Chapter Thirteen:
"Angels With Filthy Souls"

The lobby of Brookhaven Hospital was as silent and abandoned as anything else I had seen in the last few hours. The main corridor split into two directions, both going farther than my eyes could see, and there was a registration desk in front of us. I didn't know just how expansive a place this was yet, but our footfalls echoed strongly, bouncing around wildly in the emptiness, and it gave me a good idea. I was actually thankful for the echoes, for hopefully it would help alert us to the presence of any threats.

It was a rotten place, to be certain. It had that same feeling that the apartments, the bowling alley, and other places around here seemed to have, that air of long neglect. That feeling that everyone got up and walked out of town, taking nothing with them, and leaving everything to the fickle winds of nature.

And, of course, the inexplicable children of H.P. Lovecraft that shambled around town. They ruled the roost here, now. Where did they come from? How long had they been here? I remembered that newspaper rack I had seen shortly after reaching the town proper, the newspaper that displayed today's date, a newspaper that was printed on a local press.

And now I found myself in a hospital that had that displayed ample evidence of being ignored by people. I think it might have been because of where I was, a hospital, that it stood out so much stronger to me here. Hospitals are supposed to be sterile, as antiseptic as humanly possible, clean, white, and at least giving the illusion of invitation. Doctors who know it all and nurses who do it all. Or, doctors who are absolutely clueless. There are no shortage of those kinds of doctors. Trust me, I've met plenty of them.

Sterile was a word that might applied to Brookhaven once upon a time. If I had to judge by looks, once upon a time might have been sometime around when Eisenhower ran the show. Now though? Well, it wasn't the same type of decay the apartments displayed. For one thing, it was pretty dry in here. There was a layer of dust on the floor, it kicked up in little clouds when we stepped on it. Also, the apartments looked ripe for condemnation, both buildings looked ransacked and priming for eventual collapse. Physically, this hospital looked in better shape, like it could one day be reopened without an undue amount of hassle.

For some reason though, this place seemed to creep me out a great deal more. It seemed so much more oppressive, the air heavier and filled not only with the wonderful scents of age and abandonment, but the underlying stench of illness, of blood, shit and vomit countered by the power of Lysol, and the result was something else new and unique, and possibly more disgusting than either. That smell, that hospital smell, it was still here. You had to be looking for it, you had to know what it was to even realize it was there, but nevertheless, it was there.

I tried to ignore it as we ventured deeper into this cavern of darkness.

Maria took an obvious approach, yelling Laura's name. It echoed loudly through the empty corridors, but it was to no avail. If Laura heard us, she wasn't responding. I was tempted to call out to her as well, but I wondered how wise it was to make so much noise. Maybe Laura could hear us, maybe she had gotten far enough away in here to where she could not. There could be other things here, though. Other things who could hear us, other things I had no interest in making acquaintance with. Just because we couldn't hear them didn't mean they couldn't hear us. Yet, given the perfectly still and silent atmosphere in this particular area, I thought it unlikely that we wouldn't hear one of them moving around. As far as I could tell, the monsters of Silent Hill didn't care a whole lot about being noticed.

There were a lot of doors in this main hall, and surprisingly, the first one I tried was a working one. It led into a small room with a desk covered with papers, pens, information sheets and the like. An office. There was a clipboard on the desk that listed patient information for three men, Joseph Barkin, Jack Davis, and Joshua Lewis, one wracked with paranoia and delusions, the second under suicide watch, and the last with a history of violence and a mean streak a mile wide.

I almost just dismissed these notes as unimportant, but then, I remembered the razor wire and ten-foot fencing that surrounded the hospital grounds, and then it hit me. Brookhaven wasn't a medical hospital, at least, not completely, all hospitals have medical facilities. Brookhaven was a mental hospital. A nuthouse. A feeb farm, as R.P. McMurphy referred to it in Ken Kesey's famous novel. That realization brought a cold feeling. A deserted hospital in the middle of the Twilight Zone was bad enough. A deserted mental hospital? Absolutely god damn lovely. It would have made a fantastic punchline.

The room offered little else of interest. There was a file room in the back, which featured an ancient typewriter, one of those old monsters that was encased in pea-green steel and weighed fifty pounds.

