Silent Hill

Heiress to an Execution

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NOR DID I CREATE SILENT HILL OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS. SILENT HILL BELONGS TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS KONAMI TEAM AND I AM JUST BORROWING THEIR IDEAS FOR MY OWN GUILTY

PLEASURES.

Chapter One

Laura and James sat at the kitchen table late one night, sipping hot cocoa from yellow ceramic mugs. A radio on the counter blared ACDC. Laura sang along to the tune as she tossed mini marshmallows across the table into James's mug. A little cocoa splashed here and there, creating sticky pools of brown liquid on the table's surface. James merely laughed at her antics, his good humor having returned quickly ages ago. Laura laughed, too, and their laughter drowned out the music. Neither of them could have cared less, sitting there laughing like two Mad Hatter's in the dead of the night.

They had become the best of friends. Notwithstanding their undeniable closeness, however, Laura remained unaware of what had happened to James in Silent Hill all those years ago. He refused to talk about it, even to her, but it was clearly evident that he had been left scarred by his last trip. Laura had her fond, if not dislocated, memories of Silent Hill, but having been only a few days shy of eight years old at the time the two of them had been present in the town, she hadn't understood his anguish, his odd questions, and the haunted look in his eyes. She hadn't understood him. And she hadn't understood his reasons behind putting his own wife's life to a quicker end. For the given revelation told to her ten years ago in a handsome hotel suit overlooking the beautiful Toluca Lake in Silent Hill, she had said some hurtful things to him, things that he may have deserved to hear but were nonetheless hurtful. He had taken her best friend, her only friend, so she dented his heart purposefully, as any eight-year-old would do. But despite her utter lack of understanding, she had grown to love James like her very own father. He had seemed to grow himself, to love her like his own daughter, and for that she loved him even more. She had forgiven him and there were no hard feelings. She only wished that she could have enjoyed life with James and Mary both, and was sorry that it couldn't happen. The three of them together would have been very happy, or so Laura believed.

James shoved his cocoa aside as a yawn struggled to overpower him. He was defeated in the end. "Guess it's time for me to hit the sack," he said, standing up and stretching. He pushed his chair underneath the table and moved to pick up his mug.

"Don't worry 'bout it," Laura said, taking another sip of her cocoa. She had noticed the dark bags underneath his eyes, a sign that he hadn't been sleeping well. She owed it to him to be considerate. "I'll clean up. I'm not really tired yet, anyway."

"Sure, Lo. Thanks," he said. He left the kitchen in a hurry, only to return just seconds later to add, exhausted, "Don't stay up too late."

"Okay."

"'Night, hon."

"Goodnight."

And Laura was left alone in the kitchen. She dug her Camel's out of her jeans' back pocket and lit one up, cursing high school as she smoked, for it was there she had picked up the nasty habit. One cigarette did the trick, however. She was finally relaxed to a point where sleep would come easily, courtesy of hot cocoa and the notorious Turkish and domestic blend of Camel Lights.

She stood and collected both mugs from the table and crossed the polished linoleum to place them in the sink. She emptied her own and refilled it with ice water. She drank until the mug was empty, washed it out and then put it to sleep in its cabinet. She left the other sitting in the sink

Bloated with cocoa and water, she made her way up the stairs to her bedroom. Upon passing James's room on the way, she noticed that his lights were still on. She opened the door without knocking, causing James, who was seated at his computer routinely checking his email before turning it, to recoil and nearly fall from his spinning chair.

Laura stifled a laugh. "Sorry," she managed. "I was just checking in."

"That's okay," James replied, turning away from the monitor. "Did you clean up?"

"Yeah. So I'm going to bed, now. See you in the morning."

"See you then."

