Disclaimer: See Chapter 1
A/N: The shortest chapter, so far. I'm sorry about that, but it isn't really all that short though. The next chapter is really long and will be out in a couple days.
Chapter 3: The Point of Determination
Sam Oliver awoke with a scream, his body leaping up from it's reclined positioned. He jumped up from what he was lying on and felt his torso where those things were tearing into him. His body was fine, completely unmarred and his breath was ragged and uneven, exploding out his body uncontrollably. He couldn't keep himself from shaking; his entire being was flooded with adrenaline. "Wha..?" he said. "What the hell just happened!?"
He took a look around, seeing he was back on the streets of Silent Hill. The fog was there again, flowing in it's intricate patterns. Sam looked down to see that he had woken up on a city bench. The bench was parked in front of the Silent Hill Police Department. Seeing this, he decided to take a look inside. Maybe someone would be there and he could get some help.
Fortunately, the door was unlocked, allowing him access inside. The place was a mess; papers were stacked everywhere, toppled over in places and scattered across the floor. He walked around the counter into the bullpen. On the far side of the room was an open doorway, leading into a darkened space. Sam peered inside and saw that it was a storeroom, lined with shelves from floor to ceiling.
Entering, he looked around and found a pocket clip flashlight, which he put on after checking that it worked. Sam also found an empty backpack and a first aid kit. He stuffed the kit into the bag, before looking around for more supplies. By the time he was done, he had walked out of the room with another first aid kit and some spare batteries, the bag slung across his back.
Another look in the bullpen yielded a handgun and two spare clips of ammunition. He took these, pocketing the clips and stuffing the gun in his belt. Sam wasn't very used to guns, but he was comfortable with weapons in general these days, all his experience with vessels had taken care of that. Now that he was armed and supplied, he breathed a sigh of relief and turned his attention to the dispatch radio. Maybe he could get it working and call out for help, he doubted it, but it was possible.
Sam walked over to it and flipped the switch on; nothing happened. After playing around with it for awhile, he decided that it was useless. He was on his own on this one, a quick check of the phones confirmed that theory. He was leaving the police station armed and supplied, but without an idea of what his next step was, when he stole a glance at the wall. Tacked up to the corkboard was a map of Silent Hill. Stepping up to it, he took a closer look. The map was shockingly detailed, it showed the names of the businesses and everything. He saw the name of Brookhaven Hospital over one of the buildings and took down the map. "I'm gonna get what I came for," he said, rather loudly for someone who was alone. Folding up the map, he slipped it into his back pocket and moved to leave the station.
He had just reached the door, when he suddenly heard a sound coming from the other room. It sounded like static, but a little different. Caution in mind, Sam pulled out the gun and stepped toward the noise. It led him through a short corridor that traced the outer edge of the building. The hallway ended in a room, the sound was coming from within there. He carefully reached out with his free hand and pushed the door open, revealing an office.
The sound was coming from a small police radio, the kind that attached to a belt. He grabbed it and gave it a thorough inspection. The static was strange and didn't sound like any static he had ever heard before. It was getting louder and he was starting to get on edge over it. He was about to set the radio down and walk away, when something smashed through the window and rammed into him.
Sam smashed into a filing cabinet and rolled over onto the floor, landing on top of the thing that had body checked him. His gun flew out of his hand along with the radio and slid under the desk. He placed a knee on whatever it was that attacked him and pushed himself up. It was starting to writhe and twist, trying to free itself. The thing had wings, he noticed in some small part of his mind not centered on survival. His eyes focused in on his gun, laying there just out of reach. He knew he wouldn't be able to reach it without getting off the creature. That didn't matter so much though, as it was doing a damned fine job of getting free on it's own.
Taking a breath, he braced himself and leapt away from the thing and stretched his hands out for the gun. He was so close to it, he was certain he was going to succeed. That was when he felt something grab his ankles and give a mighty tug. Sam could feel his jacket and t-shirt ride up, the backpack slipping off-center from his back, he was then flipped over onto his back rather uncomfortably and forced to stare into the beast's terrible visage. It didn't have a face to speak of, more of a twisted flap of flesh drawn tight at an extremely unnatural angle. It was wrong, like some sort of perversion of everything he had ever known. Sam was terrified of it immediately. He had to kill it; that was the only thing he could do.
Bracing himself better against the floor, he lifted his feet up and kicked at the abomination with all his might. It was launched off of him and crashed into the wall, denting the drywall, before it fell to the floor. Sam rolled over and pushed himself up to his feet and grabbed the side of the desk and pushed it over onto it's side. Everything that had been on it was sent smashing to the floor. The hand gun was left exposed and he reached down and grabbed it, spinning around in time to plug one shot into the thing before it struck him with one of it's wings across his face.
