Title: Silent Hill Author: Emily (lightningrapier) Fandom: Silent Hill Pairing: None. Rating: R? Warnings: Violence and ickiness? I mean, it's Silent Hill, so. Summary: Harry Mason is just a tourist. A tourist with a handgun, baby! Disclaimer: Hi, Konami Lawyers! Oh... court date? Me? Uh... I'm calling my lawyer! I want that guy from Law and Order who was in RENT! GODDAMNIT. Notes: This was actually for Creative Writing. Then I threw it out and ended up doing something else.
Originally posted at LJ on May 30, 2006. Moved over because SixApart are fucking whores. :D
ONE
Harry Mason never quite understood why his peers always took their vacations in the summer. Not only did they insist on escaping the cool breezes of southern Maine only for the scalding sun of some tropical adventure, but they all somehow felt the need to go at exactly the same time. Harry wasn’t sure what kind of a relaxing time could be waiting for them in the Florida Keys or Bahamas or Mexico, not when so many other people were running around. Not only did you have to deal with your own kids, then, but with everyone else’s, too – not to mention the annoyance of strangers constantly in your face, while you’re sweating under the sun and digging sand from crevices in your body rarely used for anything else. Even Mark Patterson, his hot-shot editor in New York City had taken off for a few weeks, citing his reason to be some Caribbean cruise with his wife. It just seemed... so senseless. Mark had come back sunburned and miserable a few weeks later, and Harry just laughed and handed him his latest manuscript. Such was how things went.
That was why he preferred to take late vacations when it came to his much-needed times off – and he already had planned one this year. Actually, it had been his daughter’s idea. Cheryl, only seven years old, had brought home a pamphlet she must have found at school detailing the wonders of a Maine resort town, Silent Hill.
The brochure struck a certain chord in Harry as soon as it slipped from Cheryl’s little hands and into his. He was familiar with that town, alright. It had been the same town he had visited with his wife, Felicia, on a similar late vacation, only a few years after their marriage.
When he and Felicia had visited that resort town so long ago, though, they’d found something more there than happiness and relaxation. They had found something that had changed their world.
There had been, on the side of the highway, an infant child, wrapped only in pink baby blanket, hardly enough to combat Maine’s September weather. Felicia had picked the squalling child up, cradled it to her breast, and looked up into Harry’s eyes the way a child who has found a lost kitten looks up at her father. The unspoken “can we keep it?” hung in the air, and Harry wordlessly put an arm around her as they, child and all, made their way back to Harry’s Jeep.
But Harry had never told Cheryl about this. He’d never even told Cheryl she’d been adopted and that he wasn’t her daddy. It was... so strange, that Cheryl would want to go back.
Ever since Felicia’s death, Harry hadn’t gotten out much. Mark had urged him to take a vacation, but back to Silent Hill...? It was too strange...
But Cheryl wanted to go so badly.
That was why it didn’t come as a big surprise to Harry that he was packing up bags and driving away from his home towards the mountain highway early the morning after. He always gave in to his little girl.
Car trouble had caused a delay, and Cheryl was sleeping when Harry finally flicked the radio off (it had been playing Mozart only moments ago). He glanced over to her, sighing some.
Looking at Cheryl, you wouldn’t know that she wasn’t really his daughter. He didn’t think she looked much like him, but her resemblance to Felicia was similar, though she hadn’t been hers.
That was another reason, Harry thought, that he didn’t want to go back to Silent Hill... the memories of finding that baby.
But that had been seven years ago, and in that space of time, Cheryl had grown to a young girl, as children have a habit of doing. Felicia’s death had been taxing on them both, but Harry was certain he and Cheryl were getting along. Money and was tight, and sometimes her schoolwork was frustrating and difficult, but they made a loving family, even between the two of them. As Harry worked at home, it wasn’t difficult for him to do the cooking, cleaning, and laundry, and Cheryl was the type of well-behaved girl who didn’t cause unnecessary messes or leave her bedroom a wreck for her father to clean. They both pitched in to keep everything running smoothly, and it did.
Harry hadn’t seen the need to cause unneeded strife in their happiness by telling Cheryl he wasn’t her father. Then the questions would come, asking who was, and where they were. And when Harry told Cheryl she had been abandoned...
Well, it was the kind of thing that caused doubt a small child of seven didn’t need.
It was all for Cheryl’s happiness... which brought him back to the reason he was driving down this lonely highway in the first place.
Just as Harry was wishing for some company, however, he heard the familiar sounds of a police siren behind him. There was a sharp pang in his stomach as his eyes flew to the speedometer. He hadn’t been speeding, but even if he had, who cared on such a lonely mountain highway? No one had been in sight since sunset, and that had been hours and hours ago...
The flashing lights came up behind him, but just as suddenly they had passed, zooming by on his left. Harry glanced from his open window, letting the breeze whip his face as he watched a petite-looking cop cruise by on a motorcycle. Evidently, she was not after him.
Harry let out a sigh of relief.
The minutes passed after that, just long, repetitive moments of empty driving. His headlights didn’t catch a lot of interesting scenery, just thick trees and rocks and occasionally a bit of unfortunate road kill. It was something to be expected on highways, but that didn’t stop Harry from cringing a bit each time he saw it.
As the Jeep scaled up a hill, however, its high-beams glinted and reflected off something larger, metallic. The glare surprised Harry slightly, and as he cruised past it, he leaned out the window to see what the hell it had been.
A police issue motorcycle, dumped on the side of the road, its driver no where to be seen.
Harry’s eyes fixed on it longer than usual, though he didn’t slow his car. What in the world had happened?
Quickly turning his head forward to focus once more on the road, Harry was shocked to suddenly see his headlights revealing something else. There was a girl stepping onto the highway, maybe a young teenager, lifting her hand to block the light from her eyes. Harry let out a futile cry – the girl was so close, what had she been thinking, what could he do?!
