Very slowly, Augusta climbed to her feet, holding her breath and training
the beam of her flashlight on the door. Blood trickled down the wood in
lines and trails and dripped from the brass doorknob. In the frame where
there had once been the pane of smoked glass, rotted flesh had sloughed off
against the remaining glass shards and hung in leathery tatters. On the
floor was more of it, like crumpled rags. Pale and white and bloated, the
arm that had dropped off the thing lay on the carpet, and looked as though
it had come from someone long drowned. Near it sprawled the arms and legs
of the man who had lain on the sofa. They didn't look real; they were like
a mannequin's limbs.
There was silence in the waiting room, and silence behind the bloody door, but still Augusta thought, there might be a chance the man who had lain on the sofa could be alive. The thing could have simply yanked him through the door and abandoned him, and if it had, the man would bleed to death quickly if no one helped him. He might already be slipping into shock.
She crept closer, praying. Please don't let it hurt me. Please don't let it still be there. Please let it have disappeared or gone away or something. Please don't let it hurt me. There was so much blood... the closer she came the more seemed to appear in her light. It had splattered the walls nearby and marked them with an abstract pattern in red.
Behind the door the hallway was empty, but for more ghostly pale scraps of flesh and, she noticed, two more dead white arms and a leg. There was no sign of the man who had lain on the sofa, and no sign of the thing that had dragged him away... but she saw where they might have gone. At the end of the hallway, where there had only been another window cemented over like all the others in the building, there was now an enormous hole in the wall. Snowflakes still drifted through the dusky light outside, she saw, and the branches and leaves of a large tree were silhouetted in black against white drifting mist.
She took a handful of Kleenex from a box on a nearby table and carefully turned the doorknob, wary of crumbs of shattered glass and the infected blood beaded on the brass. The door opened as easily as before and she stepped forward, navigating between pieces of decayed flesh and limbs. At the end of the hallway, the edges of the hole were coated in slick, rotted skin scraped from the thing as it had burrowed its way through. She gingerly approached, and looked out. Above the hole, the Ridgeview Clinic climbed upward, and snow sifted down. Below, a picnic table lay in pieces on the ground, and looked as though it had broken the fall of something very large. There were more arms and legs and pieces of flesh. A trail led away through brush and bushes between the trees straight ahead; she heard branches twisting and snapping in the distance as something large crushed its way through. Her breath hitched. She knew what had burst through the wall and landed on the picnic table below, now plowing a path through the woods behind the clinic. If the man had lived much longer after having been pulled through the door, he was surely dead now.
She had never even asked him his name.
She looked out into the mist, into the forest behind the Ridgeview Clinic. Ahead was Wiltse Hill, and to her left Nathan Avenue with its causeway rising up from South Vale, taking flight toward the tunnel. She had never even asked the man his name... Augusta was heartbroken, but Kitty was still out there, somewhere, in this town, in the clutches of the thing that looked like a woman. She had to look for her daughter, and here was her way to get out of the building and continue her search. She looked back at the dark hallway behind her, then down at the pieces of skin and flesh torn from the thing.
She looked forward, at the tree and its sturdy branches, and jumped.
She caught a branch and dangled in the air, with the broken pieces of the wooden picnic table ready to impale her more than twenty feet below if she should lose her grip. There were no other branches below to grab on to. The tree was a very large, very old maple, its limbs thick near the trunk, and thinner and flimsier further out. They grew up, then out. If she could work her way to the trunk, she could climb down, but the bark was slick and wet from the mist, and if she tried to swing toward the trunk, hand over hand, she would slip and fall. Tightly gripping the branch, her fingers began to voice their protest, and threatened to let go.
After a moment of indecision, her heart pounding, she swung back with a grunt, then forward, then back, then forward, until her weight carried her high enough to catch the branch with her leg and hook it over. She hung with one leg on the branch and the other in empty air, still clutching the branch but relaxing her fingers, which ached and throbbed. After a moment, she pulled herself onto her stomach and rested looking down at the ground below. A pair of dumpsters blocked a narrow alley to create a small patio where Ridgeview Clinic nurses and lab technicians had probably taken their breaks and eaten their lunch at the picnic table under the great maple tree. But there were hardly any branches on this side of the tree, close to the building whose shade had stunted their growth. The rest of the tree however, was lush, with branches reaching up and out everywhere else along its trunk. It would be easy to climb down close to the trunk, so she began to scoot backward until she reached the trunk and found other branches, other handholds, to guide her down. At the bottom, she wiped her hands on her jeans and saw the dumpsters, splintered table, and a rust-flecked metal door marked "Employees Only. This is not a patient entrance!"
