Chapter Forty:

"True"

To this day, I'm not really certain just how it all played out. The exact details were either forgotten immediately, or never retained in the first place.

The videotape started playing, after a few seconds of blank static and tracking corrections. The very second it began, the recognition was instantaneous. We were outside, in the garden near the lake. The weather was preternaturally gorgeous. Wispy streamers of clouds streaked the sky over the tops of the pines. I immediately remembered that it rained that night, and hard, because it seemed funny at the time, that such splendid weather could hide the nasty downpour that was to arrive mere hours later. In the time of ago, though, that storm was still hours away, building steam and crawling across southern Canada. Then, summer was just about to gently nudge spring out of the picture, and the evidence was plenty. The camera panned across to the left, away from the Lakeview's carefully-tended gardens and to Lake Toluca. It may be a foggy disaster now, but on that day, Toluca sparkled like an enormous, rippling sheet of glass, the sunlight reflecting brilliantly off its crystal-clear waters. Mary then walked in front of the camera, her gaze too directed at the lake, and she summed it up perfectly when she said

"Honey, look at that! I think God really outdid Himself this time!" She clasped her hands together like a schoolgirl, and in that moment, she looked so lovely, so pure and wonderful. It was moments like this that I felt like such a lucky son of a bitch. It was moments like this that made me reflect on my good fortunes. I didn't yet know that those fortunes were going to turn south in the worst way, and far too soon. Neither of us did. She had been sick several times, but we were still two months away from the first really bad attacks, the spasms and the coughs that left blood on the Kleenex. The coughs were heavy now, but still only periodic, and still bloodless. We both knew something was wrong, something beyond the sniffles. That much was pretty obvious. What we didn't know was that it was going to be fatal. We didn't know the end was so close, and now I saw how pleasing it was to be ignorant. We were still having fun and enjoying life and loving each other, because neither of us had any idea how little time there was remaining for it all.

No, right now, it's June 18th, 1991. I know this because I set the date on the camcorder the very moment I got it home. I felt like a kid on Christmas, playing with the zoom and pan and all the playback features. Now I had it here in Silent Hill, putting it to its first real use, and as it turned out, the last, as well. Because this was our last getaway, our last retreat from the daily grind of every day life. This was our last visit to Silent Heaven as a couple. Neither of us knew it at the time. Neither of us would have wanted to, anyway. Nope, it was the middle of June, on a fantastic summer's eve in Silent Hill, Mary's favorite place on earth, and damn me if I didn't love it almost as much myself. This was bliss. I knew that the moment Mary turned to face me, with that knockout smile on her face, the one she only brings out for special occasions, like fine dinnerware for holiday dinners. It was an indescribable thing, but I knew it like I knew my own face in the mirror. When that smile was on her face, you knew everything was great. You knew it, because you felt it. It radiated off of her like warmth and it made you feel like everything was great, too. That was what was so magical about that woman.

The love I felt for her at that moment was so overwhelming, and now I was feeling it all over again, because the past and the present were merging. It was a videotape and I was sitting in an easy chair viewing it, but by this point, the distinction between videotaped memories and present perception had blurred beyond my ability to notice. Now, all times were as one.

This I realized as we started towards the docks. I realized this because I turned off the camera then. We were going to the docks because the Lakeview's yacht was about to depart on one of its Toluca Tours, and we couldn't have chosen a better day to take one. I turned the camera off until we were aboard, and then I started taping the sights, but now I was between the past and the present, and time didn't stop when I turned off the camcorder. I was seeing everything through my own eyes and the lenses of the past.

We walked down the docks, her hand in mine, and we talked and we laughed. It was so wonderful to hear her laugh, to hear real joy in her voice, because so little more would ever truly be heard again. Now, though, it was here and it was powerful, and I sipped it like wine, savoring it, enjoying it. Perhaps there was a part of me that knew the good times were in their twilight. I didn't know. I didn't care. Right now was the time, and the Eastfall Queen was the place. It was a handsome white boat, single-masted with a billowing sail, though the thing was motorized as well. Perhaps they worked in tandem somehow. One of the crewmembers confirmed that when I asked.

