Not in Kansas Anymore
Dizzy.
She was dizzy.
That, at least, Julia could grasp.
She blinked slowly. Everything she could see was blurry. Doubled. Spinning. Spinning much too fast.
Her head hurt. A whole fucking lot.
She tried to move her right hand. It was heavy, slow. Lethargic even. She put in more effort. Got it up to her forehead. Blood? A gash?
Nothing.
Just pain.
Still spinning. Still doubled. Still dizzy.
She was… she was sitting down. Something was wrapped across her torso.
Seatbelt. She was in a car. She'd been… driving. Late at night. Where?
Where had she been going?
Everything was still spinning. Less so. Not as bad. Doubles were meshing back into one. Her head still hurt like a bitch.
She'd crashed. Why? What had she hit?
Julia closed her eyes and began to breathe slowly. She needed to concentrate. Think past the pounding in her temples, past her lying eyes. Past all this goddamn confusion.
Where had she been going? Why was she driving so late?
...Nothing. She couldn't remember.
Fanfuckingtastic.
No.
Wait.
There'd been fog. A lot of fog. And…
Eyes.
Julia's vision had finally settled. Her head felt like someone had smashed it with a hammer from the inside, but she at least was grounded. She also wasn't ready to throw up all over her lap anymore. It helped her think a little bit more clearly.
She was right. There had been eyes.
But what about them?
Julia unbuckled her seatbelt. She wouldn't get up. Not yet.
The memory was becoming more clear in her mind. It must've been the last thing she had seen before the crash. But what the fuck did that even mean? They were blue, same as hers.
Maybe she was just too fucked up. Maybe the last thing she'd looked at was her own reflection in the rearview mirror. She sure as fuck was still suffering from a doubtless concussion.
No. There was nothing to be made of that memory, whatever it was. Julia would have to meditate on it later.
Julia reached into the pocket of her jeans and laughed darkly to herself when her phone wouldn't light up. It had died. Of course. That, at least, she could remember. Well, that and contemplating throwing out of the goddamn window.
Had…
Had she been angry about something? Somebody?
Cautiously, Julia grasped the door handle. Right now, it honestly didn't matter what she'd been doing or why. She needed to go to the hospital, maybe for a CAT scan or an MRI. She couldn't call anyone, and no one else had found her yet, apparently. Otherwise she'd be riding in the back of an ambulance by now. But could she even walk?
Julia glanced down to her hand as she began to open the door and realized with even more confusion that it had not been locked. She must have done this, for some reason. Either way, what that meant wasn't relevant. The Pontiac's maroon door swung open, creaking loudly. This was an old Sunbird anyway. Julia wasn't too concerned with wrecking a piece of shit her parents had bought back when she was in elementary school.
Julia gazed outside. It was still foggy. In fact, this was probably the thickest fog she'd ever seen in her life. She could barely see anything past a few feet. Besides, the white specks drifting down were much more intriguing.
Was it snowing?
In late May?
Julia ventured one foot on the ground. Her boot scraped against the pavement. So she was still on the road.
She put down the other and, gripping the frame of the car, slowly hoisted herself into a standing position.
Fucking hell. Her head hurt like a bitch. Bad idea, bad idea, bad fucking idea.
Still holding onto the Pontiac, Julia began to massage her temples. She'd have to endure this if she wanted to get to the hospital anytime soon. Of course, she had no idea where in God's name she'd actually crashed, but at least she had a road to follow. She couldn't possibly be far from home.
Her head still fucking hurt, yes, but Julia began to walk anyway. The quicker she could find an ER, the better. She sure as hell wouldn't find anyone standing around like an imbecile.
Absent-mindedly, Julia walked around to the front of the car. Might as well check out the damage, after all.
As she came around the curve of the hood, Julia faltered. She stared for a long minute.
Was she still dazed?
Why was the car perfectly intact?
Scrutinizing the inexplicably undamaged bumper led Julia's eyes down to the ground in front of her car, which held, to her stunned disbelief, a pile of disembodied organs.
They were strewn about, she imagined, much like a wolf would leave the innards of its prey after it had thoroughly torn the body apart. In fact, now that Julia was really looking, she could see the corona of blood splashing out from the pile. There was a lot. A whole fucking lot.
Julia Walton felt the bile rising in the back of her throat and swallowed it down.
What in God's name had done this?
...Or who?
Moving slowly could wait. Julia walked briskly back to the cardoor and dipped into the driver's seat. The keys were still in the ignition. She turned them forcefully, wishing the engine to life.
