SILENT HILL- The Cadaver
The cooler was totally ruined, every inch of it's inner holdings stained red with blood and bits of flesh.
Estelle flailed back and fell on her ass, sitting with her hands propping her up as she screamed more.
It was so gruesome, she beagn to feel like she was going to vomit again. Only in the otherworld would she ever
have to see something so unthinkable. It used to be a man, Estelle assumed. Until someone had taken whatever
implements of mutilation and turned him into what she now saw. And it wasn't just the gore, the deed had been done
with a certain dark sadism. The entire body also held severe burns.
It was probably humorous, if only to the one that had murdered him.
The head lay sideways on the bottom shelf of the cooler, the eyes half closed while the mouth hung open in horror.
The expression suggested that he had died very slowly, his eyes blank instead of wide with shock at the pain
he must have felt. Which meant that by the time he died, the pain wasn't anything new. His torso was in several pieces,
all bearing ragged stumps as if they were torn or ripped apart instead of cut. His lower abdomen was laid flat on the middle
shelf, his upper half attached to the top of the cooler with stitching. Estelle noticed his arms and legs were whole, and
yet oddly incomplete. One arm was set against the wall of the cooler, everything from the elbow on down just wasn't there.
She had a morbid thought, and went around to inspect the cooler's outer side. There was the rest of his arm, somehow sticking
out of the solid wall. It was the same with his other limbs, stuck half in and half out of the cooler. Estelle stepped back,
and saw that the protruding arms and feet were placed in such a way that it looked as if he was trying to run.
One arm was pointed upwards at a ninety degree angle, clenched into a fist at the end as if to curse the heavens.
The arm at the other side was pointing downwards at the same angle, the hand open and fingers stretched tenuously.
His feet appeared to be in mid-stride, as if the entire cooler could take off running. Posted high on one side of the
reach-in, was a note. Estelle read it carefully, dreading any kind of puzzle that involved a dismembered corpse.
ThE buTCHER To bAKE HER
THe CANdLEsticK MAKer
HUrT bY his LIES
She murdErED tHE faKEr
oNE pIEcE to hOLD hER
aNOThER tO toUCH
sHE rEMADe tHe MaN
tHaT hurt HEr sO mUcH
oNE parT tO aDmIRE
WIth wHIcH sHE cOULD lAY
ShE SeT HiM oN fiRe
WHen hE tRIEd tO ruN aWaY
fIVe tIMeS dID hE hurT hER
fivE tIMeS dId he LIE
fiVe RinGS wIll hE wEAR
tO PLeASuRE hER eYE
oNE dArK aS heR sOUL
hELD neXt tO hiS HEARt
oNE bRiGHT aS THe sUN
bEheLd bY tHIs PArT
tWO shINe iN saId sUN
HolD hIm FAst tO thE MaRK
tHE fInAL oNe uSElEss
tO bE plACed As sUCH
Ah ME SucH a WretCH
ShE LoVED hIm tOo mUcH
"Goddamnit you bastards!" Estelle shouted, swinging her foot angrily against the cooler's side. Had she been looking inside,
she would have seen the upper torso twitch at the impact and spurt a clot of blood. "You're already scaring the shit out of me,
now you're making me think too? God!" Estelle ranted a bit longer, before she calmed down enough to read the clues over again.
Clearly the number five was a part of it, since she had five rings. She paused and took the pack of gum out of her pocket,
eyeing it suspiciously. Of course, she also had five sticks of gum. Estelle deduced that the rest of the poem was trying to tell
her where each ring should be placed. But it spoke of things other than fingers, or toes. Places a ring would never actually stay,
unless you...She sighed, rubbing her fingers against her temple. She understood all too well, feeling her stomach lurch again.
