Chapter 4: To Silent Hill
They made it out of the apartments without incident, although Henry had one eye on the furniture and potted plants at all times. Once outside, he once again thought dismally about how he had no other option than to go through with this mad quest to meet Walter's mother.
He fully expects us to be attacked there, and that's the place she picks.
It just didn't seem like the normal way to go about it. Presumably she was living somewhere, so why not meet there? And she had managed to dial a random payphone that just happened to be the one her son was walking by? The whole thing seemed rather dubious. That was why Henry still had custody over all the weapons.
He turned in the direction that would lead to the subway and suppressed a sigh. He wished he had a car. He had been planning to get one, but somehow, he never had gotten around to it.
Perhaps Eileen was right about him dwelling on the past too much, although he could hardly stop now, of all times. Still, the past three years had taken quite a toll on his mind, he was beginning to realize. She thought he ought to talk to someone about it, but who? Did she mean herself?
That, he realized even more glumly, was probably something he should have done a long time ago. Talking about the incident might have helped both of them; it occurred to him that for all he avoided the topic so as not to stir up her memories, perhaps she had wanted to talk about it.
"Car rental."
With his train of thought broken, Henry glanced at Walter with a frown. Car rental? Where had that come from?
Before he could ask, Walter was suddenly crossing the street.
Henry got over his surprise and ran after him. "Where are you going?"
"This way."
"Clearly. But the subway's that way."
"And the car rental place is this way."
"Since when are we renting a car?"
"Since I realized the other option was the subway."
"I would rather not rent a car."
"And I'm definitely not going in that subway."
Henry gritted his teeth. "What's wrong with the subway?"
"Don't you have nightmares?"
"What do my nightmares have to do with anything?"
Walter stopped suddenly, in the middle of the road. "I first met Cynthia Velasquez in the subway station. Cynthia Velasquez was killed in the subway station."
Henry noticed the curious phrasing of that and wondered if there was anything to it, and then he brought his mind back to the most immediate matter at hand, which was that yes, he did have nightmares about that, now that he thought about it, and there was no way he was going near the subway with Walter Sullivan.
"Car rental place," he agreed.
They attracted quite a bit of attention as they walked through the streets of South Ashfield. From the whispers he overheard, he found out that the spade handle sticking out of his backpack was drawing people's eyes, and that once they dismissed the man with the spade and looked at his companion, they began to ask one another why that face seemed familiar.
"Great," he muttered. "Someone's going to drag out at thirteen-year-old wanted poster, and we'll be tied up for hours."
"They can't arrest someone for looking like a dead man! You, on the other hand, are carrying around a small arsenal."
However, they made it to the car rental building without incident, and once inside, Henry nervously made his way over to the man waiting. His nametag cheerfully announced that his name was Rich and he would be happy to help you.
"Good morning!" he greeted them, beaming.
"Err, good morning."
"May I help you gentlemen?"
"Rich," Walter commented. "I knew a man named Richard once."
Rich glanced between them uncertainly. "Err…you did? Was he a friend of yours?"
Henry cleared his throat and tried to divert what looked like a disaster in the making. "We'd like to rent a car for the day."
"No, he wasn't," Walter answered. "He hated me. He always yelled at me. There were times I thought he was going to kill me."
"Oh, how terrible."
"It didn't end well."
"What happened?"
Henry raised his voice in an attempt to bring at least Rich's attention back to business, and hopefully drown out Walter. "Do you perhaps know where I can get a map, as well? I'm not sure I know the way to Silent Hill after all this time."
"—and so I killed him, actually—"
"And maybe we could get some additional medical supplies, because I've heard some pretty bad things about Silent Hill lately!"
"—number of amps, but it sure got the job—"
Henry gave up and kicked Walter instead. He stopped talking and glanced at the floor, looking faintly ashamed.
Rich looked like he was going to pass out.
Henry laughed nervously. "He, ah, doesn't get out much…doesn't know how to deal with people…please, um, ignore everything that he just said…"
Miraculously, instead of calling the police, Rich let him rent a car, sold him a pile of maps to and of Silent Hill, and directed him to the nearest drugstore for additional medical supplies. He also moved the furniture in front of the door once they had walked out.
"When we go into that drugstore, don't say anything. If someone asks you something, let me answer."
"Henry, I honestly didn't mean to do that; I mean, I feel really guilty about what I did to Braintree and all the other people."
"Just don't say anything."
They made it in and out of the drugstore safely, although the saleswoman commented on Henry's spade, and then they took a look at the car they had rented. It was small, blue, and looked as though it wanted to fall apart.
