When the nurse had entered with the local newspaper, whispering "Ms. Gavin, I'm sorry," she knew.
The day's headlines read:
SOUTH ASHFIELD SLAUGHTER
The latest victim in the string of Sullivan copycat murders has finally been identified. Through extensive DNA analysis, police have confirmed that the mutilated corpse found in Room 302 of South Ashfield Heights Apartment Complex is in fact resident Henry Townshend (23) of—
She didn't get through the rest of the article. The nurse stepped closer as she crushed the paper to her chest, about to remind her of her healing arm, but stepped away when Eileen let out a deep sob.
The tears didn't stop, even after she had quieted down and the nurse had left her. The newspaper was wet with them.
"It's all my fault," she croaked, to no one but herself.
"No, it's not," Henry whispered.
But Eileen couldn't hear him.
Walter Sullivan was dead.
Well and truly dead. Not between worlds or reanimated or in whatever creepy death cult magic state he'd been in before. Henry had witnessed it. Hell, he even had a hand in it. It was over.
At the time, he had never been so angry in his life. Hatred had burned through him; for the fate of the victims, for his corrupted apartment, and for hurting the only friend he had in this rust colored hell. He had loaded a clip into his pistol, and aimed it at Sullivan's chest without a second thought.
There was a battle. It was bloody, and long, but Henry (God bless his bookish nature) had taken the time to read up on the eleventh sacrament, and knew of his weaknesses. It was looking like he might have a chance of putting the monster out of his misery.
And then he saw Eileen.
She was walking, mistified, into a death trap. He had paused, horrified, and taken it in, giving Walter the time to get back up from his latest knockback. When Henry looked back at his opponent, Walter was sporting a smile.
In that single moment, Henry made a choice. He chose life.
Her life.
Walter Sullivan was dead. Eileen was alive. And Henry Townshend had given it his all.
Or so he thought.
The new apartment was nice, she supposed. Then again, when compared to her previous living space, anything seemed better.
It was simple, devoid of character, and lonely. Eileen thought about decorating more, but in the end she never got around to it.
Her neighbors were nice enough. The elderly couple with the Pekinese made her a plate of brownies on her move in day. The 20 something bachelor across the hall welcomed her warmly, and offered to help carry her boxes in. The single mother two doors down dragged her kids over to introduce themselves to the new resident.
The other occupants of the apartment complex were friendly, respectable sort of people.
On the first night, Eileen just sat listening to the silence, waiting for the noise of 107's signature boombox, followed by Richard's thundering footsteps and fighting in the distance.
Neither of them came, and the silence was killing her.
She tossed and turned, and he could do nothing.
Henry, having nowhere else to go, had picked up the habit of following Eileen around. He watched her during the day, following her around town, and to work. He watched her scrape by a shift, wander around to bars or nightclubs, then return home alone. At night he sat on her couch, thinking about what could have been, and what had happened in the past, waiting for her to wake up. Henry kept his distance after hours. It was only polite (he was a spirit, not a stalker).
Tonight's musing in Eileen's living room had been interrupted by noises coming from her bedroom. Henry had stopped and listened, moving closer to her door. He cursed his inability to speak when he realized the noises were sobs.
He tried to knock. His hand went through the door.
On a whim, he floated through it.
Eileen lay in bed, weeping quietly into her pillow. Although he couldn't feel pain anymore, Henry felt his chest constrict.
Unable to provide comfort of any sort, Henry sat on the edge of her bed, gazing down at Eileen wistfully.
"I'm s-sorry," Eileen whined into her pillow. She sniffled, and Henry could see her eyes were red from crying. "I'm sorry Henry."
"Don't be," Henry whispered. He couldn't stop himself from reaching out to her.
His fingers sunk into her shoulder on contact. Eileen shivered, and pulled the covers in closer. Henry retracted his hand quickly. He wasn't sure what he was capable of.
Even after she cried herself into exhaustion, Henry stayed by her side.
Eileen knew she was depressed, but she didn't seek help. She couldn't, not after everything that had happened.
