Road Home 10
The fog was still hanging around, thick as ever, when he arrived home and accidentally took out the mailbox while pulling into the driveway. Mike staggered into the house, slamming the door behind him. He made his way to the bathroom, stripping off the ruined shirt and tossing it to the side, making a mental note to throw it out later.
The puncture marks decorating his back and shoulder sluggishly wept crimson. "I hope I don't have to get a damn tetanus shot." Putting pads of gauze on the seeping wounds had been an exercise in contortion to reach the deeper ones across the back of his shoulder. Once done the bathroom looked like an ER, with blood splatters and smears on the white sink and tiles, bits of tape and paper decorated the floor.
He sat heavily on the couch, head in hands, feeling beyond exhausted, mind whirling with questions that he had no answers for. He knew why the fox had come for him even if he tried to deny it. Why it wanted to kill or at least maim him and it all had to do with the legacy he had inherited. One he didn't want. He had gone as far as to change his name and cut all ties with where he had come from.
He needed a few minutes to sort himself out. As his mind took the merry-go-round of problems and emotions that played over and over in his head in a nauseated manner, he waited. It was impossible to focus on any one thought, any one memory that swirled around and around.
The sound spilling from the phone jerked him out of his thoughts. The static was back but in the background he could hear a song. He picked up the phone and held it up to his ear, straining to hear over the hiss and pop of static. The faint lyrics to London Bridge being sung off key by children filtered through.
He dropped the phone and scrambled away from it, blood gone cold. The song continued on over and over again, the children's voices distorted and distant. A low growling broke through the thin veil of fear. Fetch was standing near the phone, eyes fixed on it.
Guess it doesn't like the song either, he told himself.
Just as suddenly as the song had begun it stopped leaving behind the crackle of static. But the uncomfortable feeling stayed behind, sitting heavily in the room.
The hours seemed to creep by and still the phone spat static and no amount of pulling the battery or turning it off would make it stop. As tempted as he was to toss it out a window the little voice in the back of his head warned him not to, it was a conduit now. One that he would need later.
His eyes stung, he was so tired his mind was begging him to stop the strike against sleep but he couldn't sleep. He wanted to, desperately so, the couch was comfortable enough but sleep eluded him. He couldn't stop thinking. Couldn't stop sorting through the scattered fog riddled memories of the past.
Eventually he gave up, stuffed the phone under a couch cushion to muffle it then headed off to the bedroom to collapse onto the mattress. Sleep still didn't come easy. It was filled with scattered memories that had been long forgotten and nightmarish things that robbed him of a rest.
The electronic trill of an alarm dragged him from the restless slumber, one hand blindly reaching out and feeling for the alarm clock then throwing it across the room. It hit the wall with a thump then went silent when the batteries fell out.
With a groan he rolled out of bed then trundled to the bathroom, shoulder blazing with fresh agony. He stopped short when he realized there was something wrong, something he couldn't pinpoint but the wrongness was there. He looked around the small room but nothing, it seemed, had changed from last night. All the trash was still on the floor, the dried smears of blood….words had been written on the wall and he sure the hell hadn't done it.
'Come Home Michael.'
He backed out of the room, throat tightening, ice rushing through his veins while his stomach twisted and churned with hot acid and bile. The words on the wall beckoned.
The phone began to play London Bridge again, although muffled by the couch cushion.
"I don't want to go back there." He swore to never go back there, back to Shepherds Glen.
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to will the message away but when he opened his eyes again it was still there.. The words on the wall remained. Taunting.
Scrambling to his feet he slammed the bathroom door shut, holding the knob for several long moments as if the door would yank itself back open. Slowly he let go and the door remained shut.
He made his way back to the living room and to the possessed phone. There he plopped down on the couch, listening to the faint strains of the haunting song. As before the phone soon cut off and went silent.
Around noon, or at least he thought it was noon he finally roused himself, dressed, mind still numb, gathered the phone, dog and bat and got into the car. A small part of him wanted to go to the restaurant but decided against it. Cowery would no doubt fire him for trashing three animatronic even if they had attacked him.
Instead he turned the car to the direction of Jeremy's house, the beams of the head lights barely piercing the strange swirling mists.
"What the hell happened to you?" Concern etched all too clearly on the younger man's face at the sight that waited for him when he opened the door.
"It's a long story." Mike let himself in, shoulder and back blazing with fresh throbbing pain. He sat down heavily on the couch, bat resting on the table while Fetch remained nearby, studying him with glowing yellow eyes.
