She found him on the second floor landing, slumped against the wall, and
they regarded each other for a long moment while she stood on the stairs
looking up at him. He was clearly very ill, pale and gaunt, with dark
crescents under his eyes. He was bathed in sweat, and breathed heavily
through his nose, sounding as though he was struggling for breath.
He pointed a pistol at her.
"Hi there," she said calmly, "You don't look like you're feeling very well."
In her light he looked like a creature evolved in a cave, never exposed to the sun. He didn't lower the pistol.
"You're human?" he finally asked, and coughed violently.
"That's what they tell me. Can I come up? You look like you need help – I noticed you seem to have coughed up some blood on that map downstairs."
"Prove it," he said, and Augusta began to wonder if he was insane. She valued her ability to remain calm in most situations, but having a gun pointed at her heart was still terrifying. She couldn't let him see her fear, because keeping him calm seemed the wisest tactic.
"Prove that you're human."
It really wasn't a bizarre question, she considered, especially if there was anything else like the thing that looked like a woman roaming the streets of Silent Hill.
"Okay... How shall I do that? Would you like to see my driver's license, perhaps?"
Keep him calm. That was most important, but who could say the thing that looked like a woman didn't have a driver's license? After all, she had been waiting in a black Jeep Cherokee with Florida plates and for all Augusta knew it might have driven it here itself. If her license wasn't proof enough, what else did she have to show him...
"Sounds good. Nice and easy though."
She agreed, and slowly slipped off her backpack. She carefully unzipped it, reached inside and withdrew her wallet, then opened it and offered it to him. He leaned forward weakly and studied it before he exhausted his strength and fell back. A tear trickled down his cheek and he lowered the gun.
"Oh, thank God... I don't even know how long it's been since I've seen another person here... it feels like days and days..." his voice was weak and thready, and he suddenly doubled over, retching and coughing.
But he had seen other people here, she thought. That was encouraging. She would ask him about it a little later.
"Come on," she said, "If you're sick you need to rest in a better place than a cold concrete stairwell. Let's see if we can't find you a couch to lay on or something, what say?"
He looked up at her as though she were an angel, then let her help him to his feet, though he never let go of his pistol. He leaned heavily on her, and she supported more of his weight than he did. She pushed open the door, and they stepped into a dark hallway beyond.
*
Most of the doctors on the Ridgeview Clinic's second floor were general practitioners, and when Augusta moved toward the first door, hoping to find a place for the man to rest, he said to her, "No... please. I came up here to go to a specific office – can you please take me to it? It's not much farther, only halfway down the hall."
It seemed an odd thing to ask, but Augusta agreed and together they staggered down the hall, reading nameplates beside each office door before the man finally said they had gone far enough.
DR. PRAHDEEP GHOSH, MD, & ASSOCIATES – "Your family doctor!"
"This is it. This is where I have to go."
Augusta's shoulders were beginning to cramp from supporting the man's weight. She shuffled toward the door and tried the knob, and to her relief it turned easily and opened. She pushed with her foot and it swung noiselessly inward.
"Okay, bud, here we go. Help me out though; you're getting heavy."
Beyond the door was a comfortably furnished waiting room – with more dead potted plants, Augusta noticed – that smelled strongly of must, as if it had been shut up for five years in the dampness of South Vale, bathed in Toluca Lake's humidity. She helped him to the nearest sofa and eased him down onto it. He sighed.
"Oh God... thanks. I've run myself into the ground getting here."
Kneeling, she smiled, "I know the feeling," and reached up to smooth her hair back. In the wet air it was starting to frizz, and would soon be bobbing around her head in stiff little streamers if she didn't coax it back into place now and then.
His eyes widened and he sucked in a breath and recoiled.
"Your hand is bleeding! Your hand is bleeding, oh please tell me you didn't touch that spot where I coughed downstairs."
"What?" She reached for him.
"No! No! Don't touch me, don't touch me with the hand that has a cut on it!"
She drew back. "What's the matter? What's wrong?"
He lay back and gasped for breath. She waited.
Finally his breathing slowed and he looked at her, and she had never seen eyes so sad. "I have AIDS and I don't want to make you sick. I've never made anyone sick ever since I got this and I couldn't live with myself if I did. Please don't touch me. If you've got an open cut, it could get in... Did you touch that place where I coughed?"
"No..."