Survivor's guilt, is what the doctors had predicted she might feel. And oh did she feel it now.
But there was no way of talking to someone without explaining the Otherworld, and that would only lead to a diagnosis of her being absolutely mental.
All she knew was that the wine in her fridge never lasted long, and the photo from last year's South Ashfield Heights Floor 3 Christmas Party never collected dust, since it was handled so much.
Henry was slowly learning the extent of his abilities, and pushing the boundaries of them.
Floating through things came naturally, and was nearly unavoidable. Only through near desperation, and desire for some sense of normality did Henry find out that he could, through intense mental focus, pick up objects for a short time, or possess them like a poltergeist.
Of course, he'd found that out by trying to pick up something on Eileen's counter, and had somehow managed to knock a china plate off the edge. The shattering noise almost gave Eileen a heart attack. He was really glad she wasn't able to see him at that moment.
There was also another...side effect. Henry had discovered it during his first hours as a phantom, when he first realized what state he was in. When he thought back to what had happened, he saw flashes of Walter, with his sick grin and bloodied blue coat. He remembered Walter laughing and he was just so fucking pissed, he saw red. Followed by black. He couldn't see a damn thing but he knew he was shaking in anger and there was static in his ears and goddamn you Walter Sullivan.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to scream and kick and cry. How dare he kill all those people, how dare he try to kill Eileen.
He thought of her and the static stopped. He tried to blink, to clear his thoughts, but all he could see was blackness. He brought up a hand to touch his eyelids, and found nothing there.
Henry slid a shaking hand down his face, still unable to see, stopping when he felt something wet and jagged. Lines. With a finger, he traced along the carvings in his neck. 21121.
Henry paused, completely numb. The Receiver of Wisdom. The 21st Sacrament. Only, Walter was dead, wasn't he? And the 20th was still alive.
His contemplation cooled the fire in his veins. As Henry pondered his final moments, his vision slowly returned. When he felt his neck again, it was whole, and his white button up showed no signs of bloodstains.
He shivered, feeling the last bits of whatever dark power he had inadvertently called upon slip away, along with his anger. He resolved to not venture down that path again.
Since that first night, he'd been trying small things, like picking up objects, with some success. And he hadn't become a wraith again, so that was looking positive.
He had to get through to her somehow. That much was certain. Henry was determined to find some way to break through the spectral barrier that kept him from the living. Little by little, he could feel it giving way.
He hoped it was enough.
This was it. She'd finally cracked.
She kept seeing him. Everywhere.
She'd be walking to the corner store and see someone with brunet fringe, but when she looked they'd be a stranger. She'd catch a glimpse of that funny off white, just like his shirt, but when she turned fast, no one was there. God, she could see him in her dreams.
Eileen wasn't sure what kind of fresh hell she was in, but it was beyond survivor's guilt.
Everything seemed to set her off. Her few remaining friendships were falling apart, their shoulder to cry on limits having been reached. A plate had fallen in her kitchen the other day, and she'd sobbed about it for an hour. She'd called the local shrink and set up a string of appointments after.
He wasn't coming back.
All Eileen could think about was how little she really knew about her quiet ex-neighbor. If only she'd known, Christ, she would have said more than a hello at the mailbox, and Merry Christmas around the holidays, and knocking on the door because "I'm having some friends over in a bit, let me know if we're being too loud!" (To which he always smiled and nodded and never made a single complaint.)
If only.
Henry wasn't known for being emotional. Even now, when no one could see him, he was as quiet and civil as always. As he struggled to communicate with Eileen, however, he soon found himself pushing his limits.
"Eileen," he said aloud. Eileen was busy in her kitchen, in one of her better moods. Henry had followed her on her trip to the market, where she bought ingredients to make cookies for the kids down the hall. He was sitting at her counter, watching as she greased the cookie sheet and stirred the dough.
"Hey," he croaked, a little louder. "Eileen."
Eileen hummed as she stirred the chocolate chips in.
The medication didn't help.
At the next appointment with the doctor, she told him everything. He listened patiently with a sympathetic expression. He patted her hand when the tears started making her mascara run, and waited patiently while she hacked and sputtered from the phlegm running down her throat.
