Chapter Four: Cerberus At Your Heels

"The roads here are like fucking mazes." Julia complained again.

Driving was never one of Victor's strongest suits and needless to say spending most of his adolescence in Silent Hill made practicing difficult. Making it her mission to get him acclimated to the outside world Julia made sure he knew how to drive and had a license. That didn't stop him from spending most of his time in the passenger seat despite her best efforts. It did mean that he could at least forage for fast food if he needed to. In many ways living with him was like raising a child.

They were fenced in by trees which blurred by and cloudy sunlight filtered down on them. The roads were empty and somewhere up ahead lay the destination that had been shown to them in a dream. She didn't want to go there, didn't want to be anywhere near that place but it would be worse sitting around at home waiting. The thought of waiting for him to come back when there was no assurance that it would happen drove her crazy. At least this way she knew she was doing all that was possible to help on this fool's errand.

"I miss being surrounded by trees like this." Victor said quietly.

"We have a trees in the city. And the mountains aren't that far of a drive." she offered.

"Aye, I know." he nodded. "It's different when you're hemmed in by them. Like...almost like we're trespassing in their land."

"Is it me or are you getting more philosophical by the day?"

Victor chuckled half heartedly and said, "This left up here should do it." While his driving skills were amateur at best, Julia unconditionally trusted his map reading ability. Victor once told her that if he studied a map carefully he could see it in the physical world as if someone had imposed it on the ground around him. She didn't know if that was true it but his accuracy was astounding when it came to finding his way around.

They turned onto a dirt road that cut a hilly, winding path through the trees. She was forced to slow down to safely stay on the ill kept path. Grass was encroaching on the edges of the road and it was clear no one had been down this way in some time. Nearly ten minutes passed with nothing but foliage going by until a clearing appeared to the left. There was a large, run down house with a small gravel parking space occupying most of the area that hadn't been overcome by trees. Grass grew wild up along the sides of the house and poked out from spots in the gravel. Although it was clear the house hadn't be inhabited for years someone was leaning on a black sedan parked by the front door.

Pulling into the driveway Julia parked a conservative distance from the other car. Yet another person was sitting in the passenger seat of the sedan and while the first person, a man in a trench coat, eyed their approach. He had a hard, weary face but wore an impeccable black suit and tie under his coat. There was something familiar about him that she couldn't quite put her finger on. As she shut off the engine it came to her; Julia was shocked to recognize the man from her dream that she had been at the funeral with.

"Vic, that's the guy from my dream."

"What?"

"The guy I was at my own funeral with. That's him. For sure."

"That's...wait. I remember now. The woman that handed us the envelope the other day was the one from my dream too. She's the one sitting in the car over there." Victor said.

"What do we do?" Julia wondered.

"Let's see what all of this is about." Victor said tersely and opened his door. Climbing out of the rental Julia could see that the man's features seemed to have been made out of stone. A lifetime of stress was carved into his face but behind an alert and sharp gaze lay a toughness that Julia couldn't begin to get a grasp on.

"Are you the welcoming committee?" she asked as her and Victor came to the front of their vehicle.

"Sorry, fresh out of welcome." the man said in a humorless yet somehow sarcastic tone.

"Who are you?" Julia demanded.

Reaching inside his jacket and not so accidentally revealing a gun harness the man produced something small and black that flipped open to reveal a shiny badge. Victor peered closely at it and Julia didn't get a chance to read the name etched into the metal.

"You're a long way from New York, detective." Victor noted.

"I'm just here to keep the peace." the officer said coolly.

"We're not here to cause trouble..." Julia said.

"It's not you I'm concerned about. There's a third party on the way that has a rep you don't want to know about."

"You were in my dream." Julia blurted, immediately regretting it.

If the strange man was at all fazed by the comment he didn't show it. "And you were in mine. And he was in hers." he said, nodding to the passenger side.

"How do you fit into all this?" Victor demanded. "Are you working for him?"

The sedan door opened and the woman from the coffee shop stepped out onto the grass. She was dressed the exact same as Julia remembered with a plain black t shirt that struggled to keep her chest in. The black leather gloves, a no-nonsense pony tail and a massive handgun strapped to her shoulder were clear indications of a person not to be trifled with. She was no more friendly than the first time they had met either.

