AUTHOR'S NOTE: Please forgive the long interval between submissions, but I
work at a hotel where tourist season is getting under way! I do most of my
writing at work, and it's been just too busy to write sometimes. I hope
everyone's still following along and enjoying. Remember, comments are
always welcome, as are suggestions and criticism, as no writer can grow
without that.
As she followed the blood drops down Nathan Avenue, Augusta realized, and accepted, that she had seen a ghost. She must have because no one could have lost this much blood and lived. And that explained quite nicely how the girl had passed through a door – how convenient, she thought. There was so much of it... And its source... Her stomach turned.
No woman, and certainly no girl of only ten or eleven, could walk very far with a knife... that poor child. Only a little girl. She couldn't think of it. What kind of monster could do something like that? That child, whoever she was, had died in pain, and she might have died a long time ago, which would explain her old-fashioned clothing, Augusta thought. But the blood stains here on the avenue were still fresh, and a deep, terrible scarlet, so how could a girl who looked as though she had last dressed herself some time in the mid-1950's have left fresh blood smeared in the street? What would be waiting at the end of the trail?
Augusta scowled and blew air through her nostrils. Perhaps the ghost of a little boy named Billy would be waiting at the end, gutted or assaulted in some way as horrific as his sister had been. Perhaps the ghost of their murderer would be there as well, waiting for her.
The trail led past the intersection of Nathan Avenue and Neely Street, which led away southward. Another crater had opened in the pavement, consuming the intersection itself, and large portions of the buildings to either side. The façade of St. Stella's Catholic Church still stood but most of the structure itself was gone. Across Neely Street a shorter, stouter cousin of the Ridgeview Medical Clinic building with its rust- colored brick and dormers and gargoyles seemed to hover over the pit, one corner fallen away and looking as though the rest of the building would follow at any moment. A broad banner, barely visible in the fog, hung from the Victorian Gothic bric-a-brac along the roofline, advertising "Silent Hill Lofts! Enjoy Urban Living in the New South Vale!" with a number to call. Augusta idly wondered as she hurried past who she would reach if she dialed it.
It brought back a memory. Over the years, South Vale had been modernized and "improved" almost beyond recognition, and in 1995 the City of Silent Hill had officially launched a plan to restore the neighborhood to a grandeur only hinted at by scraps like the Ridgeview Medical Clinic and the Nathan Avenue causeway that had survived unscathed the onslaught of vinyl siding, fake stucco, and sheet metal. The plan had been to fill South Vale with trees and flowers, enlarge Rosewater Park, and resuscitate the old- fashioned loveliness hiding beneath decades of poorly thought out renovations.
All for nothing. It seemed so sad, but it seemed everything was sad in Silent Hill now. This was a dead town that only showed itself to the damned. But that little girl and her brother didn't deserve this. Neither did Kitty, held captive somewhere in this misty hell. No child deserved it.
The blood trail, in spatters and occasional puddles, suddenly veered to the left, toward a tiny alley that ran between the Silent Hill Lofts building and what appeared to be another large apartment building. Augusta stopped and peered into the gap, and saw nothing but blood and oil stains leading along the cement. Somewhere farther back behind the building was open space, probably a parking lot for residents of the lofts and this building – Suttcliffe Place was etched in marble above a set of elaborately carved double doors crowned by a wide stained-glass fanlight. The doors were white, their woodwork gleaming pale even in the half-light. In an instant the doors were dark, almost black, like varnished mahogany. The Venetian blinds that hid so many apartments were gone, and in their place were drapes, lacy curtains, and in some windows, very old-fashioned canvas shades, half pulled, with small wooden rings dangling from sturdy cords behind the glass. Along the front of the building, a giant and obviously very old boxwood hedge had shrunk to less than half its size, into individual bushes, revealing evenly spaced wells along the building's foundation where arched windows could peer dully out at the ankles of the world from behind protective bows of wrought iron fencing.
The world seemed to shift beneath her feet. She glared at the building, at the unchanged inscription above its entrance, and took several long, slow deep breaths. The feeling passed, hopefully for the last time, she thought, because I'm really sick of this. I have things to do, and this is slowing me down.
A directory was protected behind glass in a brass frame bolted to the wall. Tenants. Augusta climbed a short flight of wide marble steps to a stoop in an alcove housing the doors. The girl had mentioned someone named Mr. Sullivan.
J.E. Armstrong – Apt. 1-A W.A. Dodd – Apt. 1-B G.E. Stano – Apt. 1-C A. Christie – Apt. 1-D...
There seemed to be four apartments on each of the building's five floors, but nowhere was there a listing for anyone with the last name of Sullivan. Not on the first floor or second, third, fourth, or fifth... but at the bottom was one other name, separated from the others.
W.A. Sullivan – Apt. B-A
B... B... Basement. Mr. Sullivan had rented what appeared to be the sole apartment in the building's basement. Augusta looked back toward the alleyway between Suttcliffe Place and its neighbor. If the blood led through the alley, the entrance to the basement apartment must be at the back of the building, inaccessible from the grand front entryway. How large would the basement apartment be? She glanced down at the windows in their wells along the building's base, and imagined something looking back at her from behind them.
Maybe Mr. Sullivan, who had mutilated that little girl and who might still have her brother imprisoned.
Augusta slowly descended the steps, her eyes on the basement windows. She walked back to the alley, and followed red drops behind the building where there was indeed a small parking lot walled in by a perimeter of large shade trees. It was empty but for what appeared to be an antique car that had seen better days, parked at the far end of the lot. Like the girl's strangely old-fashioned clothing, the car also appeared to been transported directly from the 1950's, then left to decay in the mist. Once painted an ugly shade of turquoise, it was spotted with rust and its abundance of chrome had dulled from scratches and time.
Augusta stared at it, a sense of dread growing. A girl dressed in clothing from the 1950's. A car from the 50's. A murderer and another victim from the 50's? Nothing made sense. A grocery store became a frozen yogurt store. White doors turned black and a hedge shrank into infancy. She turned slowly.
