— Soldier's Orders —
Elle got a promiscuous reputation before she was even born. It was passed on from her mother, who raised Elle by herself. In a small town, gossip was your first impression on everyone, and the sins of the parents were passed on to the child. Elle also inherited my parents' disapproval. I think what bugged them most about her mom was that she became a respectable judge in town instead of some trailer trash living off of welfare.
Elle was that little girl in kindergarten that every boy seemed to have their first kiss with, or at least claimed they did. I never talked to her in elementary school and the only class we ever had together was in fifth grade. I'd stare at her when she wasn't looking, trying to see the wicked little child my parents made her out to be. Then I hit puberty.
I fell in love with her the moment she first noticed me. It was that naive love you think will last forever, the kind of bipolar love that makes you see every gesture and word as a sign of either adoration or rejection. I never could figure out what sort of relationship we had, so I eventually just got to calling her my friend. But I don't know if there's a word that could ever quite describe it.
— — — — —
"Wheeler should be back soon. He'll be happy to see someone else. He might want you to go on those patrols with him. That's the kinda stuff you did over there, right?"
Elle had become lighthearted so suddenly that Alex almost forgot about her angry outburst only moments ago. He almost expected her to start skipping up the path to the Sheriff's station like a little girl.
Alex parted his lips to answer her question, but Elle's words were quicker than his.
"I think he tried to get Curtis to go with him, but he seems more interested trying to get the town running again. Most of the power's off. We had to get a generator hooked up just to get some lights going inside the station."
Elle wedged another cigarette between her lips and lit it, perhaps to give her lungs a break from speaking or maybe to give her overly animate hands something to do. A look of glee grew on her face as she spoke with giddy words that bumped into each other as they left her lips.
"You know – it's kinda embarrassing, but – I used to day dream about you coming back into town, all dressed up in your uniform, and you just – whisk me away from this place." She looked at his expression briefly, trying to gauge his reaction, then continued, "I know – it's such a girly thing to think about. But how could I resist? There's just something so classically romantic about it."
Alex had trouble meeting her eyes, only glancing at them for a moment just to humor her, as he found himself unsure how to approach the subject. It felt as though his feelings for her were a secret she'd have to uncover slowly. But her attitude of jumping right into it made him feel uncomfortable, and he hoped she'd simply drop it. She didn't.
"Do you have that blue uniform?" she asked, trying to lure him into the conversation. "You know, the one you see in the commercials all the time? With the sword?"
"That's the Marine Corps," Alex answered. "I was in the Army."
"Oh," she responded, her tone somewhere between disappointment and awkward embarrassment.
As they approached the entrance to the Sheriff's station, Elle noticed Alex's sudden reluctance when his nose picked up the odor of smoldering trash.
"We started burning our trash in the dumpsters out back," she explained. "It builds up pretty quick. You really can't smell it inside."
As she reached for the front doors, Elle flicked her cigarette to the ground, already having smoked it down to the butt with her overactive lungs. She looked back as she opened the doors and smiled at Alex.
"God it's so weird you're here," she spoke in a gasp, as if to explain her giddiness.
"I'm sorry, I know I'm going on like a Chatty Cathy pulling her own string," she continued as they entered the station. "I'm just absolutely starved for conversation. There's only so far you can go with guys like Wheeler and Curtis. They've gone into man mode, looking for stuff to fix, while I'm just looking for someone to talk to."
Alex looked around the familiar hallways, noticing that they were lit by the emergency lights mounted on the walls for power outages. There were loose wires hanging from them, presumably leading to the generator Elle mentioned.
"I'm guessing you already know your way around," Elle spoke. "Not really much to do here. We gotta small stereo, but all the CDs are mine, so I don't know how interested you'd be in that."
"Can't be that bad," Alex answered.
"Yeah – you haven't seen my collection yet," Elle replied with a doubtful smile. "Most of it's from the teenage years, so even I'm embarrassed to be listening to it."
Alex's memories began to recall the route to his father's office and he started to walk in that direction. But Elle grabbed his right hand as he passed, surprising him with the soft warmth his fingers were suddenly submerged in.
"I'm sure you'd probably rather stay at your own house," she began to speak, "but there's plenty of room here. I mean, all the beds are in jail cells, but it's actually pretty comfortable when the doors are open. You don't have to stay here," she stopped briefly to let her eyes sink into his, then continued, "but I'd kinda like it if you did. You know – wouldn't be so boring for me."
