Author's Note: I said in the previous chapter that there were tons of candles, but I scratched that.

Eleven

I turn off the flashlight.

The boy in the electric chair is rigid, startled soundless. His condition has declined considerably since I last saw him. His dirty blond hair is no longer in a ponytail, but hacked off, leaving only patches. There are cuts and gashes across his scalp, like someone did it with a piece of glass. His clothes are gone and he's naked except for underwear, covered in cuts, bruises, and dried up, clotted blood. He looks like a stillborn that was tossed in the trash, not even cleaned of amniotic fluid, left to dry up and decay.

"You," he says. Then he lets out a contemptuous scoff. "She sent you to do it, huh?"

I examine the room as he talks. There is a control room opposite the boy. But it is accessible only through a pass code. There is a number pad to enter the code. I touch one button. It beeps. It appears to be functional. But I know the electricity in Silent Hill isn't dependable. It's finicky and erratic to the point of being totally illogical. Supernatural.

"I should have let those damn hellhounds kill you," the boy continues hatefully. "If I had known it would be you, I would have. I would have shot you in the face and made sure you were dead."

I check the door where I entered. Like the motel room where I saw Rachel and Ronald and battled the Ah Puch, the inside of the door has no handle. I let the door close. It will serve as a good line of defense when the Ah Puch comes again—and I know he will. This door is also much sturdier than the wooden motel door. It's made of steel, the kind installed inside prisons, interrogation rooms, or mental asylums.

There's another door across the room. It's locked from the other side. There's no handle.

"You know, I can't believe you're alive," he remarks.

I think back to the creatures I'd seen in the past few hours—days? weeks?—in this place. I find myself agreeing in silence.

Then he shrugs one shoulder. It only bobs an inch because he's strapped into the chair. "Of course, you're only alive because she's keeping you that way. You know that, don't you? You've got a job to do. For her."

I study him closely. Does he know something about me? About Rachel? Is that who he's talking about? His eyes are tired, ringed with gray, but wild and bloodshot, taking in his surroundings over and over, reassessing continuously. The stress of Silent Hill has made him hyper-vigilant. And indeed it should. This place—

What is this place?—

—defies the laws of physics, time, thermodynamics, anything and everything that's always been as sure as death.

"Well, seeing as we've got some business to take care of, you should probably know that my name's Allen. I know what yours is."

I turn away from the door, frowning quizzically. My body tenses as I brace myself. He might say it. He might say Bruce Wayne.

"You're Ah Puch."

Tension slides of out my body. It's quickly replaced by tiredness that starts cocooning itself around my aching body. "I'm not him," I reply. "Trust me."

"Then why are you here?" The boy asks, challenging me.

"You called for help."

He chuckles humorlessly. "I thought maybe that weasel Ron would show up. That dumbass freaked out and ran after we saw that girl. After we saw Andy's body." He pauses, disturbed. Then he shakes his head. "We got split up after that. Stupid asshole. He doesn't know how to stay cool."

Ron. He must mean Ronald. The middle-aged man that shot me with a shotgun. He, too, thought I was Ah Puch. "Ron's dead."

The boy blinks at me. "He's dead?" He asks rhetorically. Then, "Well, I guess I'm the only one left. She sent you to take me out, didn't she? Well, fuck you, man. You and the bitch that sent you."

I reach for a titanium alloy blade from my belt and pull it out.

The boy suddenly goes very still. Fear darts through his features, but his face hardens. He steels himself for it. For his own death.

I lean over him. Take him around the throat. My voice is a ragged rasp, pain bolts through my chest. "Who is she?"

"That chick. She's around here somewhere. We couldn't let her live after everything we did with her. She'd seen all our faces."

I squeeze a little tighter. "What did you do to her?"

I feel him trembling under my hand. He's terrified. His teeth are chattering, but he keeps his jaw clenched. He glares at me insolently. Bluntly, but with some reluctance, like he doesn't fully understand it himself, "I had an itch." I feel him swallow hard. I'm cutting off more than half his air. "I used her to scratch it. We all did."

My hand tightens around the blade.

He waits for me to stab him. To kill him. It's not a gun in my hand. It's a knife. Much more primal. It takes force to kill someone with a knife. Strength. Anger. Rage. It takes rage to put into a person down to the hilt. Over and over. Until they're dead.

My hand tightens even more on his throat.

The boy coughs. His mouth opens as he struggles for air.

