Chapter Forty-One:
"Gravity"

Never in my life did I feel as low-down as I did at that moment.

Awareness returned to me at some point. I don't know exactly when, because the transition was extremely subtle. It felt as though I had been sitting in that easy chair for hours, and perhaps I had been. I had no way of knowing. The television was still on, showing nothing but snow. Harsh, caustic noise issued forth from the unit's speakers, making me feel like someone was scraping sandpaper right through my ears and across my brain. The videotape poked out of the cassette player, having apparently run to its end. Two hours, at least. It was still light outside, anyway.

None of this really registered as anything but periphery, though. My body was on standby and my mind had turned inward, trying to run away by hiding from itself. That, of course, was impossible. The conscious mind is the very focal point of our identity. It cannot hide from itself, for there is nowhere it cannot be. But it can try. Hell, it can try very hard if it really wants to. It can convince itself of things that are not. It can weave an elaborate tapestry of deception with such artful intricacy that it does not realize it is deceiving itself. It's not the same as hiding, but it's so damn close it could kiss.

Yet, there are limits to how fully a human mind could convince itself of untruths. Perhaps the mind of the greatest geniuses, in the correct circumstances, could fashion a veil of lies so complex and so convincing that they might never be brought out under any circumstances. I was not a genius. I was but an ignorant child, a fool. I now realized that much. I now knew the truth. I knew now that I had been living a lie. Not for long, either. Two days. Just two days. That's all. How did it happen? Maybe I wasn't giving myself enough credit, after all.

My delusions were now completely visible to me, as they were unraveling, splintering and fractured and coming apart even as I was coming to realize they even existed. It was like glass in a way. When intact, it was so perfect, so flat and correct that you couldn't even tell it was there. Every once in awhile, though, you looked at it a certain way, and you saw something, like a flash of light, or perhaps the shade of a fine-filtered reflection. But aside from those slight irregularities, the glass was so immaculate that you assume there is no glass there, that the small reflections of light or image were just your imagination, or a trick of the light. With confidence you walk toward it, ever for a moment really expecting anything to stop you.

That was me, just a few short hours ago. I kept walking. I saw the irregularities, some of them bigger than I thought they should be, but I ignored them all. Some of them gave me pause a few times and raised a few questions, but none caused any great fundamental shift in my thinking.

That's when I inserted the videotape. At that moment, I walked into that glass, and I found that the glass was nearly perfect, but it wasn't very thick. It could not hold against me, and when it and I came together, either I had to stop or it had to break. I suppose it was sort of a boon to me that my delusion wasn't so strong that I might find myself trapped within it, but it was of small comfort to me right now. No, instead, the glass shattered, falling to the ground in pieces. And that's when I realized that the glass wasn't transparent at all. It was thick and clouded, obscuring what was beyond. Behind that glass, the whole time, was something dark and fearful to behold.

It was the truth. And now I stared it in the face, for the first time.

I murdered my wife.

Even now, the naked truth seemed alien to me, but the moment the thought finished itself, it was like a cascade, like the weight of the world suddenly concentrated itself directly upon my back.

I cried out, or at least I tried to. No sound came from my lips, though. How could any sound come from me? I had no strength with which to cry. It didn't keep me from trying, though. My mouth hung slack and a wheezing, rattling rasp issued from within my chest, but it was no more than that. I had no more to give. My very purpose was gone now, and that was all I had left to begin with. Find Mary. Come here to find Mary. I had no idea what to expect, not from the first, and not at the last. Even as I turned the key in this very door, I didn't have the slightest clue as to what I was to find behind it. Yet, that blind and vague purpose was a powerful force. It drove me all the way to this place, and once I got here, it was the force that pulled me through hell and back, through sights and sounds I could never have imagined except in my most torrid nightmares. And it was all a farce. She was never here to begin with.

Where is she, then?

That was important. That, I had to know. Because, she had died much more recently than three years ago. Hell, she hadn't even been dead three days. What did happen?

Well, of course, I remember doing what I did. I took a pillow to her. I smothered her with it. She died gasping, fighting for breath, far too weak to do what was necessary to get it. By this point, I outweighed her by close to a hundred pounds. Only one outcome was possible. I remember doing that. Then what?

Ah, yes. That's when I went upstairs. To our bedroom. I didn't have her up there. She was on smaller mattress downstairs. I remember the doctors

what doctors?

telling me that her sores would leak and that I would have to change sheets twice a day. They did, too, a sort of evil orange fluid that dried very quickly and left crusty spots on the linens. I changed them as ordered, and her clothes at the same time. For three days I stayed home with her. I remember that much. I remember the washer running, and then the dryer. It was a battle to keep things as they should be. Except, now that wasn't an issue anymore, was it?

