Chapter 10

The Rubik's Cube of Life

"Sometimes, you're shaken to the core

Sometimes, the face is gonna fall

Don't you let it!"

Sometimes, Midnight Oil

(Diesel and Dust)

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EACH step Douglas took was one step closer to his destiny.

The stairs of the South Ashfield Heights apartment complex weren't very big, but for some reason, Douglas found it harder and harder to take each successive step. It was not a physical thing that kept him from taking the steps two at a time in the midst of his excitement--he had thought, on more than one occasion, of how his reputation would grow if he were to capture the Sullivan case murderer all by his lonesome--but rather a growing sense of dread, as though some terrible thing awaited him at the top of the steps.

He finally climbed the top step, not gasping for breath but feeling like he should have been. He reached for the handle on the right of the two double-doors on his right, seized it, and pushed the doors open. They swung in and out on their hinges as he passed through them, like the shutters in a saloon during the confrontation scene of some old Western. That was closer to what it felt like he was doing now, actually--going to confront some great enemy on whose tail he had been for the past few years. It was odd that he should feel that way, since he hadn't worked on the original Sullivan case--hadn't even been anywhere near the town of Ashfield during those dark days--but that didn't stop him from doing so.

As he turned the corner, he could hear murmered conversation from behind the door marked 'Room 304.' It was impossible to determine the sex or age of that voice's owner, since the door muffled all but the faintest traces of sound...hearing it both comforted and agitated him at the same time. Douglas didn't know how that was possible, but he was feeling it all the same. It was as though everyone had gone inside for the night; as though they had gone in to their shelter, to hide from the demons that came out at night.

No matter what those demons might be, Douglas was not here to run, to hide, to cower, or to be afraid. He was here to stop those demons--it was his job, after all. He was a sort of modern-day monster hunter, when one really thought about it--hunting down the monsters of society, the child molesters, the murderers, the psychopaths, and all the rest. He was the 50-something-year-old Van Helsing, in the flesh, and he was going to kick some proverbial ass.

Douglas actually felt the part of himself with which he was more familiar shrink back at this thought. Since when had he been so overconfident? It seemed almost that his rookie days were coming back to haunt him--those early days of his long career when he had thought that he was the best, that nobody would ever be able to get the drop on him because he was himself, he was Douglas Cartland, the one, the best, and the only. He had quickly overcome those feelings as reality set in during his early years...but here they were again. Perhaps it was because he still had some maturing to do...?

Ignoring the thoughts and strange, ancient emotions that raced through his mind, Douglas stopped outside the door marked 'Room 302.' He stared at it for a long, long time, contemplating.

What he had come to hunt was in there, he was sure of it. Whether it was a man, a beast, or some combination of the two Douglas didn't know...but he would soon find out.

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WHEN the doorbell buzzed, Henry looked up from his scrapbook collection, dazed. Had he fallen asleep? Peeling the sheet of red paper off of his flushed cheek, he thought yes. He must have become bored and dozed off, losing track of his work. Well, he would have plenty of time to do this tomorrow, anyway.

"Screw it," he muttered, uninhibited, and headed for the bedroom door. He went down the hall at a slow, relaxed pace, expecting either the pizza he had ordered over an hour ago or Eileen...but not expecting what he found when he reached the door.

"Hold on, I'm on my--" Henry's voice dropped off abruptly when he opened the door, and his eyes flew wide open. A passerby might have mistaken them for small dinnerplates at that moment.

Here was Walter Sullivan, staring at him. In the flesh. Or was that even accurate anymore?
Henry started to throw the door shut, but Walter must have seen the thought in his eyes, because his arm shot out and caught the crease of Henry's elbow, gripping it tight.

"Got something to hide?" an unfamliar voice asked him. It was a low, gruff voice...and Henry's eyebrows went up. That wasn't Walter's voice.

Henry blinked once, hard, and let out a sigh of relief as his eyes let him see the truth. It wasn't Walter Sullivan at all...it was just an old guy in a funny little hat and a beige trenchcoat. It must have been the coat that had set him off--it looked quite a bit like the one Walter had been wearing.

"Oh, no," Henry said, and felt his body loosen up a bit. He really didn't think he had anything to hide, although he wondered briefly what the man would say if he saw the strange notes piled up on the desk in his bedroom. "I was just...wait a minute. Who are you?" His eyes narrowed a little, but not in paranoia. It was more like an expression of his drowsy state of mind.

"My name is Douglas Cartland," the man began, reaching into his jacket for something, "and I'm a detective. I'm currently working with the APD on the Walter Sullivan case. You know, the recent one." The detective produced a badge-holder with his photo ID slid into the card holder just beneath the badge. It confirmed his claim quite convincingly. "We've gotten word that someone you know may have been involved in the recent case."

Henry's eyes widened a little, but he managed to conceal the rest of his surprise. "What?" His first thought had been of Eileen...but that was silly, she was right next door to him. Unless she'd gone out, in which case they might have come to his house and asked about her...

"My advice is to stop trying to figure me out, and just wait for me to tell you," the detective said, and Henry's train of thought crashed as quickly and abruptly as a bullet whose path has been suddenly obstructed. "All I need to know is whether or not you're going to comply with my request." He replaced the badge in his jacket, a gesture which made Henry very uncomfortable for some reason. It was as though the man expected to need both hands for whatever it was he was about to do. Henry quickly dismissed the idea that this man might be an agent of the Order, sent from Silent Hill to kill or harm him. That was a crazy idea, and Henry knew it.

"What do you want?" Henry asked calmly.

"All I need is to ask you a couple of questions," the man in the coat responded.

Henry didn't take much time to think. "Sure, I guess," he said, fidgeting in a sleepy manner.

"You mind stepping outside?" the detective said, motioning with his thumb toward the exit. "I don't want to impose or anything, but I really want a smoke."

"I guess not," Henry said, and just like that, he went with the man. On a better day, he might have been more suspicious of this person whom he had never met, but today was not a normal day.

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EILEEN waited in her room, watching through the peephole, until she was sure that the two were gone. She very gently cracked the door open and placed here ear up to the tiny slit, listening for the sound of the swinging double-doors that lead to the central stairwell. Once Henry and Douglas passed through them, the few tidbits of conversation she had been able to hear faded away until they became inaudible. That didn't matter; she was not here to follow their inane conversation. She was here for a much better reason.

