Harry sat down at the table and drug over the notepad of latter-day 1999, turned to a fresh page in the notebook, picked up the pen, and began to read.
My name is Harry Mason. I got in a car crash coming to Silent Hill. I have a daughter, Cheryl. She's 7 years old and has short, black hair and dark eyes. She wasn't in the car when I came to. I'm looking for her. (He was only twenty-eight then, and in town on vacation.) I don't know how I got to this café.
(And, too many years later, Harry still doesn't.)
I met a police officer from Brahms, Cybil Bennett. (Oh.. poor Cybil. Hope she's okay.) She's left to go back to Brahms and call for backup. Something is wrong with the town.
"And that's a fucking understatement," grumbled a gruff, sour undertone.
There's no one here. I haven't seen anyone, and the town's overcast in fog. It's snowing, too. It looks like there was a disaster and everyone was evacuated. I don't even know what this café is called.
I got into a car crash because there was a girl in the road. She ran out in front of the car (fuck you) so I swerved hard. We went down the edge of the cliff - we're lucky to be alive.
When I woke upfrom the car crash, Cheryl was gone, and the door was wide open. I think someone must've taken her; I know she wouldn't've run off by herself. (Oh, Harry, if only that hadn't been true.) I taught her better than to leave and not wait for me. She's a good girl, she wouldn't've done that. So I got out and went looking for her. I followed her down an alley, after I saw her in the fog, I called out to her, "Cheryl!" and she ran, so I ran down after her.
(He noticed a scribble at the end of the sentence; a change of heart from comma to period at the last minute. The result of the mistake was a big, poignant knot for all to see - a subconscious testament, perhaps, to the state he'd currently been in, then.)
It got dark in there, pitch black, like night had fallen. I have a lighter, so I flipped it on and
Harry remembers pausing there, the ballpoint pen hovering over the clean sheet of paper.
How do I even describe what I'd seen? he'd cudgeled. Could he call it a crime scene, or a homicide investigation in progress? or does that sound pretentious? It must be done respectfully, of course, lest someone got the wrong idea.. still, how can he make it sound good - flex his creative muscle, impress some passerby without letting them think him too opportunistic and callous to the dead..?
Harry can, and can't believe he'd sat there at the diner waffling over what words to use; but such is the way with writers.
(And the traumatized. They're so alike in that way, Harry'd learned. Survivors and writers alike are notoriously susceptible to get caught up in shoestring details in the stupidest times - it's what trying to process did to a person. When nothing made any sense in their fragile state, one tends to grab at toothpicks to make anything stick.)
He'd set the ballpoint on the paper, not yet writing, but staring at his prior words as he did now. (There was a little pressure dot from where it'd landed, as proof.) Young Harry'd let a moment pass for a sigh - he remembers it well - before hesitantly continuing to scrawl.
I found a body. I didn't look at it. I don't know what a hospital gurney was doing in an alleyway, but it was there. Under a sheet, soaked in blood.
Simplicity is, sometimes, just the best route to take; and Harry was glad he did it here.
I continued down the alleyway. It was getting
(Harry suddenly had (yet another) inspired thought: would he be able to look at it now? That's where we found the key, said his stunned inner voice. Julio's Auto Parts. .. what if that's Julio?
"Next time," he murmured aloud, scribbling the comment in his notebook. "No fucking doubt we'd be back." Aren't we always? his brain added.
Yeah. Now shut up.
He returned to reading.)
I continued down the alleyway. It was getting darker as I did, and came to a dead end.
(The first of many. .. too many.)
There was a fence. Rusted orange, slathered in blood.
(Here's where he, a poor idiot only trying to metabolize, was beginning to doubt himself, because now - only now did he realize how totally fucking crazyeverything sounded.. and not just on paper. In fact, written out? it sounded worse!
I mean, shit! If he couldn't give himself the benefit of the doubt, even after witnessing it all with his own two fucking eyes, how could he expect anyone else to believe him?! Losing conviction in himself ran him up the flagpole overthinking everything while trying not to think, which forced his hand to stall more often, to be markedly chary in choosing his words before completing them. It was obvious to Harry what'd been going on in his head; but he had to wonder if James, his one reader of the harrowing tale, had the sense to pick up on it, too. Possibly, perhaps; or perhaps, maybe.
(It was also neither here nor there, but he really wondered a lot about that guy.)
Hm.)
