He was panicking. He'd been running for nearly two blocks now and not one person had come to their door. He rang doorbells, knocked on doors, even stood in the street and yelled for help. He drew up to another house and pressed the buzzer. No response. He pressed again. He peeked through the letter box – no sign of life. He banged on the door and then the window. He pressed his face to it. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary through the glass. The décor looked like it hadn't been changed since the seventies, but it seemed lived in and comfortable. There was an empty beer bottle lying horizontally on the coffee table. Next to it sat a small plastic tray that used to hold a TV dinner. The TV was still on, Oprah looked like she was discussing weight loss, he couldn't tell. He banged on the window again, someone had to be home. He stood back a little.
"Please, if there's someone in there, my daughter is missing and my friend is badly hurt. You have to call 911." he shouted.
He looked again into the front room. Nobody was moving in there.
He noticed something on the dinner tray. Mold. The base of the tray was covered in mold. It obviously hadn't been touched for days. A house abandoned in the middle of its daily routine. No time to switch off the television. He could run down the street, peer into every home or batter in every door and he knew he would find the same scene. He knew that Lydia was right. These houses were all empty, abandoned like the Marie Celeste. No residents here, only ghosts. Silent hill was a ghost town.
That's when he heard the bell. The bell that had been ringing when he left the elementary school. In his state of distress, in being so resolute about raising the alarm, he hadn't stopped to listen. It was possible it had been ringing all this time. And as far as he knew, ghosts couldn't ring bells.