Chapter 7

August 20, 1983

Silent Hill, Idaho

Midwich Elementary School

12:09 PM

When he had opened the door, it had opened inwards. Harry found no handle on the inside with which he could pull it open. He hammered on the door and screamed out for Cheryl to open the door.

What the hell has gotten into her?!

"Cheryl, you have to listen to me! You have to open this door! Something is wrong with this town, there are weird creatures all over the place! It's dangerous! I need to protect you! Please open the door! Please!"

Nothing. The only thing he could hear was some sort of scratching sound.

Defeated, he turned back to the ladder and reluctantly began to descend it. Maybe he could find a way out down here.

He must have been climbing down for a good four minutes before he reached the bottom. The floor wasn't even a floor at all, but a metal grid suspended over even more darkness.

What is this place?

Harry started forward. The grid was littered with countless liquor bottles and medicine capsules. Puzzled about the presence of these items in a clock tower at an elementary school, Harry continued walking for about a hundred feet until he reached another ladder. If his mental geography was right, this would lead up to somewhere outside the school grounds.

I need to get back to Cheryl.

He quickly ascended the ladder, which led up fairly the same distance as the other ladder had led down. At the top, Harry found himself in a small room completely identical to the one he had become trapped in, save for a handle on the inside of the stone door before him, which he pulled open.

It was raining hard, so it took Harry a few bewildered seconds to realize that he was back in the school courtyard.

Have I been here before? Yes! This is....But how can that be? I went straight that way. It's not possible for me to be back here.

The scratching sound flew back into Harry's mind as he surveyed the strange symbol carved into the courtyard path at his feet.

This symbol.......it's the same one that was on that book in the house.....Did Cheryl do this? Why....?

A frenzied roar pierced the air and was soon followed by the sound of someone banging hard on a piano. It sounded like it was coming from the music room. The screaming and the banging continued in scattered intervals. Harry tried to shut out the noise but couldn't. He ran for the double doors leading to the school entrance was slammed into the door.

It didn't budge. He went sprawling backwards onto the concrete. Shit! Something locked the door!

Harry turned for the opposite doors to see two zombie children making their way towards him, scalpels gripped in their claws. He aimed his gun and pulled the trigger. The monster that was closest to him didn't even cry out as the bullet punched a hole in its chest. It shrugged off two more bullets before the third one blew its head off its shoulders. Turning to the other creature, which was almost upon him, he fired once into its leg and ran past where it fell. He stopped a short distance away and turned back to the thing, which was getting up. He pulled the trigger. Nothing. He was out of ammo.

"No....."

The zombie child squeaked at him, and then jumped into the air towards him.

Harry flew through the double doors behind him and slammed them shut. Panting, he turned around and nearly choked. The hallway was completely transformed. The walls had been dingy before, but now they were downright filthy. They were all cracked and covered in either rust, blood, or a mixture of both. The floors were now covered in that grid material from the clock tower, and the floor itself was nowhere to be seen.

Two squeaks sounded from both his left and his right. Two zombie children were making their way down both sides of the hall towards him. He couldn't fight two of them with the pipe or the knife, so he headed quickly through the doors in front of him into what, if he remembered the map right, led to the back door of the school.

There was no door in this room. Where it should have been, a giant rusty fan spun around in a circle, but Harry felt no wind from it. The doors behind him flew open, knocking Harry onto his face dangerously close to the fan. Pushing himself up with his arms, he twisted around to see the two zombie creatures in the doorway.

Oh, fuck......

Harry was barely able to yank the pipe from his belt as one flew through the air towards him. Shutting his eyes, he swung the pipe upwards, catching the still-airborne creature in the groin and lifting it up and over his head into the fan blades. When Harry opened his eyes, it was all over the room. The other zombie child cocked its head at a piece of what used to be its companion that had landed near its feet, then chirped and retreated out of sight.

Harry got unsteadily to his feet, suppressing the urge to vomit, and began to make his way to the door. He stopped when he saw what was on the bench to his right. Three boxes of handgun bullets stacked neatly on top of each other. He grabbed one, opened it, and reloaded his gun. The other two went into his vest pocket.

He needed to find Cheryl as fast as he could and get the hell out of here. But where could she be? Was that her bashing on the piano upstairs? He remembered the screaming that accompanied the piano, and decided against it. All he could do was check every room.

August 20, 1983

Silent Hill, Idaho

Midwich Elementary School

12:29 PM

Out of breath, Harry scratched out another room on the map. He had checked everywhere he could on the first floor, but access to the east hallway and basement were locked. Upstairs, he found a large mesh gate blocking access to the music room and locker room, as well as the washrooms.

Well, I can't go any further this way.

