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antaxzantax · 1 month ago

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Umbrella Pharmaceuticals - Chapter 57

Summary:

Alfred Ashford and his cousin Auguste torture vagrants in an abandoned factory with the help of Peter.

Amelia poured her five o'clock tea. Her cousin Alexia had sat on the carpet with her back against the sofa to draw strange spiral shapes on the Etch-A-Sketch. Groundhog Day: Alexia was engrossed in her hobbies and Amelia was agonisingly bored by Alexia's lack of interest in going outside. She had travelled to Raccoon City to help her father Anthony with some real estate investments suggested by cousin Alexander, and wanted to take advantage of the stay to have fun with her cousins and older brother. However, Alfred and Auguste were away for most of the day, and Alexia returned from being locked in an underground laboratory to lock herself at home. Exciting.

“Lexia, what are you drawing?”

Alexia shook the toy and the figure disappeared.

“Nothing special.” She turned the dials again.

“Wouldn't you like to go out for dinner? Shall we go to Dorsia? On Friday night they serve a special menu.”

“Are you forcing me to be a normie, Alma[1]?” Alexia whispered, concentrating on her new drawing.

“A girls' night out!”

Amelia grabbed her cousin's hands to pull her up. In the manner of passive resistance, Alexia made no effort to lift herself an inch off the floor. The Etch-A-Sketch fell to the carpet.

“Alexia, please, let's go.” Amelia begged her with moist eyes. “I won't stand another day locked up at home doing nothing. We don't even need to call for a reservation. The owner of the restaurant is a friend of your father.”

The Dorsia occupied the top two floors of the tallest skyscraper in Raccoon City. The owner, a gay friend of Alexander's who always dressed in a tacky leopard suit, greeted them at the restaurant's main entrance with a bottle of champagne. Alexander's friend seated them in a VIP penthouse booth overlooking the Arklay Mountains. Amelia and Alexia asked for a bottle of water to drink, but Alexander's friend brought them a bottle of vintage wine that only served Amelia two years shy of her twenty-first birthday. For lunch, they selected the most expensive food without reading the contents of the plates.

“It's delicious. Do you like it?” Amelia peeled the second prawn with a knife and fork. Alexia nodded. “By the way, how's work? Any news?”

Alexia shrugged her shoulders.

“Oh, Sasha tells me you're working with another chief researcher. What's his name? William Birkin?” Amelia sipped from her glass of wine.

“Yes. William Birkin.”

“Have you ever worked with another chief researcher before?”

“No.”

“And what is the man like? Is he worth it?”

“He's competent. And he tried to kill me a few months ago.”

Amelia's knife slipped from her hand. Alexia cut a piece of steak.

“Kill you? Is that what you said?”

“Suffocate me.” Alexia pricked the piece and ate it.

“Why... Why...”

“I destroyed his life's work before his eyes. My father slammed him against the metal table. He was in a coma for a couple of days, but he suffered no brain damage. He grabbed my neck and squeezed hard.”

Amelia choked on the peeled shrimp. She coughed and ran to drink from the cup to pull herself together. Alexia cut a second piece of the steak and ate it.

“Oh, my God... Alexia.”

“I'm very selective about who I work with,” Alexia concluded impartially.

“Why are you not normal?”

Alexia skewered the last piece of meat.

“Normal,” she muttered.

“Yes, normal. Am I the only one in this family who wants to be normal!”

Amelia's rhetorical question clashed with Alexia's accusatory silence.

“Normal,” Alexia repeated mockingly. “You're normal.”

“Jesus...” Amelia removed the cutlery because her stomach had closed up.

Alexia finished her main course. Dessert was next.

The coffee machine had broken down again. William kicked the machine. From the force of the impact, the plastic cup popped off the spring and fell to the floor. William stomped on the cup several times until it was pressed and unrecognisable. A female investigator caught William in a rage. William saw her and repositioned his tie. He then fled down the corridor without throwing the glass in the bin.

The genesis of his neurosis was identified by several first and last names: Alexia Mary Veronica Elizabeth Anne Ashford-Campbell-Douglas-Stuart. In the week leading up to his reinstatement, William immersed himself in a detective investigation into the life, work and miracles of Alexia Ashford. He uncovered news of her graduation from Harvard at the age of ten and her hiring by Umbrella Pharmaceuticals. But where the fuck had she worked? Not a single reference. Then he read the note about her doctorate at Utrecht University: ‘The youngest doctor in the world.’ Bullshit. ‘Alexander Ashford: nominee for best businessman of the year 1985.’ ‘The Ashfords: the most powerful family in the North of England.’ ‘The Ashfords: a dynasty of Highlanders in the North of England.’ ‘One of the richest families in the world is Scottish and, yes, they wear kilt.’ ‘The Stuarts: the dethroned heirs to the kings of Scotland and England.’ For Alexia Mary Veronica Elizabeth Anne Ashford-Campbell-Douglas-Stuart had been born rich and Queen of Scots. He felt nauseous. What was the daughter of a maharajah doing at a clandestine lab in a crappy Midwestern American city? Were there no laboratories in Scotland?

