Of Lust and Decay

Caleb's hand was wrapped around Erin's shoulder as they made their slow progress towards Brookhaven Hospital. Erin was petite, but obviously played various sports. She was in excellent physical condition, and was easily able to support Caleb's frail figure. It was a good thing to. Caleb's condition was growing worse, becoming delirious and confused.

"It's ok, Caleb, we're almost there... I think." Erin told Caleb as they made their way through the fog.

Caleb, however, could hardly hear her, lost in his mangled thoughts. He felt contentment. There was no pain. He was alone with his burning anger. He felt his soul catch fire with hate, and he basked in it, even as the flames consumed him.

It would take something extreme to wake him from his reverie. Erin's scream was sufficient.

"Monster!"

Caleb woke, barely managing to make his feet move as he hung on Erin's side. Monster? Had Erin called him a monster? What had he said while in his half-conscious state?

But no, Erin seemed to be running from something. Caleb looked behind them, seeing nothing but fog. But apparently something was out there that scared Erin to frantic retreat. Caleb faced back in front of him, wanted to push himself off of the scared girl...

...and Brookhaven Hospital loomed in front of them, dark and foreboding.

Caleb grinned as he looked up at it.

The thick doors in front of him were pushed open, revealing a foyer with hallways that led into the darkness.

The doors shut behind them. But Caleb didn't hear it. He crashed to the floor, unconscious.

Caleb woke with a start.

For a moment he couldn't remember where he was. But as he looked at the medicine cabinets, smelled the sterilization, felt the gurney beneath him, he began to remember. Erin had told him he didn’t look so good, so they came to the hospital. After that, Caleb couldn't recall.

What Caleb immediately noticed, though, was that he felt much better. He still couldn't see out of the eye Miller had shot, but that portion of his skull felt normal. Better. Caleb was no longer helpless. Which meant...

'Where is she...'

As if on cue, a shadow in the corner of the room spoke.

"I didn't think you would wake up. I thought you were..."

Caleb cut her off. "What did you do?"

"Well, I'm not quite sure how..." said Erin, "but whatever was in that bottle healed you."

Caleb looked beside him, seeing the small, dark tinted bottle she was referring to. He picked it up, examining the label.

"Health Drink." said Caleb, reading aloud, "Drink to your Health."

"I thought it was some kind of gag, or maybe a placebo at best." said Erin, walking towards him through the darkness of the exam room. "But you were dying, and I was desperate. It really is a miracle."

Caleb stared at her, his face betraying nothing. "So it seems." he said. His pickaxe was gone, probably still at Rosewater Park. But after his fight with Miller, Caleb found he enjoyed the intimacy of stabbing some one with a knife. He longed for such a feeling once again. Sitting on the gurney, Caleb reached behind him, feeling his back pocket for the weapon as Erin approached. He took the knife out, flicking it open behind him...

...and Erin must have seen what he was up to. She lunged at him, reaching her arms around behind Caleb...

...and holding him.

"I thought you were dead. I... I'm so happy you're here with me."

Caleb was clenching the knife, now inches away from her ribs. But his mind was suddenly clouded with something he'd never previously experienced. He wasn't sure what it was, but as he felt her body press against him, he suddenly felt like... like... like he didn't want to have to gut her quite yet.

'It's hormones.' thought Caleb, recalling page 241 of his textbook from his high school biology class five years ago. 'Pheromones exuded by mammals are registered through tactile and olfactory senses, resulting in heightened blood pressure, dilation of the pupils, euphoria, arousal...'

Caleb put the knife away, wanting to experience this a bit longer... sort it out in his mind.

He pulled away from the embrace, the sensations becoming too much for him to handle. "Well, I'm fine now. Let's go."

He then remembered what she had told him at the bar, and endeavored not to get slapped again.

"Thank you for your help."

Erin smiled at him. A warm, pleasant smile.

"Caleb... you're really weird. Let's go. Maybe some of my friends are hiding here. Shall we?"

