LETTER FROM SILENT HEAVEN / Ryan M. Usher / pg. 7
Chapter Thirty-Three
"Tragedienne"
The room really stunk.
I hadn't noticed before so much because I was busy fighting for our lives against Daddy, but with the excitement over for the moment, my senses took in the more subtle details, and primary among those was the reeking stench of this room. I looked over at Daddy, but he wasn't saying anything anymore, and while he didn't bring to mind the scent of fresh-cut roses, the stink was more than just him. And, I think it was the walls, because they were very soft and pliant to the touch, to a very unnatural degree. I found this out to a small extent by just walking around, because the floors were the same. The footing was pretty solid, but it felt like there was an inch of cushioning between the soles of my shoes and the base of the floor, whatever it was.
Whatever it was, indeed. As of late, my mind had been opened, by force, to concepts and ideas that until today would have been completely alien and beyond absurd to me. I'd seen a lot, learned a lot, and for that, I was more accepting of certain things. I was just in fact coming to terms with the idea of a person surviving a particularly brutal slaying and being alive and without so much as a scratch from the incident, nor for that matter, any recollection of said incident. Impossible, but possible. Yeah, my mind was open. It had to allow these alien concepts in, frightening as many of them were, because if my mind were to simply block out and deny all that it was being exposed to, it would collapse like a house of cards. So, instead of that, it subscribed to the "join 'em if you can't beat 'em" theory.
When I saw the bullet hole in the wall, though, that presented a particularly horrid challenge in that regard. One of the bullets that I had fired at Daddy had gone wide, and struck the wall (painfully close to where Angela had sat hunched over and on another planet). There was a bloodstain marking the wall where the bullet entered, and at first, I thought that meant that I had in fact not missed when I fired that errant shot, that perhaps I had grazed him and he lost a little skin. Had that been the case, I'd be okay with things for the moment.
What ruined that illusion was the bloodstain. For you see, even with my relative inexperience, I knew that if Daddy had been stitched by my bullet, the bloodstain would have been a spatter. It would look like a starburst. Shooting other monsters had shown me as much. This bloodstain looked nothing like that. There was no spatter at all. It was a leak. Blood dripped from the hole, running in thick red rivulets. As I stared, I could see that it was still dripping. Impossible. Impossible unless-
Unless the wall is bleeding.
The enormity of what I had just deduced did not hammer itself home immediately. Just another silly, fanciful notion from the mind of James Sunderland, that's all. Nothing to worry about and nothing to see, because this mind is definitely lacking some of its showroom shine. It's like a machine with a slight defect. It still works and does most everything that it's supposed to, but every now and then it will produce results which are nothing but errors, nothing but glitches, and this, ladies and gentlemen, has to be one of those times. Because, you see, walls can't bleed. I've never seen walls bleed, because they don't. Walls don't bleed. They can't. They won't.
A bubble formed over the hole. The red was deep and rich. Coppery, too. The smell was there. As if to spite my very notions of what was and what could not be, the bubble expanded, to about the size of a silver dollar. It hung there, pregnant, for several seconds. I stared at it, dumb and confused.
When it popped, I didn't freak out. My state of mind was in a hell of a flux, but it held together like the steely silk of a spider's web. Therefore, I saw the wall bleed where I had shot it, and I didn't lose it. Instead, I simply turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind me. I felt blank and poorly animated doing so, a puppet manipulated by some jerky hands, but soon I was back in the relative sanity of the newspaper-covered hallway, and for that brief moment, all felt better.
There was no sign of Angela, but I didn't particularly mind. Like with Eddie, every time I encountered her, I came away feeling that much less comfortable. There were plenty of monsters and freaks of un-nature as it was, I didn't really need human nutcases to complicate matters. I didn't think Angela was as blatant a threat as Eddie might be, since I held the only weapon I'd seen her carry, but she seemed suicidal and pissed off at me, for some reason. I wasn't even close to figuring her out, and I didn't want to. I had way too many of my own problems to deal with. I didn't want to hurt either of them, but I definitely needed to keep my guard up for them.
