Message #5068

[Mutou Yami]

Chapter Five
Legs

It was cold inside the lobby, cold and almost pitch-black. The only source of light was from a broken window higher up, on the third floor. The pale light, filtered by the fog, drifted through, casting a ghost-like luminance across the empty area. To one side were the tenants’ mailboxes, all of them rusted, some of them broken, hanging on smashed hinges like baby teeth a few wiggles away from release.

To the left of the mailboxes was a map, showing the three floors of Woodside. I carefully pulled it off of the bulletin board and studied it.

As far as I could tell, there was no back exit, and I almost smiled in spite of myself. There was a courtyard, but it appeared to be enclosed. I could try it, but the map showed a wall, and I didn’t have much hope that it was one short enough to climb over. Nothing had yet been easy, why should this be any exception?

Looking at the second floor map, I saw what might be another option. Apparently, there was a fire escape on the west side of the floor. That might very well allow me to get around that strange construction barrier outside, and it definitely seemed like a better bet than the courtyard wall.

The courtyard was accessible through a door in the back of the lobby, and I decided to try that first, since it was closer. It was at the end of a short, empty hallway, one that was lit by feeble, buzzing fluorescent lights.

So at least something’s working in this town.

There was a small slat in the door, roughly at eye-level, and I could see out into the courtyard, which was just as fog-shrouded as ever. I saw an intersecting path, but I could see where none of them led. The map indicated that going left brought one to a large object, one that I assumed was a swimming pool based on the shape. Going right would take me into another grouping of apartments, and going forward apparently was a one-way ticket right into the wall. I neither heard nor saw any creatures outside, but as poor as my line of sight was, that assessment wasn’t worth the breath I’d waste saying it out loud.

I gripped the plank tight, and slowly turned the handle. It did not give, it was quite locked.

But of course.

I tested the door, as I was hardly averse to bashing in a door or two if I absolutely had to. After all, Silent Hill itself seemed totally abandoned. I didn’t know if that was really true, but it seemed much more likely that this particular apartment complex was. The whole thing seemed in a state of complete disrepair. It didn’t really matter though, because the door in front of me was shut tight and solid. It was made of metal, aluminum probably, and I would wear myself ragged without ever making this thing budge an inch.

Instead, I tried the stairs. I climbed them very carefully, one by one, trying to squint through the darkness to ensure I had good footing. Once I reached the second floor foyer, the light from above offered slightly more to see, which really wasn’t much besides more evidence of neglect. The walls were a mess, pocked with holes, stained by water, the paint cracked and peeing. Also, there was a little intentional damage done, in the form of graffiti. There was a myriad of colorful slogans and designs adorning the walls, most of them illegible. More than even the environmental damage, the graffiti gave me the clearest concept of how long it had been since Woodside Apartments had been inhabited long-term. There was a lot of it, some of it old enough to be fading on its own.

This mural of teenage vandalism continued along the wall until it ended perpendicular to a door. There was a mess of debris around the door, but the door itself opened quite easily. I pushed it open all the way, and stepped through.

I found myself in another hallway, this one much longer than the one downstairs. Weakly blinking flourescents lit the hall with a half-hearted effort, but I couldn’t see more than twenty feet in either direction. I listened for the distinct tapping of the straight-jacket creatures, but there was a lot of ambient noise, hell, ambient racket, if I’m to be honest. The most prevalent sound among them was a throbbing, rhythmic hum which sounded like a furnace. A building this old just might even operate on a boiler.

But who on earth would operate a boiler in a place like this? Good question. Boilers, even the more modern ones with automatic pressure dumps, required some decent supervision in order to operate correctly, and I doubted whether anyone had looked at the boiler here in years.

No matter. What was important was that I heard nothing a tap-tap-tapping upon my bridge, so I turned left and headed in the direction of the fire escape. The path led me down a narrow hallway, and the decay and neglect was just as evident here as it was downstairs. Trash and debris was strewn about, I passed one apartment with its entrance plastered over, and another that was simply boarded shut. In some spots it looked as though the floor was about to cave in.

The fire escape was the only object to greet me at the end. It appeared to me as a blue door marked with chipped, peeling paint, and it was very locked. I couldn’t understand why a place this run-down had so many locked doors, but what could I do?

The door was made of wood, and I gave it a good, solid kick to the center. It seemed to give just a little bit, enough to make me try again. The second kick struck just as forcefully, but the results weren’t quite as heartening. The third kick just made me figure that I had somehow shifted it, but it wasn’t going to open for me this way unless I really wanted to tire myself out, and considering the danger about, I wasn’t really up for that.

Now I didn’t really have any idea what to do or where to go, but I much preferred to find my way through here. The thought of going back out into the streets was anything but appetizing. There had to be a back door, and the only way I was going to find it was by searching.

I made my way up the hallway in the other direction, testing every door I came across – those that weren’t boarded shut. One door was locked, but I found that a good deal of them had broken locks. Three in that first hallway alone had knobs that turned far too loosely, and would keep right on turning, because the lock mechanism was disabled, yet the latches themselves must still be in place, because there was no opening these doors. I hardly felt like wasting my energy bashing them open, either.

I was nearing the end opposite from the fire escape when I came to a door that had a small halo of light emanating from the crack at the bottom. I turned the knob, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was actually a functioning doorknob on this floor. I slowly pushed the door inward and stepped inside.

