Lambs to the Slaughter

"Hey. Wake up."

Josiah jolted awake. He whipped his head around, bleary eyes darting to-and-fro in panic, trying to get a grip on his surroundings. Who was that? What was happening? Where was he? Why wasn't it dark any more?

The dark room. The white noise. The red flash. Running. Running away from the frozen faces in the dark.

Only it wasn't dark, it was bright. His eyes were still adjusting. The light stung them and he couldn't see yet. But he knew he was sitting down, or sitting up.

And someone was touching him.

Oh, God!

Josiah let out a thin shriek and tried to stand up. No good. No good! Something was holding him down, like a cold, clammy arm.

Oh.

Seatbelt.

"Hey, hey, kid! Cool it. You were havin' a nightmare or something."

Male voice. Rough, but not angry.

"Wha..." Josiah attempted to respond, but trailed off drowsily. He dimly registered that his hands were free, at least. He brushed an unruly fringe of hair out of his face and rubbed his knuckles into his eyes. Once the gunk was out of them and the light wasn't so sharp, he blinked, and looked over to his left, where the voice was coming from.

The guy who'd spoken was the one shaking his shoulder. Shaking him awake, he supposed.

Wake up kid? But why had he been sleeping just now?

The guy looked real familiar, though. Middle-aged, pudgy and sallow-skinned. Not like dad, though. He had a short salt-and-pepper beard. He wore a baseball cap and a plaid shirt and trackpants, and he stank. Sweat and grease. So, typical truck-driver. The guy was in the driver's seat, too, but they didn't look to be driving any more. Yeah, that's right.

It was all coming back, now.

Josiah looked around again, but actually seeing this time, and started to piece things together. He was in the passenger's seat. He was in a truck. He was a hitch-hiker. He'd hitched a ride with this guy. Finally got someone to stop for him, thumbed the guy down in his big trailer truck. Yeah. Last night, he guessed? It didn't look like night-time any more, though. Outside it looked like... fog? And the truck was definitely parked somewhere.

Somewhere very foggy.

The driver had stopped prodding him. "Relax, kid," the man said, "You fell asleep. Rise 'n' shine, it's mornin' now. We're just makin' a little stop along the road."

Josiah suppressed a yawn, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand. He couldn't believe he'd fallen asleep! Stupid. Stupid dumb kid. Didn't matter how late it was, how long he'd been walking before someone'd finally stopped for him. You don't just fall asleep in some stranger's truck. He needed to be smarter than that. Anything could've happened to him. It was a long drive on lonely roads, getting all the way from Ashfield to Silent Hill.

Plenty of quiet time and nobody around to hear you call for help.

Now it was a shudder he was suppressing.

The driver hadn't said anything for a while. Just sat there rapping his thumbs on the steering wheel, eyes on his passenger. Probably waiting for Josiah to wake up properly. And shake off the willies. Had he been having a nightmare?

"Uh... 'r we here?" asked Josiah.

The driver shook his head. "Nah, not quite. We ain't in town yet. But you can see it from over there." he pointed out through the windshield, and the boy saw the outline of a low wall through the fog-bank outside, and what looked like a forested slope climbing down to... something. The tree-line was barely visible, and the rest was swallowed up in the thick blanket of mist. He'd never seen such a heavy fog before. And he'd lived in Maine all his life!

So this was supposed to be a lookout point or something?

The driver confirmed his unspoken thought. "Toluca Lake Observation Deck," he said, "It's along the road. Nathan Avenue. We can drive right into town from here and I'll let you off, but I'm stopping here first. Been drivin' all night. Gotta have a smoke and take a leak."

The driver reached into his shirt pocket and fumbled around. Josiah felt himself go tense as a wire, but the guy only pulled out a carton of cigarettes. He also reached for a lighter in the front-seat ash-tray, and started lighting up. He grinned over at Josiah as the flame sparked to life. "Bit of a jumpy kid, you know that?" He took a deep drag of his cigarette. "Prob'ly read too many o' those Stephen King stories. Not every fat-ass New England truck driver is a fuckin' sex-predator, y'know?" He quirked a brow. "Just like not every hitch-hiker's a serial killer, right?"

