Chapter Text
The water that dribbled down into his hands was tepid at best, flecked with mildew and decay, but by the time the rank, metallic smell of corrosion hit his nostrils, it was too late. He flung the liquid from his hands, stifling a groan or a gag or something in between, furiously wiping his palms against the faded denim of his jeans in a futile attempt to dry himself off.
The restroom of the observation deck hadn’t exactly been his first choice, but by the time he’d gotten off the highway, he’d been driving nonstop for…
Well, to be frank, he wasn’t even entirely sure, anymore. The hours had all blurred together into one unending stretch, not unlike the lines painted on the road, and he found he couldn’t so much as remember whether or not he’d had the radio on. Had there even been any traffic? His head was abuzz with white noise, the soothing crackle of late-night television snow, leaving his brain feeling somehow congested.
He’d stepped foot into the decrepit public bathroom with the intention of splashing some cold water on his face, hoping it would be enough to snap him out of the fugue he found himself in. But there was no relief to be found there among the clustering of forgotten urinals, stained by misuse and mineral deposits.
For a moment, he bowed his head, fingers gripping white-knuckle tight to the sides of the sink; his eyelids were heavy and his joints ached something fierce, but he brought himself to straighten back up, all the same. The mirror over the sink was peculiarly small, nothing more than a cracked tile of glass set at eye level. He chalked the shadows under his eyes up to the poor lighting and general dreariness of the restroom. Still, he looked tired—beaten. He ran his hand down his face once, ignoring the sickeningly sharp smell of copper plumbing on his fingers, watching his reflection as if to reassure himself that yes, that was him staring back.
In a place like that—where all the harsh edges and lines were eroded by time, by darkness, by rust—it was difficult to tell if anything was real.
He turned away from the mirror and the questioning sadness of his own eyes, footsteps echoing quietly against the concrete floor with grit and dust. With a shoulder, he hefted the weighed door open to be met immediately with a burst of crisp lake air; the light of day cut a harsh wedge through the darkness of the bathroom, throwing graffiti and cobwebs alike into harsh contrast. It was the sort of scene one might see in a dream, he thought, unable to make out the words and faces plastered on the walls.
But now his lungs were filling with the cool, clear air of the real world, hinting of pine needles and autumn instead of stale urine and faulty plumbing. The observation deck offered a beautiful bird’s eye view of the water, and long before he realized, he had leaned himself up against the guardrail, arms folded as he doubled himself over the edge. There was a fog rolling over the crests of the water, thick and grey, so unlike the last time he’d gazed out across the shore. And just how long ago had that been? The knot between his eyes tightened warningly, the answer slipping away from him like water through cupped palms.
Part of him still refused to believe it was real—any of it. The cloudiness in his head, the lightness of his feet, the eerie silence of the parking lot…he had the strangest inkling that any minute now, any second, he would roll over and startle himself awake. He would find himself in bed, safe and warm in the first rays of the morning’s light, woken by the smell of freshly brewed coffee and bacon sizzling in a pan.
Of course, that was impossible.
This was no dream: there was no pain in dreams, yet he could very distinctly feel the sharp edge of the rail cutting into the flesh of his hand; you couldn’t see your own reflection in dreams, it was said, but he had only just examined the weary expression of his own, the beginnings of crows feet and worry lines making him look much older; mostly though, everything made sense in dreams—at least to the dreamer—and nothing made sense just then.
The letter had appeared innocuously enough, tucked in amid the stack of bills and business flyers that usually clogged the mailbox. Its envelope was plain and white, the sort you could buy in a box of hundreds at the post office. Still, his heart had caught in his throat and his stomach twisted into gnarls when he came to it. There had been no return address, no stamp, nothing but a name written in the soft, flowing hand he saw whenever he closed his eyes.
“Mary,” the envelope had said. His wife’s name.
But that was ridiculous, and it couldn’t have possibly been true. At least…that’s what he kept telling himself.
Thinking back on it now, he wondered why there hadn’t been a moment of incensement or fury—why hadn’t he allowed himself to think, even for an instant, that it had been some sort of cruel prank? Why hadn’t he considered that it might have been nothing more than a horrible joke played on a tired, grieving widower? He had simply taken it at face value, unquestioningly and immediately; he had sat on the bed with a sort of quiet reverence, gingerly prying open the envelope to avoid damaging its contents.
