Disclaimer: I don't own Walter or any of the Silent Hill characters metioned here. They all belong to Konami.
The bus ride took longer than usual today. It normally picks me up every day that I go out of town at exactly 8:30 in the morning at the corner bus stop at the edge of the sleepy, small town, Silent Hill. It only makes one or two pitstops for other travelers looking for a way out of the town as well (I wish that we all could be so fortunate). However, on this dreary February day, the bus driver seemingly thought it was okay to try a new bus route and to try to get some of the other buses' familars sqeezed in since (I'd read this in the "Silent Hill Tribune" a couple of days earlier) some of the other buses were experiencing "technical difficulties" due to unknown reasons. The state's transportation department itself is also having a hard time deciphering the cause of it all.
But out-of-the-ordinary things happen in this damn town all the time (that's why I've never been on Toluca Lake on one of those tourist boats) and all the stories, especially the one about the Little Baroness that I've heard a thousand times, I firmly believe to be true. You can feel the unnatural air that embraces Silent Hill, like the fog that's been over Toluca Lake for as long as I remembere seeing it, possibly longer. Sometimes it really makes you wonder, though. The stories still creeped me out to no end, and, now since I've hit my teenaged years, I've left Silent Hill on my excursions to South Ashfield more often, especially more since Andrew can't tell me what to do anymore.
If he does, you could bet that I'd hit him back if he dares touch me.
The driver of my bus ended up with way more passengers than was expected, and this time I think he picked up all of Silent Hill's (probably infamous) fruits and weirdos, and the bus got overcrowed rather quickly. We were like the transport of the state's roadside freakshow. I got the worst of it whilst sitting in my favorite spot in the back. I always planted myself right next to the window in the third seat from the back on the left side. Consequently, there's usually only me and a lady who wears a very nice flowered hat (I think she might be Amish) and sits in the middle on the right side, starigly blankly into open space. She says she often goes to South Ashfield to shop in the mall (I've been there once; it's quite wonderful). Also, there are two noisy and extremely rowdy school kids who drive poor Herman (that's the driver) crazy, because they jump from seat to seat in the front row and scream loud and boisterously like children do. The kids always stay with their aunt in North Ashfield (they once told me), because their parents are still at work when school lets out for them. They are always the only ones, including myself and the woman with the flowered hat, who ride this particular bus. Sometimes the barber, Laurence, rides, too, but that's only on Mondays, because (and I have asked once) he has to go into South Ashfield to pick up his dry cleaning, for Silent Hill has the world's dirtiest and crapiest laundromat.
Today, however, I was crammed in the back with some very colorful characters that one would have had to have seen to beleive. Some definatly belonged on an episode of Ripley's Believe It Or Not (and you would hardly do just that). But I'm not going to go into much detail about them, most other people really mean nothing to me.
Understand that I'm not discluding myself from this generaliztion, for I know I'm just as weird as some of these people were; maybe I am stranger. I've gone to visit the woman that I've known as the one who'd given me lfe in South Ashfield every chance I have gotten since I was old enough to walk. Now that may not seem peculiar, but that's not the whole story. I actually don't know exactly were my mother really is, but I still make the trip to visit her no matter what. See, now bear with me, I think that she is in this apartment, particularly a Room 302, in an apartment complex in downtown Ashfield called South Ashfield Heights. Thing is, she really isn't there, exactly.
I was told by a very important lady a few years back that my mother was in Room 302 somewhere, and that's when I'd started making the trips. She is not there physically, but I feel she was there in spirit, because the escence of her lingers there in the atmoshpere, just inside the door. It's almost like she is trapped there: floating around in an absent space of time, waiting for me to set her free from her nefarious and lonely prison. I know this for a fact, for my heart is connected to her in the only way a child can be connected to their mother. I know she is there, and I intend to be with her again.
Somewhere, someday, someway. And belive me on this: I have a way.
