CHAPTER TWO: Jack's Journey: Admissions

[Seon]

"I'm coming for you next, Ash," Jack muttered under his breath as he heard the woman hang up. "Sit tight."

He limp-walked his ways towards the front doors of the hotel and jerked it open.

[Laraqua]

The streets are dark, dank, and empty, as he steps through the doorway and down to the curving driveway that connects with the car park. As he heads along the street, he notices that he is the only thing he hears. There's no dogs barking, no heavy ambience of thick fog, no faraway creaks of old gates, just perfect silence but for his own breaths and the rat-tat of his shoes against the asphalt as though he were pacing a stage. As he strikes out to the road, he sees that the road is lined by a string of streetlights that wink out around him yet light the air with a flimsy, empty glow in the distance as though it were determined to keep him forever in shadows, the light immediately before and after him winking out as he passed. The shadows seem to cling to him, wrapping around him, but there's no impediment to his movement. The town feels oddly silent, oddly still, oddly safe, and a faraway memory skirts the edges of his mind of a street just like this that he had run with desperate terror down ... but that was another life for him now.

He crosses the bridge and sees a thick spiderweb stretching across the machinery and the little tower that raises and lowers the bridge but its easy to bypass its glittering, thick strings, and ignore the vague skuttlings of insectile legs behind him, as he heads with a sort of eerie precision down all of the right streets toward the theatre. As he draws closer, the sky lightens as though dawn were steadily approaching though he knows the sun will never again shine on Silent Hill. Not here, anyway, and he continues on as the air becomes lit up and foggy and the odd creaks and groans and swish of branches in the wind come to his ears again. As he turns onto the street, he hears a gunshot. One, two. Then silence. The shots came from behind the old building.

Show,You may prepare here as you wish, try to head through the front door, or go around the back and join [b]Murray's[/b] thread.

[Seon]

Blink.

The streetlights near the theatre's main entrance gave out, placing Jack's form hidden under the shadows of the town looming over him. So Ash was here. She sounded so panicked. She said that she drugged him, didn't she? So she lied to him. Tricked him. Didn't even had the courtesy to suggest that he was dead.

He took out a deck of tarot cards from his pockets and picked up a card. The Fool again

Honestly he didn't really care that she lied to him. All he knew was that the dumb broad had no idea what was coming for her.

He put the card inside his breast pocket.

"Welcome to hell, you dumb detective," Jack muttered as he pulled the shotgun out. "Let's see who finds Ash first. You, the person she's running from, or me, a stranger."

He pulled open the doors to the theatre and stepped in. "Ash?" he yelled. "Are you here?"

The lights outside blinked back on as the door closed behind him.

[Laraqua]

There's no response to his calls. No reason to believe that there's anyone in here. An empty and dilapidated foyer opens up before him, lit only by the greasy, sickly sunlight slanting in through the largely papered over the window glass. It's an old-fashioned theatre, still very much in the 1940s style from when it was last renovated, and that shows in its cracked walls and faded red carpet. There are doors that lead into the theatre itself, or the little box office, or up the stairs. So many places to choose from. So many places for her to hide.

[Seon]

1940s style. Setting of a Noir film? That detective seemed to be straight out of some Noir film.

Didn't really act like one.

He pushed open the doors to the theatre and walked down its aisles. "Aaaaaash!" He was fighting against time here. He knew that. If the detective got to her first, well... That simply won't do.

He turned on his clip-on radio and set it to transmit. "Hello, Ash," he whispered through the radio.

[Laraqua]

Her voice responds over the radio, slurred, like she's either drunk or hopelessly exhausted. "Jack, you sexy bastard, you're coming for me.... Who would've thought I'd have some hot prick searching for me...."

[Seon]

Jack smiled. "Where in the theater are you, Ash?

I'm here because of you."

[Laraqua]

She chuckles. A dry, humorless sound. "Don't kid yourself. You got it the wrong way round, honey."

"Guess I always was a sucker for a pretty face and a too good to be true heart."

She sighs deeply and he hears her swallow something. Perhaps she is drinking?

"You really were something. Over."

The radio crackles as she awaits his reply.

[Seon]

"You sound as if you are drinking, hon," Jack said sickeningly sweetly. "Are you at Annie's Bar? I didn't think they stocked liquor in the theater. Unless they did so at the shop inside it."

[Laraqua]

"I'm always drinkin', ain't that the truth," she slurred at him. Then she giggled abruptly. "Think I'm still at that damn theatre, huh? Been hours. Days even. Y'know, I worried, damn you.... Never trust a pretty face. Ain't that the truth. You gotta finish what you started. You gotta fight your programming. Make 'em burn. Make 'em pay. That's what I'm gonna do. Starting with him.... The director of this whole goddamned farce. Take a look. Follow the money. You'll see what I saw."

[Seon]

"What did you see?" Jack said, suddenly demandingly. "Where did the trail begin? What director?

Are those the people that did this to..."

[Laraqua]

"Can't remember details, too drunk," she says by way of explanation. "I'm sure you'll find it. One of the offices. Somethin' like that. How's Cecie? She find Katie all right? What happens in this town ... I dunno. Maybe she was never here."