"We shall." answered Caleb, wondering why, after one hundred eighty thousand, seven hundred and seventy eight steps, punishing the unworthy wasn't so much a concern.

Caleb opened the door that led back into the darkened hallway, stepping out and having a look around before motioning for Erin to follow. Together, they both trekked deeper into Brookhaven. If there were survivors here, there weren't many places for them to hide. All the doors they attempted to open were jammed shut. It was very quiet.

"So what makes you think..." began Caleb, before he was cut short by a scream from Erin. Caleb turned, a questioning look in his eyes.

"How can you talk so loud in this place? It's dangerous! What if there are monsters like outside?!" Erin tried to sound more annoyed than afraid, but she wasn't fooling Caleb.

"Monsters? You don't have to worry about monsters. I've killed one already. In the bowling alley."

"Really?" said Erin, "You killed one of those... things?"

"Yes." said Caleb, "It was a truly evil creature, but I made sure it would never hurt anyone again. I met another monster in the park, and I managed to wound it before it got away. Unfortunately, I was also wounded. But if there are any monsters here... I'll be sure to put an end to them."

Erin seemed to calm down as she listened to Caleb, her fear abated for the moment. "Wow, Caleb, there's more to you than meets the eye. Ok then... let's do this. Lead on."

Caleb turned back around, heading towards the double doors in the back right corner of the lobby. He felt another confusing feeling wash over him, the pleasant feeling he'd first encountered in the Exam room. Caleb figured it stemmed from his ability to calm her fear, and her trust in his ability to protect her. Caleb tasted the feeling in his mind as if he were tasting wine to gauge its quality.

'Hmm….' thought Caleb.

Caleb thought it interesting that she also saw these evil humans as monsters, just like him. Could it be that she understood how purely evil humans were? It would be startling were it to be true. He began to wonder though, about these 'friends' of Erin's they were looking for. Would she object when Caleb killed them? He'd have to ask her about that soon.

Caleb reached the double doors. They opened easily, revealing a stretch of corridor that ran to their right, the end lost in darkness. The long hallway was lined with doors. It looked like some kind of ward. Erin stepped up alongside him before speaking.

"Well," she said, "shall we try door number 1?"

"Caleb... where do you think this place is? This town, I mean. It doesn't seem like a place like this should even exist."

They were walking down the hallway, Caleb trying to open doors as they progressed. The only illumination was from Erin's flashlight.

"Obviously, it does." said Caleb, answering her question. "I think it's Heaven. Or Hell. It depends."

Tense moments of silence passed before Erin responded.

"Depends on what?" asked Erin, subdued.

Caleb shrugged. "On you. If you're worthy, this place is paradise. You find blessings everywhere. All your fantasies come true. If... you are unworthy... you become an affront to Heaven. It turns you away, attempts to cast out your wretched soul. It becomes Hell."

"I don't see who could think of this place as Heaven." said Erin. "If there was ever a place I'd call Hell, it would be here."

Caleb stopped checking doors. He turned, looking at her quizzically with his good eye. "You think so?" he asked.

"Of course. Don't you think so to?"

A few seconds of awkward silence passed before Caleb pushed on the door he had been resting his hand on. It opened.

Caleb stepped inside, taking in the surroundings. Not that there was much to see. Plain walls, a barred window, overturned beds, and a desk on the far side of the room, on which a chart rested. There appeared to be writing. Caleb picked up the chart, reading.

"Patient #121082

Patient exhibits extreme anti-social behavior. Though non-violent, frustration seems evident. Refuses to make friends within his social structure, leading to patient being physically and emotionally assaulted. Refuses to eat dinner at the table. Rejects any attempts to build lasting relationships with his family. Attributes lead to the conclusion that patient is ungrateful, rude, dispassionate, and not worthy of love.

Recommendation: More God."