That thing was watching her. And she was going to go see it, right here and right now. That, and she had to confirm the sneaking suspicion that had begun to form at the back of her mind, a suspicion that unnerved her greatly.

Eileen pushed the door open, being very careful to conceal the large metal grip of the .44 Desert Eagle she had bought at The Gunman just an hour or so ago. She had placed it in a rawhide holster beneath her left shoulder so that the bottom of the large grip rubbed against her armpit. It was uncomfortable, but she would risk uncomfortability in place of mortal danger. She stepped out into the hall, peeked both ways--in this place, so many people had the mind to stick their nose in where it didn't belong, and she didn't want anyone to see her go into Henry's room--and quickly moved down the hall to Room 302.

She had thought that she would need her keys, but she had been wrong. Henry, always a trusting fellow, had left the door unlocked. The knob turned with ease beneath her slender fingers, and she pulled it open and intruded on her lover's private quarters without a second thought.

Immediately, she was overcome with a sleepy, hungry terror...and the urge to run back to the bedroom. She had no idea what that desire meant--there was nothing sexual about it, despite the implications her mind made in reference to the bedroom--and so she turned her mind from it. What she really wanted to focus on (not really wanted, so much as felt obligated to) was the thing at the end of the hallway.

She knew it was there.

And she knew that it was watching her.

"Stop it," she told the thing, knowing that it woudn't listen. Why should it? It was tucked away, all nice and safe, in that storage closet behind the sealed plaster in Henry's hallway. She looked behind her at the door, as if for one last taste of reality, and saw that it had shut on its own. It was probably the wind, she thought, although she realized she was ignoring the facts that there was no wind today, and the AC unit hadn't been turned on.

Turning back to the room's rugged interior, she felt that dreamlike fear slip over her again. That something was watching her...and it was strong. Whatever it was, it wasn't at all scared to see Eileen coming for it. It actually seemed glad. She didn't know how she knew this (and honestly, she didn't want to), but she knew it all the same. She reached the end of the hallway, and had to force herself to look down at the other end.

Nothing.

Nothing but the plaster that covered the hole, the hole that lead into Henry's supply closet.

All of a sudden, a strange sensation began in Eileen's mind; she immediately knew--knew--that, were she to tear down that plaster wall, she would find something very, very...not good. But at the same time, she knew in her heart that she would find nothing. It was the return of Pessimistic and Optimistic, and they had brought popcorn this time--looked like they were staying for the double feature. Her mind felt like it was trying to split in two. What the hell was this?

Let the Mother die, a voice suddenly said in her mind, and she recoiled, suddenly very, very afraid.

Just let her die, the voice repeated. The Mother deserves to die. Just leave her be--even if they get her, they won't be able to do anything without the Receiver. They are like flipsides of the coin--you need both to flip it.

She had no idea where the voice was coming from, and she was sure that it wasn't speaking to her...but at the same time, it was. It was a very hard feeling for her to articulate, much less describe. It was a feeling very similar, she imagined, to being in two places at once.

"Just...shut up," she told the voice, and shook her head, as though doing so could shake it from her mind like the last cracker from the bottom of a box of cheez-its. She moved to the end of the hall, close enough to the wall so that she could smell the plaster coating. It smelled new, like it had just recently been covered. It had to have been--they had just broken it down, what, two? three? days ago?--but part of her paradoxical mind insisted that it hadn't. She didn't realize it at this moment, but Eileen was having two separate trains of thought at the exact same time.

I can see you, a dark, soft voice said. It sounded like it had come from beyond the wall...but Eileen knew that it hadn't. At least, not physically. Whatever was sending the message was surely locked away there...but that had been in her head. It had been a cold, sharp voice, piercing to the back of her mind as though the words were made of icicles, frozen devices that had been sharpened to a fine point.

"No," Eileen said, but the weak words of negation fell flat to her feet, with no belief to hold them up. "No, you can't."

I can see everything, it insisted. I can see her, the Mother...and how she calls out to you...oh, how she screams his name! Oh, how her pain makes him GROW!

"Shut up," Eileen said again, and cupped the sides of her head. She heard a faint scream--surely, that had been in her head?--and then the voice that had screamed called a name. Eileen couldn't make out what it had been, but she thought it sounded a lot like Daddy. "Leave her alone," she told the thing, not knowing to or about whom she was talking. "Stop it, please."

Want to hear her scream?

"No," Eileen said, and closed her eyelids. She tried to resist the tears that threatened to come forth, but found that she couldn't. She thought that she might actually be feeling that girl's pain, her emotional agony, and quite suddenly she had had enough.

Eileen pulled the .357 Magnum revolver from her holster and pointed it at the broken plaster. She pulled back the hammer, cocking it, and placed her hand on the trigger.

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DOUGLAS flicked his cigarette on the pavement, watching it smolder for a moment before a young kid on a skateboard sped by and put it out by accident. He turned to Henry and sighed. "Rough week," he said, as though it should have meant something to Henry.

"Sounds like," Henry said, not without enthusiasm. "It sounds like you've got your work cut out for you." In his jeans pocket, he ran his fingers over the silver cross given to him by Father...what had his name been? Father Stan...Steve...Steven? Was that it? Oh, well. It didn't really matter now.

"Well, to tell you the truth, we could have put the guy through court already," Douglas said, speaking the truth. "But those dickheads down at the station can't seem to pull their heads out of their asses long enough to deal with this case. They don't seem to realize exactly how much this case means to the people of this city...hell, to people everywhere." He sighed again, taking his hat off and fingering it delicately. "Bunch of damn rookies." He wasn't sure why, but he had been feeling especially ornery ever since that guy Walter had come in. He assumed it probably had a lot to do with the guy's attitude, and he was mostly right.

"So," Henry said, scuffing his slippers on the sidewalk and jittering his back against the brick wall, "how do I play into this?"

Douglas laughed and looked down at the ground, as if something had suddenly caught his interest there. "That's the interesting part. See, I was actually supposed to arrest you." He immediately looked at Henry, having sensed the tension he had just created by making that statement, and grinned. "But I hardly think that the word of a convict is enough to go on. Besides, you seem like a straight fellow to me."

