Good lord, it's under four pages!

Chapter 35: Welcome to Silent Hill. Again.

It suddenly came onto Grace that this must be how a solider charged with the task of walking through a mine field must feel before each tentive step, unsure that if the next time his foot comes down, it won't be several meters away from the rest of his leg. Granted, her situation may be somewhat less lethal, but a mistake in judgement could be just as explosive. She drew a breath and took the plunge.

"Jobe?"

The man in question didn't even flinch at the sudden sound of his name as he sat hunched over the driver's wheel.

"Hmmm?"

Grace wetted her lips.

"What's going to happen when we get to Silent Hill?"

Jobe was quiet for a moment, letting the ticking of the car fill the silence.

"We're going to go to the church. I'm guessing the two people I'm wanting to see are going to be there and we're going to find out what this whole mess is about."

"And then what?"

Grace slowly looked over at Jobe under the guise that she wasn't whatching him at all. God, he looked so cold, as if someone had replaced the man she'd met all that time ago in the wreckage of a smashed truck with a figure made with stone.

"I'm going to kill them." Grace knew when he spoke those soulless words, there would be no deterring him.

From the back of the car, Vigil shifted in her enforced slumber muttering something about 'mama'.

"So why do we have to come if this is all about you trying to get even? What good is it going to do to drag us back into this mess?"

Jobe froze up, her words cutting a little deeper than intended and hitting that sensitive nerve.

"You think this is just about me?" Grace said nothing, shifting to look out the window into the darkness beyond the window that had spread through the sky like spilt ink through water. "Because it's not. They wanted you to, Grace, Virgil as well. Don't you want to find out why? What the hell gives them the right to do the things they did to us…" His voice dropped a decibel. "They did to me."

He was glad Grace had no more pearls of wisdom to offer on the subject. Last thing he needed was more guilt pushed upon him and he'd decided what he was going to do the moment Julia's already cold body hit the floor with that oozing, red dent in the side of her head. Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing was going to stop him, come hell or high water.

From the back, Angela's unconscious voice rose once again. "…For wrath kills a man and envy slays a simple one…" Before falling back into incoherent muttering.

Jobe shuddered.

8 8 8

Jobe clicked the bones in his neck. Damn, did it feel good to be out of that tiny metal box that tried somewhat tragically to pass itself off as a car. All added up, they must have spent the best part of a day in there, breathing down each other's necks and chocking on their own breath.

He looked up in to the grey sky, drawing in the damp and odourless air into his lungs as he watched the swirls of fog make odd patterns in the air. Funny, he hadn't noticed when it had got light again…

"Gee, I forgot how scenic this place was." Muttered a sarcastic Grace as she clambered out of the car, casting the bleak and invisible surroundings a dark look.

"Don't worry, we won't be here for long." The man offered, eyes still trying to dig through the solid air that hung all around them. "Would you get Virgil?"

Grace didn't object, well verbally at least, as she disappeared to the other side of the car. Jobe let his eyes drop to the head of the faithful fire-axe clasped in a loose fist, it's wickedly sharp head red with rust and god knew what.

'Are you really going to add the spilt blood of those two to all the other stuff that's on there? Can you, no, would you really be able to go as far as that?'

They took everything from me.

'Yes, but you're not a monster…' for once his conscious sounded unsure of itself. '… are you?'

Jobe would have shot something back at the internal voice if it hadn't been for the sudden break in the silence as Angela fell from the car, hitting the sleek tarmac in an undignified heap of unresponsive limbs. Maybe Grace was right; perhaps this wasn't such a good idea after all…

The girl was already trying to get back up by the time Grace had stooped down in an attempt to get her on her feet. That wonderful sense of weightlessness that had possessed her had lifted and the sensation that had replaced it was as nowhere near as endurable.

Virgil felt as though she'd just leapt from the roof of a thirty story building, hitting the concrete below like a stone just in time to get run over by a sixteen wheeler that had been speeding along the very road she'd collided with. That wasn't including the way her head thumped with even the tiniest movement or the fact it felt as though her eyelids were made of sand paper. To put it frankly, she felt shitty. Really, really shitty. The "I don't feel so good" she whispered as Grace dragged her to her feet was a gross understatement and the woman backed away from the human thing she'd left propped against the car, whatching as Virgil fought to stay up right.

"Shit, Jobe, we can't take her with us…" There was compassion there, honest.

"I know…" He noted Grace's delicate observation with a grave scowl. Oh well, he'd been prepared for this after seeing what a state the girl had been in when they'd carried her back to the car in the drab surroundings of the hospital's drab car park. "Virgil?"

"Huh?" The girl's eyes snapped up, trying to lock onto Jobe. Wow, was it possible for his voice to really be coming from so many directions at once?

"We're close to the church, right?"

"Ehh…" She glanced up at the foggy surroundings, trying to gather any sort of sense as to where they were in the town, pushing off from the car and taking a few shaky steps into the grey air. Jobe shut his eyes and tried to repress the urge to scream when he saw the look on her face when she turned back to the two. When he heard the fateful words, "I'm really sorry, but…" It was all he could do not to fall to the ground in a fit of hysterics and beat the ground until his fists bled dry.

"We're on the wrong side of town…" Angela saw the colour drain from Grace's face, leaving her as pale as the air that floated between them and dropped her head, whishing that she had some talent in breaking bad news. "Sorry…"

"It's not your-"

"Oh man!" Grace cut into Jobe's halfhearted apology; locking her fingers in place behind her head and caught the sideways look the man gave her. "What? You think I'm going to walk all the way across town, this town, just to watch you get even with a pair of priests? We'll be dead before we even get there!" She made for the car.

