I.
It was the second time today that Eileen felt like she was being watched.
She kept imagining a leering pervert with binoculars spying on her from across the way. But every time she looked outside, Eileen wasn't able to find anyone doing any such thing. Still, she had closed her drapes after the first time. Now, the same eerie feeling had crept over her again, but this time, it didn't make any sense.
There was no other place that someone could be watching her from. Eileen then imagined a psychotic maniac who had drilled a hole in the wall and was watching her at will. Eileen shook her head and pushed back from her desk. Her imagination was getting the best of her yet again.
Her mother and father had always enjoyed her vivid stories and make-believe fantasies, but they always reminded her to keep it under control. And that she didn't get to wound up in a fantasy world. Though her stories eventually tapered off and she calmed down, her imagination never stopped working. If anything, it got more lively and vivid, which is why the thought of a watcher lurking behind the walls was frightening. And which is why the noises next door scared her to death.
The noises were strange enough as it was without her added images of what was causing the noises. They weren't distinct crashes or bumps. In all honesty, Eileen couldn't really describe the noises at all. They were simply there, changing in intensity every so often.
So on top of weird noises, Eileen had a stalker. Great.
The rapping at her door jarred Eileen out of her thoughts. When she answered the door, she was surprised to see the girl from earlier. She was with two guys and had something to do with Henry. All three of them were postured behind Frank Sunderland as he tried the door. Eileen realized her first impression of Heather was far from correct. Up close, Heather didn't seem as dangerous as Eileen had first thought.
Eileen smiled nervously. "You're Henry's friend, aren't you?" Eileen knew that she was making a leap at assuming Heather was actually friends with Henry, but when the girl didn't argue, she relaxed.
Heather replied, "I know it's kind of weird for me to stop by like this, but I wanted to talk to you about Henry."
Eileen stepped aside cordially, motioning for Heather to enter the apartment. As Heather stepped through the doorway, a fresh smell of lilacs swept around her. A tall bouquet sat in the corner on an end table, in between a couch and loveseat.
At first glance, Heather was impressed with the apartment. Heather thought that Eileen had a keen sense of style, choosing more modern furniture designs, which incorporated sharper edges, solid pastel colors, and earthy materials like iron and dark wood. Even the paintings on the wall were artsy, nondescript splashes of paint and shapes. Heather was convinced that when she got her own place, this is want it would look like.
"You've got an awesome place," Heather complimented.
"Thanks. Do you want something to drink? I've got water, iced tea, lemonade, and some orange juice," Eileen offered.
At first, Heather wasn't sure she wanted to partake of anything that might be tainted with Silent Hill cooties. It sounded immature, she was well aware, but there was no telling what would happen if she ingested some speck of evil that permeated everything around her. But this was different. She was in an apartment. A nice one. Eileen wasn't weird or strange, at least, not yet anyways. And Heather was a bit thirsty and hungry too.
"A water is fine."
Eileen grabbed a bottle of Fiji water from the refrigerator and handed it to Heather. "I really don't know Henry all that well," Eileen began as they walked slowly into the living room. "I've seen him just in passing. He seems like a nice guy though. Except this whole strange apartment thing."
Heather did her best to look surprised. "What happened?"
Eileen shook her head as she motioned for Heather to sit down. Only after they had taken a seat individually on the couch and loveseat did she answer the question. "A few days ago, I started hearing these strange sounds from next door. I know it sounds weird, but I can't tell you what they were. They were just there and they would get louder and then they would suddenly stop or get quieter. It didn't happen all the time, but I was really creeped out, so I told Mr. Sunderland."
Though she already knew the answer, Heather asked, "What did he say?"
Eileen pondered the question for a moment. "He said he would look into it. But actually, the first time that I saw him at Henry's door was when you guys came this morning. I just get the feeling that something's not right."
Heather was secretly pleased about how easy this had gone. Nancy Drew had nothing on her. But the hard part was yet to come. Heather decided to go out on a limb and see just how much Eileen knew.
"What do you know about someone named Walter Sullivan?" Heather quizzed. The question was barely finished before Heather felt a shift in the air. It was slight, but a change nonetheless. Heather looked at Eileen, but the other woman seemed to have not even noticed.
Before Eileen could reply, they both heard someone knocking on Henry's door.
"Hey, that sounds like Mr. Sunderland. I need to talk to him. I'll be right back, okay?"
"I have to go to the bathroom anyways," Heather stood and smiled, letting Eileen know that she could trust Heather to be alone in the apartment.
Eileen then rushed to the door and closed it behind her, leaving Heather by herself. She immediately spied Frank standing in front of Henry's door, appearing to be severely perplexed and something else that she couldn't readily identify. "How's it going with apartment 302?"
Frank shook his head regretfully, still appearing to be distracted. "Well, I just tried to open it up. But I think something's blocking it from the inside."
