Christ, I listend to Jhonny Cash's 'Hurt' over sevently times while writting this out.Well, here we go... personaly, I dare to think this may be one of the better chapters.
'We climbed and climbed until we caught a sight,
Beyond a rounded opening, of store
On store of things of Heavenly delight;
And we emerged to see the stars once more.'
-Dante's inferno, canto XXXIV
Chapter 43: Fading to black
"…"
"Huh?" Grace barely moved her head an inch at the voice that sounded miles behind her as she stood painfully ridged, her eyes transfixed and locked onto the flickering destruction she'd wrought.
"I said we need to get out of here!" It came again, clearer this time. Along with the soft words, a hand gently laid itself on her shoulder, weakly shaking it in some vain hope of yanking the woman from her trance and back into the real world…
It might as well have slapped down with enough force to break each and every bone in the left side for all she felt.
For a moment, Grace just went on staring at the dancing inferno that softly crackled before her; if she squinted hard enough, her dry and thirsty vision could just about make out the dark, lifeless form of Parker amidst the flames that danced madly about him as if in fanatic worship of the black and brittle corpse.
Just the sight of it was enough to make her sick. He could be as dead as winter's leaves but that wouldn't be enough to kill the bitter, goading testament he'd left behind…
"Grace, we have to get out of here, this whole place is going to be up in flames any minuet now!" The voice buzzed again in her ear like some lazy fly. Finally, she turned to it, her slumped and listless joints moving as if set to run on some brain-dead, automatic setting.
Jobe shuddered as her gaze crept sluggishly onto him… no, onto wasn't the right word at all. Those two green eyes which had at one time been so bright and full of bouncing life just dully stared without seeing a single thing, slipping straight through Jobe as though he were nothing more than a transparent space of empty air.
"…ok…" She mumbled.
Jobe's hand dropped as the woman began shuffling aimlessly towards the door without question.
Good god, where had Grace gone? What was this…machine that had replaced her? Jobe almost couldn't bring himself to watch her as she brush aside the withered tendrils that now limply hung over the door, now so still without their masters bidding, and step out into the weak, sickly grey light of the fading afternoon. It was like watching a
'dead man walking…'
Jobe tried to swallow down the bitter tasting guilt that flowered in his mouth at the thought. How could he even begin to think of judging her? She'd died while he still had the chance to live. Anyone in that situation couldn't physically be in a right state of mind, hell, wouldn't that be enough to practically destroy most people?
The man hacked a cough, serving as a reminder of the acrid smoke that was gradually tainting the musty oxygen inside the church. The flames that roared around Parker had spread out, chewing up the carpet and wooden floor at a ravenous pace while some had even begun to clamber up a nearby pillar. Seeing the scene before him, Jobe was suddenly more than aware of the beads of sweat that were slowly peculating through his skin along with the hot air that choked his lungs with each breath. He was about to turn and run from the burning place when something mentally hit him with the force of a two-by-four square between the eyes.
'Virgil…'
8 8 8
The girl in question had woken up a while ago but hadn't moved until now. Up until this moment, she'd been lying in a limp huddle of limbs, staring blankly off into some unknown space. 'Perhaps', she'd thought as the battle between Grace and Parker raged on, 'If I can just lie here and pretend I died.'
Yes, that made a lot of sense. She could stay right there; no one was telling her to get up and none would really care anyway if what Parker said about them being 'un-needed' was true. She could just stay curled up in the sore heap she'd landed in and claim the eternal sleep that had evaded her for these past two years...
Then the fire had started.
Virgil let a half smile cross her face as she slipped on to the pew that had broken her fall. Sitting down, she watched the ever growing blaze as it rolled out across the church, plunging everything it touched into abstract, roaring orange.
The scene was all too familiar, and just like the last time, she had no intentions of leaving.
"Virgil?"
Teeth shone through the grin as her cracked lips parted. Just how much was this going to be like her sad attempt at getting away from it all in that burning stairwell all that time ago? Would Jobe pick up the part that lying blond soul (who, coincidently, had also been searching for someone who no longer existed and claimed false innocence) and try to deter her from her dream of death? But then, even if she sat here until she was nothing but a pile of ashes, would she finally be able to die?
"Virgil!"
The flames licked closer.
"VER"
"What?" The whisper came so curtly, freezing the hand that Jobe was about to grab her shoulder with in mid-air.
"I…" Stuttering, Jobe ran his tongue over his dry gums. God, how could she sound so calm? This whole place was in the process of going up in a big ball of flames but she was just sitting there, acting as though there wasn't a thing wrong in the world. She might as well have been watching a past sermon for all the concern she showed. "I- I mean we should get out of here. I don't know how long this place is going to…" A low moan escaped from the network of rafters overhead as the white hot fire began to chew on them, as if to remind the man of what it was he meant to say before they'd so rudely interrupted. "...Hold up for."