"What are you doing?"

Grace's eyes snapped up from the driver's door she'd been working her way into. Virgil just stood back, numbly whatching the scene before her unfold from a safe distance. Why did everyone around her always have to end up at each other's throats?

"Doing? What does it look like I'm doing?! I'm getting the hell out of here before this place decides to turn me into someone like you!"

She might as well have slapped him, for the result was the same. Jobe stumbled back, his eyes trying to focus on something intangible as his mouth attempted to form some sort of retort. Grace watched, reaping her verbal harvest before ducking inside the car.

It left her with the sour taste of remorse and guilt in her mouth.

For all her tactlessness, the woman knew when she'd overstepped the limits of tender human emotions, and she could safely put her hand on her heart and say this was one of those times. She'd said her harsh bit and now all that there was left to do was close the car door and get out of here as fast as this old bucket of rust and metal could go.

"And where are you going to go, Grace?"

The woman looked up, but it wasn't the man, who had leapt to his own defence.

"Do you think this town's going to let you waltz out of here just like that?" Vigil leered, a half formed smile that didn't seem to know how to work properly slowly forming on her lips. Grace's arm was still, holding the door open as she watched with something bordering on horror as the girl took a painfully slow step towards the car, swaying like a poor drunk as she tried to stay upright.

'Just shut the door and get the hell out of here.'

"You saw what happened the last time we tried to do that. And it's going to happen again and again and again…"

'What the hell's wrong with her?' Grace didn't notice how she'd started to slowly shift away from the open door, trying to put as much distance between the ranting girl and herself, all the while trying to break the iron grip of Angela's eyes that had locked onto her own and stubbornly refused to let go. Something bordering on mania flitted across them.

But just as the bitter taste of fear began to crawl up the back of her throat from the pit of Grace's stomach, Virgil stopped, the menace that had filled her only seconds before suddenly evaporated from her system, leaving not a trace of itself behind. Realising that there were two sets of wide, disturbed eyes gawking at her, she quickly dropped her head and shuffled back.

"I-I'm sorry, I sh-shouldn't have said that…"

Grace just stared, dumbfounded. She turned to the dashboard, intent on turning the key in the ignition and resurrecting the car's dead engine but sudden urge to drive off into the neo-existent sunset had gone stone cold and dead. If all that was going to be waiting for her beyond the town's border was a whole world filled with mist and fog like Virgil said, she might as well stay here and go as mad as the rest of them. Cursing under her breath, Grace climbed out from the car.

Why o why did she always let herself get talked into doing the stupidest things? Oh well, it wasn't like that mattered too much anyway, for if Grace had let her eyes linger on the dashboard for a moment longer, she would have seen that the car had only enough petrol to get it three lowly miles before coming to a spluttering halt. Walking through Silent Hill with two people who were pushing the limits of human sanity (well, one at least. Angela had broken that boundary long before she'd even heard of this town) would not be fantastic experience, but somehow, I think being on a desolate stretch of highway in equally twisted and lethal surroundings all by yourself might be even worse…

Might.

8 8 8

"Um…Jobe?"

The man heard Grace but just walked on, following the rather uncertain path Angela led him by as she tripped down yet another grey road, leaning so heavily on her sheathed sword. Sure, it had houses and shops and streetlights and everything else you'd expect to find on any other street in America, but it was all a guise. It all felt so very false, like the smile on the face of a vet as he greets some miserable wreck of a pet while holding a syringe loaded with painless poison behind his back. It was all a mask hiding truly dark intentions.

'Anyway, this can't be America. I haven't seen a single McDonald's or Starbucks the whole time I've been here.'

"Jobe?" Her voice rose up again, brimming with uncertainty.

"What?" The man offered crisply, agitated that he'd let her drag him from the world of his own thought. Had she always been this persistent?

"Look, I know you probably aren't going to listen but I didn't mean what I said earlier."

Silence, save for the continuous tap of Virgil's kantana on the road.

Grace sighed. She'd been expecting this response but not prepared for it and the rejection hurt all the more because of it.

"I mean," She tried to find the words to carry on this failed apology. "I really can't understand how you must feel after all you've-"

He pivoted, trainers squealing as he turned on the wet tarmac. Up ahead, Virgil stopped, looking wearily over her shoulder with a sigh, wondering if Jobe was liable to solve arguments the same way Mr. Orosco had until a knife to the neck solved his aggressive tendencies.

Several meters behind, Grace found her mouth was empty, the words shrivelling up like musty, dried leaves as Jobe glowered down at her from slit eyes.

"You can't understand? Of course you can't! You can't even begin to imagine half the things they put me through!"

Grace backed into her self, wincing at how loud his voice was and how very alien it seemed in the noiseless surroundings.

"Hey, I was there to. I know-"

"You know?" He broke in, ramming her unfinished sentence back in her face. "Really? You think you know? Do you know how it feels to have to kill your best friend? To have to smash the person you love's head in? Do you know how it feels to have all those people turn on you because some arrogant bastard and witch get their kicks playing mind games…" He stopped, drawing a shaky breath from the empty air and leaving Grace just goggled up at him, dumb with shellshock. "It makes you want to just die."

He turned, leaving Grace to mull over his words as he sulked off after Angela, who was pretending pretending she hadn't heard a word of it. However, for that to be true, she would have to have been half a mile away.

AN: I would like to thank all those who have stuck through up to this point. It's been a while, huh? Is this the longest story in this section, I wonder…

E.PO- oh, there's been a whole veriaty of music that would probably be considered odd for writing something like this to.

SlapDash- Heh, I've still got a few up my sleeve. Actually, in a chapter or two, there's going to be quite a big one…