Silent Hill: Resonance

Chapter 3: Dead on Arrival

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Ti-

Tick tock went the clock. The large grandfather clock that sat on display in the corner of the lobby. Its front was cracked and covered in dust, but its face was the example of perfection. Not a speck of dust or blemish was visible on the clock face, this clock must have been donated, as I have never seen a clock of this fine quality at a sale at a normal store. However, despite the constant ticking and gears shifting, the hands didn't move.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

I sat on a saggy, old couch that groaned with the slightest of movements. It had seen better days. Its brown material was eaten away and slimy with God-knows-what, its cushions ripped and deformed with countless springs poking my ass. Yet the couch was nothing compared to the atrocity of the hospital's lobby. The walls were a barf green with a matching green and white tile floor. The floor itself was covered in a slime that was different from the substance on the couch, the floor slime was thicker… wetter. Like the couch, the furniture was old and torn, ripped fabric was the norm. An old newspaper from 2001 and a haphazard stack of magazines, with even a Playboy thrown in there, sat on the only coffee table that was still intact. I didn't know how long I sat there dwelling in the solitude and smell of mold, but I do know my lower body got numb and my legs were stiff when I finally stood up.

I sighed heavily, "Joey…I'll be there soon. I promise. I promise…Trust me…Trust me."

Stamping my feet around, trying to get the blood flow going, I looked at the reception desk with a grimace. I was hoping that the hospital would be different than what I had become accustomed to, that there would be people. Where the hell is everyone? I paced along the desk, eyes drawing away to the lobby surroundings once more, anything to get my mind off the fact that I was alone again. Then I noticed it, a water cooler sitting in a desolate corner. It was only then that I realized how incredibly thirsty I was. My lips were chapped from the cold, and my throat burned from the heavy stench of mold. I went over and filled a little plastic cup to the brim with freezing water and gulped it down. Five times, five gulps of ice, and the dryness of dehydration still wasn't quenched.

Trying out the sixth cup of water, this time drinking it in gradual sips, I waited once more in a spell of silence. I was waiting for Aaron, but to be honest, I hoped that Agent Bennett walked through the front doors right now. I much preferred a jumpy agent with a badge over an asshole with a gun. Of course, the longer I waited… nothing happened. No one showed up at the doors. Bennet probably walked inside City Hall, discovered the building was empty and wandered back out into the fog.

The thought of venturing back out into the fog brought a shiver up my spine. The fog was suffocating, thick like blood and heavy like weights. The longer I wandered in that fog, the colder it got and the harder it became to move. That fog, it was unnatural… something out a nightmare, and it lingered. No matter where I was, I could still feel it brushing against my skin. I whimpered like a small child in fear, thinking of it.

A dull throb began to beat like a drum in the back of my head, pounding along with my heartbeat. It was an odd sensation, as though a worm were burrowing through my brain and skull, nesting and breeding.

I resumed in silence, swishing the remaining water in my plastic cup. The water wasn't helping the dryness in my throat, and waiting for Aaron wasn't helping my patience. The longer I waited, not seeing a soul in sight, the more I began to feel cold and breathless. Maybe thinking about that creepy fog wasn't such a good idea… I looked for a distraction and reluctantly looked back to the clock. My hand reluctantly reached for the solid wood, tracing the curves and edges with my fingers. This clock was definitely an antique, the wood had been specifically carved and prepared for this, I would say 1890's or around there.

What the hell, why was Aaron taking so long? Tired of waiting, I decided to look for Aaron myself. I walked along the side of the reception desk, discarding the cup on the counter before snatching a hospital map from a stack of disorganized papers. I quickly turned it around in my hands, grimacing at the dust that coated the paper before placing it in my satchel next to the city map.

No matter how far I ventured down the hallway, I could still hear the clock's incessant ticking. It got to the point that I began to step to the noise. Even when I came to a dead end, stopped by a door with a broken lock, my toe still tapped to the tick-tock. With a growing urge for silence, I quickly turned to the closest archway, a small examination room to my left.

