Authors notes: Okay people, I hope you were all at the very edge of your seats in that first one. Well here we go with chapter 2. You can look forward to a lot more scares and thrills as you now enter Silent Hill. Enjoy and please review.
Hell is the only place outside Heaven where we can be safe from the dangers of love - C. S. Lewis
I wake up, my head feels five sizes to small for my brain. For a moment I think it was all just a dream...but then I realize I'm up side down. I blink my eyes and pier around I'm in the driver seat, the windshield in front of me has a serveral cracks in it originating from one big one all the way across. The windows to the left and right of me are both shattered. I touch the right side of my forehead and cringe in pain, I look at my hand; its covered with blood. Shit! I unbuckle my seatbelt and carefully climb out the driver side window. I take it real slow and careful, I don't know if I have anymore injuries. I make it out and carefully push myself to my feet. No pain, accept the one in my head; good. I look myself over, a few tares and drops of blood on the black leather of my jacket; no big deal. I look over the rest of myself, all good. I check my watch, it's broken. How long was I out? Not too long I hope. The Delta 83 is lying belly up in front of me, like a dead animal. A worthless festering piece of roadkill. I shake my head and reach into my jacket pocket for my pack of Black and Milds, all I find is my Zippo lighter. Then I remember I smoked the last one right after lunch. Great! I've wreaked a rented car, my family is probably worried sick of me by now and now a side order of NO CIGARS! Not to mention the..."THE WOMAN!" I shriek. I spin around and start running back in the direction of the tunnel. Maybe she's still there. Maybe she ducked out of the way. Maybe she'll be alright. What the hell am I thinking? At that speed...hell I didn't even see her until the last second! What the hell was the matter with me? And I was paying such close attention! The tunnel comes into view and I stop dead in my tracks. "What the FUCK?" I ask the world.
The tunnel is...gone...the opening in the mountian is plain in view but the tunnel itself is now stuffed full of rocks and dirt. A cave in? Most likely, but how? Why? I've never heard of an earthquake in this reigion. There couldn't have been an explosion (it would have woken me up earlier). Maybe it was just some natural circumstance that happened while I was out? I don't know...this dosen't make any sense. And what about the woman? I look around the area, this is the first time I've actually stopped and looked at where I'm at. Just the road in front of me, the caved in tunnel to my rear, a vacant parking lot to my left and a few small warehouse buildings to my right; all drenched in the thickest fog I've ever seen in my life. Silence batteres my ears, the naked woman is a ghost, no where to be seen; no body, no blood on the ground...Maybe she did get out of the way...'Yeah right and maybe I'm a Russian mobster!' I scold my stupidity. But what about the town? I scan the area again. No one...no people, no cars, no noise but the sound of my own breath. "What the hell is going on here?" I ask. Someone should have noticed all this by now! The feeling hits me like a punch to the balls...There's something wrong with this place. I shake it off as quick as I can. "Come on Jimmy Boy," I say to myself. "Come to your senses, it's only a town," I reassure myself as I look past the wrecked car and down the road into town (what little bit I can bearly see past the wreck). Maybe nobody noticed because of the fog. All I've got to do is head on into town, nocked on a few doors, barrow a phone and call for my Dad or my Brother Richie. Then its off to Freeland and Christmas with the family...a temporary period of happiness before I head back to Norfolk and explain to the renter, why he won't be getting his car back and how long it will probably take me to pay for it. But for now all I want to do is go spend Christmas with my family. I begin walking down the road in the opposite direction of the caved in tunnel. I still can't help but hope to God the woman is okay. I didn't even see her face though. She was looking at the ground when I saw her; her long black hair drapping over and down her shoulders. She had my kind of figure too; Not too thin, in fact heavier set (but not really obese), nice and meaty though just how I like em. Her belly was thick and slightly chubby but that only makes for softer cushioning. Her legs were thick too, especially around the uper thighs. Oh yeah. And her Breasts...
HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK AM I THINKING? I stop dead in my tracks. I'm only five paces beyond the wreck and I'm standing in the middle of an erie, foggy street; breathing heavy with a hard on in my pants. "Can that shit right now, Sailor!" I order myself. What was I thinking? I just hit a woman with a rented car, I have no idea where she is or if she's even alive and now all of a sudden, I want to bang her? As if she'd have me after I nearly killed her! Cheese and Rice! Some Catholic I am. I almost kill someone, then have a hard on fantasy about them! But then was it really that woman I was thinking about? Because come to think of it, her body did look an awful lot like...hers...
