Chapter 5
August 21, 1983
Brahms, Idaho
Brahms Police Department
6:06 PM
O'Grady tried to concentrate on his paperwork, but found his mind wandering back to Harry and his story. He pushed the paperwork aside and decided that he couldn't just leave his story at this. He needed to know more.
He returned to the interrogation room and seconds later a bewildered Harry sat in front of him. At O'Grady's prompting, he continued.
August 20, 1983
Silent Hill, Idaho
Bachman Road
10:07 AM
Booming. A dull throbbing emanating from somewhere deep within. Specks of color floating, mocking, intangible, laughing just out of reach. The girl. Burned. Bandages. Images blurring by. Making no sense. So clear. House. Water. Telephone pole. Carousel. Wheelchair. Nurse. Worm. It was trying to force its way out of his brain. Pressure. Pain. Pressure. Pain. Pressure. Pain. Pressure. Pain. Pressure. Pain. Pressure. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain.
Stop.
Wake up.
Cheryl.
Harry's eyes fluttered open slowly. His head hurt and his vision was blurry. He put a shaky hand to his forehead. It was sticky and wet. He looked at his hand. It was bloody. Outside the cracked and broken windshield of his Jeep he saw fog. And was that snow falling? Cheryl loved snow.....
Cheryl!
Harry sat bolt upright, ignoring the pain that roared through his body at the sudden movement. He shook his head and looked to the passenger seat.
Cheryl was gone. The door stood open. Harry felt the seat. It was still warm, and there was no sign of blood. He forced open his broken door and gasped as he fell to the ground.
His jeep had flown over the side of the highway onto the incline next to an underpass. His Jeep was precariously balanced on a small brick wall that ran all the way up the street. He looked in shock as he saw that the highway over the overpass had collapsed, blocking the route entirely. He also noticed that it was light out. He looked at his watch. It was morning. He'd been out cold all night.
Then he noticed the emptiness.
The street was entirely devoid of life. There was no one in sight at all. He walked down the street, making his way into town. The fog was thick, too thick. It obscured his view to no more than ten feet in front of him. And indeed it was snowing. In August. It didn't even snow in August in most of Canada. Something was wrong.
Harry ran down the street to an intersection. He read the street sign. He was on Bachman road.
Then he heard little footsteps around the corner. As he turned it, he could make out Cheryl just in front of him in the fog, playing hopscotch.
"Cheryl? Is that Cheryl?" Harry spoke aloud. The little figure stopped playing and ran into the middle of the road. Harry limped after her. Damn. He must have hurt his leg in the crash. At least Cheryl looked okay.
"Wait, where are you going?" Cheryl didn't respond. She just stood there, facing away from him. Then she started walking again. "Wait! Stop!"
Cheryl began to run. Harry ran after her as fast as he could, but he was losing her in the fog. Just as he thought he had lost sight of her, he stopped at the mouth of an alley and glanced down it. Cheryl stood ten feet away in the fog, looking at him. Then she turned and continued down the alley. Harry made chase.
He lost sight of her again but caught a glimpse of her turning left at the end of the alley. He heard a gate squeaking, and followed her past a sign that warned Harry away with the threat of a dog and a KEEP OUT sign.
The sight that awaited him on the other side made him come to a grinding halt. The side of the nearby garage and the ground in front of him was soaked in congealing blood. A ribcage that appeared to have been savagely torn from its owner lay in the middle of it all. Child-size bloody footprints led further down the alley. Swallowing the bile that had risen in his gorge, Harry sidestepped the carnage and continued deeper into the alley. He began to hear clanking sounds, a hollow metal-on-metal sound. He began to feel dizzy, and was walking into the wall and he followed the alley in curves and twists that made no logical sense. He reached another gate and passed through it.
On the other side, a broken wheelchair stood in the corner as the alley curved again. The wheel, badly bent, was still spinning.