Josiah grinned back, half-heartedly, relaxing into his seat. "Right-" he tried to say, but the word morphed into an unexpected cough. The cigarette smoke had wafted its way over to his side of the truck cabin. The acrid stuff was invading his nostrils.

"Sorry 'bout that," the driver mumbled, and opened the door on his side to let the smoke out. "Should've asked if you didn't mind, first." he took another long drag, tilting his head out the door, and then added, "So if you don't mind me askin' now, kid. What is your deal, anyway? I mean, what's a little guy like you doin' hitch-hikin' across the state? You must be, what; twelve, thirteen?"

Oh no. Questions.

"Uh, u-uhm..." stammered Josiah, at a loss for words.

The driver tapped his cigarette against the ash-tray lid, and a stack of grey cinder broke off. Josiah found himself staring at the ash as it crumbled in slow-motion.

His mind was racing all of a sudden. He could get into a lot of trouble if the driver decided to call the cops on him. Kid runs away from home, hitches ride with well-meaning snitch. He had to come up with a good cover story, fast. And he was never the imaginative type.

"Ain't even told me your name yet," the driver pointed out, and almost as an afterthought he added "I'm Gavin, by the bye. Folks call me Gav, though." He turned and poked his head out through the door again, exhaling another waft of curling grey smoke, which was quickly assimilated by the fog outside.

Josiah felt stranded in the middle of this fog, alone with a prying stranger.

"Fourteen," came the boy's murmured reply.

Gavin turned back and made a face. "Huh. 'S a weird name."

"No, I mean... I'm fourteen. Years old. My name's... uh, Joss."

"Right. Well, 'Uh Joss'. I can already tell you ain't gonna tell me what's really goin' on with you, so you can spare me whatever baloney you're cookin' up in your head. Ain't like teenage runaways 're new to the whole hitch-hikin' scene. Lemme guess... You got bullied at school so you decided to make a break for it? Got stupid at a party and knocked some girl up? Bad Grades? What, did your parents beat you or somethin'?"

"My parents? They're dead."

There. He said it. Maybe that would stop the interrogation dead in its tracks. After all, the driver's face had gone as ashen as his cigarette. He dropped said smoke into the ash-tray so he could hold up the palms of his hands at Josiah. Gesture of apology?

"Oh," he floundered "Oh, hey. Sorry, kid. I didn't mean to... I, uh-"

"I gotta pee," Josiah interjected. Not true, but it'd get him out of the truck. He needed to get away from this guy. The questioning was getting too close to home. The boy scrabbled clumsily at his seat-belt until it unfastened and started tugging at the door handle to get out. It wouldn't budge. Was there a safety-lock or something? Shit.

"Uh, sure, kid. Hold on," Gavin muttered, pushing a button on his side of the cabin. Josiah's door unlocked. He scrambled his way awkwardly out of the truck. He wasn't used to getting down from that high up, however, and wound up tripping on the lowest step. With a sharp cry, he toppled out into the parking lot, landing in a pathetic sprawl on the cold hard asphalt. The side of his head smacked against the ground, a sharp report that sent his world spinning.

The mist is everywhere. Outside the truck, and in my head, too. I can see their faces in it.

From his prone position, Josiah heard the door open on the other side of the truck, and the thick tread of heavy boots on pavement, rushing over to where he'd fallen out. Gruff hands picked him up off of the ground, steadying the boy as he regained his footing.

Once he was upright, the vertigo started to clear up, and the pain set in. Josiah's head was throbbing so loudly he could hear his heartbeat, but it subsided after about a minute. He touched the side of his scalp and winced. It stung, but not that badly. Not 'concussion' badly. He checked his fingers. No blood or anything. Just a bad tumble and a thump on the head. Probably a bruise. Scraped knee and sore bum too. He rubbed the offending areas through the denim of his jeans. But the rest of him felt fine.

