Disclaimer: See Chapter 1

A/N: A much shorter chapter than the last, sorry.

Chapter 5: Brandon

Sam found himself leaning against the back wall of what had to be a Laundromat, his body weak and his mind tired. At the moment, he couldn't defend himself against a strong breeze, let alone a perversion of God's design. He would just have to find some place to hunker down for awhile, some place safe. It was a real head-scratcher, trying to think of a place that he could stay safe for awhile. Looking around, he spotted a dirty mop leaning against the wall next to a line of broken commercial laundry baskets.

Upon grabbing it, he noticed how filthy it really was. There was obviously a good reason for it being thrown away. He snapped the mop head off and tested it as a cane. It was time to move on and he needed something to use as a crutch. After looking at his handy map, Sam got his bearings. According to it, there was an inn somewhere nearby across the street from a place called Rosewater Park. Maybe he could barricade himself in one of the rooms and rest a little more. Stuffing the map back in his pocket, he began limping onward.

He reached the street corner where the park and the inn were, noticing that the supposed "inn" was more of a motel. Sam was just turning the corner, when something hit him in the side of the head.

"Hey!" someone cried, shocking the hell out of him. He turned to look and saw a young boy standing about ten feet from him, holding what looked like a handful of rocks. "Yeah, you!"

"What?" said Sam, dumbly.

"You're not supposed to be here mister," said the boy.

Sam just stared at the kid, who couldn't have been older than eight. He was wearing clean, if a little shabby, clothing and looked to be completely unharmed. There was a familiar quality to the boy, something he couldn't quite define. How had he been surviving here?

"What, you mute or something mister?" the boy asked, cocking his head to the side.

"Uh no, I'm not. What are you doing…" Sam broke off for a second, wrestling with the oddness of this encounter. "What happened to everybody?"

"What happened to who?" asked the boy, sounding terribly confused.

"The townspeople; your parents," explained Sam, bewildered by this child.

"Oh, they were mean and they're gone now," said the boy, looking quite bored now. He was looking around, obviously distracted.

"They're just gone?" This was beginning to be the most surreal encounter that he had here, so far. "What's your name?" he asked, changing direction.

"Brandon. What's yours?"

"Sam," he said, using a softer voice that adults always reserved for children. "Could you tell me something, Brandon?"

"Like what?"

"How have you been surviving here?" He asked, thinking it could be useful to know.

"Whadjya mean, Sam?"

"I mean, there are those scary monsters," he said, getting right down to it.

"Monsters? You're weird." With that the boy ran away, screaming, "I don't like you!"

"Wait!" Sam called out. "Don't go!"

The boy ignored him and disappeared into the fog. Sam tried to chase after him, but was forced to stop because of his present condition. There was little he could do about the situation, so -with a sigh -he decided to go with his original plan of securing a motel room. What an odd little kid, he thought.

He grabbed both his room key and the master key from the pegboard in the motel office. There was a box of emergency supplies underneath the front counter, with some candles sticking out. They must've been for power outages, or something. Letting his backpack slip from his back, he set it on the counter and unzipped it. Sam stuffed the candles inside. Looking under again, he saw something else behind the box. There was a shotgun shoved in the very back, a box of shells sitting next to it.

The gun turned out to have three shots loaded and the box had about fourteen shells left in it. All in all, it was a good find. He put the box in his pack with the candles and zipped it all up. On the way outside, he stopped at the vending machine alcove and looked at the contents. It was filled with snack food, so he raised the butt of his newly acquired shotgun and smashed the glass facing. Stuffing his pockets full with anything he could grab, Sam moved his attention to the pop machine. It wasn't made of glass, so he couldn't repeat the same trick. Instead, he looked at the side of the front and saw where the lock was located. Aiming the shotgun, he pumped it and fired. The whole section where the lock was, blew off into pieces, causing the loading door to swing open. He grabbed a few bottles of water and left to check out his room.

The room was covered in a fine film of dust, but otherwise looked clean. Locking the door, he went over to the bed and set the backpack down on it. Next, he shrugged off his jacket, tossing it on the floor. Sam got out the candles and lit them with a complimentary book of matches from the nightstand. With some light in there, he peeled off his shirt tenderly and dropped it. Taking out one of the first aid kits, he opened it up and set about treating his wounds.