Harry jumped as the air was suddenly pierced with the klaxon of a siren that sounded oddly like an air-raid siren from those old war movies. As Harry looked around, confused, the sky began to darken. Before he could react, he was standing in absolute darkness. He reached into his jacket and pulled out his old lighter. He had quit smoking years ago, but he had kept the lighter in case he ever needed it for anything. Hindsight is everything.
"Better than nothing, I guess." He mumbled, and continued into the darkness.
After the next couple of twists and turns he stumbled across a hospital gurney with a human shape covered in a sheet. The abdomen was stabbed at and mutilated with what looked like a scalpel. Harry walked past it, trying not to look. He stepped into a drying pool of blood, swallowed bile again and pushed onward.
As he reached the end, he just stared straight at his feet, not wanting to see what he was sure was more gore, and saw on the ground a coil of intestines. It lead out of his line of vision. Dreading it but needing to look, he followed it to the wall, which was covered in barbed wire. He followed it up past a pair of skinless legs and thighs to a human body, stripped entirely of its skin. It was entwined in the wire, and the skull was exposed. The eyes had been scooped out of their sockets and were nowhere in sight.
"What on earth? What's going on here?" In shock, unable to come up with anything better, Harry mumbled out loud.
He wheeled around as he thought he heard an insect chirp. What he saw was much worse. Some sort of humanoid lizard, which was roughly the size and build of a human child, stumbled towards him in the darkness. It had no eyes, nose or ears, and its skin was leathery and green. In it's three-clawed hand it held a butcher knife. Unable to react at the sight of this abomination, Harry watched dumbly as it screamed and threw itself at him. It stuck its knife deep into Harry's thigh. As the pain reached his brain, Harry yelled out and struggled away from the creature., who let go of the knife, leaving it standing straight up in his leg. As he limped away, he saw another one shamble out from where he had entered from. It, too, held a knife. He backed away from the both of them, and felt a sharp pain scream across his back. He yelled out again and fell forward, rolling around to see another one holding a dripping knife. As he crawled blindly backwards away, he remembered the other creature as it impaled his hand with the ground with its knife. Reacting out of pure instinct, Harry pulled his hand towards him, causing the knife to split his hand open from the palm to the space in between his middle and ring finger.
He stumbled to his feet and, ignoring the pain, ran past the creature still struggling to pull its knife out of the concrete. as he passed the gurney again, he ran straight into a row of bars that blocked further escape.
This wasn't here before! Harry's mind screamed. Turning back, he saw the three creatures walking towards him. Two of them held knives, while the third just walked towards him with its arms at its sides.
Praying to God for mercy, and praying for Cheryl's life, Harry slid sobbing down onto the ground. Looking past the monsters, he swore he saw Cheryl standing behind them, looking blankly at him. As he reached out pleadingly at her, she turned and walked into the darkness one last time. He blinked, and when his eyes opened again he saw it wasn't Cheryl at all. It was the girl he had swerved to avoid hitting on the highway.
His arm was still reaching out to her, and the nearest creature swiped its knife downwards, opening his wrist up in a torrent of blood. At this, all three of them leapt
on him, knives and claws flaying him into ribbons of flesh, muscle and bone. Cheryl......
August 21, 1983
Brahms, Idaho
Brahms Police Department
6:17 PM
"Okay, that's it. Hold it right there. This is too much." O'Grady pressed his eyes with his palms. He had a headache. "Snow in Silent Hill? I was there earlier today, there's no snow on the ground. And reptilian demons? That's ridiculous! And now you're trying to convince me that you were slaughtered by these things?"
Harry pleaded with O'Grady with his eyes. "I know it sounds really out there, but you have to believe me. I know what happened to me."
"I am willing to give you a chance to explain yourself, but you can't possibly have been attacked like that. You're sitting right here in front of me, and your only wound is that bullet in your shoulder."
"I am just as confused about that myself, believe me. And my story gets even worse from here. But you must hear me out."
