Geoffrey and Gary jogged at a relatively slow, but consistent pace through the newly discovered housing estate buried in what they'd thought was a small group of trees. The light still hadn't reappeared and Gary was started to think it never would.

'We've lost it Geoff,' he panted. He was terribly unfit and knew it.

'Yeah, I think we… wait! Over there!' Geoffrey stopped and pointed into the blackness of the woods. There it was, the quivering bobbing orb. It was heading straight for them. 'Hide!' hissed Geoffrey, ducking behind a tree and waiting for the light. Gary followed his advice and crouched behind a large bush.

Waiting for what seemed like an eternity, they were finally rewarded with the faint cracking of twigs and soft pitter-patter of footsteps in the loamy earth. Gary's hand went into his jacket and he produced a standard issue handgun, its silver barrel glinting slightly as the light came closer. Then came the rattling; a subtle tinkling that was hard to hear, even in the deathly silence.

'Have to warn the patriarch… people… bus… does he want them?' came the neurotic, croaky muttering of a decrepit old man who was anxiously hobbling directly towards their position.

Geoffrey turned to Gary and gave him the signal; the word 'bus' lodged in his mind. This man knew something.

It all happened very fast.

Gary jumped up and pointed the gun at the old man whilst simultaneously; Geoffrey leaped up behind him as he walked past and gagged him with a strip of cloth torn from his shirt. Not an orthodox procedure for two police officers, but they weren't exactly in a normal situation.

For a bony old skeleton, the old man was strong! He wriggled and writhed like a dying snake, and it took both of them to pin him down and tie his hands together with another piece of Geoffrey's shirt.

'Looks like we're gonna be doing the bad cop, bad cop routine,' Geoffrey whispered to himself.

They hauled the beggar to his feet and Gary picked up the source of the light; a curious glass lamp on the end of a pole with a small bell attached to it. Using it to guide their way, they hauled the man into a deserted clearing near the lake before pulling the rag from his mouth.

'One word and I blow your brains out. You speak, when spoken to, you hear me? When you do speak, you do it quietly,' Gary hissed in a surprisingly assertive voice.

The old man trembled, wiping sweat from his brow with a dirty wrist. He was in a sorry state. Dressed in what looked like an oversized filthy poncho, the only visible parts of his body were his frail, wrinkled hands and ugly, bald head. This bobbed as a response to Gary's command.

Geoffrey took over. 'I heard you mentioned a patriarch. A patriarch to what?' he asked.

The old man shook with fear. 'Nobody speaks of them. No. He will find us. We are allowed to live here whilst their seedy dealings go on beneath our noses. We speak to them only to deliver the divine message.' He quivered anxiously. 'I must go. There is trouble afoot!'

Geoffrey held the trembling man steady. 'You're not going anywhere. What is your name?'

The old man shook his head. 'No, no, no. The knowledge of the birth name gives the conjurer supreme power over the being. How can I trust that you are not with them?' he whispered shakily. 'They have eyes and ears everywhere.'

Gary raised an eyebrow. This guy was nuts! He prodded him in the face with the gun.

'Tell me about the Cult of Toluca Lake.'

The crazed man shook his head violently. 'No, this is often mistaken because of the spread of disease… There is no Cult of Toluca Lake, it is a myth. Only a small sect is present here in this town. Foresbrook is not the source of the decay. You have come to the wrong place.'

Geoffrey was intrigued. 'So if the 'decay' doesn't come from Foresbrook or Toluca Lake, where does it come from?'

The old man took a hasty glance into the woods around them and sighed deeply.

'I tell you this under the guise that you will help put an end to it!' Gary and Geoffrey both nodded, humouring the man. 'If you follow the lakes edge for 10 miles, you will arrive in the town of Silent Hill. From there you should have no problem finding the source… Few have entered and survived.'

Gary laughed. 'You crazy old bastard! We don't care about your insane stories! We want to find a bus of school children which may have crashed in these parts; nothing more.'

The old mans face fell. 'Then I shall help you no more.' And with that he totally clammed up, even after various shakes, prods, slaps and a totally unnecessary pistol whip from an irritated Gary Lawson. The man seemed to slip into some bizarre trance of some kind, because he just sat and stared into space, totally ignoring both of them.

'Let's leave,' Gary suggested, lowering the gun.

