Decompression
folder
+S through Z › Silent Hill
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
3
Views:
2,964
Reviews:
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Recommended:
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Currently Reading:
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Category:
+S through Z › Silent Hill
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
3
Views:
2,964
Reviews:
9
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Silent Hill, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Decompression
[Disclaimer: I don't own any of these people, Konami does.]
"Five! This is five! Even if you leave this room, you can never leave this room!" --Stephen King, "1408"Yesterday, after he’d escaped, Henry had staggereddown to the parking lot and crawled into his car. He’d fully intended
to go find a hotel room then and there. The thought of expending what little
energy he had left on the search for temporary lodging made his head spin, but
the thought of spending any amount of time unconscious in that apartment was
utterly unbearable. By the time he managed to find the right key to stick in
the ignition, he was too exhausted even to turn it and start the car, let alone
actually drive anywhere. If it'd been an automatic and all he'd have
to think about was "brake on the left, gas on the right," it might
have been manageable. A stick, despite the fact that he'd driven them since
he was fifteen and could normally work this one in his sleep? Forget it.He did the only thing he could do then. He laid
the seat back and passed out. Eighteen hours later, he woke up, found the nearly-empty
pack of cigarettes he’d left on the passenger seat five days ago, and
chain-smoked the lot. The bad news: he was stiff and sore all over, and he had
a hell of a headache and a hell of a crick in his neck to match it. The good
news: his brain had been as exhausted as his body--too much so to bother throwing
any dreams at him.It took another four hours--and a trip around the corner
for a fresh pack of cigarettes, a cup of black coffee, and a bear claw he ate
two bites of--for Henry to muster up the courage to go back to the room.The events of the last few days had taught Henry one
thing, if nothing else: that under the right set of circumstances, it is
possible to move out of one’s apartment in less than an hour.The windows still wouldn’t open--they never had.
For a moment, Henry seriously considered breaking the damn things out. He settled
for leaving the door open. It was bad enough that he was about to bail on his
lease. He didn’t need any nasty notes about property damage on his rental
history.Everything he couldn’t live without--which amounted
to his wallet, his clothes, his family pictures, his briefcase and its cargo
of the standard Important Papers, his scrapbooks, a handful of CDs from the
"favorite" stack, a handful of CDs from the "really obscure and
hard to find" stack, and his cameras--went into boxes and bags and from
there, into the trunk and back seat of his car. After three cigarettes’
worth of debate, he took the diary--only because he couldn’t stand the
thought of anyone else finding it and reading what had been written there over
the last few days, and he decided to shred it or burn it or throw it into the
first large body of water he came to.Henry would have taken some of the stuff in the bathroom--razor,
comb, toothbrush, maybe a towel or two--but his stomach squirmed alarmingly
when he touched the doorknob.He didn’t even bother with the laundry room.All of the furniture stayed, regardless of whether it
had come with the room or been bought later. For one thing, it would have taken
too long to call for a moving van and have it hauled out. For another... even
though he knew perfectly well that it was just his imagination, he could still
smell the ghosts of blood and rot in the upholstery, and all the Febreze in
the world wouldn't have gotten it out. The TV and the stereo stayed. Too much trouble to unhook
those and haul them down to the car. He’d replace them when he got settled
elsewhere. And hopefully, the replacements would never decide to randomly turn
themselves on in the middle of the night. The food--if one could call a bottle
of wine, a pickle jar with one pickle therein, a box of cereal containing three
flakes and half a cup of crumbs, a quarter-full bottle of Absolut Vanilla, and
a few assorted condiments “food--” stayed. Above all, everything with the slightest connection to
Silent Hill stayed. The photos. The newspaper clippings. The postcards. The
scrapbook pages. Even the shoes.Especially the goddamned shoes.With the packing and loading seen to, Henry took care
of a few last details. He pushed the keys that were still in his pocket under
Sunderland’s door with a note explaining that he’d found them in
the hallway. He felt a little guilty about the lie, but it was that or the truth,
and Henry certainly didn’t feel up to the “I stole your key from
the guy that stole it from you and helped myself to your master keys, and uh,
please don’t ask me what happened to that umbilical cord” angle.
