[Silent Hill] Eight of Swords
She blinks and the treeline changes. Online map services had helped her pick a spot out of the way of easy viewing, just in case somebody else had come to the graveyard this afternoon. Here, right on the south side of Toluca Lake, it's as foggy as it always is, one of the town's drawing points as far as tourists are concerned. The sun is hidden behind clouds and isn't doing a good job burning the stuff away today; it's thick, with a faint drift to it as it rolls in from the surface of the water. She's careful with her steps, the ground still wet and slimy here and there where snow had only just recently melted, a few lonely flakes of it falling lazily to earth. The scent of it is bracing, earthy and fluid, but this isn't the time for a nice stroll. I'll be in and out, she'd promised Henry, and plans to hold it up.
Low flat shapes loom up out of the fog ahead of her, tombstones, and leaf litter and dirt yield to dewy wet grass beneath her shoes. Her steps are the only noise to be found, nobody else is out paying their respects today and the lack of wind makes for a perfectly silent lake's edge some fifty, maybe eighty feet away, if she remembers right. Irritatingly, it takes a bit of work to find the graves she's looking for. Through the mist, she can only make names out when she's right up close to the stones, and she hasn't been to these enough times to memorize their positions yet. Sharon's grave gets a flower, and George Rostin's, as she finds them.
Last up for this stop are two headstones set close together. William and Miriam, RIP. Beloved son, beloved daughter, gone too soon. "Hey kids," she sighs, crouching down before them. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God, Matthew 5:8, says Miriam. "Told you I'd be back." He that endureth to the end shall be saved, Matthew 10:22, Billy replies. "Here you go. You guys take care of each other, okay?" Two blooms for two babies. She kisses the tips of her fingers and extends the hand to each marker in turn. "Bet you know now all the stuff I'd say again. Sorry, I need to get back to Henry, bet you remember him too. So, love ya, world misses ya. I think about you." Eileen sighs, and abruptly pushes her palms against her knees to stand. "And I'll see you aga-"
Blood spatters Miriam's headstone.
Eileen's not entirely righted herself before a crack of a sound splits through the quiet and something fiery sears a path through the muscle of her leg. Skin tears, meat and fibers in her calf sever and snap, metals grinds past bone, and it burrows a hole right out through the front, too, the projectile striking below the little girl's date of birth. The 'ping' of metal flattening against stone goes unheard beneath her strangled yelp of surprise and pain and the rustle of fabric as she falters and collapses on the wet ground with suddenly only one working leg beneath her and the other tugged by the force of the impact, the rest of her flowers flattened under her.
Her heart screams into overdrive and she wails into the grass. Oh God, oh God oh God oh God oh God that hurt. Nausea wracks her stomach and a confused fog her brain, cold sweat prickling up to the surface of her skin, it feels as though her strength has ebbed as quickly as her blood flows but her hands still convulse into claws, drawing dirt up under her nails. Another gunshot shrieks through the formerly peaceful grounds. This bullet, thankfully, hits stone without passing through her body first, and captures the sliver of her attention not wholly devoted to a searing piercing wound. Horrified, she looks up though her eyes are doing their best to stay squeezed shut and brimming with tears, and sees a dark stooped outline making its way between headstones from the direction of the lake.
Making its way towards her.
Oh God.
The most absurdly terrifying thought breaks through the surge of panic, I'm gonna die and Henry is not going to forgive me.
Moving wrings a sob out of her as torn nerves and tissues pull and shift against each other, a sharp twinge powerful enough to utterly take her breath away, and as though rebelling against being made to feel such a thing her brain starts vacating the premises and leaves her light-headed in the extreme. But the click of a clip being checked is more than enough to keep her in motion. She half-hobbles half-crawls around Miriam's stone, the lift of her heels no help at all, to press her back up against the solid barrier between her and her shooter - shooter, holy shit, shooting at me, somebody's SHOOTING at me! There's not enough oxygen, the fog, is it too much fog? She can hardly breathe, drawing air in great gulps from her open mouth and releasing it again in gasping whimpers as squelching footsteps grow louder. The fog, that must be why it's suddenly so chilly out here. Getting closer... shit, she's gotta get out of here, go back to Henry and let him yell at her all he damn well wants so long as he calls 911 and arranges for some morphine, oh God oh God. She winces, shifting on her hip to reach into her pocket, but... her fingers can find no phone.
