Dummy
Sour Times
By Scrunchii
0. Prologue
"Welcome to Happy Burger. Can I take your order?" Josie Rodrigues droned in a bored, flat voice. Her eyes were visible proof of how much she did not want to be working today. Her usually neat brown hair with light brown highlits was pulled up in a messy ponytail. She wore no eye make-up or lipstick, although she was still just as beautiful as she usually was. The tall, overweight man with greasy hair stared up at the glowing menu above Josie's head with sincere interest. He was the kind of man Josie saw every day. He took fast food way too seriously. She sighed inwardly but kept the same fake, patient smile on her face.
"I think I'll have..." the man began slowly. "The...yeah, I'll have the double cheeseburger with extra large fries. And a large soda. Uh, and a salad too." Josie wanted to point out that having a salad with a bunch of fast food wasn't going to even things out but she was the cashier so she kept her mouth shut.
Josie smiled widely at the man and nodded. "Okay, thank-you, sir, your food should be ready shortly." She craned her neck around the man for the next customer and frowned as the door opened and Gregory Cooks - otherwise known as Cook both because of his job as the cook in Happy Burger and his last name - stumbled in, holding his hand to his chest. His bright yellow Happy Burger apron was stained with something red. Blood. Josie heard her best friend, Lucy Adams, gasp from the register next to her. "Cook!" Josie called out loudly to her old friend. "You okay? What happened?"
Cook shrugged. "Some guy tried to rob me and bit me." The tall, gangly boy flipped his black, ear-length hair out of his eyes and grinned his lopsided grin. "It's okay," he assured her. An impatient woman with tired eyes and messy blond hair cleared her throat loudly from in front of Josie's register. Josie sighed and smiled.
"Welcome to Happy Burger, may I take your order?"
Maria woke up to the sound of a long, loud siren. It wasn't the usual siren of the ambulance or fire truck. This was something else. It hurt her ears and seemed to grope at the back of her skull, as though trying to bring the back of her head through her forehead. She closed her eyes and held the back of her head in agony.
"Mama!" she yelled. "Mama!" She opened her eyes again and screamed. Her bed, floor, and dresser were soaked with blood. The walls were covered in thick sheets that were old and yellow. The door was rusted - or was that blood too? - and nearly falling off its hinges. "Shit," she hissed. She was so tired of all these wierd dreams. She'd been having them a lot lately. Maria sat up in her bed and wiped the sleep out of her eyes. Funny, she never had to do that in her dreams.
She pulled at the door but it wouldn't budge. Maria cursed again. As loose as it was on its hinges, the door was stuck tight. She looked around the room warily and studied the walls. Part of the wall looked detached from the rest. Maria grabbed a pole sticking out of her wall - a rusty, sharp pole with what looked like blood on the tip - and swung it hard against the wall. To her surprise and delight, the wall gave way and crumbled, sheets and all, to reveal the bathroom that was next to Maria's room. The toilet was a disgusting mess, old, dirty water bubbling in the toilet and overflowing onto the cold ground. Maria felt bile rise in her throat. She quickly turned away and hurried out of the bathroom into the hallway of the Rodrigues apartment.
She pulled at her brother's door only to find it in the same condition as her own bedroom door. Her mother's door opened but all she found was a room as disgusting as Maria's. Empty. She sighed and padded down the hallway to the living room. This dream seemed a little different from most. Usually a huge, disgusting monster popped out and tried to kill her. So far, to her relief, nothing like that had happened.
A low, gurgling noise came from the apartment next to her's. Maria felt her stomach flip. The little dog, Lulu, Maria had gotten for her birthday three years ago let out a nervous bark. Maria jumped. She'd never had Lulu in her dream before. She picked up the little dog and looked around. The thin, red leash Maria usually used for Lulu was laying conveniently on the table in front of her. She quickly snapped the dog's leash on Lulu's collar. She looked down at her outfit and suddenly froze. She was still wearing her pajamas.
Maria sighed and went back through the bathroom to her bedroom. The stench of rot was almost too much for her. She pulled open her dresser with more force than she'd ever had to use before and grabbed her baggy jeans, the small white tank top, and the large, red plaid button-up shirt. She pulled the jeans over her slim, tan legs and the tank top over her small chest. She left the plaid shirt unbuttoned, as usual. Maria usually dressed like this, although her jeans usually revealed boxers rather than today's normal underwear.
She grabbed Lulu and the two made their way out of the bedroom back to the living room. The pair left the apartment, Maria pocketing the key in her back pocket, and froze as they shut the door. Lulu growled as loud as she could and even let out a few barks as Maria stared in shock. The floor was made up of grates along the hallways, some missing a few squares which led to the first floor. The walls were rusted metal panels, one of which was falling onto the floor, revealing a blood bath in the apartment from which Maria had heard the gurgling. She felt vomit rise up in throat once again and turned away. Her best friend had lived in that apartment but she could see from where she was that Emma wasn't alive.
She picked up Lulu again, not trusting the little dog to follow without getting into trouble, even when on her leash, and ran as fast as she could down the bloody hallway to the door under the blinking "EXIT" sign. She pulled at the door but it wasn't budging. Maria felt fear grip her heart, her throat tighten. She stared at the floor where one of the grates was missing. If she dropped Lulu down there first, as gently as she could, she could probably drop down there. Maria got on her knees and peered down. The room seemed safe enough, putting aside, of course, the fact that it was just as bloody and disgusting as the other rooms.
Maria bit her lip doubtfully. It was either jump into the room or stay up there and wait for...what? Help? For the dream to end? Or something else?