Laura smiled and left the room. She went straight to her own room and closed the door behind her. She flicked on the lamp beside her bed and undressed. She pulled out a pair of old cheerleading shorts, black, and a simple white tank from her dresser of drawers and put them on. The smell of laundry detergent and Febreeze filled her nostrils as she settled into bed a few seconds later. She closed her eyes, listening to the still silence of the big house for two. It felt awkward still, using the same room that Mary had once kept her art in, had once let her imagination flow in. It was so easy to think of her. Laura could smell her sometimes, could hear her voice. She wondered often how somebody she had only known a week could have such an impact on her life. She had called Mary her best friend, though there had been a substantial difference in age. But Mary had been so nice. And her memory had greedily stayed with Laura, a sort of voice of reason, a guide. She was usually the last person Laura thought of before falling asleep at night. What would she be doing now? Would she be asleep? Would she be watching the Late Night News? Sewing? Painting? Fixing a late night snack? Probably none of those things, but Laura would never know. It wasn't fair, how she would never know. She still hated James sometimes…

Laura was on the edges of sleep. She slipped and fell over into a bottomless abyss, a cacophony of memories, white lights, blurring images. Things she had done that day. Cocoa. A radio. She reached out, grabbed onto something cold, like metal. It was a bowling ball rack. She was in Pete's Bowl-O-Rama. An eagerness swelled inside her like a Helium balloon. Eddie Dombrowski sat in front of her, getting messy with a large pizza pie.

"So what'd you do? Robbery, murder?" Laura asked him, clasping her hands together. The smell of the pizza was enough to make her stomach growl.

"Nah, nothing like that," Eddie answered, but that was all he said.

"I thought you said the cops were after you."

"No," Eddie shook his head, swallowing a large bite. "I just ran 'cause I was scared. I don't know what the cops are doing."

Laura was baffled. "But if you did something bad, why don't you just say you were sorry?" she asked, and then thought better of her dumb question. "Well, I guess I run away a lots, too."

"Did you know that he killed me?" Eddie asked, and before Laura could press the conversation any further, as that was not how she had remembered it, the bowling allies dissolved. Eddie disappeared. She now stood outside a large set of double doors in a seemingly endless hallway.

"Open the door, Laura," came James's voice from the other side. A juvenile anger welled up inside of Laura. She hit the door with both fists.

"Why should I?" she demanded. "I'm a liar, right?"

She fell to her knees as the door in front of her melted to reveal a restaurant setting. It was the restaurant from the hotel. James stood before her, his hands nestled inside of his pockets. Laura tried to apologize for locking him inside of that room but she couldn't. She could only ask the obvious.

"You're here to find Mary, aren't you James?" she asked. "Well, have you?"

"No," James replied. "Is that why you're here, too?"

"She's hear, isn't she?" Laura became excited. "If you know where she is, tell me! I'm tired of walking."

And then the restaurant vanished, replaced by that unforgettable hotel suit from the second floor. Laura stood. James sat sulking in an armchair next to her, his face in his hands. She was confused by his sudden anguish.

"Mary's gone. She's dead," he told Laura. She balled her fists, gritted her teeth. What a thing to say! The area behind her eyelids began to ache.

"Liar!" she called him. "That's a lie!"

"No, that's not true…" James replied. Laura unballed her fists and her face fell. The ache behind her eyelids remained. It persisted. It grew.

"She…she died cause she was sick?" she asked.

"No," James shook his head. Now his face fell. "I killed her."

Laura froze. It couldn't be true. Mary's beloved James couldn't possibly have…no, she had always said such nice things about him…now Laura realized that she had been right to dislike him all along.

"You killer!" she yelled at James, who did nothing but stir slightly. "Why'd you do it?! I hate you! I want her back! Give her back to me!" Laura threw the tantrum of an eight-year-old child, only days fresh of her birthday. Now she had nobody to share it with. She reached out and shoved James's left shoulder as hard as she could. "I knew it! You didn't care about her! I hate you, James!" She shoved him several more times. "I hate you! I hate you!! She was always waiting for you…Why…why…?"

Laura sat up, back in her own bed, eighteen again. Her sheets were damp with sweat. Her heart was hammering in her chest so her breathing was labored. According to the digital clock on the nightstand, it was 1:28 in the morning. She had accidentally left the lamp on. She reached over and turned it off, which a few minutes later proved quite unnecessary. She was wide awake and unwilling to lie down again.

Her mouth was as dry as the Sahara. Perhaps if she went down to the kitchen for a glass of water she could return to bed again. She turned her lamp back on.

