Message #5066

[Mutou Yami]

Chapter Three
Alone In The Town

The trail continued onward, though on this side of the cemetery, it seemed like I was quite a bit closer to civilization. There was evidence of construction all around, equipment, barricades, and tools here and there. If I had to guess, I’d think they were paving this stretch of path, which, according to the map, led into Wiltse Rd. and into town.

It was still dirt here, though, and the same problems with footing were quite apparent. I took my time; there was no need to rush. There was still a total lack of noise around, and the closer I got to South Vale, the more and more I wondered if the presence of that young woman in the cemetery was an anomaly. There were way too many things wrong with the picture for my liking.

Eventually, I saw an underpass come into view. The map told me this was Nathan Avenue, and that meant I was close now. I picked up the pace a little.

And then I stopped. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I heard footsteps, and not ones belonging to me. I stood still for a moment, and then continued walking, keeping a slightly slower and softer pace this time.

They were there again. Slower, plodding, more deliberate than my own, as though I were being stalked. I did not stop walking right away, I just listened. They kept going as long as I did. When I suddenly stopped, the footsteps did too. I scanned the path all around, but there was no sign of anyone.

I shook my head. If I kept letting noises bother me, I would certainly lose it. I resolved to ignore the noises, and started walking towards the underpass again. The phantom footsteps reappeared as if on cue, but I paid them no mind. They disappeared once I reached the concrete flooring under the pass.

The little area here was strewn with old newspapers and garbage. I bent down and picked up one of the papers. It was a morning edition of the Silent Hill Tribune. The front page was dominated by the latest news about the Whitewater scandal, and the date was May 4th, 1994. So there were people here at least ten days ago then. I tossed the paper down and proceeded through the chain-link door.

On the other side was Wiltse. It was paved, though obviously not meant for automotive traffic. It seemed about wide enough to be an alley. Looking to my right I saw that we had once again met the cliff, but now there was a guard rail, and through the soupy fog I could see platforms below, so there was no chance of an inadvertent swim happening anymore.

I proceeded on Wiltse, seeing little of interest but a few old billboards and the Silent Hill Ranch, which I had never known about before. There was the odd car parked on the sides. Log fencing gave way to painted slat fencing, and before long, I found myself between actual buildings. On both sides of me were what seemed like small houses, and through the fog I could see a floral boutique across the street. I had reached the mouth of Wiltse, and was now at a real road, Sanders Street.

It was about here that I heard yet another new noise, but this one wasn’t the same as the others, in that it didn’t sound like something that was an imminent threat to me. It was a broad sound, faint and yet strong, as if something was generating some noise, but it was of such a distance that it diminished by the time the sound reached my ears. And it wasn’t just that, but the sound was simply odd in another way.

At first I thought it was an odd sort of scream, but the second time I heard it, I could tell it was definitely not a vocal sound. The best approximation I can offer is that it sounded like someone was pulling a sliding metal door open and shut, repeatedly, and in very deliberate rhythm. Every few seconds the noise repeated itself perfectly, my ears could detect no notable variation in the noise. The ghostly, echoing quality to it made it apparent to me that the source of the sound was nowhere nearby, but it was still unnerving just the same.

According to the map I had, I wanted to go north on Lindsey Street to reach Nathan Avenue, so I turned right onto Sanders.

The whole neighborhood seemed to be in much the same condition as everything else I’d seen so far. There was no one on the streets, no lights shining in any of the buildings, no cars driving around. It looked as though the whole place had been abandoned, as if one day everyone in town had suddenly decided to pick up and take off, and leave no forwarding address. Empty cars lined the curbs, “Sorry, We’re Closed” signs hung in every shop window and door, and not a single sign or sound of life was apparent anywhere. There wasn’t even any evidence of animal life, no birds, no cats, no dogs, no nothing. It was the middle of the afternoon on a warm spring day, not the peak of tourist season but not goddamn January either. Tourists should be out in some numbers by now. Yet, not a single one of them was here, or anyone else for that matter.

I continued west on Sanders, absorbing the sights and sounds, and I was just too dumbfounded to be scared by any of it. At first, I wondered if maybe some kind of sickness had swept through and incapacitated everyone, but I immediately dismissed that as the garbage sci-fi nonsense that it was. There’s no way a whole town could be taken out by a bug and it didn’t make headlines. Also, there would be bodies, living or dead, somewhere around. I saw none at all. It was confusing as hell.