I stare out the window for remainder of the trip, ignoring everyone else around me. My thoughts started swarming like furious flys and bees at war in my brain; and they often drifted to my earlier days. I got into a lot of trouble as a child, and it just seems like I can't really escape it. I'd hurt an animal in a pet store once because it had bit me, and then I'd ran out before the owner could harm me, too. I'd ran because I'd had gotten beaten a lot back then, I had been (and still am) afraid of fists, and the beatings themselves have damaged me a little.
Part of my problem for hatred for the outside world is due to the fact that Andrew always whaled on me every time he had gotten drunk (and he was drunk most of the time). Maybe also because my parents had left right after I was born in Room 302, where my mother is. I asume I may have gotten most of my imperfections from my father, though, since he liked to run a lot, too. He's a man I'd rather not have thought about if I didn't have to. I don't want or even need to consider trying to find him anymore. He had forced my mother to leave me; I know that he had. I want to be with her, not him.
Anyway, I am getting away from myself again. Herman finally hit my stop at about 10:45 a.m., right at the Main Street corner where I always get off. The ride (and I'd caculated the distance) takes about an hour and a half on normal days because Herman knows the fastest routes in and out of Silent Hill. It had taken almost an extra hour because of the other passengers.
I immediatly stand up, eager to leave. The kids who sit up front on my normal day bus rides are firmly placed (sadly) together in one seat, and they look slightly agitated that the front (because it was just as compacted with individuals as the back) of the bus is so full to the point that they had to sit in their seats like good children and talk amongst themselves. There is absolutly no room for them to play and run. They are free spirits, I know, and I feel remorse and pity for them, because I sort of enjoy their antics, as my days are usually dark and dreary. They always brighten my mood, and I believe that a child should be forced to behave when they are not really causing any phychological or physical damage at all. When the bus isn't like it was, they do some pretty entertaining things that are fun to watch.
Whenever Herman turns the bus, they make sure they are on the left side if he was turning right (and Herman does turns like a madman that cuases the bus to slighlty tilt), and then they rush over to the other side just as Herman takes a left turn. They laugh the whole time and make Herman nervous. They had even once stolen Herman's hat and had thrown it out the window. Herman had to stop and go outside the bus to get it, and he'd complained and covered up his balding head as best he could when he had done so. My bus rides as a child had never been as good as they are (with an exception of today) now.
As I am leaving, I make sure to say goodbye to the woman with the flowered hat. I lean over the man next to her, whom uncomfortably pretends as if I'm not there as best he can, as I say , "Bye Sharon, I'm getting off now.
Sharon regards me with a huge smile. " Alright Walter, I'll see you later, okay? You be careful now, dear. Watch for traffic.
"Oh, I will ma'am, and I know we will because I'll be on the bus tomorrow. Hope you find everything your're looking for in the mall. Goodbye now. "
"Thank you dear, goodbye"
I still feel her tender smile on me as I head towards the front. It makes me feel good, which is nice considering the fact that this feeling will disappear as soon as I get off.
When I reach the seat where the children are seated, a boy and his sister, the girl brightens up, and, as I starts to pass, she shouts at me to stop.
"Hey Walter, wait a minute!" She says in a beautiful melodious voice. " I've got something for you"
I turn towards the nice sound as she reaches into her pocket and brings out this droopy looking dandelion she had aparently picked a couple of hours ago, and holds it up to me.
"I got this for you before I left school today"
I take the flower gratefully and put it into my own pocket.
"Thanks a bunch Miriam!" I say, giving her my most appreciative smile. "I'll be sure to keep this and take it home and put in a vase right away"
This makes her glow even more, and it made me feel good to have made her happy.
Billy, her brother, looks up at me and says in a smartass tone, "I got something for you too, Walter...a knuckle sandwich!" He flashs his fist in front of me playfully.
"No thank you, " I say, as I wave his words away and rub my stomach. "I already ate." I show him a toothy grin and he returns it with his own. I end the conversation with (for I am in a big hurry and don't want to be anymore late than I have to be), "Thank you for the presents, guys. I sure liked 'em both. I'll see you guys tomorrow morning, okay?"
"Okay, bye Walter!" They exclaim in unison.
"Bye for now". Then I walk off the bus, but not before I, of course, say my final farewells to Herman.
