The hour they spent walking Nathan Avenue went mostly uninterrupted. Without the attention that Silent Hill had been focusing on them before, the men found its ghoulish citizens had made themselves sparse. Neither had qualms about this development. The less they had to fight the quicker they were able to get to their destination. Even so, the few stragglers were aggressive. With Harry weighed down by the backpack, it came to James to do the brunt of the work. The past week had given him the practice he'd been falling out of, and their problems were quickly solved. Harry thought they worked well together, and would have mentioned it to James if he hadn't believed he'd jinx their future.

The backpack was heavy. After they'd made it back to South Vale, they agreed that now would be a good time to unload the weapons that they had secured in the straps and kept snug between it and Harry's back. It lightened the load for a little while, and by the time they passed the historical society, the older man was starting to feel the strain again.

His spine had already been bearing the burden of aging long before he stepped back into his living nightmares. Harry began to adjust the pack more often, trying to find a little reprieve where he could, and after the fourth time, James spoke up to offer his turn. Harry hesitated on it; he would've really liked to hand the duty over and reduce the time it took for his back to fail him before his sixties, but he couldn't shake the distrust he had. When he declined the help, James said nothing, and Harry wished he had ignored his gut feeling this one time and handed it over.

The travelers had their reservations about actually making it to the amusement park. Since their first attempt at leaving town went so poorly, there was a great chance that they'd take another trip on the paradoxical merry-go-round. Harry was the one to voice this fear and immediately scolded himself for possibly cursing their luck, especially after the care he took to keep his other thoughts to himself. To no one's surprise, James had nothing to add.

The conduit was less fearful of Nathan Avenue spitting them out at the park again, and more about how deep his roots went. The only way he'd gotten across the lake was by boat, and the map stated that the hotel was rather close to the amusement park. James always got the impression that he wasn't allowed to even get near the hotel on foot. His only hope for getting anywhere else was the lake, and the boat was moored at a dock far away.

All attempts to swim were rebuffed. Malevolent hands would reach from the abyss and drag him down into the dark. Every time, he'd come to in South Vale's romantic Rosewater Park, on his back behind the railing that bordered the lookout and the shore, drenched and forever anchored to his special place.

James once sought to cross past the historical society on foot instead, and was rewarded with backlash so unbearable that he fled to the bowling alley. He never tried it again until their first foray onto Nathan.

Along the way Harry pointed out a sign that had been previously obscured by fog. It boasted a once-colorful advertisement for the Lakeside Amusement Park and claimed it was three miles off. That was hardly a hike, and it lifted Harry's spirits that they might make it to Old Silent Hill much faster than they anticipated. James had nothing to offer on the good news but an "Oh, yeah", to which Harry gladly overlooked to keep the pep in his step.

The museum came and went. Nonetheless, they didn't dare think they were out of the woods just yet. Not too long after, however, James felt strangely lighter. The burden that South Vale bore upon him was gradually lifted until the remaining pressure was so alien that he felt like an astronaut returning to earth. He correctly decoded the reason: Silent Hill was so distracted with its new, urgent problems that it had put its attentions on James and Harry temporarily on hold.

This was an incredible development. He should have shared it with Harry, and for two reasons he didn't. For one, James had already provided so much information that he regretted telling Harry anything. James blamed the weakness that came from the shock of sudden companionship. After all this time, he was not alone in Silent Hill, and to make things a little worse, his ward was a veteran. Perhaps that was a part of the reason why he spoke more freely than he ever meant to; the other part of it being that he owed it to Harry to keep him safe.

Secondly, he kept his findings to himself for the simple, endearing fact that Harry seemed to be the superstitious type. It was kind of adorable.

Harry hated when people called his minor superstitions 'adorable'. He found those kinds of comments condescending. He didn't keep them because he believed them to a T, but because he thought they were fun, and the idle warnings did have their place in his life. When he'd first imparted those nuggets of wisdom onto Heather, she scrunched up her face and spent the next five minutes asking her father 'Why?' until he gave up explaining and told her to finish her macaroni.

Oh, Heather; his poor baby girl. Harry's nerves were twitchy with fear and impatience. We only have three miles to go, he kept telling himself, and then it can't be any more than two miles from there. It'll take maybe two hours. It's nothing. We'll make it by nightfall. It's nothing.

He glanced at James. In a gross understatement, yesterday had been an event. Harry had felt off about him before, and it had only gotten worse within the past two days. After all that high end drama and disastrous look into the intricacies of James Sunderland, he really wished he'd been able to sleep off the stress. In hindsight, he was kind of sore that in explaining the way Silent Hill altered their human needs, James completely neglected to mention the one Harry loved, and would miss, the most.

