This is a comparatively short, quick chapter in which our characters gird their loins for what lies ahead. Though on that note, someone finally gets off his arse and makes his first appearance...
Betaed by Rexx13; Rexxie13 on DeviantArt. MysteriousWatcher, Rexxie, thank you both for your Beta talents!
The word "Blasphemer" had been etched into each of the four founding houses. It was four in the afternoon on the same day from which they'd departed Canada, and the sun was due to set within the next hour or so. Although each of them had known that daylight would be limited, they had jumped in Heather's car and proceeded onward to Shepherd's Glen without even stopping to discuss the matter.
Alex was shaking. Shepherd's Glen was the place he had suffered in, not Silent Hill per se. And it was also the place he'd grown up in. Too many emotions were tied to the dismal gray stones, the untended yards, the empty houses. Shepherd's Glen was a ghost town in a way Silent Hill had never been in the real world. It was very eerie. There was no fog. It was just dead.
That simple word, 'Blasphemer,' was enough to suggest that Elle wasn't here. It had a dismissive, holier-than-thou attitude towards the Glen. The crude graffiti was not the only set of marks upon the doorways, however. On further inspection, she realized each home had very familiar marks on the doorway. She took out her phone to take a snapshot of each, and looked through them curiously.
A chill came over her. There were four symbols, one for each of the founding houses of Shepherd's Glen. These symbols showed up, one in each of the four cardinal directions, on the Halo of the Sun insignia- the mark of the Order. As much as each family might have striven to distance itself from the Goddess, they had never truly left her side. They had lived under her mark their entire lives.
They weren't going to make it to Silent Hill that night, and Heather doubted Alex would be able to sleep once they returned to Daybrook. They found themselves in a strange haze where time had no meaning at the end of a very intense rush. Alex walked from home to home almost as if dazed, touching shattered picture frames, sidestepping broken doors and furniture, and the paint which only one year later was already beginning to peel.
They passed through the home that had once belonged to the Holloways. Heather saw pictures of two girls in the home, one of whom was Elle. It wasn't much of a leap to realize that the younger of the two had been Nora Holloway. Heather grimaced. When they reached his own home, Heather could tell. He hesitated a very long time at the doorway, and when he finally stepped in his movements were shaky. She hurried up beside him and wrapped her arms around his. Her actions made him halt and close his eyes, taking in deep breaths. When he'd composed himself, he started forward again.
The house seemed, in ways, sadder than the others. A lonely rocking chair was stirred into movement by the wind, forever in the shadow, forever untouched by the light of the living room window. It was a home that basked in its tragedy, that acknowledged its own darkness, that defied it, that had died for it. Each of the other manors, Holloway through Fitch, had remained stately, organized, empowered. This home alone screamed of its powerlessness; acknowledged its loss.
They did not stop at the first floor landing. Alex climbed the staircase, up to a cozy bedroom he must have shared with his little brother. They were still drawings on the walls and scattered over the floors, though a year of constant weathering had yellowed them. A conveniently placed Robbie the Rabbit Doll was perched on one bed, and appeared to be sopping wet in the otherwise dry room. They tried to ignore it. Alex paused just inside the threshold, unable to go farther. He hadn't returned to this room after defeating Amnion; He, Elle, and Wheeler had immediately fled the town. Now the sight of those drawings almost broke him.
"Alex," Heather murmured to him.
"If Josh hadn't died," he said slowly, voice wavering. "It would have been only us four. Everyone else would have survived. My mother and father. Elle would have been safe... And my brother... he-"
Heather quickly entered the room. She moved around the soldier, coming directly in front of him and looking up at his retentive face. "Alex," she hissed. He looked at her as if spooked, and the sudden change in expression let several tears through. "One day, a kinder God Willing, Elle Holloway will have children, and grandchildren."
He frowned, not understanding.
"Those grandchildren will be roughly your age at the time of the next sacrifice. And you have just saved her from ever needing to become her mother. From ever needing to justify the murder of her own flesh and blood."
He stared at her.
"The thing you killed here was evil. You protected good people. You killed no one who had not first shed an innocent's blood. And because of Josh's accident, however terrible it might have been... we can say the same about your father. You may keep seeing the Pyramid Thing over and over again in your dreams, but the truth is that you neither found Adam Shepherd cutting his arms open, nor threatening an innocent with a rotary saw. And you know, you know, that he never wanted you to die in the first place."
Alex was shaking. She gazed at him a moment, almost irritable, as if his self-deprecation had been a personal affront. In a way, maybe it was; Alex was currently her partner, and to suggest Alex ought to be dead was to suggest that Heather ought to be alone. Then, on registering his expression, her face softened a little and she lifted her arms and touched his own. A moment passed; then he crumpled into her, hugging her tightly, pressing his face into her hair.
