The bullet struck the fire extinguisher with an incredible bang in a burst of sparks, and a thin jet of chemicals sprayed out with enough force to rock the fire extinguisher on its hook on the wall. It clanged against the wall and clattered on its hook. The jet of white chemicals arced through the air in a graceful fan that waved back and forth.
Augusta dropped to her stomach on the stairs, pointing the gun ahead and waiting for Becky to emerge.
"Come on, you bitch," she muttered, and cast a glance ahead, across a wide landing to the bathrooms and the elevator doors, shut tight.
Nothing happened. Lockers along the walls blocked her view of doors farther down the hall, and she couldn't see if the door to the home economics kitchen stood open. She couldn't tell which door the kitchen lay behind either, she realized, and frowned.
Hissing and rattling, the fire extinguisher banged against the wall. If Becky was here, she must surely be able to hear it.
Nothing happened. Augusta waited.
Finally, she cursed and crawled up the stairs to the third floor, then crouched and began to creep along the hallway's right wall, her gun in one hand and the empty fire extinguisher in the other. The fire extinguisher on the wall frothed and wrenched itself back and forth. Augusta gritted her teeth and crept onward. When banks of lockers along the wall broke for a classroom door, she ducked into the shelter of the gap and waited, straining to hear over the fire extinguisher.
After a moment, she emerged and crept along the wall to the next gap between banks of lockers. This classroom door was open, and she slipped inside and quietly closed the door behind her. Away from the door's large square window, she stood and flattened herself against the classroom wall, and tried to slow her pounding heart. Deep in her mind she asked herself if everything she was doing was brave and admirable, or just stupid. She thought back to the approach to Walter Sullivan's apartment door in the basement of Sutcliffe Place.
This might not end well. Becky Taylor, or whatever she had become in the space of ten years, could probably kill her effortlessly. But, this had to be done. People were suffering here and someone had to do something to help them. She wished it wasn't up to her, said a prayer for safety, then took a deep breath and checked the hall to find it empty and stepped out.
The next two classroom doors were closed and locked. The third was open and she hurried inside and away from the door with its window, trying to slow her breathing and her heart. She had begun to sweat in her nervousness. She set down her empty fire extinguisher to free a hand to smooth her hair, which was frizzy and tangled.
Back in the hall, one last classroom lay between her and the home economics kitchen. She stepped out and tried to sneak along the wall. A familiar odor, that of wet flesh and pus, began to grow stronger as she passed the final classroom, whose door was shut tight.
The door to the home economics kitchen was closed, its window opaque with slime and fat ropes of flesh. Augusta stared at it, panting. Not much farther down the hall to the south, more flesh stretched in a net from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. The odor was like that of an infection, a watery stink tinged with rot.
However, she realized for the first time she could also smell something sweet. Baked goods. Cookies. Her breath sighed out. Becky Taylor was eating cookies in the home economics kitchen just as she had ten years ago.
What now? It couldn't be a good idea to try to open the door. If she could break the window, she could shoot inside, but she had no idea where in the room Becky might be, and didn't want to waste her bullets or the time it would take to reload the Ruger's clip. Plus, breaking the window would let the things inside, including Becky Taylor, come out. That, and if she shot out the window, Becky would probably answer in kind. Augusta backed away from the door, trying to walk silently toward the safety of an unlocked room down the hall.
Once inside, with the door closed on the hall, she studied the room around her. It was plain, probably used for a business class, or something equally dreary. There were bookshelves along the walls, and rows of long tables with several chairs lined up beneath each one facing a whiteboard at the front of the room. At the rear was a large, cluttered desk. The only decorations were a few posters that depicted city skylines, framed behind glass. Augusta dragged a chair away from a table, to her left toward the wall farthest away from the door, well out of sight of anything that might look in. She sat and tried to think of what to do.
She was afraid to break the window, and wouldn't try to open the door. If she tried either, Becky would either fill the air with bullets, or would emerge from the kitchen, dripping and stinking, and would reach for her with a thousand flailing tentacles.