The paper smelled like her. Each tiny groove created by her pen was like some lost psalm to him, carrying the soft lilt of her voice, the sparkle in her eyes. It was difficult to remember, the buzzing in his head making it hard to hear his own thoughts, but he thought he remembered breaking down, if only for a minute or two. Perhaps he knew, somewhere deep and dark within himself, but there were plenty of other reasons his eyes could’ve been so red and raw. It was best not to dwell, he had decided. Best to avoid the headache and heartache.
“In my restless dreams,” the letter had begun, full of the ethereal poetry he had fallen in love with, all those years ago, “I see that town…Silent Hill. You promised you’d take me there again someday, but…you never did. Well, I’m alone there now. In our special place. Waiting for you.”
His head spun as he thought on it, absently reaching up to clutch at his breast pocket if only to assure himself that the letter was still there, folded into a careful square, the paper only just beginning to fade and tear at the worry-worn creases. Her picture would be there, too, wrapped in the safe cocoon of her own words and perfume, smiling that gentle, understanding smile…
He dropped his head into his hands, brow knit, eyes clenched shut against the roiling of his thoughts and gorge. There was no way Mary could’ve been waiting there, somewhere just past the greenery and fallen leaves. There was no way she could’ve sent the letter in the first place.
Dead people simply didn’t do those things.
And yet he’d driven all this way, taken nothing but the clothes on his back and the letter clutched in his hand, a man possessed. He couldn’t explain why, couldn’t put into words the reason he had felt so compelled, so impossibly convinced that he would find her there, smile bright and wide, eyes cast out toward the sun as it dipped below the watery horizon.
He pushed himself up from his lean and made his way to the parked car. The engine was still clicking sporadically as it cooled down from the long drive. With a sigh, he jiggled the driver’s side door handle, fighting tiredly as it caught like it always did. The interior of the car smelled hot and stagnant, and he wrinkled his nose against a waft of something sharp and pungent. Something must’ve rolled under a seat, last time he’d gone for groceries—he would worry about it later, a few more hours couldn’t do too much harm, if he was only noticing it now. There were more important things at play, just then. The map lay where he left it, folded into a neat rectangle on the driver’s seat, and he snatched it up before pushing the door shut.
In all reality, he didn’t think he would much need the map. He’d only been to Silent Hill once—and what a trip it had been—but he felt the oddest sense of ease, of knowing, almost as though he’d spent a lifetime there. Then again, one never could be too safe, and he didn’t want to seem like the typical tourist to the locals, stumbling past shop fronts and asking with sheepish gestures where to find the Happy Burger.
With one last glance over his shoulder towards the car, the observation deck, the sad little bathroom, he descended the stairs to the scenic route into town. The path was little more than dirt tamped down from years of heavy footfall, flanked by the thick foliage of pine trees. He made his way down the spiraling slope slowly, cautious of loose gravel and muddy patches, uncomfortably aware of the precipitous drop only a few feet to his right. The lake was beautiful, to be sure, but he had no interest in an impromptu plunge—or the broken neck almost ensured by the rocky outcroppings. He could hear the waves lapping against the face of the cliff, amplified and warped by the heavy air and behemoth tree trunks. Somewhere in the distance, he thought he heard the dutiful whirring of a chainsaw, the mourning chirrup of cicadas, and felt somehow ill at ease. He zipped his jacket up to his chin and shoved his hands into his pockets as best he could, hunching himself against the prying eyes of solitude.
He walked for quite some time, until the crash of the water became a second heartbeat and his lungs strained with the burning chill of the air. The lay of the land slowly began to even out, the soil and pebbles under his feet giving way to stone and grass. Already he could see the arch of the wrought-iron gates taking form in the fog, looming from yards away, though the fog made it difficult to discern much more than vague shapes.
There was a small well just off of the path, cobbled together with what might have been sandstone or brick, angles bleached and eroded dull by time. As he passed, something caught his eye—a spot of color where it didn’t belong. Too tired, too curious to be apprehensive, he stepped up to the well and its cozy little housing, brushing away a spider as it dangled from the a beam. He peered into the water, dingy and clouded with mosquito eggs and moss, at once perplexed and riveted by what he saw clinging to the bottom of the basin.
