It had been years since Jennifer had been in Silent Hill. Her mother and father had packed up the family and left when she was seven; right after the police found the bodies of Walter Sullivan's first two victims. Funny enough, the town hadn't changed since the last time she'd seen it. She drove through her old neighborhood; the faux-Victorian fronts seeming to glare down at her in the poor lighting of the few streetlamps. She passed the elementary school, where she wondered if her name was still notched in the top of the wooden lamp post outside—she had gotten in so much trouble for climbing up there and scratching her name in with a spoon from the cafeteria! But it had been well worth it to see the look on Billy's face when she returned to the ground, sore but triumphant. That had happened only a few short months before he died…had she known that, she might not have climbed over his name and carved hers on the top.
Fear suddenly hooked a frozen claw between her shoulder blades; petrified for no conscious reason and disliking the feeling so, Jennifer reached down and turned on the car radio. There was static on the first pre-set; no surprise as it was set to her favorite station in New Orleans, not Silent Hill. She had driven for a week to get to Silent Hill, and as she played with the dial-knob, she wondered what had happened to her parents to make them send her back here after all these years. It had been a clause in their will, that she personally go up and sort the things in their old house—the fact that they still owned a house in Silent Hill confused Jennifer; they had never returned, and she had never heard her parents say they were going to either…so why did they still have a house here?
Station after station greeted her with static; Jennifer frowned, wondering if the thick white fog that was rolling in fast could be the reason she wasn't getting anything. She slowed the car down as her visibility diminished to almost nothing, and turned the radio off. It would be really stupid to keep trying to find a radio station when she couldn't see the road in front of her to drive.
As soon as Jennifer had both hands on the wheel, the radio sputtered to life. "SIN!" it shouted; Jennifer nearly went into the side of the hill as her hands jerked on the steering wheel. She fumbled for the knob, trying to shut off the voice. She pounded the command, but the radio refused to go off. "SINNERS! BLASPHEMERS! WHORES AND HARLOTS OF THE MATERIAL WORLD! THIS IS YOUR DAY OF RECKONING! AND LO THE LORD SAID UNTO HIM: YOU MUST SACRIFICE YOUR FIRSTBORN, IN ORDER TO ENTER THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN! HEAVEN, MY CHILDREN, HEAVEN'S DOOR IS JUST WAITING FOR US TO USE THE KEY TO GET IN! BUT WE CANNOT GET IN IF WE ENTRAP OURSELVES WITH THE FITTINGS OF THIS SINNING WORLD! DO YOU HEAR ME JENNIFER?" Jennifer nearly drove into the side of the mountain again at the sound of her voice. Who the hell was this religious nut, and why—out of all the names in the world to choose from—did he choose hers so randomly and with such rage in his voice? "LET NOT YOUR SOUL BE WEIGHED DOWN BY FALSE DUTIES TO THIS WORLD! THE DEVIL PROMISES YOUR SALVATION BUT ONLY TEARS OF THE HOLY MOTHER CAN MAKE YOU PURE AGAIN!" The voice on the radio rose to a frightening pitch, cracking every few words. Ears aching from the verbal assault, Jennifer tried one last time to turn the radio off. She raised a fist and punched the entire face of the radio, the on/off and volume knob cutting a jagged trough between her first and second knuckle. As the stinging cut began to bleed, the radio fell silent. A single drop of blood glistened on the knob, seemingly ominous in its complacency.
Eyes still glued to the road and fear digging an even deeper trench between her shoulders, Jennifer sought blindly for a napkin to dab at the cut on her hand. The fog grew thicker, and whiter, until it was almost like snow and her headlights were blinding her more than they were helping her. She dimmed them, and slowed the car down even further. Now she was crawling on the road and praying no hot-shot moron came flying up behind her.
Something thudded against the roof of her car hollowly, as though a handful of acorns had been flung down on it. The sound jarred Jennifer's nerves even more; that's why when a huge bird flew into her window, she lost control of the car. The resounding smack of flesh and feathers on her windshield had caused Jennifer's hands to jerk, drawing the steering wheel to the left. As she fought to pull it back to the right side of the road, it seemed as though something was pulling it away from her hands. Blinded by fog and the bird carcass, Jennifer could only fight helplessly as the car first spun out of control, bouncing off the side of the hill and the guardrail, then slipped through a gap in the guard rail near a raven and slid down, down, down the side of the hill, flipping over near the bottom and continuing to spin even as it sat on its roof.
