Silent Hill: The Dream Machine
…
Chapter 1
…
by Elliot Bowers
Daylight came slowly and eventually to the fog-enshrouded residential streets: a thick, smoke-like fog that swirled and pervaded everything. One could see sunrise coming in the reddish light that colored the buildings and streets and in the brightening of the fog, but one could not see the golden colors of the eastern horizon itself. One could not see the horizon or the sky; the fog made it impossible to see even beyond half a street's distance. Mixed in with this fog were smoky, mucous colored mists that floated throughout and sometimes clung to structures: such as houses and parked cars.
"Ar-who-o-o-oh…!" That was the cry of an animal in the distance: somewhere on a street nearby. A person would have supposed it to be a dog, a wolf…any kind of canine. However, dogs were supposed to have fur. Dogs were also supposed to run on four legs. The animals that made that noise sometimes had more than that number of limbs: among other things.
"A-i-i-iagh!" The sound in the fog was met with a high-pitched shriek. Animals could scream as well. There were even animals that could make sounds that sounded something like human speech. Yet even speech itself is just another pattern of sounds that could be interpreted any amount of ways: much as one could interpret the wafting patterns of fog to be vaguely human in shape. "Oblamah, satya-a-agraha… Noom-a-zoom…" So they went, making such sounds as the animals staggered their way through the fog. "Elkric, fwick! Wee-too-did!"
One more sound and the ones who could make talking sounds were far away enough not to be heard. As padding footsteps vanished off into the mists, it left this quiet view of the peaceful, fog-obscured suburban streets. Ah, blessed and blissful streets… This was peace and tranquility. There was no perceptive wind, and the fog was warmly comforting: enshrouding everything. No sounds of cars, human chattering or any other noises of civilization interrupted the peace. There was not even the interruption of a single car driving. That was because the cars were cold and dead at the sides of the road and parked in garages. The dark windows of these houses looked out on this view.
This town was abandoned by its inhabitants. No one walked the peaceful sidewalks that passed by these quiet houses… Most all of the houses were no longer in use, no longer inhabited by people. And no one drove those any of cars: which were actually rusting prematurely due to the wet fog and the clinging mists. No one would ever drive those cars again: not in this town.
…
After showering, Selena dried her hair with a towel and looked into the mirror. She supposed she was pretty, having the same slim and vaguely athletic body-type she had since she had been a teenager, along with a round sort of face framed by silken dark hair: her dark hair a contrast to the almost sickly pale color of her milk-toned skin. Unfortunately, her youthful appearance made things especially difficult for her job prospects. Though she had gone on to finish her studies at a local college, some still mistook her for one of the local high-school kids. People tended not to take her too seriously, so she had been stuck in a receptionist's job at the power plant just beyond the town's border: though she had a business degree and wanted to be an executive.
Or she would have been stuck in a darned entry-level position before all of this happened. It all happened that troubled day… There were air-raid sirens blaring and she drove as fast as she could in getting back to her house: a Hellish headache burning in her head and her throat beginning to hurt as earthquakes shook the streets. This was while the temperature became more than summer-hot as the fog began to roll in. She was glad to have made it back that day, fainting in bed as things grew worse. She had awakened to find that the day had come to this town. Selena believed that she was probably one of the only few people who had not been severely affected by the change.
At least she didn't believe so. Some things did happen to her: some minor changes. Her skin was now more smooth than it should have been: too smooth and pale. Almost artificially so. Also true was how a strip of beige leather had somehow gotten around her neck one night. She did not know where it had come from. She couldn't get it off. It just appeared, and there was no removing it! The more she worried about it, the more she struggled, the more it seemed that the accursed thing would strangle her.
So she chose not to worry. She still retained her human appearance. It was still her face, her body… Things could certainly have been a great deal worse for her. God knows things already had been worse for many others. Why she was able to remain "unblessed," she did not know. Any moment, a Denier could begin seeking her out to take her away…
That would be a later worry. She would get dressed now. Her bedroom mirror was positioned next to the window, the curtains slightly parted to let in light. It was somewhat odd, how some of the house's appliances worked and others didn't. The lights no longer worked: leaving her to resort to candles she had obtained from one of the abandoned shops. Along with lights, certain other appliances ceased working. Yet the water pump in this house still functioned, along with the clothes-cleaner. T he water heater was attached to the furnace, which also still worked and let her shower with warm water: even if the water had a slightly odd chemical smell to it. The furnace… It was very important that the furnace of her house still worked
No bother, really. There were some enjoyable books of poetry and religious contemplations. That is, they were the original texts of her religion: the town's religion. Though such beliefs had been used to make this town the way it was now, unleashing a premature day of Judgment, she still took solace in the ancient words. She thought of some basic tenants and doctrines from her religion as she took up folded clothing from atop her dresser-drawer. These clothes she took to the other side of her bedroom: where there was more light, coming from the window.
Ignoring the ache in her throat and in her head, Selena dressed herself in jeans (slightly damp from incomplete drying) and a cream-colored blouse. She looked in the mirror to neaten and straighten parts of her outfit. She then pulled on calf-length deerskin boots with low heels in case she had to run in a hurry. And of course the damned gold-colored neckband was still around her neck: pressing into the ridges of her trachea.
Damned choker… That's what they called this kind of ornament: a choker. She liked to wear her platinum earrings and necklaces, even occasionally using red ribbons to make ponytails of her pretty dark hair: but never a choker. Choker-style neck-bands had connotations of sado-masochism. Selena hated pain…
Which was why she had tried to remove the choker. Tried and tried to get it off: though the effort almost meant cutting her neck. It was too tough for scissors. Knives were out of the question since she had nicked herself that way. Another careless slip of the blade, and she could have died.
So the thing around her neck was one of those things she simply had to bear with, along with the animals and the fog… And being alone, so terribly alone! She always felt painfully lonely these days: just herself against all others in this town. They knew that she had not been blessed, had not changed along with everyone else. The animals and those who controlled the animals, perhaps they did not see her as being a threat. If she ever did become a threat, perhaps they could come for her: leaving a mannequin shaped like her where she once was.
What would they do to her? Would she begin to grow an extra pair of arms at her back, like grotesque vestigial wings? Or perhaps they would do something to her head by bolting one of those rusty electromechanical masks to the front of her head. Worse still would be if they took her and threw her into one of their open-ended engines, her body shredded to pulp for their purposes.
Above all else, she did not want to change. Crossing her arms over her midriff, almost hugging herself, she looked to the right of the mirror: at her curtained bedroom window. She supposed she was lucky since she hadn't ended up the same way as everyone else in this town: either disappearing or changing. What happened to everyone else would have been considered impossible…or insane. Ha-ha… Insane!
Ha-ha. Such a thought… What if she had already been changed and did not know it? Maybe her body only looked human on the outside. Perhaps they had waited for her to sleep and had removed her internal organs, replaced them with strange machinery and had seamlessly sealed her body again. That would explain why she was no longer hungry or thirsty... It would also explain why, whenever she went exploring, able to run from the animals without becoming tired. She had even been struck a few times by animals, though what should have been horrific and bloody wounds only resulted in bruises that faded within an hour. She exercised regularly to keep her slim figure, but she never had physical endurance such as this before. She must have already been changed. It was that easy!
"Ha-ha-ha…" Whup! Selena had slapped both hands over her own mouth, clamping down the laugh. Because if she let the laughter continue, maybe she wouldn't stop: her sanity shaken apart by maddening fits and giggles of hysterics. Maybe it would have been better if she really was going crazy and none of this was really happening. No… She knew better; this was really happening.
If no one was left to judge her physical appearance, then why dress up? Well, this was done out of habit. It was done out of the sheer desire to maintain some kind of normal daily routine despite everything else. It was something to do: showering and dressing to prepare for the day, to sneak around the neighborhood and explore things in the hope that the situation had somehow gotten better. Maybe she would also run into someone else not changed.
