Mandatory Disclaimer says I make no representation that I own any division of the Silent Hill franchise.
PART ONE: SOMETHING WICKED IN THE AIR
PROLOGUE
The Rebirth
Two days ago, Henry Townshend and Eileen Galvin experienced a terrible series of events. Henry began experiencing recurring dreams about the apartment's previous owner, Joseph Schrieber, and his death. He also found that he could not leave his room, as his door had been locked up from the inside with fifty feet of solid steel chain.
A hole appeared in his bathroom wall one morning, just when he was beginning to wonder if he would ever escape. He was reluctant to go through it at first, sure that it could not bode well, but eventually he became desperate and went inside. There, he found a twisted world beyond his wildest imaginings; a world reflected from the insane consciousness of a man named Walter Sullivan, a man whose tragic past would soon engulf the lives of those around him--Walter had been abandoned as an infant, and his only real desire in life was to see his mother once again.
It was revealed that Walter Sullivan had been the perpetrator of several murders in the neighboring town of Silent Hill, seven hours' drive from Henry's home town of Ashfield. 10 years ago, Walter had killed 10 people in 10 days, skillfully removing the hearts of each victim and then sewing the wounds back together. At first the reason for this was unclear. However, Joseph Schrieber's ghost communicated to Henry via a red notebook that the reason Walter did this was to become immortal; by sacrificing ten hearts from ten "sinners", Walter could then commit suicide as the 11th victim of his own twisted hand. At this time, he would "gain the power of heaven." This process was known as "The Ritual of the Holy Assumption."
After taking his life in the name of God, Walter did indeed gain such power, and he used it to create a world, a world in which he elevated himself to Godlike status. This world was based on his own delusions, paired with his desire to purify his mother and 'save' her from the real world. This world was the one into which Henry had been drawn, and it was the place of his fated meeting with his neighbor, Eileen. Walter had failed to end her life and, as a result, had come back twice as angry, intending to finish her off for good. It was only with Henry's help that Eileen was able to escape from Walter's repeated murder attempts.
Late in his journey into the strange other world, born from Walter's consciousness, Henry discovered a book countering the beliefs that somehow a "God" could be born from all this. The blasphemous book read, "The 21 Sacraments be not sacramental one whit. Those that be called the 21 Sacraments be naught but the 21 Heresies. She who is called the Holy Mother be not holy one whit. The Descent of the Holy Mother be naught but the Descent of the Devil. To give birth to a realm of wickedness within the blessed realm of our Lord be blasphemy and the work of the Devil. If thou would stop the Descent of the Devil, you must bury part of the Conjurer's mother's flesh within the Conjurer's true body. Thou must also pierce the Conjurer's flesh with the 8 spears of "Void," "Darkness," "Gloom," "Despair," "Temptation," "Source," "Watchfulness," and "Chaos." Do so and the Conjurer's unholy flesh will become that which it once was, by the grace of our Lord."
Void...Victim 12...Peter Wolls.
Darkness...Victim 13...Sharon Blake.
Gloom...Victim 14...Toby Archiboldt.
Despair...Victim 15...Joseph Schreiber.
Temptation...Victim 16...Cynthia Velasquez.
Source...Victim 17...Jasper Gein.
Watchfulness...Victim 18...Andrew DeSalvo.
Chaos...Victim 19...Richard Braintree.
Each of the themes that were the centerpiece for the twelfth through the nineteenth murders. Each spear represented a victim of Walter Sullivan, and by piercing them into the body of the Conjurer of the twisted otherworld, Walter Sullivan, one could return Walter's immortal form to that of a normal man. Henry followed the Crimson Tome, piercing the true body of Walter buried deep in his apartment with the 8 spears. When Walter's mortal body appeared, it was a race to victory, with Eileen's life at stake...and Henry's own mortal soul, as well as the souls of Walter's other 18 victims. Henry dealt the final blow to Walter, sparing his and Eileen's life and shattering Sullivan's illusion world mere seconds before he and Eileen would have joined the other victims.