And something else. Someone who had once worked at the Ridgeview Clinic, some nurse or receptionist, or maybe even a doctor, had liked to garden, and at the edge of the patio colorful flowers rioted on a large square plot where they had grown untended for the past five years. From above, the garden had been hidden, and camouflaged, by the interlacing canopy of large flowering dogwood trees, their blossoms like a cloud of butterflies alighted on their branches, growing along the garden's edges. At the sight of something so beautiful, untouched by the horror she had just experienced, Augusta wanted to weep.
And she would, just as soon as all this was over. As soon as Kitty was safe, she would cry and scream and tear at her hair, but until then she had other concerns.
She needed a weapon. The man who had lain on the sofa had said there were things that didn't exist prowling Silent Hill, and she had no choice to believe it. She had already seen two of them, the thing that looked like a woman and the thing that had dragged the man away into the woods. God only knew what else there might be.
Ruined pieces of the picnic table were too splintered and studded with nails, and slick with a coating of dead, shredded flesh, to be of any use. They would rip her hands open. But nearby, at the spot where pavement ended and the beautiful flower garden began, she found them: a hoe and a shovel leaning against the wall, the tools that had helped create this garden, both entwined in a slender green vine studded with graceful, tiny white flowers. Taking care to harm the flowering vine as little as possible, she took the shovel, and was pleased to discover its handle made of sturdy steel instead of wood that would have grown mossy and spongy with rot in five years of mist.
Now came time to decide. If there was any chance at all the man who had lain on the sofa might still be alive, she would have to help him. If not, she would run away to look for Kitty. She prayed for a sign, some indication of what she should do, and as she turned away from the garden and walked toward the dumpsters, she received it.
She saw it, not far along the new path torn through the trees. She quietly approached and looked down at it, then kneeled. A torso lay on the ground, wearing shreds of the same red-and-black flannel shirt the man who had lain on the sofa had worn. The head was missing, and, she suspected, so was the heart. A red crater decorated with shredded flannel was gouged in the chest. Deep inside, broken bone gleamed whitely, and in the cool air, steam rose from the gore.
Augusta stood and said, "I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry," and walked away toward Nathan Avenue.
A numbness had overtaken Augusta, along with a sinking feeling she recognized as resignation. She remembered what the man who had lain on the sofa had said – people were called to Silent Hill, by people who should not be able to call them here, to make amends for their sins. To suffer for their sins. And she would suffer mightily before she would ever see her daughter again. If she ever saw her daughter again, and maybe, she thought, that was the point. Something had thrown an image of her daughter at her, then taken it away just to make her suffer. It might have all been an image, and she would never see Kitty again. Maybe that beautiful, perfect little girl had only existed for that instant, and now could be found nowhere on the face of the Earth.
She stopped, and calmly looked down at her hand with its lines of scabs. With her left thumb and index finger, she snagged a scab and ripped it off, then stabbed her index fingernail into the wound. The pain was fresh and bright like a flare. Doubt was selfish. There was no time for it, and visions could not slice skin with their fingernails. Her cuts were real, so her daughter must be as well. That was that. She would keep searching.
With the shovel weighing on her shoulder, she studied her surroundings. Fog swirled across Nathan Avenue, pouring from Toluca Lake through the trees along the shore to her right. Her ears rang in the silence. To her left was Lindsey Street, where the sinister black Jeep Cherokee was parked somewhere down the block.
The thing that looked like a woman might still be there...
"I have a name," said a familiar voice behind her, and Augusta gasped and spun around, clutching the shovel handle with both hands, ready to swing.
The thing that looked like a woman again wore her sunglasses, without a trace of blood on her skin or clothing. She grinned.
"I am Weeping Mary."
"Where is my child?" Augusta leveled the shovel at Weeping Mary, as if ready to spear her with the blade.
