Chapter Fourteen:

"Treasure Box and the Diary"

I took a great deal more care when I opened the door labeled 3F. That encounter downstairs had me all nerves and adrenaline, and damned if I was going to let another one of those things take me by surprise again. The whole encounter made me angry with myself. Things had been going a little smoother, so I let my guard down, and it almost cost me my life. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

So, when I stepped through into the third floor hallway, I had that nurses' pipe in my hands and ready to go. I felt a little strange using a weapon that once belonged to a monster, but only a little. Self-preservation was a rather immediate priority. Maybe if I survived this horror, I could sit back and think about that, but not now. Right now this monster's pipe made it just a little more likely that I would have that chance, and Maria too.

The hall appeared to be devoid of any undead. My flashlight beam reached the far wall, and nothing moved in its path. I reached into my pocket and raised the volume on my radio, hoping that it would pick anything up. All I got was a thin hiss, which made me feel a little safer. Regardless, when I reached the corner, I waved the pipe around it before I exposed myself, hoping that if there was some manner of demon, it would make its presence known once it saw something moving. Still nothing, though.

Satisfied that there was no immediate threat, I took a look around, and the first thing I saw was a door, identical in appearance to the one below, the one with the push-bar. Said push-bars on this door were functional, yet the doors themselves did not open. I gave it a harder push, which did nothing. This one was closed solid. I had thought to give it up for another broken door when Maria tapped me on the shoulder.

"Before you wear yourself out, he-man, you might want to try that." She then took hold of my left hand and guided it up to the wall next to the door. There was a keypad there. She laughed as I rummaged through my pocket for the code we found written on the whiteboard downstairs, feeling a little angry as I did. I was starting to get used to the idea of a traveling companion, and honestly, I was rather enjoying her presence. I hated being alone in this town, and she wasn't being a burden to me. She didn't freak out when there was a monster nearby. She didn't get in my way. And, she was attractive, okay? I admit it. I found her attractive. Sure, she was dressed like a tramp, but it was more than that. She was sexy, and she would be even without the clothing she wore. And, damn it, I still thought she resembled Mary. Their faces were so similar, nearly identical. I knew Mary's face perfectly from our years of marriage. Even three years without her didn't dull that sensitivity one bit. I knew her face, angle by wonderful angle, and every time I looked at Maria, I saw those same angles, the same nose, even the same by-God eyes. Mary was a rather proper woman, she stopped dressing like Maria around the time she graduated high school. Most people probably wouldn't call Mary sexy. Of course, I knew better. Mary was sexy, to me. And I think the reason I thought the same of Maria was because of that terrific similarity.

But there was one thing about Maria that she didn't share with Mary, one thing I didn't like at all, and that was her attitude. Granted, at times, she was nice, even sweet here and there, but then at other times she was caustic. She had a condescending streak a mile wide, and she seemed to revel in being able to display it. I'm no genius, I'll be the first to admit that, but I'm no idiot either, and if there's one thing that just gets my goat, it's when someone talks down to me. I can't stand that one bit. Plus, I didn't forget how she spoke to me back in the park, especially using Mary to manipulate me into taking her along in the first place. I warmed up to her a bit since then, but by no means did I forget that. I doubt I would ever be able to. It was just cruel. There are some things you just don't say. Ever. She knew that. Mary would never treat me like that. It would be alien to her.

I said nothing, though. I didn't want to get in an argument with her, not here, and not now. I'm certain she would if I provoked her.

With the crinkled piece of paper in hand, I typed the four-digit code on the keypad. The keypad was filthy, covered in dust and grime like everything else. My index finger had a dark smudge on the tip when I touched the keys. Yet, the pad was still in functioning order. As soon as I pressed the fourth key, the lock disengaged with a loud snap. Now, the door opened when I depressed the push-bar, sliding open with its hinges wailing.

The radio in my pocket started buzzing and squealing, but I already saw why. The door opened into another hallway, with this end being slightly wider and narrowing out farther down. In this little wide area, I saw another one of the nurses standing about five feet in front of me with its back facing me. It looked more or less identical to the one that almost killed me, wearing the same provocative nurse outfit, sporting the same grotesque shapeliness, and carrying a pipe that looked too much like the one in my right hand.