O'Grady opened his mouth to protest, but decided against it. Amidst his obviously schizophrenic ramblings he might be able to glean some kind of truth from it. "Okay. I'll bite. Continue."
"Just as I was sure I was dead, I lost all my sense of reality and found myself waking up, perfectly healthy, on a booth in a café. As I remembered what had just happened to me, I sat up, startled......"
August 20, 1983
Silent Hill, Idaho
Café 5.2
10:39 AM
Once again. Pressure. Pain. Is this death?, he wondered. His eyes fluttered open, and he saw not angels singing, nor the fires of Hell. He saw a light fixture and a window with the blinds drawn.
The children. The children with knives.
Harry sat up so fast he nearly fell off the booth he was laying on. He looked around frantically for any sign of the children. He saw nothing. He then heard the steady "click click click" of footsteps coming towards him. He saw a shape walking towards him. He squinted in the dim light to try and see it.
She walked into the light from the window in the door. Short, blonde hair, closely cropped to her scalp. She crossed her arms and titled her head at him, her expression unchanging. He took in the blue shirt, the badge, and finally, the holster hung on her jutting hips.
He swung his feet around to the floor, and held his aching head in his hands. The policewoman said nothing, let him get himself oriented. She simply walked over to the counter and seated herself on one of the stools.
After a few moments, Harry's brain began to quiet. "Was I dreaming?", he muttered to himself.
Finally, the cop spoke up. "How are you feeling?"
Harry gave her a bitter smile. "Like I've been run over by a truck, but I'm alright, I guess."
"Glad to hear it."
Harry looked up at her, and they stared at each other in silence for a few minutes.
Hey, she's the cop who passed me on the highway last night, he realized. Before he could ask her what had happened to her, she asked: "What's your name?"
"Harry......Harry Mason."
"Cybil Bennett. I'm a police officer from Brahms, the next town over." Harry said nothing in reply. "You from around here? Why don't you tell me what happened?"
Harry looked up at Cybil. She had a suspicious look in her eyes that he found strangely threatening. "Hey, wait a second. I'm just a tourist, in town on vacation. I just got here." Not exactly the truth, but he really didn't feel like explaining everything to her. He didn't even understand himself. Cybil nodded.
"Have you seen a little girl?" He asked hopefully. "Just turned seven last month. Short, black hair." Cybil stared back at him with a puzzled expression but said nothing. "My daughter." He explained.
Cybil mouthed "Ah" and then shook her head. "Sorry, the only person I've seen in this town is you. The whole town is completely deserted."
"What's going on in this town?"
"I'd tell you if I knew, believe me. But from what I can tell, something bizarre is going on. The phones are all dead, and the radio too. I'm going back to call in some reinforcements."
Enough of this. She doesn't know anything. I have to find Cheryl. Harry stood up quickly and started for the door.
"Hold it!" Cybil remained seated but the tone of her voice halted Harry in his tracks. "Where do you think you're going?"
"My daughter. I've gotta find her!"
At this Cybil stood up. "No way! It's dangerous out there!"
Harry glared back at her. "In that case, I have to find her now. Cheryl's my little girl!"
Cybil's eyes softened a bit. "Have you got a gun?"
Harry swallowed uncomfortably. Why would he need a gun? Those creatures were just in his dream, right? "Um.......no."
"Then take this, and hope you don't have to use it." As he watched in horror, she stepped forward, took a gun out of her holster and held it out to him. Were cops supposed to give civilians guns, even in a ghost town like this? "Remember, before you pull the trigger, know who you're shooting. And don't go blasting me by mistake."
"Uh.....thanks, I guess." He checked the clip, it was full. She had just handed him a loaded gun.
"You'd do best to stay nearby. I'll be back with help as quick as I can."
And with that, she was gone. Harry stared after her, open-mouthed, then shoved the gun in his back pocket and, just to be safe, locked the café's door.