A knot formed in Caleb's stomach, recalling memories he’d attempted to repress since... since he'd arrived in this place. It was an unpleasant feeling, made more so by the fact that this was supposed to be his paradise, a place where no pain should exist. Not for him.

"What's wrong?" asked Erin.

"I don't know." said Caleb. "Something has changed."

At that moment, a moan was heard from out in the hallway. Erin turned, shining the flashlight towards the open doorway. Nothing was visible, but the muffled cry of the unseen monster could clearly be heard as it approached.

"Move." said Caleb, gently moving Erin aside, putting himself between her and the doorway. He drew out his knife, flicking it open. As he did so, the monster appeared.

It was a woman, but she was gray and dead, wearing a tattered nurse's uniform. In her hand was a wicked looking scalpel. Her face did not exist. It was simply a contortion of putrid flesh, her cries seeming to come from behind the mask of pus filled tissue.

Caleb had never seen anything like it. Something that shouldn't exist in Heaven. His felt another knot form in his stomach as his fears were confirmed.

Something had changed. Silent Hill had rejected him.

"No..." said Caleb, frustration building. "NO!" he shouted as he lunged at the demon nurse.

His blade stabbed into the mound of flesh that was the nurse's face. It screamed mutely in pain, but that was its only reaction. It swung it's scalpel at Caleb, and he felt a sharp pain in his chest as he was slashed. He fell back against the wall, grasping his wound as the monster closed in on him, scalpel held high.

'I'm weaker.' thought Caleb, even as the scalpel began to come down. 'Why? What has happened...?'

The scalpel suddenly stopped mid-swing, the nurse convulsing before collapsing to the floor, a pool of blood forming beneath it. Erin appeared as the nurse fell, the butt of her flashlight stained dark with blood. "You okay!?" she asked, concerned.

Caleb looked down. The scalpel had created a neat line of red across his chest, but it was shallow. He would live.

"No, I'm not okay." said Caleb, an overwhelming sadness enveloping him. "I've been rejected by Heaven. I..."

He was interrupted by the sound of moaning outside, this time multiple cries echoing through the hallway. Erin looked at him determinedly.

"No time!" she yelled, pulling Caleb by the hand. "We have to go! Now!"

They exited the ward room. Caleb and Erin looked up and down the hallway, finding themselves surrounded by demon nurses, some carrying steel pipes, others with scalpels. Their moaning increased as they grew excited, their shambling walk increasing slightly as they closed in. They were surrounded.

Erin saw the door across the hallway first. "There!" she said.

Caleb ran towards the door, slamming his frail body into it as he turned the knob. If it was locked, they were dead.

It opened, spilling them into a decrepit stairwell. The stairs leading to the second floor was blocked, a bloody fence barring the way. They could only head down, to the basement.

Erin slammed the door, clicking shut just as the first nurse reached it. Howls of frustration resounded from the other side as they pounded on the door.

"Let's go." she said, turning towards Caleb. "We need to... you okay?"

Caleb slouched against the wall, only then bothering to look up at her, his good eye red with tears. "Why...? Why..."

He pushed himself off the wall, heading down the stairs, still shaking his head in disbelief. He couldn't escape the truth. Silent Hill had rejected him. Turned against him.

His Heaven... had become his Hell.

Erin burst through the door at the bottom of the stairwell, not even bothering to inspect her new surroundings as she turned, preparing to slam the door against the oncoming monsters. Except Caleb wasn't behind her as she expected. He was still coming down the stairs, at a snails pace, a vacant look in his one eye as he trudged after her.

"Caleb! Come on!" she yelled. Above him, around the bend of the stairwell, she heard the smashing of wood as the nurses tore down the door above them, their suffering groans growing louder as they followed them down.

Knowing time was short, Erin reached up and grabbed Caleb by the arm, roughly yanking him off the stairs and through the basement door before slamming it shut, locking it behind her. She turned, flashlight in hand, only now examining the room they had stumbled into.