"Thank God." His strength seemed to be ebbing. His chest fell and struggled to rise again, and he had been scorching beneath his clothes. Someone this sick didn't need overexcitement; she had to calm him down.
She smoothed her hair back again. "Um... I don't know if you got a really good look at my driver's license, but I'm from Asheville, North Carolina. Well, not originally – originally I'm from Hot Springs, Arkansas, but I moved from there to Silent Hill and from here to Asheville..."
She stopped, breathed in, and started again. "Let's try that again. I live in Asheville, and I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's a pretty worldly city. We've got our fair share of men and women living with HIV, and I know a thing or two about it. In fact, I've got a friend who works at an HIV clinic in West Asheville, and I know that the chance of you making me sick, even if I've got cuts on my hand, is a long, long shot, and I don't think either one of us has to worry about that. So... you need to stop thinking about that and rest instead, okay?"
In his eyes was heartbreak. She smiled at him, reassuringly.
He managed a weak grin as he closed his eyes again.
"I'll feel better if you don't touch me, but you're the first person in a long time not to treat me like a leper."
She didn't know what to say, and the silence grew.
Finally he said, "So, what brought you here?"
She was taken aback, and leaned forward with a quizzical look on her face. "I'm sorry?"
"People don't come here – this "here" – unless something brings them here..." he opened his eyes, "Hell, you know what you'd be seeing if you'd just come here on your own?"
"I don't think I understand what you mean," she said.
He looked at her. The sadness was mixed with confusion. "Surely something called you here... didn't it? I mean, you weren't just camping in the park, were you? Didn't you say you used to live here?"
"Yes. Years ago."
"So, what brought you back?"
She looked away. "I... got a card. In the mail..."
"Some people get letters," he said. "Some get phone calls. I got emails."
"Who were they from?"
"My ex-boyfriend. The one who gave me this disease. He got it from cheating on me, then passed it to me. He's been dead for seven years."
Augusta gasped. She shivered violently, suddenly feeling cold all over. Her skin prickled. The feeling of unreality that had plagued her in the tunnel crept back like an intruder. She ignored it. Now would be the worst time for any more waves of vertigo.
"You know," he said, "I just live over in South Ashfield. Always have – born and bred there in fact, and I dated Hayden for years and years before I found out he'd been cheating on me. He lived here in Silent Hill and as far as I know, so did the men he cheated on me with. I didn't know he'd made me sick until I got a cold that wouldn't go away and went to the doctor and asked why."
He coughed, thickly and wetly, and something dislodged itself from a lung. He swallowed, forcing it back down before continuing.
"After we broke up we never talked again, and I only saw him once or twice. Then I read his obituary one day in 1997 in the Toluca Tribune. And, two years later, the dam broke and washed Silent Hill away."
He met her eyes. "I always loved the national park. I can't tell you how many times I camped in it when I was healthy. I've seen this place when it's not calling to you. There's nothing here except old walls and mud and rocks, and lots of little trees.
"But when it calls to you, everything's here. After I got the emails I went into the park and came into Silent Hill from the north. Wrightwood. And this place has led me all over, as if it wants me to see it. Wrightwood, Old Silent Hill, downtown, the Windowbox District, East Silent Hill, Paleville, South Vale – it's all here, and it all looks like this. Foggy and damp, and looking like it's just been sitting here for five years."
"What do you mean it led you around?" Augusta asked.
""There are things out there that don't exist and I don't know how to describe them. They look human, but they're not. They've been coming after me ever since I stepped out of the park. And sometimes, it's like they're herding you somewhere, like there's somewhere they want you to go."
He coughed again.
"And I've been finding things. This and that, here and there like puzzle pieces, and I've had to go here to get the next piece, and there to get another piece. It's been like that for what seems like days, but I don't know... My watch stopped when I got here."
"The last place I went was my ex-boyfriend's house in Old Silent Hill, and I found a note there, written on the bathroom mirror in what had to have been blood, and it said to come here because there was something here he wanted to tell me. This was his doctor's office."
Augusta sat quietly, listening to his labored breathing.
"You know something? I've seen a lot of blood. Hell, the rivers were flowing with it. The Toluca and the Illiniwak both and so were the Green River and Rosebush Creek, and when I stopped to rest over in Rosewater Park, the lake looked pink. It's almost as if this place throws what you're most afraid of at you. I'm afraid of my own blood. I've been afraid of it ever since I found out about what I have."
