Chapter Six
He kept his hand in the sink for longer than he cared to remember, scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing, panting hard in the darkness. Even when the blood was long gone, he kept on scrubbing. Behind him, lying on the floor was the knife he had used to murder Sean- also washed clean. It still felt dirty to the touch.
The diner's kitchen was as messed up and torn apart as the front area, except that as an added bonus, there was a rotting corpse lying propped up against the back door, with multiple stab wounds on the entire body. It was a man, possibly the original owner of the diner, or possibly just about anyone Sean could have encountered while in the state Keith had found him in.
"What the hell is going on?" Keith whispered to himself. He had lost count of how many times that question had crossed his mind; starting from the moment he had spotted his twin brother back at the graveyard up until now. That question had yet to be answered.
'I did it in self-defense. If I didn't do it, he would've killed me.'
He looked up at his face in the mirror. It didn't look any different that it did earlier this morning when he had washed his face in the public washroom just outside Silent Hill.
'I can't see it on my face, but I'm a murderer. It doesn't matter why I did it, he was my fucking friend! I'm no better off than Kyle.'
But it could be so much worse.
He realized that. Right now, Leo and Claire were still looking for him, and he could only fucking pray, hope that they were alright. That they wouldn't be as fucked as Sean was.
If anything though, not counting Keith or Kyle, the town had its share of monsters, and right now what came first now was finding them, before anything else happened to them.
'Assuming they haven't been killed yet.'
"No, they're stronger than that," he told himself as he turned off the tap. He picked up the steel pipe and the flashlight he had left by the sink, and turned around to leave-
He stopped, giving one last glance over his shoulder to look at his reflection.
'Murderer.'
Screaming, he slammed the pipe into his own reflection, shattering the mirror into a million pieces.
Outside, it stopped raining.
-
The small secluded wooden cabin at the edge of the lake didn't look very inviting at all. Regardless of Keith's voice whispering in her ear to go inside, her every other instinct told her not to. She could not explain one bit of what was going on- from the incident in the bathtub, to Keith's voice coming from an invisible body now, to the weird fucks she'd seen on her way here- things too grotesque and bloody to describe. Even the word 'monsters' would have been inaccurate. She was tired now, tired and scared. Without Leo, without any weapon to defend herself, all she could do so far was run.
With the only light in the room streaming in from the open door, she hesitated just as she was about to close it- realizing that closing it would leave her in total darkness save for the light from her torchlight. But leaving it open would allow the things outside to see her, and come in easily.
And maybe it was her imagination, but the light from her torchlight seemed to be growing dimmer.
'What am I even doing here?' she wondered. There was still no sign of Keith, or whoever it was who had led her here. As she flashed the light around the room, she saw no one- just a dust-covered living room.
And a trail of dried blood leading to the fireplace.
And that was when the door behind her slammed shut.
Gasping with surprise, her hands failed her and her one source of light, the origin of what little sense of security that this fucked up situation offered, clattered to the floor.
It fell in the general direction towards the fireplace, where she saw something that made her heart almost stop.
A pair of feet, hanging from inside the fireplace.
"Finally, we can get down to business."
It was Keith's voice. And yet, it wasn't. She felt certain about it now. Whoever it was, whatever it was, it was most definitely not Keith.
The feet disappeared up the fireplace, followed by the sound of an almost childlike sort of laughter- except that it was cold, heartless.
"Who the fuck are you?" Claire asked loudly.
And just as she asked that, she heard the sound of footsteps coming towards the living room from the darkness. Slowly, she bent down to pick up the flashlight so she could have a look at the person-
"I wouldn't do that if I were you."
It was still using Keith's voice. This time, the tone he carried was threatening and serious- serious enough for Claire to back off from the flashlight, leaving it on the floor.
"I think it's time we got acquainted, no?" he said pleasantly. "I'm-
-Kyle," Claire interrupted firmly. "You're Kyle, Keith's twin brother. The murderer."
It was guesswork as far as she was concerned. But what other explanation could there be for a person who looked exactly like Keith, but with a different personality? As she said it out loud, it triggered the realization that she was trapped inside a dark cabin in the middle of nowhere with a murderer.
Silence.
In the darkness, she could only see his face vaguely, but now she could see enough to know that he was smiling, baring his pearly white teeth as he started giggling like a madman.
"You got my name right," he admitted. "And you called the twin brother part right, though it's not entirely accurate. But what you got completely wrong however, is the identity of the murderer."
Her eyes narrowed. What was this person playing at?
"So you're saying it was Keith? Keith murdered his mother?" she asked.
"Maybe," the voice replied, snickering. "Wouldn't you like to know? Maybe you've been in love with a murderer all these years…cool, huh?"
Claire's eyes widened. "But-
-Leo's your boyfriend," the voice finished for her. "Don't bother using that for your defense. We both know the truth.
'That's not the point!' she thought to herself.
"Keith is not a murderer," she said firmly.
"I didn't saaaaay thaaaaat…" The reply came in a singsong voice. "The only thing I said was that I wasn't the murderer. But I'll tell you something about the murderer, though-
"He's on his way here."
Deciding that she'd had enough, Claire whirled around, the fear inside her starting to take hold. She opened the door and ran through-
Only to get back into the same room.
Kyle was laughing hysterically now.
"You can't leave yet," he said. "We're not done talking yet."
"Fuck you!" Claire spat back, but the words were a lot braver than she felt. Inside, her mind was already whispering repeatedly-
'Youregoingtodieyouregoingtodieyouregoingtodiefuckedfuckedfucked-
"Now, Claire," Kyle said as he stopped laughing. "I need your full and undivided attention. I'm going to tell you what to do, and you're going to obey…"
-
There was no sign of Sean anywhere. All four car doors were left open, the engine was dead, the windows were smashed and the tires were gone. It looked like an entire mob had attacked the car-
And they weren't just angry at the car.
A clear trail of blood led all the way from the car itself, down the road to where it disappeared into the fog.
Sean was dead- and whoever it was that had killed him, he, they had dragged him off somewhere.
As his mind returned to Claire, he turned around and ran back down the stairs as fast as his feet could carry him.
Something was out here. And he needed to get to Claire before-
-
Now his father was missing as well. At the chair where he had been seating, Keith had found a note pinned to the armrest saying:
' Dad's hiding too! But we'll find him- we always do! That old man hasn't changed one bit!'
And he was lost. As he stared at the empty chair, wondering what to do next, his mind wandered back to when he was a child-
"Daddy's busy today. He'll be coming home late." Mother used to say that all the time, and when she did…the look on her face-
No, he didn't even remember her face now. It had been so long…
But he knew where to go now, or at least, he had an idea of where to go. If he was wrong-
He'd keep on looking. As he turned around to leave the room, he decided that he'd keep on looking, tearing apart the goddamn town if he had to- if it meant saving Claire, Leo and his father.