The sigil was still there. It was deeply uncomfortable to look at and worse to be near. From it produced a thrum that bore into the crevices of their brains and strung a sandbag of tension between their eyes. It hurt to look at it and they were glad not to, though both were too in pain to recall that this wasn't a problem before.

They skirted it and began down Katz, and reached Munson when their dizzying headaches faded and James realized something strange.

"Harry, did you see a blockade back there?" He asked cautiously.

Harry looked down the road. "Where? Down the street?"

"Yeah."

"No, why?"

"You're certain?"

"Yeah. I came down this way from the park," Harry told him. "There wasn't a blockade."

James frowned, faraway and unsettled. "That's not right. There's always been a blockade up."

"Hm." Harry swung his pipe idly at his side. "That's not nice to hear."

"Yeah, that doesn't really tickle me either."

Harry smiled, turning his head to watch James pass him before he fell into step in his wake. "No? Then what does tickle you?"

"I dunno. Things that tickle," James replied, curiously venturing southbound into the fog.

"Some things that tickle you don't tickle other people." Harry lofted the pipe across his shoulders and slung his arms over it like a scarecrow on its cross. He was hoping to get some kind of banter going with the man that had a pitiful sense of humor, and he wasn't going to get that just yet.

He came to pause beside James, who had come to yet another stop. This seemed to be the theme of their travels together so far and Harry wasn't itching for it to keep up like that.

"What's the problem now?"

James's head shook gently in confusion. "There used to be a blockade here too. This doesn't make sense."

Harry jut his lips thoughtfully. "I dunno what to say. Maybe the construction is done?"

He really wished that James had appreciated jokes. He hadn't even gotten a nose laugh. James only made a bland noise and pressed on, and Harry dismounted his weapon to his side again.

"Well, I guess we're allowed to see what's on the other side. Isn't that nice?"

He got no response. James simply walked. This part of the neighborhood, he came to find, was thick with industry. Car repair, machinery garages, tools for retail and rent were advertised on long stretches of painted concrete walls. As the fog sifted around them and revealed these lonely, peeling signs, he felt calm. It reminded him of home.

He'd given Heather a house in a pretty neighborhood with a park and plenty of walkable destinations, but a small gift to himself was an easy drive to a campus of industry and commerce. He couldn't fully explain why it soothed him to guide the car lazily around the huge lots and see whose truck was in port. Harry started to recognize truckers and their vehicles. Security finally cleared him of being just a curious guy getting his boring kicks and not some creep fishing for bad indulgences. Harry had gotten to know some of the guys and gals of that campus, and it gave him a little warmth to wonder how they were doing.

Even Silent Hill couldn't steal this comfort away.

James almost lost him at the corner. Neither one of them were in the same conscious world, and so forgot to pay attention to each other. Harry was quicker to notice and catch up, and even startled James when he announced himself with a simple "Whew!"

"Jesus!" James snapped. "What the hell was that?"

"No, I'm Harry. And you ditched me," he accused playfully. "You were just gonna let me wander off, huh?"

"No," he replied tentatively. "I wouldn't do that."

Harry sighed and scuffed his boot on the next stroke of step. "James, please. I'm really just joking around."

"I know," James said without a lot of confidence as he crossed Harry's path to approach the hospital. Harry tried not to get irritated with him as he shadowed him at a stroll.

"Really? Because I can't tell when you are taking me seriously and when you're not." He climbed the steps and paused to look up at what building they were about to visit, and ignoring James's unreadable face. "A hospital. Good call. So there's still supplies in here, huh?"

James held the door open for him. "I was going to look for a map, but sure, if you want to pick up a few things."

Harry nodded a thanks and made it inside. "I think it'd probably be a good idea. I'd hate to get attacked by dogs or monsters— or monster dogs and then be left with my dick in my hand and no bandages."

James cast him an odd glance that also held a curl at the corner of his mouth. "Monster dogs are gonna go for your dick?"

Harry shrugged. "They might!"

"Is that what happened last time?" he asked as he began to search the reception counter.

"Almost, on a few occasions. More than I'd care to admit," he added, venturing into the nurse's station.