She lowered her hands and looked at herself in the mirror. Her clothes tended to be close-fitting these days. It wasn't to show off her slim figure; it was just that such clothes were less prone to wrinkles and made less noise. Good thing about the lack of wrinkles, because her clothing iron had been ruined with rust. Good, her jeans and blouse were looking neat. Her hair was already brushed. As for her face, it was fine… Makeup? Not today; not ever again. Then she noticed…a change…
Her eyes were red. She leaned close to the mirror, looking into her own eyes. This wasn't just the dry-eye sort of red-veined look. No, those things were the color of deep-red rubies: the irises crimson and shiny. First she couldn't get this damned choker off of her neck. Now this, her eyes!
Bodily changes without apparent reason, such manifestations: according to the doctrine of the town's religion: were considered a blessing. There was a time before this in which people were "blessed," but such "blessings" were rare. The "blessed" people would go to the hospital to confirm their "blessing" with the doctors, who took note of these things.
The manifestations increased in frequency over the past few months as this day approached. They blissfully reported to the members of the religion in the "other" church that manifestations were rising, more people checking into the hospital with odd lumps growing out of their bodies or having sprouted extra body parts overnight and having headaches. It was the blessing that was filling them, taking their souls and heralding in the Day of Reckoning! Then they increased over the course of a week. Earthquakes followed, along with unusually warm weather and meteorites falling from the sky. One day, there was a major earthquake, followed by the sound of sirens as fog covered the town…
The hospital released all of the blessed, leaving them to run, hobble, gallop or whatever: letting them run free even as earthquakes rattled the town. Quite a few members of the town's true religion were doctors at the hospital, and they let the "blessed" patients go despite the deformities that gave odd shapes to bodies. Better or worse yet was how everyone who worked there belonged to the town's true religion.
So, no… The situation never became any better. This was the end of the town, probably even the end of this world. The rest of this planet was going to look like this eventually: the fog, the people being changed, the animals… If the rest of the world didn't know what was going to happen, then maybe the rest of the world was better off.
Selena should have ended up like all other worshippers, just as everyone else preferred to drink. She didn't like alcohol as her father was a heavy drinker. Why had her mother ever married… No, she would not speak ill of her mother. That was a sin, certainly an invitation to them! Just as there were times when she could feel the presence of animals in the fog, they could certainly feel the gist of anything she did.
Just maybe she should finally do the thing to get her out of this ruined town…before anything else happened. She made eye contact with her ruby-eyed reflection in the full-length mirror: as if ready to ask questions of her reflection. One hand still over her abdomen, she raised her right hand to the uncuttable gold-covered band around her neck, fingered the place where it pressed her throat. She looked at the new blood coloring of her own eyes. She didn't feel any different from yesterday. Or maybe, beyond the headache and the pain in her throat, she wasn't supposed to feel anything…
Thump-thump… "Ah!" she gasped, turning around fast enough to make her hair whip. Oh no! Please, not again! Th-thump-thump-thump…! Something was pounding on her bedroom walls and ceiling. Thump-thump… Thump! More accurately, something was pounding from inside the bedroom walls: like someone trapped and trying to get out. Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump!
She suddenly felt cold. Then, it felt as if the choker-band had become just tight enough to begin interfering with her breathing. Small droplets of moisture began to form on the mirror and the window, formed due to condensation. As the pounding and thumping shook the walls, the droplets of moisture forming on the glass and mirrors began to shake as well. Thumpa-thumpa, thump-thump-thump-thump! It sounded as if drugged construction workers were at work on tearing apart the walls of her bedroom or seeking to tear apart her state of mind by using nuclear-steamed trip-hammers.
That was when the sound of the marching band started up. Yes, it was the real-live boom-boom-oomph sound of a damned full-brass marching orchestra…right in her very house! There was the sound of the bass drum being pounded and the baritone horns accompanying trumpets. And there were the flutes! Boomba-boomba, boom-boom-boom! Keeping in the beat and occasionally chiming in was the cla-a-ash of metal cymbals.
Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa… She could hear footsteps stomping through her small house and the sounds of their thunderously loud instruments: the tuba and trumpets blaring up a sadistically loud and cheerful little tune while the bass drum kept going boom-boom-boom. Oh my God… And there was the sound of her kitchen being ruined as the two-seater table and pots and pans were being flung around. Boom-boom-boom… The sound made her sink to her knees in fright because that was probably no marching band. Just as the animals that hobbled and stalked the residential streets were no longer animals, that was no assemblage of children with instruments!
Then the band began to howl… A blood-chilling sound that went above the sound of the drums. If they were not human, then the members of the band were…something else. No longer human, that was for certain. Selena had a terrible idea of green-skinned children with lopsided faces, their band uniforms smeared with slime and their hats in tatters from prolonged exposure to the affects of the fog. It would be easy for them to play instruments as they all had grown an extra set of arms.
Booma-boomba-boomba, boom-boom-bo-o-oom…! Feeling sick, her head full of dark pain as the thing around her neck began to hurt: making a whistling sound accompany every breath. She turned around on shaky legs and staggered over to her bedroom door: resisting the oh-so-tempting urge to curl up on her bed. She peeked out into the short hallway : which ended in a door that led right to her kitchen. The pounding was coming from beyond that door at the end of the short hall, beyond which was the kitchen. The sounds also seemed to be extended in the living room. She had to get to the basement to stop them.
The stairway to the basement was in the hallway: a door to open an stairs to go down. Yes, the basement was exactly where one wanted to be during a full-blown situation like this! But it was the only way. With the marching band boom-boom-boom and howw-w-wling, filling her house with pomp and noise, she staggered into the hallway: leaning against the wall every few steps when her head hurt too much, forcing herself to breathe more slowly through her now-constricted throat. She opened the basement door and gripped the rusty metal rail: going down the metal stairs.
…
With the sound of that phantasmagoric activity in the living room and the kitchen, it drowned out the sound of a vehicle approaching: going along the residential street. It was a bus, and it was on fire. Flames flickered all along the length of its charred, tubular metal frame as the rubber wheels sagged and dripped. All of the windows had been blown open, making for more bright, golden flames flickering out. Somehow, it was able to make its way through the dense misty fog: a huge passenger vehicle ambling along on ever-melting tires.
Sque-e-e-e… There was the sound of tortured metal squeezing metal as the brakes were applied: the fire so hot as to even destroy its brake-pads. But stop it did, this burning vehicle. In doing so, it left ponderous slow smears of melted rubber: its tires sliding along the asphalt of the street. Fw-fwick! There was the sound of the side-door opening: exposing the flaming insides of this burning bus. The flames made for a yellow glow being cast on the wet grass in front of the houses: the fires being reflected by shiny windows. Indeed, the burning bus itself had arrived at Selena's house.
…
The house-basement was almost completely empty save the washer-dryer combination, a fuse-box and: of course: the furnace, which was against the East-side wall. This was basically a large concrete-lined room beneath her house. Boom-boom-boom-boom… That invisible marching band was still banging around upstairs and making animal sounds. She ignored the pounding footsteps and the howling as she made her way to the fuse-box opposite the stairs.
The lights? Flick! Ah… A bare light bulb attached to a ceiling fixture made for at least some light down here. This basement only had one window, which set the rest of the basement in gray shadows beyond the yellow light.
Wiping her hands on her jeans-covered thighs, she eyed the machine's lid. A pull on the small rubber handle exposed the circuit-breakers: which looked like sideways light-switches painted blue and covered with a slick layer of mucous. Half of them were in the off position, having been overloaded when the flow of electricity became erratic. That was probably because some of the house's wiring was ruined when the mists from the outside first leaked in. Some of the circuit breaker switches were already affected: They were covered with slime that resembled what leaked out of a dead body not embalmed.