William walked into the main laboratory. Alexia was not there. He hadn't spoken to her about anything other than exchanging information about the research. They didn't greet each other on the way in and they didn't say goodbye on the way out. They never helped each other and never interfered with each other. If there was a reason for William to hold on to the job, it was to find out the cause of the destruction of the G-virus. William approached Alexia's desk. On the table was a notebook open to a couple of pages written in a flowery cursive handwriting, the capital letters in the illum-illustrated letters of a medieval manuscript. He didn't understand any of the writing.

“It's Scottish Gaelic.”

William hurried back to his desk. Alexia walked over to the desk and closed the notebook.

“It’s poetry.”

Alexia specified the type of text without being asked, ignoring William's inappropriateness. The reason behind this behaviour distressed him - why was she blurting out these comments out of the blue? Why was she ignoring his intrusions in this way? Why had he never seen her father again? He was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

“Annie, where's the aspirin? God, my head hurts.”

“In the medicine cabinet.”

The sound was emitted with slight interference. The cassette stopped. He put on the next one. An undercover agent was enough to tap their phones and bug the Birkin residence. Through the eavesdropping, Alexander learned their opinion on a recurring theme: Alexia Ashford. Alexia infuriated William and unsettled Annette. William called Alexander a gorilla, an asshole and violent. He became convinced that the destruction of the G-virus was the result of an orchestrated conspiracy against him, but swore to Annette that he would retrieve the G-virus from the grave if the woman was still alive at Spencer mansion.

He found William's soliloquies pitiful, as well as his nonsense about Alexia. William Birkin was a pathetic, immature, imbecilic being. A freak who accused him of violence for protecting his daughter.

Alexander wanted it destroyed. He wanted him to be torn to pieces by a gang of Hunters. He wanted to wrap him in duct tape and use him as a punching bag. He wanted to cut him up and devour his corpse in the manner of his grandfather Thomas. He wanted to trepan him like his other grandfather Arthur taught him. He wanted to kill him. Kill him.

But Alexia defended him. Why did she defend him? Why did she want to work with him after he tried to kill her?

Alexander played the third cassette. What was so special about that piece of shit.

“Dr Birkin.”

Alexia called him from the lab's mainframe. William walked over to see what she wanted. Alexia pointed to a formula on the screen. The formula was an extension of the T-virus's effectiveness in infecting a living organism. William clenched his fists and began to sweat. While he was bemoaning his situation, Alexia had begun to produce results at full speed. The unusual last month had caused him to let his guard down and he would end up paying the consequences if he didn't get his act together. Alexia was literally overcoming him, he could see it with his own eyes. William was furious with himself and the world. He needed to break things.

“Would it be all right if we supplemented it with your study? Have you completed it?”

Wait, what? Alexia looked at William with her usual expressionlessness. William didn't know what to answer. Alexia was waiting for an answer.

“No... Yes,” said William, pressed by a hypothetical premature job loss.

“Can I have the report?”

William obeyed. Driven by inertia, he picked up his last report and handed it to Alexia with trembling lips. He kept his hands in the pocket of his dressing gown so that the pallor they had acquired from the contortion of his fingers clenched into a fist would not show. Alexia read the report carefully and then entered the data into the computer. The result was positive.

“The first phase of the project has been completed. Congratulations, Dr Birkin.”

Alexia handed the report back to him. William took it in distress - what was she playing at?

Tom took a seat on his section of the pavement. The cold was piercing his bones and hunger was pressing. The drug no longer worked as a method of self-deception. Late at night, he would sleep until dawn, when he would break camp to seek shelter around the Circular River, hidden from the sight of police and other undesirables. He wrapped himself in the thick blanket and closed his eyes.

The beeping of a horn woke him up. A black car, a BMW, had parked next to him. The co-driver had rolled down the window and saw a red-haired boy motioning for him to come over. Tom was wary of him and prepared to ignore him.

“Hey, are you looking for a dose?” said the red-haired man. “Come with us. We're the taxi service.”

He had not ordered a taxi.

“Get out,” he shouted at the top of his lungs, but the car didn't go.

The red-haired man did something in his seat that he couldn't make out and then threw a hundred-dollar note at him.

“Are you coming or not?”

“Out.”

“Don't you want to see Miranda?”