His eyes found their focus on Gavin, who had been snapping a finger in front of his face, visibly concerned. The man's other hand was still on his shoulder, holding him steady. He had been repeating something too, all this time. It took a while for the man's voice to come into focus. "...Hey! Hey, kid! Hey! Joss! You alright there, buddy?"

"Ouch," Josiah answered, brushing away the hand on his shoulder. "That was dumb."

"First time in a truck?" the driver chided, but there was still a trace of worry in his tone. Josiah looked over his shoulder at the open door of the truck cabin. He turned around and slammed it shut, glaring at the offending step. Stupid. He felt like sulking, but it was his own damn fault for barrelling out of the truck like an idiot. Returning his attention to Gavin, he shrugged sheepishly.

"Yeah. Sorry. That was dumb of me."

"S'okay," Gavin shrugged back. "But try not to take it out on the truck, alright?"

Josiah nodded, rubbing the side of his head again.

There was an awkward silence. Gavin finally broke it by taking a step back and half-turning, thumbing over his shoulder at a small building next to the overlook. "Restroom's over there," he offered.

"Huh?" said Josiah, and then he remembered why he'd gotten out of the truck in the first place. "Oh, right. Yeah. Thanks." He shuffled past the driver and started heading in the direction of the restroom.

Then to his alarm, the boy heard Gavin's heavy-booted footsteps, following just behind him. He stopped and looked over his shoulder at the man.

"Told you I had to take a leak too," the man said by way of explanation, grinning down at Josiah.

The boy said nothing. He turned around and walked briskly to the restroom building. Hopefully he could lock himself up in a toilet stall and pretend he was doing his business until Gavin had done his own business and left. Then he could just get back in the truck and wait out the drive until they were in town. Or maybe he could just stay here until Gavin got fed up and left? Then hitch another ride the rest of the way. Or just walk into town, even. It couldn't have been far from where he was. No, damn it. He'd left his backpack in the truck. He still needed all that stuff.

Josiah was getting a bad feeling about this whole situation.

He just wanted to get to Silent Hill.

Unfortunately, English isn't my native language, so I apologize profusely for all errors you encounter.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Down along a highway amongst a lot of other cars, during the usual rush hour, always in the danger of hitting a traffic jam, drove a large, dirty – and stinking – pickup-truck for heavy-duty. Every now and then some bits of grass, dirt and other stuff no one wanted to exactly know, flew from its back, enraging the driver behind it.
“Yeah yeah”, the man at the steering wheel muttered in Polish and took his cowboy hat off to wave after the person behind them honked angrily. “Didn't have the time to clean our big boy yet.” Tymoteusz meanwhile didn't mind the aggressive honking, as he was used to it when he drove the tractor near his home and instead watched the lush scenery outside. Compared to the insanities his fellow countrywomen and -men were capable of, this was practically harmless.
But after a while, it just got too hot for him in the car and he asked the driver, if he could turn on the air-conditioner. “Come on, it's only twenty degrees and you are already burning?”, the man laughed as he pushed the button, but the farmer simply replied, “Sorry, I'm not used to high temperatures. Most of the time, it's pretty cold at home.”
“Aaaah, that probably explains your clothes. And I was already wondering if you secretly wanted to travel to Canada.” He grinned and turned on the radio, as it was close to the next newscast. Tymoteusz didn't understand one word of the currently running pop-song and wasn't a fan of those either, so to attempt some conversation, he said, “But Colter, I really have to say, your Polish is excellent for an American!”
“Thanks”, Colter answered with a nod. “Your sister is giving me private lessons every day, threatening to let me starve if I couldn't talk to her in Polish.” Both men laughed and then the driver continued, “It's frustrating as hell sometimes, but for her, I would do everything.” Now he suddenly turned to the farmer with a devious smile.

