Contaminant
Rating: PG-13/T
Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Drama/Angst/Action
Summary: For hc_bingo, prompt "Bullet Wounds". Same universe as Silent Hill Survivors Anonymous. Anne decides to take the high-road in her mission to make Sewell pay in some way or another.
Author's Note: I actually had a significant portion of this (Like… 8000 words) written before I even started Silent Hill Survivors Anonymous. When I decided it was going to fall into the same universe, I decided to put off finishing it until I was done with Survivors Anonymous so that I knew exactly what I would be working from.
Disclaimer: I don't own Silent Hill. It belongs to Konami/Vatra.
[-]
Anne was up to something.
Murphy wasn't quite certain how he had arrived at that conclusion, but he had.
"So- anything new going on?"
Anne didn't look at him, stirring some sugar into her coffee with a mild expression of her face. "Nope."
Liar. "Really? Nothing?"
Finally, Anne's eyes flicked up to look at him. "Are you trying to get at something, Pendleton?"
"Nope." Murphy mimicked with a perfectly straight face.
To the outside observer, most of their meetings at this particular diner would appear to be between two people who didn't seem to like each other very much. Murphy wasn't a very smiley kind of guy (only when he was around Charlie), and most of Anne's genuine smiles were tiny and brief; more often than not, smiles from her were laced with sarcasm and her usual, biting wit made silent.
But whatever it appeared to be to anyone else, Murphy and Anne got along quite well. Murphy wasn't entirely sure what had cemented their friendship, but he had the feeling that it had something to do with a sense of understanding of one another: Namely, they had both lost loved ones and gone to rather extreme lengths in attempts to avenge those deaths. Not many people could say the same.
Anne gave Murphy a dark look, the one she usually gave him when he started to screw with her. But Murphy's opinion about her being up to something was further reinforced by the fact that she dropped the subject; clearly she didn't want to give him an opening to prod further.
Murphy had only one potential track he felt he could pursue. "Is the investigation still suspended?"
"Yes. Nothing to worry about."
"Great."
Someone- Murphy wasn't quite certain if it was Anne's immediate superiors, the higher-ups at Ryall or the local authorities- had decided that Anne's story about Murphy's supposed demise in Silent Hill wasn't holding much water, and so they had decided to launch an investigation into his death. Fortunately, Anne had apparently stuck to her story very well and didn't seem to think that the investigators suspected her of manipulating his transfer- and if they did, they didn't have any evidence to pin on her.
"Is it this Saturday or next Saturday that we have a meeting?" Anne inquired, and the look on her face clearly stated that she was intentionally changing the subject.
The two of them would be attending a meeting that took place every two weeks or so (weather and traveling conditions permitting) comprised of others who had survived jaunts through Silent Hill; this would be Murphy's sixth meeting, and Anne's third. "Next Saturday."
"Topic?"
Murphy glanced around, and then lowered his voice. "It's either 'History of Silent Hill' or 'Creepy-Ass Monsters, Part II'. I lean towards the monsters one."
"Fantastic."
"Travis wants to, and I quote, 'testify' about some very disturbing puppet-monsters he encountered in a theater."
Anne squinted at him. "Is that what we're calling it now?"
Murphy shook his head and held up his hands. "That's what he said." His housemate was a kind, easy-going and generally uncomplicated fellow, but Travis had his moments of strangeness. Murphy took another quick look around their immediate vicinity, and then lowered his voice again. "What kinds did you see?"
Anne toyed with the remains of one of the sugar-packets. "Hm. Those screaming-things."
"Mm-hm."
"The really big, beefed-up thug-things."
"Uh-huh."
"Those creepy-as-hell shadow dolls."
"Yeah."
"And of course-" Anne stopped short, eyes widening slightly. It took him a moment, but Murphy figured out where she had been going with that one: The 'Bogeyman'. For him it was Napier, for Anne it was Murphy himself when she had believed him to be the murderer of her father, Frank. She had nearly killed him over it, and evidently felt that reminding either of them of it was a bad idea.
