Chapter Two

In the clearing beside the road stood a circle of tree stumps. Vines and graffiti covered them and rain and wind had worn smooth their edges, a testament to how long they had sat as dead wood. Soft grasses and small flowers filled the spaces around them but the circle they formed lay empty. It was a weird little place, Murphy decided. He'd pulled off to drain his bladder and found his eyes resting again and again on that curiously empty center. He wondered f maybe kids burnt stuff in there, playing at being witches or druids or whatever it was the kids were all nuts about today. When he was a teenager it had all been about vampires - at least for the kids who were into that kind of stuff. It'd never been his thing. He'd been more into rock and roll and sneaking into bars.

At least here, on the country road he'd chosen to avoid major throughways, it wasn't too hot. The trees made for nice shelter from the sun and there was nothing to hear but birdsong. After finishing up his business Murphy had taken a seat a ways off the road to have a cigarette and enjoy being in nature. He hadn't been much of a smoker before prison, but somewhere along the line he'd developed a legitimate habit. But what the hell, right? He didn't have too many pleasures left to him, at least he could enjoy a cigarette on a sunny afternoon on the side of the road in picturesque New England.

And honestly, it was pretty damn divine. The rustling of the leaves, the call of the birds, the warm sun on his neck and lower arms…these were simple pleasures he'd had to re-learn how to enjoy. It was kind of funny now, when he watched movies or TV where someone got out of prison. There was always all this joy and immediate exuberance to be free. If only it were really like that. Too much time on the inside and it got into a guy's blood. The outside was scary after more than a year or two locked away. Prison was its own society with its own rules and social structures and that stayed with you. The whole reason Murphy had pulled over to pee wasn't because he had to, but because this was one of his scheduled bathroom breaks. It took a while to not freak out at all the open sky and the lack of walls and barbed wire.

And here he was, finally shaking off the spectral hold prison had, heading right back towards it.

"What the hell is wrong with me?"

Was he doing the right thing? He told himself it was all about justice, about what was right…but was it? Was he just prettying up vengeance? What the hell was the difference, anyway? Courts were run by men with laws and sentences and trappings all made by men. Who got to say who could pass judgement on another person?

"God."

Murphy snorted as he answered himself. Only God could pass true judgment, and the courts of men didn't matter at all. That was what he had been taught, ever since he could remember. The shadow of God, ever present and ever watching, always over him. What had God ever done for him? Murphy didn't even know if he believed anymore. God was good, he'd been taught. But God was jealous and angry. God answered the prayers of men and punished the sinful and unworthy…but also those He loved the most. What the hell kind of a God was that? What god made man only to make them suffer?

"But without suffering, we would know no joy."

He spoke with a mock Irish brogue, his mind sent back to dozens of youthful theological debates with the sisters. None of it made any more sense to him now than it had then.

He'd spent too long sitting by the road. Snuffing his cigarette out, Murphy stood and stretched and looked off towards the direction of Ryall. He wasn't sure what he was going to do, how he was going to gain any sort of access to the prison, but he'd figure something out. He liked to think he was a resourceful guy.

Back on the road. The last time he'd driven like this he'd been in a stolen police car. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time.

And so did this.

Fuck!

This self doubt was like a cancer, gnawing and gnawing and gnawing at him. He fidgeted with the radio until he found some hard rock station and then turned it up as loud as he could. He rolled down the windows and let the cold air beat against his face. It pressed his sunglasses against his forehead and threatened to tear his battered Red Sox cap off of his head. What else could he do?

Go west. Or south. Go to Mexico. That was every con's dream, wasn't it? He wasn't that old, he still had a life ahead of him. Why should he risk it when there was a damn good chance Sewell was going to trip up and get caught anyway?

Money was the obvious issue, of course. He wasn't flush enough to flee to Mexico or anywhere worth fleeing to. Or to live well when he got there. But beyond that… Murphy glanced at his reflection in the rearview mirror, expression blank behind his dark glasses. Sewell was going to go down, one way or another.

And he was going to be there when it happened.

XXX

The road to Ryall took Murphy through painfully familiar territory. There was a moment, a painful and near uncontrollable moment, where he almost took an exit that would take him to his old neighborhood. He had to grip the sterling while and stare straight ahead and grind his teeth to cover up the whispers in his mind. He just wanted to see, that was all. Who lived there now. How the home had made with Carol and Charlie had been erased and some other family's home standing there in its place.

But those were dark things that wouldn't make any difference. Charlie was gone. Carol was gone. That life was a memory now, something in the long-ago. And anyway, he was going back much further than Charlie.