"That's good, I guess," Henry agreed, shrugging. "But...why would he mention my name? What did I do? And better yet...how does this guy know me?" He stopped, looking the detective in the eye. "What's his name, again?"

Douglas raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, again? I never told you to begin with," he teased. "No...his name was Walter. Walter Sullivan."

Henry froze. He felt his blood run cold.

Apparently, so did Douglas. His eyes locked on Henry's. "You know him." Not a question.

"Y...yeah," Henry said, suddenly very wide awake. The emotions called up by that name being used in conjunction with a living man had destroyed any chance he would have of getting to sleep for quite awhile. "We...we go back, I guess."

"How long?"

"A couple of days," Henry said pitifully.

"Don't mess with me," Douglas said sternly. "I don't want to get the impression that you're messing with me, because I actually kind of like you. How do you know this guy?"

"That's the thing," Henry said. "It can't be the same guy. It's gotta be a coincidence." He looked away from the detective, too embarrassed to say what he was thinking. Surely the man would think him crazy.

"And why not?"

Henry shuffled his feet together, gathering his courage. He took a deep breath, looked the detective squarely in the eyes, and said it all at once: "I killed him. He tried to kill me, but...but I killed him." Then, after a short hesitation, he added, "But it was self-defense. I mean, it's not like I murdered him. He came after me."

Douglas' other eyebrow slowly came up. "Are you trying to tell me that I have a dead man down at the police station?" he asked, ignoring Henry's would-be justification. Henry couldn't tell if he was asking that honestly or making a joke at his expense.

"Well, I," Henry began, stumbling over his words, "I mean, it might not be the same guy, but..." he paused, gathering his thoughts. "...but it can't be just a coincidence, either. It's the same name, and only three days later..."

Douglas started to say something else, but then they heard the gunshot, followed by a loud, almost feline shriek. There was a crash, as though something heavy (and perhaps wooden, judging by the loud, hollow thump that followed) had fallen.

"What...the hell?" Henry said, his head cocking to face the corner of the building. The sound had come from the top floor...from Room 302.

"Come on," Henry said, and tapped the detective's wrist. After he had Douglas' attention, Henry jerked the back door to South Ashfield Heights wide open and dashed inside, the detective hot on his heels.

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EILEEN stood that way for a very long time--probably a minute, at least--with the gun leveled, pointed at the plaster wall which marked the end of the hall. She clicked back the hammer, listening but not really paying attention as the chamber revolved and the firing pin locked into place. Her hands trembled with the weight of her task; tiny drops of sweat were running down her slender arms as she stood there.

What are you, crazy? The voice on her right shoulder--optimist, the little angel--inquired, and snapped Eileen out of her current trance.

"What?" she asked, not in response to the voice she knew she hadn't heard.

You can't just go blowing stuff apart like that, the voice told her, and she lowered the gun...slowly. She turned around, but her eyes refused to leave that spot on the wall.

It was still in there. Maybe pressed up against the wall right now, waiting for her to come in after it.

That's right, pessimist interjected, stepping up to the plate. In her mind, Eileen could almost see the little red critter crawling up to her ear and whispering into it. It's waiting for you, and it's watching you. If you go in there, you can make it stop. You can close its Eye.

No! optimist begged. If you go in there, it'll kill you for sure! If you stay here--stay away--you'll be okay, but not if you go inside there! Please, for God's sake, consider the consequences!

Eileen had strolled down the hallway, and now she stood over the small storage chest that lay at the end; stood over it like a mourner standing over a grave at a funeral. It was an oblong shape, like a very tightly rounded rectangle, and the top of it, she saw--the lid, that would be--was on hinges. She leaned down and opened it, not knowing what she was looking for or what she expected to find in there. She was no longer really in charge of her own mind, she found...and she actually found it sickeningly pleasant. It was like having someone help you cheat at poker--you didn't actually have to play the game yourself; you just had to follow the lead.

In the chest was a jumble of useless, strange objects--here was a rusty axe, barely the length of her forearm...a child's aluminum baseball bat...a stack of subway coins, and next to it, a subway ticket with the name 'Cynthia Velasquez' scribbled hastily in someone's inept cursive. Eileen rummaged through all of these things, stacking them off in one corner of the box like a child who has reluctantly agreed to clean her toybox.

Here, here! This was what she needed.

Her hands closed around the handle on the giant red-tipped pickaxe, lifting it out of the box with the utmost care--it was so heavy, Eileen thought, that if she were to drop it at the wrong angle and let go of it too late, it might very well break her wrist...or, if it were to land there, her foot.

There! pessimist said, affirming the strange sense of satisfaction that had accompanied Eileen's discovery of the axe. She grinned, but it was a faint-hearted grin, far-off, as though it had been transmitted to her from a long distance. Now you can do what you need to do!

Please, optimist pleaded, and in her mind, Eileen saw this little creature tugging at her right ear with both of its pudgy hands, unable to convince her yet unable to accept it.

"I'm not convinced of anything," she told nobody, not really sure what the words meant. Suddenly, a strange phrase occured to her: We're a happy family, we're a happy family, we're a happy family...

"No," she said, pushing away the memory that tried to surface with it.

We're a happy family...me, mom and daddy...

Eileen felt tears coming, and tried to fight them back...what was this? What did those words mean? And why should they strike such deep, painful wells of emotion? They meant nothing to her, they were just a bunch of lines from some old song...so why did they make her feel that way?

Doesn't matter, pessimist insisted. You have the axe. Now break down that wall and take care of business!

NO!!

"Shut up," Eileen commanded. "Both of you."

The voices ceased as suddenly as they had set in, as though they were real beings who might actually be capable of obeying her commands.

Eileen started down the hall, the pickaxe gripped tightly in both hands, her ankles digging shallow, temporary grooves in the carpet as gravity pulled the combined weight of the axe and her body towards the floor. She reached the plaster wall and stood before it, reverent, like it was a statue of something worthy of worship instead of a hunk of weak plaster.

Break it!

No!

It seemed that even her stern commands could not stave off those insistent, warring voices. Her hands lifted up, carrying the axe up in front of her.

"No," she said, trying to resist...but her arms wouldn't listen. They continued to raise the axe, and now it was almost over her head. It was so heavy, and it hurt her wrists to hold it so tightly, but it felt like her body was no longer really her own--just a channel for some outside force.