Alex paused before he replied, not that it was a hard choice for him, but because he was partly thrown back by her bold request. His imagination also wanted a brief moment to lavish in all the possible implications that may have been in her words.
"I think I'd rather stay here," he finally spoke.
At this, a smile grew so large on Elle's face that her vanity could no longer conceal her yellowing teeth, and she unexpectedly leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek. But Alex wasn't sure where her lips were aiming and unconsciously turned his head to line up his mouth with hers.
She stopped just before his face, startled by the sudden change of course her lips were approaching. A warm gust of nervous laughter left Elle's lips and blew across his face, their eyes so close that they shared each other's panic, and she quickly pulled her head back as her flushing cheeks radiated against her pale skin.
Elle let Alex's hand slip from her grasp and looked for a hasty change of subject.
"I like your jacket," she spoke inanely, her gaze relieved to escape his own as she looked to his faded field jacket. "Did they give that to you?"
"Yeah, conciliation prize," Alex answered as he held up his prosthetic, trying too hard to escape the awkward mood with a joke.
Elle wasn't amused, her expression looking as though it were her own arm.
"Sorry. Bad joke."
"Yeah, it was," Elle spoke with blunt words that didn't need a moment of thought.
Alex continued down the hall towards his father's office, trying to leave that awkward moment behind him.
"Remember when your dad caught us in Lakeside?" she asked, just as eager to leave the moment behind them.
"Yeah. That was a fun weekend," Alex answered sarcastically as the memory stirred a smile on his face.
"God, I remember the park was closed and we saw those headlights coming towards us for about twenty minutes, but we just kept convincing ourselves it wasn't anyone to worry about."
"My father locked me up in a jail cell for the rest of the weekend."
"I know," Elle moaned with amused remorse. "I felt sooo bad about that."
"It wasn't too bad. Wheeler kept me company and let me hang out in the lounge when my father was away. Gave me a nice memory and a funny story." He looked back to share a smile with Elle, then asked, "What did your mom do? I remember my father made you ride back in the squad car and left your mom's car at Lakeside."
"Actually, she really didn't care that much," Elle spoke with a shrug. "She just said you were a nice boy and she'd rather I be out with you than someone else."
"My father wasn't as understanding."
"Well, with good reason," Elle started to say jokingly. "I was just a bad influence. A little temptress who lured you to an empty park and a case of beer."
Alex stopped before a door labeled, "SHERIFF SHEPHERD". He paused before the open doorway, noticing that even the light was reluctant to enter the room. He switched on his flashlight and stepped inside, the beam strafing numerous newspaper clippings taped over the windows and plastered across the office like wallpaper.
My father's obsession, Alex thought.
"You wanna be alone?" Elle asked from the hallway.
"No, I want you to stay close."
"Oh," Elle muttered. She turned her head towards the floor, but Alex could still see her lips curve into a smile. "Well, I need to freshen up anyways," she continued, "I won't be far."
Alex pulled his eyes away from the clippings on the wall, his gaze gripping onto her and reluctant to let go.
"Don't be long," he finally spoke with hesitant words. He watched as her shadow crossed the wall in the hallway and left his sight, a deep sigh leaving his lips and trying to carry some of his apprehension with it.
She'll be fine, he thought. But he wasn't quite convinced.
Alex forced his attention back on the newspaper articles covering the walls, part of him sure that those creatures couldn't possibly exist in the same world as Elle.
His eyes glanced over the clippings, only stopping to read the headlines. They started as bold, front page stories, then quickly shrunk to articles of little interest that one found in the back pages of the paper.
The first clipping was from the hometown paper, reading boldly, "SHERIFF'S SON ABDUCTED IN LAKESIDE".
He walked down the line, coming across another clipping from a newspaper in Silent Hill, dated a few months later, "SHEPHERD'S GLEN CHILD PRESUMED DEAD".
The last clipping Alex looked at was titled, "SHERIFF ACCUSES SILENT HILL POLICE OF CORRUPTION".
Centered on the wall just before his father's desk was a large map, but he quickly recognized that it wasn't Shepherd's Glen. It was a map of Silent Hill, various places circled or underlined in red marker with random notes scrawled in his father's handwriting. Alex pulled the map off the wall and folded it up, then slid it into his duffel.