"Yes, you're right." Virgil sighed contently, lolling her head back so that she could take in the searing inferno that had replaced the ceiling. "It could come down any minuet on us. You probably don't want to be here when that happens."
Jobe felt something inside him draw itself into a tight knot.
"But you're not going to still be in here when that happens either," He allowed himself a nervous laugh but it tasted so damn rotten he had to stop it almost immediately. "Are you?"
Virgil's glassy eyes rolled onto Jobe as her head lay on the top of the back rest. Still smiling, she gave her answer.
"You should really make a move." And with that, she closed her eyes, filling her lungs with the thick air that swirled about them.
The revelation hit Jobe like a tone of brick. She'd had enough. She didn't want to go on with twisted, god-forsaken life she'd been damned to. She wanted to stay here and take the burning chance of escape the flames offered and who cared if it didn't work, she could at least enjoy the faint, tangible hope of death for now…
'No…'
"Are you still here?"
Jobe dug his feet into the crimson carpet, his jaw locking tightly.
"Get out…" She murmured softly with eyes still closed, but still Jobe stood rooted to the spot. The voice of reason had returned with a vengeance, screaming at him to heed this perfectly good advice Virgil was giving to him. If he didn't get out of this glorified cinder box right now, it would be the very thing to do him in. After all he'd lived through, didn't that prospect seem a little…mundane?
But…he just couldn't. The stench of death hung too heavily on him already. He couldn't just stand here a let Virgil add herself to the toll. Again.
"How…how can you just sit there and be like that." He choked. "You spent so long fighting and running away from Parker and Claudia, but now they're gone. Don't you see? You can't just go and give up, especially not now, now it's all over. Why… that would be going against everything you've done!"
Silence, save for the soft roar of the ever swelling inferno. Virgil's back rose as she breathed deeply and creaked slowly to her feet.
"You have something to go back to. I don't." She turned to him, skulking out from behind the pew. "I've got to carry on living in this place for as long as it wants, but you… you're free! You can go back to a world not one of us belong to and leave this…this…" She struggled as the words began to rush from her mouth in one great gabble of uncontrollable noise. "…utter hell behind you! Get on with your life. Don't waste your time on me. Can't you just let me have this one thing-"
The sentence was cut painfully short as Jobe's hand flew across her face in a sharp slap. Virgil's head snapped to one side and for a moment she could do nothing but wear a blank expression of shock, her eyes unfocused and staring off into some distant, unknown point.
"Don't talk like that!" But even before he'd got the sentence out, Jobe found the heat that had fuelled his lashing out dwindling. Quickly, guiltily he drew in the vicious hand that was still out-stretched and stiff as a back board, hiding it in the grip of his other. Oh god, why had he done that? There was no way she would listen, let alone come with him and leave the one place she'd once been so afraid of coming to… Hell, in doing that, Jobe had probably just gone ahead and fortified her belief that men were nothing but a malicious, forceful breed, out for nothing but their own gain.
"I…" She slowly slipped back to whatever plain of reality they were on, choking out the word as if they stuck in her throat like sharp fish bones. "I-I'm so s-s-sorry."
Jobe had to do a double take. He was just about to ask her what the hell she was talking about when the ragged girl collapsed forward on to him in a fit of sobs and apologies.
As he slowly lead her from the raging mess of fire that was the church, Jobe couldn't ignore the pang of guilt that dug its sharp talons into his back. It would be wonderful to be able to say that he'd cheated Virgil out of her death yet again only because he was trying to make her see what was best for her; if he only didn't want to see her just give it all up and slip away into the absolving darkness that was this town.
Ha, as if.
The only reason he'd tried so hard to make her see the light was for his own peace of mind. Any more guilt and it would probably be enough to well and truly crush him under its already unbearable load.
'How selfish…' A small voice whispered at the back of his mind.
Jobe didn't have it in him to tell it to shut up.
8 8 8
Jobe didn't need to look back to know they'd stopped. That old familiar silence filled the saturated air as his own foot-fall came to a stand still, bringing an end to the monotonous clack of shoes on the road's permanently slick surface. Heavily, he turned to look once more upon the two who'd been shadowing him without a word ever since the three of them had left the church far behind to burn and crumble.
"You're not coming any further, are you?" Jobe asked, already knowing what their answer would inevitable be. For a moment, Grace (who had slipped ever further into her own world of morbid thoughts as if the fog that swirled around them had suddenly grown fat and thick about her and her alone) and the girl who she dumbly traipsed behind like some small, lost child were silent.
Then, something strange happened.
Virgil smiled; not one of those drugged, false smiles that were either drenched with lunacy or the maliciousness of wrath but a genuinely warm thing despite its melancholy undertones.