Upstairs, to the bedroom. I had sat on the edge of the bed, with a shoe box in my hand. In this shoebox was a Colt revolver, with a single speedloader. Six large .357 bullets. I had a slight fascination with handguns in my youth, and I fed this fascination thanks to my uncle Stephen, a career police officer. He must have had a dozen different weapons, rifles, a pair of shotguns, an old Revolutionary War musket in working condition, and several handguns. The Colt was always my favorite, and he gave this to me as a wedding gift. I kept in the shoebox ever since. I don't think I ever took it out until the night before I got the letter.

I held the Colt in my hands. It was still as shiny as the day my uncle gave it to me. The mechanisms were still pretty well clean and lubricated, surprising considering how long it had been neglected. I toyed with the gun, dry firing it a few times. Then I slowly removed a bullet from the speedloader and chambered it. I closed the chamber and spun it, like I was playing a game of Russian Roulette. I was laughing. Had anyone else been there, they would have certainly thought I had finally jumped off the deep end.

Maybe I really did, because I then put the barrel in my mouth. I stared at the ceiling, and I looped my finger around the trigger. I closed my eyes and I saw her face again, just like in the photo I still carry in my wallet. That picture of her in the pink sweater. It's her, it's Mary, still smiling at me. God, I love her. I miss her so much. It was the first time in a good long while that I had actually thought so clearly about her, and the grief hammered me like waves, strong and potent even after three years.

Only, that was a lie, wasn't it? Of course it was. It hasn't been three years at all. It hasn't even been thirty minutes. It's all a lie, and it came on strongly and quickly, snapping into place like an electrical circuit suddenly connected. That's where it began. There was more to it than that, I realized that even now, but it wasn't all there for me to see. Even having realization forced upon me didn't reveal everything. I didn't destroy the glass. I hit it very hard, hard enough to send spidery cracks all along its surface, but not enough to completely bust it open, and these cracks themselves served to conceal the rest.

None of that mattered, though, because I think perhaps I saw what I really needed to see. I needed to see the beginning of the delusion again, the beginning of the whole nightmare, because I needed to realize what it was. It was a…

A sound from behind. The door, someone was jiggling the doorknob. I barely gave it any notice. If it was a monster, well, I guess I'd worry about that when I had to. They really hadn't seemed all that capable of opening doors before, and in all honesty, I didn't really care one way or the other right now.

If it was a monster, it was smarter and more resourceful than the others, because I heard the knob turn and the door swing open. Perhaps it was Pyramid Head. That would make a fine bit of sense, wouldn't it? Now would be a perfect opportunity to visit a little more torment upon me. I was totally ripe for it. I wasn't even all that sure I would resist. What would be the point?

"There you are, James!" It was Laura. Her bright young voice cut like a knife through the clouds surrounding me, but I didn't look at her. I didn't even acknowledge her presence. I just sat there. What else could I do? What on earth would I tell her?

"I looked all over the place but I couldn't find that other letter. You didn't see it anywhere, did you? Or Mary? Did you find her yet?" She was right next to me now, looking into a face that wouldn't look back. She paused, awaiting my response, but only for a moment. "If not, then come on, let's get going."

I didn't say anything, nor did I move. I just sat there, almost but not quite oblivious to the fact that she was even there. As if sensing this, she reached over and pushed my shoulder lightly.

"Come on, what's the matter? Let's go and look around some more. Sorry I lost the letter, but I haven't been everywhere yet and maybe we'll see it. Or maybe we'll run into Mary! If we…"

"Mary's gone, Laura," I said, my voice flat and dull. "She's not here. She's dead."

I still didn't look at her, but I could see her out of the corner of my eye. I could see her face screw up as she struggled to comprehend what I just told her, as she waited for me to tell her that I was just kidding, that my sense of humor was really stupid and I was making a really crappy joke. Once she saw that I was not going to say any such thing, her eyes got quite hard. I wasn't joking, but…

"Liar!" she yelled, almost screaming. "You liar! That's a lie! How could you say something like that! How could…"

I held my up my hand and she abruptly shut up. I hesitated a moment, not at all sure what I was going to say next. "It's not a lie. It's the truth. She's gone." My tone made it clear that I was telling the truth, even if not in its full virulence.

She looked at me strangely again, tilting her head as if to examine something strange and unusual. She was trying to come to terms with it, but it wouldn't be that easy for her. She was just a kid, after all.

"It was because she was sick, wasn't it?" she asked. "She was real sick, always coughing and even bleeding for no reason sometimes. That's what did it, right? She died because she was sick." That last line walked a tight line between being a statement and a question, and from the look in her eyes, she was leaning far towards the latter.