Eileen made a concerned noise and shook her head. At least Frank seemed to be trying to get to the bottom of things. But something still seemed a bit odd about his demeanor.
"Anyway, it's not the first time."
Eileen raised her eyebrows. "You mean the guy that lived here before?"
"And it wasn't just him either. There's something wrong with this whole apartment building."
"Don't say that. You're scaring me," Eileen replied. She rubbed her arms, suddenly aware of a chilly breeze in the hallway.
"Well, anyway, I just slipped a note under his door. Don't worry about it too much." Frank then appeared to drift off into another memory. "There are a lot of strange things in this world. The umbilical cord I keep in a box in my room. Lately, it's started to smell terrible."
Eileen wasn't sure she had heard him right. "What? An umbilical cord?"
"Oh," Frank suddenly snapped back to reality. "Forget I said anything."
Eileen regarded Frank suspiciously. She thought that it was only her imagination that Frank was acting strange, but now, the mention of an umbilical cord solidified her opinion. She was sure that there was something more to the situation, but she didn't want to spend anymore time with Frank.
"But still, those noises," she absently said. She turned back to Frank. "I've got to get ready for this evening, but if there's anything else, I'll let you know." She thought about telling Frank about Heather's questions, but quickly decided that it would be a bad idea. It wasn't that Frank was evil, but until she could put her finger on what it was that spooked her, Eileen decided to play it cool.
Eileen left Frank outside of Henry's door, and gave him one last glance before quickly returning to her own apartment.
II.
Whatever it was, it had flipped over several chairs and moved tables. Christine could hear something scuttle across the floor before another piece of furniture was disturbed. She tried to aim the gun towards the disturbed furniture, but before she could fire, the thing would already be on the other side of the room, rattling something else.
It's toying with me, Christine concluded. It was using the darkness as a cover as it proceeded to terrorize her. But Christine was far from shaken. She was pissed. How could a monster have the audacity to toy with someone? Especially someone with a gun.
Christine hadn't shot anything before, but she decided that whatever was lurking in the shadows would be her first victim. Aiming where a chair moved, she held the gun out, but hesitated on pulling the trigger. It was simply too dark get a clear view of the thing, and it was staying low, so really she would just be taking shots in the dark and wasting bullets.
Though she wanted to unload the gun at her harasser, she decided against it. It would be smarter for her to simply back out of the diner and continue to search for another way out. Christine took slow steps back, while the creature continued to scamper around the dim diner, shaking chairs and bumping tables in various locations. Christine reached for the knob and opened the door slowly, stepped back into the hallway and closed the door back.
Taking a breath, Christine turned to walk down the hallway, but stopped when her foot hit something hard. She glanced down and picked up a flashlight, wondering if someone had dropped this while she was in the diner. That would mean that someone else was down there with her. Maybe it was the old woman. Or the other guy that was with her. But what made them drop the flashlight and where were they now?
Christine felt uncomfortable thinking about the answer to that. Instead she held onto the flashlight and took a few steps down the hallway. But things instantly took a turn for the worse.
A sharp pain invaded her head and it hurt to keep her eyes open. She clutched at the sides of her head, choking back a piercing scream. Squinting, Christine tried to keep her eyes ahead of her, but was taken aback when everything began to change.
The hallway underwent a gruesome transformation, becoming less like a creepy hotel and more like a corridor of torture and death. A pungent smell swirled around Christine as the walls began to seep with blood and gore. The floor became a rusted grate, opening to darkness below. Chains, permanently stained with dried flesh and blood, dangled from the ceiling, swaying back and forth. And then, everything went dark.
Christine forgot about the stabbing pain behind her eyes. She snapped around and yanked on the doorknob to the diner, but the rusted piece wouldn't budge. The door had completely changed from the inviting entrance of Venus Tears to a dilapidated metal door, the stained glass now a fogged panel that hid whatever was now locked in that room. The darkness seemed to close in around her, desperately wanting to smother Christine in an eternal void of blackness.
Christine whipped around and clicked on the flashlight she had just found. The creeping feeling went away as she aimed the light at every corner and down the hallway. But when she aimed it to her immediate right, she knew she was in trouble.
Christine stood stunned, but not frozen with fear, staring at the unbelievable mass in front of her. She tried to focus on the impossible creature, but it almost seemed to be shifting constantly, making it near impossible for Christine to keep her eyes on it for too long.
Its lanky, arm-like appendages pressed against the walls, supporting it near the ceiling and at the bottom, allowing it to hover about a foot off the floor. The arms supported a massive, pulsating body that hid something strange underneath its thick hide. Whatever it was moved as if it were trying to escape its horrible prison. Near the bottom of the body, was a strangely shaped opening, resembling a mouth with several rows of grinding teeth.