He needed a place to stay. He couldn't risk a motel or anything like that, not so close to his own stomping grounds. Even with large dark glasses and a baseball cap pulled down, he feared being recognized. He couldn't cover up the scar on his face, or the way he moved. He'd spent most of the drive trying to figure out where the hell he was going to go. He'd considered breaking down and going to Cunningham, but he knew how that would end. After the stony, chilling glare and the curses about his idiocy, she'd send him home. The place he called 'home' now.

He'd rather walk into the ocean, he realized. He hated that cramped little apartment and the strange city that housed it. He hated his neighbors, the skunkish smell of old pot, the dirty bodega on the corner. He hated it all. It wasn't his and it meant nothing to him. How was he supposed to go on when he didn't have a damn thing to go on for? So he'd lived his little parable and learned his lesson and for what? To rot away in a factory city in New Hampshire, staring at the TV and smoking cigarettes and getting a second hand high from the dealer upstairs?

That wasn't a life worth winning. If that was all that was left for him, wherever he went, he didn't want this life.

Which begged the question of what he'd do if this all amounted to nothing. He didn't have a plan. He didn't even know for sure if he had a place to stay, he could only hope. And pray.

He would have to at least call Anne, though. She'd figure out he'd taken off soon enough and the last thing he wanted was her chasing after to drag him back by the scruff of his neck. And she would, he had no doubt about that, even he didn't go to her. No matter what she claimed, he knew she had a soft spot for him. He'd think of something to tell her.

The exit he did want was coming up. Murphy pulled off and slowed down, entering into an urban area that was painfully familiar. He drove until he entered an old fashioned part of town, brick and stone but old and falling into decay. It was a poor place, but clean and full of life. Kids ran along the sidewalks, shouting and calling to each other. Men and women stood in doorways, chatting and laughing. Street carts dotted the sides of the road, vendors calling out in the early evening heat.

It hadn't changed that much since Murphy had been little. The names of stores were different and so were the faces, but the landscape was the same. Once upon a time he'd been one of those kids, running down the sidewalk with a popsicle in one hand and a toy gun in the other, whooping and hollering like the cowboy he was pretending to be. Those were good memories, warm and golden and long before tragedy had ever touched him. Though he supposed that wasn't true, but he had been too little to ever remember his parents. He'd never been able to miss something he didn't have.

When he finally pulled over, Murphy couldn't bring himself to get out of the car. He rolled down his window and sat, watching across the street with a lump rising in his throat. Behind a wrought iron fence, a playground. There were maybe half a dozen kids milling about, enthusiastic and energetic despite the heat. It was like kids didn't even feel it. They looked so happy, at least from where the ex-con sat. He'd been happy there, too.

Behind the playground rose the majestic bulk of Saint Mary's, the only home Murphy had ever known as a child. He'd even gotten married in the chapel there, leaving straight from the Monastery to start his new life.

How many 'new lives' could a man have?

A sudden cough and rapping on the top of his car made Murphy jump, wheeling about in a panic. A petite and stern faced young sister stood, leaning down and glaring in at him.

"Is there something you need?"

The hostility in her voice shook Murphy and he found himself unable to speak for a moment. Why was she so angry? He hadn't been doing anything, just sitting in his car…watching the playground. In big dark glasses and a baseball cap pulled down over his unshaven face. Of course she was angry at him.

She thought he was a monster.

"Uh, yeah." Murphy cleared his throat and wet his lips, grateful he at least did have a reason to be here. "I was wondering if Sister Mary Helen was still here? I, uh…I grew up at Saint Mary's. Haven't been back in a while."

The sister watched him closely for a moment before her expression softened.

"She's still here. Always will be, I suspect. Come now, get out of the car and stop gawking like a dullard. I'm sure it's not that different."

Still reluctant to trust his fate to the hands of God's brides, Murphy slowly complied. He was gambling pretty hard here, that the church honestly would offer sanctuary to anyone who asked. It was what he'd been taught as a boy, but so much of what the church had told him were lies. Not to mention Disney movies.

"I don't think I remember you?" It was an obvious question, and Murphy avoided the obvious answer.

"Probably not, I left over fifteen years ago. I'm pretty sure you're younger than me, Sister." It was dreamlike, walking through the iron gate and onto the grounds of the Monastery. For a moment all Murphy could think of was how it looked nothing like the ghostly husk in Silent Hill. He cast his eyes upwards as they passed through the playground, letting the sounds of children at play envelop him. The tower seemed so tall and for a moment he was as a child again. The sun was going down behind the Monastery, a shimmering ball blotted out by comforting stone. Shadows stretched cool and long, like hands reaching out to greet him. The air was hazy, muted. Dream-air. Saint Mary's was edged in a faint tinge of light and looking up at the cross that crowned the central spire… Murphy felt like maybe, maybe things were going to be alright.

If he could convince Sister Helen to let him stay.