They left Shepherd's Glen almost immediately afterward. Heather asked if there was anywhere else in town he could look for signs of the cult, but Alex merely shook his head. They weren't there; He could feel it in his bones. The word 'Betrayer' pointed to a culprit in Silent Hill. They would return to Daybrook for the night and head out to Silent Hill in the morning.
He was silent on the way back to Daybrook, leaning his temple against the passenger side window and closing his eyes as if hoping to find some miserly quantity of sleep. She reached over and gently shook his knee when they arrived back at her place. His car was still parked there, and had been since they'd originally headed north.
"Hey. We're back. You want to crash here tonight?"
He nodded. When they entered the home she made some decaffeinated tea for them both. He was antsy, nervous, stressed. Heather's house had three bedrooms; the other two were for guests. She never let Douglas put up in a hotel while he was visiting, and on the rare occasion someone came to see her, a room was always available. While Alex tried to calm his nerves by turning on the news, sipping his tea, and pacing around the domicile; Heather opened the registers in one of the spare bedrooms and brought up a portable heater.
Heather wasn't sure Alex would actually be able to sleep that night. She made sure the house couches each had a throw pillow and blanket available. Then she came up behind the man where he was sitting on her counter top near the television, listening to the weather forecast for the week.
"Alex?"
He looked at her. "I made up the guest bedroom, first door on the right upstairs."
The soldier nodded.
"I know you probably aren't going to use it. So I made up the couches, too."
This time, he had the decency to look a little cowed, or bashful. He looked slowly down at his drink, contemplating the steaming contents.
"Try to get some sleep, Alex," she told him. He was still in his coat. She reached up and unbuttoned it for him.
"I'm too worried," he acknowledged, voice weak, slipping his arms out of the coat.
"You need to be at the top of your game tomorrow. And the next day. And for however long this is going to take." Their faces were very close to one another. They spent a moment watching each other's features, savoring their closeness in this otherwise anxious moment.
"I'll try..." he murmured at last.
Heather folded up the coat, leaned forward, and kissed him. Then she hung the garment over the back of a kitchen chair and headed on up to bed.
When sleeping beside Valtiel, Heather could actually dream. She rarely remembered the contents because she was sleeping deeply, and well. But the bits and parts she remembered were peaceful. They flowed like gentle streams from idea to idea, place to place, topic to topic. Sometimes they were a little uncomfortable; sometimes the sky rained chocolate. They were nothing like Heather's Silent Hill nightmares.
Those nightmares were convoluted and terrifying. And without Valtiel or anyone else there to chase them away, those nightmares were driving full throttle across her brain. Heather was restless even with the nightlight on, and her sleep was very poor. Half formed shapes lurched at her; a feeling of vertigo, of panic, followed at all times. She saw her father, but he was twisted moments later into some horrible monster. There was little continuity to Heather's nightmares. They didn't play out like stories; they were more like disjointed hallucinations. Giant mashed-up collages of everything and anything she feared, swirling about in a mind totally incapable of logic or remembrance.
But this time, something different happened. Something grabbed her, yanked her, pulled her back into someplace like lucidity. The motion was physical in the way dreams could be, and very different from the endless, distressed spinning of the nightmare. The montage broke, rippled, and folded aside. Heather looked around to find herself on a gray landscape. The features were vague and constantly changing, but all vertigo was gone. She was present; she was wholly Heather Mason, and she was dressed as she had been that fateful day Harry Mason died.
Heather stood up slowly, looking around. There was a presence behind her, something big, something powerful, something frightening. She spun around and beheld it for the first time.
It was enormous, just as Alex had said. It stood ten feet tall, a black metal hood hanging low from its shoulders down over its chest. Its arms were gloved in blood from fingertip to elbow. Huge muscles bulged beneath leathery skin and prominent blue veins. Its shoulders were broad, waist narrow only when held in comparison. Wrapped about its hips were belts suspending a filthy off-white kilt, not unlike Valtiel's smock. One arm was coiled backwards, the fingers wrapped about the hilt of the enormous blood-stained knife standing upright beside it, tip planted solidly in the earth. As far as she could see, none of its fingers were melded together.
The Pyramid Thing was staring at her; she was sure of that. Heather had noted once that Valtiel was shaped in the form of masculine power. The Pyramid Thing was the same, albeit grossly exaggerated. It must have weighed at least eight hundred pounds, not including the helmet or knife. No truly human frame could have supported its grotesque musculature; it was physical strength incarnate.