He had that seemingly unfazed smile while she told him about her visions, but she caught the way his lips tightened slightly when she spoke of all the times she thought she saw him somewhere.
"I'm crazy," she laughed, voice raw and rasping from her throat trying to close. "I'm going crazy."
The psychiatrist told her a millions lies, wrote out a slip with another 10 milligrams added, and sent her off with another meeting in two weeks.
She threw the prescription down a storm drain on her way back to her apartment.
For the third time in his life, Henry was uncontrollably angry.
Why couldn't she hear him? Why couldn't she see him?
He knew the answer, but it didn't stop him from wanting to tear his hair out.
He clawed at his head, glaring at her. Eileen sat on her couch, despondent. She'd been staring at the floor for half an hour, while Henry paced around her.
He excused himself to her bathroom for privacy. (Not that it mattered, she couldn't fucking see him and he went right through the door.) God he just wanted to let her know. He was here.
He was here.
Whatever he'd done the day after he died, he could feel it sliding back.
White noise in the background. Why did he have to die?
Slits on his throat opening. Why doesn't she know?
Something vibrating in his very being. Why don't they help her? Why won't they?
Every atom, every molecule, fighting something. Why, why, WHY?
He looked into her mirror. At first there was nothing. Then slowly, his reflection appeared.
His eyes were bleeding.
He threw a haymaker with an inhuman scream as his world ran red, then faded to black.
Eileen gasped. Eyes wide, she ran to her bedroom and grabbed the perpetual can of mace she kept in her handbag. She approached her bathroom, heart pounding.
She'd heard something. She knew it. She wasn't crazy, but she was in danger.
Composing herself, she threw open the door and brandished the can in front of her.
There was no one there.
She looked around, lowering the can, bewildered. She raised it again when she noticed the shower curtain was closed. In an anti-climatic moment, shifting the curtain revealed nothing.
She laughed. Great, now she was crazy and paranoid. She turned around to leave when―
―the mirror.
It was shattered, cracked outwards from a point of impact somewhere around the middle.
She thought she saw red near that point. She leaned in closer to see.
The red was on his face. Dripping down from empty sockets. He was reflected back a million times. He was right behind her.
She screamed.
Eileen's scream had shaken him from whatever...thing he managed to make of himself. His vision had quickly returned, and his concern for Eileen had overrode any desire to check on his own well being.
She had collapsed to the floor, shaking and sobbing, the can of mace rolling out of her fingers. He tried to throw his arms around her, desperate to comfort her, but it made her shake even worse, and run her hands over her arms.
God, she was even beautiful when she cried.
He had heard of ghosts being capable of possession. Henry had reluctantly tried it before, and found that he was capable of influence on a minor level. Bringing all of the comforting phrases he knew to the forefront of his mind, he reached out to rest a palm on Eileen's cheek.
I'm sorry. Don't cry. You're safe. Breathe.
They stayed like that for what felt like eternity, until Eileen's breathing was no longer sharp and her tears had dried. Her eyes were closed, and her head tilted slightly to the left, as if she was seeking the warmth his hand no longer gave. Henry couldn't help but savor the moment.
When Eileen felt she had finally collected herself, she grabbed the forgotten can of mace and rose to her feet. She turned as if to leave the bathroom, but found herself looking back over her shoulder at the ruined mirror.
She stared at it for a while, waiting for some hostile reaction. When none came, she sighed, shook her head, and left.
That week she bought a Ouija board.
She'd done research on her laptop following the mirror incident. Her doctor had advised against it, but what he didn't know wouldn't kill him. Silent Hill had, after all, made her a believer. Seeing was believing, and Eileen could remember watching Henry pin down phantoms with a blessed sword, and listening to them wail in agony.
Where Eileen had experience, she lacked understanding. A full séance seemed out of her league and summoning ceremonies were too close to home, when she considered it. She wanted nothing to do with what Walter had begun, and figured that the party game she remembered playing drunk in college was effective enough.