"How interesting that you'd care so much about the one you murdered."
Augusta steadied her grip. "A day hasn't gone by that I haven't regretted that. I've never been sorrier for anything in my life. I've prayed more about that than anything else ever."
Weeping Mary smirked. "Prayed? To your Scarred God? Imagine that."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't leave Joseph and have my daughter somewhere else, and raise her and love her, and watch her grow. Ending my pregnancy was the worst thing I've ever done in my life, and I've done nothing but regret it ever since."
Weeping Mary reached up to adjust her sunglasses and for a moment, Augusta was afraid she would take them off again to let the blood flow out.
"That wasn't what I was told," said Weeping Mary, "Are you sure you know what truly happened five years ago?"
"I don't know who told you anything, but I know for damned certain what happened. My boyfriend talked me into having an abortion by feeding me a bunch of bullshit about us not being ready to have a child. I agreed because he made decent money and I wanted him to take care of me – I was afraid to be on my own, and I thought that maybe if we stayed together we might fall in love again, and things would be the way they were when we were first together."
"I found out he'd never loved me anyway though, and just didn't want to have to deal with raising a child or paying child support. I admit I was selfish for giving in to him, and I admit I'm the one who did wrong here, but for the love of God, can't you see I'm sorry? Please give her back to me and we'll leave this place, and we'll leave you alone."
Her laugh was rich and throaty. She threw her head back and her long curls shook with it.
"I didn't bring you here," said Weeping Mary, still giggling, "and I couldn't care less if you leave or not. I'm not here for you, dear one. I'm here for all the children, and if you've brought me another one to play with, you can stay forever as far as I'm concerned."
"If you don't care about me, why are you here talking to me? Why did you talk to me before and tell me I could have my little girl back if I just suffered enough?"
Weeping Mary again wore her smirk. "Are you going to hit me with that shovel you found? I can grind you to jelly in my fist, little woman."
Her arms were growing, her fingers warping and twisting into familiar, long, bejeweled claws. Augusta trembled, but held the shovel steady.
"I spoke to you before and I speak to you now because, my dear, few things are ever accomplished in this world without cooperation. I'm not here for you, I'm here for the children, but that doesn't mean I can't help another who offers me a child to play with." Her words were stretching themselves out, elongating into a hiss.
Augusta refused to show her fear. "I didn't offer you any child, and you're not helping me. I don't know what the hell you're talking about."
Weeping Mary's claws scraped the ground, sparking against the pavement of Nathan Avenue. "You flatter yourself, dear one. What makes you think I'm speaking of you?"
She opened her mouth and the long, forked tongue spilled out. She lisped around it. "You ask too many questions."
And she was gone, leaping far up into the mist, hurtling upward to disappear. Augusta breathed heavily through her gritted teeth, her heart hammering. The thing – Weeping Mary – never dropped back to the ground. Snowflakes fell lazily through the fog, still melting as they landed.
Augusta heard a sound in the distance, a noise like shoes scuffing against pavement as someone stumbled. She heard a whimper, a low moan of pain. It came from behind her, somewhere along Nathan Avenue, deeper into South Vale. She turned, but saw nothing through the fog.
Very faintly she heard, "It hurts... Mama where are you...? It hurts so bad..."
Her heart seized and her breath caught in her throat. In an instant she was running toward the sound. She left the intersection of Nathan Avenue and Lindsey Street behind. The art gallery at the corner of Nathan and Lindsey disappeared behind her, and the South Silent Hill Fire Station appeared on her left, and just beyond it she halted and her momentum nearly carried her forward onto her face. Something huddled on the curb ahead and to her left, slumped against the base of a spindly dogwood tree whose pink blossoms were bright in the gloom. She heard sobbing.
"Mama... Daddy..."
It was a child. In terrible pain. Augusta bolted forward to the tree, and dropped to one knee, dropping the shovel on the ground.
The child looked up, and Augusta saw a girl, white, perhaps ten years old, perhaps eleven. Tears streamed down her face. Her clothing was old- fashioned: a blue and white checked dress, and a light blue cardigan sweater, knee socks, and black-and-white saddle oxfords. Her hair was short and curly.
