Chapter 8: CELL 206

It's coming right around the corner and I know it will, but I can't quell the fear or the adrenaline running through my system. You caught me in the chest with that pipe, you fucking bitch. Lucky shot that caught me by surprise, not that it didn't hurt like hell. I can't stop wheezing, so I put my hand over my mouth and hold the knife ready. It's a butterfly knife, hadn't realized that until I was walking slowly through this mazelike complex. The sounds of the dragging pipe echo and sounds louder now, a little more distinct. I hold the knife at about what I think is its height, hoping to slash its throat.

"Closer" I chant in my thoughts. Just turn the corner and I'll get you. It would be easier to do this if the wind, among other things, hadn't been knocked out of me. I'll just have to make it count. What's taking so fucking long? I peer, inch by inch, until I can see what's around the corner. I jerk my head back and stumble on my back, narrowly missing a pipe to my skull. The wall's rotten plaster cracks and falls off from the pipe's impact, leaving a small burst of dust hanging in the air and then dissipating. She walks towards me in a drunken walk; head convulsing as if it were about to burst open.

It wore a nurse's uniform and had the overall shape of a young woman, but those were the only features I could register as being that of a person. The thing's entire body gives off the appearance of being covered in filth. Soot and blood mingle on every inch of the creature's body and it smells like a dozen different types of shit. Its right arm was broken and twisted so much that it looked as if it had two left hands. My eyes dart from looking at its face to the pipe gripped in its left hand. The face is a malformed lump of twisted flesh: no eyes, mouth, nose, or even ears. Just a few pulsating purple and red veins.

I move backwards using my elbows and manage to get my hands on the cold tiles, pulling myself away even faster. It lifts the pipe high into the air and over its head, readying a downward blow. Right then I feel small and insignificant looking up at this mass of skin and bone wearing a nurse's outfit, ready to ventilate my head. But it's slow and deliberate, no sense of any kind of intelligence. I yank myself further away and roll to the side. The pipe comes down and all I see is a blurry line until it cracks a tile.

It doesn't get ready again, it just stays in that position: head bowed down, arms thrust, knees bent, and torso stretched out. I get to my feet and lunge towards the thing, burying the blade wherever I can. I settle for the throat and it slides in with little resistance, like sticking a fork in a dinner ham. Its blood is rancid and slowly seeps out; it looks more like syrup than anything else. It shifts its position back to standing up as if it felt nothing; the knife still sticks in it with me trying to pull it out.

With its twisted, gloved right hand it places it gently on my chest and pushes me off with a strength its smallish appearance hides. The next few seconds happen at a choppy rate; I only seem conscious for bits and pieces of it. I don't feel the trip through the air, but I feel it as I slide onto the floor several feet away from the thing. A tremor travels from my back to the rest of my body and I gasp for air like some dying fish. I'm staring up at the ceiling with a dim light bulb looking back down at me like some ethereal light to heaven. A blinding, painful light that drills right into my retinas as I struggle to get to my feet.

Suddenly lifting my head is a feat since it now feels fifty pounds heavier. I have every reason to close my eyes, fatigue being one of the main reasons, but for a while I just look at the glowing light and hear the dragging of the pipe. Then there are the footsteps that ring in my ears. At this moment, my death is no longer an intangible idea but a reality that I've come to accept. So this is how it ends, I tell myself in thought when I'm not focusing on the pain in my chest and back. It ends with a pipe about to split my face in half and no answers whatsoever.

Just like the man in the hallway in his once-fancy suit. A man you could've respected had he still been alive and well. But he wasn't; just a corpse that smelled like ash with his mouth twisted and gaping wide open in sheer horror. God, how would I look days later assuming my body was—wasn't eaten? Flies laying their squirming maggot sons inside my split head, rotting purple and red brains that had once been a fresh pink.

Then what?

There would be no answers, no great revelation, and no satisfactory resolution. I have to know why this is being done to me, but my drive is weak physically and mentally. It's close now readying its deathblow. I turn over on my belly and do a weak push-up that doesn't even get my chest above my elbows and I thud back down. Oh, Christ the fucking pain shoots up my back once again, like somebody cracked a bat over my spine.

"You fucking bitch—" I lament between groans of agony. I look over my shoulder and see it's only a few feet and closing in.

"YOU FUCKING BITCH!" I roar and a spark of rage ignites, spittle flying from my mouth as it lifts the bent pipe once again.

I'm sick of being chased, sick of being tortured, sick of being on the verge of sanity and most of all sick of being hunted.

