Silent Hill: Disciples of The Crimson Tome
by Egglesplork
Chapter 7
…
1.
…
Whamp-p-p! That is the sound of the odd prisoner slamming hishead full-force into this jail-cell wall—skin and skull-bone hitting a concrete wall covered with rows of symbols. For an entire hour before that, he had been staring angrily at the written letters and symbols. All of that anger had to come out somewhere, and ramming his noggin against the writing seemed to be just the thing. (Didn't you ever hear the saying, might as well be banging your head against a brick wall?)
The odd prisoner didn't move. Not that he was hurt, somehow escaping harm. It was more like a dramatic pause. A person would have expected something to break from that impact, either the bonework of the bearded man's skull or the public-institution concrete of the jail-cell wall. Neither broke. The wall was still physically intact, and so was the odd prisoner's head—the head that contained the thoughts going into making those symbols.
In that moment, Jimmy oh-so-carefully leaned over from his place on the top bunk to see the results. He looked just a bit like a kid brother peeking over the edge of a bed to see if something scary was there. Except now, Jimmy was a grown-up in one of the most grown-up places possible.
Yes, there was something scary here—a kind of monster in human form. The monster had just tested the structural integrity of the wall with the part of his anatomy that held his brain. And as with any person seeing a monster, Jimmy could not help but stare—rude as staring may be according to everyone's parents. It's not polite.
No such thing as monsters, thought Jimmy. The guy probably has some kind of kind of condition. What do they call it? Epilepsy? "Are you okay?" he asked aloud
Dark chuckles sounded out. Jimmy not only heard it coming from the odd prisoner's mouth, he also heard it coming from all the walls, the ceiling, the floor, even the air. It was as if the whole jail cell was turned into one of those surround-sound systems—except better and scarier. That dark chuckling came from all directions in here. Laugh, and the whole world laughs with you—or at least a jail cell, and at least if you've got real-live magic-powers.
The surround-sound laughter stopped. Then the odd prisoner pulled his head back from the wall. A dark-blue smudge was dead-center of the forehead. Without any apparent symptoms of head injury besides that, the odd prisoner spoke in that too-calm voice…
He said, "There are moments in which the most severe challenges can pose a significant threat to one's focus. Indeed, such a moment has come to pass. The threat to my plans has not merely doubled but trebled." He gestured to the wall with his right hand, and the lights…flick-flickered.
The wall changed. Instead of there being dozens of rows of those odd symbols, now some of those symbols had flickered aside to form a circle.
"You are my witness, Jimmy," continued the odd prisoner in that too-calm voice of his. "As such, it is expected that you take on more than a pedestrian knowledge of the great works. Immerse your sight in the symbols. Tell me of what you come to see."
Jimmy did so. At first, it was like the writing on the wall was just a lot of strange marks and squiggles. But as he looked, he suddenly began to see something. "Jeez!" he exclaimed, though the Christian savior most likely had nothing to do with this unholy business.
It was like a life-sized optical illusion on drugs. When he was on the outside (out of prison, that is), he used to look at the backs of those cereal boxes while eating—a habit he had since he was a kid. Sometimes, they print those optical illusion-tricks where—if you let your eyes go unfocused and let your mind see the overall pattern—you can see things that aren't really there. Some people can't get it to work because they're trying too hard. The trick is to not try. But Jimmy, it didn't even take a second to see what there was to see within the illusion…which seemed so damned real now.
He was seeing…a three-dimensional map of some place. No, better than that—better than three-dee. Make that, a six-dimensional vision. It takes two eyes to see in three dimensions, but here… The writing on the wall taps into the third eye that everyone has—the mind's eye. Better than that, it was like Jimmy had grown a whole new set of eyeballs inside of his head just for that writing—able to see in more directions and ways than a human is supposed to see. It sounds impossible, but nothing is impossible once it becomes possible. This was…super-possible.
Getting over the shock of this psycho-new way of mind-sight, Jimmy saw…a landscape of patterns. He could see that some symbols stood for landforms and structures. Some of them were imposed over layers of other places, as if someone drew one thing on top of another and both images were visible. He could see how places in this world are made up of more than one layer, different layers of…other worlds. So this was what the odd prisoner was working with. And now, Jimmy could see how all kinds of other things were possible.