Nothing. It was completely, utterly dead.
For a fleeting moment, Julia contemplated locking herself in the car and waiting for somebody to eventually come along. She near instantaneously realized that this was very much a terrible idea, and bounded back out of the car, slamming the door shut behind her.
Waking up bewildered. A memory of blue eyes. Crazy weather. Her wholly intact car. Something's fucking innards spread out on the fucking road. Nothing was making sense, and her headache was growing more painful with every passing moment. Julia was ready to bolt. But where the hell was she supposed to go? She could be anywhere in East Jubumblefuck, Maine. She could be running to the fucking trees, for all she knew.
Perhaps the entire time she'd been aware of how completely silent everything was. It had been there, in the back of her mind, passed over in favor of figuring out her present situation and its oddities. The only reason she was paying attention now, however, was due to the loud shuffle of sneakers against the pavement.
She couldn't place where it was coming from. When she turned left, it seemed to come from the right; when she turned right, it seemed to come from the left.
But she knew for a fact it was getting closer. And she did not like that.
She had to say something. If it was someone friendly, they could help her. If not…
"I hear you," she declared. The shuffling paused. "Whoever you are, I hear you. I have mace and I've taken self-defense classes and I'm not afraid to use either."
No response.
She did not like that one bit.
Julia had to pick a direction to run in. Forward looked like the best option.
Bursting forth, Julia began to sprint. High school track and long nights spent trying to exercise herself to exhaustion would finally be coming in handy. And this road would lead her somewhere. Eventually. Getting the fuck out of Dodge was more important.
"Julia."
She nearly fell over herself trying to stop.
Julia knew that voice. She knew it very, very well.
"...Rachel?" She had to ask, and yet, there was no real rational reason for her to believe it. What would her teenage sister be doing out in this fog?
Once again, there was no response, but Julia was starting to notice the faintest shadow of a figure hidden in all the gloom. It was just standing there. She felt like it was staring at her.
"Rachel." Julia was beyond certain that had been her voice, whispering Julia's name. There was no mistaking it; not for someone she'd known since she was five years old. To Julia's chagrin, the figure began to move away from her in the mist, shuffling as always. Rachel dragged her feet the same way when she was tired.
"Come back here, you dipshit!" Whatever Rachel was doing, it was stupid, and Julia didn't have time for it. Her head was ready to crack open. She began to give chase.
Running.
Running.
Running.
Rachel always seemed to be ten steps ahead of her. Just out of sight, just out of reach. Julia called out to her constantly, waiting for some kind of reply, but there was only this silly pursuit.
"Rachel. Stop it!"
Nothing.
More shuffling.
More running.
How could someone who moved so slow be so fast? Julia almost jokingly wondered if she was still knocked out in her car and was just enjoying some royally fucked-up coma nightmare.
Almost.
They had been doing this for maybe five, ten minutes before the fog's density began to recede. It was still very thick, and Julia had no hope of being able to catch a glimpse of what just had to be her sister, but it was becoming easier to see there was, for instance, a sidewalk on her right, or the dotted line in the middle of the road. There were more things, too. Scattered papers. Dirty caution tape. Traffic cones.
Discarded shoes. Someone's half-torn purse. Broken glasses.
Where in God's name was she?
The thought came to her suddenly. It must have been sitting back there, waiting to surface. She knew where she had been heading, after all.
Was this Silent Hill?
Julia's right foot smacked hard into a lump and she fell down swiftly. She was able to catch herself before her head suffered anymore trauma. Pavement wasn't the kindest cushion, though, and her hip had swung into the ground in full force.
Great. More pain.
A little bit more than pissed, Julia gazed back behind her to figure out what she'd tripped on.
A torso. A naked human torso.
The limbs had been torn off and were nowhere to be found. A gaping cavity revealed its empty, bloody stomach. There was more to be observed, more to be processed, but Julia couldn't look anymore. Besides, she'd started to scream, and promptly kicked it away. It rolled roughly down the road for a bit before sliding to a sickening stop.
Dear God. It had been so mutilated, she couldn't even tell what gender the person had been.
Julia had been handling things fairly well so far, in her opinion. She'd even gone so far as to momentarily forget about the heap of organs in front of her car
ohchristweretheyfromthattorsoOHCHRISTWERETHEYFROMTHATTORSO
for the sake of following her sister through this freaky goddamn weird fucking fog on top of all the other fucking bullshit that she couldn't quite wrap her head around. This was too much. Something was fucking wrong.
