WRITING: Gravity (Chapter 9)

[phantastus]

Title: GRAVITY
Chapter: 9 (The Graveyard Girl)
Author: phantastus
Fandom: Silent Hill
Rating: R (see the Disclaimers/Warnings section for content info)
Genre: Horror/Drama
Main characters: James Sunderland, Laura, Angela Orosco
Summary: Life has grown harder on the road for James, who is finding himself having to juggle concerns for his own mental health along with caring for Laura. But matters become even more complicated when the pair stumble across someone James thought was lost to the Otherworld for good.
Notes: Chapter 9 of my ongoing, obscenely long SH2 fanfic. Set directly after the Leave Ending, but contains heavy implications of In Water. The fic is mirrored over here.
This story was initially written (and is still in progress) for NaNoWriMo 2009.
Disclaimer/Warnings: In keeping with the source material, this fanfic depicts events and situations that may be considered violent or cruel. If anything in the Silent Hill series triggers you, this story may not be for you. This chapter deals with VERY DISTURBING CONCEPTS including but not limited to:

-descriptions of anxiety, insomnia, nightmares
-graphic descriptions of being ill/vomiting
-discussion of suicide/implied self-harm
-PTSD, trauma-induced flashbacks and hallucinations
-pedophilia and incest (father-daughter rape/sexual abuse)
-... I... there's really no delicate way to put this. This chapter contains horrible rancid nonconsensual monster humping. It's not overly graphic nor is it supposed to be titillating or porny, but you've all seen the Abstract Daddy. This chapter is rated F for fucking gross.
-warning: chapter contains Angela MISANDRY!!!!!
-Laura fat-shames James at one point because she's a little shit
-another butt joke

Please read at your own risk.

Recommended Listening:
-Halo
-Breathe Me
-Sleep
-Lakehouse



Chapter 9: The Graveyard Girl




When the throes of sleep deprivation really took hold, there was a certain fuzziness that surrounded everything.

This was perhaps why everything James looked at felt like it was blurred around the edges.

It was a sharp pain in his ankle that brought him back to reality and made him realize that he'd been standing there and staring blankly at the brightly-colored tabloids under the glass of the counter, head tipped to one side as though it were weighted, for about ten minutes. Blinking, he looked down at his side and finally caught the furious gaze of Laura, who had unsurprisingly just kicked him. Mouth turned into a perfect little upside-down 'u', she jerked her head angrily in the direction he'd been facing, and he looked up only to find a stare almost as blank as his own directed back at him. It was a stare he'd seen on the faces of clerks, cashiers, and waitresses abound over the past few weeks, and today it was coming from the Interstate Gas Station employee who had presumably been trying to get his attention from across the counter this whole time now that the line ahead of him had diminished.

"—Oh!"

The fuzziness fled— only slightly. Never entirely. It was a semi-constant companion now. But at least it did usually have the decency to go away when he was able to jar himself awake enough, which was what he was trying to do right now. It was hard to engage in social interaction like a normal human being when your head felt like it was full of cotton.

"Sorry, I'm—" He stretched the corners of his mouth upwards a little in a smile that he knew didn't reach his baggy eyes, but it was just a courtesy. As was the sheepish laugh that came out after, as he fumbled his wallet open. "I'm— it's been a long day."

He fished out a few bills and a handful of assorted change— more than he really wanted to be removing, but had no real choice in the matter— and handed them across the counter to the cashier, who in turn pushed a pair of heavily-loaded plastic bags towards him. Like many others, he had adopted the neutral expression and practiced silence of somebody interacting with a total weirdo. While James had never been particularly good at ingratiating himself to strangers, he'd been spectacularly bad at it lately.

Laura, meanwhile, scoffed at his vague and not-particularly-convincing excuse for just standing there like a simpleton, and left his side to wander off down one of the aisles.

"... Oh, uh... you can... go look around until he's done, um... yeah," James said lamely as he watched her go, well aware that giving permission for something AFTER she'd already started doing it was kind of pathetic, but... well, it made him feel a little better. Especially in front of other people, to whom it appeared (or at least he hoped it appeared, for both of their sakes) Laura was his daughter. He'd make a crappy enough father in reality, so he'd at least prefer it if he didn't look like a crappy one, too.

Internalizing a sigh, James turned back to the counter and watched the cashier painstakingly count out the stack of change he'd been handed. It made him cringe. He could remember all too well from his OWN clerk days how annoying it was to get that customer who tried to pay in all nickels.

But, and this was becoming an increasing concern, the combined expenses of food, housing, and gasoline were starting to add up. Worryingly so. Before he'd left, James hadn't really... thought about the issue of money. Which was funny, considering he had largely been the one, even as a child, who kept track of what cost what and how long a certain amount could carry him. Not quite as much when he'd been with Mary— they might not have been rich, but they'd always lived in a reasonable amount of comfort and security, even with James's low income— but as a boy, if he'd wanted to eat something other than the sauerkraut and bratwursts that Frank swore by, it had been his own responsibility to work out how many boxes of macaroni and cheese he could squeeze out of the grocery-oriented portion of his father's paycheck.

Perhaps it was because he'd grown used to a guaranteed, bi-weekly paycheck of his own in the years between that those old experiences hadn't sprung immediately to mind when he had left his home behind and embarked on a destinationless journey.

That had been pretty stupid.

Which was why he now had to conserve carefully, and was why he was now paying for their essentials in handfuls of loose, messy change instead of the not-so-crisp-anymore notes he had begun the journey with. He would need to find some way to make money soon.

But for the moment, mere conservation wherever possible would just have to do.

Even if it made him squirm for the fact that he was almost certainly pissing off every single cashier he came across.

In a feeble and mostly-misguided attempt to possibly endear himself a little to this stranger who he would never see again, James glanced outside at the gray, cloud-glutted sky and managed a feeble, shaky grin.

"P-pretty gloomy weather we've been having lately, huh?"

The cashier looked up from the pennies he'd been counting, glanced out the window, and then gave James a confused look.

... Fidgeting, James decided not to try and ingratiate himself anymore.

He bowed his head and mumbled a 'thank you, have a nice day' as he took his bags and a few extra nickels that had made it into the pile he'd handed over.

Back in the car (after he'd taken some time to locate Laura, eventually finding her sequestered in the frozen dessert section), he leaned forward to let his head rest against the steering wheel, preparing himself to be berated. He was not disappointed.

"What'd you go and DO that for?" she demanded of him. Unlike the way he had been feeling lately, she always seemed to have reserves of energy to spare. It was just an unfortunate side effect of being Laura that she made sure to use these reserves to make his life more difficult at every opportunity. Not that he complained— this was certainly no surprise to him, and had been something he'd taken into account when he had first offered to take her along with him. But he did occasionally wish she'd ease up a little.

"Do what?" He had a feeling he knew the answer, but the words came out automatically, as they often did when he spoke to Laura. He'd developed something of an autopilot when he spoke with her, with responses designed to incite as little viciousness as possible. In this case, the autopilot wasn't working so well, because it just made her puff herself up angrily.

"You know what! You just stood there like a dope! And it's like..." She paused, not to count on her fingers but at least to give the matter a little thought in her head. "... It's like— you've been doing it a LOT. What's WITH you?"

James's shoulders sagged as he let the air out of his lungs.

He knew he had.

In fact, for once, Laura's assessment of his behavior was actually an understatement rather than a dramatic exaggeration.

More and more as the weeks had passed, James had found himself in positions much like the one he'd just been in, and the 'why' of it was no mystery. He hadn't been sleeping well, plain and simple.

It was the 'why' behind that that worried him much more.

But this was not something he wanted to discuss with Laura. So, eyes shut, he lifted his head and waved a hand tiredly.

"I... I'm sorry, Laura. It's nothing. Nothing you need to worry about."

"I'm not worried," Laura informed him bluntly. "I'm just annoyed."

Of course.

Well, at least he didn't have to worry about her being frightened of the fact that he might be slowly losing his mind.

He sat up then, grunting and lifting his hands to massage his temples. Sometimes the motion seemed to spark his brain back up into action. It made that cottony feeling around the edges of his vision recede a little. It was either that or coffee, and coffee was starting to get expensive. Not that they were in dire financial straits yet... but it was starting to make fretful gears grind in his stomach whenever he thought about it.

"I'm sorry." He knew he'd already said that, but he found he was repeating himself often with Laura these days. He had no energy to come up with new material. "I'll try and get better, okay?"

"Good, 'cuz it's starting to get super freaky and I don't like it," she huffed before digging into one of the grocery bags.

He had a feeling he should be telling her not to eat too much at once, that they should start extending their conservation efforts to food as well... but to be fair, she often didn't, and to be even fairer, it wasn't as though their diets were fantastic to begin with. Snack food could only take you too far and lately they didn't usually stop for a real meal until dinnertime.

So he just kept quiet. He didn't have any right to tell her what to do.

Besides, he reminded himself, there were other things to worry about.

That first nightmare, in which he had wandered empty streets before descending a rickety staircase into what was surely Hell, had occurred approximately a month before.

Since then, there had been more.

Many, many more.

At first, they had occurred only sparsely— one or two every couple of days.

They were almost always repeats of the first, except for the part that they seemed to be going ever faster. With a growing sense of déjà vu, he would drift through the fog with speed that seemed natural, barely noticing that everything was going by much quicker than it should... and then he was in the dark again, with blood flowing towards his ankles and copper in his mouth and the enormous, looming presence behind him, embodying everything that was wrong with him, with his life, with his world, growing ever closer.

Every night the dream entered his head, he would wake up in a cold sweat and with his sheets tangled around him like a straightjacket, holding him in place in the dark as though securing him firmly for the convenience of an approaching predator... perhaps the very one that had been stalking him in the dream.

It was a rude shattering of the peace he had sunken into during those first weeks on the road. His sleep had been peaceful back then, or as peaceful as the sleep of a guilty man on the run could be. It was not necessarily dreamless, but whatever dreams he'd had were borne of travel-induced weariness and he could barely remember them once he woke. He liked it that way, and after the horrors of Silent Hill, it had been a godsend.

But when the nightmares began, there was no more peace.

About half of the night, on average, was cut away after each one, since he rarely fell asleep again after waking from them, quivering and on-edge. All he could do was lie as still as possible and wait for the sky outside to lighten. Then, if he was lucky, he could snatch a couple more hours before it was time to rouse Laura and hit the road.

That had been manageable, if a little stressful.

He had started staying awake later than Laura so that he could make sure the TV was off before he fell asleep, because waking up to static was even worse than waking up to silence. But then the trick was falling asleep to silence, and after weeks of drifting off to the sounds of his pint-sized companion happily bopping around to whatever Disney Channel cartoon or gameshow she'd selected, trying to sleep in dead quiet was almost as bad as lying awake after the nightmares themselves. Every minute ticked past like an hour, and the slightest sound would hit his ears like a static shock, making him tense and wait for it to pass, wait or a reassurance that it was just someone moving around in the next room over (or passing in the hall, or a car firing up in the parking lot, or the pop of winding-down static from the television...) before he could even come close to relaxing again.

Sleep would come eventually, but it was a toss-up as to how much he'd get before a somnolent coronary hit his dreams like a hammer.

If he was lucky, he'd get five hours.

That had been manageable, too.

But the thing about sleep deprivation was that it began to creep into the rest of the day. James had already often felt nervous or jittery, already occasionally seen things that weren't there out of the corner of his eye or suddenly remembered something that left him paralyzed in fear, trying desperately to convince his body that NO, no, all that is over, it's already happened.

But by the time he'd once picked Laura up and gone sprinting down the street like a startled deer on their way back from a rest-stop, all because somewhere on the street behind him some public workers had pulled the cover of a manhole off and created and ugly, screeching scrape of metal that had launched James into flee-first-think-later mode, he knew his mental state was definitely degrading.

And in its beginning stages, even that had been manageable.

The biggest problem came when that sizzling, white noise of anxiety that had started filling him up like tepid water during the daylight hours, brought on without mercy by the nightmares, had started to materialize into more nightmares.

James had never understood why the human mind chose to react to stress by turning it into a self-replicating anxiety loop where you got stressed about the fact that you were stressed to begin with, but he didn't have the energy to question it. The only boon that arose from this worsened situation was that the original one, that catalyst dream, began to plague his sleeping head a little less frequently.

But this was only because it had been replaced by others.

Dozens and dozens of others, piling into his head like passengers onto a morning bus that had arrived just early enough that they'd stuck out the delay, and just late enough that they were all aggravated about having to wait.

All kinds of dreams.

Some, like the first, were simply about the town. About the hideous creatures he'd faced, about seeing beloved places full of lush memories reduced to pale, broken-down shadows of their true selves. About water, cold and consuming, embracing him with its enormous arms. About the darkness that descended over everything, about the low moan of a siren echoing through the stillness.

Some were about unrelated things so random and mundane that they were absurd, yet they somehow added to his anxiety just as much as the others. Stupid things, like dreams where due to an oversight he was almost out of gas as they drove down a seemingly-endless road, his eyes flicking back and forth from the road to the needle on the gas meter, which was ominously close to resting on 'empty'. Or suddenly remembering that there was something he'd left behind or forgotten to put away all the way back at the house. These ones bothered him more than he felt justified in being bothered by, and more than he liked to admit.

And some... some were about people.

About Mary, about Eddie, about Angela, about Laura...

Those were, in a way, worse than the dreams about the town itself. The monsters were gone and Silent Hill was miles and miles away.

But then there were dreams about seeing old acquaintances, old co-workers, Mary's family members... being confronted and questioned, being forced to explain things because lying in dreams was impossible.

These were worse than facing any monster, because in them, he was the monster. Sometimes when the dream was about Mary's father, it would end in Jonathan Shepherd killing him. Other times they ended only with Jonathan weeping. James preferred the dreams in which he was killed.

In other dreams, the people didn't talk to him, because they were dead.

He'd had at least one about finding Laura's body outside that bar, beyond the scrappy, weed-filled parking lot and in the underbrush of the woods beyond. In that one, he couldn't remember why he hadn't saved her— only that the dream had set him down far from the pub, remembering suddenly that Laura was in danger and that he'd somehow forgotten about it entirely in that careless, forgetful way that one's dream self so often does. He had rushed back only to find that everyone was gone and that it was just too late.

When he'd woken up from that one, he had frantically scrambled out of his own bed and over to Laura's, overcome by a terrified, all-consuming need to make sure that she was still breathing. When he'd realized that he couldn't tell if she was one way or another under all the blankets she'd wrapped herself in, he had just stood there dumbly, wringing his hands until she eventually turned over in her sleep. Only then had his heart stopped pounding long enough for him to move without feeling like he was going to faint.

Inevitably... other dreams were about Mary.

Visions of their happy times together danced like brilliant, glowing insects in between the onslaughts of other, less pleasant dreams— only to, sometimes, suddenly delve into nightmarish replays of the videotape from Room 312, only in vivid color and sound that the grainy, damaged tape had not captured. Sometimes, he was the one being smothered in it.

The sheer mood whiplash of these ones was enough to leave him feeling as though he had a deep and gouging chest-wound all day long, aching and sore no matter what happened in the day that followed.

In other dreams, the dead people did talk.

Surprisingly, it was rarely Mary in these dreams. He supposed it was because he had already made his peace with her. Even if he felt that he didn't deserve it, she had made sure, back there in that little room, that he knew she understood. Made sure that he understood.

No... it was others.

The ones for whom there had been no peace.

Barring only the memories of the monsters, it was these dreams that escaped into real life the most.

One day when they had stopped in a quaint, smallish town (one that had, in fact, reminded him slightly of Silent Hill— he hadn't wanted to stop, but they needed gas and Laura was starting to get restless. When Laura got restless, she tended to start taking everything out of the glove compartment whether he wanted her to or not, so when she'd started eying it pointedly, he had decided he'd take being uncomfortable over his car getting trashed. Again.), they had been walking through the center of town, passing window after window of storefront displays, and Laura had stopped to ogle a set of little clockwork bears on display in an old-fashioned toy shop.

James had paused to wait, patiently— Laura rarely took kindly to being hurried along.

His mind had been drifting firmly elsewhere... to places like what they would be eating tonight, how far away he'd parked the car, whether or not he'd opt for a nap or a shower first when they finally settled down for the night. Which was why it had been such a bone-chilling shock to idly look at his reflection in the window and see a shiny silver gun cocked at the back of his head. And behind it, a pair of angry bloodshot eyes set in a face as pale as a toadstool sprouting from the lawn after a rainstorm.

It was only for an instant. When he blinked, it was gone.

But it had shaken him up just as much as the dreams themselves.

Truth be told, he technically got more sleep under the deluge of them than when he'd just been having one or two a night. Those had been like active bombshells, obliterating his chances at a good night's sleep when they stole it away from him and left him wide-awake and shivering until dawn. Once they started splitting into dozens of smaller, squirmier ones, suddenly what had been hours spent scared to breathe as he waited for the gray of daylight to creep through the blinds became snorting awake late underneath Laura's insistent, shaking hands. But it didn't matter, because even though he was managing to drift back off somehow, it felt as though he was getting no sleep at all.

He woke from these nights feeling more exhausted than he ever had in the beginning.

And that was why he'd been standing in front of the counter and staring at nothing until Laura had rebooted his brain via boot to the ankle. Christ, can someone please give James a thump? He's frozen again.

It was showing in other ways, too.

He shook more than he used to, and his eyes looked permanently bruised even though the black rings he'd gotten in the town had faded long ago. His heart sometimes pounded even when he hadn't been upset, or startled, or even moving particularly emphatically. The sour prickle of guilt that he had been carrying in his stomach for so long had become a constant twinge; an unpleasant squirming that made him feel ashamed even when there was nothing in particular to feel ashamed about.

Sounds, too. Sounds had started to leap out at him more.

He didn't like that.

It reminded him too much of when he'd had to depend on that for his very own survival. He didn't need to anymore, so he didn't appreciate it.

He gritted his teeth at the rustling plastic bags. They grated his nerves like a rough hand petting a cat the wrong way. The hum of the motor would drown it out somewhat, so he turned the keys in the ignition and took them out of the parking lot.

It all felt a little better when he was on the open road. In motion and with a shell of metal and rubber around him, James felt anything but invincible, but there was a certain safety that came with travel now. It had begun to feel safer even than their motel rooms.

Some time passed with James losing himself in the sound of the road rushing past underneath them before he realized that a different sort of rustling had joined the sound of Laura's snack consumption. He looked over, wincing inwardly at the tired, dragging feeling under his eyes that now accompanied every movement, and saw that the girl had spread a newspaper out across her lap and was flipping through the pages idly as she munched on her package of fig newtons.

James heaved a sigh, looking back towards the road.

"Be careful reading while we drive, you might get carsick."

"I'm just lookin' at the pictures."

"Well, all right."

... Wait a minute...

He whipped back around to face her again.

"Laura, where'd you get that?"

"From the store," she said simply, turning another page.

"But I didn't buy any newspapers," said James, frowning.

Laura shrugged, not even looking up from the paper. The page she was on featured a large grayscale shot of some lobster fishermen hauling crates of their catch out of the water. "I folded it up a little and put it under my shirt."

She said it so matter-of-factly that James was stunned speechless for a moment. It was a good thing there was nobody on the road immediately ahead of them or else he was fairly sure he might have rear-ended them if they'd slowed at all.

"... Laura, that's STEALING!" he burst out finally, more flustered than he'd been in a good couple of weeks. It had almost been a record. For awhile there, he'd thought he was getting used to Laura's audacity.

Finally turning to look at him, she jutted her jaw out defiantly.

"So? They had TONS of them."

"That doesn't matter, it still wasn't ours!"

He said 'wasn't' rather than 'isn't' because like hell was he going to drive all the way back there to return a pile of cheap paper. But it was the principal of the thing. He had never stolen things that weren't his as a child and while he knew Laura certainly didn't have the gentlest of backgrounds, there was no need for her to steal, either!

He frowned at the road ahead, bringing a hand off of the wheel to gesture broadly as he spoke.