The Eastfall Queen left the docks and was eastbound. The breeze felt wonderful in my hair and provided the perfect counterpoint to the warmth of the day. Now I had the camcorder out again and I was walking along the deck, taking in the scenery. I could see the old lighthouse most prominently, but behind that we were treated to a vista of Old Silent Hill. Much of it was obscured by the pines, but one could easily see buildings dotted throughout the field of green, most of them houses. Old Silent Hill was pretty much all residential. Soon, Old Silent Hill was behind and Central Silent Hill came into view. The trees were still in abundance, but the interspersing of human habitation was much more prominent here. It was all neat to see from a distance, all the more because it was all framed from behind by the hills, presumably the silent hills which gave the town its name. They were like giant emeralds against the sapphire sky.

I turned away from the view of the north bank and to my wife. She leaned over the rail, her skirt flapping in the breeze. She turned to see me with the camcorder trained on her, and she waved excitedly, then she blew a kiss with theatrical flourish. Such happy times, these were. Thank God I splurged on this camera, I thought. These are the kinds of memories that demand preservation. No matter how bad things get, it would be a salve on the wound to view this tape. It would be something I'd treasure forever.

The boat cruised its long circuit around the lake. The south bank didn't showcase the same kinds of sights as on the north, but there were a few points of interest I managed to capture. One of note was an old prison with high red walls. I zoomed in on it to see a giant sign painted in yellow and black, warning against aiding the escape of inmates. I thought that it was a part of the Silent Hill Historical Society's museum, and I promised myself I'd pay it a visit before our stay was over. I'd have to ask Mary about it, because I felt perhaps she'd find the idea exciting. She seemed really into this town, appreciating it on a level I couldn't quite comprehend. She was always in her best moods when we were here. It was like the place had some kind of effect on her, something she was especially attuned to notice, something that most people didn't realize. It made her blossom in a special way, and that's what I was seeing now, through my viewfinder.

"Are you taping again? Come on!" she said with a laugh.

In the hotel room, now. There was a transition, without a doubt. I didn't notice it, but it existed. Events transpired between that I didn't tape, that was all. We were back in our room now. Sunlight filtered through the windows, still warm but now orange instead of white. The sun was setting, and whoever built this hotel some ninety years ago must have enjoyed how sunsets looked over the cast of the lake, because the building was tilted ever-so-slightly to the west, and from our room's balcony, the view was spectacular. That's what Mary was doing, sitting in one of the chairs just outside of the large window, taking in the view, when she noticed that I had the camcorder in hand again.

She sat back in her chair and sighed happily.

"Ah, I love it here," she said, "It's just so peaceful." She turned back to look out at the setting sun. Her chin rested atop her wrist as she gazed westward. "You know what I heard?"

"No, honey. What?"
"I heard that this whole area used to be a sacred place." She swept her hands, as if to encompass the entire town.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And you know, I think I can see why."

"I agree. It seems different for me this time." It did, too. Something felt quite different. Even I was feeling it more than usual.

"Different?" she asked, turning to me.

"Yeah. Before, I never really saw anything special about this town. Nice place, yeah, but nothing too special."

She laughed at that. "Really? I've always thought it was special, from the moment we first came."

"I didn't. But I think something's different this time. Maybe it's me, and not the town." That was true, also. It wasn't the town, not really. It was me. It was us. But I couldn't say that. I couldn't cast a pall on the moment. I felt stupid for even bringing it up, and I hoped she'd just drop it. She didn't.

"What's different about you?" She looked at me now, with an expression that might be genuine concern.

"I love you, Mary." I said. I could think of nothing else. Not that I didn't mean it.

"Ha ha, and you didn't before?"

"Of course I did."

"So what's different?"

"I… I don't really know." Now I looked away, because I knew she was reading my thoughts. She was so good at that sometimes that it was almost scary. I'd seen her read other people with varied success, but when she chose to read me, I was an open book with simple words. She pegged my thoughts every time.

"You don't need to sugar-coat it, James. I know."

"Mary…"

"No, it's okay. It's unfair and it's messed up, but I understand. Just do me one favor, okay?"

"Anything." And by God, I meant it, too. At that moment I'd give her the world if she asked for it. It was the look on her face. It was her eyes, so wide and shining. I was hers, that look said. And how true that was.

"Promise you'll take me back here again. That's all."

"Of course. Absolutely I will."

"You're such a good man, James. I love you. I know I've been touchy lately, but I love you, and I don't want you to ever doubt that."

"I don't. Never for a second. I love you too, honey."