Miranda was the name of his youngest daughter, the one who had started college after he ended up on the street. Tom disrobed and walked to the car.

“What do you know about my daughter?” Tom threatened alertly.

“She's with us right now. We are your taxi. Why don't you get in?”

Tom spotted the driver of the vehicle. A blond man with half his face hidden by a scarf.

“Go,” said the red-haired man.

Tom got into the vehicle.

The BMW started.

Leviathan, the god of Flesh, blessed the ritual that his best aspiring cenobite orchestrated for his latest sacrifice, a beggar who was rescued from the street thanks to a tip-off from his beloved daughter. As in the previous seven rituals, Alfred devised the ceremonies, Auguste fabricated the means inspired by his career as an aerospace engineer, and Peter, a medical student, executed them. So it was decided with the first ritual, when the rapport between the three parties became so evident that none of the three objected or objected to the determination of the roles.

The triad was flowing.

Peter threw himself headlong into the open arms of his macabre reverie. He was doing what he had always wanted to do, and with no limitations. His professionalism was exemplary. His discretion was to be admired. His temperament unheard of. Perhaps Peter had achieved a truce with the voices, or it was because he had been taken in by Lucifer and this had overridden the voices; for there was clarity in his thinking and precision in his actions.

There was lighting.

Lucifer always congratulated him on his good work at the end of the ritual. Lucifer worshipped Leviathan, the god of the Flesh, but the worship of other divinities was a private matter for the Fallen Angel. Peter, as a mortal being, had no right to understand the designs of the Prince of Darkness. The important thing was that Peter had transcended grace into the divine embrace of Lucifer and his hosts, for Auguste was also a Fallen Angel and Lucifer's lieutenant. He wondered if he could become a Fallen Angel and join the Morning Star in his struggle to reclaim Heaven from the hands of God and his angelic minions; for that was the reason he tortured and tore apart, because that was Lucifer's command in preparation for Armageddon.

In this way, Peter did not kill innocent people, but sent mutilated soldiers to Hell to be recomposed as demons. A mission for which he had been chosen. The Chosen One of the Goat. The Ambassador of the Enemy. The Enforcer of the Liar. Peter played an essential role in the recovery of the lost paradise and so he proposed to Auguste to increase the number of sacrifices, but Lucifer's lieutenant refused. The sacrifices they were collecting were enough, for the time being.

“Don't be impatient, Pete. This is only the beginning,” said the lieutenant.

Lucifer's lieutenant manufactured, modified and adjusted the tools Peter used to accomplish his task. Indisputable was his knack for creating ingenuities from all sorts of everyday artefacts, as well as his passion for innovating each one of them. Infinite possibilities, infinite combinations, infinite afflictions. However, unlike Lucifer, Auguste did not torture for pleasure. He did it out of a mixture of curiosity and power. Curiosity to explore the limits of the human body and exploit its limitations. And power to feel what his ancestors felt, those who once sat on a throne and ruled over the will of millions of souls. He wanted to experience the subjugation, the cowardly resentment that bubbled up from their blood, the pleading shrieks they emitted like pigs in a slaughterhouse, the prayers they threw at the Vicar of God on Earth to spare their lives. He imagined himself as the Leviathan flying over the battlefield where his subjects had been slaughtered for him. The chants and harangues that echoed beyond the hills; and the crimson rain that washed over the earth, dissolving the flesh and bones of the fallen in battle, poor spirits forgotten and condemned to wander in the rubble they erected in honour of the Ruin.

Such was his will, and the satisfaction it procured far surpassed that provided by any of the foulest carnal pleasures. But the pleasure of the flesh was qualitatively different from the pleasure of Craving.

Longing gushed from the mire of the spirit. The Craving gushed from the heart like a torrent of primordial desire, like a drive for the possession of Desire in its clearest expression, the god of Flesh being its perfect spawn. The god of the Flesh was that which had nestled in Alfred's mind for as long as he could remember, and which had now matured. Men were born free and good until they were corrupted by society. He may have been born free and good, but God, chance or fate determined that his path should veer towards its own kind of corruption; a corruption that found its expression in the mutilation of flesh and the cries of the afflicted. God had led him to the god of the Flesh as a manifestation of ecstasy.

He learned this when he happened to see the film Hellraiser in 1986. Unfamiliar with popular cinema due to his confinement in a boarding school, Hellraiser appeared as a sign. For the first time, he felt represented by a character: Pinhead. However, he was never able to act as Pinhead, because when the film was released in cinemas he was in college, and in college he lacked impunity. So the lack of a chance to impersonate Pinhead turned into an obsessive fixation on horror films, literature and even video games. Michael Myers, Jason, Splatterhouse, Dracula, Swamp Thing... It didn't matter the format or the quality as long as the work provided him with violence and domination. The same violence and domination he infused into Jacob II; when he himself was the god of Flesh.