Her clothing below her waist was drenched in crimson and Augusta saw a dark trail leading away along the sidewalk until it disappeared in the mist.
"Oh God... Oh, honey, what's wrong? Where are you hurt?"
The girl violently shook her head, flinging tears and a thin streamer of mucus from her running nose.
Augusta reached forward, and the girl shrieked.
"Honey, please! Let me help you – please tell me where it hurts."
"I-I c-c-can't," the girl sobbed, "I can't... It's b-bad... I want my m-mama and d-d-daddy..."
"I'll help you find them, baby, I promise, but you need to let me help you now."
"Noooooooooo!" she wailed.
Augusta used both hands to steady the girl's head, a hand on each tear- soaked cheek. She looked into her eyes. "I promise you – I promise you – that I will not hurt you, and that I will help you find your parents. But, you have to let me help you. You're bleeding and we need to take care of that. Do you understand?"
The girl only wept.
"Can you stand up?"
The girl shook her head.
"Then show me where you're hurt, and maybe we can do something about it right here."
"I can't... It's bad."
There was very little blood above the girl's waist...which meant... Augusta swallowed.
"Sweetheart, if someone's hurt you down there you still need to show me so I can help you. You can show me what's wrong. It's okay."
The girl stared into Augusta's eyes, still weeping.
"You can trust me. I promise." Augusta clasped her hands across her stomach.
The girl closed her eyes, still sniffling, trying and failing to hold in her tears. Very slowly, she reached down and lifted her skirt. Her bony knees emerged, and her thighs, all streaked with red. Under her skirt, she wore frilly shorts that probably had once been white. Something large protruded between her legs.
The handle of an enormous knife.
"Sweet Jesus!" Augusta gasped, "Who did this to you, baby?"
"Mr. Sullivan did it," she choked through her tears, and dropped her skirt, which slapped wetly against her legs.
Augusta's mind raced. This child had already lost a tremendous amount of blood. To pull out the knife would worsen the damage, but if left alone it would cut and stab with every movement the girl made. Maybe if she removed the knife and stuffed the wound with gauze or cloth... If she tried to find help, the girl might bleed to death in the meantime. She looked back toward the fire station. Would there be anything helpful inside? Wouldn't a fire station have first aid kits, if nothing else?
But this wound was far too severe to be helped by anything in a first aid kit. Augusta didn't know what to do.
"He still has Billy," sobbed the girl, "and I have to find mama and daddy so they can go help him!"
"Who's Billy, sweetheart?"
"That's my brother! And Mr. Sullivan still has him... I have to get mama and daddy!"
The girl struggled to her feet, slowly and painfully. Blood pooled where she had sat, dripping sluggishly into a storm grate. There were long smears of it on the bark of the dogwood tree.
"Baby, please!" Augusta begged, "Be still! Be still so the bleeding will stop!"
So the knife won't cut you any worse than it already has. The girl ignored her and staggered forward, tottering toward the door of a business sandwiched between South Silent Hill Fire Station and St. Stella's Catholic Church. She screamed and sobbed with every step.
Augusta jumped to her feet, and looked up. The girl was heading toward a two-story building with a business on the first floor and an apartment above. Augusta followed, helpless. She couldn't guide the girl or help her to sit. Movement would only drive the knife deeper. A sign on the building read: "Locane's Grocery – Fresh Produce, Meats, and Cheeses."
The door was made of wood whose green paint was cracked and flaking. There was a large glass window, and an old brass handle and brass mail slot. The door was closed. The girl passed through it and her wailing ceased, and Augusta stopped where she stood and could only stare. A smear of blood decorated the glass and peeling paint, and the girl was gone. Augusta peered through the enormous display window that occupied most of the building's façade. Inside, she saw tables and chairs, and an ice-cream counter stretching along the wall to the right. Hadn't the sign advertised a grocery store? She stepped back and looked up. The sign was gone; in its place were four plastic-and-metal letters: TCBY.
What? The door was still smeared with blood that had begun to drip down in a too-familiar pattern, but the old green paint was gone. The door was now white, obviously newer and probably made of aluminum, with a black metal handle. Augusta felt dizzy. She looked toward the dogwood tree. Blood still pooled in the street, and painted the tree trunk, and trailed away up the sidewalk.