"Laura, taking things that don't belong to us is wrong. Even if it's just a newspaper, the stores sell those so that... so that, you know, the owners can make money. It's not fair if people just take them without paying."

He was terrible at lecturing. His voice was too unsteady and apologetic-sounding to do it well. But even if he'd been a lecture-giving champion with gold-medal-level guilt-tripping abilities, he was pretty sure Laura would have rolled her eyes just like she was doing now.

"It was just a newspaper. They make like hundreds of these for hardly anything. I saw it on a Mr. Rogers once. The part where he gets a videotape in the mail an' it's about how they make something."

James sighed.

He supposed he couldn't argue with Mr. Rogers, although he strongly suspected the point of that episode hadn't been to encourage its bright-eyed young viewers to start developing sticky fingers.

"Well... don't do it again, okay? We don't need to steal things. We're doing just fine."

"Mmhm!" she chirped, but he was pretty sure she was just pleased she'd gotten away with it.

He had already started trying to get in synch with that highway hum again when Laura spoke up once more.

"Hey!"

"Hm?"

"Eddie's in here!"

The car's path wavered slightly as every muscle in James's body clenched.

"What?"

His voice sounded downright pale, even to his own ears.

"Listen!"

Clearing her throat with a squeaky cough, Laura began to read. Although she stumbled childishly over the longer words, her voice was laced with a morbid fascination and her eyes grew ever bigger as she spoke.

"Bizarre murder of young man in resort town Silent Hill: After a thorough investigation turned up no immediate leads, police are encouraging anyone with knowledge of the incident to come forward and hoping that by releasing the details of the strange incident three months ago, new information may be forthcoming. On the morning of March 9th, a body was found in the basement of the Silent Hill Historical Society, a small local museum dedicated to the extensive history of the town. After police examination, the body was determined to belong to 21-year-old Edward Dombrowski of Jonesport, Maine.

The grim discovery was made by Charlie Hayes, a part-time janitor at the Historical Society.

"Normally I don't even set foot in the basement; I only went in there to see if there were any extra cleaning supplies," stated 19-year-old Hayes when interviewed. "The basement is mostly used to store all the exhibits that aren't on display at the moment. And, you know, all the old reenactment costumes and props and stuff. When I found the body, at first I thought it was [a prop]. It wasn't until I looked closer and saw all the blood that I even realized it was a real person."

Hayes swiftly called the local police, who were on the scene in minutes."

"... Laura..." James mumbled.

"The cause of death was determined to be bloodloss and organ failure due to a gunshot wound to the abdomen, although bruising and lacerations on the rest of the body, as well as the destruction and displacement of many of the Historical Society's stored property in the immediate vicinity, suggest that the death was preceded by considerable struggle. Whether or not the struggle was in self-defense has yet to be determined."

"Laura, stop..."

"In life, Edward Dombrowski worked at a gas station close to his Jonesport home, in which he lived with his single father. Suspicions that the death may have been related to the recent bouts of gang violence surfacing in the nearby town of Brahms were quelled when the Brahms Police Department collaborated with their fellow officers from Jonesport, confirming that Dombrowski, although native to Maine, had no relatives in or ties to the town of Silent Hill.

Although the motive for his murder, as well as the reason for his presence in the town, remain unknown, it was quickly learned that Dombrowski had likely been fleeing his hometown, where he was wanted for the unlawful sh—"

Her grisly narration cut off with a squeal as the car swerved onto the shoulder of the road, the even hum of tire on blacktop replaced by the unholy rattle and crunch of earthen grit.

"HEY!"

She had slid sideways into the door with a thunk at the violent swerve— not wearing her seatbelt, as usual. After the incident with the wasp and the policewoman, James had tried his best to get her to wear it on a regular basis, but it seemed that without the immediate threat of a cop standing right there, she was never in any mood to humor him. His resolve had quickly faded after the first few attempts.

He felt bad for it, obviously, but right now there was no time to stop and think about it.

A hand pressed urgently over his mouth, he was already throwing the door open and stumbling out of the car, thanking the heavens that he wasn't wearing his seatbelt, either.

"What are you doing?!" Laura yelled demandingly after him as he staggered away from the car to where the gravel became turf and scrubland. "Hey!"

She started to climb out, fully intending to follow and berate him, only to stop and sort of lean back into the car as she realized his reason for exiting the vehicle.

He barely made it behind one of the bushes before his insides refused to house what he'd eaten for breakfast that morning any longer and heaved. He stood there panting with his hands on his knees, hot pulp on his chin, and eyes shut as he battled the waves of dizziness that were refusing to depart even though he'd done what he'd staggered out of the car to do.

His insides were still roiling contentiously, threatening to expel more even though he was pretty sure he didn't have anything else in there to get rid of.

"HB-HBB-HbbBLAUUHHGH rrrglg! Hhwllloooaaaargh!"

The sounds coming from the other side of the door were utterly unmistakable.

There wasn't a human being alive on the planet who did not know what that noise was.

James paused, watching the doorway with uncertainty and— he had to admit— a certain morbid fascination. He'd been standing there listening, almost mesmerized, for a good three minutes now. It just didn't stop.

But listening in on it— on the grunting heaves and grotesque plops of half-liquid matter hitting water that followed— felt oddly invasive, like he was watching someone on the toilet. Feeling a twinge of discomfort, James moved away from the door, stepping quietly as he made his way over to the kitchenette of the filthy apartment. All the rooms in the Blue Creek complex were disgusting, putting even the mildewy South Ashfield Heights in a better light. James had to admit that, if he'd been faced with the choice of moving back in with his father or living here, he'd have picked the latter. And that was saying a lot.

The sight that greeted him only strengthened this conviction, as it made him utter a quiet "Oh, god..." and tug his collar up to cover his mouth.

A small refrigerator sat upturned in a mess of blood splatters and debris in the middle of the kitchen, although it was what was sticking out of it that made James's gut truly twist in disgust. A pair of naked legs, wizened and bruised, protruded stiffly from the broken door. There was no point in leaning down to check on the state of the body— only a blind man could possibly mistake it for being anything but dead.

James stood back, still pressing the rough fabric of his collar to his lips. It wasn't the first dead body he had discovered in this town (this strange, strange town where something horrendous had clearly taken place), but it wasn't any more pleasant than the bloodied corpse he'd discovered outside. At least that one had been in daylight, and an obvious victim of the beasts that now ruled the broken streets of Silent Hill.

This one looked more like a murder victim. Between the grisly discovery and the retching noises in the room beyond, James almost felt as though he'd stepped straight into a crime show; a cop scoping out some half-gutted drug den on the bad side of town.

Not that he was anywhere close to being a cop, even if he was now packing heat after finding that handgun downstairs.

He swallowed heavily and turned back towards the door.

A body meant that some monster must have been here, but those retching noises were too human to belong to one of those awful, deformed scurrying things. That meant that whatever was in there was a person, and if they'd been here for whatever had gone down in the kitchen, maybe they were hurt. He had to see if they were all right.

Hesitantly, James eased the door open with his hand on the grip of his gun.

The beam of his flashlight flickered over the hunched form in front of him— whoever it was, they had been crouching in total darkness, perhaps having been in too much of a hurry to get to the toilet to bother with trying to turn on a light. Or be concerned about anything, for that matter. Flabby, pale buttocks flashed in the light from where they hung out over the waist of their owner's shorts, and above that lay a twitching expanse of blue and white. Even in the dimness, James could see how the figure was quaking, convulsions rippling through its whole body as it continued to belch into the toilet bowl, beefy arms wrapped around it like a lifeline.

James's first impulse was to recoil— as if the less-than-appealing rear view he'd just been treated to hadn't been enough, the thoughts from his first few minutes in the town had come flooding back into his mind.

He had stumbled into an empty town that he remembered as quiet but definitely occupied, and had expected to be the same. Not even a crazy man could look at ruined, empty streets and buildings that had been full of people a short five years before and not wonder what had happened. Dozens of frightening possibilities had run through his head, but the one that had jumped out at him the hardest had hit when the first twisted, mutilated figure had come rising up out of the fog. Or not so much with the first, he supposed— even the first had seemed to be a bizarre anomaly, some kind of grotesque, undiscovered species that had somehow wandered into town from someplace deep in the old, old woods that surrounded Silent Hill for miles.

No, it had been when there turned out to be more. Shambling up and down the streets, crawling out from under cars, twitching their raisin-like heads as though in agony and straining against the taut, puckered kin that seemed to bind their torsos like a straightjacket.

An infection.

Some horrific disease straight from a horror movie or King novel (like the ones Mary had once enjoyed, even when they made her ask James to keep the bedside lamp on at night) had struck this town and its people, turning them into these twisted abominations.

At least, that was what he'd thought at first. That theory had been put firmly to rest sometime before the end. He was not sure when, exactly... perhaps there had been no specfic moment— only the slow and horrifying realization of a much more chilling truth.

But here in the Blue Creek Apartments, he had still been quite sure that the town's current state had been induced by some insidious plague. And his immediate thought upon seeing the figure being violently ill in front of him was that perhaps it was a person from the town— sick, infected... turning into a monster before his very eyes.

But then the figure shifted, the unpleasant sounds trailing off into a series of wet coughs as it lifted its head and turned to squint into the light, a mixture of nausea and trepidation sculpted onto the chubby, pale features. Then the coughing became a groan. Perhaps of relief, that the thing poking its head in through the door was another human being and not a monster, or perhaps of disgust and revulsion at being discovered in the middle of such a humiliating activity and at the intrusive light piercing the cramped darkness.

It was a man.

A young, somewhat corpulent man, dressed in shorts and a striped shirt and a blue baseball cap that held a thin fringe of pale blond hair (now plastered flat against his forehead in perspiration) out of his eyes. Probably somewhere in his twenties, though far closer to the teenage years than James was.

A man.

Not a monster.

James relaxed, the sour, nervous prickle that had started to tweak his insides subsiding into relief.

Relief that further faded into discomfort as the pale face turned away from him in favor of heaving into the toilet again. There was a liquidy gurgle accompanying it this time, and James almost considered muttering a hasty apology and turning to leave him be when the figure finally spoke, in a breathless and strained voice that ran out of steam towards the end, leaving the final word a gasp of pitiful breath.

"I-it wasn't me... I didn't do it!"

Grasping the doorframe, James leaned back in, feeling his brows rise to a peak. As disgusting as the display before him was, he could feel very little but sympathy for this poor man.

"Do what?" he asked, although even as he spoke, his thoughts were drifting to the body in the other room.

"I... I didn't do anything. I swear," pleaded the pudgy stranger, still leaning over the toilet as though worried there might be more coming up. "He was like this when I got here..."

He choked again, spitting something into the bowl with a grimace.

It was hardly the idea time for an introduction, but James found himself giving one anyway. Mostly because he had no idea what to say on the subject of what Barf Boy here had or hadn't done.

"My, uh, my name's James," he offered amiably, and was rewarded with a horrible, retching belch in return that made his resolve falter somewhat. He finished with an unsure tone. "... James Sunderland."

"Uhm... Eddie," croaked the stranger weakly, his chin resting on the dirty porcelain of the toilet, which semed to be his only friend in the world at the moment. Then it dipped into the bowl once more as his body gave another heave.

James winced.

"Eddie..." he said softly as the poor man's vomiting resumed, keeping his tone quiet. He was pretty sure the last thing anybody wanted while they were sick was someone barging in and loudly demanding answers. "Who's that dead guy in the kitchen?"

"I didn't do it!" Eddie moaned miserably. "I swear, I didn't kill anybody!"

That hadn't been what James asked, but he thought better of repeating himself and just stood there in the doorway, shifting slightly and listening to the ongoing symphony of the younger man's guts emptying themselves.

As he did so, a horrible, ridiculous thought occurred to him.

It was silly, but before he could even stop himself, he was already asking.

"You're not... friends with that red... pyramid thing, are you?"

"Hrrgh... red... pyramid thing... I don' even know whatch'r talkin' about..." the young man croaked harshly, resting his head once more as he panted to regain his breath, which was bated at first, as though waiting for another volley to begin. When it didn't, he spoke again, in a voice that was somehow pleading and apologetic all at once. "Honest..."

A shaky breath later and he had seemingly found the strength to lift his head, or at least loll it slightly.

"I... I did see some weird-lookin' monsters... they scared the hell outta me... s-so I ran in here."

James, who had lifted a hand to his mouth at the mention of the monsters, swayed in place thoughtfully. The monsters. This man had seen them too. Well, that at least told James one thing for certain.

Whatever was going on in this town, he sure as hell was not imagining it.

"Well..." he said, thinking of the body in the other room, mere feet from where Eddie had thrown himself down to be sick. When he had opened the door, this man— this boy, almost— had been completely vulnerable. If it had been a monster creeping in the door instead of James, Eddie would have been caught with his pants down. Literally. "I guess this place isn't too safe either... What happened here, anyway?"

"Uh... I toldja, I don't know... I-I'm not even from this town... just... I just..."

And then another wave came and he stuck his head back into the toilet, heaving.

Although Eddie had not finished his sentence, something about it lit up softly in James's brain. 'I just' could mean anything, but to someone else who had been drawn to this eerie, desolate place, the meaning behind the vague words seemed clear as daylight.

"You too, huh?" he said sympathetically— almost apologetically, even though he sensed he was just like Eddie; a lost wanderer who'd answered a mysterious call and ended up here. He gestured at thin air, trying to summon the words that Eddie couldn't. "Something just... brought you here. ... Right?"

His last word, a meek request for confirmation, was almost too quiet to hear over the violent, guttural noises still coming from the younger man.

But it made it through somehow, because Eddie's response was to sigh tightly, shaking his head back and forth. "Yeah... you could say that..."

There was a chord of misery in his voice— perhaps because of his current situation, perhaps because of the monsters, or perhaps because of whatever had drawn him here, be it a letter from a dead wife or something else— that resonated deeply to James. Like with the dark-haired girl he'd met in the graveyard outside of town, it hit his heart like a set of squeezing finges.

Mouth curling into a sympathetic frown, he stepped a little further into the bathroom, trying to resist the urge to hover in concern.

"Well," he started, looking down at the second human being he had encountered face-to-face here, "whatever it is, I think you'd better get out of here soon..."

The girl had been right. Not that he hadn't believed her, but he certainly hadn't taken her claims as seriously as it turned out he should have.

This place was dangerous.

Far more dangerous than anything he had ever encountered in his life.

He was confident that he could look out for himself, but... well... he couldn't be so sure about the others.

Eddie lifted his head again, panting slightly, winded from the exertion of vomiting so hard and long. "Yeah... you're right..."

Clearing his throat with a weak cough, he tilted his head a little to look up at James through tired, watery eyes.

"... What... what about you?"

James swallowed, feeling himself stand taller, the concerned frown he'd been wearing tightening into one of grim resolve as his mind drifted back to his mission. For a second, the details of the dim room seemed to sharpen, and his voice, just for a moment, seemed to boom in the silence.

"I'll leave as soon as I'm done here."

A ghost of something unsettled flitted across Eddie's face in the flashlight's beam as he looked up at the man standing over him— was it worry? Wariness? A sort of awe? James didn't know, but Eddie soon turned back to the toilet bowl and coughed wetly a couple of times, making James sigh. He didn't want to leave this 'Eddie' alone, but... the young man showed no signs of getting up any time soon and, well, he had to keep moving.

With a slight sigh, he raised a parting hand and said, as firmly as he could, "Eddie... be careful."

Then he turned to leave. He was almost out the door when Eddie's voice piped up behind him weakly, almost worriedly.

"James, I... I,um..."

James turned back once more, his flashlight once again lighting up the younger, who had propped himself up slightly and was looking after him, gnawing gently on his lip. There was something fearful and hopeful all at once in his gaze. His throat bobbed as he squinted up at James, almost looking like he was going to say something more. Something important. But then the brief light that had entered his eyes dimmed and he let himself slump back down dejectedly, turning them aside.

Whatever internal conflict he'd just had, whatever brief and frantic mental debate, he'd apparently defeated himself and decided not to go with whatever he'd initially had in mind to say.

"... You be careful, too..." he sighed tiredly, instead.

Slowly, James nodded to show that he would, then turned again and left for real as the unpleasant volley of vomiting sounds promptly resumed behind him.


Back in the car, he'd broken open one of the sodas they'd just brought at the gas station. He'd been intending to try and make them last, but... anything to get that sour, putrid taste out of his mouth. Water would have been better, but James found that he didn't really like drinking plain, straight-up water anymore.

Throwing up hadn't helped the nausea much— he could still feel his stomach squirming contentiously. It made him wish he'd bought ginger ale (a remedy that Mary had always sworn by whenever one of them was sick— the normal kind of sick) instead of coke, but he had a feeling even that wouldn't do much.

He must have LOOKED green around the gills too, because Laura had gone silent, quietly folding the newspaper and putting it away without being prompted. Maybe she was worried he'd throw up on HER if she tried to read from it again. Talk about carsickness.

Either way, he was happy to lose himself in silence once more. The open road was the best cure for his sickness at the moment.


~*~


There was a person on the side of the road.

At first, James paid no mind. They were getting closer to civilization and it wasn't the first human being they'd spotted, walking their dog towards the woods or changing tires on their cars. But certain details leaped out at him as they drew closer and closer and eventually passed.

It was a young woman, dark-haired.

She wore a cream-colored turtleneck and rusty red pants.

Her hand was sticking out, thumb pointed towards the sky.

A hollow look haunted her dark eyes.

For the second time that day, James's gut clenched.

No.

She's not real, he reminded himself. None of it's real. Like when you saw Eddie in the window. Like with everything you've been seeing lately. Just go past, keep looking straight ahead.

The figure fell out of view as they passed it and James relaxed.

Don't even check the rear-view. Ignore it and it'll go away... it'll all go away...

Then Laura, leaning back in her seat with her head craned around so that she could see out the back behind them, spoke up curiously.

"Hey James, why was that lady givin' us a thumbs-up?"

For the second time that day, the blue Oldsmobile's tires screeched as James brought the car screaming to a stop on the side of the road.

The whiplash was so hard that James almost felt the wind leave him as his back slammed against the seat— after he'd already pitched forward almost far enough to bust his nose on the steering wheel.

Laura's shriek trailed on a little longer after the motion stopped. She had actually fallen off of the seat that time, and was crouching down in the footspace between the seat and the glove compartment. Fortunately, she fit perfectly.

Unfortunately, she had not taken this second detour well, and was not as willing to be sympathetic about it as she was the first. She screeched shrilly.

"ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL US?!"

No. No, he was not.

But he didn't answer at first, because he had to see. Had to make SURE. He turned his back on her as he twisted around in his seat, elbow on the wheel, to stare out the back windshield. He had to see if the apparition was still there— or more accurately the person, because if Laura had seen her, she couldn't be a hallucination. She had to be there. She had to be there for real.

And there she was.

Standing about thirty meters behind where the car had scraped to a halt, leaving a pair of shallow but visible trenches in the pale, gritty soil, she had one arm wrapped protectively around herself and the other raised in the hitch-hiker's signal, though it was sinking as though she lacked the energy to keep it up there.

Even from a distance, he could see that her pale face was pointed in their direction. Her black eyes were hardly more than little button dots from this distance, but he knew as sure as he knew anything that her expression was one of reserved, wary curiosity. It didn't matter that he had not physically seen her since he had left Silent Hill, or that he had known her only through a few brief and tense encounters. He just knew.

Her face, like every other that he had encountered in that town, was burned into his memory like a brand. He could live to his nineties when his brain had been rotted out with senility, and he was pretty sure he'd still be able to remember those faces, crystal clear, even if the day came when he had no idea what they meant.

But there she was.

And James was already groping for the door handle, fumbling to get out even though he could not take his eyes off of that pale figure outlined against the cloudy gray sky. As the door came open with a clunk, he spoke to Laura in an urgent tone.

"Laura, stay in the car."

"But—" she started to protest, pulling herself up out of the cramped floorspace and back onto the seat. He could hear it in her voice, burning even hotter than her anger— curiosity.

"Just stay!"

And then he got out, knowing that she wouldn't but hoping that she'd at least keep her distance.