The basement of the hospital was a large, single room, the walls coated with rust, as if bleeding. Gurneys were strewn about, some bare, and some covered with blood stained, black tarp, the shape of bodies lying still beneath them. The dominant feature, however, was the furnace. A large fire in the far wall, constrained only by thick metal grates, like a blazing oven in the darkness. The flames danced behind the solid bars, creating flickering, living shadows, where ever she looked. Protruding from the fire, partly bisecting the room, was a conveyor belt, suspending from the ceiling by rusted support beams. A crematory.

Caleb stood amongst it all, his head down. Not moving.

Erin scanned the room desperately. The only exit from the crematory was the door to the stairwell. They were trapped.

"Why... What have I done...?" Caleb whispered in the dark, seemingly oblivious to the danger they now faced.

The door just behind her suddenly shuddered from impact, the wail of nurses echoing from the other side. They didn't have much time.

"Listen to me, Caleb..." said Erin, running towards him with some urgency, "Any minute now those things will break through that door, and if we don't... Caleb? Hey..."

There was no reaction to her words, no movement, nothing but the same mumbling, self pity making him oblivious to their situation. A sudden rush of anger coursed through her, anger and fear and her determination to survive, to both of them to survive. The action almost unconscious, she brought her open hand up and slapped the sulking boy square across the face. His head flung to one side, his eyes wide, before she grabbed him by the collar and made him looked into her eyes.

"I know you've been through a lot, Caleb, and I'm sure you've seen things I couldn't possibly imagine to make you the way you are. But I will not let you shut down on me, ok!? We can make it out of this alive, but I need your help! Please, I need you to... stay with me...."

For the first time, Caleb's eyes seem to focus on her, her words breaking though to him.

'You... want me to... stay with you?" he asked her, his eyes wide and bright, different from the beady, guarded eyes he'd always shown her.

He hardly got the question out before Erin wrapped her arms about his neck, pulling him down a bit as she brought his mouth to hers. She could feel Caleb tense up, then relax as he gave into it, and even as she heard the splintering of wood behind her, she held on to him several moments longer before breaking the kiss, looking into his eyes.

"We can survive this... together. But I need your help, Caleb. Please."

Caleb watched as the demon nurses approached, a sudden wave of anger washing through him. He was tired of being underestimated. His life was a tapestry of such disappointment, in everything he did. Things needed to change.

He turned back to Erin, pointing to the blazing oven just behind her. "There will be some kind of vent in ovens like these. We can climb in and escape through to the other side. Find the controls for the flames and turn it off. It should be on the wall somewhere nearby."

Erin nodded, turning to scan the moldy wall. After a few seconds, her hand found a raised bump, what felt like a dial of some kind, camouflaged into the wall with a thick layer of rust.

"I found it!" she cried as she twisted it left. It resisted at first, then slowly began to turn. As she worked the dial, the flames died down, until the whole of the room was plunged into sudden darkness, the only illumination coming from the flashlight Erin now switched on, the only sounds the moans and shuffling feet of the nurses. They were close enough now that their shapes could be discerned even in the darkness, scalpels raised to strike.

"We gotta go!" said Erin as she moved toward the conveyor belt. Come on Cal-"

A sudden pain in her lower back took her breath away, her mouth open with confusion. A nurse had grabbed her, stabbed her with its rusted scalpel. It was painful, but she didn't think it was fatal. She could still get away. Where was...?

Her assailant put a hand over her mouth, pulling her head back, pushing the blade in deeper. She heard Caleb's voice, only inches away from her ear.

"I suppose you thought this would all end happily. We would escape here, escape the town, buy a white house with a white picket fence. So happy."

As he said the word the twisted the knife inside her, and she screamed intensely through his hand, her eyes wide and unbelieving. The shuffling of feet behind them stopped.