Maybe if she had a bomb of some sort... She could throw the fire extinguisher at the glass, hurl the bomb inside and run. If it didn't kill Becky, it would at least hurt her. Or, maybe if she had a live wire. Again, she could break the glass and toss the wire inside before Becky could shoot. The agony of electricity coursing through her flesh might immobilize her while Augusta emptied her gun into whatever she had become.
Or, better still, it might keep her still while Augusta shot her and threw in some sort of bomb. She smiled. A bomb and a live wire.
The chemistry labs, along with every other science classroom, were located on the second floor. Augusta stood, went to the door and checked the hall, then hurried toward the staircase. This would be easy.
Silent Hill High School was large enough to need two chemistry labs and two biology labs each, all aligned in a row along the west wall halfway between the two stairwells. Augusta found the doors of one biology lab and both chemistry labs standing open, though one chemistry lab was too crowded with heavy hanging ropes of flesh to enter. Trapped inside was a shape, wrapped tight like a caterpillar in a cocoon.
The second chemistry lab was directly beneath the home economics kitchen, Augusta learned. Its tile ceiling sagged from the weight of something gigantic in the room above, and dripping pus had dried on itself until it formed gruesome sculptures like stalactites hanging from black, empty squares where tiles had fallen away.
"Oh, God..." Augusta gagged.
Some of the stalactites were moving. They were tendrils of flesh hanging low, forced between cracks in the floor above and dangling low like roots pushed through into a tomb. Unconnected from each other, they writhed slowly in the air, curling and uncurling and seeming to search in lazy circles. The room was horribly humid and warm.
It seemed that every muscle in her body clenched in revulsion, and Augusta had to turn away. Would there be any other place in the school where she would find what she wanted? She desperately wanted to stay out of the chemistry lab, but wanted ammonia and bleach, which, when combined, would release poisonous chloramine gas. She needed glass bottles or jars, because she couldn't trust that a plastic bottle would burst, especially if it landed on a soft coil of flesh.
Maybe this needed more thought. She had wanted to find ammonia and bleach, and glass containers to hold them, so she could throw them and trust they would shatter and mix their contents. She had wanted hydrochloric acid, and maybe sulfuric acid, to pour on the floor just outside the kitchen door, in case Becky tried to emerge – or to throw at her.
She could do without hydrochloric acid, because ammonia, bleach, and sulfuric acid could probably be found in a janitor's closet somewhere – but, if the janitor's closets had doors like those of every classroom, they would lock when closed, and thus could only be opened from the inside or with a key.
Shit. She set down the empty fire extinguisher, and carefully stepped inside.
Pus had scabbed on the floor and was like boggy mud beneath her feet. The stink was unbearable, and this must be what it was like to be inside a wound, Augusta thought.
The chemistry labs were slightly smaller than other classrooms because part of their space was occupied by a room for chemical storage, located to the left behind a small door standing open. Augusta headed for the doorway, taking small, careful steps on the slippery floor, and watching the hanging, dripping tendrils and long dried whips of pus.
The left side of the room was relatively clean, and Augusta stood still for a moment when she reached the storage room doorway, trying to calm her stomach, which quivered as though it would revolt at any moment. A long counter with sinks stood to her left, and beyond sat the teacher's desk. A narrow aisle ran between the counter and desk and wall, where a giant whiteboard was filled with writing. Though occasional dribbles of pus had run down its surface and smeared the letters written with marker there, there was more than enough left to tell that the chemistry lesson for Thursday, February 19, 1994 had been about chemical reactions.
Written in green dry-erase marker:
Household chemicals can sometimes yield violent reactions when mixed. Mixing two common cleaning chemicals, ammonia and chlorine bleach, will result in the release of poisonous and corrosive chloramine gas.
And below, written in a familiar shade of blue:
However, often your truly exotic chemical reactions result from the combination of a common chemical with one that is unusual. Combining common hydrocarbons (gasoline, for example) with aluminium chloride will result in the formation of styrene and polystyrene. Combining water and aluminium chloride meanwhile, yields a violent, explosive reaction on contact, as well as hydrochloric acid as a byproduct.
