Chapter 9
August 21, 1983
Silent Hill, Idaho
Just outside Silent Hill
10:42 PM
O"Grady put his blinker on and took the offramp from the highway into Silent Hill. He drove down Midwich Street, and turned left onto Bloch Street. He drove across the bridge into Central Silent Hill, and pulled into a parking space outside the Silent Hill Police Department. He got out of his car, locked the door, and pushed through the doors. The receptionist, Hollis, looked up and broke into a grin when he saw O'Grady.
"O'Grady! What a pleasant surprise!"
O'Grady nodded his head in a curt greeting. "I would like to speak to Nevlin if I may."
At this moment, the door to O'Grady's left opened and Nevlin walked out. "O'Grady! What brings you here?"
"Malcolm, I was wondering if you found a wrecked Jeep by the highway today?"
"Yeah, there was an empty Jeep by the overpass on Bachman Road that we towed earlier today. Looks like it smashed through the guardrail above it. Does it belong to your man, Mason?"
"Yes, I'm sure it does. I also need to ask you, can you let me into Midwich Elementary School? Right now?"
Nevlin blanched. "The elementary school? Right now? Why?"
"It's complicated. Let me simply say that Mason claims to have been in there yesterday, and I want to look around."
"Well, okay. Let me get the principal, Christine White, on the line. She'll let you in if I ask her to. Did Mason do something I should know about?"
"I don't think so. If I find anything, I'll be sure to let you know. But this isn't something you should really concern yourself with."
"Okay, if you say so. Come on back to my office while I call Miss White."
O'Grady followed Nevlin back to his small office at the back of the building, past the holding cells. Nevlin closed his door behind them as they entered. He spoke to White for a few minutes, then hung up. "She doesn't mind going in for a few minutes. She said she has a few things to get ready for school tomorrow morning anyway. She'll go with you."
"That's fine. Nevlin. Thanks, I owe you one."
O'Grady left the office and returned to the lobby.
August 21, 1983
Silent Hill, Idaho
Midwich Elementary School
10:54 PM
O'Grady watched from his car as the rusty white Toyota lurched into a spot next to his. He had originally had trouble finding the parking lot, which was situated rather inconveniently around the back of the school. To get there, he had to turn off of Midwich Street up between Matheson and Finney onto an unnamed street, turn south on yet another unnamed street, and drive south until he came to it. Whoever had designed this little detour obviously had a terrible sense of humor.
An elderly woman with short white hair and a prim, tight, wrinkled face got out of the Toyota. She still looked like she had several years of healthy living left in her and who would die with a smug smile on her face and her middle finger cheerfully raised. She smiled and waved to O'Grady, who also was out of his vehicle. They crossed the short distance between each other and shook hands.
"Hello, O'Grady, is it? My name is Christine White. I am the principal of this school. Chief Nevlin said you wanted to look around. May I ask why?"
"Unfortunately, Miss White...."
"Christine, please."
"Christine, I cannot say anything. It's confidential police business. But I can say I don't think you should be overly alarmed. I have a man in Brahms who claims to have been inside the school yesterday."
"I hope he didn't cause any damage breaking in, if that's what you say he did."
"I wouldn't worry about that. He says he went in through the front door."
They had walked around the school while they had been talking and now stood before the double entrance doors. Christine grabbed the handle and pushed. The doors stuck fast. "Well, he either locked up when he left, or he is lying."
"Maybe." O'Grady frowned. He didn't know anything yet about Harry's exit from the school. He would definitely talk to him more once he was done here.
Christine took a brass key out of her jeans pocket and unlocked the doors. "I'll be in my office. If you need me, I'll be there. It's the door behind the reception desk to our left. It used to be the teacher's lounge, but they all seemed to gather in Ken Gordon's classroom, so I converted it into an office.
O'Grady gently grabbed her arm as she turned for the reception area. "Did you say the teacher's lounge isn't a teacher's lounge anymore?"
Christine turned back and gave O'Grady an odd look he knew he definitely deserved. "Yes, that's exactly what I said. Is something wrong?"
"Actually, yes. The man I have in Brahms, he mentioned being in the teacher's lounge."
"Your man is lying again. There hasn't been a teacher's lounge in this school for seven years."
August 22, 1983
Silent Hill, Idaho
Midwich Elementary School
11:16 PM
O'Grady was feeling very uneasy. He had been through each of the rooms and had found nothing out of place in many of the rooms, including the boiler room, but in the science lab he found the melted remains of what he was sure was Harry's old man's hand statue. A bottle of hydrochloric acid stood empty next to it. Next he checked the music room. There was a plaque on the wall with a round hollow, but nothing was in it. Harry's Silver Moon.
"Okay, I've finished up what I need to do here, so we can leave whenever you're done." Christine said from behind him, startling him. "Gosh. Jumpy much?"
She followed his gaze to the plaque. "Oh, fuck! What happened to the medallion! It was made out of pure silver!" She whirled O'Grady around with surprising strength. "Did your man take it?!"
O'Grady shook his head. A shiver ran down his spine. Without a word, he left the music room and headed downstairs to the courtyard to the clock tower, Christine following him the entire time. There, in the slots next to the small door, was a gold medal and a silver medal.
"What the hell?" Christine muttered as she removed the silver medal from the slot. O'Grady noticed there was no plaque reading "A Silver Moon" under the hollow. She then glanced at the gold medal and gasped. "Oh, my God!" She grabbed it out of its hollow (which also had no plaque) and held it up in front of her face, her mouth hanging open.
"What is it?"