Oh, horrid! She wasn't going to touchany of these things: covered as they were with contamination! She just had to make sure the circuit-breaker to the furnace was fine. It was fine. That's what mattered. So she closed the fuse box and wiped her hands on her jeans again. No telling what kinds of diseases could be carried by that mucous-stuff. It was bad enough her eyes had changed color and she had this awful constant headache. And her breathing was becoming more troubled; every one of her breaths making for wheezing sounds through a narrowed windpipe.
Fingering the tight thing around her neck and forcing herself to stay calm, she stagger-walked her way across the concrete floor of the basement: making her way towards the furnace. The furnace was an electromechanical-looking sort of machine the size of a coffin, with pipes and wires connecting it to the floor and ceiling. Its case was made of a shiny and sleek blue metal, though the pipes connected to it were reddish brown with rust, the barbed wires wrapped around the pipes and along the sides.
To the right side of the furnace was a hidden box where Selena had kept a box of gold-colored candles. If the other members of her church had ever discovered that she owned such candles, that would have been the end of her. But all the others were gone now: changed or gone. She took out nine of the gold-colored candles: which matched the same color-tone as the choker around her neck. These candles she arranged in a circle around herself as she knelt in front of this furnace. Matches? No, these candles didn't need matches. All that she had to do was turn on the furnace; the candles would light themselves. That is, if the furnace still worked….
She had faith. The furnace would work. It must have been working, having prevented her from ending up like everyone else in this town. Kneeling down, both knees on the hard concrete floor, she reached forward to pull a heavy switch on the right side of this large electromechanical heating-machine. It was a hard pull…
Thump-p-p! This closed the switch and powered on the furnace itself. There was the sound of motors and rotors powering up and turning up. A sort of comforting warmth began to fill the basement: going against the chill and cold that pervaded the rest of this house. She began to feel safer already.
Quiet closed over the house. All of the ruckus upstairs came to a stop. The sound of the drums and horns, the howling sounds and the stomping feet, all of that was gone. This neckband loosened again. Better, her headache was gone. So many things had suddenly become much better at once. It was unfortunate that she had to use all of the candles at once; this relief was only temporary. She began to chant.
…
"Hail Bridgett, hail the light
….Greetings to dreams of sound
Come to me, bring aid to me
….For they are all around.
"A fallen land, this darkened place
…Across a burning sea
Another land, another world
…May lightning carry me."
…
There was the rising roar coming from within the furnace: a deeper sound of machinery working. The candles lit themselves, becoming brighter. This furnace was reacting to the destabilizing energies that had accumulated within the house itself and was feeding off of it. And as its strength was facilitated by the glow of the candles, there was no stopping it now…
La le la de la la da la… Tra-la-a-a… She heard…singing… It was the a maiden: simple, beautiful and innocent. This sweet sound was somehow audible above the roaring and churning of the furnace. Then things began to change… Everything blurred…and shimmered…as if…the basement was becoming less…clear and coherent. The floor itself…seemed…out of focus even as…Selena kneeled on it.
Tra-la-la-la-la-la, tra-la-la … She clenched her eyes shut just before she scree-e-eamed in pain! A powerful, nightmarish headache gripped…her skull with invisible clamps. This was the sort of headache with green claws and a leathery face: a face with sharp teeth. She began to feel…everything…becoming blurred through her haze of pain. The band around her neck squeezed even tighter. She didn't know or care which hurt worse: the neck-band or the headache. Lying on the floor, writhing in pain, she began to feel things changing.
The square ventilation grate on the left-hand side of the furnace opened up: opening into a darkness full of machine-sounds. Selena was vaguely aware of her body falling sideways, her eyes staring into the darkness of that open vent. The thump-clanking sounds were even louder and darker in there. In there…
…
It was a shadowy corridor of rusted metal and gritty, cracked concrete floor… The walls were held together with thick metal plates, which were coming out of joint: blood leaking from the cracks in the seems. But more blood oozed from the pipes: which were visible in the openings of the walls in this hall… Even some of the doors had to be bolted shut.
This hall was over sixty-three thousand miles long and maintained by blood workers, this hall with too many doors on the left and right. There were just so many doors, leading from places and to places. Some of the doors had sounds of madness coming from behind them: limbs pounding on the other side as strange languages spoke worried words to whomever would be listening. Other doors were quiet, though various kinds of mists leaked out from the cracks and seams.
Someone crawled along the pipes attached to the ceiling-… Someone, or something. Six muscular arms attached to the thing's torso were limbs enough. The head turned to look down in passing. Moving on, things were going on as usual… Never mind what dripped from the pipes.
Three short men in jaundice-colored coveralls dropped down from the ceiling, coming from a set of pipes: beige bands of metal around their necks. They got up and went into one of the doors along the right side of the corridor. It was a machine room in there: a room with black walls and red lights.
In that room, they crawled over to one of the rusty devices and began to turn one of the gold-colored valves. They turned it to the left. As they did so, their heads began to blur: a rumbling sound of quaking in the distance. Squee… Squee… Squee… The blood workers turned the valves in synchronization with each other, their heads beginning to vibrate and blur.
Out in the hall, another rusted door faded into existence on the left hand side of this corridor: a door that opened up on hinges lubricated with a dark-blue grease. It was especially difficult to see what was beyond the open door: so full of golden light. This way was not the best way, but it was better than where Selena had come from.
…
2.
…
Selena regained consciousness…full of pain and sickness. Oh-h-h… Her head… It felt as if her head had been pumped full of toxic rain-water before being run over by a truck. And her abdomen felt as if it was full of someone else's vomit, burning its way up her esophagus: which truly did hurt like Hell. Gasping for breath, she slid herself sideways off of the bed. It was easy to do since the top of the bed was covered with a sickly substance: something slick and wet. Oh G-G-God…!
Staggering as fast as she could, one hand over her slime-coated abdomen and the other hand on her aching throat, she quickly made her way out of the bedroom. It was dark in the hallway, but she knew where the bathroom was. Good thing the bathroom door was open. She probably wouldn't have made to the toilet if it was. In the small bathroom, she collapsed in front of the toilet itself: the seat down. Limp, wet lengths of her hair curtained the sides of her pain-wracked face as her mouth opened and her abdomen heaved.
Here it comes…! Thick acidic mush gushed up from her abdomen, up her throat and out of her open mouth: splashing into the bowl. Gasping for air, there was another upwelling of the nasty stuff. Chunks and waves of wet, rust-colored mush continued to come out of her mouth. Where the Hell did all of this come from? She didn't even remember eating before using the furnace!
There was nothing she could do but let her body eject the contamination, the disgusting stuff. She opened her mouth and more of the reddish, rust-colored mush came up from within her body, through her throat and out of her open mouth: sloshing and splashing into the toilet bowl. She wanted it out of her, all of it. She just stayed in front of the porcelain toilet bowl, hands on the rim, letting it come out.
Her head full of dizziness, feeling twisted and sick, she used a sleeve of her leather jacket to wipe away some of the reddish drool. Her jacket was also splashed with the stuff…as were all of her clothes. Ugh… How terribly horrid! She reached to flush the toilet, then pushed herself to standing as the water splish-splashed down and away. Easy… Careful…
A quick turn of the faucet-valve produced a flow of cool water. By the light from the bathroom's ceiling fixture, she washed and rinsed her hands and began to wash her face. Then she washed her face again: before taking off her leather jacket as so she could wash her arms… She had a look at herself in the mirror. Her hair, straight and dark, was now slicked down with something greasy. It clung to her scalp and the sides of her face: some of the dark grease trickling down her forehead. And she was glad to see that it was her own dark eyes that stared back at her from her reflection: eyes the color of night in a pale face. The rest of her body seemed intact: no alterations since she had made the transition. But the band around her neck, it had…changed. Now the damned thing was twice as thick as it was before… And it was made out of a shiny metal: at least an inch thick.
No…! She began pulling at it and feeling around it, feeling for some kind of hinge or something. Instead of something made of some kind of leather, now it was metal. It was as if someone fastened a giant golden handcuff around her neck and had flawlessly soldered it on. How did this happen? Leaving the town should have removed the choker, not turn it into sadistic jewelry! The thing seemed to be made out of gold. Worse was how it was slick with the stuff that covered the rest of her.