That was the point of the rituals in the factory, to revive oneself as the god of the Flesh. But these rituals did not have the same effect as the ceremonies in the attic. He needed to become a child again to experience anew the feelings he captured in illustrations, as he was never able to put them into words. Illustrations that ended up in the hands of shrinks, who mumbled about him as an evildoer, a lunatic and antisocial.

With the second Hellraiser film, his mental universe expanded to Leviathan, which he adopted as the name, image and symbol of the Craving. Leviathan, god of the Flesh, was the Craving and Alfred his best soldier. Just as he served God in the Vatican, he set out to serve Leviathan with the collaboration of Auguste and Peter. Or were God and Leviathan the same thing? The Leviathan he projected in his head had little to do with the Leviathan of Hellraiser. His Leviathan was constituted as a magnanimous and all-powerful being, inhabitant of Heaven, Earth and Hell, existing in collusion with Alfred. Leviathan understood his thoughts and feelings, just as Alfred knew how to act to satisfy Leviathan.

After the first four rituals, Alfred learned a new way to correspond to Leviathan. Auguste smoked marijuana during the rituals. Alfred went for acid. First he bought a dose from a dealer at the university. The DMT sent him into a hallucinatory state of anguish from which he vomited a couple of times in the bathroom and cried inconsolably in Auguste's arms. She had seen Hell. Then he acquired a dose of LSD. The LSD plunged him into a heavy stupor from which he awoke when Peter accidentally hit him on the head with the hand of one of the sacrifices. He experienced a state of dissociation in which he assumed the identity of the shadow he himself was casting on the floor. LSD suited him better than DMT, the former opened fewer doors in his mind, so it became his drug of choice for rituals. But, for that last ritual, Alfred discovered that he had no pills left.

“I have no material left,” said Alfred to Auguste.

“So what? Are you going to go for more?”

“Yes, I'll be right back.”

“Are you sober? Don't you want me to come with you?”

“Of course I am. I'll go alone.”

“Be careful.”

Alfred accelerated the BMW above the speed limit on the last stretch to Raccoon City University. He felt terribly agitated even though he hadn't consumed anything in hours. If it wasn't the withdrawal, then why was it: the Craving, perhaps.

He ran a red light.

Sirens. A police car? He thought about running away, but the police car was too close. He pulled over to the side of the road. One distraction and he was off. Two men got out of the police car.

One of them stood at his window and shone a torch at him.

“Identification, please.”

The second one stood in front of him, probably inspecting the vehicle's number plate. Alfred rolled down the window and presented him with his passport and driving licence.

“Hey, Marvin, come take a look at this.”

The second policeman responded to his partner's call. Alfred controlled the impulse to start up and drive off.

“Alfred Robert Willem Edward Malcolm Ashford-Campbell-Douglas-Stuart. Fuck, you've got more surnames than me ex-girlfriends.”

“Alfred Robert Willem Edward Malcolm. Is it possible to fit so many names in one passport?”

“United Kingdom of the Great Britain. You know they don't drive in America like they do in England, right?”

“Hey, Kevin, relax. Why were you driving so fast? Do you know that at night you are more likely to have an accident and hit a pedestrian?”

Alfred squeezed the steering wheel with all his might.

“I'm in a hurry,” he said, gritting his teeth.

“Yeah, and I'm in a hurry too,” Kevin replied. “There's a Spurs game tonight that I'm going to miss if I don't hurry up chasing youngsters like you. Is this the car daddy bought you?”

“Cunt.” Alfred insulted the policeman named Kevin.

“Get out of the car immediately!”

Alfred went to turn the key in the ignition, but Kevin grabbed him by the collar of his shirt with such force and speed that his escape attempt was instantly thwarted. Marvin pulled him until he ended up lying on the tarmac.

“Get up and put your hands on the vehicle, and where I can see them.”

Kevin frisked him while Marvin shone the torch in his face.

“Have you used drugs?”

“No.” Alfred clenched his fists. He was going to explode.

“Alcohol?”

“No.”

Kevin took a wad of a thousand dollars out of his pocket and his wallet. The wallet contained only cards.

Kevin whistled.

“Platinum cards. Your daddy must have a lot of money. Enough to pay your fines.”

Alfred headbutted Kevin backwards. Kevin responded with a scream and Marvin with surprise. Alfred took advantage of the confusion to get into the car, but Marvin slammed the door on him and Kevin grabbed him from behind. Alfred struggled, but Marvin and Kevin had the upper hand.

“Fucking asshole! The son of a bitch almost broke my nose!”