We're a happy family, we're a happy family...

Break it!!

Stop it while you still ca--

If you break it, the voices will stop--

--me, mom and daddy--

--go ahead and--

--stop it--

--daddy likes--

--BREAK--

--NO--

--WE'RE A HAP--

And then, without a second to consider, she brought the pickaxe down, plunging the length of the axe's banana-curved tip into the plaster all the way up to the base. Her grip had laxed momentarily as the axe actually left her hand for a moment before crashing through the wall, but now she tightened that grip once more and pushed forward on the handle, turning the banana-curved protrusion until it pried a large chunk of plaster off of the wall. The hunk of material crumbled and fell to the carpet at the foot of the wall, cracking open like dry, white mud.

Eileen raised the axe again, her eyes red with deep-seated ambition, and drove it once again into the weak plaster. This time the axe knocked a wide hole in the wall, at least three inches in diameter--the axe had struck a particularly faulty point of the wall, and taken much of the material around it with it when it penetrated--and when she put her foot on the other side of the axe's point and pushed, the axe tore out most of the remainder of the wall below waist-level. Plaster exploded down the hall, and little grains struck her legs and arms like sand from a beach breeze.

She now stood before a wall which stopped just below her waist. It looked rather odd, like those child-safe doors that had two separate segments--one on top and one on bottom--except that the bottom half had been removed.

Well, removed was sort of an understatement; the trail of mutilated plaster that stretched all the way down the hallway was a testament to the destruction she had enacted. Eileen backed up a step, hefted the axe off to one side, swung wide...and planted the whole thing into the wall, halfway up the handle. It protruded from the wall at an awkward angle. She pictured what would happen if she were to simply leave now, with the axe stuck in there like that, and if Henry were to come in and find it like that, and laughed. That would be funny...but she had no intention of leaving here. Not now. She had already begun.

Planting one foot to the right of the protrusion and seizing the handle with both hands, she pulled too hard. A bolt of pain shot from each arm up into her underdeveloped biceps, and she resisted the urge to cry out.

The axe wouldn't move.

"Damn," she hissed, and pulled again. Nothing. She would have to find another way to--

All of a sudden, the wall in which the axe was now stuck simply collapsed; it fell to the floor in chunks around the point of insertion, and the axe fell with it, buried beneath the white pellets. There was now an oddly human-shaped hole in the part of the wall which remained, just big enough--Eileen thought--to step through without having to crouch down.

A cold, heavy breeze drifted out from beneath the crack. It was not a normal chill, of course--this one chilled more than her bones; it chilled her all the way down to the soul.

That is its breath, a voice she didn't recognize spoke from within her mind, and she quickly dispelled the disconcerting thought, forcing her unwilling legs to take her into the cold den of the thing that waited inside.

She took one step...two...three...and when she rounded the corner, her left ankle barely grazing the metallic shelf (the residence of many strange chemical bottles of unknown age and content), she wasn't as surprised as she might have been to see what she saw in the center of the little room.

Now, do you understand? The voice called pessimist asked her (as though it were a separate entity capable of just that). Now do you understand why you must come?

Eileen didn't want to nod, didn't want to understand...but she could, all the same.

There was the hole she had entered, way back a thousand years ago when Walter's world had almost claimed them both. It was no longer filled with that strange, black liquid...but an oblong metal protrusion in the shape of a haphazard cross--the kind that might be constructed by a particularly creative child who nonetheless lacked motor skills--still stuck out from the center of the hole.

And a man still hung on that cross.

He was tall, and somewhat muscular--nothing you'd see in an action hero or a heavyweight champion, but enough to add to his fearsome image--and his hair, having had time to grow unchecked for the last 10 years, stretched past his waist. It was parted in the center, however, allowing Eileen a clear and undesired view of the man's pale, doll-like face, with its eyes staring ahead, glazed, like sour white grapes.

Eileen heard a disconcerting sound, like an animal moaning...and then realized it was her own voice. She was mortified; it was a feeling very similar, she recalled, to the night of her 9th birthday, when she had stayed over at a friend's house and she and her friends had watched their very first R-rated movie...it was the feeling that movie had left her with, on that first night when her mind had been freshly exposed to pure, unadulterated terror...it was a feeling that made her wish she could see in all directions at once. A feeling of being watched from all sides.

"What...what is this?" she asked, not sure to whom the question was directed.

She felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up, as though someone had just passed by, and quickly pivoted around, forgetting about the hanging body for the moment.

Nothing. Nobody.

"Jesus," she told herself. "Calm down, will you?" But then she recalled the body hanging from the cross--how could she have forgotten it, really?--and returned her gaze to that rusty metallic structure.

The man was gone.

Eileen gasped, and felt her entire body break out in gooseflesh. Her mind formed the picture of Walter, standing behind her, his dark, bloody bare hands outstretched as if to seize her by the neck, wring it until it snapped. "Oh, no," she whined, low and uncomfortable. She had a sick uncertainty that the body had gone down into the hole while she hadn't been looking...but that thought didn't have the same uneasy truth to it that her other thoughts did, so she figured it might have just been a hallucination.

Nonetheless, shaking her head, she began to approach the altar where the body had stood mere seconds before, and when she reached it, standing on the tips of her toes as if the floor were covered in something nasty, she peered down into it.

Blackness.

"Oh," she moaned, and it sounded unpleasant. It was blackness, just like before...but not liquid this time. At least, not completely.

There was a tiny slit running down the center of the hole.

"It looks like..." Eileen began, backing away, unable to finish the thought out loud...as if to say it out loud was to bring it into reality.

Like an eye, the voice named pessimist finished. It's an eye...a closed eye...but not just any eye. His eye. And it's watching you.

Eileen shivered, wondering against her will what the "eye" would look like if it were to open.

Close it, the other voice--optimist--said in a crude, visceral tone that scared Eileen more than it comforted her. Before, that had been the part of her mind that wanted to leave this place...but somehow, this room--this thing--had changed that. Now, she found, she actually did want to do something. Now that she was here, it wasn't so bad...was it?

She raised the pickaxe in front of her, wondering why she hadn't done so to begin with, and contemplated the thing in the floor. She could go ahead and smash it, destroy it here and now, and the voices would probably go away. That was what she had come to do, wasn't it?
Hell, you don't even know anymore, do you? she asked herself. Do you even remember how you got here? What the hell made you think to do this? It makes NO SENSE, don't you see?!