"Cowery is pissed. He's been blowing up the phone, something about the mascots being tampered with and attacking staff." Not for the first time he was glad he had decided to stay home instead of going to work or he may have ended up as one of the victims.
"No one tampered with them. At least no one human." Mike sighed, still feeling exhausted. "They were under the control of something else." he wasn't sure he wanted to say anything about angry vengeful spirits or the family legacy. Hell he wasn't even sure Jeremy would believe him.
"The fog. It has to do something with the fog." Jeremy shivered despite the warm stale air of the room. "I'm still getting creepy phone calls, even if I turn the phone off."
"Someone wrote on my bathroom wall. It wants me to go back home."
A knock came from the door and both men looked at it. Jeremy almost went to the door then decided against it. Creepy Staring Frog just might be on the other side. "It's not going to stop is it?"
"Doubt it." Mike leaned back against the couch with a wince, mind still spinning with memories and nightmares, half formed images that drifted through a thick mist. He knew deep down inside that the town would find a way to reach across the void and drag him, kicking and screaming if needed, back home to face whatever horror was there.
Something wordless passed between them and Jerrmy got up and went into the bedroom and began packing things.
"I've been meaning to go on a vacation." Mike joked weakly while Jeremy busied himself with grabbing a few items they might need which turned into several items then into everything but the kitchen sink that was shoved into the back of the SUV he owned. It would have been funny if their circumstances weren't so dire. With a groan he pushed off the couch and got his cell out of his car and tucked the haunted thing into a pocket just in case he needed it.
"Sure you want to go?"
Jeremy shrugged. "What's the worst that could happen? It's just a creepy abandoned town." that was likely haunted by ghosts or something worse but there was no way in hell he was letting Mike go at it alone. Whatever was waiting for him, they would face it together.
Bonnie...Bonnie would be fine. He was in no condition mentally to be hauled along on a long road trip. Not to mention he had discovered the hard way that long car rides made the large rabbit car sick. He shuddered at the memory and peered under the large pile of blankets at the sleeping mass of purple fur. Bonnie seemed to be sleeping peacefully, the tip of his tongue sticking out.
Jeremy smiled then let the sleeping rabbit be. Nora would be home in a few hours and could easily take care of him until they got back. He left a note on the counter, hesitant to leave the rabbit but it wasn't fair to stress him out. Not to mention he really didn't want to clean the back of the SUV again.
"Ready?"
"Yeah." Mike put the bat in the back seat along with Fetch then sat in the front. The fog seemed to have gotten thicker, swirling and moving as if it was alive and there was an odd excitement in the air, as if the town could sense their impending arrival. "You know you can back out and not go. I won't blame you."
Jeremy shook his head and forced a smile. "What kind of friend would I be if I let you go alone?" despite the growing apprehension he started the SUV up and pulled out of the driveway. "I don't suppose you remember how to get there."
" I remember there's a road that cuts through South Vale and leads to Central Silent hill and Shepherds Glen is on the other side of it." They could probably get directions at a gas station.
"I think it was called Nathan Ave. I do remember the lake, it was massive. Tourists used to flock to it in the summer and there were a lot of accidents and even disappearances." And rumors of an entire ship that simply vanished back in the 1900's.
"Sounds like a great place." Jeremy fiddled with the knobs of the radio, sorting through the countless news stations and awful modern music that sounded like a cat in a blender to him.
"It was actually. At least that's the way I remember it. I used to go to the fall festivals. Kissed Serra Lundry under the bleachers on a dare when I was fourteen." And he hated Serra, every one did. She was a very creepy disturbed child that talked about the dead people in the lake. She disappeared later that summer, no amount of dragging the lake turned up a body. People assumed she simply ran away like many disturbed youth did.
"Lucky you. The only festivals that came around my home town were these little crappy ones where the rides were put together by inbred hillbillies that had one tooth. Parts fell off the damn things and they often broke down or someone got hurt. Don't know how it wasn't shut down."
"Hey now, Billy Bob found that tooth on the ground. It's perfectly fine." he grinned.
"Jeremy made a face. "Gross. Now I have the mental image of some drunk hillbilly picking a tooth off the ground and putting it in his mouth."
Mike laughed, feeling the heavy sense of dread life off his shoulders for a moment. Maybe things would be all right. Maybe there was nothing waiting for them other than an abandoned town where the last of his father's legacy lay, a legacy he was going to destroy and lay the past to rest. And maybe there was a nightmare inducing hell waiting for them that would plunge them into the deepest ring of hell into insanity and challenge them to make it out alive. Either way he wasn't going to face it alone.