A small flight of cement steps led to a single door, plainer than those on the opposite side of the building. Another set of steps led downward, to an archway concealed under those leading up. Augusta approached and saw another door, white with a paned window and brass knob. Blood trailed down the stairs to the door, and a small, runny red handprint stark against the white marked the spot where, probably as an afterthought, the girl had pushed the door closed behind her.
Augusta climbed down, and tried the knob, which turned, and the door swung open on a musty, lightless hallway. She switched on her flashlight and entered, making sure to leave the door open behind her. If she had to flee a horror in the basement of Suttcliffe Place, even the time it took to open a door might be too much.
Dead lightbulbs were entombed above her in pearlescent white glass globes, evenly spaced along the ceiling, as the hallway led onward, then turned sharply to the right. Drops of blood spotted old linoleum that covered the floor, a generic pattern only slightly dulled by dust and the occasional dead leaf. Augusta passed a door marked "Boiler Room" and another proclaiming itself the "Storage Room." And at the end of the hall was another door, marked only with the brass letters BA.
Apartment B-A, home of W.A. Sullivan, according to the directory. A fine place to torture or kill children, in its isolation as the only dwelling in the basement. And, stuff a gag in a tiny mouth to muffle the screams, and one could do as they pleased, so long as they pulled the shades in the windows facing the sidewalk. Augusta shuddered, and swallowed. The door to Apartment B-A stood ajar, and faint yellow lamplight spilled out along the linoleum, until it was consumed by the darkness of the hallway.
The hallway was silent, and still as Augusta walked forward; she heard only her own breaths, and her shoes scuffing against the floor. This is it, she told herself. This is something important that might not end well. If there's something inside that apartment that's anything like what I've already seen, it could easily kill me. I'm not strong. I don't know how to fight. I don't even have a gun. I owe it to that child bleeding in the street to help her, and her brother.
I have to do this.
The door to Apartment B-A opened silently on oiled hinges, and behind it was a large room, an amalgam of living space, kitchen, and dining space. The living area was crowded with bulky, dark furniture that might have been new, and stylish, in the 1920's, or 30's. The kitchen, filled with a set of bloated, rounded-edged 50's-style appliances lay to the left against the far wall, separated from the living room by a long counter, and to its right was a dining room set, complete with a looming china cabinet against the wall. Three windows high up in the kitchen wall allowed dim light from outside to enter. The china cabinet backed up to a length of blank wall where, above and outside, the marble stairs led to the front entryway of Suttcliffe Place. To the right were two closed doors in a wall that ran the length of the apartment, one door obscured by what appeared to be a tiny library with bookshelves, two large red velvet chairs, and a standing lamp glowing softly. She switched off her flashlight.
It was immaculate. In the living area, lamplight reflected off polished tabletops, and on a coffee table magazines were displayed in a fan. On the covers of some, men and women smiled, proud of clothes and hairstyles that hadn't been fashionable in fifty years. Augusta stepped forward, bent and picked up a magazine, and inspected the date.
National Geographic, August 1954. She dropped it back onto the table, and stood. Her skin prickled, and a wave of heat seemed to wash over her. The apartment felt wrong. An aberration. The magazine had felt new, as if it had arrived in the mail only a day or two before.
In the kitchen, a calendar hung under a window. She walked to it, veering around the counter, and saw that it too dated from August of 1954. A painted pin-up girl in a bathing suit grinned lustily over her shoulder at Augusta, who turned away. The kitchen, like the living area, was spotless, including the black-and-white checkerboard tiles. No blood.
Carpeting, busily patterned in maroon and forest green, covered the floor space everywhere else in the apartment, too dark to show blood, she realized. Augusta turned to face the pair of doors. Near the bookshelves and velvet chairs, lamplight fell on crimson smears and stains on the closest door, and a long, bloody arc aimed downward, as though the girl had trailed her hand along the wall as she fell there. They had been invisible from the entrance, hidden by the furniture.
The smeared door opened onto a spacious bathroom, and Augusta gasped and turned away, choking back a shriek.
It had been white once, with a floor of checkerboard tiles that matched the kitchen. In many ways, it resembled the bathroom in Augusta's apartment, which exuded antique charm with a pedestal sink, oval mirror, clawed foot tub, and a toilet with a dark wood seat. Augusta's bathroom was a fine place to relax in a bath and enjoy a novel amid potted plants that thrived in the moisture. This bathroom had been used to kill.
The girl hung from her wrists from the shower curtain rod, her arms hoisted high above her head. She wore the blue and white checked dress and cardigan sweater Augusta had seen before, and like before the girl was drenched in blood, which had dripped down to paint the bathtub, and pool in a lake on the floor. She had been stabbed, the knife driven deep inside, then hung here to bleed to death.
When she had forced herself to turn again and see the girl and her blood lit softly in the gentle glow of a brass-and-glass ceiling fixture, she saw smears on the tiles and small footprints, as if the girl had fallen, lain on the floor, then staggered to her feet and gone away. As if perhaps that was what she did every so often, repeating the same action again and again and in death going in search of the help she hadn't received when alive. She had to get mama and daddy to help Billy, she had said.
Where was Billy? Where was the girl's brother? The girl's head hung down as if she was ashamed of what had been done to her, her eyes closed. She was beyond help.
So. What's behind Door Number 2, Augusta thought bitterly. This was wrong and she wanted desperately to cut the girl down and lay her somewhere comfortable; she wanted even more for the girl to be alive, and happy and well. She should be playing with whatever toys were all the rage in 1954 and dreaming of high school and college, her first kiss, her first date. Augusta turned away, tears stinging her eyes. The girl was gone, but perhaps there was something she could do for Billy, her brother.
The second door opened on a large bedroom. Augusta could only stare. Her mind immediately recognized what she saw for what it was, but immediately slammed its doors. Immobile with shock, after a moment the more reasonable portion of her mind screamed an order to get moving.
When she rushed to the bedside and dropped to one knee, the naked boy lying facedown on the bed, legs and arms lashed with thick rope to the bedposts, tried to shy away with a weak gasp, but the ropes held him fast in place.
