As if finding Balkan hadn't been a pain in the ass, retracing their steps to the library was an even bigger bother. Giving some allowance for their new starting point, they gauged they'd have to double back to Midwich High if they wanted to try circling back from there - but neither felt inclined. The next best thing would be to make educated guesses, treat the walkabout like they were going sightseeing; refresh their memories. That plan, unfortunately, did mean they'd ostensibly be wasting hours; but what other option was there?

None came to mind.

By that account, Harry, to save future time and exasperation, thought ahead. He did the smart thing in taking a pen and tagging Balkan's location on the map, like he should've been doing from the start.

"This's something I shoulda been doing from the start, since the old one's a bust," Harry'd muttered; James's grunt had agreed. "Ah, well; this gives us an opportunity to fill it out, anyway, don'tcha think?"

James made his stance with the same noise, not that Harry'd expected anything different.

Deeming himself the landmark lookout, Harry kept the map open and the pen handy. He badged a couple buildings here and there on the chart; simplicity over detail was the key. It was going well when, out of the blue, he stopped dead short in the middle of the street. James looked over.

"My car!" Harry blurted, holding the atlas up close to his face. "Hold on a minute, James; where the fuck did Silent Hill put my car?!"

Because Silent Hill's layout had undergone such an exorbitant change, Bachman Road no longer ran north to south through the center of town. It'd been a primary road, but sadly, those glory days were over, and it was currently suffering an unflattering demotion to a tiny snake hugging the upper north-west corner. Bachman had hosted the Jeep at its due north, but the map's metamorphosis grossly implied, of course, that the Jeep had either been relocated somewhere else, or had disappeared altogether.

That wasn't going to fly. Harry demanded they make the long detour, no matter the cost. Yes, James had the right to be peeved - not only did he think it not immediately necessary, it was also far out of their way - but he was too tempted to object. Having no room to argue, James obeyed; maybe it'd be worth something, after all.

To make the most of it, they discussed their catechized findings from the church - which was, simply put, quite a lot to go through. Getting a head start on the job did, at least, make the journey feel faster.

Alas, when they arrived to their (rerouted) destination, the worst scenario came true: the Jeep was nowhere to be seen.

"Fuck me sweet and tender."

"So now what?"

"Well, I'm not gonna let this go. Sorry, but we're gonna find the damn thing right now."

"We're gonna lose daylight."

"So we'll camp out in the library, big whoop. We're safe indoors, anyway."

"Don't jinx it."

Harry reached over and gently rapped his knuckles on James's head. "Knock on wood."

James was only marginally amused.

Heeding to the logical assumption that, as there was nowhere to go west, the car had to be to the east, they took the roads leading towards Acephale Park. The travelers hitched a left at the park, going north on Palm Avenue until they were confronted by the familiar rocky cliffside roadblock erected to discourage enter and leave.

And it was truly remarkable what was waiting for them there.

Over a clone of the original cement brick fence gravesite lolled Harry's beloved 1986 YJ Jeep Wrangler, doors still open and the vehicle's unsalvageable, engine-less condition untouched. Its adoring owner let out a triumphant hurrah.

"Aw, babygirl! There you are!" Harry cooed, hastily stuffing the map into his pocket and strutting to the car, arms spread wide. "We've been looking for you! Silent Hill's played a nasty game of hide and seek with you, huh? Aww, hoooneeeyyy, you still look like shit.."

James watched the man haul himself into the driver's seat. He meandered over to the passenger side, leaning in a little to scout the interior. It barely looked wrecked in there at all; it was roomy, outfitted with leather seats, and probably comfortable. He didn't know anything about cars, but judging by the virtually intact nature of the inside, he accurately guessed that it'd been a safe vehicle to drive. Yep, James concluded - it was a pretty nice car. Not bad.

Harry clapped his hands on the steering wheel and fondly handled its round. "This thing spoiled me," he offhandedly told James. "After I got outta here, I had to get a shitty little car for the time being, until we got things sorted out. Once after we settled down, I went right back out and got myself a nice, brand new Jeep to celebrate."

He looked over with a grin. "Couldn't get myself another '86 Wrangler like this one," lamented the flip side, though his pride didn't wane. "But, eh! She's a beaut, anyway; a great car. I love Jeeps."

James inclined an inquisitive glance. "So where'd you park on the way in?"