But…he saw something else. Just as he was also able to see parts of the world in the layers and patterns of symbols, he was also able to see a problem. Something woven into the pattern was absolutely wrecking the whole thing. The word girl came to mind, along with allies. Who the Hell…?
Flick-flicker. A right-hand gesture from the prisoner, a flicker of lights, and it all vanished—no more mind's-eye visions of patterns, no seeing layers of other worlds, none of that. Now Jimmy was mindful of being back in the prison cell. Here he was, just an ordinary guy in an ordinary prisoner's getup, looking at a wall covered with weird writing.
"Whoa! That was friggin' awesome, man!" he said to the odd prisoner. "Where'd you learn how to do that? And why's that girl such a problem?"
The odd prisoner put on a small smile. "I am pleased to see your rather overt approval for the venture." His smile went away. "However, the threat to the great works is incorrectly identified. A girl is a human female, much in the same way that a female pig is known as a sow, or a female dog is more perhaps derogatorily labeled a bitch. The disruptive faction to my works could be considered female in the biological sense, yet the female is not human. Therefore, it is not a girl, even if it has the physical appearance and name of one. Do you see the distinction?"
"I think so…" went Jimmy. Since Jimmy read a lot, he was able to understand most of what the odd prisoner said—even if the odd prisoner talks like somebody who memorized all twenty volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary (Unabridged). "So what you're saying is, the girl's not human?"
"Rather crudely speaking… Yes. Such is the case," answered the odd prisoner. A pause. "So tell me. Have you ever tasted the flesh of a girl? I do not mean in the carnal sense. This is said in the most literal way possible. As in, consumption."
"He-hey, man! What are you talking about?" asked Jimmy, getting all nervous and sweaty. Eating a girl…?
Ladies and gentlemen, our conversation has now gone into…Psycho Land! Please keep your head and hands inside of the vehicle at all times, lest those parts of your anatomy be bitten off by the native madmen. But Jimmy didn't want to go to Psycho Land in conversation or otherwise. He could feel hot pricklies all over—the kind of feeling which means to get the Hell outta there.
Thing is, there would no getting out of a prison cell. That's the point of a prison—a place with rooms that locks people in. It wasn't like some interior designer (usually depicted as a stereotypical homosexual on television) thought it would be thimply fabulouth (can't forget that lisp) to create rooms with metal bars being part of the décor. Nope, the bars and the three hard walls are there to keep dudes in—dudes like bank robbers, serial rapists and killers that all go for high scores and achievements before they're finally caught.
As if ignoring or not caring for Jimmy's emotional distress, the odd prisoner continued. "The flesh of a young girl… So firm yet tender, their sweet bodies make for a delicious experience. I can assure you, there is no other culinary experience so exquisite and refined as a feast in which the main course is a girl whose head is cut off, her body prepared for dinner prior to her twentieth birthday. On more than one occasion, I have been immensely privileged to partake in such a delightful event. I do not mean this world, of course.
"Other worlds… There are other worlds beside this one. Some of them are just as civilized and industrialized as this one. Others are more so. It was in one of those worlds in which I have partaken in my first culinary event involving the before-mentioned dish. Some groups of people in those other places are bred and raised, from birth, to have their flesh consumed. This may seem rather contrarian to notions of order and decency, yet consider analogous circumstances. Some people are born and raised to be grand statesmen and orators, while some are sociologically fated to sweep floors and maintain infrastructure. So it is just a small leap of logic that dictates some humans born and raised to have their bodies eaten.
"Some of those other worlds, I should say, have other intelligent beings besides humans. This also implies that not all the worlds are dominated by human beings. In fact, to merely have humans alone being intelligent enough for civilization is an aberration."
By this point, Jimmy looked an awful lot like someone who gripped a high-voltage wire during a rainstorm. His eyes were wide. His whole body was stiff. But unlike somebody being juiced up with 20,000 volts, he at least had a steady heartbeat—one going a few hundred beats per minute.
