Chapter Forty-Five:

"Monster"

I must have stayed motionless for quite awhile. I didn't realize it right away. My mind was still way too occupied with trying to make sense of what it was I just saw take place.

A miracle?

A benevolent act of God?

Those were the kinds of terms that came to mind immediately, and who could blame me? I was finished. I was dead. I felt that so strongly, the concept gaining a sort of reality that felt almost physical, very similar to the sort of poisonous malice that I felt every time Pyramid Head was nearby. It was so real, so suddenly omnipresent that I felt I could reach out and touch it. Certainly, it was going to reach out and touch me, and it was going to be none too gentle about it. Believe me when I say, I was fucked.

And then, death decided to turn around. Death decided to visit itself, instead. It was the twin Pyramid Heads who stood transfixed upon their horrible weapons, instead of me. It was they who died, and as far as I could tell, they died by their own hand. What else could explain such an incredible phenomenon? This place was lousy with the supernatural and the metaphysical. This place took the idea of normalcy, gave it a good, savage beating, and paraded it naked through the streets. No matter what sort of wild, improbably explanation I could come up with, I couldn't discount even one of them with total certainty.

I approached them, and slowly. Even though they looked dead, there was no way was I going to take for granted anything my eyes told me. But, the closer I got, the more reassured I became. I no longer had the radio, but I never really needed it against Pyramid Head. I had that sixth sense, or whatever it was, to serve in this instance. It was quiet. I felt no small amount of natural apprehension by their mere presence, but it was nothing like what I normally got from them. This was mild, cautious unease, and nothing more. They were dead.

And, they were holding something. Both of them were. I reached over and plucked it out of its waiting hand, still half-expecting him to come to life the minute I removed the prize, like the boulder in Indiana Jones. I was pleasantly disappointed.

It was an egg, or something shaped like one. It was made of stone or maybe porcelain, and it was scarlet-colored and satiny to the touch. I circled the Pyramid Heads, keeping both eyes on them the entire time, until I was able to reach for the other object. It too was an egg, same size and weight as the other, but quite different in appearance. This one was ugly. It looked like a regular white egg, but the shell was flaky and scabrous, and underneath the flakes I saw red. Not the soft, pretty red of the scarlet egg, but rusty, dirty red. Nasty red. The egg looked infected, and just touching it made me feel uneasy. As far as I could tell, the Pyramid Heads were carrying nothing else of note, though I can't say I was jumping at the chance to dig any deeper than I already had. All I wanted was to get out of here, away from these monsters, and… well, wherever it was I would go.

There were two other doors in the lobby besides the one through which I entered. If I remembered, in a more normal time they would have led to the rear hallway. Of course, my memory also told me that there should be a rather enormous staircase here as well, and that didn't happen. They were both supposed to lead to the same place, so I picked the left door, as it was closer.

It was locked, but there was a small slot above the doorknob, one shaped quite like an egg. It didn't make sense, yet at the same time it made perfect sense. I inserted the scarlet egg. Some unseen mechanism made it stay in place, and I heard a click from within. Other than that, there seemed to be no effect. The door was still locked. But, there was another door…

It too was locked, but it too had an egg-shaped indentation, and into it went the diseased egg. I heard more clicks, and this time, the locks were disengaged. I opened the door.

They did indeed lead back to the rear hall, or whatever passed for it these days. It looked more or less like it used to, and lacked much of the damage found in other parts of the hotel, but it had not escaped completely unscathed. There were some damaged patches of wallpaper, and others stained with something that looked too much like blood. Fire gates were drawn in both hallways, leaving only the back door accessible. A thick haze permeated the area, and my nose reported the acrid, dusky scent of smoke. Together with the dim lighting, it was a pretty surreal thing to see.

I made my way to the rear exit, knowing I had to go through those doors but not having any idea what I might find behind them. My last attempt to exit the building had me wind up in a corridor that certainly didn't exist in the real world, and how likely was it that this door would lead me to a similar place?

Only one way to find out.