Next to the typewriter was what seemed to be more patient notes, which I briefly skimmed and found nothing interesting within. They were held down to the desk with what I had taken for a strange, ugly paperweight. It was made of steel and had an engraving of a bull. Rectangular in shape, at least until you saw the bottom. There were things poking out, irregular in length. It looked like someone carved a bar graph out of the end of this paperweight. Then, I saw a handwritten note on the last page of the notes.

I got the key from Joseph. It's probably for the box.

I looked at the object again, and decided they were referring to this thing. A key? Definitely a strange one, to be sure, but it made more sense than anything else I could think of. I dropped it in my pocket, and looked at the page, skimming it as I had the others, but this one was actually sort of interesting. It seemed to be a page of a doctor's journal.

NOVEMBER 19, CONT.

This illness is something that absolutely anyone is susceptible to. Under the proper conditions, anyone, man, woman or child, could be driven to "the other side", just like that poor man. I must note, however, that I am not entirely certain that "the other side" is the proper description for this phenomenon, for the name assumes that there is a solid separation between here and "there". It lies on the border of reality, where it and unreality intersect. It is a place both distant and close, the proximity being something that is never constant and always changing around the person and their circumstances. Some disagree with the idea that it is an illness, but I cannot accept that. I'm not a philosopher or psychologist, I'm just a doctor. I concern myself less with speculative fancy and more with physical reality.

Even still, at times I find myself pondering the whys and wherefores. To us, his imaginings are nothing more than the product of a busy and overtaxed mind. To him, though, there is nothing more real. To him, there may simply be no other reality. And, what's more, when he is lost in his own world, he seems happy, free from the torment that plagues him in his conscious moments. What is gained, then, by us dragging him kicking and screaming into "our" reality, one that, for him, is filled with nothing but despair and insufferable pain?

Reading that chilled me a bit, even though I could relate. Who didn't want to escape from the real world at times? Seemed like the nameless patient wanted to make it more permanent, and leave no forwarding address. Creepy stuff, but it certainly reinforced my guess about what kind of hospital this really was. I set the page back down and exited back to the main hallway with Maria.

"Hey James," Maria said.

"Yeah?"

"How are we ever going to find her here? I've never met a hospital that wasn't gigantic, and I don't think this one will be any different."

"I don't have a good answer for that," I told her, "We'll have to search around until we find her. There's no other way."

Maria tried a doorknob, and it turned far too freely in her grip. She let go of it abruptly, with a look of surprise on her face. The door did not open.

"The last place I was inside of had a lot of that too," I told her. "Doors with knobs that turned but wouldn't open."

"What on earth would cause that?" she asked.

"Not sure, but honestly, it may make this easier. After all, if we can't open these doors, Laura can't either."

She nodded at me, conceding the point, and together, we went up and down the halls of Brookhaven's first floor, jiggling every doorknob we could find. Most of them did not lead to anything. There were a lot of broken door locks, and like Maria, I wondered just why in the hell so many were like that. I could see maybe a handful of them rusting so badly that they popped the moment someone applied pressure to them, but so many? Like so much, it completely defied explanation. For the moment though, it was okay. It was less ground to cover, which meant less exposure to danger, theoretically.

We found that very few doors in this particular part of the hospital were actually in working order. One of them housed a lounge station, and in this lounge were two things of importance. One was a code for a door lock on the second floor, which I scribbled onto the back of the town map, just in case it was still functional. The second was a six-pack of canned juice that sat atop the sink. It was the first time I recalled seeing any sort of food or drink anywhere, except for Eddie's pizza. I cracked one open and took a tentative sip. Really sweet stuff, tasted vaguely like the oranges advertised on the package, but it didn't seem to be rancid. Maria refused the can I offered, but I drank mine dry, crushed the can in my hand, and threw it in the corner. I felt better for that. Nothing else turned up, and we went back out into the main hallway.

There ended up being only one other healthy door, and it led to a stairwell. The flashlight showed a pile of wreckage on the downward case, denying access to the basement, so up we went. The stairwell was not a very inviting place, to say the least. Rusty water had apparently been dripping from the ceiling, leaving nasty brown stains running down the wall, and where the walls weren't rusty, they were mottled with mildew. Dark green and brown splotches of fungus covered much of the walls like the disease it was. It wasn't like the sections of the apartments that were openly leaking, but years and years of dampness took their toll, and harshly.