I reach for a photo of Rachel I have just for situations like this. I show him the picture. "Is this the one?"

His eyes are bulging slightly. He chokes, trying to swallow. He cannot. He mouths a word. Then he manages a hoarse whisper of the same word. "No."

I let go of the boy's throat. He gasps loudly. Coughs. He gulps in deep breaths of air.

I put the photo away.

I know he's right-handed from how he aimed his pistol earlier to shoot the dogs that were attacking me. I reach down to start on the wrist. He's bound in tightly with dark, leather straps that appear to have been heated and warped. They're ragged and peeling, stretched across his chest, across his wrists, forearms, legs, ankles.

"No," he says. His face suddenly becomes distressed. "No! NO! You're supposed to kill me!"

I freeze with my hands in midair. But not because of his screams. It's because I see that he's not merely strapped in. He's sewn in. Each leather strap is sewn directly into his skin with black thread like catgut. It's sewn in everywhere, across his thighs, across his chest, his wrists. His flesh is pulled tight and turgid and has a deep brick red between each stitch. There are no buckles to undo.

You can't help anyone here.

"Who did this to you?" I ask him.

But he doesn't hear me. "You bastard. You coward!" He shrieks at the top of his lungs in utter frustration and bucks against the straps. His voice sends angry, tinny echoes through the room. "Do what she sent you to do! That's the only reason you're still alive!" His hands are at times wringing claws, other times, clutching the chair's arms so tightly I can hear the wood creaking. "Do it!"

He's strains against the straps with a steady pressure, growling with the effort. But finally he relents and collapses back on the chair, exhausted.

As he twists in the chair, I begin to cut where the leather meets the wood. He growls furiously. "You're supposed to kill me! She told me you would kill me! This is supposed to be the end!"

I cough suddenly. Cough again into my hand. I see blood. I swipe my mouth with the back of my hand and keep cutting. The leather is hard and tough to get through. It takes at least two minutes to get through one strap. The sawing motion sends waves of pain through my arm and chest. I can feel my broken ribs grinding. They're not just cracked, but displaced. Crushed out of place. Too much strain and I could pierce a lung.

He's able to raise his hand slightly from the wooden arm. He twists it, drawing fresh, scarlet blood from his sutures, tearing his own skin effortlessly, like it's made of paper. He tries to snatch the knife from my hand. I pull it back, out of reach. That's when I see dirty white bandages on his wrists. Bloody bandages that cover the injuries of a suicide attempt.

Then I hear it. The same air raid siren as before. It begins quietly, but within one cycle of the rising and falling pitch, it's so loud, unbearable, tumbling out of the speakers that are installed near the ceiling in the room.

The lights begin to flicker crazily, like the electricity needed to fuel the siren is draining all of it, leeching power from the lights. They dim, flicker, go out, and sometimes burst, showering yellowed plastic, brittle glass and white dust.

I look around, searching for the controls, but my vision dizzies. I stumble on my feet. But I keep walking. I have to stop the siren. It's calling the Ah Puch. Whoever is operating the siren is calling the monster.

I take three more steps and fall to my knees. Each of my limbs seems to have grown ten times heavier. The weight in my chest, making my breath labored, is now making me gasp for air. I'm wheezing now.

I suddenly fear there may be gas in the room, maybe some type of sleeping gas—or something worse. A hallucinogen.

When I retrieve the gas mask from my belt and attach it to my face, the dizziness doesn't go away. It grows heavier, nauseating me, the taste of bile and blood mix in my mouth. I swallow hard, again and again, trying to control the sudden and intolerable ill feeling. I remove the mask within twenty seconds of putting it on, afraid I'm going to retch any moment.

The siren continues to heighten, reaching an unbearable 110 decibels. The lights continue to burst above. The boy screams in pain at the noise. He's a ghostly white from the dust, sparkling with the flecks of glass that now coat his body. I clap my hands over my cowl helplessly. But the sound continues. It reverberates in my throat, my chest, sending fractals of pain throughout my thorax. The insides of my ears are grinding, my teeth are rattling.

Sitting so close to the floor, I can feel, very faintly, three tremors in quick succession. I stop moving, stop breathing. Thump-thump thump. Thump-thump thump. A heavy man with a cane. But I know that's not correct. It's the manlike monster with a spear. The Ah Puch.

I've dropped the titanium knife near the boy's feet. I stand, stagger over to him. I have to cut him loose before the creature arrives through the door.