His father's desk was surprisingly clean considering the scattered display all across the walls and windows. Alex searched through the drawers, but found nothing of interest, until he came to a large locked drawer at the bottom of the desk. He pulled out a large ring of keys from one of the other drawers, but none of them were for the locked desk, so he unsheathed his knife and tried to jimmy the lock. The lock was stubborn and Alex had to wedge the blade into the lip of the drawer until he finally pried it open.
Inside was a bulky brown file that held several smaller files within it. Most of the smaller files were professionally labeled, apparently taken from the Sheriff's official files, but a few were labeled in his father's own handwriting.
The file labels read:
Shepherd, Joshua
Shepherd-Sunderland, Mary
Silent Hill, Cold Cases
Silent Hill, Cult Activity
Silent Hill, Missing Persons
Sullivan, Walter
Sunderland, James
Wish House Orphanage
Alex skimmed through the various files, mostly focusing on his father's own notes. He paid more attention to Josh's file than the others, where he found a note written by his father in bold, confident letters, "THEY TOOK HIM".
His eyes quickly grew weary of the words in those files and he looked away, muttering to himself, "Jesus Christ." Then he began to wonder how long it'd been since Elle left.
"Elle?" Alex called as he stepped into the dim hallway. The hollow echo of his own words seemed to ripple through the halls for a lifetime as the anxiety slowly squeezed the blood from his heart.
"Yeah! Just gimme a minute!" she finally called back.
He sighed and relief came flooding back into his lungs.
Alex pulled the key ring from his father's desk and unlocked a door next to the office. He stepped into a small storage room with a bulky metal gun locker that was as close to an armory as Shepherd's Glen had.
He opened the double doors to the locker to reveal a slim selection of firearms. Four 9mm handguns, three pump-action shotguns, and a single bolt-action rifle. Alex considered one of the shotguns, but realized how difficult it would be to fire with only one arm, so he only took one of the handguns and a box of 9mm ammunition. Even though there were no .45 caliber weapons in that locker, he also found a box of ammunition for his 1911.
Alex turned away from the gun locker and found some other useful supplies in the room. He grabbed a pair of bolt cutters, some emergency road flares, a long black flashlight, and extra batteries. When he looked through the batteries, he remembered the toy walkie-talkie and pulled it out.
After turning the knobs a few times, he realized the batteries were dead and replaced them. He felt silly carrying it around, but he couldn't forget hearing Josh's voice over it. Even if that was just in a nightmare.
Alex searched through the rest of the room, finding a few boxes of bottled water and humanitarian rations. He recognized the yellow packaged MRE's immediately. "Hum-rats" was what they called them. His unit used to pass them out along with soccer balls to try to win "hearts and minds". They never seemed to have much sway on the local opinion.
"Red Cross left those," Elle spoke, her silhouette suddenly propped in the doorway. "There was a forest fire a while back. Left some people without homes, so they stayed in the highschool for a while. The main meals aren't that great, but they got Pop-Tarts in them."
Alex didn't quite hear what she said as his attention was completely drawn to his eyes, looking upon what could've passed as a picture of Elle from highschool. She'd apparently washed her hair, which hung down to her shoulders in glistening gold strands. He didn't even have to stand next to her to catch the sweet sent of her shampoo.
She'd also taken her jacket off, only wearing that scarlet tank-top. The revealed flesh was so white that Alex felt as though he wasn't supposed to see it.
"What?" she asked with a smile and feigned innocence, her fingers sweeping back a few strands of moist hair behind her ear.
"Nothing," Alex said, forcing his eyes to look away.
"You know, I was gonna wash my hair anyways, so don't think I'm getting all dolled up for you," she said, her smile growing with each word that crossed her lips.
Alex silently picked up a few bottles of water and humanitarian rations, loading them into his duffel as he tried to stare at her through the corner of his eye. Then, his radio suddenly came to life.
"—eler, come in. Elle —swer yo— damn radio!"
"Crap," Elle suddenly blurted as the smile disappeared and she rushed out into the hallway.
Alex stood by himself for a moment, surprised that the toy radio would pick up the frequency. But then he realized a small town sheriff's department probably wouldn't have radios with encryption or channel hopping. And he also realized that even though he could hear them, his toy radio wasn't strong enough to send a transmission.
He stepped into the hallway and followed Elle's voice until he came into the lock-up. There were only six cells, three on each side, and Elle was standing in one that appeared to be where she slept.
She had a black police radio to her mouth, speaking, "Hello? Wheeler?"