There was a body on the fence…strung up; Held up, on barbed wire. It looked skinned, like it had been flayed on the fence, like with a cat-o-nine. (Nice one, Harry, complimented the man of now.) Skin was hanging off in pieces everywhere on the fence; that's why I have to assume it was flayed there, on the fence. It was…horrible. The gore was,…excessive.
Harry furrowed his brows.
(.. was the body even still there, too? .. hm.. can't remember. .. I know we went to the alley, but I can't..? .. ah, fuck.. shit; nope! can't remember. That's no good; I'll have to ask James if he knows.. he'll probably know more than I do..
.. shitty fucking memory.)
He kept reading.
I heard a tornado siren too at some point, while I was in the alley. I don't really remember when it happened. I stood there looking up at it. - the body. It looked crucified. I thought it was a movie prop; like I'd wandered onto a set. I didn't touch it. I think it was real. I also don't want to think about it. It looked like a scarecrow on its roost.
There was viscera too, hanging on the fence. Blood pooled on the ground. And so much of it. Then I heard noise behind me. I turned around and saw…think they were children. ? I'm not sure.
I stood cold. Frozen in place. They were small, like children…looked like children, shaped like them, w/big heads + small arms. They were all flesh, and I think they had tails. Small, pointed tails, like moles. No eyes, no mouth. They looked like all-flesh. I know it sounds stupid, but they were horrifying. I know (which he'd underlined twice) that they weren't children, and yet…they were. It's hard to explain, and I'm not going to try anymore.
"No, Harry.." mumbled the dull monotone of the too-aware, forty-eight-year-old man to his naive, twenty-eight-year-old self. "No, you poor asshole," Harry whispered, and slowly shook his head. "No, they weren't.. and thank god."
(.. maybe.)
They had knives. Like, they were holding like…kitchen knives.
"Wow, Harry! You're so fucking eloquent," whispered the peanut gallery. "Aren't you a fucking novelist.. Jesus Christ.. at least I got better.."
(.. he thinks so, at least.)
They attacked me, it continued, and I couldn't run. They were a swarm, + more kept coming. They all took me down, +
(heeeere comes the shorthand!)
I kw — stabbing bt flt ntg. wounds.
("wounds" is crossed out by a diagonal, left-slanting, line; interpreted, the whole sentence read, 'I know they were stabbing me, but I felt nothing. No wounds.')
just ?. ('confused'.) The — ^next^
(carets - and there'd be so many of them to come - to provide a (dubiously helpful) translation for some clarity, to those who happened to see it; did James understand what he'd meant? should he ask? does it even matter? No, he decided; It doesn't.)
thng !, ^I know I woke up in this^ — café. I don't know who's going to be reading this — + (and) I'm sorry if that ^if it^ doesn't make any sense. I'm a writer, I write a lot, + I use a lot of shorthand. I'm only writing this down in case someone comes across it, I guess, so I will try to keep it minimum. S^or^ry.
If someone finds this, PLEASE
(underlined and overlapping quadruple times, desperation indenting the paper and the pages three thereafter - punctuating lines that would, in numbers varied, continue to repeat from hereon out.)
come find me! HELP ME FIND MY DAUGHTER! Her name is Cheryl. She's a sweet girl a sweet seven year old, a girl — she likes ducks, + there's one or two of them on her dress; ^the dress it's is blue gingham^ + wearing a pink knit sweater. turtleneck. ^Even in AUG August^ She said she was cold. she's beautiful little girl. she's a beautiful little girl +, nd I love her so,. SO.MUCH. She's ALL. I have.
(Harry Mason had started to cry, then. The reality of the situation was seeping in. His cursive was trembling and his heart, was breaking. Young Harry Mason was scared. God,he been so, so scared! .. and, right now, still was.)
I'm a widower. Her mother died 4 years ago. I'm widowed. I've been raising her alone. She's the sweetest, most amazing little girl + she's the love of my life, I love her more than life itself,so if anyonesees this, PLEASE help me FIND HER!
PLEASE!