The light in the room is dying down fast. There are only about three tube lights remaining on.

The heaviness in my limbs fades slightly, but everything in my vision swims around sickly, like I'm standing in a boat tossed with a storm. I begin to cut the strap on his forearm. I've lost a considerable amount of coordination in my limbs. I wince when I accidentally slice his hand. He yells in pain, but I keep going. I slash at the leather straps drunkenly until it's just hanging by a few fibers. I cut through the last of it and press the knife into the boy's hand before collapsing. "Cut yourself free." I tell him, even though I know he can't. There's just no time.

Lying on the floor, I can feel the intermittent reverberations and I know he's coming. With the heavy, twelve-point spear, the birch-like shaft, with the human skulls hanging from it. The Ah Puch is coming, passing over the bloodied doors, slowly, patiently, diligently making his way toward us.

Another light sputters and goes out. The boy is little more than a highlighted silhouette now.

I pull the flashlight out again. Flick it on. As I try to sit up, I hear the radio in my belt crackle gently, just once. I look down at it. It's silent now.

I look at the boy. He senses something big is coming, something that strikes fear into him. Something greater and more terrifying than I am. Something that isn't human, can't talk, can't be reasoned with. The boy's panting, sawing the straps and cutting himself with his quaking hand, dripping blood on the floor, on the chair, on me.

The radio crackles again, for a longer period this time. Three seconds instead of just one. I squint at the ceiling again, my beam swaying uncontrollably. The boy continues, energetic, frenetic, frenzied as he hacks and slashes at the leather straps. He's working on the one holding his leg in place.

The ground shakes like someone is dropping one boulder after another outside the door in perfectly timed increments.

Then the ground stops moving. It comes to a chilling standstill. The radio stops. Total silence.

The boy freezes at the sudden, ominous lack of noise. He holds his breath for several seconds, but then he begins panting, shuddering. He resumes his task of hacking and slashing, shredding skin and muscle on his thigh, cursing under his breath when suddenly, because of the blood and the sweat on his hands the blade slips out of his hand like a bar of soap and skids out of reach. He utters a cry, plaintive, horrified.

I raise my head. The knife is some distance away, thrown with the force he was using to gash the leather.

The door to the room suddenly slams open. He's here. This time he didn't try to break the door down, as I expected. His spear is upright. He leans on it, bows forward, smelling for blood. The reddened, fleshy nostrils flare with each breath. He steps closer. The ground shudders. The door closes slowly behind him. Within seconds it locks with a loud click of finality.

The boy's chest rises and falls rapidly, his breath shallow. His dripping blood taps on the metal floor. The sound is loud, like little pebbles falling, but the creature doesn't react.

My dizziness is fading now. I rise to my feet. But remain crouched. I step silently over to the knife. Pick it up. I move into position between the boy and the Ah Puch. Now I am the boy's last line of defense. I stare at the Ah Puch, stealing a glance at the boy. I put a finger to my lips, signaling for silence.

Then I make one sound. I scrape the knife loudly against the floor. The boy is frozen with bated breath.

I study the Ah Puch for a reaction. The boy is also watching. Then he lets out a shaky sigh. "What the hell's wrong with you?" He hisses at me.

The Ah Puch responds to none of the noises. He's either deaf, or, judging by the way the executioner's mask sits over his head in a tight ball with no extrusions, he doesn't even have ears.

He sniffs rapidly, his head jerking up with each inhalation, like a dog tasting the air with its moist snout.

The radio in my belt begins to whine again, crackling. The signal appears to be picking up strength.

"What is that?" The boy asks.

I am about to answer when the opposite door clicks. It opens with a creak and the radio bursts into noise, whining, shrieking, chittering with dizzy excitement.

I turn to look.

A huge man lumbers slowly into the room. He's close to seven feet tall, heavily muscled, wearing what looks like dirty hospital scrubs. He's mostly lost to shadow. He's followed by another replica of himself. And another. And another.

Then a nurse.

"Oh, no," the boy says.

The Ah Puch snarls suddenly. He just picked up the boy's scent. On me.

The radio is screeching wildly. I straighten to my full height.

The Ah Puch charges with a snort like a horse, bowls into me, knocking me back against the electric chair. The boy shrieks in terror and pain.

The Ah Puch leans over me and I let him smell me, my face, my neck, where the boy bled on me. The boy peers over my shoulder, terrified. I hear his shallow breaths, feel it on my cheek at the same time I feel the Ah Puch's hot, putrid exhalations against my nose.