She gagged when she had gotten a few of her fingers caught beneath it. Gasping for air, choking with panic, she managed stay calm enough to slip her fingers out from the metal neck-band: a real choker now. Maybe she could pay to have someone remove it. Later… Right now, the rest of herself was a mess. Her skin… Her hair, her clothes.
Looking in the mirror, the young lady realized that she was a disgusting mess! She quickly undressed herself and stepped into the shower. It took a second for her to turn on the valves to begin a flow of hot, soothing water. Wonderful, clean water! It poured down on her, soothing away the aches and some of the sickness. She let the warmth sink in, just standing there. Selena began to feel better already. There was some shampoo and soap: unscented, but that was fine.
As she washed, she was able to think about what to do next. Apparently, the transition worked. Not that she lacked faith. It was just that she had never tried it before. Now she was somewhere else. This bathroom had the same general structure of her own, but it was not her bathroom. She had recovered consciousness in a bedroom with a different design from one in the house she originally left. This was the same house, but it was not originally her house…
This house was hers to live in now, however. She began rinsing shampoo out of her hair as she thought along that line. There was nothing but ruin for her to go back to, so there was no desire at all to return. All of the people she had known were ruined. They were absorbed by the disease that closed over her original town and probably closing over the entire world: consuming entire towns and lands, casting everyone and everything in fog and rot. People were covered over and…changed. Or they seemed to disappear completely. She would never go back. Never again.
When she was sure she was clean, all traces of that stuff off her skin and out of her hair, she stepped out of the shower stall. There was a large, rough towel on a rack: a little rough and odd-smelling, but it was better than nothing. She took a look down at her ruined clothes and instantly decided that she just might not wear that particular outfit anymore. There had to be some things for her to wear in the bedroom. Something… Anything but that.
Wearing nothing but the gold-metal band around her neck, she quickly minced her way through the hallway and into the bedroom. Once there, she went to the closet: a terrycloth robe hanging on a hook next to it. Hmm… Too big. The thing was too big and floppy on her thin frame. No problem. She just tied the cloth belt. It was still a bit too floppy, and the heavy sleeves felt cumbersome on her arms. This was apparently a man's sort of robe.
That meant…. Selena knelt and opened the bottom-most drawer of the dresser-drawer. Pants, the drawer was full of pants and socks. The next drawer up had white undershirts… Next up, there were boxer shorts. Getting to her feet, she opened the last two drawers: more shirts and some boxes of candy and truck magazines. What the Hell were those doing in a clothes drawer?
Worse yet, what the Hell was she going to wear? Obviously, she had ended up in what was once a man's house. She hadn't thought about this, had not especially concerned herself with what she would do once she had managed to escape. Now that she was here, some petty problems had manifested themselves. For example, ending up in a man's world with no women's underclothes! Apparently, this man did not seem married.
"Selfish fool," she muttered. What, was she supposed to go around without panties or brassiere? Were men's clothes supposed to do? Why didn't the man even have a live-in girlfriend? It would have made things a lot easier!
Suddenly, she feeling guilty. In coming here, she had taken over his life: stepped into his life. All of the things that were his were now hers. She had stepped into the portion of reality once occupied by him. Whatever happened to him, Selena only had a vague idea. Whatever happened to him could not have been good.
Selena stared at the drawers she had yanked open: full of the man's clothes. She looked down at the robe: which was his robe. Then the young lady thought about the slime-coated clothes she left on his bathroom floor and the robe that she had used after using his shower. She slowly turned herself around to looked at the bed over there. The quilted bedcover had a long Selena-shaped stain on it. The girl had ruined the bedroom and bathroom so far, and she had just gotten here!
Hands on her robe-covered hips, she thought about her current situation: about what had happened to this house's previous owner because of her action. Well, what else was she supposed to do? Stay back and probably end up like everyone else? It was quite terrible enough how she was already changing from being exposed to whoever: or whatever: it was that began changing that world. Her eye-color was just now turned back to normal, though she still had something around her neck. There was such a thing worse than death. Staying behind would have meant she would have experienced it.
Again, there was no going back now. She took off the robe and pulled on a pair of the man's jeans. They fit very wrong: not the right shape around her hips and just, overall, too loose and floppy. The guy must have been pretty hefty, which would explain why the robe was too big. She found a belt with a friction buckle to keep the jeans on. The undershirts were out of the question. There were some tee shirts she could wear.
Oh, there was a mirror next to the drawer: letting her look at herself. Yes, Selena was now the queen of awkwardness! These pants looked as if they would fall off of her. And the light blue tee-shirt looked like a short-sleeved dress. God, the outfit made her look like someone's lost child. Worse yet was her lack of anything worn underneath. She had on no panties or brassiere, not even a chemise. It wasn't as if she hadn't gone braless before, but now it just felt as wrong as the rest of the outfit. She couldn't leave the house looking like this!
She went back to the bathroom and picked up her ruined clothes. Her leather jacket would have to be hand-washed later. But if this house was a similar enough version of the one she came from, there should be a wash-dry machine in the basement. She hoped they had clothes-tending machines in this world. What, maybe they washed clothes by hand: or had trained animals wash them? Or what if they did not wash clothes at all? Ugh, she certainly hoped that was not the case!
In the short hall outside the bedroom, she opened a door at the side. Again, this house really was very similar to her original one: just with some slight variations… Like no women's clothes! She found the door with the stairway leading to the basement. The door opened, she picked up her bundled clothes again: the familiar ichor again staining the skin of her arms. Utterly disgusting…!
In the basement, the bright light fixture on, she found not one but two machines. They were set where her furnace had been in her house. Oh, one was for washing. The other was for drying. The buttons and knobs were strange and the clothing detergent smelled funny too… She put the clothes in the machine for washing. It took her a few minutes to set the knobs (to heavy duty, of course), pour in the detergent, and activated it. She supposed she would have to come back and take out the clothes to put them in the drying machine-thing. It would give her time enough to explore the rest of her new house and clean her jacket.
Later, as luck would have it, she found some especially useful things. There was a study-room where hers had been: books on a bookshelf. A desk-drawer opened, she found a sock with a roll of strangely printed green paper. And there were a set of keys. The roll of paper turned out to be money. The keys were familiar enough; they were car keys. Ooh, good! She could use this to get started in this town. As soon as her clothes were clean, she would be on her way.
…
The reddish morning light illuminated the cloud-spotted blue sky when Selena stepped out of the house: having locked all of the doors. She zipped her leather jacket, feeling a little odd without a purse. She stood on the front porch and looked at her new neighborhood…which looked a great deal like the one she had come from. There was no fog or mist now, of course. She could look left and right to see all the houses. Only a few had cars parked out in front. Taking the keys out of her right pocket, she eyed the car parked in front of this house. It looked almost exactly like the car she had left behind.
Even up close, it looked so much like her original car. She unlocked the driver's side door and climbed in. It took her only a minute to get used to the feel of the vehicle. Some of the readouts were different and the inside smelled different. All the same, it was so much like her car. She started the engine, set it in drive, and was on her way.
According to some of the signs she glimpsed, this is the town of Pleasant River. The residential areas primarily consisted of two-story houses along suburban roads: trees and thickets of woods visible between and behind houses. The outer streets tended to border forests, which were still in abundance. A person had to drive quite a ways to get to the downtown, with its office buildings, small shops, bars hotels and travel agencies for tourist areas near the lake. (Don't call them tourist traps!) Of course, there were also important buildings for local government and health care. The downtown was where a person went to get most anything done, where a person had to go to get started..
She drove towards the downtown area by taking the main roads eastward: the afternoon street traffic surprisingly light. A left turn brought her onto another main road of two lanes with slightly more traffic. There were busses and small trucks driving along here as well. It wasn't tourist season quite yet; businesses wouldn't be especially busy until then. Tourists preferred warmer weather instead of the chill of Cold Season.