The apartment once again opened, allowing Henry passage to the real world (or at least, the one he believed to be real) once more. The next day he visited Eileen at the hospital, thinking everything was okay...
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CHAPTER 1
Mother
"I never wanted to ever bring you down
All that I need are some simple loving words"
--SH4, "Your Rain"
Henry closed the door behind him, trying to hide the boquet of flowers in his left hand, hiding it behind his back and blushing softly. He stepped toward Eileen's bed, grinning sheepishly. When he realized Eileen was trying to see what it was he was holding, he extended the hand with the flowers in it.
"Aww," Eileen said, taking the bouqet and clutching it tightly. She looked up at Henry, gazing into his eyes. It had been a long journey, but they had both come out on top...and they were going to make the best of it. Henry gazed back with similar admiration. "Guess we can finally go back home, huh?"
"Yeah," Henry nodded, although he was quite reluctant to do so. It was easier for Eileen to say that because her apartment had not been severely haunted by the strange otherworld created by Walter--she could not possibly know the emotions that crippled his heart at the mere thought of returning. However, he was not going to make a mountain out of a molehill; now that Walter was gone, living in his apartment fearlessly would become a task very similar to that of a child overcoming his fear of the monster under the bed; it would take a long, long time, but it was possible.
"--ome today," Eileen said, looking out the window.
"What?" Henry asked, jolted out of his train of thought.
"I said, the doctor said I can go home today." Eileen's head shifted on her neck, and her eyes met Henry's. "You okay, Henry?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," Henry assured her, massaging his temples. He felt the onset of another strong headache; he was getting them all the time now. They weren't as bad as the ghost-induced migraines of the otherworld, but they were unpleasant just the same. "Just a headache."
"Another one?" Eileen asked, although she didn't really sound interested. Henry didn't answer her.
Much later, when it was far too late, Henry would look back on that moment and think, why didn't I see it then? Why didn't I think anything about it? He would come to blame this simple misinterpretation for much of what was to come.
Henry left Eileen to go get her things from the office downstairs, and then they left together, headed back for South Ashfield Heights. It had been a long two days, and Henry longed to be able to once again watch television and listen to the radio, if for no other reason than to prove to himself that his apartment was no longer haunted. He offered to drive the two blocks to the apartments, but Eileen suggested that they walk. Henry agreed, thinking that he would just walk back to the hospital later and pick his car up. The parking lot cops wouldn't like that, but he didn't think they'd lose a night of sleep over it. He could come back and pick it up in the morning.
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Henry opened the door of Room 302 of South Ashfield Heights with his eyes squeezed shut, honestly expecting to see blood, rust, and mesh covering the walls and floors. He couldn't bring himself to open his eyes for almost ten seconds. When he did, he did it quickly.
No blood. No rust. No mesh.
Better yet, no ghosts sticking out of the walls.
Things were good. With a short sigh of relief, Henry kicked off his slippers and tossed his coat on the counter dividing the kitchen and the living room, trudging over to the couch and dropping onto it. The couch made a satisfying fwoff as he leaned his head back, soaking it into the cushions like liquid Henry. He closed his eyes for a second...and suddenly, something didn't seem right.
He jerked his eyes wide open.
Nothing.
Everything was still normal. Everything still in its place. No ghosts, no blood, no nothing. Just good ol' bachelor lifestyle, in its truest form. He closed his eyes again, but more slowly, still not entirely sure that his room would stay the same.
Minutes passed, and Henry felt the urge to get up and move. He stood up, stretching his neck far back and cracking his knuckles. As he crossed the room into the kitchenette, his socks kicked up static electricity like sand on a beach, so when he put his hand around the door to the fridge, static shock caught him by surprise. He twitched, falling backward and narrowly avoiding a nasty fall by catching himself on the edge of the counter with his free hand. As he did so he let fly a short, girlish scream. Then he realized what had just happened, and he couldn't help but laugh at himself. "Just static," he said, shaking his head and sighing vocally, and opened the fridge.
There was a dead cat in the fridge.