He emptied his mailbox of a week's worth of circulars,
junk mail, magazines, bills, and what looked like one check from some regional
magazine or another he'd sold some shots to and another check from one of the
stock photo agencies. That brightened his mood a little. At least now he had
some spare change to throw down on a bed and a chair or two for whatever new
place he ended up in.He jotted off a brief note to the landlord to the effect
that he had moved out and stuck it in the night drop along with his keys. He
knew the terms of his lease required thirty days notice before he moved and
he did not care. He knew failure to give such notice would result in the loss
of his security deposit and a "this asshole broke his lease" note
that would stay on his rental history forever and ever. He didn’t care about that either.He thought about jotting off a “hi, I moved out”
note to stick under Eileen’s door and then thought better of it. He’d
just go tell her in person. Besides, although the Hotel South Ashfield was out
of the question for a number of reasons, there were still no fewer than eight
perfectly good Holiday Inns and Super 8s and La Quintas and so on in town. He’d
still be close by. Not exactly next door, no (and Henry made a mental note to
suggest Eileen get out of that hellhole as well), but it wasn’t like he
was running off to Hartford or Toronto or Tijuana or the North Pole or the moon
or anything.Not yet, anyway.---“So when are you moving? ...you are moving,
right?” Henry couldn’t help but sputter out an incredulous
laugh at that. Eileen might as well have asked if he intended to breathe sometime
soon. “I already did. I just grabbed my clothes and stuff and
threw them in the car and left. I, uh... I think I’m just going
to find a hotel or something for now, until...” He glanced up at Eileen,
then at the flowers he’d brought her, then up at the perfectly normal
daylight streaming through the perfectly normal window, and tried very hard
not to think about the things he’d seen in these very hospital rooms--to
his surprise, he found it easy to forget them. At least, he did here in this
room, with Eileen safe and alive in front of him and her fingers twined loosely
with his. “...I don’t know if I can stay here. In Ashfield, I mean.
I don’t know where I’d go, and who knows, maybe in a week
or two I’ll decide I’m okay with it after all, but...” “I know. I don’t blame you.” Eileen
gave Henry’s hand one reassuring squeeze, and he returned it. “...I
hear Brahms is nice.”That earned her another little sputtery laugh. “Brahms,
huh? I don’t know. It’s still a little too close to Silent Hill.
...Derry? I’ve been there. It’s not bad.” Eileen pulled a face. “You’ve never read
a single Stephen King novel in your entire life, have you?”Henry thought about that for a minute, and then he
pulled a face. “...maybe not Derry. What about New York or somethi--what?”“Not New York City.”“Why not?”“Have you ever been to New York City?”“Well, no, but--”“Henry, you wouldn’t last a week. You’re
too nice. They eat nice guys for breakfast in New York City.”“Ah.” Henry grinned a little. “You
think I’m a nice guy? Where’d you get that idea?”
Now it was Eileen’s turn to laugh incredulously.
“Hello? For one thing, you could and should be driving
around looking for a room with a bed to pass out in right now, but you came
to see me instead. And you brought me those.” Eileen pointed at the flowers...
and grinned right back at Henry. “...and I guess the whole saving my life
thing was kind of sweet too. So, no. No Big Apple for you.”“Okay, upstate then.” Henry laughed a little.
“I don’t know. I’ll figure something out.” He shrugged,
and Eileen squeezed his hand again.“Well, it’s not like you have to figure it
out right now. You should probably, y’know, sleep first.”
Eileen’s hand slipped out of Henry’s; before he could really register
the loss, it was reaching up to brush his hair back from his forehead. “In
a bed. Not in your car again. You look like hell.” And before
Henry could say anything to that, she kissed him. Right on the mouth. “Mm!?” Henry’s eyes snapped wide open.
Well, I’m sure as hell awake now, he thought crazily. No, he
certainly hadn’t expected that. It wasn’t exactly what one would
call passionate, but it was no mere peck on the cheek, either. “...mmm.”
His hand hovered stupidly in the air for a moment; once the initial surprise
wore off, it rose and lit on Eileen’s shoulder, and his eyes drifted shut.
He whimpered, just a little, when Eileen drew back; one
last tiny brush of her lips against his made the loss a bit more bearable. “...I
didn’t know you smoked,” she whispered, and it didn’t sound
disapproving at all--if anything, she seemed amused by that discovery.“I, uh... don’t, much...” Henry opened
his eyes and tried to blink them back into focus. “...or I didn’t
much, till this morning... what was that for?” Eileen didn’t answer that right away. She reached
up and swept Henry’s bangs back out of his eyes again; before they could
fall back into place, she rested her forehead against his. “When things
started getting really bad, I’d start thinking ‘that’s it,
I can’t take any more of this’ ...and then I’d look at you.”
Her fingertips brushed over Henry’s cheek, and he made that little whimpering
noise again. He also sorely wished he’d had the courage to open the bathroom
door and at least shave before he fled. “You just... stayed so
calm. I don’t know how you did it--God, I don’t know how
anyone could have done it. But seeing you like that... it helped me
stay calm too.” If Henry were the blushing type, he would have done so.