And I couldn't lie. I don't know if that makes me even more of a bastard or not, but I couldn't lie. There was no chance. Maybe it would have been better for her if I did. I had to suffer for what I did, and it was damned unfair to share that suffering with her, but there was no way I could avoid it. I couldn't recite the lines of my delusion, and if I told her what she obviously wanted to hear, that's exactly what I would have been doing. I couldn't. It wasn't possible.

"No," I said, and my voice damn near failed me right there.

Say it!

"I… I killed her. I killed her."

Spoken out loud, giving it form, in a way it was like vomiting up bad food, purging a dark and painful poison from within. Yes, in my mind I had come to realize the truth, but giving it voice made it real. Giving it voice provided substance to the idea, made the enormity of the deed clearer than ever. Unfortunately, that didn't just apply to me.

Now, there was naked anger in her eyes. She took my words literally, as was intended. That was sort of a relief, as it precluded further explanation, but still, to see the anger in her young eyes, the rage that crackled like electricity behind them, it was terrifying. It was heartbreaking. More than anything else, seeing the hate erupt on her face was a visible symbol of just what a rotten human being I was. Because I deserved it. I deserved it ten times over.

"You KILLER!" Now it was a scream, barely skirting the line between language and inarticulate howling. "I hate you!" She punched me in the shoulder. Hard. "I hate you! I hate you I hate you I hate you! You son of a BITCH!" Each one was punctuated by another punch. She was little, not more than maybe 40 pounds or so, but her rage gave her strength beyond what an eight-year old kid normally possessed. It hurt, and not just emotionally. Being called a son of a bitch by a kid, a kid who should be too young to even know such a term, hurt far worse, deserved though it may be.

"You killer!" she repeated. "Why did you do it? Why did you take her away from me? I want her back! Give her back to me! Give her back now!" The hitting continued, and all the while, I just sat there. I could not think of anything to say. There was nothing to say. Finally, she stopped and backed up a step, but she wasn't spent yet. The look in her eyes was not diminished in the least.
"I can't believe you. I knew you didn't care about her! You didn't care at all!"Now, that wasn't true, but I was in no mood to argue. She looked through me now, at me but not at me. "She was always waiting for you," she said, and now her voice held more sadness than anger. "She was always wondering where you were. Always talking about you. Why? Why?"

I shook my head, the first movement of any sort in some time. She paused when she saw it.

"I'm sorry," I said, and I stood up from the chair, looking straight ahead, out the window and into the lakeside fog. She backed away from me, and a new look appeared on her face, this one the real heartbreaker for me, because while I had seen such a look on people's faces before in my life, it had never before been because of me.

Fear. Terror. Laura backed away from me because she was afraid of me. Afraid of the killer. The murderer.

Yeah, that was the real heartbreaker.

"I'm sorry," I repeated, because as much as I wanted to say more to her, to tell her that I wasn't what she thought I was, I couldn't. It would be another lie. I was what she thought I was. Apologizing was the only thing I could do, it was the only truth I could tell. Except for the rest of it, that is.

Now I did look her in the eyes, and I could tell she had to fight to keep my gaze. I said simply, "The Mary you know isn't here."

She didn't run, but nor did she say anything else to me. She was too afraid. I couldn't blame her. I just stood there, watching her as she slid away and darted towards the door, slamming it hard behind her as she left.

I slumped down into the chair, as whatever energy I had left suddenly felt the need to depart. I collapsed into it as if I were boneless, my head snapping back, my arms flopping about. It was completely uncontrolled and without grace. I sat like that for a very long time, my mind racing along, yet not a single coherent thought formed. I was in neutral, running but not moving. I was like that for a long time, in a hurry going nowhere, until my mind caught the tail end of the thought I'd had right before Laura showed up.

It was a premonition.

I looked down, and I wasn't at all surprised to find that I had the Glock in my hand, at the moment pointed indifferently at nothing. It was very heavy in my hand now, heavier than it had any right to be. For so long now, I had used this as a defense against the horrors I'd seen all over town. So many times, this unassuming little tool proved to be the instrument of my survival. How many straight-jackets and mannequins met their end due to its power? How many times had it proved the difference in situations where everything seemed to be hopeless? There were plenty of times I'd have been dead without it.

It was all a farce, though. It wasn't really supposed to save my life or protect me from harm. That was all secondary. It was just a device to enable me to get to this point. It was a part of some machine that was beyond my ability to comprehend, one designed especially for me. That's all this was. The Glock was just a means to an end. But that didn't mean it was no longer useful, oh no. It had one final purpose, all right. It was so clear to me now. That's what the little gift in the music box was all about. It wasn't to help further ensure my survival. Quite the opposite, in fact. It was to ensure that I wouldn't be empty when it counted. As it turned out, it wasn't really necessary, I still had enough left to do the job, but better to be safe than to be sorry, right?