Silent Hill stole away from them the need to sleep. In their intense situation, it was a blessing. If they didn't have to sleep, they had more time to plan, gather, run, and fight. For Harry, it was tricky to get used to pulling constant 24 hour days and not needing to crash out. But it also meant he couldn't enjoy even mimicking sleep. Harry so badly wanted to take a twelve hour nap after that hellish morning they'd had. The rest of that day his companion had been more distant than ever before, putting a further strain on not only their shaky relationship, but the rope that was Harry's patience. It would have been really nice to put that all away in sweet unconsciousness for awhile.

Neither of them remembered the first lie that James told him in the Neighborhood Cafe about how Harry had woken him up when he barged in, and at this point, Harry wouldn't want the pretext anyhow.

He didn't want to to be scared of James. Harry was severely downplaying his despondency towards him. Being a man of high spirits (though even in normal civilization, he had to fake it 'til he made it some days - or weeks), he was reluctant to let James set the mood. As it turned out, hard as he tried, the mood had been set for years and a man who cherished life couldn't even scratch the surface.

Years. It'd been seventeen years since Harry brought his little girl home, and seventeen beautiful years in raising her - and keeping her safe from the knowledge of Silent Hill. On some level he knew it wasn't his fault that she was abducted and brought back here. He knew this might happen one day. It still made him feel like a failure. However, ruminating like this wasn't going to get Heather back any faster and it wasn't going to do either of them any good if he couldn't keep his sights set on the goal.

Harry had sworn to himself that he wasn't going to get tangled up in James and his bullshit, but that was before he learned what he was. That man was an anomaly. He was a powerhouse; a fuzzy radio not unlike the one in his green pocket; a friend and a foe. There was no telling what James was actually capable of. The words that fell from his mouth during his explanations could have been truths or lies, and he had no way of knowing which were which.

Harry really tried to see the good in people. So far, James was making it difficult for him to find a balance. He wanted to trust the only other human in this wretched place and he began to doubt that James was human at all.

He told James to his face that he didn't trust him, and Harry was going to stick to his guns.

They were following a bend. Nathan Avenue had turned into Sandford Street. They were close to the lake, so close that the musk of its waters were strong in their path. With every foot they stepped the more optimistic Harry was, and he forcibly turned all his grievances into the 'go get 'em' confidence he'd been putting forward all this time.

The smell of the lakewater was getting more potent. Harry was reminded of boardwalks and beaches where the salt couldn't be escaped. "Hey, you think we're still by the lake?" he joked to his shotgun-wielding guide, expecting his efforts to be in vain.

Harry couldn't tell if there was a 50/50 chance or a 30/70 chance that James would ever respond to him. Whenever he did though, all other feelings aside, Harry liked to hear his voice.

He was pleasantly surprised to hear a response cut through the expected silence. "No. I think we completely passed it half a mile ago."

"Hm. So.. was that you, then?" Harry shot him a grin. James really could be funny when he chose to engage. Like he'd said before about embarrassing Heather: every chance he got was a chance worth taking.

James nibbled on the hook. "I don't know what you're insinuating, Harry, but I sure don't like being framed."

"I think you're reading too far into a book without many pages," he replied, achingly rolling his shoulders.

"You're giving a lot of thought into excuses for a guy that may have accused me of something I didn't do."

This was the James that was too rare and Harry really liked. "Hey, I wasn't accusing you of anything," he said, wagging his pipe at him. "I was just asking a question, and it's not my problem if you took it for a spin."

Harry grinned when James actually gave him a laugh. "I— I don't know why I'm arguing with you," the involuntary citizen replied. "You're ridiculous."

"I did very well on the debate team," he bragged, swinging his pipe arm to and fro. "I was the best listener they had and I looked great on the benches." Harry got a chuckle from him this time, and their sorely missed banter boosted his mood.

"Yeah, okay Harry."

The high from their ever brief mucking about had to be contained, and Harry couldn't help feeling taken further down with the anchor of reality. James could have a good time, and Harry could enjoy that time with him, but the facts were still facts:

James could not be trusted.

Past some dilapidated buildings they found the street improved and lined with hedges. These were trimmed, much like the ones decorating the park back in South Vale, and stood as reverent guards the further they walked. It didn't take much longer for a ghostly silhouette, great and tall in the mist, to appear like a foreboding beacon.

In contrast, the road no longer felt so lonely and desolate. The fog began to clear. From the shadow emerged a grand, picturesque hotel: tall, elegant, and proud. It looked vaguely colonial to Harry, but picking out eras wasn't really an area of expertise.

It was a gorgeous establishment. The grass was green and the bushes trimmed. A clean silt path offered an easy trail to the front entrance. At this turnoff Harry paused, staring up the breathtaking lakeside resort.

He didn't see how James regarded the hotel like it was the gaping wound of hell.

They really weren't that far away from the amusement park. The billboards were pockmarked by weather and age, but they told them that they were getting closer. They were likely within arm's reach of their destination. Harry was desperate to get to Old Silent Hill, and yet.. looking at this once-glamorous getaway, the soft little voice of his intuition said, Go inside.