"Don't worry about what we're doing, Punchy." she said to Victor. "You're on a need to know basis. Just sit there and shut up for now."

"Excuse me?" Julia said and involuntarily cocked her head to the side.

"You heard." the woman said flatly. "Now-"

"Enough, Mona." the detective interrupted. "Something wicked this way comes..."

The low rumble of something in the distance alerted Julia to another car coming down the dirt path at break neck speed. The bitchy Mona woman rested a gloved hand on the butt of the hand cannon on her shoulder and waited with the patience of a viper. The detective took a few steps forward as another black car came barreling down the road. Braking just past the driveway the car backed up into the property alongside Julia's rental.

"Please get behind my car." The detective asked. "You're better off with some cover if things get ugly."

"Say what-" Julia began but Victor was already pulling her along. "What the hell is going on?" she whispered.

"I have no idea." Victor whispered back as he dragged her down behind the sedan. "But if there's going to be shooting, I'd rather be behind here."

Hulking down behind the car they watched intently as the door to the second car swung open. Out stepped a tall, imposing bald man in an expensive black suit and blazing red tie. Surveying the area the bald man wore no expression and seemed unconcerned by the other people present. Buttoning his jacket with a touch of disdain he moved to the rear of his car. Opening the trunk the bald man helped lift a bewildered man in a white hospital jumpsuit out. The confused looking trunk passenger tried to step forward but collapsed onto the gravel. Unperturbed the bald man slammed the trunk closed and regarded the two people standing in front of the other car.

"Here to arrest me?" the bald man spoke. His voice was just as chilling and businesslike as the rest of him.

"Just be on your way." the detective ordered.

The bald man watched them a moment longer before returning to his car. The dazed person formerly riding in the trunk watched the black car slowly pull out of the driveway and take off down the way it came. Julia and Victor came out from their vantage point and the other couple seemed to have relaxed considerably.

"We're done here." the woman said and headed back to the passenger side. The detective sighed and turned to them. "Good luck." he said sincerely.

"With what?" Julia asked.

"I have no idea." he offered before sliding into the driver's seat. The engine of the sedan roared uncharacteristically to life like a muscle car and jerked its way onto the dirt road. Kicking up rock and dust it soon had sped off the way the bald man had gone.

"Well, it's a good thing that wasn't totally freaking weird." Julia commented.

"I think that was just the beginning." Victor mused.

Resisting the urge to slap Victor she turned her attention to the patient struggling to stand up. He was strangely familiar as well and the constant deja vu was starting to annoy her. Still blinking, probably from being closed in darkness so long, the patient seemed to focus on Julia.

"Who are you?" Victor asked, stepping forward but still the patient stared at her.

"Julia?" he stammered at last.

The almost buzz cut short hair and outfit made it hard enough to remember. It seemed like he'd aged a great deal since she'd last seen him but Julia was certain she'd seen this man before. Slowly the long feared memories of her time in Silent Hill swam to the surface and she saw him again as she last did. Slumped up against a padded wall, broken, defeated and possibly insane. Her stomach churned when she realized where this was going.

"My god...Chuck." her voice said.

He still had the curly, matty hair that she remembered but his face had changed quite a bit. Gone was the bad skin and borderline double chin he had sported years ago. He looked at least five years older and a great deal more harried. While he was in much better physical condition dark rings under his eyes betrayed many sleepless nights. While he was currently surprised there was a profound sadness that dominated his features.

The man from a lifetime ago turned his attention to Victor. "And you. Your face is new but I recognize your voice...and your eyes. You're that knight from Brookhaven."

"You two met before?" Julia balked.

"Once." Victor acknowledged.

"He was trading something to the Dark Man, I think, for some info on where you were." Chuck explained but none of it made any sense to her.

"You never mentioned any of this to me." she said to Victor. "Who is the Dark Man?"

For once Victor looked slightly uncomfortable. "He...is the priest with no collar. The one that brought us here. And..."

"And...?"

"He was the one that sent you to the basement in the first place."

