Chapter 40
Annette opened her eyes and gasped in the dark. She sat up and pressed a hand against her heart, feeling it pound in her chest. A nightmare. She glanced at the clock and saw that it was just past midnight.
She got out of bed and shuffled to the master bathroom, the edge of her long white night gown swishing across the floor. She flipped the light on and blinked away the brightness as she opened the medicine cabinet. The bottle of sleeping pills was almost empty, but she only needed one.
In her dream, she was in the living room, talking to her parents. In reality, she hadn’t spoken to her parents in almost two years. They had never visited her home, but she suspected that the dream uncovered some unconscious wish. Her parents asked her a question about her job, and she could not think of the right answer. Then the doorbell rang, and she went to the door quickly, as if waiting for someone. When she opened the door, her husband was standing on the porch, dressed in his white lab coat as always. But he was covered in blood, and dragged a corpse into the house with him. He came into the house and them proceeded to methodically kill both her parents, cutting their throats with a knife. In the dream, Annette ran out of the house screaming. She found Birkin suddenly in the front yard. He reached for her and said it was going to be okay. Then she woke up.
As she popped the sleeping pill into her mouth, she tried to block the vision of Birkin murdering her parents, but it was burned into her mind. It wasn’t the first time she had dreams like that, and she knew it would not be the last. She took a drink of water to wash the pill down.
Sherry was sleeping over a friend’s house tonight, so Annette had the house to herself. She could let the sleeping pill knock her out and stay in bed until noon for all she cared. Birkin wouldn’t be home by then, and even if he was, he probably wouldn’t care.
“Where are you, Will?” she whispered to herself, staring out the bedroom window.
She had to admit that things had actually been going well lately. Having him home two nights in a row was a welcome change. Sherry had been so happy to see him. For a brief moment, Annette dared hope that he was really going to change his habits from now on.
Usually, the rare times he was home, he was too tired to do much of anything. In fact, the main reason he came home most nights was to get some sleep. Sometimes she engaged him in conversation if she worked at it, and sometimes he played with Sherry or asked her about her day. But usually, he collapsed into a chair and zoned out until Annette dragged him to bed, where he would pass out for twelve hours. Needless to say, their sex life suffered along with every other aspect of their marriage, not that it had been great to begin with.
But the last few days had gone so well, Annette hoped things might continue to improve. She built up the courage to confess that she wanted to get pregnant again. And Birkin promised her that he would try. A promise was the best that she could hope for.
And then, of course, he called to tell her he wouldn’t be home for a few days, dashing her hopes before they really had a chance to grow. At least he called her. Sometimes he didn’t even do that.
But something was wrong. Annette was accustomed to Birkin’s obsessive behavior and she knew his moods, but the phone call unnerved her just the same. Normally his phone calls were distracted and reluctant, but this time he’d been too precise and deliberately evasive. She could tell that he was hiding something. The fact that he wasn’t at the lab in town was more than enough to alert her that something was wrong.
If he wasn’t at the regular lab, then he could only be at the Arklay lab out in the mountains. Combined with the mysterious phone call from Wesker the day before, it was easy to figure out. But why would he go to the other lab? He had never actually worked there, and he wasn’t involved in any of their research. Annette also knew that Birkin resented Wesker for reasons he never really bothered to explain. But Wesker must have contacted him and asked him to come help with something.
Annette went back to bed and wrapped herself in expensive silk sheets. With all the money Birkin made, she could afford things like that. But even with silk sheets, a queen-size bed was a lonely place for one person. Annette wanted Birkin sleeping next to her. But that was too much to ask. He ran to the Arklay lab at the drop of a hat to help his old nemesis Wesker, but despite all the nagging and outright begging by his own wife, he barely came home more than twice a week.
She tried to ignore it and focus on the positive side of things. Her husband’s behavior had improved this week, so maybe after this strange situation at Arklay was done with, he would continue to come home on a regular basis. All she could do was hope.
Annette fell asleep alone and did not dream.
Resident Evil Legends Part Two - The Arklay Outbreak Page 40