"I'm not really sure that I like what that says about you as a person, Harry," James replied, muffled between the rooms. Harry had to laugh to himself as he cruised the cabinets. Maybe James did have a sense of humor, as inconsistent as it seemed to be. He felt better now, though. The mood between them was lighter. The tension ebbed and flowed as they tried to figure each other out, and frankly it was more exhausting than a common acquaintance would have been. Hell - this was nearly on par of dealing with Heather and her mood swings. Harry was pretty certain at this point that this was the nature of James and not a projection he put onto him.

But people also don't like to point fingers at themselves.

Grey bandages and aspirin with a smudged expiration date went into his pocket. When he went to see what James was up to, he found the young man reading a magazine at the counter he'd left him at. "Slacking off already?" He approached and leaned on the counter too, propping his elbow on the surface and peering down at what dusty, grossly out of date article James was reading.

"There's no map," he replied, dragging a page over with his fingertip. "Not here, anyway. Did you find some supplies?"

"Hey, I was reading that." He frowned at James, who didn't look up, but indulged him in turning the page down again. "Ah, thanks. I was really getting into, uh.. Mrs.. Morganstan's prize dahlias winning first prize." Harry's frown turned genuine then, and a half hearted sneer tucked his lip.

Dahlia wouldn't have struck his heart like it did if he was back home, but here, it was hot iron through a pillow.

He wasn't going to let it sour his mood, and so he flicked his head back and peered at James over his arched nose. "Wonderful news, too bad we missed the county faire."

James made a noncommittal sound and pushed back from the counter. Harry inclined his head towards his shoulder and eyed him as he went to pick through the few pamphlets that lay in grimy plastic mounts on the wall. "So, nothing here. Shall we move along?"

"Probably. We could have better luck at the inn or gas station up the street."

"Great." He followed James out of the hospital and joined him at his side on the trip towards Nathan Ave.. It would hardly be a long trip. They could have passed the time in a quiet as thick of the fog outside of their bubble, and James likely would have preferred it. The radio was peacefully silent, and the white blindness hanging around them made every five minute walk up the street feel like an hour. Harry was sore for distraction, and James's spike in chattiness in the hospital gave him hope that he was willing to keep at it.

They passed a building boasting magenta neon that was as dead as this world. The exterior was eye catching even in the veil of foggy gloom, and Harry did a double take. The simple and suggestive advertisement clicked in his head and Harry barked a laugh, which pulled James's eyes from the road. "Wow," he grinned. "What's Heaven's Night? Is that what I think it is?"

"It's a strip club," he affirmed stiffly, darting his eyes at Harry. "It's nothing special."

"Did you go in?" Taking the following silence as dirty admission of his guilt, Harry grinned slyly. "Oh, you old dog."

"There was nothing in there."

"Aw, the dancers were on break?"

"Yeah. Sure."

It took great willpower not to roll his eyes. James swung on a runaway pendulum, and Harry didn't care much for it. The man was frustrating beyond belief. Just when he thought he could share a laugh with him, he went as icy and dry as the arctic. He dropped the subject.

Maybe Harry ought to be easier on James. After all, the new sights in this portion of Silent Hill were brand new to Harry but old news to its resident. If he had been trapped in this circle of hell for as long as James probably was, he would have been just as blasé about the neighborhood. He couldn't be so harsh in his head just because he was aching for some normalcy. He took a learned breath and washed his irritation away.

So with that in mind he didn't comment on the bowling alley on the corner and lagged behind his tour guide to study the prices on the gas station marquis. Gas was cheap in Silent Hill, and Harry kept another joke about filling up his car before they left to himself. He caught up in time to catch the door as James stepped into the convenience shop, and scoured the meager offerings strewn on the shelves.

"I've always been kind of confused about the retail here," he said, refusing to bottle his voice any longer. "There's hardly anything here. It's like everyone rioted and took everything they could before getting out of here." He picked up a stripped can and looked it over. "Or maybe the monsters are hoarding it for their own use."

