Chapter Two:
Gardens Hold Promises
I.
The wind completely died when Kristin and Jessica arrived at the streets of Silent Hill; Kristin felt the town lived up to its name. Not the hill part so much, but definitely the bit about silence. The place was quieter than a morgue. The thought sent a chill through Kristin. Why had it been so quiet in a town such as this, the place where Jessica said she enjoyed her days as a child? It had to be just her imagination, yet it had to be more. Not even a single sole was walking through the area and all of the shops and homes that were visible appeared to be abandoned. Everything was void of any life whatsoever.
"It's gone down over the years," Jessica spoke.
"That so..."
"Yes, it is." Jessica took a few steps forward and stopped. "The town thrived on a mining industry, one of the biggest places for the coal industry. There was a cave-in a few years ago, though, and a lot of the business declined because of it. People left for better opportunities and tried to live better lives. Most of the shops must have had to close."
Kristin has noticed the problems just by looking around. The fog couldn't hide how empty and desolate the town had become. She could not bare to notice how empty the place was either. It scared her, terrified her even.
"Why don't I take you to my place and you can call someone for help?"
Kristin smiled. "Yeah. I would like that."
"Alright. It's not too far from here so don't worry about the walk too much."
The two walked toward the right, staying on the sidewalk. A few stores had boards put across the doors and windows, and some homes looked as though they were broken into. Kristin looked at Jessica and saw she was frowning.
"Hey... it's not all that bad," Kristin spoke with a weak smile.
"I know. I wish it was just how I left it. Nothing seems like it had been. The place just seems to be in shambles and ruin."
"Well, you know, we all have to accept change."
"Wouldn't it be better if things could stay the same?"
Kristin shuddered at the thought. She didn't want to be at home, same arguments day in and day out. The same was just a nightmare.
"I prefer change."
Jessica looked up at the sky. Kristin continued their pace.
"I wonder if anyone else has returned..."
Kristin looked at Jessica, puzzled.
"Anyone else?"
"Yeah. I used to have a few friends here in town. Lost touch with them awhile back. I wonder if they ever came back to Silent Hill like me."
"Probably." Kristin shrugged her shoulders.
"There were places that our parents always told us to avoid though."
Kristin looked at her, confused once more. She thought that Jessica loved the ENTIRE town of Silent Hill. Were there places she had never gone to?
"Like what?"
"Mom always told me to avoid the hospital a few blocks down from here. She said the place always had terrifying people there."
"Huh. Always thought hospitals had sick people."
Jessica laughed a bit. "No no no, not that kind of hospital. It was a Sanitarium. The crazy people were always locked up on the premises, saying something about someone was after him. They called him the Sulfur Man."
"The Sulfur Man?"
"I don't know. The people were crazy."
Jessica laughed some more, and Kristin let out some weak chuckles. She didn't know why she had even agreed to follow Jessica to her house. What if her family was completely like her, making the place even more unbearable.
The two stopped at a paved walkway to a two story home. It was wide, looking like it could house at least three people on each floor. The lights were out, and two cars were parked in the driveway next to the home. A small stone sat at the end of the walkway indicating this was the residence of the Anderson family.
"Home sweet home," Jessica muttered weakly.
"Something wrong?"
"I called earlier to let them know they were coming, and they sounded so happy. I just... are they even home?"
Kristin noticed that the lights were off in the house. No movement around the windows either. The entire structure seemed abandoned except for some furniture that Kristin could spot through the window.
"I'll go knock..."
Kristin waited at the end of the walkway. A few moments later, Jessica came back, quite disgruntled.
"Why aren't they here?"
"Know where they might be?"
"Yeah... I do..." Jessica shook her head thinking. "I'm going to head down to the other end of town. You'll want to head a different way."
Jessica pointed down a street nearby.
"Down there is an auto repair shop. Someone there should be able to help you out."
"Thanks..."
Kristin sighed, and walked to the street. She might have felt weird about Jessica and walking about with her, but Kristin was terrified more of being alone in this strange town.
II.
The town was even more silent without Jessica there to tell her about the random on-goings of the place. Everything was empty; no animals ran through the town or flew in the sky, and the fog obscured all view of the area. Kristin couldn't want more than anything for someone to be out there, someone to talk to while she tried to spot the automotive place.