The newspaper decorations tapered off as I approached the end of the hall. There, I found another ladder, and climbing down once again had me in up to my ankles in this wonderful-smelling stuff. Each cumbersome step I took through the soup seemed crashing and loud in the silence, and the strange acoustics provided echoes that reverberated all along the underground passage, away and back to me. The effect was decidedly unsettling, because it gave the illusion that perhaps there were other things getting their feet wet down here, too. Of course, that was hardly mere illusion, there were other things down here and up there and seemingly everywhere, but life in the present would be that much easier if I didn't have to jump at shadows in addition to the real threats that lurked around.
Like the others, this under-passage was unnaturally and illogically-twisted, and damned if I hadn't made five consecutive right turns, without reaching any sort of intersection. There was no apparent reason behind any of it, up or down, but this one seemed particularly unwilling to conform to logical design. I felt like I was walking through an Escher sketch, with every pathway intersecting another at an impossible angle, and each surface was a direct contradiction of known physics.
It was a long way, much longer than any of the others before. By my guess I had covered close to five hundred yards. My thighs and my ankles were dull fire from so much carefully-controlled movement, and my bashed knee was even worse. But, now I finally found myself at a bit of a crossroads. There was a path going to the left, or I could continue ahead. I thought about it for a moment and opted to see if variety was the spice of life. I trudged down the left junction.
It hit me then. Something was wrong, and it was something beyond the impossible layout of the tunnel behind me. This was something stronger and more primal. It was also something that I finally recognized, because it hadn't been that long since it last took over my senses.
I had come to rely very heavily on this small pocket radio I found in the construction site at the Nathan Avenue underpass way back on that old dirt road, way back when I first got here, way back when small matters like unseasonable chill and the distinct lack of human life on the streets of Silent Hill were of a primary importance. The radio had, without a doubt, saved my ass several times. I don't know how or why it worked, but it did, and it was almost a sixth sense, a danger sense, that I had by this point come to depend upon as much as I depended upon my eyes for sight and my ears for hearing.
There was another sort of sixth-sense that I had come to experience, though, and this one didn't require the use of a transistor radio or man-made technology of any sort. This sense was also attuned to danger, but only a specific kind. It was a dark, palpable feeling of hopelessness and despair, like some outside force was bombarding my brain with thoughts and notions someone might feel if they were in the throes of severe clinical depression. It was a seizing fear and it seemed to override my other senses. And the first time I experienced this, I was walking down a filthy apartment hallway, following the source of a person's scream. I felt it when I came to a set of bars separating one side of the hall from that which I was in. I felt it when I saw what was on the other side of the bars, when I first laid eyes upon the most horrifying of the monsters I'd seen in this town, before or since.
This sense of mine, whatever it really was, was attuned to the presence of the red pyramid thing. And right now I was feeling it in waves. There was no question. He had tracked me down, but he didn't need to follow me, as I thought he would. Why, he did it the easy way; he just took advantage of this Labyrinth's unusual properties. He found a way. And, why not? This was his domain. This was where he set up shop. It made perfect sense that he would know how to manipulate a silly thing like reality to get a leg-up. Just what was Pyramid Head? Why did he seem to be levels above these other monsters? Why did he illicit a level of terror in me that none of these other monsters was able to bring about?
It would probably help me sleep better at night if I didn't know, and I had no desire to keep going down this path and ask him. I did an about-face and sloshed back to the intersection as fast as I could manage. By the time I made it, my face felt almost as soaked as my lower legs. I felt like a bag of ice left in the hot summer sun; frozen on the inside, coated with bullets of sweat on the outside. I advanced up the original path instead, slowly as before, although this time I was being careful not because I wanted to keep the noise down, but because I was afraid my legs would turn to jelly at any second.
It was another hundred yards, but this time it was straight and seemingly-endless. My legs grew ever more tired and my feet dragged thanks to the extra weight of my soaked shoes, making the whole experience that much more fun.
The monotony of tepid green water and rocky walls was finally broken by another intersection, similar to the other but with the junction this time on my right. This time, there would be no decision though, for this junction was sealed off. Iron prison bars, as if I hadn't seen enough of them already, crossed the narrow pathway. There was a gate, and the gate itself wasn't locked, but a thick, serpentine chain looped down the entire vertical span of the gate, finally coming to an end near the bottom, just above the water line. The chain was secured with a padlock, one of those gigantic steel monsters, and it was very old and rusted. If I had to, I could use the rifle to shoot the lock, but with its ammunition so precious, I decided I would consider that only as a last resort. There was still some ways to go ahead, and it was prudent to explore them first. I had only three shells for the .30-.06, and I'd hate to use one now, especially if it led nowhere.