On the way, a newspaper dispenser caught my attention. It was for the Tribune, as was the paper I saw back at the underpass. But that paper was several days old. Whatever was in the stand here should be as recent as possible.

And it was. When I looked through the glass and saw the newspaper on display, today’s date stared right back at me. May 14th. Whatever happened in this town happened very recently, and very quickly, as there was no evidence of anything wrong on the front page. All that I saw was a headline about hurricane season, as if anyone here would ever have to worry about that. I kept finding myself with more questions than answers, and it made me wonder about the letter I carried. Was there a connection between a mysterious letter from someone three years dead, and a town that was completely devoid of life, save for one girl in a graveyard that may have been a cards short of a deck?

No way to find out but to press forward.

And I didn’t need to press forward very long before I reached the next intersection, Lindsey Street, and yet another twist made itself visible. Only, this wasn’t a phantom noise or an imagined monster, this one was very real and undeniably disturbing.

Blood. A long streak of crimson stained the pavement on the road. It looked as though something very heavy was bleeding here, and worse yet, had been dragged several feet. The trail of blood seemed to turn the corner, heading north on Lindsey. I stared at it for a long moment, and I shivered, a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold. A new kind of fear was tickling my skin, a fear of something I couldn’t even begin to imagine. This blood didn’t come from nowhere, something had to have bled, and something had to have dragged it.

Then, something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. Something was moving.

My head snapped in the direction of the movement, and I had to squint through the fog, but I was able to see through the milky blur. Something was moving. I could only make out the vaguest of shapes, but as close as I could tell, it looked to be a person, roughly my size and build.

I was quite afraid at the possibility that I may be encountering the perpetrator of this grisly scene, but it was overwhelmed by the possibility of relief, of finding someone here who could tell me just what the hell was going on. I took off running, trying to catch up to the figure.

I supposed that whoever it was heard me coming, and my mind tried to tell me that they took off running themselves, that perhaps this poor fool was as frightened as I was, that perhaps he or she may think that I caused whatever happened here. It also could be that perhaps he was hiding, waiting until I passed and my back was turned, so that he could repeat what he had already done once.

And when I reached Vachss Road a few blocks north, that second feeling intensified greatly.

There was another streak of blood on the road here too. And as the first one had, this one turned the corner before disappearing. I only saw what I thought were faint traces of blood up Lindsey Street, I couldn’t say for sure whether this large puddle of gore came from the same source as the last. Frankly, I did not care to know. And yet, I had a feeling that the person I saw had gone this way too. I now felt much more afraid that this mystery person could be dangerous, but I felt like I had to find out either way. The bloody trail on the ground seemed as a sign, telling me to venture up this lonely road. I had no idea what I thought I would find, for Vachss was a dead-end road that, like Wiltse, didn’t really look to be much more than a glorified alley.

So, against all logic, I started down little Vachss Road. And just as Wiltse before it, Vachss didn’t go but maybe a hundred feet before the macadam gave way to more unpaved dirt. This dirt seemed drier and more firm than that of Wiltse, which actually disappointed me, for I was hoping to perhaps see the footprints of my phantom friend, and I did not.

It seemed like this area also was construction, though whatever they were doing here, they were in a much more advanced stage of completing. There was a gate sealing the area off, though it was slightly ajar and I was able to enter easily. Several small buildings stood on the fringes of the road, and the road itself was cordoned off by fencing and even barbed wire. The road, or path, or whatever you want to call it, was hardly of a uniform width. Near the apex it seemed barely wide enough for three people to fit through side-by-side.

The Nathan Avenue underpass had just come into view when I heard the static. It was very loud and very distorted, a tinny, shrieking whine that pierced the relative quiet like a knife. From my guess, it sounded like someone had the thing on AM band and the station’s reception went out.

The underpass itself was blocked off by a wooden barricade that seemed very hastily-built. I approached it slowly, and from just outside I spotted the radio sitting atop a painted steel chemical drum. Carefully, I climbed inside the barricade, and picked up the radio. As I held it in my hand, I tried adjusting the station. Not one came in. Every single frequency gave me nothing but piercing static.