“So how are you today?”, he asked, in English this time, so Tymoteusz promptly looked at him confused.
“Errm, what?”
“So how are you today?”, Colter repeated in the same foreign language, still doing nothing to help him.
“Um...um...I'm hot?”, the old man replied in heavily accented, broken English, which only led to an amused grin.
“Oh boy, remember me to give you some basic lessons in English when we arrive in Portland, because you have to admit that your English is horrible. At least I hope that you understand out of context what I'm trying to tell you.” But Tymoteusz could only sink embarrassed into his seat. He thanked god that he had Colter, his sister's husband, with him so the man could translate for him, but on his own, Tymoteusz would be utterly helpless.
“Nevermind, I'm not planning to stay in the USA for longer than I absolutely need to”, he explained. “I'll depart as soon as we have discussed and developed a plan to rescue our farm in Poland.”
“Oh yeah, right. Ania has already told me that you are in a dire situation. Let's hope that the farm is still standing when you get back, the courts aren't the type to fool around.”
“I'm already having nightmares about a bailiff standing at our doorsteps one day, taking everything we have from us.” Tymoteusz looked outside again, watched a passing speed limit-sign and sighed. “We should never have signed that contract in the first place, but the promised payouts were just too tempting.”
Colter only silently eyed him, not knowing what he should say to that and then increased the radio's volume, just in time to listen to the news – which Tymoteusz couldn't follow.

While the driver closed his red shirt and opened the window to throw out his last cigarette, the farmer spent some time brooding about the worst case scenario. What should he tell his children? That they will have to leave their home, forever, never seeing their favourite animals again? Growing up in the poorest districts of a city, while their classmates laugh at them for wearing their old, plain clothes day after day? Maybe Ania could afford trying to get his family to the United States, working their debts off in the hopes to return to Poland once again?
But what if his wife simply decides to leave him, taking their kids with her in the belief, that Tymoteusz would be too poor to look after them?
Suddenly Colter pounded the steering wheel with his fist, letting out an annoyed “Ah, crap!” Tymoteusz immediately turned his head towards him, a bit worried and asked, “What's wrong? A traffic jam?” The cowboy shook his head.
“It's worse than that. They reported a heavy car accident not far ahead from us, a crashed truck next to the road, spilling its cargo all over the asphalt. Said that it would be blocked the whole day.”
Trying not to be upset about the wasted time, Tymoteusz replied, “Okay, okay, there's surely a diversion we could take, right? Maybe it will only cost us one hour at most.”
“Of course, there's Silent Hill which we could go through, but it's long ago since I was there for a visit. I don't have my map here, and I have no idea what changed there over time. Chances are we might get lost in that area.”

But Tymoteusz was confident, that Colter could find a way and assured him, “Don't worry, I'm sure you'll do it. But Si...Si...” He tried in vain to pronounce the name, and Colter laughed.
“It's a small, nice rural town, but pretty boring if you ask me. Is your usual place in the middle of nowhere, nothing for me who prefers a well-developed urban environment. Although if I would have to say something positive about it: Toluca Lake is beautiful, just watch when we arrive there.”, he explained. Tymoteusz just nodded and looked how Colter turned left at a crossroad, which had a sign for Silent Hill, next to Ashfield.
It didn't take long that the number of trees increased, and the first wafts of mist appeared, while they were heading right into a forest. Also, large clouds appeared over the forest, blotting out the sun and only letting the occasional sunbeam through. Probably just the lake, the farmer thought.

Suddenly, however, a loud warning signal sounded, startling both men and Colter staring at the dashboard, his expression darkening with each second.
“Oh come on, they fixed that shit last week already! When we are back in Portland, these assholes should brace themselves, as I will rough them up real good!”
“Something wrong with the car?”
“The v-belt again. Sorry my friend, but we'll have to stop in Silent Hill if we want to get any further.” Now Tymoteusz got a little desperate and began to sweat. The bailiff could seize his belongings every minute, so he had to get home fast! So he suggested, albeit in an uneasy tone, “Can't you repair it yourself? There really is no time to be lost!”
“I could, but... okay, look, there's an observation deck before we get into town. We'll stop there and I'll see what I can do, alright?”, he explained and Tymoteusz accepted the answer with a nod. Everything to get to his sister in time.
Then, they passed a rusty welcome sign, the fog now thick enough for Colter to slow down and turn on the headlights.