It turned out that the corridor was not endless, after all. It was only another fifty yards or so, when the watery underpass came to its conclusion, though this conclusion was decidedly different from any other. Instead of a ladder, there were steps leading out of the water, up to my waist, and then there was a door. The door itself looked completely out of place down here. I would expect to see a door made of metal or at least in some way industrial in appearance. Not so. This door looked more likely to fit in with the upstairs interior of the Labyrinth, though even then, not entirely. The doors I'd seen up there were similar in appearance in that they were made of molded panel wood, much like one would see inside of any building. This one was noticeably lighter in color, though. What differentiated it from any other in this place was that the door had a number, etched in black.
208.
The moment I saw that, I was hit by two memories, one old and one much more recent. The old memory was very vague, images that just wouldn't coalesce into something solid enough to allow full recollection. It wasn't even exactly on the tip of the tongue, as it were. This memory, or series of memories, was obscured by a sort of warped lens that gave everything a painful, exaggerated quality, letting me know that there was something behind it, but warping it to the extent that the details were impossible to recognize. It was the same sort of feeling I had right after telling Maria that I would find a way to her.
That's what brought on the second, fresher memory. 208. There hadn't been much of note in that room she was in, but one thing that seemed to hook me in the corner of my vision then was that the number 208 was printed on the door. That number set off the feelers in my memory to begin with. Now, it brought things back full-circle. I knew what was behind this door without even opening it. I found my way. I don't know how, but I did. The geography was completely wrong, I couldn't be anywhere near where I had found this room the first time, but my wonderfully open mind let me accept that for whatever it was. I was here. And as I climbed the steps and lay my hand upon the shiny brass doorknob, I wondered just how I would handle her. What sort of answers she might give for the seemingly thousands of questions her very presence raised in my mind. How she might react when I told her that I didn't want to see what she couldn't do through those bars. How she would react when I told her that nothing in the Milky Way Galaxy was farther from my mind right now than sex.
I also wondered if I would be able to resist her advances. It shamed me to admit that the possibility even existed. Rational James said fuck no, wasn't going to happen, no way no how, but Rational James made fewer and fewer appearances these days. He might not be there to save me from being weak and submitting to something I really didn't want to do. I almost laughed.
Nonsense. I was here for Mary, damn it. Just because it looks like a Mary and sounds like a Mary doesn't mean shit. That I was a couch-shrink's wet dream I couldn't deny, but I wasn't so far out of it that I couldn't refuse sex with someone… with someone that, as recently as an hour ago, I was convinced was dead. Rational James wasn't always on-call anymore, but there was no way that was going to slip by. No way in hell.
I pushed the door open.
The room was lit dimly from a fluorescent on the ceiling. The chair was empty, but the bed was not. From my angle I could see her knee-high boots and some of her pale legs poking past the high headboard, the tip of the left one almost touching the strange steel stand next to the bed. She was lying down. Her clothes were still on, I could tell, and that was a hell of a relief. But, something wasn't right.
"Maria?" I said, softly. She didn't answer, or move. Not even a twitch. Something wasn't right. In fact, something was quite wrong. It was my nose that picked up on that first, even before my eyes registered things. There was a scent in the air, coppery and thick, and it tied my adam's apple in a knot because it was a scent I hated, a scent that I think most human beings intrinsically hate. And fear. That's what I felt as I approached the bed.
She came into full view. And once she did, my revulsion, my fear, and everything in-between crashed together like a pileup on a highway.
Oh no, Maria. Oh no. This isn't real. This isn't happening. No way in hell I'm seeing this right now, oh no, no way, not a chance, oh shit Maria what the FUCK happened?
When all I saw were her feet, I thought she was asleep. Not an outlandish assumption to make, what with her lying on a bed and all. But now I saw all of her, from the carmine tips of her hair to the points of her toes. And now, I knew for sure that she was asleep. The kind of sleep from which you don't awaken.