My name is Harry. ^MASON!^ I'm 28., years old. I have brown hair, and brown eyes, + I'm wearing a brn jacket + blue jeans. Th'ofisr ^the OFFICER^ gave me a gun,so I'm armed.I've never held a gun before, + if you see me, plz (please) DON'TSTARTLE ME! I DON'Twant to have to
(there, he'd flinched and felt sick, his intestines tying themselves in cherry stem knots inside his gut, and, seeing the firearm out of the corner of his eye on the counter and loathing what he had to write next, tasted his egg salad sandwich on sourdough bread lunch in the acidic heat of his mouth. He, guiding the pen as though its ballpoint had become diamond-tipped, and the paper, frail as wet tissue, wrote—)
SHOOT.
(swallow the wash, sick tastes like too-sweet, too-sour hot lemonade, a fireball punch to the throat)
anybody.
ANYBODY.
My name is Harry.Mason. Please help me find my daughter. Her name is Cheryl. She
(oh god he felt so fucking sick oh god oh FUCK— )
"C'mon, man," jittered the grotty, nauseous exhale of a tired old man. "Keep it together. Breathe, Harry - you're almost done.. keep it together, you're almost done."
is a good girl. She has black hair, + dark, brown eyes. She's only SEVEN. She had her 7th birthday a wk ago, - 7/21/^(that's 1999)^99. She's a good girl. She's lost and she's scared, and she has a daddy,
—His lip quivered; he clamped it hard between his teeth, cutting as a bear trap's tines, a part of him wanting to carve it right off, to - for once in his life - bite off exactly as much as he could chew;
who's looking for her, who loves her, more than anything.More than life, itself.I'm raising her on my own — wife died when Cher(yl)= 3. Cher is adopted. She barely knew her mother, before she died, I'm all she has…+ she's all I have…So, please. PLEASE…
If there's anyone still out there in ths town, if thrs anyone still alive ^o arnd^ plz HELP US! I don't know what's happened here, but everything is wrong. Cheryl's my little gl. — SHE'S MY LITTLE GIRL, and I'm going to go findher…with, or without anybody's help.
Just please someone HELP ME find my daughter.
I love her.
I'm going to go find her.
Harry Mason. — 8/6/1999; SH, ME
Silent Hill, Maine.
And so ended the first entry of that horrible, no good, very bad, foggy, and inconceivably snowy day.
The middle aged patriarch slowly calmed down, resettled his stomach, and, winding a deep, heavy sigh, freed his lip from bite. Well, that went.. super.
Not.
It sucked to know the end of this story; hell, it sucked that it was a true fucking story that happened to him, because this waking fucking nightmare would've made a damn good one for the shelves. "Coulda made millions off this shit," Harry grumbled, dancing his eyes over the fretful text. Hell, again - it'd even make a good movie. Someone get John fucking Carpenter out of retirement, he'd go nuts over this twisted fucking shit.
He shook his head and pushed his hand back over his hair. Ugh.. it really was too bad. Black humor aside, Harry couldn't write about Silent Hill - in any capacity, it seemed. He struggled to journal about it and thought about maybe, one day, writing down a summary for Heather to understand, should anything ever happen to him. Other than that? No.
Never.
Never, EVER would he write a single fucking goddamn word about this town, and he wasn't even sure that he wanted to, or if it was smart, to leave any knowledge of the town to Hea..
Suddenly, Harry's deep brown, troubled eyes rest upon the date - 8/6/1999.
8.. 6.. 1999.
Harry buckled his arms tight over the table, turtling his head between hunched shoulders and balling his fists beneath his armpits. It was now 2019: two decades later.
Facts are facts, but this was impossible.
"Heather is seventeen," her father reassured himself. He knew she was seventeen, so, "How could it be twenty years ago? That doesn't make sense. I don't fucking get it;she can't be seventeen, but she can't be twenty, either." Grinding his teeth, Harry retracted his lips far from the off-white rows and snarled at the notepad, getting madder by the second. "So what. Gives? It doesn't make any sense! It just doesn't. Make. Sense!How the fuck—?!
"She's SEVENTEEN!" he frothed, interrogating an object masterfully holding its poker face staunch and true through the interrogational onslaught. "There's just no fucking WAY!"
His fists hammered thunder into the wooden table, and the seat trembled from the bullish weight dropped into its back, letting his body melt into the chair like a sagging birthday cake. Once sanding his palms into his face, Harry drove his hands over his head and violently squeezed his skull at the crown; and squeezed, and squeezed.
Yet no matter how hard he pressed, the bone was no flimsy egg shell he could crack and cave in, and let him mash his cranial yolk to a mid-century housewife's gelatin mush, like he so vehemently wanted to.