A long black tongue eased out from underneath the helmet on one side, coiling up through the air, tasting it. Heather's brows lifted in surprise and she took a quick step towards the creature before reconsidering her actions and pausing. Then, despite all better judgment, she crept closer to it, feeling smaller and smaller the closer she came, the more it towered over her. It shifted slightly. She was well within striking distance. It could have even grabbed her with its unoccupied arm.
She lifted a hand slowly, hesitantly, reaching for the tip of the helm. At the touch, it growled slightly. The sound was less cat like, more like a Jurassic Park dinosaur, but whistling low and rumbling as if through a metal smokestack. The tongue eased forward and wrapped about her fingertips with a painfully tight grasp. The touch was small but strangely threatening.
Heather shuddered. The Pyramid thing stepped towards her, the footfall so heavy and so powerful that it caused the earth to tremble under her feet. Heather stumbled backwards and the Pyramid thing took another step, its tongue slithering down to hold tightly around her wrist. The blade tore out of the earth behind it and followed them with a painfully high-pitched shriek. The monster lifted up its free arm, reaching five thick fingers menacingly towards her throat.
Panic.
But then nothing. The dream ended, spiraled off in another direction entirely.
Heather Mason woke up in her own bed with a living heat coiled about her. She blinked back the edge of what had been a reasonable quality sleep, and then glanced downward as arms tightened reflexively around her. A wave of surprise crested through her. She hadn't even bothered to ask for this. Alex had been so antsy, so stressed she hadn't imagined he could handle enjoying another feminine presence while Elle was missing.
There he was, asleep, his face buried in the crook of Heather's neck, his arms wrapped tightly around her, his upward facing shoulder draped partially over her own. He'd stripped down to his underthings and coiled up against her the night before. Heather closed her eyes for a moment, feeling his breath ghost warmly over her throat. Then she reached up and gently ruffled his hair. The man grunted sleepily and clutched her even harder for a moment, before blinking awake and loosening his grasp.
"Good morning, handsome," she murmured. "We should get up."
He peered at her face sleepily for a moment, contentedly, and then the events of the previous day came back to him and he lurched up to a sitting position with surprising speed.
Heather blinked and grasped his arm. "Hey! Easy," she called to him. "Easy."
Alex shuddered and took a moment to compose himself. "I'll make coffee," he said thickly. Then he scooped up his clothing from the day before and hurried across the hall to the next room, where his suitcase was. Heather rubbed her eyes and sat up slowly. She never remembered much of her chaotic nightmares or her confusing dreams; but an image of the Pyramid Thing had crystallized hard in her memory.
"If you ever see it again," she decided sleepily, "Show no fear."
"What are we bringing?" Alex asked, eating the toast Heather had made for them as fast as he could. Heather was kneeling beside the dining room hutch and he'd followed her in with his plate in one hand and his jacket half donned. Heather glanced up at him. Then she began pulling out the drawers of the hutch, showing of drawer after drawer of weapons.
The shotgun, he immediately envied, but there were other interesting weapons, from a modern rifle to a beautiful katana. Heather snatched the latter free immediately and drew it out to admire. He was a little surprised at the implication that seventeen year old Heather Mason had gotten herself educated in the art of Japanese swordsmanship even while moving haphazardly around the country.
"No more than we can carry," she answered his earlier inquiry. "If we do get sucked up by the Otherworld, it won't let us hold on to more than that."
"I thought you were married to your small arms," he wondered, kneeling down to pick up and examine the rifle.
"Hand guns are for normal life. This is for Silent Hill," She smiled at the katana and then sheathed it and buckled it at her side.
He couldn't help an admiring smile as he peered down the sights of his new weapon. "This is nice," he complemented.
"You want the shotgun?" she asked, running her fingers over a crowbar. Score; he'd been jealous she would take it for herself.
"Damn straight I do."
"Good. I'll take the Uzi."
He lifted his head and looked at her. She was fitting the sub-machine gun with a silencer as methodically as if she had been born with it in her hands. He tilted his head to the side, and for a moment managed to push back his fears concerning Elle.
Heather noticed him staring and blinked. "What?"
"That Uzi is very slimming on you," he teased her, and tugged her forward by the shoulder to kiss her. Heather blinked and held the kiss for a moment, before pulling back and smiling at him wondrously.
"The other guys I dated always ended up hating them. They usually thought the handgun was neat at first, but once they realized I was a better shot than they were, I stopped getting phone calls back. One turned out to be a pacifist and wanted me to throw them out. Guess the others were just intimidated by a lady tougher than them."
