Chapter Four

Taking the Leave

Laura stood at her bedroom door, waiting. In the quiet of the house, she could hear the low whirring of James's processor next door as it read commands, and the faint tapping of keys on the keyboard as James typed. He would stay up late, she felt, and her spirits sank with every extra minute that passed.

It was 1 AM. She had to leave soon. She turned the car keys over in her hand. The keys had been easy to get to, as they had been left on the living room coffee table. Laura closed her eyes and left her bedroom. She would surely kill herself with all the guilt, but she felt as though she had no choice. No choice at all. It was just one of those callings.

Notifying James of her leave as she started the car and left the drive was a risk she had to take. Her eyes glued to the rearview mirror, she was relieved when she couldn't detect any lights suddenly thrown on in her home. The windows remained as dark as the sky above her.

All that was left was her, the highway, and the long drive to Silent Hill.

x-x-x-x-x-x

Laura drove quickly on east, determined to make it to Silent Hill by daybreak. It wouldn't be very long before James realized that she was gone, as he often wandered the house at night. What would he do?

Her cell began to ring at three, and there was no doubt in her mind whom the caller was. She didn't answer. She hit the ignore button, repeatedly, all the while keeping her eyes on the road ahead. A few moments of silence later, the phone rang again. Sedated, wishing she had just left it behind, she answered.

"What in the hell?" James demanded. He sounded angry, yet worried at the same time.

"It's okay. I'm fine," Laura told him, although she didn't really know that for a fact. Her going to Silent Hill felt forbidden, and Mary's voice of reason was telling her to turn back and leave Silent Hill for her childhood memories.

"No, it's not okay! What do you think you're doing?" he asked. "I wake up to find the car gone, and you with it! No, it's not okay!"

Laura didn't know whether to feel offended or elated. She decided not to press. She hung up, feeling depleted instead. The phone rang just seconds afterward. She answered, not really knowing why. She already knew what his defense would be.

"Just tell me what you're doing," James pleaded. "Don't you scare me like this!"

Laura took a deep breath, thinking of what she should say. He would go ballistic if he knew she were going to Silent Hill. His warm memories of the town had long since faded from him.

"I'll be back…tomorrow evening," she told him. "I'm okay, just please don't worry about me. I'm a grown woman now."

That was as good an explanation as any other. She listened as James listened, each of them hoping for more words of understanding from each other. Then, Laura heard a different voice in the background.

James froze at the words a stranger spoke from behind him. The stranger's voice sounded full of angst, chilly.

Laura slowed to forty. She listened hard, pressing her phone so hard against her ear that it hurt. James didn't have any friends. He didn't have any family. Who else would be in the house? What was going on?

James couldn't bring himself to look behind him. His heart thudded inside of his chest.

The voice said, "Your crimes have caught up with you, Sunderland."

Laura had pulled over onto the side of the road. She turned the car off, all the better to hear.

James turned. He hardly recognized the face beneath the carefully drawn cloak. It had been so many years.

"Is everything okay?" Laura asked into the phone. No answer.

James had screwed together what little courage he had left. He stood up from the kitchen table, the phone still in his hand. "What are you doing here?" he asked the man. "What do you want?"

"Who is it?" Laura demanded. "James, who is it?"

"You sound like you've been expecting this day to come, actually. Did you think it would be so soon?" the unidentified man asked.

"I've got a family now, you bastard!" James yelled.

Laura was between a rock and a hard spot. What had possessed her to leave her home on a night such as this? Was it meant to be this way? "James," she whispered into the phone.

"Well, you had a family," said the man.

Laura could hear James crying. There were tears in her eyes, as well. "Leave him alone!" she said, now yelling and unable to quiet herself. "That's my father! Leave him alone!"

And then she heard the man speak again, and it was more loud and clear than anything else he had said. "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."

Laura was afflicted with the same vision she had seen the night before. James lay dead. The sight was unbearable. She closed her eyes, hoping to block it out. She heard a horrible noise coming from James. It wasn't a scream, wasn't words. Just a guttural slur, and she knew right then what had happened, when she heard the phone drop to the linoleum below his buckling legs.

Laura screamed, a furious and angry scream. She heard the distinct sound of the phone being picked up, then breathing, as though Nameless had put it up to his ear.

"Who are you?" she demanded as hot tears fell from her eyes. "Who the fuck are you? I'll kill you for this! I swear to God, I'll--"

Click.

He had hung up.

"NO!" She slammed her hands down onto the steering wheel, cursing. She couldn't bear it, she had to think of something else, anything else. No, it couldn't be true. She slammed the gear into reverse then straight back into drive. She hit the breaks. Should she go back? Her shaking was uncontrollable. She couldn't keep her hands still. She was merely prolonging the inevitable.

The only thing left behind is a dead body.

Her voice of reason could not help her. She was on her own. She would run. She would go to Silent Hill.

She dialed 911.

"Ashflat Police Department," issued a cool female voice from the end of the line.

"I need to speak to an officer, please," Laura said, finally drained of all emotion.

"Could I please take your name--"

"Just get me an officer on the line."

"Ma'am, I'm sorry, but in order to refer an officer, I must have a name."

Laura was at the end of her rope. "Put a damn officer on the line or I'm hanging up."

"One moment, ma'am," said the voice, giving in.

Laura waited, no longer crying, no longer feeling much of anything. Her shaking had subsided. She was utterly confused, however. The visions had meant something, there was no denying that now. Was there something awful waiting for her in that distant town? Would she meet a similar fate? The stranger on the phone had mentioned James's crimes. Surely he had been talking about Mary's murder. But how many people actually knew about that? She had been under the impression that it was only she, but obviously, she was mistaken.

"This is Officer Corby. What seems to be the problem?"

Laura snapped out of her fugue. She was surprised at the indifference in her voice as she spoke to the Officer. "18 Dean Lane. There's been a murder."

"Ma'am--"

Laura hung up. What was the point in taking names?

She placed her hands on the steering wheel and steered the car back onto the road. At first she drove slow. She let her tears fall as they came, but she did not sob. She had to focus. It was important.

"Focus," she whispered to herself.

The drive was dull, so she picked up speed. She drove recklessly around the curves of the road at dangerous speeds. What did it matter? She had been an orphan with a unclear past before James, and now, she realized with a strangled sob, an orphan again. She could fall off the face of the earth and nobody would know. Was it selfish that she wanted to die because of her pain? She would find out, soon enough she knew, as she let go of the steering wheel and allowed the vehicle itself take control of her ultimate destiny. She closed her eyes