Two flights of stairs up, there was a door, painted a dirty shade of brown only made dirtier by the latent decomposition that affected everything else. "2F" was painted upon it in fading white.

I pushed the door open, wincing at the nasty creaking noise coming from the old, neglected hinges. Beyond it was another hallway that seemed to section off in a T-shape nearby. An old gurney sat poking out from around that corner, still propped up in a reclining position, covered in moldering linens and waiting for patients that were never going to arrive. Maria stepped through after me, and the door's retractor pulled it shut.

It wasn't tomb-silent here as it was downstairs. I could hear a soft sound, almost like breathing but larger and too deep to be anything living. I guess something was still pushing air through the vents. Considering the sad state of things, I couldn't imagine how, but when I placed my hand near a vent on the wall, I could feel air being expelled. It was warmer than room temperature, but heavy and tepid. Probably not all that healthy, either.

Then, I heard a different noise.

At first, I had thought it was just one of the many colorful sounds that one hears if they pay attention to air circulation. After all, who hasn't been at least momentarily surprised by the sudden activation of a furnace?

But it wasn't a furnace. It was a wet sound. Wet, and nasty. And it wasn't coming from the vent…

Three things happened within perhaps a quarter of a second.

The radio in my pocket suddenly came to life, blaring out its ever-present static as if it were the herald of sudden doom.

The wet, mushy noise became a crescendo, a wailing scream that skirted such a fine line between natural and unnatural, making it all the more terrifying.

Finally, and definitely worst of all, was the hollow, powerful sound of a heavy object being swung at me. I could just hear the whistling sound it made from its motion before it struck the wall beside me. I had just enough presence of mind to see what had just been swung at me and register it for what it was: A large, rusty piece of steel piping. The business end of it tore a gaping chunk out of the wall, having been wielded with enough force to bury the head several inches into the wall. I cried out and stumbled backwards, losing my balance. I fell, and my ass struck the filthy, muddy tiles of the floor at a less than favorable angle, planting me directly upon my tailbone. Pain lanced up my back like electricity, and I arched backwards, unable to stop myself despite knowing that my life was in immediate danger of being bludgeoned right out of me.

It turned out to be quite a good thing that my unseen assailant had put so much muscle into his attack, for it was trying to retrieve its weapon, and that gave me a few wonderful seconds to recover and attempt to defend myself. I pushed myself to my feet, trying to ignore the red-hot agony that throbbed in my lower back, and retreated. I collided with Maria, and she backed up, pressing herself against the wall behind me. I had to give the woman credit, she was a tough one, not buckling under duress even as I had to fight to avoid doing so myself. At least, I thought that's why she was silent. I think if I had been able to see her face, I would have known better, for once I looked forward and saw what I saw, I couldn't have even thought to blame her if she had been scared senseless. It was a hell of an effort to keep my own shit together right now. I couldn't afford to lose it. Had to try my damnedest not to lose it. Had to fight it.

Then, my eyes fell upon what had swung the weapon and nearly made a radical change to the topography of my skull. Once I did, it was no longer a battle to keep my mind in check. No sir.

At a cursory glance, the attacker appeared quite human, possessing a long, slender figure, and distinctly feminine features as well, round hips, large breasts. It looked quite a bit more human than any of the town's other inhabitants so far, with the exception of the red pyramid thing. Also unlike the other monsters, this one wore clothing, an outfit, more accurately. A short skirt and a top that displayed some ample bosom, topped off by a cap, one of those little folded dealies that you might see on the head of a sailor.

Or a nurse.

Of course. A nurse. I mean, it was hardly the type of outfit you would ever see a real nurse wear while on the docket, not really. It was a parody of a real nurse's uniform, one that seemed intentionally designed to appear sexy, something only a stripper or an adventurous lover would ever really wear. Perhaps on a real person, it would look sexy. I bet Maria would look comely in it.

But what stood in front of me, struggling to retrieve its weapon, that thing was not human. Not even close. Those long, slender legs were dead, fishbelly white and covered with thick, crusty scabs, as if entire strips of flesh had been torn off and were in the process of healing. Like the other walking nightmares I had encountered before, its skin was not flesh, but a sort of thick membrane that was coated in some kind of oil slick. Skin, clothes and everything was covered in filth and dark patches of red that were just a few shades north of black, the shade of old, old blood. And yet, that wasn't even the worst of it.

