Disclaimer:I do not own Hey Arnold! Or Silent Hill. I am just borrowing characters and concepts for my own amusement.

Hey Arnold! Silent Hillwood

By Demile

Chapter VII: Monsters

Helga emerged from the bathroom wrapped tightly in a fluffy red towel. The long bath had left her feeling refreshed and definitely a lot more relaxed than she was an hour ago. She ventured down the hallway toward the kitchen in search of Mrs. Johansson.

“Mrs. Johansson, sorry to be such a bother but do you happen to have a change of clothes that would fit…” Helga stopped in her tracks and stared wide eyed at the person standing before her. Indeed it was not Mrs. Johansson but none other than her flaxen-haired, green-eyed muse. Arnold’s jaw dropped for a moment and Helga just stood there stunned.

“Helga, are you alright?” Arnold asked.

Helga stood there for a moment, blinking a few times before answering.

“Yeah… I’m okay,” she replied, a shiver running down her spine as she replayed the incident from the other night in her head. It was then that she realized she was standing in the Johansson kitchen in front of Arnold, clad in only a towel. “Criminy, stop staring, Football Head!” Helga shouted. His staring hadn’t been at her semi-nude form but rather at the cuts and bruises on her face and shoulders, it wasn’t until she pointed out his stare that he even registered the fact that the slender, blonde female was mostly naked.

Turning his head sheepishly Arnold muttered an apology and with a “Hmph” Helga turned and made her way back down the dark hallway to Gerald’s bedroom.

“She looked pretty banged up,” Arnold said, turning to face his best friend.

“Yeah, well, now that she’s awake it looks like I get my bed back and Helga can go home,” Gerald said with a satisfied smirk.

“Gerald!” Martin Johansson snapped as he entered the kitchen, “We don’t even know what happened to her. What if her dad did this? Big Bob has quite a temper.”

“You really think her dad caused those injuries?” Gerald eyed his father quizzically.

“I’m not pointing fingers at anybody Gerald, but I wouldn’t put it past Robert Pataki to lose his cool and do something drastic,” Martin said, pouring some bottled water into a tea kettle and placing it on the lit stovetop.

Gerald looked up at the sound of a door opening creaked from the end of the hallway. Timberly sluggishly shuffled her way down the hall and into the kitchen, shuttering lightly as her bare feet landed on the cold, pink tile floor.

“Ugh, when is the ‘lectricity coming back? I’m so bored!” she groaned, slouching into one of the wooden chairs at the kitchen table. Over the past few days Timberly, out of sheer boredom she had drained the batteries of Martin’s laptop, Jamie-O’s portable DVD player, and Gerald’s PSP and his iPod as well as her own. She also played at least a hundred games of solitare with a tattered deck of cards she had dug out of the miscellanious/junk drawer. She also proceeded to ask, every half-hour, if “Gerald’s friend” had woken up yet.

“Dunno, kiddo,” Martin said, shrugging. He sighed inwardly, wishing that his youngest was the type of kid who could get lost in a book for hours. Both Gerald and Jamie-O always managed to find ways to amuse themselves and rarely ever complained of being bored. Timberly had quite an imagination when she was younger, coming up with crazy schemes to get Gerald and Arnold to hang out and spend time with her. Now she was a typical preteen girl; gossipy and awkward, obsessed with myspace, and a fan of sending text messages or IMs to friends that were sitting right next to her.

Helga found a change of clothes laying on the bed for her. An old pair of Mrs. Johansson’s jeans
(“Pre-Jamie pants, had those in college,”) and soft pink cotton t-shirt (“Just a bit too short for my taste. Ah, to be young again”) Helga pulled the shirt over her head then tossed on a pair of clean, white socks before tugging on the jeans. She opened and closed her fists a few times, the cuts on her hands had mostly begun healing, save for a few scabs on her knuckles that she found herself idly picking at; a terrible habit.

Sighing she decided it was time to face everyone. She knew she was going to be asked, once again, what happened the other night. She, herself couldn’t even quite describe what had happened and decided to gloss it over. The Johansson family had had enough of “Helga The Loon” for one day.

She emerged into the hallway once again, following the dim light at the end into the kitchen where Arnold and the Johansson clan, sans Mrs. Johansson sat playing another game of Chinese Checkers.

“Helga,” Martin stood up and pulled a chair out from the table, “please join us, there is tea on the stove and sandwiches on the counter. I’m sure you are starved.”

“Thank you, Mr. Johansson,” Helga said, pouring some tea into a black, ceramic mug and helping herself to a few triangle shaped sandwiches. She took a seat next at the table and took a few sips of her tea, staring down at the table.