"Do not look so awestruck, my witness," oozed the odd prisoner. "Such prospects seem rather…monstrous to you. Yet it is simply a matter of one's…point of view. Moral relativism is the pertinent term among anthropologists. There are other worlds, my witness. Other worlds…"
Biting back a scream, Jimmy had his jaws clenched so tight that it would probably take some serious equipment to get open—maybe the kind of equipment that firefighters use to pry open smashed car doors to evacuate highway accident victims. The odd prisoner is cra-a-azy-y-y! It wasn't like the odd prisoner was wearing a mask made out of skin and swinging a bloody chainsaw, yet the things he said were completely out there. (What the Hell did Jimmy do to deserve ending up in the cell of a psycho? Oh, that's right. He's a mommy killer, according to the forked-up verdict.) No joke, this odd prisoner was talking about other worlds full of monsters, some of them run by monsters, where people can get gobbled up. And the odd prisoner was as calm as you please when he was talking Psycho-Land lingo, too.
Worst of all, Jimmy somehow had the notion that the odd prisoner was telling the truth. Other worlds, cosmic patterns seen by way of writings on a wall, impossible things becoming possible, it was all real somehow. Just as how the odd prisoner could use weird writing on the wall to make six-dimensional shapes do real-live magic, there was no doubt that what he was saying was just as real.
Real magic, that is. Screw the hocus-pocus, abracadabra, wop-bobba-loobop stuff that performers in Vegas do on stage. This is the real deal, baby! Jimmy was scared and thrilled at the same time.
Being as calm as Jimmy was not, the odd prisoner mused aloud, "Does this talk make you uncomfortable? I can sense a distinct agitation within you. The appeal of other worlds hearkens to you, and your mind is drawn to it like the proverbial moth to flame. Yet you still hold yourself to the moral scruples of this world, this country, this state. The human laws of this pathetic place are a collective anchor to hold you here. Release yourself of this world's petty ideals, and only then shall you be truly free. Now, let me show you an example of how it is done."
As with before, the odd prisoner made a quick gesture. Suddenly, there was suddenly a dull-red piece of sharpened chalk in the odd prisoner's right hand. Except, this kind of chalk couldn't be found in an art-student's studio.
"Many religions throughout the world ascribe an innate importance to bodily substances," said the odd prisoner. "Be it the blood of church worship, the milky secretions from stone idols, or even the bodily remains of martyrs, something of power is within the material. The materials, the substances, they can hold power at time." He held up the dull-red chalk-thing much in the same way that a sorcerer of legends would hold up a wand. "This, my witness, is made from such a sacred material. It is from this which much can be done by one of proper knowledge. Behold an act of the great works." He then turned to wall and began doing some more of that writing.
And the odd prisoner wrote fast. His right hand was a rapid blur of motion. It was a wonder that faint wisps of smoke didn't start coming up from that quickness. Whole new rows of strange letters and symbols came into existence. A superhero appearing in real life wouldn't even be able to keep up with the odd prisoner's right hand at the moment—probably not even the superhero who wore his underwear outside blue tights and had the nineteenth letter of the English alphabet on his chest. And when the jail-cell lights began to flick-flicker, it seemed like the odd prisoner was writing even faster than that.
Something slammed into the wall, the shock nearly knocking Jimmy off of his bunk. The lights went out for a second before coming back on. When things seemed settled enough, Jimmy looked around to see what just happened.
There was a hole in the wall, a dark hole. That thing was not only dark itself, it was as if the edges of the hole were also dimmed. Jimmy squinted, because it was like the hole was playing with his eyes or something. That darkness was shifting a little, darkness shifting within darkness. He could hear sounds coming from in there, too. It wasn't just the wind either, sounding like wind howling through an infinite void, or more like air being sucked out of this world and into that one.
The darkness, seemed to draw him in. The darkness wanted him in. Into the darkness. Go in…
Oh, damn no. Jimmy didn't want to go into there. He didn't want to go into there any more than a six-year-old kid would willing enter a windowless basement in the dead of night…with all the lights out…a week before Halloween. It was like a kid can see things in the darkness below. Come on down, little boy. Heh-heh, we won't hurt you—not for long. Come willingly, and we'll make it quick! You won't feel a thing. After that… Well, you won't care what happens once you're dead. Dead people don't care.