'The minute our backs are turned he's going to run off and tell the 'patriarch'. We both heard him!' Geoffrey protested, suspiciously eyeballing the old man.

'That's a chance we'll have to take Geoff. We can't sit here with him all night! We've got to find the damn bus! Now! Look Geoff, when he was coming towards us he mentioned a bus, so if we walk back the way he came, we're sure to be on the right trail.'

Geoffrey was impressed by his enthusiasm. 'What happened to waiting till morning?' he asked.

'That was a good plan, but we know where it is already?'

'No we don't!' protested Geoffrey.

'Well we've got a bloody good lead, don't you think?' Gary was adamant that they went. 'How about I go check it out and you stay here with this crazy bastard. Good plan?'

Geoffrey bit his lip. He really didn't want to spend a long period of time alone with this nutcase. He could be potentially dangerous, and what if he had people out looking for him?

The man opened his eyes suddenly and a strange gurgle seemed to manifest itself in Geoffrey's head, overwhelming him with a huge, absurdly irrational feeling of absolute terror. His jaw dropped open and his eyes opened wide in anguish.

Gary turned to him scared by Geoffrey's seemingly random breakdown. 'Geoff? What is it? What's wrong?'…

…it was a bright summer's day, and young Geoffrey was in the meadow behind his house playing with Kip the dog. The dog did not belong to him, but always seemed to be out in the fields when Geoffrey wanted to escape Mommy. They were both friends and spent lots and lots of time together…

'Kip, why does my Mommy bully my Daddy so much? He loves us doesn't he? He's doing his best.'

Kip sprawled himself out under a large bush and pondered this. 'I don't know young Geoffrey. Some people are just born bad I suppose. Your mother is a real bitch!' he growled.

Geoffrey gasped. 'Don't be rude, potty mouth!'

Kip smiled and bounded over to him. 'I'm sorry Geoff, please don't be mad! Let's go play down by the stream.'

And so they did; two friends galloping through the long grass on a warm sunny day, full of laughter. As they splashed in the stream, Geoffrey forgot all about Mommy and Daddy, but as darkness began to fall, he knew he had to go back…

…he woke up in the same spot as before, only this time he was lying on the ground, a pounding headache smashing through his skull. Dragging himself to his feet, all he could hear was the gurgling. It sounded like a cross between someone eating a chunk of raw meat and a large animal choking to death on its own blood. He looked around but there was nobody in sight. Gary and the old man were gone, that's for sure. A gust of wind blew up suddenly and he huddled to himself, putting his hands in the pockets of his jacket. When it died down again, he withdrew his hands, and there was a small piece of red paper clutched in his hands. It read:

'Did you know that when your Daddy robbed your house, he killed Kip? Your Daddy was a nasty burglar! Roger xxx'

Confused, Geoffrey began to reminisce. Back in a time before his mother killed herself, he remembered having a dog called Kip. It was a small Alsatian, but jet black. He remembered that the dog used to talk to him, which was clearly his imagination. Did Kip even exist at all? A small, black Alsatian seemed like a very strange dog indeed. More importantly, what the hell was with this note? Who wrote it and how did they know about his oldest, most forgotten about memories? Dumbfounded, he put it down to exhaustion. He decided to put it in his pocket and if it was still there when he was sure he was mentally stable, then he could worry about.

Now for the more pressing issue: Where the hell was Gary?

- - - - -

Philip could see the dim headlights of the yellow school bus, and as he ran towards it, he could see two figures stood by a broken window; a tall, well built boy, and a blonde, leggy girl who was looking very close to traumatised for some unknown reason. The boy didn't seem to have noticed this. He jogged over to where they stood.

'Jesus Christ! What happened?' Philip asked, looking the bus over.

Chris shrugged. 'I dunno! He woke up in there and just managed to get out like, 5 minutes ago. Can you help us? Where are we?'

'In Foresbrook, about half a mile from the town… How many of you are there?' Philip was dumbfounded.

'There's a few', said Chris. He'd not been bothered to count how many there were altogether. 'The rest are all injured though. Do you have a working phone? We really need help, fast!'

Philip shrugged and made his way over to the smashed window for a better look. 'Jesus this is fucked up… No, my phone isn't working. It's some kind of static interference or something. If you both come with me we can go back to the town and get some help. It's over this way,' Philip replied, gesturing back the way he'd come.

Although hesitant, Katie and Chris began to follow him. Was leaving their injured classmates the right thing to do?