Now, where to…? She really needed some clothes. And though she wasn't hungry, she would be soon: The stuff of infection was out of her body now, and she would have to start eating food again. Then she would find out what kind of job the previous inhabitant of the house had: then take it. When she saw the first street of store-front businesses, she knew she had hit the downtown area. Maybe she could try the jeweler's to do something about this stupid thing around her neck. It was that or go to the hospital. She didn't think that the hospital could be trusted.
…
After parking the car, she walked into Venus Jewelers: a store with three long jewelry cases to display a dazzling array of pretty things. "May I help you, young miss…?" asked the thin man in red-tweed sweater and pressed slacks as he glanced her up and down. His voice had trailed off as he greeted her, and his eyes: cold beady ones: were focused on her throat. Or rather, on the band that pressed against her throat. It took an effort for him to make eye contact.
"Help me? Oh, I certainly hope so," she said, fingering the gold thing around her neck: which was beginning to hurt. "This thing… It is becoming especially inconvenient: if not dangerous. It's quite a story how it came to be where it is. But now I cannot remove the accursed thing! Can you assist me?"
His expression changed, became businesslike. Jewelry was his profession; he was the best jeweler in town: and probably the best for towns around. Selena tilted her head back slightly and pulled her hair back to give a better view of her neck. "Turn, please." She did, holding her hair to the side as so he could see. She hoped he didn't mind her leaning against the counter.
"Hmm…" he mused. "This is indeed an extremely precious example of Celtic jewelry. What you are wearing is a torc: which is made of very pure gold. The fact that torcs are primarily made of more sturdy metals is a testament to its rarity."
A torc? Is that what they called this? If the jeweler knew what it was, then he should have the knowledge to remove it. "Do you know how to take it off? That is, without having to decapitate me. I had a glimpse of the hospital in driving here. Yet hospitals are not the most convenient of places…"
"Young lady, it will be little trouble to remove the item. However, it will have to be damaged," he answered. "As stated, it consists of surprisingly pure gold. Gold is a soft metal by itself, which is why most modern gold jewelry is actually alloyed. Cutting it would be easy, as tragic as it would be."
Selena still had her back to him, but she heard the sadness in his voice in explaining that the torc had to be damaged. She had the idea that he would much rather cut off her head and remove the torc that way: her blood acting as a lubricant for him to slide it off of her severed neck-stump. Then he would leave her body lying on the floor as he kicked away her head… Ugh!
She turned quickly around, half-expecting to see the jewelry-shop owner with a sword in his hands. "I don't especially want this," she said, suppressing the grotesque image. "If you want it, I could easily sell it to you…for a reasonable price. Just help me remove this thing: without injury to my neck. Is that understood?" Now she was nervous.
"Very well…" he said, the disappointment still audible. "A sturdy pair of aviator snips should do nicely. Wait here a moment. I shall fetch them." The thin jeweler then shuffled his way into the back of the store. He left her alone at the front of the shop with the jewel cases and a door at the left.
Selena stroked the warm metal of the torc and turned to the right: to look out this shop's window. Just in time to see a shadow walk through the door.
What? Her fingers paused, and her mouth went open in shock. She blinked and slowly walked towards the door. What was that just now? For a moment, she thought she saw a shadow standing upright. Shadows weren't supposed to do that! It couldn't have been…
No, it couldn't have been. It must have been a trick of the light. The upright appearance of the shadow must have been someone passing by along the sidewalk. She had just gotten here; it couldn't be happening to this town, too! She quick-turned to face the sound of shuffling steps. "I have the solution, miss," said the shopkeeper, walking around the counter and coming over here. He presented her with the tool he had mentioned: held it in his palms.
"Thanks…" she said, carefully picking up the aviator snips. It looked like a cross between a wrench and a pair of scissors, with heavy blades in front and two wrench-like handles at the back. She carefully slid one part of the thing a bit beneath the tight fit of the torc: at the side of her neck. It hurt enough for her to wince. She worked the thing farther. Oh God, this hurt! Tears coming to her eyes, she used both hands to sque-e-eze the grips… Snick!
Staggering once, she dropped the tool and quickly pulled at the torc. Now that it was cut, it was easy for her to bend and pull off of her neck. It really was gold: very malleable. But why had she not at all been able to remove it before?
She stared at the thing in her left hand as she used her right to rub her aching neck, especially the place where it pressed her trachea. This was so much better! Not only could she breathe a great deal easier, she even felt better, as if the entire day was painted in fresh colors.
"May I?" he asked, holding out his left hand. Standing straight again, Selena held out both the severed neck-band and the tool. He pocketed the tool before taking the torc, regarding it. "Though damaged, I can tell you immediately that this item is worth no less than sixty thousand dollars. At the least. I could appraise it and cash it if you were willing to wait a few moments…before heading off to the hospital or wherever. I say sixty thousand dollars at a minimum as Mr. Longhorn would be especially interested in this piece. However…"
"Sixty thousand sounds fine," quickly answered Selena, swallowing, still happy to be rid of the thing and able to breathe normally. It had been around her neck for so long that she didn't notice how much it was restricting her breath. There was a small circular mirror atop the counter: which customers probably used to look at how necklaces looked on them. Now Selena was using it to look at the nasty dark-purple bruise around her neck: a blue-black coloration on her cream-pale skin that went all around. The skin had become so tender and damaged that there was actually a long thin cut on the right side of her neck within the bruising. If the torc had been on her for any longer, perhaps it would have killed her. About the dollars… Is that what they called money in this world? "I shall take the dollars in coins…or whatever kind of units used."
"Excellent! I so happen to have it on hand for such prized transactions!" exclaimed the jeweler. He went behind the counter, disappearing into the back of the shop again. There was the sound of a side-door opening and quiet for a while: followed by further sounds of paper shuffling and other sounds. Selena decided not to look in the direction of the shop's window again. One glimpse of a shadow-person was all she wanted to see for today, even if she could have been imagining it…
The shopkeeper eventually came back with a freshly-sealed thick envelope and an official-looking typewritten sheet of paper. The envelope bulged with the thin stack of cash within it. "Just sign and date this, and I will surrender payment to you for the sum of sixty thousand dollars. It is all here as labeled on the envelope itself. This may seem crass, but this transaction is done in haste as I am quite sure that my client would adore this. Here is a pen…"
Selena returned her own pen to the right pocket of her jacket. She used the jeweler's pen to sign the sheet of paper. He then handed her the envelope: which had the shape of money in it. A great deal of money. "It was a pleasure doing business with you, miss. May we meet again."
That is what you think, she thought. Instead, she smiled as she opened her jacket to put the money in an inner pocket. This was really a lot of money: even if it was odd-looking to her. She then tossed up her right hand in a quick gesture of parting. "Goodbye, now!" Then she walked out, the vague idea of buying a bandage or something.
The jeweler saw her through the window as she stepped into her car. He waited for her to drive away before he went to the side-wall to pick up the handset of the wall-telephone. He pressed in six numbers: which gave him a direct connection to a secured message-recording machine. The only sign of the connection having been secured was one bell-tone. "I have acquired a damaged Torc Na Sidhe from a newcomerA pretty young woman with odd eyes. As for the torc, it is stained with blood from her neck…" He licked the inner part of the neckband, where a few streaks of Selena's blood stained it. "Birgin's blood. The torc can be delivered immediately."
Having said that, the jeweler hung up the telephone and smacked his lips. Now he would wait for the call back. He eyed the damaged torc he held in his left hand. Someone else was looking at it as well, another presence in this room. The jeweler did not care; he had a torc! Mouth watering, he licked more of the blood.
…
3.