That just would have been far, far too humane for the likes of Harry Mason.
He whimpered.
"Someone fucking HELP ME!"
But his plea would go echoing and ignored in a place that held no interest in his wallowing torment and tire, for it was as abandoned and left to rot as he felt. His hands dropped to his lap like stone, and his eyes, blurred and stinging with hate and frustration's tears. "Someone help me," wavered his voice, small, weak, and hopeless. ".. please.. please, someone helpme."
No one - nothing - answered him. No one, and nothing, would.
Not even James.
James.
Harry clenched his teeth, drug the heels of his palms across his eyes to wipe away the welled, but unshed tears soaking his lashes, smearing their salty wet across the age-defined wrinkles forming loose, baggy pools on their sockets, making them shine. In a time where he already felt alone, helpless, hopeless, desolate, depressed, ready to get it all fucking over with; ready to end it all, ready to die, wishing he'd just manned up and not been a coward to pull the fucking trigger all those years ago, Harry didn't even want to think about James. He was the guest of honor in this pity extravaganza, and it had an occupancy limit of one.
Fuck his life. Fuck his entire. Fucking. Life.
And fuckJames Sunderland.
Dragging his palms over his eyes once more, he then crossed them over his fat-padded chest and rubbed his knuckles into his inner arms.
It'd been years since he felt the pain; years since he'd given it any real thought, other than the times he happened to catch the mirror. Harry shook his head and banished the notion. It didn't matter.
Life was tiring.
Are you done with your pity party yet, Harry? The clock's a-ticking; your pumpkin's outside.
Harry sighed, tested his fists, and forced them downwards against the harsh winds of internal, and eternal guilt to be wedged betwixt his thick thighs. Yeah. I'm done.
He was beat.
Flicking his eyes up from his lap, he caught glimpse of that last line on the page again, the one before the date:
I'm going to go find her.
"Yeah, Harry.." agreed his throaty, jaded murmur. Back and forth like a metronome his eyes roamed that cursive vow, reading it over and over.. and over, and over like a psalm that'd perhaps revitalize valor and spirit not only to keep reading, but to soldier on; to complete his mission- to find her. "Yeah, you sure.."
The final word dangled from the tip of his tongue, but would not come loose. Swallowing hard, Harry reluctantly brought up one steel-weighted hand from the cinch of his thighs and reached to scrape the pages apart and turn to the next. It would not go far, detoured instead to his face, where it blindfolded his eyes behind his palm.
No; not yet.. not yet - just give me a second, requested the battle-worn father to the waiting and impassive notepad. Harry needed a moment, just a moment, to breathe; in, and out. Therapy taught him to need a hot minute to sit with and feel the shame of failure, to feel his shame, and the shame of failure, to feeland graspthe feelings that led to the dark passages of loss and mourning; just a moment to remember her: his sweet little girl.
His sweet little girl. His sweet, darling little girl; his Cheryl - and to begon his mental hands and knees for her forgiveness.
He hoped she would; that she did; that he even deserved it at all.
Harry inhaled rattling shards into his lungs. "Oh, Cheryl, baby.. I'm sorry. I'm so.. so fucking sorry," Cheryl's father groveled to her ghost, rubbing his face into the meat of his palm. "I'm so sorry. Cheryl— Heather, honey.. my girls..
"I'm so fucking sorry."
Harry Mason desperately wanted to cry, but refused to expend the energy. Crying wouldn't do shit for her, or Heather, or him; it'd just waste more time and effort merely afloat on loan. He needed the fortitude. Heather was waiting for him. Silent Hill was hell, and he'd gone through hell and back before. This, he could do; and he'd do it again, as many times as he needed, even if he had to claw and crawl the entire fucking way.
Because he loved her.She, Heather Mason, once and now a piece of Alessa Gillespie, at one time and now a piece of Cheryl Mason, was his daughter - his life, his blood and his soul.
And he, Harry goddamn Mason, lovedhis daughter, Heather goddamn fucking Mason.
Shuddering another draw of air into his chest, the survivor tenaciously confirmed what he knew for certain:
".. I love her, more than ANYTHING." And he wasn't lying - not for one goddamn fucking miserable second, he wasn't. Fucking. Lying. He knew it in his heart; in his soul, because his love for his daughter - his Heather - banged like the loudest, most deafening drums of reckon; of borderless, unconditional devout, and LOVE.
