James braced his hand and arm against the door. The Otherworld's din receded as it slunk from its failed mission. His forehead connected dully to the panel and he heard the pipe hit the bed. A chair accepted the sag of the father's leadened body and James closed his eyes. Harry's frantic breaths, gasping and skipping through a valiant effort to regain control, sank into the sludge of a muddled head. James slid his hand down the carved wood and dropped his other arm to his side, the shotgun teetering in slack fingers. Somehow, he had to muster the strength to push off and take in the view of the cursed suite, but try as he might, it didn't come. It was too soon. First, he had to rest. That's what he told himself: rest, James.
Little by little the water's last rivulets descended down his body and disappeared into the floor. James shivered as his hair and clothes dried themselves and his skin lost its sheen. He forced concentration on those inexplicable events and unconsciously matched the recovering drag of Harry's breathing. Their hysteria mutually subsided from opposite sides of the room. Mournful silence took the place of the survivor's sobs. James felt empty. Before him lay a difficult task, and it was time that he completed it. If he could face the parking lot and good, faithful Sherry - though she shouldn't have been there, and he hadn't been ready just yet, no, not yet - he could do this. Another breath, and he made himself ready. He sluggishly pushed himself from the door and confronted Room 312.
It looked the same, but he didn't expect it to be different. The only anomaly was the black world beyond the outlook made of French doors, and yet the glass cast an impossible illumination over the room. James shook his head in disbelief. Silent Hill's native, dismal glow touched every corner it could reach and cast long, fuzzy shadows where it could not. Of course, he recognized it. To defy the outside darkness in the name of reenacting his last, magical time in this room made a clever gag.
James found Harry in a chair he once sat in, in a position not unlike he once held, and soaking in a mimicry of the same shadowed stretch. For the second time, Harry sat in front of a TV. The first TV was caked thickly in splatters of blood and gore, and Harry had dropped like a ragdoll into the cushion. He inadvertently mimicked the corpse that couldn't find a channel to watch and wouldn't appreciate anyway, head blown apart, from many years ago. The similarity didn't elude him then, nor did it now.
James tilted his head. For the unaware, the view would have appeared unintentional; Harry needed a place to rest and recollect himself. Completely understandable. This chair, as it were, just so happened to be the easiest to find - like the one back in the apartment. It seemed innocent. However, the two instances in which Harry was so overwhelmed that he needed immediate respite, he took it in places that scorched James's memories. He wanted to believe they were mere coincidences; truly, he did. It led him to wonder if Silent Hill could actually influence Harry like that. This was all too uncanny to be chance, and so didn't sit well with James.
Harry needed more time. James broke away from the scene and drifted towards the bed. The steel pipe looked heavier, longer, and deadlier nesting in the lovely plush blanket. For such a ghoulish thing, Harry carried it like a lifeline and played with it like a baton. There was rarely a time he was without it. It held obvious significance to him. James never asked Harry why he liked the pipe, but he also wasn't offered the information. He didn't want to know Harry Mason that well, anyway.
James picked up the weapon to discover its weight curiously balanced for its length. Harry could've made it in professional baseball if he'd dedicated himself to his swing, he reckoned. He'd watched him cave in heads, break bones, and send bodies rolling like it was second nature. His first impression of the guy - a kindly, middle-aged man bearing the first creases of age, his thick brown hair slicking back the bands of grey sprouting from his temples, a thin grey streak running off center from a widow's peak, whose likely burly frame hid beneath a loose, old leather jacket and a rusty pipe held cautiously low - would not let him think that Harry was capable of holding his own in a fight. He's charismatic, bright, a huge drain, and totally unassuming.
And Harry called him Ted Bundy.
The steel was cool and the gore came off in flakes, peppering the flowery blanket in crimson. He'd noticed a while ago that Harry seemed uncomfortable holding a gun. Turns out he was a better shot than James expected, but Harry simply hated it. Luckily, he himself preferred his shotgun to something up close and personal so to have a dedicated batter made them a good team.
Hm. A good team.
His charge exhaled a fatigued groan behind him. "Remember how I said to pretend it was a solid plan and it wouldn't come back to bite us in the ass?" Harry asked. James waited for the punchline. "I don't know about you, but I'm not so good at playing pretend anymore. I don't have much of an ass left."