Harry scoffed half a laugh. "Definitely not like this anywhere! Naaah, y'know," he thoughtfully hummed, ticking his head to consult the roof, "I thought I parked it up on an observatory lot around here in Old Silent Hill. Guess not, huh? since I ended up in South Vale."

"And it wasn't in the South Vale lot when we went up there."

He shrugged. "Beats the fuck outta me. It's like I got teleported. Pretty weird, huh?"

".. hm."

"We were meant to meet and be, James," Harry wistfully sighed, reaching for the radio. "It aaaaaaalllll comes back to that."

James faintly drew a frown as he watched him experimentally wiggle the dial. "I guess."

"Worst retelling of Romeo and Juliet I'll ever see."

".. what're you doing?"

"Trying to see if this thing works."

Ill-humored flatness spoke, "I doubt it. Stop fiddling with it."

"Oh, keep your pants on. I just wanna see if—" Harry brightened when pressing the ejection button spat a tape out of its slot. "Heeey, attagirl. Ha!" He flipped it back and forth, reading its title with a big smile, then waved it at James. "Nobody nicked my music; they might've gutted the engine, but they missed the actual good shit."

"What's on it?"

The smile seemed semi-permanent at this point. James wondered if his face was hurting yet. "Rancid. They're a punk rock band. I fuckin' love these guys. Still listen to 'em, too."

Talk about unexpected. James's mouth contorted, relatively fazed by that tidbit of information. "You listen to punk rock?"

"Yeah, and some heavy metal," Harry furthered, popping it back in. "I know I don't look it. Never fear, my good man - I do listen to classic rock; Fleetwood Mac, Jim Croche, The Who, yadda yadda.."

".. huh."

"Yeah, don't worry, I still live up to stereotypes and expecta—"

The very instant Harry pushed the knob, the speakers detonated an electric clamor that nigh scrambled their brains to purée. Riotous percussion and guitar feedback besieged their ears like shaving rocks to shards on a grater, waging a competitive war against Rancid's shouting, incomprehensible frontman. Harry hurriedly cranked down the volume, then slapped his hands upon the steering wheel to white-knuckle its circular bar, locking his arms straight out and ramming himself into the back of the seat, stiff with horror.

His heart thudded a million miles a second. Harry stared at the radio, his eyes as wide as teacup saucers as it transmitted gauzy, fried snarls only he could recognize. Beside the Jeep's open door, James also stood gawping at the component like a fish on land, rigid as a marble sculpture. (If his face hadn't been so ghostly already, then it would've been sapped to pure white.) Neither moved, or thought - because they couldn't.

It was too late. Not only had the cacophony boomed like boulders mid-rockslide throughout the car, it'd pealed over all of Old Silent Hill. The petrified men were rooted in space and time, countless millenniums soaring on by, until—

Harry whipped up his head as James spun around, lassoed out of their stupor by brays coming from within the nearly opaque fog. (Despite how the fog managed to suppress the echos, their ears were still assailed just fine.) When they spotted a shape trudging and wobbling forth in the mist, the men's hearts, at first, went free falling to their guts like stone; then instantly bounced right back into their chests on a trampoline of malice.

They knew damn well who it was, for her noise, awesome and unmistakable, was drilled into their heads forever.

Harry's whole face scrunched with rage. He bared his teeth, and, vindictively slamming his palms on the steering wheel, angrily crowed, "Oh, come ON!"

James straightaway jabbed the shotgun stock into his shoulder. "Harry, I TOLD YOU you'd draw attention!"

"Yeah well, fuck me, I guess!" he fired back, snatching his steel pipe from the passenger seat. "God dammit," growled the fed-up tourist bumbling to get out of the car. "You fucking shithead! Why won't you give it a fucking REST—"

Rhythmic, brutal blasts - KAPOW! KAPOW! KAPOW! - stopped Harry in place. He stared through the side door, his right arm slightly raised like a mannequin advertising the pipe in his fist when he caught the remote glimpse of James disappearing into the gloom. The fog rendered the encounter invisible to Harry's eye, and although it also softened the loud gunshots of bravery (or rather, murderous temper), its density still wasn't enough to make it invisible to his ears.

Then, it was over. It'd begun and ended in an impressive, record breaking time, and all done single-handedly.

Harry didn't even have the chance to help.