"Doesn't matter now," she said, feeling not at all like her normal self, and hefted the pickaxe, centering her aim on the eye-thing in the floor. Her mind panicked, forming pictures of what the thing would look like if and when it smashed open--what might come out of it--and before she could think anything else, she had dropped the axe, bent over and begun vomiting ferociously.

When she finished, she rose to her feet again. She was a bit shaky, but at least she could stand. She reached for the pickaxe, allowing her eye to wander back to the eye-thing...

...but it was gone. No more eye-thing. Not even a hole in the ground. Just a flat wooden floor, unbroken by that strange orifice. The crucifix still stood, however...and it was still empty.

So, what? she thought, confused as hell and a little angry, too. I just imagined all that? Hallucinated it? She reached down and picked up the axe, but it was slow going; her arms were still shaky from the cramps induced by her vomiting fit. I must be going crazy, she added apathetically.

She left the storage room, coming into the hallway...and was suddenly seized by an extremely violent headache. She cried out and dropped to one knee, clutching her forehead with one hand.

"Damn it!" she practically screamed, and stumbled forward, trying to reach her feet. When she failed three times, having stumbled nearly the length of the hallway, she reached out in front of her, flailing and desparate, for the edge of Henry's kitchenette counter. She missed, falling to the floor and smacking her face on the carpet. Her nose did not bleed, but she would have a red carpet-burn there for the next few days. She crawled forward, eventually regained her balance, and rose shakily to her feet. Approaching the couch in a slow, careful manner, she dropped herself down onto it and sat there for almost a minute, her eyes closed and her hands over her face.

What was she doing in here, really? Looking back on it, she couldn't even remember what had made her want to come in here so badly, despite her own vicious warnings against it.

You know why, a new voice spoke from within her mind. It was neither optimist nor pessemist.

"What?" Eileen responded.

You know exactly why you came here, the voice continued. You came here for him. You came here to--

"No," Eileen insisted before the thought was even completely articulated. "No, I didn't come for that. I would never do that, especially not to Henry."

But you must, the voice said. It's your purpose. You have to stop him. You have to help The Man.

'The Man?' Wasn't that a slang term for the government? Eileen shrugged, not caring. "I don't know what I'm thinking about."

You do.

"Then what am I thinking?"

I can tell you in this place.

"Really?"

The voice ignored her. You have to help Henry. And you have to help the other. The girl.

"The girl..."

Yes, the girl! The one that was you. The one who...

"'Tu...Fui...Ego...Eris," Eileen whispered in a dreamlike slur, not even fully aware that she had spoken, and clueless as to the phrase's meaning.

Yes, exactly! That is the truth.

"I have to save her, then?"

Saving her is your priority. All other things are irrelevant...except for one thing.

"What one thing?"

You must save Henry, as well. Save him before he does something rash.

"Save him from what?"

You already know.

"No, I don't, I--"

He's already begun to make plans. You knew that, or at least part of you did, and you have since the day he came to the hospital. He clutched his forehead then, remember?

"Yes..."

He said it was nothing, and then he walked back home with you.

Eileen said nothing.

So go to him now, and take him away. Make sure he never does what he is planning to do. Then you can save her without fear.

"Save her...but to do so, I have to stop him?"

Exactly.

"Because if he dies there, then all is lost."

Yes.

"But if she dies there, then it can never be stopped."

Yes!

"And the Man doesn't know that, does he? That's what he told him!"

Correct.

"The Receiver is...no, the girl...she is the Mother?"

You know the answer to that.

"I am the Mother, aren't I?"

You know the answer to that, too.

"I do, don't I?"

To this, the voice had nothing to say.

"I think I...I think I know what to do," she said, but already her voice sounded far away to her own ears. She felt very strange, very light-headed but also heavy-headed, like she had drunk an entire keg of ale. She stood up, stretched, listening to the tendons in her strained back and arms creak and hearing the bones crack. She reached down into the holster under her jacket, pulled out the massive gun, and held it by her side. She stood that way, contemplating, until her eyes wandered to the front door.

As she stood there, a mad smile crept its way onto her face and stuck there, shining like a black light.

"I will help him," she said, starting towards the door. When she reached it and her hand closed around the knob, it wouldn't turn.

No matter.

She raised the revolver and fired once, straight against the knob. It exploded off of the door, landing on the ground in a twisted heap of bronze metal. A jagged hole appeared in the sanded wood where it had once been, and without the catch to hold it closed, the door swung outward very slowly on its hinges.

Her grin widening and her thoughts merging into one constant, maddening chant--Help him, I must help him and I must help her before it is too late, I must--she raised one foot up and kicked the door outward as hard as she could. She uttered a primal scream as she did so, and felt a rush as the door almost flew off of its hinges. It slammed against the wall of the apartment complex hallway, leaving a flat scuff mark on the marble where its corner made contact.

"I'm coming," she said, grinning like a madwoman, her eyes filled with a red, insane fire, and she started down the hallway.

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HENRY and Douglas cleared the stairs leading up to the apartment's top floor two at a time--three, in Henry's case, since he was quite a bit younger and much more agile. It was probably this agility, paired with the uncanny speed at which he was able to think on his feet, that saved his life that afternoon.

Henry had reached the hall that lead around to the third floor, and had made good progress through it, when Douglas had just made it up the second flight of stairs. While Douglas was panting and huffing, trying not to lose what little breath he still had, Henry was starting up the last flight of stairs.

Eileen, he thought, his mind racing a million times faster than his feet would carry him, please be alright, please.

He heard the double-doors on the third floor open, and saw Eileen's blue jean-clad legs stride out from behind them.

"Eileen!" Henry called up the stairs, and she looked down at him. "Hey, Eileen!"

Eileen looked at him coldly, saying nothing.

"Eileen, what the hell was that noise?" He started up the stairs.

"Jesus, Henry, look out!" Douglas called from behind him--the detective had caught up to him, but was now backing away and pointing up the stairs towards Eileen--and there was a loud report, followed by a high-pitched zinging sound. Henry felt heat on his right cheek that was the feeling of a narrow miss, and took a shocked step backward. It wasn't until he saw the gun Eileen was holding that he really began to be afraid for his own life, instead of hers.

