cosmonaughty - Tumblr blog

cosmonaughty · 28 days ago

Text

The Lucky Ones. chapter 23.

(writer addicted to dialogue attempts to write an entire chapter with no dialogue)

previous chapter

next chapter

Dear Claudia,

I think you’d like Pleasant River; the campus is beautiful and the library has three floors, if you count the archives in the basement. That’s where I’m writing from now (the library, not the archives). My roommate has his girlfriend over so I got the boot. I was worried about having a roommate at first, but if this is the worst of it, I think I’ve lucked out. Otherwise, he seems alright; he’s a Wabanaki fella named Craig. We don’t talk much, but he seems like a huge nerd. I'm kind of in awe of him for having a girlfriend at all, let alone one who’s in a sorority (I kid, of course, we all know nerds rule the world).

I haven’t declared a major yet, but I have time. If you have any suggestions, let me know. I thought about psychology at first, but now I don’t know. Do I really want to be a therapist or a social worker or something like that? I don’t think I do. I think it would drive me crazy. Same with any kind of medical field. But I’m not willing to take the coward’s way out and major in English or some other cop out. Business, perhaps?

That reminds me, I am working on the church budget but it’s tight. I’ll try to have it worked out by Thanksgiving, next time I make a trip back out your way. There are a few questions I have for Sister Ivy and the others that I would prefer not to have written down. Best to ask in person.

Otherwise, there isn’t a whole lot exciting going on here. It does seem to me to be more mellow than high school, in any case, and I’m glad for that. Still, it can get boring without any drama to report on, so you must, must tell me everything that’s going on out there, okay?

TTFN,

Vincent

P.S. I wish I had been able to see you one more time before going, but I guess I must have just missed you.

Whether it was intentional or not, Claudia felt the sting of the letter’s post script. She had known that it was unfair to have left him waiting for her, but it wasn’t as though the decision had been easy. She had spent the night before his departure agonizing over it. It was understandable that he would want to say goodbye, she imagined, but it wasn’t something she could bring herself to do. Claudia had never been very good at saying goodbye.

Her fingers twisted a lock of her hair as she stood in the small entryway of Vincent’s house and skimmed the letter again. If Pleasant River was as beautiful as he said it was, it was only natural that he wouldn’t want to come back. With a big library and pretty sorority girls, it sounded like it would be paradise for him. No doubt, it wouldn’t take long for him to completely move on from her.

“Oh, stop it.” She scolded herself bitterly, giving the lock of hair in her hand a tug. He had promised to come back and that would have to be enough for her, she reasoned. To doubt him would be no less of a betrayal than his abandoning of her would be.

She folded the letter and began to put it into her pocket but paused; it was best not to have evidence of their correspondence on hand, in case her father discovered it. However, she was sure that when her loneliness became too great, she would want to re-read the letters, so destroying them wouldn’t do. In that case, it seemed most sensible to leave them at Vincent’s house, but where?

There was nobody else who might find them, even if she left them on the coffee table in plain view, but a part of her worried that someone might break into the seemingly abandoned house and take them. To her surprise, she found herself laughing aloud at the idea. Of all the items in the house that might be of interest to a burglar, surely a stack of teenagers’ letters wasn’t among them. Still, she continued her exploration of the house, telling herself it was solely in the service of finding a secure hiding place for the letters.

Her search began in the living room. There was a bookshelf against the far wall; its upper shelves were lined with detective novels, harlequin romances, and volumes of encyclopedias, while the bottom shelf was home to a modest collection of vinyl and a stack of magazines. Briefly, Claudia considered tucking the letter into one of the record sleeves but didn’t want to risk damaging the vinyl, so she left the shelf untouched. The inexpertly refurbished coffee table had a small drawer, which Claudia found to contain the type of bric-a-brac that could be found in most drawers, the kind that seemed to materialize on its own if the drawer was unoccupied for too long. A few bobby pins, the cap of a green pen, an emery board, a matchbook from the Riverside Motel…Claudia left these things alone as she closed the drawer and moved on.

Despite the heavy cloud cover outside, she didn’t turn on any lights as she went down the hall, treading carefully over the threadbare carpet. Something etched on one of the door frames caught her eye and she paused, straining to read the numbers scrawled over the peeling white paint. It was a list of ages with height noted in feet and inches beside them, measuring Vincent’s growth throughout the years. She knelt and looked at the first notation, now so faded she could barely make it out: 2y-2’5”. The highest mark on the door frame had been from a couple of years earlier and was underlined: 16y- 6’!!. Either Charlene had decided that six feet was tall enough to stop counting or, more likely, Vincent hadn’t agreed to participate in the ritual during the following year.