Jennifer's vision went from red to black to red to normal to plagued by black spots, plagued by tiny pinpoint flashes of light, and back to red. The scenery just beyond her fingertips was a swirling miasma of black and the interior of her car. Bile rose in her throat even as she opened her mouth to scream uselessly in fear. As the car slid to a stop beside the lake, Jennifer blacked out, falling limp and feeling her seatbelt cut into her chest as gravity tried to pull her out of the seat…
A rapid knocking on her window caused Jennifer's eyes to jolt wide open. She looked around uncomprehendingly, still seeing the world upside down through the front window. Then she realized the pressure on her chest wasn't there anymore; the seatbelt wasn't holding her upside down in her rolling tomb. She looked out the window on her side, mind still unwilling to except life over death.
An old man, face withered like an apple that's been left out and anger etched in every wrinkle, glared at her. He held a flashlight in his hand, and shined it right in her eyes. "What are you doing?" he barked through the glass.
Jennifer fumbled for the button console on her door, and managed to get the window rolled down. "I just got into town; must've dozed off." She said, smiling nervously. Beyond the old man she could see a tree-lined street, chalk-scored sidewalks, and rows of houses. But wait; how could she be in her old neighborhood? She had driven through it, hadn't she? Hadn't she been driving in the hills…leaving Silent Hill?
No; it must've been a dream. A terrible dream brought on by road fatigue. That had to be it. That had to be why her mind was so fuzzy and uncooperative, why the dream had made no sense and why she was so disoriented. Right?
"Who are you; why are you here?" the old man demanded.
"My name's Jennifer Daelí. This is my parents' house. They sent me here to go through it and get it ready to sell." She said stiffly, as automatically as any machine recording.
The old man's glare wasn't letting up. "The Daelís haven't been here in years. What makes you think I'm going to buy that crap?"
Jennifer sighed. "Will a driver's license help?" she asked wearily.
"Don't be a smart-ass." The old man growled.
Jennifer shook her head, and turned away from the window. She reached over the center console, to look in the passenger-side floor board for her purse. She got a hold of it, and spent another few moments digging around it for her wallet. Unearthing the tattered brown wallet, she opened it up to reveal her driver's license as she turned back to the window. "See? Proof-positive as to what I…was…saying…" she frowned. There was no one outside her car. "What the hell is wrong with me?" she muttered, throwing the wallet onto the passenger seat without thinking, and opening the door to get out of the car.
Stepping out of the car, she noticed there was no one at all in the neighborhood. All the houses were dark and not a sound could be heard anywhere. Such dead and stifling silence Jennifer had never experienced before. She took the keys out of her car, and left her wallet and purse inside. She hesitantly walked up the few steps of walkway from the driveway to the steps of the tiny front porch. The wooden steps shrieked with indignation as she went up; the sounds cutting through the still air like a hot knife. Wincing as the front porch squeaked under her, Jennifer took the old house keys out of her pocket, looking at them. There was the house key, the garage key, and a key chain from the amusement park. Robbie the Rabbit was dingy now, and missing an ear; Jennifer wondered if the amusement park was still on the lake…if it was, maybe she'd go visit it before she left.
Forcing the key into the door, because it seemed as though the keyhole had rusted over the years, Jennifer struggled to get the front door open. Once unlocked, the door swung inwards wildly, and a blast of cold, musty air assaulted Jennifer. She winced, taking a step back. The step put her foot on the edge of the stair, and she toppled backwards, rolling down the steps and cracking her head against the sidewalk. Dizziness sent the world around her spinning, and Jennifer once again blacked out…
She came to with the smell of pine and gasoline in her nose. Panic put her lungs in a vise, and for a second her skin burned as though it was on fire. Jennifer forced herself to calm down and look around; the forest was upside down and everything in her car was a mess. Even as she used a pen knife to cut the straps of the seatbelt, she wasn't sure what was going on was real. Had she truly lost control of her car in the hills, and flipped into a ravine? Or was she asleep in the driveway of her childhood home?