Henry looked at it, and looked back at the building. If Rich was still inside, it was impossible to tell, due to the amount of furniture blocking the doors and windows. He groaned.
"He's probably hoping it'll blow up on the way," he grumbled.
"Why would he do that?" Walter looked puzzled. "He seemed like a nice man."
"Just get in the car, Mr. Electric-Chair!"
Henry threw his backpack, spade and all, in the back seat. He ducked quickly as the second backpack followed, flying past where his head had been. He gave Walter a suspicious look, but he was getting into the passenger side as though nothing had happened. Maybe nothing had. Maybe he was just paranoid.
Paranoid with good reason—it's Sullivan, after all!
Resisting the urge to grumble, because grumbling was as atypical for him as yelling, which he had done enough of already, Henry got in and started the car with the keys Rich had given him. The noise the engine made as it started up was not promising. He shifted it into drive and pressed tentatively on the gas pedal. At first nothing happened, and then the car lurched into motion. By the time they made it onto the street, it had made sounds he had never heard from a car before.
"Well," Walter commented, "it certainly wouldn't do to have a working vehicle that could help us escape Silent Hill, now would it?"
Henry ignored him. He was afraid to take his concentration away from the car. Getting out of Ashfield was nerve-wracking, but the car settled down once it was on the open road. It still seemed shaky, but not quite as dangerous.
It'll be a nice, safe ride to Silent Hill with Walter Sullivan.
The worrying thing was that he was starting to feel calm about the situation. He hadn't had much choice but to accept it, now. They were on their way.
The monotony of the ride was broken by Walter opening all of the windows, after which he turned on the radio. He then began fiddling with all of the other knobs and dials on the dashboard.
Just ignore it, Henry encouraged himself. At least it's something harmless.
The radio wasn't even playing music. It was a news broadcast that was more static than news. It seemed designed to drive the listener insane.
Ignore it…ignore it…
The windshield wipers began going at their highest speed.
"Stop that!"
Walter turned everything off that he had turned on and gave him that unreassuringly creepy smile again. Henry responded with a stony look.
I'll bet half of those blasted hauntings he inflicted my apartment with were just because he was bored!
The landscape was average, and there were very few other cars on the road. He soon began to realize that if he had been driving by himself, it would have been an entirely uneventful trip. As it was, however…
He noticed his companion turn around and reach into the back seat to dig through one of the bags.
"What are you doing?"
"I was going to clean the handgun."
"The handgun is working perfectly fine as it is." After a moment in which he realized Walter wasn't going to listen to him, he reached over and took the handgun. He put it next to him and resumed driving.
A while later, he had to take the revolver as well. The stun gun followed, and although he felt a little silly for taking the bug spray away, he soon had that by him, too.
"I'm trying to be helpful," Walter insisted.
Henry decided not to comment.
After noticing him helpfully examining the knife, however, he felt he had to say something. "Just stop."
"You don't trust me."
"You are entirely correct."
That was the end of the conversation, and the pickaxe and the spade remained safely in the bag. Complete silence took over for the remaining hours, which was almost as bothersome as everything else that had happened. There were, it seemed, individuals who could make silence feel horrifying sinister, and Walter was one of them.
At least he wasn't smiling constantly. As far as Henry could remember, Sullivan had never stopped smiling when he was on his murdering spree. This new range of emotions could actually be a good sign.
The fog-shrouded sign reading Welcome to Silent Hill took all thoughts of good anythings out of his mind.
Right on cue, the car shook and shuddered to a stop. No amount of pressing on the gas pedal could do anything to change its mind. It didn't even have the decency to make a noise. The car, apparently, did not want the town to know it even existed.
Henry put his head in his hands. It had taken nearly half the day to get there, and the chances of getting out again didn't look good.
"It always works like this," Walter said. "Don't you read horror novels?"
He didn't even know what to say to that.
"Well, let's go. Mother's waiting."
Henry got out and retrieved the two backpacks from the backseat. He packed the weapons away again, except for the handgun, which he kept out. Slinging the backpack across his shoulders again, he reluctantly handed the other one to Walter.
"Don't I get a weapon?"
"No." It was bad enough that he had come with him to an apparently abandoned town. Arming him would be unbelievably stupid.
Walter nodded, but Henry noticed him clench his fist.
Oh dear. This is going to get very bad, isn't it?
Trying to ignore his misgivings, he tightened his grip on the handgun and joined him in walking forward, into the foggy town of Silent Hill.
