Chapter Forty-Six:
"Denouement"

Now, you would think that after so much false hope and so many crashing disappointments, I would have learned my lesson. You would think that apprehension and skepticism would be almost as naturally reflexive as breathing or blinking my eyes.

Well, guess what? It all went right out the window at that moment. When I saw her leaning on that window, dressed exactly as she was in the photograph I carried, all sense of caution abandoned ship. I mean, after all, what was left to fear? I had already won. I had survived Pyramid Head. Hell, I had survived two of them

how many were there this whole time

and though it was technically a victory by default, I was still alive and they were not. I had survived them, and all the other amazing horrors of this town. I had walked through the valley of the shadow of death, and I was still in one piece. I was a stronger man than I thought I was. And through it all, there was one thing that had kept me going when nothing else did; my desire to see my wife once again. That desire, simple and basic on the surface, drove me through a place I could not have even imagined possible, had been my food and drink, and, let's face it, it was no lie to say that it was pretty much my only reason for being. Even after I learned the truth about what I had done to her, that desire remained. It was always there, and it had all been for this moment.

Or so I thought.

Mary pushed away from the window sill and turned to face me. I was stunned. In this nightmare world of the surreal, this one moment beat them all, no contest. To see her standing there in front of me, it was so incredible. My emotions exploded inside of my head all at once, like someone took a flamethrower into a room full of TNT. It was a moment for which I had spent almost every moment of the last several days mentally preparing for, yet when I found myself finally standing in front of her, I was a blank. I had no idea what to say or what to do or feel or think. I mean, all I really wanted to do was to sweep her in my arms, kiss her like I had never kissed her before, and tell her everything, beginning with 'sorry'.

But something wasn't right.

I could tell it right away, though I couldn't readily identify what the cause was. She looked perfect. She was just as I remembered, looking as if she had been pulled right out of my photo and given life once again. Her emerald eyes, her nose, the shape of her body, the two tiny birthmarks on her arm, even the small scar on her right shin, the one she got from falling off her bike as a teenager, every last detail was absolutely spot-on correct.

But…

but Mary never sneered

It was true. I had never seen her show visible contempt like that. The gesture was absolutely alien to her features.

"There you go again with that," she said, "Can't you ever get it right? It's getting tiresome hearing you make that mistake over and over again."

But one major detail was very wrong. It wasn't Mary's voice. Wasn't hers at all. But, it was pretty close, and why wouldn't it be? After all, she was right. I had made the mistake several times, and here I had made it again. Only this time, I could honestly be forgiven for it. Before, the similarities were there, and it was merely my own confusion at work. This time, the impersonation was total and very blatant. I was supposed to make the error this time. But, now I realized it for what it was, and suddenly, there was no confusion, no emotional turmoil, because one of them rose above all the others and took its place at the top.

It was anger.

"Maria." I said flatly, and she rested her hands on her hips, like an impatient schoolteacher faced with a slow student. Perhaps that was an accurate comparison. I was slow. I had been played for a fool all this time. Ever since I met this woman in the park, she had been pulling my strings, making me dance to her tune. How could I resist? She did all the right things, primary among them looking and sounding far too much like my wife. She sought protection from a man who had never been able to provide it. And for what? Just to die, over and over again, in front of me. To hurt me, confuse me, make me doubt myself and my goals, that's what. This woman, this thing in front of me, this cunt that dared to torment me by impersonating my wife, it was her all along. I understood it all now. Suddenly, finally, everything made perfect sense. It was surprising how well hatred served to clarify matters.

"Were you expecting Mary, James?" she asked. "You ought to know better than that by now. You know you can't see her again. She's dead. You remember that, don't you? You killed her, after all. You put that pillow to her face and stole her life from her. So why come here thinking she would be waiting for you? What did you think she would say? Did you think she would forgive you? Or would she just tell you how much she hates you for what you did to her?"

Her words stung, because there was a lot of truth in them. "I know what I did, and no, I don't know what I was really expecting. That's not what's important here, though. I know I did a terrible thing. What's important is that I also know what you are. I know what you're doing to me and I won't let it happen. I don't need you anymore. I'm through with you."

I expected her to react with indignation and denial. I wish she had, because it would have simplified matters immensely. Instead, her face flashed a look of hurt, and, could it be, desperation?

"But James," she said, and her voice wavered. "I'm not like she was! I can be everything you've ever wanted!" She reached out and took my hand. "I can love you the way you deserve to be loved. I would never yell at you, or shout at you, or cause you pain. I can be together with you forever! I can make you happy again!"