This must be Billy. He might have been nine years old.
He was covered in bruises and cuts, and the quilt he lay on was filthy, smeared with blood, shit, and mucus. It stank of all three, though the stench had an unmistakable undertone of sex.
"I'm going to get you out of here, okay, baby? That's what I've come here to do." She reached to him and gently smoothed his sweaty blond hair.
Billy whimpered around a sock, wadded into a ball, that had been stuffed in his mouth. Augusta pulled it out, and the boy began to cry as she grimly inspected the ropes that bound his arms and legs, spreading them wide like those of a martyr about to be tortured on the rack. The ropes were rough and sturdy, scabbed with blood and pus where they had burned away the skin at Billy's wrists and ankles. Each was tied in a Gordian knot, impossible bulging tangles like bristly tumors. The ropes would have to be cut.
"I have to go get something to cut these. I'll be right back."
"Don't leave me. Please!" he sobbed, and his voice was dry and raspy.
Augusta swallowed to keep her voice from trembling. "Just for a second, baby. Just for a second, and I'll be back to get you out."
He screamed as she turned away, and the sound followed her to the kitchen, where she yanked drawers open, one after another. None contained knives, but she suddenly found what she was looking for on the counter by the stove. A wooden block held a set of knives; one was missing, probably the one driven up into the girl. Augusta shivered, in equal parts fear and fury, and snatched the largest remaining knife.
She worked quickly, cutting through the knots at Billy's ankles first. When they were severed, he drew his knees to his chest, whimpering. She cut through the rope that bound his left wrist, and as she began to saw through the rope that bound Billy's right arm to the bedpost, Augusta heard a door slam. Billy began to struggle, tugging at the final rope, his legs dangling over the edge of the bed as though he wanted to throw himself to the floor and scuttle under the bed to hide.
"Baby, hold still, so I can cut this!" Augusta looked over her shoulder at the bedroom door, her breath catching in her throat and her heartbeat beginning its now-familiar ascent.
Tears had cut paths through the accumulated filth on Billy's face. "He'll hurt me again," he cried, "He'll put things in me again and it'll hurt. Don't let him get me. Please! Please don't let Mr. Sullivan get me again!"
Checking over her shoulder again – whatever had slammed the door must be getting close – Augusta grabbed Billy's arm to steady it, and cut through the rope. As soon as it fell away, Billy yanked his arm from her grasp, and she heard a thud as he dropped to the floor on the other side of the bed and crawled under to hide.
Her shovel was on the other side of the bed. She looked down and hesitated only a moment before leaping onto the bed and crawling quickly through the caked blood and shit, and God only knew what else soaked into the quilt. She dropped to the floor and as she grabbed her shovel, her eyes met Billy's.
"The knife I used is on the floor on the other side of the bed. Go get it and if Mr. Sullivan tries to come get you, use it."
Billy nodded, and quickly scooted backward to disappear in the darkness. Augusta stood and faced the bedroom door, clutching her shovel.
Seconds later, the door was thrown open, slamming against a tall dresser and rebounding. The man who stood in the doorway held out an arm to steady it before it could swing closed again. He wore a white shirt and dark trousers beneath a long green apron – it had been a white shirt and dark trousers, and it had been a green apron; their colors were lost to blood that ran like a river from a wound in the man's neck where something – a small knife perhaps, or a fork or spoon – had been stabbed into the flesh just above his collar. In between patches of black where blood had soaked the apron, gold letters were visible: L-ca-e's Gro-y. A plastic nametag read, Walter Sullivan.
Walter Sullivan's eyes were dead behind a pair of round, wire frame glasses, rolled back into his head, and only their whites showed. He stood, swaying on his feet.
"Is my little boy here? The little boy I love so much?" When he spoke, blood bubbled out with the words. He waved his arms, feeling in the air, blind.
He stepped forward, and Augusta braced herself, trying to breathe silently but failing. Her breath gasped in and out as she trembled.
"Someone else is here..." he said, sadly, "Billy... I love you... Are you here too?"
He stepped forward, staggering, and Augusta's breath rasped in and out through her gritted teeth. Her skin crawled.
"Miriam won't tell, Billy... Are you sad because you thought she went to tell? Is that why you're so quiet?"
Miriam. Was that the girl's name? Was Billy's sister named Miriam?
"Someone else is here... Have you seen Billy?"
Augusta was silent.
Walter Sullivan brushed aside his work apron and began to fumble at the zipper of his trousers behind it.
"Billy... I want to love you... I came home special on my lunch break so I could love you. I saw your mother and father today, and they miss you, but you like it here don't you? You like it when I love you, don't you?"
Seeing what had been done to the children, Augusta's fury had been simmering since she had gone to get a knife with which to free the boy tied to the bed – at the thought of what had been done to Miriam, murdered in that horrible way, and at what had been done to Billy by this man... this dead monster shambling across the floor while he tugged at his zipper. This man had been a monster before he died. Augusta readied herself.
Still staggering forward, Walter Sullivan finally unzipped his trousers, his dead fingers numb and clumsy. His penis, a flaccid, sick grub, spilled out. Augusta saw that it was a spoon, a broad-bowled soupspoon, embedded in his neck, and blood poured in a fountain from the wound. He reached the foot of his bed, rebounded off his footboard, and looked confused.
"Billy, I want to love—"
Augusta screamed and swung the shovel, aiming for the spoon jutting from Walter Sullivan's neck. It struck the handle of the spoon, and bent it downward, and it dug out a scoop of flesh that dropped to the floor along with the spoon. Walter Sullivan staggered sideways and fell, his neck jetting blood. He made a choked sound of surprise as he hit the floor.
She dodged his kicking feet. His hands had gone to his throat, and he made a helpless mewling sound. Blood spurted between his fingers. Augusta hoisted the shovel high over her head, then brought it down, and it hit Walter Sullivan's skull with a resounding clang. She brought it up, and swung it down again with a grunt. And again. And again. This was not a man. This was a monster. He was dead yet still alive, and he was from a year that had come and gone decades ago, and so were the children he tortured and killed.