Murphy rolled with it. "Elle mentioned that Shepherd's Glen had a legend about the- You know what. I guess Silent Hill and Shepherd's Glen have a history of scaring the crap out of their kids."
Anne snorted. "That's not surprising." She paused. "What else?"
"Not much. Apparently they're… Thing was more set on punishing guilty people. Ours was just…" Not. The Bogeyman they had seen was a representation of a person's guilt through someone's eyes: Napier was guilty of murdering Charlie, so he was the Bogeyman for Murphy. Anne believed that Murphy was guilty of murdering her father, so he was the Bogeyman for her. Much more subjective.
Murphy shut his eyes. God, somehow breaking it all down and analyzing it only made him question his sanity even more.
The woman nodded. "Right. And here's to hoping we'll never have to see it again." She remarked with a sardonic smile, raising her mug.
It was then that, out of the blue, it occurred to Murphy to ask a question he had been meaning to ask for some time. "Have you heard anything on Sewell lately?" Anne promptly choked on the coffee she had just swallowed, and it took her a minute to cough the liquid out of her lungs. Murphy did not take it as an encouraging sign. "Wow."
"Don't say that name around me." Anne grunted in a rasp.
"That was a bit of a violent reaction just for a name."
Anne gave him a level look. "Again, Pendleton, I ask what you're trying to imply."
Murphy stared at her unflinchingly. "I'm asking if I should I check the obituaries when I get home."
"Like anyone would write one for him." Anne sniffed, pulling a napkin out of the dispenser and wiping her mouth thoroughly. "No, Pendleton, I didn't kill that slimy piece of shit. Not for lack of wanting, though."
"I'm sure." Murphy would like to think that Anne was thoughtful enough to not just haul off and blow Sewell's brains out, but this was a woman who had once thought that straddling a rock-wall and trying to make her way across a very narrow ledge with one hand holding a gun was a good judgment call, so he couldn't be sure. "So have you heard anything about him?"
"No."
I think she's lying. She's up to something, and she's lying about Sewell. That sounds very, very bad, but hell if I can actually do anything to stop her. Hell, the chances of him even getting her to talk about it were somewhere in the zero to one-percent range; if he was lucky, he'd hear about it once it was over. Let no one ever say that Anne Cunningham was a woman easily coerced into doing what she didn't want to do.
Murphy gave a shrug and drained the rest of his own mug. "Fine. Let me know if you do."
"You'll be the first." Murphy smirked a little at that, because that was bullshit at its finest. Anne noticed. "What?"
"Nothing."
[-]
Murphy knew she was up to something.
All humility aside, Anne considered herself a damn good liar. The only person who had ever been able to consistently catch her at it was her father, which had forced her into defaulting to the truth whenever she was speaking with him. But with other people, Anne had found that her ability to lie consummately and not get caught could serve her well in a number of situations.
Anne had to grit her teeth and resist the knee-jerk impulse to simply grab her gun and blow George Sewell to kingdom come, and she had to really resist the urge to try subtler but no less destructive means to bring about Sewell's suffering as she had when she believed Murphy to be her father's killer. No, this time she was going to play by the rules: No blowing anyone's head off. No manipulating the system so that she could exact revenge. Especially after the investigation into Murphy's supposed death, she couldn't afford to be risking anything clearly illegal.
Murphy had filled in a number of blanks for Anne regarding Sewell and his activities at the prison, in part through evidence that he had found in Silent Hill (they didn't linger on how that was possible, instead just accepting that that was just how Silent Hill rolled): Frank had been calling Sewell into question regarding corruption, poking his nose into things that Sewell didn't want him involved in.
"It mentioned a few things," Murphy had said one day as they walked down the street. It had been raining, and Anne remembered him being unusually tense. "That I remember, there was violence-" Anne had snorted at that, and Murphy nodded flatly. "Yeah, I know, big shock. There was violence, coercion, blackmail- not really sure what the difference is between the two."