"You're getting agitated again," said Augusta, "You need to rest... And don't you have any medicine? That might help you."
"I haven't taken my HIV meds in about five years... they made me sick."
He pointed a pistol at her.
"Hi there," she said calmly, "You don't look like you're feeling very well."
In her light he looked like a creature evolved in a cave, never exposed to the sun. He didn't lower the pistol.
"You're human?" he finally asked, and coughed violently.
"That's what they tell me. Can I come up? You look like you need help – I noticed you seem to have coughed up some blood on that map downstairs."
"Prove it," he said, and Augusta began to wonder if he was insane. She valued her ability to remain calm in most situations, but having a gun pointed at her heart was still terrifying. She couldn't let him see her fear, because keeping him calm seemed the wisest tactic.
"Prove that you're human."
It really wasn't a bizarre question, she considered, especially if there was anything else like the thing that looked like a woman roaming the streets of Silent Hill.
"Okay... How shall I do that? Would you like to see my driver's license, perhaps?"
Keep him calm. That was most important, but who could say the thing that looked like a woman didn't have a driver's license? After all, she had been waiting in a black Jeep Cherokee with Florida plates and for all Augusta knew it might have driven it here itself. If her license wasn't proof enough, what else did she have to show him...
"Sounds good. Nice and easy though."
She agreed, and slowly slipped off her backpack. She carefully unzipped it, reached inside and withdrew her wallet, then opened it and offered it to him. He leaned forward weakly and studied it before he exhausted his strength and fell back. A tear trickled down his cheek and he lowered the gun.
"Oh, thank God... I don't even know how long it's been since I've seen another person here... it feels like days and days..." his voice was weak and thready, and he suddenly doubled over, retching and coughing.
But he had seen other people here, she thought. That was encouraging. She would ask him about it a little later.
"Come on," she said, "If you're sick you need to rest in a better place than a cold concrete stairwell. Let's see if we can't find you a couch to lay on or something, what say?"
He looked up at her as though she were an angel, then let her help him to his feet, though he never let go of his pistol. He leaned heavily on her, and she supported more of his weight than he did. She pushed open the door, and they stepped into a dark hallway beyond.
*
Most of the doctors on the Ridgeview Clinic's second floor were general practitioners, and when Augusta moved toward the first door, hoping to find a place for the man to rest, he said to her, "No... please. I came up here to go to a specific office – can you please take me to it? It's not much farther, only halfway down the hall."
It seemed an odd thing to ask, but Augusta agreed and together they staggered down the hall, reading nameplates beside each office door before the man finally said they had gone far enough.
DR. PRAHDEEP GHOSH, MD, & ASSOCIATES – "Your family doctor!"
"This is it. This is where I have to go."
Augusta's shoulders were beginning to cramp from supporting the man's weight. She shuffled toward the door and tried the knob, and to her relief it turned easily and opened. She pushed with her foot and it swung noiselessly inward.
"Okay, bud, here we go. Help me out though; you're getting heavy."
Beyond the door was a comfortably furnished waiting room – with more dead potted plants, Augusta noticed – that smelled strongly of must, as if it had been shut up for five years in the dampness of South Vale, bathed in Toluca Lake's humidity. She helped him to the nearest sofa and eased him down onto it. He sighed.
"Oh God... thanks. I've run myself into the ground getting here."
Kneeling, she smiled, "I know the feeling," and reached up to smooth her hair back. In the wet air it was starting to frizz, and would soon be bobbing around her head in stiff little streamers if she didn't coax it back into place now and then.
His eyes widened and he sucked in a breath and recoiled.
"Your hand is bleeding! Your hand is bleeding, oh please tell me you didn't touch that spot where I coughed downstairs."
"What?" She reached for him.
"No! No! Don't touch me, don't touch me with the hand that has a cut on it!"
She drew back. "What's the matter? What's wrong?"
He lay back and gasped for breath. She waited.
Finally his breathing slowed and he looked at her, and she had never seen eyes so sad. "I have AIDS and I don't want to make you sick. I've never made anyone sick ever since I got this and I couldn't live with myself if I did. Please don't touch me. If you've got an open cut, it could get in... Did you touch that place where I coughed?"
"No..."
"Thank God." His strength seemed to be ebbing. His chest fell and struggled to rise again, and he had been scorching beneath his clothes. Someone this sick didn't need overexcitement; she had to calm him down.
