I still have exams on so I probably should have stopped writing…. nah.
Anyway, Shakahanna I totally agree with you that I SUCK at dialogue and Jobe's character is so flat that when he turns side-on, he disappears. But if it was so painful to read then why didn't you stop. Duh. And what else are you meant to say if a big chunk of road disappears into nowhere? I will try to improve on these aspects of my story and the formatting towards the end of the chapter went a little odd, so watch out.
Well, lets see what our protagonist and deuteragonist are up too…(It's amazing what you learn in Classics)
Chapter 9: A rather warped existence
The girl shot through the door, leaving Jobe to scratch his head, trying to come to a sensible conclusion about his new found ally. The only one that seemed convincing was that she was completely insane. Overhead, one of the pipes let out a monstrous groan, reminding Jobe that the last thing he wanted to be was on his own, even if his new found company was a little eccentric. He caught the heavy door, as it swung closed and stepped through to the unknown.
He found himself in a long, dark corridor that looked like it the oval passages in the claustrophobic London Underground. Thin overhead lights flickered, casting a spectral light over the tiled floor. Just up ahead of him, he could make out the form of the girl, already fiddling with the lock on another door. The click of it opening echoed up the small tunnel and the noise sounded more like someone popping a knuckle, causing Jobe to shudder. Maybe this place was alive after all.
'Don't be stupid' He scolded himself as walked briskly to join the girl, his feet squeaking against the wet and sodden tiles as his trainers scuffed against them.
She was already holding the door open for Jobe, waiting patiently for him to catch up. As he went to pass through the door's threshold, he caught a glimpse of its metal surface and stopped. There were tiny little gashes engraved into its surface, all tallied up.
"What are these?" There were at least five hundred of small scratches. Jobe turned to the girl but her head drooped as she tried to avoid his questioning eye. For a moment, she treaded water as she debated whether or not to answer.
"There's a scratch for every day I've been here. I lost count after a year…" She trailed off, like a child confessing a guilty secret. Jobe just stared in disbelief and said the only thing he could.
"Shit" He muttered softly,' no wonder this girl was so screwed up.' She appeared to be no older than seventeen, possibly eighteen and had spent what looked like two years here.
"So why don't you just leave?" The moment the words left his mouth, Jobe knew he was walking on eggshells. Even in the poor light, he could see her grip on the door tightening as if the fingers were trying to gouge a series of furious holes into it.
"Don't you think I've tried to get away?" Her voice scratched angrily at the inside of Jobe's skull, causing him to wince. "No matter where I go, I still end up back here. It's as if every road I take leads right back to this town." She exhaled heavily, trying to contain her self but the accusing, almost unbelieving look this man was giving her was almost too much.
'Have to calm down…' She rubbed the bridge of her nose in an attempt to chase away the anger that boiled inside her. "Please, just go inside." Jobe didn't dare to not comply with her request.This room was practically identical to the one he'd woken up in, although the furnishing was somewhat different. It looked more like a kitchen the night after furious house party gone wrong. Rusting cupboards lined one wall, most had lost their doors or (what looked like) wood had warped so badly that they were impossible to open. Dusty cans and bottles rested on collapsing shelves that looked as though they'd been put up by someone trying to read a Japanese D.I.Y manual. A lonely chair that threatened to collapse at the thought of being sat upon sat dejectedly the centre of the room.
"What is this place?" Jobe wondered aloud as he goggled at the make shift room, not noticing as the girl ambled past him. Her head twitched nervously at the sound of his voice as if she expected Jobe to beat her if she didn't answer the question immediately. She reached up to one of the shelves and pulled down a solitary can.
"At the moment, we're underneath Silent Hill. This is one of the water works stations, I-I think. " The words came out in a babbling torrent, so fast Jobe struggled to make most of them out. "But none of this stuff was here when I f-found it." With a nod of her head, she motioned to the furniture whilst carefully examining the ingredients of the can. Every now and then, her eyes would dart to Jobe as if he was some kind of predator, waiting for her to look away just long enough for him to creep up on her. Jobe tentivly sat on the decomposing chair and was almost disappointed that it didn't fall apart.
"So where'd you get all this stuff, it's not like you could hall it out of the sewers." He let out a nervous laugh, not entirely convinced that she couldn't but then armchairs and countless medical supplies sure as hell didn't belong in a water station. No longer seeing Jobe as a threat, the girl answered in a far away tone, seeming totally entranced by the can of soup she held.