Marvin handcuffed him and put him in the police car.

“Kevin, call the impound. Let them take the damn car away.”

Kevin and Marvin dragged Alfred into the police station.

“What's up, Edward? We've got a punk who thinks we're in American Graffiti.” Kevin waved to the receptionist.

Alfred kicked the desk, so Marvin, Kevin and Edward rushed over to restrain him.

“Leave me alone! Get out of the way! Get out! Get out!” Alfred shouted as if he was in the middle of a psychotic attack.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Marvin held Alfred's arms tightly. “Are you sure you didn't take drugs?!”

“We put him in the interrogation room and test him,” suggested Edward.

“Come on!” Kevin exhorted.

Kevin and Marvin lifted Alfred off the ground. Alfred had stopped complaining, but was still resisting.

Alfred was handcuffed to the table in an interrogation room.

“Positive for cocaine and marijuana, with traces of LSD and DMT.”

“What's his name?”

Marvin passed him the passport. Irons blanched.

“Chief Irons? Any problems?”

“No, no problem. I'm going to make a call. Don't take him out of the interrogation room until I tell you.”

“Shouldn't we take him to the cell?”

“No! No. Not yet. I have to make an urgent call. I'll be right back.”

“Mr Ashford, I am sorry to disturb you, but there is an urgent problem with your son Alfred.”

“What happened, Mr. Irons?”

“You see, a couple of my officers stopped him a few hours ago for speeding. But Alfred resisted and my officers, following protocol, pulled him over. Right now he's in an interrogation room with a positive drug test for cocaine and marijuana.”

“My son has committed no crime, Mr. Irons.”

“No, of course not, Mr Ashford. I was calling you to let you know the situation and if you could come for your son.”

“Release my son immediately. I am going to get him.”

Brian Irons ordered Marvin and Kevin to continue the beat. Alexander Ashford arrived at the police station with his bodyguard shortly after the call.

“Mr. Ashford, come into my office. Your son Alfred is waiting for you there.”

Irons led Alexander and his bodyguard around the police station. In the office, Alfred was sitting with his back to the door and his head lowered.

“Mr Irons, you can leave us alone.”

Irons nodded and left. The bodyguard stood in the hallway watching the door. Alexander sat in the spare chair next to his son. Alfred folded his arms and buried his head in his chest.

“Irons told me why you were arrested. Why did you react like that?” said Alexander in Dutch.

Alfred increased the closeness of his embrace.

“Alfred.” Alexander approached him. “Where were you going? What were you going to do?”

“To university,” said Alfred.

“To what?”

“To... To buy LSD.”

“Do you consume alone or in company?”

Alfred bit his lip.

“Accompanied. With Ogie.”

Alexander scratched his beard.

“Uhm. And where do you consume?”

Alfred covered his face with his hands.

“In a factory... abandoned...”

“Alfred, do you need to tell me something?”

Alfred put his hands behind his head and began to hammer his right leg.

“Alfred, trust me. When I was your age, I was on acid and worse. I know how it feels. Do you have an addiction problem?”

“No... It's not addiction.”

“So?”

Alfred raised his head.

“You remember what I told you in therapy about what I was doing in the attic of Jacob II.”

“Yes.”

“It is back.”

Alexander instantly understood what he meant and stroked his head.

“What did it tell you to do?”

“We kidnapped eight vagrants. We tortured them in the factory. Ogie accompanies me. There is a third... Peter... He is my executioner. I am the master of ceremonies.”

Alexander sighed.

“Are they dead?”

“We incinerate the corpses and dissolve the ashes.”

“Do you only kill vagrants?”

“Yes. Dad.”

“Uhm?”

“Great-grandfather Thomas was right. You can't control it. I have seen Hell.”

“What is Hell like?”

“It's our house.”

“It's a hallucination. I've had strange dreams too.”

“Dad, should I become a priest?”

Alexander stroked his son's hands.

“Your destiny is to be by my side. God does not want us to be separated, just as I was never separated from my father. We were born to protect and continue our lineage and heritage. To become a priest would take you away from the family, my love and my protection. Besides, great-grandfather Thomas failed in his vocation for the ministry. Do not repeat his mistake.”

Alfred relaxed.

“Feed the Craving until it subsides, Alfred. I will not allow you to overreach. Not in a foreign country.”

“Can we pray for a moment?”

Alexander and Alfred knelt on the carpet in Chief Irons' office and recited the Lord's Prayer in unison:

“Ar n-Athair a tha air nèamh, Gu naomhaichear d'ainm. Thigeadh do rìoghachd. Dèanar do thoil air an talamh, mar a nìthear air nèamh. Tabhair dhuinn an-diugh ar n-aran làitheil. Agus maith dhuinn ar fiachan, amhail a mhaitheas sinne dar luchd-fiach. Agus na leig ann am buaireadh sinn; ach saor sinn o olc: oir is leatsa an rìoghachd, agus an cumhachd, agus a' glòir, gu sìorraidh. Amen.”[2]

“Annie.” William whispered in Annette's ear.

