Chapter 2.1 (1/2)
Chapter One -Darkness- (Part 1)
Harry took Finney Street to the east and crossed a bridge into central Silent Hill, searching for a hospital at the mysterious woman’s behest. According to his map, there was a building labeled Alchemilla Hospital on the southern end of town; his best bet at this point. Harry would need to travel down Crichton Street to reach it, but something else on the map caught his eye. He made a detour to the opposite corner of the intersection to the police station, hoping to scour the place for ammunition. With all the monsters still lurking in the streets, he wasn’t going to make it very far with an empty gun.
Just as Cybil had said, the station was as deserted as the rest of the town. No wonder no one was answering his calls. There were doc.u.ments and investigation materials spread over the desks, as if everyone had simply vanished in the middle of a regular work day. Harry began to search each room. The firearm storage was locked tight, so he kept an eye out for any guns that might have been left sitting on someone’s desk. Sure enough, he soon spotted a shoulder holster left on a counter next to abandoned paper cups full of coffee. Whoever this once belonged to must have taken it off on their break and vanished with the rest of the townspeople before they could return for it. Even as he felt a twinge of guilt at stealing something from someone who’d met such a fate, Harry was determined to put it to good use.
Harry slid the gun from the holster to check it out. It looked to be a 10mm automatic, fully loaded with nine rounds. Pleased with his discovery, he returned the gun and took the holster, putting in on. Something caught his eye, a white slip of paper on the counter where the holster had just been.
”Coroner Seals called.
Officer Gucci is unlikely to
be murdered. He apparently
died naturally.
But, medical records show
Officer Gucci had no prior
symptoms of heart disease.”
Harry grabbed a nearby jacket to protect himself from the cold. As he slid it over his shoulders, his eyes were drawn to a memo scrawled on a chalkboard hanging on the wall.
“Product only available in select areas of Silent Hill.
Raw material is White Claudia, a plant peculiar to the region.
Manufactured here? Dealer = Manufacturer?”
White Claudia? The name rang a bell in Harry’s mind. He’d written a couple books in the past on domestic drug trafficking and he could remember some bits and pieces of information. It was a plant that grew on river banks and lake sh.o.r.es, notable for its long oval-shaped leaves and pure white flowers. The seeds were known to have hallucinogenic properties and were often sought after for use in ancient religious ceremonies, but now it was more common refine the seeds into a recreational drug known as PTV. It was popular with the tourists in Silent Hill for a time, but police efforts soon shut down the local traffickers to help clean up the resort town’s image. He never would have entertained the idea of visiting with Cheryl otherwise.
But by the looks of it, it seemed PTV was on the rise again. A lump formed in the back of Harry’s throat as his eyes scanned the words on the chalkboard over and over again. He couldn’t shake the feeling that it had something to do with Cheryl’s kidnapping. Every meager sc.r.a.p of information he could find was a whisper leading him a step closer to the truth.
--
“d.a.m.n that woman!” Michael Kaufman’s voice was shaking with rage. Curse after curse poured from his lips as he crammed items into his luggage.
“Who does that crazy old hag think she’s fooling with her “precious child of G.o.d” bulls.h.i.+t? What a joke. You’re just some gutter trash who got good at cheating and stealing. Just looking at the brazen face of yours makes me sick. You’re nothing but a crook and a liar and everyone in this G.o.dforsaken town knows it!”
As he ranted, his office, once a meticulously decorated symbol of his pride, lay around him in ruin. His mahogany desk and shelves were marred by deep gashes. His precious antique book collection was scattered across the floor, the pages ripped and trampled upon. Even his expensive paintings had been deliberately torn. But this was only meant as a final insult, the real damage was clear when he found his hidden safe cleared out. Important doc.u.ments and expensive securities were gone and that liquid, his last resort, was nothing but a stain on the carpet.
“And this is the thanks I get for my years of cooperation? I swear I’m going to make that sneaky old b.i.t.c.h pay.”
He had no doubt in his mind that this was the cult’s doing. The safe’s lock showed no sign of forced entry; someone must have found the pa.s.scode somehow. He’d been keeping such a close eye on the cult’s activities and they’d still managed to slip by him.
“She thinks she can pull a fast one on me? Well joke’s on her; I never trusted that old bag for a second.”
Kaufman had transferred funds to a foreign account in antic.i.p.ation of just such a betrayal. It was nothing compared to what he’d lost in the current turmoil, but it would be more than enough to get by. It was only a matter of time before the incident in Silent Hill came to light, and he’d much rather live a modest existence somewhere far away that rot in jail. Jail time might even be an optimistic sentence if his involvement in all this got out…Fleeing the country was his best bet at this point.
“Ugh, how did it even come to this?” He ground his teeth. What had come over him wasn’t a change of heart and he certainly wasn’t being tormented by guilt after all he’d done. What he felt now was utter hatred. To have to deal with this after everything he’d done for The Order, after all the funds he contributed and the s.p.a.ce he let them occupy and the medical treatment he offered…He could have never imagined the insanity that his actions would bring about. He had to stifle a laugh at the very idea that he would end up a.s.sociating with those deranged cultists in the first place.
“Guess she’s more than just a crook, she’s a maniac who’d sell her own soul to the devil.”
He wouldn’t be needing clothes and there was no time for gathering unnecessary possessions so he forwent a bulky travel bag in favor of sorting essentials in an una.s.suming attaché case. He packed two pa.s.sports, one with his actual name and a counterfeit bearing a pseudonym, a stash of gold and wadded bills taken from his safety deposit box, a 9mm handgun and two boxes of ammunition, and an emergency set of medical supplies.
Just as he was closing the case’s lid and making sure he’d leave nothing behind, Kaufman heard a growl from behind him. He turned around to see a hideous monster of a dog shambling into the room. The creature groaned, saliva dripping from its eager teeth. For a moment, Kaufman could only stare in horror at the demon as it crept closer. In an instant he reached for the attaché case behind him…
--
Even from outside Alchemilla Hospital, Harry could hear the m.u.f.fled gunshots. Someone, a normal human, was in there. Feeling equal parts hopeful and uneasy, Harry ran through the hospital’s entrance and down the hall.
Bang!
Another shot rang out from somewhere behind the waiting room. He turned a corner to see the door to an examination room sitting wide open and ran in, only to be greeted by a bullet whizzing past his head and embedding itself in the door frame behind him.
“Wait, don’t shoot!” Harry held his own gun above his head and his free hand open, hopefully signifying that he didn’t mean the stranger any harm.
“Thank G.o.d, another human being…” The man across from Harry let his shoulders relax, bringing the gun to his side. He looked to be about 50 or so years old with neatly slicked back hair and dressed in a fine suit, giving him an overall air of importance. It was then that Harry noticed the corpse of a dog oozing blood onto the floor.
“You got attacked too huh. Are you hurt?”
“No. I’m fine.”
“My name’s Harry Mason.” Harry said, lowering his hand and offering it as a handshake instead. The man accepted, grasping Harry’s hand with his rather cold, damp, palm.
“Michael Kaufman.”
“Do you work at this hospital?”