August 21, 1983
Brahms, Idaho
Brahms Police Department
6:29 PM
Harry stopped at this point, as since the mention of Cybil's name, O'Grady had turned white as a sheet and was sweating profusely. O'Grady shook his head, pressed his palms to his eyes, and cleared his throat. "So, uh, Cybil gave you a gun, you say?"
"Yes, she did. Cops don't usually...."
"No, they don't."
"But she did. She must have known..."
O'Grady held up his hand. "That's enough, Mr. Mason. You cannot possibly have met Cybil in Silent Hill yesterday."
"Why not?"
O'Grady took a deep breath. "Cybil Bennett has been missing and presumed dead for seven years now."
It was as if someone had dropped ice down Harry's shirt or something. He pushed back from the table and stood up, knocking over his chair. "What?!"
O'Grady quickly ran through the details of her disappearance. Harry picked up his chair and collapsed into it. "You found her motorcycle crashed?"
"Looked like it."
Harry shut his eyes. "Shit. Well, that explains what I saw, then."
"Enough of this garbage!" O'Grady shouted. "I don't know how you found out all the details about Cybil, but there's no way she's still around. Someone would have seen her! We searched everywhere for her!"
"I know what I saw, okay?"
"Fine, then. When you left Silent Hill, where was Cybil?"
Harry rubbed his temples. "She was with me."
"And where is she now?"
"I.....I don't know. I thought she was right with me and the baby, but I turned around and she was just......gone."
O'Grady decided to see if Mason had any physical proof of Cybil's involvement in what had supposedly happened the day before. "What happened to that gun she gave you?"
"I dropped it after your officer shot me." Harry jerked his head towards his bandaged shoulder. "And for your information, I wasn't planning on attacking them."
"What were you planning on doing?"
"I was trying to escape from this nightmare. You shouldn't have stopped me."
August 21, 1983
Highway 37, Idaho
Near Silent Hill
7:33 PM
After Harry had informed O'Grady that the gun he had that was supposedly Cybil's had been dropped back on the highway, he had called Pollack and asked him to take him back to the spot on the highway where it had all gone down. It wasn't that he forgot where it was, he just didn't want to go alone. Mason's story had managed to spook him.
But he's just a maniac, right? He couldn't possibly be telling the truth.....
O'Grady got out of the cruiser and ordered Pollack to stay there. He walked over to the bloodstain on the highway (either left from the skinless baby or Harry's bullet wound, or both) and cursed.
Lying there on the pavement was the gun. It was a Parabellum 9mm.
The same make as Cybil's service pistol.
Calm down, George. 9mm pistols are far from rare. This means nothing.
But something told him his fears were sound.
He pulled his ball-point out of his chest pocket and picked up the pistol with it through the trigger-guard. Pollack must have been watching closely, because at that moment he appeared at O'Grady's side with a baggie.
Seconds later, they were on their way back to Brahms.
August 21, 1983
Brahms, Idaho
Brahms Police Department
8:47 PM
O'Grady had been searching for 7 minutes through the files on the officers who were on the force from past to present before he finally found Cybil's file. He scanned to page for the serial number of Cybil's service pistol.
When he found it, he nearly passed out.
It matched the gun he had just found.
Harry jumped when O'Grady suddenly appeared and banged his fist hard on the cell door.
"You! You tell me just what the fuck is going on here, now!"
Harry guessed that O'Grady had probably went out to get Cybil's gun. "Are you ready to start believing me, now?"
"Where in the world did you get your hands on Cybil's gun?"
"I told you."
"TELL ME THE TRUTH!" O'Grady roared. Two officers nearby looked up, surprised at their boss's outburst, but quickly looked away.
"I told you the truth! Now, are you willing to let me finish my story?"
O'Grady shut his eyes and rubbed at his temples. "Fine."
"Thank you. After Cybil left the diner, I wandered around the place for a couple of minutes. I was understandably agitated. I couldn't wait any longer. I had to find Cheryl, and fast. But something in my head told me not to leave yet....."