'Can we hurry up a bit? We don't want to leave them for too long,' Katie asked.

Philip nodded. 'Yeah, we can take my car. It's parked in a lay-by not far from here.'

- - - - -

Dozing off in a haze of soft, melodic pianos and acoustic guitars, Rachel felt luxuriously relaxed and calm. But there was a niggling in the back of her mind, something telling her to open her eyes and turn off the stereo. This feeling increased, and reluctantly, she fully sat up and opened her eyes. Something was tinkling gently and she turned to see a small key on a piece of string dangling from the heating vent. Looking at it made her head hurt and a huge feeling of anxiety seemed to envelop the whole car like a sodden blanket. She suddenly wanted to get out, but couldn't seem to find the handles. Images flashed through her head; meaningless and unconnected, but scary nonetheless. She concentrated hard, trying to capture an image for one second, just figure out what it was… but to no avail. The fleeting thoughts did not want to be caught.

Then as quickly as they appeared, the daydreams faded, and she was left only with her music and the warm air. Then with a hiss of static, her tape melted in the player and instead, a nursery rhyme began to play, sung by a choir of children…

'Half a pound of tuppenny rice,

Half a pound of treacle,

That's the way the money goes,

Pop! Goes the weasel.

Up and down the City road,

In and out the Eagle,

That's the way the money goes,

Pop! Goes the weasel'

Severely freaked out, she switched it off and tried to scrape the tape out with a broken windscreen wiper which Philip forgotten to throw away when they'd bought some new ones a few weeks previously. However, the tape was firmly filling the gap, and there was no way it could be removed without taking the whole thing apart. How had this happened? Faulty wiring? Just in case it was, she switched the engine off to avoid a possible electric shock, and began to think over how she was going to tell this to Philip. Suddenly she saw something in the mirror, and the icy finger of terror began to trace its way down her spine. There was somebody in the back seat.

- - - - -

Geoffrey wandered blindly through the woods. What was he looking for? Gary could be anywhere. He cursed his idiotic behaviour and decided to find his way back to the car before planning his next move. As he did so a thought stuck him. Silent Hill! That was the town he'd been trying to remember earlier! All the information he'd gradually soaked up over the years began to solidify in his mind. The old man was right. There was no Cult of Toluca Lake, but there was a cult in Silent Hill. Some kind of ritual sacrifice had been interrupted. What was it… The burning of a child? He knew he'd have no way of remembering her name. All he remembered was that they were interrupted somehow and it ended up on record. There were no arrests made though… He remembered also that there was another case related to Silent Hill which was drug related, but he couldn't really remember that one either.

Eventually he stumbled through the bracken and emerged back in the park. He walked across the edge of lake and found the car parked where he left it. He opened the door and sat inside, the only sound being the sound of his heart pounding in his chest. He felt drunk, like although many weird things were happening, it could all wait until tomorrow… Nothing was too weird because he didn't know what was real and what was not. There was no sense of urgency, so he locked the doors, crawled onto the backseat, and drifted off into a surprisingly gentle and comforting sleep…

- - - - -

Philip, Katie and Chris arrived at the secluded road, and Philip crumpled to the ground. Secretly, deep down he'd almost expected Rachel to be gone by the time he came back, but he didn't listen.

'What's up man?' Chris asked as Philip began to sob uncontrollably at his feet.

'She's gone… I knew she'd be gone, but I didn't listen, why didn't I listen?'

He ran over to the car and threw open the door, hoping that she was under a seat or something… Irrational thoughts, but he didn't care! He had to explore every possibility. He saw a key hanging from the heating vent, a small piece of red paper attached to it. He retrieved the note and began to read:

'Hi, little brother! It's me, Roger! I saw Rachel sitting all alone in the car, so I took her to visit Mom, because Mom hasn't seen Rachel in a long time. Mom is ill, Philip. She's at the hospital in Brookhaven. Come and see us! Roger xxx'

Philip raised his eyebrows and his tears dried. What the hell was going on? Rachel would have waited for him for sure, but he found it absurdly unlikely that his own brother had abducted her. He decided to trust the note and started the engine, fumbling for a map of Toluca Lake in order to find which direction the hospital would be found.

'Hey, what are you doing? Are you taking us to the town or what?' Chris asked rather rudely. Katie made this evident by sharply elbowing him in the ribs.