The girl on the side of the road watched him dead-on, gaze solid and unblinking. She had the stance of a wild animal— a frightened rabbit, perhaps— tense as a coiled spring and prepared to bolt at the first sign of trouble.

To be fair, from the way she was looking at him, perhaps she felt he was the first sign of trouble.

He didn't blame her.

She had been right about him to an extent after all, even if he hadn't wanted to believe it back then.

As she stared, he extended his arms away from him on either side slightly, showing that he wasn't carrying any weapons. His hands were open and his heart was pounding.

When he had reached a distance of perhaps ten feet, she tensed further and began to edge away, abandoning her signal entirely and wrapping both arms around herself instead. He took that as a sign to stop, and spoke.

"Angela..."

There was a sharp, tiny intake of breath. She had turned her head away and was staring at a spot on the curb in the opposite direction. One slender and clutched at her cream-colored sleeve like it was a lifeline.

"James... it's you..." she mumbled. Even with her dark eyes turned aside, he could tell she was watching him like a hawk out of her peripheral vision. He stayed exactly where he was, not daring to step closer.

She probably didn't realize (and perhaps never would) that he was almost as frightened as she was.

Angela Orosco was the very first person he had met in that town. Before Laura, before Eddie, before even any of the creatures that he had grown so intimately familiar with over the course of his time in that strange town. And although he had come to fear them all in various ways and for various reasons, Angela stood out for a number of reasons.

A frightened animal is most likely to bite.

And so, James didn't want to give her any more reason to than necessary. That dream he'd had while passed out in the back lot of that bar, the one where she had thrust her knife into his face over and over in a sort of perverse ecstasy, was still fresh in his mind. Even if she'd been behaving completely unlike herself in that.

Seeing her here was like seeing a ghost.... but it was definitely her. And she was definitely alive.

Heart in throat, he stood stock-still and waited for her to give a sign that it was safe to approach further.

"Yes. It's me," he murmured, keeping his hands at his sides. It took every ounce of self-control not to awkwardly shove them into his pockets or hold onto his own elbows, like she was doing. But he knew that if he hid them from view, that could be bad. She might think he was reaching for a weapon.... only untrustworthy people hid their hands.

At long last, she slowly turned her head back towards him, lifting her eyes to stare at him warily through a fringe of smoky black hair.

She was skinnier, he noticed. Not that she hadn't been slender to begin with, but now there was a certain gauntness to her— his mind shot immediately to the plastic bags of food sitting in the car, but in her case, it almost looked like fear more than malnourishment. Like she had stressed the health right off of herself. But then again, she'd always had that hollow look in her eye, at least as long as he'd known her, and as James recalled his final encounter with her on the flaming staircase, he remembered why and felt sick to his stomach.

She had every right to look that way.

He wondered where she had been and what she'd gone through in the time between now and when he'd last seen her.

He supposed that if he got the chance to find out, he could consider himself lucky.

"... I'm glad you're alive," he said after a moment or two when she failed to respond, apart from staring in silence. "I thought— ... I was worried that you'd..." His voice had risen a little, bringing it up to a conversational tone rather than a murmur— but she winced as though he had shouted and let out a quiet, slightly derisive scoff.

"Yeah?" she breathed, looking away again and kneading the quilted fabric of her turtleneck with bony fingers. "So you didn't?"

Feeling chagrined, James felt his mouth pulling into a soft frown, just like the one he'd worn as he looked up at her while the heat had blistered around them.

"I told you, I wouldn't..."

But he trailed off. Something about those words made him feel dirty, like he was somehow sinning just by speaking them. He chalked it up to being reminded of how Angela had once sensed the truth about him even before he had known it, and tried to put it out of his mind. Turnng slightly, he gestured past himself towards the crooked car.

"Look, I— ... if you're going somehere, we could—"

"No," Angela mumbled immediately, not even giving him a chance to finish before clutching herself tighter and turning stiffly to face straight ahead. Like she was hoping that if she didn't look at him, he might cease to exist. Like he had hoped when he'd driven past her at first. But then, as though catching her own bluntness, she added a whispered apology onto the end of the refusal. "Sorry... but... I don't need help. I'm... waiting for a ride."

"But you were sticking your hand out like you..." James started, brows furrowing, when he realized what she meant.

She didn't want a ride with him.

He supposed that was something he couldn't blame her for either.

But as he glanced, frowning, over his shoulder to the car, he knew he couldn't bear to leave her. All he'd been able to do back in Silent Hill was watch her ascend into the flames and (he thought) to her death. He had wanted to help... every fiber and particle in his body had wanted to help her. But he hadn't been able to. His own weakness had stopped him from being able to help anybody.

Now, a little more than three months later, he wouldn't say that he was any stronger now than he'd been back then... but at the very least, this time they weren't surrounded by flames. Or stranded in a ghost town. He had the means to help. He had to take advantage of it.

Mary would have wanted me to help.

"Angela," he said, tone pleading as he gestured to the car. "I know no one's picking you up... please, I can't just leave you out here."

There was a popping sound as her shoulders suddenly jerked upwards towards her ears, tensing. Oops. Tensing up himself, he turned his head aside automatically, bracing himself as she whipped around, her timid demeanor exchanging itself for one that was defensive and offensive all at once.

"Oh?" she challenged, chest heaving. Her arms had slipped down from each other and were held at her sides now, angled back jut a little bit. A challenging posture. Her small size might have made others look upon this and laugh (and James had a feeling that she'd probably had that happen to her more than once already), but the truth was that he was pretty sure she could hurt him badly if she tried. Mostly because he knew he wouldn't fight back. "You can't, huh? You sure left your WIFE behind, didn't you? Am I the next somebody else, James?"

... Ooh. Wow, okay, he'd forgotten how barbed her words could be. Feeling a little like someone had just stuck a fork in his chest and twisted it, James found himself reaching up to touch his fingers gently to the red patches on his shoulder, as though to reassure himself that they were still there. The thread that connected them to his arm and to each other was what connected him to his past.

"I didn't leave her behind..."

Not in his heart, anyway... even if her body had rested in Toluca.

And he had never been unfaithful to her. Not like Angela had once implied. That was one thing she had been wrong about.

But as usual, his words didn't sound terribly sure of themselves. They never did.

Angela picked up on that immediately. She was sharp as an arrow when she got like this. Huffing, she put her hands on her hips and lifted her chin.

"I know what people like you are like. You're hoping that if you help me, I'll feel obligated to—"

"No!" James pleaded, horrified but not surprised that she would leap to that conclusion. He spread his arms. "Angela, I don't want that. I just want—"

"—to get me alone," she finished for him, tone sharp. "Just do everyone a favor and go AWAY, James! I don't want help from any man. Especially not a man like YOU."

"But..." James faltered. Even though he had a feeling she would turn meek and apologetic again in a moment or so, he doubted that would have any effect on how willing she was to come with him, and he sure as hell wasn't going to try and force her. He may not have been the brightest bulb in the can, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to know that doing that would just make things worse.

So he stood there helplessly, arms at his sides— until he heard the thunk of one of the car doors slamming shut behind him.

Uh oh.

"Laura, no—"

"What's goin' on?"

The childish voice piping up and little crunches of tennis shoe in gravel caught Angela's attention and she looked up, brows furrowed upwards and mouth hanging open slightly in surprise. It had clearly not occurred to her that James might have someone else with him.

The little girl drew up beside him curiously, her usual animosity for him briefly forgotten in the face of meeting someone new— someone who was clearly significant somehow. Nobody they had spoken to since leaving the Sunderland house all those weeks ago was anyone who either of them had known from before.

"Who's she?"

"She's, um..." James swallowed, looking back at Angela awkwardly. It was a little too late to tell Laura to get back in the car now, and in truth, he hadn't had an entirely specific reason for wanting her to stay there in the first place. Just a sense of trepidation. If anything happened to her...

Angela had straightened up, one hand loosely clutching the wrist of the other again, as she watched the pair with an expression that was as calculating as it was unsure. She looked to Laura, and then back at James.

... And then, after a moment's thought... her glance suddenly became a glare. Her brows furrowed and her mouth turned into a deep frown. It wasn't a frown like the ones she usually wore— frustrated and sorrowful and mainly directed inwards. Sort of like his, as a matter of fact— oh no. This was aimed straight at him, and full of such deep loathing that it might as well have been a dark cloud hovering around her shoulders.

James's heart sank.

Oh no.

What was she mad at him for now? Laura hadn't even said anything particularly offensive yet...

He swallowed and decided that rather than worry about what he'd done to deserve that particular look at this particular moment, he ought to try and at least make this situation as little awkward as possible.

"Laura, um... this is Angela," he said hastily, gesturing to the pale young woman opposite them. For once, Laura didn't seem to be squinting in that sizing-up manner. He supposed that was probably just something she reserved for him now. Her eyes were bright and chipper as she peered at Angela, brimming with genuine curiosity.

"Angela? Like an angel?"

At Laura's words, Angela looked down at the girl in surprise, her seething glare once again replaced by uncertainty. She looked as though she wasn't entirely sure how to talk to an eight-year-old.

"Oh... um... yes..." she mumbled after a second or two, shifting her eyes.

"That's a pretty name," Laura said brightly.

James wondered if the reason she was being so well-behaved was because she'd seen Angela glaring at him like she wanted to light his guts on fire. He wouldn't put it past her to judge new people based entirely on whether they were nice to him or not.

"Thanks..." Angela said unsurely, but her tone and expression dropped in temperature once more as she looked back up to James. "And what... is she doing with you?"

James swallowed again.

"She— well, she's— she was my wife's..."

He trailed off. Laura wasn't Mary's daughter, obviously... not officially. But he had to admit, he'd sort of started to see her that way. It wasn't an entirely good thing, and he didn't like referring to her that way out loud so much because it made it sound almost as though Laura were the product of faithlessness. And in a way, she almost WAS. He hadn't been there, so Mary had turned to somebody else for comfort... although in this case, it had been emotionally adopting a little girl rather than MAKING one with another man. The latter would have cut James to ribbons inside. The former just made him feel sort of empty and achey.

But it was true in all but legality. Mary had obviously considered her such... and though Laura continued to refer to Mary as her friend rather than her mother, James was pretty sure that deep down, she thought of it the same way he did. It probably just hurt a little too much to admit it.

But it seemed that he didn't need to continue, because Angela was already interrupting him, scornful disbelief evident in her voice.

"Right."

"It's true," James said, a tad defensively, and for once Laura came to his aid— although it was probably on Mary's behalf more than his own. She stepped forward, nose pointed high. A lot more fearlessly than he'd approached Angela.

"Yeah! Mary was my best friend! She was gonna adopt me if she got better," she declared confidently, as though daring Angela to challenge her.

The young woman still looked a tad skeptical, but she seemed more willing to take Laura's word for it than James's. But the frown remained, as she glanced between the girl and the man.

This time, James knew why she was making that face.

"She already knows, Angela," he said shortly, his voice tight.

He and Laura hadn't talked about his crime since that drizzly morning in the car outside that pizza place— outside of her occasional pointed reminders that he'd done a bad thing, anyway. He was grateful for that. He did enough talking on the subject in his head for the both of them, and unless Laura wanted to talk about it... well, he had no desire to return to the topic. What good would it do? He knew the truth and there was little point in revisiting it out loud over and over. ... Especially since he now did so in his dreams every night whether he liked it or not...

"Oh."

She clutched at her sleeves uncomfortably again, continuing to glance between them and— occasionally— out at the road. There weren't many people driving today. They were now on the ruraler edge of New Hampshire and traffic was far scarcer than it had been a few days before. They were still traveling in an aimless pattern— as long as it was someplace new that he had not seen before, James didn't care where they wound up at the end of each day. But they hadn't been this far into the boonies yet in their travels.

Part of him wondered how Angela had even wound up out here... perhaps she'd been dropped off by a driver, or maybe she'd hiked... she looked worn around the edges, that was for sure.

The woolen turtleneck had grown fuzzy and slightly unraveled around the elbows, and there were dark gray smudges decorating it.

Maybe she's been traveling like us... but unlike us, she doesn't have a car...

Thinking about her wandering all by herself hurt.

"Angela, why were you givin' us a thumbs-up?" Laura asked loudly, seemingly unaware of the tense vibe between her co-traveler and new acquaintance.

"Thumbs... up?" Distracted, Angela looked back to Laura, sounding almost confused.

"It's a hitch-hiker's signal," James said, figuring he could at least be of some use. "When someone's standing on the side of the road doing that, it means they need a ride somewhere."

"Oh!" said Laura brightly. "Is Angela comin' with us?"

"No," Angela replied instantly, but this time she didn't sound too sure of herself. Her dark eyes flicked back over to James briefly and once again, he saw that loathing there. "I mean— ... I don't..."

At last, James put his hands in his pockets, squaring his shoulders. Having them out now might seem more threatening than having them in. He couldn't do anything but wait for Angela to decide. After all... any word on his part would likely just convince her further of his bad intentions, no matter what he said. He could probably hand her his wallet, keys, and all of his clothes and she'd probably still take it as some kind of trick.

He knew it wasn't her fault that she thought that way, but damn if it didn't make things a lot harder.


James hung back, at first, as he entered the room. Part of it was because his eyes needed time to adjust after the pitch-darkness of the hallway— this room was dimly lit in pale, blue-gray light that filtered in from the cracks in the boarded-up windows. Dim, that is, but still a lot brighter than where he'd just come from.

But the other part was the woman lying prone on the floor in front of him.

The sight sent the hairs on the back of his neck standing straight up.

It was her.

The graveyard girl.

The first living soul he'd met here.

It was ironic, perhaps, that the subtle unease that had permeated that encounter had gone on to set the tone for the rest of his journey through the town thus far. Or maybe it had somehow been prophetic.

The young woman's back was now to him, her cream-colored turtleneck bunched up to her ears and her legs bent, leaving her in a half-curled position on the floor. She was straight up against the wall, her face almost touching that of her reflection's; the far wall of the room was paneled entirely in mirrored glass.

The floor creaked gently under James's boots as he took an unsure step into the room, not sure whether to announce his presence or not. He hadn't received a particularly warm welcome from her back in the cemetery, and stumbling across a body lying all by itself was a somewhat chilling omen, even if the steady rise and fall of her sides proved that she was alive.

He edged inside, keeping his back to the wall for reasons he didn't entirely understand— and then, without turning around or rolling to face him, she spoke, in a dull and morose voice that almost seemed to be coming from an entirely different person than the meek and stuttering one he'd spoken to among the gravestones.

"Oh... it's you..."

James looked at her sharply, the first words rising in his throat being a surprised inquiry as to how she'd known who he was just by the sound of his steps. But then he caught sight of his own face, ghostly-pale and somewhat more frightened-looking than he was even aware he was feeling, in the mirror. Of course. She didn't need to look over her shoulder to tell who he was.

Swallowing, he detached himself from the wall and took a slow step forward, craning his neck just slightly to see around her— over her. She might be hurt... why else would she be lying there?

But nothing else seemed to be outwardly wrong— no blood spotted the floor, no labored wheezing punctuated her slow, deep breaths as she lay there.

Maybe she was just... tired.

It was a strange choice in resting place, to be sure, but well, she had come off as quite the odd one back there, so... maybe...

A glint in the glass caught his eye.

There was something in her reflection's hands... and when he realized what it was, his breath caught briefly in his throat.

A knife, its point being idly twirled against the rotting strands of carpet beside her face. It was a large one, the sort one could usually find in a kitchen drawer, intended for chopping raw vegetables. But, as he couldn't avoid noting, there didn't seem to be any veggies around, raw or otherwise.

Looking back at her with increased alarm (that, he noted, didn't really show on his face if the mirror was any indication. This was probably a good thing; if the situation was what he thought it was, it would pay to stay calm), he let out a deep breath.

"Yeah... I'm James..." he said, kneeling as he spoke, one knee meeting the moldering carpet. It felt wrong to loom over her as they spoke— she had been so timid back there in the graveyard, startling at the sound of his voice even though he had approached her across open ground. They had startled each other, to be honest, but she had spooked far more easily than him. He'd felt guilty for it.

And now, with that blade in her hands... he had no idea what was going through her head, but the last thing he wanted was to make her feel threatened. And not just for the sake of his own skin...

That was where he trailed off, leaving his name as a small offering. She recognized it for what it was, although instead of taking the opportunity graciously, she let out a long, low sigh— like air leaving the inner cavities of some worn-out stuffed animal during one last goodbye squeeze.

"Angela..."

"Angela," he repeated softly after her, to cement it in his memory and show her that he'd listened. Then he took a deep breath. "Okay... I don't know what you're planning, but..."

He nodded, slowly and pointedly, towards the bright object in her hands. She hadn't turned to face him, but he could see her eyes on his in the mirror. She was watching his reflection steadily, carefully gauging his reactions and noting his each and every movement. With this in mind, it was in slow, deliberate demonstration that he gestured with his hand, fingers spread.

".. There's always another way."

There was a brief silence, and then, in a slow drawl not dissimilar to the way she'd spoken her name, she replied, "... Really."

He had been speaking completely earnestly, but in her voice all there was, aside from a deep and terrible tiredness that almost made him want to lie down on the floor next to her in sympathetic exhaustion, was... well, sarcasm.

Unsure how to respond, he remained crouching there, his reflection gaining a furrowed brow as he watched the woman on the floor.

After a long and awkward silence during which he failed to react otherwise, she spoke again.

"But... you're the same as me. It's easier just to run." Another pause, and then, a sudden sour loathing entering her tone, she added, "Besides... it's what we deserve."

A different sort of alarm had sprung to life in James as she spoke. Initially, he'd largely been worried about her. About what she might plan to do to herself with that knife, when she was so clearly not in a stable frame of mind. But something about her words, the sureness of them, the way she included him in them when they had only spoken once before, back there in the graveyard...

His mind flew to the knife in her hands, but rather than occupying himself with what she planned to do with it, it went somewhere else. Somewhere that he'd left behind hours ago.

Drawers violently thrown open, the jarring clatter of metal and wood hitting the floor as he raked whisks and spatulas and long stirring spoons out of them with desperate, clawing hands.

The sharp glint of metal in the gloom of their kitchen as he found what he'd been looking for.

The paleness of his own arm in the dark, the sleeve rucked up past the elbow.

The agony in his chest and brain as he thought about what he had just left behind upsta—

James's legs straightened, sending him upright as he shoved that place frantically away, his previous thoughts of trying not to scare Angela flying out the window along with it. His heart was pounding.

"No," he stammered, panic rising in him even as he found himself suddenly unable to recall what had just been brought to mind by the thought of her knife— only the sudden, seizing fear that had followed. "I'm not like you!"

Silence reigned in the dreary room for a moment or so.

Then Angela's voice rose again, jarring in its sudden cruelty.

"Are you afraid?"

The mocking lilt in her voice, so different from both the timid girl he'd met in the graveyard and the tired girl that had been lying here mere seconds before, was only emphasized by the loudness of it. She had raised her voice harshly, suddenly, and far beyond the volume she'd managed in any of their conversations thus far.

But then, as though startled by her own loudness (and maybe even the hurtfulness), she stuttered, drawing her shoulders up slightly.

"I... I'm sorry," she mumbled. The graveyard girl was back, and she sounded shocked and ashamed of what had just come out of her mouth. The arm that wasn't clutching the knife tightened around herself, as though comforting her. Her entire frame had tightened.

The harsh, jeering question had startled James as well, making him step back even further, but he made himself stay, resisting the urge to turn and leave— to walk away from this situation that was making him think dark, alarming things that he wasn't supposed to be remembering thinking.

She was alone.

She was scared.

She needed help.

"... It's okay," he said at last. It wasn't— not really— but maybe she needed to hear that.

He stood there, probing absent-mindedly around the inside of his mouth with his tongue— he had taken more than one blow to the face before coming here and at least one tooth was idly contemplating being loose. He hoped it would decide not to be. He liked his teeth where they were.

Finally, he decided to take a stab (no pun intended...) at shifting the subject away from whatever the young woman was contemplating... whether or not it involved him. Or the knife.

"Did you... f-find your mother?"