But he wasn’t. The closest he came to that was a shrug and a faint sheepish
smile. “It’s not... it’s just the way I am.”Eileen kissed him again. “Then that was for just
being the way you are.” She squeezed his shoulder and gave him a gentle
little push toward the door. “Go on. Call me when you find a room. I’ll
come see you whenever they let me out of here.”---Moving into a temporary new place took a bit longer than
moving out of the old place had.Henry tried the Holiday Inn first, simply because it
was the closest hotel whose view did not include South Ashfield Heights and
its surrounding areas. It was cheap, it was clean, and most importantly, it
had windows that opened. It seemed like a fine place to stay. Or at least, it
did until the clerk handed him the key. Henry took one look at it, felt the
blood drain from his face, handed the key back, and apologetically requested
a different room. The clerk handed him another key. The room number it
bore was even worse.So much for the Holiday Inn.The Super 8’s windows did not open. The La Quinta’s
windows did open, but they had no available smoking-allowed rooms.
Another interesting lesson the last few days had taught
Henry: a half-pack-a-day smoker, if trapped in his apartment for five days after
forgetting his cigarettes in his car and then placed under extreme duress, can
and will mutate into an insatiable chain-smoking nicotine fiend upon release.
Henry finished off the pack he’d just bought that morning as he pulled
into the La Quinta’s parking lot. After he left the La Quinta, despite
the unpleasant scratchy feeling that was beginning to surface in the back of
his throat, Henry broke down and did something he’d never done before,
not once in his entire smoking life. He bought a carton.The Sunrise Inn had windows that opened and available
smoking-allowed rooms. The key Henry received bore no ominous room numbers.
And it was farthest from South Ashfield Heights. The rates were a tad steeper,
yes, but these small comforts were well worth the extra twenty dollars a day.Henry left most of his stuff in the car, save for a single
change of clothes. He’d go back for more later if he needed to. Right
now, he needed something to eat. And maybe a nap. And definitely a shower. Not
necessarily in that order. But first, Henry opened the windows. Then he called Eileen’s
apartment and left a message on her answering machine to let her know where
he’d ended up. The bathroom, like the rest of the room, was tiny--barely
three square feet of floor space remained unclaimed by the sink, the shower,
or the toilet--but like the rest of the room, it was clean and well-lit, and
most importantly the walls bore no suspicious cracks or stains or holes. Henry turned the shower on as hot as he could bear and
let it pound on the back of his neck for nearly an hour, until the heat and
the driving spray worked the crick in his neck loose and eased most of the stiffness
and soreness out of his muscles. At some point, the water went lukewarm for
half a second. Henry blinked his eyes open and wondered if he had single-handedly
consumed the entire building’s ready supply of hot water. Between that,
the possibility that he might well fall asleep if he stayed in much longer,
and the distinct rubbery sensation that had crept into his legs, he decided
it would probably be a good idea to shut off the water, get dressed, and eat
something.He didn’t particularly want to eat, although
he knew he needed to. He'd sacrificed his last two eggs to appease
a roaring hangover the fourth morning he was trapped in the apartment and he'd
had nothing but water, coffee, and two bites of bear claw since, but his stomach
refused to take any serious interest in anything he thought of. Also, he wasn’t
terribly thrilled with the idea of getting back in his car and driving around
until he found something that sounded good.He ended up ordering a pizza. Four more cigarettes disappeared
in the half hour between the call and the delivery. When the pizza arrived,
Henry ate one slice willingly, forced himself to eat a second when that failed
to take the wobbly feeling out of his legs, and then put the rest in the room’s
tiny fridge.There was nothing worth watching on any of the seventy
channels the room’s TV picked up, but Henry turned it on and left it on
anyway just so there would be something to listen to besides dead silence and
his mental soundtrack of the last few days. He stacked both of the pillows on
one side of the bed, stretched out on his back on top of the blankets, and stared
at the screen without really seeing it as he opened another pack of cigarettes.
The voice of reason and common sense told Henry that smoking in bed was not
a smart thing to do. He did it anyway. He got up once to close the window, only because it had
started to rain heavily and the wind was blowing it in. At least four times,
he swallowed back the urge to get up and open them again, just a crack, just
to make sure they still would open. They would Of course they would....wouldn't they?Henry got out of bed, pushed the window up half an inch,
pushed it down again, lay down on the bed again, and felt stupid. Relieved.
But stupid.The eleven o’ clock news came on. Henry dimly heard
the words "woods near Silent Hill" through a light haze of drowsiness,
opened his eyes halfway, shuddered, and turned the TV off. Then he ground out
his seventh cigarette from that pack in the ashtray on the nightstand
and switched the lamp off. And of course, now that the room was dark and silent,
he was no longer sleepy. He tried to clear every conscious thought out of his
head and concentrate on the sound of rain pattering on the window. It didn’t
work very well. The rain sounded like a clock that was ticking far too fast.
He tried to think about Eileen’s lips, soft and
warm and alive, against his. This worked a little better.