“What's going on...”

“Alexia.”

Annette sighed.

“Will, please, sleep.”

“She is getting closer to me. She wants to possess me.”

“Will, darling, rest.”

“She spoke to me this morning.”

Annette settled back on the pillow.

“She spoke to me about melancholy. And I answered her. We talked to each other and she was not hostile. She wants to use me.”

“What would I use you for?”

“I don't know.”

“Sleep, Will.”

Alfred and Alexia sat on the far left of the back row of the classroom. That had been their favourite seat since they both first attended the same educational institution when Alfred started university at the age of sixteen and Alexia decided to pursue her second doctorate. Alfred amused himself by watching the students and Alexia wrote poetry in her notebook. It was the first time they had seen each other after the previous day's detention. Alfred wanted to tell her what had happened, but he felt physically and mentally exhausted. His father recommended that he visit the university to consolidate his alibi, and Alexia willingly accompanied him.

He didn't know where to start. Too many words and none precise enough.

“Alexia, can you hand me a piece of paper and a pen?”

Alexia tore a sheet of paper from her notebook and held out a blue ink pen. Alfred recreated the scene in his imagination before putting it down on the page. However, he stopped at the first few strokes because he could think of a better way to narrate what had happened. He divided the sheet into panels and set about sketching a comic.

The professor ended the class by requesting a rehearsal for the next day. Alfred and Alexia, who were neither students, left the classroom to go to the library, where they reserved a study room. Alexia bought a bottle of water and Alfred a packet of cigarettes. In the study room, Alfred gave his sister the sheet with the comic on it and sat down by the window, which he half-opened to smoke. A tongue of cold spring air drifted into the room. Alexia checked the panels several times.

“Are you going back to the factory?” Alexia put the sheet away.

“No... Not at the moment. I don't know. Should I go back to Scotland?”

Alexia folded her arms and stretched her legs out on the seat, staring at the sheet.

“What's the difference?” said Alexia.

“In Scotland I feel better... I'm in a place I like.”

“What's the difference?” Alexia reiterated.

Alfred threw his cigarette out of the window and lit another with visible discomfort.

“I don't know... Which one do you think it is?”

“Would you have killed the Jacob II boys?”

Alfred was always open with Alexia, she was his confidant.

“Yes, I would have killed them.”

“What is the difference?”

“That I had absolute impunity there and that there were no fucking cunt policemen jumping on my neck. They hurt me, those sons of bitches, and all because of an acceleration. Motherfuckers. I wish I had them in front of me to...”

“What's the difference, then?��

“Our father is supposed to bribe Irons for it... I'm not going to jail... Jail is for riffraff. I haven't done anything wrong. In fact, I've done the council a favour. I've taken out their rubbish without asking for anything in return.”

“There is a death penalty here.”

Alfred blanched.

“What do you mean? We are above that.”

Alfred threw the second cigarette out of the window and sat down opposite Alexia.

“It doesn't matter how high the risk is, does it, Alfred? There will be no one to convince you otherwise,” whispered Alexia.

Alfred ducked his head.

“The cycle repeats itself over and over again. It is inevitable. I can't control it. It is part of me.”

“Do you give up?”

“I don't... I don't want to. But neither therapy, medication nor a self-help book is going to solve it. I'm just walking along and suddenly I run into Peter and Ogie gets involved. I'm not a monster. I punished those kids for survival. It was wrong for me to torture those kids with the prefects, but it wasn't wrong for the teachers to beat and humiliate me? Those bums were going to die anyway. If not us, others would have killed them or set them on fire, and I'm the monster?”

“I think you're trying too hard to deceive yourself. You're going back to that factory and you're going to put yourself at risk again because you still haven't got over father abandoning you at boarding school. You're not over the fact that he never loved you until we ran away from home.”

Alexia's words stuck like needles in Alfred's heart. They ran away from home in the summer of '83, after the incident at the Antarctic base. Alfred, unaware of what had happened, returned to a broken home. Elizabeth blamed Alexander and Alexander blamed everyone. Alexia had just returned from the asylum for stabbing her psychologist. Alfred didn't understand what was going on, but he did understand that Alexia was catatonic and that Alexander looked at him with hatred whenever they passed each other. Elizabeth tried to comfort him, but her hugs were insufficient. In reality, Elizabeth's goal had always been to keep the family she had built with her husband afloat. Losing her son and grandchildren meant losing her husband's memory and her own. That's why Elizabeth's hugs seemed so fake to her.