She smoothed her hair back again. "Um... I don't know if you got a really good look at my driver's license, but I'm from Asheville, North Carolina. Well, not originally – originally I'm from Hot Springs, Arkansas, but I moved from there to Silent Hill and from here to Asheville..."
She stopped, breathed in, and started again. "Let's try that again. I live in Asheville, and I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's a pretty worldly city. We've got our fair share of men and women living with HIV, and I know a thing or two about it. In fact, I've got a friend who works at an HIV clinic in West Asheville, and I know that the chance of you making me sick, even if I've got cuts on my hand, is a long, long shot, and I don't think either one of us has to worry about that. So... you need to stop thinking about that and rest instead, okay?"
In his eyes was heartbreak. She smiled at him, reassuringly.
He managed a weak grin as he closed his eyes again.
"I'll feel better if you don't touch me, but you're the first person in a long time not to treat me like a leper."
She didn't know what to say, and the silence grew.
Finally he said, "So, what brought you here?"
She was taken aback, and leaned forward with a quizzical look on her face. "I'm sorry?"
"People don't come here – this "here" – unless something brings them here..." he opened his eyes, "Hell, you know what you'd be seeing if you'd just come here on your own?"
"I don't think I understand what you mean," she said.
He looked at her. The sadness was mixed with confusion. "Surely something called you here... didn't it? I mean, you weren't just camping in the park, were you? Didn't you say you used to live here?"
"Yes. Years ago."
"So, what brought you back?"
She looked away. "I... got a card. In the mail..."
"Some people get letters," he said. "Some get phone calls. I got emails."
"Who were they from?"
"My ex-boyfriend. The one who gave me this disease. He got it from cheating on me, then passed it to me. He's been dead for seven years."
Augusta gasped. She shivered violently, suddenly feeling cold all over. Her skin prickled. The feeling of unreality that had plagued her in the tunnel crept back like an intruder. She ignored it. Now would be the worst time for any more waves of vertigo.
"You know," he said, "I just live over in South Ashfield. Always have – born and bred there in fact, and I dated Hayden for years and years before I found out he'd been cheating on me. He lived here in Silent Hill and as far as I know, so did the men he cheated on me with. I didn't know he'd made me sick until I got a cold that wouldn't go away and went to the doctor and asked why."
He coughed, thickly and wetly, and something dislodged itself from a lung. He swallowed, forcing it back down before continuing.
"After we broke up we never talked again, and I only saw him once or twice. Then I read his obituary one day in 1997 in the Toluca Tribune. And, two years later, the dam broke and washed Silent Hill away."
He met her eyes. "I always loved the national park. I can't tell you how many times I camped in it when I was healthy. I've seen this place when it's not calling to you. There's nothing here except old walls and mud and rocks, and lots of little trees.
"But when it calls to you, everything's here. After I got the emails I went into the park and came into Silent Hill from the north. Wrightwood. And this place has led me all over, as if it wants me to see it. Wrightwood, Old Silent Hill, downtown, the Windowbox District, East Silent Hill, Paleville, South Vale – it's all here, and it all looks like this. Foggy and damp, and looking like it's just been sitting here for five years."
"What do you mean it led you around?" Augusta asked.
""There are things out there that don't exist and I don't know how to describe them. They look human, but they're not. They've been coming after me ever since I stepped out of the park. And sometimes, it's like they're herding you somewhere, like there's somewhere they want you to go."
He coughed again.
"And I've been finding things. This and that, here and there like puzzle pieces, and I've had to go here to get the next piece, and there to get another piece. It's been like that for what seems like days, but I don't know... My watch stopped when I got here."
"The last place I went was my ex-boyfriend's house in Old Silent Hill, and I found a note there, written on the bathroom mirror in what had to have been blood, and it said to come here because there was something here he wanted to tell me. This was his doctor's office."
Augusta sat quietly, listening to his labored breathing.
"You know something? I've seen a lot of blood. Hell, the rivers were flowing with it. The Toluca and the Illiniwak both and so were the Green River and Rosebush Creek, and when I stopped to rest over in Rosewater Park, the lake looked pink. It's almost as if this place throws what you're most afraid of at you. I'm afraid of my own blood. I've been afraid of it ever since I found out about what I have."
"You're getting agitated again," said Augusta, "You need to rest... And don't you have any medicine? That might help you."
"I haven't taken my HIV meds in about five years... they made me sick."