Henry's heart stopped for a second, and he recoiled hard. This time he did fall, slamming his ass into the hard linoleum floor so hard that he cried out. Later he would think that he might have bruised his tailbone.
When he fell, the door handle flew out of his hand and the fridge door flew wide open. Henry didn't want to look, but he forced himself to, wanting to be sure, wanting it to not be true, but...
But it wasn't a dead cat.
It was a pound of roast beef. Henry remembered buying it at the grocery store last night.
This time he laughed hard and loud, cursing his own paranoia.Yeah, he had definitely been right earlier, thinking that it would be awhile before he got used to this. He rose to his feet, rubbing his sore tailbone with the ball of his right hand, and shut the door. Suddenly, he didn't have an appetite.
Leaving the kitchen, he went around the counter, stopping at the foot of the hallway. His bedroom was just down the hall; he could see the door from here. All he had to do was go down there, place his hand on the knob, turn and push, and he'd be home free...
Except he wouldn't be home free. He wouldn't feel home at all until he'd spent a great deal of time away from this room. It was really getting to him. He cast a cursory glance to the right, at the front door to the apartment. That seemed more like home, more than any other door in this room. He suddenly recalled the way it had looked, all chained up with no way to open it. He pictured the short note, written in red ink and personalized by Walter, as it had been written across the stained wood beneath the peephole. He remembered once looking through that peephole during that terrible twelve-hour period, and seeing himself staring back through, blood dripping from one corner of his mouth, head lolled back on his shoulders like an epileptic during a fit. He remembered that feeling of being watched, of knowing that the thing on the other side could see you, even when you didn't stand in front of the door...remembered the feeling that his only consolation was that it could see him but couldn't reach him. In his apartment, weapons had seemed to have no effect on the monsters. Weapons only worked in the world on the other side of the hole, and not even always there...the ghosts could not be killed.
And to think he had almost been one. A shiver raced down his spine.
He approached the front door, knowing all to well that it would transform before his eyes, chains appearing in a cross-shaped grid to prevent access from the inside or the outside, effectively locking him inside of this living coffin. Because it was alive, wasn't it? That was how it could--
Henry could not, would not, think about it any more. He clasped the knob in his hand, turned it slowly, waiting for it to halt beneath his grip, waiting for that firm refusal...waiting for his sentence.
It never came. The knob turned and the door opened when he pulled on it. He burst forth into the hallway, already seeing the burnt flesh coating the walls, the squiggling worm-things, the creatures, the mesh...
Except there was nothing. No things. No mesh. No flesh. I do not want green eggs and ham, I do not want them, Sam I am.
Oh, God. He was losing it. "Get a grip on yourself." He felt like he was going to start to cry just out of sheer nerves. He couldn't live like this, not forever. He had to get out of South Ashfield Heights, as far away from room 302 as possible. Nothing could make him go back in there, nothing, you could set your watch and warrant on that, you could take that to the bank--
Watch and warrant? When had he ever said that before?
Oh, no. He wasn't going crazy here, not now, not after surviving that mess. Never. He realized he was crying softly. wiping tears away with his sleeves, he dashed down the hall to room 303. Knocked on the door three times rapidly. Expecting no answer. Getting one instead.
"Henry?" Eileen, half asleep already, and it was only five o'clock p.m. "Henry, oh my God, what's wrong?"
"Eileen, I..." he leaned against the door, covering his eyes with his sleeve, not wanting to be seen like he was but unable to help it. "I can't do this. I can't live here anymore."
"Oh, come on Henry, that's not true--" She tried to approach him, but he knocked her back.
"Yes it is," he cried out, taking the hand from his face. "I can't, Eileen. It's just that simple; I can't. My room...those monsters...the ghosts...Walter...the cat...pictures...I feel like I'm going crazy." He placed one hand on the side of the threshold. "I'm not going crazy, Eileen. I won't do it, not after all that. I just won't."
"Henry..." Eileen gazed at him sympathetically. It would be exaggeration for her to say that she knew how he felt, but it would be just as much for him to say she had no idea how he felt. They had both been through Hell...but it seemed that, in cushioning the blow to her, Henry had done more damage to himself than he could handle. Eileen couldn't even remember parts of her time with him; just large, grey areas, blank memories. She doubted Henry had that luxury.