Cold and lost, Jennifer managed to open the passenger's side door, the driver's side being too mangled to force away. She crawled out of the car, reaching back only to take a handful of maps and a tape recorder; the tape recorder was an expensive gadget she wasn't keen on relinquishing to the unknown, and the maps? Well Jennifer had no idea where the hell she was or where the hell she should be going; maps seemed like a very good idea.
The car burst into flames when Jennifer was only a few feet away. At the explosion, Jennifer ran full speed into the woods, though she was still peppered with debris and flaming pieces of her life as they tried to fence her in. When she was at last a safe distance away from the wreck, Jennifer realized she was on a path in the middle of nowhere, and she had no idea where it was going to end. "Man…this is bad…" she muttered, looking around anxiously. The only thing she could really be glad for was that she had worn jeans and comfortable sneakers for the final leg of her trip, instead of trying to make an impression when she got into town.
The woods were too dense to be penetrated by the fog completely, but the ground was still well-blanketed and Jennifer kept tripping over unseen tree roots. The path she cautiously tread wound through the woods, past trees that seemed to have faces and shapeless rocks that none the less felt ominous; past rusted pieces of fence and old signs that were painted over with strange symbols.
The first time she encountered one of those strange, strange signs, Jennifer knelt and studied it. The circle was sloppily done, paint still dripping from its uneven edges. 'Still fresh?' Jennifer thought. "Weird." She said out loud. Inside the circle was a triangle, a lidless eye in its center. Around the edge of the circle were strange marks she could not read. But somehow, the symbol looked familiar… "I think I've seen this somewhere before…but where?" she thought hard on it, but the memory just wouldn't come. "I know I've seen this somewhere before." She muttered, frowning. All at once, the memory had taken hold of her mind; though it wasn't all there…she couldn't see it all.
The symbol/the mark of the beast/in mother's blood/fire in the night/
The whispered words that wove through the shards of fragmented memory made Jennifer's head ache. Her vision was awash with red, and a momentary darkness curtained her eyes. When she opened them again, she was standing before the gates of something called 'Wish House'. "Wish House?" Jennifer searched her memory, but there was nothing there to grasp. Hesitantly, she pushed open the metal doors and stepped in…
The yard was fenced in by huge wooden planks; the planks were decorated with childish chalk drawings. Jennifer investigated a view, curious at the lack of joy in the doodles on the fence. Children were usually carefree and light-hearted; their inability to stay inside the lines of a picture was proof of that. But these drawings, depicting people being eaten by horned monsters and all other matter of dead things made her feel ill. Jennifer looked to the wooden house in the center of the yard. It looked harmless enough; two stories and not very wide in front or side. She started towards the house, passing a tree stump with an axe in it. Suddenly, a voice trapped in electric static assaulted her ears.
"Oh help Little Red Riding Whore cried as the valiant wolf sought to swallow her whole. "Who will help?" She asked most piteously as the brave wolf ate her with gusto. Just then, a woodsman and his great axe happened upon the Seen of Trials and he slew the great wolf and pulled the whore from her flesh tomb; and she, having been tried by fire and ice, became the Holy Mother…"
Jennifer whirled around, looking for speakers for where the voice had come from. She could see nothing; then it struck her…the tape recorder in her pocket! She picked it up, noting that the play button was depressed. Impossible though; she had no batteries in the thing and the tape inside should have been blank. Common sense told her to throw the tape recorder as far away from her as she could; instead Jennifer slid it back into her back pocket and approached the axe in the tree stump. Around the axe was the symbol that Jennifer had seen over and over again in the woods. Wincing as her head began to throb again in the presence of the symbol; Jennifer grasped the axe in both hands and pulled hard. Three tries later, she had the axe. The cut she had pulled it from began to bleed red, sticky sap. It pulsed up from the stump and Jennifer danced back to avoid getting it on her shoes. Off in the distance she heard a wolf howl.
Unnerved and eager to be away from the outdoors, Jennifer bounded up the steps of the house, and tried the front door. It was locked! Taped to the door was a message:
No more wishes can be granted at this House. God has seen fit for that. Take the children; they will spread our God's message to the world.