Standing dead center in this room was a clothing display, something like a department store mannequin, but just the torso, no other distinguishing features. This particular display was draped in a sweater and knee-length skirt. At first, neither of them seemed like anything special. The sweater was the pale pink color of calamine lotion, and the skirt was white with a floral motif. Clipped to the inside neckline of the sweater was something far more interesting.

It was a pocket flashlight. It was a bit heavy, and it was hot. Someone had obviously left it on for awhile, but it couldn’t be for very long, I mean, how long does a flashlight battery last? A few hours, right? Who could have left it? I didn’t know, and I can’t really say I cared much, but I was happy that they did, for this would come in very handy.

Something moved.

I shoved the flashlight in front of me, scanning everything, certain I had seen movement. All I saw was a sewing table, a few nondescript pieces of furniture, and what I thought at first were body parts. I bent down to look at one of them, and found that they were just mannequin parts, though that only settled me just a bit, because it still looked pretty damn morbid.

I stood, and turned.

And I found myself face-to-face with the most horrible looking mannequin I’d ever seen in my life, a hideous-looking creation that essentially looked like a torso and two pairs of legs, one where arms should normally be. I had all of maybe a second to register this when one of the legs on top flashed out and slammed me right in the collarbone.

It felt like being sucker-punched, and the pain was quite dramatic. The impact of the blow sent me reeling backwards, tripping over the scattered mannequin parts and onto the chambray sofa, dropping both the flashlight and the plank in the process.

The light fell face up, and I could see that this disgusting abomination was coated in something slick, for the light cast an oily sheen over its form. It looked repugnant, just as the straight-jacket monsters, but in a different way. They were nasty because they looked human. This thing… this was something that was just impossible, a form and design that offended every notion of reality that I had.

It was disgust, and of course, the sense of imminent death, that got me moving. I twisted and threw my body off of the sofa about a half-second before the mannequin’s top leg came crashing down. A hole appeared where the mannequin struck the cushion, it was that powerful. I hurriedly grabbed my plank and scrambled to my feet just as the mannequin turned to face me.

I backed up a step, holding the plank with both hands in a ready position, my senses at their height, just waiting for it to make a move. I didn’t have to wait long. Again, the arm-leg flashed out in a fast motion that I would describe as chopping had it been a real arm. I quickly swung the plank upwards with a great deal more strength than I had really meant to use. The nails in the plank struck the arm-leg in its first joint, and the force of the blow tore it right out of its socket, the now-disabled limb flying across the room and striking the floor.

The mannequin didn’t fall, but it did pause, as though surprised and suddenly unsure of what to do. I suffered from no such problem. I swung the plank, twice connecting with the torso of the creature. It gave a strange cry (I have no idea how, I never once saw an orifice that could pass for a mouth), and fell to the floor. I looked at it, as it thrashed and writhed. Was it in pain? I wasn’t sure if it had that capacity, but it was, if it did.

It was only then that I noticed another noise, a hissing, screeching sound that at first I didn’t even register, until I realized it was coming from me. With one eye on the mannequin, which was still making like a fish out of water, I reached into my pocket.

The radio. I had completely forgotten the radio. I supposed I had turned it on inadvertently when I hit the ground a moment ago, and now, loud, silver static cascaded from the tiny device.

I was about to toy with it a bit more when the mannequin started trying to pull itself back up. It wasn’t quite able to, missing one of its four legs, but I wasn’t about to even let it have a fighting chance. I drew my leg back and gave it a vicious kick right in the torso. I was wearing hard shoes, and apparently, the thing was like a mannequin in more than just appearance. It must really be made out of plastic, or something like it, because my right foot went right through the side of the monster. And plastic skin or not, what was inside was definitely not something you found in the women’s department at Sears, to be sure, because a torrent of blood and organs poured out of the hole my foot made. The stench was tremendous, and I would have thrown up right there if I hadn’t already spent it on that straight-jacket monster back in the tunnel.

The radio gave a tinny whine, and the static died off just as the mannequin’s final death throes ceased. At first I thought its batteries finally gave up the ghost, but it had just quieted down, without me even touching the volume knob or the tuner. I had last set it to AM 710, and that’s where the little red needle still pointed. Turning the volume back up produced a steady, low static, one that lacked the squeal and noise I had just been hearing. I was pretty intrigued, and I placed it back in my pocket, leaving it on this time.

I bent down to retrieve my flashlight, and the beam caught the clothing display, and that which it displayed. I took another good, long look at the pink sweater and skirt, caught again by my curiosity. Why did it make me think like that?

Then, I had a sudden flash of inspiration, and I yanked my wallet out of my back pocket, desperate to know if I was really thinking what I thought I was thinking.

I flipped through it quickly, dropping some kind of card, not caring which. Then I saw the photo, the one of Mary. The photo of Mary that I snapped several years ago, one in which she was wearing a warm, loving smile that I supposed attracted me to her the first time we met and definitely many times since. She also happened to be wearing a sweater, a sweater of pale pink, one that matched exactly the one that I saw right in front of me. And though it was a portrait shot, I would have bet my ass that she was sitting on that bench wearing a soft white skirt. And I bet it had flowers on it. I’d have bet anything.