“Helga, what happened to you?” Timberly asked, nosey as usual. Gerald rolled his eyes, they had planned to wait until after Helga got a little more comfortable and had some food in her stomach before pressing her for answers.

“Timberly, can you please go into the other room please,” Martin requested and Timberly frowned.

“Why should I?” She whined, narrowing her eyes.

“Because this is talk for the older kids and the adults,” Martin said sternly, “now go. That’s an order.”

Timberly scoffed and jumped up from her chair and sulked out of the room angrily, passing her mother as she ventured down the hallway. Mrs. Johansson took a seat at the kitchen table with the rest of them.

“Hello Helga, I trust you are feeling a bit more relaxed now?” she said, smiling warmly.

“Yes, I am feeling much better now, thank you,” Helga said quietly. Arnold was astounded. Never had he seen Helga so soft-spoken; so withdrawn. He could see fear lingering in her eyes, even if nobody else could. He figured what happened to her must have been pretty bad to make her act this way.

“Helga, what happened? Who did this to you?” Mrs. Johansson asked.

Helga sighed.

“Nobody did this to me. I fell… must have hit my head,” Helga muttered, keeping her gaze down at her tea, watching the ripples form when she poked at the surface with her spoon.

“Helga, you said something about a person… who?” Jamie-O leaned forward, resting his elbows on the tabletop and his chin in his hand.

“I… I don’t… I was having a nightmare,” Helga sputtered.

“What were you doing out alone in the storm?” Martin asked,

“Bob and I had a fight and…”

“It’s okay Helga, you can tell us. You’re safe here. Did your father hurt you?” Martin asked. Clearing his throat he impatiently awaited her answer.

“No,” she said, “I ran out, just wanted to get away from them, all of them. I took off, walked around for a long time. I was upset. I was walking through Slausen’s parking lot when I slipped off the curb and fell… that’s the last thing I remember,” Helga explained. That seemed to be enough for Mr. and Mrs. Johansson. However she could tell by the looks on Arnold and Gerald’s faces that they didn’t believe a word of it, Arnold especially.

As soon as they were finished with their Arnold rose from his seat.

“Gerald? Can I talk to you for a minute?” He said, motioning towards Gerald’s bedroom. Gerald stood up and followed his friend. The reached his doorway before Arnold stopped him and lowered his voice to a whisper, “Gerald, we need to confront Helga. It’s obvious that she is lying. Something crazy happened to her and something happened to me, and I think they are both connected,”

“So you think we should talk to her now?” Gerald asked.

“Better sooner than later,” Arnold said, “call her in here,” Arnold entered Gerald’s bedroom and motioned for him. With a sigh and a shake of his head, Gerald followed, quickly poking his head out the door.

“Hey Helga,” he called out, “when you’re through in there could you here for a minute,” he said, a hint of annoyance in his voice. Arnold elbowed him in the side.

“Gerald, be nice,” he chastised.

“Please.” Gerald added, rolling his eyes.

“Please excuse me,” Helga swallowed the last of her tea and stood up, pushing her chair in and setting the mug back on the counter next to the kettle.

“Helga,” Martin said, stopping her before she could disappear down the hall.

“Yes, sir?” Helga looked over to him. Criminy! Enough with the prying already!

“If there is anything you feel you need to say, anything at all, you can tell us. We are always willing to provide help and safety to one of Gerald’s friends,” He said, sincerely, though giving off that knowing vibe that something was amiss.

“Thank you, Mr. Johansson, I really appreciate it,” Helga said, turning to leave the room. She smirked inwardly, amused. Friends? She and Gerald were hardly what one would consider friends. They were more than aquaintences and they weren’t enemies. They were on some sort of neutral footing for the sake of Arnold, who since the FTI incident several years back, had been making more and more bold attempts to befriend the feisty, sharp-tongued girl. Through their freshmen year of high school Helga and Arnold had developed into what could be called “friends.” Helga had obviously been making attempts to control her anger and Arnold just accepted the name-calling and constant teasing for what it was: Helga.

“What’s going on, Arnoldo? Hair-boy?” she said, shutting the bedroom door behind her and flopping down lazily on Gerald’s bed.

Gerald was fiddling with a handheld AM/FM radio getting nothing but white noise.

“I was hoping for a little noise to drown us out so we wouldn’t have to whisper,” Gerald said, throwing the radio aside in frustration.

“Whisper? What did you guys want to talk about?” Helga asked, knowing full well they didn’t believe her story.

“You gonna tell us what really happened out there?” Arnold asked, sitting next to her.