The combination of light and noise certainly galvanized the monster into motion, but I didn't give it any time. Maria held the door open, and I rushed straight at the monster. I didn't hit it with the pipe, but instead, I lifted my right leg and delivered a strong kick. My foot connected with its lower back, and the blow sent the nurse flying forward, bashing head-first into the wall, making a sound reminiscent of a watermelon being dropped on a sidewalk. It was obviously unprepared for that. It lost balance when it bounced off the wall, pinwheeling and falling backwards to the floor. The pipe fell from its grip and it twisted and flailed weakly on the ground. Its face – non-face – was a smashed ruin from the impact. It moaned piteously for a few seconds as its movements slowed and finally stopped, and the radio's mad caterwauling ceased along with it. I kicked it right in the neck anyway. It died rather too easily, and I wanted to make sure it stayed that way. My kick was rewarded with a wet snap, and when the head came to rest, it did so at an unmistakably broken angle. I kicked it again, in the head, just for good measure. It felt good. It felt damned good.

The hallway was dark, really dark. There was a window opposite the door, and it wasn't boarded over. No light shone through because the sun had finally set in Silent Hill. God help me. Daylight was one of the few rare things I had grown new appreciation for in the last few hours, and now it abandoned me too. I looked at my flashlight and hoped to God the batteries were strong ones. If I were to lose that, Maria and I would be a hundred different kinds of screwed.

But, for the moment, it was working fine, and its light flared down this long, narrow hallway. To the left was a series of doors, the first one labeled S1, then S2 and so forth. They were odd in their placement, spaced very closely together. The rooms behind them had to be tiny, like closets. Or, like cells. Of course. They had to be solitary rooms, given the markings, and the fact that this was a mental hospital. The first two were secured with a type of padlock that held a steel plate in place. Room S3's padlock hung from its loop at an awkward angle, and the metal plate was drawn open. The door opened easily, and we stepped in together.

The room was very tiny, and unfortunately, Laura wasn't inside of it. All we had going for us here was a small bed and a bedside table. Nothing doing here. I was just turning to leave when Maria brushed past me and sat down on the bed.

"Hey James," she said, "Wait a minute." Her voice was distinctly weaker than before, and she started coughing. She reached into a small pouch on her hip and pulled out a small orange vial, one recognizable to any adult in America as a prescription bottle. She twisted the cap off and shook the bottle. Two small red pills fell into her slender hand, and she popped them in her mouth, grimacing a bit as she dry-swallowed them. She looked at me with that sheepish smile again. Boy, she had a full repertoire of smiles, one for every occasion, it seemed. More expressive than I was, certainly.

"Don't worry, it's nothing major. I just have a bit of a hangover, that's all. I'm kinda tired."

"Maybe you should lay down and rest for awhile. I'll go out and look for Laura while you do."

She nodded, and reclined across the bed.

"Mmm… it's so comfy."

I wasn't inclined to agree. The mattress looked to be about three inches thick on old springs, and it looked pretty filthy, mottled with piss-yellow stains. But I didn't say anything. Instead, I turned to the door.

"Sit tight. I'll knock when I come back, so you know it's me."

"Okay."

I had turned the knob but I hadn't quite opened it when she called my name again. I turned to her.

"Hey, I want to ask you something," she said.

"Yeah?"

"Well, if you don't… you know, if you don't find Mary. What are you going to do then?"

I hesitated for a second. The answer I gave was an honest one, though.

"I don't know. I came here on one hell of a long shot. I haven't even considered the idea of not finding her."

"Even though it's as hard as it's been?"

"Even though."

"That's dedication for you," she said, and rolled over. I couldn't tell if that was an endorsement of my goal or an indictment. I didn't bother asking. Instead, I left.

Back in the hallway, I started up the hallway, checking each one of the closet-sized rooms. Most of them were still locked tight and had been for a long time. One was unlocked here and there but Laura was in none of them. I was beginning to feel an itching sense of futility prowling the rotten interior of a loony bin looking for this damn kid. It was a hellacious distraction from what I really wanted to be searching for. Sure, I was concerned for Laura's safety but dammit, this was asking too much. For all I know, the brat was on the ground floor when we got there and bolted out the front door when she saw us pass.

But she knew about Mary, and Eddie said she was looking for her too. Yeah, that counted for a lot, too. And Laura specifically called me out about it, so I had no doubt it was my Mary. How the kid knew Mary was unknown to me. Mary didn't have a job per se, but she was active with the Methodist church and was always doing extracurricular stuff with them. She could have met her at one of those things.