No... no, of course not, her purse with her phone and her gun are two feet and two miles away, on the other side of the stone with her flowers and Walter and blood that wasn't supposed to be out on its own today. It is Walter, isn't it? His name is already tagged onto those steps in her head. He's going to come over here and hit her some more and finish her off, tear her up inside just like he did when he first put his knife to her, but it will be worse, neverending, she wants to cry and beg forgiveness of a hundred people for this cruel foolishness of hers. He is going to come over here and hurt her. She shakes.
This can't be happening. No, this can't be happening. She at least has to talk to him, ask him to stop. She at least has to warn Henry that he'll be in this danger too. Walter's shoes approach the graves of his victim babes at a clip of a pace, no slow deliberate stalking towards her this time. Eileen grits her teeth and clenches her fists, preparing. This is going to hurt, but she has to at least...
Walter rounds Miriam's grave and the gun clicks again, and Eileen is ready. No sense running away, not like this, she couldn't outrun a bullet even uninjured. She launches herself right at him, crying out as her foot feels positively numb next to the terrible things going on just above it. There's barely room in her brain for recognizing that Walter is shorter, squarer, smells more like sweat and less like death than she remembers. When he fires, it's harmlessly into the invisible sky, and both of them are immediately crashing down to earth. He shoves at her with a roar, one hand pushing at her ribs and the other at her face, it feels to her like a slap.
And both of them are right back up again, and she's running, stumbling west as quickly as she can with one leg held stiffly beneath her and frightened cries bubbling up through her breath. For whatever reason, he doesn't follow her. She doesn't look, wordless notes of alarm still darting out of her throat with her breath though she sees and hears nothing but the woods now, she can't bear to catch sight of the pursuit too. She runs into the embrace of trunks and branches that brush sticky dew onto her elbows and her cheeks and the hem of her jacket as she tears through, sliding ungracefully down the slight wet slope just past the undergrowth. At the bottom, the leaf litter gets the better of the heels of her pumps and sends her falling. This time, when she tries to get up again, the protest from her leg overwhelms the effort. She convulses and collapses back into the mud, quivering in misery and sobbing as though terror could be expelled just like that.
Now she turns her head, and though everything seems to be looming larger and darker than when she arrived, none of it has the shape of a man. He's not there. He's waiting for her in the graveyard, maybe, or lost interest once she turned into a moving target, God only knows. Merely robbing her of her wallet, with any luck. Probably still back there. With her gun. And with her phone.
Low flat shapes loom up out of the fog ahead of her, tombstones, and leaf litter and dirt yield to dewy wet grass beneath her shoes. Her steps are the only noise to be found, nobody else is out paying their respects today and the lack of wind makes for a perfectly silent lake's edge some fifty, maybe eighty feet away, if she remembers right. Irritatingly, it takes a bit of work to find the graves she's looking for. Through the mist, she can only make names out when she's right up close to the stones, and she hasn't been to these enough times to memorize their positions yet. Sharon's grave gets a flower, and George Rostin's, as she finds them.
Last up for this stop are two headstones set close together. William and Miriam, RIP. Beloved son, beloved daughter, gone too soon. "Hey kids," she sighs, crouching down before them. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God, Matthew 5:8, says Miriam. "Told you I'd be back." He that endureth to the end shall be saved, Matthew 10:22, Billy replies. "Here you go. You guys take care of each other, okay?" Two blooms for two babies. She kisses the tips of her fingers and extends the hand to each marker in turn. "Bet you know now all the stuff I'd say again. Sorry, I need to get back to Henry, bet you remember him too. So, love ya, world misses ya. I think about you." Eileen sighs, and abruptly pushes her palms against her knees to stand. "And I'll see you aga-"
Blood spatters Miriam's headstone.
Eileen's not entirely righted herself before a crack of a sound splits through the quiet and something fiery sears a path through the muscle of her leg. Skin tears, meat and fibers in her calf sever and snap, metals grinds past bone, and it burrows a hole right out through the front, too, the projectile striking below the little girl's date of birth. The 'ping' of metal flattening against stone goes unheard beneath her strangled yelp of surprise and pain and the rustle of fabric as she falters and collapses on the wet ground with suddenly only one working leg beneath her and the other tugged by the force of the impact, the rest of her flowers flattened under her.