The door to the room beyond was mostly closed, but she could see grey daylight seeping through the crack where it hung ajar. Her hand extended and the door floated open with only a slight tap from her fingers. The foggy light that she had seen from the hall was scored by the wrought iron bars on the window and fell uneasily over the bed and its naked mattress. The rest of the room was put together in a way that suggested order, but was hardly what she would call “neat”. Likely, there was some system of organization in place that made sense to no one but Vincent.

Hiding the letters in his room was out of the question; it seemed unlikely that he would want her in there at all, although that didn’t stop her from stepping into the room and looking around. Maybe it was prying, but she was certain that he would do the same, given an opportunity. Besides, it wasn’t as though she planned on taking anything, she just wanted to look.

The walls were covered in tacks, some holding up posters, others marking places where posters had been at one point, those which he must have taken to college with him. Of the remaining decor, Claudia particularly enjoyed a chart for identifying local birds and a souvenir poster for the Devil’s Pit, a nearby tourist attraction that was popular for local field trips. Claudia had gone as a child, back when Alessa was around. Alessa’s family had owned the old mining company way back in the day, which more or less made her town royalty, but she had never acted superior for it. In fact, despite the cruelty she faced from her peers, Alessa had a great love for all of mankind and prayed for their salvation every day.

A simple desk was pushed against the wall nearest to the window; upon closer inspection, Claudia could see a cluster of discolored rings on its surface, the remnant of years’ of glasses of water being placed carelessly on the wood surface. The only item on the desk was a book. Its cover may have been red at one time but had faded to pink as its pages had yellowed. The title 19th Century English Poetry flowed across the cover in bold, black cursive and the pages bore the stamp of the high school’s library. Vincent had neglected to return some of his school materials, it seemed, though Claudia wasn’t sure if he had done so on purpose or it had simply slipped his mind. She chose to believe the latter; he’d been distracted during his final semester, it only made sense that a few things had escaped his attention.

She picked up the book and dragged her fingers over the frayed linen cover. Surely, he had meant to return it- perhaps she could do him a favor and take it back to the school during her next outing. Nodding to herself, she tucked it into the crook of her arm and continued her quiet exploration of the house.

Claudia knew what Charlene’s room would look like before she stepped past the doorway. The blinds were closed and no light filtered through them. The telephone beside the bed had been unplugged. The bed itself was undisturbed for the most part, although its sheets and quilted comforter had been removed. And put where, she wondered. What was one to do with their mother’s belongings after she was gone? Claudia’s own mother had been gone before she had a chance to know her, but there were still relics of her to be found here and there in the household. They were not as bold as the vanity that still had Charlene’s cosmetics organized atop it, but they could be found hanging like shadows in the hallway or stowed away in the kitchen drawers.

Claudia inched toward the vanity to inspect its contents; she had never worn makeup herself and wasn’t entirely sure what most of the items laid out before her were. There was a cup filled with what looked like paint brushes next to what she recognized as a jar of powder and a large puff. Lined up in neat rows were compacts of varying sizes and shapes, with a few silver lipstick tubes among them. The object that caused her the most confusion was something that looked like a pair of small scissors, but instead of shears it had two flat, horizontal bars, slightly curved, at its end. Although it didn’t appear to have any sharp edges or blades, something about it made her think of torture devices she had seen in a book once.

Her gaze lifted to the large round mirror and she studied her own face. Nobody would ever say she was pretty, she knew, but she doubted that makeup would do much to change that. The thought of bright rouge on her pallid cheeks and pink paint on her mouth created such a ghastly mental image that she shuddered in revulsion and looked away from her reflection, turning her attention to the framed Van Gogh print hanging on the wall above the vanity. It was small and glossy, likely a page taken from a calendar, and it depicted a scene of an outdoor cafe. The tables in the foreground were empty, but there was a crowd of people seated behind them and still more in the distance, ambling along the cobblestone road. Against the blue night sky, the light from the cafe was warm and inviting.

She thought of Charlene sitting there and getting ready- maybe for a date with the man Vincent had told her about- the young brunette lightly tapping her face with the powder puff and casting her dark eyes up toward the print, imagining herself stepping directly into the scene and sitting down at one of those empty tables, ordering a glass of wine and laughing with the amiable strangers who passed her by. The people at that cafe were likely educated, witty, much more interesting than the ladies at the office who talked incessantly about their husbands and their kids. There were no kids in that painting.