"What..." Julia said. In Silent Hill's haunted hospital she had learned where to find the file that nearly unlocked her family history. She had been directed to the find it in the basement by a phone call to a phone with no connections. "That guy was the one who called me?"

"He had to be." Victor nodded. "He knew just where to find you. When I met him he offered to tell me where you were but for a price." Victor reluctantly told her.

"So there was someone pulling my strings...Vic! Do you think he was the one that sent the newspaper clipping?" she exclaimed. She had always assumed that it was the town itself that had sent her the letter that began her misadventure in the first place. To think that there could have been more to the story was a major revelation.

"I wouldn't put it past him, Jewel. That man seems to have no reason to his actions. Meddling with people is definitely his style but I've no idea why he does what he does."

"That makes two of us." Chuck chimed in. "He kind of saved me a bunch of times...I still don't know why."

"Is there a reason you're in a jumpsuit with your hands tied together?" Julia asked.

"Eh..." Chuck said. "That's kind of a long story. My legs are still asleep and I can't feel my hands. Any chance you could free me? I'll tell you everything."

Victor glanced sidelong at Julia who shrugged. Flipping open a pocket knife Victor assisted Chuck to his feet and sawed through his bonds. Rubbing feeling back into his hands the freed man rubbed his eyes. "Can we sit inside? Then maybe you guys can tell me what the hell is going on."

"Actually we were hoping you could shine some light on what's going on." Julia said.

"Oh. Not really no." he shrugged. "Let's sit down."

Heading into the squat hut the door nearly came off the hinges just from opening it. The inside of the house was thoroughly dilapidated and creaked with nearly every step. The walls were blank though it was clear someone long ago had pictures on them from the stained, white squares dotting the off white wall. There was a questionably sturdy staircase right at the entrance and doors leading to living and dining rooms. Dust seemed to have conquered every inch of the place and rose in anger at being disturbed by their intrusion. Victor went ahead like a wraith and floated through the rooms in search of anything malevolent. His relaxed demeanor told Julia that there was nothing here but an old house.

They congregated in the kitchen where there was a suspiciously well set up table and three chairs. A pale envelope sat on the center of the table. It took Julia a moment to realize that unlike the rest of the house there was no dust coating these particular pieces of furniture.

"Convenient." Was all Victor said.

Chuck shuffled to one of the chairs and plunked down. Whatever had happened to him after she last saw him must have not been pleasant. The man before them was broken, withdrawn and utterly depressed. Was this the same transformation that had happened to her coming out of that place? Pulling up a chair Julia sat down to get to the bottom of it. Victor joined them and pulled the envelope towards himself.

"So..." Chuck started.

"So." Victor said.

"Anyone want to go first?"

"I will." Julia said. "I guess we were never really properly introduced. I'm Julia Stormson. I was an orphan until a few years ago when I learned that I had a family once."

"That's good." Chuck said.

"Yes well...as it turned out I was born in Silent Hill. I lived there until...well there's no easy way to say this. My older brother murdered my parents and fled town with me."

"Oh god!"

"Yeah..." Julia agreed. "He dropped me off at an orphanage and spent the rest of his life on the run. He was the reason I came to Silent Hill."

"And...you found him?" Chuck asked.

"I did." Julia confirmed.

"What did you do?"

"I stabbed him in the throat with a knife." Julia said and her stomached knotted itself a little tighter.

"Oh my..."

"Then I left." she said as she briskly moved past that. "I returned only once to collect Victor here. We've been living together for the last two years."

There was an awkward silence as she became introspective. Julia had never before had to tell another soul about what happened other than Victor. It didn't cast her in a particularly positive light when she said it all out loud.

Victor saved her from her own thoughts as he cleared his throat. "We never were introduced either. I'm Victor Rosencrantz. I was born in Silent Hill too. I lived with my mother in Vermont when she and my dad split up. She uh...died in a fire."

"I'm...I'm sorry." Chuck said.

"It's all right. After the fire I had a large inheritance but I didn't know what to do with it. I was supposed to be a ward of the state but I ran away. Ran to the only place I could think to go."

"Silent Hill." Chuck concluded.