The job was finished for good in two muffled, homicidal, meaty, and sickening cracks. Immediately thereafter, came the sound of stomping, and fast-approaching motorcycle boots. They carried the sharpshooter out of the grey, returning hotfooted to the Jeep - as James was colossally, tremendously, super pissed off.

"HARRY!" the conduit bellowed. "You're such a fucking IDIOT! You MORON! You really wanna keep messing around?! Huh? REALLY?! Because you just seem to really fucking love—"

But then, as though his feet were magicked to the road, James flat-out aborted his stride. There was a sight that confronted him; a sight he didn't want to see.

A dead body. There was a body here, one that occupied the driver's seat - limp; slouched - lifeless.

Harry.

His right hand, shiny with crimson, lay palm up on the passenger chair, his loose, thick fingers furled the rusty pipe's long shaft. The bludgeon itself angled precariously off the seat's leather rim without his sure grip, giving an indication of his intent to use it - but that was no more. James, somehow, inched his numbed legs closer to the murder site. He noticed through the open passenger door how Harry's left leg partially dangled out of his side of the car. It was telling of how, apparently, he'd only begun to step out when his action ceased - and with it, went all other future attempts to do anything for himself.

There had to be a head wound; the scarlet color dyeing the father's definitive grey strip of hair said so. It slicked and stuck the locks together like hair gel, and wet the brown to black. To further prove that theory, blood flowed intermittently as straits from along Harry's arrow-like hairline. They cascaded in wide segments of viscous dark red down his slack face and looked, to James, like war paint.

That very same rich, organic red glossed his lower lip and lifted chin, and seeped from the corner of his mouth. The overflow pathed to his jawline, parting then to thin streams as they trickled down his neck into the folded leather collar. Strangely, at least to him, Harry's clothes didn't appear to be mangled. Only the oversized jacket was disturbed, his body's weighty slump causing the excess leather to bunch up behind his neck. But the oddities didn't quite end there.

Despite Harry's garb's aforementioned overall neatness, he was drenched in such a ridiculous overabundance of blood that he looked like a drowned rat. What was once the living body of a boisterous, spirited man, now had the certain egregious impression of looking nothing short of a film student's cheap horror movie prop. It was defamatory.

He looked fake.

James lingered at the passenger door. His ward's hooded eyes gazed, vacant and glassy, at the Jeep's artificial sky. The so-called guardian felt the type of profound defeat he'd, by now, made himself no stranger to. There was no atonement for the failure to save the few lives of those who'd relied on him, then or now. He hadn't even the power to save the ones who, he'd naively assumed at the time, would leave the town alive: like Harry was - had been - supposed to.

But worse than that, he thought he saw acceptance to fate in Harry's inanimate expression, as though Harry, in a way, blamed James for his death. It was awful to see - because he'd be right.

Yet over and above all this, when wedding the details of the gruesome spectacle before him, it almost seemed like the Jeep had meant to be the coffin, and final resting place, to a faithful father gone astray.

He felt damp.

James's breath turned shallow; his eyelids fluttered closed. They snapped open when, in the next second and without any warning, he found himself being urgently, violently manhandled.

"JAMES!" Harry shouted in his face, eyes so wide with fear that the whites were totally exposed. "C'mon man, snap out of it! Say something to me! Hey! — hey, James!"

Harry wasn't dead at all. There was no blood; no nothing. The conduit stayed on his feet by some will of god while Harry shook his body to and fro like he were a scarecrow stuffed with straw. James blinked owlishly at his charge, disoriented and borderline dizzy.

"Jesus Christ, man!" Harry hissed, so close to his face that their noses were on the brink of touching. "What the fuck was that?! Fucking say something to m— HEY!" he snarled, giving the listless James another whip. "HEY!"

James recovered. Now firmly "awake," the town ambassador reflected the agitation (and vaguely, the same flurried concern) active on Harry's features, and latched onto his wrists. "Stop shaking me."

"Well, you weren't fucking answering me! You scared me to shit, James!" Harry's deep brown eyes roved over his hair, his face, then the lapels he gripped. ".. you're damp. What's going on? Useless question maybe, but listen - I'm worried about you. You scared the hell out of me."

They regarded each other for a too-long-five-second stretch. "I'm fine."

Harry resignedly blinked his gaze to half-mast. "Of course you are." He released the jacket; James fell his hands as well. Harry sagged into the chair, staring sightlessly at the wheel. He looked over a moment after. "Hey. Lemme have the cassettes."

