fetid weight land on top of her, its slimy, stinking bulk hanging in tatters above her face. She screamed, but too late – the monster had already sunk its blood-flecked teeth into her soft side, tearing and slavering like a famished dog.

*********************************************************************

Irons jogged panting across the smooth marble lobby, gun held tight in one moist hand, whispering to himself. Soon he could rest, could return to his office, his safe, familiar office, and his beloved collection. The one place left in his world that hadn’t gone crazy, that hadn’t been touched by Umbrella’s vile creations.

Yes, he could return and look after Beverley.

...Until the end.

“Once you’ve silenced Branagh,” the Voice would tease. “Then you can rest. Just a little longer; not far now, not far. Then you can rest... for as long as you want. Calm, peaceful rest...”

“Rest...” he repeated haggardly, the word sounding good from his labouring lungs. He wasn’t in shape, that much was clear; one too many dinners at the Harrises, perhaps. All that pencil-pushing he’d been doing -

But at that moment, a long, scream brought both his aching legs and the wheedling Voice to rein.

Was that –

No! It couldn’t be…..

Beverley’s name tore itself from his lips, his fantasies and fevered exchanges with himself forgotten. Had the scream come from his office? he wondered. No, it had been much too loud... she was close by...

A stab of anger shot through him, anger that he didn’t quite understand. Was he angry at Beverley? Or at himself for neglecting her welfare, for letting the Voice deceive him into his grisly game of hide-and-go-seek?

He called again.

No answer. But he was certain the sound had come from the West Office. Despite the nagging pains that were beginning to nibble at his joints, Irons ambled off toward the office, limping and cursing by turns.

Why had she left his office? More intriguing, HOW had she gotten out -

Irons’ jaw dropped open as he threw back the office door, taking in at once the macabre scene before him. Branagh, crumpled and bleeding, trying to work his way towards the zombie, gun in hand. The zombie itself, crouched and feeding - feeding on Beverley’s prone form, one arm flung over her face, the other limp on the ground.

“Get off her,” Irons roared, surprised at his own speed and vehemence as he sprang forward, and with one thick-armed backhand knocked the creature’s rank and rotting head from its shoulders. Branagh collapsed with relief, putting his back to a dented locker close by, grunting with exertion. Blood seeped out from between the fingers of the hand that nursed his gut, but Irons wasn’t watching, wasn’t caring...

The vivid red stain and torn dress on the body of the girl had shocked him almost senseless. Worse still, the sight of the wet, pearly twists of intestine through the tatters almost stopped his heart –

“See what they’ve done?” the Voice cried, behind the pulsing throb in his ears.

“Not Beverley,” Irons pleaded, tears almost welling from his bloodshot eyes. “She never deserved to be defiled! She was perfect...”

Perfect little Beverley...

Lying face-up on the ground in front of him, eyes closed in a swoon, her slim pale arms had been helpless against the carnal hunger of the decapitated zombie. Warm blood oozed slowly from the brutal wound, tainting the virginal white of her party frock, escaping fast.

This can’t be happening!

“You weren’t there for me,” the Voice began to sob, suddenly taking on the lilt of Beverley’s own voice, the Voice that had soothed and demanded of him by turns. “Why weren’t you there, Uncle Brian?”

“Forgive me,” he begged, a guilty hand creeping up to cover his misted eyes.

“I just want to be safe,” she answered. “Can you do that for me, Uncle Brian? Can you take me where they won’t get me?”

“Of course. Of course I will,” he breathed, reaching out to grasp her hand. “They won’t get you. I’ll make sure of it.”

Branagh watched Irons dazedly, wondering if it was the way his head was swimming from blood loss that made it seem as though the Chief was talking to himself. After a moment or two, Irons eased himself up on griping limbs, hefting the girl’s wilted form, backing out of the office with infinite care so as not to knock her legs on the door-frame.

Irons had barely registered the mortally-wounded cop. Looking down, Branagh swallowed heavily as he saw the ugly bite-mark that the remains of Rickman had inflicted. Zombie-bite -

- Which meant he didn’t have much time left in this world.