There was an enormous, hideous splash soaking the sheets of her bed, as red as the sweater she wore. Her midsection was intact, strangely enough. I thought for certain that's what I was going to find; the stab wound she received from Pyramid Head, re-opened.
But no, not now. It was her face. The left side of her face looked more or less like it should. The right side of her face was an obliterated ruin. The skin was shredded and flayed, and the bone of her skull was too visible through it, bone that was smashed, broken so badly that the right side of her face was in a state of near-collapse. Her eye was completely destroyed, sunken in her head and submerged in a pool of her own viscera. Her lips were pulled and distorted, pulled by the force of the attack into a horrifying, inhuman grin. Her teeth showed through, those that were left. Some of them had been knocked completely free of her jaw.
I fell to the floor, on my hands and knees as if in prayer or supplication, and I coughed and coughed, certain that I was empty of anything to give back. Turns out, I wasn't. I guess I had saved a little for a rainy day, and that rainy day was here. Acid and bile flooded my mouth and exited in a spray on the concrete floor. Strands of saliva ran from my mouth, pooling on the floor, and for several moments I couldn't do a thing about it. They trailed onto my jacket and shirt when I pulled myself upright. I had just enough in me to grab that ugly old chair, pull it over to the bedside, and collapse into it, boneless and formless. I leaned forward, my elbows resting on the gore-soaked mattress. I pressed my face into my hands, and I wept. God help me, I didn't have to watch it happen this time, but that was little consolation, because I still had to see the effects, and twice, no less. The vitality sapped out of me as I sat there, tears running down my wrists and into the fabric of my jacket. I made no noise, no sobbing or gasping. I just wept, for a period of time that seemed far more endless than the watery corridor that brought me here.
Maria, what the hell happened to you?
I stood suddenly, not because anything surprised me or shocked me suddenly, but because I had to stop myself. Maybe I wouldn't survive this town and all of its horrible sights. Maybe I would be reduced to an insane, gibbering wreck of a man before I found my wife, but not here. Not next to a woman who looked and acted like a wild-child twin of my dead wife. A woman who was quite dead herself, the victim of brute force. Not here. It couldn't happen here.
I had to leave. I had no idea where I was going to go, but I couldn't stay here. To stay was to succumb to the horror of what was in here, and that was as inevitable as the sun rising in the east tomorrow morning, because there was no way my fragile psyche could take it anymore. Because, if I did, and my sanity finally gave up the ghost here, I wouldn't get to see-
Mary… are you really here? I'm worried about losing my mind, but has that already happened? Did it happen at some other part of town? Did it happen before I even got here? I've been going on hope, and now I've just about lost even that. All I have left is blind faith now. Mary, if you aren't here, what am I going to do?
I closed the door carefully behind me, stepping back down into the dirty water. With the door closed, I no longer had to see what was in that room. I only wish I could close the door in my head as easily. It was out of sight, yes, but the room, down to every last evil detail, was burned indelibly on my mind. I tried to shake it off, to think of anything else, no matter what it was.
And I did. One thought did hook itself and pull in, though it was related. I knew what happened to her. And suddenly, I felt far too damn certain that I knew who was responsible. Too certain. Not even the slightest doubt.
Him.
Did she feel that same debilitating terror? Did that fear lock her in place when she saw him, saw that Angel of Death in his filthy, stained butcher's whites? Did she have that same sixth-sense that I had? If she did, it did nothing to save her.
I felt I should be angry, and on some level, I certainly was. But I also felt I should be burning with the desire for revenge. I had feelings of that sort after that disaster in the basement of Brookhaven Hospital, and I felt that I should now, too, even stronger than before. Yet, I didn't. I was too confused to feel hatred. I didn't understand anything. Did I hate Pyramid Head? I supposed I did, and not just for the blood on his hands. He had been a constant, terrifying presence. He had put me through the worst of this nightmare, without question.
I just wished that any of it made sense, because I just didn't know what to think anymore. But, that seemed to be just a bit too much to hope for. Nothing made sense. Nothing.
To that, I added the barred gate at the junction that was locked and chained when I had passed it not ten minutes ago, because I was back, and it was no longer chained. It was now wide-open, inviting me in. Leading me down the path. It was just waiting for me to see something I didn't want to see.
She died twice.
Senseless. Illogical.
I passed through anyway.
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