Oh, that glare was potent. "Didn't you just see how that's a bad idea?"

Harry flattened his look, too. "Chill. I'll keep it low. C'mon, real quick - you can keep a lookout."

"No, Harry. You're an idiot. It's gonna attract attention. Just like it just fucking did."

"C'mon. Just real quick."

"No."

"Cuh'maaaahhhn," argued a whine. "I just wanna check something."

"Whadda'you wanna check."

"The tape with the guy on it," he said. "I wanna see about listening to it again."

"Are you deaf, or just stupid? No! The radio's busted, you can barely hear a fucking thing, and it. Attracts. Attention. Why can't you just wait until we get to the library?"

"Psh, it works! and we're already here. C'mon, it won't take long."

"No! What is wrong with you?!"

"List's waaay too long to go through right now," Harry casually replied. "C'mon, James. We're wasting fog. Just get it out, real quick, won't take long."

The backpack was slung off and thrust onto the seat with abuse it unfairly deserved. (This would be the second time it got thrown around like that today; James was in dire need of a better outlet.) Harry held out his hand to receive the tapes. James undiplomatically slapped them into his palm with a force that bobbed the writer's arm so deeply that it was akin to a huge fish chomping bait on a line. (Man, James had some kind of crimped hair up his ass; Harry wasn't sure why he was making it his problem, though.) Whatever it was had some stupid reason to warrant unsubtle personal retaliation, and couldn't find it in his heart to care.

He studied the cassettes, singled one out, and exchanged punk rock for cult. Before it had the chance to play, it got stopped and rewound, whizzing and scuttling, to the beginning. Starting it, Harry punctually twisted the knob to full mute, then tentatively crept up to a volume suitable for, and only for, the car.

The speakers hissed and fizzled. A nominally louder pop on the tape launched crackles ripped right from a lit Fourth of July sparkler, cuing in the first of many blotched expositions, and hence, the scraps and shards of the voice anonymous.

[ .. the case years ago.. I went— after searching— out success, I decided.. try to find.. I had missed— couldn't.. anything— no use in trying anymore. — .. didn't tell.. —r— know— working.. — something disturbing and strange about— can't.. out of my.. — approached— weeks ago, looking for a girl— I need to go to Silent Hill— I've tracked.. —dow— gotta say, it was— I found— that w— all these roads lead right back to Silen— fucking possible.. disappeared and.. —a contra— got anything to do with it? — hate to take.. job.. asked.. got.. gun— wants her poten— by force if.. have to— can't.. anyone.. dangerous pe— .. back out now! .. money is too tight.. don't know where— ther Mason, god help.. poor soul. ]

Hazy dead air escorted the reel to auditory blackout. Harry ejected the tape and flipped it over. The A side, if recall served, had nothing new to hear.

The monologue, withal, did seem longer to both of them. Harry rewound the tape and asked for his notepad. In the many harkening minutes, the tape was stopped; Harry scribbled, clicked play; paused it, scrawled; rewound, etcetera; and this went on as it replayed again and again, and again some more. James could only listen, and observe his companion scribe dexterously cram words onto the pages at a rate he hadn't seen before.

The man recited his piece one final time. Harry's hand rest stationary on his thigh to hear him out without distractions. When the tape shut off, he let it sit in the deck whilst he summarized his parting thoughts into an epilogue. In the interim, the younger of the two migrated his attention back to the Jeep's interior, lazily coasting his light about the back of the car.

He jumped and dipped the beam between the front seats, trying to avoid disturbing Harry; but in doing that, caused it to ricochet off a shiny black ball topping the gear shift. He dropped his green eyes to the glint.

At first glance, it looked like an ordinary shift handle. At second glance, he then noticed a couple exceptions to the norm that made the ball different, such as the resin's modest sparkle, and the small, round indentation set into its top face. Curious, James mounted the step, bracing his hands on the dashboard and back of the seat, leaning in for a better look.

It indeed appeared to be a custom made knob. He softly frowned at it. The ball was certainly unique.. and familiar. James drew his brows together, squinting, trying to place its name or where he'd seen it before - and then it dawned on him. No way; is that..?

"Is that a Magic Eight Ball?"

Harry, who was in the middle of reaching to evict the cassette, looked down over his outstretched arm. He immediately perked up. "Yeah!" He retrieved the tape and sat back, hands on his thighs. "Fun, huh?"