No! None of that! Not now! Don't think about her, you will only make things worse. Okay just try to forget about the whole thing and just get into town and find a phone. I step forward on my left foot and begin to march, just like in boot camp over a year ago. I walk into the fog trying my best to march, I could never march very well when out of uniform. I look back at the Delta 83, wishing it a silent farewell in honor of films that made it my favorite. I look to my left and right as I half-march down the asphalt. There's a flower shop to my left, closed from the looks of things (No lights on and no cars in the parking lot) no interest to me; I've never been big on flowers, even when I did have a girlfriend. To my left is more warehouses all drenched in fog same as the flower shop. I keep going at a steady pace but the fog dosen't thin and there's still no one to be seen. I don't like it; poor visibility, no people in sight, and the silence...the dead silence, not even wind, silent as a cemetary. All I can hear is my own breath and my feet as they strike against the road. An erie feeling creeps over me, the feeling I've heard Marines and other Seabees who've been to Iraq talk about; the feeling they get just before an IED explodes nearby, or a sniper's bullet rips through the air around them, a feeling of impending fate...a terrible one.
I can feel myself shivering, and it's not from the low temperature. I gaze into the fog around me again, looking for some sign of human life...any life. The feeling is getting stronger I feel like every step I take brings me closer and closer to something, I don't know what it is but I know I'm getting closer. I'm being watched! I know it! I look over both my shoulders just to be sure, nothing but fog...I can't even see the wreck. I look back again and I swear I saw something...a shadow? Something passing through the fog? I spin around, now looking back the way I came from, I think I can just barely hear the fading of footsteps staggering in the opposite direction! That shadow or whatever it was, I only saw it for a few seconds but I was about my size and staggering like a drunk! "WHO'S THERE?" I shout. "Is anyone there?" I pause and listen. No answer, not even footsteps. Only the inpenatrable wall of fog and that damn silence. Out of instinct I begin walking backwards, I can't stop shivering. I stare into the white sheet of nothingness in front of me. What if what ever it was, isn't really gone? What if it can see me? What if at any moment it's going to charge out of the cloud in front of me, going for the kill? I begin staggering backwards, retreating from an unseen enemy. I continue backing away faster until my ass hits somthing heavy and hard. I shriek in a perfect blend of surprise and terror as I fall to the ground my back now pressed abainst something metal and rigid. Gasping for breath I turn my head and see what I've backed into...a car!
My back is pressed against the back bumper of a car. A sports car, similar to the one I wrecked only hours ago; not as old though, I figure it's a model of the mid ninties. Nervously I climb to my feet and examine the car. It's white, matching the fog. Where did this come from? I make my way to the front of the vehicle and look through the windshield, finding only the same erie emptyness inside as out here. Where is the driver? There's a dent in the middle of the front bumper and dry blood smeared on the asphalt in front of the car...an accident? I quickly scan the area; the car is sitting with it's middle drapped over the curve on the right turn of a fork in the road I was walking down. I see no other car but the fog is thick as ever, there's blood smeard on the road in front of the car draging in a short arch for a few feet down the road to the right. No body though. An abandoned car on the road? Blood on the street but no body? "What the hell is going on here?" I ask the world outloud. No answer, as usual. Then I realize, I'd forgotten that staggering figure in the fog a moment ago. Could that, whoever it was, have had something to do with this. Wait a minute! I think I get the senario now! I take a deep breath and sigh with relief. I'll bet that staggering figure was the driver of this car. The way he was walking he must have been drunk. He probably hit someone earlier and was fleeing the scene. He might have thought I was a cop when I yelled, back there; hence why he didn't answer back. Yeah, that dose make sense! But then where is the body, and why all the blood? I didn't see any blood on the road back there so it couldn't be his. I walk closer to the blood streaks on the ground and kneel down for a closer look. Maybe the driver moved the body, but where to? I continue trying to piece the puzzle together for a few more moments. Then with a weak jolt of surprise, I hear the familiar noise of staggering footsteps grow louder from back behind the car. I immediatly calm myself and my instinctive knowledge left over from my three month unsuccessful tour in hospital corps school takes over. I stand up and turn back to the fog concealing the approaching newcomer, no doubt the driver of the car; having second thoughts about runnng from his fault, good man. "Hey, buddy?" I call out into the fog, the foot steps grow louder. "Do you need any help?" I ask, no reply. "Look, I'm not a cop, I'm a Sailor but can help you. Did you hit someone? There's blood on the..." my voice mutes itself, my eye's widen and constrict and my skin tightens with goose bumps as the staggering newcomer comes into view.