What? A trail. Follow it. Augusta shook her head and wiped a palm across her forehead. The dizziness evaporated. She walked to the pooled blood, retrieved her shovel from where it lay on the pavement nearby, and hefted it over her shoulder, then began to walk, following the trail of bloody spatter.
There was silence in the waiting room, and silence behind the bloody door, but still Augusta thought, there might be a chance the man who had lain on the sofa could be alive. The thing could have simply yanked him through the door and abandoned him, and if it had, the man would bleed to death quickly if no one helped him. He might already be slipping into shock.
She crept closer, praying. Please don't let it hurt me. Please don't let it still be there. Please let it have disappeared or gone away or something. Please don't let it hurt me. There was so much blood... the closer she came the more seemed to appear in her light. It had splattered the walls nearby and marked them with an abstract pattern in red.
Behind the door the hallway was empty, but for more ghostly pale scraps of flesh and, she noticed, two more dead white arms and a leg. There was no sign of the man who had lain on the sofa, and no sign of the thing that had dragged him away... but she saw where they might have gone. At the end of the hallway, where there had only been another window cemented over like all the others in the building, there was now an enormous hole in the wall. Snowflakes still drifted through the dusky light outside, she saw, and the branches and leaves of a large tree were silhouetted in black against white drifting mist.
She took a handful of Kleenex from a box on a nearby table and carefully turned the doorknob, wary of crumbs of shattered glass and the infected blood beaded on the brass. The door opened as easily as before and she stepped forward, navigating between pieces of decayed flesh and limbs. At the end of the hallway, the edges of the hole were coated in slick, rotted skin scraped from the thing as it had burrowed its way through. She gingerly approached, and looked out. Above the hole, the Ridgeview Clinic climbed upward, and snow sifted down. Below, a picnic table lay in pieces on the ground, and looked as though it had broken the fall of something very large. There were more arms and legs and pieces of flesh. A trail led away through brush and bushes between the trees straight ahead; she heard branches twisting and snapping in the distance as something large crushed its way through. Her breath hitched. She knew what had burst through the wall and landed on the picnic table below, now plowing a path through the woods behind the clinic. If the man had lived much longer after having been pulled through the door, he was surely dead now.
She had never even asked him his name.
She looked out into the mist, into the forest behind the Ridgeview Clinic. Ahead was Wiltse Hill, and to her left Nathan Avenue with its causeway rising up from South Vale, taking flight toward the tunnel. She had never even asked the man his name... Augusta was heartbroken, but Kitty was still out there, somewhere, in this town, in the clutches of the thing that looked like a woman. She had to look for her daughter, and here was her way to get out of the building and continue her search. She looked back at the dark hallway behind her, then down at the pieces of skin and flesh torn from the thing.
She looked forward, at the tree and its sturdy branches, and jumped.
She caught a branch and dangled in the air, with the broken pieces of the wooden picnic table ready to impale her more than twenty feet below if she should lose her grip. There were no other branches below to grab on to. The tree was a very large, very old maple, its limbs thick near the trunk, and thinner and flimsier further out. They grew up, then out. If she could work her way to the trunk, she could climb down, but the bark was slick and wet from the mist, and if she tried to swing toward the trunk, hand over hand, she would slip and fall. Tightly gripping the branch, her fingers began to voice their protest, and threatened to let go.
After a moment of indecision, her heart pounding, she swung back with a grunt, then forward, then back, then forward, until her weight carried her high enough to catch the branch with her leg and hook it over. She hung with one leg on the branch and the other in empty air, still clutching the branch but relaxing her fingers, which ached and throbbed. After a moment, she pulled herself onto her stomach and rested looking down at the ground below. A pair of dumpsters blocked a narrow alley to create a small patio where Ridgeview Clinic nurses and lab technicians had probably taken their breaks and eaten their lunch at the picnic table under the great maple tree. But there were hardly any branches on this side of the tree, close to the building whose shade had stunted their growth. The rest of the tree however, was lush, with branches reaching up and out everywhere else along its trunk. It would be easy to climb down close to the trunk, so she began to scoot backward until she reached the trunk and found other branches, other handholds, to guide her down. At the bottom, she wiped her hands on her jeans and saw the dumpsters, splintered table, and a rust-flecked metal door marked "Employees Only. This is not a patient entrance!"