James, still examining the bludgeon, hummed before he spoke. "That's a shame. I don't know how you're not screaming in agony sitting there, then."
The humor brought a weak chuckle. "It's the adrenaline. It'll hit me in a minute. You shouldn't've said anything."
"Oh well. Hindsight is 20/20."
Harry raised his head and glanced at him. While appreciated, he wondered if the lighthearted efforts were made to soothe him in particular, or the both of them. Or maybe it was simply small talk. He wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth either way, so he chose the floor. "Speaking of hindsight, I guess that plan for a safe room had some plot holes I most certainly didn't consider."
James dropped his arm, the cudgel's metal elbow thudding the floor. Harry's attention scrutinized the source and he again peered curiously up at James. "What's that? You gonna double fist a shotgun and my weapon now?"
Green eyes glimpsed brown. "Yeah. Maybe we can find you a board and nail for you to use."
Harry scoffed and extended his hand. "Gimme that. Find your own trusty pipe to play whack-a-mole with."
James complied and gently swung it into Harry's palm. Harry gave it a once-over, then planted its flat into the floor and folded his hands over the curve to lean on it. Substantially calmer, at least to James's learning eye, the older man assessed the old fashioned TV planted directly in front of him. "Mm. Wonder if the news is on. Maybe we can get a weather report for the week." He wasn't near enough to fiddle with the knobs and didn't feel like making the effort, but his interest piqued when he noticed true vintage sitting beside it. "Well, look at that. It feels like fifty years since I've seen a VHS player."
"I doubt there's anything in it," James dismissed. He watched Harry find some inspiration to move and try the knobs. To the author's disappointment and the conduit's relief the TV was dead to the world. Harry sighed.
"What a shame, not that I'm surprised." He lapsed into silence, then frowned. Wrinkles deepened his brow and his eyes darted from the windowed wall to the soft light gracing the room. "Hey. What's this all about?"
"Hm."
"The light," he said, knowing to accept that as a 'go ahead.' "It's pitch black outside and it's all lit up in here." He sat up and twisted, scanning the rest of the suite for the first time. The intrigue finally got him out the chair and James continued to observe Harry exist in an infected room.
He didn't like that they were in here. They were meant to be, and he knew that. The hotel had a plan cooking on the stove for them and his appetite had jumped ship eons ago. James wanted to quickly get through whatever further punishment was rapping at the door and move on. His lips parted to speak and didn't get the chance to.
"So, I was wondering," Harry began, leaning over the couch to inspect the painting on the wall, both hands loosely clasping the pipe behind his back, "about that little girl we saw." He partially turned and inclined his head at James. Prudence hung behind twin cool demeanors. This subject was loaded. "That really fucked me up, James. I mean, really fucked me up." The citizen wordlessly agreed. "You know, it sucked in the beginning," he went on, "but I got a handle over that monster running around imitating my daughters. Fine. Whatever. Cheap parlor tricks. But that?" Disgust shook his head. "I can't believe I'm gonna say this, but that crossed a line."
Interesting. "There are no lines here, Harry. If you think you have a line, it's going to get crossed."
"I mean, no shit, right? I can't even begin to process all of that right now. It all happened one after the other after the other and if Silent Hill wanted to get to me, god, it sure hit that one right on the nose."
Like that leak, James thought, and a scowl twinged his lip. Luckily, Harry was too distracted to see it. "I just.. don't get it. I'm trying to work some of it out now because what really bugs me is that she had blonde hair, and not black. And it was long. Cheryl had short hair. She didn't look like Cheryl, but at the same time she did, and she was wearing the same clothes when I lost her," he whispered on the waves of a broken heart. James cast his eyes shamefully to the ground. "But Cheryl also hadn't worn shoes; just her socks. And that girl had one shoe I've never seen before, and it wasn't her voice— not entirely. Not.. entirely, James," Harry croaked, finishing the turn. "I don't know what you heard, or who or what that other little girl was, but I saw and I heard Cheryl, my little girl, all over again, and that was worse than I could have ever imagined it to be."
