A/N: Lol, I guess Stu's already gone kinda nuts. As for the fresh meals … remember Eddie at Pete's Bowl-a-rama. 'Nuff said. Anyway, I used to write that the plane was flying from L.A. to South Ashford. Well, that was supposed to be a SH4 reference. Unfortunately, I just found out that Henry Townsend lives in a city called South Ashfield… *smacks hand to forehead* So I've fixed that in the last three chapters and from now on, I'll hopefully remember to write Ashfield instead of Ashford … Oh, and this chapter might remind you - a LOT - of a certain cutscene from SH2. Sorry. Konami ought to sue me. –E.P.O.
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Chapter 4: Insane
Matt heard a muffled sound as the glass doors slid back behind him to once more keep the cold and snow out of the library and looked at his surroundings. The place was brightly lit by round lamps, each of them about two feet in diameter, hanging from the ceiling. It was a two-storey building and a big, wide staircase in front of him went up to the second floor. There was also an elevator to his right.
A piece of paper was attached to a bulletin board next to the elevator. Matt walked up to it and studied it. In the upper right corner, the words "Carpenter Public Library" told Matt that it was a map of this place. Apparently, the first floor was for art exhibitions and other cultural arrangements. There was also toilets and a cafeteria here. The second floor was where you could take out books, music and other stuff. The west side was the department with books, magazines and videogames for kids. The east side was the department for adults, with books, movies, music, magazines and newspapers. Between these two departments was the counter area where you'd go to take out or return stuff to the librarians.
Thinking that he might find a phone on the second floor, Matt decided to use the elevator to get there, but nothing happened when he pushed the button. He then footed it up the stairs. Two big black doors with glass windows in them formed an entrance to the library area up here, but they were locked.
"Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit."
Looking through the glass windows, he could see several phones on the desks and counters in there. After trying to open the doors again and muttering "dammit" a fifth time, he made his way down the stairs to explore the first floor.
When he reached the bottom of the stairway, a Stewardess jumped out from behind a withering potted plant, startling him. After missing two times, he finally managed to shoot the abomination. He ran up to it and stepped on it, making a face as he heard the sickening "crunch" sound of his foot hitting the monster.
After killing the Stewardess, he examined his shotgun. There was only one shot left now. "Oh crap."
There were two major halls for exhibitions and stuff on the first floor. The first hall Matt walked into contained an exhibition of paintings that had been made by the residents of Silent Hill about 18 years ago. Large square pillars supported the ceiling. There were a lot of windows to his right, but the blinds made the light seep into the hall in tiny streaks. More of those round modern lamps hung from the ceiling in here.
A woman – probably 18-21 years young – with red hair and brown eyes stood in the middle of the hall, contemplating one of the paintings. She wore a black sweater and blue jeans. Illuminated by the streaks of light, she looked beautiful, almost angelic.
"Uh … hi," Matt said.
The angel turned around to look at him. "Hi. Er … who are you?"
"Matt Hardt."
"Daryl Thurman."
For ten strange seconds, they just stood there, not knowing what they should or shouldn't say now. Then, Matt broke the silence: "Do you know what's happening around here?"
"No. It's weird – this place is like a ghost town. And all the buildings are falling apart, too," Daryl said.
"I know. It reminds me of that novel, "Phantoms"."
"Yeah, that was a cool book. I think the ending was crappy, though. Did you see the movie?"
"No."
"Good for you. It sucks," she declared and turned around to stare at the painting again.
Matt thought that it was weird, talking about something as indifferent as a horror novel and its screen version, when they were trapped in this hellish town where all the inhabitants seemed to have vanished somehow and monsters roamed the streets. However, he enjoyed pretending there was nothing creepy going on and decided to continue their trivial conversation.
"So … what's that painting?"
"The title's "Toluca Sunset". It says that dr. Michael Kaufmann, the director of Alchemilla Hospital, painted it in his spare time 18 years ago."
"Really?" Matt said and walked closer to the painting so he could get a better look at it.
It depicted that large lake the plane had landed in. A few people sat at the shore, fishing. The season was obviously autumn. Because it was sunset, the water had an eerie crimson colour.