As I looked into those beautiful green eyes, eyes shining with open plea, temptation visited me. For a second, I looked into Mary's eyes, even though they were really Maria's, and let her words tantalize me. For a second, I saw happiness in those eyes, the happiness I had known with Mary when she was alive and healthy. In those eyes I saw the woman I had fallen madly in love with, the woman I had made love to countless times, the woman who made me the man I was. In those eyes, I saw the only woman with whom I would ever want to spend my entire life.

But those eyes didn't belong to Maria. They may be on her face, but they didn't belong to her. They were stolen. Those eyes, along with the rest of her image, was stolen and bastardized by this imposter.

I jerked my hand away from her. I could stand no more of this charade. I knew the truth, now. I saw into those eyes. They looked like Mary's eyes, but they were false, they were an illusion. This was all an illusion. I saw something else in those eyes, too. I saw the truth. I saw what was truly behind them. It wasn't the face she wore now, that was certain, but it also wasn't the face I had come to know, either, the one of the woman who looked like Mary's attractive and provocative twin sister, the one I had, on three occasions, seen twisted in a grimace of agony and death.

That's it, isn't it? That's what Pyramid Head was about. All the torment and terror and such aside, he had another purpose all along, and you never saw it for what it was. He was showing you something. He was showing you the truth all along. He was showing you

"You can't throw me away like this," she said.

"I can and I will. You're not Mary. You're a fake, a damned lie, and I can't let it go on anymore. It's time to end the charade."

Her face twisted again, but this time, it was neither agony nor death causing it. Those emerald eyes, those stolen emerald eyes, now they burned. They blazed, and I could almost physically feel the anger. And the hatred.

Masks off.

"NO!" she shrieked, "No! You can't! You won't! I won't let you! I'll never let you have your Mary back! You're the killer! Not me! You! You're the one who killed her, and you deserve to die too!"

He was showing you what you needed to do.

Then, Maria changed.

I saw her there, still staring at me with that evil rage in those eyes, and then an image appeared, imposing itself over that of Maria. It was a weak image at first, flickering like a fluorescent light that was about a minute away from death. Then, it gradually got stronger, more defined, until finally, my wife's mirage disappeared completely, replaced by something different, something horrible. Her face was still there, though now I couldn't tell if it was Maria's or Mary's face anymore. It had darkened, and now it was dirty and dead. Beneath the ugly brown scum, her face was a pale and bloodless white, and it was dry and cracking. She was now dressed in a shapeless robe or dress of some kind, and whatever color it might really have been, it too was in a serious state of filth. It made her look like some hideous parody of a Catholic nun, and the illusion was accentuated by the hood that appeared on her head an instant later.

She was inside a wire-frame cage, not at all unlike the ones I saw on those fleshbag things in the hospital, except that this was larger. Maria herself was inside something like those fleshbags, but not completely as they were. Her body, and all the disgusting accents, were visible, but they seemed to be halfway trapped inside of this enormous, stinking pile of skin that was clamped at the corners and stretched across the span. The rotten flesh surrounding her was in a serious state of decay. Maggots squirmed all along the visible surface, and there were these strange pustules, nasty white things that grew right in front of my eyes.

Worst of all were the eyes. She had been staring me down, and I had been doing my best to meet her tit for tat, but she won that particular battle the very moment she changed. I couldn't look into her eyes then, because she had no eyes. I was staring into dark, empty sockets, and if anything, the stare coming from them was ten times worse than what I had gotten from the actual eyes. As revolted as I was to see the impostor look at me through the eyes of my wife, this was worse. One look into those empty sockets was all I needed to fully realize a very unwelcome truth.

This was your enemy all along. This was the tormentor.

I stepped backwards, partially to give myself some space, mostly because I couldn't stand to be near this monster, the worst monster of all, the monster that pretended to be human, the monster that pretended to be my wife. I was scared, yes. I was damn near terrified.

She suddenly shot up into the air, hovering above my head in a way I couldn't even begin to understand. Then, with a scream of rage that sounded far too human, she came towards me.

She was still about a dozen feet away and moving slowly. The room was very large, so I had plenty of room to dodge. It all seemed too easy. At the rate she was going, I could empty an entire clip into her face before she could even think to avoid it. I didn't, though. Instead, I reached for the .30-.06. I had only one shell left in it, but after seeing what it did to Pyramid Head, I was pretty certain one shot would suffice. The Maria-demon had no bulletproof helmet. One well-aimed shot would turn her brains into a thick paste. I brought the rifle to my shoulder and aimed to do just that, thinking I had plenty of time to make that one shot count.