YOU FUCKING BITCH CUNT MOTHER FUCKING GODDAMN WASTE OF SKIN GO BACK TO YOUR SCUMHOLE YOU PIECE OF SHIT WHORE MONSTER

I leap up at it, lunging really, sacking it like some kind of football star. Vision's hazy at best, and I ignore the pain—focusing all my energy on this one task. I remember watching some TV show about how this fat lady rescued her six-year-old son from under a car. Lifted it up with own hands. Then they had some doctor on talking some medical jargon about how she could do it because occasionally in stressful situations people get a jolt of super-strength from adrenaline. I'd like to think that's what's happening now. And if this doesn't qualify as stressful, then what the hell does?

It falls to the floor and me along with it, accompanied by a satisfying thud that I hope shatters whatever fucking bones it has in its body. The pipe skids across the hallway, echoing loudly and practically making me deaf, but I block it out and instinctively put my hands to its throat, gripping it and digging my thumbs as hard as I can into the thing's windpipe. The head keeps convulsing, but I hold tight not letting go. Its arms flail wildly, striking me occasionally: one on my left cheek leaving a bruise and one on my right shoulder.

I twist its head from side to side and bash its head against the tiled floor with violent jerks. Up and down, up and down for god knows how many times until I start to see smearings of blood on the floor. With each blow the pool grows larger and redder while the things arms lose their strength until it stops flailing altogether. Eventually I let go. Eventually. It's dead, but I keep hammering anyway until my arms get tired and I roll off the nurse thing as if we were lovers resting after a long session of screwing.

My knees don't bend so well and I slip, falling on my ass and feeling a dull pain crawl its way up into my back yet again. I grind my teeth together and give it another try, this time succeeding at standing up. I punt-kick the thing in its head and madly stomp on its rib cage. It's gotta die somehow. Eventually I kick it over so it's face-down, its arms wrapped around itself as if it were pantomiming rubbing itself from a shivering cold. I see the pipe lying over in the corner and go to pick it up, glancing over my shoulder to make sure it's still down.

And dead.

I bend over to pick up the pipe and feel a twinge in my back and chest. Christ, I'm a train wreck. It's not particularly heavy as I grab it with both hands and turn around. The corpse is gone, a bloody smear leading down into the darkened hall its only sign of existence. I tighten my grip on the pipe and bring it close to myself like a baseball bat, taking cautious steps toward the bloody smear and down the hallway. Down there are no lights, not that the ones set up here are very bright to begin with. I just had to let it out of my sight, didn't I? Fucking dipshit. I still have absolutely no idea what this place is supposed to be, only that it's an endless maze of decrepit hallways.

How could I not hear it getting up or dragging itself away? Unless it—

Naw, it's silly, but under these circumstances why not?

Slithering. It slithered away like a disgusting snake on its belly.

Now I'm right where I had left it, darting my eyes between the bloodstain and the red trail leading into the dark hallway. I try to step over it, but it's just too much blood. Hearing it squelch underneath my shoes—a thick and disgusting sound fills my ears along with its stench. Smells like garbage. Wish I had a goddamn flashlight; all I have is my lighter which I fish out of my pocket and open, shifting the pipe into my left hand. It just barely illuminates the hallway. I keep my eyes on the light, but I take occasional glances to watch my feet slowly walk step by step on the blood trail.

"Trap" I mutter to myself. It'll spring out of the darkness and get me; the only question is from what angle. And then I stop and look ahead. Even with squinting my eyes I can't quite make out what it is, but I hold the pipe ready regardless. I make a mental association after hear the faint squeaking of wheels up ahead. It's a wheelchair, sitting harmlessly in the middle of this claustrophobic hallway. I move towards it, still cautious and gripping the pipe even tighter, hurting my hand in the process. I stopped breathing through my nostrils a while back; I huff loudly—inhaling and exhaling deeply.

I come upon it and the seat is streaked with fresh blood, and it appears the trail ends with the wheelchair.

"Where did it—"

Normally this would be the part where a shiver runs down my spine, except it feels like a flaring of pain. I raise the lighter above my head like a torch and look up. And there it was, clinging defiantly on the ceiling, its uniform drenched dark red with its own blood. It looks down at me, still convulsively its head as if my blows were simply shrugged off. Looking at me, right at me but by Christ it has no eyes how the fuck is it looking at me?

Panicked thoughts give way to panicked actions. I scream, my eyes bulge with fear. I hear my heart thundering in my ears. As if automatically my feet turn the other way, ready to run away. I feel a prick in my neck and turn back to face the wheelchair. A nurse sits, cross-legged, mockingly holding a syringe in one hand. I whip around one last time and run, letting go of the pipe and lighter without thinking. I'm running through blackness and I start to feel numb, the pain going away along with my strength. I slow down and my eyelids start to drop. Then, nothing.

That's what they do when you get out of line, pump you full of drugs to make you sleepy. Just like in the movies, then the orderlies come in and wrestle you down. Take you back and put you away.