"Blackmail is 'do it or I tell your wife about your mistress'. Coercion is 'I'm your boss and I say so'." Anne had clarified, scowling. She had yet to decide which was worse, or if both were equally despicable.
"Right. And then there was some mention of drug-trafficking, but the letter was pretty vague overall. I guess Frank was concerned that if he got too specific and the letter fell into the wrong hands that Sewell might try to cover his tracks."
Or, a very likely option was that maybe Frank had been concerned about the loyalties of Handley and Milton. After all, Sewell had allegedly been up to things for a while and apparently had managed to sneak a lot of supposedly brazen activity right past a captain and warden; Anne had to figure that that made them incompetent or complicit, or possibly both.
Anne had taken this information and chewed on it for a while.
The difference between what Murphy had been to her some time ago and what Sewell currently was to her was significant: Murphy had been a prisoner, someone who could, in theory, not do too much damage to anyone else around him. Killing or otherwise harming him once he got to Wayside (Anne had never really dared to think beyond actually getting him transferred) would not have done much to help the world. It was like shooting a fish in a barrel.
But Sewell was a different beast. Sewell was a damn monster, and Anne knew that without a shadow of a doubt this time. Not only had he beaten her father senseless and more or less murdered him, but he was involved in plenty of other- as Murphy had quoted the memorandum, "reprehensible activities" that had the potential to do a great deal of harm to many people.
And so, Anne started to formulate a plan.
Revenge in the form of a bullet or a club to the back of Sewell's head- while immensely satisfying as mental images- was a bad idea. Murphy had taken the path of revenge once too, and that ended with him being falsely accused of bludgeoning Frank half to death and getting an extended sentence of some twenty or so years for it (Innocent or not, Anne still questioned that number; she felt it should have been longer than that). No, she couldn't do what she tried to do to Murphy.
But Sewell did need to be stopped. And what better revenge would there be than Frank Coleridge's daughter messing up his nice little system of corruption at Ryall? It would be a kick to the balls that he would be feeling for the rest of his life- which would, hopefully, play out behind the bars of the same cells he was currently guarding.
Anne gave it some thought, tentatively tracked out a number of possible ways things could go (wrong), then thought about it some more.
And then she transferred to Ryall State Prison.
She had considered this particular course of action once or twice in her quest to take vengeance on Murphy, but in the end had abandoned it for more or less the same reason: The staff at the prison would know that she was Frank Coleridge's daughter, and they might be a bit suspicious if she had decided to transfer to the prison that was currently incarcerating the man convicted of killing her father. They would never have okayed her transfer to Ryall, and so she went about the more subtle and complicated (and degrading) way of getting Murphy transferred to Wayside.
As far as the world was concerned, Murphy Pendleton had beaten and indirectly killed Frank Coleridge. Only Anne, Murphy, George Sewell and Frank knew otherwise, and no one had any reason to suspect that Anne might have ulterior motives for transferring prisons now that Murphy was perceived to be dead. The transfer was processed, she said her fond farewells at Wayside, and then headed over to Ryall County for her new position.
The staff was quite receptive: Frank had been a beloved staff-member, and most everyone had been horrified at his beating and eventual passing. Anne could even remember seeing some of them at the funeral. And even though she had been, at the time of the transfer, under investigation for what happened to Murphy, there seemed to be a quiet sort of approval for her supposed deed. Murphy had killed Frank, and so the general air she got from the others at Ryall was that if she hadn't done it, fine- but if she had, they weren't going to get too upset over it.
Anne wasn't entirely certain how she felt about that.
And Sewell didn't suspect a damn thing. He was sweet as cyanide-laced sugar with Anne, calling her 'sweetheart' and occasionally sharing a fond memory with Frank. He must have assumed that Frank was too noble to share 'oh God I hate that guy' stories about his coworkers, because he tried to pretend like he and Frank had been old buddies and was devastated at his loss.