But of course, it was too easy. I didn't even see it at first, didn't even know it happened, didn't even know that she had made a move, until the rifle was snapped out of my hands and sent flying across the room, landing in the corner almost fifteen feet away. I stared at it in shock, breaking my fugue just quickly enough to dart out of the way as something large and black flew towards my face.

It was a tentacle, a very long and dark tentacle, coming from the bottom of the Maria-demon. It was thick and veiny, and it ended in a long, sharp barb.

if that hit me in the face, it would look much like I thought hers would after taking a shell

I darted aside, going for the rifle. I didn't even make it halfway. Her tentacle lashed out again, striking me in the leg with tremendous force. I went flying sideways and landed on the steel floor. Shockwaves of confused pain erupted all over, with one particularly nasty explosion coming from the knee I had injured earlier. It cried out because it hurt so bad, but I couldn't sit here, I had to get up. I had to

move

I twisted away just in time to avoid getting skewered through the chest. Even though it seemed like every bone and joint in my body was on fire, I forced myself to my feet and staggered away from the Maria-demon, trying to get as much distance as I could while her back was to me. The rifle was on the other side of the room now, but I still had the pistol. I had no idea how effective it would be, but it was all I had. I pulled it out and fired two shots. One missed, but one caused a dark starburst to appear on the surface of the filthy sack of flesh that I hoped was her back. She cried out in pain, and I was again disturbed by the

sound of her cries, the horror and desperation not at all muted beneath the pillow

distinctly non-monstrous quality of it.

She was slow to turn and I was beyond the reach of her tentacle. I kept moving so that I would stay far enough away, and I fired again and again. Dark splotches of blood blossomed on her twisted, inhuman body. The last shot hit her square in the chest, and she howled in pain and rage as she kept trying to spear me with the business end of her new appendage. Several times it came far too close for comfort, and I was all too aware that it wouldn't be very difficult for her to trap me in the corner. I had to prevent that from happening at all costs, but there were precious few ways to do so. Escape was not an option. Even if I could make it back to that staircase, I couldn't consider it. This had to end, and it had to end now. Running from my problems was what got me into this ocean of shit in the first place. I had to kill this demon. The knowledge was completely intrinsic, but if there was one lesson Silent Hill had impressed upon me, it was that sometimes it was best to ignore rationality and embrace instinct. And besides that, a defensive stand also seemed likeliest to produce results.

That was the hope, anyway. It had to work, because if I couldn't run, these last ten bullets were all I had left. I dug into my pocket to find the last clip. By this point, my pockets had several different items inside, and the immediate urgency of things only made locating that last magazine that much more difficult, and I did so with all the dexterity and grace of a sixteen-year old kid fumbling with his first bra-strap. That old dog Panic was creeping up on me again and if I didn't hurry I would be

Got it!

I hurriedly ejected the empty clip and jammed the final one in. I felt a small measure of relief but it was erased as fast as it appeared, because I didn't know just what good it would really do in the end. After everything I had seen, all the battles I had survived, everything came down to these last ten nine-millimeter bullets and this nondescript Glock handgun that was to send them at my enemy.

I brought the gun up to bear upon her, but when I did, I immediately noticed something wrong, very wrong. It looked as though a massive black cloud had appeared within the room, swirling and twirling. Only, it wasn't a cloud at all, I realized as it came towards me.

It was a swarm of moths. There must have been tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of these evil little black faeries, already filling most of the room and multiplying further by the second. They were so thick that I could no longer see the Maria-demon through them anymore.

Suddenly, as if directed by a divine hand, the swarm attacked me, the entire insect collective converging directly upon myself. I completely forgot about my other battle as I waved my arms in a frantic and futile attempt to swat them away. I may as well have tried to stop the very wind with my own two arms, for all the good it did. A virtually endless blast of living insects battered me like so many grains of sand in a desert storm. I quickly abandoned the idea of fighting back and instead brought my arms up to protect my face. The attack didn't hurt much, because they were only your average, everyday cloth-eaters, but the sheer volume of the little kamikazes was extremely disorienting, and I knew that this display was not intended to cause harm. It was meant to do exactly what it was doing; confusing and distracting me long enough for the real threat to close the distance.

