Chapter 9: Inner Demons

"Holy shit!" I yelped. It seemed to be my new catchphrase, but day-amn, what a fucking tangled-ass web I'd fallen into. "A cop? How the hell does a woman go from being a cop to being psycho in a cheap motel room hundreds of miles from her PD with a bag of road kill?"

Delia crossed her arms, a thoughtful look on her face. "Well, I always figured that she had the worst case of post traumatic stress disorder known to man. She kind of acted like the Vietnam veterans that I had to study in my abnormal psychology class about a million and a half years ago." She frowned. "Jesus. When did I get old?"

I snorted. "Yeah, right. What are you, thirty-five?"

She preened. "I love you." She professed happily. I laughed, but was secretly envious, wondering how old she was. Gravity was, apparently, her friend.

Then she harpooned me with her gaze. "So, do you know Silent Hill?"

I squirmed, but didn't answer.

"Oh, yeah. You do. I know that expression. I've seen it in the mirror more than once." She confirmed. "And it isn't just because of Garrett, is it Lucy?" she wasn't asking. She was stating a fact.

I blurted. "I had an aunt up there…" Dammit. I sighed and bumbled my way on. "She wasn't well. Her father was a member of this religious group. When my parents died, fucking social services dumped me on her doorstep, anyway." I absolutely did not make eye contact.

"'Religious order.'" She echoed. "Hmm. That explains your arms."

I remained silent this time. I got so many points that I can't even count that high.

Suddenly, Delia surprised me by changing the subject. "How long ya here for, anyway?"

"Well, only a couple more days. I have to be back at work on Monday."

She goggled at me. "Seriously? You only got a week off? After one of your coworkers was murdered?"

I shrugged. "Yeah. Like I said, my boss is fobbing Jose's death on Jose himself. Supposedly, he got 'drunk', and 'fell in.'"

Delia's jaw dropped this time. "What a fucking prick!"
Again, I shrugged. Maybe I was still in shock, maybe not, but Kaufman's reluctance to stop working us ragged hadn't really affected me… yet. "Honey, you're so preachin' to the choir." I chuckled quietly. "I guess I'm used to Kaufman being a complete dick."

"Kaufman?" she gaped at me. "Kaufman?" She seemed almost in shock herself.

"Yeah, Alan Kaufman. My douche bag of a boss."

"Kaufman?" She repeated. Again.

"Jesus, did I stutter? Y-e-s. Why are you saying that?"

"A "gentleman" named Kaufman was partly responsible for the shit in Silent Hill." She explained.

"No shit? That's weird." Well, it was.

"Yeah, and Anna's best friend is a boy named Aaron Kaufman." Delia added.

"Fuck, that is weird."

"Yep. Anyways, I haven't finished my story yet, have I?"

"Oh, right. That'd be a "no."

She smiled. "Right. So, where was I?"

"The revelation that the crazy person in the skanky hotel room was a cop."

"Ah. Yeah, so…"

I stared at the police badge with a sort of morbid fascination. The woman in the picture was a neat, tidy, very clean cut person. Not a single hair was out of place. The image was totally at odds with the unhinged woman before me with the bag of road kill and the distinct, unwashed smell.

I turned to her with the police badge still clutched in my hand. I knew talking to this woman would be a delicate undertaking. Dealing with the mentally unstable was always a questionable and delicate thing. I knew I should probably just get the hell out of there, but she needed help. I was a mere maid, and I was in school to be a toxicologist. I had zero professional training, I should have left, but I couldn't. It didn't take a PhD to grasp that Silent Hill had infected this woman's life like a disease. I understood her pain. I was there when the Darkness began to seep in. It was obvious that it had destroyed her.

With a sigh, I sat down beside her on the bed. My boss would probably start wondering where the hell I disappeared to, but he was also a pretty cool guy. If I could get a crazy person quietly out of the building, we'd be square.

As gently as possible, I asked. "Cybil?"

She looked at me.

I jumped on that. "Cybil Bennett?"

This actually got her to turn and look at me. I took this as a very good sign, and very, very slowly, I placed my hand on her shoulder. When she didn't so much as blink, I decided to soldier on. I couldn't just abandon a fellow victim of Silent Hill. I had no idea that there were any other survivors besides me and the twins.

"The twins and I." I interrupted. I tsked playfully. "Naughty grammar."

She glared at me, but I batted my eyelashes coquettishly at her, and she laughed. She gave me a cheery reprimand. "I'm a doctor, not a linguist. Miserable bitch."

I chuckled quietly as Delia continued. "As I was saying…"

I was both mortified and relieved to find someone who had been fucked with by that town too. Relived, because Cybil and her weirdness proved that I wasn't totally fucknuts. Mortified, because, well, Cybil was totally fucknuts. But all the gore graffiti was spot-on. Crazy or not, she knew her shit. I started to rub my hand in small circles on her back. My mother used to do it to comfort me when I was a child, and I'd picked up the habit. "Cybil, sweetie, is there a reason that you came to this place?"

She didn't respond to me.

"Cybil, I noticed that you wrote some interesting notes on the wall there. Did you come here to talk to someone about them?" I paused, and then asked, "Did you want to talk about Silent Hill?"

Cybil remained silent. She just kept staring at me.

I chewed my lower lip, deep in thought. Something occurred to me. Standing up, I turned to Cybil and her empty doll eyes.