August 20, 1983
Silent Hill, Idaho
Café 5.2
10:49 AM
Harry turned and walked over to the broken pinball machine on the far side of the room. It was plugged in, and there was no "Out Of Order" sign on it, but it just wouldn't work. He tried the TV set on the other side of the café. Also broken. Placed on the counter in front of the TV was a butcher knife and a small bottle of herbal medicine. He pocketed the knife and the bottle on a whim.
On the table behind him was a small red pocket radio. Harry turned it on and wasn't surprised at all to find that it was broken. Cybil had said the radio was out already. But what about the pinball machine and the TV? Was the power out too? There was definitely something going on here.
He thought he had seen a map of the town on the counter over by the pinball machine, and sure enough there was. As he examined the map, he noticed the name of the town. It read Old Silent Hill. He had made it to their destination after all. This town didn't look new at all, though. How in the world had he missed it back when he was in the cemetary with Carolyn? Harry pushed the thought from his mind and looked back to the counter, where was also a yellow flashlight that Harry put in his breast pocket. As he did this, he thought he saw something outside the window move out of the corner of his eye.
What was that? He headed for the door, and was turning the knob when a loud, piercing shriek sounded to his right.
"Huh?" It was the radio. "What's going on with that radio? Is there a signal getting through?" He walked over and picked it up. Wait a minute, this makes no sense! he thought. The power button on the radio was still set to OFF.
The window on the other side of the café exploded inwards. Harry dropped the knife and wheeled around. Nothing. Then the window directly behind him exploded in a flurry of huge leathery wings. Something pecked him, hard, in the back of his neck. He dove to the ground and rolled under the table.
With a squawk, the thing lighted on the ground. Harry peered out at it from under the table, not believing what he was seeing.
It looked to him like a kind of skinless pterodactyl, or at least that's as close to a recognizable beast as it was. It was about four feet tall, with a long, pointed nose and mouth filled with what appeared to be razor blades instead of teeth. Harry felt the back of his neck. Wet. He looked at his bloody hand. He hadn't been pecked, he had been sliced. It had a long, sinewy body with short legs and fierce-looking talons. It's wings were folded under its tiny arms now, but Harry had caught a glimpse of its wings before he had been bitten and concluded its wings appeared to be like those of an oversized bat. It had small, black eyes which seemed to be oozing some kind of viscous fluid. It was covered in horrid veins that bulged out of its skin.
Without thinking, he pulled out the gun Cybil had given him and randomly fired four shots. Two of these hit the bird-thing, one in the chest and one through its head. It squeaked once before collapsing face-down on the floor.
Harry crawled out from under the table and inched towards the bird. He nudged it with the tip of his shoe. He was pretty sure it was dead.
"What the hell is this?! This is not a dream! What's happening to this place?"
Harry then felt sick. He lunged for the door but was too slow. He threw up all over the floor and collapsed, trembling, into the booth he had woken up on.
He closed his eyes and waited until he felt strong enough to get up again. He could still hear a faint buzzing from the radio. It had gone off right before the bird had attacked. Did it somehow sound when something was nearby? He didn't know if there were any more of these things in town, but it couldn't hurt to take it. He strode past the bird without looking at it, grabbed the radio, and shoved it into his jacket pocket next to the flashlight.
He then turned to the door as the bird suddenly clamped its jaws onto his ankle. Startled, the bird sunk it's razor teeth into his foot before he could react. Harry shouted as the pain reached his brain. Without thinking, he kicked viciously at the bird until it let go of his foot.
He realized he had kicked it so hard that his foot had become stuck in its side. He pulled his foot out and examined his injured ankle. The bird hadn't done much damage, it was mostly a flesh wound. He pulled out the bottle of medicine and poured some on the wound.
He was now pretty sure that the bird was dead. But he wasn't taking any chances. He ran for the door and plunged out into the foggy streets of Silent Hill.