It was the happiest he'd ever seen her.
"I just can't… I-I've been here for too long and you saw what happened the last time you took me with you…This place…it-it doesn't let people like me go." Virgil looked up at the low hanging grey sky, peering through her knotted, straggly bangs at the mist that swirled above them.
It almost looked close enough to touch…
"I guess I should t-t-thank you for earlier…" She went on, watching the shapes that formed and melted in the fog. "You know, for not just leaving me in there. It-it probably wouldn't have worked anyway…" Virgil brought her wondering gaze back down onto Jobe but quickly found it flitting away when she saw the almost painful grimace he was wearing. "S-s-sorry…"
"Huh? No, it's not that." The man quickly stopped himself from blurting out the cause of his discomfort to the burnt girl, after all, how could he say that the real reason he looked as though someone had just force fed him a plate of rancid meat was because he had saved her?
"Do you think…" Jobe trailed off, nodding in the direction of the practically catatonic Grace. Virgil turned an eye to the soulless shell that the woman next to her had hollowed out into before looking back at the man with a slow shake of her head.
"I don't thi-"
"I can't…" the lifeless woman muttered, cutting of Virgil with a far away murmur. "I mean, I can't can I?" Grace dully turned to Virgil, desperate for some, hell, any form of confirmation, but the girl said nothing, suddenly absorbed by the over head sign that still gave a warm welcome to anyone who made the mistake of crossing into the boundaries of the town. "Heh," Grace laughed bitterly. "That's just what I though. I mean, I'm dead, right? Can't exactly go putting that on our C.V's, can we?" The words disintegrated into a fit of sniggering as Grace's fingers scurried for the crumpled box of cigarettes that patiently waited in the pocket of her jeans, but how funny it was; as she pulled the sad, cardboard structure free, that high, ragged attempt at laughter sounded so very much like crying…
Grace opened the box with shaking fingers that seemed to jerk with a life of their own as they sought the comfort of the familiar stick of nicotine and tar.
"Fuck…" She'd forgotten they were empty. Jobe shifted uncomfortably in the silence that came chasing after Grace's blunt profanity as the lonely stretch of highway fell quiet once more.
"So, I guess this is it, huh?" He tried to push a note of happiness in to his words, but no matter how hard he tried, it just didn't fit and even as he said it, he swore he could see Virgil wince at the off-key sound.
"Sorry…"
Jobe half-smiled at the girl's automatic reply as he begun to turn away.
"Me too, Angela. You guys really should be coming with me… Take care of yourselves, ok?" And with that, he took his first step away from it all. Behind him, Grace rose a hand to wave, but once it was up and hanging their in the air, it lost all certainty and dropped back to her side like a stone.
Virgil just settled with watching him melt into the mist.
8 8
'I'm free…' Jobe paced on, head down low and hands thrust deep into the pockets of his shirt. 'So why doesn't it feel that way?'
'Because you know you belong back there with them?' That small, persistent voice spat spitefully back at him, sharp enough to burn a hole.
The man shrugged, bending a little lower and walking a little fast but it didn't get him away from the knowledge that it was right, which of course, it was.
Virgil had killed a man, so she remained there…
Grace had lived a lie and infected god knows how many, so she remained there…
He, Jobe, had butchered two people, the two people closest to him no less and lived a lie…yet he got to walk away.
It wasn't fair.
'Well, if it's any consolation, they'll probably throw your sorry ass in jail the minuet you get back.'
Consolation? Right, how could spending a life behind bars ever measure up to being damned to an eternal sentence in the nightmarish prison that was Silent Hill?
Quite simply, it didn't. Not by a long shot.
Crunch
Jobe stopped as something ground itself into the tarmac under his shoe. Cautiously, he pulled his foot back, peering down at the road with a frown.
'glass?'
He looked up, his eyes catching on the little slithers of transparent crystal that lay strewn across the tarmac, tracing them as they led off into the mist and-
'What is that?' Jobe frowned as his gaze met the dark shape, blurred out but the banks of milky fog that filled the air. Before he could think even twice about curbing the welling curiosity within him, Jobe found his feet carrying him towards it and with each step, the mist's grip on the ambiguous object relented a little more.
This was a bad idea… how many times had he followed his impulses like this and ended up sorely regretting it? And had he ever learnt from his past mistakes? No, of course not. That was why he was foolishly going to investigate this great mass that lay on the road instead of just shrugging it of and carrying on his merry way-
Jobe stopped, his stomach taking off with a violent lurch. The thing that lay before him like a piece of dead road kill left to be picked clean by hovering carrion was in fact the wrecked remains of the very car that had carried him to Silent Hill.
He stepped closer to the upturned vehicle.