"... Not... yet," admitted Angela, her voice once again slumping into that tired drawl, as though each word were exhausting. "She's not anywhere..."

An idea striking him, James pointed at the door he had entered through.

"Did she live in this apartment building?"

The place was abandoned, but... he had been searching it thoroughly, hoping that perhaps some residents still remained, perhaps barricaded into their rooms for shelter from the macabre creatures stalking the world outside.

Angela seemed to think about that for a moment, before twitching her shoulders in a shrug. The knife glinted as she did so. "I... I don't know," she said, sounding miserable and confused.

James blinked, falling once more to a stoop with his hands on his knees, although this time it was more from curiosity than to make her feel at ease.

"So... all you know is she lived in this town..." he mused. It was pointless to say it out loud, really, but sometimes speaking aloud to himself helped him solve problems. And well, if he could help Angela with hers, maybe...

"... What did you say?" Angela said after a very striking pause, and once again, her voice had become... larger, somehow. Cold. Suspicious and unfriendly.

At long last, she moved— slowly rolling over, elbow hitting the carpet and supporting her as she sat up, now facing the real James rather than just his dingy reflection in the speckled glass.

"How do you know that?"

It was the same voice from before— unmistakably. It lacked the jeering edge now, but it was just as harsh and accusatory.

James waffled under the force of her gaze, which (now that it was directed at him) was as piercing as the knife in her hands, partially regretting having said anything.

"Well, I just— figured, 'cause this is where you're looking for her," he said apologetically, nodding to the room around them in representation of the town as a whole. She'd told him she was here looking for her 'Mama', after all... He spread his arms expressively. "How else would I know?"

She stared him down for a second longer before his words seemed to make their way through. Then she blinked and shook her head lightly, the suspicious glare fading once more into the tired, sad one from before as she visibly realized what he was saying made sense.

"I... yeah..."

The end of the word had become another one of those long sighs and her head dipped briefly, her free hand planting against the carpet for support as she brought the blade-bearing one up to press against her forehead.

"I'm so tired..." she said morosely, by way of explanation for her strange leap in logic. He'd believe it. She sure looked tired.

He nodded, watching her for a moment before piping up again. "So... why did y'come to this town, anyway?"

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat as he spoke, not looking up at him. It seemed to make her uncomfortable, despite the direct stare she'd given him earlier. Instead of answering, she mumbled a heavy "I-I'm sorry..."

Massaging her temples, she held the knife close to her chest as she spoke, still keeping her eyes on the floor as she bent her knees and tucked them in to sit Indian-style.

"Did... did you find the person you're looking for?"

Although he wasn't feeling incredibly hopeful about this discussion to begin with, once the topic was shifted back onto himself, he felt a little bit of his optimism drain away. It was easier to feel hopeful about other peoples' problems than it was his own.

"Not yet..."

Reaching up into his pocket, he pulled out the polaroid photograph of Mary that he had been keeping close at hand. He hadn't thought about it much when he had first slipped it in there at the beginning of his journey, but the upper left-hand pocket of his coat was situated directly over his heart. There were few comforts to be found in this lonesome place, but being able to keep Mary's photo in there was one of them.

With the photo in hand, he knelt all the way down once more and held it up to her so that she could look at it.

"Her name's Mary. She's my wife."

Lifting her head at last, Angela gave the photo a long stare, taking in the details. He would never know what ran through her head as she looked, but if nothing else, he could tell she was looking at it seriously. Sincerely.

... But then, slowly, she shook her head.

"I— I-I'm sorry..."

James's heart sank. He slipped the photo away again, nodding sadly.

"It's okay..." Rising slowly to his feet once more, he turned away from Angela again and took a few halting steps back towards the door. He hadn't really expected her to have seen Mary, but still. There had been that moment... It was with a heavy, leaden feeling in his chest that he continued, in a voice that was as low and tired as Angela's. "Anyway... she's dead."

He stopped in the middle of the room his back to the mirror. A light sting was piercing the corners of his eyes... and his wrists itched.

"... I don't know why I think she's here..."

Behind him, he heard Angela take in a quick breath and pipe up, unsurely, "... She's... dead?"

All at once, the absurd nature of his words struck him and he spun around again, a frantic energy dragging his voice back up from the brief forlorn note it had taken on.

"D— don't worry! I'm not crazy! Hha..." He shifted in place, a sheepish laugh escaping his throat as he reached up to give the back of his neck an awkward scratch. "... 'Least... I don't think so..."

But apparently he didn't sound too convincing, because the nervousness from the graveyard once again flitted across the young woman's face, and at last she started to clamber upright.

"I— I've gotta find my mama," she stammered, eyes flicking to the doorway.

In his mind, James slapped a hand to his face and kept it there.

Great... now he'd gone and scared the poor girl. As if things weren't bad enough. Maybe he should have just left when he'd had a chance.

But then... she'd be alone.

Swallowing, he turned back to her.

"Should... I go with you?" When she turned back to face him skeptically, he pointed at the boarded window, assuming that it probably led outside and was therefore acceptably representative of the town as a whole. "This place is dangerous— I see what you meant back there at the cemetery!"

Looking slightly distressed at the thought of being accompanied by James, Angela drew her hands up.

"I-I'll be okay by myself... besides, I'd just... s-slow you down," she stammered.

His heart sank, but he knew better than to press. And part of him, admittedly, was even a little bit relieved (even if the rest of him hated the thought of her wandering around by herself in monster central)... for all that she seemed nervous in his presence, she also frightened him.

In the awkward silence that followed, his eyes drifted to the kitchen knife, still in her hand.

Slowly, he pointed to it.

"What about... that?"

Even more slowly, her gaze drifted down to it, a dozen unreadable emotions crossing her face. After a long and thoughtful pause, she looked back up at him with furrowed brows.

"... Will... you... hold it for me?"

It was an odd request— even a baffling one. She had no other weapons that he could see, and she herself had told him that this place wasn't right, before he had even seen any proof of it with his own eyes.

But there was something in her face— some terrified desperation, and he thought perhaps she feared what would happen if she hung onto it more than whatever fate might befall her if she went on without it. The eerie way she'd been staring at its reflection in the mirror made him think she might be right.

Maybe she had taken his initial words of advice to heart.

"Sure," he agreed softly. If it made her feel better. "No problem."

She paced to the side, still not looking directly at him.

"I-if I kept it... I'm not sure what I might do," she confessed, confirming his suspicions.

He nodded.

Then, reached out to take it.

Only to find himself throwing both hands up in alarm as the knife was suddenly turned on him, accompanied by a blood-curdling scream that carried on despite his panicked attempt to calm her by spreading his fingers placatingly. Angela's eyes had snapped wide open and she had cowered away, clasping the blade in both hands and pointing it at him, mouth agape in terror.

She backed away, lungs hitching with barely-restrained sobs, staring straight at him with terror-glazed eyes the way a cornered cat might at a hungry dog. It wasn't until she semed to come slightly to her senses, enough to see him standing splay-fingered, frozen, and looking pretty damn scared himself, that he was able to summon words once more.

"I-I... I'm sorry! I— ieuh..."

That deep drawl was long gone, her young age now betrayed by the high pitch of her voice. It plucked James's heartstrings like a rough hand on a harp, but he didn't dare move. She was backing away from him even now, one hand to her chest. The other was still brandishing the knife in front of her, even as she spewed guiltridden apologies.

"I-I've been bad... please..."

Unable to bear it, he stepped towards her one last time, mouth open to make some attempt at calming her, but this only succeeded in pulling a heart-wrenching cry of "DON'T!" out of her before she slammed the knife down on top of a cabinet and fled from the room.

Shaken, bewildered, James craned his head to look after her, hurrying to the door briefly to see where she went. But he didn't dare follow her out of the room— doing so at this point would only scare her worse, and god only knew what she might do then.

Reluctantly, he turned to the abandoned knife, picking it up delicately in one hand and turning it this way and that in the light.

A smattering of something rust-colored on the blade made his breath catch in his throat— he hadn't realized it had already been used on something. But he supposed that wasn't too surprising. This place was full of monsters, after all... whatever had happened, she had probably been defending herself.

That, he was certain of.

With a heavy heart, he stuck it in his pocket, the question of whether or not he'd been right to offer to hang onto it in the first place swimming around in his head.

But there was no point in regretting it now... he'd just have to carry it and hope for the best. If he saw her again... maybe it would be safe to give it back to her.

"James? ... James! ... JAMES!"

There was a sharp, resonating pain in his ankle.

"Ow!"

Jolted back to the present, James let out a yelp and hopped sideways, picking one foot up off the ground and turning his head to stare hurtly at Laura, who had just employed her usual strategy at snapping him out of his funks and was now standing there with her hands on her hips, chin jutted out.

Wincing, he bent slightly to clamp one hand around the throbbing joint, still crow-hopping in one spot. The other arm was flapping uselessly in the air for balance.

"Geez, Laura, would it kill you to just tap me on the shoulder for o—"

"DON'T YOU TOUCH HER!"

The words tore out of Angela's throat like blackbirds rushing from a pie and James froze, his too-tired-for-too-long eyes snapping all the way open for what felt like the first time in weeks. Still on one leg and wobbling dangerously but not daring to lower his foot (or make any sudden movements at all, for that matter), he slowly looked up at Angela, who had stepped forward with her fists balled.

It took a second or two for anyone to speak. James and Laura were both staring (in trepidation and bewilderment, respectively) at the would-be hitch-hiker, whose shoulders were quivering. ... But suddenly, the anger drained out of her again and she stepped back, eyes wide and posture resuming its hunch.

"Oh— I'm... I'm sorry, I thought... I thought you were going to hit her."

"James doesn't hit me," Laura said once the shock had worn off, sounding almost baffled. She turned back to James, looking him up and down. "He knows that if he hit me, I'd hit him back."

"I also just don't make a habit of hitting little kids," James mumbled, rubbing an arm as though he'd already been hit. The last time he had raised a fist to anybody was... well... not counting what had happened with Todd... or Eddie... or the monsters... well, he couldn't even remember. James wasn't the sort of person who rose his fists to anybody, really. He didn't have the guts.

But least of all with kids. No matter how many times he'd been tempted to strike Laura (and he would be lying if he said there hadn't been any of those. Anyone would be lying), he knew just as certainly as he knew that he had ended Mary's life that he would die before he ever deliberately harmed the impudent child he now shared his life with.

And she knew it, too.

They had never talked about it.

It was just one of those unspoken things.

He didn't know if she was still afraid of him or not, like she had been when they had first set out. Perhaps she was. But she didn't act like it anymore, and even if she was, at the very least it wasn't his fists that she feared. Enough time had passed by now that she knew they wouldn't fall on her no matter what she did.

"I'm sorry," murmured Angela again, cringing.

"It's all right, I don't mind talking about how James is a wimp," said Laura eagerly, and James bit back a groan. He'd rather the conversation not steer in that direction.

"Look— um, Angela..." He turned back to her, shrugging his shoulders up. "We're headed to the next town. Will you... will you at least come with us that far? I don't... I don't wanna leave you out here all by yourself. It looks like rain, and... and I haven't seen many people out on this road..."

Angela looked up at the sky, then gave him a dull stare and shook her head in disgust.

"I don't want a ride from somebody like you."

Fair enough. James nodded and looked down at the fine gravel they stood on. It had already coated the toes of his boots in white dust.

He couldn't force her. But... well, maybe if they at least left her with some food...

"He IS awful boring," Laura cut in. "But he's not more boring than standing HERE. That's real boring."

Her face was bright at the prospect of taking on another passenger. For whatever reason, she seemed to have taken a bit of a shine to Angela. Maybe it was her name, or maybe it was because she seemed to hate James just as much as Laura did, or maybe James really was just awful company.

"Can't you come? I'm SOOOOO sick of James, I could PUKE."

That last word was directed straight at him, and he immediately looked down again, appropriately ashamed. Maybe she hadn't been so sympathetic about that little incident after all.

He sighed and looked back to Angela apologetically.

"It's all right, we... obviously, if you don't want to come, you don't... uh, have to..."

But there was something new in her face, a sort of dawning realization as she stared at Laura, and it once again shifted to loathing as vicious as ever when James spoke up and she shot her glare back to him.

"... I'll come," she said, in a soft, trembling tone. Her knuckles were white as they gripped her sleeves, and she seemed to be shaking. "I'll come... but... but no FUNNY business, all right?!"

James withdrew his hands from his pockets once more and held them up, palms facing her, as a show of good faith that he wasn't holding anything back. No crossed fingers here.

"No funny business. I promise. We're just going to town to rest for the night. We can drop you off there, and... and you can... do... you know, you can... um..."

"FINALLY!" Laura interrupted, taking the concession on Angela's part as a sign that the standoff was over. Before James could stop her, she had bounced over to the dark-haired young woman like a puppy off its leash, grabbing for her hand. She was normally so reserved around strangers, but perhaps James's awful conversational skills really HAD driven her to desperation. He hoped she wouldn't be too disappointed when she discovered that Angela's were even worse. "C'mon! It's a stupid ugly car and it smells but at least it's blue!"

Two days ago, Laura had said blue was her least favorite color and that James should paint his car hot magenta instead.

He didn't bother trying to figure her out anymore.

But as Laura began to tug Angela towards the car, James meandered behind them. He wasn't sure what had convinced Angela so suddenly to join them... it certainly wasn't because she believed anything he said, judging by the way she shot him another dark look over her shoulder as she passed. She even skirted as widely around him as was possible within the range of Laura's short arms.

It didn't matter, though.

A few hours ago, he'd thought Angela was dead. The fact that she was alive at all was something to celebrate. She could hate him and judge him all she wanted, and you know what, he would be okay with it. Just as long as she was whole and healthy and in a better place than standing with her thumb up on the side of the road when they left her.

As she got into the back of the car, something stupid and hopeful in the back of James's head wondered if maybe Eddie...

No.

No, he had seen Eddie's body himself. And so had others, judging by that newspaper article.

Eddie was dead as a doornail.

Sense of accomplishment slightly diminished by that grim reminder, James climbed into the driver's seat, shutting the door behind him and looking over to the passenger seat, intending to ask Laura if she could offer Angela something from the contents of one of the grocery bags. But to his surprise, there was only an empty seat.

"Huh?"

A clunk in the back of the car made him turn his head in time to see Laura climbing into the backseat instead. An alarm bell went off in the back of his brain.

"Uh— ... Laura, maybe you should come up and sit in the front—"

"I don't wanna. I wanna be back here now," Laura said officiously, bouncing on the seat.

It was an irrational worry. Angela might not be... well, he was pretty sure she wouldn't harm a little girl, anyway. It was silly to imagine that just because he was slightly afraid of her, everyone else should be. But... he knew things about her that Laura did not, and...

He opened his mouth to TELL Laura to come sit in the front of the car, but was cut off by a cold glare from Angela.

She was sitting stiffly in the seat directly behind him tensely, as though she expected the walls to come closing in on her like a trap at any second.

"It's all right, Laura," she said, tone almost protective, though she did not remove her unfriendly gaze from James. "You don't have to sit with him."

"Yeah! I wanna sit back here with you!" Laura said. "I don't like sitting next to James, he's mean and he smells."

The words brought a tinge of a smile to Angela's mouth. She finally broke the one-sided glaring contest with James and looked down at Laura, relaxing slightly. It was, frankly, the calmest James had ever seen her. She was regarding Laura tentatively but somewhat tenderly, almost like one might a little sister.

"You can stay back here with me."

Well, he supposed he couldn't force THAT, either... they seemed to be getting along swimmingly and hauling Laura screaming into the front seat in front of Angela was a bad idea for all kinds of reasons.

"Why were ya standing on the side of the road waitin' for a ride, Angela?" Laura pronounced it 'angel-ah', which made a dull flush enter the young woman's cheeks.

"I... I needed a ride to get to town, like h— ... like James said."

"Don't you have a car? You're a grownup, you could drive a car."

Angela did look like a grownup... eerily so, in fact. She looked older than Eddie, even though James suspected she was the youngest of the three who had been wandering through their own private nightmares in Silent Hill that day. But to a kid like Laura, anyone above the age of sixteen probably looked like a fully-fledged adult.

"I don't have a car. I was— Mama and Papa never let me get a license. They said... walking was good for me."

"Ew, walking is STUPID," Laura stated brashly, and James could not help but notice the sheer difference between the pair— even though Angela could be loud and forceful sometimes, the tiny Laura made her look like a mouse in comparison. "I walked all the way back up from Silent Hill to the road through the woods once. It was AWFUL. I had blisters."

Angela didn't laugh (James wasn't sure she could laugh), but the smile remained.

"Where are your parents, Laura?"

"Oh, I don't have any," said Laura, cheerfully enough. "The sisters told me they were drug addicts and didn't want me so they left when I was three. That's okay, 'cuz I'm pretty sure if I could remember them, I wouldn't want them either."

Maybe this was why Mary had liked Laura. As loud and mannerless as she was... she was easy to talk to. She just kept talking. And maybe that was what people like Mary... and Angela... needed.

All the same, this realization made James suddenly feel very out of place sitting in here with the two of them. It was more than obvious that he was not included in this conversation. Swallowing and pushing the third-wheel feelings down, he reached over to pick up the plastic grocery bags from the floor and set them on the now-unoccupied passenger seat.

"So, um," he piped up. "The nearest town we were heading to is about forty-five minutes away—"

"Don't interrupt her," Angela said quietly, making the words die in his throat with one of the darkest stares he'd ever seen. Oops.

"Yeah! Don't interrupt me!" Laura added gleefully, and it was obvious that having another grownup around who took her side all the time thrilled her, even though they both knew she was more than capable of holding her own in any discussion. James could hardly hold anything in an argument with Laura.

"I, uh..." Quailing a little bit under the twin stares, he swallowed and turned back around to face the road as he pulled the car back onto it. "Sorry."

Well, that hadn't gone well.

As their progress on the road resumed, James tried to stay out of their conversation as much as possible. All the same, every so often when he flicked his eyes up to look in the mirror, Angela had turned her attention away from Laura to glare intensely at the back of his head. Eventually he started being able to predict when she was doing this because he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck starting to rise.

At some point Laura noticed too and, with a giggle, immediately joined in, like it was some kind of game.

Competitive Give-James-the-Stink-Eye.

Fun with only one player, but even better with two.

James felt his stomach doing flip-flops every time he looked up and saw both girls glaring at him from the backseat like they wanted his head to burst into flames.

When buildings finally came into view around the bend, it was a huge relief. The sky had been growing darker and the only thing that could make the silent glaring from the backseat even worse was if they had ominous shadows cast over their faces.

Finally feeling like he had a legitimate excuse to speak up without being scolded, James did so, flicking on his signal for the turn-off.

"We're here," he said, forcing a little brightness into his voice. "Now we just gotta find a hotel. You hungry yet, Laura?"

He figured maybe if he avoided addressing Angela directly for the moment, maybe she'd be a little less pressured.

"Um, duh. I'm starving," said Laura, which was her customary response.

Turning his lights on now that they were in town and starting to spot other cars in the growing gloom, James nodded.

"Let's figure out where we're gonna stay and then we can break into the supplies, okay?"

Laura stood up in her seat, leaning forward and wrapping her arms around the headrest of the seat in front of her, scanning the street ahead. "Is Angela gonna come with us?"

Uh oh. So much for not addressing her directly.

"Ah..." he started lamely. Now that they had reached civilization, they had reached the point where he'd said Angela could go her own way. He was more than willing to keep his word, but now that they'd gotten here, driving for forty-five minutes with her in the backseat didn't feel like a particularly geat contribution to her ongoing wellbeing.

Still...

"She can if she wants... but otherwise, uh... we can drop her off at... uh..."

Crud. He didn't even know if she had any money. His wallet was getting lighter and lighter, but he found himself reaching down for it automatically. If she was going to go on her own... he couldn't let her go completely empty-handed...

But then he found himself cut off by the sound of her voice, quiet but determined from the backseat.

"I'll come with you."

James looked over his shoulder at her in surprise.

"... Really?"