As it turned out, my presumptions were correct. I did not find myself on the porch, overlooking the garden and the docks on the lake. Instead, I found myself in another hallway. It wasn't stark and utilitarian like the other one, and there was actually solid ground beneath my feet, and carpeted to boot. It actually looked much like any other hallway in the hotel. Same style of wallpaper, same paneling, same decorative arches on the ceiling. It was also different in two distinct ways. The first was that the hall seemed very bare. There were no doors, no paintings, no flambeau lighting, no decorations of any sort. Strange enough, yes, but not unreal. Unreal came when I looked down the hall and I found that I couldn't see the end of it. It was long. Was it overly strange that I was beginning to take for granted each new flagrant violation of physical law I encountered?

Not that I haven't wondered about that before. I went for a walk.

I saw nothing for a long time. I kept a steady pace, not too quick, not too slow. At first, I was aiming to keep alert, to take note of any oddities outside of the obvious, and eventually, for any changes, period. It was perhaps fifteen minutes into my little stroll that I gave up even on that. By that point, I was studying the little details on the wall, things like patches and stains, little cracks, anything that showed even the slightest deviation in what seemed like an endless pattern.

At first, I noticed similarities. One little discoloration on the wall would repeat itself twenty feet down. Then it would repeat again another fifty feet, and then again, this time only ten feet down. There was a pattern, and some kind of really weird repetition going on, but there was no consistency, and if there was something to be derived from my observations, they were lost upon me. I was seeing, but I wasn't understanding, and I wasn't even aware if there was anything to understand. I didn't know if there was intent behind it, or just chaos with just enough form to make me believe it was something more than that.

I kept walking, and the hall kept going, and eventually I gave up trying to make sense of it. I had no idea how long it had been since I entered this hall, but I guessed that I had covered well over a mile, if not two. Even those kinds of concepts were slipping into periphery, though. My body was moving, the steps coming one after another, but my mind was elsewhere, absenting itself from the excitement. It was something in-between simple daydreaming and full-blown introspection, but at first I couldn't exactly name the sensation, and I wasn't entirely certain it was important to give it a name anyway. All that mattered was that I was walking down this interminable

hallway. It was late in the afternoon and I walked down the hallway on the second floor. Mary had been transferred around St. Jerome's Medical Center several times during the duration of her illness, depending on the nature of the latest stage of the crisis, whatever it may be, and her most recent landing pad was Room 208. Nothing special about Room 208. It was just another dingy little place to host Mary as her beleaguered immune system began negotiating terms for surrender. I hated this. I really hated this. I never liked hospitals to begin with, I don't think anyone really does, but by this point, it had been almost three years of this misery. Three years of hospitals, three years of clueless medical school products accomplishing nothing but acting confused and looking sympathetic.

They had Mary on a new kind of treatment, which was Dr. Winfield's latest attempt to slow the progression of whatever disease she had. He made it clear that there was no miracles involved, that this treatment would not significantly alter her prognosis, but that it may give her some more time, and would almost certainly alleviate some of the physical pain.

"It sounds like it just prolongs the inevitable," I said.

"That's a rather pessimistic view to take, Mr. Sunderland," he said, but the look on his face told me it was also a pretty accurate one. "I'm trying to do what I can to at least take the edge off for her. You know she doesn't have much longer, and I have exhausted practically every method I can think of, insofar as actually reversing the progression."

He paused, perhaps thinking I had something to say about that. I didn't. The reality of Mary's situation had set in some time ago, but that didn't make talking about it any easier. It was a subject I did my best to avoid in conversation, even with her own doctor.

"I think that the best we can do for her now is to make the rest of her time as pleasant as humanly possible. Her treatment will aid in reducing her physical pain. I've also made inquiries into psychological therapy, as well."

"Psychological?" I asked.

He nodded. "It's a rather well-accepted idea that a person's mental state is directly tied to their capacity to deal with illness or trauma, and Mary has been suffering from acute depression and severe anxiety. Such conditions can only be expected of someone in her position, but it would be of a definite benefit to her if she were to receive psychological therapy. On several occasions, she has made mention of a town in Maine, Silent Hill. She told me that it was a favored vacation spot for you both, and she made it abundantly clear that she loved the place. I did some research on her behalf, and made inquiries with a Dr. Baldwin at Brookhaven Institute in Silent Hill, for a short rehabilitative program. It would not be a very long stay, less than a week, but I think the benefits would certainly make for at least some improvement."