Like the girl he had stabbed and hung to die.
Like the boy he had help a prisoner, abusing him and destroying him in ways she could barely imagine.
Walter Sullivan had stopped moving. Augusta looked down at him, panting and leaning heavily on the shovel. The blade, the handle, and her face, arms, and clothing were speckled with blood. Walter Sullivan's head had lost its shape, reduced to a lumpy slurry encased in a gory Halloween mask.
Something moved where the mouth ought to be, and Augusta gasped and stepped back, raised the shovel and prepared to swing it down.
"Billy..." a choked gurgle barely recognizable as a word.
Walter Sullivan's blood oozed across the floor, a bright red cloud growing and swelling as though ready to unleash a storm.
Even after her blood drained out, Miriam, Billy's sister, had continued to bleed. It appeared that Walter Sullivan bled too, even after the point that exsanguinations should have killed him. Would it fill the room? The apartment? Would Walter Sullivan bleed until it flooded the basement and climbed the steps one by one until it could spill along the cement outside?
His hands moved, and a leg kicked weakly. In his new, wet voice he called again for Billy. Augusta's mind cried out, but I killed him – it! And then answered itself, he was already dead, and that's the only reason you could swing that shovel in the first place. You've never killed anything as long as you've lived except for bugs and a snake or two. How were you supposed to kill something that's already dead, anyway?
Oh, God help me, please... a quick prayer. This thing shouldn't exist. It shouldn't be torturing these poor, poor children fifty years after it killed them. Take this thing away. Take this thing on the floor away and let them be. Please...
A hand, followed by an arm, emerged from the bloody puddle, as though it was instead a deep lake and a creature on the bottom had rocketed to the surface.
"Billy... want... love you..."
Please, God... A second hand and arm. They seemed to be made of blood; they were wet and slick, and scarlet, and the skin appeared to flow.
Walter Sullivan's right arm twitched and the left rose up, as if he was trying to turn and push himself up. His legs kicked again.
Please, God... a thing erupted from the red puddle with a roar that shook the room. As in the kitchen, there were three windows in the bedroom, and the glass panes rattled in their frames. The canvas shades, which had been pulled down to hide the bedroom from anyone who might look in from the sidewalk, snapped up, each with a bang like a gunshot. Before she could turn her head away and close her eyes so tight blood throbbed in her temples, Augusta saw a thing meant for monsters.
A red man, a red devil. Unquestionably male, with an impossibly long erect penis, barbs like spikes at its tip, that would split, then tear apart any woman, or man, in whom it was inserted. The red devil's face was twisted in an expression of glee that was something worse than demonic. It grabbed Walter Sullivan as it rose up, and held him close, crushing him against its chest, and it said, in a voice that was felt more than heard, "How nice of you to join us at last, dearest Walter Anthony Sullivan. Now I can love you!"
"Oh, I've wanted to LOVE you for the longest time... Let's go now, Walter Anthony Sullivan."
Walter Sullivan tried to scream, but couldn't through his crushed skull. His arms and legs danced in the air, and the thing that held him close to its chest giggled – an awful squealing sound like tortured metal – with delight, as it plunged back into its puddle, still clutching Walter Sullivan.
Augusta huddled against the wall under the windows, eyes shut tight, hands clapped over her ears, praying. Her heart was like an animal fighting to escape a cage.
She realized the bedroom had gone silent, as she recognized a familiar odor. The blood and shit were gone, and instead she smelled the dust and must of a room shut up for five years while mist rolled in from the lake outside. She opened her eyes.
Walter Sullivan's bedroom was gone and in its place was another, unfamiliar. The dark wood four-poster bed with its filthy quilt was gone, replaced by a large bed covered by a zebra print comforter, with a headboard and footboard of large black metal pipes. The wooden dressers and shelves that had filled the bedroom had given way to black lacquer sets of drawers and tables. The dark green and maroon carpet had turned white, and was thicker and deeper. Above her head, Venetian blinds shaded the windows, but permitted enough light to allow thriving hummocks of moss to speckle the carpet, walls, and comforter. A vine had invaded through one window and was working its way over time to the floor.
Augusta stood, blinking, then immediately dropped to the floor, remembering Billy. Under the bed was a scattering of dusty, damp shoeboxes, but nothing else. She stood and searched the room and its closet. No one.
Unsurprisingly, the living room and dining room outside the bedroom door were filled with furniture she didn't recognize. She ran to the bathroom, flung open the door, and switched on her flashlight only to see an empty bathroom, its antique fixtures gone, newer ones in their place. Lights didn't work, nor did the appliances that had moldered in the humidity for five years. Behind the windows, mist rolled along the street outside. A damp newspaper was draped across one arm of a black leather sofa spotted with mold in the living area.
It was a copy of the Toluca Tribune (Serving all of Toluca County since 1908), dated September 8, 1999. The headline read, "Engineer Questions Stability of Reservoir Dam." Augusta sighed and dropped the newspaper. She left the apartment, walking through a hallway that, surprisingly enough, looked exactly the same as it had before with its light fixtures like blind eyes and dusty linoleum. The ugly turquoise car was gone from the parking lot, and the blood that had led her here was missing as well. It might as well have never happened at all, she thought. She had discovered that Walter Sullivan's blood was gone from her clothes and skin, and so were the stains that had smeared her jeans when she had crawled across the bed.
But her shovel... as she stood in the parking lot in what daylight there was to be had, she looked down to see the blade of her shovel dripping with blood.
She ran. She didn't dare drop the shovel, as it was the only weapon she had, and it was becoming more obvious by the moment that there were things in Silent Hill now that she would need to protect herself against. But she couldn't bear to look at it, because to look at and see the monster Walter Sullivan's blood dripping form the blade was to relive what had just happened. It dragged behind her, sparking on the pavement, clanging and scraping as it bounced, echoing off the empty buildings.
She ran until a large cement slab appeared on her right, standing upright with large raised letters spelling out the words, Rosewater Park. She turned and raced down a staircase leading to a brick pathway that in turn led through the park's gates, and she ran through its maze of brick paths and staircases, under its arbors, past its statues, in the shade of its overhanging trees.
