Silent Nightmares and Morbid Fairytales

Mary's Secret

I'm exhausted when I wake up in the morning. I feel like I haven't slept a wink, and even though I'd slept fairly well, that emotionally draining dream kept me from really gaining anything from it.

I lay there on my back for almost ten minutes, contemplating the terrible thing I had to re-live. The last time I'd seen my Dad, playing out in vivid color... Almost like I'd gone back in time and witnessed the whole thing over again. What seemed to disturb me the most was how happy my Mother was. I haven't seen her smile or laugh in so long that I'd forgotten what that looked like.

The smell of bacon and eggs wafts into my room, and is enough to catch my attention and make me fumble out from under my warm comforter into the chilly air of the small room. I grab my grey hoodie off the end post of the bed and put it on, adjusting to the new temperature while standing in front of the window. Down below is the river, still moving just as swiftly as the day before.

The sky hangs low, and is the color of old white ash. Looks like snow or rain might be coming our way sometime this week.

I get dressed and wipe down the mirror by the door, and continue to get ready by quickly brushing through my hair. I don't know what I'm going to do today... I don't know what Uncle James has in mind. Maybe we'll do some more fishing or head into town... Or if he just wants some time alone, I'll go out on a walk through the woods to get my head on straight.

I toss my empty suitcase under the bed and clean up a little before making my way out into the hall, listening for a moment to confirm that Uncle James is in the kitchen working on breakfast.

This is one awkward thing that no amount of movies or books prepare you for: how to show your face again the morning after a sleepover. What conversations do you start to make it less awkward?

Luckily Uncle James doesn't even have to see me to know I'm slinking into the kitchen behind him. "Good morning, Anaya." He greets me with the same level of enthusiasm as he did the previous morning when he'd come to pick me up. "How'd you sleep?... I now that's a stupid question to ask but it's a normal one when you have nothing in common." He chuckles, having seemingly read my mind to figure out what I was thinking.

"I slept okay." I reply, leaving out the part where I dreamed of my Dad's disappearance and my Mom during soberity.

"That's good." He replies when there's nothing else to respond with. I nod slowly and take a seat at the kitchen table, watching him work around the kitchen.

"I have work today, I hope you'll be okay here on your own?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine." I reply confidently, but now I'm worried because I'll be on my own. Not that I couldn't handle it, I just don't think that my mind can. It races too much and comes up with too many things to worry over. When there's other people around, it's muted and avoidable.

"Okay."

The silence is filled with the sound of sizzling bacon and raindrops against the windows. It's just a light drizzle out, still good weather to go hiking in. With Uncle James gone and no one else around, going and checking out the woods feels like a pretty solid way to spend the afternoon. I don't have anything else to unpack or more settling in to do. I just want to investigate my surroundings a bit.

"Your mom called this morning."

This comes as a shock to me... I figured that if she ever did call, it'd be months from now, and it'd be just to find out if I was dead or not yet so she could collect insurance money. But the very next morning after my removal from her life? Impressive.

"Oh, really? What did she say?"

He doesn't answer me right away, just busies himself with cracking eggs.

"Uncle James?"

"Uh... She wanted to know if you had taken her cigarette money."

I raise my eyebrows, somehow surprised that she'd call for something so petty.

"What did you tell her?"

"That you hadn't... Why?"

"I did. You can tell her that next time that bitch calls. Give her something to be really mad about."

He sighs in the way a parent might when their kid is acting up but they're too tired to dicsipline them. "Anaya..."

I sigh, and fall silent. I'm probably already making him regret taking me in... Hell, I'd regret taking myself in. I'm not a very pleasant person to be around. I suppose I probably learned from the best. I piked up a nasty vocabulary on the streets of western Virginia, and am an all-around downer in most cases.

Not to make myself a pity case again, but I honestly didn't have much going for me as a child. I didn't have a lot of toys or books or even movies to occupy my imagination, so that childish creativity rotted until it simply formed me: thirteen year-old Anaya Mason, the kid who spent all her freetime studying self defense at the library at age six.

"Anaya, I believe you're a good kid. I hope being in a new scene will be enough to bring that out of you. There's a lot of youth groups you could get involved in around town, hang out with people your own age instead of me, old, boring James."

Something I've picked up on, is that he loves making dry, self-depreciating jokes that make you question whether or not you should laugh or cry at them.

"You're fine." I assure him, tapping my fingernails together annoyingly, "I don't really know how to socialize, anyways, to be honest. The kids at my old school kept to themselves, and so did I. I'm the furthest possible thing from outgoing."

"All the more reason to join a youth group. You'll be around other bubbly kids and naturally pick up on their attitude. You'll adapt."

He makes it sound so easy, and it sounds tempting after he says it that way, but I know in my heart it's not. I'd join a group and go to their meetings and find out immediately that I do not belong because I can't relate to them. I'm not familiar with relevent fashion trends or know what musicians are good right now. All I know is how to make concerningly dark, sarcastic comments towards myself, and no one wants a Debbie-Downer in their jubulent youth group.

"What else is there to do?"

"In Brahams? Not much." He admits with a shrug, turning off the stove burner, finalizing the last details on breakfast. "Aside from the youth groups that I can tell you really do not want to join, there's a run-down arcade on mainstreet where the kids normally hang out."

This peaks my interest. Something I might be able to do, somewhere I might blend in if I try.

"I might try going there to make some friends." I tell him, and he smiles, although he looks very tired. Looking at him, he looks like he never sleeps, and maybe he doesn't. Maybe he just reads all night or stares out the window until sunrise.