Henry waited patiently while Eileen lit the candles. He was nervous, but also found some irony in what he was about to do. Who knew that someone really could push those things around?
It was comforting, in a way, to know that Eileen cared enough to go through with all this. Or maybe he had troubled her enough. For what seemed like the thousandth time now, Henry wished there was an easier way to communicate.
He sat down behind the board in the dark room, criss-crossing his legs and hunching over. Henry watched closely as Eileen positioned the planchette. Her eyes looked so lovely, reflected in the candlelight.
He noted that there was a white candle lying to the side, unlit. A holy candle, Henry noted. Eileen was clever and beautiful.
She took a deep breath, and let it out with an airy laugh, as if she were chiding herself on what she was about to do. She daintily laid her hands upon the planchette, and closed her eyes.
"If there is anyone present, speak now. Are you here with me?"
Henry took that as his cue to nudge the wooden block. His fingers intertwined his hers, and he could see them twitch in discomfort.
Yes.
Eileen let out a small gasp when she opened her eyes to see his response. She paused, taking her hands off the board, likely wondering if she had just moved it to that without any aid. Henry smiled as she considered her next question.
"Are you going to hurt me?" Eileen whispered so quietly, so vulnerably, it pained Henry to hear. She put her hand back on the planchette, and Henry guided her again.
She had probably expected it to land on Yes or No.
He slowly pushed the piece to spell out never.
Eileen sat back, quietly contemplating the word. Henry decided to take his chance, and be forward for once in his now ended life.
Eileen watched, enthralled, as the toy moved on its own.
Hi Eileen.
Eileen kept her eyes on the board, as if it might viciously attack her at any moment, and felt around for the holy candle. Once she had it she gripped it tightly, not yet lighting it, but keeping it for protection.
"It's...Henry, isn't it? Henry, are you here?"
She didn't reach out to touch the cursor, opting to wait for his response.
Yes.
Eileen burst out laughing, in a wave of abandon and relief. Henry laughed too, not that she heard it. He watched as tears ran down her cheeks, and she hiccupped loudly.
Communication became more frequent after the Ouija Board night. Ghost Writing became the norm — Eileen would loosely hold a pen and Henry would guide her hand to form swirled responses.
For the first time in a long while Eileen felt...happy. She knew deep down that everything was still just as FUBAR as it had been before, but life seemed easier with an (albeit invisible) friend.
Eileen kept up her research. She wasn't sure what she was looking for. Henry couldn't be brought back — that was the cold truth she had come to understand. He was somewhere beyond her, but still somewhere close. Eileen wanted to know where that place was.
Spirits were said to haunt places when their lives were "incomplete." Eileen had once asked Henry if he felt like there was anything keeping him there, and he had simply replied, you.
Eileen didn't know what to make of that.
Then there was always the question of the 21 Sacraments.
They were never to be completed. The final victims had died out of order, the "Receiver of Wisdom" before the "Mother Reborn," and the "Assumption" had suffered a second death. One that cost the "Receiver" his life.
The other victims, who Henry and Eileen had met in the outskirts of Silent Hill, were wraiths themselves. They were angry and vicious, still aggrieved over their untimely and brutal deaths. Eileen couldn't blame them, even when Henry had them speared to the filthy floor to keep them from attacking. There was nothing to justify their deaths, besides the beliefs of a crazed man. No, Eileen couldn't blame them.
But Henry—he hadn't been sacrificed. Well, not in the way Walter had wanted. Yet he still became a ghost himself. He wasn't like the others, which was a relief, but there was still no reason as to why he was a spirit.
Unless...the 21 Sacraments had damned him anyway? Eileen had thought it was over, that without Walter there to orchestrate and the ritual in ruins, she would no longer be tied to that nightmare. Now, knowing Henry was still left behind, doubt had begun to creep into the recesses of her mind.
They had been chosen. Henry and her had found papers that mentioned it back in Silent Hill. They had all been chosen to fulfill the purpose given by a madman. The ritual was in tatters, that much was certain, but perhaps, this was their fate regardless?
Eileen keep looking, kept wondering, but her mind only seemed to wander to one conclusion.