A thick silence wedged between them. James avoided Harry's waiting, wounded eyes. At first, he'd felt confident about putting on an unbreakable, ambivalent face. As it turned out, the whole disaster simply took its time catching up with him, and it'd finally arrived with all its baggage in tow. Like a guilty man in front of the judge, he couldn't bring himself to freely offer an explanation so predictably, Harry probed for one. "I heard her, James, and I saw her. But I don't know who that other little girl is. You had to have heard her too, right? The way she made the voices speak together? Who was she?"
James was cornered. Harry could see that James knew more than just something about that blonde girl. What he'd get was a gamble. The resident placed truths under overturned cups and shuffled them around. If Harry wanted them, he'd have to learn to follow the right cup. In the meantime, he chose to deal Harry yet another hand of white lies and partial truths. "Some girl," James responded, receiving a frustrated grunt. "Yeah, I knew her. She—"
"So you did know her," Harry interrupted more accusingly than James appreciated. "I knew you would've had to. There'd be no other reason why she'd show up, so who was sh—"
"Would you let me talk?" James flared his arms, annoyed. "I don't talk a lot, Harry. I really, really don't like talking, but I really, really don't like talking about this. Okay? I'll tell you who she is, but remember, it's gonna be by my terms, not yours."
The same warning tension from their fight reprised its role. Under his dogged stare, Harry gathered himself and quietly acquiesced. James relaxed, and so did the air. "Yes, I knew her. I met her when I got here," he explained. "She meant something to me, and it was enough to fuck me up pretty bad, too."
Harry's glance went to James's boots instead of his face. "Yeah, I saw," he murmured. James nodded once.
"Yeah. And yeah, I heard it too, the way the— she— whatever, the voices spoke together. And the.. weird blipping thing and all that. Harry, I don't want to talk about the girl or that at all." He sized him up and down. "I'm gonna go out on a limb here, but it looks to me you're done talking about it, too."
"Pretty much." The tone sounded agreeable, but James heard it for the feeble lie it was . As though he sensed his doubt, Harry lifted an assuring gaze. "Look.. we know each other by now. I know you know I want to keep talking about it, and you know I know you're done. I don't wanna fight, James. All that back there, that was some really vile, pent up stuff. I don't want to get into that again. It sucked, it happened, and I want to move past it. And I really don't want to fight like that again."
James gently nodded. An awkward, stuffy beat passed, and the dumb surprise stuck to his face when Harry softly continued.
"I'm sorry. I can't take it all back and maybe it's shitty of me not to want to take back everything, but.. you were right on a lot of things," Harry admitted. "I needed to hear it. I don't think anyone likes getting back the garbage they put in someone else's bin. I swear I have my own trash can. So, I'm sorry. I don't expect an apology too, James. I just want to wash my hands of it."
Color him speechless. James tried not to gawk as Harry meandered around the coffee table. All his thoughts lay in dirty piles on the floor of his brain and he tore them apart trying to find something to say. Apparently the tourist wasn't as done as he seemed to suggest.
"Also, I just wanna say one more thing." Harry sent him another serious look. "Back there, in the hall? That was pretty rough. I got kinda worried there that we were in too deep. I feel pretty bad about it," he added, breaking eye contact. "I should've taken the gun. It would've helped us out. But, uh.." The carpet hid the right words in its patterns from him, and he stalled to look harder. "You got us out there. I saw how fucked up you were and you kept it together and saved our asses, then you saved my ass and I think I'm gonna have to start taking tallies, James. I'm not gunning to be a damsel in distress here, you know.." Harry chuckled at himself, and lifted a benign smile to a blank face. "I'm getting kinda mushy on you here, huh? I'm sorry, I just.. I guess there was a lot to get off our chests and again, I'm not expecting anything from you, but it's nice to get the better things off my chest, too. So, thanks. That's all I mean to say. Thank you."
Old landmines beneath those aforementioned dirty piles suddenly detonated and flung them around his head like party streamers. Harry mumbled an aside that James didn't catch. Collecting any more information would put him too far past overwhelmed. They'd vaulted from the verge of arguing to a flat, comfortable place, but somehow James's pole snapped before touchdown and he skidded headfirst through a confusing mound of soft leaves and blunt rocks.
Harry dropped a goddamn heavy compliment on his head. Here and there he gave polite, situationally acceptable praise that James usually tuned out. He felt sick; Harry is so genuine, so sincere, and the warmth of his smile combined with all he had to say put James at a level of discomfort so high he wanted to collapse in on himself and sink through the floor.
