Chapter Sixteen:

"Paradigm Shift"

Laura squeezed through two of the beds, out into the open area where I stood. She held one of the teddy bears by its limp arm and carried it with her. She looked at me, but said nothing, waiting for me to explain. Damn me if I didn't. I was that relieved to find her.

"Laura?"

She looked surprised, and her eyes narrowed. "How did you know my name?"

"Eddie told me."

"Why, that big, fat blabbermouth!" She stomped her foot on the ground.

"Never mind that, it's not important. I want to ask you something."

"Why? You gonna get angry if I don't want to answer?"

"No, I promise."

"You can ask if you want." There was the sneer again.

"How do you know Mary?"

The sneer fell from her face, and she looked at the ground as she spoke. "We were in the hospital together. I think we met last year."

Last year?

"You liar!" I yelled, and I know I sounded pissed off, but that wasn't it, not just it. It was shock. Surprise. People do stupid things when they're surprised, and that was a James Sunderland special. I realized it right away, too. Give me that much credit.

"Laura! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…"

"Fine!" she said, "Don't believe me! See if I care!" She pushed past me and started for the door.

"But Mary wasn't…" I stopped. Wasn't she? Of course not. I knew that as well as I knew my own name. So why was there now an ugly little sprig of doubt itching the back of my head now? I ignored it. It was meaningless. I knew everything that happened, and her story didn't fit. So why?

God help me, I felt like hitting her. But I wasn't that kind of asshole. At least I could say that much.

She had stopped, but her back remained facing me.

"Hey, Laura?" I said, trying to sound soothing. She didn't respond, but she didn't bolt, either.

"Let's get out of here. This is no place for a kid to be hanging around. I can't believe you haven't even gotten a scratch on you!" And, she hadn't. She was the very model of a healthy child, by all outward appearances.

"Why should I have scratches?" she asked. I was a little incredulous. Could she really have managed to avoid seeing any of the monsters that had been plaguing my stay here? I couldn't believe that. Maria saw them. Eddie claimed to have seen them. Angela, I wasn't too sure about. But it wasn't just me, that much I knew for a fact. So why her? How did she get by without seeing one? Could she really have seen one and was just lying? I couldn't buy that. She sat in the corner of this room with her teddy bears without a care in the world, and I couldn't imagine a kid of any age being able to do that if they had seen any of the things I had.

Therefore, I had no satisfactory answer to her question, and I said nothing. Instead, I opened the door and held it for her, inviting her to step through with me. I didn't know if she would, and it was unthinkable to force her to follow me, but it would be best for her safety. She had luck, that much was beyond question, but if that luck ran out, it would definitely be to her benefit if she had someone to watch her skinny little back for her. Even if it had to be me.

Thankfully, it didn't matter in the end, because she did follow me out of room C2. I was more than a little surprised, but I felt good about it. She looked back at me, motioning to follow, and we began walking towards the elevator, so we could retrieve Maria.

We were about halfway there when Laura stopped suddenly and jammed her hands into the pockets of her faded denim skirt. She plunged them in and out of the pockets frantically.

"Oh no!" she said, her voice shrill.

"What's the matter?"

"I forgot my letter!"

I shrugged. "Come on, it's too late to worry about that. We need to get out of here."

"No!" she yelled, "It's really important. It's from Mary!"

Well, that made my heart skip a few beats, of course. "Are you sure?" I said. I would very much like to see this letter. I wasn't altogether sure now that the Mary she was after was the woman I married, and this letter would almost certainly tell me for certain.

"Where did you leave it?" I asked, even though I had already turned around towards Room C2.

She grabbed my arm and tugged me in the opposite direction. "No, James. It's over here!" She led me the way we were going, but not towards the elevator. Rather, she led me towards Room C4, and pushed the door open.

I stepped into the room ahead of her. It was the same size as the one that I found her in, but there was far less clutter here, and that gave the appearance of a larger room. Like C2, it appeared that this one had also been put to use as a storage area. There were medicine cabinets, old furniture, a floor lamp, a dismantled sink, and all sorts of other old junk.

"You sure it's in here?" I asked. Its location wasn't obvious to me, though that didn't mean anything.