She wanted to yell for someone. Anyone. Rachel, even. But that had been fruitless. She was too busy running away.
...If Julia really thought about it, though, she'd only heard the person say her name once, didn't she?
What if it was just a woman who'd sounded like Rachel?
What if it was some sick fuck who was deliberately trying to screw around with her? Julia had woken up in her car; who was to say that someone hadn't bashed her over the head and set her up to be lost in all this goddamn mist? The door hadn't been locked. Julia remembered. The goddamn fucking car hadn't been locked.
Even dazed, she knew it was a farfetched explanation, but it was the best she could come up with.
"LEAVE. ME. THE FUCK. ALONE," she yelled. She wasn't expecting a response anymore. She was expecting a psychopath, a stalker. "If you try to hurt me, I'll kill you. UNDERSTAND ME YOU SICK MOTHERFUCKER?"
Julia Walton pulled herself onto her feet and hastily grabbed the mace from her back pocket. She wished she had something more menacing, like a board or a pipe or even a goddamn gun, but it was some semblance of a defense.
In any case, whoever this was seemed intent on fucking with her. Leading her through the fog like this… this was about messing with her head.
She needed the cops. A regular human being. Fucking anyone else other than this sick piece of shit.
Julia ran onto the sidewalk to her left. The fog was light enough for her to be able to see her surroundings now, but not enough to feel safe. This fucker could still be lurking around.
Standing before her was the most run-down piece of shit "cafe" she had ever seen. It was called "CAFE 5to2", but the "5to2" part had apparently fallen off some time ago. The scarlet awnings were dilapidated, shredded even. The windows were dusty and covered in yellowing posters, bar for one that was shattered open. No glass on the sidewalk meant someone had broken in.
Julia might not have visited Silent Hill much over the years, but she knew this town was supposed to be the quaint kinda bullshit tourists came to Maine expecting to see. Nobody even gave a flying shit about a suburb like that, and it had never been a bad area.
Nothing. Made. Fucking. Sense.
So far, the only loud thing Julia had heard since waking up was her own voice, yelling when the occasion called for it; the grating sound of chains sliding against the ground made her jump, and hard.
It was slow. Metallic. Clinking. And coming from inside the cafe.
Julia didn't care to question anything anymore. She was just going to have to flee even farther.
Of course, she hadn't been expecting anyone to be standing behind her when she turned around. And this wasn't just someone.
Must've been six feet tall. Man? Woman? Couldn't tell. Covered in chains. Bits and pieces of rotted flesh poked through. A single, jaundiced eye. No arms to be seen. Two skinny legs. Lots of chains. Draping off. Writhing. Writhing like snakes.
It made no sound.
Neither did Julia. She couldn't.
Its head tilted ever so slightly to left. That lone eye had no pupil to speak of, but she could feel its cold stare. Julia couldn't tear her own eyes away. She was seeing now, too, that the chains were melded into its flesh, rusty and bloody and abscessed.
She couldn't help herself. "What the fuck are you?"
It stepped slowly forward, its twitching chains sliding behind. Julia stepped back. She threw a wary glance over her shoulder.
There was the first one. It had finally come to watch. It stood in the window frame of the Cafe 5to2, cocking its head at her in a mirror reflection of the other.
Julia began to take off to her left. She only got in six or seven steps before two chains wrapped around her ankles and pulled her down to the ground. Her head smacked against the concrete. She saw stars. Her headache was ripe once more.
The least of her problems.
Julia flipped onto her back and looked back at the advancing figure. It was still slow, lethargic even, but the jerking chains were now raised about it, threatening tentacles poised to attack. The one in the cafe was shuffling out into the street to join the attack.
She couldn't crawl away. It was pulling her back, sliding her against the ground. It was strong. She had nothing to hold onto, nothing to pick up and throw at it. More importantly, nothing to punch or bite or claw at. This was animate metal. It was going to drag her back and get her.
It was going to drag her back and get her.
Julia didn't even really plan the next thing she did. It was an unconscious thought. Primal, in a way. Part of it was that she knew she simply couldn't pry those squirming chains off her ankles.
She sat up, grabbed both of the chains past her feet, and using every bit of might she could muster, pulled hard.
This thing, whatever it was, clearly had not been expecting this sort of reaction. Caught unaware, it stumbled forward and fell flat on the ground. The chains around Julia's ankles loosened. That was her chance. Julia kicked them off and scrambled back onto her feet.
She didn't chance looking back.
She ran.