Christine looked up at him with disbelieving eyes. "This medal was stolen from the music room seven years ago. It was part of a double set, the other being this silver medal. Mrs. Jonille, the music teacher, owned them. They were left to her by her grandfather when he died. She was devastated. She suspected that a student of hers, Alessa Gillespie, stole it, after she gave her detention for hitting another student. She never did get along with the Gillespie girl. She said her eyes were very spooky, very distant. It was like she was looking right through you. Seeing a seven year old with this type of behavior unsettled her. However, she never was able to find out for sure if the girl had stolen it."
"Why not?"
Christine looked at him with sad eyes. "Ken Gordon, the teacher I mentioned before? He noticed Alessa and thought that there was something bad happening to her at home. You know, physical abuse? Or something like that. Anyway, he decided to meet with the girl's mother one day after speaking to her. The next day. she called and told us she was pulling Alessa out of the school. That was seven years ago. You do know what happened seven years ago, right?"
She looked up at O'Grady as she asked this, but saw that he was no longer paying attention to her. He was looking at the ground in the center of the courtyard. She walked over and stared at the weird marking carved into the stone at their feet. It appeared to be a triangle within a circle, with some sort of hieroglyphics scrawled throughout it. The outer circle was enclosed within another circle outside it, making it look a little like a clock. There were even weird figures scratched in it all the way around similar to a clock's numbers. "What is this?"
O'Grady didn't answer, he simply turned and ran like hell out of the school for his car, leaving Christine White standing, bewildered, in the school courtyard with the two medals clasped in each fist.
August 22, 1983
Brahms, Idaho
215 Gage Avenue
12:11 AM
O'Grady locked his front door behind him, checked it twice, and then proceeded to lock every window and door in his house. He showered, undressed, and got into bed, feeling very much like the world as he knew it was falling apart. He shoved his service pistol under his pillow and switched off his lamp.
He lay in the darkness staring at the small blinking red light on his bedside table for five minutes before he realized that it was his answering machine. He turned the lamp back on and pressed the "Listen" button. The room was suddenly filled with the same noise that had screamed out of his car speakers in his (hallucination?) weird experience earlier that night in the police station parking lot. It went on for about a minute before it stopped. The sound of heavy breathing and grunting followed the sudden silence. Then O'Grady heard two words before the message ended:
"You're ours."
August 22, 1983
Brahms, Idaho
Brahms Police Department
9:16 AM
O'Grady had spent the entire night after hearing the message sitting in his bed staring at the door with his pistol in his hand. He now sat in his office drinking coffee with an unsteady hand. The combination of what had happened in Silent Hill last night and the threatening message was threatening to unhinge O'Grady.
He shook his head. What the hell am I doing? Just because there was that symbol in the courtyard last night doesn't mean a thing. And that message could be someone working with Mason. There is no evidence to support that what he said has any basis in truth.
But it did, and O'Grady knew it. But being scared wasn't going to get him anywhere. He was a police officer, and he was going to get to the bottom of this no matter what the cost.
Then the phone rang. He reached out a trembling hand and picked it up. It was Nevlin.
"George, are you okay? You sound terrible. Did something happen last night? Christine White called me last night and said you just took off. Is everything alright?"
"Yes, I'm fine. I'm just a little jumpy. So much has happened these past few days. I didn't sleep very well last night, that's all."
"Okay, if you say so. Take it easy. I'll see you when I see you."
"Thanks, Nevlin." He hung up.
Ten minutes later he had showered, dressed, and was on his way to work. He hung his coat up in his office, and turned to see Jergens standing by his open door.
"Yes, Jergens?"
"I just got off the phone with the Twin Peaks authorities. The teeth marks on Kaufmann's body don't match Mason's teeth."
Shit. "Okay, Jergens. Thank you."
"You're welcome, sir." The door closed again.
He sent one of his officers to fetch Harry and headed back to the interrogation room.
As he sat back down in his chair, he realized that this was the first time he had had to use the interrogation room quite this much. Brahms was substantially bigger than Silent Hill, yes, and there was more crime here than there was there, but even so, he couldn't even remember when he, or any of his officers for that matter, had to use it last.
But then again, how often do we have someone claiming to have been fighting monsters after being found with a dead infant in his arms?
He broke off this train of thought as Harry was led back into the room by two officers. He looked even worse today than he had yesterday. We're twins, O'Grady thought, we both look like absolute shit today.
The officers left the room and O'Grady started up without segue. "So, Harry, I went to Midwich Elementary last night after we finished speaking."
That got Harry's attention. His head snapped up and he fixed O'Grady with a terrified gaze. "And?"
"Well, I found that marking in the courtyard you mentioned, as well as those medals you said you used to, er, unlock the clock tower door. Nothing else, though. Everything else appeared to be perfectly normal."
Harry nodded. He looked as if he had expected this.
"Harry, you mentioned being in the teacher's lounge. I spoke with the principal of the school last night as well. She accompanied me to the school. Her office is the teacher's lounge. She converted the lounge into an office six years ago."
Harry didn't drop his eyes. "I can't say I'm surprised. I don't think I was in Silent Hill as it is now Saturday night. I think I was in Silent Hill as it was seven years ago Saturday night."
O'Grady stared back at Harry. After a few moments, he said, "I suppose you think I'm going to shout at you and tell you that's impossible, right?" Harry nodded. "Well, I'm not. As I was leaving last night, something bizarre happened to me. I don't wish to relive it, but I will say that I'm starting to believe that what you say may be the truth, Harry. So I want you to go ahead and continue telling me what happened. You killed that.....giant lizard thing in the school basement, it hit you and knocked you out. What happened after that?"
Harry didn't quite smile, but he looked immensely relieved upon hearing O'Grady say he didn't entirely disbelieve him. Now, however, he looked troubled as he opened his mouth and continued his story.