The odd prisoner gave a knowing nod and smile to Jimmy. "Indeed, you still are attached to this world's fear for the flesh," he said. "This is the act of someone who is free." Then the odd prisoner dove into that hole, his prison-issue footwear the last to vanish—the darkness swallowing him whole.
No! Jimmy lurched, gripping the edge of his bunk. It was too damned late, and he was too damned far away to make a grab for the odd prisoner. Jimmy may be a convicted mommy killer, but he still cared about people. He didn't want the odd prisoner to do that crazy thing which was just done. Too late, it already was done. The odd prisoner was gone into that hole darker than the darkness of the universe. Just…swoosh.
A good long moment later, Jimmy got himself off of the bunk. Great timing, by the way. It only took a whole few minutes for him to finally move …lo-o-o-ong after the odd prisoner made that flying leap into gosh-knows-where.
Curiosity struck. Walking very carefully, as if to avoid alerting something that would snatch him in, Jimmy crept up onto the hole in the jail-cell wall—keeping at what should be arm's length. Or maybe, some of the things waiting in the darkness could reach out with tentacles, not arms. They'd snatch his dumb-ass self into the hole fast as a mother-forker. And if he did get snatched, he deserved it just for being the dumbass he was.
As an old saying goes (and old sayings have a lot to say about a lot of things), there is a thin line between bravery and stupidity. Not only was Jimmy crossing that line, he was tap-dancing across that bitch with bells on and accompanied by a Broadway musical soundtrack. Next stop, Stupidville—if not oblivion.
He put his left hand close to the wall next to the hole…and snatched it back. It was cold. That, and he thought something sucked at him—making the hand feel numb and tingly for a little while. That's just great. He ought to stick his head in next. Liable to get it ripped off too, probably. (We said we'd make it quick, little boy. Didn't we? We promise.)
No, he didn't. He didn't get his stupid head ripped off of his stupid body. That's probably in no small part due to him keeping his curiosity-driven stupid self away from the hole in the first place.
Some folks are no doubt feeling dismayed at this development, robbed the experience of seeing somebody having his head r-r-ripped off, blood spurting from a neck-stump like a spasmodic with a squirt-gun, his headless body strutting herky-jerky, doing the dead-dude boogie before falling to twitch. Twitching even while he was supposed to be dead. Nope, nuh-uh. So sorry, folks. There is no decapitation at this time. Please roll your tongues back into your mouths.
So, standing at a questionably safe distance of nine steps away from the hole, Jimmy could still hear the wind howling between this world and the world beyond. He could stare into the darkness that was darker than the universe. He could still…
Not for long. A dry crackling like fire, a hushing rush of sound, and the hole quick-faded out of existence. Now there was just the hard-solid reality of the jail-cell wall with those neat rows and rows of writing on it. The hole was gone, and so was the odd prisoner for now. The odd prisoner was somewhere else entirely.
…
2.
…
After dinner in the penitentiary's dining hall, the likes of which looked like a cross between a high-school gymnasium and cafeteria, Jimmy joined the collective human migration back to the prison cells. The prisoners almost never make any trouble because all the prison guards have shotguns. Plenty of targets for those shotguns too, lots of jailbirds to choose from. And with shotguns, it's pretty darned hard to miss. Nobody wanted to get blasted (yet), so they didn't cause any trouble this evening.
Speaking of trouble, Jimmy was glad he wasn't in it. He thought that he was going to be in for a grilling from the corrections officers since his cellmate was gone. It's not like people are supposed to leave a penitentiary whenever they damned well please, damn it.
But what could he say if he was cornered and confronted? The odd prisoner? He used a magic spell to get out for a little while. You know how a stage magician can make a whole pitcher of buttermilk disappear? Those guys suck compared to him. The odd prisoner can make himself disappear.
Jimmy didn't have to bring up that argument because the prison-guards didn't make it an issue at all—just like how Jimmy didn't get his head ripped off earlier. In that case, Jimmy wouldn't have been able to talk anyway. The technology required to get a severed human head up and running—or up and talking, rather—wouldn't be on the consumer market for another few decades or so, after all.