…
He strode through the forest, the man: his footsteps long and broad shoulders swinging with the aggression of his stride This powerful-looking man was dressed in clothing befitting an upper-classed forestry inspector or lumberjack: a plaid long-sleeved shirt with woolen undershirt, rugged slacks with the cuffs tucked into his boots, and a woolen cap atop his head. He was striding through these woods with an especially thick-barreled shotgun in his right hand, a boxy Geiger counter in his left. Cl-click-click-click… That Geiger counter was ticking slightly more rapidly now as he continued to stride through these woods: making his way between the trees, his boots sinking into the carpet-like layer of wet leaves along the ground.
Normally, a hunter in the forest would be stealthy and silent: much like a gentle breeze bearing a poison gas. Hunters usually wore camouflaged clothing and equipment. His or her human scent would be disguised with some kind of animal extract. And the only noises given off would either be accidental or with instruments designed to give off mating calls. That was how people normally hunted animals. Cl-cl-click-click…!
The animals that Samuel Longhorn hunted in this forest, they were not at all fooled by such things as clothes to blend in, or chemicals to disguise human scent. If he was hunting deer or bear, that would have worked. Even if he was hunting something so simple as squirrel prey, he would have walked with care. No, he strode boldly through this forest as if he owned it.
Because he did. This man, Samuel Longhorn, owned a great deal of real-estate in this town: some of which was this forest. Especially this forest. There was something very special about the land of Pleasant River: something not often found on Earth. It was Samuel Longhorn's hobby to find out just how special the land was, just as people made hobbies of exploring the Bermuda Triangle or Roswell, New Mexico. This was Samuel's special place. Part of undertanding it involved hunting the kind of animals that existed here
His walking brought him within sight of something that may or may not belong here: depending on one's opinion. It was a large, plastic-looking semi-sphere: half a transparent globe. He paused long enough to look over it. It was nearly as broad as his shoulders. He toed the thing, exposing its inside. It was a helmet of some kind, with elaborate machinery inside that must have been breathing tubes or voice communication. Cli-cli-cli-cli-cli-click…! He used the Geiger counter and found that the helmet-thing was more than mildly radioactive at close range: though the intensity of the radiation was restricted to a foot's distance of the thing. If he left it where it was, he would be fine. But if he was to do something like: say…put it over his head and leave it there for about a minute, he would probably likely develop at least six different kinds of cancer within a month. Cli-cli-cli-cli-click-click-click…!
Things of this sort appeared in this forest from time to time. Hmmph, time indeed. Samuel Longhorn had the distinct impression that the helmet was something more befitting something out of a space explorer's equipment storage. Others have come to this forest for their own reasons. And maybe, coming here was no fault of their own. The downed helmet must have meant that the newcomer met an awful end.
He walked on, leaving the helmet-thing behind just as he had left behind other such things. Some of the things that occasionally appeared in this forest would have certainly raised eyebrows of many technological researchers: or biologists. In fact, that which he was hunting would have certainly baffled or annoyed any number of animal scientists.
Click-click-click-click… He strode on through the forest, which was becoming darker as he continued: the sound of air-warning horns echoing off in the distance. It wasn't that it was anywhere close to sunset. Also true was how some of the trees were spotted with a dark, odd mold…if one could call the stuff mold. It more resembled human hair growing out of parts of the trees.
Cli-click-cli-click-cli-click…! Now his Geiger counter was ticking furiously. He glanced at the needle on the gauge: which was getting into a yellow zone he had marked with paint. No doubt, he was getting closer. He slowly swung the Geiger counter left and right until he found the direction in which the ticking was loudest. When he had a direction, he put it on a right-side loop of his belt to free up both his hands. It would take both hands to fire and operate the shotgun. That was especially true as the thing had a sadistic recoil and a booming report loud enough to wake the dead.
This part of the forest was more different. It was a great deal darker, with more mold-like growth on the trunks of the trees: enough to kill the trees. And instead of there being dead leaves on the ground, there was a reddish grit that dusted the bare ground. The air was colder here, more laden with moisture: much like a winter fog. All of the clicking from the Geiger counter told him that there was more going on here as well.
Click-click-click… Cli-cli-cli-cli-cli-click..! He came to where some animals were doing whatever it was they were doing: cavorting, carousing, or whatever a person wanted to call it. Those things over there resembled apes: green-haired apes with metal gas-masks bolted to the fronts of their heads. Some of the ape-like animals had odd-looking wrenches or rod-liked pieces of machinery in their hands…or paws. These they waved in the air as they galloped and danced counter-clockwise around a broken, rust-metal engine of some kind.
Crouching behind the tree, he checked his shotgun and patted his chest to be sure that he had spare magazines of ammunition. This shotgun was a combat weapon; it was loaded by way of magazine-fed shot-shells rather than individual rounds. These animals tended to have something resembling human intelligence in their actions and were just as dangerous: though they themselves almost never had firearms. There were five animals; he should have enough ammunition to hunt them all.
Several things happened within just the space of six seconds. Samuel lied down flat against the leafy, wet ground: before he took aim and firedhis thick-barreled shotgun: a thunderous blast of sound. The massive recoil made his weapon twist upward as one of the ape-like animals was knocked backwards. Arwhoo-o-o-gh!
Surprised, the other ape-like animals had let up a howl that was oddly amplified by the mechanical gas-masks bolted to their faces. They quickly turned away from the piece of machinery they were dancing around and promptly began to quickly lope in this direction, hobbling on squat, hairy legs. As quickly as that, things had gone from stable to insane.
Disgusting, pathetic creatures… Their muscular, hairy bodies were so distorted and misshapen that they could not even move fast if their lives depended on it. What they lacked in speed, the animals probably made up for in brute strength. The animals looked as if they could twist steel or tear off limbs as one could snap twigs off of a sapling tree.
But they could only do harm if they came close. Samuel had but to take aim and squeeze the trigger. Kablam-m-m! This time, the blast knocked down two of the things: sending up a dual splash of oily black ichor and blue sparks. The ichor was from their bodies, and the sparks had come from their electromechanical breathing devices. There was still one more hobbling over here, clutching an odd piece of tool-shaped metal.
One more thunderous blast was what it took to make the last animal stop in its tracks. Thick oily fluid dribbled down from its chest as gurgling sounds came from the circular speaker on the electromechanical mask. It fell backwards, slow-w-w-ly… Then it lie still, on its back. It lie twitching as its gurgling sounds were quieted by the thick fluid filling the mask. Some electrical sparks exploded out of the sides of the mask, matched by some more twitching movements of the animal's body.
He stood up when he was sure things were clear. Four were down. There should be… "Ah-ha!" exclaimed Samuel when he saw the last animal over there on the chest-high chunk of machinery in the clearing. It had begun to rub the top of the engine-like thing, muttering in a low voice rendered incomprehensible by the electromechanical mask. Samuel had the idea that even if the mask was not in place, the language spoken would not have been understandable to him: or probably anyone else on this Earth. And maybe, the language would not have been understood for another hundred thousand years…
He would worry about that later. What concerned him was hunting this one. So he brought the stock of the shotgun to his shoulder, took aim and blasted the creature where it stood atop the machine. It made for another blast of sparks mixed with oily fluid as one more animal fell today. Its body had fallen out of sight behind the large chunk of machinery.
Cli-cli-click-click-click… Samuel had blasted all of the animals he had seen thus far. However, the Geiger counter at his waist was still clicking too quickly. There had to be one more animal somewhere around here… Now, where…could…it…be? He slowly looked left, then slow-w-wly looked right, turning in a circle. Click-click-click… The animal was nowhere left or right, so it had to be up.
He looked up at the tall trunks of the fog-blurred trees when he saw something he had never seen before. Therefore, it took a good long three seconds before his mind could understand what his eyes were seeing. This animal had a furry torso, six human arms sewn onto it with what seemed like barbed wire. A bearded, lumpy face peered out from the animal's head. "Saty-a-graha! Elkric… Oblama!" it snarled. "Gromph!"