"Aye. The town...was no longer the place I was born. It was something else. But I made my home there for years. Nine, to be exact."

"You live there for nine years...?" Chuck gaped.

"Aye. I met an old, old religious order that taught me about Silent Hill and its magic. I used to work for them but I escaped. Our...mutual acquaintance kind of freed me. So I owed him. That's why we're here."

"I think I get it."

"Your turn." Julia said. "What happened to you? Last time I saw you you pulled a gun on me."

"Ah, yes." Chuck recalled. "You missed it. About ten minutes before you came I thought I saw my parents. They turned out to be these yellow slimy things that tried to eat me."

"Oh!"

"Yeah, sorry about that. I thought you were another of them."

"How did you come to be in Silent Hill in the first place?" Victor asked. "What is your association with Nothing?"

"Nothing?"

"The 'Dark Man' as you call him."

"Oh..." Chuck said. "Well...Christ I don't even know where to begin."

"Start before you went to town." Julia suggested.

"Ah, okay. Um...jeeze...like you said, there's no easy way to say this so I'll just say it. I was dating this girl and...well she was cheating on me and I lost it. I...loved her. I killed her in my bedroom."

Julia was taken aback and looked to Victor whose face was as unreadable as stone.

"I snapped, mentally." Chuck continued with some difficulty. "My doctor called it 'an episode of acute primary psychosis'. I fled the house with her body and just started driving south out of Canada. I must have made it past the border into the States here. Um...I invented a friend to help me through it. My doctor says he was a 'fictional construct created to deal with my guilt and anger'. I uh...drove into Silent Hill on accident really. I was lost."

"So...you were looking for your friend..." Julia reasoned.

"Who didn't exist, yeah." Chuck said sadly.

"Only he did in Silent Hill, didn't he?" Victor asked.

Chuck looked taken aback. "How..."

"Did I know?" Victor asked. "I know my home well. I know how it takes what you think you want and makes it more real than you wanted."

Julia looked at Victor but he was positively impassive. She wondered if there was something he wasn't telling her as Chuck slowly continued. "Well I woke up in a hospital but before that I had unconsciously stashed Sandy's locket in a random house and asked the town for help. The Dark Man answered me though I didn't remember when I woke up. I just...kind of went chasing after my own tail. That's when I met the two of you. The Dark Man was leading me around trying to get me to realize what I'd done."

"You did eventually though?" Julia asked.

"Yeah..." Chuck nodded. "I was pretty sure I was stabbed to death by those...things. But I woke up outside Silent Hill."

"And then?" Victor prodded.

"I knew what I had done. I turned myself in for the murder of Sandy Williams. I thought I'd go to prison but they sent me to a mental ward. That's...where I've been."

Julia exhaled a pent up breath. "That's quite a story."

"I know." the other man said. "I've had to live with it all this time. I understand if you guys don't want anything to do with me. I wouldn't. I'd just like to know how and why I was taken from the hospital."

"Taken?"

"Tell us how you came to be here." Victor demanded.

"Uh well...the third Tuesday of every month the Dark Man visited me in-"

"You mean where you were kept?" Victor interrupted. "Outside of Silent Hill?"

"Yeah. I know it sounds weird and maybe he wasn't really there but everyone else saw him and he gave me little presents from my parents that everyone else saw and touched. It had to have been real."

"Impossible..." Victor breathed. "Go on."

"Well, he always came. Two years almost. Then he just...didn't show up this last month. Then that bald guy comes and tells me he's FBI. Takes me away from the ward. Next thing I know he's shot the other FBI agents and thrown me in a trunk."

"The bald guy did?" Julia asked incredulously.

"Yep. That guy's a stone cold killer. Never said a word to me about what he wanted or why he was getting me out. I still don't know what to do. Am I supposed to turn myself back in?"

Julia didn't honestly know how to answer that question. Logic said that was the right thing to do and Chuck, despite his admitted past, seemed to want to do the right thing. He could have run when escaping the town but chose to incarcerate himself. "Vic, what do you make of all this?"

