The radio hissed, but real quiet. I figured it was just background noise, that I should be ok to go on. But before I did anything else, I figured I had to check he was really gone. If I could go on looking for Lisa without looking over my shoulder for him all the damn time, I'd feel a helluva lot better. Stuffing the map into my pocket, I took a deep breath and yanked the door open, Uzi at the ready.

Nothing. Nothing at all.

I stepped through to check the lobby out , and the door swung shut behind me. Nothing in the corners, nothing but a map of the US on the wall. The exit doors were locked, and I couldn't open them if I'd wanted to. At least that meant nothing new could come in after me, I figured, and shrugged it off.

I turned to leave and was about to go back to the hallway when I noticed the marks on the door. The one he had been pounding and scratching on from the inside. From this side. Raising my hand, I traced out the marks left there. That Jew-star mark again, one star inside another and both inside a big hexagon. In the middle of that, a deep mark, like the wood had just been stabbed. A bloodstain was beginning to dry on the symbol, a few straggling drops running down the door from the stab mark in the wood. I held my hand just there, almost touching the door, and tried to figure it. He must somehow have cut the sign into the wood, and then... What? I looked closer, the blood was smudged out under the stab in the wood like a... like a hand-print.

So now it made sense. Whoever, or whatever, he had been yelling at musta stabbed through his hand right into the wood. That'd explain the scream, I figured; something like that would have to hurt like hell. But why would he take so long to cut the sign in if he'd been afraid of something? Especially instead of fighting it with the knife he'd used to cut the symbol. And where was the knife? Hell, where was he? None of it made sense, but at least he was gone. And so was whatever had attacked him.

I pushed on the door and let myself out, a drop of the blood coming off on my hand as I did. Still wet, still warm. I rubbed it off on my jacket, feeling disgusted, and pulled out the map. The door clicked closed behind me. The map showed this place was real simple. Classrooms, one music room, a couple science labs, and all set running around one main courtyard for recess. Not much fun stuff for the kids, but in a small town like this maybe that didn't matter, maybe they still made their own fun.

I stashed the map in my pocket and turned right along the hallway, my radio still hissing softly at me. Lisa had been at the windows on this side of the building, so I just needed to search the rooms here. No real problem there. If I started at what the map called ' the Infirmary', I could make a clockwise round of the place and find Lisa in no time. At least, that's what the map said. Lisa had been a nurse in Ashfield, so I guessed the Infirmary would be a decent place to start. I opened the door slowly, expectantly. She had to be here.

Nothing. The room was empty, just a bed, a medical cabinet with the door swung open, a desk and a chair. No Lisa. I didn't understand. She had been here, I had seen her through the window, how could she just run out on me like that? The bitch! Still, she had to be around there somewhere, and when I found her I'd make her remember who was boss. She'd regret running off from me.

Back into the hallway then, and I only noticed how silent the radio had been in the Infirmary now that it started up again in the hallway. This time it was louder, though, and I stopped to slap it against my hand a couple times. Neither that nor messing with the buttons made any damn difference, so I gave up and put it back in my jacket. I had to check the school reception before I left this part of the school.

0o0o0o0o0

As I passed the doors to the lobby, the static increased suddenly, and I spun round, panicked. Gun up, I saw the doors swing open toward me. I backed up quick, peering forward to see who was there. Nobody. I stepped forward to check the area out again, but didn't somehow want to go back in as I had before. Just as I got to the doors, they slammed suddenly closed. I grabbed the handles to open them, but nothing budged. Once I found Lisa I'd have to find another way out, but first the reception had to be checked. I turned to the reception office, and caught just a glimpse of movement, a small female figure in a blue and white school dress. I called to her, but she ran on through the doors leading out to the next hallway along. Trying to follow her was useless, the doors had locked after her. Confused and, yeah, a little scared, I turned my back on those doors and went into the reception office.

Nothing. Books and registers on a counter, and a door beyond that led to an old office, I guessed. Figuring it to just be a storeroom, I was just gonna leave that one be and try to leave this whole side of the school, when I heard voices beyond it. Male and female in hushed conversation. I came up close to the door to listen, not wanting to be heard myself, but couldn't make anything out. The tone of the man's voice was level, like someone trying to calm another. The woman's voice... wasn't, and rose and fell like someone who'd just about break down as say anything else. Every now and again the man's voice would break off with a sharp gasp, and then carry on. Each time this happened, the woman's voice got worse. I wanted to know what was going on, and that overcame my wanting to stay hidden. I put my hand to the doorknob.