So, fed up with the hatred and falsehood, he took his twin sister by the hand and they slipped out of the mansion and headed for nowhere. For two full days, they wandered through the Cheviot Hills towards the Scottish border. Hikers caught them as they were about to cross a grove of trees. They were disoriented, malnourished and exhausted. A police patrol picked them up and took them to the nearest hospital. Later that afternoon, Alexander and Elizabeth showed up at the hospital. Alfred heard Alexander shouting in the corridor. He had never heard him shout like that before. Elizabeth answered him in kind, as if they were engaged in a fight. They were just talking about him. Alexander said it was Alfred's fault and that he had endangered his sister. Elizabeth blamed Alexander for his lack of attention to the boy; for ignoring him in such a critical situation. Alexander insisted that it was Alfred's fault. It was always Alfred's fault.

Alexander stepped into the room. He had clenched his fists and his eyes radiated hatred. Alfred was transported back to his first year at Jacob II, when one of the teachers whipped him with a cane. The teacher had beaten him for his bad behaviour, but he was a teacher. Alexander was his father, who was supposed to love and protect him. Finally, Alexander hugged him warmly. He never knew why, but he wondered what would have happened if those fists had never opened to hug him. Alexander could have killed him with one blow. So he interpreted it as his father's first sincere act of love for him. However, it was during the years that followed, when he and Alexander began therapy to improve their relationship, that he felt the emotional weight of abandonment, amplified by his experience at boarding school. It was at that moment that the god of the Flesh emerged.

“Am I going back to the factory?”

“Yes.”

Alfred put his hand on the table and Alexia put hers on top of it. Alfred squeezed hard.

“Sasha!”

Alexander Ashford and Robert Graham embraced each other warmly.

“We have so much to talk about!”

Robert bought him a drink and showed him his new office. He had moved into a modern Beverly Hills mansion after the birth of his daughter Ashley.

“How is Ashley?”

“Good. School has just started. We're a bit scared,” he joked.

“And how is your political career?”

“Better than ever! My election as senator from California is assured. From there to the vice-presidency and then to the presidency it's a step.”

“You know you can count on my support.”

“And I thank you from the bottom of my heart, Sasha. My family is indebted to yours for the invaluable support your father gave mine. You see, my father was a newspaper salesman who went to college because Edward gave him a personal scholarship and from there to governor of California. Honestly, there are coincidences in this world that are supernatural.”

“My father was a good man. Unlike others, he never shied away from looking for diamonds in the mud.”

“You flatter me, even if your metaphor is a little offensive.” Robert chipped a bottle of Californian wine. “Although... We're here for a different reason today, aren't we?”

“I have accepted Derek C. Simmons as my personal secretary and adviser. He starts working with me at Umbrella next week. I owe it to his father.”

“Simmons' father is still alive? I thought he had passed away.”

“He is on the verge, but continues as chief of The Family.”

“What we agreed about donations is still in force?”

“100,000 for the Democratic Party and $20,000 for the Republican Party.”

“I've started to mobilise my contacts to get the new pharmaceutical law passed. Wouldn't you advise me to invest in Umbrella shares? You and Spencer are doing a spectacular job, how do you manage it?”

“We only agree on the fundamentals. Now is a good time to invest. Stocks are going to stay high because of the humanitarian crises caused by the invasion of Kuwait.”

“Cool. So tell me, is there going to be a call?”

“Yes, Jacob's Circle has been called to a meeting with The Family at Tall Oaks. You will attend as a guest because of your affiliation with Freemasonry.”

“Do you know the date?”

“Invitations will be sent out from spring onwards.”

“Great. Do you still do boxing?”

“I never stopped practising it.”

“Shall we try?”

“I'll have you know that I haven't lost the muscle either.”

“Oh, you're still a macho man?”

“More or less.”

Amelia received the last couple of guests. She had arranged a small party in a rented house with the children of the parents with whom the Campbells were doing business in Arklay County. In all, there were no more than seven of them, and all between the ages of eighteen and thirty.

“Welcome. Come into the main hall.” Amelia led the last two guests into the house for their meeting with the rest of the group. Counting the two hostesses, there were three men and six women. Amelia excused the absence of the two older brothers, Alfred and Auguste, and announced that her own partner, Daniel, could not make it from Switzerland.

Amelia loved to host parties because she enjoyed being surrounded by people more ordinary than her own family members, without extravagance, craziness or bad blood. As soon as she introduced the last two guests, Amelia joined the group, almost completely oblivious to the ghostly presence of Alexia, who, as usual, had retreated to a corner to isolate herself in disguise. Amelia wouldn't bother to integrate her cousin, that was her problem, and she didn't want to break the pleasant harmony that had developed. She didn't want Alexia to spoil the good feeling.