Sounds fun, thought Augusta sourly. But, if she could keep her disgust at bay, this might work out well after all. Aluminium chloride. That and anything else that looked dangerous in the storage room. She stepped inside and smiled at the sight of a blue plastic crate on the counter. Just the thing for transporting bottles of chemicals.
The room was filled with a collection of old wooden glass-fronted cabinets where non-dangerous chemicals were stored, and airtight metal lockers and fume lockers where volatile substances were kept apart from others. Augusta realized she had no idea what aluminium chloride would look like, but searching the wooden cabinets, she found it quickly. The cabinet was locked, so she smashed the glass door with a large textbook she found on the counter behind her, then reached in and retrieved a tall glass jar almost full of greyish-white powder. She put the jar in the plastic crate, then turned back toward the cabinets.
Two glass bottles of concentrated hydrochloric acid, as clear and harmless-looking as water, went into the crate, along with a thick plastic bottle of sulfuric acid solution. A sink with a dripping faucet was set into the counter, and above it was a cupboard full of empty jars and plastic bottles. Augusta grabbed a large glass bottle with a cap, and filled it from the sink, making sure to close it tightly and to wipe away any moisture from the outside with a paper towel from a nearby dispenser bolted to the wall.
Next, she searched the drawers beneath the counter hoping to find, then finding, a roll of duct tape and a good, sharp pair of scissors to cut it. She taped the bottle of water to the jar of aluminium chloride, and wrapped them several times in rings of tape until they were belted tightly together.
She wondered if she should look for an electrical cord, and decided, why not? There were cabinets beneath the counter drawers and in one she found a very long, bright orange coiled extension cord. She grabbed it, unrolled it, and hacked at it with the scissors until her hand was sore and one end of the cord dropped away like a severed snake's head. With a scissor blade, she cut away the insulation at the severed end until two long, ugly strands of copper wire were exposed.
Plug it in, and instant cattle prod. She smiled again. Becky Taylor just might get what was coming to her.
Back through the dripping, infected chemistry lab, with her gun, and bottles and jars and cord in the crate, bending to pick up her empty fire extinguisher, then down the hall and up the stairs to the third floor, where the fire extinguisher on the wall still puffed its chemicals into the air, though with hardly any force left in it. Rocking back and forth on its hook, it clucked metallically to itself. Augusta crept down the hall, taking care not to let the jars and bottles knock together, silent just in case.
At the home economics kitchen, Augusta knelt and set the crate on the floor a safe distance away. She took the cord first and, uncoiling it, led it in a trail from an outlet in the nearest unlocked classroom to the door, where she set it carefully on the floor. She planned to break the window and heave in her makeshift bomb, then run and plug in the cord. She could then toss that inside, or snatch it up by a length still sheathed in orange insulated plastic, then thrust it at anything that might emerge.
She took her gun and after checking to be sure its safety was on, secured it in her holster. Then, she picked up the bottles wrapped in tape from her crate and grabbed her empty fire extinguisher, and carried them to the kitchen door.
She took a deep breath, then fumbled with the fire extinguisher until she held its rubber hose tightly in her hand. Stepping back, she swung the extinguisher by its hose as hard as she could. The glass shattered and fell in, wide plates of it glued to flesh, which peeled away from the window frame like stubborn vines. As the glass crashed in on itself, Augusta dropped and rolled away from the door, hurling the wrapped bottles inside. As she hit the floor, she heard the satisfying sound of the bottles shattering.
And as she tried to climb to her feet, aluminium chloride mixed with water and exploded. Augusta felt as though she were falling and after a moment the feeling reversed itself as the floor bucked to throw her into the air. Behind her, the door to the home economics kitchen was ripped in half and burst from its frame. The lower half danced a jerky dance across the hallway, where it slammed into the closed door of another classroom, bounced off and fell, and hit the floor with a bang. The upper half flew from its hinges and, spinning, embedded itself in the ceiling. A shockwave hammered the walls and floor; tiles popped from the hallway floor, and banks of lockers, each a single unit, swung out from the walls. A jets of debris spewed out from the kitchen, shooting chunks of concrete, wood, and tile, and twisted shards of metal with enough force to drive them into the walls.