"See you around, Mr. Sullivan!" Herman shouts as he closes the doors.
"See ya!"
Then he and the bus are gone, leaving me and my thoughts alone about a block away from South Ashfield Heights. I like to keep my conversations short and to the point. My expression suddenly changes from cheery to grim in an instant when I look down at the apartments with weary eyes. I trudg the rest of the way there sluggishly, like I have twenty tons of iron strapped to my ankles and steel bands wrapped around my chest. My heart is aching teribly, and I expect it to blow to pieces any moment. I avoid any eye or human contact at all.
I am little late, but I am more than positive that mom won't hold it against me.
When I reach the front door, I hesitat only for a moment before letting myself in without even considering the fact that Richard might be somewhere nearby. I head right for the staircase and go up a flight of stairs, turn left three times for the next set, and asend them to the third floor. I go in the door on my right, go down the narrow hallway, make another left, and walk right past the door of 303, just as a mother and a little girl come out and head in the direction away from me.
They don't seem to notice that I am there. If they did, they might have thought I was Mike from 301's drinking buddy or something. But I am not here to visit that sorry excuse for a human being.
I find myself standing in front of Room 302 and staring at it with no expression whatsoever on my rugged face. It may not have showed, but I am feeling a lot right then and there. I'm afraid of the future, that's for sure, but it is mostly the pain that is getting to me.
Yeah, that pain again. It's kind that tears your fragile humanity into shreds, chews it up, spits it at you, and then causes even the most sane of peoples to lose their minds. It's the kind that I don't think normal people feel.
It takes some effort, but I force myself to look in the peephole of the apartment. What I find would have sent me into a crazed sort of animal rage if I'd been upset about anything else at that moment.
I see that there is a man living in there. He is about 5' 9" and is completely bald. He is reading the newspaper in his easy chair and seemingly minding his own business.
All the same, what the hell does he think he is doing in my mother's room? The room of an angel, my angel, is being perpetually ruined by some dirtbag who thinks it is okay to just move the fuck in and make himself comfortable! He is practically living in my mother! When the hell did he get there anyway!
I find that the hand that is resting on the door become a fist and I growl deeply in my throat most frightenlingly, like a beast, as every fiber of my being wants break down the door, (no, the barrier of filth) and then rip his body to pieces until they are so small I could've sent him sailing into the wind from the palm of my hand.
I don't because he is really nothing, nothing to me, at least, not at thsi present moment. I know I need to get out of there and go somewhere to collect my thoughts, but I am rooted to the spot with my teeth grinding together, which is causing me further agony. I uncontrolablley slam my fist as hard as I can into the door and it must have scared him because he practically jumps out of his skin and looks around the room with pupils as big as half dollars. He them looks right at the door and starts going towards it.
I decide to run before he comes out and catches me. I run with tears running down my face until I am back in the lobby.
I'think my day can'tt get any worse than discovering a stranger in my mother's room, when suddenly Richard Braintree (that son of a bitch) comes down the stairs and stands glaring at me with his arms folded across his chest from about five feet away. He'd obviously been close enough to hear me running and pounding my way down here, and he hadn't liked all the racket I'd made.
I had been bent over panting when he had appeared, but I now stand straight up (but not before wiping my swollen eyes) and face him as he says viciously, "Hey asshole, what the hell do you think your're doing running around here and stomping like a Russian dancer for, huh? Who the hell do you think you are?"
"I'm really sorry, sir," I say through clenched teeth. God how I hate him. "I was just in a big hurry to get out of here and-"
"Why? You cause some kind of trouble upstairs? You in cahoots with that dickhead Mike? You his friend or something?" His face tightens as he waits for my reply.
" No, sir," I say, putting my hands up defencively. "I haven't caused a thing, honest. And I don't know a man named Mike. My name is, uh, Albert (my boss's name had come to mind just of of the blue).
"Well, okay then, "Albert", Richard looks me up and down before continuing, "but that doesn't explain why you're in such a fucking hurry."