She opened the pack of gum, unwrapping one stick and putting it in her mouth. She read the poem again as she chewed,
trying not to wonder how safe anything found in a place like this was to eat. The dark ring had to be the copper, even bronze
has a generally lighter color to it. And the other rings were all cleaned, perhaps even polished. While the copper ring she'd found
was dirty and rusted. Estelle took the gum out of her mouth, forming it around the copper ring as she went back to the
dismembered man. His upper torso, where his heart would be, seemed the right place according to the poem. She stuck the copper ring
firmly onto the burned flesh. Nothing happened, and Estelle scratched her head. "Oh..God.." She whimpered, her face puckering in
disgust as she place the ring inside the ragged opening of the torso. She wanted to scream and vomit and run away all at the same time,
but held on somehow as her hand moved up inside the mess of organs until she found the heart. She pushed as much a she dared, hoping
the ring would stay as she hastily withdrew her hand. The upper torso quivered, bleeding freshly as it spasmed against the stiches.
Estelle was about to unwrap another stick of gum, and caught a glance of her hand covered with gore. She grimaced and looked around for
a sink, finding a small basin in the far corner. She turned the handle and gasped as only blood came out of the faucet, small insects
were flushed out as well and drowned in the liquid. "Oh come on.." Estelle pleaded, almost crying. She closed her eyes and
put the stick of gum in her mouth, thinking only of getting out of here as she chewed. She was sure she'd throw up any second,
but if she did the piece of gum would be lost. She only had five, and she needed every last one. Estelle fought against her stomach's
rising bile, spitting the gum into her hand as soon as it was soft enough to stick. The sun must be referring to rhe gold ring,
and the part beholding it could only be the eye. Estelle smoothed the gum over her gold ring, placing it gently on the eye of the head
at the bottom of the cooler. When nothing happened, Estelle tried the other eye. It popped right in her face, and she did vomit.
The curses meant for the town and everyone in it were drowned out by gutteral heaves, as she suddenly feared she would pass out.
"I just...Want to get..Out of here...I wanna get away.." Estelle sobbed, as the last of it passed through her system.
The man's face was convlusing, a facial tick afflicting his eyebrows as the mouth tried repeatedly to scream.
Estelle slapped herself on the cheek, becoming her own tough drill sergeant that demanded she go on.
She unwrapped the third stick of gum with her hands covered by her top, managing to get it into her mouth without incident.
She did the same with a fourth piece, and thought about the next part of the riddle. It sounded as if the next two rings were
like shackles, holding him fast to whatever her desire had been. Only one of his hands had fingers available, so she forced
the other ring into his clenched fist. To her surprise, the fist suddenly came to life and refused to let her hand go.
Estelle screamed and pulled away, her hand receiving a slight burn as if the man's skin were still on fire.
The open hand grasped madly at the air, as the whole room seemed to share in his suffering. With the silver and platinum
rings in place, she took the bronze ring, the useless one, and chewed on her last sitck of gum as she pondered where it should go.
Technically the feet should be the useless limbs, and they had toes to slip the ring onto. But it seemed too easy, and there
was still the lower abdomen to consider. "Every part comes to life when I give it a ring.." Estelle mused, her words
slightly muffled by the chewing. "So if I put it on his feet, he could run away. But he can't run away.."
Estelle pursed her lips, and all at once realized what the poem was about. How the man had hurt her.
He'd been unfaithful, and gone around behind her back five times before she could no longer bear it.
Of course, the spirits in this town would make her face the things she wanted to avoid most.
The lower torso was laid flat on it's back, and Estelle shut her eyes as she turned it over. She held her breath,
moving as quickly as she could to place the bronze ring over the man's burnt penis. "Please let me leave now.."
Estelle begged, as the room continued to shake. The anguished cry she'd heard in the kitchen returned, echoing as
the cooler sprang to life. The man's legs supported it's weight easily, as it lumbered after her.