Blinking, Claudia wondered what had made her think such a thing. She hadn’t been familiar enough with Charlene to know where she had worked and she certainly wasn’t aware of who she worked with or what they talked about.

Leaving the vanity and the room surrounding it undisturbed, she returned to the hallway and spent a handful of seconds poking her head into the bathroom. It could use a cleaning, but otherwise there was nothing remarkable about it. She may have been too curious for her own good, but she wasn’t about to go rifling through someone else’s medicine cabinet.

The kitchen was similarly uninteresting. She had been there before, of course, sitting at the table as Vincent told her he was going away. Her eyes searched the countertop for the photo album he’d had out, but it had since been put away. There was a closed door across from the fridge and she went to try it, but it was locked. Out of curiosity, she knelt on the floor and ducked her head to peek through the crack at the bottom of the door. All she saw was blackness, but the chill of the air that brushed her face told her that it most likely led to the basement.

Dusting her hands off on her skirt, she stood and gladly moved away from the basement door, favoring instead the backyard door behind her, which she unlocked and leaned out of, surveying the porch and the yard beyond it. There were tall weeds sprouting up along the fence line, but most of the tiny yard was a concrete patio with a sagging wash line and a few hand-painted pots, now emptied of any plants they may have once held. On the porch was a wooden swing with a small table beside it; the latter held a stained coffee mug, which was surrounded by a wreath of cigarette butts. She might have called it a mess, if not for the intentionality with which the cigarettes had been overlapped around the cup.

When she approached this small altar, she noticed the faint gleam of something metal in the cup. Tentatively she reached her fingers in, trying her best not to disturb the circle of cigarettes, and lifted out a brass key. MUD ROOM was written on the bow in faded, round lettering. She stood warming the key in her palm and considered if she should put it back; it would be useful if she ever managed to lock herself out of the house, but on the other hand, it would be useful to anyone else who wanted to get in. If it even worked, anyway.

She tiptoed over to the fence and peered over it into the narrow alleyway at the side of the house. There was a door there with a mat in front of it; still holding the key, she opened the gate and unlocked the door leading into the mudroom. As she entered the tiny vestibule, she made sure to lock the door behind her before looking for a more secure and permanent home for the key.

With the door closed, the only illumination was a trickle of watery natural light beneath the door, not sufficient to make out any details on the objects surrounding her. For all she knew, there could be anything- or anyone- in that room with her. Of course, she realized it was only her foolish mind telling her wild stories, as it often did, but this knowledge didn’t prevent her heart from racing as she felt her way through the cramped space. She flinched at every cold surface and unfamiliar texture that her fingertips encountered on their way to the light switch, which she finally discovered beside the dryer.

As the yellow lightbulb overhead flickered awake, Claudia internally chastised herself for still acting like a frightened child at her age. Her father had made it a point to remind her repeatedly that fear was for unbelievers because to feel afraid was to doubt God. It didn’t matter if there were ghosts or monsters hiding in the dark, because God’s chosen people would be protected from harm, no matter the adversary. Although she supposed she should find comfort in this knowledge, Claudia felt only guilt. If she had doubt enough to be fearful, then there was still much lacking in her spirit.

Slowly, she turned and surveyed the mudroom. There were multiple pegs on the wall, but only a single rain coat hung there, with a matching pair of boots on the floor beneath it. A sagging wicker laundry basket, now empty, sat next to the washer and dryer and there was a makeshift shelf above the laundry unit where bottles of cleaning solutions and stained sponges were lined up. It looked like a reasonable place to leave the key, although it was a little bit out of Claudia’s reach. She pulled her skirt up around her knees and carefully climbed on top of the washing machine, setting the book down for a moment so she could grab hold of the shelf’s edge to steady herself. The weight of her hand tipped the flimsy board forward and, although she managed to push it back before the entire thing could collapse on her, a cardboard carton of laundry detergent slid forward and bounced off the side of her head before landing on the floor and spilling a thin spray of white powder across the tiles.

Instinctively, she rubbed at her temple, although it didn’t hurt; the carton had been surprisingly lightweight. She carefully pushed the shelf into place, leaving the key on its surface, and took one of the sponges before climbing down to clean up the mess. Wetting the sponge in the utility sink, she knelt down and wiped up the remnants of scented powder, taking the box with her when she stood. She tipped it over and shook the last remaining flakes into the sink, where she left the sponge, exchanging it for the book she had set on the dryer.