"Sounds good."

~~~


Uncle James gets ready for work, and after asking me two more times if I'm sure I'll be okay, he finally leaves, and I am enveloped in the lonliest silence I have ever experienced. I can hear the house settling around me, and the creak of the old, uneven floorboards under my boots as I walk quietly around as though I'm worried of disturbing the dusty spirits here.

The big grandfather clock in the living room ticks loudly, announcing it's presence every fifteen minutes with half strikes. I don't stray too far from the living room, because the house harbors a strange sort of eerie darkness that keeps me from wanting to go anywhere else. Maybe it's just the dusty windows, but the shadows feel darker and longer than that should be, reaching for my ankles across the paisley-patterned red carpet in the living room.

I stand in front of the bookshelf, reading over the titles, searching for something that jumps out at me. I was looking for a chapter book, but what I found squished between a thick red dictionary and a hardcover copy of Cancer - The Internal Monster, is a brown leather journal.

I slide open the glass panel on the front of the case and reach in, attempting to pull it out. Evidently, these books have not been touched in years, because their outer covers have stuck to one another due to being packed in so firmly on the shelves. A good, hard pull frees the worn leather book from the others.

At first glance, it's your standard journal with a leather band that keeps the book shut, with gold lettering on the cover. Upon further inspection, you'd see the detailed floral work printed in the leather, surrounding a name.

Mary Sunderland.

Even though she's dead, I can almost feel someone's eyes on my back as I cradle the book in my hands. It feels too private, but I remind myself that she's gone, and is not going to care.

I pull off the leather band and open the book, the binder creaks in protest. The first couple pages are filled with Mary's familiar, neat handwriting in ball point pen. The entries are dated, to just before she was diagnosed, to right before she died. As the pages go on, they contain less details and become simple paragraphs with disturbing messages.

I can't do this anymore. I want to go home, but I know I will die here.
James hates me. He wants me dead, I know it, I can feel it...
Why am I still here. Let me die already if it's your plan.


I read all seven entries right before her passing, searching for clues, some mention of the little girl, Laura. There is none. Just vague descriptions of how bumpy the hospital bed is and how her pain feels.

Then, on the last page, dated the day she died, in the afternoon, less than five hours earlier, is her final message.

The angel of death will come to me.
He will take this away from me and take me with him,
only to leave me in that place, alone and scared.

He promised he would take me there again,
but he never did.
Now he will, but he won't come with me. I will wait by the water,
I will wait for him.


Does cancer make you delusional? Give you crazy dreams and go fully mental? I remember she was an intellegent, honest woman right until she died. Who knew she was suffering this much inside her own head... No wonder James kept their home life quiet after she died. If anyone had read her final entries, they'd be quick to jab a finger at him for murder or abuse.

Having seen how different he is without her, it's easy to say he had no part in her death. It broke his mind when she died, there's no way he'd cause physical harm to her, the very person he loved more than anything.

So how was Mary so crazy? She wrote so many vague, misleading things with descriptions that could be easily mentioning one person and meaning another. The angel of death? A doctor? A nurse? Someone she knew or dreamed of?

I thumb through the last of the pages, about to close the book when a flash of dark ink on the last page catches my eye. I flip back through and find another entry... And my heart sinks and a chill runs down my spine. It's dated September 3rd, 2002... Three years after her death, the year is now 2005. She was diagnosed with cancer in 1997, and died in the late months of 1999.

"In my restless dreams, I see that town.

Silent Hill.

You promised me you'd take me there again someday.
But you never did.

Well, I'm alone there now... In our 'special place'... Waiting for you...
Waiting for you to come to see me.

But you never do.

And so I wait, wrapped in my cocoon of pain and loneliness.

I know I've done a terrible thing to you. Something you'll never forgive me for.
I wish I could change that, but I can't.
I feel so pathetic and ugly laying here, waiting for you...

Every day I stare up at the cracks in the ceiling and all I can think
about is how unfair it all is...
The doctor came today.He told me I could go home for a short stay.

It’s not that I'm getting better. It’s just that this may be my last chance...

I think you know what I mean...

Even so, I'm glad to be coming home. I've missed you terribly.

But I'm afraid, James. I'm afraid you don't really want me to come home.
Whenever you come see me, I can tell how hard it is on you...
I don't know if you hate me or pity me... Or maybe I just disgust you...

I'm sorry about that.

When I first learned that I was going to die, I just didn't want to accept it.

I was so angry all the time and I struck out at everyone I loved most.
Especially you, James.
That's why I understand if you do hate me.

But I want you to know this, James.

I'll always love you.

Even though our life together had to end like this, I still wouldn't trade it for the world.
We had some wonderful years together.

Well, this letter has gone on too long, so I'll say goodbye.
I told the nurse to give this to you after I'm gone.
That means that as you read this, I'm already dead.

I can't tell you to remember me, but I can't bear for you to forget me.

These last few years since I became ill... I'm so sorry for
what I did to you, did to us...

You've given me so much and I haven't been able to return a single thing.

That's why I want you to live for yourself now.
Do what's best for you, James.

James...

You made me happy.


That town... Silent Hill. The dangerous town in the mountains above Brahams? The place Uncle James told me to never go. Is that where he went on his psychotic rampage a few years ago? Searching for Mary where Mary could not be found, but promised to be, luring James there to run around like a madman for days in a hallucinatory state, covered in blood before police went up there looking for him and found him running around in the streets shouting for Mary with a gun in his hand.

Did he say the town was dangerous to keep me away from his own demons? Or what is really up there in those mountains, a town left shrouded in fog and mystery?