These strange words from the lumpy-faced animal's mouth sent an inexplicable shiver up Samuel's back. There was something in what the animal had said: something he would have to consider later. Right now, he just raised the shotgun to aim and fire. Before he could actually hit it with thick buckshot, the thing leapt off of the tree trunk up there and bounded away: leaping from tree to tree. "Hah-h-h…! Elkirc oblama!" came a distant taunt from up in the trees. Then it was gone.
Click-click, click…click… Muttering a curse, Samuel lowered his weapon as the clicking sound from the Geiger counter began to decrease. This meant that there were no more of those animals within the vicinity. Click…click…click… A few more sounds, and it went almost silent save for the occasional click sound.
He would have to act quickly again. He opened the clipped-down flap of a pouch worn on the right side of his belt. Inside was a hand-sized camera: the case sealed and reinforced to protect against radiation. It was the same kind of camera used by inspectors of nuclear power plants. There had to be pictures taken, firstly, of the odd-looking engine-machine that the animals were dancing around. It was already beginning to rust over, the foreign letters on the casing becoming unrecognizable. The animals themselves had to be photographed before their bodies dissolved into dark mush…
Good, that was done as well. It became easier to take pictures as this part of the forest was beginning to grow lighter. This also meant that all signs of the animals having been here were beginning to corrode and disappear. The bodies of the animals were already flattening out, the fur falling out and the skin beneath festering with large blisters. As for the masks bolted to their faces, they crumbled and cracked: just as their large piece of machinery was falling apart.
Soon enough, this part of the forest looked almost normal. The animals had dissolved and decomposed to the point that their bodies were but long piles of mush with plate-sized circles of rust where their electromechanical face-masks had been. As for the large chunk of machinery they were using or trying to use, it had rusted itself into a large chunky lump that made it resemble something one would find in any abandoned factory.
Samuel put away his camera and took out a small notebook from the upper-left pocket of his thick shirt. A pen out, and he began to take notes. He wrote down aspects of what the animals were doing and the sounds they made. And he wrote down his impressions of the animal he had seen in the trees: the one that escaped. What were the words the thing chanted and growled at him? Ah, yes… Now he remembered. This was excellent knowledge he could use in the furthering of his studies of local phenomena. And perhaps, one day, he could use this knowledge to enrich his own prosperity. Until then, it was time to return to his estate proper.
…
Just under eighteen minutes later, he emerged from the woods with his shotgun holstered on his back. This brought him to the rear gate-house: a view of the small field behind his mansion being visible beyond the gate itself. A few of his estate's security men were waiting there, along with a massive large bearded man in hunter's clothing and dogs on leashes. The dogs looked vaguely confused as they regarded Samuel: They smelled bad on him, but they also smelled the scent of their other master.
"Ah, Mr. Longhorn! Did you bag much?" asked the big hunter. "You were gone for at least an hour. Any longer and we would have come out to find you!" The dogs wagged their tails and strained at their leashes. "Maybe, one of these days we'll convince you to bring along a walkie-talkie. Ordinary ones don't work, I know. But there must be some kind of satellite setup we could use."
Samuel shook his head. "No, friend. That would not make for a great deal of assistance. Radio waves of all kinds are distorted and ruined. Even the microwave transmissions of portable phone-sets would fail to be transmitted properly: if at all. As for my prolonged stay within the wilds, time passes differently in some parts of the forest than in others. Perhaps we shall find the reason why some day."
"You're a bra-a-ave man, Mr. Longhorn," responded the hunter. He looked past Samuel and out at the thick forest. "There are great big piles of stories about the forests of this town, about its history. Some university people think that they're just stories. We know better, don't we?"
"They are considered legends," affirmed Samuel. "Even legends have cores of truth to surround the shades of presumed fiction." That said, he walked towards the gatehouse and took his thick-barreled shotgun out of his back-holster and presented it to one of the guards. The guard removed the magazine of shells and checked the parts and functions of the shotgun. When he offered to clean it, Samuel shook his head. He much preferred to clean his own weapons just as he preferred to maintain his own studies of the animals.
Shotgun slung over his right shoulder and his pockets full of written and recorded knowledge, he began to walk across the small field leading to the back of his mansion. It was an especially grand house: the largest in the entire town. It was not as large as the governor's mansion, but Samuel much preferred his more modest estate to any pompous shows of power. "Mr. Longhorn!" Someone was over by the back patio-area: a man dressed in slacks and tweed shirt, a dark dinner jacket worn over.
That would be the jeweler. Samuel would recognized that tweedy old man anywhere. The jeweler had probably brought that torc he had called about: the one that did not rust or decay. Between the torc and the information he had gleaned from his latest foray into the forest, this was getting to be an extremely bountiful day. And as the jeweler had described the former wearer of the torc as being a rather appealing young lady, perhaps he could have her photographed for surveillance: as well as aesthetic: reasons.
…
4.
…
It was soon enough getting close to sunset. The dying light of day cast the western skyline in clouded colors of yellow and crimson. It made for the landscape being given glowing tones… In the downtown area, the shops and office buildings seemed to glow with the colors of the sunset as things grew darker. Cars ambled along streets and turned on headlights, more of them traveling within this business-filled district. The town of Pleasant River was not as developed as other places, the landscape still primarily dominated with forests, yet this part of town was just as busy and crowded as any urban area during the evenings.
A dark-haired man in a beige-colored business suit walked into one of the small drinking places: a mile away from the mall. He walked between the tables and made his way towards the drinking bar across the way. Sitting atop the stool, he ordered something as other people talked about the town's business. With jukebox music playing and a television ranting, the cacophony of conversations made for a background din. But the dark-haired man in the beige-colored business suit had no problem listening in on select conversations.
"…All messed up," said the big man in jeans and tee shirt: his broad, shirt-covered belly half-hidden by the tabletop. He adjusted the bill of his baseball cap and looked down at his beer, then spoke loud enough to be heard above the din. "You'd think that the animal control people would be able to tell us what's going wrong. Why does this town have weird animal problems while others don't?"
"I hear you on that!" responded one of the men sitting opposite him. In contrast to his drinking companion, this man was tall and gangly: sitting hunched over, his tee shirt and jeans seeming to hang off him as he sat here. "My sister's part of the police department, and even she doesn't know all that's going on. It's like everybody is seeing a little piece of the picture and nobody's telling anybody else about the rest."
The third man at the table, another huge-bellied man in rugged clothes and baseball cap, shook his head. "Maybe we shouldn't complain. After all, it's not like it's scaring away the tourists or anything. Things have never gotten so out of hand that the town council had to pass curfew laws."
"That's because people around here know better," responded the skinny man. He took a sip from his drink. "Everyone who lives around here grew up listening to the same stories. And don't forget…" He leaned forward. "Some of those stories are true."
They paused, looked down at their drinks: letting the surrounding din of activity take over in place of conversation. While most television shows from New York and Hollywood joked about things like ghosts, flying saucers, devil-worshipping cults and other "crazy stuff," there was more than a little grain of truth behind such things. Things happened in Pleasant River that the townspeople much preferred not to freely advertise.
"Well, things have been tolerable since this town was founded," said the skinny man. "I'm guessing that things will still go on being fine. It's not like we have to play the town-emergency sirens and start loading up on busses to evacuate. Problems happen every so often, but it's nothing the police and animal control can't handle."
"Good enough!" responded that pot-bellied man. He raised his drink and took a gulp, set it down again. "What the tourists don't want to know can't hurt them. In fact, I've got the idea that a few of those tourists know about what's really going on. So it's not like the end of the world."
"Hah! That'll be the day!" cheered the other big-bellied man. "It's not like a hundred thousand of those animals are going to start learning how to use weapons and fog-making machines: to take over the town or anything! The ugly things are so messed up with pollution that they can barely walk!"
The tall, skinny man grinned. "Yeah, then I bet those space aliens are going to come down and abduct a few more of the locals! While they're at it, they may as well mutilate some more cattle and turning donuts in the cornfields: even if we don't have cornfields. The people making that Hollywood movie ought to hire me to write the script, not some no-name kids from some back-water towns."