"Uh, yeah," she said. "It's in the back. See the desk? It's in the drawer." I did see the desk, an old mahogany relic that may have once looked nice, but was now worn and chipped in a dozen different places. It also had several drawers.

"Hey Laura, which drawer is it in?"

She didn't answer. I looked over my shoulder at the door.

"Laura? Hey, I don't know which…"

The door slammed shut.

Oh, hell no. No way, baby.

I ran back to it and nearly yanked the knob out of the door trying to open it, but it was a waste of time. It was locked nice and solid. I pounded on the door.

"Ha ha! Tricked ya!" Laura's voice mocked me from the other side.

"Hey! Open the door, Laura!"

"Why? You need a liar to open your door for ya?"

"Open the door now!"

"What's the magic word?"

I wonder how things may have turned out differently if I had just bit my tongue and simply said "please". I mentioned earlier the James Sunderland special, that certain kind of faux pas that just makes everything go to hell. The kind of open mouth, insert foot that you just don't ever forget.

"You snotty little brat!" My words were so full of angry force that they hissed coming out of my mouth. "Open this god damn door right now!"

The James Sunderland special. This was what it really was. I was trapped and she was my only way out. A clearly-thinking person would tell her what she wanted to hear. A clearly-thinking person would have just said 'please'. But not me. Nope. I had to call her a brat instead.

As soon as the words left my lips, a sound filled the room. At first, I thought it just one of the several settling noises of the old building. It was a very low thrumming sound, at first sounding like a running furnace.

Then, the sound intensified. It didn't necessarily grow louder, but it grew stronger, more powerful and more apparent. It also started to fluctuate in pitch, resembling a whale song, if anything. But while whale songs were often melodic, this was not. Whale songs were rather beautiful. This sounded thick and phlegmy.

I looked around the room, to see if I could find the source of the sound. Nothing made itself readily-known, everything looked as it had a minute ago. I turned my attention back towards the door.

Something brushed my ear. It was light, but it was unmistakable, too. The surprise and fear hit me at the exact same time. Desire to get away clashed with the fact that I wasn't quite expecting to need to. Thus, when I backed up suddenly, my feet weren't quite geared up for the task. I slipped and fell backwards, yelling as I did so. The pipe fell from my grip and clattered noisily on the tile.

Even as I hit the floor, I reached for my flashlight with one hand and my gun with the other. I aimed the light in each direction around me, trying to determine what was in here with me.

"Why you! You fartface!" Now I'm not gonna open it! Now I'm gonna leave you in there, you hear me? Huh?" I heard her voice through the door, but now I was becoming steadily convinced that there was danger in this room with me, and I ignored her. Something had brushed my ear and it prickled. But, I couldn't tell what it was. I kept searching, holding the flashlight with my arm fully extended. Nothing that my eyes saw told me anything was wrong. It might just be nerves, which were certainly taxed beyond their limits already. Nerves. I could have imagined being touched. I had the notion that perhaps some of these monsters were invisible to the human eye, but I steadfastly refused to believe that. Silent Hill might have become the Twilight Zone, but if I let my imagination on too long a leash, I would go insane in no time. So it was either my imagination or I was just missing something. And I could still see nothing, so it must be…

There were ceiling tiles missing.

Said ceiling was covered in those insulated foam tiles, the kind you see in basically any kind of public building. Some were yellowed and sagging, but all of them were still intact, except for two. Had they been there before? I certainly hadn't noticed two black holes above my head a minute ago.

I approached one of the holes slowly, trying my best to move quietly even though anything that might be up there would have to be able to hear me, assuming it had that capability. I was almost underneath it when the low sound suddenly intensified, as if excited. I ducked away quickly, expecting something to come shooting out of the hole above. Nothing did, but my heart was racing, blood was pounding in my ears. Yet, nothing made an appearance so far.

Movement, out of the corner of my eye. I swung around to see.

Feet. There were feet coming out of the ceiling. The curled and flexed repeatedly, rolling around with no apparent thought. Terror seized my chest, steel bands squeezed the breath right out of me. They were lowering. They were descending. Feet gave way to long, thin legs that looked just too small to be human. They were a sickly, jaundiced yellow color, mottled with brown and black spots, as if infected with a fungus. As it lowered, the legs and feet moved with greater excitement. It looked as though they were groping for something.