I ran. I had no destination, no real goal, I just ran, just to keep moving. If I stood still, I was dead. There was no doubt that the Maria-demon was responsible for this, and I wasn't foolish enough to assume that they presented any sort of obstacle to her. I knew she could see me, and would home in on me, regardless of my inability to pinpoint her location. All I could do was stay on the move and hope that the swarm would dissipate somehow, and soon. There had to be an end to it, had to, and I kept running, doing as much as I could to keep away from where I thought the demon might be, but it was so hard. My sense of direction was quickly nullified by being blinded and turned around so much. My shaky self-control was quickly giving way to irrationality and terror as the weight of hopelessness became a pressure from above to join the insectoid wall that surrounded me.

Soon, I was running in full panic, no longer even trying to cope. I opened my mouth to yell, but was immediately stifled as several of the little bastards flew right into it. I spat them out and fought to keep my gorge down and now I was swinging wildly at them again, trying to drive them away but I couldn't because there were too many, far too many and

I yelled again in surprise as my knee struck something and I pitched forward. I brought my arms up to absorb the impact of the fall, but an unexpected resistance proved it unnecessary. Instead of striking hard metal, I hit something large and soft and bouncy, something I had completely forgotten about.

It was the bed.

I was grateful to fall on a bed than on the steel floor, but it was of little comfort, because it had slowed me down, it had stopped me for several crucial seconds and that was no good. I pushed myself off of the bed and sprinted away, through the cloud of moths.

I didn't even make three steps.

Something much larger than any moth shot past my head. Before I could cut to the side and get out of the way, it came back from in front, lashing around my throat and wrapping around several times. Surprise and shock were quickly severed by an incredible blast of agony as the Maria-demon lifted me up in the air. The strain on my neck was indescribably horrible, and I was wishing my neck would just give, that my vertebrae would just snap and get it over with, but they didn't. This demon was taking care to not allow me to escape that easily. I beat at the constricting tentacle as my windpipe caved under the pressure, but to no avail. She was bringing me closer.

My gaping, bulging eyes saw her materialize out of the swarm, ignoring my feeble struggles and lifting me even higher. The hurting in my neck was outstanding, but nothing compared to the terror I felt when she brought me face to face, and I once again looked into those vacant, empty eye sockets, and it was at that moment I realized that I wasn't looking into a demon's face, or anything like it. I was staring at Death, my own personal death. I had done an exemplary job of evading Death these last two days, but as the saying goes, given enough time, Death shall inherit even the greatest kingdoms. I gave Death one hell of a run-around, that was sure, but now Death personally came for me. That's what I was seeing.

No. Not death.

I tried to ignore the voice in my mind.

Leave me alone. Let me go.

No.

I want to sleep.

No.

I realized, almost as an aside, that throughout everything, I still had the Glock in my right hand. It required perhaps the most tremendous physical effort I had ever expended on any action in my life, but I brought the weapon up, and as my eyesight clouded over, I pressed the barrel of the pistol against the Maria-demon's chest. The last thing I saw was her face, that face of lies and of death. It was sneering. Its eyeless gaze still communicated victory.

I pulled the trigger. The gun jumped in my hands, but I somehow managed to keep a grip on it. I fired again. And again. And again and again and again and again and again and again and again.

Then I was firing nothing, the last of my bullets having been spent. Still I pulled on the trigger, earning nothing but dry, empty clicks, until finally, the last of my strength gave out and I let go of the weapon. It tumbled to the ground, though that was something I imagined more than experienced. That's when my eyesight finally gave up and escaped, and my mind disconnected and fled as well. I felt myself tumbling as consciousness evacuated for the final time. The conscious world receded through a tunnel, and I was falling now, end over end, left alone in the final moments of my life.

Where would I go, I wondered. I hope it's Heaven. I don't care about my soul. If I did, I never would have done what I did. I want to go to Heaven because I know that's where Mary really is. That's all I want, to see her one last time. If I'm to spend eternity in the fires of Hell, please God, at least give me one chance to say goodbye to her.

But of course, that would be asking too much. I didn't deserve even that small favor. I was a killer. I was a murderer. I stole Mary's life. Sure, she was at death's door by that point, but that didn't matter. I couldn't even wait for that, could I? Was I that desperate to be rid of her? Was I so eager to escape the slow torture of her lingering death that I would kill her just for my own sanity? How stupid. How utterly asinine. Sanity was the price I paid. Sanity, and my life. I wouldn't get to explain that to her, though. I wouldn't get to explain anything.

Suddenly, something materialized beneath me (or above me or beside me I didn't know because I really wasn't seeing anything and even if I was I was turning ass over teakettle anyway so how would I know) but even knowing all that didn't lessen the terror I felt when I saw (imagined) what I saw (imagined).