She smiled that warm smile again, and got up to embrace me as I came to her. I enveloped her in my arms and held her close. She rested her head on my shoulder, and her loose hair tickled my chin. She was so warm then, so full of life. I could practically feel her beating heart through the contact. It was so hard to believe that something might be wrong. Impossible to believe.

That's when she shook against me, an abrupt shudder, as if she felt a jolt of electricity touch her. It happened again, and again, and I could tell what was happening. She was coughing, and trying to suppress it. At first, it looked like she would manage, but the shudders kept coming, and she pushed away from me just as the first rasping cough practically exploded out of her mouth. She held her sleeve to her face to catch them, but they kept coming and coming. Her breath became wheezy and weak, and she was turning red. I almost panicked, but looking into her face brought me clear of that. I ran into the bathroom and filled a pair paper Dixie cups with water. I rushed back into the bedroom with them. She grabbed one and swallowed it while I rummaged through her purse, frantically tossing aside makeup cases and half-empty rolls of breath mints until I came up with a sickly orange prescription bottle and an inhaler. I twisted off the cap, dumped a pair of white pills into my hand, and gave them to Mary. She practically slammed them into her mouth and swigged the other cup of water. Once they were down, she sucked on the inhaler and shot two mists of the camphorous medicine. Her coughing finally subsisted, and the last thing I remember doing was rubbing her back. I know more happened. I know it. But this is where I stopped taping, and thus, the line between past and present faded out along with it. This is where the tape finished, and soon I'd find myself back in the room, alone again, and

The black faded, itself. Not into even greater darkness, as that wasn't possible. No, now it was fading brighter, going from jet to an ever-brightening gray, to a piercing, blanched white. And soon, that misted itself, faded away slightly to reveal something more consequential. At first it was just a snowy blur of indistinct shapes and colors. I could see grays and browns and what seemed to be skin tones, but everything was so fuzzy that I couldn't place anything with any accuracy. There was a lot of movement. A building, outside. A place that I couldn't even begin to identify, yet seemed very familiar, and in a very immediate sense. I knew that, now. I knew because I had just been there a few hours ago. There were two shapes moving in front of it. Walking. Those too were almost completely without form, but there was enough for me to at least understand their existence and purpose. Something was forgotten. I sensed that, but at the moment, it held no context for me.

Finally, the images began to define themselves a little better. The shapes became a little sharper and details became visible. What was most readily apparent was the fact that I wasn't in the hotel room anymore. It was darker here, and the bed that I saw was nothing close to the neat king-size near the door. This bed was much starker, much plainer. Smaller, too. It was just large enough for one person, and it was occupied by a slim figure that I just couldn't quite make out. The figure tossed and turned on the bed, as if trying and failing to find a comfortable position to keep.

I forgot it. I forgot my diary.

It was the larger, closer shape that I was able to identify first, at least in detail. It was a man. He sat next to this ratty old bed in a chair. His hair was dirty blond and kind of messy, like he had either just come inside and out of some strong winds, or that he simply didn't bother taking a comb to it that morning. He wore a gray shirt with a collar, nothing fancy. His back was turned to me, or at least to my vantage point, and he sat watching the figure in the bed. I couldn't see his face, but something told me that I didn't need to. Something told me that I should be able to identify this person without any more hints.

The figure in bed now became clearer to me, and the breath caught right in my throat, because the moment the realization hit, everything fell neatly into place.

She was wearing a rather ugly pajama suit. It was pallid and tan in color, decorated with clashing floral colors. I remember it well, and even though I always hated how it looked, I never said a thing. She always told me that it didn't matter what it looked like because it was comfortable, and only we two would ever see it on her body anyway. She was wrong about that, though. She wore it while doctors and specialists poked and prodded her ever-weakening body. She wore it a dozen different hospital rooms and emergency centers in St. Jerome's, back home. She had also worn it to another hospital. It was one I would have sworn five minutes ago that I never stepped foot inside in my entire life. Now, I knew that wasn't true. Whatever I was seeing was blurry and still mostly indistinct, but I was feeling these things as much as I was seeing them. That's why I knew what I was seeing now. I knew what, I knew where, and I knew who.

The figure turned again. Her dark red hair was matted with fevered sweat, and the skin on her face was almost the same tortured color. Sores and scabs littered her face, leaving it looking like a battlefield, like the face of someone who had been to hell and back, with more left on her horrid journey.

But not much more. No.