And he WASN'T. LYING.
(At least.. .. not anymore.)
I promise.
Harry dragged his hand down his face, defiantly thudding his fist on the table as he looked hatefully down at the manuscript he penned an implausible twenty years ago.
"Don't worry, babygirl; I'm going to find Heather, Cheryl," he swore to the memory of the girl in the pink turtleneck sweater and blue gingham dress, who liked ducks and pink gumballs, who played with her capsule toys, whose smile and giggle kept him on heaven's high - who was gone but not forgotten, NEVER forgotten - who lived on in the seventeen-year-old he'd once struggled to feel for, yet now ferociously loved and adored with all that he had, unwaveringly, and forevermore,
"I'm going to find her, I'm going to FIND your SISTER, Cheryl, and I'm going to bring her home. I will bring her home in one piece, not– NOT like what they did to you, as a fucking baby," Harry snarled and shook, throwing the mallet harder and harder on the high striker of his resolve. "Never again, never fucking again– heh, y'know why?" — the puck of his anger hurtled the skyscraper— "because I am going to KILL!
"EVERY. SINGLE."
Higher—
"MOTHERFUCKER."
—HIGHER—
"LEFT!"
—Ding!
Within the confines of the library city, thousands of sleeping books were quaked from their dreams by the echoing boom of Harry Mason's harbingering threat. He didn't give a SHIT if James heard his battle cry; and if he did, he should take it as a warning to him, too. His bloodthirsty vow was a challenge to all of, in, and the town of Silent Hill itself - that he was coming for them. ALL of them.
"And that's a fuckingpromise," Harry hissed under his breath; stoking the fires; melting the wax - sealing the contract.
The father of two nursed that voracity hot in his mind as he then scraped the page on the notepad to the next, and continued to read the harrowing tale of his fate.
—
James didn't hear shit.
He was thinking.
He was thinking,
I'm not the smothering type.
Harry had no idea what he said when he said,
I'm not the smothering type.
but he said,
I'm not the smothering type.
James Sunderland had no idea where he was, but:
I'm he's not the smothering type.
James stood somewhere. There was black all around him, and light in front of him. There were things in front of him too, because he saw them, but he didn't know what they were called, because he didn't see them. He was just.. somewhere.
And he was nowhere.
Nowhere. And here.
In Silent Hill.
I'm not the smothering type.
Well, that's good to know., he'd said when Harry's back was to him. He was pretty sure he didn't hear him. That was good. .. that was good, because it's good to know that at least one of them isn't th e g t yp
(.. where was he?)
James (asunder) didn't know.
(Yes, you do.)
Yes, he did.
James Sunderland knew exactly where he was, and he was standing in one spot, in a thousand, million different places at once. He was here, and there, and there, and THEREand here and in that room. He heard the drone of one voice, and several; the drone of the beeping - no, not that beeping. The beeping of the car door wide open.
Whose door was open?
Sunder(land) heard crackly splatter spplliick-ckickplipplip.. splat of vomit hitting the asphalt in the parking lot. Whose door is open? His, or—? Or..?
Yes. He's sitting in the back seat. No; front seat. The driver's seat. Passenger seat. Back seat. He's sitting..
Shotgun.
Shotgun! I call shotgun! I he calls call called "I call shotg—
Front, back, left right left right up down driver passenger shotgu— passenger driver dribeeeeep! beeeeep! beeeeeep!
"Easy, James, easy," he's saying (no, not him, not him, it's his dad - that's who's saying,) "Easy, James, easy.." like a soothing whisper into his comatose ear, his ear but his head, the ear in his head; glazing, thick and the soupy thick white molasses oozy glaze shell capping a yesterday's stale donut singing a ghostly lullaby in an empty ballroom tinging off glass and tinny walls; he can hear the unshaven jowls in the gritty sound of his voice; distant and gone yet as tangibly dull as the time and day it was said. (When was it said?;
a lot, actually.;hHard to tell which time this is.)
(Well, How old is he?)
How old am I..?
(Well, What year when were you born? You probably graduated when you were SEVENTEEN.")
(So How old is he?)
here? I'm twenty-seven.
(Wrong: He's nineteen, here.)
I'm 1974. How O L Ddo I THI"I thi- twenty-seven, H—ry! I'm twenty-SEVEN!" I'M
I'm nineteen, here.