Nosey bastard. "Appointment, sir," I am beginning to get annoyed with answering all of his tedious questions. "See, I was visiting my pal in 302 when I realized that I was late for my doctor's appointment. I really apologize for the noise, but the doctor told me if I was late again, he would start charging me extra". It is getting harder and harder to talk politely to this man.
Ricahrd rubs his chin thoughtfully for a second and then finally states, 'Well, I guess it's fine, doctors can be real shitheads. But don't let it happen again, got it?"
I nod solemnly and turn to walk away when he suddenly inquires, "Hey wait a sec buddy. I aint done with you." He sounds like he was getting provoked again, and it isn't a beautiful thing when Richard Braintree is provoked.
I turn around to regard him with the cheepest smile I can muster for such a person as he is. He points out, "You look kinda familiar." He goes back to rubbing his chin with narrowed eyes that bear into me like a hungry hawk's talons. I flinch when he says that. "Have we...met before?"
"I
don't belive so," I say nervously. I really want to leave. "Hey,
I hate to run, but I really have to get to my appointment. Heh, you
said it yourself, doctors can be shitheads.
My fake laugh makes
him even more suspicious of me but he lets me go with a, "Yeah,
your "appointment."
I take off out the door and breath a heavy sign. I carry me and my beating, fluxuated heart to the back alley behind the apartment building where I lean against one wall and let my body slide down to a sitting position in the gravel. My head falls, and I look down a my hands as I absentmindedly open and close them.
I can't stand him. I wish he was dead. The cocksucker. He's the real shithead.
Richard hates kids, and I had once watched him beat the hell out of the man the pervert Mike who'd accidently run into him. He said he had done it because Mike had been stalking that lovely lady, Rachael. That isn't at all true, for Richard just has a bad attitude. I know, he'd run me off whenr I was visiting my mom once as a kid when he'd realized I had seen what he had done. He'd told me to leave before I really pissed him off. From then on I tried to dodge him and stay ou of his line of sight whenever I made more trips.
But times are beginning to change, that much I know. I have to save my mother from that man that is living in her, because now his taint is all over her.
I look up and see that distant thunderheads are moving in for another rain shower. It had rained yesterday, on one of the days I hadn't and don't visit mom. I think she cries whenever I leave or when I don't go to see her at all; it's like she's sad that she can't find me and it makes me think that she loves nothing more than to have me near.
I want to be near her too.
I lean my head on the wall and keep looking up and waiting for the rain. Doing so makes me feel closer to her in funny way. She's getting ready to cry on my shoulder, and I'll be here for her like I've always wanted to be.
This all sounds so strange and dillusional that I doubt I have any sanity left in me. No one notices, though. I am a master of disguing my own madness. I feel it start to make me drift off into the more sadistic world that I visit when I get anger or distraught over something.
No more will they all get in my way. I will make them all suffer for hurting me and keeping me from my mother. They'll be the ones that I'll give to mom to make her wake up. There are no more barrires... only pigs who will feed the feast of my mother's return.
I know the 21 Sacraments, the scripture in our bible I read that says I'll be with her if I complete it, is my only solution, for I can not spend the rest of my life dreaming of what could be; I need to make it a reality before time gets further away from me.
Not now though; it is too early. But soon, in the near future. I'll swear it on this void of sorrow that they'll one day bury me in and also on the last breath that I give... that I'll give to her and her alone.
"I love you more than life," I find myself saying out loud, the rain coming down on me in sheets. It will be like the bloody, drizzling affliction that will blanket and embrace me tonight, for I have no intention of leaving her tonight in this dark hour.
"Don't cry ma. We'll be together, you'll see", I continue, trying to comfort us both. I smile maliciously and hold my arms wide open to the sky, and to the heavens and my mother. I think I'll go get something to eat later, but maybe not. I hate the idea being too far from her in these circumstances.
"Soon, my angel, soon", I whisper to black clouds and gray skies, more desolate faces pouring sympathy on this day.
But I really know it is all for her... it's always been for her.
Author's Note: I made some changes to the story, including delleting a whole part of it, changing the verb tense, and fixing grammatical errors. I relly want to apologize to Silver Horror whom favorated me for the original version of this story.
