Silent Hill 2: Unplugged

A/N: Sorry this took so long, I spilled liquid on my laptop and the keyboard sort of doesn't work anymore. In fact, most of this was typed up with an on-screen keyboard. Lots of clicking.
But, um, anyhow, have fun with this.

After running frantically along Lindsey Street for about two hours, clutching his plank of wood protectively like it was a newborn child made of wood and nails and stained with blood as if the nurse hadn't washed it correctly, James stopped to take a breather.

To his left was an old and rather beat up car. Panting, James approached it, hoping that car theft was not at all common in this town and maybe, just maybe, the keys were still in the ignition.
Opening the door, he felt around for a bit, and, despite discovering a dead rat, an empty coffee cup from Seven Eleven and some sort of sticky substance on the gas pedal, he did not find keys.
The radio began to emit the static noise again.
"Goddammit," James swore as he smacked it against his hand repeatedly to get it to shut the hell up, "I HATE this station."
He hit the radio against the cab of the car and the radio was silent. What was not silent, on the other hand, was the faceless figure-thing that leaped out at him from underneath the car. It clawed and scratched up the pavement making some sort of abstract artwork with it's fingernails, and if you squinted really hard it kind of looked like a kitten.
James screamed and kicked it's 'face' in with the heel of his boot. Then he smacked it over the head with the plank of wood for good measure.

He continued his pleasant stroll in Silent Hill, only stopping to see that a large DO NOT CROSS banner that had once blocked off Katz Street had now been cut away, and fragments of it lay scattered about the ground like unwanted children. James stared at them awkwardly for several minutes.
"Huh," he said flatly, "I thought 'Cats' was spelled with a C."
He kicked the tape out of his way and wandered down the road.

*

Along the sidewalk of Saul Street was an abandoned motor home, which James examined with great interest, his mouth hanging open with the makings of a fantastic idea. He walked up to the siding and tapped it hard with his knuckles twice. The section of the wall gave way and fell near his feet to reveal an infrastructure of worms, maggots, and rats underneath the siding. James stepped back, frightened.
"Alright then," he stuttered, "guess I'm NOT taking this home for the cats..."
He cautiously entered the trailer. On the wall adjacent to the open door was a rather tattered looking couch, and on it, a notepad. James picked up the notepad and flipped through it. Someone had scribbled a flip book animation of a donkey kicking someone in the head in the bottom right hand corner of the pages. James stopped flipping at a scrawled note and the donkey's feet in mid kick.
I'll wait at 'BAR Neely's'
Slightly confused, James put the notepad in his pocket and looked around. He closed the trailer door. Scribbled on the back of the door in black sharpie marker was 'Here's a hint: Go to the bar.'
"Weeeiiiirrrdd. Guess SOMEONE was a heavy drinker..." James sat down on the couch and leaned back, gazing at the ceiling, where 'OH MY GOD are you retarded?' had been inscribed in the plaster with a knife and what looked like and was probably not red pen. Offended, James sat up and walked out of the trailer.
"Well EXCUSE ME for sitting down!" he raved as he made his way down the foggy streets. "I thought this was a free country? What is this place, some kind of sovereign, obscure territory that no one's heard of within the U.S., like North Dakota? Can a man not sit down on a maggot infested, disease ridden sofa and just RELAX for a change, without someone on his back all the time?" he switched his voice into a falsetto and clutched his hands under his chin, in mockery of a very manly looking housewife: "Oh, James, take out the garbage! James, clean up the garage! James, get that dead cow out of the yard! James, call the fire department, THE STOVE'S ON FIRE."
Switching back to his normal voice, James wiped the sweat from his brow and sighed heavily.
"Christ, I need a drink."

*

The inside of the bar was dark. Extraordinarily dark.
To James's right was a window of sorts with newspaper clippings pinned to it. And writing. James sauntered on over to the window and peered closely to read the red spray paint, despite the fact that the individual letters were substantially bigger than his own head.
"There was a HOLE here," he read out loud, since being loud in dark rooms where you can't see the ceiling is always a good idea. "It's gone now."
Startled by this revelation, he took a couple of steps back and looked around the window. Thinking he'd heard something, James spun around on his heels and came face to face with the very personification of his worst nightmares and fears.
"OH MY GOD!" he screamed, swinging his plank of wood wildly at the counter in front of him, "A SHOP TILL!"
The wood made contact with the till and knocked it off the counter, sending five dollar bills flying freely about the room. Side stepping around the scattered nickels and dimes, James approached the counter cautiously, ready to strike.
On top of the counter was a crumpled piece of paper. It was a map, with red lines drawn about it and a shopping list in the bottom right hand corner. Apparently, someone was having leek soup that night. The map seemed to be edited; there was a red question mark at the end of Martin Street.
"Good god," James mused aloud, "A question mark. It must mean something."
He pondered for a second before revising his thinking.
"Actually," he said to himself slowly, "Maybe it's a warning not to go there. I mean, it could only mean trouble. Running around rooms and being chased by things and solving puzzles and the like."
"But wait..." James exclaimed, a strobe light going off in his head, "Maybe... Martin Street is where the HOLE went!"
He snapped his fingers in pride and ingenuity and began to pace the room around him.
"Yes... this HOLE was the one that told me to find it jam! The HOLE wrote the letter! So all this.. the HOLE must be some deep, psychological link to Mary's memory that is manifesting itself in reality to make a point. IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW!"
Proud of himself beyond limitation, James practically skipped out of the bar and toward Martin Street.

*

James stood now in front of a decomposing body that lay like a piece of art decor at the end of Martin Street. James put his hand to his chin in pensive thought.
"I wonder what he's doing here," he mused. "Waiting for something?" He knelt down beside the body and swatted away a fly coming out of it's eye socket.
"Excuse me, sir? Are you lost?"
The corpse said nothing.
James stared at it furiously, as if there was a laser beam in his retina that he could perhaps use to carve profanity on the dead man's forehead. And of course there wasn't.
"Hey!" He yelled, getting angry, "Can you hear me? I'm talking to you. LISTEN!"
He kicked the corpse in the stomach. It fell over and a small silver key came clattering out of it's tattered jacket's shirt. James picked it up and examined it.
"'Apartment gate key?'" James looked curiously at the man and grinned with a wild idea fit for a low budget comedy film. "You know what? Just for being such an ass I'm going to go to your apartment. And you know what I'll do there?"
He paused for a beat for dramatic effect and continued: "I'm going to turn on every light there and then RUIN YOUR MICROWAVE!"
James cackled maniacally and took off in search of the apartment complex. It wasn't until he'd hurridly opened the gate, ran up a flight of stairs and gotten halfway down a hallway that it occured to him he'd forgotten to ask which room the dead man resided in.

And so ends possibly the worst chapter ever written. I applaud your patience. Writer's block is a bitch.