Did the prison guards say anything when the odd prisoner turned up missing for dinner time? Nope. Did they say anything about the odd prisoner not being there after dinnertime? Nope, again. Of course not. Don't be ridiculous. This is the odd prisoner we are dealing with—the bearded dude who can get away with murder because he made the warden his bitch. And if the prison guards valued their jobs, they'd keep their forking mouths shut about it too.
…
Jimmy had the jail cell all to himself when it was lights-out time. Of course it's not a complete and total black-out. Mainly, it's the overhead lights in the prison cells that go out while most of the big main lights are set to low. An inmate can still see enough to get around in his jail-cell due to the indirect glow from out there, like illumination from the world's biggest night-light setup.
It was in this indirect glow that Jimmy climbed up into his bunk, laying himself down with his head nearest the part of the wall that had the odd writing on it. Jimmy usually never slept that. It was just something he did right now without really thinking about it, much as how a tired man will accidentally put shaving cream on his toothbrush and proceed to scrub (yech), or a slightly deranged elderly person will run over a pedestrian (crunch) and keep on driving. Be it a mouthful of soapy nastiness or the gore-smeared underside of a car, things happen when people go about their daily tasks without thinking about them sometimes.
Remember how the odd prisoner got out of this-here jail-cell by way of a hole in reality? The thing is, there is no such thing as a perfectly neat hole in the fabric of time and space. It is possible to open such holes and close them up well enough to make it seem as if nothing happened. To rip and tear open such a thing in the first place is nothing to be taken lightly. Once a rip is opened and somewhat closed, some kinds of leakage can happen—leakage from outside of this reality…and into this reality.
And look-here folks, Jimmy was sleeping with his head not even three feet from where the hole was closed up, the wall with all of that weird writing. Yes, it was the same head that didn't get ripped off earlier. Maybe if it did, Jimmy would've learned his lesson—even if it would've been the last lesson he learned in his life. He drifted off into sleep, not at all caring about what the Hell was wrong with having his damned-fool noggin right up close to a weak place in reality. He's headed for a place where dreams…come true. Let it be known, they aren't necessarily happy dreams. That's right, kiddies. Jimmy is going for a ride.
…
When Jimmy found himself in the passenger seat of a car—a car darkly zooming along a night-time highway—he didn't really question how or why he was there. All that he knew was that it was dark out. Dark, except for the patch of zooming roadway ahead that was…illuminated by the car's headlights and maybe the dim sides of the road. Every so often, this car would cut through some floating dull-colored wisps of mist, the wisps seeming to be the color of powdered blood.
This is a highway that's somewhere else, thought Jimmy. Parts of it turn off into that town. Now all sorts of things were coming to mind, things associated with that town. All of those stories people told of twisted nightmarish things that ought not exist, all of those anecdotes and rumors he had heard and read, they were all coming back to him. No way… No forking way would he willingly take a ride on the wild side in going to that abandoned town, especially not in a darkness like this. He wouldn't even go there in full daylight. He did not want to be headed for Silent Hill.
Too bad, buckaroo. This-here horseless carriage is goin' full-speed fer that-thar place. Yew punch yer ticket, yew take yer ride.
Jimmy didn't want this ride. He wanted out and didn't care how fast they were going. The car's engine sounded really calm and smooth, but the way the road was rushing by—the patch of road illuminated by the headlights—he'd estimate that they were going…say, maybe fast enough to break vehicular ground-speed records for the next few centuries. He didn't care if this car was going faster than a rocket ship with Star-Trek warp engines up its ass and a pill-popping speed-demon at the controls, he not give a damn. So what if jumping out would mean having his skin ripped off by way of a full-body road-rash? So what if he risked being killed with his vertebrae broken in six places? Priority one was getting the fork out of this car before it reached that town.
He was already putting up a mighty effort in trying to get this car-door open. But, just because he was trying didn't mean that he could. The door-lock was the kind where you put your thumb under the plastic piece and pull up in case the electric switch doesn't work. Though the electrical system of this vehicle was functional enough to keep headlights blazing and engine humming, the electric switch didn't work. And the plastic thumb-latch of the lock wasn't moving either. Jimmy even tried both thumbs. He just could not get it to budge.