But no, how likely was that, really? We lived in Ashfield, Massachusetts, it was almost a six-hour drive away if you cared a damn for speed limits on the long, dull back roads of Maine that separated Silent Hill from the more populous eastern part of the state. Mary grew up in the Malden area, though she was actually born in Berlin, New Hampshire, where the Sheperd family had been rooted since before the Civil War. Any way you looked at it, no matter where this kid knew Mary from, she was very far away from home. I didn't have the slightest clue how she managed to get all the way out here on her own, but even that didn't matter. What did matter was that this little girl had come a hell of a long way to find my wife, and that had to mean that Laura and Mary were more than just mere acquaintances. There had to be a pretty solid friendship going on here, that much was obvious. So if that were the case, why on earth was I never aware of it? How did something like this so completely fly under my radar? I'm certain that Mary would have mentioned this little girl at least in passing. That she may have done and I didn't remember, didn't think it important enough to remember. Had she ever been over to the house? Honestly, that could have happened too. I might have seen her once in passing and just didn't retain it. But I suspected that this friendship was deeper than that. I couldn't think that even a child would run off, cross state lines and make it all the way to the boondocks of western Maine to find a missing friend unless that friendship was a damned powerful one.

And then, something else occurred to me that made the situation look even stranger to me. That kid couldn't be older than eight or nine years old. I'd have bet my own life she was on the short side of ten and done so without reservation. At the very earliest, she wouldn't have been but five or six when Mary died, and since she had been sick for some time before she died, it would almost have to be even earlier than that. The kid made a friend as a toddler and was now searching this back-ass lumberjack country looking for someone she hadn't seen in this entire half of her short life? Now that just didn't make any sense, no matter how you sliced it. That was just all kinds of screwy. When I caught up to Laura – if I caught up to Laura, I reminded myself – there would be a lot of explaining to do.

That did seem to be a bigger if by the moment, though.

The last door, S16, was also unlocked, and I opened the door thinking I would be no more surprised if I found the Pope behind the door than I would be if I found Laura there. I wasn't disappointed in that respect, at least; the tiny room was devoid of life, human or otherwise. But that didn't mean there wasn't something interesting. There was, in fact.

The bed in S16 wasn't set in the corner as the beds in the other solitary rooms had been. This one was turned perpendicular to the room, nearly spanning its meager width. Resting on top of this bed was a box of some kind. It was an old strongbox, the kind of stuff you put valuables in and hide somewhere in the shoe closet. And whoever owned the box and its contents was, at the very least, interested in their security, though perhaps 'paranoid' would be more accurate.

The latch was secured with a strange type of padlock, wider than most you would see on a box like this. There was no keyhole on the bottom, but rather, an indentation on the left side with a long series of strange grooves. But the box's owner wasn't just content with sealing his property with a weird padlock, he also apparently was intent on keeping the box itself right where it was, for he had somehow welded steel loops to the outside skin of the box, big, heavy duty ones, and looped through these rings was some hardcore steel chain, and a lot of it. The chain criss-crossed the entire bed, going under and looping around before finally coming out the other side. Crazy house or not, whoever came up with this was no idiot. He did a great job. The box wasn't moving. The chain was linked ultimately by a wheel lock, similar to one you see on bicycle locks but much larger and stronger. There were four wheels with numbers from one to nine.

I was about to forget about it and leave when I had a sudden flash of inspiration. I grabbed the strange padlock to make sure, looking at the odd indentation on the side. I reached into my pocket and pulled out that key that I found in the records room downstairs, the unusual-looking thing with the purple bull etched on it, that I thought was just an ugly paperweight until I saw the note beneath.

It's probably the key to that box.

Of course.

The tines of the key slid into the lock, and I pressed it as it rested. There was a healthy click, and the lock shot open. I removed it from the latch and tried to open the box.

Unfortunately, that wasn't happening. The chains that held the box secure to the bed also apparently kept the lid from being open even when the box itself was unlocked. No matter how I tugged and pulled, I couldn't get it even nearly loose enough to pry the lid. Nothing doing there. Congratulations to whatever madman came up with this, I thought. I left the room in disgust, though I didn't exactly know why. What was the likelihood that the box's contents were in any way going to be useful to me?

The hall was still silent and blessedly empty. I tried a few more doors on the other side that I had ignored on the initial run. One opened up into an empty shower room with strange green goo smeared around the drain, but that was it. I let myself back into the main hallway.

It was still quiet here too. There were two doors out here that I hadn't checked either. One door had no marking and was locked tight. The other was at the far end of the far corridor, and this one was labeled Day Room, but the doorknob twirled quickly and uselessly under my grip. As far as I could tell, Maria and I had searched a good deal of this place, and there wasn't even a trace of the damn brat. There were still stairs leading up, though. There was at least four floors in this place. Nothing to do but either give up and leave altogether, or check this final option out.