But the Ah Puch doesn't attack. He doesn't do what he did when I confronted him wearing Ronald's blood on my arm. The Ah Puch grabs my throat. Raises me up above its head, smells my chest. It knows I'm not the boy. I've been bleeding and the creature can sense it.

I reach into my belt. Palm an explosive.

The creature lifts me up even higher, cutting off my air completely.

Trying not to succumb to the panic that arises from not being able to breathe, I reach over with my left hand. Grab a handful of his mask.

With the touch of my thumb, I arm the explosive so the metal studs pop. The bomb makes a faint beeping I can just make out over the shrilling radio. It grows faster as it comes closer to detonation.

I lift the mask and shove the bomb under it. When I let go of the mask, the bomb remains in place. The red light blinks under the mask like a newly erupted eye, faster and faster. The beeping speeds up to a high-pitched trilling.

The Ah Puch throws me aside like I'm a ragdoll.

I go flying backwards and crash into the orderlies and nurses. I knock several of them down.

The bomb explodes, sending the Ah Puch's head bursting like a rotten watermelon. It splatters bone and brain matter all over the room. His body thuds down like a sack of bricks. The spear falls with a clatter.

Now that I'm in their midst, the orderlies become excited. They issue strangled, gargling noises, like they're drowning and enraged about it at the same time. The nurses screech, slashing with scalpels, surgical blades, and bone saws, fighting for some of the action. I look up as they converge on me.

For the first time I notice they don't have faces. Like their faces are made of wet clay which somebody scraped their fingers through, leaving dents and streaks and gouge marks. Their flesh looks like open, infected sores, with no indication that they ever had eyes or noses or mouths. I cry out as an orderly's butch hands clasp around my upper left arm. He lifts effortlessly. My broken ribs graze against one another. Another one takes my other arm, lifting me off my feet for a moment as if I weigh merely a few ounces.

The boy screams suddenly and I strain to look behind me.

I break free of one orderly's grip, only to have another take his place. Another takes me around the shoulders. Another around the waist. They wrestle me to the floor, onto my back.

More nurses and orderlies begin pouring out of the open door, never letting it close once. Their limbs twitch with excitement. They jerk spasmodically, like they're having epileptic seizures. Their legs jump involuntarily, making them slip and stumble. Their hands jerk erratically and they slice someone beside them. They turn on each other, cutting at one another's faces, breasts, necks as reprimand. Turn back to me, their target. Their heads jerk rapidly from side to side, front to back, at breakneck speed, but they don't injure themselves.

I'm suffocating now, gasping for air. I can't reach for my belt. I fold both my fists in toward my wrist to release the spring-loaded batarangs. But they're only effective against one of the orderlies and a nurse. They shriek and stumble, fall away into the sea of creatures and become trampled. They ooze black, reeking body fluid. The stench is unbearable and makes my eyes fill with water.

"Help me!" The boy yells.

The creatures don't let me up. They press air out of my chest, step on my stomach, on my neck, my legs. The safeguard on my mask electrocutes their feet, sets one of their canvas shoes on fire, but they don't care. The nurses bend over and slash their blades at me. They miss most of me because of the Batsuit. But they manage to cut me where the armor is broken. And all I can do is lie there and take it as the orderlies hold me down.

I twist my neck to look through their legs. Their diseased flesh stinks. The oxygen is poisoned with their noxious fumes of decay. I begin to feel lightheaded.

Finally I'm able to see why the boy is screaming. The control room.

It was dark before. Now it's lit. And someone is inside.

It looks like a man but I can't quite see. The last of the lights go out and there's the hum of electricity charging.

"NOO!" Allen yells.

I groan and try to push the creatures away, but they only come back and in greater force. I'm bleeding everywhere, blood pouring out of my mouth and nose. I'm letting out gargling noises of my own.

My lightheadedness intensifies. My hearing is dull, but faintly I catch the electricity charging up again.

Then there's the heavy metallic clunk of a switch.

Allen starts screaming in agony.

I start seeing yellow and white spots dancing in front of me. Shadows creep in at my peripherals. I'm still looking at the control room window, seeing sparks and flashes of blue and white careen and spark off the electric chair.

A foot kicks my head, turning it. I can't move to protect myself. I watch as Allen screams his lungs empty. Then takes a breath and screams again. His agony begins to fade in my ears and a fuzzy ringing takes over.

Allen is still alive when I pass out.