A/N: First of all, I am so, so sorry for how late this update is. I will try to get back on track with updating every couple of weeks, but rest assured, I haven't abandoned this. Secondly, I'm so grateful to everyone who has taken the time to write such amazing reviews, I can't tell you how much I appreciate them. Anyway, I'm sorry if there are any mistakes I missed in this, and hopefully the next chapter will be a lot longer.
The walk to the gas station should have taken no more than ten minutes. With Sewell's limp, and Murphy's constant insistence that he take five, the trek took the better part of an hour. They were soaked to the bone by the time they reached the banged up vehicle parked outside. Every little twitch and twinge ached, setting their joints on fire, and Sewell was damn sure he'd felt this bad before.
"It's not ready to go yet." said Murphy. He had his arms wrapped tight around his torso, his teeth chattering. Above him, the single light basked him in a grim miasma of shadows. "I still have to change the tire and fill 'er up. It shouldn't take too long, but..." He turned to look down at Sewell, who was leaning against an empty oil barrel, staring down at the dim glow of his cell phone with a frown on his bruised face. "... but maybe you should call whoever it is that's waiting for you."
Sewell glanced up. He looked pale and tired, and in the darkness and the rain, Murphy saw nothing of the cruelty he knew the man to be capable of. "What makes you think any one's waitin' for me?" he asked, his tone unmistakably accusatory.
Murphy managed a half-smile. "You've been looking at that phone on and off since we left the apartment." he said. "I figured maybe, maybe someone's expecting you."
Pocketing the device, Sewell turned back to watch the rain as it turned the ground to sludge, and the bonnets of vehicles into instruments. A thick fog was gathering. "I'm supposed to be at my brother's." he said at length. "He wants me to help him arrange our mom's funeral." The shadow of a smile graced his swollen lips, "If I'm honest, I don't think any one really wants me there. I don't have a great history with certain members of the family."
Murphy hadn't expected such an honest answer, not from a guy like Sewell. "I'm uh, I'm sorry. About your mom, I mean." he said, unsure of what else he could offer.
"Don't be." muttered Sewell. He smirked, the corners of his mouth inflamed and bloody, "I'm not even sure yet if I am."
Murphy watched the man for a moment, watched the way his pulse jumped beneath the bruised spatter of his neck, and watched the telling tremble of his hands as he they fumbled around at the pockets of his damp trousers. He didn't know how much help he was going to be for him, not when his body was getting steadily worse with each passing minute. He recalled Anne's delight the night she had come to him, describing in great detail every aspect of Sewell's beating. The way the C.O looked now was a lot like the picture Murphy had gotten in his head as he endured Cunningham's boasting.
Something definitely didn't add up, that was for sure. And if Murphy wanted any more convincing that the town was toying with the man, he only had to dig into his pockets to fish out the note he had stored there. He hadn't found Sewell by his car, he'd found the man dumped on a trash-heap on Nathan Avenue, with a lined sheet of paper pinned to his chest. It read: the past is strapped to our backs.
"So how long are we gonna stand around?" asked Sewell, his voice barely higher than a whisper. The hand-shaped imprint along the column of his throat had darkened. If the man suspected that something wasn't quite right, he was doing one hell of a job of hiding it. Murphy expected no less, for Sewell to acknowledge that there was a problem would be a little too much like asking for help. Even after the beating it had taken these last few years, his ego could still afford to be taken down a notch or two.
"Not long," said Murphy, "a little less than an hour. You might as well wait inside, it's probably a lot warmer than standing around out here." He tried to look casual as he considered whether or not his next words would be taken the wrong way. He decided to risk it, and added, as off-handedly as he could, "You look about ready to collapse."
"I'm fine." was Sewell's sharp response. Although he didn't sound entirely too convinced.
Resisting the urge to run his hand along the bruises marring the man's throat, Murphy instead brought his twitching fingers to his shoulder. It was bonier than he had expected. "You're not fine." he insisted, keeping his own murky eyes trained on Sewell's dark ones, "You're gonna need to get checked out at a hospital as soon as we're on the road." He squeezed his shoulder, feeling the muscle shift under his grip. Sewell made a poor show of hiding the wince, but he didn't pull away.
"I'll be as quick as I can with the car, but you really do need to take a seat some place. Your leg's bad enough, you don't want it getting worse."
Much to his surprise, Sewell gave in without a fight. Murphy released his grip on the man and shifted aside, allowing him to pass through into the gas station. The door squawked loudly as he forced it open several inches before slipping in. The wood beneath his boots creaked and squealed. Murphy watched him haul himself up onto the counter-top, his legs dangling half a foot above the floor. With his lip swollen to the point of pouting, he almost looked like a reprimanded child as he sat there in the gloom.
When Sewell spotted him staring, he looked immediately disgruntled. "What are you waiting for?" he snapped. "Get on with it!"
Murphy didn't miss the mumbled 'asshole' that followed as he turned away and headed towards the car.
The vehicle had been one of the only ones he'd managed to salvage in the town. It was a 1987 AMC Grand Wagoneer; his father had had one of them back when Murphy had been a teenager. It was a little worse for wear on the exterior, its bonnet looked like it had taken a beaten, and the passenger side door didn't quite shut properly, but it was mostly aesthetic damage. The back right tire had a puncture in it somewhere. Rather than try and find it, Murphy figured it would be simpler to just replace the thing.
As he started to work on unfixing the back tire, Murphy allowed himself to think about his boy. Charlie had always been an eager kid to learn; it didn't matter what it was, whether he was hearing about cars, or the history of his country, or something as silly as how many bon-bons his mom could fit in her mouth, he'd always been a glutton for finding out new things. Murphy remembered the look on Carol's face-the one that always won her the arguments-when she heard Charlie boasting about how he was going to be just like his old man. She'd never liked the idea of her son having as little ambition in life as her husband. She'd told Charlie that he could be anything, and it had been true. But now-now-
He clenched his hands, head hanging low. Sometimes the pain was as fresh as it the day they'd pulled his tiny body out from the river.
"Fuck. Fuckin' piece o' shit!"
He glanced up, looking back towards the open doorway of the gas station. He waited a beat, and then, "Everything all right in there?" he called. Truthfully, he was glad for the distraction.
There was no response for the longest moment, just the sound of stiff buttons clicking. "Phone's busted." was the eventual answer. "Can't get a connection."
Sewell must have given in to the temptation to call for help. Murphy wasn't entirely surprised that he couldn't reach an outside line from here, he usually had trouble getting a signal himself, a problem which remained even after Silent Hill had concluded its business with him. The town had been abandoned for quite a while, he guessed most people had up and left long before the phone companies started erecting their masts here, there and everywhere.
Although he knew that it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference, Murphy still felt obliged to help. "You wanna try mine?" he called. He half-expected Sewell to refuse out of some form of wounded pride, but seconds later the man came limping out of the station's dark lobby with his hand extended. Murphy reached into his pocket, pulling out his cell, and reached up to pass it over. Sewell didn't take it.
When Murphy looked up at him in question, he saw an expression on his face that he'd never-not even in a million years-expect to see; he looked absolutely terrified. His eyes were practically jittering, wide and alarmed and fixed on a point of the street farther ahead. He took an unstable step backwards, his whole balance off as he tried to put weight on his bad leg.
Murphy followed his gaze and found himself looking at a large, black dog sitting in the middle of the road. It was the size of a Great Dane, its coat thick and coarse and clinging to its muscled limbs as the rain came down hard. It was staring right back at them-
-No, that wasn't quite right, thought Murphy. It wasn't staring at them, It was staring at Sewell.