"I don't know, most of it just turns up, but I found some of it in the houses and apartments." Without warning, she produced a knife from nowhere and savagely impaled the soup can, causing some of its contence to spurt out like blood. Jobe almost felt sorry for it.
"The medicine and stuff I got from the hospital but I really wouldn't go there if I was you." Completely unfazed by the violent massacre of the soup can, she began to drain its sorry contence. Jobe just watched her in disbelief. It was if she was a hundred different people rolled into one. Saying he was scared of her was a serious understatement.
She put the can down and turned to Jobe.
"If you want anything just help yourself, I was going to get some stuff ready." And with that, she left through yet another door, abandoning Jobe to his own devises.
He looked to the ceiling, stained with damp and sighed. Life would be too easy if he'd bumped into someone sane.
However, he was thankful that she'd saved him from becoming Greed's latest victim, and if she'd been able to keep herself alive for two years Jobe wasn't about to turn down her help. As long as she didn't start ranting about god, she was his new best fiend as far as Jobe was concerned.
Slowly, he slid off the chair and began to prowl threw the sorry kitchen. His eyes came to rest on a remarkably clean fridge, it's pristine white surface stuck out like a sore thumb in this world of rot and stain. Coming to think of it, he was damn hungry. He hadn't eaten for almost a day by now. His stomach mewed in anticipation as he crouched down and went to open it. A soft, welcoming light fell across his face as he opened the door and rummaged thought the heard of plastic bags that crowded on the shelves. Jobe pulled one out, letting the bag unfurl as he examined the contence. What looked like a very bland mixture of Spam and corn-beef stared back at Jobe. Shrugging, he opened the bag and carefully tore off some of the meat before tentively popping it into his mouth. It wasn't that bad but he might as well see what else there was.
Jobe caught sight of a much darker package hidden away at the back of the fridge that looked far more appetizing Spam/beef hybrid. Whatever it was, it weighed a tonne. Jobe groaned as he pulled it from the fridge. Resting it on his lap, Jobe pulled back the cling-film to get a better look at his prize but it took his brain a few seconds to work out what he was looking at.
When it did, he screamed.
Jobe leapt up from the floor, sending the hunk of met flying from his lap. It landed on the floor with a wet slap and lay there harmlessly as Jobe tried to put as much distance possible between it and him. A pair of lifeless black eyes watched Jobe as he tried to convince himself that he was only seeing things but no matter how many times he blinked, the severed dog head was still lying there. Actually, it wouldn't have been so bad if it was a normal dog's head but this thing was warped in every way imaginable. It's naked moisten flesh twinkled in the harsh light that poured from the refrigerator, making it look almost alive while it's twisted snout was pulled back, revealing razor sharp fangs. The point where the head had been crudely severed from its body ended in thin slivers of its rancid flesh.
"Oh dear god…"
Jobe clamped a hand over his mouth and willed him self-not to be sick.
'What the FUCK is one of those things doing in her fridge?'This of course raised the question of what that meat was he'd just eaten. A dry, deep retch escaped Jobe's throat as he ran to the rusting sink and empted the contense of his stomach into it.
Trembling, Jobe finally managed to find the nerve to face the world again. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he rose up from the sink and glanced at the head. Its lips were pulled back into an insane, hideous grin that mocked Jobe as its ragged tough poked through its irregular, oversized teeth. With a kick, Jobe booted it back into to the fridge and slammed the door. Yet again, the thought of running from this place screaming flashed into his mind, more tempting than ever. What if he was the next thing to end up in the girl's fridge, wrapped up in cellophane? But then why would she bother to save him? Maybe this dog was the only thing to eat, it wasn't like there was a local seven eleven down the road.
If he ever escaped from Silent Hill, Jobe swore he'd becoming a vegetarian.
* * *
"Did you get anything to eat?" The question was asked so innocently that Jobe didn't have the heart to ask her why there was a decapitated dog in her fridge.
"No, I…lost my appetite."
"Oh, sorry."
Jobe had found her in yet another psychotically decorated room that did nothing to convince him that she was a normal, sane human being.