"Does it work?"

"Mhm, it should." Harry grasped the small-scale ball and waggled the shift. "O Magic Eight Ball; will we ever get out of this shitty fuckin' town?"

They slanted over the miniature circular window in tandem, trying to peer at it without mistakenly bonking heads. A buoyant, pint-sized white triangular die face floated up to the plastic screen to greet them, spawning a manufactured message in raised letters beset by a thin wash of watery indigo ink. Though this and its shrunken proportions made the all-knowing toy's prophecy a little difficult to read, its sage, randomized answer to Harry's question said:

ASK AGAIN LATER

He promptly rejected it through a raspberry. "Aaaahh, blow it out your ass. Don't give us any of that evasive mumbo jumbo; you're not slick. Well, James, the ball seems rigged, or stupider than we are. Here, put these tapes and the notepad away, wouldja?"

The collection landed in the seat James hovered over, and though he acknowledged it by a 'mmn', Harry's request went otherwise ignored. Whatever brief thought brewing in the resident's head suddenly became realized, which in turn, fostered a query.

"Aren't you left-handed?"

"Yeah."

"So does it suck to drive stick?"

"Yeah. It really fuckin' does," Harry said, the both of them still staring into the fortune while they conversed. "There're a lot of things that're difficult for lefties when the world's right-handed."

".. hm."

"There're definitely a lot of little things that you wouldn't even consider, like using can openers, playing guitar, bumping elbows with right-handed people while eating at the table.."

Finally lifting his head, Harry discovered that he wasn't alone in his personal space. His companion's old, problematic habit had risen from the ashes, and of course, James lacked awareness of the behavior. Harry was lax in berating him this time, thinking maybe he could use this as an opportunity to get a wee bit silly. He idled in wait for him to look up.

James must've felt his stare on him, picking up his head. Their eyes connected, faces scant inches apart. Suspicion put crimps in his forehead when Harry, unbidden, smiled bright.

"Hi!"

James blinked surprise. He couldn't believe that'd just happened: Harry bopped his nose! How old was this guy? He eyeballed the patriarch who, with metal cudgel in hand, spun away and hopped out of the car to the ground. Harry showed James his back while he sorted the fit of his jacket, then began to walk off when the civilian's monotone belatedly replied, "Hi."

He was repaid by a grin, flashed over a rumpled leather shoulder. "Hi!" Harry cheerfully repeated, just as as afore. James canted his head, cautiously backed up, and dismounted the vehicle.

Once he put the items away, James rendezvoused with his charge at the Jeep's pulverized and empty hood. The wayward father stood gazing out into the dreary weather, steel rod mounted upon his shoulder, and jacket pocket bulging from his fist. After a ponderous lull, Harry twisted to casually study James, then withdrew his hand to rummage in the inner pocket.

"Well," he proclaimed, fighting with the sewn-in purse to retrieve the town's official geographic. "Guess we're done here. Let's mark it on the map and head out to find the library."

James started to wriggle off one of the straps for a pen, but Harry again went diving into the cavity, producing his own. He pulled a faint frown, leisurely shrugging the strap back onto his shoulder. He supervised while Harry completed the small labor, then stuffed the pen back into its hidden net.

"Alright. You ready to go?"

"Mm."

"Okay then. Let's go do our homework." Then the two turned around - one wielding a rusty steel pipe, the other a Remington shotgun - and walked away.

The 1986 Jeep YJ Wrangler gradually disappeared into the shroud of fog and snow behind them. It lived now as an impoverished martyr resting amongst the grey rubble, stranded on the cement blockade like a hamstrung seesaw and as defunct as its slivered headlights; a shell of its former self. But the vehicle, in defiance, managed to retain some honor through immortality as a historical wreckage; a tribute; a conservator to the night Harry Mason and his seven-year-old daughter Cheryl traveled the anathematized mountain road to Silent Hill. And yet, the Jeep was even more than that; more than just a graveyard of stagnant memories - it was a faithful dog waiting for its loving master. For over a decade it'd kept vigil in a perverted wasteland, waiting for his return, craving for when he'd perhaps take it away from here; take it back home.

For the '86 YJ Wrangler to wait a thousand years more for him would be of no consequence, as right now, the best it could do was try to find company in yearning for bygone days when everything in life was good, happy, and okay.