Silence replied. That was expected for a short span of time, but then it was too long since he'd heard evidence of the other man's life. Harry looked for his golden head over the shelves and felt a spike of panic. James was nowhere to be seen. Then his voice came from behind the counter, cutting Harry off of calling his name. "I don't think Chef Boyardee and toilet paper are on their grocery lists." He popped up into view with a gun and a magazine that fit it. Harry exhaled a soft sigh of relief and set down the can. This man was going to give him heart problems that started with Cheryl — no, Heather — and worsened every time he delayed a response.

"That's not fair to assume." He lay the pipe on the counter and watched James dismantle the gun and check it over. "Neat. That was a lucky find."

"Not really," James murmured. "I stored it here."

"That was a pretend lucky find," Harry corrected. "Do you use it much?"

"I try not to. Bullets are hard to find." James set the weapon between them. "I have a shotgun stowed away too." Their eyes met. "Which do you want?"

Harry's heaving sigh sounded more like a raspberry as he considered his deadly options. "Uhh. I'll take the handgun. I hope you're better with the shotgun."

"I'm pretty good with it." James pushed the firearm closer to him as well as a partial box of bullets also fetched from beneath the counter. Harry pocketed the bullets and, double checking that the gun was safe to store, tucked it in his waistband at his back. He tightened his jaw. He thought he'd been paranoid and ridiculous to purchase a gun and intermittently work on his aim through the years. Today proved him wrong. Cybil might've been proud of him.

Truthfully, he felt a little sick. He took his pipe and turned to cruise the aisles for anything else to get his mind off the weight pressing against his spine. Harry found can after can without its paper, making itself an exciting surprise for anyone cracking it open. He must've been on the road and in Silent Hill for hours now and he hadn't felt peckish in the least. He couldn't remember if he'd eaten on his first foray here, and decided that he'd take one mystery food with him in the event that he's starving.

"Hey, James? You want any of these?" James looked up from the magazine rack at Harry waving a can in the air.

"Uh, no thanks. I'm good."

"What about for later? Could be peaches. Could be clam chowder. You could dine like a college king."

James cracked a smile. "Wow. That's a little too high brow for me. I'm peasantry, Harry. I ate corn nuts."

Harry put the can down and ran his hands over the shelves, ducking to check each one. "Uhhhh, corn nuts, corn nuts.. nope. Sorry. No corn nuts here. And how the hell are corn nuts college peasant food?" he asked, fixing him with an accusatory squint. "They're more expensive than ramen, if I recall. Corn nuts have actual flavor and sustenance. Probably. That puts you in the middle class range, doesn't it? Did you go to a private college?"

James held up his hands defensively. "No sir, just community college. I guess I must've had rich friends to look out for me."

Harry chuckled and took a can for later. "Lucky you. I hope you capitalized on that." With nothing else worthwhile, he made to leave. He paused by the rickety spin rack of cheap sunglasses and chose one as James swung the door open. "Hey," he said, calling his attention. Harry dropped the sunglasses on his nose when James faced him and grinned, holding out his arms to bask in his own outstanding coolness. "Whaddya think?"

"You look great, Fonz."

The grin split wider and Harry cocked a fingergun at the man whose humor was rare, but often was just his taste. "Eeeeyy."

James scoffed a laugh and shook his head, giving Harry the closest thing to a grin so far. "You're a dad," he said with an air of dismissal, taking a step outside. Harry huffed and set the glasses back on the rack, pushing open the door before it could close on him.

"I am a dad, what's that got to do with anything?"

"Nothing." James shrugged at him, and as they stood at the gas pumps, the remnant of his smile disappeared. James hadn't thought much about his father and the funny way that all dads turned cheesy the moment they became a dad. Suddenly he was homesick. That brand of yearning had long been forgotten and so it rocked a ripple of nausea in his throat now. His poor old dad. There was nothing he could do about home or Frank Sunderland alone and waiting for his son to appear at his doorstep, and soon the feeling of helplessness would roll right off his shoulders.

Harry tapped his pipe on his calf. The moment was gone. "Alright. Shotgun, then..?"

"Yeah. Then we'll see if we can get to Central Silent Hill."

"Where'd you store the shotgun?"

James searched the abandoned cobwebs overhead for his answer. "The inn. It's just down the road."

"Think they'll have a map?"

"I guess we'll see."