August 20, 1983
Silent Hill, Idaho
Bachman Road
11:01 AM
Harry ran a safe distance away from the café and opened his map. He had no idea where to go or what to do now. He found the café on the map and realized he was just south of where he had crashed his car. Or, at least, he was pretty sure he had crashed his car. He wasn't sure if the alley incident had even happened.
He ran up the street and stopped when he saw it. His Jeep, just as he had left it when he had spotted Cheryl through the fog.
So maybe the alley thing had happened.
He had an idea now. He didn't like it one bit, but he was going to go and check that alley again. If Cheryl had gone down there, who knows what could have happened to her? Maybe he wasn't too late.....
He checked the gun. Eleven bullets left. He needed to be careful. Or maybe he was worrying for nothing. He still wasn't sure if those kid-things had been real.
The bird sure as hell had been real.
He shivered and turned from his wrecked car. The radio began screaming. He heard the flapping of wings.
Oh shit.
He flung himself to the ground as the bird bit dove for his neck. His grip slipped as he was bringing the gun up to fire at the bird. The gun flew out of his hands and flew past the bird and slid under his Jeep. The bird watched it as it went, then turned and flew at him again.
Harry grabbed for the knife and slashed the bird as it flew by him. It screamed and flew away into the fog.
The radio went silent.
Harry reached under his car, retrieved his gun, and ran as fast as he could, retracing his steps back to the alley. Passing through the gate, he saw that the ribcage was still there. He held the gun out stiffly in front of him as he neared the second gate. Good. There was the wheelchair, just as he had remembered it. But they sky wasn't going dark. No air raid sirens either. The radio was silent. Very good. Or maybe it didn't pick up the kid-things. He rounded the corner and found himself at the end of the alley. The wall in front of him had a small break in it small enough for Cheryl to have slipped through. He crouched down and peered through the hole. It led to a street behind it.
But he was sure he had walked much farther than this before coming to that skinless corpse. How was this possible? What had been imagined and what was real?
He then noticed what he was kneeling by. It was Cheryl's sketchbook. There was one page torn out and held in place on the ground with a rock. Written on it in red crayon (or at least he hoped it was red crayon) was "To School".
Harry opened his map. There it was, down in the bottom-left corner of the map: Midwich Elementary School. Was Cheryl there? The quickest way there would be to go out the alley the way he came, turn left on Finney Street, and then he'd be on Midwich Street. From there he could simply walk south until he reached the school.
Before he stood up, he saw a 3-foot-long piece of rusted steel pipe that was wrenched from the wall and lay on the ground near the sketchbook. He decided to take it. He was almost out of bullets and the knife wasn't much protection. He hooked it through a belt loop on his jeans. He could carry it like that.
It was time to get going.
He left the alley without incident, which unnerved him rather that comforted him. He turned left and started down Finney Street, but he didn't get very far before he came to a complete stop and stared, disbelieving, at what he saw.
Or didn't see, rather. The road in front of him disappeared into a huge chasm in the ground. He peered over the edge but couldn't see the bottom. He couldn't see anything more in front of him either. It was as if a chunk of the town had fallen right off the planet.
Well, he wasn't going to get to the school this way. He turned back and decided to go around the chasm by going south on Levin Street, and then turning onto Matheson. From there, he would reach Midwich Street easily.
When he was halfway down Levin Street to Matheson, he saw a dog house outside of one of the big Victorian-style houses that lined the street like silent staring faces. He heard a small whimpering noise inside it. He crouched down to peer into it as the radio suddenly went off. Harry stood up, startled by the noise. This saved his life as the dog flew out of the dog house and past where Harry's neck had been just seconds ago.
Two bullets later, the dog lay dead on the street. Harry stood with the gun still pointed at its motionless form.
Oh, my God. I just killed someone's dog.
Harry looked towards the house. He hadn't seen anyone in town, but he was sure any moment some child would run out of the house crying. He turned back to the dog and knelt next to it. Upon closer inspection, he saw that this was no normal dog. Like the bird, it appeared skinless. Its teeth were canine, as was its head shape, but that was all. Its open eyes were reptilian. Its lower jaw stuck out way in front of its nose, which appeared like that of a crocodile.