Strangely, Anne was all right. She had been concerned that Sewell's feigned ignorance about her father's death might make her try to choke him out- or at least punch him- but she found that she was able to roll with Sewell's lies surprisingly well, playing the part of someone who had no idea what a monster he actually was. But she knew to look for it there, and she could see it behind his eyes as clear as day.
Murphy, why the hell did you ever cut a deal with this guy? You've got a better judge of character than that.
Oh, right: Blinded with grief and rage at his small son's very bad death. Anne didn't have children, but she could imagine that that was the kind of rage that didn't leave you inclined to clear-thinking.
Anne had figured that once she had settled into Ryall and gotten to know Sewell, things could have gone one of two ways: Sewell approached her and tried to either force her or entice her into helping him, or he steered clear of her because she was Frank's daughter and assumed that she would have the same moral code as he. Option A would make either make taking him down very easy or incredibly difficult, while Option B just meant more detective-work on her part.
After two months, it seemed that Sewell was going with B; and in a way, Anne was grimly flattered that he believed her to be as honest and decent as Frank had been.
As it happened, Sewell hadn't been the only one Anne was keeping an eye on: She'd been watching the other guards too, looking to see if maybe any of them had an unusually close relationship with Sewell. One in particular had stood out: A younger officer, new to the prison just as she was, named Peter Benson.
Anne suspected that the only reason Benson caught her attention was because of his age and resulting demeanor. He was a greenhorn to being an officer in general, uncertain of his surroundings, unaccustomed to his authority, and generally kind of nervous. But she had noticed that that nervousness tended to get much more obvious whenever the subject of Sewell came up.
"Benson- Have you seen Sewell?" Handley had come into their office one day. "I need to chat with him about Carl Sails; he was kicking off in the showers again." Anne had noticed right off the bat a pronounced twitch when she said Sewell's name. It had been followed by Benson fumbling with his belt in a fairly pathetic attempt to busy his hands and appear less alarmed. Handley wasn't paying attention to Benson's hands; she was at her desk, and had had a good view of him.
After that, Anne kept a close watch on Benson. Not only did he have a habit of getting flustered whenever someone mentioned Sewell, like the man's very name gave him cause to panic, but Anne had caught Benson and Sewell in a few isolated places talking in hushed tones.
Oh yes, Benson was in on it. Willingly or not, Anne couldn't say: The poor kid did seem to be the kind that folded under the right amount of pressure, and Sewell was nothing if not a massive steamroller.
Anne found that there were a few places Sewell generally liked to corner Benson in for a talk: The corner of the cafeteria during lunch hour, the hall outside of B-Block, the small nook near the showers- basically the shadiest places in the prison. Anne almost hoped that everyone knew what they were up to and was simply ignoring it, because if no one had noticed their little talks and figured what they might mean, then she had the least observant coworkers in the damn country.
Here came time for some decision-making: Keeping an eye on her coworkers was innocuous, could be construed as being observant rather than nosy or suspicious. There wasn't much trouble she could get into just from paying attention to things. But actively seeking to find out what Sewell and Benson were talking about would require eavesdropping, potentially on conversations of a 'you-heard-me-now-I-have-to-kill-you' nature. It was dangerous, could end with losing her job- or, given Sewell's record, her head.
After careful thought, though, Anne found that she didn't have as much choice as originally believed: Sewell was up to something corrupt. Knowing that it was happening and not doing anything about it was almost as bad as actively participating in it; especially if something bad were to happen to someone. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if something happened and she could have done something to prevent it.
And so Anne went to the local electronics store and proceeded to purchase two tape-recorders- one for the nook and one for the hall near B-Block (there was no place in the cafeteria where she could hide one). The nook near the showers had a fire extinguisher, and Anne managed to arrange it in such a manner so that it stood securely behind the extinguisher, out of sight; the second recorder she wedged into a vent near Sewell and Benson's spot. She was able to do this, thankfully, because the cameras did not happen to cover these places, which Anne was certain Sewell had considered when scouting them out.
And then came the waiting-game.