Christine kept the flashlight aimed at the creature, afraid that if she lost sight of it for a second, it would overtake her in no time and make a snack of her bones or whatever it wanted to do. She took a timid step back and the thing moved. One of its four arms, the top left one, moved forward and braced against the wall with a loud thump.
It wasn't going to let her go.
Christine took another step back and the creature advanced toward her two paces.
She turned and ran.
The creature's arms hit the wall hard as it charged after Christine. The booming and thumping, plus the unholy shrieks from the creature, spurred Christine to run even faster. She wasted no time trying to turn around or trying to confront the creature with her weapon. The best option was to try to lose it, if she could find a way to do that before she reached a dead end.
The hallway had changed from a simple, short walkway to a lengthy corridor, with no end in sight. Christine whizzed by doors, afraid that if she hesitated for a second, the creature would be upon her. Instead, she kept her stride long and breaths deep, hoping to put some distance between her and her pursuer.
Christine chanced a glance back, only to see that despite her speed, the creature was dangerously close. A scream tore from her throat and she pressed forward, pumping her arms harder and moving her legs faster. She could feel its musty, humid breath on her neck and in her hair. Though her legs stung and her lungs felt as if they were going to explode, Christine knew that she couldn't falter even for a moment.
A door suddenly appeared about a hundred meters away, a thick wood door. She prayed that it wouldn't be locked like so many others she had run across. If it was, she was running right into a dead end, in two different ways.
Her energy was gone, but with a final grunt, Christine lengthened her stride and pumped even harder, putting a bit of distance between her and the creature. Its shrieks were still loud and shrill, but not so close anymore. She hoped that she had given herself enough lead time to escape.
Grabbing at the doorknob, Christine screamed as she pushed the door open, spun, and slammed it, quickly throwing the bolt lock in place. She pressed against the door and was almost thrown onto her face as the creature rammed the door. The wood splintered but held as the creature rapidly pounded on the door. Christine imagined all four of its arms banging and tearing at the other side of the door.
Desperate, Christine frantically searched the room for anything that would give her a way out. Then she spotted it—a narrow set of stairs descending into darkness. Christine decided that any darkness was better than being torn limb from limb by a hellish monster. She took up her flashlight and flew down the stairs, aiming her flashlight downward as she ran.
At the bottom, the pounding still resounded but seemed farther away and somehow less dangerous. Christine knew she only had a few more minutes to work with. There was no telling when that monster would break through and it would all be over.
Christine shone the flashlight on the wall opposite the stairs and found a large dark hole, encircled by strange writing and symbols. The darkness beckoned to her, but Christine took a step back. Suddenly, the door gave and the sound of exploding wood made Christine jump. She didn't have any choice.
Taking a deep breath, she ran into the hole and disappeared into the darkness.
III.
Heather used a plush, deep red towel to pat the water off her face. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror. Despite everything that had happened over the past few hours or so, she looked fresh and exuberant. Quite a contrast to how she actually felt.
Finding her father alive had lifted her spirits slightly, but realizing that the evil of Silent Hill hadn't been vanquished at the end of their battle with Samael, brought her to the depths of depression. Though her father was alive, he wasn't safe as long as this darkness raged on. And neither was she. No one who had been touched by Silent Hill was safe, none of them especially.
She hung the towel back on the rack and strode to the living room. Though Heather wasn't one for eavesdropping, she crossed the room just to get a little closer to hear snippets of what they were saying. It was still muddled, and Heather had already decided that Frank was the number two suspect in all this, so she sneaked to the front door and put her ear to the crack.
The entire conversation was a bit strange, especially from Frank. An umbilical cord? What was he doing with something like that? And why was he keeping it in a box in his apartment? There was something completely wrong with Frank. His entire demeanor since they had first arrived had been awkward and odd. And this was the final nail in the coffin.
The diary they had found earlier also cast Frank in a negative light. The author had mentioned the umbilical cord and Frank's strange behavior. There was no telling how long this had been going on. She was disgusted at the thought of someone keeping something like that in the first place.
Heather was sure that Frank had a good idea of what was happening. And since he had some connection to James, Frank must have his own suspicions and reasons for acting the way he was. Hopefully, he wasn't another fanatic of The Order.
She retreated from the door, having heard enough of their conversation. Heather had just sat on the couch when she heard something. A strange noise. Probably the same one Eileen had just been talking about. There was nothing distinct about it and she couldn't compare it to any particular noise she had heard before. It was just a noise. And it had come from the bedroom.
Heather glanced at the door, hoping Eileen was still engrossed in conversation with Frank. She stepped quickly into the bedroom and stopped in the doorway. On the bed sat a Robbie doll, the mascot for the amusement park in Silent Hill. And the little purple rabbit stared at the wall with its arm pointed towards it, its accusing, beady eyes focused on whatever it was pointing at.