She didn't look... happy about her decision, exactly. But her hands were folded in her lap and her mouth was pressed into a grim, resolute line.

"Only for awhile. But— STOP, IT'S RED!"

A horn blared and James yelped, whipping around again just in time to stop the car from barrelling through a red light. It had already crossed the safety line.

Angela heaved a loud sigh.

"If we don't all die in some flaming wreck first," she added morosely, her expression in the mirror a clear and distinct statement about what she thought of James's driving capabilities.

"WOOHOO!" crowed Laura, hopping up and down on the seat, the top of her head brushing against the ceiling of the car. She was grinding gravel and grit into the seat with her shoes, but James didn't care too much. Nobody sat back there, anyway. Except for Angela, now.

... Now they had someone sitting back there.

It was strange to think about.

Although realistically he had only known Laura for a tiny fraction of his life, he had quickly grown used to her being his only company. Adding another member to their party was something he had never really entertained the thought of before spotting Angela back there on the road. In terms of practicality... it wasn't such a good idea. Another mouth to feed, and another drain on his mental health, for another... but then, that last reason was not fit to take into account when it came to decisions like this. He deserved whatever he got and if it was for the sake of keeping someone safe, he could deal with a little extra anxiety.

The light turned green and he sheepishly headed through the intersection.

"I'm... glad you're gonna stay, Angela," he said honestly, turning the wheel hand-over-hand to pull into a parking lot connected to a motel. It didn't look too fancy, but then, none of the ones they stayed in were. "I really am."

"... Yes, well..." said Angela awkwardly, and he could tell she wasn't entirely certain she returned the sentiment. But being stuck with someone you didn't like was better than being alone, after all... anything was better than being alone.

He parked the car and Laura immediately hopped out, crouching and opening the door before the tires had even rolled completely to a stop.

"We drive all day and then at night we stop an' go to one of these," she excitedly jabbered to thin air as Angela warily got out of the vehicle, looking around and moving with slow, calculated movements. Like a fox emerging from its den after hunting party had been through the area.

Laura had already gotten ahead of herself and was skipping off across the lot, kicking her feet high, but Angela had remained behind for the moment. James noted her staring at the motel with lidded eyes as he got out of the car himself, carrying a couple of the grocery bags with him. As he drew up a little closer, intending to ask her if she felt all right, he was just in time to catch a mumble of what sounded like "... a place where men take their whores."

"What'd you say?" he asked, sure that he'd misheard.

"Nothing," Angela said instantly, eyes flicking down at the pavement. She toed the white line of the parking space with one of her sneakers, grabbing at one elbow— then started to walk, head down. Being alone with James didn't seem to be high on her to-do list, even if they were standing in the middle of a wide open space in broad daylight. He watched her go with a slight frown, but... well, he DID understand why. Hitching the groceries up, he followed them.


"I want my own room," Angela muttered once they had made it to the conter to sign in— so softly that at first he didn't even totally notice that she'd spoken.

"What?" James said, halfway through signing out a room. He looked over his shoulder, baffled, then back down at the form. Two rooms a night? That would get very expensive, very fast... "I, uh... I'm not sure that's a very good idea... we're kinda... we're kinda running on a tight budget."

She looked up at him briefly, then shrank away as though burned, clutching her elbows tighter.

"I'm not going to go to sleep in the same room as you," she said in a low, unhappy whisper.

James gulped. Uh oh. He really should have thought of this.

He glanced over his shoulder at the counter; the man behind it had been puttering away at his desk after passing James the forms, absentmindedly going back to his own business like James had found most people did once they weren't dealing with him directly, but he looked up in interest at Angela when she hissed like that.

"Uhhh..."

James bit his lip, not wanting to cause a scene in the middle of the lobby. Maybe... maybe it would be more simple to just take a hit to the wallet tonight. There would be time to try and convince her otherwise later. Yeah.

"... Could we have another... uh, form, please?"

And so there were two hotel rooms booked that night.


~*~


Laura's ghostly reflection appeared and disappeared over his shoulder in the microwave's glossy window repeatedly as she jumped up and down behind him, the springy mattress sending her sailing into the air.

Each bounce was punctuated by a single syllable of what had become a fearsome, bellowed war chant.

"MAC AND CHEESE! MAC AND CHEESE! MAC AND CHEESE!"

"It'll be ready in a minute, Laura," James said tiredly, watching the bowl of unnaturally-orange noodles rotate slowly on the dirty little micowave dish that the hotel had provided. Many of the inns they'd stopped in didn't even HAVE individual microwaves, so even this was a bit nicer than they'd grown used to. A bit of regret churned briefly in James's stomach as he remembered the jacked-up price and wondered if maybe the addition of the microwave was part of the extra cost.

"DON'T CARE," sang Laura, twirling in the air. "MAC AND CHEESE! MAC AND CHEESE!"

The timer finally ran down with a ding and James pulled the bowl out, rolling his eyes while he had a chance to do it out of Laura's range of sight. Then he turned around, holding the bowl up at chest level to avoid the inevitable grabby eight-year-old hands. Although they didn't get a chance to cook for themselves often, this had quickly become routine when they had. In a way, it was comforting. Even if it was annoying as hell.

"Jaaaaaaaames!" yowled Laura when she realized that he was fumbling other, smaller bowls out of one of the duffel bags rather than just passing her the big one. "I want mac and cheese NOOOOOOW!"

"I have to eat too, ya know," James said wryly, grateful that she had the foresight to know that launching herself off the bed at him while he was holding scalding hot food would not end well.

"No you don't! You're FAT."

"Even fat people have to eat."

"Do not! They can live off of stored noo-trents and fat for MONTHS. All through winter! I saw that on TV."

"That's bears, Laura."

"Same thing!"

A skinny little arm worked its way under his and snatched one of the bowls out of his hands just as he dumped the last spoonful in. He let her have it.

When they had first set out together, he'd had a slightly hard time biting back gruff responses to most of her jibes, even with the knowledge that he deserved just about everything she threw at him. Now, though, he had grown used to it; even fond of it. It was a nice distraction from everything else that was on his mind.

Though, he thought to himself as he looked down at the remaining bowl, now he had another distraction on his hands.

Laura hardly noticed as he pulled an extra tupperware container from the bag and measured most of the remaining macaroni into it— Laura might have been vastly exaggerating about his weight, but he certainly didn't need the food as much as another individual he could think of right now.

She did, however, look up when he got up and headed towards the door. Slurping a noodle into her mouth, she asked "Where're you going?"

"I'm gonna see if Angela wants any," he replied, reaching for the doorknob. "She looked like she hadn't eaten in awh—IAH-ah!"

Speak of the devil.

Opening the door had suddenly brought him face to face with their odd new companion, who looked just as startled as James was. Her hand had been in the air, about to knock. James juggled the tupperware frantically for a second or two, trying to avoid flinging its scalding contents into her face. He was pretty sure that no matter how much she already disliked him, getting hit in the eye with a bunch of boiling hot noodles and sauce made from something that might have once resembled cheese wouldn't help much.

"Sorry! Sorry," he apologized hastily, backing away from the door. A bit of the cheese sauce had splattered onto his thumb and he could feel it burning away.

"N-no, I'M sorry," Angela muttered automatically, the hand returning to her shoulder as she brought both arms up to hug herself, averting her eyes from the undoubtedly hilarious sight of James trying to avoid burning himself further. Perhaps it wasn't so funny to her. "I-I... I was just... I'll come back later..."

"No!" James said, and when she flinched, quickly amended, "I mean— no, it's okay! A-actually, I was just coming to see you...!"

Looking back up at him, Angela narrowed her eyes, a note of suspicion entering her voice. "... You were? ... Why?"

James sighed internally. So she could come to their door without it being suspicious but he couldn't even SAY he'd been going to see her? Sometimes, man...

He lifted the container sheepishly. As offerings went, it wasn't much. But if Angela had been on the road as long as he and Laura had (and he suspected she had, and judging by her haggard state, she hadn't been nearly as fortunate as they had), a plastic half-box full of greasy elbow noodles might well seem like a feast.

"I... we were making dinner, and I wanted to see if you needed any..."

He held it out to her, but rather than taking it she just gave it a long, hard stare. And then shook her head and shuffled backwards slightly, her ratty sneakers scraping on the cheap inn carpeting.

"I... I'd rather not..."

James's heart sank slightly. Couldn't he do anything right? Oh well... maybe she wasn't as hungry as she looked.

"Oh... all right..." Biting his lip, he turned to set the container down on top of the dresser. He supposed he'd eat it, then. "I'll, uh... if y'get hungry later, let us know and I'll... make some more, or something."

"Sure, I guess.." said Angela morosely, and James got the distinct impression that she didn't plan on taking ANY food from him, no matter how hungry she got.

"Hi, Angel-ah!" chirped Laura brightly from her spot on her bed, where she'd been chowing down on the pasta like there was no tomorrow. There was a smudge of orange on her chin that she didn't seem particularly concerned about.

The cold, shut-off look fell away from Angela's face like a sheet of melting snow cascading off of a rooftop during a thaw. She untucked one arm from her self-embrace and used it to give an awkward little wave, mouth curling into a tiny, tentative smile.

"Hi there..."

"Why dontcha want any mac and cheese? It's real good! It's pretty much the best food in the world. Don't you like mac and cheese?"

"It's fine, I'm just not hungry," Angela assured her, although James had a feeling her reasoning had more to do with not wanting to eat anything that he'd handled. "M-maybe I'll have some later."

"I'll save some for you," proclaimed Laura in a surprising feat of empathy that made James marvel slightly. He'd never witnessed any real acts of kindness from Laura in person, but then again, the only one he'd watched her interact with in any lasting capacity was himself, and he wasn't somebody she'd be saving parts of her microwaved meals for any time soon.

Angela seemed unable to protest such a magnanimous act as long as it was coming from an eight-year-old and not James, so she just watched Laura scrape roughly half the remaining noodles in her bowl aside with an expression that, just for a moment, almost looked moved to tears. Jerked out of his somewhat-hurt musings for a moment or so, it occurred to James that she probably wasn't used to genuine acts of kindness... ones that didn't have some hidden motive behind them, anyway.

The bar in which a man had offered Laura fifty cents to make a payphone call in return for a kiss came to mind and James swallowed hard.

Maybe he'd better not make Angela any more offers from this point on unless she really needed something.

... And speaking of...

"Um... was there uh... a reason you stopped by, Angela?" he asked after a moment or so, approaching the door again.

The strange, tender look on her face was exchanged for her usual meek one as she looked back up to him.

"Oh... I... I, ah..." Her fingers found the hem of her turtleneck and began to pluck again, like she had done back at the side of the road. The were well on their way to wearing a hole in it. "Actually, I was... I wanted to ask Laura if she... if she wanted to come stay in my room..."

"Really?" Laura sounded like she'd just been offered the sun on a plate. Forgetting about portioning the macaroni and cheese, she hopped off the bed and skipped over to bounce at James's elbow. "I'll stay with you! Are ya scared of the dark? Is that why? Don't worry, we can leave the lights on all night! The hotel people never care about that. We do it a lot 'cuz James is a giant weiner."

"Oh, is he..."

Laura was positively glowing, and Angela seemed quietly amused at her attitude as usual, but far from sharing either of their sentiments, the request made a lump appear in James's throat.

It wasn't that he thought Angela would hurt Laura.

He may not have been a good people-reader, but he found it downright impossible to believe that she could possibly mean harm to a little girl.

But without even thinking about it, his mind drifted back to the burning staircase.

To the sheet-covered bodies hanging on the wall...

"He sure is! Sometimes in the middle of the night, he like, cries."

"Laura, I uh..." he said, dreading what was to come. "I'm not sure that's a good idea..."

"What?! Why NOT?!" Laura said as she whirled to face him, glee evaporating in an instant.

And in front of him, Angela's expression had turned cold as ice.

"Yes, James, why not?" she said softly, but there was no mistaking the chilly judgment in her tone.

"I-I'd... I'd just really prefer it if you stayed here, Laura," he said, knowing that he couldn't voice the real reason. Not in front of Laura.

"Well, it's NONE of your BUSI-ness," Laura snapped snottily. "You're not my MOM!"

"... Laura—!" James started, but before he even had a chance of stopping her, she had squeezed in between him and the doorframe and gone half-trotting, half-stomping down the hall.

"C'mon, Angela!"

And then she disappeared into the open doorway a couple rooms down.

"Laura, get back here!"

Teeth gritted, he started to edge into the hallway to go after her, but quite suddenly, his path was blocked by the last person he'd ever thought would physically get in his way, no matter how harsh or cruel she could be.

"You leave her alone," Angela said, lowly. Dangerously.

There was a dark, intense loathing in her eyes— the same he'd seen there back on the side of the road when she'd first seen Laura. James stared down at her, half baffled and half annoyed.

"Angela, look, I'd— I'd really rather you say out of this," he managed after a second or two, trying to keep the growing disgruntlement in his voice to a minimum.

"Oh, I know you'd rather I stay out of it," Angela shot back. Even in her quiet voice, the hate there could cut diamonds. "I... know you'd rather I just keep my big nose out of your... your sick business, but— but you picked me up from the side of the road in the first place, so you'll... you'll just have to DEAL with me!"

Sick?

"Angela, I know you— I know you like Laura and that you're more... you know, comfortable with her than you are with me and that you... you wanna spend time with her and that's fine, but I just... I can't— she's my responsibility, and..."

"And what?" Angela challenged, standing at her full height, which wasn't particularly impressive— she couldn't have come up past James's shoulder— but still a radical change from how she usually held herself. All the same, her clenched fists were trembling, even despite her obvious determination.

"And— and I have to keep her safe," James said, perplexed. How much clearer could he make it? "Look, if we could— do you wanna talk in here, or—"

He had started to move back towards the doorway, making to enter the room he and Laura had been sharing, but in a quick, vicious motion that made him scoot back into the hallway in surprise, Angela reached out and yanked it shut.

"No, we are not going to talk in there," she spat, voice full of venom.

James stepped backwards slowly, staring at the woman in front of him. He was completely taken aback, and dread had started to fill his limbs like molten lead.

"... Angela..." he said, voice soft but no less emphatic. "Look... I don't know what your problem is, but..."

"Oh, I have a problem?" she crowed quietly, whirling around to face him again. Her arms were crossed tightly against her chest, but her fervor seemed undiminished. "You're the one who has a problem, James!"

"Well, apparently I do." James couldn't prevent himself from sounding cross as he said it— but then he sucked in a deep breath, forcing it out of his voice before continuing. He couldn't lose his patience. He had to stay calm, for Angela's sake as much as his own. "Angela... if you really want company, it's okay, you can stay in our room with us. I'll leave you guys alone, all I do is watch TV and sleep anyway. I swear it won't bother us. Heck, Laura'd love it. It's just that I don't want her out of— what?"

As he spoke, Angela's determined grimace had become a mirthless sneer, followed by an equally-mirthless, incredulous laugh.

"Oh, I see. You would think this is just about me being lonely. Is that what you were hoping for, James?"

"No. It's not," James said, a flat note in his voice. He was in no mood to argue this point again. "I just thought you might need..."

But Angela was shaking her head, the laughter becoming a disgusted scowl.

"I don't want her in my room because I'm lonely, James. I want her in my room because I don't want her to be alone with YOU."

That stopped James in his tracks.

Impatience forgotten, he stared down at Angela with pure, plain confusion on his face, brows furrowed. She didn't want Laura alone with him? But... why? Laura had already spent weeks alone with him, and she was just fine. Finer than he was, even.

James didn't think he deserved any praise for anything. At best, he was a weak, pathetic coward. And at worst? A selfish murderer. No, his meager attempts at atonement weren't anything to call home about. He wasn't doing this— taking care of Laura— to make himself feel better. He was doing it because it was the first damn right thing he'd done in a long time.

But that didn't mean it was fair for Angela to say things like that!

"... I've been taking care of Laura for WEEKS," he said, affronted. "I might not be the best person for the job, but... but I've been doing my best!"

"Oh, taking CARE of. Is that what you call it?"

"What are you talking about?!" James could hear his voice rising in spite of his self-promise to stay calm.

Angela had not been cowering in this conversation, but she had at least kept her distance.

Until now.

Stepping forward, she lifted an accusatory pointer finger, jabbing it upwards at his face like the knife she had wielded in that bizarre waking dream he'd had all te way back in Silent Hill. He had almost forgotten about it until now, but it came back to mind at full force.

"You know DAMN well what I'm talking about!" She wasn't yelling— not quite anyway— but her voice had risen loud enough that he found himself raising both hands and patting the air in front of him in that same placating 'Keep it down' motion he'd once used back in Silent Hill when she'd had a real knife pointed at him. But unlike the first time, when his face had been stamped with fear and alarm, now he was sure his bewildered crossness was shining through. Because no, he didn't know what she was talking about.

Laura had told her herself that James had never laid a hand on her. Not a single bruise peppered her skin (well, there had been one a few weeks back when she had bounced too enthusiastically and ended up whacking her knee on the corner of a bedstand, but that was different), and the closest she'd ever come to cowering fearfully in his presence had been back in Silent Hill, before she'd figured out that she could effectively shut him up with no more than a few sassy words.

Did Angela just think he was too irresponsible to keep her safe, maybe?

That had to be it.

"Angela, you've seen her. She's not sick, or hurt, or... or ANYTHING! She knows the origin stories of every single scab on her knees and she told you most of them in the car! If she had a single bruise on her that was somehow caused by me, d'you really think she'd be keeping quiet about it?"

"There don't have to be bruises," Angela hissed sharply. "Not everyone does it like my father did."

James froze.

Her father? But... what does he have to do with...

And then the memory of Angela's tear-streaked face bubbled up in his brain. The pumping pistons in the walls, gliding up and down in their tubes for some arcane, unknown purpose. The static-filled television.

The hot, heavy weight enveloping his shoulders...

James felt the color drain from his face.

"No.... no, oh god, Angela, that's... that's not—!"

"Oh, don't deny it, you disgusting pig!" Now she was shouting. Screaming, actually. Panic filled James from head to toe. Panic and a swell of numb, disgusted horror.

Why hadn't he seen it before? He knew what had happened to Angela. It didn't take a rocket scientist to put the pieces together, especially when she had already made it so clear she thought he was a lecher. But he hadn't... it had never occurred to him that she thought he was capable of...

"Angela! I would NEVER touch her!"

"That's what ALL of them say when someone else finds out!" snarled Angela, jabbing her fingers into his chest so hard that it hurt. He made no move to stop her— he was already backing up, his frustration having dissolved into nothing less than complete, abject horror.

"Angela, please! I swear to god that's not what's happening!"

"LIAR!"

His back met the wall— fortunately one still connected to his room and not somebody else's— and he stood there as though cornered, even though there was a wide open hallway on either side of him. She followed him, pounding her finger into his chest the entire way. Each motion was punctuated by an exaggerated flick as she yanked her hand away again afterwards, almost as if she was disgusted to be touching him at all, as if a war between wanting to lash out at him and being repulsed by his very presence was raging inside of her.

He lifted his hands, but did not move to grab her wrists or strike back in any fashion. His heart was pounding as she continued to rant. Her normally sad, worried face was creased in pure rage now, the dark doe-like eyes that always seemed so haunted and lonely now full of anger.

"Men are all the SAME! They don't care who they get it from! They don't care whether or not they WANT it— or— or how OLD they are!" she cried, the choke of a sob in the back of her throat as she stabbed. He could feel her fingernail through his shirt.

"Only MONSTERS touch little kids!" James bellowed back at her, finally finding his voice in between the waves of disgust that had come billowing into his head at the thought of being compared to— being like— Angela's father. Or the man in the bar who had sicklights in his eyes.

"You are a monster, James Sunderland," Angela retorted in a caustic hiss.

His own response came without conscious thought, and he heard it almost as though from afar, passionate even despite his horror and distaste.

"I'm not that kind of monster."

"Hey, is there something I can do to help you two?"

A third voice had joined their conversation, which had been getting progressively louder and out of control. James turned his head to see one of the inn employees, a brown-haired, bespectacled man with a mustache, standing a short distance down the hall. Further down, a head or two had poked out of various doors.

