Guns Don't Kill Monsters; Bullets Kill Monsters
Phelous wasn’t very fond of summer. Sure, school was out for a few months, but that meant he was stuck at home with little to do, since all his friends usually spent the summer away at camp, or visiting family, leaving him stuck in his boring neighborhood with nothing to do but watch TV or play video games.
Fortunately, there was a mall just a few blocks away and Phelous was able to search the stores for the latest games in the hopes that they would drive away his boredom. It was there that he discovered a new game from Japan called ‘Silent Hill’. It was a survival-horror game according to the guy who worked there, whatever that meant, and was supposed to be pretty scary.
Phelous scoffed at the warnings and bought the game without a second thought. How could a video game be scary? It was just a game, after all. Besides, he loved watching horror movies, and this was probably just a cheap attempt to copy those ‘jump-scare’ formulas anyway.
As Phelous biked back to his place, he spotted a boy just a few years younger than him standing in the driveway next to his house. He wore a brown trilby hat which was slightly too large for his head, a ‘Power Rangers’ T-shirt, and a frown as he stared at a man wearing a suit.
“Uncle Harvey, why did we have to come here?” he whined to the older man, who was smoking as searched his pockets for something. “I wanted to go somewhere cool for our vacation, like Disney World.”
“Sorry, Kid,” Harvey said as he pulled out a pair of car keys. “We’ll go there next year, I promise. In the meantime, why don’t you find something to do while I go out for a little while.”
“What am I supposed to do? There’s nothing here,” the kid complained. Harvey smiled as he nodded toward Phelous, who was a bit startled by the action.
“You calling him nothing, Kid?” The boy turned around and stared in surprise at Phelous.
“Uh, hi,” Phelous called out awkwardly. “I’m Phelous. I live here.”
“Oh. Hi. I’m Linkara.” The two fell quiet then, not quite sure what to do next.
“So, Phelous,” Harvey interjected with a friendly smile. “What kinda things do you do for fun around here?”
“Uh, not much,” Phelous admitted with an embarrassed shrug. “This place usually isn’t very busy, but it gets even slower during the summer. Usually I just hang around inside watching Doctor Who and stuff.”
“You like Doctor Who?” Linkara asked, suddenly looking at Phelous with interest. He nodded. “Me too! It’s such a cool show, isn’t it?”
“I have a tape of some episodes,” Phelous said, suddenly feeling excited. “You can come over and watch some with me, if you want.”
“Can I?” Linkara turned to Harvey, who smiled down at him.
“Are you sure we wouldn’t be interrupting anything?” Harvey glanced toward the bag Phelous was holding.
“Oh, no, I was just going to play this new game I got, but I can do that later.”
“Please Uncle Harvey?” Harvey chuckled before patting the boy’s shoulder.
“All right, Kid, you can go. But promise me you’ll stay inside Phelous’s house at all times and be back here by eleven, ok?”
“Ok!” Linkara hugged Harvey before rushing over to walk with Phelous into his house. “So, which Doctor is your favorite?”
~~~~~~~~
After watching several episodes of Doctor Who, Phelous and Linkara had become fast friends. While they didn’t have exactly the same hobbies, as Phelous thought Linkara was just a little too into comic books and Linkara found Phelous’s love of horror movies just a tad unsettling, they had enough in common to keep the conversation going.
“Ok, that’s all of them,” Phelous said as he went to rewind his tape. He was sitting on the floor of his room while Linkara sat in a backwards facing chair.
“Aw, too bad. I wish there were more,” Linkara murmured as he adjusted his glasses.
“Want to do something else?”
“Like what?”
“I have this new game,” Phelous said as he pulled out the cartridge and started loading it into his Playstation.
“You sure have a lot of games,” Linkara remarked as he peered around at the many cartridges strewn about the room.
“Yeah,” Phelous admitted as he turned on the console. “This one is supposed to be scary, just so you know.” Linkara scoffed.
“I bet it isn’t that scary.” Phelous smiled as he got an idea.
“Then why don’t I turn the lights off? It’ll be like we’re at the movies.”
“O-ok.” Linkara tried to pretend he was unaffected by the sudden darkness, but Phelous noticed that he gripped the back of the chair more tightly.
The two watched as the screen warned them about disturbing images that would appear in the game before the opening scenes started to play along with a haunting melody. Phelous almost started regretting his decision to turn off the lights but shook his head and forced himself to focus on the game instead.
“What just happened?” Linkara asked, as Phelous was finally allowed to control the main character.
“I don’t know, I guess I got into an accident and I have to find that girl,” Phelous replied as he started to move through the streets where snow fell but melted instantly. “Huh, I guess there isn’t voice acting in this. Too bad.”
A second later the main character was asking about Cheryl.
“Oh there is. Cool. Hey, where’s that girl going?”
“Why is everything so foggy?” Linakra wondered, his eyes growing wider as he watched Phelous maneuver Harry. “You can hardly see what’s in front of you.”
“I don’t know, but I wish this stupid girl would stop running away from me.” Phelous frowned and pressed on after Cheryl, finally running through a gate.
“Oh my God, what’s that?” Linkara pointed at the splotches of red covering the ground and the building.
“I guess it’s the dog,” Phelous said, a slight sense of unease overtaking him.
“It’s dead? That’s really gross.”
“Yeah.” Phelous’s unsettled feelings grew as he steered Harry through twisted maze-like streets while the camera angles seemed to shake, making it harder to control. The squeaking sounds, sirens, and bloodied hospital equipment further added to the disturbing atmosphere. When Harry continued to walk into areas that were covered in even more blood, Phelous noticed Linkara’s breathing had gotten heavier, his eyes still glued to the screen.