Why don't they just kill me? Because they want me for something? I'm still not one-hundred percent sure if I was awake or not, all I remember is my head lolling back and forth, no real control, and feeling as if I was levitating. No, not levitating, I was in a chair being pushed. Pushed by a really, really nice nurse I think. And she smelled funny—like something was wrong with her, but she moved just like a normal person. Except her head was jumping in every direction.

And she was taking me through another long hallway towards a pair of double-doors, with a sign above that read "NEW PATIENTS." I looked around and saw so many closed doors, doors that were numbered and they were pounding. I couldn't just hear the pounding, it felt like it was coming from within my own skull—every knock was accompanied by a shrieking or wailing. Screams of agony and insanity.

"I didn't mean to bad, mommy. I didn't mean to eat it. But I just—just couldn't help myself."

"Oh, Christ, look at what I done. Christ, look at what I done. Look at what I done."

"Why Don't You Just DIE? C'mon! DIE-DIE-DIE-DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE"

"You THINK the drugs are making me weak? Putting me to sleep so I'll be good for the doctors? No, I'm saving it all up in my system—every last drop—so I'll be strong and won't feel the pain when they try to take me back."

Every door had a little window so you could see the poor bastards inside. My head bounced to the left and I looked inside one of the cells. There were two gray images inside straddling each other, thrusting up and down like a movie that's been fast-forwarded. And the cell after that one has the severed head of a china doll looking through, with its frozen smile and vacant stare fixed on me. It sways, hanging by a single thread, its red ponytail a tangled mess. From within the cell a hand came into view and snatched the doll's head off the thread, all there was left to see in the cell was a dangling piece of string with a piece of hair-strewn tape attached to the end of it. I stopped looking through the windows, but I have no doubt in each one there was some new nightmarish vision of craziness.

Is this where I belong? I wheeze the words out of my mouth, though I'm still not sure if I said that or just thought it. And the doors were opened like a hungry mouth by two things that looked no more distinguishable than a vague outline in the darkness. I don't feel a whole lot at this point and keeping my head up straight is difficult enough without all the colors running down like—like raindrops. It's not like being drunk; it's taking every piece of my thoughts and strength.

When I came around, I hoped all I had done for the past 24 hours or so was just being passed out on a sidewalk in Brahms. No such luck. They had dragged me to a padded cell where I sat huddled in a corner thinking things out. What had once been a soft, white clean cell was now harder than a stone and an unhealthy shade of piss-yellow. Too bad it smelled just like piss as well. Parts of the padding were ripped open exposing the stuffing underneath by five-fingered claw marks as well as insane gibberish written on the walls, not unlike some of the tirades I heard on my way here.

"They keep asking me questions, saying they want to help me if I'll just open up and talk to them. All I want is to be out there again—with the fresh air and free to roam and shit and fuck. I swear I'll be good. I'll never talk to myself or say those strange things in front of people, I'll just whisper them to myself, and when I see a pretty young thing I'll turn my head and walk the other direction. Please, just please let me out. It's suffocation."

The handwriting was crooked and all of the 'I's were missing dots; looks like it was written with a black crayon. It forms a sort of diary, though it looks to be out of order. I read another entry that's on the wall to the right of me.

"Tried to escape. Caught. Big surprise, yes? But I can always try again. As many times as it takes until I'm out of here. On the loose is what I imagine they'll say when they kick open my door and figure I'm escaped. But you have to keep your mental edge. They try to take that away from you—with drugs, therapy, not letting you stare at the wall for more than five minutes or having a rematch at checkers when you say that bitch cheated and they tell you to calm down or else more drugs, and not letting you eat your food with anything other than a plastic spoon and—"

The rest of the entry tapered off into a few small, squiggly lines that make no sense or are even legible for that matter. I'm in an insane asylum. Sanitarium, if we wanted to make it sound more pleasant and less like a prison for crazy people. I go through the nightmarish events over and over again wondering if there's some piece I forgot. I felt sick to my guts when I went down into that basement and something shifted, everything changing the basement into some kind of maze of hallways and then I ended up here. On the opposite wall facing me there's a large illustration of a giant, grinning striped cat I recognize as being the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland and a few quotes from it below:

'We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'

'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.

You must be,' said the Cat, or you wouldn't have come here.

My thoughts are interrupted by a voice from nearby.

"Hey, are you awake yet?"

Oh Christ I'm hearing that voice again are my first thoughts as I bring my knees up to my chin. I shiver like a tiny, pissing-his-pants scared little kid.

"Hello? Please, talk to me if you can hear me."

No, it's not. This voice is different: whiny, weak, pathetic, but still a male voice.

"Yeah. Where are you?"

"I'm over in the cell next to you. To the right."

The pain in my chest still rings with every step as I walk up to the rusted metal door with a broken glass looking hole.

"I didn't hear your door click, so I think it might be open. Give it a try."