The lamp provided enough light for her to make her way across the room to the dresser. Now shivering, she took a sweatshirt from the middle drawer and pulled it over her cropped blonde locks.

She opened her bedroom door and stepped out into the upstairs hallway, pulling the door shut soundlessly behind her. The wooden floors were frigid against her bare feet. She wished she owned some decent slippers.

The hall was hung with shadows, but wan light rose along the stairwell from the foyer below. On her way from the kitchen to her bedroom, she had not paused to switch off the lights.

On her way down the stairs, she thought of her dream. The dialogue had been just as it had been ten years ago, and the scenes had felt chillingly real. But what in the world had dream-Eddie meant when he had said, "Did you know that he killed me?"

At the foot of the stairs she stopped, listening. The silence in the house was almost deafening. Her thirst growing more acute by the second, she wasted no more time and slipped gracefully into the lit kitchen, turning the light off as she entered. The porch lights outside the window were enough for her to navigate.

She took a can of Pepsi from the fridge, popped the tab, tilted her head back, closed her eyes, and took a long drink.

It didn't taste like cola. It tasted sharp, bitter, and it burned the back of Laura's throat. Frowning, she opened her eyes and looked down at the can, only to find that it wasn't a can at all. It was a bottle of beer, a Corona. James didn't drink Corona. When James had a beer, which was rarely these days, it was a Heineken. Half of one, at that.

Fear lanced through Laura's body, a fear that she could not justify. Then, abruptly, an image flashed in her mind, an image that chilled the marrow in her bones. It was James's body, covered in blood. He was unmistakably dead. His throat had been slit several times. He stared out at Laura through those dead eyes, crying for help…

"No…" Laura managed, but it came out in nothing more than a hoarse whisper.

The image disappeared. Laura shook the aftereffects, shuddering uncontrollably. Jesus, that dream had really gotten to her.

Then, to further her uncertainty, she noticed that the tile floor of the kitchen was gone. She was standing barefoot on gravel. The stones cut into the balls of her feet. Her heart began to race. She looked around the kitchen with a desperate need to reaffirm that she was in her own house, that the world had not just shifted into some alternate reality. Her eyes traveled over the familiar white washed birched cabinets, the dark granite countertops, the dishwasher, the gleaming face of the built-in microwave, and she willed the oncoming nightmare to recede. But the gravel beneath her feet remained. She was still holding the Corona in her right hand. She turned towards the sink with the intent of draining the bottle and then washing her face with cold water, but the sink was no longer there. One half of the entire kitchen had vanished. She saw a highway. And then--

--she was not in her kitchen at all. She was standing on a vaguely familiar road some 400 miles away. In front of her loomed a massive building. A sign above the door read Brookhaven Hospital. The sky behind it was as dark as the pavement she now stood on. The hospital, from the outside look of it, was in complete disarray. This was not how she remembered it. This was wrong. What was going on?

"Hello?" she asked, her voice shaky. She turned in a circle. She was seemingly alone. The streets were bare, save for a few leaves and twigs. And then she saw something out of the corner of her eye. She spun on her feet, which was when she realized that she was no longer barefoot but wearing her rubber-soled black Rockports. She looked up. There, standing but thirty feet away, stood an ambling creature, walking slowly towards her. She thought of the Boogeyman underneath her eight-year-old self's bed.

"This is just a dream," she told herself. "I'm still asleep."

It was a nightmare. Unsheathing themselves from the fog and shadows behind the first creature, ten or eleven more joined in on the advance.

"Holy shit," Laura whispered, closing her eyes, refusing to look. "This is just a dream. It's only a dream."

The creatures in front of her simultaneously let out a screeching wail. Laura covered her ears, eyes still closed. She was screaming now. "I'm dreaming! I'm dreaming! It's just a dream, it's just a--"

--she gasped as cold Pepsi foamed from the dropped can and puddled around her bare feet. The gravel and pavement had disappeared, along with the hospital and the fleet of monsters. A spreading pool of cola glistened on the peach-colored Santa Fe tiles of the kitchen floor.