Okay, I thought, I am beneath an underpass, that could explain it. But FM stations should have had no trouble coming in, even here. And when I tried the FM band, I got nothing but much softer, much quieter static. I flipped the band toggle back and forth idly, not sure of what to do.

Then, to my left, I first heard a sound unlike any I’d ever heard in my life. It was a wet, strained gurgling noise, as if someone with congested lungs was trying to breathe through a thin layer of water.

That was bad enough. When I saw what was making the noise, I felt fear. I felt a cold, clamping fear, because I was seeing something unreal. I was seeing something that could not exist.

I was seeing what I can only describe as a monster.

It stood, and I suddenly realized what my phantom friend really was.

It did even now look very vaguely humanlike, but only vaguely. The entire upper body seemed to be encased in a slick sac-like material, something like a sausage casing, only it was totally opaque. It looked like it was skin, like it was filthy human skin. It had a disgustingly slick sheen to it, and it smelled fantastically terrible, as if it had been left in a garbage bag in direct sunlight for a week. It was making indescribable noises. And it was coming for me.

The noises on the path, the imaginary stalker, the wendigo, all of it vanished from my mind. This was worse. And yet, I didn’t panic totally. I backed away from the hideous thing in a total haze, my mind simply not allowing itself to believe what my eyes were reporting. Maybe the monster would have gotten me if I hadn’t hit something that jerked me back into full consciousness.

The barricade.

I looked around frantically, certain I wouldn’t be able to dive out before this terrible thing from hell would reach me. My eyes quickly scanned my surroundings, and I was praying that they would find a means by which I could drive the thing off.

Oddly enough, my eyes found it without any help from the eyes. In my terror, my right hand had tightly gripped the barricade, and when I jerked my arm forward, and chunk of the wood came with it. It was about three feet long, and on the end were a pair of nails.

I danced to the side, for the monster was nearly upon me. I yelled and swung the stick at the thing. Unfortunately, I only grazed it, and didn’t hurt it badly enough, for it turned quickly to face me and it reared back, as if it were a snake about to strike. For all I knew, that was exactly what it was going to do.

I leaped to my left, nearly tripping over something soft. And I heard more than saw the creature spit a large spray of something nasty, something brown. And when a bit of it came into contact with my hand, I learned that it was something that burned. This God damn thing was spitting acid! Had that thing hit me a direct shot, I could be blinded and totally incapacitated. God only knew how quickly it would be able to try that again.

So, I steeled myself, and I swung the stick again, striking the monster in the head (I only assume it was the head, I had know way of knowing for sure). It fell to the ground, twitching. I yelled a hoarse, animal scream of fear and disgust as I struck it again, once, twice, three times. Blood sprayed from the thing as the nails tore gouges in the fleshy sac around its upper body. Finally, it stopped moving.

I stood for a full minute staring at the damned thing, part of me furiously trying to deny what I just saw, the other part of me completely on edge, just waiting for it to so much as twitch so I could waylay it some more. My heart was racing, and the smell was making my stomach turn. I tried to hold it as long as I could, but I couldn’t forever. I turned aside and retched, my decent cheeseburger lunch vacating me. Twice I did this, and once it was all out of me, I dry-heaved a bit more. I couldn’t stand being in there with it, I had to get away, get back into the fresh air.

I stumbled out of the underpass, nearly tripping over the barricade. Once I was out, I stood and sucked in the air, trying my best to get the smell out, knowing it was going to be more than this alone could do for me.

Then, the radio squealed again. I had totally forgotten about it in all the excitement. Again I fiddled with the tuner, expecting nothing.

This time, I did hear something. At least, I thought I did. It was very faint. I dialed back and tried to tune it as finely as my shaking fingers would allow, but it didn’t help much.

It was a voice, saying something I could barely make out. It was a woman’s voice. And then, I was not sure at all if I really heard what I heard, but at the same time, I could’ve sworn I heard one word clearly through all the static, and that I could also recognize the voice of the speaker.

The word was in fact a name. My name. And even more impossibly, the speaker was just as familiar as my own name was to me. The speaker’s voice, rather. It made my heart jump right into my throat.

The speaker was my wife. The speaker was Mary.