Then she pauses and when she resumes speaking, her voice has a flirtatious tilt to it.

"So, sexy, how're you gonna do it? How're you gonna kill me? Gonna wrap them big hands round my little neck or you gonna fill me full of holes with that gun? Maybe slit me open with that knife of yours?"

[Seon]

Jack raised an eyebrow.

"Sounds almost as if you want to die. Do you want to die, Ash? Of course you do. No normal person would've just dropped everything and came to backwater town of Silent Hill unless they wanted to off themselves."

"Oh, by the way, Katie's dead. Cecie's probably moping around at the Lake right now. Maybe she'll drown herself. Maybe she won't. I would like to stop her but..." he chuckled. "She doesn't need me anymore. Besides, that abomination's going to be trying to eat her soon. You, on the other hand..." He giggled.

"Maybe.... just maybe... you can still save her from offing herself. You know, Katie dying is kind of your fault if you think about it. Maybe if you didn't try and drag her into the vacation to Silent Hill, then maybe Katie would've never have done anything so dangerous as to... swim in the lake alone! Hey, wait a second..." Jack paused, smiling. "You weren't hitting on her when you tried to get her to go to a vacation with you, were you? Maybe try out how the fairer gender felt like in bed before you die? No? Pushing it too far? Hmm?"

He laughed.

"It's kind of funny. You've come here to have a final fling and not be a... pain in the ass... to anyone else anymore... and you STILL can't help but be a nuisance to a whole lot of people!"

"But don't worry. I've got a plan for you. I've always got a plan... It combines both excitement and atoning for your sins, so it's the best kind of plan ever. Why don't you and me get together and stop Cecilia from doing a potentially...VERY SILLY thing of a permanant nature... and then we light up the town and then do whatever you want for a while! Maybe get this director fellow and the guy who killed me. You know, doing good things in the name of justice. Oh, and then I kill you. I'll let you decide how you die! By the way, I wouldn't recommend strangulation. I don't think I'm strong enough to do it quickly."

"Oh, and don't ask me why I don't do these things alone. It's a strange dead thing. Don't think too hard about it. It worked fine for me so far."

[Laraqua]

There's a long silence and then Ash said, "I never really thought about it like that but ... you're right. I've been selfish. I've been so very selfish. I can't even kill the Order because ... Shepherd's Glen, huh? That's what happens when you ignore it. This place ... this is probably the best that this place can be ... other than a wasteland. I'm sorry, Jack. I can't wait for you right now. I have to go. I have to find her. I have to finish what you started. You'll have to wait a little longer for your chance to ... to do whatever it is that your kind do. I need to.... I know what I need to do. Over and out."

The radio returns to simple static.

[Seon]

"Take your time, Ash," Jack said, smiling.

"I can always wait for you."

But then again it probably was too late for Cecie anyways. Jack shrugged on the inside. Based on that lady's mental state, she probably was a bloated corpse somewhere inside a lake by now. He took out one of the cards, a Queen of Cups, and then looked at it with a slight sense of longing before pocketing it separtely from the deck. "Goodbye, Cec. I liked yah, though you could have been a teeny bit more street savvy."

He walked out of the theatre room and began to walk upstairs. While he still had the calm exterior, he was raging on the inside. Cecilia was HIS. Did that little abomination really think that she could get away with stealing her away from him right in front of his eyes?

The little devil was a dead little devil if he caught sight of her again.

But now, he had to find that office before Murray got his dirty little 1940s paws on it.

[Laraqua]

The foyer is as old-fashioned and dusty as when he'd left it and he passes through it quickly on his way toward the doors that led up the stairs. There were movie posters hanging off the walls, little voyeuristic faded shots of attractive women in dangerous situations, being menaced by all sorts of violent masculine enemies. He reaches the door at the end of the landing and pulls it open, revealing a short darkened corridor that forces him to put the flashlight on. The door immediately to the right is locked but the one slightly further on opens up onto the balcony seats where stale popcorn and spilled coke decorate the old red chairs. The curtains on the stage are swept back (they weren't before) to reveal a large dropped white 'curtain' ready for a cinematic showing rather than the usual theatrical productions. He can see the lighting box at the end of the balcony seats but to get in there he'd have to go in through the other locked door.

Oh well, at least up here he can get a decent vantage point on everything in this large room.

[Seon]

Jack clapped his hand in glee as he caught isght of the lighting box. He pulled out his lockpicks and tried to unlock the door.

Failing miserably, he let out a disappointed grunt as he tried to look for another, perhaps more unconventional path to reach the lighting box. Maybe he could clamber over something?

Or maybe there was a key dropped around here or something... Hmm...

[Laraqua]

The door is locked over in the corridor but he could always try to break the windows to get inside. While that technique doesn't generally work here, there's no reason not to give it a resounding thwack just in case. There may be a dropped key, perhaps back in the ticket office, or somewhere behind the stage.

[Seon]

Jack gave the windows of the lighting box a resounding thwack with the butt of his shotgun.

[Laraqua]

The window glass cracks and then shatters noisily under the second blow, allowing him entrance, though the gap is quite small and jagged with inset pieces of glass. He'll have to climb up (roll, please) pretty carefully if he doesn't want to get hurt.