"Love, loyalty, trust..." he said, shoving her away from him, sending her crashing into the side of the conveyor belt.” Humans enjoy these emotions, enjoy sharing them... when it's convenient. When there is something to gain. Whether it's shelter. Money. Sex. Companionship…” He looked down at her accusingly, “Or simply to survive. Did you really think I wouldn't be able to see through your deception? The fraudulent little show you've been putting on since the bar?"

He threw her up onto the conveyor belt, her cries full of pain and anger. He turned her towards him, wanting her on her back, to see everything. As she turned, her flashlight came up, smashing into Caleb's bad eye. He stumbled back, grunting in pain, which quickly turned into dark laughter.

"This feeling... pain. This is the reality. This is honest."

He leapt onto the conveyor belt where she lay, dropping onto his knees and straddling her waist. Twice he brought his fist down on her face, the handle of his knife clenched within it. The third time he held his fist high for several seconds, measuring her, before bringing it down square against her jaw. She wasn't moving.

"If only you could understand that pain is something to be embraced." he said disdainfully as he dismounted her. "But you're... only human."

Caleb turned towards the demon nurses. Their scalpels were lowered, their shoulders sagged. They seemed almost... intimidated by him.

"You act like bloodhounds, finding love and hope… and exterminating it. Yet there you stand, paralyzed… I wonder what you sense in me." As he stepped towards the nearest nurse, she took a wobbly step back, her muffled voice subdued. "As long as I have a human soul, those emotions can never be completely erased. But perhaps there is a way to change that... perhaps if I kill enough people, I can lose my humanity and become something more."

He stepped up to the closest nurse, and she suddenly swung her scalpel at his throat. Caleb saw it coming, and grabbed her wrist his hand, stopping the deadly arc of the blade merely inches from his neck. He never took his eyes off the mangled flesh of the nurse’s face. He twisted violently, and felt as much as heard the bone snap in the nurse’s arm, the scalpel falling away. He shoved the monster back, its legs hitting the edge of a gurney behind it and causing it to spill onto its hard metal surface. Leather straps were on each corner of the rusted gurney, and he took his time strapping each of the nurse’s appendages until it was tightly secured.

"It feels good to be strong again. It feels good to once again walk this path."

Behind him, he heard the sound of metal on rusted metal. As the sound reverberated through the room, Caleb turned to see Erin standing on the conveyor belt, lifting the heavy gate of the extinguished oven and disappearing into the darkness beyond, the gate slamming down behind her. He smiled, and began to walk across the room towards her.

"Still harboring thoughts of escape?" said Caleb, his voice teasing. "And why? So you can go back to your world of hypocrisy?" He could hear her struggles, and his eye had adjusted enough to the darkness to watch her as she fought to reach the vent on the far wall above her. Her fingertips brushed against the bottom of the opening, just out of reach. He could hear her crying with frustration. Hear her fighting through the pain of the knife wound in her back, blood flowing freely out of it, staining her shirt and sweatpants a dark, glorious color. He casually put his hand on the control for the oven.

"Your will to live is impressive, but futile. This is where you get off, my dear."

She turned towards him, her face marred by dark bruises. Speaking seemed a chore for her through her broken jaw, but she still managed to get out what she wanted to say.

"Burn in hell, you bastard."

Caleb smiled, not a trace of humor on his face. "You first."

Caleb turned the dial on the wall as far as it would go, and the flames immediately shot up, enveloping her in brilliant heat and light. Her screams at first drowned out the roar of the fire, but after about ten seconds, all trace of her was gone. Pity. Only ten seconds.

Caleb turned away, moving towards his captive nurse on the gurney.

"I feel some thing inside me that I think should be released. Something she stirred. Something human. A disgusting desire that must be purged."

As he stood over the bound nurse, he grabbed the lapels of her gown, and in one, quick pull, ripped the uniform open from top to bottom, buttons flying in every direction. He looked over the putrid body of the nurse hungrily as he worked at his belt buckle.

"Shall we see then, what all the fuss and hype is about?" he grinned wickedly.

For a long time, the other nurses did not move. They simply stood, and watched. Silent.

meh