With a cataclysmic blast of clarity, I now knew exactly what was going to happen, perhaps because it had already happened. I knew what was going to happen, yes indeed. I knew because the shapes were completely known to me. The poor, withered shape on the bed was my loving, terminally-ill wife, wracked by all sorts of terrifying pains and aches as the disease slowly and inexorably worked its evil, life-draining magic on her body. That body had resisted for three long years. Yes, three long years. She hadn't been dead all that time. Not dead. Dying. Being eaten alive by a disease that even now, no doctor had been able to accurately identify or effectively treat. She was dying, and worse still, she was suffering. Oh God, was she suffering. The cries, the dry moans. The tears that stung the open sores on her face. It was so horrible to watch. So horrible. But I wouldn't have to, much longer. I couldn't. I couldn't sit here and watch my wife's vitality sapped away like this. It was too much, too dreadful. I wouldn't have to, not for much longer.

Because, I knew what I had to do.

And, at the very moment the idea entered my mind, the shape moved as if in response to my thoughts. There was really no thinking involved, really. It wasn't thought, conscious or otherwise, I don't even know if it was really me doing what I was doing. But of course it was. I knew that, now. I knew that the gray shape was me, and I knew what it was going to do, what it had to do. She couldn't be left to suffer anymore. She had to be released. And, I needed to be released, too. Three years of this was too much for either of us. It was killing her and it was killing me too, in a different way. It was killing my soul as it killed her body. I was doing what I had to do because there was no other way, no way to save everything.

It was with a moment of complete clarity that I watched the shape lift an object, bulky and white, and rest it in his lap. I knew what the object was. It was rather obvious. Then, I watched as the shape bent its dirty blond head down towards the one in matted red. A kiss. A last, living and loving kiss. She stirred, whether in response to the kiss or to more debilitating pains I couldn't quite tell.

The shape sat up again, and for a very long and pregnant moment, nothing happened. Perhaps for a fraction of a second, I let myself think that nothing would happen, that this was all I needed to see.

I wasn't to be so spared.

The gray shape lifted the bulky white mass, and I knew what it was. It was a pillow. Soft and comfortable.

And suffocating.

The gray shape pressed the pillow down across the face of the red-haired shape. It seemed as though it were an electrical contact, for the red-haired shape sprung into wild, thrashing motion suddenly. Her arms grabbed at the more powerful arms of the gray shape, the arms holding the pillow over her face. They pressed down with even greater force. This prompted the bedridden shape to thrash with even greater panic, no, not panic. Mortal terror. She was dying now. She had been dying for three years, but now it was for real. Now, death had come to claim her for good, and in her terror she could only fight it, only resist it, with every rare ounce of strength her body had left to give. It unfortunately was not much.

The gray shape did not move at all, but now the bedridden shape's wild, frenzied movement slowed. Her limbs still flailed, but the movements were sluggish now, weakened. As they did, the image began to phase in and out, as if leaving the edge of a broadcasting area. The gray shape continued to hold its position, and finally, it won out. Finally, the death throes of the bedridden figure slowed to minor twitching, and then came to a final, fading halt altogether as the body finally gave up and accepted defeat.

Death was here. The gray shape realized it, and finally it released its hold. The picture was now faded into almost complete insubstance, but I could feel what I couldn't see. I felt it perfectly, as if I were there again. Because I knew who the gray shape was.

It was me. I just watched myself commit murder.

I just watched myself murder my wife. My dear Mary.

I couldn't see the shape at all anymore, but I didn't need to see it or hear it to know how it howled, as it was slammed and rocked by a cascade of emotions that were far too jumbled and far too strong for any man to withstand. I knew this because I shared in it just now. I howled silently to no one, because no one was there to hear it but myself. I was alone now, alone by my hand.

I was a killer. I was a murderer. All this time I had lied to myself, to everyone. She didn't die three years ago. I lied about everything, and worse, I believed the lies. I believed them and had lived them, but it hadn't been for long. Not long at all. Because now everything was faded to black, except for one very important detail.

In the corner of the void, electronic lettering told the truth of it all. I didn't tape it and I had no idea who did, if anyone, but it didn't matter. It told the truth of everything, and it did so with just a date.

May 13, 1994

Just two days ago. That was the truth. Now it was made apparent in a way that none of my delusions could deny. Now I knew the truth, as I stared at that date in blocky, white lettering.

And then it faded, too.

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