Stop it! It's just a stuffed animal, Heather chastised herself. She was supposed to be worried about hellish monsters and demon dogs, not stuffed mascots. Still, the rabbit made her uneasy.
Tearing her eyes away from the thing, she followed the arm's path until she saw what it had been pointing at. There was a hole in the wall. It was slight and easy to miss, but it was a hole nonetheless. And if her orientation was correct, the hole went right into Henry's living room. She gave another glance at the rabbit, which hadn't moved at all, then strode to the wall and kneeled by the hole. Taking a daring chance, she put her eye to the hole and peered into the dark recess.
It was definitely the living room of Henry's apartment, but she couldn't see much at first. His apartment was gloomy and dim. Still she glanced both left and right, hoping to see something that would give an indication of Henry's whereabouts.
A feeling that she was being watched crept over her. At first, Heather ignored it, but the feeling grew stronger and stronger until she absolutely knew someone was behind her.
Heather spun around but saw no one in the room. The rabbit had changed positions and now sat slumped over. Heather was sure that someone had been there, despite the room being completely empty. For a moment, Heather thought about exploring the entire apartment, but she heard Eileen close the front door.
Heather took one last glance at the hole then slipped out of the bedroom and into the hallway just as Eileen rounded the corner. "I just had to splash some water on my face. Who was at Henry's door?"
"It was just Frank. He was trying to get in there again. But he's been acting a bit strange. I've heard him say some weird things, but he won't admit to it when I ask him."
"Maybe he's senile," Heather offered, hoping to assuage Eileen's fears.
"Maybe," she replied. Then as an afterthought, she said, "Oh, I've got this party that I'm going to tonight. You and your two friends could come along if you wanted."
Heather smiled. She had been so wrapped up in all this Silent Hill business, that she forgot that she was still a young woman. She had to admit that she was attractive and looked like the type that would enjoy a good party. She was sure that Trey would enjoy a good party too. Michael on the other hand seemed a bit more formal and reserved. But those were usually the wild ones. But there was no partying for them, not until they found both Henry and Christine.
Not wanting to seem rude, Heather replied, "Thanks for the invite. Maybe we'll take you up on your offer."
"Well, I'm leaving at eight, so come by, okay?"
"Sure," Heather said as she walked toward the door. She gave Eileen a friendly smile. "Thanks for answering my questions."
"Yeah. I just hope Mr. Sunderland gets to the bottom of what's happening in that apartment. It's kind of creepy."
Heather and Eileen exchanged goodbyes then she walked by Henry's apartment. She hadn't noticed it before, but across from Henry's door were handprints. Bloody handprints. She leaned closer and noticed that two looked much fresher than the others.
The two murders, Heather thought. But why hadn't they noticed this before? Why hadn't any of the other tenants complained about bloody handprints.
Because only you can see them.
She gave one last look at the handprints and Henry's door then picked up her pace to join the others.
IV.
Eileen quickly stripped out of her clothes and turned on the shower. She waited a few moments for steam to float out before stepping in and closing the curtain behind her. The hot water splashed on the face and she lathered up her lufa.
After washing the day's dirt off herself, she sat underneath the stream and let the droplets melt away her anxiety. Surely, there was a logical explanation for everything that was going on and Frank would get to the bottom of the noises in Henry's apartment. Heather and her friends would then be reunited with Henry and everything would be all good, so there was no need for Eileen to worry. But the more she told herself that, the more she didn't believe it.
She turned off the water, stepped out of the shower, and wrapped one of her plush towels around her body. Her hand streaked across the mirror, clearing a spot of Eileen to look at herself. She closed her eyes and bulldozed all the negative thoughts to the back of her mind and took a deep breath.
This is the night that my luck is going to change, she gleefully told herself as she gazed into her own eyes.
Her luck was going to change tonight. The man with a knife hiding inside of her closet was going to make sure that it did.
Notes:
B.O.W.121: Thanks for the review! I hope you like the cliffhanger I left behind in this chapter too.
Kyliemason: Hey, I hope you're still working on that artwork! Christine does keep finding herself at the edge of peril, doesn't she? I try to keep the characters interesting, but real at the same time. I actually pondered over whether to keep the argument over the binoculars or not, but I decided to keep it in the end. I think that it definitely shows that they are still normal people in a highly abnormal situation.
Rodarian: You may be too smart for your own good! Read I think you'll find out definitely for sure who is back from the dead next chapter.
Schreiberjoe: So maybe most writers don't like to admit when they messed up, but I'm not like most writers. I messed up! You brought up a valid point that I hadn't even thought about (regarding why Richard couldn't see the chains and the message, but Michael and Trey saw them immediately). Don't worry though. As any good writer should, I have taken your advice into account and it will be explained in the next chapter.