James is nineteen years old and Frank Sunderland is the one in the passenger seat - the seat better known as 'shotgun'— which is something that he has, lying on a table somewhere, like in some kind of library or something. Maybe. (Do those still exist?) James is nineteen, and the door's beeeeep! beeeep! beeeep!ing because his door is open, his door being the driver's side, and he's leaning out of it, leaning out to puking his guts out - the in becomes the out.
(The shotgun is in the foyer.) (The shotgun is on the table in the foyer it's a Remington. Model) (Its model is a Remington eight-seven-zero, Model Remington Model Type thesmotheringeight7zero which holds 6 rounds. .. are those six shells in his pocket..? One, two, three, NINETEENsevenTY-FouuufoouuooourrouurrOOAARRRrourrrrI'M TWENTY-SEVEN, HA—R—RY! I'M TWENTY-SEVEN! FFfffhewasonlytryingtohelFFFFf—f-fF U C K!—)r..?
"Easy, James, easy," his father's saying. his Dad's hand warm and heavy hand soothing, rubbing up and down passes straight up and down his spine, he's warm,
(It takes 6 shells and holds 6 at a time. Easy side reload. A cinch to learn. Recoil's not so bad. He could take it apart in his sleep. he should do that soon. he should sleep. it needs) to be cleaned, but he should sleep, too. He will. Afterit's cleaned.
.. yeah.
The bile is the worst part about puking. It stings in his throat, and it tastes sweet as it rips it up. It's sick; how sick, tastes sweet.
It ruins the appetite for candied almonds, raisins, and baked, honeyed cashews.
"Breathe, James.. breeeaaaathe out, little one."
James takes a breath. Easy, James, easy, he corrects himself, when he exhales too fast; so he draws another. He does better this time. Slooooooowwllllyyyyy.
(When is he doing that? Breathing, just now? In the parking lot? or.. here, right now?) He didn't know. (It didn't matter.) James took another breath, as it were.
"Dad.."
(Did he say that?) (When did he just say that? Or was it,)
"Dad.."
James doesn't know. Forgot; he forgot. That's how he (doesn't know.).
"There, there, James. Don't talk. You got any more?"
Yes, dad.
(He did it again.) (One, one more, for the road. Literall)
"Alright. I think that did it. C'mon, now - slide on over to this side." Noise. Squeaking; rats no mice in the—crank being turned. Squeaka squeaka squeakeesqueekiesquea—QUEASE-A-QUEASE-E!—a-squeak-asqueak-asqueak Sliding down between the soft compact pinch of velvet protecting, securing the glass, rounded and smooth, the run of the glass, slide the pad of his finger down over the top when he drives with his dad; next to his dad, when he drives with his dad. Retracting the glass into a deep, measured valley. Deep. Measured in its dimensions. Perfectly measured, it goes deep. It goes it fits deep, like a
(And it alsogoes shhhhh.)
He's on the other side.
Leather car seats - were one of James's favorite smells.
'Were'. Was. (Are.)
The leather seat there are two and the seats are tan. They're individual seats, and not. Dad's car doesn't have separate seats. These are tan, and embroidered differently. ('Embroidered' isn't the right word, but James? isn't a carpenter.) The seats are a Pontiac Mercedes.
The car door interior is blue and tan. All tan. Like a Mercedes: The Ford Pontiac model.
"I knew you were drunk."
He's drunk. God, he's so fucking drunk. His blood is a Miami heatwave. The alcohol festering his breath feels like putrid potent nail polish vapors in his throat and on the roof of his mouth, in his flush, his flesh; his ears, his eyes, his lips are chapped raw and burning like acid. Don't light a match. He'll combust, and go up in flames. He was drunk.
His eyes feel waterlogged - riddled with insomnia, drunk on their own. He hates beer; so that's what probably did it. How many did he have? More than s—?
"You can't fool a fool, baby James" Frank Sunderland sighed at him, at him, at himself - you can't fool a fool, Frank Sunderland sighed, because he knew too well. (He's one, too.) "You've got the Sunderland poison running through your veins," the wise old fool said, and chunk-thunk—kh-hunk! goes the shift gear going thunk THUNK into position, stubbornly grunting agreement; judgmental, and sounding like nodding. "And I'm not just talking booze, James. I'm talking blood.
(There was a lot of it.)