Access to the east hallway was also barred; the double doors in the north hallway was jammed and the library reserve room was locked.

He returned back downstairs and headed down the west hallway, hoping to find a way to the entrance. A locked mesh gate blocked access to the washrooms on this floor, too. He found the double doors leading into the entrance hallway was locked, but thankfully the deadbolt could be opened on his side.

The reception desk was now blocked off by a mesh gate, and Harry could see that the books containing the clues he had used to unlock the clock tower were now missing. He entered the teacher's lounge, and wasn't exactly surprised to see that the grotesque painting that had been on the wall before now was the wall. He pushed the door open and stood before the washrooms. He passed the boy's washroom and headed for the girl's washroom.

Cheryl wouldn't have any reason to go in the boy's washroom.

Harry stopped and went back to the boy's room. Cheryl wasn't exactly acting normal right then. Nothing was. He had to check everywhere.

There was only one stall in the bathroom. He stepped forward, pipe in hand, ready to take down anything that attacked. With a deep breath, he quickly pushed the door inward. Crucified crudely to the wall above the toilet was the skinless body of a young boy. Swallowing the bile that rose in his throat, Harry shone the light around the stall, searching for something he could use. He certainly found it. A shotgun was propped up against the wall under a message scrawled in blood. It read, simply: "Leonard Rhine: The Monster Lurks".

Having no idea what this was supposed to mean, Harry grabbed the shotgun, which had what looked almost like a guitar strap fixed to the handle, slung it over his shoulder, left the bathroom and headed into the girl's washroom. As he entered, he heard a small girl crying in one of the stalls. "Cheryl?" The crying stopped. Harry opened the stall door and saw that it was empty. He nearly fell over as he felt something push him aside. He heard the sound of tiny feet running across the floor towards the door. It opened a small space and then slammed shut. The footsteps stopped.

He followed the footsteps out of the room, turned left, and nearly ran right into a mesh gate that was now blocking the hall.

This wasn't here five minutes ago!

The door across the hallway also appeared differently. He stepped through it and found himself not in the teacher's lounge, but in the second floor hallway connecting to the locker room and the music room. Somehow the girl's washroom downstairs must have teleported him to the upstairs washroom. The banging and screaming was still emanating from behind the door. He had no particular desire to see just what was making that noise, so he passed the door and headed for the locker room.

He entered the room and heard struggling inside the locker the cat had been in. Was it another one? Somehow he seriously doubted it, but he checked anyway. To his surprise, when he eased the door open, he found the small locker was empty and the inside was soaked with blood. Snorting in disgust, he shut the door and turned for the door.

He took two steps forward when a locker to his left flew open. A skinless body fell face-down onto the floor. A shiny object slid from its hand and slid a short distance across the floor. Harry stepped over the body and picked up the key, which was engraved "Library Reserve Room".

How convenient....

He left the locker room and returned to the girl's washroom. As soon as he entered, he turned around and exited the room. Sure enough, he was back downstairs. He made a beeline back upstairs to the library reserve. As he reached the second floor, he heard a phone ringing in one of the classrooms to his right.

Harry's heart leapt as he ran for the door. Maybe this person could help him! He looked at the table before him. It was covered with small blue telephones. The one nearest him was vibrating slightly. He picked up the receiver and was about to say hello but was silenced by the sound of quiet sobbing on the other end.

"Daddy?" Cheryl's voice pleaded from the other end. "Daddy, where are you?"

"Cheryl!"

The line went dead. Harry slowly put down the phone, and after standing, stunned, for a few minutes, he turned and ran for the library reserve room, determined to find Cheryl as soon as possible.

He unlocked the door and darted inside, slamming the door as a zombie child appeared out of the shadows and jumped for the door. The room had empty bookshelves lining its side walls. The back wall was taken up by two strait-jacket-clad bodies fastened to the wall. The table in the center of the room had a box of handgun bullets and a box of shotgun shells placed on it. Harry pocketed these, then saw that the bookshelf on the left wall wasn't empty. A single book lay open near the back of the room. He walked over to it, and read the page that it was opened to.

"Chapter 3: "Manifestation of Delusions" ...Poltergeists are among these. Negative emotions, like fear, worry, or stress manifest into external energy with physical effects. Nightmares have, in some cases, been shown to trigger them. However, one such phenomenon doesn't appear to happen to just anyone. Although it's not clear why, adolescents, especially girls, are prone to such occurrences."

Harry frowned, and closed the book. He frowned even harder when he saw the title of the book. "The Monster Lurks. By Leonard Rhine"

This is what was written on the wall in the boy's bathroom.