Alex smirked, hoisting up the shotgun and pulling the rifle over his shoulder by the strap. "You're with me now," he reminded her. "We'll do our guns together."
Heather smiled. "Well! Keep talking like that and you're going to get lucky fairly soon Mr. Shepherd," she teased back, grabbing a second handgun and moving to strap both at her thighs. Because if she was going to go into Silent Hill, there was no reason not to pretend she was Lara Croft.
Alex nearly choked he laughed so suddenly and so hard. He tossed her the left holster when she couldn't find it, scooped up some shotgun ammunition, and then smiled at her endearingly. "My father would have approved of you," he said, and his smile did not falter.
Heather kissed his nose. "Ditto."
Heather drove them to Silent Hill, wryly thinking that if the weather became foggy and she saw a figure on the road, she would probably plow straight through it.
"The forecast is sunny for the next five days," Alex told her, unwrapping a pop tart. She'd brought a stash of snacks and packed a few changes of clothes for each of them. There was no guarantee that driving into Silent Hill would bring them to the Otherworld; for all they knew Elle had been kidnapped by cultists stationed firmly in the physical world.
Heather nodded. "Dig out my cell phone, will you? We should call Kaufmann and tell him we're coming."
Alex nodded and dug through her purse. He pulled out the phone and tabbed through her contacts and hit the call button.
"Heather?" came a startled male voice on the other side.
"Uh- no, this is Alex Shepherd, her... friend." Heather glanced at him.
"Alex? Heather mentioned you... Is she there? Something happened recently, and I really need to speak with her."
Alex laughed nervously. "Actually, we're on our way to Silent Hill right now."
There was silence at the other end for a while.
"Hello?"
"I suppose I should have guessed," Kaufmann acknowledged in a restrained voice. "I'm assuming this is neither a courtesy call nor a regular appointment if you are both in such a rush, then?"
Alex covered the receiver. "What should I tell him about why we're coming?"
Heather shrugged. "Tell him the truth."
Alex hesitated. "Really?"
"Really."
The man nodded and uncovered the receiver. "One of our friends has gone missing, and we think she might be in Silent Hill," he answered a little vaguely, not sure what level of truth he ought to tell.
"I see," Kauffman said quietly. "Tell... Tell Heather that I will make up beds for each of you at the Lighthouse. No need to stay in that overpriced hotel. It'll be good to meet you finally, Mr. Shepherd."
"I'll tell her. Thank you; she's only got complementary things to say about you, too, sir."
"Drive carefully. And... Alex? The sky is still clear, here. I'll call you if that changes." It was Kaufmann who hung up first, leaving Alex to stare surprised at the phone receiver. Then he looked back to Heather.
"How much does he know?" Alex asked.
"It's not a question of how much he knows," she responded. "It's more a question of how much he actually believes, and how much he just goes along with. I guess I should tell you that story before we get there."
"He-" Alex paused, watching as the sign, "Welcome to Silent Hill," rose up on the right hand side of the road. He was mute for a few seconds afterwards, before reaching across the car and grasping her forearm tightly. Heather glanced at him, and realized he was doing it for support. "Silent Hill." he murmured.
"Yeah," Heather acknowledged as Alex looked anxiously up towards the sky. No fog. She reached her left hand down from the steering wheel and slipped it into the pocket of her cargo pants. There was only one piece of equipment Heather hadn't shared with Alex. The Seal of the Metatron was familiar and cool beneath her fingertips. She nodded to herself reassuringly, and prayed she wouldn't have to figure out how to use it.
Then she remembered something she'd wanted to tell him while he was on the phone.
"Alex?"
"Yeah?"
"When you called Kaufmann, you referred to yourself as my friend."
He blinked at her hesitantly, recalling the way she'd glanced at him. "Aren't I?"
Heather rolled her eyes and said in a very dismissive tone, "Alex, keep one thing straight: You are not my friend."
He blinked at her, surprised, confused, and stricken. Minutes away from Silent Hill and potentially all his inner demons, and with his childhood best friend still unaccounted for, Alex Shepherd was particularly vulnerable in that moment.
"...You are my boyfriend," she corrected sternly. "I'll forgive you this time, but don't mess it up again."
The car was silent for a long moment. Then he reached over and smacked her upside the back of the head for being a jerk.
Jeez PH, sure took you long enough! It's like you didn't even want to be IN this fic. And then you go and show up in a friggen dream.
It seems like PH/Valtiel knows everything about the sins/naughtiness of everyone who enters Silent Hill, so does that make him like the Silent Hill Santa Claus? Maybe we need plushies of him in a Santa Outfit. PH would be the easiest; we just need a big cotton ball at the top of his helmet and a white beard to droop under it...