Yes, well, anyway. Chapter Six!
CHAPTER SIX
Rachel's panting breath caught in her throat and she pushed herself back a few inches, knees sliding on the smooth cement.
"Wait," the police officer said quickly, taking a step forward and raising her hands, palms outward. "I'm not going to hurt you. I want to help."
Rachel pushed herself to her feet and fell backward, pressing herself against the door she had come from while eyeing the cop warily.
The brown-skinned, blond-haired woman stayed where she was, speaking softly. "You don't have to be afraid of me. I'm a police officer, my name is Susan Desales. I can protect you, I can...help you."
The novelist blinked, then wilted. "S-sorry," she mumbled. "I'm - I've got - "
Susan Desales shook her head, her voice still in a deliberate soothing tone. "Don't worry at all. I'm sure we're all just a little bit...jumpy, right now."
She kept staring at her. "I'm Rachel Jones," she said, pushing herself to an upright standing position. "Do...you know what's going on here?"
"No. I was on patrol, and I stopped off to use the washroom. When I came out I was all alone, and there was all this...snow, in August. Also fog." She frowned. "My motorcycle was gone, too. I liked my motorcycle."
The monster was two doors away and silent, but Rachel's blood pounded in her ears all the same. She clenched her right fist with her left palm, smearing sweat on her knuckles. "Uh - police officer? Officer Desales, right? You have...shotguns, right? Weapons?"
She's trying to help you, get a grip, you want to stay alive don't you?
"No shotguns, you can't really put that on a bike." Desales spotted Rachel's slight look of confusion. "You're not from Silent Hill, are you? This town is old - laid out when people still used horses. We have cruisers, of course, but for basic patrol we usually just use motorcycles. Handle the streets better. S'why police uniforms in this area have leathers.
"But I do," she continued, reaching for her holster, "have this." Her hand came up holding a huge, wicked-looking cannon of a handgun. Rachel tried to feel relief knowing that another person had such a monster of a weapon and that she'd be sticking close to that person. She failed.
"Er - um - you've...I guess you've seen the things that are running around, now, right?"
"Yes. I've had to use this a couple of times. On that note - it's dangerous out. We'd better stick together - I'll protect you, okay?"
The door to the outside world was cold, contributing somewhat to Rachel's shivering. It took several seconds for her to talk. "Super," she said quietly, finally.
The officer smiled warmly. "Don't worry. I won't let you out of my sight."
Rachel nodded mechanically as Desales turned around, grabbing something behind her. "I think we're in some sort of stockroom for the hotel. I came down here looking for something I could use, and I managed to find you charging in that door like a missile. I couldn't find much else though. Some Christmas lights, some toilet paper, nothing useful."
Rachel eyed a heavy shovel lying in the corner, but Desales kept talking. "Yeah, you could use that to whack things with. But you're with me, now, right? I'd suggest you carry light. If you were on your own, maybe, but I'm a trained officer so..." she just kept going on and on, and Rachel should be saying something but she was just looking like an idiot and -
"Rest of the hotel!" Shouted Rachel suddenly, and Desales stopped and stared. Rachel felt her face flushing and began to stammer. "I mean - what about the rest of the hotel, should we - should we explore, find something..."
"I know. Good idea, if we stay in one place we're only going to get tracked down. Maybe we can find out a way to reverse what's happened. And if we're going to explore the hotel..." The officer dug into one of the pockets of her leather pants and pulled out a heavily folded square of paper. She tossed it to Rachel, who unfolded it with a nervous glance at the talkative woman. After the last fold it was revealed to be a large map of the hotel, several floors. Rachel stowed it away, Desales's eyes staring at her all the time.
"We should get going," the officer said.
"We probably should," confirmed the novelist, softly.
The door opened and the two figures moved into the dark hall. The cop closed the door slowly, quietly. In the pitch darkness, the other switched on the flashlight, shining the narrow white beam about the hall. It was wide, high, sounds echoing about; far too large for the puny beam to illuminate fully. Desales tiptoed forward, silently moving along the wall, watching the gray shadows. Rachel followed behind, trying to mimic the police officer's actions but clunking on clumsy feet.