(It got on everything, and tried as he might, he never quite learned the right way to clean it out. It was humiliating, in its own right. The blood just happens, doesn't it? It's just vinegar. He's embarrassed he can't get the blood stains out of the tablecloth. .. no, that's her shirt. Or is it..
his?)
We're a family full'a alcoholics" Frank preached to the choir, teaching James lessons of factoids he'd already learned. "My daddy was one.. and his daddy, too."
Dad Frank never called referred to called his dad, 'daddy', more than half the number of fingers on his hand, or so James thinks he remembers. That's why he remembered the times he did. That Frank called dad, 'daddy', because 'Pa' was a different dad.
"Heh. I ever tell you I been to AA?"
Man. A different man, (and that ran in the family, too.) "He did, too - he'd been, and he graduated from AA: A—"
ssholes with Attitude.
(James doesn't remember if he ever learned the difference between who 'daddy' and 'Pa' were to Frank. It'd be nice to ask. Maybe he will when he gets home. He didn't know his grandfather. Frank didn't even mention his name once, if James's memory is right.
He didn't even refer to him as 'your grandpa' whenever he spoke of him.
wait. Who was—)
"Your mother yeah; whoever the fuck THATperson is an alcoholic too, James."
(she didn't have a name, either.
.. hey.. has he ever even seen his birth certificate..? ever..? maybe when he gets h—)
"We're gonna go home,(?) and get you gonna we're gonna get you (how did he phrase it?) into the cold shower and cleaned get you clean up in and get you home into a the cold shower home cleaned up at home get you home into the cold get you home." home.
home .. at..? home(?) is at…
1357 Ashfield Lane.
2468 South Ashfield Street.
it's at
9142001 Ashfield Observatory Park Lot in Silent H 12345678900987654321 N. S. E. W. N. N. W. E. S. D. E. A. D. E. N. D. IT'SNOTHERE IDON'TREMEMBER BOULESTREPIKELANEPICKALANEPICKALANE! GOD SHIT YOUFUCKING ASSHOLECOCKSUCKERPICKALANEPICKALANEPICKAFUCKINGLANEYOUSTUPIDFUCKINGBITCHASSHOLEMAZDAYOUDRIVELIKEMYW I F EYOUDRIVELIKEAFUCKINGDRUNK—
They left the observatory lot overlooking Toluca Lake on the South Vale side of Silent Hill and went up the hill and to the right. At the fork, they took another right. And then a left. And at the stop sign, go north. It's a two lane highway around the mountain cliff, but you just follow it until you get to the first street stop lights. Then, you turn right, and you're home.
Home is. Is home, of course, South Ashfield Vale.
South Ashfield.
South Vale.
South Ashfield V—-
The Sunderlands are home.
South.
Home is: Somewhere. Somewhere, south.
South Somewhere. Is home.
(?)
James didn't have to clean out the Pontiac the next day, (dads from the south right) because he didn't puke in the car. (He waited until they got home, where he puked on the asphalt next to the car.) No, in front of it. Behind the cement bumper, where (yeah i think he is) the tufts and grass and weeds (are we sure though?) were growing between the cracks, and a steel sign read,
PARKING FOR SUPERINTENDENT ONLY
(The superintendent, his sire, Frank Sunderland.) (from the South.) (but not from Dixieland.) (not from the bible belt.) (is he? south?)
just
s—
He hopes he's (dad) still the superintendent. James hoped the superintendent of South Ashfield Heights Apartments was still Frank Sunderland. .. dad.
He didn't know.
dad come pick me up im scared dad im really scared please come pick me up please i'm SCARRED i'M—
.. how did she know?
"Well, James," she said hesitantly, tentatively, like handling the glass teapot half full of piss-colored brown tea and half full of humidity and (locker room) sweat and fog she was going to pour it with her bare hands holding the thick glass handle holding the thin glass topper instead of the tea towel she was handling it with "I don't want to be so blunt, but.. please don't get mad. But it's obvious your dad's an alcoholic."
God, Mary.No. No. fucking idiot. Not that! No shit, Sherlock! you're so fucking stupid Blind DOGS know Frank Sunderland's an alcoholic! you stupid fucking idiot you stupidbitcHow did she know that he (dad) was the superintendent?
you fucking IDIOT—
"You told me, silly!" she laughed behind her hand because the other one, her other one - her hand - gripping his. They're sitting "You told me the other day," at a park but not that one she's wearing her floral dress, a white one with pins— a white one, a light blue one, with polka dot"when we were at lunch"s the dress is lavender, with white polka dots, and a white sweater 3/4 sleeves "because" she likes sweaters "I asked you what do you wear that cross for? Are you religious, Mary?"