Then, she found a bench and dropped her shovel and sat. She stared into the mist, feeling numb.
As she followed the blood drops down Nathan Avenue, Augusta realized, and accepted, that she had seen a ghost. She must have because no one could have lost this much blood and lived. And that explained quite nicely how the girl had passed through a door – how convenient, she thought. There was so much of it... And its source... Her stomach turned.
No woman, and certainly no girl of only ten or eleven, could walk very far with a knife... that poor child. Only a little girl. She couldn't think of it. What kind of monster could do something like that? That child, whoever she was, had died in pain, and she might have died a long time ago, which would explain her old-fashioned clothing, Augusta thought. But the blood stains here on the avenue were still fresh, and a deep, terrible scarlet, so how could a girl who looked as though she had last dressed herself some time in the mid-1950's have left fresh blood smeared in the street? What would be waiting at the end of the trail?
Augusta scowled and blew air through her nostrils. Perhaps the ghost of a little boy named Billy would be waiting at the end, gutted or assaulted in some way as horrific as his sister had been. Perhaps the ghost of their murderer would be there as well, waiting for her.
The trail led past the intersection of Nathan Avenue and Neely Street, which led away southward. Another crater had opened in the pavement, consuming the intersection itself, and large portions of the buildings to either side. The façade of St. Stella's Catholic Church still stood but most of the structure itself was gone. Across Neely Street a shorter, stouter cousin of the Ridgeview Medical Clinic building with its rust- colored brick and dormers and gargoyles seemed to hover over the pit, one corner fallen away and looking as though the rest of the building would follow at any moment. A broad banner, barely visible in the fog, hung from the Victorian Gothic bric-a-brac along the roofline, advertising "Silent Hill Lofts! Enjoy Urban Living in the New South Vale!" with a number to call. Augusta idly wondered as she hurried past who she would reach if she dialed it.
It brought back a memory. Over the years, South Vale had been modernized and "improved" almost beyond recognition, and in 1995 the City of Silent Hill had officially launched a plan to restore the neighborhood to a grandeur only hinted at by scraps like the Ridgeview Medical Clinic and the Nathan Avenue causeway that had survived unscathed the onslaught of vinyl siding, fake stucco, and sheet metal. The plan had been to fill South Vale with trees and flowers, enlarge Rosewater Park, and resuscitate the old- fashioned loveliness hiding beneath decades of poorly thought out renovations.
All for nothing. It seemed so sad, but it seemed everything was sad in Silent Hill now. This was a dead town that only showed itself to the damned. But that little girl and her brother didn't deserve this. Neither did Kitty, held captive somewhere in this misty hell. No child deserved it.
The blood trail, in spatters and occasional puddles, suddenly veered to the left, toward a tiny alley that ran between the Silent Hill Lofts building and what appeared to be another large apartment building. Augusta stopped and peered into the gap, and saw nothing but blood and oil stains leading along the cement. Somewhere farther back behind the building was open space, probably a parking lot for residents of the lofts and this building – Suttcliffe Place was etched in marble above a set of elaborately carved double doors crowned by a wide stained-glass fanlight. The doors were white, their woodwork gleaming pale even in the half-light. In an instant the doors were dark, almost black, like varnished mahogany. The Venetian blinds that hid so many apartments were gone, and in their place were drapes, lacy curtains, and in some windows, very old-fashioned canvas shades, half pulled, with small wooden rings dangling from sturdy cords behind the glass. Along the front of the building, a giant and obviously very old boxwood hedge had shrunk to less than half its size, into individual bushes, revealing evenly spaced wells along the building's foundation where arched windows could peer dully out at the ankles of the world from behind protective bows of wrought iron fencing.
The world seemed to shift beneath her feet. She glared at the building, at the unchanged inscription above its entrance, and took several long, slow deep breaths. The feeling passed, hopefully for the last time, she thought, because I'm really sick of this. I have things to do, and this is slowing me down.
A directory was protected behind glass in a brass frame bolted to the wall. Tenants. Augusta climbed a short flight of wide marble steps to a stoop in an alcove housing the doors. The girl had mentioned someone named Mr. Sullivan.
J.E. Armstrong – Apt. 1-A W.A. Dodd – Apt. 1-B G.E. Stano – Apt. 1-C A. Christie – Apt. 1-D...
There seemed to be four apartments on each of the building's five floors, but nowhere was there a listing for anyone with the last name of Sullivan. Not on the first floor or second, third, fourth, or fifth... but at the bottom was one other name, separated from the others.
W.A. Sullivan – Apt. B-A
B... B... Basement. Mr. Sullivan had rented what appeared to be the sole apartment in the building's basement. Augusta looked back toward the alleyway between Suttcliffe Place and its neighbor. If the blood led through the alley, the entrance to the basement apartment must be at the back of the building, inaccessible from the grand front entryway. How large would the basement apartment be? She glanced down at the windows in their wells along the building's base, and imagined something looking back at her from behind them.
Maybe Mr. Sullivan, who had mutilated that little girl and who might still have her brother imprisoned.
Augusta slowly descended the steps, her eyes on the basement windows. She walked back to the alley, and followed red drops behind the building where there was indeed a small parking lot walled in by a perimeter of large shade trees. It was empty but for what appeared to be an antique car that had seen better days, parked at the far end of the lot. Like the girl's strangely old-fashioned clothing, the car also appeared to been transported directly from the 1950's, then left to decay in the mist. Once painted an ugly shade of turquoise, it was spotted with rust and its abundance of chrome had dulled from scratches and time.
Augusta stared at it, a sense of dread growing. A girl dressed in clothing from the 1950's. A car from the 50's. A murderer and another victim from the 50's? Nothing made sense. A grocery store became a frozen yogurt store. White doors turned black and a hedge shrank into infancy. She turned slowly.
A small flight of cement steps led to a single door, plainer than those on the opposite side of the building. Another set of steps led downward, to an archway concealed under those leading up. Augusta approached and saw another door, white with a paned window and brass knob. Blood trailed down the stairs to the door, and a small, runny red handprint stark against the white marked the spot where, probably as an afterthought, the girl had pushed the door closed behind her.