Sister
Jennifer ripped the note off the door, and hefted the axe. She didn't have time to waste looking for keys to a building that had been abandoned. It took a few tries, but she managed to knock the door knob off the door and kick her way inside…
The smell of bacon and burnt hair assaulted her nose. Jennifer coughed, and her vision blurred as her eyes watered. Once the old, foul air had escaped the house through the open door, Jennifer was confronted by a very odd sight. A young tow-headed boy in a striped shirt and jeans was drawing on the walls. He was oblivious to Jennifer's presence; hadn't even seemed to have heard the axe going through the door. Jennifer frowned, and put the axe down, though she did not let go of it. "Hey?" she called softly.
The boy jumped, and whirled around. His bony frame visibly shaken, he pressed himself against the wall. "P-p-please don't tell Sister." He pleaded, lower lip trembling. "I won't draw on the walls again; but please don't tell Sister!"
Jennifer held her hands up and shook her head. "I won't tell anyone; I used to draw on the walls all the time too." She said with a smile.
The boy still seemed anxious. "Cross your heart?" he demanded.
"And hope to die, if I should have told a lie." Jennifer assured him. She crossed the room to him, and squatted down to be eye-level with the kid. He still seemed skittish, but he made no moves to run away. "What's your name?" she asked.
"William, but everybody calls me Billy." The kid replied.
Jennifer frowned, staring at the kid and trying to recover the memory of Billy from the back of her mind. Had he always been so disheveled, so frighteningly wide-eyed? Then she shook her head. What was she thinking? Billy was dead—murdered. There was no possible way he could be standing in front of her right that second. She was just crazy. "Well Billy, my name's Jennifer. Can I ask what are you doing here all by yourself? It's dangerous." She said.
Billy rolled his eyes. "You don't have to tell me that." He replied with the air of wounded pride only a child can master, the one that sounds like disbelief and indignation all at once. "But I can't go anywhere else. Sister said if we left the House without a grown-up, the monsters outside would eat us."
"There are no monsters outside Billy." Jennifer said firmly. She was angry; what the hell kind of sick bastard told a kid a story like that, just to make him stay inside? "But nevertheless, why don't you stick with me, okay? The woods are dark and you could get lost." She smiled.
Billy looked over her shoulder, seemingly in thought. "Are you a monster?" he asked.
"Nope."
"Prove it." At this Billy folded his arms across his chest.
Jennifer smiled wide. "See? No monster fangs." She held up her fingers. "No monster claws." She giggled—if her chewed-down nails were a threat to anything, it was to her digestive tract. "And could a monster put his life on the line by promising?" She asked.
Billy seemed to think about it some more. "Okay." He said finally. "You're obviously not a monster, but I have to be careful. Sister said—"
Jennifer cut him off. "Sister didn't tell you all the truth." She said gently, not willing to come out and call someone Billy held in high regards a liar.
"Don't you talk about Sister!" Billy said savagely.
Jennifer was taken aback. "I'm sorry Billy; why don't you show me around this house, okay?" she said gently, hurriedly trying to smooth over her faux-pas. Billy looked like a runner, and she didn't want this poor little kid lost in the woods on her conscience.
"You don't know it?" Billy looked at her, visibly puzzled. "I thought everyone here knew the Wish House."
"I moved away from Silent Hill a long, long time ago. I was little and didn't know a whole lot."
"Oh." Billy seemed to accept this reasoning. He stuck a hand out. "I'll show you everything, even the rooms I'm not supposed to go in by myself. I can though, because you're a grown-up and you'll be with me."
Jennifer stood, and took his hand. It was warm and sticky, like a child's hand usually was. "That's right."
"Stay close though; I think some of the monsters got in the house while Sister was gone." Billy said, cute in his childish seriousness.
"It'll be okay." Jennifer assured him. She hefted the axe to her shoulder. "See? We're prepared."
Billy nodded. He pulled her to the center of the room. "This is the living room. Sometimes we take our lessons here, when we're not at the other school."
Jennifer looked around. The room was in shambles, she noticed for the first time. The kick mold was crumbling away from the walls, and it seemed as though Billy had been hard at work. There were crayon doodles all over the room. "You've been busy." She remarked. "Would you like to tell me what they are? I can't see very well in this light." Jennifer added, in case it hurt his feelings that what was painfully obvious to him was not so to her.
Billy nodded, and pulled her to the far corner of the living room. He stepped over a fallen armoire, letting go of her hand to explain the drawing. "This is Alessa. She had a bad accident because God was punishing her mother. Then she ascended to Heaven." He said solemnly.