The room was cramped thanks to a patient bed, executive desk, and shelves full of medicine. My shoes scraped loudly against the dirty, white tiles as I glanced over the assortment of drugs. Only when I'd bumped into the corner of the desk, breathing out a curse, did my gaze cut to the desktop. Like the rest of the hospital, the desk was a complete mess. Pens, wet and mold covered papers with chicken scratch, a busted monitor screen, God, this is a hospital, can they at least try to be clean? On the corner, there was even a…a Health Drink!

"No way," I plucked it from the messy desk and turned it in my hands. Yes, it was strawberry banana flavored, my favorite! Better than that crappy Black Cherry that tasted like cough medicine. I looked at the text in the back. A small smile creeping up my lips instantly lifted my spirits, as though God above were telling me everything would be okay…Although I'm positive God wouldn't care about me.

Health Drink is a healthy, nutritious, and tasty drink to fulfill your daily need of Vitamin A and C as well as a healthy dose of Folic Acid and Iron. Made with real fruits and vegetables, Health Drink is the #1 preferred drink in a blind taste test among Americans! So listen to your health next time you want a tasty beverage and drink a Health Drink!

Putting the Health Drink in my satchel, I walked into the adjacent room with a peeling sign plastered on the door that read Medicine Room. I was met with a narrow hallway and shelves of medicine, bandages, gauze, and other first aid items. I walked past the shelves to the door at the end of the hall but stopped when I spotted a newspaper sprawled out on an empty section of a shelf. The newspaper, unlike most of the stuff in here, looked relatively new, fresh. Almost as if it had recently been placed there. It was a small newspaper with an article circled, the dark, black lines of the marked circle had caught my eye. Leaning in I read the paper's fine print.

Silent Hill mayor Patrick Garrett resigns amid controversy under being charged for Obstruction of Justice, Tampering with Evidence, and Conspiracy by the FBI. Patrick Garrett is accused of sending local Silent Hill Police Department officers to purposefully destroy and alter evidence regarding the trade of the new drug PTV that's been hitting the markets. Garrett also ordered officers to harass possible witnesses that had intended to testify in court. Mayor Garrett is also being investigated for a conspiracy regarding the mysterious death of Thomas Gucci, a detective with the Silent Hill Police Department who was investigating the drug trade. Mayor Garrett's resignation is following the resignation of seven Silent Hill board commissioners who were serving as a part of the city council, police department, school board and treasury.

Wow, I guess Silent Hill was getting some bad media regarding everything that was going on. What happened that allowed such a peaceful town to fall into such chaos? Maybe there was a curse affecting the city… No, that was stupid. Aaron had that right.

It must have been crazy to have the media running around town and looking into your personal information to report it to the rest of the country, having your personal lives and way of life looked under a magnifying glass, watching for even the smallest slip-up. Was Aaron lying? No, why would he lie about a scandal at this scale? The throbbing pain I'd received in the fog from outside came back tenfold, and it grew more pronounced the more I thought about what Aaron had said. I decided to keep moving on and keep an eye out for any painkillers.

Walking to the next room, I found that all the other doors on the floor were either locked or broken. Every door that I checked, my head throbbed even more. What the hell was this? I shook my head, rubbing my temples as I ended up in front of an elevator. Above the large, silver doors, a monitor flickered down at me with an erratic rhythm, easily matching my frantic heartbeat and throbs. Fuck, I feel like I'm going to have a heart attack...I hadn't seen any stairs… maybe Aaron was on another floor?

My stomach churned violently as I stood there, absently counting the seconds before the elevator display flashed, and I winced in pain. Breathing was becoming hard, painful, and it took all of my concentration just to try and breathe slowly. That water before definitely hadn't helped my throat because it felt like a desert now. The display above tilted, swirled, and I leaned against the button panel for support. God, I hope I didn't get some kind of stomach flu or something. I punched the call button, my thoughts dragging to Joey as he must be feeling sick if we ate the same thing.

The elevator dinged, more like whined, as the doors creaked open. I took a tentative step inside but stopped when the smell hit me. It was a wave of thick copper and a hint of burnt flesh. I nearly vomited when I found the source. Laying on the floor, against the elevator wall in front of me was a man. His head hung low, blood splattering the side of his head, chest, and the whole left side of the elevator. His thick, gray jacket looked almost red with the amount of blood. I'd never seen so much blood... I clapped a hand over my mouth, the tilting of my surroundings becoming more apparent. I'd noticed the bullets last, a swarm of bullet holes covered the man's front and the wall at his back. For a silent moment, I simply stood there, dumbfounded. I knew he was dead, his clothes and the walls were stained with blood, but I still moved, shuffled was more like it, and put my fingers on his neck… nothing. Hesitant, I leaned down and touched his hand only to pull back as if I had been burned. I might as well have been, the body was still warm.