I stared at the Glock, turning it over and over in my hands, examining it as if I held it for the very first time, as if I had never seen such a thing before in my life. There was something dreadfully fascinating about it. Amazing how something so dull and drab could be such a thing of power. Amazing how this ugly little tool could give one the power of life and death, to bring man as close to real godhood as was humanly possible. It wouldn't be so bad, I thought. I can't say that I've ever done any research on the subject, but it should be nice and quick. Messy, yes. Messy it would be. That wasn't really my problem, though. It might not be anyone's problem. Who would ever come here to clean it up, anyway? I'd heard stories, of course. The bullet goes in at an odd angle, perhaps deflected by bone, lodging itself in the brain in a most unpleasant way. It severs a lot of the right connections, but not all of them, a case of close but no cigar. The end result leaves the person just as messy as expected, but not quite dead. Not quite. There's still a spark of life in there somewhere. At least a part of the engine still runs. Death is, of course, inevitable, but it could take months. It could take years. And all the while, the poor sucker is trapped in a hellish limbo of incomplete nonexistence. In the most unmerciful instances, sometimes they don't even lose awareness, in pain and screaming terror screams that no one but themselves would ever be able to hear.

That, of course, assumes that they are found by other people and treated medically. It's other people that prolong it. I knew that wasn't going to be an issue in my case. With luck, everything would stop. My brain would get sucker-punched in a most spectacular way, and that would be it. Then I'd finally get to see which of the dogmatics had it right, if any. I'd never get to report my findings to anyone on the mortal plane, but I'd get to know myself, and that itself would probably be satisfying enough. I smiled. It was so easy. This was what I had really come here for, after all. I came here to find Mary.

I raised the gun and reversed it in my hand. Now my thumb rested on the trigger instead of my index finger. Slowly, I brought it towards my face as I decided which way would be quickest. I chose to, as the saying goes, go with what worked. I opened my mouth wide and inserted the barrel. The cold steel slid over my tongue, and I could taste so many things at once. The tang of the iron. The bitterness of gunpowder. Smoke. Grit. It would hot and it would be fast. Before I knew it, my brains would fly, and then so would I. Fly away. Where would I go? Nobody knows.

Except, someone did.

If you really want to SEE Mary you should just DIE. But you might be heading to a different place than MARY, James.

The message in the bar. It flashed before my eyes in the same blood-red lettering as it had when I first saw it. It seared itself into my mind and I moaned, even with the barrel of the gun in my mouth. Despair washed over me, because I knew. There was no escape. I would leave this hell by the bullet, but I was a murderer. I killed my wife. I would be heading to a different place than where Mary went. I would simply trade one hell for another.

The radio came to life, and the sudden blast of noise startled me so badly that I came this close to pulling the trigger and seeing for myself just what the experience would be like. It hissed and squalled and yowled, as it had a hundred times before to warn me of threats from the indigenous population of freakshow rejects. It didn't make me remove the gun from my mouth, though.

At least, not until I heard her voice.

"James!" it said, clear as a church bell through the static, "Where are you? I'm waiting!" I held the radio in my hands, looking at it like it was a thing possessed. Maybe it was, but by what? By my wife? Her ghost? I couldn't just dismiss such a notion outright anymore. Too much had happened.

"Do you hate me?" Mary's voice said, "Is that why you won't come?"

Of course I don't hate you.

She wanted me to come. I didn't know to where, exactly, but she wanted me to come. And come I would. It wasn't just coincidence, it couldn't be. I was a hair's breadth away from painting the walls with my brains. I was about to commit suicide, and at the very last possible moment…

"James! Please, come to me! Please! Are you lost? It's okay. I'm near. I'm right nearby, James. Come to me, James. I want to see you. I've been waiting for you. Can't you hear me?"

It was no coincidence. Something was going on, and there was no way I could ignore it. I had to go. I had to go to my Mary. Maybe I wasn't crazy. She was dead, and by my hand. I wasn't about to forget that, but this was Silent Hill, the place of the silent spirits. It was a sacred place. Mary herself told me this. Maybe the dead don't rest here. Maybe they wait for those they love.

Or maybe, for those they hate.

Either way, I was about to find out. I practically ran for the door. Two kinds of static rang my ears the whole time, the harsh, crackling static of the television, and the softer, more muted static of the radio. And, above both, Mary's voice, coming from the radio, repeating

"James! Please! Come to me! I'm waiting! I'm waiting for you! Come to me! James! James! James! James! James! James!"

over and over, until I stepped through the door.