A bolt of pain tore through his head, exploding into razor-sharp migraine shards behind his eyes. He cried out, clutched at his temples, but it was gone almost as soon as it began, leaving his eyes fever-bright and watering. Horrified, he glanced back down to the tiny red square of paper in the water, almost accusatorily. Déjà vu, he thought…it had to be. There was no other logical reason for him to feel so strange, so familiar. For a moment it was almost as though he was watching himself from afar, as though his movements were all somehow choreographed and planned…and then it was gone.
James raked his fingers through his hair, covering his face with his palms as he breathed. He should’ve stopped at one of the motels on the way from home, should’ve gotten some sleep instead of driving through the night. He could feel his breath in his ears and taste copper in the back of his mouth. He was just so tired. Maybe there would be a room open at the Lakeview, once he got into town. Maybe that was even what Mary’s letter had meant.
Though he pushed the well and his strange moment of injury from his mind, the backs of his eyes burned brilliantly, stunningly red—not unlike the paper and its quivering reflection. He shook himself out mentally, right hand reaching to pat at the folded mass in his jacket pocket once more. It was a strange sort of comfort he took from knowing the letter was there, a sort of sentiment he wasn’t sure he could put words to. Mary was with him in that way, she was waiting for him in another.
He continued on to the gates, watching as they became slowly more defined through the fog. The cemetery laid spread out behind its heavy bars and spines, the thick haze giving it a particularly haunted air. A tentative push found the lock unlatched, and with a shrill, metallic squeal, he was able to step onto the grounds. The grass beneath his feet was dry and brittle, beginning to brown with the first cold snap of the season, crunching quietly under his shoes.
No time was wasted in crossing through the cemetery. Even on the best of days James was made uncomfortable in the face of death, the sort of deeply embedded anxiety that made others whistle or hold their breath when passing by. He wasn’t a superstitious man, not by any stretch of the imagination, but ever since Mary…he didn’t like thinking about death and its inevitabilities. Thankfully the lot was small, only one of the town’s three graveyards, if memory served, and the gate leading into the town proper had graciously been left ajar.
The path tapered off into dirt and dust once more, and he couldn’t help but bemoan the foolish decision to walk. If he had stayed on the main road, he could’ve been in town by then, wandering the streets and the spots that had meant so much, once upon a time. He could find the familiar roads and shops, retrace their steps…Mary had mentioned waiting in their “special place,” but the entire town had been their special place, way back when. Well…everywhere except here, that was, lost among the fences and silos of the old ranch; tucked away from the hustle and bustle of town, too far from the roads and the lake to explain away the strange scampering sounds and reverberated footsteps. He should have driven.
But still he soldiered on, running off of fumes and funereal hope. His mind wandered to their honeymoon, the places they’d been and seen, and that was all well and good because his feet seemed to implicitly remember the way. There was the lake, of course…Mary had loved the lake. They had spent an entire day out there, just watching the water shimmer underneath the sun. There hadn’t been any fog, then, just the mountains and trees and the happy chatter of people enjoying the day. She had laughed that laugh of hers, and he’d seen the way her eyes crinkled just at the corners with a silent smile whenever some happy child had run by, begging their parents for a quarter to use the sightseeing machines. What a beautiful day. It had been unseasonably warm for spring, but she had pulled her cardigan tight around her shoulders because she had woken up with a slight chill that…
He realized, with no small amount of surprise, that he’d reached the town.
His first thought was that he had forgotten some high holiday, so absorbed in his grief and suspended belief that he neglected to check the print on his calendar. But that couldn’t be right, could it? Not unless it was some local custom he was naïve to…but the storefronts were dark, the streets barren and quiet. As he took a few tentative steps onto Sanders Street, he was greeted by nothing more than the clipped echoes of his own shoes, the disfigured gait of his shadow, the roll of the fog.
James was struck, then, by an uncomfortably impossible suspicion: he was alone in the town.
At that, he had to laugh at himself—albeit a low, uneasy chuckle—this was Silent Hill. Silent Hill, the tourist hub, the resort town on the water, chock full of history and memories waiting to be made. Of course there would be other people.
But then…why was it so quiet?
Brow furrowed and shoulders squared, he made his way onto the sidewalk. It was just the off-season, perhaps, or there was some bigger event taking place in town, in Rose Water Park, maybe. That had to be it—he had just happened to stumble into one of the quieter areas. Between his exhaustion and the weight of the fog, his imagination was starting to get the better of him. Or so he thought, until he reached the spread of restaurants in the center of town.