“I told Greg not to bet on the winning horse, as if it were reverse psychology, and then the jerk goes and does it. He lost in the end!”

The group burst out laughing. Alexia watched them in the distance like gorillas in the mist. She was bored. Amelia saw her first get up from the couch and go to the bathroom. John followed behind her.

“Is there a problem, darling? I'm sorry to see such a beautiful woman marginalised in a corner.” John blocked Alexia's path as she went to open the bathroom door.

“What do you want?” Alexia gripped the knob with an exaggeratedly erect back and a hardened voice.

“I want you.”

Alexia opened the door, but John grabbed her hand. Immediately, Alexia pulled her hand away forcefully, but did not go into the bathroom. John's eyes radiated lasciviousness.

“Wait here. I'll let you know,” said Alexia and locked herself in the bathroom.

Alexia plugged the sink drain and turned on the tap with lukewarm water. She rummaged through the drawers for a tool she could use as a screwdriver and carefully unhooked the lamp from the wall, taking care not to make any noise.

“May I come in?” asked John on the other side of the door.

“Wait. Not yet.”

She pulled out the wires and extend them into the stagnant water in the sink. She dipped the copper and covered the wires with a large towel. She turned off the tap.

“Come in.”

John went into the bathroom.

“And that?” He pointed to the lamp.

“It's being repaired. Would you mind helping me? The drain plug got stuck while I was getting it fixed.”

John smiled smugly at Alexia and stood in front of the sink. He took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves.

“Women.” He dipped both hands in the water.

Darkness.

“What's wrong? Has the power gone out?”

The guests panicked. Amelia stood up and bumped into one of the guests on her way to the light switch. She pressed the switch, but the light did not return.

“Where are you?” The guests shouted to find each other.

“Who are we in the room?” Amelia asked.

The guests raised their voices, except for two. Alexia and John. Where the hell was Alexia? Anxiety gripped Amelia. Where the fuck was her cousin.

“I'm going to look for them. Stay here.”

Amelia went out into the hall.

“Alexia?! John?!”

A door opened. Someone grabbed his hand.

“Alma. I'm going to re-establish the electrical connection. Say goodbye to the guests. Then go to the bathroom.”

“What...”

“I've killed John.”

Amelia was petrified and tears welled up in her eyes. Why couldn't they just be a normal fucking family. Alexia slipped into the bottom of the stairwell and managed to restore the power from the panel. The power came on. Alexia ran back to the bathroom and closed the door. Amelia reappeared in the living room crying.

“My grandfather is dead. Alexia told me before the lights went out.”

The guests expressed their condolences to Amelia and left with a promise to organise a second party. One of the guests asked for John and Amelia said she was chatting with Alexia, who would be leaving later. The guest winked at Amelia and drove off in his own car. Amelia closed the door behind her. Her eye make-up had smudged, smearing her cheeks.

A lump fell to the floor. Alexia appeared down the corridor dragging John's corpse.

“Cardiac arrest,” he informed Amelia. “I'm going to cremate the body and set fire to the house to remove the evidence.”

Amelia looked at John's corpse. His tongue was hanging out and his eyes were blank. Alexia had killed him.

Amelia went to the kitchen and sat on a stool. Alexia mixed several cleaning products in a bucket, which she dumped on John. She lit a match. Amelia covered her eyes with her hands.

The fire devoured the wood like a plague of termites. Alexia pulled and dragged it out of the house. Amelia went down to the grass, while Alexia fanned the flames with solvent and bleach. Amelia nearly fainted from the smell. Alexia went down the porch steps and pulled Amelia to the car. They sat in the vehicle and Alexia started up. The burning house was lost on the horizon.

Alexia drove down a road that Amelia was unfamiliar with. At the end of the path, there was a metal gate and ahead was what looked like an abandoned factory. Alexia opened the gate with a wireless remote and entered the compound. She walked to one of the loading and unloading shutters. She pressed a button and the shutter rose. Alexia drove the car onto the platform. She dismounted and walked to a control panel. The platform disengaged and lowered.

Alexia got into the car. The platform came down through the hole drilled in the ground, and Umbrella? A discreet Umbrella logo attached to a steel hatch.

“The underground laboratory. We will stay here until the situation is sorted out.”

Amelia collapsed.

Notes:

[1] Amelia Campbell penname. [2] Scottish Gaelic version.

#resident evil #resident evil code veronica #alexia ashford #alfred ashford #alexander ashford #william birkin #annette birkin #marvin branagh #kevin ryman #brian irons #ashley graham #derek simmons

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