He could feel blood streaking down his face and fired again. The creature screeched out bizarrely in pain, it's cry strange and haunting to his ears. But it didn't go down. He fired once more, sending it into the filing cabinet and then to the floor. Sam rushed over and pushed the cabinet onto the creature, leaving only it's head and extremities exposed. He set a foot on the cabinet, keeping it stable and aimed the gun right at it's head and pulled the trigger. The monster, for that is what it was, stopped moving and the radio stopped emitting static.
Sam let out a sharp breath, looked up, and yelled, "Are you behind this!?" The identity of the recipient of this cry was obvious and opted out of responding, it seemed. He knelt down and grabbed the small radio, clipping it to his belt. He turned away and walked out of the room, then left the station. Once outside, he consulted the map again and put the directions to the hospital in his mind. Pocketing the map, he started in the direction of the hospital.
His mind kept playing over the events that got him here, from deciding to check out the town last night to getting in a fight with a large faceless bat. He wondered if he was going mad and none of this was even real. While that was a distinct possibility, he couldn't help but think that there was more to it. The Devil liked to accuse Sam of giving up when things got tough and Sam did want to give up, but he had to learn the truth. Something was going on here and he was certain that it related to him in some way he couldn't figure out. He thought back to his talk with Sock and Ben and how they didn't want him to go alone. It was true that he could use a little back up, but he was definitely glad that they weren't here in danger with him.
The walk to the hospital was long and he was starting to get really paranoid. He knew he wasn't alone here, but he was uncertain about who or what was keeping him company in this God-forsaken hell hole. Sam didn't think he really wanted to know, given how no contact he had with anything turned out positive. Someone had walked out in front of his car, causing him to crash and he chased someone through the streets that led him to some horrible nightmare. That wasn't counting the monsters that had attacked him. He kept darting his eyes back and forth, looking for some unseen danger lurking in the shadows or around the corner. And what the hell was up with this damned fog? Dr. Burke mentioned something about fog when he was talking about the night Sam was born. Was fog a part of it? Did it have something to do with him? Perhaps it was best if he tabled this line of thought for the time being and focus on the here and now.
He took a right at a street corner, after taking another quick peek at the map to check if it was the right way to go. He had tried to memorize it earlier, but it just wouldn't stay in his head accurately. It was something he always had a problem with, in fact it was one of the reasons he left college. The amount of studying he had to do was unbearable, in his opinion. None of that mattered, though, he was here now. Sam was going to get to the very bottom of this mystery, even if it led him into the bowels of hell itself. In thinking it, he was forced to acknowledge that it was an extremely literal possibility. That struck up an interesting thought. What if this place was one of those portals to hell that the Devil was talking about? He had mentioned that any place that could be considered hell-on-earth was hell-on-earth. If that was the case, then what made this one different from the others he had encountered?
Once again, Sam tried hard to let go of these thoughts. He turned his attention to the street ahead of him and was a little disappointed that he saw nothing that revealed he was getting any closer to his destination. Eventually, He came to a point that stole his attention completely. The road ahead was gone, like the road behind his car. It was as if something had reached down and scooped up an immense chunk of the earth, leaving a gaping hole behind. The hole came right up to the edge of the two buildings flanking it, blocking his path forward. Just before this was a three-way intersection –which he was standing in the middle of –with the other road stretching out to his left.
"Shit," he muttered through clenched teeth, "this changes things a little. What the hell do I do now?" Taking out the map, he unfolded it and tried to place where he was. According to it, he could take the road to the left, but it would take him the long way around. The more he was out in the streets, the more exposed he felt, so he wanted to get there as soon as possible. He could cut through one of the buildings, but who knew what dangers lurked inside those places. The place on the right was a bank and looked way too fortified for him to break into quickly and easily, and the building on the left was an office building. It looked promising, but he wasn't certain that it would get him all the way across the expanse. For that matter, the bank was no surefire bridge to the other side either.
Sam decided he would give the road to the left a look-see and if it appeared promising, he would suck it up and take the scenic route. It took two minutes of walking to prove to him that it wouldn't get him to where he was going. Partway down, it ended abruptly in another hole, this one looking no less foreboding than the last. Aside from the office complex, the only other place on the right side of the street was the wrong side of a storage facility. There was only a single sturdy-looking service door on that face of the building and he didn't want to waste time and effort on getting it open. It appeared that his only option was to go through the offices.
Doubling back, he returned to the office building and gave it a calculating stare. It had a plaque set into it's stone facade, declaring it as the Toluca Lake Business Center. It was very large and had a sizable parking garage attached to it's left side. The parking garage appeared to be inaccessible from here, due to the security gate being down. He would have to try the front door.
As luck would have it, the door was unlocked. Not that it would've been a chore to get through, seeing as it was mostly glass. Still, it was nice to not have to make the extra effort. Sam pulled the door open and entered the abandoned office building.