"Why di— you answe—?" Wheeler's voice came in broken through lines of static, but Alex could see that Elle understood his words from the way she rolled her eyes.
"You know why," she spoke to Wheeler, managing to transmit her eye roll through her tone.
"—ave to tape tha— –adio to your hand?"
"I'm sorry I didn't keep you up-to-date on the whole lotta nothin' going on back here."
Elle looked up to see Alex standing just outside her cell, then spoke before Wheeler had a chance to lecture her.
"Oh, crap, actually something did happen. Guess who I found?"
"—lett?"
"What? Alex. Alex is here," she spoke, her tone rising in excitement as she said it aloud.
"—n't co— –ver."
"Wheeler? I didn't get that. I said Alex is here!"
But Wheeler was muffled by a steady stream of static.
As Elle tried to get through to Wheeler over the radio, Alex's eyes looked over the bars before Elle's open jail cell.
She examined the radio as a confused look grew on her face.
"Um – bye, er – over and out and – whatever." She tossed the radio back on her rack, then looked at the watch on her wrist. "Shoot, now my watch is broken. What ti–" she suddenly gasped in the middle of her sentence as the cell door crashed shut behind her.
"I'm sorry," Alex spoke from the other side of the bars, Elle's eyes looking at him questioningly. Her gaze drifted down to his hand. He'd propped an empty magazine in one of the chest pockets of his jacket and was sliding 9mm rounds into it.
"What're you doing?" she asked in unsure words that approached him cautiously.
Alex didn't respond, but continued loading the magazine.
"Um – could you open the door, please? There's a bunch of levers on the wall over there. They're not electric or anything, so just pull the one for this cell."
As he finished loading the last bullet into the magazine, Alex looked up to her with a serious gaze.
"Just listen to me, okay?" he began to speak. "I know you're gonna think I'm crazy, but really listen to me."
"You're scaring me Alex," she said with a nervous smile, hoping for a punch line.
"Good."
His blunt statement wiped the uneasy smile from her face and Elle started to adopt his serious tone while Alex loaded the full magazine into the 9mm pistol he'd taken from the gun locker.
"Okay – Alex, I'm starting to get pissed off and I really don't won't to be mad at you. So just let me out of here, alright?"
"No. It's too dangerous, Elle."
"What? I told you, there's nobody else here."
"Do you know how to fire one of these?" Alex asked as he inspected the gun in the dim light.
"No, why – look, just open the door. Please."
"There's something out there. I didn't want to believe it at first – thought they were hallucinations or –" he suddenly trailed off, drifting away in his thoughts before finally blurting out, "But they're real."
"No, Alex, there isn't anything out there," she started to speak compassionately. "I – I don't know what happened to you over there, but I'm telling you there really isn't anything out there."
"I know, crazy veteran, right?"
"No – no no no. That's not what I meant," Elle spoke frantically, almost pleading to him now. "I think you're just – confused by the situation. And I understand. I was too. But there's nothing out there. Just open the door, okay?"
Alex held the 9mm pistol into the light for Elle to see, pointing to it as best he could with his prosthetic as he spoke, "Look, there's a full magazine right now. That's fifteen shots. Just flip the switch up here, that's the safety, and squeeze the trigger. Remember, squeeze, don't pull. If you pull, you anticipate the shot and your body jerks, throwing your aim off."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Trust me, even at this range, you can miss." Alex struggled to pull back the slide with his one hand, grunting as he did so, but managed to feed a round into the chamber.
He handed the pistol to Elle and warned, "Careful, there's a round in the chamber."
Elle looked at the gun with disbelief, then suddenly became angry and refused, "No."
"Take the gun."
"No, Alex."
"Damn it – Elle, will you just take it please?"
"I don't want it."
He stuck his hand through the bars and thrust the gun towards her.
"Come on, just humor me, okay? You don't have to hold it. Just stick it in the corner or something."
"I don't want it, Alex," she spit at him, forcing him to pull back a little. Then he tried to force the gun into her hand, but she swatted it away with an anger that warned him not to try it again. So he set the gun down at the base of the bars, within her reach.
"I wish I could take you with me, I really do. But it's not safe out there. So just wait here, sit tight, and try to get Wheeler on the radio. Okay? He's gotta be coming back soon anyways."
Elle shook her head angrily, responding, "No. I'm not gonna sit tight. You're gonna open the damn door and let me out of here."
"I know you think I'm crazy right now. But I promise you, there is something in that fog."
"No there isn't!"