He had to take his pants off to get to the cut on his leg. All things considered, he was lucky that none of his arteries were nicked by that massive blade. Still, it would definitely need to be stitched up. This was going to be tricky. A search of the bathroom yielded a small sewing kit that had been left for guests. Sam had never done this; he always left it to Ben, who had actually taken a first aid course. That wasn't a surprise though, seeing how accident prone his friend was. Fortunately, he had seen Ben do it a few times and he knew how to stitch clothing, somewhat.

It was another forty or so minutes, before he finished up. It was a little sloppy, but it would have to do. Next, it was time to eat something and try to get a little sleep. There was an awful sense of finality to going to sleep here on purpose, like he was accepting that he could be in this nightmare for a while. It wasn't just some brief traumatic experience, but the beginning of a long sustained ordeal. Yet, in spite of his fears, he could feel his eyelids starting to droop. His stomach growled, breaking him from his morbid reverie.

Turning to the bounty he liberated from the vending machines, he tore in with gusto, forcing what he could down his throat. He untwisted the cap off one of the water bottles and started drinking. At first, it seemed as if he would never be able to sate his hunger or quench his thirst, but he started to slow down and was soon done. Sam cleaned everything off the bed, grabbed the hand gun and lay down, closing his eyes. He soon fell into a light fitful sleep, his dreams strange and confusing.

With a great yawn and a lazy stretch of his body, Sam Oliver woke up peacefully. The calm in his mind didn't last long, not when his memory of recent events returned to him. It was a rude interruption of his peaceful moment, forcing him to grab the gun he had kept next to him on the night stand. He could tell by looking over at the drapes that it was still day light outside. Doesn't the Sun ever go down here? He thought to himself. Not that he really wanted night to fall, but he was starting to seriously lose track of time in this hellish place and it was messing with him fiercely. Sitting up, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and set his feet down on the floor. The candles he had set on the dresser were still burning merrily away, having melted down over halfway. Wax was dripping down the front of the dresser and collecting in a congealed pool below.

Sam stood up, feeling his muscles ache dully in response. While he wasn't in top shape currently, he was feeling a hell of a lot better than he did before. His leg wasn't throbbing so much at the cut and his arms didn't feel like they were going to fall off at any minute. Stumbling into the bathroom, he went about his business, vaguely surprised to discover that the plumbing still worked. After cleaning up a little, which mostly involved washing his hair and face, Sam wandered back into the main room and grabbed a granola bar, practically forcing it down whole. Washing it down with some water, he grabbed his t-shirt from the floor and inspected it. He could see what awful condition it was in, from the ragged holes and the tears to the massive amount of blood collected on the front of it. It reeked faintly of sweat and gore, something he didn't want on him. He would have to find something to replace it with soon, until then he had his jacket. While not in much better condition, he could live with it.

All the things he had accrued were put together and put away in the places he decided on and his garbage was thrown in the wastepaper basket. He took the time to check his bandages and redress them if necessary. His stitch job had lasted through his sleep, looking no worse than it did when he had done it. The skin around the cut didn't look nearly as inflamed as it did earlier, a good sign as far as he was concerned.

Sam was loaded with supplies now and rested enough to continue on. He slipped the jacket on, feeling weird for wearing it without a shirt underneath, but it would have to do. Zipping it up, he clipped the flashlight onto a front jacket pocket and grabbed the shotgun.

The air outside felt chilly, but it was tolerable. The map told him that if he followed this road, it would take him to a left and that the hospital would be up on the right hand side. It still looked like quite a walk, but he felt certain that he could do it. With that in mind, he set for himself a reasonable pace and got ever closer to his destination.

As always, this damned fog was thick as ever, obscuring almost everything from sight. It could get a little disorienting after awhile, screwing with his mind. Anything could be lurking around and he would have no clue until it was almost on top of him. Sam's thoughts turned to the little boy, leading him to ponder that little mystery. The first nonviolent living being he came across, and it turned out to be little kid who thought he was weird for asking about the danger. What did it all mean? Why was this happening to him? He had a feeling it had to do with what he would find in the hospital.