"No!" Estelle cried, backing off and raising the handgun. The cooler man raced towards her on all fours, the head
inside screaming and muttering occultish nonsense as it ran into her. She fired off rounds as she fell, gasping
as the bullets failed to go through the cooler's outer wall. The cooler man stood up again, snatched her gun away
and slapped her across the face with it's other hand. Estelle toppled over and fell against the chain link walls,
seeing the mallet still leaning beside her right where she'd left it. The cooler man got down on all fours again,
charging as it had before. Estelle took the mallet into her grasp and jumped for all she was worth, landing on top of the cooler.
"Just give it up!" She shouted hatefully, smashing through the cooler's exterior with the mallet after six or seven blows.
The cooler man couldn't do anything about it, it's arms and legs couldn't reach that far. It tried to turn itself over
and shake Estelle off, but she beat it to the punch and brought the mallet down on it's arm. It was screaming like a lunatic
now, as was Estelle. The gibberish from the face was still incoherent, merely ramblings of pain as Estelle beat it to death.
The world suddenly looked like a wet oil painting, swirling around her as the cooler man fell still.
"I! Never! Even! Liked You!" Estelle howled, bashing the monstrosity even though it was already dead. She remembered him now,
Lenny. The dishwasher that would always stare, and try to talk to her, and ask her out on dates. He would never give up, as many
times as she'd refused, he was always trying one more time. Lenny Grancer, the idiot drunk who'd lost two of his fingers
looking at her ass that day. She'd gone out with him once, not even a date really. She'd felt guilty about his injury
and agreed to go somewhere with him just once, to satisfy her own conscience. Somewhere, had turned out to be a park in the woods.
And he had tried to rape her, had almost suceeded. It was the only time she'd been glad to see her father, who had been watching
silently the entire time. To her horror, he hadn't come out to stop Lenny. He'd just stood there, watching Lenny tear at her clothes.
Telling her all the things he was going to do, rather she wanted them or not. How had she escaped? Estelle couldn't remember at all,
and it worried her. The scenery came swirling back, as Estelle found herself in the Lakeview Hotel. "Estelle, dear." Reginald's
sissy voice loomed from the shadows. "Whatever in the world are you trying to do?"
The cooler was totally ruined, every inch of it's inner holdings stained red with blood and bits of flesh.
Estelle flailed back and fell on her ass, sitting with her hands propping her up as she screamed more.
It was so gruesome, she beagn to feel like she was going to vomit again. Only in the otherworld would she ever
have to see something so unthinkable. It used to be a man, Estelle assumed. Until someone had taken whatever
implements of mutilation and turned him into what she now saw. And it wasn't just the gore, the deed had been done
with a certain dark sadism. The entire body also held severe burns.
It was probably humorous, if only to the one that had murdered him.
The head lay sideways on the bottom shelf of the cooler, the eyes half closed while the mouth hung open in horror.
The expression suggested that he had died very slowly, his eyes blank instead of wide with shock at the pain
he must have felt. Which meant that by the time he died, the pain wasn't anything new. His torso was in several pieces,
all bearing ragged stumps as if they were torn or ripped apart instead of cut. His lower abdomen was laid flat on the middle
shelf, his upper half attached to the top of the cooler with stitching. Estelle noticed his arms and legs were whole, and
yet oddly incomplete. One arm was set against the wall of the cooler, everything from the elbow on down just wasn't there.
She had a morbid thought, and went around to inspect the cooler's outer side. There was the rest of his arm, somehow sticking
out of the solid wall. It was the same with his other limbs, stuck half in and half out of the cooler. Estelle stepped back,
and saw that the protruding arms and feet were placed in such a way that it looked as if he was trying to run.
One arm was pointed upwards at a ninety degree angle, clenched into a fist at the end as if to curse the heavens.
The arm at the other side was pointing downwards at the same angle, the hand open and fingers stretched tenuously.
His feet appeared to be in mid-stride, as if the entire cooler could take off running. Posted high on one side of the
reach-in, was a note. Estelle read it carefully, dreading any kind of puzzle that involved a dismembered corpse.