They had made the arrangements, and were set to transport her early the next morning. I was actually rather relieved to hear it, because I agreed with Winfield; going back to Silent Hill would certainly do a world of good for Mary's sagging spirits.

I knocked on the door of Room 208. It was open a crack, and I saw a nurse inside tending to her. I entered the room and waited for her to leave. Once she did, I sat down in the boxy chair next to her bed.

"Hi, honey," I said, bending over to kiss her on the cheek. She was awake, and aware of my presence, but she didn't respond, and her mood didn't seem nearly as optimistic as Dr. Winfield led me to believe.

"What do you want, James?" she said. She sounded bitter. That I was rather used to. She was often bitter these days.

"Just came by to see you. Look, I brought you some flowers." I had stopped by an FTD store after work and bought her a colorful arrangement, all sorts of happy pinks and purples and lavenders, set in a ceramic bowl and adorned with a cute little teddy bear. It was the teddy bear that drew my attention, actually. I had never been aware of her having a thing for teddies. As far as I know, her interest in collections was more in the style of ceramic knick-knacks and such, yet lately she seemed to develop a penchant for bears. She had several in the room, two on the bedside table, three in the window sill, and a small one that she kept in bed with her. I thought this little gesture would make her day a little brighter.

I was quite incorrect.

She turned to me, and the look on her face was so devastating to behold. Bitterness now melded with anger born of hopelessness. "Flowers?" she asked. "I don't want any damn flowers!" She pushed the bouquet away. "Take them back. Take them and go home already."

I was more than a little shocked to hear those words. As angry and upset as she had ever been, she had never vented her displeasure upon me before.

"Look at me!" she said, louder this time. "Look at my hands, look at my face! Look at them! This disease turned me into a monster, and the drugs only make it worse!"

I did look at her hands, and I did look at her face. Both were pocked and scabbed and in some places scarred. Physically, the sickness had done some serious damage, most visibly to her looks. But Jesus Christ, she was no monster, and I never thought that she was.

"What are you staring at?" she demanded, and now her anger was intense, fiery. She stared flames right into my eyes. "Stop doing that! Stop staring at me! I don't need you to tell me how ugly I am. Believe me, I'm well aware!"

"But I don't…"

"Just get the hell out of here! Go! Go home already!" she nearly screamed, would have, had she the strength to do so. "Just leave. I'm no use to anyone anymore."

The anger subsided, replaced again with despair. "It doesn't matter anyway. I don't have long. I'll be dead soon. I'll be out of everyone's hair soon. It won't be long. Maybe I'll die tonight, or maybe I'll die tomorrow or next week or next month, oh Jesus I hate not knowing! I wish they'd just do it already. I wish they'd just put an end to it. It'd be so much easier if they just killed me already." Her laugh was sardonic, completely lacking any humor whatsoever. "They won't do it, of course, and why should they? They must be making a damn fortune off of Blue Cross. Every day I stay in here is another couple of thousand in their pockets. I bet they're making a nice little profit on me."

I was at a loss for words. I couldn't even speak my disagreement. Doing so would only escalate her anxiety. And besides which, hadn't I thought those same things myself? Hadn't I figured these quacks as opportunists, looking at my wife with dollar signs in their eyes? I couldn't disagree because, well, I didn't.

She looked back at me, and it was as if she just remembered I was there. Her puffy eyes narrowed to slits. "Are you still here?" she practically snarled. "Get out of here! Get the hell out of here! Are you deaf? Get out! Get out and don't come back!"

I was shocked stupid, and feeling no small amount of hurt. I couldn't believe she would say such terrible things to me. I couldn't believe she would order me to leave. I was well aware of her problems, but that awareness did nothing to prepare me for this. I was hurt, and, irrational as it was, I was angry too. How dare she talk that way to me? Haven't I been here? Haven't I been supportive? What the hell did I do to deserve this?

And so, I did as she asked. I got up to leave. I left the bouquet on her table, and walked away. I had my hand on the

door. There was a door. I had reached the end of this impossible hallway. I was so lost in my memories that I stopped paying attention to my surroundings, not that there was really anything to pay attention to. And, before I knew it, I found the end, and at the end there was this. I reached out to open the

door, when I heard Mary's voice from behind.