Slamming on the breaks, he jerked the steering wheel roughly to the side. Cheryl was thrown forward against her seatbelt, awakening with a harsh cry, screaming as the car took a turn and fell...
And that was when Harry Mason blacked out.
TWO
A thin fog curled around the gears and tires of the old red Jeep. A cool breeze shifted through the air, prickling against freshly-shaven cheeks.
His head was pounding.
As Harry Mason groggily awoke, the first thought in his mind was that he needed to get up, get a shower, and drive Cheryl to school.
With the realization, however, that he was already in the car, Harry quickly remembered what had happened.
How long had he been out? Morning’s light had come in, but it was dim, gray, and lifeless. Snow was falling outside, fog curling around the car.
Snow? Even in Maine, snow was unlikely in late July, but there was no time to think of that now. He needed to find Cheryl and get out of here… get some help. They probably needed to be checked into the hospital... and Harry didn’t know what he was going to do about the car. As if he had any kind of money to even think about getting a new one...
“Cheryl?” he murmured, rising from where he was slumped against the steering wheel. There was a tender spot on his head, but he ignored that, instead glancing sideways.
The seat beside him was empty, the door wide open, allowing the freezing mist in.
Harry’s stomach seemed to fly into his throat. He fell out of his own side, tripping against the gravel ground, crying out Cheryl’s name. No answer came, and as he ran around the car, there was no evidence to say that Cheryl was around.
Gasping for breath, Harry’s searching eyes strained to look through the fog. Nearby, the peaks of buildings could be seen – Silent Hill.
Harry could find help there... or maybe Cheryl was there already...
Quickly rushing towards the town, Harry ignored the feeling in the pit of his stomach telling him to stay far away.
THREE
Doctor Michael Kaufmann had settled against the cot in the doctor’s lounge, a satisfied sort of smirk on his face. Of all the things Michael controlled, his favorite was his staff.
One nurse in particular, a new girl by the name of Lisa Garland, had been giving him endless trouble. Between her neediness, her flirtation with the doctors, and her complaints, he’d had just about enough of that blonde-headed bimbo. Confining her to watching after Alessa Gillespie had been a good decision, and keeping her that way was easy.
Michael had never lost an employee.
Lisa had come to him late that night before, yelling about how sick she was of taking care of the Gillespie girl, but it had been simple to maintain that she had no choice. The empty threats of calling the police had hardly been worrisome, not anymore. She had yelled and screamed and called him abusive and manipulative – but he didn’t care anymore. He’d been called much worse.
For now, good little Lisa Garland was in the hospital basement, and would stay there – caring for her own wounds as well as Alessa’s.
FOUR
When Harry Mason set his first footstep into the streets of Silent Hill, the first thing he thought was that everyone had died.
It hadn’t been a conclusion that was hard to come to, or even something he had any proof for. But the streets of Silent Hill were deathly empty, cars abandoned on sides of the road or even in the middle of the streets, door still open. Everything was quiet.
It made him uneasy, but for a long moment, Harry was detached. He stood there in the cold street as the mist curled around him, sculpting a place for his body within its icy white folds. Harry’s eyes watched the buildings, looking dumbfounded.
And then, among the thick fog, there was the flash of a blue plaid jumper, and soft giggle. It was Cheryl.
Feeling relief crash over him, Harry abandoned the thoughts of a ghost town and rushed towards his daughter, yelling out her name. The childish form in the fog, however, once her attention was caught, looked up and quickly turned to move away.
“Cheryl? Where are you going?!” Harry shouted, rushing after her.
But Cheryl was gone.
The panic returned. Did Cheryl think this was some kind of game!? There was no telling what was going on...
The fatherly instinct that had never rightly been his kicked in. Harry rushed after Cheryl down the street, and when he heard little footsteps take a turn down an alleyway, Harry followed. Ahead of him, there was the sharp squeaking moan of a rusty gate. As Harry came to a dead end, he frantically looked around, before seeing the gate.
The same sound squeaked through the air as his hand grabbed the gate by its “Beware of Dog” sign and swung it open. Harry’s eyes were alert as he stepped through – looking ahead for signs of a little girl so hard that he hadn’t remembered to watch his step.
Harry’s shoe made a spurting, crunching noise as it buried into the carcass of a dead dog.
Stopped dead in his tracks, the man stood there a long moment, frozen in a ridiculous-looking stance. Slowly, his eyes moved down until he was staring down at his own feet. For a long moment, all Harry could do was slowly retract his foot from the gruesome corpse, staring down at the way the blood glistened against his shoe. The dog’s skin had been peeled away from its body, the shining white bones of its ribcage apparent in the places Harry’s foot had not broken. The flesh and organs looked as if they had been half-eaten and then abandoned...
Vomit rose up in Harry’s throat, hot and acrid and sharper than knives. He pushed it down. He had to find Cheryl.
Continuing quickly down the winding alley, Harry ignored the bloody footprint his shoe made. There was a stretcher somewhere against a corner. It looked out-of-place outside the cold, soaking with snow and blood. Harry shivered.
The further he continued down the path, the darker the sky seemed to get. Harry wondered just how long he’d been out. A quick look at his wrist watched showed the glass face had been cracked in multiple places. Eventually, it was so dark that he had to pull out his lighter and flick it open.
Harry wasn’t a smoker – not really. When writer’s block was bad, and stress was high, and there were bills to pay and an annoyed editor and agent in New York, he’d fall back on one, but he didn’t keep them around. The lighter, however, was just something he carried, perhaps out of habit.
Regardless, it came in handy now. Flicking it open, the flame ignited instantly, and Harry held it up to light his path through the strange alleyway.