Chapter 17: Cracks in the Ice
These are not natural events; they strengthen from strange to stranger.
-The Tempest
Beth awoke on an icy lawn. Her cheek and palms were pricked by sharp blades of grass and a thin layer of snow, while the rest of her body was fortunately shielded by warm clothes. Her eyes fluttered open to find the lawn illuminated by the afternoon light of a grey sky above. She scrambled to her feet and brushed the milky-white flakes off her upper body and thighs. The wind snapped at her hands, and she withdrew them into her sleeves in a feeble attempt at staying warm.
"I hate this weather," Kyle commented. He stood next to Beth, contemplating the overcast heavens. Flies no longer covered his body, and he didn't even have any visible wounds or other injuries. He looked like a perfectly normal man, albeit a little pale.
Beth scanned the buildings and roads under the dull sky. She instantly recognized her surroundings as Hooper Lake City. The somewhat desolate town was pervaded by mist today. "Weird," she remarked. "I've lived in this city for nine years, and it's never been this foggy before."
Kyle nodded. "I know."
The large, oblong lawn was situated before a three-storey building with a twining plant growing on its red brick walls. 'St. Gilliam School – Et Facta Est Lux,' proclaimed the brass sign above the entrance. "Et Facta Est Lux," Beth read aloud. "I've forgotten what that means …"
"And there was light," Kyle translated. "It's from the Story of the Creation, in Genesis."
"Oh, right." Beth ran her eyes along a row of bicycles parked by the school. One of them was surrounded by a group of teenagers. Due to the howling wind, Beth could only intercept a few fragments of their conversation.
"Sharon and Louise are so …"
"… that goddamn witch …"
"… them to fuck off."
A red-haired boy pushed the bike onto the icy asphalt. He produced a switchblade knife and cut the tyres open. An older-looking blonde boy ripped the chain off and hurled it away. It landed in the high, tangled branches of a tree on the middle of the lawn. The group of teenagers walked off down the street, gratified smirks on their faces. Their bodies were swallowed up by the fog, and their laughing voices were lost in the whistling wind.
"Kyle?" Beth said, feeling strangely apathetic. "Where are we?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Kyle replied. "We're at the St. Gilliam School in Hooper Lake City."
"I know, but … when are we?"
"I thought you'd never ask," Kyle said. "In the past. Or rather, in a shadow, an echo of the past. A memory."
One of the double doors to the school opened, and a brown-haired girl stepped out. A heavy school bag hung from her shoulders. Beth recognized the pupil as Sharon Barkin. "Are we in her memory?"
Kyle shrugged. "I'm not sure."
"When is … I mean, when did this happen?"
"Last Friday."
"7th of January?"
Kyle nodded.
Sharon walked along the row of bicycles, until she found her own bike laying vandalised on the asphalt. The girl merely stood there for five seconds, glaring at the handiwork of the bullies. Her eyes scanned up to find the bike's chain hanging from the tree's branches. She then looked to her left at a vehicle driving down the street – a yellow car with the unmistakeable 'TAXI' sign on its roof.
Sharon hurried up to the sidewalk to hail the cab. Kyle and Beth followed, running across the lawn. By the time they had reached the street, the taxi had stopped, and Sharon had gotten into the backseat. Kyle and Beth sat down next to her. Neither the girl nor the cab driver seemed to notice the two blind passengers.
The driver turned around to look at the girl. Beth was slightly surprised to recognize him as Kyle Coppola, the exact same man sitting next to her on the backseat.
Sharon pulled some crumpled bills out from her pocket. "This is all the money I have. Just take me home, please," she stuttered.
"Where's your home?" the Kyle of the past inquired.
"Rubin Street 29."
"Okay, we'll be there in ten minutes," Past Kyle said and drove south.
Beth watched the city glide by outside. Snowflakes fell from the grey heavens and brushed against the car windows. After a few minutes, they passed her apartment building, Hooper Lakeshore Apartments. Her grey Honda was parked outside. Back then, its owner had been blissfully unaware of her vehicle's future destruction by the grim Reapers. The present Beth sitting in the taxi closed her eyes and leaned back on the greasy seat.
A couple of minutes later, Past Kyle let out a yelp of shock. Beth's eyes snapped open in time to see the driver turn the wheel right, even though there was only a downward hillside in that direction. Sharon screamed.
Suddenly, it all stopped.
The car stopped moving. No one had slammed the brakes - the car had just stopped in the blink of an eye. Sharon had frozen on the backseat, her mouth open in a scream of pure silence. Past Kyle's hands were clutching the wheel, but not moving one millimetre. Even the snowflakes outside had stopped in mid-air. It was as if someone had simply pressed the 'Pause' button on the remote control for this world.
"What the hell happened?" Beth said.
"We have to get out here," Kyle replied. He turned to his left and stepped out of the car. He didn't even open the door first. His body slipped right through the thick metal in one swift, casual movement.
Beth didn't bother asking any more questions. She followed Kyle out of the vehicle, feeling nothing but cold air as she left through the closed door.
The desolate road outside was leading straight through Hooper Park, a small forest-like area in the southern end of the city. Steep hillsides surrounded the wide road. A cat had frozen in front of the taxi. The grey animal had been sauntering across the road, when the events in this world of memories came to a sudden halt.
Beth realized why Past Kyle had turned the wheel. Since there had been no time to hit the brakes at such close distance, he had been trying to swerve around the cat.
"I should have run over it," the Kyle of the present said, standing at the left side of the road. "It would have died, but I still should've run over it instead of trying to swerve. I just felt so tired that day, and there was so much fog. It's almost as if this was all secretly staged by some unseen power – maybe that "God" of the Silent Hill cult … Well, when I saw the cat on the road ahead, I didn't have time to think. I had to do what my instinct told me."
"And you would have made it, if the road wasn't so icy." Beth put two and two together.
The screech of tires skidding against asphalt obliterated the silence, and the whole situation continued to unreel itself before Beth's eyes. The taxi slid across the road, Sharon screaming inside while the driver struggled fruitlessly to regain control. The car rolled down the hillside, leaving only a trail of shattered glass and fragments of crushed metal in the snow.
Hooper Lake was located at the bottom of the hillside. Its freezing waters were concealed under a thin layer of ice. The taxi spun onto the small lake, blood already splattering across its windows. A cobweb-like pattern of cracks rapidly spread through the ice, until it yielded under the vehicle's weight. With a loud splash, the car sunk through the surface and into the icy depths, like Lucifer thrown down to his eternal imprisonment in Cocytus.
Beth stared at the gap left in the ice. "So … you and Sharon are …"
She turned around and scanned the road. The present version of Kyle was nowhere to be seen.
The grey cat trudged off and vanished in the mist.
-
A/N: Yeah, I'm probably suspending your disbelief by now. Blame Kyle and Sharon's fate on the evil God's influence … Kind of like the truck driver in Pet Semetary. Anyway, the review count has hit triple digits! Thanks to all my readers for following this odd little tale of mine, and thank you so very, very much for leaving feedback on it. I wouldn't have gotten this far without you. Tune in next week ... -E.P.O.
