(A/N: Well, I know it's been quite a while, but I'm trying to finish my Star Wars: Shades of Gray fic in addition to planning this, so it's kind of slow going. I hate it when projects pull you in different directions, but I'm sure most of you understand. Anyway, I felt like the last chapter needed to be longer, and I had this one planned out anyway, so I figured that I would go ahead this one. All I can really say, is I hope you all enjoy it. As always, any and all comments are welcome.)

Chapter 4

The long wet grasses whipped by my churning legs as I dodged between headstones, forgetting the cryptic message left behind as I doggedly pursued the crashing sound ahead of me. Soon enough, the noise ahead was swallowed up by my own thrashing, but even without that din as a guide I kept up my single-minded pursuit.

Suddenly out of the fog loomed a pair of massive dark shapes. I stumbled to a walk, my breath coming in frantic pants that left small puffs of mist hanging in the hazy night air. The grasses had begun to thin out, and as I drew closer, I saw that the shapes I had previously seen were a pair of huge hedge rows framing a weed-strewn cobblestone trail that stretched off into the fog.

Now, I don't know if I've mentioned it yet or not, but let me give you a little insight into what it was like there—standing there, my breath coming in ever-steadying pants with beads of sweat burgeoning along my brow despite the cold night air. Have you ever been in the woods at night, or really anywhere for that matter, and everything suddenly goes dead quiet? Well that's what it was like—no crickets, no owls, no scurrying sounds somewhere off in the underbrush, nothing except the sound of my own frantic breathing.

So as I stood with my back to the cemetery with this growing sense of dread fermenting in the back of my mind, I suddenly had the feeling that I did not want to be there. Wrapping my arms around myself to help stave off the growing cold, I cautiously stepped upon the cobblestone path.

The framing hedges were soon replaced by a covered walkway of overgrown lattice work. The ivy that had once been purely decorative had overtaken its bounds, turning the walkway into a veritable tunnel of withered vines. I grimaced as I picked up the scent of decaying vegetation, but pressed on anyway, pushing aside the vines hanging in my way as I started through the overgrown walkway.

I halfway expected some rotting hand to reach through the lattice work, grab my collar, and haul me into a mass of writhing vines like some cheesy horror movie, but fortunately for my pounding heart, it didn't happen. I emerged on the other side, still swimming in thick fog, but with a whole new scene to wonder at.

The cobblestone steps beneath me had been replaced by concrete hemmed in by a combination of wrought iron fence and overgrown hedge work. At the center of it all lay a rectangular pond reminiscent of the one on the lawn of the Lincoln Memorial. At the head of this one, however, stood a stark white obelisk nearly fifteen feet high. Most startling though, was the figure that stood before the monument, his hands shoved into the pockets of his corduroy jacket.

He was dressed in worn blue jeans and an equally well-used pair of white tennis shoes. A tangle of blonde hair spilled out from under the Chicago Cubs baseball cap perched on his head, and even though his face was turned away from me, I could glimpse the tip of a cigarette clasped between his lips.

"Um, excuse me?" I asked tentatively.

"Huh?" He turned, plucking the cigarette from his mouth and quickly dropping it to the ground. He hastily ground the embers into the concrete, turning to look in my direction.

His face was squarish, but not overly so. He had the look of an athlete to him, but the faint stubble on his face made gave him the appearance of a teenager trying to look older—which I suppose he was. He looked about sixteen or seventeen—eighteen at the most. Upon seeing me he sighed, shoving his hands back into his pockets "Oh . . . sorry," he muttered, disinterestedly turning back toward the monument, "I thought you were someone else."

I slipped my hands into my pockets as well, taking a few steps forward toward him. "Are you from around here?" I asked, casting a doubtful glance around the decrepit lawn.

"You could say that," he said, still looking up at the monument.

"What do you mean?" I pressed, walking closer.

He sighed and turned back toward me. "I mean that I grew up here. It's been a few years since I last saw it, but yeah. I'm from around here."

"Is the town deserted or something? It doesn't look like anyone has lived here for years."

He shrugged, not meeting my gaze, "Yeah, more or less. The only people who live here anymore are too stuck in their ways to go anywhere else."