They came to a corner and Desales raised a hand, stopping Rachel. She cocked her head to the side, as if listening, and Rachel followed suit. She could hear something very faintly, a sort of hissing, almost. It was impossible to tell more than that, due to the quiet, or even where it came from; it could be steam or wind or...
Desales slowly reached downward and took her radio off her belt. She lifted it into the air. The hissing increased slightly and Rachel realized it was static. Desales stretched out the arm holding the radio outward, towards the corner. The hissing increased. Desales turned to look at Rachel (causing the writer to shrink back a bit as she did so - Desales had a hard expression on her face that Rachel thought was directed at her) and reached for the flashlight. The officer shut it off, but before she did Rachel saw her draw her monstrous pistol.
The hallway was incredibly dark without the light. Rachel looked around, but her eyes couldn't penetrate the inky blackness. There was no difference whether her eyes were open or closed, and all she could tell of the world about her was the still hissing static of Desales's radio, which started to fade.
It took a second to figure out that Desales was moving away from her, and Rachel swung her arms around to find her. She was gone, around the corner based on what she could tell by ear. Rachel put her hand against the wall, to keep from losing herself, and started to edge around the corner. She longed to call Desales's name, ascertain her position, but didn't.
She noticed that the static seemed to be increasing in volume, even though it was obvious it was still moving away. The police radio itself was getting louder at its source, but...wait. Rachel could hear something else over the sound of the crackling radio, sort of like shuffling footsteps, and suddenly Rachel had a flash of memory. She remembered being back at the town's border, being attacked, and all the time her car radio going off with crackling, spackling static.
Suddenly a cone of light was born, down the hallway, it source at the torch Desales held in one hand. The other held her pistol, out in a shooting position and pointing at the other end of the light. The other end illuminated something familiar to Rachel - though half-concealed in shifting shadows, the hunched-over form and writhing female torso was unmistakable.
Desales fired her hand cannon only a split second after the light went on. The first shot was followed by a quick succession of shots, causing the Hermaphrodite to stagger in its steps but still keep shambling forward. Desales began to walk backward, keeping out of its range, before the monster dropped to the ground on the sixth shot, writhing. Desales took two quick steps forward and kicked it a couple of times, silencing it. The entire process had taken barely more than a few seconds.
The flashlight instantly winked out again, plunging the entire world back into darkness, and Desales made no more sound. Rachel could hear nothing but blood pounding through her head like pistons to the beat of her headache, not even static. Not even breathing; she suddenly realized she had begun holding her breath at some point she couldn't remember.
The flashlight came on again, the strong white light shining over the walls and swinging towards her. It hit the corner and spots swam in Rachel's eyes as she narrowed her eyes to slits. The beam turned slightly away; not direct enough to blind her but enough to illuminate both women.
"Are you all right?" the police officer asked.
"Y-yes." The loud gunshots had in fact turned the dull throbs in Rachel's head into an excruciating migraine, but mentioning so could easily provoke more conversation.
"I'm sorry I had to do that without telling you. Radios give off static when they're near, you see? They can't hear it, but they can see the light, so you have to sneak up on them. Or at least, I have to, you don't have to worry about anything..." the cop continued on and on, Rachel just nodding her way through. Couldn't she stop? She was always staring, whenever she talked to you she just kept staring into your eyes. Maybe that was why she was a cop, maybe her usual job was to interrogate likely suspects. You were just under a microscope to her...
Desales was still blathering about something, and Rachel could feel her cheeks flushing and her palms moistening when the officer stretched, interlacing her fingers and pushing her hands up above her head. She somehow managed to keep a hold of the flashlight as she did so and it shined downward on her, shadows accentuating dark circles that existed lightly under her eyes. The blue shirt was of light material and short sleeved, and Rachel noticed something.
