Odd note, this is a funny kind of fidget…I work on it in breaks between classes and while I'm sorting thoughts on other work, so it's a sanity-saver. (…as wrong as it is to use Silent Hill for a sanity SAVER.) I do plan on including most of the other SH characters here and there, either in actual presence or in reference - since saaay, Harry's probably not going to go anywhere near Silent Hill, and Vincent isn't going to be allowed out. As for Henry and the 4 cast showing up - that'll largely depend on how the timeline tweaks out on the four games; I've already set 2 around when this fic starts, and was thinking that with the lack of reference to a central church in 4, it'd make the most sense to set it somewhere after events of 3… -cough- with my POV character, that might be a problem, exc. for the ones that were in Silent Hill before 4 begins.
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Every time he walked to the car for two days, the dents and rusty blood marks bothered him. Had the twisted fog-realm, the dog-things, all been a dream? If he were just hallucinating, then they wouldn't have left damage to the car; but if he was hallucinating, maybe his mind was just filling in the damage to the car.
At least that gave him a simple test; it was probably about time to get the oil changed and the engine checked anyway.
He followed a couple recommendations to a shop and junkyard on the north edge of town; it was quiet when he arrived, except for the rustlings of several large vultures perched on various weed-grown wrecks around the building. Two of them shared a vigil from the winch of a rust-spotted white tow truck parked in front of one of the garage bays; he parked beside it.
He almost wondered if anyone was there as he got out of the car, when the murky, dirty glass door swung open with a jangle of cow bells and mismatched chimes; an older man of leather and grime walked out, rubbing together hands hidden in thick work gloves, jeans alternately faded and blotched pocked with acid holes, thick wool shirt faded to a sort of dingy lack of color. He waved to Vincent, then looked to the vultures who'd started rustling and squalling; disappearing into the shop briefly, he emerged again with a metal bucket, throwing bits of old meat-scrap to each of them as he walked.
"You feed the vultures?", he asked, forgetting courtesies at the strange spectacle.
"They showed up'ere a few years ago; I tried to chas'em off, then it occurred t'me that I'm makin' my living more off salvage as anything, an'we're not so far apart, me'n'them."
Vincent nodded slowly, watching the two on the tow truck pull apart a piece of gristly meat between them. The mechanic walked his car, studying the dents and damage speculatively.
"What'd y'hit? Almost looks like some'in was tryin' to get in your way." He kicked one of the bloodstains on the bumper. It was real.
"Aah, couple strays; think they were rabid or something."
The mechanic nodded and knelt down to study the worst of the dents on the left side, over the wheel well; leaning under the car, he hrmed and clicked at whatever he was seeing.
"Y'ever feel like the world's goin' nuts, an'yer the only sane thing left?"
Vincent felt an inner wince that didn't show. "Sometimes, quite."
One glove raised out of the wheel well, a rotting piece of thin, translucent skin dripping off it. "Wouldn'ta wanted to see that roadkill.", the mechanic stated matter of factly, then started fighting to get something loose from the axle; Vincent slowly took a couple steps back, to sit on the seat of a motorcycle parked on the sidelines.
It was a blue and white police cycle, complete with the windshield on the front and identification numbers; it looked like it'd been refurbished and parts had been replaced.
"Christ, that musta been some hit; yer lucky you didn't wreck completely." He looked up, and the mechanic was standing up, dusting the sides of his jeans, holding something white and red and ragged; he walked partway around the car and held up a stretch of four vertebrae, bits of tendon, muscle, and more skin-slime still clinging to it. "This was wedged in onna the axle joints. Damn lucky somm'in didn't break." He tossed it back over one shoulder to another of the vultures, who greedily caught it out of midair.
"Are you sure you want them eating that?"
"Eh; is' their purpose in life, t'clean up what nobody else'll touch. 's what we scavengers do."
The vulture had set it down with one claw on it, ripping the shreds away from the bone. It must've been part of the neck of the one he'd almost taken the head off; the sun gleaming off the vulture's black feathers and pale pink head seemed to lend more realism to the scrap of carrion and the beast it'd come from. He looked away, back to the bike.
"How'd you come by this?" He patted the middle of the handlebars.
"That? Salvage, like a lot of the other stuff here." He gestured at the wrecks and partial wrecks littering the grounds. "Spent months rebuilding the bloody thing, an'no matter what I do, it won't work, but then, considerin' where I pulled it out of, I shouldn' be surprised."
"Was it sunken in a lake or something?"
"Nah; 'twas one of the routine ol' abandoned wrecks that turns up. Y'know that stretch of road out by th'Welcome to town sign?" The sun seemed to shine a little colder as Vincent nodded. "Every year, I get called out three er four times t'fetch wrecks from the ditch out there; never a soul t'claim'em. It's almost creepy; I cn'call and call an' track registration, but's like the people that owned'em 'ave vanished int'thin air, an' nobody seems t'have a clue what happened or care that they're gone." Two more degrees dropped from Vincent's blood; had he almost been another of those nameless wrecks? "Y'think that's some'n, you should see what came off the other side of the road, same damn night." The old junker waved at him to follow, and led him around the building, to point at an old seventies black four-door. The front end was crumpled inward as if it'd hit a narrow, unyielding pole dead center, folding the entire front of the car almost up to the windshield; next to it was an engine block that'd been cut clean through, crumpling around whatever'd been hit. "Found this one on the other side of the road; looked fer all the world like the poor bastard'd swerved t'miss somethin' and gone off the road. Y'know what 'e hit to trash the car like that?" Vincent shook his head slowly. "The sign. Had to pry it offa where it'd folded right around that damn welcome sign. The support pole shoulda snapped clean off, but when we got the car offa it, there wasn't a scratch on it t'show it'd been hit almost. Night I pulled these two in...I was out there 'till two am gettin' this one offa the sign, an' when I finally got it on the tow truck, I get in the cab, an' go to start it, an' this fog rolls in, thicker'n pea soup. Lights aren't even cuttin' through it, an' I'm thinkin, I can't even see the damn road under me, maybe I should just sleep in the cab...so I look down t'turn on the radio an' see what's up, an' look back up, an'its like I parked in Hell itself. The trees were clawin' at the sky like they wanted t'let somethin out, but never when I looked at'em straight, everythin' was rust and rot and death, an'there were things movin' in the woods, things that weren't ever s'pposed to exist; radio flipped out, screamin' unholy racket, but there were patterns t'it, like some'n unnatural were tryin' t'chant through it. Then just as sudden, everythin' was back t'normal, the fog was 'nuff to drive through, calm an'quiet a night as'y'please. Never drove back faster'n my life."
Forget feeling like the only sane one; the world had gone mad, and was dragging Vincent in with it, the wreck attesting mutely to the fate of the town's victims.
Welcome to Silent Hill.