"Yes, there is! I don't know what they are – I guess – monsters."
Elle gasped in disbelief and uttered, "Alex –"
"I know!" he snapped. "I feel stupid using that word, but – there really isn't any other word. Just think about everything that's been going on in this town so far. The roads just end, everyone's disappeared, but what I'm telling you is crazy?"
"Yes! It's fucking insane! Alex, if I saw a two headed dog, I wouldn't start thinking – the world was flat!"
"I hope it is insane. I really do. I hope I've just lost my fucking mind, because that means you're safe and you never have to see the things I have."
Elle's anger suddenly subsided and her face sank into worried concern. She reached through the bars and cradled Alex's hand into her own.
"Just talk to me, okay?" she pleaded. "I don't know what you've seen, but I want to. I wanna know what happened to you."
Alex looked into her sympathetic eyes, seeing nothing but pity, and then glared down at her hands before pulling away from her grasp. Her jaw drooped open and he could almost see her wince from his reaction.
"Don't – don't do that. Don't look at me like that – like I just fought my way out of a straight jacket," he said in a cold, subdued anger.
"No," she gasped.
"Don't pity me. I don't want that – not from you."
"No!" she cried in a quivering voice, stomping her foot on the ground in a desperate frustration that was starting to brim at the bottom of her eyes in the form of tears. "That's not what I mean! I just want to understand. I want you to talk to me. Can you just talk to me Alex? Please?"
Alex turned his eyes away from Elle, her tears making his decision even harder. He locked his eyes on the end of the long hallway, upon the front doors, and spoke as if he were standing just before that entrance far away from her.
"I have to help Mister Bartlett. I owe Joey that much. I can't just leave him out there like that. With those things out there."
He started to step towards the hallway, his thoughts pleading for her to let him go. But she wouldn't.
"Alex wait! The generator!"
He stopped, knowing he shouldn't, and looked back in her direction.
"It's almost out of gas," she continued. "Wheeler was supposed to get some more gas out on his patrol. It could go out any second. You can't just leave me here – not in the dark."
Alex stared into her tear slicked eyes, desperately wanting to stay with her, but knowing he had to help Mr Bartlett. He forced his eyes downward, away from her gaze so he could think clearly.
"No, Alex, look at me. Look me in the eyes."
His eyes trembled, jumping like a dog at the end of a leash, and he reluctantly let them run back to Elle.
"Just wait. Wait until Wheeler gets back," she spoke, the moisture of her eyes turning them a deeper shade of blue.
He reached into his duffel and pulled out the black flashlight he'd taken from the storage room, then handed it to her.
But she refused the offer, almost crying, "No, I don't want a flashlight! I want you! I want you to stay with me!"
"Elle," he began to speak, his voice cracking, "I have to go."
"No you don't," she spoke with a sudden, quiet confidence, stretching her arms out to him through the bars. "You wanna stay with me. That's what you want."
Alex looked at her reluctantly, then slowly reached out until her hands clasped around his. A relieved smile burst across her face as she pulled his hand closer to her and placed his palm across her soft, warm cheek.
"Just stay. Nothing else matters. Stay here. With me."
He let his fingers linger, soaking up the warmth of her flesh, then pulled her hands to him and lightly kissed them.
"I'll be right back," he spoke as reassuringly as he could, the words immediately triggering her hands to clamp tightly around his. "I promise."
"No, please don't go Alex. Don't leave me alone."
"I promise you Elle, I'm coming right back. I just have to do this one thing, and I'll come straight back to you."
"No, you're not leaving me," she started to demand. He tried to pull his hand away, but she refused to let go. The tears were streaming from her eyes freely now and he noticed the smudged black makeup tracing their path.
She'd put on makeup. For him.
Alex forced his eyes shut so he couldn't linger on that painful image of her, wincing as he did so. He started to pull harder at his arm, trying to free himself from her fingers, which sealed around his hand like a vice.
"You're safer here," he pleaded.
"You promised me Alex!"
He finally freed his hand, the sudden absence of resistance throwing him against the bars of the cell opposite to hers. He didn't dare look at her, but spoke quickly before he left.
"If anything happens – use the radio. I can hear you, but I can't respond."
As he rushed himself into the hallway and made his way to the front doors of the station, Elle's voice shadowed him, a mixture of pleas and curses.
"Alex! You promised!"
"I'll be back for you," he whispered to himself as he stepped out of the building and into the fog.