Desales stopped talking, following her eyes. "What?"
"Uh - nothing, it's just - just you got a mark..."
"Mark? Where?"
"Just - under your arm. I'm sorry, I wasn't - it's nothing - "
"Armpit?" mumbled the officer, fingering her short sleeve. She twisted her arm and frowned, peering at the vaguely star-shaped rash-like mark. "Huh. Look at that. I must have gotten scratched somewhere. I didn't even notice." She passed the flashlight over to the novelist.
"You...didn't notice?"
She waved her hand in a dismissive fashion. "It's just a scratch. It's not like I haven't been hurt before. Blows..." she trailed off, mumbling. "Burns..."
"Uh-huh. Uh-huh." Rachel kneaded the flashlight in her hands.
Desales shook herself, and cocked her head to the side in the direction of the hallway. She reloaded her handgun and turned to continue walking, eyes finally leaving Rachel, and the novelist visibly relaxed.
They passed through a door into another hallway, and static began to hiss on Desales' radio. Desales was reaching for Rachel's flashlight again when she stopped dead and cocked her head, listening. The static seemed to contain more than white noise, there was also some squawks and squeals and -
"Shit. Run," said the officer as she grabbed Rachel by the wrist, yanking her into a run. The cop pounded down the hallway, feet thudding on the marble floor. But Rachel was a writer who never left her apartment and wasn't nearly as fast, clumsily running after the officer who quickly left the range of her flashlight. The novelist was attempting to follow the static of her radio when something sharp and pointed jabbed into her side.
The point slashed at her, cutting easily through her white shirt and carving into her skin. Rachel spun, a fine spray of blood misting the air, and the beam of the flashlight fell upon a Whip-Arm; a clone of the one that had chased her down misty streets outside. Instantly, reflexively, Rachel jumped backwards and the blade whizzed by in front of her face. Her back slammed against the wall.
It bounded forward, coming into reach, long legs making huge strides. The whip flew forward again but Rachel ducked to the side, uneven metal blade glancing off the wall. Rachel, regaining her footing, steadied the light on the Whip-Arm - it could move faster than her, especially indoors. She charged.
The head of the stainless steel tire iron smashed into the side of the Whip-Arm's skull. Rachel brought the makeshift club up, gripped it tightly and brought it down on the creature again. She saw its tendril come up again, going for her neck - and dodged, barely, now that she knew what was coming. It hit her in the back of the head rather than her neck and she slid past it. It tightened on nothing.
The tire iron swept from side to side, its shining head smacking the Whip-Arm in its dry red flesh first left, than right. The other arm came up, with its malformed fetus hand, and smacked her in the face, but as before she barely even noticed it.
She wanted to run. Oh, god, how she wanted to run. But it had all but caught her the last time she had tried to outrun one of these things it could probably do better on these polished marble floors, whereas her sneakers were probably doing the same as on the snow and street outside. The tendril came around another time, trying its strangling trick again, but once again Rachel dodged - sort of. Her head slipped out of the way, but in doing so her arm just happened to be in the wrong place and the tendril wrapped around her wrist. It tightened - and Rachel had enough time to slip her hand out, but in the process the tire iron was thrown from her nerveless fingers and clattered on the floor.
The light shone on the Whip-Arm's brutal front, its huge shoulders of muscle, but Rachel was too high on adrenaline to think rationally. It was between her and the quickest way out, and therefore it had to go down. Rachel threw herself forward and slammed her shoulder into the chest of the monster, knocking it off its feet and sending both to the floor. Rachel scrambled over to her tire iron and sat up, casting an eye back at the Whip-Arm. It was writhing, scrambling, and even from a prone position the knife-tipped whip lashed out at her. The novelist only barely had the time to jerk back as it blade slashed through the air where her face had been. She pushed herself up, but even as she did so the Whip-Arm lithely regained its footing in a surprisingly agile manner.