“Okay, where now...”, he uttered to himself, after they arrived at another crossroad, and then drove left.
“Is that fog normal?”, the farmer wanted to know nervously and the cowboy answered in a calm tone, “Pretty much, yes. It's just the lake, really, although you should drive slowly here of course. It's too easy to break through the traffic barriers in a moment of carelessness and find a wet end at the bottom of the lake.”

Soon after, the back end of a large trailer appeared in the fog and a small building on the side, revealing a bit of the lake behind it.
“Ah, excellent!”, Colter said after seeing the vehicle and pulling into the parking lot. “Maybe he can help us if we can't get that piece of shit fixed. Mind to get out and look if the trucker's there?”
The first thing Tymoteusz did after finally exiting their pickup-truck, however, was stretching himself. Sitting for some hours without a stop since he left the airport made his limbs and joints stiff and although it hurt a bit, being able to move his body in all directions again was a very refreshing feeling. Colter meanwhile left the engine running, opened the hood and looked inside, trying to determine the exact problem with the belt.

Upon examining the truck, the farmer went to the driver's door, only to discern that nobody was in there. He then climbed up and peeked inside, maybe the driver just fell asleep, but to no avail – still empty. But a touch to the engine revealed that is was warm, so it definitely wasn't abandoned. So he returned to Colter and reported his discoveries.
“Hmph, probably just at the restroom. Let's wait here a bit, he'll show up again for sure. Oh, um, and could you help me with this darn thing, please?”
“Of course”, Tymoteusz said and placed himself next to him, supporting him in his attempts to remove the belt.

"Your destination is on the right in 25 miles"

That's what the GPS said but with thick forest hugging either side of the winding highway it was to believe there was anything out there let a lone a whole town.

It had been a long journey already, starting in Seattle meant a 37 hour drive but in the end it was bound to be worth it, all the research showed it to be a lovely little tourist trap on the surface but digging even a little deeper revealed many missing person cases and all sorts of other strange things happening in the seemingly happy little town.

Once she started digging it was like the town pulled her in, called to her through the screen of her laptop beckoning her to go there in person and see the things the photographs just couldn't show on their own.

There was certainly a darkness there, a mystery that begged for attention from the shadows of the sleepy town.

"Your destination is on the right in 10 miles"

The shrill computerized voice went right through her this time, calling out like a warning that as Jess got closer.

A thick fog crept over the trees and moved towards the highway, threatening to swallow everything in its path.

Jess rolled down the window slightly a lit up another cigarette as she strained her eyes searching for any indicator there was actually a town there.

Slowly driving forward a sign took shape in the thick white mist;

"Silent Hill Observation deck next turn"

This was it, 37 long hours later she was finally here and the endless white mist seemed to be calling her louder now, urging her into the arms of whatever might be waiting in the once sleepy town.

“Dang, this isn't working without proper tools”, Colter remarked after minutes of trying to repair the belt in vain and then looked over to the restroom building, his tone getting angry. “Tymoteusz, could you please go in there and find that dumbass? Can't be that he takes a shit for an eternity! We have better things to do than wait all day!” Given that the farmer was way more experienced in maintaining old, rusty tractors than modern cars and thus wasn't much of a help, he abided and approached the toilets.
Looking at the dirty walls with the burst rendering, he got a bad feeling in his stomach. This appeared to be abandoned for a decade! Even some rural villages in Poland which still damaged during the second world war were in better conditions. Were there even people living in this town? With this in mind, he doubted that they would be able to find a car mechanic here.
But at least he didn't mind the smell coming from inside. When starting out with his farming career, he loathed dispensing the liquid manure to the point where he considered cutting his nose of in an act of despair, but luckily, he got used to it. Only the overuse of perfume was too much for him to bear.

Then he discovered that this building, in fact, had no door. Strange, as he only knew them on European highways with doors, but maybe the Americans did it to air the rooms?
So standing at the entrance, appalled by the horrifyingly dirty and rusty walls, he thought a moment about the English words he wanted to say, but didn't know all of them and then said loudly in broken English:

“Uh, halo? Jest tu ktoś? Car is...zepsuty. Need help! Proszę, uh...please!”