Alex and Pyramid Head walked the underground tunnels that paralleled the empty streets above. Things scattered into the darkness and at times Alex would catch their faces in the light of his flashlight peering curiously at the odd duo. He let his hand glide across the ceremonial dagger stashed in his jacket pocket but didn't entertain the idea of an attack for too long; Pyramid Head was massively muscular and seemingly invulnerable.
"Here we are," he said, climbing up a steel ladder. Alex unfortunately looked up and caught an eyeful of what lay beneath the tattered bloody cloth.
"Aw, gross," he blurted.
"You say something?" Pyramid Head turned to give him a hand up.
"N-nothing…"
Pyramid Head pulled him up into the street in front of a quaint brick apartment building situated near Silent Hill's main street. This was a place where young couples started nuclear families, not the dwelling of monsters. The mist rippled around them as they passed into the lobby and up two flights of stairs.
"Dammit, I forgot to stop by the store and pick up a bag of blood and a can of light bulbs. I think there was a sale or something-aw, hell." The monster patted its apron. "I think I lost my keys! I did, I lost my keys! Un-fucking-believable!"
"Do you have a spare?" Alex asked.
"As a matter of fact, I do! Just gotta remember where I put it…" Pyramid Head ran through a list of options in his head. "Ah, now I remember. Come with me…"
******************************************
"Most people would put their spare key in a fake rock, or hide it on the ledge of their doorway," Alex was panting hard and lagging a few steps behind his captor. "Oh, no-not you! You had to hide it in the burning crematorium that we had to somehow switch off from another room! And before we could do that, we had to configure the elevator just right or we would fall to our deaths, and call some guy on a disconnected payphone and answer every fucking riddle he threw at us about random shit, like Simon LeBon's birthday and who won the '84 Super Bowl! Oh, and where did we get these answers? If I recall correctly, and I do because it was burned into my brain forever, I read it off of a piece of paper I pulled out of a dead cat in a locker room! A dead cat! Fuck!"
"Geez, you are such a whiney pussy..."
"Oh, I'm sorry—I'm just hobbling around on a leg that I somebody went to town on with a drill!"
"Are you done?" Pyramid Head held the door open for Alex. He bitterly chewed his lower lip and limped inside. The television in the living room was blaring static and as Alex drew closer he saw a gruesome scene in the gray, flickering light: a man's body lay in the beat-up recliner, brains splayed behind its head in a violent red starburst. Pyramid Head brushed pass and tossed the body aside.
"Sorry about that! I'm not used to having company over, so sometimes it gets a little messy around here…I think I have the tape of your memories all cued up in the VCR, so just make yourself comfortable and start watching while I get us some beers." Using the remote, he turned on the VCR then lumbered back to the kitchen. Alex was grateful to sit and take the weight off of his aching leg but he remained tensely upright; there was no way he was going to relax and settle back into a big bunch of bloody brains.
The scene opened on a couple in a darkened bed room. The woman was lying in bed, the man sitting on a chair at her side, gently stroking her hair. Alex raised an eyebrow; this wasn't any part of his memory. The woman coughed roughly.
"Here, have some water," the man brought a glass to her parched lips.
"Oh, James…where would I be without you?" she smiled.
"Maria, you know I love you…This is the 'for better or worse' part, 'in sickness and in health'…"
"…'Till death do us part'…" Maria sadly turned her face away. James' hand drifted up from her hand, settling on her chest. "James! What are you doing?"
"Oh uh…nothing, just-ummmmmm…Your boob feels nice…"
"James…I'm so sick…"
"I know, baby, you've been sick a long time, but…C'mon, lemme just, you know, just put the tip in…"
"James!"
"C'mooooon…Just
the tip…" James skooched onto the bed, nibbling her ear, his hand
weaving into the front of her night gown.
"But…well…okay…" Maria relented. Alex flushed watching as the two began to mesh together, the man bursting with pent-up urges, the woman weak and sickly, awkwardly participating.
"Woah woah woah! Wrong tape!" Pyramid Head swooped down, plunking the beers on the tables and hastily stopping the tape. "Go to the pantry and get some snacks while I get your memories ready!"
Alex hauled himself to his feet and shuffled into the kitchen. He had to stifle a scream as he slid the pantry door open. A man was standing there, very similar in appearance to James from the video, his eyes wide with terror. He pressed his finger to his lips, a plea to keep silent.
"You say something?" Pyramid Head asked from the front room.
"Uh, um, great snacks in here! Mmm…Cheetos!" Alex blurted.
"Oh. That sounds good; bring those." He went back to his stack of tapes.
The man in the pantry handed Alex the Cheetos. Alex felt bad but couldn't do anything more besides slide the door shut again. Suddenly, there was a knock at the front door.
"Could you answer that? You're closer…" Pyramid Head called from the living room. Alex turned on his heel wondering who could possibly be knocking on a door in an apartment complex in hell. He opened the door on a new vision of horror-a monstrosity stood before him, bloodlessly white, its face in blurred disarray, a stained apron fitted over its thin, bony body. Alex's reflexes activated; he tossed the Cheetos to the floor, swiftly seized his ceremonial dagger and swept it across the thing's body in a series of cutting blows. It cried out and crumpled to the floor.
"Hey-what the hell is going on out there!?" Pyramid Head stomped to the front door. His metal head jerked quickly as he looked from Alex, panting with a bloody knife in his hand, to the prone form in the front hallway. "ARGH! YOU ASSHOLE!!!" he bellowed, snatching Alex up in a crushing bear hug. Alex's world faded out to black.