Rachel was about to charge when the world exploded to her side, a flash of light in her peripheral vision matching the nearly blinding burst of her migraine. The flash illuminated Desales's cannon and the two hands wrapped around the grip. The Whip-Arm was thrown back, a huge hole in what stood for its chest. Two more explosions knocked the Whip-Arm onto its ass, writhing as it was before.
A steel hand locked on to Rachel's upper arm and tugged, all but throwing her off her feet. "We have to go," urged Desales, strands of her straw hair falling over her eyes.
"We'd better finish it off - " started Rachel, still too shocked to bite her tongue.
"I don't care about that thing! We've - fuck!"
Rachel was too shocked to react as Desales shot forward, grabbed her by the collar and yanked. This time the novelist was pulled off her feet, sneakers slipping on the polished floor, but even as that happened she felt something part the air behind her head, batting her shoulder-length hair aside.
Desales apparently wasn't aware that Rachel's footing was bad and tried to drag her along, causing Rachel to fall to her knees. The writer scrambled, kicking forward, but Desales seemed to be unsatisfied and whipped out her pistol.
Only one round was fired this time, because the bullet had only just left the gun when something black - Rachel couldn't tell what, her flashlight was on the floor and everything was in shadows - and huge slammed into Desales and threw her to the side. The black on black shadow that was Desales was lifted right off the floor, spending a second airborne before slamming into the ground with a sound like a bundle of sticks snapping in half. There was no scream, just an oof sound as the police officer was hit.
Rachel grabbed the flashlight and threw the cone of light onto the attacker. It was definitely the largest creature she had seen so far - even the Bloated wasn't this size. It was easily seven feet tall, even hunched over as it was, looking all the world like the hackneyed Ogre of fairy tales. The features suddenly stopped being cliché when it was right in front of you in real life; huge shoulders, barrel chest, tree trunk legs, even the giant club in one hand. The club itself was gigantic, much thicker than her torso and the business end studded with sharp, jagged obtrusions covered in unidentifiable substances. Only its head looked odd; instead of raggedy hair or huge fangs it was some sort of metal construction, like an iron box with a jagged cut in the front. Rachel would suspect it to be a helmet if it weren't joined to its cracked, gnarled skin. And it was obviously twenty times stronger and tougher and more dangerous than she was, and it lifted its club above its head to bring down on her.
Rachel rolled to the side, the club smashing down on the polished marble floor with a sound like a crashing train. She got to her feet and backed away quickly, quaking.
The Ogre twitched, then jerked her head in the direction of the fallen police officer. Desales was only barely moving, palms still attempting clumsily to find purchase on the floor. Sweat made the torch's light flash on her light brown skin and she was obviously in a lot of pain. Rachel hoped it was the sort of pain that came from having bruised breasts and having the wind knocked out of you, rather than the sort of pain that came from having your ribcage crushed and the pieces stab through your heart and lungs. The Ogre made a move towards her and Rachel panicked. No way could Desales move out of the way in her condition.
"Hey! HEY!" In desperation, Rachel hurled her tire iron at the Ogre - a lucky shot, the stainless steel rebounding off its metal skull with a sound like kicking an empty tin can. Surprisingly quick, the metal head snapped a hundred degrees to the right to look at her, the rest of the mammoth's body still twitching freakishly. It twisted toward her, and Rachel managed to figure out what it was going to do a split second before it did it. She barely managed to leap backwards as the gigantic weapon swung through the air one-handed. She tried to back up further, but she felt the coldness of marble through the back of her shirt and knew she had hit the wall.
Its arm flexed again and she ducked, the jagged attachments to the club hitting the wall above her head and throwing off actual sparks. Rachel shot a look to the police officer and saw her slowly getting up, trembling. Her attention refocused on the Ogre and saw that it was lifting the club in both hands, preparing an overhand swing. Rachel pushed herself to the side - bring her closer to her dropped ire iron, luckily - as hard as her legs could manage and dodged the blow. She actually felt he ground shake as the club smashed into the floor. She leaned over, nearly losing her balance, and managed to pluck her tire iron off the ground before breaking into an all out run, taking her within a few inches of the creature, as she prayed to every god there ever was that it wouldn't be able to swing at her in time before she reached Desales. She grabbed her by one arm and half led, half dragged her towards the nearest door as shown by her flashlight.