Her heart screams into overdrive and she wails into the grass. Oh God, oh God oh God oh God oh God that hurt. Nausea wracks her stomach and a confused fog her brain, cold sweat prickling up to the surface of her skin, it feels as though her strength has ebbed as quickly as her blood flows but her hands still convulse into claws, drawing dirt up under her nails. Another gunshot shrieks through the formerly peaceful grounds. This bullet, thankfully, hits stone without passing through her body first, and captures the sliver of her attention not wholly devoted to a searing piercing wound. Horrified, she looks up though her eyes are doing their best to stay squeezed shut and brimming with tears, and sees a dark stooped outline making its way between headstones from the direction of the lake.
Making its way towards her.
Oh God.
The most absurdly terrifying thought breaks through the surge of panic, I'm gonna die and Henry is not going to forgive me.
Moving wrings a sob out of her as torn nerves and tissues pull and shift against each other, a sharp twinge powerful enough to utterly take her breath away, and as though rebelling against being made to feel such a thing her brain starts vacating the premises and leaves her light-headed in the extreme. But the click of a clip being checked is more than enough to keep her in motion. She half-hobbles half-crawls around Miriam's stone, the lift of her heels no help at all, to press her back up against the solid barrier between her and her shooter - shooter, holy shit, shooting at me, somebody's SHOOTING at me! There's not enough oxygen, the fog, is it too much fog? She can hardly breathe, drawing air in great gulps from her open mouth and releasing it again in gasping whimpers as squelching footsteps grow louder. The fog, that must be why it's suddenly so chilly out here. Getting closer... shit, she's gotta get out of here, go back to Henry and let him yell at her all he damn well wants so long as he calls 911 and arranges for some morphine, oh God oh God. She winces, shifting on her hip to reach into her pocket, but... her fingers can find no phone.
No... no, of course not, her purse with her phone and her gun are two feet and two miles away, on the other side of the stone with her flowers and Walter and blood that wasn't supposed to be out on its own today. It is Walter, isn't it? His name is already tagged onto those steps in her head. He's going to come over here and hit her some more and finish her off, tear her up inside just like he did when he first put his knife to her, but it will be worse, neverending, she wants to cry and beg forgiveness of a hundred people for this cruel foolishness of hers. He is going to come over here and hurt her. She shakes.
This can't be happening. No, this can't be happening. She at least has to talk to him, ask him to stop. She at least has to warn Henry that he'll be in this danger too. Walter's shoes approach the graves of his victim babes at a clip of a pace, no slow deliberate stalking towards her this time. Eileen grits her teeth and clenches her fists, preparing. This is going to hurt, but she has to at least...
Walter rounds Miriam's grave and the gun clicks again, and Eileen is ready. No sense running away, not like this, she couldn't outrun a bullet even uninjured. She launches herself right at him, crying out as her foot feels positively numb next to the terrible things going on just above it. There's barely room in her brain for recognizing that Walter is shorter, squarer, smells more like sweat and less like death than she remembers. When he fires, it's harmlessly into the invisible sky, and both of them are immediately crashing down to earth. He shoves at her with a roar, one hand pushing at her ribs and the other at her face, it feels to her like a slap.
And both of them are right back up again, and she's running, stumbling west as quickly as she can with one leg held stiffly beneath her and frightened cries bubbling up through her breath. For whatever reason, he doesn't follow her. She doesn't look, wordless notes of alarm still darting out of her throat with her breath though she sees and hears nothing but the woods now, she can't bear to catch sight of the pursuit too. She runs into the embrace of trunks and branches that brush sticky dew onto her elbows and her cheeks and the hem of her jacket as she tears through, sliding ungracefully down the slight wet slope just past the undergrowth. At the bottom, the leaf litter gets the better of the heels of her pumps and sends her falling. This time, when she tries to get up again, the protest from her leg overwhelms the effort. She convulses and collapses back into the mud, quivering in misery and sobbing as though terror could be expelled just like that.
Now she turns her head, and though everything seems to be looming larger and darker than when she arrived, none of it has the shape of a man. He's not there. He's waiting for her in the graveyard, maybe, or lost interest once she turned into a moving target, God only knows. Merely robbing her of her wallet, with any luck. Probably still back there. With her gun. And with her phone.