Chapter Three: A Trip to Town
One foot in front of the other: slow steps.
Leah Myers kept her eyes on the path ahead of her as it gently curved around, leading towards the soft glow of what could now be seen as a streetlight. She felt the dirt sink ever so slightly beneath her feet while eliciting small crunches from twigs and leaves. Leah kept her flashlight fixed straight ahead and her body moved quickly with her muscles tensed. Things had just been too weird for one night.
"Ghosts…" she muttered just speaking to herself though not really paying much attention but rather rambling off ideas just to keep herself sane. "Maybe…they were ghosts…"
Then another thought struck her. "Maybe I'm still unconscious. Maybe this is one big messed up dream and next I'll be in an amusement park with cute little bunny mascots," she chuckled to herself but at the same time apart of her questioned that theory. Wasn't that certainly a possibility?
After a couple of minutes of walking Leah's feet came to a soft halt and she looked at the sight in front of her. "Strange," she whispered softly.
To her immediate left was a streetlight that glowed a ghostly white; the light she had seen back in the woods. In front of her was a street that led forward for a few yards before connecting to a three-way intersection. She squinted with only the glow and very faint hum of the streetlight to aid her. The chirp of the woodland crickets had died out.
Ahead were various shops and Leah could just barely make out a few names. "Regan's Drugs? Flowers by Sadako," she read softly and began to walk forward before pausing. Leah stopped to look over her shoulder and back to the woods. Behind her stood the pitch-blackness enveloped by overly tall tress. It struck her as odd how the forest and the town street just seemed to meet. It looked like two halves put together in the wrong place. One side was forest then suddenly the town.
She then glanced back to the town. Ahead were darker streets with stop signs and traffic lights but no cars to be seen. No visible human life walking about. A faint fog danced along the pavement of the street. Behind her was the forest with the altar, countless things that went bump in the night and somewhere, her car and the road out.
Leah cast her eyes downward and closed them in a small attempt to try and calm down. Half of her wanted to run back into the woods and start screaming for Dan or for anyone to hear her. That part wanted to face what was in the woods, camp at the tent near the altar, do anything but go into the town that lie ahead of her. That part knew that people shouldn't be walking around in the woods at late night, however it also knew that people should still be present in a town, no matter how small.
A light in a window or maybe a shop that was open for late night callers would've all been signs of some sort of life. "Hell…" she thought. "Even the traffic lights should still work, but they don't. " Her eyes drew back to the familiar red, green and yellow lights that hung above the town. They were as dark as a moonless night. Leah felt her chest heave with an intense fear and at her side, the hand clutching Henry began to tremble ever so slightly.
"I don't want to be alone here…" she moaned softly, clenching her eyes shut. "I didn't do anything to deserve this…"
"Or maybe I did… " A thought interrupted.
Leah slowly opened her eyes as if the truth had just pummeled her. What if she HAD done something wrong? What if this town had been her destination? How could she remember the answer to those questions with no memory?
"There's too many questions…" she thought miserably and then looked back to the lonesome street ahead of her. "Too many questions and there's certainly too many reasons to not go into that town, but somehow…that Dan guy is right. I wouldn't be standing here if the answers didn't lie ahead of me, " she rationalized. Something in this town was calling her. It was holding the answers in front of her. All she had to do was step forward.
Slowly her feet moved and she felt her gut clench along with her hand around the spear-like stick. Her eyes drifted to her right were up against an old, sandy brown wood paneled fence sat a dirty green sign. "Silent Hill Forest Hike Trail," it read with a chunky white arrow pointing towards the woods.
"Silent Hill…" Leah murmured. "So the answers lie in Silent Hill…"
It was as though someone had slung a rope out and lassoed her around the waist. Slowly she was being pulled in. Her legs moved forward but not with her conscious mind controlling them.
Leah wasn't sure how much time had passed but she was almost certain that it had been very little before she found herself at the middle of the intersection. She was faced with four choices of which way to go. She scanned each direction but nothing looked helpful or even hinting. "Well…I can't go back…" she said softly only to herself and barren streets.
A soft gleam of something caught her eye and she jogged over to the drugstore she had seen from near the forest's edge. As she approached she instinctively drew the stick up closer, readying it just in case. Her eyes already had begun to scan the store windows for any signs of life but to no avail. The shop itself looked as empty and lifeless as the rest of the town.