ThE buTCHER To bAKE HER
THe CANdLEsticK MAKer
HUrT bY his LIES
She murdErED tHE faKEr
oNE pIEcE to hOLD hER
aNOThER tO toUCH
sHE rEMADe tHe MaN
tHaT hurt HEr sO mUcH
oNE parT tO aDmIRE
WIth wHIcH sHE cOULD lAY
ShE SeT HiM oN fiRe
WHen hE tRIEd tO ruN aWaY
fIVe tIMeS dID hE hurT hER
fivE tIMeS dId he LIE
fiVe RinGS wIll hE wEAR
tO PLeASuRE hER eYE
oNE dArK aS heR sOUL
hELD neXt tO hiS HEARt
oNE bRiGHT aS THe sUN
bEheLd bY tHIs PArT
tWO shINe iN saId sUN
HolD hIm FAst tO thE MaRK
tHE fInAL oNe uSElEss
tO bE plACed As sUCH
Ah ME SucH a WretCH
ShE LoVED hIm tOo mUcH
"Goddamnit you bastards!" Estelle shouted, swinging her foot angrily against the cooler's side. Had she been looking inside,
she would have seen the upper torso twitch at the impact and spurt a clot of blood. "You're already scaring the shit out of me,
now you're making me think too? God!" Estelle ranted a bit longer, before she calmed down enough to read the clues over again.
Clearly the number five was a part of it, since she had five rings. She paused and took the pack of gum out of her pocket,
eyeing it suspiciously. Of course, she also had five sticks of gum. Estelle deduced that the rest of the poem was trying to tell
her where each ring should be placed. But it spoke of things other than fingers, or toes. Places a ring would never actually stay,
unless you...She sighed, rubbing her fingers against her temple. She understood all too well, feeling her stomach lurch again.
She opened the pack of gum, unwrapping one stick and putting it in her mouth. She read the poem again as she chewed,
trying not to wonder how safe anything found in a place like this was to eat. The dark ring had to be the copper, even bronze
has a generally lighter color to it. And the other rings were all cleaned, perhaps even polished. While the copper ring she'd found
was dirty and rusted. Estelle took the gum out of her mouth, forming it around the copper ring as she went back to the
dismembered man. His upper torso, where his heart would be, seemed the right place according to the poem. She stuck the copper ring
firmly onto the burned flesh. Nothing happened, and Estelle scratched her head. "Oh..God.." She whimpered, her face puckering in
disgust as she place the ring inside the ragged opening of the torso. She wanted to scream and vomit and run away all at the same time,
but held on somehow as her hand moved up inside the mess of organs until she found the heart. She pushed as much a she dared, hoping
the ring would stay as she hastily withdrew her hand. The upper torso quivered, bleeding freshly as it spasmed against the stiches.
Estelle was about to unwrap another stick of gum, and caught a glance of her hand covered with gore. She grimaced and looked around for
a sink, finding a small basin in the far corner. She turned the handle and gasped as only blood came out of the faucet, small insects
were flushed out as well and drowned in the liquid. "Oh come on.." Estelle pleaded, almost crying. She closed her eyes and
put the stick of gum in her mouth, thinking only of getting out of here as she chewed. She was sure she'd throw up any second,
but if she did the piece of gum would be lost. She only had five, and she needed every last one. Estelle fought against her stomach's
rising bile, spitting the gum into her hand as soon as it was soft enough to stick. The sun must be referring to rhe gold ring,
and the part beholding it could only be the eye. Estelle smoothed the gum over her gold ring, placing it gently on the eye of the head
at the bottom of the cooler. When nothing happened, Estelle tried the other eye. It popped right in her face, and she did vomit.
The curses meant for the town and everyone in it were drowned out by gutteral heaves, as she suddenly feared she would pass out.
"I just...Want to get..Out of here...I wanna get away.." Estelle sobbed, as the last of it passed through her system.
The man's face was convlusing, a facial tick afflicting his eyebrows as the mouth tried repeatedly to scream.