Then I saw a box of some sort, not a box exactly but more like an iron frame, a cage with no bars that this new creature seemed to be suspended in. Finally, I saw the top of the box, and it stopped lowering. I stood there, numbed by horror and not knowing what to do.

It started moving. It was coming at me.

I almost choked on a scream as I raised the gun and fired off three shots. I paused to see if it did any damage. If it did, it wasn't nearly enough, for the cage still came forth inexorably, and the bottled bag with legs inside of it still quivered and shook.

I heard a loud, sharp hiss, and I looked up.

The second hole was no longer empty, either. Feet fell from the heavens and were only inches away from my face. Now I did scream. I couldn't help it. I knew that the door was locked, which effectively eliminated the possibility of escape, but that was all that I wanted now. Thoughts of self-defense factored somewhere in that crazy mix, but the thought of attacking these things, no, that never occurred to me. I couldn't take both of them out. The door was locked, but I turned to run to it anyway. It was the only option. If Laura was still there, I would appeal to her good nature. I would kiss her ass and make her princess of the fucking universe if it made her release me. I would try to shoot the god damn lock if nothing else worked. I would do anything, if it meant I could escape. Anything at all. But I'd have to do it quick, because the second one was now moving. How in the hell was it moving? I could see no support. Was it floating? Was that even possible? I didn't know and I didn't find it likely to find out. I had to get out.

Quickly, I aimed at the second monster's bag-body and fired off four shots, filling the room with percussion. Each shot hit. The bullets caused a shower of blood to almost radiate, some of it splashing me. Its wounds leaked, and a puddle of crimson littered the floor. And for all that, it might as well not have even been touched. I took its increasingly frantic writhing as a sign of pain or injury, but even with that, it still came towards me, now less than two feet away. The first one wasn't much farther. Now I totally lost my nerve. I turned tail. Discretion is the better part of valor, isn't it? I know that's a positive euphemism for cowardice, but damned if I cared right now. A living coward is still living. My desire to live overrode any sense of honor. I turned to run.

I saw them, but not in enough time to do anything about it. Two more feet. Another one had come down behind me while I was worrying about the other two. It was there all along and now I walked right into it like an idiot, though now I had barely enough time to register the fact. The feet lunged towards me like lightning, far too fast for me to avoid. They grabbed me by the throat. They were cold, ice cold. They were slick and they smelled like ancient sweat and piss and oil. And they were strong, oh were they ever strong. They wrapped around my throat and yanked me right into the air.

My head jerked upwards with the pressure, and my eyes felt ready to pop out of my head. I tried to yell for help, tried to scream. There was nobody around but I neither realized nor cared. I couldn't yell and I couldn't scream and I couldn't breathe. The pressure around my neck quickly became pain as I felt my feet leave the ground. I hit the thing with my hands, thought about shooting it but I dropped the pistol and even still I could barely raise my arms. My lungs were on fire as they fought desperately to inhale that wonderful, sweet oxygen they were long accustomed to. Then they too swelled, and the crazy thought shot through my mind, which would go first, my neck or my lungs?

My mind started to drift away. I wanted to grab it with my hands but I couldn't move them anymore. It felt like I was lifting six-hundred pound dead weights, it felt like they had just shut down and went home, no response. The horrible bag-cage creature filled my vision, but that was fading too. A halo of gray crept in from the edges and made its way slowly towards the center.

As my mind's grip slipped inexorably away with me in its demonic vise, thoughts of Mary hovered at the fringes. Thoughts of Mary, and my failure to find her. I couldn't believe it was going to end this way. Tears burst forth from my eyes, and the feeling of them on my nearly-purple cheeks was just about the last of my feeling. The gray halo marched into the center. The capital has fallen. My head rolled back, completely limp, and my eyes rolled back even farther.

The last thing to register was, of all things, a sound.

Sirens.

They sounded just like the ones that saved me from the red pyramid thing. They forestalled my end once. Now they announced it, wailing like a mourner, fittingly.

Then, they faded, too.

Then there was nothing.

6