The windows were unwashed and dirt clung to certain spots on the fine glass. They looked more like age spots to Leah. Inside she could faintly see aisles of medicinal goods and some old signs advertising certain products. She stepped over to the door and hooked the flashlight through a loophole in her jeans, not willing to set Henry down for even a moment. Once her hand was free she seized the shop handle and jerked it towards her violently. She was rewarded with deep "chunk" as the door held fast either locked or stuck. "Guess it doesn't matter which…I'm still not getting in, " she thought sourly. As she stepped backed something made a small clank against the pale gray concrete at her feet.
She grabbed her flashlight and pointed it downward. She spotted a small bottle, no bigger than a can of soup. She squatted down and gentle picked up the bottle while reading its label. "Pro-Gene Energy Drink…"
She turned to read the label and nutrition facts but conveniently it had been rubbed off. She heaved a disgusted sigh and brushed a single curl back from her face. "It figures…" she muttered and stood up, still holding the drink in her hand. "Still, it's not like I should knock it. I'm going to need food and drink at some point… " She thought, although the thought of eating and drinking anything from this town made her a little uneasy. What if the people had perished from some sort of disease that was transmitted through food and drink?
"Way to think happy thoughts there Leah…"
She quickly pocketed the bottle and brushed the thoughts aside. Something about that scenario felt unlikely and besides that the bottle had remained un-opened.
Footsteps.
Leah turned with the reflexes of a cat and shone her flashlight. "Hello?!"
She trotted forward a bit, stepping out of the doorway of the drugstore and more towards the street. The beam of her flashlight scanned from left to right and back again, as her eyes and ears stayed alert. "Is somebody out there?!" she called once more, trying to keep her voice fairly confident.
More footsteps.
"Hello?! ANYONE!?" she called, trying to follow the sound with her hearing and jogging out onto the street. Her breath caught in her lungs. Something extremely emaciated seemed to dangle along the street in a twitchy sort of dance. A long, gangly skeletal-looking figure. Something that was so perversely shaped that it defied the law of existence. Leah felt a lump of fear rise up in her throat and her hand trembled as she shone the flashlight up ahead. The minute the light doused the figure she felt relief and confusion wash over her at the same time. There stood the little girl, looking alarmed as ever.
Leah gave a huge sigh and began to walk over. "Oh thank God! You know, you really gave me a scare!" Leah said, forcing herself to give a weak little laugh because apart of her wanted to strangle the girl for scaring her half to death.
The little girl backed up once, her big, brown eyes never once leaving Leah, then turned and began to run.
"Hey…HEY WAIT!" Leah called out while taking chase as best as she could though the stick weighed her down and slowed her pace slightly. "WAIT! WHERE ARE YOU GOING!!!?"
Leah urged her legs to keep running. Her boots pounded the pavement roughly as she gave chase. Her eyesight stayed fixed on the little girl but the kid was fast. It was almost as thought the fog was working against her by swallowing up the girl's outline. "No…no!" Leah called out and felt her legs burst with a last ounce of speed. "WAIT! I'm NOT going to hurt you!!"
All at once it was if the street lined stores had vanished and all that remained was the black sky and the road ahead of her, the fog and the sound of children's footsteps until all of a sudden Leah felt her legs go out from beneath her.
She felt the weight of her body tumble forward and there was no way to stop it. She connected with the cold pavement, something jabbing her in the stomach, under her rib. The wind in her lungs left her and she cried out briefly, both the flashlight and the stick flying from her hands which smacked down hard on the cement. She winced but then realized the absence of the feel of the rough bark of the stick in her hands. She momentarily panicked then scrambled up, snatching the stick up like it was a precious jewel. Her eyes darted around until she spotted the flashlight and grabbed that as well. She looked it over and she muttered a soft thanks to God that the impact of the flashlight against the pavement hadn't caused it to short out.
Leah's face winced once more, still panting, and gulped in a gasp of air but felt a twinge of pain where she'd been jabbed as she fell. She looks back to see two small concrete steps. "So that's what it was…" she hissed through gritted teeth and then looked ahead of her. A building loomed over her like a monster sizing up its prey.
The big, iron bold letters out front read: "Lakeview Middle School"
A/N: Okay the hint for the little hidden message in the note in chapter 3 is this: Pay attention to the capital letters. ;)
Thanks Wrath for your review. I hope I still managed to keep the Silent Hill atmosphere.