"Hahh-h-h! Guess that counts us out, because we're all no-name kids from back-water. I guess they'll have to hire all of us!" exclaimed one of the pot-bellied men. They all drank to that! While they filled themselves with cheer and had a good time, they let thoughts of troubles slip into the background like so much din.
…
As much as Selena wanted to continue shopping, buying much-needed clothes and bathroom things, the pain made her stop. It began with her throat hurting again. She had believed the pain to be gone with the removal of the too-tight torc: which she gladly sold for a great deal of money. But when she had left one women's clothing shop, the sharp pains spread from her throat to other parts of her body…like a cancer. It spread to her midsection and making her feel as if she had been struck with a pitchfork. It, the pain, also went upwards to fill her head with nausea…
A sudden swirling nausea closed over her when she made it to her car, which was parked in the small parking lot next to a hat store. Passers-by took worried glances at her but kept going on their way. Good, she didn't want to draw attention to herself. What would she say to them? Oh, I'm sorry, she imagined herself saying. I'm just experiencing some nasty effects of transition. When my body's chemistry is fully adjusted to your world, I'll be quite fine! Then the men with the red trenchcoats would put her in a brown leather strait jacket and lock her up in a tower near the ocean. That is, unless the people of this world had different customs for treating those who didn't subscribe to their religion.
"Hah!" she laughed out loud, feeling another wave of nausea over the pain. Somehow, with half-numb fingers, she used the car keys to open the car's door. She tossed her shopping bags into the passenger-side seat, then climbed in herself and closed the door. This abated the nausea somewhat.
Was she in good enough condition to drive? She just had to drive. So she did, starting the car and maneuvering it out of the parking lot. So long as she didn't move her head too quickly, Selena found that she was able to maneuver this little car quite well. Driving did not involve a great deal of physical effort. Now, if she had to walk back to the house, that would have been a separate issue.
Somehow, she made it back to the residential streets: back to her place. The car had to be parked in front… Good. Maybe it was parked a little lop-sided, but so what? Close enough. She staggered out of the vehicle and made her way towards the front porch and leaned against the door as she sought the key to get in. It was easy to spot; the house key was red for some reason.
…
Selena closed the door. Now she was in the living room, and the sofa was close enough. Part of her wanted to get over to the bathroom to have a good fit of vomiting, but she doubted if she had the energy to do that. Everything seemed covered over with pain and dazzling darkness as she lie down on the sofa: still wearing the same clothes she wore in the downtown district and in her leather jacket. As her eyes closed, she had the idea that there was a bus outside, driving down the street. It was probably on fire. This odd thought…carried her into…the darkness…
…
There were voices talking in a language she could somehow understand. Though she never remembered studying the language, she understood the meanings: as if the thoughts were coming straight into her mind. She opened her eyes and found that most everything was almost totally dark. Were it not for the spotlight shining down on her, she wouldn't have been able to see. Why was it so dark in this living room?
The voices were coming from the hallway that led to the bedroom and the basement stairwell… Yes, the basement was where she had to go. Because that was where the voices were coming from, the voices excitedly chittering. Come on down, Selena! We want to show you the fun you can have with the main hole in your basement. It'll be good fun. You'll have the most exciting time of your existence.
Part of her wanted to get back to the sofa and pull her leather jacket over her head, huddled up until light returned to the day. She somehow knew that was impossible: Daylight did not come to this place. The way to go was the hole in her basement. She knew it was wrong. She also knew that the promised excitement would be there to be had if she went down and in.
Down the stairs, the basement was illuminated with low red light. Someone or something had painted the walls black and coated the floor with some color that also appeared red. The main hole was right here: the sides lined with what looked like living flesh. So she went in, feeling a thrill…
…
When she recovered…consciousness, Selena found herself feeling especially warm and damp. She was outside, lying on a cracked and uneven sidewalk somewhere outside. Outside…where? Sitting up and looking around showed her that it was a foggy night: streetlamps barely providing for illumination enough. The streetlamps, they lined this darkened residential street of square-looking houses. Also odd was the way the air smelled: smelled like the air outside of a chemical factory.
She stood and was only feeling slightly dizzy. The houses along this street were not only blocky in appearance, but they also seemed to be made oddly. This nearest house was relatively well-lit by a streetlamp, and she could see that the structure was made out of large metal bricks: lead bricks. And the front door resembled something one would see attached to a furnace. She bent over to peer at the grass in this gloomy light… It looked like black grass, though Selena wasn't sure if this was really grass.
There must be a way… Selena began to walk along the sidewalk. The same seemed to be true of all the other houses in this dark and foggy place. All of them were built the same, with the same yards. Some of them had chunky shapes in the front yards that must have been junk or machinery. If some of it was working, she could not be sure. She didn't want to particularly step into stranger's yards to take closer looks. What if those machines were dangerous?
A sudden noise made her quickly look left. Clank! It was the sound of metal-striking-metal. Clank-clank! "Oblamah!" came the shout from over there, said in a high-pitched voice. "Wanna-nak-naki! Doo-si-doo eklric!" The voice belonged to what seemed to be a short man in red coveralls. Clank! He was using a complicated and rusty-looking wrench to hit the base of a streetlamp: making it flicker. Then came the rhythmic sound of his tool banging at the streetlamp.
"You! Do not do that!" she shouted in indignation. "That's a light! We need light! Should…you…." Her voice and confidence faltered as the short man in coveralls stopped his efforts to turn his attention to over here. He slowly rose to his feet and turned to face her. It was one of the most wrong-looking faces she had ever seen.
It looked as if someone had injected parts of that short man's face with salt-water and smeared his skin with mucous…before finishing the job by beating his jaw with lead bricks. Lumps and bumps distorted the right side of his face, while the left side looked smashed in: the dark eyeball on the left lower than the right. The short man-thing then tilted back his head and let loose a how-w-wl! Soon, there were sounds of scampering feet from the darkness at the left and right sides of the street: within the shadows of the houses. Little men were coming to get her.
Selena ran back the way she came. With growling sounds getting closer, she just kept running as fast as she could along the uneven sidewalk. Why the Hell was it so accursedly crooked? If the builders of the sidewalks had time to make their houses out of lead bricks and install thick metal doors, the least they could have done was maintain their sidewalks before they died off or whatever. As it was, it was hard to keep up a good running pace away from those things: who seemed better-fit at running along the sidewalk.
The way out was not far: the streetlamp up ahead! Though all the houses seemed the same, Selena felt that the streetlamp was definitely the way out of here. She found that there was a ladder built into the pole of the streetlamp. This she quickly scrambled up, the heels of her boots and her sweat-slicked hands somehow finding easy purchase.
Clank, clank-clank! They began to strike at the base of the streetlamp as Selena got off of the ladder and shimmied along the top part: the part attached to the light itself. Because she was such a thin person, not eating as often as she should, she was lithe enough to move. Or maybe it was because desperation led her to this.
Whatever the case, she found it especially easy to get over to the electric lamp part of the streetlamp itself. And she…climbed into the light itself. She pulled herself up into the glassy brightness: finally tucking in her legs and getting in. The sounds of angry little men in red coveralls was fading behind her…
…
When she awakened, she was…sprawled on the floor of the living room, her body in a vaguely indecent position. She moaned, slowly sitting up. "Oh no…" she said, peering in the gloom of the perfectly ordinary living room. Something now felt very wrong. A bright yellow glow was flickering through the curtains. Quickly staggering to stand, she went over to the window that looked out on the street. She was just in time to see a large, burning vehicle driving along the street and out of sight. "Please God… Please, no!"
But no… It was true. The burning bus was here, in this town. They must have followed her here, though the furnace. It was a six-million-to-one chance that they would have followed her here. But if they were capable of invading this town in the other world, the town that was once Silent Hill, then they could certainly come here. They were here. Selena hoped that they did not do what they did in the world she had come from, because hoping was all she could do.