"Looks like a blood swamp, doesn't it?" Daryl said. "Still, I think it's pretty beautiful …"
"You wouldn't happen to have a phone on you, would you?" Matt asked.
"I've got a Nokia, but something's been wrong with it ever since I got into the town," Daryl replied, "I can't make any calls or anything …"
"Great," Matt thought, "my relatives in South Ashfield must be wondering where I have got to … oh wait, I don't have any relatives in South Ashfield. Why do I …"
"Hey, what's with the gun?"
Apparently, Daryl had just noticed the shotgun Matt was holding. "Oh, that. I found that in a suitcase an hour ago. Since then, I've been carrying it around with me. It … uh … comes in handy, when I need to defend myself against those … you know … those weird monsters."
"Monsters?" Daryl exclaimed.
"You know … those things, humans with three arms …"
Daryl eyed Matt with suspicion. "If that's a joke, it's not funny," she replied.
Matt suddenly remembered the Stewardess lying in the entrance hall at the bottom of the wide staircase. "Follow me," he said and led her into the hall where he had killed the monster.
But when they got here, the creature was gone. Even the pool of blood had disappeared.
"What was it that you wanted to show me?" Daryl asked.
"Er … nothing. Forget it," he said.
Silence.
Then, Daryl said: "Wanna go check out the cafeteria?"
"Sure."
The library's cafeteria was surprisingly large, with big windows, withering pot plants, lots of chairs and fashionable white tables. Just a typical modern cafeteria. Daryl and Matt entered through a wooden door and walked into the room while discussing which movie based on a good book was the worst piece of crap ever.
"Well, I think that the movie based on "Sphere" was the worst piece of crap I have ever seen, even though Dustin Hoffman was in it," Daryl said.
"Yes, but the book was terrible, too. Michael Chrichton is …" Matt trailed off. He had heard a familiar sound behind him.
He turned around to discover a Stewardess sitting on a table, watching him like a hungry lion watching a zebra. The monster groaned again and its two normal arms began dragging its body across the table, towards its prey.
Matt took good aim and fired the shotgun. Daryl screamed and covered her ears with her hands. Matt tried shooting the Stewardess again while it was lying on the table, but he had run out of ammunition. He dropped the gun, reached into his backpack, produced the axe and ran to the table to finish off the monster.
"Matt, what the hell do you think you're doing?!" Daryl screamed.
"What does it look like? I'm trying to save us from this damn thing," the man shouted and raised the axe above his head.
"You're trying to save us from a table?!" Daryl yelled as the blade of the axe plunged into the white table top.
"Can't you see it?! The monster? It's right there," Matt said and raised the axe again.
"What I see is an old mentally ill guy fighting one of his delusions," Daryl thought. "Or maybe he's on drugs. Oh my God, what if he starts to think that I'm one of his "monsters" … And he's got an axe. Who knows how dangerous this guy could be?" She suddenly felt very uneasy.
The shotgun was still there, on the floor. She swiftly grabbed it and ran out of the cafeteria, slamming the door shut behind her.
Matt brought down the axe for the second time. The Stewardess stopped moving, clearly dead now. He felt relieved for a moment … Then he noticed that Daryl had run off and taken the shotgun with her.
Outside the cafeteria, Daryl used the gun as a bolt, sliding it through the small handle of the wooden door, thus making the door almost impossible to open from inside the room. "Whew!" she said under her breath. That madman was trapped in the cafeteria now. She was safe.
A round window in the door allowed her to see some of the room on the other side. She could see Matt taking breath after those two strokes with the axe. He ran his eyes over the cafeteria, looking surprised. Then he dashed to the door and tried opening it.
"Daryl? What are …"
"Calm down, Matt," she said in her most authoritative tone of voice, "just stay there and I'll go find a phone that works. I'll call a nice, peaceful hospital and ask them to get here as soon as possi …"
"A mental hospital?" Matt said.
"Yes. A nice one, where you can …"
"I'm not insane, Daryl. Open the … oh no." Through the window, Daryl could see that Matt was cocking his eye at something behind him.