"Wait, James!" she said, and her anger and bitterness was gone. In its place was a naked plea, a call for her husband. "Please don't go! Stay here with me! Don't leave me here alone!"

But I did.

I was so angry at her for lashing out at me. Did she think I wasn't suffering? Did she think she was the only one? Was she completely unaware of the toll all of this was taking on me?

Of course she wasn't. Such thinking was preposterous. Mary was a sweet, loving woman pushed to the brink by some terribly unfair circumstances. I knew she wasn't really like this.

Yet, so great was my resentment that I walked out anyway. I was in such a piss-off that I didn't even stop to consider what this made me out to be. I

"James!" I heard her call from the room behind me, sounding damn near terrified. "Please! I didn't mean what I said! I love you, James! Please come back! Tell me I'm going to be okay! Tell me I'm not going to die! Help me…"

But I didn't stop. I kept right on walking, stewing in my own emotional firestorm, right to the elevator, out to my car, and not until I was halfway home did I realize just what a colossal, incredible asshole I was. That's when anger suddenly collapsed, and my own despair took hold. It was so fierce, so crushingly powerful, that I almost lost control of the car. And when I got home, I did the only thing I could think of; I drank. Pulled out a full bottle of Jack Daniels I had stashed away, and I plowed through it without stopping. It only served to make me feel as physically shitty as I felt in my mind and in my heart. I couldn't believe what I had done. I couldn't believe it at all. She said the disease made her look like a monster, but there was really only one monster in the Sunderland family, and he was taking gulps of Old No. 7 straight from the bottle. What I had done that night wasn't even comparable to the crime I was to commit just days later, but it opened the

door. Going through, I found myself in an even stranger place. It was an enormous room of sorts, though this room had no ceiling and very little floor. The center was dominated by a pit, and it was filled with churning black water. The lack of roof was obvious even without looking, for the surface of the black lake rippled in a thousand different places. I also felt it on my face and my hands.

Rain. It was raining.

The walls were tall, bare concrete, reaching skyward several stories. I could see something up there, but what it was, I couldn't tell. There was a long, twisted steel scaffold leading up to it, though, and I mounted the stairs to reach it. I took them two by two, only taking small glances to keep my bearings. I was staring up every other moment. There was something up there, a steel mesh platform spanning the entirety of this enclosed area, and I could see these rusty red stairs led right up to it. I picked up my pace, because I felt drawn to that place. It was very much like the sort of pull I had felt earlier, that which aimed me towards the lobby and the Pyramid Head twins, but this was stronger, so much stronger. I could see an object up there, something, and whatever it was, I had to get there. I had to see. I couldn't reach it fast enough.

Finally, the last set of stairs ended, and I stepped onto the steel mesh. I was in a room now (whether it was technically the same one or not, I couldn't say), and while there was still no ceiling, the walls ended only another story up, and I knew that was where a ceiling should have been. The walls were made of old, dirty brick, and they were regularly punctuated with old-style plate glass windows. Nothing spectacular about them.

The place was mostly empty, except for two things. The first was the object I had seen from below. It was a bed, a small full-size with a headboard and footboard painted a pale cream. The sheets were similarly-colored, though the rain had started to darken them a bit. A rather non-descript bed, yet I recognized it instantly, and with comprehension came wonder.

It was her bed. It was the sickbed I had purchased from the thrift store and set up in the spare bedroom of our house, the one Mary had turned into her crafts room. It had occupied a space previously taken by a sewing table and machine, as she rather loved to seamstress and was very good at it. No doubt, it was her bed.

And when I looked over at a nearby window, I saw the other shape, one that I hadn't been able to see from my subterranean vantage point.

It was a person.

A woman.

A woman dressed in a sweater, pink as pale as the sky at sunrise, and a white, knee-length skirt decorated with a floral pattern. Her deep, auburn hair was drawn up in a bun. She stood leaning on the window sill, and her back was to me, but I didn't need to see her face. I knew who she was, and knowing made my heart stop cold for a split second, and then come back to life with extraordinary vigor, beating away like I was a manic on a cocaine binge.

It was…

"Mary!"

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