Harry turned and headed for the door leading into thelibrary. This room was furnished almost exactly the same as the reserve room, but there was an open book on the table in this one, and bullets on the shelves. After taking the bullets, Harry turned to the book. This one was a book of fairy tales, one that Harry owned and often read to Cheryl. It was open to one of Cheryl's favoritesIt read: "Hearing this, the hunter armed with bow and arrow said, "I will kill the lizard." But upon meeting his opponent, he held back, taunting "Who's afraid of a reptile?" At this, the furious lizard hissed, "I'll swallow you up in a single bite!" Then the huge creature attacked, jaws open wide. This was what the man wanted. Calmly drawing his bow, he shot into the lizard's gaping mouth. Effortlessly the arrow flew, piercing the defenseless maw. And the lizard fell down dead."

Harry smiled as he remembered how he used to playfully mime the actions of the story to Cheryl as she clapped and squealed happily. He left the library and unlocked the double doors leading to the north hallway. He continued down the hallway and swore as another mesh gate came into view. He checked his map for a way around it. All the classrooms had doors inside them connecting them to each other. He could go through the classroom to his left and into the next one, which he could exit on the other side of the gate from.

He folded up the map and shoved it back inside his jacket. He tried both doors leading into the classroom, but both were locked.

He had to find the key.

But he had just lucked out on finding the library reserve key. There were eight classrooms in this school, and he didn't even know where the keys would be kept, or if the teachers themselves had them. If that was the case, he would probably not be able to find

them.

Defeated, he turned and headed back to the east hallway. As he turned for the stairs, he heard small footsteps running up to the roof. "Cheryl?"

He ran up the stairs after the footsteps. He heard a heavy door open and swing shut shortly before he reached the top himself. He pulled the door open and ran out onto the school roof. Rain was still falling from the sky, and was hitting the grimy metal rooftop with a heavy pinging sound. It was pooling at his feet, oily and slick, and he had to fight to keep from falling as he crossed to the other side of the roof, next to a large water tower, where Cheryl stood on the roof, clutching a small pink rubber ball and staring not at Harry, but up at the moonless sky.

Unable to speak, Harry reached out to grab Cheryl's hand. His hand was inches way from hers when her head snapped towards Harry's. Their eyes met briefly, and the hair on the back of Harry's neck stood up as he saw they were glowing red. She blinked once, and her eyes turned blue again. She giggled, and thrust the rubber ball into Harry's hand before spreading her arms and falling backwards off the roof. Harry screamed, and ran to the edge to see her land in a group of bushes in the school courtyard. She stood up, and, apparently unharmed, skipped across the courtyard and disappeared back into the school.

Gaping after her disappearing form, Harry moments later glanced down at the pink rubber ball in his hand. He felt that Cheryl wanted him to do something with it. But what? He held it up into the beam of his flashlight, and turned it back and forth, looking for something; anything. His hands were sweaty, and he lost his grip on the ball. It fell to the ground and bounced off behind him to the left, towards the gutter. He ran after it, and saw it fall into the gutter and completely plug up the small hole where water was drained out of it. He snatched it up, and saw a glint of light inside the drain as he went to stand up. He stopped, picked his flashlight out of his pocket, and shone it down the drain. A key was jammed in the hole. Engraved on the key were the words "Classroom 2C". Harry's heart leapt. The locked classroom had a plaque on the front door that read the same thing.

This was the key he needed.

He stopped, and wondered to himself why exactly he needed it. He knew Cheryl was somewhere downstairs, but surely he could easily enough find her. He really had no reason to be trying to go through the school the way he was. But he felt strangely compelled to go this way. Then he realized where this path would lead him: to the basement stairs. Something was calling him to the basement. But what else was there in the basement that could be of any use? The boiler? But how would that help? He didn't know, but he'd cross that bridge when he got to it.

He tried to reach into the drain and grab the key, but it was much too small for his entire fist, and the key was out of the reach of his fingers. He glanced at the pink ball he had set on the ground next to him and remembered how it had stopped up the drain. He looked back along the gutter to the corner near where Cheryl had fallen off, where another drain was visible, and further along that to the valve on the tap suspended over the gutter, and finally up to the water tower. He knew what the ball was for.

He stopped up the other gutter, and walked over to the valve. It was rusty and old, and it took alot of force to get it to turn enough for the water to begin pouring out of the tap. He let it run for a few seconds, watching it cascade over the drain plugged up by the ball and over to the drain the key was in, before he struggled to turn the valve back and shut off the flow of water.

He jogged back to the drain and peered in. Sure enough, the water had washed the key down into the school courtyard.