Sudden silence beyond the door, not even a whisper of the voices.

I opened the door slowly, gun raised and my gut tied up in knots. The room was empty, with no other doors leading in or out. Great. Another freaky dead end. Nothing in here except two couches facing each other across a coffee table. Nothing on the coffee table except... what? A coffee spill, looked like. Drops that had pattered onto the table, pooled around close to the couch across from me. Nothing really wrong with that, I know, but I somehow didn't wanna be in that room anymore. The place didn't feel abandoned, didn't feel empty. I felt watched, repelled from the room. Like something really didn't want me there. Like if I stayed much longer, there'd be trouble

I left as quick as I could and got back to the hallway. With the doors at both ends locked, my only option was to cross the courtyard. I didn't spend any time studying the map, my back felt too exposed turned to the reception, and I was too afraid to turn and face... whatever I might see there.

I took a deep breath, trying to control my sudden fear, and opened the door out to the courtyard. If you were to ask me now I couldn't swear to it, but at the time I thought I did.

I thought I heard the door behind me. Click open.

I thought I heard footsteps. Behind me.

Coming from the empty room.

My nerve broke and I ran through the door, slamming it behind me, and bolted across the courtyard. I didn't even dare stop in the next hallway, but just barreled off left, frantically following the map. Left and right and up to the stairs and up each solid concrete step like it was all that could help to somehow run up and up. I burst into the next hallway and ran up as fast as I could. I didn't stop till I was inside the first room I came to on the second floor: a classroom, where I could just shut the door solidly behind me and brace against it. Just in case anything followed.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The door was solid and comforting against my back, the stars and stripes by the teacher's desk somehow a normal and good thing to me. But I needed to sit, to rest, so it made sense to stagger across and half-collapse into the teacher's chair behind the desk. A 'return to form', I guess you'd call it. I sank my head into my hands for a couple breaths, regaining my strength, and sat up again. And now I wasn't alone after all. In the middle of the room, perched on one of the school desks with her back to me, was a little girl so small she could only just have turned seven, at most . Like the one I had seen earlier, this girl was dressed in that same blue and white uniform. Hunched over herself, hugging her knees, all I could make out was her long dark hair, everything else hidden out of sight. It's strange, I guess, but I was curious. After all that fear and running, I was more curious than scared. But then, what grown man would be scared of a little schoolgirl?

I called out to her, but got no response, so I got up to approach her. She didn't notice me even when I stood right behind her, but jerked bolt upright when I reached out to shake her shoulder. I stood suddenly stopped, my hand still held out, waiting for her to speak. But no sound came. Instead, she slowly raised her own arm, pointed to a corner of the room where I saw, raising my sight, a door into the next classroom, and a taller, older girl in her early teens. Facing the wall, she stood with her hands behind her back, holding them close into the fabric of her blue school uniform, her head bowed silently into the corner.

"Who's tha - " I started, looking back to the girl on the desk. But she had vanished. I looked back to the corner. Nothing. Just empty space. Confused as all hell now, I ducked down to look under the desks. Nothing. Behind the teacher's desk, the same. Nothing. So I was back where I started my run, in an empty room with a real bad, scared feeling in my gut. I decided not to go the way the kid had pointed, and left by the same door I'd come in by. I faced dead ahead. Whatever the kid had been pointing to, I didn't want to see it. I'd make my own damn decisions about all this. I ignored the hallway to my right, and went straight on ahead into the north hallway, overlooking the recess courtyard. Every step deliberate, every breath controlled. If I didn't control myself here, I knew I'd have no kinda chance later.

But then I saw something new, movement up ahead. The north hallway joined the east hallway by doors with frosted glass windows, see, and I could see figures, people, up ahead beyond the door. One tall and dark against the frosted glass, the other shorter and light-clothed, almost invisible in the broken light. I sped up, maybe they had seen Lisa and could help me. I know, it's an insane thought, I know that now, sat here in Konami Burger waiting for the others to come back. Talking into this lump of plastic recording my words, of course I know it's crazy, but it made sense at the time.

I could hear their voices as I got closer, and recognized them immediately. The voices from the reception room! But how had they gotten there so quickly, and without my seeing them at all? I hurried up as I saw them move off to the room nearest them, and just as I entered the east hallway, the door they entered clicked closed behind them. The plate on the door read 'LIBRARY - SILENCE', and I pushed it inwards slowly, silently, not wanting to spook them, not wanting them to run out on me again.