"I'm actually not sure what to think." Victor admitted. "I know Nothing called me and me alone. He probably knew that you would come with me but Charles Taylor here...this is odd. Not to mention the three other people involved seemed to know exactly what they were doing getting us to come here. It sounds like a set up."

"Yeah, that detective and his bitchy friend seemed to know what that bald guy was up to." Julia added. "Do you think this guy told them to find us? To break Chuck out of prison?"

"Mental ward." the former patient corrected.

"Whatever."

"This Dark Man as you call him." Victor addressed Chuck. "Would you say that you are in his debt?"

"I owe him big time." the Canadian nodded. "I can't even think of how things might have gone without him. I'd be dead or worse."

"Then you were called for the same reason I was." Victor surmised. "He's calling in all his debts. Something momentous must be going on in Silent Hill and we're his unwilling pawns."

"How can you be sure?"

Opening the envelope Victor tugged free a tiny card written in the same flowing script as the package they were given at the coffee shop. He laid it out on the table for all to read and it said simply, 'Rosewater'.

"Rosewater?" Chuck asked.

"As in Rosewater Park." Victor explained. "In Silent Hill."

This was no new news to Julia but Chuck looked incredibly uncomfortable. Victor stuffed the note back into the envelope with a distracted look on his face that usually meant he was thinking.

"Crap." was all Chuck could think so say.

"We're going." Victor announced. "I too owe Nothing a blood debt that I wish to see repaid. Once it is done we will leave for good. What say you, Charles Taylor?"

"To be honest I'd rather go back to the hospital." Chuck admitted. "But it sounds like trouble and that can't be good. I have to at least go look with you guys. I mean, I don't really have much to live for. Maybe he meant for me to be your meat shield or something. If you guys are okay with it I'd like to go with you. I don't mind being sent ahead into a dark room or anything like that. I just want to help."

While Julia was disturbed by Chuck's past the more he spoke the more she was sure that he was not the same person that she had encountered years ago. If there was even a hint of insanity she would gladly dump him off somewhere but when he spoke it was not the ramblings of a madman. Besides, who knows what kind of challenges they would face? It would be better to have more people on their side.

"I'm not super psyched to be on this trip in the first place but the more help we have the better. You can come if it's okay with my man here." Julia said.

Chuck regarded Victor who had yet to show the former inmate any emotion. "I don't like your past, Charles Taylor. I don't like your close association with Nothing. But I detect no falsehood in your words. You may accompany us but rest assured: one false step and I will personally end your life."

"Wow. Friendly." Chuck mused. "If that's what it takes to get a ride, okay. I don't blame you for not trusting me but I'll do my best to prove that I'm not crazy anymore."

"Let's get this show on the road then." Julia suggested. "The sooner we get this over with the sooner we can go home."

Reluctantly they all got back into the rental and were soon speeding along the state highway heading north. They only stopped once for supplies before plotting out the course back to where none of them truly wanted to be. It didn't take long for to gas up and gather enough food to fill the trunk. Chuck stayed in the car to not attract attention but on the roads of New England and especially where they were other people were few and far between. Julia was not concerned with being stopped by anyone as she loaded up with as many long lasting food items as she could.

It was still early in the day and she was determined to make it to town with some daylight. There was no good way to enter Silent Hill but at least this way they could see. She wanted very much to be done with this task but also wanted the few more hours they had outside the town to last forever. As the trees passed by any sort of optimism she had slowly faded as they drew closer to their destination. Something familiar, never forgotten and always in the back of her mind began to build: dread.

They didn't talk, unless it was Julia checking her route and Victor answering curtly. Daylight began to wane and the foliage around them grew thicker then it had been the last couple hours. Though he had not said anything the entire trip Chuck suddenly spoke up, "We're close aren't we?"

"Too close. The gates of hell itself beckon." Victor said.

"Oh, way to be melodramatic Vic. Why don't you give a speech about how we're 'plunging into the infinite darkness armed only with our courage' or something like that." Julia snapped. In reality she wasn't mad at him in particular. Well, she was, but not right at that moment. It was more her own fears and desire to be anywhere but where she was.

She spotted the old sign that she's seen years ago.

'Silent Hill: 2 Miles'