The drawing sent chills down Jennifer's spine. Billy had drawn a girl with short dark hair, and surrounded her with flames. She couldn't see the print in the word bubble coming out of the drawn girl's mouth; it had been crossed out with thick black crayon. In the next drawing, it was the same girl, though a thick black line cut her face in half.
"When she ascended," Billy said, "God put her soul in two places so she could get strong enough to help with the Resurrection. Her mommy was supposed to protect her and keep her safe, but she failed because she was a bad mommy." A note of savagery crept into Billy's voice. "And I know bad mommies." He added softly, as though he thought Jennifer wouldn't hear him.
"What's this scribble over here?" Jennifer asked shakily.
If Billy noticed the quiver in her voice, he didn't seem to care. "That's Alessa's mommy being condemned to Hell because she failed to serve God."
"And the man?" Jennifer asked, assuming the small stick figure near the scribble that was Alessa's mother was a man.
"That's Harry. He tried to stop the Resurrection, and that's why Alessa's mommy burned up in Hell. But God gave the world another try, and it was Harry's job to take care of her."
That explained the small circle in the stick figure's arms. "That's a big story for a little guy like you to draw out."
"It took me a while." Billy replied with a nod. He came back over the armoire and took her hand, leading her to the next set of pictures.
Jennifer looked; the girl in this one had yellow hair, though the crown was black. She smiled; Billy had a knack for interesting detail, even if his subject matter was deranged and terrifying; though she would not admit that to herself just yet.
"This was the new Holy Mother. The first one was Alessa, and then it was Cheryl, and this one is Heather. She thought Harry was her real dad until she found out the truth. Then one of the Sisters who had been forsaken by Wish House had him killed. That made Heather mad and she banished the bad Sister to Hell." Billy said matter-of-factly.
The drawing of 'Heather' was followed by a second, more detailed drawing of Harry, with his entire midsection scribbled out in red. A fanged woman—who must be the 'Bad Sister' was surrounded by red flames. "And what happened to Heather?" Jennifer asked softly.
"She didn't bear God either. Is it really hard for women to have babies, because we've had three ladies try and it hasn't worked." Billy asked.
Jennifer coughed and shifted on her feet uncomfortably. "Well…yes Billy. It is kinda hard for ladies to have babies. That's why there's so much fuss made when she's trying."
Billy seemed to accept this answer. "That was the last time God tried to get a lady to have Him." He pulled her over to the next set of drawings. There was a wild-eyed figure with blood on his face and body. "This is the Sacrament man. He tried to resurrect the Holy Mother with the 21 Sacraments." Billy's hand in hers grew sweaty. "He did a lot of bad things to do it." He added softly. "I think it was because he tried to keep track of the Sacraments using the skin of the people who helped."
Jennifer's legs tried to give out. If she remembered right, Billy was talking about Walter Sullivan…the man who killed and then carved numbers into his victims' back. That much she knew; learned from spying on her parents' hushed conversations. But what the hell were the 21 Sacraments and what did that have to do with anything? "And what happened next?" Jennifer asked thickly, throat closing up with fear.
"This is Henry." Billy said, pointing to another stick figure. "God sent him because Walter had done bad things to fulfill the 21 Sacraments. He stopped Walter and Walter got to go to Heaven because he had believed, even though he did bad things to try and help."
Jennifer's nausea was almost completely out of her control now. "Is that so?" she asked faintly. "So that didn't work either?" She couldn't really follow the story Billy was telling; it folded over itself and got so convoluted with his childish sense of language, Jennifer counted on herself to remain absolutely clueless. Judging from Billy's story, and the drawings though, cluelessness didn't seem like such a bad thing.
Billy shook his head. "Nope; the Holy Birth is really hard."
"Oh…what else is there Billy?" Jennifer asked.
"You don't want to see anymore of my drawings?" Billy asked, sounding hurt.
"Oh no, it's not that. They're very good and I've learned a lot; but I know there are other things in this house you want to show me." She smiled thinly.
"Oh, right!" Billy smiled. He pulled her past an overturned table, skidding on papers scattered on the floor, until he brought her to the second door in the room. "This is the Prayer Room. A non-believer came in here once and he got punished. 171211."