Augusta climbed down, and tried the knob, which turned, and the door swung open on a musty, lightless hallway. She switched on her flashlight and entered, making sure to leave the door open behind her. If she had to flee a horror in the basement of Suttcliffe Place, even the time it took to open a door might be too much.
Dead lightbulbs were entombed above her in pearlescent white glass globes, evenly spaced along the ceiling, as the hallway led onward, then turned sharply to the right. Drops of blood spotted old linoleum that covered the floor, a generic pattern only slightly dulled by dust and the occasional dead leaf. Augusta passed a door marked "Boiler Room" and another proclaiming itself the "Storage Room." And at the end of the hall was another door, marked only with the brass letters BA.
Apartment B-A, home of W.A. Sullivan, according to the directory. A fine place to torture or kill children, in its isolation as the only dwelling in the basement. And, stuff a gag in a tiny mouth to muffle the screams, and one could do as they pleased, so long as they pulled the shades in the windows facing the sidewalk. Augusta shuddered, and swallowed. The door to Apartment B-A stood ajar, and faint yellow lamplight spilled out along the linoleum, until it was consumed by the darkness of the hallway.
The hallway was silent, and still as Augusta walked forward; she heard only her own breaths, and her shoes scuffing against the floor. This is it, she told herself. This is something important that might not end well. If there's something inside that apartment that's anything like what I've already seen, it could easily kill me. I'm not strong. I don't know how to fight. I don't even have a gun. I owe it to that child bleeding in the street to help her, and her brother.
I have to do this.
The door to Apartment B-A opened silently on oiled hinges, and behind it was a large room, an amalgam of living space, kitchen, and dining space. The living area was crowded with bulky, dark furniture that might have been new, and stylish, in the 1920's, or 30's. The kitchen, filled with a set of bloated, rounded-edged 50's-style appliances lay to the left against the far wall, separated from the living room by a long counter, and to its right was a dining room set, complete with a looming china cabinet against the wall. Three windows high up in the kitchen wall allowed dim light from outside to enter. The china cabinet backed up to a length of blank wall where, above and outside, the marble stairs led to the front entryway of Suttcliffe Place. To the right were two closed doors in a wall that ran the length of the apartment, one door obscured by what appeared to be a tiny library with bookshelves, two large red velvet chairs, and a standing lamp glowing softly. She switched off her flashlight.
It was immaculate. In the living area, lamplight reflected off polished tabletops, and on a coffee table magazines were displayed in a fan. On the covers of some, men and women smiled, proud of clothes and hairstyles that hadn't been fashionable in fifty years. Augusta stepped forward, bent and picked up a magazine, and inspected the date.
National Geographic, August 1954. She dropped it back onto the table, and stood. Her skin prickled, and a wave of heat seemed to wash over her. The apartment felt wrong. An aberration. The magazine had felt new, as if it had arrived in the mail only a day or two before.
In the kitchen, a calendar hung under a window. She walked to it, veering around the counter, and saw that it too dated from August of 1954. A painted pin-up girl in a bathing suit grinned lustily over her shoulder at Augusta, who turned away. The kitchen, like the living area, was spotless, including the black-and-white checkerboard tiles. No blood.
Carpeting, busily patterned in maroon and forest green, covered the floor space everywhere else in the apartment, too dark to show blood, she realized. Augusta turned to face the pair of doors. Near the bookshelves and velvet chairs, lamplight fell on crimson smears and stains on the closest door, and a long, bloody arc aimed downward, as though the girl had trailed her hand along the wall as she fell there. They had been invisible from the entrance, hidden by the furniture.
The smeared door opened onto a spacious bathroom, and Augusta gasped and turned away, choking back a shriek.
It had been white once, with a floor of checkerboard tiles that matched the kitchen. In many ways, it resembled the bathroom in Augusta's apartment, which exuded antique charm with a pedestal sink, oval mirror, clawed foot tub, and a toilet with a dark wood seat. Augusta's bathroom was a fine place to relax in a bath and enjoy a novel amid potted plants that thrived in the moisture. This bathroom had been used to kill.
The girl hung from her wrists from the shower curtain rod, her arms hoisted high above her head. She wore the blue and white checked dress and cardigan sweater Augusta had seen before, and like before the girl was drenched in blood, which had dripped down to paint the bathtub, and pool in a lake on the floor. She had been stabbed, the knife driven deep inside, then hung here to bleed to death.
When she had forced herself to turn again and see the girl and her blood lit softly in the gentle glow of a brass-and-glass ceiling fixture, she saw smears on the tiles and small footprints, as if the girl had fallen, lain on the floor, then staggered to her feet and gone away. As if perhaps that was what she did every so often, repeating the same action again and again and in death going in search of the help she hadn't received when alive. She had to get mama and daddy to help Billy, she had said.
Where was Billy? Where was the girl's brother? The girl's head hung down as if she was ashamed of what had been done to her, her eyes closed. She was beyond help.
So. What's behind Door Number 2, Augusta thought bitterly. This was wrong and she wanted desperately to cut the girl down and lay her somewhere comfortable; she wanted even more for the girl to be alive, and happy and well. She should be playing with whatever toys were all the rage in 1954 and dreaming of high school and college, her first kiss, her first date. Augusta turned away, tears stinging her eyes. The girl was gone, but perhaps there was something she could do for Billy, her brother.
The second door opened on a large bedroom. Augusta could only stare. Her mind immediately recognized what she saw for what it was, but immediately slammed its doors. Immobile with shock, after a moment the more reasonable portion of her mind screamed an order to get moving.
When she rushed to the bedside and dropped to one knee, the naked boy lying facedown on the bed, legs and arms lashed with thick rope to the bedposts, tried to shy away with a weak gasp, but the ropes held him fast in place.
This must be Billy. He might have been nine years old.
He was covered in bruises and cuts, and the quilt he lay on was filthy, smeared with blood, shit, and mucus. It stank of all three, though the stench had an unmistakable undertone of sex.