Harry did listen to his intuition quite a lot. There was something in there that would be crucial to them. It may even relate to Heather. He couldn't take the chance of missing it.

"What a place, huh? Wow. I wonder how much the rooms go for." Harry turned down the footpath and followed the signs directing them to the lobby. Behind him, the reluctant step of James's heavy feet put further distance between them.

The courtyard was expansive and its lawn a healthy dark green, sporting a fountain on each side of the lane that led from the hotel to the walkway along the lake. Harry admired this peaceful place. Whoever built this lot had a clear vision in mind and it was executed to its finest. He could easily imagine a happy throng of people gathering to enjoy the scenery and the comforts of the hotel.

Its solitude was saddening. There would no longer be families and newlyweds to grace this handsome getaway. As it was, as everything else in Silent Hill was doomed to be, it was meant to be abandoned and sit in the ruins of memories.

Harry skipped up the first few steps to the front doors then walked the rest. James lingered at the base, staring up at the hotel that towered before him like a great beast intimidating its unworthy prey. It made him feel small, exposed, and hollow. There was little James could be terrified about anymore in this haunted town; but this place before him, slathered in fraudulent beauty, was always going to be the only exception.

James piped up. "I doubt it's open."

"That's why I'm going to try to open the door," Harry replied. "C'mon up, James, the water's fine." He glanced back at him over his shoulder and then paused, his eye catching the landscape from his stellar vantage point. "Wow. The view's nice from up here, too. I can see the whole lake." Turning fully, he beamed at the pretty sight, and squinted into the distance. "Hey.. there's a dock! Maybe later we can go out for a row, huh? If there's a boat, that is."

There better not be, James thought icily.

He watched Harry appreciate the sights. Hatred stewed in his dead heart that was falsely directed at the older man; he wasn't to blame for their detour. Harry was inquisitive to an enormous fault, in spite of the pressing matter of finding his daughter as soon as possible. They didn't have to stop when the amusement park was so goddamn close they could taste the spoiled popcorn carts.

Though Silent Hill had briefly forgotten to monitor their progress, it seemed that it had a backup plan on reserve. Of course; it made sense. The road had been open to James and Harry because of the hotel.

Oh, how he hated this fucking town.

"Harry, we are on a time restraint. We don't want to get caught up in here when it gets dark."

"We won't spend a long time in here," Harry assured. "Just a quick look around and then we'll be off. There might be something useful."

James tried again. "We have more than enough ammo. We'll be good for a few days. Maybe more."

That reminded Harry how heavy the sack was, and he painfully hefted it on his shoulders. "That's true, but we both know this town well enough that it's probably hiding something valuable and I'm not going to pass that probability up." The reluctant man absently wrung his shotgun, and the tourist deeply sighed. "Please, James. If there's something in here that will help my daughter, I need to find it. We'll do a careful sweep and that's it."

He didn't bother to hear another excuse. Harry pushed the ornate handle and opened the Lake View Hotel's door to its dark, vacant lobby. The dismal light flooded the room and his shadow cast a stretched, ominous panel of black over the cabinet that stood in the middle of the floor, and all the way to the upholstered steps of the grand staircase. A small seating area gathered in the corner to his right, and the reception desk further back to the left. The walls were without stain or dust, and the patterned, fully carpeted floors were cleaner than ever.

Its spotless charm was not a comfort. The staircase led up to a hallway that was sheathed in black, and the far corners flanking the steps were sinister in their depth. Though there were windows along the entryway, the gloomy light of day didn't appear to penetrate their dusty glass panels.

All of this should have been ample warning to the curious that this was no friendly place to rest one's head, or doggedly go poking around into rooms. To Harry, his desperation for one good thing in this haunted time capsule twisted the pervasive scene into a promising invitation.

Harry looked over his shoulder again. "If you're going to stay out here, that's fine. You can hang tight while I check it out."

He waited. He was going to give James a lengthy ten seconds to make his decision. At eight, the unwilling young man ventured up the steps to meet him, and when they saw eye to eye on the landing, Harry witnessed the look of tangled regret and fear in those green eyes.

For a moment, Harry doubted his choice. There was a disturbance coming off James that challenged his intuition's good intentions. Something evil, something undeniably and dangerously perverse and unholy, lurked in these walls. Harry lifted his chin. This whole town was chock full of evil. There were only differing variants of it. The hotel was simply the same tune on a different instrument.

"Thirty minutes, tops. It'll go by fast. I promise. Now come on, we're wasting daylight arguing about it."

Harry gave the door another push and stepped inside. James entered after him as the door's momentum granted him hands-free access. They stood side by side in the bleak grey daylight as it steadily withdrew and shadow tinged in red encompassed the room.

The father and the murderer faced the corrupt lobby of the Lake View Hotel as the door clicked closed.