She was clutching a massive .357 Magnum Revolver, with white nickel plating, and she had it pointed right at him.

"Oh, no--" Henry said, and almost tripped over his own feet when he desparately leaped to his left, taking shelter around the corner. He heard the click as Eileen chambered the next round, and heard soft clacks as she began to descend the staircase.

"What the hell is she doing?!" Douglas asked, drawing his own pistol from the shoulder-holster beneath his coat. He pulled back the slide, cocking the weapon, and held it up beside his head with both arms. It completed the look of the 50's-movie detective, Henry thought absent-mindedly.

"Come on, Henry," Eileen said in a perfectly conversational tone of voice. Not at all like the voices of crazy people you saw in movies--none of that wavering tone that sounded like a very happy woman on the verge of tears, laughter, or maybe both--just the tone one might use when asking a friend to pass the salt, please, because my steak is a little bitter. "It's what you wanted."

Henry clasped his hand over the detective's gun. "Put that thing away," he said without much emotion, his eyes glued to the corner around which Eileen would come any second now.

"What?" Douglas responded, as if Henry had just suggested that he take off his pants and dance the Macarena. "That woman has a big gun, and she's shooting at us. That's good enough reason for me to defend myself, I think." He moved his foot to step past Henry, but Henry stopped him by raising the knee over which the man had intended to step.

"You might hit her!" Henry hissed.

"Your point?" Douglas stared him in the eye. "I don't think she's too worried about hitting us, you know."

"Just...let me try to talk her down. It's probably all the stress from the last two days." The words sounded ridiculous even to his own ears...but he would not let this man shoot Eileen. Not unless it was the last possible resort.

Douglas heard that last comment and reminded himself to ask Henry about it later, if they were both alive, perchance. He was very, very interested--in a sarcastic way--in learning about the kind of stress that drove a person to this over a period of two days. He shot Henry a disapproving look.

"We just need to--"
"Oh, Henry..." Eileen whispered, and Henry was mortified to realize that he could hear that whisper. She was right around the corner.

"Run!" Henry said, and grabbed Douglas' upper arm. He took off down the hall, tugging the sleeve of Douglas' long coat all the while to keep him from falling behind. He looked ahead, and saw that the corner was just ten feet away...but a glance behind showed him that Eileen was now within sight.

Which meant that they were now in the line of fire.

"Henry, why are you running?" she asked, her meek voice reverbirating on the marble walls. Then, almost as if she were consciously aware of the irony the question presented, she pressed on the trigger.

Henry saw this--and saw that her gun was leveled almost perfectly with his own face--and grabbed the nape of Douglas' neck. "Down!" he shouted, and jerked the detective onto the ground. He followed suit, sliding on the leg of his jeans until the tip of his boot tapped the wall.

Another loud report issued from the revolver, and Henry saw a rather large crack appear in the marble just over his head. He saw the shell clatter onto the ground, its powder spent. That was incentive enough for him. "Come on," he said to Douglas without a second thought, and they rose quickly to their feet, darting around the next corner and out of Eileen's sight.

"Come back!" Eileen called, and started after them. Another click.

She had chambered the next bullet.

"What's the plan?" Douglas asked, holding up his own pistol. "You better start thinking, or I'm gonna start shooting."

Henry's head turned left, then right, and his feet shuffled nervously. "I...I don't know...I just..."

Loud, rapid footsteps. Eileen was running towards them.

"Forget you," Douglas said, and stepped around the third corner just as Eileen rounded the second.

Douglas and Eileen stood face-to-face.

"Put down the weapon," he said, leveling the gun with her own. He had a plan, but his aim had suffered with his age, and he wasn't sure if it would work. If not, he was very likely going to be grievously wounded, perhaps killed.

"Move," Eileen said, again with that calm, conversational tone of voice. "I need to speak to Henry." She started towards Douglas, the gun leveled.

Why wasn't she shooting him?

"Put it down, now," Douglas commanded, but she ignored him. She came within ten feet of him...eight...six..."Drop it!" he said, his voice louder and more quavery than ever. Four feet...three...

Douglas fired.

The bullet went wild. It should have at least grazed her hand--Douglas had been aiming downward, toward her wrist--but it hit the wall behind her at an upward angle, as though he had fired from below eye-level. Which he hadn't.

"I don't want to hurt you," she said, "but if you won't move, then I'll have to." She raised the gun, and Douglas could only stand there, mystified.

Her eyes. Dear God, what was wrong with her eyes?

"Jesus," he said, and saw her place her finger over the trigger.

Henry slammed his body into Douglas, knocking them both to the floor, and Eileen's bullet sailed past Douglas' head, missing it by inches.

That's four, Henry counted in his head. Four shots. That thing looks like a six-shooter...there must be two shots left. If I can just...

"Douglas," Henry said, grabbing the man's collar and dragging him into the second-floor west wing hallway. He tackled the swinging double-doors with one shoulder and hauled the detective in after him, running on almost pure adrenaline.

"What?" Douglas asked, blinking hard--Henry's blow had stunned him for a moment. "Ideas?"

"Yes," Henry said, and shoved Douglas into the corner behind the door. That way, when it opened, Douglas would be safe and out of sight.

"What are you--"

"Just stay here," Henry said, cutting him off. "It's me she wants, not you. When I give you the signal, I want you to ta--"

Eileen burst through the double-doors, smashing the edge of one door into the left side of Henry's face. He cried out and stumbled backward, clutching his newly bleeding mouth. He muttered a silent curse and tried to straighten up.

"There you are," Eileen said, raising the gun again. "Just stand still for a minute. This will only take a second..."

She raised the gun to Henry.

"Eileen, wait--"

Half a second before he saw her finger go down on the trigger, Henry slid to his right, almost tripping--if he had tripped there, he almost certainly would have died, as Eileen was already chambering the next round--as the bullet sailed past his vulnerable shoulderblade, missing it by less than an inch.

Damn, she could aim. Where had she learned that?

"Damn it!" Eileen said, raising the gun again...but this time, Henry was close enough to reach her. He lashed out with one hand and seized Eileen's wrist--the one holding the gun--and tried to force it up over her head. Eileen grunted, resisting, and pushed back, trying to level the gun with Henry's head again (she seemed to have fixed herself on the idea of headshooting him). Henry succeeded in keeping the gun over her head for a few seconds...but then, through some inhuman feat of strength, he felt her begin to overpower him. The gun came back down in a slow arc, Henry's hand pressing futilely against hers, until it was almost close enough to his head for the kill.