“What do you mean ‘what really happened?’” Helga, grabbed a pillow and flipped over to her stomach, “I said I got into a fight with Bob, went for a walk, slipped on the wet pavement, fell and hit my head,” she said, making eye contact with neither of them.

“And that’s why you’ve been having night terrors for the last few days?” Gerald asked.

“Well, I was out in cold rain for a long time, I was obviously ill,” Helga snapped.

“Oh, come on! Helga, you’ve been quiet as a clam since your little outburst of crazy early this afternoon!” Gerald said, “you hardly broke a whisper the entire time we were talking in the kitchen. You’ve never been one to keep quiet, Pataki,” Gerald stated, narrowing his eyes at the girl. Gerald was right, Helga had a powerful voice and was never one to restrain it. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but Helga being quiet was like having a huge neon sign over her head that flashed “HEY! SOMETHING’S BOTHERING ME!”

“Seriously Helga, he’s got a point. What happened?” Arnold asked, resting a hand on her shoulder, gazing at her with concerned eyes.

She flipped back over on her back “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you!” she groaned, covering her face with the pillow. Arnold snatched the pillow from her and clutched it to him.

“Try me,” he said.

***

“Wait a minute! You’re saying he had no face?!” Gerald asked, incredulously. Helga nodded. She had told them all the strange events of the week. Starting from the bum that pestered her a few days before and her seemingly psychotic sleep activities all the way to the startling events of her waking up earlier that day.

“It was like he was wearing some sort of faceless rubber mask… “ Helga explained, she was now sitting cross-legged on the bed, speaking in a hushed, but excited voice, getting really into telling her story, “when I first saw him I thought he was… but then the noises he made, strange moans and growls, it was so… inhuman.”

“About how big was he?” Arnold asked, trying to pull every detail from his head regarding his own encounter earlier that day.

I’d say… probably around my dad’s height, close to his build too. Maybe a little bulkier,” Helga said, “Why all the questions, Football Head? Going to steal my story to write a bestselling horror novel?”

“Was that like what you saw, Arnold?” Gerald asked and Arnold nodded.

“Only the thing that attacked me seemed bigger than Big Bob; Taller, definitely more built. I thought it was going to pound me to dust!” Arnold said, shuttering lightly.

“Wait, wait, wait! Are you saying you saw it too? That it attacked you?” Helga could not believe what she was hearing. Inside she was bursting with relief at the fact that she might not be crazy. Yet at the same time she found herself incredibly fearful at the idea of it all being real.

Arnold nodded, “Yeah, but that’s not all, before that I was chased by a dog,” he said, “Well, sort of, it was kind of skeletal and strange looking… and it had these huge fangs! It could have torn me to pieces!” Arnold explained how it chased him into the PS118 school yard and how the other man-like creature came and killed it and cornered him then turned to dust right as it was about to strike him. The other two sat there, staring, dumbfounded at the football-headed boy.

“So you’re saying you were both attacked by similar things and some kind of demon dog, er, Hellhound?” Gerald couldn’t believe what he was hearing. As kids they had always fallen hook, line and sinker for every urban legend, every ghost story, every monster tale they heard. But this was almost too much to swallow. But Gerald believed it nonetheless. If Arnold said he was attacked by a demon dog and a faceless man then he was attacked by a demon dog and a faceless man. The boy did not lie.

Arnold nodded and stood up.

“Monsters aside, don’t you find it a little too strange that we were both attacked? I mean, look at the chain of events… Helga get’s harassed by some crazy man a few days ago going on about darkness,” he started counting off on his hand, “then receives weird, ominous words of warning from Madame Blanche. Strange sleep disturbances, gets attacked by…something, is-”

“Arnold, I know what happened…” Gerald interrupted. Arnold narrowed his eyes.

“I’m not finished! Helga passes out in the middle of the storm, is picked up by your brother, is comatose for days then the same thing that attacked her attacks me on the way to your house,” Arnold took a deep breath and looked to Helga, who looked rather annoyed at the fact that the two of them were talking like she wasn’t there, but she decided not to say anything and hear him out anyway. “Gerald, I think it’s too much to just be a coincidence, I think there’s something bigger going on, something we can’t yet even begin to comprehend.”

Helga smiled inwardly, despite the grimness of the topic. Arnold was still the same open-minded, over-imaginative boy he was in his earlier years. This was possibly her favourite quality that he possessed; one that she hoped he would retain throughout all of his adult life and well into his golden years.

“So what do you want to do, Arnold?” Gerald asked, not quite sure where Arnold was getting at with all this cryptic talk, he was still skeptical but couldn’t deny the fact there was something strange going on, “should we get the gang together and investigate? Like when we were kids?”