Pensively, I tap the door with my finger and it creaks open like a dusty coffin, giving me a full view of the surroundings. Water drips from pipes overhead, dozens of different sized pipes that snake over each other and stretch throughout the large hallway. Out of habit, I close the door and listen to it creak and finally click into place, locking. On the door is a number—205. I turn to the left and see a pair of eyes looking at me from behind the cell of 206. On the door is a small piece of tape with a name written on it: Jarvis Miller.

"Second floor, sixth cell. Jarvis Miller." He says, his voice sounding a little panicked.

I have to question whether there's really somebody here with me, in the flesh, and I didn't dream this person up. His chin and forehead are obscured by the small size of the look hole. His face is gaunt, sickly, even more than mine. His face is slim and long, suggesting Jarvis has been having rough times outside of what's been going on here. Once again, there is no proof of anything either way. I decide to keep my observations to myself.

"I'm locked in. I was getting chased by—by things outside in this place and I ran in this cell and closed the door like a dipshit. But I can still help you. I know A LOT." His face perks up.

Answers.

"Then tell me what's going on." I ask, trying to hide my eagerness.

"It's hard to explain in a nutshell, especially since I'm not really sure myself. This decayed place is…a mental hospital, obviously, but you or I never once set foot in Brookhaven."

"What?" I have no idea where anything in Silent Hill is, let alone their crazy house.

"Ah, you're not a local. It's the name of Silent Hill's asylum. The last thing I remember was walking around a street and my vision going blurry. How about you?"

"I was resting up in this house and I checked the basement, then everything changed I got here."

"But this place isn't Brookhaven…not the real one, anyway. It's a sort of—oh, Christ I don't know how to say this right—mirror image. A distortion of this world by the Other World. A place that's His domain. You can call it what you like."

"Whose?" Jarvis' eyes bulge and I can see in all its glory the fear and panic in his face.

"Don't make me say His name!" He yells and the sound makes my joints ache.

"The last thing we need is one of those things hearing us. Keep your fucking voice down or I'll leave you in that cell to rot, understand?"

I hear him muttering something to himself, then turning his attention back to me—his voice dropping low as he nods.

"Alright, sorry. I don't want to say His name. Saying His name will make Him real, do you understand? And the last thing I want to do is become one of his followers."

More gibberish, exactly the same as what was scrawled on the padded wall. Jarvis deserves to be here, I think to myself. Still, some help is better than no help.

(I'm mad. You're mad)

"Fine, whatever. So who is this…whatever you want to call it and what does it have to do with what's going on?"

"A lot of people don't want to believe, it's too inconvenient for them and what little tourism this place still gets would be ruined. But let me put it this way—" He grins, maliciously as he swallows and continues.

"—Silent Hill has its share of shit that if anybody found out they'd scratch it off their family vacation destination list. Permanently."

"And what about the rest?"

"You really want to know?"

"No, I'm yanking your goddamn chain in a life-and-death situation." I snarl, making my impatience with this fucking lunatic as obvious as possible.

"Good, then that means I have leverage and I'm gonna use it. Get me out of here and I'll tell you the rest, and in addition to that—" He jingles a bronze key in front of the small window triumphantly.

"I have a key to the exit. It's through the autopsy room."

"Why the fuck would they—"

"First off, beats the shit outta me. This isn't a normal institution, is it? Secondly, I imagine the patients occasionally work themselves into a frenzy and die of a heart attack. Might as well have a few coroners on hand so they can declare the crazy shits didn't die of malpractice."

"So how do I get this thing open? I don't see a key hole."

"Electronic, I think. You need to find a mechanism to unlock the doors."

"There's a problem. I lost all the weapons I had."

We both pause, looking at each other. He blinks and drops his eyes to the floor, thinking, then brings his gaze back to me.

"Oh? Eh, well, assuming this place is anything like a real asylum then they probably have some place they put contraband. Like a cabinet or something like that."

A thought crosses my mind as to whether or not he'll keep his end of the deal. Paranoid, maybe, but why not? I could open the cell and he'd just run out, nothing to keep him from doing so. I need him just a bit more than he needs me, and that's what I hate about this whole situation. In mid-step I turn back to face his gaze; looking back at him I can see he realizes my suspicions.

"What's to keep you from running out the exit as soon as I unlock your cell?"

"Where's the trust?" He says mockingly.

"You're in a cell. Reserved for the insane."

"And you're here also. Think about that."

(You must be, or else you wouldn't have come here)

"Look, think about it this way—the safest place for me is this locked cell. Why would I run out, especially since those things are still crawling around?" His gaze softens to that of a pleading look.

Logical enough, he looks like a coward to boot.

"Fine, don't go nowhere." I say as I walk off toward the elevator at the end of the corridor.

"Hardy-fucking-har." I hear Jarvis say, listening as his words echo off the walls and then fall silent as I push the button to summon the elevator.