"What wrong?"
"Daryl, I really think you should open the door now. There's … something in here." The anger in Matt's voice had abruptly been replaced by fear.
"What?" Daryl said.
"Oh my God … this one's different than the others. It's bigger. It's got ... claws …" Matt sounded very scared and disgusted now. "Don't leave me here, please, Daryl …"
"Calm down. It's all just your imagination, Matt. You're probably suffering from a mental illness known as schi…"
"This is NOT my imagination!" The anger had returned to Matt's voice. He began pounding on the door. Daryl stepped back, startled. "Open the fucking door!"
She really needed to find a phone right now. Ignoring Matt's angry calls, she hurried away.
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Through the window, Matt could see Daryl walk away. "Bitch," he mumbled. Why had she been unable to see or at least hear the Stewardess? "Maybe Daryl's right. Maybe you are just seeing shit," a little voice said in his head, "maybe you do belong in a lunatic asylum …"
Behind Matt, the reason why he wanted Daryl to remove the makeshift bolt was lumbering towards him. This grotesque monster was much larger than a Stewardess and resembled a dog more than a human being, although it didn't have a tail or fur. It's skin was yellowish, leathery and furrowed. Its body looked like that of a deformed person. Instead of arms, it had two extra legs growing out of its shoulders. It was the way it crawled forward that made it resemble a dog. Oddly enough, the skin on its four shins was brown. Long, razor-sharp claws grew out of its 20 toes.
The freak of nature had three bald human heads, connected to the body by three ridiculously long necks. Their faces were horribly distorted. They didn't have any noses, just huge toothless mouths and long, dark, horizontal cracks where their eyes should have been. The head in the middle was bloodred, while the other two were as white as sheets. Disgusting red veins were stretched out between their rudimentary faces, preventing the heads from getting more than three inches away from each other.
And they were clearly trying to get away from each other.
The two outer heads sounded like they were squealing in pain as they twitched and jerked, repeatedly attempting to defy the veins and get away from the head in the middle, which howled and roared as the body it was attached to moved closer to Matt.
Remembering the myths about the Greco-Roman hellhound he had read when he was a kid, Matt now aptly named this monster Cerberus.
Intent on not getting into a fight with the Cerberus, he used his axe to smash the window in the door and reached out with his right arm, trying to get hold of the shotgun on the other side and remove it from the handle. But before he could reach the gun, the Cerberus grabbed him with the claws on its right foreleg and tossed him away from the door.
Matt uttered a little yelp of pain as he landed on a table in a corner of the cafeteria. Before he could get up, the hellhound had leapt up on the table and its red middle face was just one inch away from his. He could hear his radio playing static, the deafening screams and roars of the creature, he could feel its warm, nauseating breath on his face …
"Oh my God, I'm gonna die now, this freak is gonna kill me now, Oh my God …"
The Cerberus raised its right foreleg and was about to plunge its claws into Matt's face when he rolled off the table and landed painfully on the floor. The claws pierced the table top and the dog roared angrily when it discovered that the table was now stuck on its "paw". Shaking its foreleg, the Cerberus soon managed to get rid of the table, which whistled through the air until it hit the wall and fell on the floor in a confusing heap of table legs and pieces of the table top. Then Matt got the monster's attention again.
Howling and screaming, the monstrosity lumbered towards him. Matt hurled the axe, aiming for the middle neck, hoping that this was the Cerberus's soft spot.
It turned out that his theory was correct.
When the axe plunged into the monster's neck, all three heads screamed in pain and the abomination staggered backwards. After a few seconds of fumbling, the foot of its left foreleg found the axe and pulled it out of the throat, allowing a jet of blood to emerge from the wound. Roaring angrily again, the Cerberus flung the weapon out of the nearest window, shattering the glass. Then it staggered towards Matt, intent on snuffing out his life before it died itself.
Matt ran to the heap lying at the wall, picked up one of the spotlessly clean table legs and thrashed the Cerberus with it until the detestable creature stopped screeching and Carpenter Library was quiet once more.
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