He returned to the staircase and wound his way back down to the first floor, scanning the hallways for Cheryl was he went. Back in the courtyard, he found the key in a small puddle of water below the drain. He picked it up and returned to the second floor hallway, where he unlocked the door, tossed the key aside, and entered.

He closed the door behind him and turned around to see three zombie children shambling their way towards him through the maze of desks that filled the room. He pulled the pipe out of his belt and ran to the row nearest him, where one of the children was making its way towards him. He brought the pipe down hard on the top of its head, killing it or, at the very least, knocking it out. It fell to the floor like a toppled house of cards. Harry stepped over it and made his way to the front of the room. One of the creatures had figured out his intended path, and had given up trying to weave its way towards him but instead had doubled back and was waiting for him behind the teacher's desk. Harry swung the pipe, which swung across it's head with a dull thud. It didn't fall. He swung it again. Still it walked towards him. It was now so close that using the pipe was awkward and difficult. It lifted its knife and swung it towards Harry's groin. He managed to squeeze sideways against the wall, narrowly missing the knife as it plunged instead into the face of the other remaining zombie child, who had snuck up behind Harry while he had been occupied. It screamed in pain and, in a blind fury, jumped on the other creature and began viciously stabbing it with its knife.

Taking this fortuitous opportunity to slip away, Harry ran for the door at the back of the room that would lead him into the next classroom and past the locked mesh gate in the hall.

The radio continued buzzing in this room, and Harry swung the flashlight back and forth in front of him, looking for any more zombie children. He didn't notice the immense black cockroach that scuttled up to him under the beam of light until it sunk its pincers into his foot. He yelled and, acting on reflex, stomped his foot on it. He wished he hadn't, as it exploded, shooting its blackish innards all over the floor and Harry's other foot. Shuddering in distaste, he walked over to the door leading back out into the hallway and was relieved to find that he was, indeed, on the other side of the gate. He ran down the stairs, unlocked the double doors leading back into the front hallway, then descended the stairs into the basement. Like before, only the boiler room was unlocked. Inside, the boiler was now gone. Where it had been, a small corridor led into a small square patch of granite floor. He walked forward onto it, and nearly fell over as floor began to shake. Harry realized he was standing on a platform elevator as it began to descend into darkness.

The elevator shuddered to a stop at what Harry assumed was the bottom. Even with the flashlight on, Harry could see nothing, not even the floor. He took a careful step forward , only shifting his weight onto the other foot when he felt solid ground under his foot. He took two more careful steps before being startled at a strait-jacket-clad body appeared in front of him as if out of nowhere. It was tied to a stick, with a pile of straw at its feet, almost like a sick parody of an ancient witch-burning. At this thought, it burst into flames, illuminating the room.

He was standing in a large circular room. He was unable to see the ceiling above, and the floor was metallic mesh bolted to thick metal strips fanning out from the center of the room where the burning body was.

He heard the same guttural growl he had heard when he had turned on the boiler behind him. Hesitantly, he turned around to see a giant lizard-like creature stalking its way over to him. With a roar, its mouth split open vertically, revealing double rows of canine-like teeth. It lunged for Harry, who dove out of the way and landed, hard, on his side a few feet away. He sprang to his feet, pulled his gun and emptied the entire clip into the side of the lizard's head. It didn't even react, it just sat there drooling profusely onto the mesh.

I didn't even seem to piss it off....

Harry thrust the gun back into his jacket pocket and pulled the shotgun off his shoulder. The lizard began to turn towards him as he fired a shot into its face. The recoil nearly knocked Harry off his feet, but the lizard didn't even acknowledge the blast that should have blown half its face off but left no apparent wound.

Nothing seemed to be killing it, and he didn't want to waste ammo. He had to think of something. Then he remembered the fairy tale. It was ridiculous. How could that possibly be a clue as to how to kill this thing? But he had to try something. So he ran in front of the lizard a short space, shotgun ready, and waited for it to open its mouth again. It did, and, fighting the urge to run, shut his eyes and fired into its mouth.

Half-expecting to be chomped on, he was pleasantly surprised to hear the lizard scream out in pain. He opened his eyes and saw it flailing about madly. Its head swiped the burning body and sent it spiraling into the distance. It swung its head back towards Harry, who tried to dive out of the way before its head smashed into his calf, sending him flying head-over-heels away from the center of the room. He landed hard on his side and rolled a few feet before coming to a stop. He heard the lizard give one final dying scream and saw it collapse in the distance. He got to his knees and was glad to find he was uninjured. But seconds after he got his feet, his flashlight began to flicker, and he was plunged into darkness. An air raid siren pierced the room. Harry covered his ears and tried to shut out the noise, but it just got louder and louder. His head began to hurt, and he screamed before collapsing heavily onto his face on the floor.