Nothing. Again and again nothing! I was furious, desperate, and really so damn close to giving up right there and just going home again. But there's always something, aint there? And this time it was a book. Open on one of the reading desks in the center of the library was a book on plants and flowers. A scrap of notepaper held the place, and I saw that the book was titled 'Flora & Fauna of Silent Hill'. The bookmarked page held a description of a flower named 'White Claudia':

"WHITE CLAUDIA

Perennial herb found near water. Reaches height of 10 to 15 inches. Oblong leaves, white blossoms. Seeds contain hallucinogen. Ancient records show it was used for religious ceremonies. The hallucinogenic effect was key. "

Next to this, a drawing of the plant itself. A plant I recognized. The flower that cult girl had given me before all this started. The flower I had, I was certain, accidentally swallowed the sap of. I suddenly had a really bad feeling about this. Poppies, I knew, could be cultivated to make opium, and I knew mesquite cactus's could be used to make mescaline, the poor man's LSD.Where you find druggie plants, there's almost always trouble. With a sinking feeling, I unfolded the notepaper holding the book open. It looked like someone had been making notes of things going on around him, trying to make sense of things:

"Notes on board in Police Station, east of river, read: 'Product only available in select areas of Silent Hill. Raw material is White Claudia, a plant peculiar to the region. Manufactured here? Dealer Manufacturer?'

Newspaper said mayor died in investigation of this, some anti-drug cop too. Can't find news cutting, must have lost it near the motel. Is this what that blonde nurse was taking? She looked all-out gone last time I saw her. Wonder where she went? That doctor's fucking weird, too, best stay out of the way.

Gotta get out of the town. Bachman road blocked off, but maybe if I go far enough south on Midwich I can get past the school and get out. School should be safe enough, damn screechers can't fly indoors! "

The writing ran sloppy toward the end, whoever had been writing had been in a hurry, and seriously scared. I thought I knew why, too. On top of everything else, a drug that made people hallucinate, experience religious hallucinations. But... the guy writing, he hadn't taken the drug. He had been wondering if some nurse had taken it, like he was new to the whole idea.

Oh. Shit.

Suddenly everything fell into place. The drug, the flower, the hallucinations. They had to all be tied in with this. Whoever wrote the note was caught up in this whole shit, that much was obvious. A 'screecher' could only be some kind of flying monster, maybe like the melted things I saw in the woods. Or the skinned dogs by the mall.

Or. Something worse?

Somehow the drug helped things along, maybe. If the hallucinations had to do with religious ceremonies, that meant magic, and this kind of thing; these monsters and craziness, could only be caused by some kind of really... well, really real magic. Maybe you think a grown man shouldn't believe in magic? So did I. I really, really didn't wanna believe in this. I still don't. But, looking around, I see my 'injured' hand, the monsters outside, what I've seen since my first meal here, and I can't not believe. I had to believe, sitting in the library, that it was magic, that it all tied together. That I was neck-deep in the shit of it.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, laying the book down in front of me. I breathed out slowly, opening my eyes slowly at the same time, and damn near choked at what I saw now. Another one of those dark-haired schoolgirls, just standing reading the book covers. This one looked older, about seventeen maybe. She didn't even notice me, just kept browsing the book spines. I kept my voice low, the better to not scare her, and called out to her. She turned slowly and looked at me, but didn't say anything. Her face was empty somehow, no expression on it at all. She raised her hand, pointing, and I pointed at myself in confusion.

"What?" I asked,

"What did I do?"

A smile crept across her face, slow and dreamy, and she moved her hand up slowly, pointing beyond me.

"What?" I asked again, not really expecting a reply. None came.

From behind me though, a sound.

Small, feminine. Like little young voices calling out.

I got up slowly and turned around. From between the stacks, more schoolgirls were coming. Lots of them, all in the appearance of young teen age; all dressed in the same blue and white uniform; all moving slowly toward me with their arms outstretched, like they were pleading, like they were begging. Their eyes blindfolded, their mouths moaning wordlessly, they came towards me blindly, hungrily, their arms open and grasping at the empty air. I looked back to the first girl, the tall one, still pointing, still smiling, and saw her change.

Her hair went from black to blonde to red and back to black in seconds, her eyes flickered as they changed, and then she was gone. I spun on my heel and ran for the door, shaking off the one hand that grabbed at me, and then I was gone too, running like hell with no idea where to go.