Chapter 12: Arrival
Eileen slowed down when she saw the car stopped just outside of Silent Hill. They were here, all right, unless someone else had rented a car in Ashfield and driven here. She continued driving at a slower pace, on the lookout for anything strange. She already had an unusual feeling about the town, as though there were something wrong with it.
There was fog everywhere, for one thing. It seemed strange for that time of the evening. The entire town seemed abandoned, and there was a sort of cold emptiness to it that made her think about how alone she was.
Nothing is going to go wrong.
She glanced over at her collection of weapons on the passenger seat, for reassurance that they were still there. It wasn't as though she had come unprepared.
She knew, though, that something probably already had gone wrong. It didn't seem very likely that she would find Henry and his friend in no trouble at all, having encountered nothing more dangerous than a broken-down car and bad phone reception. Even excluding his odd behavior, she found it hard to believe that the town had been abandoned for an innocent reason.
The road up ahead seemed unnaturally dark, and she edged forward cautiously, wishing her headlights were brighter. She caught movement on the edge of her peripheral vision and looked sharply, but whatever it had been was already out of sight. She shivered. It had moved like some sort of spider, but the shape she had seen was far too large for that.
She abruptly realized that what she had taken for a dark road was actually a hole, and she hit the brakes before the car reached the edge of the cliff.
What in the world happened here?
After sitting there for a few moments until her heart rate slowed down, she slung her handbag over her shoulder and grabbed the nightstick. Then she reluctantly got out of the car.
Outside, the place seemed even more desolate. The wind blew, sending a slight chill through her, and she was glad for more than one reason that she had put on a black sweater before leaving. The weather here seemed to call for it, and there was something ominous about the town, as well. Eileen wasn't superstitious, but she knew that if she had come here with her upper back—and consequently, her scars—exposed, it would have felt like she was inviting trouble. As it was, she was aware of them in a way she hadn't been for years.
There didn't seem to be a bottom to the pit that had divided the road in front of her, and she couldn't see a way to get around it, either. She'd have to abandon the car, and she grimaced at the thought. She had no idea where Henry had gotten to, and searching the entire town on foot was going to be difficult.
She returned to her car and got out the map of the town that Rich had given her. If she started at one end of the area and worked her way across, that would be the best way to ensure finding Henry. She could only hope they hadn't found a way to cross the lake.
After studying the map for a while, she finally decided that the best thing to do would be to backtrack a short ways on Nathan Avenue, until she could turn down onto what looked like Lindsey Street. From there, she could make her way west through the rest of the town, until she found him.
Them, she reminded herself. Someone's with him.
The back of her neck suddenly prickled. As illogical as it was, it felt as though someone—or something—was watching her. She got back into the car, even though it was only a short distance she was going to back up. The less time she spent out in the open, the better.
Once she was level with Lindsey Street, she stopped the car. She folded the map and put it in her handbag, and then she reluctantly got out.
"It's a nice day for a walk," she said out loud in an attempt to calm herself down. Considering it was not even close to being a nice day out, her lie didn't help at all. Even the starlight above seemed colder here.
Eileen began to walk down the street, but she hadn't gotten very far before she saw another abyss in front of her. With a sigh, she pulled out the map again to change her plan. There were buildings on either side of the road where she stood, and she thought she might check them, just in case, but they all were locked. The next step, then, would be to get back on the road that had brought her into Silent Hill, and take the next street that went into the town.
She walked back up the street quickly after putting the map away, disliking how loud her footsteps seemed in the otherwise quiet night. She still couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched.
Maybe Henry's not the only one who became a little paranoid.
She was glad when she finally reached the car again, and she was reaching for the door when she heard a noise above her. Jumping back as quickly as she could, she thought shakily that this was where a character in a horrible movie would look up slowly and get themselves killed.
There was a creature on top of the car.
Eileen's eyes widened in alarm. It was the spider-like thing she had seen from before, but more than just its size made it seem unnatural and wrong. It had a diseased, twisted look to it, and she realized that blood was running down it from an apparent wound on its body.
It slashed towards her with one spindly, vicious leg, and she smashed down on it with the nightstick. The monster screeched in pain and launched itself towards her, and she suppressed a shriek and hit it again. The nightstick worked efficiently, and soon it was dead on the ground.
Now that it was still, she realized that it wasn't a spider, as it only had five legs. Very strange legs they were, too, and she suddenly realized that it reminded her of some sort of distorted, disembodied hand. A blood-covered hand, at that, like the bloody hands of a killer…
Something rustled behind her, and she almost screamed out loud.
I can't think about things like that right now…
The noise still was important, though, and she gripped the nightstick tightly as she turned around, dreading what she would see.
More of the monsters were there, nails clicking against the ground as they moved towards her. She wondered if they had been watching when she walked down Lindsey Street, waiting for her to go back so that they could sneak up. She saw, or at least imagined she saw, more coming from between buildings. There were going to be too many to fight.
Eileen turned and ran down Nathan Avenue. The monsters were scurrying behind her, making an awful noise. From time to time, one of them would get too close, and she'd swing the nightstick to knock it back. She didn't dare slow down enough to deal with any of them more thoroughly.
Oh God, is this what was happening when I lost the connection with Henry?
She remembered that he had taken at least the spade with him, and that made her feel better, although more curious. She had been skeptical of the gardening trip story from the start, and could it be that he had known he was going into a place with monsters? Had he taken the spade to use it as a weapon?
Henry—and his friend, for that matter—were probably better prepared to deal with monsters than she was, but now she was certain they were in some sort of danger. Wherever they were, there were undoubtedly these monsters, if not worse ones, as well.