"Douglas!" Henry shouted, his voice trembling as he tried to maintain his grip. "Help me!"

Douglas was dazed, but he wasted no time. He slid one arm under each of hers and lifted her up, creeping his wrist up her arm until he could grip the butt of the revolver she now held in a deathgrip.

"Let...go!" Eileen kicked one foot back...and her heel made contact directly below Douglas' belt. He let loose a sound that was some combination of a grunt and a yelp, and let go of her immediately, his right hand shooting down to his injured area. He backed off, the wind knocked out of him.

"Oh...hell," Douglas gasped between breaths. How could things have gone so wrong so quickly?

Henry was standing about a foot from Eileen, having let go of her when Douglas had grabbed her. How could the detective have made such a foolish mistake? Hadn't he anticipated that groin-kick, standing as he had been? Oh, well...it wasn't important now. All that mattered now was relieving the woman that was no longer precisely his girlfriend of her shiny new toy.

One shell, Henry thought. I hope.

In a split-second, his eyes darted up the side of the gun--now that he was close enough to be able to see it clearly--counting the number of chambers on the side. He could see two on each side...that came to four in all. There were probably two more, if you counted the two that were probably hidden--the one that was currently chambered, and the one beneath that one.

He had to get that gun.

"Henry," Eileen said, raising the gun once again. "Just hold still. It won't hurt, I promise."

Click.

Henry made his move.

He grabbed both of her wrists, trying to wrestle her again--he could think of nothing else to do, really--and when he felt her knee trying to force its way between his legs, he shielded it with his own thigh. If she got him, all would be lost.

"Eileen, damnit!" he said, not quite raising his voice. "Snap out of it!"

Eileen whined and bit him on the shoulder. Henry cried out, letting go of her left wrist. His left hand went up to his right shoulder--the bitten one--and he realized that he had only one more chance. Sure, it was drastic, but it was do or die time, and Henry preferred the former to the latter.

He twisted on the wrist he still held--hard, as hard as he could--and the bone snapped like a twig beneath his grip.

It wasn't the arm that held the gun, but Henry had hoped that it would be enough to slow her down, at least long enough for him to take the gun from her...but she simply glanced at the wrist...then up at Henry...and then she punched him in the face.

"That wasn't nice," she told him, the conversational tone gone from her voice. Now, she sounded like a scolding teacher dealing with a problem student. "You should play nice, you know."

The part that amazed Henry was, she wasn't being witty. She spoke each word with perfect sincerity, as though this truly were nothing more than a game, and Henry had broken the rules.

Well, he'd broken something, that was for sure.

"What...the hell?" he whispered, and suddenly he was sailing across the narrow hallway. He hit the wall hard, landing at an awkward angle on his buttocks...and when he looked up, Eileen was standing with her gun pointed down at him, directly at his face. The hand Henry had snapped now hung limply like a dead fish...but still Eileen didn't seem to feel any real pain.

"Eileen--"
"I promise," Eileen said. "I promise it's for your own good."

"No!" Douglas cried out, but he could not reach his gun in time.

Henry squeezed his eyes tightly shut, expecting a painful but mercifully quick--albeit messy--death.

Eileen pulled the trigger.

Click.

It was empty.

Eileen stood there for a moment, motionless, and then grinned. The fire in her eyes was clearly visible to Henry for the first time, and he felt gooseflesh break out all down his back and arms.

"Eileen, what happened to you?"
She tossed the gun aside, no longer in need of it--she must not have loaded it completely, Henry thought, and blessed his luck--and knelt down before Henry. He tried to move to the left, but he wasn't fast enough. Eileen closed her fingers around his throat and squeezed tightly, beginning to sink her long, sharp nails into the soft flesh that was the only thing protecting his tender jugular vein.

"Stop it right now, or I'll shoot!" Douglas shouted, knowing that his warning would do no good. He had reached his gun, panicked at the sight of Eileen's gun as close to Henry as it had been. When it was confirmed that Eileen would not listen, he squeezed off two more shots. Both were dead on.

The first hit Eileen's right shoulder.

The second hit her in the back of the neck.

Douglas would later remember thinking that she might survive, but that it would be a close call. Whether or not he had been right would ultimately be debatable.

Henry's eyes, reddened by Eileen's tight grasp, opened one last time, gazing into Eileen's own blood-red ones, wanting to see her one last time before he died--he couldn't breathe, his chest was on fire, it was so goddamn hot--and then, miraculously, her grip began to loosen.

Her eyes blinked once. Twice. Then the color seemed to actually run out of them, like paint from an open bucket, and they were not red anymore but a deep blue.

"He...Henry?" she whined through a mouthful of blood--she was feeling the pain now, he felt sure--and then her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed in his lap. Blood trickled from the back of her neck and her shoulder, which was surely broken. Douglas' weapon may have been a measly nine-millimeter, but he had hit the joint in the dead center, like a true marksman.

"Eileen," Henry said, and shook her once. "Eileen, come on, get up!"

Douglas made his way toward Henry, and knelt down beside him. He watched Henry for a moment, and tried not to let the pity he felt show on his face.

"Henry, I'm sor--"

"Call an ambulance," Henry said in a sharp, emotionless tone. "Use my phone. Quick."

Douglas had time to think that Henry would have made a decent drill sargeant with that tone of voice, if only he could learn to really raise it, and then his mind registered what Henry had said and he leapt to his feet. He raced around the corner and through the double-doors, running up to Room 302 to use Henry's phone. It was the closest phone--the only other one was in the lobby, two flights of stairs down--and it would take more time to explain to someone on this floor why they needed the phone than it would to just run up to Room 302.

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He burst through the double-doors on the third floor without hesitation, so it was a good thing for him that nobody was standing on the other side--if somebody had been, he would likely have been sent tumbling head-over-heels to the floor. Of course, none of the residents had decided to come outside during the gunfire, having assumed that it was a gang-motivated shooting. A few of them had called 911, and if Herring had been on duty at the time, then things might have been a little different. Not enough to change what ultimately came about, but different.