"Henry, calm down. You're tired."
"I'm not tired," he said with certainty, and that was the end of that.
"You're not feeling well, that's certain," she insisted, and to that Henry could nod. "Why don't you come inside for a bit?"
Henry sighed, looking over her shoulder. Eileen wasn't entirely sure, but it seemed that he was checking for monsters.
Henry knew that was exactly what he was doing. It had been over twenty years since he had asked his own father to check his room for monsters...but here he was, a grown man, and checking under every cushion and in every dark corner for monsters.
Of course, most children believed that monsters were real. Most grown men knew they weren't. Henry, however, knew otherwise. And it wasn't just the monsters that scared him--he could kill the monsters without a second thought; he marveled that he had become such a violent, self-preserving person in such a short time. Amazing how extreme situations changed people.
He nodded and came inside, reluctant yet willing at the same time. He wanted to come in; here there was company, a kindred spirit, someone--probably the only person in the world--who could and would listen to his psychotic rambling without thinking a word of it insane. Here there was help in case something did happen. Henry sat on the couch and clutched his forehead with one hand, his fingers forming a visor over his eyes. Get it together, man, he thought to himself. This is not how you should be acting in front of Eileen.
No, that was his image talking; He had swallowed his emotion done what had needed to be done when it'd been necessary. Now it was his turn to be scared, it was his turn to be afraid, to be uncertain, to not know what to do next. As he thought these things, he felt Eileen's hand slip around his shoulder.
"Why don't you tell me what happened, Henry?"
At first he was reluctant, but then he shrugged and began. "It's just that room, Eileen...there's something wrong with it. Before, when I didn't know that, it was one thing. But now, it's like I can still feel the residue from Walter's world caked in the corners, or something. It's like there's something underneath the surface, just waiting for a chance to get back at me. It's just like that book I read in high school."
"You mean the one by that guy from Portland?"
"Yeah. I think it was called The Town with Ten Faces. It was a documentary on Silent Hill. When I read it back then for my English Lit class, I just thought of it as a kind of joke...but now...now it's like I'm the guy from that book. Every time I look at that room, I just want to run out, and never go back. It's almost like it's alive, like some kind of mouth, like I'm just walking into the jowls of some kind of monster." He blinked twice, to dry his eyes, then wiped the dry tears from them with his sleeve. "The way I feel about that room...it's just like the way that guy talked about Silent Hill."
"Don't think about it so much," Eileen said. "That's all over with now. You can just go back to your room, take a nap, maybe watch some TV, try to get reacquainted with the way things used to be--"
"Eileen, no," Henry said curtly. "I'm not staying here any longer." He stood up. "Maybe you can, if you want, but I plan to move out of here and go as far away as I can get. Maybe I can find a place in California...or Japan. My pen-pal Suguru might take me in for awhile, and there's nothing more pleasing to me than the idea of putting the molten core of an entire planet in between me and that apartment."
Yet some part of him knew that if the apartment wanted him, it would probably go to a thousand times that length to have him. But it was a comforting thing to say, just the same.
"I didn't mean to get you excited," Eileen said, trying to come off as soothing. "I just remembered reading about that in a book somewhere, about how if you're so afraid of something, you can overexpose yourself to it and you'll get over it. Something about the body producing limited amounts of adrenaline when you're scared."
Henry didn't respond.
"If it's getting to you this much...have you at least thought about seeing a psychiatrist about it?"
"No," Henry said. "Even if I found someone who did believe me, he would probably be just as disturbed, himself. Or herself." He turned to her. "Honestly...would it be reasonable for me to expect someone to believe me?"
Eileen sighed. She was running out of things to say. "Henry, do you want to stay here for the night? You can sleep in my bed, and I can take my old matress and use it. It's still usable." But already Henry was shaking his head.