I found myself in the stairwell, looking first at the stairs leading down, then at the stairs leading up, actually giving thought to my two options. The desire to leave was a strong one, regardless of Laura's connections with my wife. Yet, I found myself climbing upward instead of downward, because the chance of discovering what those connections were was just too strong to ignore.

I reached the top, and I found that there were no more stairs. This was it. I also found that there was no fourth floor to Brookhaven Hospital. The letters 'RF' told me that I found the building's roof. I shrugged and opened the door.

It opened into an outdoor area, and it was now completely dark outside. The sky was as dark as pitch. No stairs dotted the sky, which was understandable considering how cloudy it had been, but it was stranger than that. Something else was missing.

Where the hell was the moon?

It wasn't there, not where it should be. Even with the clouds it should have been noticeable, for the light if nothing else, but there was nothing. No light whatsoever. I flicked the switch on my flashlight, and I was bathed in absolute black. I couldn't see the fingers on my hand two inches in front of me. I flicked it back on, scared for a moment because I hadn't thought to check for any walking horrors, but the radio in my pocket was sedate, so I didn't fret too much.

I scanned the area, but there wasn't really much to see. It was flat and it was empty. The entire perimeter of the roof was encircled by more fencing that came up to my head, which I surmised was to keep any wandering nutcases from walking or leaping off of the roof to their deaths. There was a pair of oil drums in one corner, ugly and rusted. There was a small building with a door marked "Electrical", but the knob was as broken as glass on the door's window. That was it. What a waste of time.

I turned to go back to the door I came in from, when I nearly tripped taking my first step. I looked down and I saw a small notebook, one of the spiral kinds kids take to class. I picked it up, hoping against hope that it belonged to Laura.

Leafing through the pages, I could tell right away that it wasn't hers. It was a diary, and one that hadn't been kept long. There were only four days of entries and the rest of the pad was blank. I knew it wasn't Laura's because the script was in cursive, and even if the kid knew how to write cursive, I've never seen a kid her age write as neatly as I saw in the makeshift diary.

I skimmed the last page, reading the text but not really reading the content. Something was funny about it and I didn't realize it at first. The last entry was a depressing monologue about being trapped in illusion and how it might be preferable to reality at this point. It ended by saying that perhaps the writer was about to be released, but the entry wasn't finished. It seemed as though something surprised the diarist, for the last entry was a long, abrupt slash across the paper with his pen, as if the arm had been grabbed while still working.

Then, like a punch in the face, I realized completely why the text itself looked so funny. It was in cursive, and very neat cursive. It tilted slightly to the left, because the writer was left-handed. It was fucking-A identical to…! I reached into my pocket, madly grabbing for the letter, the one that had brought my sorry ass out here in the first place.

I heard a door slam. A metal door. The one leading to the stairwell. It was like hearing a gunshot at close range in the gloomy silence, and I nearly yipped in surprise and fear. It was Maria, or maybe, heaven forfend, Laura. I was going to give either a piece of my mind when…

Then I saw him. I saw him at the same time I heard him, heard the scraping of heavy steel on concrete.

It was him!

Fear coursed through my veins and flooded them with adrenaline. My heart rate increased so dramatically I thought it would squeeze out of my ear. I saw him in front of me, his massive bulk topped by that strange pointed helmet, blood-red from crown to tip. I felt him, too. Felt that anger, that hate, that loathing, and that fear. That thick molasses of terror that kept me rooted where I was standing for just a second too long with my eyes googling open and my mouth even wider.

Too long.

With impossible speed, the red pyramid thing swung his oversized sword at my midsection, swinging it sideways. I leapt backwards, the tip of the blade so close to disemboweling me that you could have bridged the gap with a cigarette butt.

I wasn't cut, but when I did leap back, fear had given me a little too much strength. I overbalanced, falling backwards into the security fence. It was surprising and dazing at once, and I had just enough time to see Pyramid Head approaching me, just enough time to realize that he was going to kill me, when I heard a loud snap and a squeal, and the next thing I knew, the fence and I were both falling backwards, into space. I screamed as I fell, not even fully realizing what happened when my fall was broken by something very, very hard. I heard a loud, heavy crack, one that sounded like rocks breaking, and then suddenly I was falling yet again with a shower of busted concrete falling with me. I didn't even have time to say her name, and that regret was sure to be my final one, so I thought as I hit something even harder and my head bashed into it, sending me into a void that was even darker and blacker than the unnaturally empty sky my eyes stared blankly into.

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