The mudroom led back into the kitchen and she was sure she had never been so relieved to see grey autumn sunlight as she was when she finally closed the door behind her. Still holding the detergent carton, she went to the back door and engaged the lock. Before she returned to the living room and, ultimately, the front door, she retrieved the folded letter from her pocket and slipped it into the carton, tucking both away in one of the cabinets above the kitchen sink.

Dear Vincent,

I am glad to know that you’re enjoying college. I’m certain that your room mate, Craig, thinks you’re a nerd as well. I wish I had more insight into what you should study, but I’m afraid I’m not much help in that regard. You have always been good at math, if I recall correctly, but I think that you could excel in any area that you’re passionate about. Notice that I say “passionate about”- it doesn’t have to be something you particularly enjoy, but rather something you feel strongly about one way or another. In essence: if you find you hate doctors, you should study medicine, or if you love poetry, you should study literature. Don't settle for what is easiest or what you think will serve you best.

You said that I must tell you everything about what’s going on here, but in truth I don’t think there is much I can say. Things are as they ever were. It’s quiet around, especially during the week when everyone is in school or work. I do enjoy being able to complete my errands in peace. I have been dividing my time between my duties at home and in the church and I feel encouraged that I am learning more. He hasn’t said it, but I think Father is pleased with my decision as well. I know my Mother was deeply devoted to the church from a very early age as well, and she was called Blessed by everyone she met. Not that I want to be Blessed myself, that isn’t why I want to devote myself to the church. I want to be a blessing in the lives of others.

Autumn is well and truly here. We’re seeing less of the sun and Sister Delphine predicts that we’ll have an early winter. It is discouraging but I don’t believe that God is punishing us, as some do. Rather, I think She is sad. It’s like when you have a bad day and you just want to go back to sleep as soon as possible. I know this year has been hard for many of us, and I think it has been hard for Her too.

In any case, I hope you had a merry equinox and I will hold you to your promise that you will be back for Thanksgiving.

Best wishes,

Claudia

#claudia wolf #vincent smith #silent hill #silent hill 3 #silent hill fanfic #fanfiction

1 note · View note

cosmonaughty · 2 months ago

Text

The Lucky Ones. chapter 22.

previous chapter

next chapter

Although the days of summer unfolded in rapid succession, there were times when they seemed to collapse inward, times when Vincent was alone in his house, when the hours felt as though they were ticking in reverse and the next day would seem more and more distant. When fall finally came, it somehow took him by surprise.

In June, he had reached out to Sister Ivy about the church’s finances- Claudia would not let the mater rest until he did- and she had given him her enthusiastic blessing to look at the budget. When he had gathered enough confidence to approach the old priestess, she hadn’t seemed surprised, greeting him with a warm smile and gesturing for him to follow her to the church office.

“I thought this puzzle might be of interest to you.” She told him, lifting a thick folder down from one of the shelves. “I hear you’re quite sharp.”

“I’ll try…” He admitted. “But I don’t know if I can solve it, if nobody else has been able to yet…”

“Oh, you’d be surprised. Sometimes something like this just needs a fresh pair of eyes.” The corners of her own dark eyes crinkled when she smiled and for a moment he thought she was about to wink at him. “And a fresh mind. Heaven knows the rest of us aren’t getting younger and the world is getting faster, it seems. Lord help me, I don’t even know what ‘Reaganomics’ means. Is it good or bad?”

“Depends on who you ask…” He muttered. “As a church, we don’t pay taxes, at any rate, but the congregants still do, and I wouldn’t say any of them are wealthy enough to benefit from tax cuts…’Trickle-down’ doesn’t mean much when the stream’s dried up.”

“That’s the kind of perspective I think we could use.” Sister Ivy encouraged him with a feather-light touch on his shoulder. “Have a look and let me know if anything comes to you.”

He’d given it a few glances since then, but he always ended up distracted. It would be there the next day, he told himself, he’d have it done by Independence Day, by September at the latest. By the time he had his car packed and was ready to leave for Pleasant River, the folder was sitting on his passenger’s seat, completely untouched.