Although James cringed internally at the thought of ANYONE having overheard that conversation, he was relieved to see that Laura's was not one of them. She must have turned on the TV in Angela's room and happily immersed herself in cartoons in her new environment, tuning out all outside disturbances.

As his mind flew instead to putting together the right words to send the employee on his way, he found himself suddenly aware that Angela's sharp finger was no longer digging into his flesh. She had withdrawn, stepped back, folding once more into the hunched, self-hugging girl who usually cringed away from direct eye contact alone.

"No... n-nothing..." she mumbled, not looking the man in the eye.

"... Yeah, we're— ... sorry," James agreed. "We're sorry."

The man had looked to James as he spoke, quirking a brow at him in obvious skepticism.

Then, shrugging his shoulders, he said "All right, well... if you need any assistance, you can always call the front desk," which James suspected was code for 'Since that's exactly what like five other people did when they heard a man and a woman screaming about pedophilia in the hallway', before heading back in the direction he'd come from.

The open doors down the hall began to shut, save for one— a curly-haired woman continued to peer out until Angela caught sight of her and hissed out a hostile "What do you want?!"

It closed promptly, leaving James and Angela lone in the hallway once more.

Angela scraped at the carpeted floor with one shoe. She wouldn't look at him.

He inhaled deeply, feeling his heart begin to come down from the frenzied tapdance it had been doing in there previously. It didn't really mean that he was calm. His brain was still curdling like milk left out in the hot sun. He felt sick.

But he had to say something.

After a few minutes of silence passed, he finally spoke, quietly.

"Angela."

The young woman cringed as though struck, hiking her shoulders up and turning another few inches away. But it meant that she was listening, so James took a deep breath and continued.

"I know nothing I say will convince you that I'm not a monster. ... But I'm not. Not... that kind."

She did not respond, but her pale, bony fingers plucked hard at her sleeves and she let out a low breath, still not facing him.

"I... Laura... can stay with you tonight. I won't— ... I won't bother you. Either of you. I promise."

There was a long silence, but then, in a motion so small it could be missed if you blinked, she nodded.

James swallowed hard. He still worried. He still feared the worst. But there was no way he could convince either of them to see his side now. Trying would only make it so much worse.

"... Just... come and get me if anything happens, all right? ... Please."

"Fine..." Angela whispered, having completely turned her back on him. She moved towards her door in tiny, measured steps, as though fearing with each one that he might suddenly come after her. When no such attempt came, she reached out to take the doorhandle, which had mercifully clicked shut after Laura had gone inside. Hopefully the girl hadn't heard a word of their argument.

"... Angela," James broke finally, unable to keep himself from making one last attempt to make sure that nothing horrific would happen. "Please don't—"

At last, she turned to look at him over her shoulder, peering sharply at him out of the corner of one eye.

"... Don't what?" She had calmed down significantly, but her voice still held that dangerous undertone, as though daring him to defend himself further.

"Don't... I know you wouldn't, not on purpose... but... when you get scared, I know you can..." He trailed off there, fumbling for words briefly, before settling on, "If anything happened to her, I couldn't... live with myself. My wife, she wanted..."

At long last, Angela turned to face him fully, an odd emotion in her eyes that he hadn't seen there before.

"... Of course," she said, and for the first time since this volatile conversation had begun, he could hear the graveyard girl in her voice again. "... I... I would never..."

"I know," said James quietly. "I know. ... But I just..."

He trailed off there, and something, some deep instinct inside of him, knew that this would become another unbearable silence. So, averting his eyes from her, he turned and ducked back into his hotel room, shutting the door behind him without waiting for a response. Then he stood with his back to the door until he heard the dull click of hers closing out in the hallway.

It was some time before he finally headed over to the bed, sat down on it numbly, and turned on the television.

That night, he dreamed that he had become very small and was running through a dark, smoky forest where the trees looked like table-legs and tall boots— away from something that was very large and had eyes like tunnels: long, empty, and with tiny little lights deep at the end.


~*~


"JAMES get UP, get UP, get UP!!"

The feeling of tiny hands battering his back (thankfully cushioned by the thick down comforter that graced the bed) jerked him into wakefulness and he snorted upwards off of his pillow, which he was somewhat surprised to discover was coated in drool. As was one half of his face.

Blearily raising an arm to take care of that problem by wiping his mouth and cheek, James squinted at the clock. It read 11:15 AM. Had he really slept that long?

Another volley of pounding started between his shoulder blades and he groaned.

"Okay—okay, okay, Laura— I'm up."

He shrugged a shoulder as forcefully as he could. It did little to dissuade her, but the drumming halted temporarily and he decided to try and drag himself upright before it started again. It was more difficult than he'd thought it would be. The sheets had snarled around his waist at some point during the night. It was odd— he had never been someone who tossed and turned much. Mary had often described him as sleeping 'like a log', and wasn't too far off the mark.

But lately he felt as if he moved more during his sleep than he did while he was awake.

Bright gray light was streaming in through the slats of the shades— those sharp, vertical ones that only ever seemed to be in hotel rooms (probably because no sane person would want them in their house)— and it made his eyes water. He turned away from them with a hand at his brow only to come face to face with Laura, who looked like she'd already been up for hours.

"UGH, it's a good thing you woke up. Any longer and I bet you would've started hibernating. I saved you. Now you owe me big-time."

"Thanks," he mumbled wryly, sliding his legs out from under the sheets. He'd gone to sleep with his jeans on again. He didn't even remember getting under the covers. The memories of the preceding night were drifting in and he let out a miserable sigh. He wasn't exactly looking forward to talking to Angela after this.

"Where's Angela?" he asked thickly as he took stock of where everything was. Only one of his feet still had a sock on it. Frowning, he leaned down to search the floor with his fingertips, still seated on the edge of the bed.

"She's outside! She didn't wanna come in."

A brief investigation of the area about five inches under the bed didn't turn anything up, so with a resigned sigh, James straightened and reached back under the covers to grope around for it in there instead. "That doesn't surprise me..."

"She REALLY doesn't like you." Laura didn't sound too broken-up about this observation.

"Yeah... I know. Believe me."

"So where're we gonna go now?"

James stifled a yawn with one hand. "Dunno... guess we could let her pick, if she wants..."

Maybe she had somewhere to be... although James doubted it. Whether or not she'd gotten what she went to Silent Hill for in the end, she clearly wasn't there anymore. Was there a place for her elsewhere? Perhaps, but he suspected she was just like they were. Lost and wandering.

Laura wrinkled her nose, clearly not totally sold on the idea. She enjoyed the power that came with being the sole pathfinder, and probably wasn't too keen on sharing it.

"What if she picks somehere weird?"

"Then I guess we'll go somewhere weird."

It wasn't like anyplace could be weirder than the one where he'd met both of them to begin with... even if Laura didn't know that.

"... Hmf," said Laura after a moment's consideration, but she wasn't arguing, at least. That was enough in James's book, and he took it as a sign that now would be a good time to get going.

"Go ahead and wait outside with her if y'want, Laura. M'gonna get dressed." He was sure Angela could use the company, regardless of what she'd told him last night about only wanting to keep the girl away from him. His tomach twisted at the memory.

"That's what I was gonna do ANYway," Laura shot back, bcause her pride wouldn't condone doing anything that James wanted unless it was her own idea first. She turned and flounced from the room again, and James rolled his eyes with a sigh.

Finally locating the sock, shoulder-deep in the depths of the bedspread, he pulled it out and tugged it on, grimacing. It had been awhile since they'd stopped at a laundromat.

It didn't take long to gather the rest of his possessions from the room— they had unpacked even less than normal, thanks to Laura's abrupt soujourn to the room next door. Usually he would wake up to find at least some of their stuff scattered around the room in interesting places for him to locate and re-pack, but not today.

Just to be sure, he plodded over to the bathroom just to make sure that there hadn't been any toothbrushes left in there. Something made him doubt it, but Laura had wandered in there earlier to wash the aftertaste of those fig newtons out of her mouth, so maybe... aha.

Her brush, a distinctive pink, was lying by the faucet. He reached over to pick it up— only to freeze as a flash of movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He jerked his head around to see the source, but was met only with his own dull-eyed reflection in the mirror above the sink. James puffed out a slight sigh of relief, as he had many times before. Every time a sudden jolt of panic turned out to be baseless. They always did.

He hadn't looked at himself in quite some time. Rarely felt reason to— even while shaving. Which he hadn't actually done in a few days, so it was with a grumbling grimace that he noted how shabby he'd become. A rasp of stubble coated his chin, and a pair of shadowy bags draped under his eyes like stained burlap sacks on a clothesline, more prominently than ever.

Even if Angela had never met him before, he could hardly blame her for not trusting him. If he'd seen himself on the street five years ago, he wouldn't trust him.

Briefly forgetting about the two girls presumably waiting for him outside (assuming Angela hadn't convinced Laura to hightail it out of there with her and leave big, useless, maybe-a-pedophile James Sunderland behind), James dragged a hand down his face, pulling the pallid flesh this way and that and morosely wondering if he would ever again resemble the clean-cut young man from the pre-illness photographs of himself and Mary.

Probably not— he had noticed before and was reminded now of the small collection of scars he had amassed: little pockmarks and nicks, now white where oozing cuts had once been. He prodded at the bridge of his nose— the pain of its treatment in Silent Hill was long gone, thankfully, but it had gone slightly crooked after all. There was little to be done about it unless he wanted to punch himself in the face and hope it rearranged itself back in the right direction.

With a heavy sigh (he was doing that a lot now, he noticed... had it always been that way?), he shook his head and straightened up again, his reflection leaning back away from him. They regarded each other in sympathetic silence for a moment.

You poor ugly bastard, the reflection seemed to say. You deserve it, you know. In case you weren't aware.

"Oh, don't worry, I'm aware," he muttered to himself, turning to leave with the toothbrush in hand— but then another flash of movement in the mirror caught his eye.

Behind his reflection, through the doorway into the room, something was happening on the bed. The sheets were rippling, as though a gentle breeze was blowing across them.

At first there seemed to be nothing unusual about it. He didn't even know why he had stopped to look.

But then the blankets bunched up as something moved underneath them— a pair of hips scrunching into the air as their unseen owner stretched luxuriously. Then, slowly, they began to move against the mattress in a way that could not be mistaken.

James's blood ran cold as he stared, mesmerized, at the undulating shape.

There was no swish of cloth, no creaking of the springs in the mattress, to accompany what was happening.

Because there was no one else in the room with him.

His brain knew this, even as his heart gave its initial jump at the sudden, panicky thought that something was in his bed that he didn't know about.

It wasn't real.

It isn't real.

He repeated this to himself over and over in his head, as he had every other time he'd seen things moving where they shouldn't, seen familiar faces where they weren't, been paralyzed by innocuous sounds whose only crime was sounding similar to noises he'd heard in the town while strung-out on adrenaline and fearing for his life.

But though the mantra started out calmly, it quickly escalated into an anguished internal wailing as the mattress itself began to move, its sides swelling in and out grotesquely. Breathing.

It's not real! It's not real! It's not real!

A deep, baritone gurgling filled the air and James felt his knees grow weak, his head become feather-light. In the mirror, he could see the fabric twitching wildly in places, as though the upholstery hid spasming muscles.

The posts holding the bed up had thickened and now they were bending, lifting it from the floor. Legs.

He had to turn around.

He knew that if he turned around and looked, actually looked, it would be gone and the bed would be just as inanimate as it had always been.

But his eyes felt pinned to the mirror, even as he screamed at himself in his head to run.

It wasn't until the bubbly, obscene gargling became a guttural growl and the thing in the reflection, blankets turned tight and leathery, had turned slowly to face him, that his brain was finally able to send an impulse to his feet and get them moving.

It was real. IT WAS REAL.

He was dead.

He was going to die.

James stepped back from the mirror faintly and began to turn, but the room swam dizzily around him. A dull jolt of pain exploded in the small of his back as he bounced off the towel rack on the way down, and then he hit the floor hard.

It felt like forever that he writhed clumsily down there on the tile, trying to fight off the dangerous light-headedness that had sent him falling in the first place, but when he finally rolled onto his front and scrambled partially upright to face into the rest of the room, eyes wide and lungs wheezing—

There was nothing.

Nothing except for the same partially-unmade bed he had just rolled out of, inanimate and motionless as ever.

The growling was gone.

For a few moments James just stayed there, staring at the empty room and breathing shallowly. Then, slowly and shakily, he pushed himself to his feet. When nothing catastrophic happened, he stumbled into the room and snatched up the haphazardly-stuffed duffel bags. One of the tupperwares of macaroni was still on the nightstand, but forget about that. Forget about all of this.

It was time to leave.


The air outside was humid and thick, but it cleared his head nicely. He had dropped off the roomkey and signed out as fast as possible, eager to escape the stuffiness of the inn, which he was now blaming for what he had just seen. It had gotten to his head, that was all. Between that and the way he'd been dwelling on the conversation with Angela, it was no wonder he'd seen... well. That.

Up ahead, he could see the figures of the two girls, one short and animated, the other taller and reserved, standing by the car where he'd parked it the previous night. James took a deep, steadying breath to brace himself for whatever awkwardness was to come, then stepped up his pace as he headed over to them.

"Ready to go?" he asked, tone chipper and forced as he drew up alongside them.

"Ugh, FINALLY! I was pretty sure you'd started hibernating again as soon as I left, you took soooo long," exclaimed Laura, spinning around to face him with her hands on her hips.

"I'm ready," muttered Angela, and he noticed to his both relief and confusion that she was not taking up her aggressive stance. If anything, she had reverted to looking slightly ashamed, and was slouching as she refused to look him in the eye.

He decided not to question it for the momnt.

Unless she brought it up, he had no intention of pushing the subject of what they had talked about the previous night.

Unlocking the car, James swung into the driver's seat before leaning back to unlock the back doors as well, withdrawing his arm quickly as the two girls clambered in.

"Laura, d'you wanna get the map out and let Angela look at it?" he said, forcefully keeping his tone positive as he brought the car rumbling to life.

"Oh yeah!"

Without further ado, Laura snatched up the duffel bag containing the roadmap and started to dig through it with enthusiasm. Angela looked down at the bag oddly before raising her head to meet James's eyes in the rearview mirror, brow creased in confusion.

"... Why do I need to look at it?"

"Well, we don't... really have much of a plan on where to go. I figured maybe you'd like to choose."

He had already prepared himself to have the offer flung back in his face, perhaps accompanied by an accusation of trying to lull her into a false sense of security, and was slightly surprised when none came. Instead, her mouth formed a small 'o' of surprise, which went with her quiet vocalization of "... Oh..."

"I found it!" Laura announced, pulling the roadmap— now bent and creased to hell and back— out of the bag. She promptly waved it in Angela's face, making the dark-haired young woman recoil slightly before lifting her hands tentatively to take it. "We have markers, too! The kind that you can smell! ... The kind that smell NICE, not the permanent ones. Those are gross. They give you brain damage. All the kids back at my orphanage said so."

As soon as the map was safely in Angela's hands and in no danger of drifting to the floor, Laura plunged back into the duffel in search of the aforementioned markers.

"... So... I can pick... anywhere?" Angela asked tentatively after a moment, unfolding the map with a rustle.

"Pretty much," James replied. He wasn't sure if she'd been asking him or Laura, but the little girl seemed busy in her quest for writing utensils. When this contribution to the conversation didn't get him yelled at, he added, with a fleeting burst of humor that only Angela would probably be able to appreciate (if she had a sense of humor at all, that was), "Just as long as it's not Silent Hill."

Despite the attempt, he hadn't been expecting much of a response outside of stony silence, so he was surprised to hear a quiet exhalation that might have been a laugh.

"No, I don't want to go back... there..." Angela said, eyes firmly on the map as she thumbed through it.

For a fleeting second, James was struck with the urge to ask her if she'd found what she was looking for there... but then he thought better of it.

It wasn't a question he wanted her to ask of him, so perhaps he ought to do her the same courtesy.

"I found them!"

Laura had triumphantly re-emerged with a handful of markers— the box that used to contain them had long since been crushed and was probably dwelling under one of the seats in here somewhere.

"Here! This one smells like blueberry! And the green ones, umm, smell like apples, and..."

She began to place each marker in Angela's lap, officiously rattling off their colors and scents as she did so.

Meanwhile, James rolled the car out of the parking lot and back onto the open road. It was customary to wait, but he figured he could just drive aimlessly until Angela— or Laura, if Angela took too long and caused Laura to inevitably make the decision for her— figured out where she wanted to go.

"... and the yellow one is LEMON, but I colored over the lines I made with the black one too much, so now it's kinda green and smells gross 'cuz the black ones are licorice, and nobody likes licorice."

"... I don't mind licorice," said Angela mildly, keeping her eyes on the map.

Laura glanced at her a moment, then shook her head and went back to rooting in the bag. "Nobody likes licorice," she said dismissively.

Jamws swallowed, worrying that Angela might take the remark personally, but if the older girl was irritated, she didn't show it. She just continued to pore slowly over the map in her hands, as though she hadn't looked at one in a long time.

"... OH! Brown ones are cinnamon! They smell REALLY nice, look!"

Angela recoiled again as the uncapped brown marker was nearly shoved up her nose.

"O-oh— yes, it smells... um... lovely..."

"Laura, let her look at the map, okay?" James said from the front seat, cringing inwardly.

"No, it's... it's all right, I don't mind," Angela piped up quietly, and again she was wearing that small smile even as her brows peaked in a slightly long-suffering look. She did look slightly grateful as Laura left the marker in her lap and gave up on trying to get her to take a whiff from it up close and personal.

After a few moment's thought, she spoke up again.

"Um... I guess we could go here..."

With traffic milling around them, James couldn't exactly lean into the backseat and look where she was pointing. Fortunately, Laura had it covered.

"... That one? W... wu... wentwor...?"

"Wentworth," Angela corrected. "It's a little town up north. Rural."

James wracked his brain, trying to remember if he was familiar with the town and how long it would take to get there from here. He wasn't. As the weeks had worn on, he found himself less and less able to name and evaluate destinations off the top of his head, as they grew ever further from their starting point back in Ashfield. Or had it been Silent Hill? They had, after all, technically started there...

"Yeah... uh..." There was a rustle as Angela shifted the map. "How do I... uh... do this?"

"I'll show you," said Laura, scooting closer. "See, you gotta circle it in red, and then you gotta do ANOTHER circle in orange, but that one's gotta be squiggly. Like this. And umm... oh yeah, you gotta draw the car on the road to it!"

"Draw... the... car?" Angela said uncertainly.

"Yeah! See my car drawings?"

"Oh! Those are— ... of course they're cars, I see now," Angela corrected herself hastily, proving in one beat that she had about five times as much foresight as James did when it came to Not Pissing Laura Off.

"Yep!" Laura said proudly. "And you gotta draw the little faces in the car— I used to use yellow but now I use pink 'cuz the yellow got all green from the black. Now I just use it for James."

"... I-I see..."

Behind him, he could hear the squeak of markers on paper, as Angela presumably followed Laura's instructions.

"Could one of you pass the map up to me?" he asked after a moment or so. "So I can see where we're go— ow. Thank you, Laura."

There had been a thump as the map thwacked against the back of his head and a giggle from Laura. Fortunately, they had just reached a red light, and James took advantage of the opportunity by reaching back and grabbing up the map himself— or trying to.

First, his hand encountered Angela's knee, and if the feel of the corduroy under his fingertips wasn't enough to let him know, the startled gasp certainly did. James yanked his hand away as though it had been burned.

"—Sorry! Sorry!"

Biting his lip, he grabbed the map for real and withdrew his arm into the front, spurring the car forward as the light turned green. It was a couple of minutes before he dared lift his eyes to check the mirror. She was staring at him, which was not unexpected, but thankfully seemed more startled than angry.

Fumbling the map open one-handedly, he glanced at it as the car hummed down the road.

Oh. Hm. Wentworth.

It was high north, near Pittsburg and almost towards the Canadian border, and it crawled along the edge of a large stretch of sparsely-populated wilderness threaded with thin, winding roads like little veins.