Jennifer frowned; why had Billy recited numbers after that. "Can I go in?" she asked.
"I don't think so. The door's locked and it would be bad to break it without a good reason."
"What's a good reason?" Jennifer asked.
"Um…I dunno."
"Is fire a good reason?"
"Why do you say that?" Billy asked, taking a step away, voice shaking.
"Because I can smell smoke, but I don't know where it's coming from." Jennifer said, speaking softly to calm him. "Can you smell it too?"
Billy sniffed. "Is that what that smell is?" he asked.
She nodded. "I think it might be." Jennifer lifted the axe.
Suddenly Billy screamed. "DON'T!"
Jennifer's arms faltered and she found herself being ushered across the room by Billy. "Billy, what's wrong?"
"She's coming, she's coming, I'm in so much trouble! Don't let her catch you, don't! She'll be mad, she'll be mad, she's already so mad!" Billy was babbling.
"Billy please! Billy, calm down!" Jennifer tried.
Billy opened the door next to the stairs, and pushed her in. "Stay in here, don't let her see you. There's a secret behind the wall if you need it, but please don't let her see you! You'll get in trouble too!" Tears were streaming down his face.
"Billy!" Jennifer shouted as Billy slammed the door. She pushed against it, but found she couldn't budge it. Billy had locked her in. "Billy! Open the door Billy! I want to help you!" she shouted, pounding on the door.
"Be quiet!" Billy pleaded.
There was a dot of light shining on the back of the closet (because that's what Billy had just locked her in), and Jennifer followed its source to a hole just above the doorknob. She knelt down and peered out.
Billy was sitting on the floor before the entry door, stock still. The door was ruined from Jennifer's homemade locksmith technique, and it was brought off the hinges by a huge burly man in a blonde wig. For some strange reason, Jennifer's ears weren't working. She could see the wig-man's lips moving, but she couldn't hear a noise! Billy kept looking back at the closet frequently; Jennifer wondered if the wig-man had asked him why. Then it didn't matter, because the wig-man was coming towards the closet door. As he got closer, the strong scent of blood invaded the closet. Jennifer skittered back away from the peephole, elbow knocking against the back wall of the closet. "A secret behind the wall?" she whispered as the doorknob jiggled. Then she saw an indent, where her elbow had hit the wall. "Here's hoping…" she muttered as she pushed against the back wall with all of her strength.
The plywood covering a huge hole gave out, and Jennifer was sliding down a long series of concrete stairs on the plywood; when the stairs gave out, Jennifer rolled off the plywood. It continued to skate down the floor. "Where am I?" she whispered.
Above, there was an earth-shattering wall-shaking roar. 'Never mind!' Jennifer thought as she opened the first door on her right and ran in. She shut the door softly but firmly, and leaned against it with all her weight. Footsteps thundered by, and she heard the wail of a child (Billy?). Jennifer didn't dare open the door and go out though; the wig-man could be somewhere close by, and the last thing in the world she wanted to do was go up against him with just an axe. Instead she opted to look around the room.
It was like a cell, 8X10 with blood-smeared walls. The smell was worse than any meat-packing industry. Jennifer almost threw up right then and there; only fear that the wig-man would hear her wretch kept down the Skittles™ she had eaten earlier. In the center of the room was a diary, dog-eared with a broken spine. Jennifer approached it cautiously, constantly looking left to right as though the wig-man would walk through the walls and kill her any minute.
The diary was written with red ink; suspiciously red ink. Jennifer didn't REALLY want to think about it that hard.
Dear Diary;
Sister has put me in the sinner's room again, because I stumbled on the morning's prayer walk. I feel the sin of hate growing in my heart and it frightens me. Why must Sister be so unusually cruel? I know that to spare the rod is to spoil the child, but it is as though we shall grow up so pious as to actually be sinful. I read in a science book that this is called the paradoxical effect. I think perhaps that is another reason why Sister is so angry with me; she says science is the Devil's work and that my reading it will bring ruin to the House. I'm afraid of everything. Sin of fear. 011211
The number pattern that followed the entry made Jennifer's knees shake. The sound of the door behind her made her jump. The wig-man stormed in.
"Spiteful girl!" he screamed in falsetto. "You will be punished!"
Jennifer's knees gave out, and so did her consciousness…