And something else. Someone who had once worked at the Ridgeview Clinic, some nurse or receptionist, or maybe even a doctor, had liked to garden, and at the edge of the patio colorful flowers rioted on a large square plot where they had grown untended for the past five years. From above, the garden had been hidden, and camouflaged, by the interlacing canopy of large flowering dogwood trees, their blossoms like a cloud of butterflies alighted on their branches, growing along the garden's edges. At the sight of something so beautiful, untouched by the horror she had just experienced, Augusta wanted to weep.
And she would, just as soon as all this was over. As soon as Kitty was safe, she would cry and scream and tear at her hair, but until then she had other concerns.
She needed a weapon. The man who had lain on the sofa had said there were things that didn't exist prowling Silent Hill, and she had no choice to believe it. She had already seen two of them, the thing that looked like a woman and the thing that had dragged the man away into the woods. God only knew what else there might be.
Ruined pieces of the picnic table were too splintered and studded with nails, and slick with a coating of dead, shredded flesh, to be of any use. They would rip her hands open. But nearby, at the spot where pavement ended and the beautiful flower garden began, she found them: a hoe and a shovel leaning against the wall, the tools that had helped create this garden, both entwined in a slender green vine studded with graceful, tiny white flowers. Taking care to harm the flowering vine as little as possible, she took the shovel, and was pleased to discover its handle made of sturdy steel instead of wood that would have grown mossy and spongy with rot in five years of mist.
Now came time to decide. If there was any chance at all the man who had lain on the sofa might still be alive, she would have to help him. If not, she would run away to look for Kitty. She prayed for a sign, some indication of what she should do, and as she turned away from the garden and walked toward the dumpsters, she received it.
She saw it, not far along the new path torn through the trees. She quietly approached and looked down at it, then kneeled. A torso lay on the ground, wearing shreds of the same red-and-black flannel shirt the man who had lain on the sofa had worn. The head was missing, and, she suspected, so was the heart. A red crater decorated with shredded flannel was gouged in the chest. Deep inside, broken bone gleamed whitely, and in the cool air, steam rose from the gore.
Augusta stood and said, "I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry," and walked away toward Nathan Avenue.
A numbness had overtaken Augusta, along with a sinking feeling she recognized as resignation. She remembered what the man who had lain on the sofa had said – people were called to Silent Hill, by people who should not be able to call them here, to make amends for their sins. To suffer for their sins. And she would suffer mightily before she would ever see her daughter again. If she ever saw her daughter again, and maybe, she thought, that was the point. Something had thrown an image of her daughter at her, then taken it away just to make her suffer. It might have all been an image, and she would never see Kitty again. Maybe that beautiful, perfect little girl had only existed for that instant, and now could be found nowhere on the face of the Earth.
She stopped, and calmly looked down at her hand with its lines of scabs. With her left thumb and index finger, she snagged a scab and ripped it off, then stabbed her index fingernail into the wound. The pain was fresh and bright like a flare. Doubt was selfish. There was no time for it, and visions could not slice skin with their fingernails. Her cuts were real, so her daughter must be as well. That was that. She would keep searching.
With the shovel weighing on her shoulder, she studied her surroundings. Fog swirled across Nathan Avenue, pouring from Toluca Lake through the trees along the shore to her right. Her ears rang in the silence. To her left was Lindsey Street, where the sinister black Jeep Cherokee was parked somewhere down the block.
The thing that looked like a woman might still be there...
"I have a name," said a familiar voice behind her, and Augusta gasped and spun around, clutching the shovel handle with both hands, ready to swing.
The thing that looked like a woman again wore her sunglasses, without a trace of blood on her skin or clothing. She grinned.
"I am Weeping Mary."
"Where is my child?" Augusta leveled the shovel at Weeping Mary, as if ready to spear her with the blade.
"How interesting that you'd care so much about the one you murdered."
Augusta steadied her grip. "A day hasn't gone by that I haven't regretted that. I've never been sorrier for anything in my life. I've prayed more about that than anything else ever."