"... It'll take us awhile to get there. But I'm up for it. ... Y'know, if you guys are."

"CAR TRIP, CAR TRIP!" Laura chanted in reply, and that was more or less that.


~*~


It was not until several hours later that James saw any need to rejoin the conversation that had sprung up between his two passengers, and when he did, it was mostly because there was no conversation at all.

Laura had fallen asleep, curled up against the backseat window with her knees to her chest and an uncapped red marker still in her hand. She had taken to drawing shapes on the back of the seat in front of her (by the time James had noticed what she was up to, it was far too late to stop her and they probably weren't going to be coming out of the upholstery anyway) until promptly passing out at some point, as children do sometimes.

Normally she was very alert on the open road, but he supposed she probably hadn't gotten much sleep in her excitement the previous night, given the circumstances.

Either way, he appreciated the peace and quiet.

In fact, he had no inclination at all to break it, and wouldn't have if Angela had not piped up and broken it herself.

"... Laura told me the two of you left Silent Hill together," she said softly, and James looked up to the mirror, somewhat surprised to find that she was not looking at him, angrily or otherwise. She was staring down at her wrist, which now bore a childishly-scribbled blue cat— Laura had at one point offered to give Angela a 'tattoo' and had been humored.

"... Yeah. We did," James replied after a second or two. "Sort of, anyway."

She nodded, drifting into silence— James could tell that instant that this would likely be a conversation full of thoughtful-but-awkward pauses... like just about every conversation he'd ever had with her.

"... I wasn't expecting you to get out of there alive," was her morose response, when she did choose to speak again.

Part of him felt a standard flash of indignance at her apparent lack of faith, but to be honest, nobody's lack of faith really surprised him anymore.

"... Neither was I, to be honest," he admitted after a time. "That place..."

He pulled a hand off the wheel briefly (there was little traffic on these long, straight roads) to rub at the spots on his neck that had once worn bruises like ugly black slugs. They had long since faded, like the gashes and cuts, but he could still feel phantom tingles there, even now. The memories were just that strong.

Rather than finish that sentence, he just let out a deep 'oh boy' whoof of breath that he was sure she'd understand. She had not been like Laura, after all— wandering the town unaware of the dark side that it hid. She had been like him— even if he thought perhaps she had not always been seeing exactly the same things that he did.

'For me, it's always like this...'

At the memory of those words, a thought struck him and he mulled it over for a moment or two before deciding this was as good a time as any to bring it up.

"... A-actually, I... until yesterday, I thought you were..."

Losing his nerve, he trailed off again, only to find Angela's sharp gaze meeting his in the mirror.

"Dead?" she finished.

"... Well... yes," he said, lowering his own eyes back to the road.

"Why?" The question was soft, but not without its usual, almost-threatening undercurrent. "... Did you think I was weak?"

"No," said James emphatically. "I just thought... the last time I saw you, there was... there was all that fire, and you just... you walked right into it... I couldn't go after you..."

"... Oh," said Angela, almost absently, much to his confusion. "... I see..."

James chewed on his lip, not quite sure how to proceed from there. He was aching to ask how she'd done it, how she'd survived.... it had been hot as hell in that staircase, and there wasn't a single burn on her. He could remember the blistering heat as clearly as yesterday, scorching his skin even when he stood far from the rising flames, and if he thought hard about it, the dull roar as the fire's many tongues ate away at the old wood of the Lakeview Hotel began to overtake the hum of the road in his ears...

"... Laura also told me you don't do anything to her," Angela cut in, driving the fire far from his mind.

"Did she?" James asked, surprised.

It wasn't Laura's answer that surprised him, really— she might have hated his guts, but unlike what he'd thought of her back there in Silent Hill before the truth had come out, she was not actually a liar. Not about the things that mattered, anyway— no, if anything, Laura was brutally honest. What reason would she have to invent false crimes for him to have committed? The real ones were grievous enough.

It was the fact that Angela had asked the girl at all that surprised him.

"Yes." Angela had turned her attention to the window, watching the greenery breeze past. "... She... she seems very honest. ... I still don't... I still don't trust you, but I... I might have been... Uhm. Rash."

She didn't sound particularly apologetic, but there was a certain reluctant acquiescence in her voice— along with that sorrowful air of shame that accompanied her most of the time.

"... It's okay," said James, and he was surprised to find that he was telling the truth. Because it was. Angela had been right about him in some ways, back there in that town. He could forgive a mistake or two. Especially when he knew the reasons behind them were so horrifying. "... I know you have your reasons. For... for worrying about that."

In the mirror, her reflection flinched violently at the words, but she nodded silently, perhaps not actually aware that James was watching her, for it seemed to be more to herself than it was to him.

James swallowed, the awkwardness of his own attempts at conversation manifesting as pressure in his throat. He decided to shift the topic a little.

"Anyway, I... what you were scared of— ... scared of me doing, it's... I've met people like that. And it's.... they're..."

His thoat clenched shut as he remembered the bar (which he had mostly stopped thinking about, it felt so long ago) and the large, rough hands from his dream last night. Hands that had become bedpost legs and a pair of drunken red lips that had puckered up for a kiss, only to extend outwards like some kind of horrible tube...

"... I know," Angela interrupted quietly,mercifully pulling him from the dark, macabre thoughts whose origin he was not entirely sure of— the bar, or the piston room...

When he raised his eyes questioningly, she met them in the mirror.

"Laura... she told me."

That surprised James as well.

Not once since their conversation in that weedy parking lot had Laura even mentioned the bar or even the 'buttbeard' who had threatened her and ended up leaving James outside, looking like a lump of offal from the floor of a butcher's back room. In truth, he'd sort of assumed that she'd forgotten about it, bounced back from it in that way that children so often do. Goodness knew plenty of alarming things that had happened to HIM at that age had quickly gone to the back of his mind once they weren't actively occurring anymore.

"... She did?" he said slowly, not entirely sure how he felt about that.

"She said you helped her."

"I..." James rubbed a hand across his chin, hearing more than feeling the scratch of his stubble. "... I didn't do as much as I should have..."

"No one ever does." Her voice had gone dark at that (well... darker), but she shook her head a little, evidently realizing this and scrambling to backpedal a bit. "... B-but... it was still... It was still more than anyone ever... did for me, so..."

With that she trailed off, struggling for words. It was a predicament that James was all too familiar with, so he decided to relieve her of the burden.

"It's okay. You don't have to say anything. I... what happened happened, and I couldn't... no matter what, I didn't want Laura to get hurt. ... Back there, in the town... she didn't see monsters, like we did. Not a one. Don't know why, but she didn't. I think maybe it was because she didn't deserve to. ... But she did see one in that bar. We both did."

He lapsed into silence for a moment or so, before adding—

"... N'if there's one thing I know I can do... it's fight monsters."

He received no reply at first, and thought for a second that she wouldn't say anything at all, but then she answered quietly: "... Yeah. I remember."

And then, after a brief pause, a rueful, bittersweet smile quirked the corners of her mouth.

"After all... you fought mine, too."


He should have known the second the hallways began to change that he had stepped into someone else's hell.

In no normal reality could walking through a single doorway deep under the earth take you from a cold, dripping labyrinth to a hallway as stiflingly dry and hot as an old, boarded-up house in the dead of summer. The powdery tickle of sawdust and dry-rot flooded his nose as he treaded carefully down the hall. His soaked jeans clung soddenly to his body, the only evidence that seconds ago he had been sloshing through dark, knee-deep waters in the catacombs below the Silent Hill Historical Society.

Newspapers rustled under his feet from where they had been scattered carelessly across the floor, and as his flashlight lit up the walls in a broad, bright circle, he could see scraps of them stuck there, too.

But if their faded headlines held any useful information for him, he would never know, because a cry shattered the silence he had previously been wandering in, making him stiffen and look around wildly for the source.

"No.... Daddy, please! DON'T!"

It was an anguished moan that quickly became a sobbing plea, high-pitched and choked with terror.

But worst of all was what accompanied it: a deep, rumbling growl that made the very floor under James's boots vibrate.

His wavering flashlight soon located where the sound was coming from— a door, made almost completely invisible by the newspapers splattered across it, plastering it into the wall. There was no time to question why. Without a further thought, he'd grabbed the doorknob that protruded from them and twisted it open, the crackling and ripping of the paper parting from the wood ringing in his ears.

He'd had no idea what he thought he was going to see, but once he had wrenched the door open and was standing in the doorway, there was no need for speculation.

Heat washed over him— the baked-dry air now held a deep musk of human sweat and a curious gassy smell, like the pilot-light of a stove left to burn unchecked. The room was bedroom-sized but barren aside from a single ancient television sitting on a tiny shelved table in one corner, its walls hard and granite.

An industrial thrumming pounded the air— dozens of little porthole-tunnels sat just above head-level in an orderly line around all four sides of the room, and in them he could see rusted pistons slowly but relentlessly thrusting in and out with a rhythmic grinding of metal on stone.

And in the middle of it all: Angela Orosco, the girl he'd met in the graveyard, cowering against one of the walls with her knees tugged to her chest.

Had she been alone... he would have gone to her immediately. To ask what was wrong, to make sure she was all right.

But she wasn't either of those.

Towering over her was a creature ghastlier than anything that wandered in the open air of the town far above them.

Four thick, stiff legs pawed at the dusty floor hungrily, impatiently— but sitting on top of them was a body like no animal the normal world had ever seen. There was no slope of belly and ribcage, no neck stretching up from collarbones or chest. Instead a long, flat rectangle sat atop those legs like a bedframe, too geometric to ever be natural. From it rose a deformed, mottled mound of muscular flesh— no. Two. Hunched over over one another like obscene gargoyles, two distinct but hideously-connected forms gyrated madly against each other, melted into each other, what little was visible of their limbs plunging downwards into the grotesque swamp of flesh that they seemingly grew from.

The creature's arched, slablike hump of a back twitched and heaved as the larger figure thrust mercilessly into the one below it, a piteous, feebly-struggling thing that was barely distinguishable from the mattress of tissue that they both sunk into. They were lashed tightly to the frame by a coat of the same putrid, leathery brown skin that seemed to cover every living thing in this place.

For a few seconds that seemed like an eternity, James stood in the threshold of the room, paralyzed by the sight before him— and then, to his horror, the beast turned away from Angela. Turned towards him.

Lips set in a horrible, tubelike mouth that sat half-sunk in the surface of the frame like an alligator drifting in a marsh popped and sputtered wetly, but the deep, guttural roar that it let out seemed to come from its entire body.

It saw him.

And it was not happy that it had been interrupted.

By now, the sight of monsters alone was not enough to make him dissolve into useless panic. He had seen and killed too many.

But even as the creatured tottered towards him on its awkward legs and he automatically brought the shotgun in his hands upwards, his heart was pounding and he could feel the quiver in his legs.

"Angela!" he shouted, bringing the butt of the gun up towards his shoulder, getting ready to fire. "Ge—"

What had he been going to say?

After the fight, he wouldn't even be able to remember. Maybe it had been 'get out'. Maybe he'd been urging her to make a break for it while he took care of the monster. Or maybe it had been 'get ready to duck', because there were all kinds of ways that firing a gun in an enclosed space could go wrong, even if the hulking thing coming for him was too big to possibly miss entirely. Maybe it had even been 'get over here and help me!', but probably not. She didn't look like she was in any state to be helping anybody.

Either way, he would never know, because before he could finish saying it, the creature lunged.

It slammed into him, the edge of the metal frame striking his ribs, the driving force behind it a weight that had to be more than his and Angela's combined. His back hit hard stone and the gun flew from his hands, hitting the floor with a clatter and skidding away. With a cry of mingled pain and alarm, he tried to dive after it, but the bedframe was digging into his chest, pinning him to the wall. He was trapped!

His hands gripped the metal frame and pushed futilely, anticipating a killing blow to come any second. But the creature only continued to shove, legs straining and scraping pointlessly in place, growls becoming angry grunts of frustration.

The frame! The same thing that had James helplessly pinned was a barrier keeping the monster from reaching its prey like a giant bumper.

Evidently realizing this at the same time James had, it backed up clumsily to gather itself for a blow that wouldn't be so ineffective, releasing him in the process. He seized the opportunity and lunged to the side, hearing the sharp clang of metal striking stone as it barrelled forward and struck the spot where he'd been a moment before.

It was fast when it pounced, but its awkward, heavy body wouldn't be winning any footraces. He had to outrun it. That was his only chance.

Over open ground, there wouldn't even be a question as to whether or not he'd be able to do it. He wasn't in good shape, but his legs were long and not even years of apathetic inactivity were enough to make his body forget what those legs were meant for. He could run, and he doubted this disgusting aberration was capable of managing much more than a jerky trot.

But in this tiny room, there was barely anywhere to run to.

Even as the beast lumbered in an awkward circle to turn itself around, James found himself having to leap away again just to avoid being clipped by the frame in the process. This enclosed space would be his undoing if he wasn't careful.

And so began a deadly dance, around and around the room. The beast took a long time to turn around, so it was all James could do to just keep it turning and keep desperately moving to reclaim the gun, but at every turn, it managed to block him. Inadvertently or deliberately, it was impossible to tell. He had no hope of reaching it himself, not without having to climb straight over the creature. And he didn't particularly want to do that. He didn't even want to touch it.

If he bent, he could see the gun through its stumpy legs, lying on the floor where it had slid to the foot of a pair of tennis shoes.

... Angela! That was it!

"Angela! Angela, throw me the gun! Quick, while it's focused on me!" he shouted to the girl in the corner. She had been hemmed in by the creature's bulk, but unlike when he'd burst into the room, it was him it was after now, and it had already begun to plod in his direction once more.

Although she had been weeping and cringing there when he had first entered, now she sat almost listlessly, expression stony and blank. Like it had all gotten to be too much and she had retreated to some faraway place, leaving her body behind. She stared down at the gun dreamily, but made no move to grab it.

A flare of incredulous, fear-driven anger filled him like a flood of molten lead.

"ANGELA!" he yelled again, but to his frustration, all she did was slowly lift her hands to her ears and begin to rock slowly forwards and back, right there in her corner. Blocking him out. Blocking everything out.

He was on his own.

Heart in throat, his hand flew to his pocket and whipped out the little handgun he had picked up what felt like an eternity ago, back in the Blue Creek Apartments. Back then, it had been the deadliest weapon he had, which admittedly wasn't too hard to achieve when the only competition was an old plank with some nails in it. But as he'd delved deeper and deeper into the town, his foes had gotten bigger. Bigger and much harder to kill.

Brandishing a handgun against this thing felt like waving a peashooter at a rampaging rhino. But it was his only hope at the moment.

BLAM!

The first bullet struck the metal frame and ricocheted off with a screech.

BLAM! BLAM!

The other two hit home, but although a few dark spots of blood pattered onto the floor, the creature's thick hide prevented them from doing the amount of damage he'd been praying for. He backed up, squeezing the trigger over and over, but all the pain seemed to do was enrage it further.

With a bellow, it reared up and lunged again, and this time it didn't make the mistake it had before.

Before he could even think about making a break for it, the beast's two front legs hooked over his shoulders and its full, entire weight, now aided rather than hindered by the metal frame holding it prisoner, came slamming into him like a truckload of maggoty Christmas hams.

Except 'slammed' perhaps wasn't the best way to describe it.

It engulfed him.

Its bulk descended over his head, blotting out the light of the room. He couldn't see.

The underside of the frame was not metal but flesh, clammy flesh, moist flesh, crusty flesh, flesh that was feverishly, sickeningly hot. And the legs pressed him into it greedily, smothering his chest, his neck, his face. It was like being crushed against the belly of a diseased hog. He couldn't breathe.

And on top of it all, he could barely hear anything but the gurgling of its guts and the heavy, vibrating rumble of its roar, now almost a sensation more than a sound.

He let out a muffled yell and began to thrash, but the creature growled and scrabbled its clumsy-but-powerful forelegs against his back for purchase, clamping down even harder, pulling him to itself as though bundling a load of bedsheets. James turned his head desperately to the side for a chance at a gulp of air— even that reeked of the creature, a spicy, gag-inducing compound of sour breath and unwashed clothing— but it was better than nothing.

It was as he was gathering his wits and bringing his arms up to shove at the beast as hard as he could that something changed.

The violent snarling and gnashing faded suddenly, descending into a heavy, satisfied groan as it readjusted the position of its blunt, malformed feet. Then it began to grunt quietly as it ground its monstrous, rectangular hips against its captive.

At first James was stunned.

What the hell was it doing?

Then he knew. And he found himself letting out a low moan of horror.

"No... Nooooo!"

By some miracle he had managed to remain on his feet throughout the ordeal, but he could feel his knees buckling against the force of the creature's thrusts, which grew increasingly rough and insistent. He twisted wildly, pounding his fists into the beast's underbelly, which accepted them pliantly and seem to suck at them as though inviting them in further. No matter how hard he struggled, it clung to him doggedly, refusing to let him free for even a second.

Now he could feel it.

The hunger.

It radiated from it in ravenous waves, a want so ferocious and insane that he felt cowed by it, tiny in the face of it, and he almost wanted to crumple into a ball like the one that Angela had scrunched herself into out there past the wall of monster that now separated them.

The flesh he was pressed into seemed to pucker and contract, groping at his chest with tiny half-formed fingers, not caring that there was nothing there to grab.

Something revoltingly hard began to jab painfully into his stomach, making rolls of nausea wash over him and bile rise in his throat.

When it had first come after him, it had been out of anger and greed. The possessive wrath of a beast interrupted from its meal, moving to eliminate the threat. But at some point during the chase, it had changed its mind. Decided not to be picky. Maybe it didn't even realize that the body it was now crushing was different from the first. Maybe it was blind to anything but its violent, all-consuming hunger and would use anything, anyone to sate it.

It didn't matter now.

When it was done with James, it would have them both.

It was this certain knowledge that made James's knees fold underneath him at last, bringing them down to meet the stone floor with a jolt of pain that shot up his entire body. ... But then the beast on top of him wobbled, its legs shuffling madly. It had been knocked off-balance!

Ignoring the fog of panic in his brain, James forced himself to his feet again, throwing his entire weight into one determined, fullbodied attempt to buck the creature off at last. It worked. The weight left him and and his lungs sucked in an enormous gasp of fresh air without needing prompting.

But there was no time to stop and enjoy the freedom. As the creature's front legs came slamming back down to the ground, James was already hurling himself towards the shotgun, the floor under him vibrating as the monster let out a furious roar unparallelled by any that had come before it.

He had to get to the gun.

That was the only thing that mattered.

For one perilous instant, he was suspended in the air, literally diving for the dropped weapon...

... And then his fingers closed around the barrel and he let out a bark of triumph.

A bark of triumph that was promptly cut off by the rumbling of the beast barrelling towards him, hot on his heels. He whipped around, grappling the gun into position, but it was already on him. He hit the ground completely this time, already too low to escape being slammed bodily down. Its postlike legs trampled all around him, barely missing his head. One came down on his knee and agony shot straight up into his hip.

There was no time to get out from under it this time.

Gritting his teeth, he rolled onto his back and wrenched the gun straight up until the end of its barrel was jammed against the flesh that had been smothering him five seconds before.

The handgun had been loud in the air of the tiny room.

But trapped underneath the beast and right next to his ear... the shotgun's report was deafening.

The flash lit up the creature's belly— a sight he could have lived for the rest of his life without ever wanting to see in detail— just long enough for him to see the buckshot tear a messy hole into it, and the roar of fury became one of agony as it spasmed above him. He fired again. And again. Hot blood spewed down onto him and the recoil pounded a bruise into his shoulder that wouldn't fade for weeks, but he kept going.

Until finally, just as quickly as it had begun, it was over.

Light flooded back into his eyes as the beast lurched off of him, away from him. It was standing on its hind legs now, hunched over and hobbling like an old man with its forelegs pressed against its ruined underside. Holding in its own insides. A final growl, a pathetic diminishing sound that had probably started as a roar, escaped it as it tottered the last few steps and then collapsed. The wet, shiny lips that had smacked hungrily at him before were now gaping open and shut, mouthing silently at the air like a beached fish while dying moans oozed out of its hidden vocal chords.