Maria shook her head, not wanting to think about the something else. She carefully lowered the little white dog down into the room. Lulu barked like mad but there didn't appear to be anything down there. Maria took a deep breath and lowered herself down, holding onto the edge of the hole and letting herself drop until her arms ached. She looked down. She still had quite a ways to fall but if Lulu could do it without getting hurt, so could she. Maria let go.
She fell on her feet but immediately fell on her knees and groaned. "Ouch," she muttered. Lulu licked her face a few times before Maria stood up and brushed the dog away. She looked around the room, hoping there was an easy way out. The last thing she needed was to get stuck in here. It stank more than her own room had and that was saying something. She turned and felt her stomach do another flip. The refrigerator door was open, revealing a pair of legs sticking out. "Oh God," she whispered and ran into the bathroom, finally letting herself throw up. She wiped the bit of throw up left on her chin and sat up queasily. She felt her stomach do another dive and quickly turned back to the toilet.
When she was finished, Maria grabbed the leash of her dog and stormed out of the apartment. The door opened without any arguements but when Maria closed the door, she wished it had. Standing in the hallway was a creature Maria had never even imagined. Tall and skinny, it had no arms but looked as though its arms had been pushed inside itself and then stuck its elbows out. It had no real face though it did have a head. Its stomach was open, revealing two flaps. It bent backwards when it "saw" her and sprayed something on her leg. Maria screamed in pain. Whatever it had sprayed at her hurt like hell. Maria picked up Lulu again and ran. She wasn't sure where she was going or if that thing was following her, all she wanted was to leave.
She tugged at the main door desperately. The door flew open, revealing the foggy streets of Silent Hill. Maria rushed out of Wood Side Apartments and slammed the door behind her. She didn't stop running. She ran until she couldn't breathe. When she was finally barely able to walk, she stopped and sat on the porch of a house. She looked up at the streets. Blood was smeared on the gray asphault. Blood. Maria had never encountered anything like blood - or at least not that much in one place. The streets echoed in the slow, scraping footsteps of the creatures, things like that monster she'd seen.
Maria gathered her strength and tried to clear her mind. Where could she go? Where was help? Happy Burger. The answer was so clear in her mind, Maria didn't know how she could have forgotten it for a second. Josie, Cook, Lucy, and Mark were there. Her sister and friends. Her solids. Maria walked at a normal pace, hoping those things weren't very fast, and speed-walked toward Happy Burger, Lulu trotting to keep up beside her. When the parking lot finally came into view, Maria broke into a jog toward the lonely looking fast food restaraunt.
She threw herself against the doors and closed them quickly behind her. The restaraunt was dead silent. Blood was everywhere. Maria almost burst into tears. Not here too. A crash in the kitchen made her freeze. Was it one of those things? Was it Josie?
"Josie!" she cried out, her voice breaking. "Josie, is that you?" Her throat was sore with the tears she wouldn't let escape. Another crash. There was definitely something back there. "Josie! Please..." she said, her voice barely above a whisper. She held Lulu close to her, feeling the little dog's racing heartbeat.
"Maria?"
A tall, slim girl in tight, black pants wearing a Happy Burger t-shirt stumbled out of the kitchen, holding her bloody arm to her chest. Josie.
"Oh, God, Maria, baby!" Maria's older sister ran to Maria and pulled her into a tight embrace, her blood staining Maria's white tank top. "Where's Mama? Where's - Shit!" she hissed, holding her arm closer to herself.
"What happened?" Maria asked, helping her sister sit in one of the booths. Josie shook her head and shrugged. Maria looked around her and shuddered. Well, she thought, this is something I've never imagined happening...
"I don't know," Josie said in a hushed voice. She looked Maria straight in the eye, but the older Rodrigues sister couldn't hold the gaze for long. She looked back down at her bleeding arm. "Cook came in at the beginning of my shift and said someone had tried to rob him. They...bit him. We didn't think anything of it, but then...something wierd happened and he started attacking everyone."
"Attacking?" Maria lifted an eyebrow. She looked back out the window. Had it been one of those monsters that had bitten Cook? Or was it...was it something else?
"It was horrible...he was eating Mark!" Josie's voice was thick with tears. She swallowed. "We thought they were both dead when Lucy finally pushed Cook off of Mark and he hit his head on the stove. But then Mark got up and...and...he attacked Lucy and me. I killed Mark but not before he'd half killed Lucy and taken a chunk out of me." Josie looked down at her arm sadly. "Lucy died a half hour later and a few minutes later she...she...she got back up and then she tried to attack me. That's when I got this." Josie lifted her pant leg, revealing a bloody mess where her calf used to be. "I killed Lucy too. By then, the whole place was empty and I was the only one left. I can't leave here, Maria. He won't let me." She looked up pleadingly at Maria. "You have to leave before he won't let you leave too!"
Maria backed away from her sister. "You killed Cook. Mark. Lu-Lucy?" Maria looked around desperately. "Why, Josie, you can't expect me to believe that they just...just died and came back to life? It's crazy."
"You've seen them too," Josie declared. "Maria, you've seen them!" She looked out the window of Happy Burger. Maria followed her sister's gaze and her eyes fell on one of the creatures that had attacked her in the apartment. "They're real," Josie whispered.
Maria stood up. "I'm not..." she began, but she wasn't sure what she wanted to say. Yes, she'd seen them. But she hadn't seen anyone come back to life. She hadn't seen Cook try to eat Mark. She hadn't seen any of that. She didn't want to. And she didn't want to believe.
But she did.