“OPEN!” claimed the sign hung jauntily in the window of Café Texan, spelled out in big block letters accompanied by the beaming, sun-faded face of a cartoon toucan. But it seemed no one had bothered to inform the Texan itself; the interior was hidden in darkness, the door bolted steadfast. He cupped his palms to the glass and peered in, but was met by nothing more than the vague shapes of tables and chairs, dotted here and there with salt and pepper shakers, tiny sentinels guarding over the silverware.
The same could be said for Café Mist, only a few doors down. And then Big Jay’s, across the street. And The Lucky Jade. And the market.
There was something beginning to prickle its way up the back of his neck, somehow ice cold and scalding hot all at once, causing his arms and chest to break out into horrible gooseflesh. Something was not right here—not right at all. He found his voice caught deep in his throat, suddenly unable to speak, unable to breathe. He was being smothered by the silence, momentarily reverting to a child caught in a nightmare, too afraid of the shrillness of their own screams to cry out for help.
Coming here had been a mistake, he could see that now. Hell, he could feel it, heavy and leaden in the pit of his stomach. His hand found its way to his pocket, to his heart, worrying over the thick mat of paper within. Mary had wanted him here, hadn’t she? Through some impossible grace of God, she had reached out to him, called him here, and oh did he want to see her again. But something was not right.
When he looked up again, he recognized the building immediately. A faint blossom of relief began to bloom in the depth of his chest, tempered only slightly by the dryness of his tongue.
The letters on the door read Neely’s, and there was a light flickering from just inside. It was hard to make out at first, the window having been patched over with what seemed to be newspaper—last time he’d passed through, it had been thick burgundy curtains, all the better to keep out the sun and judgmental eyes—but if he trained his eyes just hard enough, it was clear as day. And voices…voices! The walls dampened most of it, and there weren’t any words he could parse, but there were voices coming from inside. The door was locked, and so he knocked, rapping his knuckles hard enough to bruise against the door. Under normal circumstances, he would’ve felt ridiculous making such a scene, but this was just what he needed. His nerves had been jangled since the beginning, his mind was playing tricks on him, and all he wanted to do was pull up to one of the stools, take his weight off his feet and have a nice, long drink to smooth him out.
No one answered, and so he knocked harder, convinced that it was only that he couldn’t be heard over their conversation. Maybe the jukebox was playing too loudly, maybe…
“Hello?” he tried, face all but pressed against the door. “Hello, can anyone hear me?” He was relieved to find his voice had returned to him, the tightening of his throat dissipating at the prospect of company and refreshment. But still there was no answer. Frowning, he pressed his ear flat against the door, trying to make out the sounds from within.
That was when the screaming started.
He recoiled as though he’d been slapped across the face, immediately every bit as terrified, as vigilant as he’d been before. Someone behind the door was shrieking, screaming for their life, an earsplitting and bloodcurdling wail of horror and pain. It was growing impossibly louder by the second, ringing in his ears as though there’d been no door, no walls between them. His brain told him to run away, run as fast as his tired legs would take him, but his feet were rooted firmly to the ground in the sort of freezing behavior deer exhibited just before being struck by semis on the highway.
James didn’t know what it was—the fact he was the only one nearby, the unnatural feel of his surroundings, or maybe just that the voice screaming itself raw was female—but he found himself acting before his mind could process the idea. There was a brick in his hand, though he couldn’t remember picking it up, and he sent it sailing into the window with an impassioned heave. He had expected a few cracks, at best, maybe the beginnings of chipping if he was lucky. A store clerk by trade, it wasn’t as though he had the sort of physical wherewithal to be breaking into buildings for recreation. The window shattered, sending shards cascading onto the concrete below. And just like that, the bar’s front opened to him like some gaping maw, screaming, screaming, screaming for help. Avoiding the jagged teeth of glass still clinging to the pane, he eased himself in, ready to…
Neely’s was empty. Utterly and completely deserted, save for a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, swinging in rhythm with the static whine of an old handheld radio on the bar.
For a moment, he could do nothing more than stare at the radio as it crackled and squealed. Had he really mistaken that for a human cry of agony? Of fear? He reached over with a shaking hand, turning it off with a sharp, twisting click. Once more the silence crashed over him, no more comforting than it had been before. It was only slowly that he allowed himself to sink down into one of the barstools, his legs threatening to simply go out beneath him.
What was happening?