I can barely comprehend what is emerging from the milky curtin and creeping closer and closer to me. It looks...almost human. It may very well have been human once. But this thing...It has the basic build of a human being, accept that both arms are missing; probably why it staggers so much. And it's face...it isn't there! Only blank sheets of flesh cover where the nose, mouth and eyes should be. Like the woman back at the tunnel it is naked, not a stich on it's body, not that it has anything to hide. Only dark brown flesh...not from ethnicity, but burned crispped like an oven roasted turkey. It makes no noise but the striking of it's bare feet against the asphalt. OH MY GOOD GOD IN HEAVEN WHAT THE HELL IS THIS THING? Once again I'm gasping for breath, bearly able to move as the monstrosity comes closer. All I can manage is one half step backwards, not nearly enough. It stops when it's only a few feet away from me. And begins nodding its head and chest up and down. I want to scream but I can't. I notice a gapping opening in the center of the thing's chest...a wound? No not a wound...could it be a mouth? I have no idea. Then without warning the thing leans its torso backwards and a spray of a dark yellow gas blows directly into my face. I scream in pain as the gas enters my eyes, that only makes it worse; After I scream I breath in the gas. I notice the similarity almost immidiatly, the spray given off by the armless faceless monstrosity infront of me is esentially "Tear Gas" I'll never forget the day the took us to the gas chamber in boot camp and made us take off our masks and breath in that awfull stuff. But whatever this damn thing just sprayed into my face burns my eyes twice as hot and makes me cough twice as hard. My eyes balls have been impaled by hundreds of read hot neetles. Burning hot tar clings to the inside of my lungs, I cough frantically trying to expell the inferno in my lungs...but to no avail
I stumble backwards, coughing and screaming in pain and terror at the same time. I spin to my left and dart down the road. My instincts take over, I know better than to touch anywhere on my face, that will only make things worse, I raise my hands over my head as I half run-half stagger down the road and deeper into the fog. I blink wildly, just like they taught us in boot camp, trying to get all traces of the gas out of my eyes. I don't know if that thing is giving chase because all I can hear is my own defening screams-coughs, broken off by as many forced gasps for breath as I can manage. All I can see is the blurred white myst as I run, I must look like raving lunatic. The pain weakens and the blurred white in front of me begins to clearify, the blinking is working! I keep running, I've stopped coughing but you'd never be able to tell because I'm still screaming, now more out of fear. I keep running, frantic with fear, I blink a few more times and the pain is all but gone. I stop screaming to, mainly because I'm out of breath, instead I gasp heavily, forcing air into my lungs. I look back over my shoulder I don't see anything but the fog. I look to my front just seconds to late. I've run out of road a deep crevas is only yards in front of me. I try to stop...no good.
At the last second I spin to my left. My feet slid over the edge and gravity grapples to my legs and pulls like an eighteen wheeler. I extend my arms and grab at a triangular shard of concret sticking out of the edge of the crevas. I clutch and squeze the concrete so hard I can feel my arms bruising under my jacket. Remembering how much I hate hights, I spare myself the anguish of looking down. I do my best to keep calm. "Take it easy Jim," I gasp outloud. Just hold on and try climb back up, no don't try DO. I get a grip on myself. I swing my left leg up trying to hook it over the edge. I don't make it. Keep your cool, try again. I swing it up again. Almost there! One more time. GOT IT! I put pressure on my left foot and push up with both my hands. slowly and painfully I emerge over the edge of the abyss and roll over onto my stomach. For minutes I lay there only a foot away from the edge of the crevas allowing my breath and my mind to catch up with me. I think back to the crash, the car, that thing, the fumes it sprayed in my eyes, the run, the crevas and now. Where the hell am I? The billion dollar question, and I don't have an answer. What was that thing? still no answer. What did it do to me? no answer. "Oh my God, WHERE THE HELL AM I!" I scream at the top of my lungs. The answer comes to me at last, the first answer I've recived all day. It comes to me in a memory, a memory of the drive, only moments before I entered the tunnel. As if the reply of a football play on espn; I see a sighn in the failing light as I'm driving down the road, WELCOME TO SILENT HILL, it reads.