The head. The head was the worst. No, not the head, not exactly.

The face.

There was no face.

It was completely featureless.

No eyes, nor hollows for the sockets. No nose, no sculpted cheekbones, no mouth, not even a set of jaws. It was as if the front of this thing's skull had grown just as smooth and solidly-fused as the back of it had. It looked almost like the head one of those artist's dolls, the wooden ones that have the posable features. A head, no face.

No, it wasn't a battle to keep my shit together. Not really the correct way to describe it. It was a struggle, a mad, blind, edge-of-the-cliff struggle now.

It finally tugged the pipe free from the wall, and then stood there with the weapon in its hands, not moving, almost as if it were admiring the thing. I took the blessed opportunity for what it was and scrambled to my feet, reaching for my pistol.

I suppose that the monster realized that it now faced a threat of its own, for it turned to face me just as I raised the gun. I could barely hold a steady aim, because my hands were shaking terribly. I aimed at the creature's non-face, and squeezed the trigger. Brilliant light and percussive sound filled the room for a fraction of a second, both of them stunning to eyes that were used to darkness and ears that were used to dead silence.

The demonic nurse didn't even flinch, my shot had gone wide. The pipe raised in a jerky arc again. I quickly fired two more shots. One stitched its neck, probably passing right through. The second hit it square in the jaw, or where the jaw should have already been, creating a big punched hole. The monster dropped its weapon, and its arms swung wildly, as if it had lost control over them. Stranger still, stranger and significantly more disturbing, was that its head thrashed about even more wildly. It flew in every direction and it did so with impossible speed, faster than the muscles of anything its size should be able to operate. I half-expected the head to tear itself right off of its neck, but it didn't. Instead, the nurse stumbled around blindly, head thrashing as it screamed a terrible, inhuman scream, one that sounded equal parts rage and pain. I backed away, and I felt Maria grab my arm, but I barely noticed it otherwise. The creature didn't seem to pose a threat now, yet the morbid scene was fascinating in a terrible way, and I couldn't pull my eyes away from it.

The nurse's blind meanderings eventually made it walk face-first into a wall, making a sound like hard plastic cracking when it did so. It fell backwards to the floor, lying prone on its back. That damnable screeching continued as its limbs flailed uselessly, like an insect.

I wanted to believe it was suffering its death throes, but I was by no means certain and I very much wanted to be. I bent over and picked up the steel pipe it had dropped, gripping it like a baseball bat and lifting it high above my head. It came crashing down upon the nurse's midsection with as much force as I could manage, and I heard that same crushed plastic sound. I struck it twice more like this, and finally, the nurse's struggles slowed, and ceased as it finally died, letting out one long, raspy moan as it did.

It was like the others in another way. It smelled like strong, thick rot, like wet meat gone way over. I swallowed back my bile, and I could hear Maria cough heavily. She bent over in the corner as I turned to face her, and I placed a hand on her back as she emptied her stomach on the dirty tiles. I rubbed her back as she coughed up the last of it, and she didn't mind, but my touch was tentative and the motion of my hand stiff. I was trying to be comforting, but I didn't feel very comfortable myself, touching her in such a familiar way. It had been a long time since I had touched a woman like that, and it made me feel guilty.

She finally stood, which allowed me to take my hand back, and she wiped her mouth on her sleeve.

"Sorry about that," she said, another smile on her face. This one actually looked a little sheepish.

"It's okay. The only reason I didn't do it right next to you is because I'm already empty from doing it before."

"You're a hell of a hero, James. I have to hand it to you." She grabbed my hand and gave it a playful tap. "This door behind me isn't opening. I tried it while you were fighting that nurse thing. Let's go up that way and see if there's anything."

I nodded, and when I looked at the door, I could see she was right. It was one of those doors that you opened with a push-bar, but the bar on this one was already in its depressed position, a good sign that it isn't in working condition.

A quick search of the hallway turned up little. There was a pair of locker rooms that wouldn't open, as well as a storeroom that was similarly out of commission. There was a broken elevator, and a small offshoot hallway that had a door, but there was tons of crap piled in front of it, old cleaning materials and debris alike, so that was out.

What a crock of shit. I nearly had my head pulped in by that monster, and all for nothing.

Oh well. It was a waste. There was nothing more to see here, so we stepped through the hallway's only working door, back into the stairwell, and up to the next floor.

8