Weeping Mary smirked. "Prayed? To your Scarred God? Imagine that."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't leave Joseph and have my daughter somewhere else, and raise her and love her, and watch her grow. Ending my pregnancy was the worst thing I've ever done in my life, and I've done nothing but regret it ever since."
Weeping Mary reached up to adjust her sunglasses and for a moment, Augusta was afraid she would take them off again to let the blood flow out.
"That wasn't what I was told," said Weeping Mary, "Are you sure you know what truly happened five years ago?"
"I don't know who told you anything, but I know for damned certain what happened. My boyfriend talked me into having an abortion by feeding me a bunch of bullshit about us not being ready to have a child. I agreed because he made decent money and I wanted him to take care of me – I was afraid to be on my own, and I thought that maybe if we stayed together we might fall in love again, and things would be the way they were when we were first together."
"I found out he'd never loved me anyway though, and just didn't want to have to deal with raising a child or paying child support. I admit I was selfish for giving in to him, and I admit I'm the one who did wrong here, but for the love of God, can't you see I'm sorry? Please give her back to me and we'll leave this place, and we'll leave you alone."
Her laugh was rich and throaty. She threw her head back and her long curls shook with it.
"I didn't bring you here," said Weeping Mary, still giggling, "and I couldn't care less if you leave or not. I'm not here for you, dear one. I'm here for all the children, and if you've brought me another one to play with, you can stay forever as far as I'm concerned."
"If you don't care about me, why are you here talking to me? Why did you talk to me before and tell me I could have my little girl back if I just suffered enough?"
Weeping Mary again wore her smirk. "Are you going to hit me with that shovel you found? I can grind you to jelly in my fist, little woman."
Her arms were growing, her fingers warping and twisting into familiar, long, bejeweled claws. Augusta trembled, but held the shovel steady.
"I spoke to you before and I speak to you now because, my dear, few things are ever accomplished in this world without cooperation. I'm not here for you, I'm here for the children, but that doesn't mean I can't help another who offers me a child to play with." Her words were stretching themselves out, elongating into a hiss.
Augusta refused to show her fear. "I didn't offer you any child, and you're not helping me. I don't know what the hell you're talking about."
Weeping Mary's claws scraped the ground, sparking against the pavement of Nathan Avenue. "You flatter yourself, dear one. What makes you think I'm speaking of you?"
She opened her mouth and the long, forked tongue spilled out. She lisped around it. "You ask too many questions."
And she was gone, leaping far up into the mist, hurtling upward to disappear. Augusta breathed heavily through her gritted teeth, her heart hammering. The thing – Weeping Mary – never dropped back to the ground. Snowflakes fell lazily through the fog, still melting as they landed.
Augusta heard a sound in the distance, a noise like shoes scuffing against pavement as someone stumbled. She heard a whimper, a low moan of pain. It came from behind her, somewhere along Nathan Avenue, deeper into South Vale. She turned, but saw nothing through the fog.
Very faintly she heard, "It hurts... Mama where are you...? It hurts so bad..."
Her heart seized and her breath caught in her throat. In an instant she was running toward the sound. She left the intersection of Nathan Avenue and Lindsey Street behind. The art gallery at the corner of Nathan and Lindsey disappeared behind her, and the South Silent Hill Fire Station appeared on her left, and just beyond it she halted and her momentum nearly carried her forward onto her face. Something huddled on the curb ahead and to her left, slumped against the base of a spindly dogwood tree whose pink blossoms were bright in the gloom. She heard sobbing.
"Mama... Daddy..."
It was a child. In terrible pain. Augusta bolted forward to the tree, and dropped to one knee, dropping the shovel on the ground.
The child looked up, and Augusta saw a girl, white, perhaps ten years old, perhaps eleven. Tears streamed down her face. Her clothing was old- fashioned: a blue and white checked dress, and a light blue cardigan sweater, knee socks, and black-and-white saddle oxfords. Her hair was short and curly.
Her clothing below her waist was drenched in crimson and Augusta saw a dark trail leading away along the sidewalk until it disappeared in the mist.
"Oh God... Oh, honey, what's wrong? Where are you hurt?"
The girl violently shook her head, flinging tears and a thin streamer of mucus from her running nose.
Augusta reached forward, and the girl shrieked.