"I'm going to look around, okay? If I touch something and it upsets you, feel free to tell me, okay?"

The staring contest continued.

I sighed, and looked at that disgusting carpet bag again. I had to start there. I grabbed a damp rag and scrubbed off the initial coating gunk from my hands. I pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, and with a shudder, I picked up the bag. In plain sight of Cybil, I grabbed an empty trash bag and walked into the bathroom, making sure to leave the door open. "Cybil," I called, "I'm just going to look in your bag to see if I can help you, okay? I'm doing it in the bathroom because it's going to be messy." Oh, who was I kidding? The room was just as disgusting as the bag; I doubt that emptying it out in there would've made much of a difference. At least with some distance between us, I had a moment to be ready for anything if need be.

Delia stopped, went to the fridge, and brought over beer.

"Argh!" I howled. "Stop with the pauses, already, and get to the point!" Then I paused, and looked at the clock. A couple of hours went by. "Wait, beer… for lunch?"

She smirked at me, and went to the fridge. She pulled out sliced turkey, cheese, bread, mayo, and mustard. "Mayonnaise, or mustard?"

My stomach rumbled. "Mustard."

She got to work, and in a flash, two sandwiches materialized on the table. I took a bite, and luxuriated in the fact that her groceries were upscale, too. "Yum." I purred.

She grinned at me, and handed me a beer. I watched the green glass reflect the midday sunlight.

"So," said Delia. "Where've you gotta be today, anyways?"
"No where."

"Me neither. So, what's the problem?"

I shrugged, and took a swig. De-lish. "Nothing, I guess. Continue your story!" I bellowed.

She chuckled. "Bitch, bitch, bitch. That's all you ever are."

"Cow."

"Yup."

As I scooped unidentifiable globs of gore into the trash bag, I started to find some strange, buried treasure. Squashed onto a fluffy tail was an ornate, antique silver ring. Against the side of the bag was a fucking M & M sized black jewel, (Couldn't be a diamond… could it? …Nah!) on a silver, (Platinum? …No!) chain.

Outside, I heard Cybil moaning, "Harry… please… make it stop. Make it stop. Get it out of me…" She sounded as though she were in pain.

I rushed out to Cybil. "Are you okay?" I wrapped an arm around her. "You sounded like you were hurting."

She stared numbly at me. I may have been wrong, but there was a tightness to her. I held her to me for awhile, crooning quiet nonsense to her, and rubbing her back again. We stayed like that for another few minutes until I felt her relax once more. I got up, and went back to work, only I left the door open all the way this time.

Next, I found an article from an old newspaper. Luckily, it had been inserted into a plastic album page, so all I had to do was wipe the goop off. The first thing I noticed was the picture of a man who was blandly attractive in an odd, next door neighbor sort of way. I recognized the image immediately. It was Harry Mason, renowned horror novelist. He wrote a wildly popular series called Inner Demons, which was now in six languages, and I pretty much worshipped it. It centers on a demon-infested town, and each book has a different hero or heroine, and they each end up at the town in some sort of bizarre way. They each have to escape by facing something dark from their past…

"Ooh." Said Delia.

"Hmm?" I asked. I liked the series, too. My favorite was about a guy named James who was compelled to the town because of a letter written by his dead wife. The demons he had been tortured with scared the crap out of me; especially the one that sexually assaulted another demon while James cowered in a closet. Harry Mason was just brilliant. The guy had the career longevity of Stephen King.

Then I thought about the series a little more…

"Ooh." I agreed. "Him too?"

Delia nodded. "Probably."

The article said that Mason had won a prestigious award from the Writer's Guild of America, but never appeared to claim it. It also postulated that it was because he preferred to live in relative seclusion with his young daughter.

"Harry… Harry… It hurts. Why won't it stop hurting me? Oh, Harry… The things it wants…make it stop…" she mewled.

I started to go to her again, but decided against it. She was physically fine.

Outside, I heard her sob, and then wail wordlessly.

I ignored her this time, and quickly regretted it. Her wails escalated into a single, blood-curdling scream, and then silence. Heart in my throat, I ran out into the room. I took one look at Cybil lying still on the bed, and had to fight against a wail of my own.

The knife protruding from her chest was heavily detailed, and clearly ceremonial. Her fist was still clenched around it, and the blade stood out like a beacon. The pale green handle looked as though it had been likely carved out of jade. I noticed how starkly Cybil's blood stood out against the pale color.

It must have sprayed up onto the handle as she… I stared in shock at the sheer volume of blood. "She must have nicked an artery…" I heard myself mutter distantly. Judging by the huge width of the wounds, it looked as though she tried to dig her way through her chest, and out the other side. She had done enough damage for me to see quite a bit of her anatomy. I could see a couple of ribs sticking out, some exposed lung tissue. I couldn't imagine anyone being able to do so much damage in the space of a few minutes with another person only a few feet away, but one thing I've learned is that the mentally ill can defy all logic.

I fought another potentially hysterical scream as I forced myself to look up at her face. What I saw broke my heart. Cybil had died with a look of such tragic despair on her face. Two wet lines on her cheeks had cleaned some of the blood away.

I collapsed onto the edge of the bed and wept; just as Officer Cybil Bennett had as she committed suicide.

To Be Continued…

:Author's Notes: I'm sure I could have gone on, but I kinda felt as though I should finish that chapter there. READ AND REVIEW, please? Reviews are nice!