He eventually came to the left turn he was supposed to make, set between a gas station and what looked to be a bowling alley. Following it down was easy enough and he soon passed a night club. There was nothing out of place that he could see, nothing that piqued his interest. The place was living up to it's reputation as a ghost town, silence and isolation holding sway over everything. He kept his eyes peeled for the hospital entrance.

The walk took awhile, his mind running with the different possibilities of what he would find when he got there. He really couldn't fathom what secrets would be contained within, if any at all. Only time would tell, if he was lucky enough to last that long. As Sam approached Brookhaven, he began to get the sense that he was no longer alone. There was something nearby in the fog with him, something dangerous. He no longer had that radio, but he had his instincts, which were screaming at him to run. His grip on the shotgun tightened and he raised it up a little, just in case.

Deciding to let whatever it was make the first move, he stopped walking and kept his eyes on his surroundings. For the longest of minutes, nothing happened and Sam was getting antsy. If there was something, and he was certain now there was, it would be nice if it made a move. He could feel his heartbeat getting faster and his breaths became quicker and more shallow. His nerves were beginning to get away from him again and he wished something would just happen already, if only to break this spell of building tension. It was a growing bubble manifesting itself within him, ready to burst at any second.

Somewhere in the distant eddies of the fog, he spotted what he thought was movement. He aimed the shotgun in that direction, but nothing materialized into view. A faint sound could be heard to his left and he spun on his heels, facing that direction. Nothing. Once more, he heard another sound, this one coming from behind. Sam was beginning to lose his cool a little. Was there more than one out there? What was out there? He was so close to pumping rounds in all directions, in the hopes that he would score a lucky shot. That was dangerous thinking and he knew it would only make things worse for him. There was just no sense in wasting ammo, not when it was in such high demand.

More noises could be heard, this time coming in pretty much from all sides, the shuffling sound of multiple individuals limping. Dread filled his very being and his heart dropped into his stomach at the sight he was subjected to next. From the fog, several figures shifted into his line of sight. They looked just like the armless thing he had to kill just before facing that horrible thing with the pyramid on it's head (Pyramid Head, he had taken to calling it in his mind). More could be heard coming closer from his left and right, as well. This was going to get ugly, he had to get out of here. It wouldn't be easy, since they had him pretty much surrounded and were closing in.

Choosing to conserve what ammunition he had, Sam started to run to the hospital entrance. Beyond a short cement wall, with an open vehicle gate in the center, he could just see the outline of an ambulance sitting on it's tires. It was his only hope, but wasn't going to be easy to get to. He dodged out of the way, just as one of the things was about to ram into him. This street was crawling with them now, these malformed atrocities.

Sam was getting really scared now. There were too many of them to handle; he wasn't certain he could even get away from them. Another got too close and he was forced to fill it with a load of buckshot. That put it down, it seemed. The problem was that another soon took it's place and he couldn't keep firing. Pumping the shotgun, he slammed the butt of the gun into the thing's face. Blood sprayed out from the brutal contact and the thing staggered back a few steps.

Pain erupted along his back, when something scored a direct hit and managed to ram into him from behind. He was launched forward and almost lost his footing in the process. Sam just ran faster than before, trying to get away from the main cluster of the creatures. They were everywhere though, just crawling out of the woodwork. He could hear the sigh-like hiss of one of the things releasing it's acid into the air. His body didn't start melting, so he counted himself lucky there.

He was through the gate and into the unloading zone. The doors could be seen at the top of a small flight of steps. There it was, his refuge for the moment. All he had to do was get to it and he gave himself an extra burst of speed to accomplish that goal. Clambering up the steps, he could hear the creatures not too far behind him. Almost out of breath, he grabbed the door handle and yanked it open. Sam rushed inside and forced the door shut, twisting the lock he found on the other side. The door frame shook a little when something rammed into it from the outside, the sound reverberating throughout the empty halls of the hospital. Then, the creatures gave up and apparently decided that he wasn't worth further pursuit.