The boot faced him, the plate of thin yet sturdy metal crumpled beyond belief while the glass of the back window had all but shattered, leaving nothing but a great black void. The jagged remains that stubbornly clung to it framed the hole like the maw of some great monster.
Slowly, he took another step…and quickly whished he hadn't.
There was a break in the darkness, an interlude of pale white dotted with red that hung limply through the irregular gap that had replaced the back window. It-it-it…
'It's her hand…'
Jobe felt his gut heave and tremble, his eyes going wide as he recognised the slender form as Julia's. He must have stood there for a full minuet before his legs found the strength to move again. Trying not to look back at it or let his mind wonder about what else might be residing in the dark recesses of the boot, he walked past, stopping only as he past the front of the car.
Something… something wasn't right. His peripheral vision had snagged on something that didn't belong in the picture as he'd tried to stride past the car without a second glance. It may have only have been a flash, but it was enough to get the muscles in his neck jumping, itching to turn and just take one very quick look.
In than moment, Jobe suddenly knew exactly how Orpheus must have felt as he stood at the mouth of the underworld, slowly driving himself mad as the question whether or not his wife was waiting silently behind him drove itself into his brain like a white hot nail...
'It was probably nothing.'
But still he stood there.
'Just keep walking.'
Yet again, he couldn't get his brain to override the ravenous curiosity.
'DON'T!'
But it was too late; his head had already begun to turn and all too quickly, he'd gone past the point of no return.
For the first couple of seconds, his brain blankly refused to take it in. It had to be a trick of the light or his eyes were just taking a moment to focus… But a moment came and when, and still the sight remained.
Something horribly familiar lay among the mess that was the front of the car. Cold and lifeless, it was strewn itself among the cracked remains of the windshield like some limp and listless rag doll…
Only, this doll was composed of flesh and blood.
"…no."
Jobe spun away from it, clamping his eyes shut as if his thin lids could block out the image, but it was all too little too late. Oh god, he was going to be sick.
'Don'tthinkaboutitdon'tthinkaboutitdon'tthin-'
But the picture of the bloodstained, grey shirt had happily burnt itself on to his retina along with that of the dark skinned corpse that filled the ragged, dusty cloths. No matter how hard Jobe tried, he could not cleans it from his mind and with each attempt to push it out, it just seemed to burn all the brighter. It was clear to him, painfully, painfully clear.
He had seen what he had seen, and it was him. There was no denying it, that thing crumpled up amongst the wreckage could be no other.
Jobe did what anyone who was forced to face such a garish truth would do. He ran away from it as fast as he could, screaming as he held his head in his hand, fingers digging in as if they could rip the image of his dead, true self free from within his skull. Blindly, he tore down the road, feet hammering on the tarmac as his head spun and buzzed. He had to-
Jobe's foot caught on something. He stumbled, missing his footing altogether and went tumbling to the ground. Unmercifully, it caught him, punching the air from his lungs.
And for a second, he just let himself lay there, allowing the sodden moisture to soak into his own grey shirt.
'So, I'm as dead as thye are…' Time ticked on, but it had left Jobe far behind as it when on marching at its unwavering pace. All the man could do was let the morbid thought roll about his head, thudding off the insides of his skull. Finally, he brought himself to open his eyes… Only to find the empty gaze of the thing that had felled him staring right back.
The air caught in his throat.
Suddenly he knew. This was the thing that had run out in front of the car. This was the thing that had caused him to crash. This was the thing he'd slammed into at fifty miles per hour.
The lifeless eyes of Grace just stared back at Jobe, unmoving as they watched the revelations tare straight through him.
8 8
Grace flinched as the screaming ripped apart the dumb silence that had fallen on the strip of foggy road like light snow. Again and again the sound of welling pain came, never relenting as it shook the air.
The sound of it was enough to make Grace want to die.
Tears had begun to dampen her eyes by the time her hand locked desperately on to Virgil's, gripping it as if it were the one last thing holding her above some depthless, hungry cataclysm.
The wailing went on, and the girl made no attempt to stop the woman as she squeezed her bandaged hand ever tighter.
A.N- well, onto the epilouge, and then it's all going to be finally over... I hope the ending didn't disapoint. Long, long ago, i think i may have planed it to be a little up lifting but that just died...
SlapDash- Ah, thanks for pointing that out to me and yes, I was being English. Heh, i'm sorry for encuring your jelousy, though i wouldn't say i'm worth it. Thankyou for being such a long time reader, it's reveiws like yours that had kept me going.
Nessmk- well, i hope that ending was good enough for you. Thanks for leaving your thoughs and reading this for so long. Don't worry, I've got a couple more stories
to churn out before I'm done (though hopful, they won't be quite as long).
E.P.O- wow, thankyou. I'm glad you think the charaters have chrater. I always worry their too flat or angst, angst, angst.