As though someone or something could hear her thoughts, Kristin saw someone just a few feet away. It was a woman, smaller than she was, but definitely a woman. She was standing in front of some garden store, holding a watering canister as she went by the storefront and watered the flowers at the store front. Getting closer, Kristin noticed that it was a gardening store. The woman most likely worked there.
"Um, excuse me," Kristin said as she approached the woman.
The woman turned, a faint grin on her face as she saw Kristin. The woman appeared a bit younger, but not too much younger.
"I'm sorry, I'm a little lost. I'm looking for a car repair place around here, am I going the right way?"
"Oh, yes you are," The woman said, setting her canister down on a nearby table. "The repair shop is only a few more blocks down the road. Something happen to your car?"
"Just broke down on the highway."
The woman went to the table, almost instinctively it seemed to Kristin, and watched her pull a chair out from the other side. Kristin didn't remember seeing chairs at the table.
"Please, have a seat. You must be tired from that walk."
"Oh no, I couldn't."
"No no, please. I'll grab you something to eat from inside."
The woman rushed off into the shop. Kristin didn't want to impose, but she didn't want to ignore the kindness of the woman. She decided to take a seat and wait for the woman, her feet were a bit tired from the walk anyways.
The woman emerged from the shop with a plate and a fine looking sandwich. She seemed eager to get back out, almost too eager, so she could help Kristin. Why was she even so adamant on being so nice, so much like Jessica had been. She pulled out the chair from the other end, another chair Kristin couldn't remember seeing before, and sat down with Kristin. The woman then handed the sandwich to her.
"I'm Tiffanie by the way," The woman said with glee. Her face was as bright as a summer's day.
"Kristin," she said in between bites of the sandwich.
"So have you ever visited Silent Hill before?"
"No, this is my-" she stopped, swallowing a bit of the sandwich, "first time here."
"Ah, well I'm sorry it had to be now of all times. We're on hard times, which I'm sure you know about. Seems that keeps the people out of town."
Kristin ate the last bit of the sandwich and breathed in deep. She was full and ready to go and get out of this weird town.
"You don't have a radio?"
Kristin stopped at the mention of the radio. First Jessica, and now this Tiffanie.
"No, I don't."
"You may want one."
"I don't need one."
Kristin stood herself, somewhat irritated from the mention of the radio. She didn't like how crazily fixated these people were on myths and legends.
"Oh I'm sure you will."
"Why's that?"
"Well, on days like this, people always disappear from the town. Vanishing without a trace of where they went. Eventually people begin to forget who they were, and those that remember get dragged down with them."
Kristin shook her head and gave a sigh of frustration.
"I don't believe in stuff like that."
Tiffanie giggled, holding onto the table.
"Really now? Fine, come over here."
Tiffanie stood, and began walking down the street a bit. Kristin followed her to a bulletin board. On there were several dozen of missing posters put up on the bulletin board. Children, adults, the elderly, almost everyone was going missing, at least what the posting had shown. No wonder the town had gone completely empty.
"This is... horrible..."
"It gets worse every day too. Nobody can find anyone or they just go missing so we lock ourselves up in hopes that we too won't go missing."
"You don't do that though?"
Tiffanie nodded. "If I vanished, I know someone would come looking for me no matter what. I'm sure he'd find me."
Kristin took a closer look at the board. She remembered a name that Jessica had mentioned, Henry Deveaux. She wondered if he would be on this board of missing people. The name never did pop up on the board though. None of the missing people's sheets matched his name.
"Hey, do you know a-" Kristin stopped short. When she turned to look at Tiffanie, she wasn't there.
"I could have sworn... she was just here..." Kristin muttered.
III.
Her heart is pounding when she reaches the repair shop only to find the door standing wide open and the lot completely abandoned. Kristin couldn't believe it, the place that was going to be her hope and escape had become an empty building. Nobody was there to repair her car. Nobody was there to call a truck. She wouldn't be able to leave the town and would be stuck here until Jessica could find her parents. They would surely help Kristin, call a cab or even a tow truck for her. They would understand that she wouldn't stay here any longer.
This was a lie of course; Kristin could always pull out her phone and call for help. Depend on her family again to bail her out just so she could be escorted back home. Back to a place that was no better than the conception of hell to others. She wasn't sure if that was even worth it.