He dropped his head down into his arms, closing his eyes, hunching his shoulders, smelling the old smoky wood. His heart was still pounding in his ears, churning like waves in a storm, yet everything froze for an instant as he caught a whiff of something other than dust and ash and stale beer. He knew that perfume.
Tentatively, so very tentatively, he lifted his eyes from where he’d hidden them in the crook of his arms. Had that piece of paper been in front of the radio when he’d come in? Had his brain been so addled with adrenaline and fear that he simply hadn’t noticed it? It didn’t seem likely, and yet there it was.
He took the paper in hand without a second thought, unfolding its careful crease only for a heavy brass key to clatter onto the bar in front of him. “WOODSIDE APARTMENTS” read the engraving on the side of the key. “I’m waiting,” read the curling handwriting on the paper, perfectly matching the script he’d seen so many times before on shopping lists taped to the refrigerator and tear-stained medical forms thrown onto the floor.
“Mary?” he asked himself, pulse heavy and hurried for entirely different reasons, now. She really was in the town, then—she had to be, how else could he have found the note? Had he been somehow mistaken about those past few years? He had read stories about people erroneously pronounced dead, people who had to dig themselves up out of their own graves to find their way back home, but…
Woodside was close. The key was weighty and cold in his hand, slowly warming as he pressed it between his fingers. There wasn’t time to think or to worry, there wasn’t time to dwell on maybes or possibilities. Mary was waiting for him, only a few yards away, somewhere in the apartment complex they’d passed by so many times on their way to grab a bite to eat before sightseeing.
His thighs were tight with exertion, still he found it in himself to jog the last few feet to the gate. When the key fit into the lock, the most bizarre sense of relief crashed over him, tempered with sharp little stabs of dread emanating from somewhere in his chest. It swung open as easily as a dream, and he all but ran into the lobby. “Mary?” he called, undeterred by the pitch darkness of the first floor, ignorant of the overstuffed mailboxes on the wall, blind to the blatant rot and disrepair of the building. “Mary, honey?” The door to the first floor hallway was locked tight, barely budging even when he threw his full weight against it.
A crash came from overhead; he took the stairs three at a time until he reached the second floor landing, throwing the door open wide in a hero’s grand entrance. There too, was darkness, all consuming—unforgiving. But there was something else too, just beyond his grasp.
“Mary?” he called again, unconcerned with disturbing tenants or their peace, “Are you here?” He didn’t like the hint of despair his voice had taken on, not one bit. The carpeting beneath his feet was running threadbare, doing little to muffle his staggered steps as he wandered through the hall. A corridor branched off to the north, and as he glanced down it, a door creaked open on its hinges, somehow inviting in its finality.
“Come on,” came a voice, as welcome—as musical—as the refrain of a childhood lullaby, causing his knees to go weak beneath him.
Mary.
He tore down the short hall, careening into the room like a train off its tracks. “Mary,” he started, feeling his eyes begin to well and his throat begin to tighten, “Is it really—”
“I just love this place…” There she was, as beautiful as he remembered, hair clipped up and lips curved into something secret and wonderful. He remembered that day so perfectly. The old videotape didn’t do it any justice.
The ancient television set crackled, occasionally sending the screen snowy or uneven, his late wife’s face and voice warping with static tears. He walked over to it, heart heavy with confused disappointment as he dropped into the overstuffed armchair positioned in front of the screen. He could see her face much better, now that he was so close to the television set. He could hear the laughter in her voice. He could see the joy in her eyes.
James realized he was crying long before she reached up to cover the first cough. It was quiet at first, his tears silent as they cut running paths down his cheeks, darkening the denim of his pants in tiny, unimportant drops. But the tape froze, the film caught in its runners or the VCR jammed with dust, and Mary’s face doubled and quadrupled before him. “James…” the audio crackled. “James…James…James…” His chest wracked with sobs, loud and messy.
Why had he done this? Why had he come all this way, knowing that she was gone—lost to him forever? She had been stolen from him, stolen by that damned disease, and now someone thought it funny to rub it in his face and watch him squirm. It was cruel. It was inhuman. He didn’t deserve any of this…
It wasn’t until he took in a huge, gasping breath that he realized he was no longer alone in the room. But by the time he heard the ragged breaths and the shrill squeal of metal on metal, it was far too late to react.
The hand was heavy on the back of his neck as the taste of copper and ash filled his mouth. He tried to cry out, but his voice was choked off by the sharp wooden corner of the old television set.
And then there was only darkness.