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HE dashed past the rubble that had been Henry's front door without a glance--he knew what had caused the damage--and into the living room. He glanced around, unable to locate the phone, and then thought that it might be in the bedroom. Of course; people hated to get a phonecall in the middle of the night and to have to get up and walk halfway across the house to get to it. Henry had probably just put his phone on his bedside table to avoid that. Douglas lurched down the hall, out of breath but pushing himself hard anyway.

Then he noticed the mess in between the bedroom and the bathroom.

A pile of large, white chunks of what appeared to be plaster lay in the middle of the floor, strewn every which way in such a way that only a large, blunt instrument could have done the damage. Douglas was curious and suspicious; people didn't make this kind of mess for just any reason. He started to enter the room...and then decided that it could wait. Eileen was in mortal danger right now, and even if she had been shooting at him, Henry seemed like he would have been able to justify it (He better have a damn good reason, Douglas thought as this idea raced through his mind). In any case, for now, the woman's safety was first priority.

Douglas opened the bedroom door with such force that he almost tore it off of its flimsy hinges; he immediately spotted the phone (trying to keep his eyes away from the queer photographs which lined the room, and from the red notebook, which sat on the table in the far corner) and darted over to it in a second, jerking it off of its cradle and punching the numbers 911 with furious rapidity. When it picked up, he described the situation hurriedly to the man on the other end, and was told that an ambulance would be on the scene in ten minutes or less.

"It better be less," Douglas said to the man. "I don't think she's got ten minutes. Losing a lot of blood."

The man on the other end of the line sounded like he might have been about to say something smart...but then he decided not to. And a wise decision that was, Douglas thought, hanging up.

Coming out of the bedroom, Eileen's safety now taken care of as well as was possible, the hole in Henry's wall returned to the front of his mind (and how could it not, being at the front of his vision as it was?). He stepped over the pile of plaster and rubble, which stood guard before it like a sentry, and into the small room, wincing at the sudden, strong smell which became prevalent as he entered. He stopped for a moment and caught his breath--a task that he hadn't quite been able to juggle along with contacting the 911 officer--clutching his knees with his hands. When he had regained his breath--of which there wasn't that much to begin with, but enough to get by--he stood up, stretching, and groaned as his back popped several times. He cracked his knuckles twice as well, and then stepped around the shelf which obscured his view of the tiny room.

He let out a moan of disgust and horror when he saw the crucifix, old, rotten and disgusting thing that it was.

It must have been at least five, six, maybe ten years old. The hair on the thing was long, silvery and silky, like a woman's, and the fingernails were long and blackened with age. It looked almost like a vampire who had been staked through the heart...except he appeared to be smiling. If he was a vampire, or had been staked, then he had almost surely done it himself. No man caught by surprise--or against his will--would have been able to die with such a candidly...beautiful look on his face. It was both graceful and sickening at the same time, and that somehow made it worse.

Douglas heard the front door slam shut behind him, and heard Henry's voice float down the hallway.

"Hey, Douglas!" he called. His footsteps made fluffing sounds on the carpet that Douglas could hear all the way back here. "What's taking you so long?"

Douglas smiled dryly. "I think you should answer one question of mine first," he said, just loud enough for Henry to hear as he came down the hall."What the..." he heard Henry say from right outside the room. From the sound of his voice, he hadn't expected this hole to be here.

Perhaps he hadn't hidden it as well as he'd thought?

Henry came into the room slowly, as if he knew he'd done something wrong--or so Douglas read him. Henry stopped dead as soon as he lay eyes on the corpse hanging from the crucifix.

"Oh, hell," he said, and Douglas interpreted that to mean, oh, hell, they found me out.

"I think you've got a little bit of explaining to do," Douglas told him, taking a step closer. "You want to tell me what this is about?" He flicked a thumb toward the body, but didn't take his eyes off of Henry. He suddenly didn't trust this guy, nice as he was...one...little...bit.

"I," Henry started, but couldn't seem to get his words together. "I mean...this is...remember what I said, about how...I killed..."

"I didn't know what to make of it," Douglas began, "when you said you killed that guy. I thought you might be making some kind of stupid joke." He reached into his coat and took out a pair of handcuffs. "But now I see that I may have underestimated you. Or at least misread. Unless there's a logical explanation for all this?"

"You don't un--"

"I guess that's what I get for letting my guard down," he interrupted, continuing. "Now I wonder about your connection with that woman." He twirled one of the handcuffs on his finger, like a cop in a western movie. He didn't seem to be portraying quite the air of superiority that his words connoted, but Henry was nervous as hell all the same. "Now, am I going to need these...or are you going to come along willingly?"

Henry's mouth hung open, but he didn't say a word. He was speechless.

"If you have nothing to hide--as you seem to be implying--then you shouldn't have a reason not to," Douglas added.

Henry's paralysis finally broke. "Okay, but you'll have to hear me out. It's a really weird--"

"Okay," Douglas said, seeming to deny the very affirmation he was making by saying so. "But any talking we do, we do downtown. Unless you have something you'd like to add." The detective regarded him with cold, expresionless eyes. The friendliness Henry had seen in them earlier was gone; now there were only the inches of hardened detective that hid that friendliness from the eyes of normal passersby.

Henry sighed. He looked at Douglas...looked up at Walter's ancient corpse (how was that thing still able to look so...well, the only word was 'fresh?' Wasn't it over 10 years old?)...looked back at Douglas.

"What's it gonna be, Henry?" Douglas asked, not moving. He stood still as a statue--as cliche as that was, Henry thought, there was simply no other way to describe the perfectly natural way the man just stood there, unmoving--waiting for Henry to answer in the positive, answer in the negative, or try to run.

Henry knew why Douglas was standing that way. He was focusing--getting ready to pounce, if need be. Henry knew there wouldn't be--he was not the kind of guy who would run from the cops, even if he did feel like he hadn't done anything--but the detective didn't know that. Hell, Henry had already confessed to murder.

Henry held out his hands, allowing himself to be handcuffed. As he did so, he heard sirens in the distance. He knew the sound--he'd heard the St. Jerome's' Hospital's only ambulance make its runs before--but for some strange reason, it made him uncomfortable today. Very, very uncomfortable. Like he should be afraid of it.

Steven would have understood.

END OF CHAPTER 9