"I'm going to get you out of here, okay, baby? That's what I've come here to do." She reached to him and gently smoothed his sweaty blond hair.
Billy whimpered around a sock, wadded into a ball, that had been stuffed in his mouth. Augusta pulled it out, and the boy began to cry as she grimly inspected the ropes that bound his arms and legs, spreading them wide like those of a martyr about to be tortured on the rack. The ropes were rough and sturdy, scabbed with blood and pus where they had burned away the skin at Billy's wrists and ankles. Each was tied in a Gordian knot, impossible bulging tangles like bristly tumors. The ropes would have to be cut.
"I have to go get something to cut these. I'll be right back."
"Don't leave me. Please!" he sobbed, and his voice was dry and raspy.
Augusta swallowed to keep her voice from trembling. "Just for a second, baby. Just for a second, and I'll be back to get you out."
He screamed as she turned away, and the sound followed her to the kitchen, where she yanked drawers open, one after another. None contained knives, but she suddenly found what she was looking for on the counter by the stove. A wooden block held a set of knives; one was missing, probably the one driven up into the girl. Augusta shivered, in equal parts fear and fury, and snatched the largest remaining knife.
She worked quickly, cutting through the knots at Billy's ankles first. When they were severed, he drew his knees to his chest, whimpering. She cut through the rope that bound his left wrist, and as she began to saw through the rope that bound Billy's right arm to the bedpost, Augusta heard a door slam. Billy began to struggle, tugging at the final rope, his legs dangling over the edge of the bed as though he wanted to throw himself to the floor and scuttle under the bed to hide.
"Baby, hold still, so I can cut this!" Augusta looked over her shoulder at the bedroom door, her breath catching in her throat and her heartbeat beginning its now-familiar ascent.
Tears had cut paths through the accumulated filth on Billy's face. "He'll hurt me again," he cried, "He'll put things in me again and it'll hurt. Don't let him get me. Please! Please don't let Mr. Sullivan get me again!"
Checking over her shoulder again – whatever had slammed the door must be getting close – Augusta grabbed Billy's arm to steady it, and cut through the rope. As soon as it fell away, Billy yanked his arm from her grasp, and she heard a thud as he dropped to the floor on the other side of the bed and crawled under to hide.
Her shovel was on the other side of the bed. She looked down and hesitated only a moment before leaping onto the bed and crawling quickly through the caked blood and shit, and God only knew what else soaked into the quilt. She dropped to the floor and as she grabbed her shovel, her eyes met Billy's.
"The knife I used is on the floor on the other side of the bed. Go get it and if Mr. Sullivan tries to come get you, use it."
Billy nodded, and quickly scooted backward to disappear in the darkness. Augusta stood and faced the bedroom door, clutching her shovel.
Seconds later, the door was thrown open, slamming against a tall dresser and rebounding. The man who stood in the doorway held out an arm to steady it before it could swing closed again. He wore a white shirt and dark trousers beneath a long green apron – it had been a white shirt and dark trousers, and it had been a green apron; their colors were lost to blood that ran like a river from a wound in the man's neck where something – a small knife perhaps, or a fork or spoon – had been stabbed into the flesh just above his collar. In between patches of black where blood had soaked the apron, gold letters were visible: L-ca-e's Gro-y. A plastic nametag read, Walter Sullivan.
Walter Sullivan's eyes were dead behind a pair of round, wire frame glasses, rolled back into his head, and only their whites showed. He stood, swaying on his feet.
"Is my little boy here? The little boy I love so much?" When he spoke, blood bubbled out with the words. He waved his arms, feeling in the air, blind.
He stepped forward, and Augusta braced herself, trying to breathe silently but failing. Her breath gasped in and out as she trembled.
"Someone else is here..." he said, sadly, "Billy... I love you... Are you here too?"
He stepped forward, staggering, and Augusta's breath rasped in and out through her gritted teeth. Her skin crawled.
"Miriam won't tell, Billy... Are you sad because you thought she went to tell? Is that why you're so quiet?"
Miriam. Was that the girl's name? Was Billy's sister named Miriam?
"Someone else is here... Have you seen Billy?"
Augusta was silent.
Walter Sullivan brushed aside his work apron and began to fumble at the zipper of his trousers behind it.
"Billy... I want to love you... I came home special on my lunch break so I could love you. I saw your mother and father today, and they miss you, but you like it here don't you? You like it when I love you, don't you?"
Seeing what had been done to the children, Augusta's fury had been simmering since she had gone to get a knife with which to free the boy tied to the bed – at the thought of what had been done to Miriam, murdered in that horrible way, and at what had been done to Billy by this man... this dead monster shambling across the floor while he tugged at his zipper. This man had been a monster before he died. Augusta readied herself.
Still staggering forward, Walter Sullivan finally unzipped his trousers, his dead fingers numb and clumsy. His penis, a flaccid, sick grub, spilled out. Augusta saw that it was a spoon, a broad-bowled soupspoon, embedded in his neck, and blood poured in a fountain from the wound. He reached the foot of his bed, rebounded off his footboard, and looked confused.
"Billy, I want to love—"
Augusta screamed and swung the shovel, aiming for the spoon jutting from Walter Sullivan's neck. It struck the handle of the spoon, and bent it downward, and it dug out a scoop of flesh that dropped to the floor along with the spoon. Walter Sullivan staggered sideways and fell, his neck jetting blood. He made a choked sound of surprise as he hit the floor.
She dodged his kicking feet. His hands had gone to his throat, and he made a helpless mewling sound. Blood spurted between his fingers. Augusta hoisted the shovel high over her head, then brought it down, and it hit Walter Sullivan's skull with a resounding clang. She brought it up, and swung it down again with a grunt. And again. And again. This was not a man. This was a monster. He was dead yet still alive, and he was from a year that had come and gone decades ago, and so were the children he tortured and killed.
Like the girl he had stabbed and hung to die.
Like the boy he had help a prisoner, abusing him and destroying him in ways she could barely imagine.