"I hate this," he said, his eyes dark and his voice dead. "I hate being like this. I don't know what happened...it's like, before, it hadn't quite clicked yet. Before, when all that stuff was actually going on, I didn't really believe it. I didn't believe my eyes. But now...now, it's like it's finally hitting home. That stuff was real. Those people are dead. Richard'sdead."
"I know the feeling," Eileen said, and sat him back down. "You were like a blank in that place, Henry. You put away your fears because you had to. That's what makes me so proud of you. I couldn't do that...I just whined like a scared little kid. You stood up for both of us and took care of business, while I could barely keep up with you. All the way until the end, you did that."
Henry relaxed a bit at her words, but did not look at her. "Maybe," he acknowledged. But it might have been for the worse.
"I mean, I admire you for doing that," Eileen said. "It's a talent I don't have. I don't think there are a lot of people in the world who would be able to adapt to a situation like that."
No answer.
"You sure you don't want to stay here for tonight?" She paused, waiting for a response. "I don't mind, really...I mean, if you want to."
Henry, in a better mood now than when he had come in two minutes ago, said, "I don't know...I guess I could, just for tonight, if I'm not imposing. But just for tonight. Just until I've had a chance to settle back in."
"Sure," Eileen said, and went to get the mattress from her hall closet and set it up in the extra bedroom. Henry only went back to room 302 once that evening.
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That night, Henry tossed and turned in Eileen's spare matress, unable to sleep. It wasn't this bad when he wasn't actually in 302, but he was still made mildly uncomfortable by the fact that there was still a small hole leading into his room from Eileen's bedroom. He wondered if the evil in that room could somehow seep into 303 and take over the clean air, replacing it with dirty, heavy air...evil air. Bad air. He thought not, but it was possible. Hell, anything was possible in 302. He rolled over in the large matress, staring at the faint pink-tinged-with-red wallpaper, trying without much luck to push the thought from his mind.
He heard movement in the next room. After what seemed like forever, the knob attached to the door on the other side of the room turned. He figured it was Eileen, but some paranoid part of his subconscious was expecting it to be Walter himself, come back for revenge. That's got to be nerves, Henry thought. I don't think I've ever felt this...this jumpy....ever before. Not even that time when I was--
The door opened...
...and Eileen peeked in, trying not to let the door creak as she held it slightly open. "Henry?" she whispered. "Are you still awake?"
"Yeah," he said. "I'm awake. Why?"
Eileen said nothing, just crept across the small room on her tiptoes. Now, he could see, she had on a purple see-through nightshirt, and nothing else. "I was just wondering if you were okay in here?"
Henry nodded, hoping she couldn't see the way his eyes scanned her average-sized breasts through the shirt. It was dark, after all...but fortunately not dark enough to hide her figure from him. He knew it wasn't polite to stare...but for some odd reason he felt compelled. As if his mind were trying to urge him to do things that he would not normally do, just because he wouldn't normally do them. He wondered--if that experience in Room 302 had changed him...what had it changed him into?
"I'm fine," he said at last, in a tense whisper.
"Okay," she whispered, and knelt down beside his head. "If you decide you need me...just let me know."
"Eileen--"
"I know," she interrupted, and popped the top button off of the nightshirt. It fell apart, allowing him a clear view of the cleavage between her breasts. She didn't have to open her mouth to speak; it was as if going through that world had given them a unique connection of sorts, as if it had linked their minds in some strange and fundamental way.
Henry wondered if she could see him, but then he saw her smile and nod, and he knew she could. She had seen him looking, then. He nodded, too, and she started on the next two buttons.
She whispered his name, undoing the last button, and the nightshirt dropped to the floor like a shed skin. Henry could now see her entire nude form, and it was perfect in every way...at least, Henry thought so. She pulled the blankets off of the bed with graceful ease and climbed onto Henry.
Fourty-five minutes later, the two of them fell asleep in a complex embrace. Just before drifting off, Henry made himself a promise: That he would never come running to Eileen--or anyone--like this again. That he would be strong, and not allow his emotions to get the best of him again.
Henry thought to himself that maybe, just maybe, things would turn out okay after all.
END OF CHAPTER 1