I need to find them, so we can get out of here!
She started to turn down the next street, and one of the monsters appeared in her path as if on cue. With a single glance back at her pursuers, she stayed on Nathan Avenue. They would catch her in the time it took to dispatch that new one.
As she ran, she remembered what Henry had said to her on the phone, that his friend needed help finding someone. Another person was lost in Silent Hill? Having seen the monsters, she felt a surprising stab of empathy for Henry's mysterious friend. She could understand coming to this place to find someone close to you, and staying, despite all the danger, so that you could save them—it was what she was doing, too, after all.
She realized she was approaching the first chasm she had encountered, but to her relief, there was a small alleyway turning off of the road. She ran towards it, praying that there would be no new monsters to block her way.
There were none. However, she had the terrible feeling that she had reached a dead end. She could hear the monsters coming in after her, and she began to try all of the doors on the buildings around her. She willed herself not to panic.
She finally found a door that was unlocked, and she dove inside gratefully. She closed the door on the monsters, not caring that it left her in near-total darkness. At least she was safe, for the time being.
Eileen sat against the wall with her eyes closed, listening to the sound of her pounding heart. She hadn't felt this much in danger in…well, in three years. She had learned things back then, and one of them was that she couldn't just sit around and hope things would turn out all right without her doing anything. Henry hadn't wasted any time in rescuing her, and she would repay the favor.
It would, of course, help if she knew just where she was.
She set down the nightstick and opened her handbag. Pulling out both the map and her flashlight, she turned on the light and studied the map. From what she remembered of her run through the alley, she had to have gone into one of the apartment buildings. She hoped there was another door that could lead her back out into the town.
She folded up the map again, and stood up. If there was a way, she would find it, and if there wasn't, she'd go out and face the monsters again. She wasn't giving up.
xXx
Henry was sitting against the door to the outside, enjoying the slight breeze and trying to ignore the bloody message on the other wall, when he realized that he no longer had to ignore the message. It was disappearing.
Better yet, as it disappeared, the third door reappeared. He stood up. Walter would be on his way back, possibly with his mother, although it wasn't likely, and they could go outside again.
The door opened, and Walter stumbled out. He looked far worse than he had the last time. He looked considerably dazed and seemed to be bleeding in many places. There was a gash above his eye, both of his pant legs were fairly soaked with blood, and a fair amount of the blood on his coat was probably his and not that of whatever he had been fighting.
"You'd better put down your weapons and get out a first-aid kit," Henry advised, keeping his distance since Walter was holding both a pipe and a knife and didn't seem entirely aware of where he was.
He waited for a while. There was no indication that Walter had even heard him. He groaned. He had a feeling this was going to be difficult. Approaching cautiously, he pried the weapons out of his hands and set them down in the corner. Then he frowned. That had been easy enough, but he wished he knew what he had faced in there that had left him shell-shocked like this.
"You really need first-aid," he commented, wondering if he should just grab the backpack.
"Are you going to kill me, Henry?"
It was such a bizarre leap of logic to make, from first-aid to murder, that he couldn't stop himself from asking, "Have you gone insane?"
He shouldn't have asked.
Walter grabbed him by the shoulders, and Henry realized that something was definitely wrong. It was more than just nearly dying at the hands of some monster. He had noticed from the beginning that Walter's cheerful façade had cracks in it, but now it was as though someone had set a hammer and chisel to those cracks. They had been getting along quite well earlier, but now, for that brief second or two, he was certain that Walter's hands were going to move up around his throat and strangle him.
Before he could think of what to do, he had been released, pushed backwards across the room. Henry regained his balance and saw that Walter was now facing the wall, holding his head and looking like he wanted to die.
"What did you fight in there?" he finally asked, wishing he could help him.
"It…reminded me of Cynthia."
"Oh." Henry paused. "When I asked if you were insane, I didn't mean anything by it, you know."
"It doesn't matter." But Walter managed to turn away from the wall and take off his backpack, mumbling something about first-aid kits.
Henry had the feeling this was going to be a messy process, especially since neither of them had exactly gained a medical degree since the last time. He walked over and opened the first-aid kit with a sigh. At least nothing was broken this time.
Partway through wrapping a bandage around his leg, Walter looked up. "Why are you helping me?"
"Well, we're in this together, after all."
And we're friends, his mind interjected, but he was so surprised that he couldn't actually say it out loud.
"Wouldn't it be easier just to let me die?"
"Don't get all morbid now; you haven't lost that much blood," he replied, smiling weakly. The monster had looked like Cynthia. Was it like having to kill one of his victims again? Was the town trying to give him a breakdown?
When they finally had Walter patched up as much as they could, they gathered everything back up, and Henry opened the door that would, hopefully, lead out of the subway. There were only a few steps to climb up, which didn't make sense considering how far down the passage had gone, but he supposed he should stop trying to apply regular logic to the Otherworld.
Up on the street, Henry looked around. They weren't anywhere near the Wish House, that was for sure. They were in another area of urban Silent Hill, rather than the forest. For that matter, he wasn't even sure they were anywhere closer to the lake.
He looked at the sign of the nearest building. It was some sort of Mexican restaurant. "Where's the map?"
Once the map was unfolded, he began to search for the name, hoping it was marked. It was, but his heart sunk when he found it. He looked up at the street signs to be sure he hadn't made a mistake.
Sanders Street.
Lindsey Street.
He looked down at the map again. It was no mistake. The subway had led them back in the wrong direction, and they were about as far from their destination as they could be.
"I don't think that was the passage you thought it was," he finally sighed.