Could Aaron have done this? He was only seventeen, but he did point that gun at me and threaten to shoot. Damn…He was still warm!

I couldn't comprehend that this man, one of the few human beings I've seen in this town, was dead. Then it hit me like a freight train, no one was in the hospital. Not a soul. Out of all the places that there should be people, here and the City Hall…

This town wasn't under lockdown. This town was abandoned. I grimaced at the pain that dug harder into my head. Something wasn't right. That this town wasn't abandoned… It was more like… The people of this town were taken.

Something was wrong in Silent Hill.

Understatement of the century.

I looked back down at the dead man and tried my best to hold back the vomit when I caught sight of a small handheld radio in his left hand. It felt wrong, but I had to find something that could link me to any idea of what was happening, "I'm sorry."

I patted down his pockets, finding nothing but an empty wallet. Then I checked the jacket. His pockets had nothing except a set of unmarked keys, useless, but the inside pockets proved something useful, a handwritten note on paper. It was readable, but patches of blood covered much of the note…

Brother He-r-

-e have a most s- problem, if what Lan— is saying is tr-e, then — must be —d. -'s a threat to us all and will ruin our —anc-s of s—. Everything th- been ha-en- in Si-ent H—l is no b- l-ck, it's a curse. A curse that -i- kill us all! G— is p—ing us all for our for—th-'s s—s. So H—ry, go and do —'s bidding. And you will be re—d-d in -ar-di—!

I held and read the note in every which way, but of course, I knew I wouldn't be able to fully understand the note. And the parts I did manage to figure out didn't make much sense.

However, I placed the note in my satchel just in case.

It felt weird turning my back to the body to push a floor button, Floor 3. The elevator shook and rumbled as it slowly went up the three stories. I took a look or two behind my shoulder as the elevator rumbled and shook, as if I expected him to jump up and take a bite of my freezing flesh. As the elevator finally stopped and the doors opened, I heard an odd noise.

It was like a soft hum despite sounding garbled and disfigured. I couldn't put my finger on it. And it was close, very close, like it was in the elevator with me. I spun around but was only greeted by the dead body slumped against the wall. When the noise gave a subtle beep and muffled crackle, I realized what the sound was. The radio!

I picked it up from the dead man's grasp and not only heard but felt it bursting with soft static. Not knowing what to do with it, I placed it inside my inner coat pocket. Stepping out of the elevator, I remembered that the third floor of the hospital was under construction.

The walls were unpainted, a slate, naked gray, and the floor was covered with a tarp. Having witnessed a fresh body, I quickly continued on with a fire in my step. I headed down past double doors into a hallway that was less developed than the room behind me. Several pieces of the wall had not been plastered over yet, leaving exposed wood. Cans of paint were stacked to the wall on either side of me, and the only light came from the sky through unpatched holes in the roof.

It took a bit for my eyes to adjust, but when they finally did I slowly made my way down the hallway. I nearly tripped over a small step ladder. It was too dark to read my map, but thankfully I remembered that at the end of this hallway was another set of doors that led to an operating room. I figured with nothing to go on, it only made sense to look everywhere and anywhere.

Then, all of a sudden, the radio began to blare with static again, much louder than in the elevator. I held it in my hand and brought it close to my face so I could see the frequency it was set on. I couldn't see one, though, the screen was black, dark. I pushed random buttons as the static grew louder, "Come on you goddamn motherfucking piece of shit," I groaned in frustration, releasing a little bit of my impatience. anger, and just everything that had been building up all this time.

Frantically, wanting nothing but silence, I pushed buttons, but again nothing happened. Then I felt a panel on the back side of the radio. It was hard fumbling around in the darkness, but I finally got it open. Feeling it out, I found two deep holes and connected springs, one on either end.

What… the hell...?

The radio had no batteries.