“Oh God!” he shrieked when the bloodied corpse was spotted on the wall by Harry, which also made Phelous jump. “Get out of there, Phelous, quick!”
“I’m trying!” Phelous then noticed the monsters lurching toward him and gasped. “Oh shit, what the hell are those?”
“I don’t know, just run!” Linkara bounced in his seat, hands tightly gripping the back of the chair, while Phelous tried to find an escape for Harry.
“Shit, I’m blocked in!”
“What? How can you be blocked in?”
“I don’t know, I just am!” The two watched in horror as the creatures swarmed over Harry, seemingly killing him. And then, he woke up in a diner.
“What? Was that all a dream?” Linkara turned to Phelous in disturbed confusion. “This game is really messed up.”
“Yeah.” Phelous smiled as he settled in to watch the scenes. “It’s pretty awesome.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
After almost an hour of wandering through roads filled with flying beasts and dog-like monsters, Phelous had finally managed to reach the elementary school. Linkara was now sitting beside him on the floor, and both of them were starting to twitch at the sound of alarms going off.
“I still can’t believe that one of those keys was in a dead dog’s head. That’s so wrong.” Linkara said. He had picked up one of Phelous’s toy guns at some point and liked to fiddle with it as he watched the older boy play.
“I’m just glad to be out of those dark streets,” Phelous admitted as he started to walk through the school.
“It’s not really much better in here,” Linkara muttered. “It’s still dark and really… echo-y in here.”
“Look at this painting,” Phelous said after walking into a different room.
“Great, more dead bodies,” Linkara said sarcastically. “That’s just what should be inside a school.” He tried to look more annoyed than scared by the sight, but unconsciously scooted closer to Phelous, and then jumped when another alarm went off.
“Stupid monsters setting off my radio,” Phelous complained as he entered another part of the school. “I can’t even shoot them.”
“Do you have to look in every room?” Linkara asked, a hint of nervousness in his voice.
“I think so,” Phelous said. Secretly he was happy every time a door was locked, though. He continued along, solving puzzles to collect two medallions and trying to avoid monsters along the way.
“Why do they just keep coming?” Linkara muttered, his grip on the gun tightening each time something lunged at Harry.
“Probably for the same reason that the music is creepy-to be creepy.”
“Well, it’s not working,” Linkara said in the least convincing tone ever. Phelous was also feeling more on edge each time he had to blast something full of bullets, but he trying his hardest to appear calm around Linkara. He set the medallions in the lighthouse, clenched the controller tightly as the sounds in the game grew worse, and headed off for the generator room.
“Maybe I should check out the bathrooms first,” Phelous mused as he entered the new areas. A few seconds later and the two jumped at the sound of someone, or something, sobbing loudly.
“What the hell is that?”
“I don’t know, but I’m getting out of here.” He maneuvered Harry all the way to a new room, the locker room, but swallowed hard when he heard something rattling around in the room.
“Are you crazy?” Linkara asked when he realized Phelous was trying to discover the source of the noise.
“I have to know what it is,” Phelous replied, almost yelling his response. At last he found the shaking locker, held his breath, and clicked on it.
A cat jumped out. Linkara and Phelous turned to each other, smiling at how silly they were for being scared before, until a horrible sound told them the cat’s fate.
“Oh my God, this game is so freaking wrong.”
Phelous didn’t reply, instead focusing on reaching the generator room and turning the machine on so he could proceed forward in the game. Linkara continued to chatter away about how only Japan could come up with as messed up a game as this was, but Phelous ignored him, along with ignoring how fast his heart was beating at the horrible growls and sirens that followed his touching of the generator.
“Are you going in there?” Linkara asked, his eyes impossibly wide as he watched Phelous enter the grated clock-tower and start to climb up. “I don’t think you should go there.”
“I have to,” Phelous replied through gritted teeth, still ignoring the rapid pounding in his chest. They both fell silent as Harry started to speak again before he walked out toward an ominous looking symbol in the middle of the courtyard. Then a roar in the music made them both jump and shriek.
“What the hell is that?”
“Oh shit, I think it’s a tiger or something!”
“Get out of there! Run!”
“I am! I am!” Phelous pressed down on the buttons of the controller so strongly that his fingers started to hurt, but he didn’t stop until he was sure Harry was inside the school again. He was met by even more monsters. “Shit!”
“Run!”
“Hey, you two!”
The boys screamed at the sudden voice, Phelous tossing his controller toward the sound instinctively, while Linkara whipped the gun around and pointed it directly into the face of a man in a suit.
“U-uncle Harvey?” Linkara lowered the gun and swallowed thickly.
“It’s 11:15, Kid,” Harvey said, turning on the lights and holding up his pocket watch for the two to see. “You’re late.”
“Oh, sorry.” Linkara dropped they toy weapon and stood up, blinking a few times at the sudden brightness, before turning to Phelous. “Um, thanks for inviting me over.”
“Sure, no problem.” Phelous was speaking slowly as he tried to slow his breathing to regular levels. “You can come over tomorrow too, if you want.” Linkara’s tense expression brightened.
“Ok! But, uh, will you wait to play more until then?” Phelous glanced at the screen, which revealed that Harry had died. There was no way in hell he was playing more of that by himself tonight.
“Yeah, I’ll wait.” Linkara beamed at him.
“Cool! See you tomorrow then, Phelous.” Phelous watched the two leave before shutting off the game and crawling into bed. He had a hard time falling to sleep that night and found his jumbled thoughts filling with images of bloodied bodies and dogs that had been twisted inside-out.
Perhaps summer wasn’t such a boring time after all.