Walter Sullivan had stopped moving. Augusta looked down at him, panting and leaning heavily on the shovel. The blade, the handle, and her face, arms, and clothing were speckled with blood. Walter Sullivan's head had lost its shape, reduced to a lumpy slurry encased in a gory Halloween mask.
Something moved where the mouth ought to be, and Augusta gasped and stepped back, raised the shovel and prepared to swing it down.
"Billy..." a choked gurgle barely recognizable as a word.
Walter Sullivan's blood oozed across the floor, a bright red cloud growing and swelling as though ready to unleash a storm.
Even after her blood drained out, Miriam, Billy's sister, had continued to bleed. It appeared that Walter Sullivan bled too, even after the point that exsanguinations should have killed him. Would it fill the room? The apartment? Would Walter Sullivan bleed until it flooded the basement and climbed the steps one by one until it could spill along the cement outside?
His hands moved, and a leg kicked weakly. In his new, wet voice he called again for Billy. Augusta's mind cried out, but I killed him – it! And then answered itself, he was already dead, and that's the only reason you could swing that shovel in the first place. You've never killed anything as long as you've lived except for bugs and a snake or two. How were you supposed to kill something that's already dead, anyway?
Oh, God help me, please... a quick prayer. This thing shouldn't exist. It shouldn't be torturing these poor, poor children fifty years after it killed them. Take this thing away. Take this thing on the floor away and let them be. Please...
A hand, followed by an arm, emerged from the bloody puddle, as though it was instead a deep lake and a creature on the bottom had rocketed to the surface.
"Billy... want... love you..."
Please, God... A second hand and arm. They seemed to be made of blood; they were wet and slick, and scarlet, and the skin appeared to flow.
Walter Sullivan's right arm twitched and the left rose up, as if he was trying to turn and push himself up. His legs kicked again.
Please, God... a thing erupted from the red puddle with a roar that shook the room. As in the kitchen, there were three windows in the bedroom, and the glass panes rattled in their frames. The canvas shades, which had been pulled down to hide the bedroom from anyone who might look in from the sidewalk, snapped up, each with a bang like a gunshot. Before she could turn her head away and close her eyes so tight blood throbbed in her temples, Augusta saw a thing meant for monsters.
A red man, a red devil. Unquestionably male, with an impossibly long erect penis, barbs like spikes at its tip, that would split, then tear apart any woman, or man, in whom it was inserted. The red devil's face was twisted in an expression of glee that was something worse than demonic. It grabbed Walter Sullivan as it rose up, and held him close, crushing him against its chest, and it said, in a voice that was felt more than heard, "How nice of you to join us at last, dearest Walter Anthony Sullivan. Now I can love you!"
"Oh, I've wanted to LOVE you for the longest time... Let's go now, Walter Anthony Sullivan."
Walter Sullivan tried to scream, but couldn't through his crushed skull. His arms and legs danced in the air, and the thing that held him close to its chest giggled – an awful squealing sound like tortured metal – with delight, as it plunged back into its puddle, still clutching Walter Sullivan.
Augusta huddled against the wall under the windows, eyes shut tight, hands clapped over her ears, praying. Her heart was like an animal fighting to escape a cage.
She realized the bedroom had gone silent, as she recognized a familiar odor. The blood and shit were gone, and instead she smelled the dust and must of a room shut up for five years while mist rolled in from the lake outside. She opened her eyes.
Walter Sullivan's bedroom was gone and in its place was another, unfamiliar. The dark wood four-poster bed with its filthy quilt was gone, replaced by a large bed covered by a zebra print comforter, with a headboard and footboard of large black metal pipes. The wooden dressers and shelves that had filled the bedroom had given way to black lacquer sets of drawers and tables. The dark green and maroon carpet had turned white, and was thicker and deeper. Above her head, Venetian blinds shaded the windows, but permitted enough light to allow thriving hummocks of moss to speckle the carpet, walls, and comforter. A vine had invaded through one window and was working its way over time to the floor.
Augusta stood, blinking, then immediately dropped to the floor, remembering Billy. Under the bed was a scattering of dusty, damp shoeboxes, but nothing else. She stood and searched the room and its closet. No one.
Unsurprisingly, the living room and dining room outside the bedroom door were filled with furniture she didn't recognize. She ran to the bathroom, flung open the door, and switched on her flashlight only to see an empty bathroom, its antique fixtures gone, newer ones in their place. Lights didn't work, nor did the appliances that had moldered in the humidity for five years. Behind the windows, mist rolled along the street outside. A damp newspaper was draped across one arm of a black leather sofa spotted with mold in the living area.
It was a copy of the Toluca Tribune (Serving all of Toluca County since 1908), dated September 8, 1999. The headline read, "Engineer Questions Stability of Reservoir Dam." Augusta sighed and dropped the newspaper. She left the apartment, walking through a hallway that, surprisingly enough, looked exactly the same as it had before with its light fixtures like blind eyes and dusty linoleum. The ugly turquoise car was gone from the parking lot, and the blood that had led her here was missing as well. It might as well have never happened at all, she thought. She had discovered that Walter Sullivan's blood was gone from her clothes and skin, and so were the stains that had smeared her jeans when she had crawled across the bed.
But her shovel... as she stood in the parking lot in what daylight there was to be had, she looked down to see the blade of her shovel dripping with blood.
She ran. She didn't dare drop the shovel, as it was the only weapon she had, and it was becoming more obvious by the moment that there were things in Silent Hill now that she would need to protect herself against. But she couldn't bear to look at it, because to look at and see the monster Walter Sullivan's blood dripping form the blade was to relive what had just happened. It dragged behind her, sparking on the pavement, clanging and scraping as it bounced, echoing off the empty buildings.
She ran until a large cement slab appeared on her right, standing upright with large raised letters spelling out the words, Rosewater Park. She turned and raced down a staircase leading to a brick pathway that in turn led through the park's gates, and she ran through its maze of brick paths and staircases, under its arbors, past its statues, in the shade of its overhanging trees.
Then, she found a bench and dropped her shovel and sat. She stared into the mist, feeling numb.