Questionable repulsion and mortification stuck to James's face like glue. He felt knotted and vulnerable. It worsened when Harry kindly ignored him and ambled about the suite, unknowingly tacking on more humiliation that ran hot and juvenile. If there was a hole to crawl into he'd squeeze in in a heartbeat.
What a disgraceful display! All these mental gymnastics would never make even an amateur team. James's thoughts twisted and jumped and landed face flat, and little did he know that a lone spectator had taken a seat on the bleachers to watch. He floundered and scrambled to rebuild his thoughts (and how very, very frustrating: nothing like that should have an effect on him like this) and thus paid no heed to the spy that snuck up from behind, threw a black sack over his head, and tightened the drawstring.
"This room is really nice. I figured a place like this would have something like a honeymoon suite," Harry said, pausing to admire the antique writing desk. "Silent Hill used to be a great destination spot to run away to after a wedding, I imagine."
"I actually stayed in this room when my wife and I visited years ago."
The air froze. James pivoted to face Harry. The author struggled to digest his shock as James stiffly went on. "She loved it here, so we took a trip. It wasn't our honeymoon. We'd been married for a year at that point. It was just a vacation."
Harry's eyes darted over James's face. The man was naturally stoic, yet something felt off. Where perhaps sadness should've been behind his gaze, or even awkwardness in his posture, there was only stone. Even for a man like James, whose nuggets of emotional expression were few but distinct, his speech came across too cold in the wake of a startling, and deeply personal reveal. He was blunt; nonchalant. Harry steered back on track. The confession took forefront importance over dwelling on James's strange demeanor.
"You're married?" he prompted, his tone hushed. He received a nod.
"Was. Was married."
Old habits die hard but ancient habits put up a fight. Tenderness kept his words quiet when he prodded, "What happened?"
James's eyes abruptly hardened to a direct glare that reminded Harry of his promise. He immediately backed down and put up his hand in admission of his mistake. "Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm doing it again. End of discussion."
His apology may or may not have been accepted, but James said nothing and turned his back. He left Harry frantically clamoring through his skull for clues he may have missed, and in his self-made privacy, James's absolute horror entertained the empty room.
That was his voice, but those were not his words. No, he retracted. That wasn't his voice, and those weren't his words. None of that came from him. The whole exchange took thirty seconds. A whole thirty seconds where information that Harry did not deserve to know (yet) just fell right out of his mouth. He fought so hard to rip that bag off his head because he knew if it lasted one second more, there would be no backpedaling in his favor. So who was it, then, that flapped his gums and mentioned a wife long gone, when James himself was taken hostage in his own head?
James ground his jaw. What a nasty, evil little trick; and for something grave enough to be called 'evil' around here had a lot to say about it. He mentally scurried through the chain of events. Catch him off guard - and how, exactly, did it manage that? - zip a blackout sack over his head, and just like that, Silent Hill debuts some terrible James Sunderland improv.
But how? What could have put him in at such a.. oh. Of course.
Room 312. It had to be at fault. Having no choice but to take refuge in this godforsaken room eroded his defenses, whether he wanted to acknowledge it or not. That had been the plan all along. Break them down, break him down further, get into his head and spill some factoids about the historical significance of this pretty, upscale suite. However much he liked to think how well he's ignored her since check-in and their running about, on the third floor of the Lake View Hotel, Mary knocked. When he refused to answer the door, Silent Hill decided it would do it for him.
Harry mentioned a line being crossed and James told him that if there was one to cross it should be no surprise when it happens. He said it so flippantly, too, like he couldn't think of a single boundary left for the town to snip. The irony of it wasn't lost on him. It sure is one way to knock him down a few pegs.
James chewed on his cheek. On second thought, maybe it wasn't supposed to last longer than thirty seconds. Playing puppeteer came with its price, and surely, the town thought it a fair trade. Being its conduit he could sense its power, while at an all-time high, albeit strained between multiple subjects, took a good dent. Fair's fair in love and war.
He suspected the town would recoup and again idle by. The trick, wicked and below the belt, was executed with purpose. Future complications of it were limitless; but must used sparingly. Silent Hill put James on higher alert. If he got lucky, he'd be able to figure out where the vulnerabilities were that made him a sitting duck before it happened again. And it would. Next time, swear on his shotgun, he'll be ready.