Henry had felt happy too. Knowing that his presence was a comfort to her was all he could have ever wanted—but he knew it wasn't enough. He tried his best to be there for her. Eileen couldn't always keep a hand floating over a notepad, but when she took up a pen he made sure to leave her messages for the day.
You're beautiful.
You're so strong.
It's going to be okay.
It hurt, to see her smile or blush for a moment, before her eyes would glaze in a strange distant way.
It hurt more to know that the last message was quite possibly a lie.
Eileen kept researching, which was flattering, but Henry wished she didn't. She kept drawing away from the world, cancelling all her appointments and distancing herself from what few friends she had left.
Henry just wanted her happy. Eileen deserved that and more. If it meant finding someone new, someone that could care for her in the way she needed, then so be it. Henry would be ecstatic. As much as he wanted to be her joy and comfort, he didn't want Eileen to waste her time with someone who was already gone, and had never been much more than a ghost in his days of living.
Eileen toiled on, and Henry wrote her notes. There was peace, for a time.
It was far too short a time, in Henry's opinion.
He just didn't understand. He refused to understand. He was dead, murdered in cold blood, and still was the most considerate person on the face of the earth.
Eileen couldn't help but laugh when she felt icy palms wrap around her hands, tugging them away from her laptop. It was well past the time for sleep, and Henry was trying to let her know to stop.
She looked back at the open page, "The Ghost Hunter's Wiki: Lingering Spirits." Nothing solid, as usual. How could there be? No one else had the concrete proof that she did. No one else had been able to chat with the dead boy next door with such conviction.
She still pressed on in her research. There had to be a way, had to be some way to bring them together.
Henry encouraged her not to, but what did he know? He had died for her. That was something no amount of gratitude could ever repay. Why didn't he understand that? No matter what, she was compelled to find something to fix what had been done.
With every new website poured over, her options seemed fewer and fewer.
Henry was scared. He could remember feeling the same back in Silent Hill, watching Eileen try to help the little boy they'd found. It was rare to find one as empathetic as Eileen, but that didn't stop the unease from sinking into his guts as she approached him.
Eileen wasn't a dangerous person. She just had a habit of wanting to help, no matter the cost. She didn't understand the danger or the severity of the situation, she only wanted to be there for those in need.
It was that drive, that selflessness (and maybe, if Henry's own selfish dreams were true, Eileen's own desires) that compelled her to try to find a way to be with Henry.
The drive was consuming her, and he had nothing else left to sacrifice in her defense.
He thought so highly of her, even now, and Eileen didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Henry had been asking her to stop obsessing, to move on; worried that he'd become her next charity case when his situation was already hopeless.
At first, that was what Henry might have been. Just a lonely soul stuck in the same nightmare as she was, clearly just as lost in the real world as he was in the hellish one. She remembered a time they nearly collided while walking down the hall: she had laughed while he stumbled back and became intrigued by his shoelaces.
Somewhere back in Silent Hill, Henry became more. Something in the way he'd turn to her, still hovering over the battered body of a demented nurse, just to make sure she was okay. Her wellbeing took precedence to the specks of blood on his face, or the wounds he suffered during the attack. She was so important to him, that he became important to her as well. Maybe it was circumstantial, and rushed, but Eileen knew it was as real as ever, even now.
This wasn't pity. It was longing.
Eileen Galvin loved Henry Townshend.
The drawer on the nightstand was never more appealing.
He was watching her watch the bedroom door, so the question threw him off.
"Henry, do you love me?"
He gasped, releasing the air he no longer needed in surprise. But he couldn't lie to her. Not then, not now.
With the pad and pen left on the kitchen table, he traced the letters on her back, left to right. He prayed that his own message would help the far crueler one etched down her spine fade.
Yes.
Eileen shivered at his touch, but smiled. It was a happy smile, but her eyes were focused on the bedroom door, as if recalling happiness of the past.
"Let it stay in the past," he wanted to say. Eileen deserved better. Eileen deserved the present.
(But she was already lost in the past.)
Eileen walked into the bedroom and stopped in front of the nightstand.