Estelle slapped herself on the cheek, becoming her own tough drill sergeant that demanded she go on.
She unwrapped the third stick of gum with her hands covered by her top, managing to get it into her mouth without incident.
She did the same with a fourth piece, and thought about the next part of the riddle. It sounded as if the next two rings were
like shackles, holding him fast to whatever her desire had been. Only one of his hands had fingers available, so she forced
the other ring into his clenched fist. To her surprise, the fist suddenly came to life and refused to let her hand go.
Estelle screamed and pulled away, her hand receiving a slight burn as if the man's skin were still on fire.
The open hand grasped madly at the air, as the whole room seemed to share in his suffering. With the silver and platinum
rings in place, she took the bronze ring, the useless one, and chewed on her last sitck of gum as she pondered where it should go.
Technically the feet should be the useless limbs, and they had toes to slip the ring onto. But it seemed too easy, and there
was still the lower abdomen to consider. "Every part comes to life when I give it a ring.." Estelle mused, her words
slightly muffled by the chewing. "So if I put it on his feet, he could run away. But he can't run away.."
Estelle pursed her lips, and all at once realized what the poem was about. How the man had hurt her.
He'd been unfaithful, and gone around behind her back five times before she could no longer bear it.
Of course, the spirits in this town would make her face the things she wanted to avoid most.
The lower torso was laid flat on it's back, and Estelle shut her eyes as she turned it over. She held her breath,
moving as quickly as she could to place the bronze ring over the man's burnt penis. "Please let me leave now.."
Estelle begged, as the room continued to shake. The anguished cry she'd heard in the kitchen returned, echoing as
the cooler sprang to life. The man's legs supported it's weight easily, as it lumbered after her.
"No!" Estelle cried, backing off and raising the handgun. The cooler man raced towards her on all fours, the head
inside screaming and muttering occultish nonsense as it ran into her. She fired off rounds as she fell, gasping
as the bullets failed to go through the cooler's outer wall. The cooler man stood up again, snatched her gun away
and slapped her across the face with it's other hand. Estelle toppled over and fell against the chain link walls,
seeing the mallet still leaning beside her right where she'd left it. The cooler man got down on all fours again,
charging as it had before. Estelle took the mallet into her grasp and jumped for all she was worth, landing on top of the cooler.
"Just give it up!" She shouted hatefully, smashing through the cooler's exterior with the mallet after six or seven blows.
The cooler man couldn't do anything about it, it's arms and legs couldn't reach that far. It tried to turn itself over
and shake Estelle off, but she beat it to the punch and brought the mallet down on it's arm. It was screaming like a lunatic
now, as was Estelle. The gibberish from the face was still incoherent, merely ramblings of pain as Estelle beat it to death.
The world suddenly looked like a wet oil painting, swirling around her as the cooler man fell still.
"I! Never! Even! Liked You!" Estelle howled, bashing the monstrosity even though it was already dead. She remembered him now,
Lenny. The dishwasher that would always stare, and try to talk to her, and ask her out on dates. He would never give up, as many
times as she'd refused, he was always trying one more time. Lenny Grancer, the idiot drunk who'd lost two of his fingers
looking at her ass that day. She'd gone out with him once, not even a date really. She'd felt guilty about his injury
and agreed to go somewhere with him just once, to satisfy her own conscience. Somewhere, had turned out to be a park in the woods.
And he had tried to rape her, had almost suceeded. It was the only time she'd been glad to see her father, who had been watching
silently the entire time. To her horror, he hadn't come out to stop Lenny. He'd just stood there, watching Lenny tear at her clothes.
Telling her all the things he was going to do, rather she wanted them or not. How had she escaped? Estelle couldn't remember at all,
and it worried her. The scenery came swirling back, as Estelle found herself in the Lakeview Hotel. "Estelle, dear." Reginald's
sissy voice loomed from the shadows. "Whatever in the world are you trying to do?"