“No way! This isn’t like when we were kids! There is real danger involved! You heard what this thing could do! Helga said it tore up a lamp post from the pavement! This thing could seriously injure or kill one of us, more likely the latter!” Arnold exclaimed. Helga admired the way he acted with such concern towards the wellbeing of his friends, not many boys would turn down the prospect of some real life, violent monster hunting… but then again Arnold wasn’t most boys. “We’re going to stay put, and hope that all of this comes to pass. We are not going to go out and fight monsters like in some video game!”

In the hallway, Timberly leaned against with her ear flush against Gerald’s bedroom door, her mouth agape in awe.

“Wow,” she whispered then jumped back startled as the doorknob jiggled. The three teens emerged from the room only to see the youngest Johansson standing in the hallway.

“What are you doing, Timberly? Were you listening? How much did you hear?” Gerald interrogated.

“I didn’t hear anything! I was going to the bathroom!” Timberly shouted before stomping off into bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

Gerald shook his head. “Siblings…” he muttered, not bothering to finish the thought.

The three of them moved into the living room. Helga pulled on a largely oversized black sweatshirt that belonged to Jamie and curled up at one end of the sofa, pulling the shirt over her knees, shivering lightly. Gerald tossed her a throw blanket before settling into the large, overstuffed recliner and Arnold rested at the other end of the sofa.

For the next two hours the three of them talked of random things from school to strange dreams to childhood memories; They recalled tales of Wheezin’ Ed and The Headless Cabby. Helga was greatly amused by the Headless Cabby story, especially the part where they were scared blind by Eugene’s late-night clog dancing. “I’d be blinded too,” she thought.

“Speaking of blind, what about that time you blinded Helga?” Gerald laughed, “That was ridiculous, and then when she got her sight back she played you for a fool!”

“Yeah, you are pretty gullible, Arnoldo,” Helga smirked, sticking her tongue out at him.

“Yeah, but then we picked up on it and totally got you in the end,” Arnold retorted with a smirk of his own.

“That you did. That you did,” Helga said, yawning. Arnold and Gerald also yawned. And over the next twenty minutes of light conversation they all dozed off, having nothing better to do than sleep while the storm kept brewing outside.

***

A hooded man entered the fire-lit study and knelt before a cloaked figure that sat, resting in the antique, red velvet-lined armchair.

“You have news for me? Good news, I hope,” the man questioned, his voice was deep, powerful with a light-hearted yet sinister air to it.

“Sir, we have not yet located the one you speak of,” the smaller man, said, bowing his head.

“Oh Icelus*,” the larger man let out a long, annoyed sigh.

“We have been unable to locate her body but have successfully instilled the visions upon her in her time of slumber,” the man called Icelus said, confidently.

“And just how did that work out?”

“Wonderfully; her dreamscape had successfully manifested itself on the physical plain,” Icelus exclaimed, proudly. His master sounded pleased.

“And what of the lad?”

Icelus froze and lowered his head.

“Unfortunately, Sir, the dreamscape was interrupted and the boy got away,” Icelus closed his eyes and braced himself for whatever was to come; a caning most likely, but the Master had a very short temper and could easily pull out a gun and shoot him without giving it a second thought.

“Oh phooey,” The Master said in a saddened, disappointed tone. Icelus looked up, somewhat fearful “Very well then,” he sighed, waving his hand to Icelus, dismissing him, “Let me know of any progress made.”

“Yes, sir!” Icelus said, quickly bowing once more before scampering from the room and out the door.

***

“Gerald! Wake up! Gerald!”

“Hmmm?” Gerald mumbled, yawning and stretching, “What is it, Dad?” he asked, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

Helga yawned and rolled over, when Mrs. Johansson nudged her awake. She didn’t hear what was going on but suddenly Gerald launched himself across the room at Arnold and Helga, shaking them both awake.

“Helga! Arnold! Wake up! Wake up!” he shouted and both of them sat up groggily.

“What’s up, Gerald?” Arnold said yawning. Gerald’s looked at him eyes wide with fear and what he said next almost made Arnold’s heart stop.

“Timberly’s missing!”

AN: Another chapter already. Hard to believe, I know! I am most pleased. I know what’s going to happen in the story, it’s all planned out. I’m not pulling anything out of my ass (pardon my language) but I was having trouble connecting a few events, and as I was sleeping last night/early this morning I had the idea literally jolt me awake. I hope you are all enjoying this. I’m so totally pumped and excited now!

*Icelus: In Greek mythology, Phobeter, known by the gods as Icelus, is the personification of nightmares and appears in dreams in the form of animals or monsters.