Since he couldn't unlock it, there was no getting out unless he bashed the window with something. All full of get-the-Hell-out crazy power, squinting his eyes, neck muscles primed, Jimmy pulled his head away from the window and prepared for the head-butt of his life…
Then came the kindest, gentlest woman's voice that he had ever heard. "I'm so sorry, sweetie. You can't get out that way. There's just no getting off this path you're on."
No longer preparing to use his forehead as a battering ram, Jimmy very slowly sat back in his seat. He then turned his head to look at the woman driving this car. Seeing her face from this side, he saw that the young woman was beautiful—a nice-looking pretty lady dressed in a blue summer dress that outlined a decent figure, her short-cut curly dark hair meeting the edge of elegant cheekbones. The woman was not beautiful in that slutty-sexy way. No, this is the kind of beauty which brings to mind visits to flower shops and gentle autumn weddings—definitely weddings because the woman looked to be the marrying kind.
Except, this woman never did get married to the man who was the father of her child. That's because the woman was killed in a drunk-driving accident. More specifically, the accident directly involved a rich man in a very expensive car and indirectly involving someone else sitting here.
The woman turned her head to look at Jimmy. Doing this showed how the left-side of her head was a complete mess. Not only was the skin scraped and smashed off, part of her skull was sheared away on that side—showing little pieces of bone mixed in with red-tinged gray stuff. As to how the eyeball on that side stayed intact, that was probably impossible. Then again, in a place where dead women can take penitentiary inmates for night-time rides, a lot of other things ought to be impossible too while happening anyway.
"I'm sorry! It wasn't me!" screamed Jimmy, tears coming from his eyes. "I didn't kill you! I'm sorry-I'm-sorry-I'm-sorry…" He became a blubbering mess. The man was apologizing for something that wasn't his fault, yet the fact that the mother of a young child mother was killed was all the reason in the world to be sorry.
The dead woman turned to face the night-darkened highway ahead, once more hiding the ruined side of her head. A sort of carelessness came into her voice. Her voice was still sweet and gentle, but there wasn't a lot of care into the words. "I know, sweetie. I know… It's just that you have to know what has to happen. Let me tell you a story.
"Once upon a time, in another place, there was a very bad man. This very bad man lived in a world that was broken. First, the very bad man was sad. Then he became angry.
"Because this very bad man lived somewhere that was broken, he wanted to make all the other places broken, too. The very bad man thought that everything would be made better again once all the worlds were broken, just as daytime comes back after night.
"The very bad man found out how to break all the worlds. His world was a mess, but there were some places that still worked. One of them was very important. In fact, it was one of the most important places ever.
"This place was beautiful. It was so big and pretty with magic beams in the sky and music in the wind if you listened for it…. Why would anyone want to hurt the very important place?
"The very bad man did not care. He sent his servants to kidnap people, including little boys and girls, people with magic powers to break that important place, break those beams. It was how he would do what he wanted to do.
"He had servants to help him too. His servants were not just bad people. Oh no. The very bad man also had…monsters. These bad people and monsters were not as bad as the very bad man, but they did what he told them to do. He made the bad people and monsters put the children to work in a very big-tall machine that could break the big pretty magic beams in the sky of that world, beams that run through all the worlds but not with us able to see them.
"A hero and his friends stopped the very bad man before the last of the magic beams could be broken. The hero and his friends stopped the very bad machine. Then the hero was able to stop the very bad man himself forever, we hope. We hope…"
As Jimmy listened to this, he just knew that this story could not have a happy ending. Though the dead woman told the tale with all the kind gentleness an adult tells a child, the outcome simply could not mean that everyone was left off happily ever after. That's not how the story goes.
The dead woman told the remainder of her take on the story. "The hero stopped the magic beams from being broken. But…the hero could not fix the beams that were already broken. In some worlds, some places were weak. That is where monsters come from, even monsters that did not know or care about the very bad man.
"That is not all. Though the very bad man was stopped, the very bad man's throne was empty.
"There are still lots of bad people and monsters in that broken world. They are waiting for someone to come and tell them what to do. It does not matter if that person is from the broken world or any other place. If someone finds a way to use bad magic to go to that bad place, then the throne will no longer be empty. Then there will be another very bad man."