All he has to do now is pinpoint that weak spot, and James has no fucking idea where it could be.
He absently bounced the gun that hung in his hand. No more of that. Room 312 tackily opened its own gift basket and James wanted the entire visit refunded. "We should go see if we can get to the safe room," he suggested. "I'll bet that it'll be fine out there."
Harry hesitated. "I agree on the safe room, not too sure about it being fine out there."
"We don't really get a say in it, do we?" James strolled to the door and waited for Harry to join him before opening the room to the hall.
The Lake View Hotel greeted them. Dead silence had returned to the air. The doors were open and Harry pulled on his jacket, went to take over backpack duty, and was rejected on the reasoning that he was slower with it on. He was also barred from the handgun. Mildly offended but wholly agreeable, Harry waited for James to replenish the shells in his pockets and then the pair went for the stairs.
Understandably, Harry showed some reluctance. James shadowed him for his peace of mind. Pushing into the lobby had the author's heart running a marathon until he saw the same tired decor he'd gotten used to. Everything was fine; the Otherworld had never been here. As he followed Harry, clearly on edge yet working diligently through his fears, James idly contemplated the Otherworld.
Harry had mentioned it once, a while back, and the description he gave left him wondering about it ever since. Having finally gotten a sneak peek, it exceeded his expectations. It was no question that they'd spend some time in the Otherworld in the future. He ought to feel worse about his excitement, but James didn't care to muster the shame at the moment. Curiosity stepped in instead and he studied Harry out of the corners of his eyes when they reached the ground floor. "So that was the Otherworld." He got a grimace.
"Yeah. You can understand why I'm not a fan, right?"
"It's noisy. I wasn't expecting that."
"It usually is at first," Harry replied distractedly. "It shuts up after awhile. Then it starts again to scare the pants off you."
"It's interesting. Does it always come on like that?"
"Yeah, but usually the siren starts it. Hear the siren, the Otherworld shows up. They're buddies. That's the reason why I wasn't too crazy about the siren," he added, looking anywhere but James. "But it showing up indoors without the siren happened all the time, just with a different noise. Or no noise."
Though he wanted to help James understand it, the event was still too raw. James's patience and restraint continued to be his best quality, so he dropped the topic and picked up a new one. "Not really sure what to do here, now."
"Well, we're back to square one," Harry remarked flatly. James looked around for a suggestion, though the task went uncompleted when his companion pitched an idea: "What about going back to the restaurant?" James glanced at him. Harry offered a smile and invitingly flared his arms. "I take requests."
A roll of his eyes and the shake of his head preceded a half-hearted, half-joking shrug. "Fine."
Harry perked right up and awarded him a warm, obliged smile. James didn't try to return one at all. He trailed him, feeling a little nauseous after that too-bright smile. It caused him to hang back a little from Harry's exuberant, harmful energy, and that large hand had just closed on the handle when the elevator dinged in the corner.
James stepped in close to his ward and scrutinized doors unhurriedly squealing open. All that happy energy went flat. That felt a lot better to be sure, but this sight was just as unwelcome to him. Sensing Harry's relatable inward griping and reluctance, he dryly noted their moods were matching more often, though his own held strong irritated overtones. Unfortunately, once again, acceptance was mandatory.
James didn't care much for this new pattern.
"Well, whaddya know. I guess there is somewhere to go, after all." Harry's hand slid dejectedly from the handle and dourly pat James's shoulder on his pass. "When in Rome.."
Do as the Romans do, he finished in his head. Dusty panels of plastic sheltered fluorescent rods that dropped sickly yellow light in the small box outfitted in the same carpet, the same wooden borders, and same dizzying wallpaper that covered each miserable inch of the hotel. It warped the colors and shadow on their clothes when they filed in and James caught a glimpse of the distorted tone on Harry's hand when he pressed the button. He'd once felt claustrophobic in this same lift, and Harry's stockier frame at his side made the tiny deathtrap feel no bigger than a ring box. There was no swallowing the suffocating wad of apprehension as the elevator accepted the command, and as the doors slid shut, James's loathe for the denial of true death recycled anew.