It was a landscape, an endless, barren landscape, completely devoid of life and everything associated with it. It was nothing but rocks and mountains, blasted and made red by the ocean of fire that seeped through every crack.

Hell. This was where I was going. I would have cried out if I could. And then I tried anyway, because I saw something form within the fiery sea. At first, they were formless and unidentifiable, but as I watched (imagined), the shapes coalesced into something distinct.

Letters. Letters forming words.

If you want to see Mary, you should just DIE. But you might be heading to a different place than Mary, JAMES.

It was the phrase from my invisible friend. I never did figure out who he was, and now I never would know. I would never know anything again, except, if the stories were true, an eternity of suffering and damnation. Now I really wanted to cry out but of course that was impossible. Yet, I could almost hear (imagine) myself screaming as I fell towards Hell, as the broiling ocean of flames rushed forward, welcoming me with a final embrace, and the very moment before I splashed into the magma, I thought I really did cry out.

Then I fell upon the fire, but it was a surprise, a fundamental surprise, and the first (or was it last) thought that came to mind was

why is a lake of fire so hard

Suddenly, hellfire disappeared, utterly and completely, replaced by a dim gray haze that was fading slowly. The image of nothingness was gradually replaced by the image of something coherent. Something familiar.

I felt raindrops on my face, and forced my eyes back open. I was staring straight up, into a sky completely obscured by clouds and thick fog. When I looked to my left, I saw a yellowed, dingy cloth inches from my face, and metal legs poking from underneath. A bed. The bed. And when I looked to my right…

The Maria-demon lay on the ground, staring straight up as I was. She was still alive, but injured badly. A veritable fountain of blood leaked from the steel grating beneath her hideously malformed body. Her tentacle writhed and bounced upon the floor, but with no real strength.

I pushed myself to my feet, feeling the crunch of dead and dying moths beneath my hands. I grabbed onto the bed and used it to balance myself for a moment, as my legs were weak and wobbly, and I was afraid they might collapse. I looked around and saw the floor absolutely covered with the tiny corpses of the nasty little insects, as if the place had been the recipient of a black snowfall. They weren't all dead yet. Some of them still fluttered around aimlessly, but they wouldn't last long. Even now, I saw them dropping from the sky like little fighter planes being shot down.

There was one place that wasn't submerged in insect death, though, and my breath caught in my throat when I saw it. An object lay there, and I took several crunching steps toward it, bent down, and picked it up.

It was a spear, as long as I was tall, black from butt to the nasty pointed tip, a tip which looked remarkably like the end of the Maria-demon's tentacle. I knew who it belonged to, but why? Why would such a thing be here, now? I

He was showing you what you needed to do.

realized suddenly that I wasn't holding a spear at all.

It was my rifle.

"JAMES!" the Maria-demon screamed, "James! Please! Don't hurt me! Don't kill me! I'm sorry, James!" Now it was using Mary's voice again. "James, don't do it. You can't do it. I'm hurt. I'm suffering. Don't hurt me any more, James. James, don't do it. You can't do it. I'm hurt. I'm suffering. Don't hurt me any more, James. James, don't do it. You can't do it. I'm hurt. I'm"

"Enough." I said softly. I stood beside the Maria-demon, looking into that horrible parody of my wife's face and those empty lich-eyes of death, and I knew the voices were false. I knew the illusion lay before me, that all of my delusions lay before me, and the only way I could save myself was to destroy them, utterly and completely.

I brought the rifle up and pressed the muzzle against the demon's forehead.

"SUFFERING! DON'T HURT ME ANY MORE, JAMES! JAMES, DON'T DO IT! YOU CAN'T"

But I could, and I did. I depressed the trigger, and the Maria-demon's shrieks and pleas were first interrupted and then completely severed by the thunderous blast of the .30-.06 as it sent its final brass-jacketed messenger of death into the travesty that lay prostrate before me. The last thing I saw was that stolen mask of a face deflate and then explode as the rifle shell tore a path of destruction through it. Then, I let the rifle fall to the floor as I looked up to the sky, which was still anamorphous blob of dusk and gray. Then, the gray approached from the edge of my vision, expanding towards the center, but before it closed in completely and erased my vision altogether, the dismal gray brightened, transforming into a brilliant and dazzling white. I thought I felt a tear course down my cheek, but the white became all-encompassing, and consciousness escaped before I ever had the chance to find out.

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