They reached it and passed through, slamming it behind them, but while the squeals and squawks disappeared from the police radio a background of hissing static remained. "Map!" Gasped Desales, scarcely above a whisper, and Rachel passed it to her almost unconsciously as she flashed the torch about in search of whatever hellspawn was in this room.
Desales tried to pull to the left, though she obviously wasn't strong enough, but Rachel had nowhere to go right now and took any guidance she could get. She followed the cop's lead and came to a door, which the officer reached out weakly and opened and inch. Rachel, panicked almost beyond the range of logical thought, kicked the door the rest of the way and passed through as quickly as humanly possible. Rachel tried to keep going straight, coming into something she only dimly recognized as some sort of plush hallway, but Desales reached out and managed to catch hold of the knob on a door right to their left. Rachel opened it the rest of the way, all but threw the officer inside, and slammed the heavy door behind her.
On the floor, Desales mumbled something. "Fridge..." Unquestionably willing to do whatever she was told at this point, Rachel looked in the direction of the officer's gaze and saw a small minifridge. She leapt over, violently ripped the door open and spotted nothing inside but one small bottle. Grabbing it, she leapt over the bed in her way and landed by Desales. The cop managed to grab it, open it, and turn the neck of it to her lips.
The adrenaline content in Rachel's bloodstream finally began to fall back below 50 and she had a look around the room proper. Standing up, she realized she was actually in one of the hotel's rooms, complete with bed, kitchen, minifridge and TV in the corner. A very short hall through the kitchen led to the bathroom. There was a square of a lumpy, but folded white bedsheet on the corner of the bed. The light was on - the first instance of such she had seen in the building, or the entire hotel come to think of it. Rachel made her way over to the TV and turned it on, flipped through a few channels - all static. Rachel slumped into a sitting position, back against the bed, suddenly exhausted.
There was a very light thump as the glass bottle hit the floor and Desales wheezed. Rachel stayed where she was, with her back to the cop. It was always easier for her to talk with her back to people - she didn't get so nervous if she couldn't see them. Of course, talking with your back to people is ridiculous in itself, and sometimes that itself set her off...
No. She wasn't staying where she was so she could talk. She was staying where she was because she was too tired to move.
"Are you all right?" asked Rachel in a defeated tone.
A moment of silence. "Thanks to you. You saved my life."
"Well..." Rachel didn't take compliments well. She had to stay calm... "you wouldn't have been in danger if not for me."
"I'm a cop. I'm trained to protect you."
So tired. "What was that drink?"
"Oh?" Moment of silence. "I guess you didn't get a chance to look at it. Health drink - first aid. Its got some stimulants to keep me going short term, it helps rehydrate me for blood loss..."
"...for stabilizing a casualty until they can get to the hospital. I know."
Few moments, only punctuated by both of their heavy breathing.
"Uh - " A familiar sensation was beginning to creep over Rachel now. This was not a relaxed place to be, and Desales just wasn't as soothing as she obviously attempted to be. "You looked pretty bad back there. Are you sure you're okay?"
"I'm all right," said the officer, confident at least. "It just knocked the wind out of me, that's all. I think I just went unconscious for a few seconds. I'll have a hell of a bruise, a few cracked or broken ribs - but nothing debilitating, nothing crippling or anything."
Rachel put one elbow up on the bed, licking her lips. Her arm bumped against the square of folded bedsheet - and felt something hard. She frowned and turned her head to the square, slightly more lumpy now that she had bumped it.
It was ridiculous, but - she had found a key in a first aid kit after all, and a map in a phone booth...she grabbed one corner of the square with her thumb and forefinger and slowly lifted, catching a glimpse of what was underneath.