Claudia had been unable or unwilling to see him off. It was fine, he thought, securing the lock on the front door as he got ready to leave; she would write to him. She had promised. If she didn’t, he would write to her. They had already established a system early in the summer: sending letters directly to her address wouldn’t do, as it was possible- even likely- that Leonard would intercept any mail Claudia received. Instead, Vincent would send his letters to his home address and Claudia would stop by once a week, ostensibly to make sure the house was undisturbed, let herself in with the spare key he had given her, collect any letters he had sent to her, and would reply by dropping her own letters off in a public mailbox. Admittedly, it was a somewhat complicated plan, but for all Leonard knew, his daughter was simply lending a hand to a fellow believer.

So, did it bother him that she hadn’t shown up to say goodbye? Of course not. It wasn’t a big deal; Pleasant River wasn’t far away, he was hardly even leaving town, if he thought about it. Why should it be a big deal?

Even as he told himself this, he paused, waiting beside the open door of the Vega and looking down the street, straining his eyes against the pale sunlight. The wind blew yellowing leaves across the empty road, but beyond them he caught no glimpse of any familiar figure. And why would he expect differently? His gaze turned back to the house; in each window, the curtains were drawn and the darkness behind them was completely still and quiet. With no fond farewell from the house or from the street beyond it, he finally got into his car and began his journey.

As he neared the interstate, he pulled into a gas station. The car was doing okay on fuel, but it couldn’t hurt to make sure the tank was full. It would only be a minor delay, anyway. As he got out of his car, he looked around at the lot, still muddy from the rain showers they’d had earlier in the week. Behind the gas station was a gravel road, leading to a small house that was firmly planted among the stumps of trees, some intentionally chopped down, others rotted and felled by time. The rusty shells of old cars sat on blocks outside of the house, seemingly guarding it like a pair of mechanical sentries. As if a crumbling old house would have any treasures worth guarding, he thought.

Inside, he paid for the gas and a pack of cigarettes and looked around as the aged proprietor carefully counted out his change. His attention was drawn to an old photograph hanging behind the register. It featured the gas station in its early years, when there was only one pump and the surrounding woods were nearer and darker than they were now. In the picture, a small, pale boy was leaning on a tire, with his father standing behind him, looking not into the camera, but somewhere beyond it.

“Cute…” He muttered, adding so the proprietor could hear him, “Is that you, there?”

“Huh?” The man looked up and followed Vincent’s gaze to the photograph.

“Ah, nah, that’s my old man…” He chuckled, gesturing with one long, arthritic hand to the figure in the background. “And that there is his old man. My family’s owned this place since this town first had cars in it. And before then, too.”

“So, I guess your son is next in line?” Vincent offered, fighting a chill that threatened to creep along the back of his neck. He thought about the house he’d seen crouched in the back of the property and wondered how many decades it had been there. He thought about it remaining there, obstinate, gathering rot and rust as the world around it moved forward.

“Ah yuh,” The man nodded proudly. “And then his son. Then his son’s son, god willing he has one. He’s got three girls now.”

“Oh, well,” Vincent thought to suggest that one of the granddaughters might own the family business, but he was worried that even the cheeky suggestion would send the old man into cardiac arrest. “Good luck with that, I guess.”

“Good to have roots.” The man advised him.

“Hm, is that so?”

“Uh huh;” He slowly reached out and dropped Vincent’s change into his palm. “Good place to have em too. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”

Vincent felt that he couldn’t get onto the interstate fast enough; the haunting, white gaze of the child in the photograph was seared into his mind as he fled. To think that mere hours earlier, he had been reluctant to leave. As if anything could be more frightening than living and dying in the same fading, forgotten, insignificant town. He may have been born in the chapel, as his mother had told him many times, but he swore he would not be laid to rest among the ruins of a dying religion. He needed to be more than that.

As the town dwindled away behind him, he rolled down the window and drank in his first breath of freedom. Even the air outside seemed clearer, tasted sharper, like snow melting on his tongue. There was space out there, enough room to think and breathe and grow. It was all opening up to him; with the wind rippling through the open window and the pavement rolling beneath the Vega’s wheels, he felt as if he had the power to go anywhere. Maybe he would go to the university, or maybe he would just keep driving until his tires met the sea. Or maybe he would turn west and keep driving until he was engulfed by the desert.

He fought the urge to laugh and, realizing that there was nobody around to hear or even see him, he gave in. He tipped his head back and let out a short giggle. This first delighted outburst was followed by a prolonged roll of laughter that seemed to feed on itself. Every time it would begin to fade away, he would be overcome by another rapturous fit that strained his stomach muscles and brought tears to his eyes. However, when the laughter finally stopped, the flow of tears did not.

#silent hill 3 #silent hill fanfic #vincent smith #claudia wolf

1 note · View note