"Honey, please! Let me help you – please tell me where it hurts."
"I-I c-c-can't," the girl sobbed, "I can't... It's b-bad... I want my m-mama and d-d-daddy..."
"I'll help you find them, baby, I promise, but you need to let me help you now."
"Noooooooooo!" she wailed.
Augusta used both hands to steady the girl's head, a hand on each tear- soaked cheek. She looked into her eyes. "I promise you – I promise you – that I will not hurt you, and that I will help you find your parents. But, you have to let me help you. You're bleeding and we need to take care of that. Do you understand?"
The girl only wept.
"Can you stand up?"
The girl shook her head.
"Then show me where you're hurt, and maybe we can do something about it right here."
"I can't... It's bad."
There was very little blood above the girl's waist...which meant... Augusta swallowed.
"Sweetheart, if someone's hurt you down there you still need to show me so I can help you. You can show me what's wrong. It's okay."
The girl stared into Augusta's eyes, still weeping.
"You can trust me. I promise." Augusta clasped her hands across her stomach.
The girl closed her eyes, still sniffling, trying and failing to hold in her tears. Very slowly, she reached down and lifted her skirt. Her bony knees emerged, and her thighs, all streaked with red. Under her skirt, she wore frilly shorts that probably had once been white. Something large protruded between her legs.
The handle of an enormous knife.
"Sweet Jesus!" Augusta gasped, "Who did this to you, baby?"
"Mr. Sullivan did it," she choked through her tears, and dropped her skirt, which slapped wetly against her legs.
Augusta's mind raced. This child had already lost a tremendous amount of blood. To pull out the knife would worsen the damage, but if left alone it would cut and stab with every movement the girl made. Maybe if she removed the knife and stuffed the wound with gauze or cloth... If she tried to find help, the girl might bleed to death in the meantime. She looked back toward the fire station. Would there be anything helpful inside? Wouldn't a fire station have first aid kits, if nothing else?
But this wound was far too severe to be helped by anything in a first aid kit. Augusta didn't know what to do.
"He still has Billy," sobbed the girl, "and I have to find mama and daddy so they can go help him!"
"Who's Billy, sweetheart?"
"That's my brother! And Mr. Sullivan still has him... I have to get mama and daddy!"
The girl struggled to her feet, slowly and painfully. Blood pooled where she had sat, dripping sluggishly into a storm grate. There were long smears of it on the bark of the dogwood tree.
"Baby, please!" Augusta begged, "Be still! Be still so the bleeding will stop!"
So the knife won't cut you any worse than it already has. The girl ignored her and staggered forward, tottering toward the door of a business sandwiched between South Silent Hill Fire Station and St. Stella's Catholic Church. She screamed and sobbed with every step.
Augusta jumped to her feet, and looked up. The girl was heading toward a two-story building with a business on the first floor and an apartment above. Augusta followed, helpless. She couldn't guide the girl or help her to sit. Movement would only drive the knife deeper. A sign on the building read: "Locane's Grocery – Fresh Produce, Meats, and Cheeses."
The door was made of wood whose green paint was cracked and flaking. There was a large glass window, and an old brass handle and brass mail slot. The door was closed. The girl passed through it and her wailing ceased, and Augusta stopped where she stood and could only stare. A smear of blood decorated the glass and peeling paint, and the girl was gone. Augusta peered through the enormous display window that occupied most of the building's façade. Inside, she saw tables and chairs, and an ice-cream counter stretching along the wall to the right. Hadn't the sign advertised a grocery store? She stepped back and looked up. The sign was gone; in its place were four plastic-and-metal letters: TCBY.
What? The door was still smeared with blood that had begun to drip down in a too-familiar pattern, but the old green paint was gone. The door was now white, obviously newer and probably made of aluminum, with a black metal handle. Augusta felt dizzy. She looked toward the dogwood tree. Blood still pooled in the street, and painted the tree trunk, and trailed away up the sidewalk.
What? A trail. Follow it. Augusta shook her head and wiped a palm across her forehead. The dizziness evaporated. She walked to the pooled blood, retrieved her shovel from where it lay on the pavement nearby, and hefted it over her shoulder, then began to walk, following the trail of bloody spatter.