Yet there was little to no point in staying in Silent Hill anymore. The place was beginning to feel like home for some reason. This place felt void of a friendly pressence, constantly one way and then another in a split second. She could leave here and go back home, and once back there, escape once again. Kristin would just never drive by Silent Hill again. She did not want to break down near this place again.
The phone was still working, full service and connected to the satellites way above her. Kristin envied them; those devices could escape earth. She dialed her father first. It rang twice, and then someone picked up the receiver.
"Hello?"
The other end of the conversation was quiet. Kristin could barely make out the sound of breathing. Soon enough the noise got louder and louder, turning into heavy pants. She couldn't really understand what was going on with the other end of the phone call. Her father's phone must have answered itself somehow and her father didn't realize.
Kristin hung up the phone. She looked through her contacts. Completely ignored the number for her mother, her sister, and didn't want to risk a call to the house. Her father may not pick up the phone before anyone else.
The next option would be to dial emergency services. Maybe someone would be able to help her, and maybe they wouldn't notice her from a missing person's poster. A chance was a chance. She dialed 9-1-1. The phone rang once and the other line answered.
"Nine one one, what's your emergency?"
"Um, hello. My car has broken down."
"Name and location?"
"I'm Kristin Russell," She answered, and then began to release some um's as she tried to spot a sign relating to her location she found a street sigh, Kate Ave, and the numbers on the auto body shop, 249. "249 Kate Ave in Silent Hill, Nevada."
"Just a moment Kristin. I'll transfer you over to someone who can help you."
The call was transferred and some music began to play over the phone. The tunes were something of the yester-years and made more of an annoyance for a phone call rather than a patient wait. Kristin leaned against the wall of the shop and waited for the call to end the transfer. Eventually it went through, but Kristin could only hear silence on the other end.
"Hello?" She asked weakly.
"Where were you running to?" A rough voice answered on the line.
Kristin's eyes widened and her heart beat even faster than before. Did the police know that she was on the run? Had they found the poster? She shouldn't have given them her real name. They must have searched her name in the database after she said her name.
"I once tempted fate as well."
Kristin remained silent. She could feel something building in her throat. She couldn't swallow it.
"I came back... After they said I was gone. They thought I would be gone forever. They thought I vanished like the rest of those people. I'm not like them though. I'm tied to someone."
Kristin looked up, and covered her mouth as soon as she saw a man standing across the street from her. In his right hand he held a phone. He wore a large trench coat. His face was covered by some shadows, maybe by the fedora that he wore. Kristin could see his mouth though.
"Will you still run?" Kristin watched his mouth move to the words she heard on the phone.
Her cell dropped from her hands, and Kristin sprinted down the road away from the man. She couldn't see him following her, but she was going to put as much distance between her and this man. Kristin wasn't going to get caught by him.
IV.
"Help me!"
Kristin wasn't sure anyone would hear her yelling for help, but she felt as though she had to try and call out for help. The man could be tailing her, following her patiently. Hoping to corner her, take her back home, take her back to an inferno that was not like this one. She wasn't ready to give up just yet though. She was going to get away from the man. Kristin was determined. Her feet would carry her.
She turned a corner and continued to run. Her lungs felt like they were on fire, burning with each breath that she took. Kristin knew it would be her lungs that gave out before the rest of her body. They would cause her to stop.
Or so she had thought. The man from before popped out from behind a corner in the direction Kristin was heading. She fell backwards, panting and whining as she pulled herself farther away from the man.
"I don't understand you Kristin. Why are you running?"
She whined more, pulling herself up with the building beside her. Kristin then turned and began to run the other direction. She didn't care where this was leading her. Kristin had to get away from the man as soon as possible. She wasn't even sure who he was even. Was he even really a police officer? If he wasn't how was he the transfer Kristin received? Nothing was making sense.
The next turn led her to a police station, the lights inside were lit and the door was open. Kristin couldn't help but turn and run into the station. She grabbed at the door, closing it and twisting the lock to keep the door closed.
The man banged against the glass door right after the lock clicked. Kristin screamed, jumped backwards and landed in a seat behind her. He banged again, and hollered out something that sounded like gibberish before walking off. Kristin clung to herself, cradling in the chair that she had landed in after the scare.
"I don't want to be here anymore..." she muttered. "I want to go away..."