Philip seemed to be in another world. 'Errm, yeah. There isn't really anything in Foresbrook, just a few shops. I'm gonna drive to Brookhaven Hospital though. It's not far and seems like a much better place to go considering the circumstances.' He hid the key and the note, but he didn't know why.

Katie was wary about getting into the car, but was soon persuaded by Chris's jostling and impatience.

'C'mon let's go! Peoples lives are at stake.'

Philip started the engine and pulled out into the dark and empty road; Rachel, his mother, Roger and the strange key were prominent in his mind. Since when was his mother ill? He'd visited her only a couple of weeks beforehand and she seemed to have nothing wrong with her then, plus, if she was going into hospital, she most definitely would have told him so. Unless of course, she couldn't, which would imply that she was badly injured, and the note that Roger left was far too upbeat for that to have been a possibility. How were they visiting her when it was nearly 1 o'clock in the morning? What was going on? Ever since they'd set foot from the diner, things were going wrong. There was something creepy and malevolent about the atmosphere that was extremely foreboding, and yet, almost enticing. The key seemed to be giving off a strange vibe; the kind of feeling one gets when they're having a nightmare about something that is not at all scary. It was a simple object that could not harm him, but he fought the compulsion to wind down the window and throw it away. He shoved it into the bottom of his deepest pocket, but it still burned a hole in his mind. Then there was the radio on the passenger seat. Katie and Chris were sat in the back and therefore could not see the light, but as before, the small red LED blinked furiously, niggling away at his peripheral vision. At least it was no longer emitting static. That small fact was some kind of comfort even if he didn't know why. He tried to forget about the strange goings on by engaging in small talk with the two teenagers.

'So, what were you guys doing on the bus? School trip?'

Katie was miles away, but snapped back to reality as Philips voice cut through the silence

'Yeah, we were heading towards Toluca Lake on a geography residential trip kind of thing.'

Chris cut in. 'We were supposed to be looking for wildlife and taking core samples of the soil and crap like that. I wish I'd never taken it as a subject to be honest. Plus, look what it's gotten us into!'

Philip laughed dryly. 'Yeah. I was supposed to be taking a holiday with my girlfriend. We came here to visit my brother and my father, but I couldn't remembered which house they lived at, so we were going to spend the night in the car and search for it in daylight, but I heard screams so I went looking in the woods and I found you guys.'

Katie felt sympathetic towards Philip. 'Where is your girlfriend now?' she asked.

Philip winced at the question. 'I don't know. I think she's already at the hospital.' He decided to tell them about the note. 'My brother left me a note saying that they'd both gone to the hospital to visit my mum, who's apparently a patient there, but that's the first I've heard of it.'

Chris was now as confused as Philip. 'But, why didn't they wait for you? How did your brother even know you were here, or where you were parked? That little woodland road seemed pretty secluded to me.'

Philip shrugged. 'I dunno! I have no idea what's going on, but that's why I'm off to the hospital; to find out. You two can get some paramedics and take them back to the bus. I won't be needed.'

Katie frowned. 'I guess not. Thank you very much for helping us anyway.'

Philip once again seemed to drift off into space. 'It's no problem…'

They carried on driving in silence, Philip occasionally glancing at the map to make sure he was travelling in the right direction. Looking up from the map, he noticed that a colourless block had filled the cassette slot on the stereo, and he noticed from the label on the side that it was Rachel's favourite tape, which had somehow fused, or even melted to the inside of it. He decided not to scare Katie and Chris further by telling them about either that, or the other weird things that he'd experienced; they were shell-shocked enough as it was.

He dug the key out of his pocket again and careful not to crash the car, looked at the small circular inscription on its handle. The inscription had been carefully carved and filled with some kind of blood red ink. There were two circles, one large one with a smaller one inside of it, and there were various patterns in this border, the only distinguishable one being an eye of some kind at the top. Within the circle were three smaller circles arranged into a triangular shape, and he counted four other symbols, 3 in-between each circle, and one in the middle. Puzzled, he put it back in his pocket and concentrated on the road.

Before long, buildings began to flank the road and soon enough, they arrived outside a collection of squat, white walled buildings surrounded by a dull and empty car park. The hospital seemed to be void of life, and the whole of Brookhaven seemed to be covered with the same thick, white fog that Foresbrook was. The irrational discomfort and anxiety they all felt hadn't decreased either. Whatever was present in Foresbrook was also present here…