"Well, ah, I'm John," I said hesitantly. "It's good to meet you . . . " I trailed off, expecting him to fill the rest in with his name.

"Mike," he said simply.

Silence descended over the both of us as he looked back at the obelisk.

Finally I broke the silence. "Well . . . what are you doing here?"

"I'm looking for someone," he said, still looking at the monument.

"Who?"

"A girl I used to know . . . Jo."

My breath caught in my throat as my mind reeled. Jo. Joanna. My mother. But could this 'Mike' have really known my mother? If he had grown up in Silent Hill, it surely would have had to have been after my mother had left, wouldn't it? It didn't make sense. I couldn't be the same person. Still, I had to ask.

"Um, this girl—Jo—how old is she?"

"Sixteen," he replied evenly.

I sighed, both relieved and disappointed at the same time. "I'm here looking someone too."

He shrugged. "People are always in search of something when they come here. It's been that way as long as I can remember. It's just something about this place."

"Well, maybe we could look for them together. I mean, two heads should be better than one, right?" I gave a nervous laugh, "Anyway, this place kinda gives me the creeps. I could do with some company."

Mike was silent a moment before shaking his head. "No, this is something I have to do by myself."

I frowned in confusion. "Well, if—"

He shook his head again, cutting me off, "Just trust me. No."

"Well okay, but—"

"Listen, I've got to get going"

"Well, it was good meeting you, I guess."

"Same," he said, turning away from me and heading off into the fog.

"Wait, where are you going?" I called after him.

He just shrugged, "I don't really know, but I will when I get there." With that, he slipped into the fog and disappeared from view.

So I was alone again. I had met perhaps the only person left in Silent Hill—probably the only person who knew the town well enough to help my find my mother—and I let him walk off into the fog without the slightest protest.

I sighed and walked over to the obelisk monument, wondering slightly what Matt had found so interesting in its worn stone edifice. Smatterings of moss grew in between the cracks of some of the blocks, and the lower portion of the monument had been covered with a layer of rusty brown lichens. The plaque at the base, however, had escaped most of the vegetative onslaught. It read: "In memoriam of the young men of our town who lost their lives and their youths on the distant battlefield of Vietnam, the citizens of Silent Hill dedicate this memorial so that their sacrifices may never be forgotten."

I raised an eyebrow curiously, wondering what Mike had found so interesting about the monument. Perhaps his father had died in the war, I mused, but as I tried to crunch the numbers in my head, they just didn't add up. Unless he was a lot older than his young face implied, his father couldn't have died back in that conflict. So what then, perhaps another relative? A grandfather or uncle? Whatever the answer, it didn't matter. Mike was right. He had his own demons to face, and I had mine.

I turned to go, but a glint of something metallic at the base of the obelisk caught my eye. I stooped forward, looking for whatever I had seen. I found it in the form of a set of keys lying in the gravel before the monument. I picked them up, examining them as I turned the set over in my palm.

There were two brass keys on the loop and a green rubber key chain in the shape of a football. The white lettering on the keychain had rubbed off in some places, but I could make out the words "Midwich High School." Squinting at the keys, I could make out similar lettering engraved into the base of both. Were these keys to the town's school? And if so, where the hell did they come from? Did Mike drop them?

As I thought about it, that seemed to be the only solution that made sense. Perhaps he had been on his way to the school and dropped the keys somehow. It made sense to me, seeing as how he was about the right age for high school. What didn't make sense was why he would be running to a high school in the dead of night in a town that looked as if it hadn't seen regular inhabitants for years—but that really didn't dawn on me at the time. Perhaps I was kind of numb from everything that had already happened this night, but really I think my mind just sort of locked out such thoughts. I was just looking for some kind of company to stave off the forlorn loneliness that seemed to inhabit this place.

I stuffed the keys into my jacket pocket and pulled out the map I found in my mother's car. I knew I had seen something on the map that looked like a football field, and I hoped that it was somehow attached to the rumored high school. Sure enough, I found it. What's more, it was relatively close by. I tried as best I could to commit some of the street names to memory and then folded the map up once more. After stuffing the map into my back pocket, I set off in the direction Mike had gone, hoping that I could catch up with him before he got to there.