Henry wouldn't want this. He was too caring, too sweet. He wanted to be with her too, but there were too many what-if's. He would never agree. What if it didn't go as planned? What if he was left behind? What if the body count lined up, 21121, like sevens on a slot machine, and the jackpot came tumbling out, bloody hearts instead of shiny coins?
Henry would worry, but then Henry always worried.
Eileen needed this.
Eileen needed him.
She was staring at the nightstand, and Henry was at a loss.
"Eileen?" fell from his lips, unheard by her but reinforced with his hands placed on her shoulders. She shivered again, a sign that she felt it.
She smiled at that. The smile was sad, and it pained him to see, but it was quickly replaced by a look of determination.
When she pulled open the drawer, he tried to pull her away.
His arms went right through her.
It was still there. She had received it from the police, once they realized it was never used in the apartment complex. No longer evidence, they had given it to her. It had helped in the beginning, when she couldn't sleep. Just knowing it was there, that it was something Henry had defended her with, helped calm her nerves. When she had found sleep at last, crying herself to it on the bad days, she had forgot that it was stashed away there.
She reached in and pulled out Henry's Colt M1911.
Henry recognized the gun, and remembered when he held it last. Aiming it at the monstrosity in a blue coat, daring him to take another step. Somewhere behind him, Eileen was staggering forward, unconscious of her own actions, and he had fired at Walter without hesitation. Eileen was walking to her own death. Eileen needed to be stopped.
Just as she did now.
He once again gave it his all, as he tried to grip the gun.
Her hands were trapped by another's.
The second she had picked it up, and gripped it as she remembered Henry doing, they materialized and clasped around her own.
She froze, feeling something solid pressing into her back. She could have laughed. Henry was real, if only for a moment. Just pick up a gun and there he is!
If it was real now, how real could it be when she used it?
She lowered the gun, and his hands slid enough so that she could turn around, with his arms still around her.
And there was Henry.
Just as fucked up as she felt.
Just as fucked up as she should have been.
It was red and haze and static but he could make out the picture, and Eileen was looking up at him, and he was holding her close, and it would have been perfect.
It would have been perfect if not for the gun and the gore and the fact that he should have been dead and gone and just another memory.
And—fuck—she smiled and reached up her left hand to touch his cheek and no no no he was red and now she'd be.
Henry was there, close enough to watch the rivets of blood trickle from the lines in his throat and the empty eye sockets. He was breathing heavily, or seemed to be, as his shoulders heaved accompanied by a low gurgle. He was solid, tangible, but just as demented looking as the rest of the nightmares she had of that place.
She reached up and touched his bloodstained cheek, unafraid. This was Henry. Henry loved her. Henry was dead.
Her hand came away red. She look at it a moment, then brought it back down to grip the gun.
"Eileen," he moaned. It sounded like the whisper of reverence she remembered from before when he spoke her name, but forced through mangled vocal chords.
She looked right into the hollows where his blue eyes should have been as she brought the gun back up, aiming it at herself.
"I love you too, Henry."
Eileen was beautiful, even with a gun to her head and tears in her eyes.
Henry hated himself in that moment. She was doing this to be with him. There was no telling what could happen. He knew Eileen believed she would end up the same, be tied down the same, be stuck in limbo with him. There was no telling. There was no conclusions.
Henry hated himself because in that moment, he wanted to be with her just as much, and if it were him in that position he would have already ended it, what-if's be damned.
Eileen deserved far better.
The safety was clicked off and he felt like he died again.
God; they were fucked up, she was beautiful, and he knew he couldn't stop her.
So he put his hands on her shoulders and focused on forming those words.
She was kissing a gun but she wanted it to be Henry.
She closed her eyes, knowing that if she looked at him any longer she might back out.
She heard him cough, and pictured the wet redness oozing down from his lips as he did.
"Love you," he choked, chest rattling with the effort, "Eileen."
With great effort he managed to say what he had wanted to for eternity. He was never more happy than he was now.
Never more scared than he was now.
Eileen smiled, and he smiled back.
She pulled the trigger as they embraced.