It was as if Jobe had walked into some warped museum. The far end of the room was decorated by every kind of weapon imaginable, ranging from a huge range of firearms (including roughly ten hand guns, a vicious looking shot gun and what appeared to be a hunting rifle) to hand-held weapons, some of which were just painful to look at. Most of them hung suspended by nails while others were trussed up like turkeys. Overshadowing all of them was the infamous kantana Jobe recognized from earlier, glinting wickedly from where it rested on a crudely set up stand. A heavy bookshelf ran across the other wall. Bizarre trinkets littered its shelves along with dog-eared books and stained letters, tattooed with arcane symbols. One shelf was exclusively taken up by an unfathomable number of ammunition boxes, piled on top of each other in a hurdy-gurdy catalogue
"What do you do when your not funding revolutions?"
The girl looked up from Jobe's handgun that she'd been trying to unclog and turned to him.
"I guess I spend my spare time trying to stay alive." She answered cynically before swivelling back round to the table on the randomly place office chair. As she huddled back over the gun, a short bray of what could have been laughter shook her frame.
'At least she has a sense of humour…of sorts'Stuffed away in the corner was the strangest thing of all. From where it sat on the ground, the sharp pyramid came up to Jobe's waste, ending in a fine point. Its edges were razor sharp and the whole thing looked as though it had been painted with a mixture of gore and dried blood. Jobe gave it a short tap with his foot, causing the pyramid to peel like a bell but the sound was so deep and metallic it caused a shiver to run up his spine. It sounded more like a roaring bear than anything forged by man.
"You have the weirdest things down here, I mean what the hell is up with this bell?" Jobe asked, keeping his eyes firmly on the crimson structure, not sure if he trusted it enough to let it out of his sight. Just looking at it filled him with a deep sense of dread that seemed to eat him up from the inside like an insane cancer.
"That? I found it under the hotel, and it's some kind of helmet."
"What would wear a thing like this? It's must weigh a tonne!" He kicked it again as if to get his point across. It seemed to be made from some kind of indistinguishable metal that flaked with rust.
"You really don't want to know." The rasp of an answer was far from comforting.
Giving the mystery object one last glance, Jobe made his way over to the workbench the girl was sat at, totally absorbed with fixing the gun. For a while, only the whine of the file filled the room as she pushed it up the barrel of the gun as she tried to get whatever was jamming it out.
"Your name's Jobe, isn't it?"
Jobe was so taken aback by the fact that the girl had started a conversation that it took a moment for him to realise she knew his name without asking.
"Yes, but… Wait, how did you know?"
Instantly, the slightly sociable girl disappeared, replaced by that submissive creature that retreated away from him into her chair.
"I-I-I'm sorry, I just overheard you talking about it when I carried you here. You were mumbling stuff and_"
"Slow down" Jobe raised his hands to signal for her to stop, partly because he was worried she could carry on like that until she collapsed from lack of oxygen. "I'm not mad at you or anything, I just wanted to know where you heard it, okay?"
The girl nodded sharply and seemed to relax somewhat, moving back into the chair, no longer perched on its edge. Jobe was more concerned with whatever he could have let slip while high on Greed's venom. He wasn't exactly comfortable that she could be in possession of every detail of his less than glorious life.
"What's your name then? I mean all I know about you is that you've got some really odd hobbies."
Jobe jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the display case as he spoke.
(And a seriously screwed up taste in food) Fortunately, he decided to not include this in his pathetic attempt to lighten up the mood. For a moment, her partially visible mouth formed an amused grin before the girl opened it to reply, and in that instant, the humour seemed to be drained from her. The lips moved but no sound came out as they tried to say some unpronounceable syllable.
"I can't remember…it's not that important anyway." The second part of her answer came out in a hurry as she kept her eyes fixed on the file as it forced its way in and out of the gun's barrel. From the tone of her voice, it was clear she didn't want any follow up questions and Jobe could tell she wasn't about to let him indulge in the details of her life.
"So what am I meant to call you then?"
She let out a frustrated sigh and silently contemplated on ramming the file through his face, but then he might run off, unable to understand she just wanted him to SHUT UP while she was working. Anyway, 'normal' people didn't act like that.
"You can call me ZaZa Gabourgh if it makes you happy."
The room fell silent except for the grating gnaw of the file. What should he call his guide through this hell he'd got himself in? The answer came so quickly that he almost laughed out loud just at the though of how well it fitted the situation.
"How about Virgil?"