The ringing in her ears was as loud a scream, and she barely heard the roar from the kitchen as half its floor and most of the outside wall blew away. She couldn't hear Becky Taylor scream. When the floor stilled, she lay face down, groaning. Above her, the lights flickered, failed, blinked on again. Her nose had begun to bleed as the ringing in her ears slowly gave way to a roar. She realized in some part of her mind that the longer she lay on the floor the more time Becky Taylor would have, if she had survived, to come after her, but she couldn't force herself to stand.
Her hands and knees was the best she could do, and she watched blood dripping from her nose to land in dime-sized blots on the floor, and tried not to vomit. Her head swam. The roaring in her ears gave way to ringing again. She felt as though she'd been beaten.
It seemed to take hours before she could stand again, and when she forced herself to her feet, she had to lean against the nearest bank of lockers. Everything hurt. On the floor, the orange extension cord had recoiled as if in horror and flung itself down the hall, and the concussion must have thrown the crate far down the hall. Both bottles of hydrochloric acid lay in shards, their contents puddled on the floor, while the sulfuric acid in its sturdy bottle was a tiny dark shape far away, but at least it hadn't also burst.
She needed to check to see how Becky had fared, and realized she should draw her gun, but couldn't, and had to sit down cross-legged, eyes closed. The ringing quieted slightly, though she could feel her pulse pounding in her skull.
Deep breaths. Deep breaths, trying to ignore plaster dust that coated the back of her throat, until the fog in her skull lifted enough to let her stand again and trust herself to draw her gun without dropping it. She staggered across the hall to look into the home economics kitchen.
She nearly fell down again.
Most of the floor had dropped into the chemistry lab below, and almost half of the left rear wall was missing. Above, the ceiling sagged. Appliances, tables, and chairs had crashed to the floor below, or had been flung across the room and sunk into a great mass of flesh that had itself apparently been torn away from its wet, blubbery roots and splattered against the wall. Thousands of tendrils of wet flesh, now coated in dust and chunks of debris, protruded from the walls.
Apparently they had been connected to the fleshy mass and, ripped away from it, they hung down dead. The mass, missing huge chunks, and with its entrails burst and splattered and gluing it in place, had once been Becky Taylor.
Her torso, though ripped open in places and studded with pieces of debris, hung from the mass. Augusta could see her face, a ruin of a teenage girl's. Her mouth was open. Her arms hung down and tangled in her hair. She had been fat. Small but fleshy breasts and a paunchy belly gave way to that colossal mound, now burst in so many places and spilling innards.
As Augusta watched, the mass pulsed and the recognizable parts of Becky Taylor, so much like a figurehead on the prow of a schooner, flailed back and forth as though something were trying to force its way out.
Something was. Bullets. Brass-jacketed bullets. Becky Taylor began to vomit bullets, a shiny cascade of brass spilling in a torrent down into what had once been the chemistry lab below. The sound was like that of coins being poured from a jar. There must have been thousands.
Augusta closed her eyes for a moment, breathing heavily and feeling blood trickle across her lips. The sound of bullets pouring never stopped and when she opened her eyes again, the flow from Becky's mouth rained down as strongly as ever.
The mass was pulling away from the wall, slowly. Splatters of Becky's entrails stretched, then pulled away from the walls and floor. What tentacles hadn't been ripped away were still firmly rooted, but stretched and tore, snapped wetly, and the whole mass that had been Becky Taylor fell, still spewing brass in a fountain. It hit the floor and debris below and burst open in a dozen new places.
Augusta thumbed the Ruger's safety, and emptied her gun into Becky Taylor. The hallway lights, still flickering, finally died and stayed dead.
The world seemed to turn grey. Augusta reeled and put a hand to her forehead, groaning. Streaks of rust appeared on the lockers as tiles dropped from the ceiling, followed by sagging loops of wire. Papers, books, and backpacks cluttering the hallway vanished and splotches of blood became furry patches of moss. A slime of algae spread across the floor. Ahead, even more of the home economics kitchen fell away, crumbling with a sound like tumbling rocks. Snowflakes swirled in with a rush of mist.
In the dampness, wood swelled and warped, and five years of grit crusted on the floor.
Dizziness. Nausea. Her head hurt.