He bounded up the stairs and hammered on the door. No one came. But the car was still in the driveway. Where was the owner of the house?
He gave up and ran to the corner of Matheson and Levin. He nearly wept when he saw there was yet another chasm separating Midwich from him. It was as if something was trying to keep him away from the school.
There was a small pool of blood and two sheets of sketchbook paper at the edge of the chasm. One said "Dog House", the other "Levin St.".
Harry spun around and sprinted back to the house, his heart racing. Had Cheryl gone there and been hurt by the dog? Maybe it had been her who had been whimpering, not the dog.
He screamed her name over and over, but got no response. He started towards the dog house, accidentally stepped on the dog, and nearly threw up. He stepped over it, knelt down, and peered inside. There was nothing inside besides a whole lot of blood. It was dry, though, so it couldn't be Cheryl's, thank God.
So what did Cheryl mean with her message? He stuck his head into the dog house and looked up. Taped to the underside of the roof was a key.
The radio went off. Harry bumped his head pulling it out of the dog house. He didn't need to look to know that the dog had gotten up. He ran for the front door of the house, jammed the key into the lock, and twisted it hard. He slammed the door with his back and felt the impact of the lunging dog.
After his heart stopped heaving in his chest, he turned and surveyed the small hallway he stood in. There were coats on the coat rack and three pairs of shoes lined up neatly on a mat next to the door, a man's, woman's, and small girl's. Maybe they were still here.
He tried the first door he came to, down the hall a bit to his right. It was locked. He continued down the hallway into the cramped kitchen. The table was set but there was no food on the plates. A good-sized TV was facing the table. It was broken.
A creaking sound brought Harry back to the door in the hallway. The door stood open. Inside he found a comfortable looking sitting room. A bookshelf took up the entire wall to his left. He scanned the spines. Mostly books on theology and philosophy. There was one tome that caught his eye. It was a thick, leather-bound volume with a strange symbol on the cover. There was no title. He flipped it open to a full-page painting of a woman being suspended upside-down on what appeared to be a bedframe. She was screaming. Two figures stood behind her wearing bizarre pointed metal hoods on their heads. They held spears, and one had one up ready to impale the woman. The caption read "Foggy Day, Fulfillment Of The Judgement". Repulsed, he put the book back on the shelf.
He saw a photo album open on the coffee table. He looked at a photo of two smiling little girls. Someone had written above where it was pasted on the page "Claudia and Alessa". Harry gasped as he peered at one of the little girls. It was Cheryl. No, wait. It wasn't Cheryl. The nose was bigger and the eyes were a different color. But the resemblance was uncanny.
"Alessa," Harry whispered. The girl who looked like Cheryl was underneath the name. It resonated in his mind for some reason.
He left the room with the eerie feeling someone was watching him. He headed for the back door. According to his map, the backyard of the house opened into an alley that could lead him past the chasms to Midwich.
The backyard was small, with a small table and two chairs cramped into the corner at his right. A tree took up most of the yard. The gate leading into the alley was stuck. Harry kicked it open as an air raid siren pierced the air.
Oh, no! just like the alley before!
Harry pulled out his gun and spun wildly in a circle as the sky darkened completely.
The radio remained silent. Harry clicked on his flashlight and ran like hell to the end of the alley onto the street. He was on the other side of the chasm on Matheson.
As he turned onto Midwich, the radio began screaming. Harry saw three dogs and two birds heading right for him. He didn't have enough ammo to take them all on. Desperate, he switched off the flashlight and ran forward. He heard the birds pass by him and nearly tripped over one of the dogs. He continued running until the radio went quiet again. He turned the flashlight back on and was pleasantly surprised to see the school just ahead of him.
The heavy wooden doors creaked as he opened them.