Jimmy felt tears coming from his own eyes. He had never heard or read that story before. But something was too true about it. It was a story that felt more true and real than he was. "What can I do?" he practically sobbed. "Please lady… Tell me."
The dead woman kindly told him. "You have to be ready, sweetie. You have to be sure that the things happening don't keep you from telling the girl where…" Then the car radio turned on full blast.
Then the car radio blared on full blast, loud enough with insane static to vibrate the whole damned vehicle. Mixed in with that crazy-loud noise was burbling gibberish of distorted voices screaming in lost languages, languages that don't exist and languages that probably won't exist for another few hundred-thousand years. It would be great grist for a linguist's work provided that the expert didn't end up with shattered and bleeding eardrums before hearing too much.
When it stopped, Jimmy's ears weren't too good for a while. Only when he could hear again did he look to the woman. The insides of his ears still rang like bells, yet his hearing was still serviceable provided that a person spoke up a little.
Somehow, the dead woman's sweet voice carried through his temporary hearing loss. "Oh, poor baby… They won't let me tell you everything. It's against the rules. We were even playing some funny games with the rules with you just being here."
A look out at the dark scenery outside of this car, and Jimmy wanted to ask where here was. Weak headlights barely illuminated the area in front of this vehicle to show the highway surface they went over. Meanwhile, nothing else seemed visible outside—unless he gave a prolonged stare. Putting his head close up against the car window-glass, he thought he saw some distant gridworks of dim lights—dimly lit dark-metal machine-buildings off in the distance. Closer still, every so often, this car zipped by rusted-out wrecks. It didn't even take a glimpse to know some of that wreckage came from kinds of vehicles he had never seen before. Jimmy had the creeping suspicion that not all of those vehicles were intended to be used or driven by human beings. And maybe, not all of those vehicles were as abandoned as previously thought. Maybe some of the things out there, stranded in this nowhere place, were hungry or angry and did not care if the biochemistry of their digestive systems would maybe or maybe not tolerate human flesh. To add more some more maybes to the mix, it could also be true that some of those things lived here and didn't take too kindly to strangers from other places. To think that Jimmy had the crazy idea of throwing himself out of this car before. It really was a crazy idea.
The dead woman turned her head to look at Jimmy for the second time during this conversation—once more showing the ruined half of her head alongside the untouched half. Then the dead woman moved her right hand from the steering wheel to toe top of Jimmy's head, holding his head in place.
"Don't be scared, Jimmy-darling. We're moving too fast for any of those outside to catch us. Most of them are just sick from being somewhere they don't belong, that's all. Are you afraid of things that are sick? You'll be sick like them too soon, so you have to be strong and get used to it." Her right hand tightened its grip on the top of Jimmy's head, felt through his hair and gripping harder. "Get…used to it."
"What are you doing!" shouted Jimmy. He grabbed the cold, hard wrist of the hand that was gripping into the top of his skull.
With all of this talk of skulls and head-bashing, let it be known that a human skull is supposed to be some of the hardest bone-work in a human body. A soft head wouldn't be of much protection to a person's think-works. Yet even that anatomical toughness of Jimmy's head did not seem to be much protection against the inhuman strength of the dead woman's fingers. Pulling and struggling, he could feel the individual fingertips beginning to make an impression. Essentially, it was a pretty damned strong grip for a dead lady—seeing as how dead people aren't supposed to be so lively in the first place. That random thought made Jimmy give a giggle even while it was feeling as if he was about to have five fingerholes poked into his brain-bowl pretty soon. Feeling…kind of woozy.
Be ready, said the dead woman. It was true that the dead woman was not allowed to tell him everything. Not in words, at least. The rules did not exclude other ways of getting the idea across. He saw…darkened glimpses into strange places, those places infested with grotesque creatures. Some of those things were either once human or had human ancestry, no longer. Of course, none of them were that way any damned more. Human or not, they still had pieces of maddened thoughts—their minds distorted and unintelligible. Maybe if one of them had kept enough mind and sanity to tell secrets, maybe something could be different somehow.