Her eyes widened and she stood bolt upright, exhaustion forgotten. "What..." she murmured, all but inaudibly, but Desales turned at the sound. Her eyes widened too, with a sharp question of "where did that came from?"
It was a pistol. A long, black and blue semiautomatic, to be precise. Rachel slowly lifted it, staring. "I dunno," she felt herself say in response to the officer's question. Slowly, she placed her hand on the grip. It was cool; Rachel shot a look at the bedsheet square and saw that it was damp where the grip had been touching. Rachel turned her head away back to the gun in -
tap water washing blood from your face gun in both wet hands
Rachel stepped back in shock. The gun dropped out of her hands - causing Desales to freeze up - and landed harmlessly on the bed.
"It's wet," muttered Rachel dumbly. "It's the same one..."
"Same what? Model? That looks like - "
"It's empty. It would be. If it's empty it's - " Rachel plucked the handgun and used her basic knowledge of firearms to yank out the magazine. It was empty. She slapped it back in automatically, hands shaking.
"Are you..."
Rachel grabbed the bedsheet itself and whipped it in the air, unfolding it completely. Low, there was an image like a stain. It was messy but still easily identifiable; circles and triangle, in a dull blood-like red, the same symbol as was on the wall that had sprung up on the highway. Rachel threw it away from her and it slapped against the wall.
"Are you..."
"No! I - " Rachel began babbling, staring at the gun, not even seeing the other woman during her verbal panic attack. "When I came into town there was this house, because I crashed my van, so I was looking for someone to get help. So I came upon this house, and there wasn't anyone there but a thing, a monster, woman on top and it was screaming and so I grabbed this gun - on the table, and it was bleeding - how can a gun be bleeding?"
"Do you hear that?" Desales was looking upward, as if she was listening for something.
"So, so before the monster I saw my face was covered in blood, so I went to the sink and started washing my face, and I got my hands wet and so I grabbed this gun and I got the gun wet! I got the grip all soaked because my hands were wet, the grip was slippery and then I dropped it because it was dead and all the bullets were gone - the clip was empty, right? So I dropped it and it should be all the way back at the house, I left it on the floor - "
"It's like sirens..." Desales blinked rapidly, rubbed her eyes. She ran a hand through her short bleached hair.
"And so I come to the hotel across the fucking town and it's here, in a hotel room under the laundry, and the laundry has that sign on it and that same sign was on the wall - the wall blocking the highway which couldn't be there and the sign was on both and something is - something is going on and - "
Desales suddenly screamed in agony, fists slamming against the side of her head as she dropped to her knees and Rachel jumped about a foot in the air. She screamed again in terrible pain - this from the woman who a minute earlier hadn't thought of a broken rib as debilitating.
"Oh my GOD! Please - " Desales screeched in pain again, a long, piercing wail that never seemed to end. "Stop it please - my head - "
Rachel was so terrified she didn't notice the red creeping down the wall, eyes popping out of their sockets. "I - I - " she couldn't think of anything productive to say, or do for that matter. Painkillers, but -
Medicine cabinet. Room had a health drink, it should have meds, right?
"Just wait! - I'll - " Rachel jumped over the bed, dashed into the kitchen area.
"Hurry please, it hurt - " she lanced into another agonized scream. "Help me daddy - mommy - " she whimpered.
Rachel slammed into the bathroom door, which popped inward easily. She didn't notice the strong discolouration of the wallpaper, or the way red had begun to drip out of the shower head. She grabbed the medicine cabinet and yanked it open, scrambling through various small bottles. She finally saw the word acetaminophen in tiny print on the label of one bottle and grabbed it.
"Buuuurnns..." she could hear Desales moan, and Rachel turned, but suddenly her concussion-granted migraine sprung into full force, like an atomic bomb going off in her head. Rachel actually staggered back from the blow, eyes clamped shut in pain, as the world shifted in earnest around her. She slipped and fell, landing in the tub, and was swallowed up by nothingness.