Slowly, ears still ringing, James climbed to his feet. His breath came in shallow, ragged pants as he stood and looked at the fallen beast, groaning in a heap on the floor.

It wouldn't hurt anybody now.

Letting the shotgun drop to the floor once more, James turned numbly from the sight and headed over to Angela, the click of his boots on the stone seeming oddly loud in the ringing wake of the fight. She was sitting in the exact same spot, staring straight ahead with wide, glazed eyes. The anger he'd briefly felt towards her in the midst of it all was long gone— now all he wanted was to make sure she was all right.

"... Are you okay?" he asked quaveringly, offering a hand to help her up.

She looked up at him, eyes flitting back into focus, and raised a hand to refuse his. The other went to brace itself on the ground as she started to rise, making a strangled, tight noise of fear behind her closed lips. It quickly became a sob, but despite the way her face was now crumpling into one of terrorized misery, she wasted no time in hurrying over to the still-twitching body that lay past them and, viciously, starting to kick it.

It jerked under the assault, letting out another low, feeble growl of protest, but her wild eyes held no sympathy for it. When she turned away, it was only to snatch the television up from its stand, yanking the cord from the wall along with it.

With strength that belied her small, delicate frame, she hefted it over her head and then brought it crashing down on the beast's throbbing back.

Sparks flew from the TV, something inside the monster crunched loudly, and the death throes promptly ceased.

She stood there over the still, lifeless body, her shoulders heaving with harsh, gasping breaths, staring down at what she'd just done through the wisps of smoke now drifting up from the broken television.

"Angela...!" James said breathlessly, reaching out to lay a hand on her arm. He'd be lying if he said that what she'd just done hadn't shocked him. She wasn't quite as helpless as she looked. "Relax!"

Before he could make contact, she whirled around with eyes still full of fire and snapped, "DON'T ORDER ME AROUND!"

James backed away again, hands raised submissively.

"I'm— not trying to order you!" he stammered, voice meek. But she was glaring at him now, hands on her hips.

"So what do you want, then?" she said sharply, head tilting. When he failed to reply, a savage, sarcastic sneer appeared on her face, even as her cheeks still glittered with tears. She crossed her arms over her chest. "Ohhhh, I see. You're trying to be nice to me, right?"

She let another moment of silence pass, then shook a finger at him accusingly.

"I know what you're up to! It's always the same. You're only after one thing!"

James stepped back again. Shook his head, waved his hands. How could she think that? After what had just happened? How could anyone want that, after being trapped in the grip of... of the thing they had just killed together? "No. That's not true at all!"

"You don't have to lie!Go ahead and say it!"

She turned away and gestured at the air, the flames falling from her eyes as they welled up with pain instead.

"Or you could just force me... Beat me up, like..." Her voice broke. She raised a shaky hand to it to disguise how her snarl had become an anguished grimace. "... h-he always did..."

All he could do was watch helplessly as she sunk to her knees, weeping. Her words rushed together, still furious even through her tears.

"Y'only care aboutch'self anyway, you ... you disgusting PIG!"

Then, eyes widening, she started to dry-heave, in raspy, painful-sounding gasps. Trying to expel whatever was making her feel so sick, only there was nothing. Nothing that her body could purge, anyway. Not having the slightest inkling of what to do, he stood there and watched the girl who had given him a knife out of fear that she'd turn it on herself. Now he knew why, and the knowledge was far from a comfort. Finally, the sight grew unbearable and despite knowing better, he foolishly stepped forward again, hand extended.

"Angela..."

This time she flung out an arm to smack his away and shrilled, "DON'T TOUCH ME!!" She watched him lividly with dark, red-rimmed eyes for a moment to make sure he wouldn't, then let her head fall again, a couple more sobs working their way out of her. "You make me sick!"

At last she struggled to her feet, scrubbing at her face and breathing deep, visibly trying to compose herself. James, suitably chastised, kept his distance, and a dripping, uneasy silence descended between them.

"... Well," James said after a time, mouth twitching into a rueful smile. "... I... might've fought it, but... you're the one who finished it off."

Angela blinked in the mirror, apparently surprised by this observation, then settled back into her seat as it sank in, looking as though something had occurred to her for the first time. "... Yes... I— I did, didn't I."

Perhaps he was only imagining it, but a touch of warm, healthy color seemed to return to her ghostly cheeks with the realization.

... Then, after a short silence, it became a slightly-embarrassed flush as she turned her eyes down to the side.

"I... said some terrible things about you after that..." she mumbled, rolling her shoulders sheepishly. "I guess I... should apologize..."

"No need." The answer was natural and immediate, and he didn't need to take his eyes off the road to give it. Her barbed words had hurt at the time, obviously. But he found that in recalling them now, the sting had faded. "You... had your reasons. And besides..."

He trailed off into a slight sigh. Because the things she'd been right about hurt more than the things she wasn't.

"You weren't wrong about everything..."

The words hung in the air between them for a moment, heavy with meaning.

Angela had been the very first to openly accuse him of lying about Mary's death. And it had been a lie, hadn't it? Even if it had been one he'd unknowingly been telling himself, it had still been a lie. That was something he'd have to live with forever.

Trying to ignore the fact that his throat had grown thick, James shook himself and spoke again. "... So... Angela... how, um... how did you get out alive?"

Her eyes came back up to meet his, brow lightly furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"Well... like I said, the last time I saw you, you just... disappeared into all that fire. Didn't it hurt?"

She looked puzzled. "I told you, James. For me, it's always like that."

They were the same words she'd said to him back there in Silent Hill, before she had turned her back on him and started to ascend the staircase, disappearing into the flames. Back there and then, they had sparked a profound sadness in him as he stood there, helpless to do anything but watch as the inferno engulfed her.

But for some reason, hearing them now sent a chill down his spine that he couldn't explain.

"... Always?" he said, uncertainly. "Even... even right now?"

"There's smoke coming from your seat," she said, with such flat seriousness that he didn't doubt her for a second. "And there's a spot on the dashboard that's starting to melt."

He swallowed hard and fell silent, choosing to stare at the road ahead instead of respond. Just as it had never occurred to him that she might have survived until he'd confirmed with his own eyes and ears that she was standing before him, it hadn't even entered his mind that someone could still be seeing the Otherworld— because that had to be it, didn't it? What else could it be?— even after leaving the town.

The rolling hills they were now passing leveled out into a small, barren valley that had been cleared out to serve as a garbage dump. Angela turned to watch it zip past, her dark eyes briefly reflecting the piles of compost and twisted metal that sat behind the gate.

"... James," she said after a moment. "... What did you do with my knife?"

He swallowed to moisten his throat. "I... I don't have it anymore."

"... Really," she said, a tad dryly.

"I left a lot of things behind in Silent Hill." It was a cryptic reply... but then, it was hard not to be cryptic when it came to that town.

"I see."

There was something skeptical, almost disappointed in her tone now, and James swallowed but did not reply.

The rest of the drive was spent in uncomfortable silence.

It was late afternoon, close to six o'clock, when Laura awakened from her slumber and promptly dashed the silence to pieces. She sat up, rubbed her eyes with a loud yawn, and scrunched up her face in displeasure when she saw that the car was still moving down country roads with few parking lots and no vacancy signs in sight.

"... Aren't we there YET?"

"It's still pretty far away," James said. "We probably won't be there till dark."

"... But I'm HUNGRY," Laura said, sounding personally affronted that they hadn't arrived at their destination yet. In all fairness, the places she selected were usually closer to them than this one had been, or if they weren't, James had been able to decide on some kind of rest stop in between them.

But James hadn't been entirely sure if Angela wanted to stop. She hadn't said anything, so he had driven on. In hindsight, perhaps that had been a bad idea. Angela had no trouble speaking up when one of her volatile moods had been triggered, but the rest of the time she barely seemed able to lift a finger even in her own defense.

"Well... the bag's back there, we should still have plenty of stuff left from that supply run yesterday..."

"I don't WANNA eat crackers, I want real food," Laura said hotly.

"Well..."

They weren't eating at restaurants as much now. It was cheaper to graze on supplies for supper each night than to go out. But Angela looked like she hadn't seen a hot meal in awhile, and they didn't exactly have a microwave. ... Tonight... maybe tonight could be an exception.

"... Why don't we see what Angela thinks?" he suggested neutrally after running a few mental calculations through his head. One nice thing about Angela's presence, he'd found, was that he could always divert the decision-making to her if Laura was being particularly obstinant and unpleasable. And since Laura liked Angela, it worked out rather nicely.

"... I... I haven't actually had warm food in awhile," Angela admitted, confirming his suspicions.

"It's settled, then," James said, taking the next exit into town. Reservations aside, he was anything but immune to the temptation of a real meal after weeks of dry cereal and macaroni and cheese.


~*~


A short time later, they had parked and were outside, walking.

It was a balmy evening— not clear, the clouds hadn't lifted— but not freezing. Summer had swooped in on dusky wings and made the days warm, if still rather stormy. But that was New England for you, even in the warm months. The first of the lit streetlights reflected on the puddles and danced every time Laura splashed in one. She kept running ahead of them, taking big leaps so that she could come down in the middle of each one.

Angela was walking behind her, with James at the rear of the group. For some reason, Angela didn't seem too keen on being in the back or the front. James assumed she didn't feel confident enough to lead, but also didn't want to be 'alone' with him. She hadn't looked at him once since Laura had awoken and their somber conversation trailed off, although she had mumbled a quiet "Thank you..." when he'd opened the car door for her to let her out. That was nice. Laura never said thank you for anything, so it was a pair of words that James hadn't heard in awhile.

"So where we goin'?" Laura asked, kicking up a small spray of water into the air so that she could watch the neon lights of various storefronts glimmer in the droplets for a split second before they pattered back down onto the puddle-strewn sidewalk.

"Why don't we let Angela choose? ... And don't do that, Laura, you'll get your socks wet and we don't have time to dry them tonight."

She responded by turning around and defiantly kicking water at James's ankles as he passed. Then she twisted to look over her shoulder at their companion. "Angel-ah! Where're we goin'?"

The young woman had paused uncertainly between Laura and James, looking around.

"I don't really care," she mumbled quietly, plucking at some loose yarn on the end of one of her sleeves.

"It's okay, you can choose," James said earnestly, hadns in his pockets. She sent him a dull look and he could tell that even after their conversation, some part of her probably still thought that he was just trying to buy her favor. But... well. The offer still stood. He just sucked his lips in and waited.

After a long hesitation during which she rocked subtly forward and back on her heels, she spoke quietly.

"I... I really miss my Mama's cooking... from before she left."

"I've never had mama cooking," Laura chirped, remarking on her lack of parents the same way someone might offhandedly mention that they'd never eaten Indian cuisine before. "What kind of cooking is that?"

"Well," Angela said hesitantly. "When... when I was little, my mama would make chicken tamales on weekends..."

"What's a tamally?" Laura asked brashly, skipping backwards ahead of Angela so that she could look straight up at her. James thought resignedly about telling her to watch where she was going, but fortunately the sidewalks were mostly empty tonight.

"It's a... a... well, you have dough, and then you fill it with... well, Mama favored chicken when she made hers..."

"Like a chicken pot pie? I had one of those once!"

"A little," said Angela, and James was once again surprised to hear the barest hint of a laugh in her voice. "But different. Mama would make the filling with chicken, and corn, and... and fresh tomatoes, and then top it all off with red chili sauce before wrapping them up in a corn husk. I... I used to help her make them, back before..."

She trailed off there, the laugh fading into a sad silence. One that James knew the significance of.

Laura, fortunately, did not seem to notice.

"That sounds so good! Can we get those? I wanna get those!" she babbled excitedly, clearly enamored with the idea.

She wasn't the only one. To someone who'd been subsisting mainly on beef jerky, chips, and scrambled eggs, the description sounded delicious. Although to be fair, after two months of eating dinner out of a box or bag, it was safe to say that almost anything would sound good by comparison.

"We could find a Mexican place," he offered.

Angela wrinkled her nose a little bit. "It's... hn. Restaurant food isn't the same..."

But if she was anything like them— if the past few months for her had been anything like theirs had— she knew home-cooking wasn't exactly a possibility at this point. And it would seem that she did, because then she nodded.

"All right... just as long as it's not... you know, Taco Casa or something."

James was more than willing to try and find something more authentic. The wistfulness with which she'd described those tamales was contagious, even though he'd never tasted any such thing.

It took a great deal of walking and more than a little whining from Laura (mostly moaning about the fact that they were walking instead of driving, but James ignored it and plodded stolidly onward. Gas was starting to add up, after all), but eventually they stumbled across a small restaurant with the word Ixtapa above the door in red, white and green. James looked to Angela for approval.

She was standing with her arms around herself, looking up at the face of the building in quiet contemplation.

With a slight chill, their conversation on the road crept back into James's mind and he wondered, just for moment, if she was watching ghostly flames flickering from the restaurant's roof.

After a time, she nodded and scuffed a heel on the sidewalk.

"I guess this is fine... I mean, if you both... want to."

"It smells good!" Laura chipped in, making her feelings on the matter plain.

James had already noticed this and it had pretty much made all the money-spending regrets fly straight out the window. It would be worth it, just for tonight. To treat themselves a little. They'd been doing well so far... they deserved it.

Taking the initiative, he stepped forward and held the door open for the other two.

Laura skipped through first, with Angela trailing in after her. She shot James a compulsory hooded glance, but unbridled tension that filled her every time she stepped within a few feet of him was absent. ... Or maybe that was just his imagination.

Inside the restaurant, it was dark and noisy— but it was a warm sort of noisiness. Voices chattered, glasses clinked. Bubbling hisses of steam could be heard every time an unseen fry-basket was pulled from its bed of oil in the kitchen. There was a baseball game playing on a television by the bar, and occasional cheers when something good happened.

They received a table almost right away, and Laura slid onto one of the booth seats with Angela hastily sitting down after her, leaving the opposite side to James.

"Have you ever had food like this before, Laura?" Angela asked Laura quietly. She was shying away from the loud volume of the restaurant, but otherwise seemed at ease.

"Nope! Nope nope nope!" Laura replied, bouncing in her seat. "What's in 'em? Just stuff like you said before? I want THOSE."

"Well... tamales are usually a winter food... but, since this a restaurant, they probably make them year-round... they probably won't taste like the ones my mama made, though..."

"What'll they taste like, then?"

"Everyone makes them a little differently..."

But Laura had already gotten distracted by the brightly-colored menus.

"Oh! Oh! Oh! There's tacos! Can we get tacos? I've had tacos, they're crunchy!"

"These ones won't be," Angela said mildly, letting the conversation shift according to Laura's fleeting attention span. "Real tacos are soft. Hard-shelled tacos are called flautas."

"Oh," Laura said, blinking down at the menu for a moment before flitting on to the next thing that caught her eye.

James was flipping idly through the drink section. His eyes had lingered longingly on the alcoholic beverages— the last time he'd had a drink had been in that sinister bar. Not a drop had passed his lips since... but the cravings hadn't gotten the memo. He shook them off. The occasional night would come, he figured, when he'd have earned himself a good drink. But no more drowning himself in it to forget. He was done with that.

"Ooh! Oooh! What's in these?"

"The burritos?" Tentatively, Angela reached over to inch Laura's menu towards her. "They're a little like tacos, but wrapped up more tightly... they usually have cheese, rice, beans..."

"Beans? I know about beans!"

"Laura, you don't even like beans," James reminded her half-heartedly, flipping away from the winelist.

Laura ignored him.

"Wanna know what I know about beans?"

"...What do you know about beans?" Angela asked, cautiously.

Laura proudly began to beat her fists upon the table, making the silverware rattle and the dripping icewaters they'd been given slosh in their glasses.

"BEANS, BEANS, THEY'RE GOOD FOR YOUR HEART! THE MORE YOU EAT, THE MORE YOU—"

"Laura!" James interrupted with a frown.

Both because he knew where that one was going, and because there was a waiter approaching who probably wouldn't appreciate it.

Their orders were placed and the food received without much in the way of incident.

At one point his nerves had surged back— their food had just arrived, and Angela, at that point still pale and wearing that tense, deerlike look in her eyes, had picked up one of the sharp cutting knives next to her plate. James had found his muscles tensing in preparation to leap upright and grab it from across the table— but then she lowered it to her plate and started to slice up the cut of chicken she'd ordered, and he relaxed once more.

Much to his surprise (and no small amount of relief), Laura did not at any point wrinkle her nose or make noises of disgust at anything on her plate, not did she spill anything, flick food at him, or do any of the other things he had become used to enduring at meal times. Instead, she became deeply engrossed in asking Angela question after question about the ingredients, why guacamole was green, why the rice was dark and speckly instead of pure white like in Chinese food, why some of the peppers were sweet while others were spicy.

As the minutes passed, Angela seemed to take on a new life right there in her seat, answering Laura's questions without resentment and even, after a time, without her usual hesitance and timid demeanor. She smiled, and the warm meal had brought color back into her cheeks the same way that her much-belated realization had back there in the car.

James found himself watching with a sort of muted calm as they chattered away on the other side of the table, all the apprehension and sense of impending disaster that he'd been carrying around with him since they'd picked up Angela starting to ebb away. The comfort of a full stomach and easy, innocent conversation could work wonders.

Back in Silent Hill, he hadn't thought even once about what life beyond what was happening to him in those dark buildings and misty streets might be like. To think that one day, months later, he would be sitting in a restaurant with someone who he'd been sure was dead less than a day before...

But what stunned him the most was Laura.

Watching her bring a smile out of Angela that wasn't cruel or hiding a twisted core of pain. Listening to her ask question after question about a subject of which she knew nothing and get answers that were brighter and more enthusiastic by the second.

For the first time since meeting her, James found he could understand why Mary had fallen in such love with the little girl.

"Hey! James! James! James, James, hey James!"

A wicked-looking orange thing on a fork was being waved in front of his face.

He looked down at it dubiously.

"... Yeah?"

"Eat this."

Her face was far too straight to be trustworthy.

"What is it?" James asked slowly, even though he had heard the pair plain as day five seconds before, when Laura had asked Angela what it was, and proceeded to inquire further in hushed, conspiratorial tones about its name, spiciness, and whether or not it would make somebody's head light on fire if they ate too much of it.

"It's a thing. Angela says it's good! Eat it!"

Internalizing a sigh, James's eyes drifted over to Angela, who was determinedly not making eye contact, instead prodding a chunk of chorizo back and forth on her plate with a fork and biting her lip in a quiet but obvious effort not to smile.

"... I'm a little bit full, Laura," James said, but the danger-bearing utensil was then poked against his lips insistently.

"Come oooooo-oooooon! I dare you. You gotta do it if I dare you."

James gave her a long-suffering look that was rendered completely ineffective by the traffic-cone-colored pepper now being bopped against his nose. She was undeterred.

"I DOUBLE dare you."

"... I don't really..."

"I double DOG dare you!"

Knowing he wouldn't find any aid there but feeling the need to do so nonetheless, James looked over at Angela again for help.

She merely shrugged her shoulders very slightly, remarking in a quiet, neutral tone, "I think if someone double dog dares you to do something, that means you need to do it."

Well then.

With a loud sigh, James resigned himself to spontaneous head combustion and took the fork from Laura. His expectations were only slightly higher than the results.

Eyes streaming, he tipped every last cube of ice in the glass back into his mouth to quench the unholy hell that had been unleashed on his tastebuds, as Laura hooted madly and clapped her hands. Angela's laugh, quieter and a little bit sympathetic (... a little bit) joined in seconds later.

But despite the burning on his tongue (and in his face, which the pepper had surely turned red) and the long-suffering attitude with which he had accepted his fate... he found he was not upset. In fact, there was an entirely different warm feeling that was creeping into him from head to toe, as he watched Laura hold up one hand for an enthusiastic high-five (which Angela returned, shyly but not halfheartedly) through tear-blurred vision.

It had been years since he'd felt the real thing... but he hadn't forgotten its name.

Hope.