, James asked?
"No, not really," Mary says to him, smiling her lips; her lips, painted Avon pink. She has her hair back in an inverted ponytail today. Her hair's like a knot. It dips in like a Her hair's like honey and caramel - blonde and brunette at the same time. It shines. Can't tell her what it looks like; she'd kill him, he laughs to his friend(s?)(?) But it's silky, and his fingers are in her hair.
it shines.
She's smiling at him; her smile painted Valentine's Day pink. (It's not Valentine's Day.)
"An aunt gave it to me. Or.. it was (it was always Valentine's Day with her around) in her will, when she passed. We weren't a religious family," she told him, absently brushing a pigeon's down feather off her knee. A piece of ash. A Beautiful day at the park. (But not that one.) "I don't really have an opinion about religion.. I just.. I just think that there are too many.."
"Too many..?"
She (Mary) looked distracted. She (Mary) wouldn't look at him i got used to that too busy looking out at the little league girl's baseball team practicing on the lawn; not within the fence. (Scheduling conflict at the diamond field.) They somehow made a habit of coming to the park on Wednesday evenings to watch the little league girls baseball team practice. (Mary liked to watch them play.) "Too many bad we never made it to a game people are using good things for their own bad ideas."
She's wearing a dress. It's a white blouse with puffy sleeves. Green capri pants, notched at the outer seam, like Doris Day. White ballet flats, like Doris Day. She has a white ribbon in her hair, tied into a bow. Chiffon. Puffy, cloudy, soft and flowy, binding the end of her braid like a present on the nape of her neck. The ribbon's plush, (she looks very retro) like the sweater's plush, the (housewife) sweater (she looks like a housewife) that she wore a lot (back) then; it's pink. James likes that green sweater on her. Everybody loves to wear fucking sweaters.
"I'm not the religious I don't like sweaters. smothering type, either." he said.
Mary looked at him over his shoulder, peering up into his eyes as she hides in the throw blanket on the couch.
"Good. I wouldn't want to raise my kids in religion."
The TV flashes pale and hue on her partially hidden face, testing out different colors on her skin, reflecting patterns in the teary glisten within her eyes, shiny on the yellow brick road path trailing down her cheeks.
OH, this never made it into the film THE JITTER! (doodoodoodoooot) OH, THE BUG! (doododootdoooo!) OH THE JITTER, BUG!— (it's a deleted scene.) —BUG-a-BUG!-BUG-a-BUG!-lost media-BUG-just this one measly clip of it left-a-BUG-she said-BUG-it's lost medi-a-BOO!
It's cold in here.
It's always cold in here. He's glad it's like this; James can't stand the heat. It's cold in his coat; it's always cold like this in his skin.
"So that's a yes?"
It's cold in his liver, the kidneys; it's cold, in his bones.
It's cold and it's "YES!" SHE CRIES! SHE SHOUTS! "YES! YES!," SHE WEEPS!A THOUSAND TIMES— "JAMES, YES! OH, JAMES—! OH,
Y
E
S
….!"
weird. strange., That he thought about that right now, right then. (God, he's cold.) Where the hell is he..?
Better yet: is he?
..?
James looked down at his hands, and stared at them. They were are uncanny. Weird, gross, ugly, ugly-looking things; and pale and bony and thin, like him. (Do they work?) (Yes.) But— Wait. —are those his hands? For better or for worse, not only did they work (somehow - he wasn't making them do that, was he? No? yes/no?) but the thought occurred that he wasn't sure why people had hands, to begin with. He wondered why(?).
Do people even use hands?
, he wondered, why.
The lost, young (HA! don't know why: but that sounds wrong, for some reason. sounds wrong, for, some reason..) James Sunderland, Frank Sunderland's little one rockabye oh sweet baby Jand Mary's betrothed and wedded, took a breath, and tried to breathe, james, easy.
It's just so c-c-CUH-cuh-ooooh-o-oooold in here. It's
"Are you going to keep her name, too? No, dad. Mary just wants to keep hers. Why won't she change it to just 'Sunderland'? What's wrong with it? Nothing's wrong with it. She just wants to keep 'Shepherd' too. Eehh, I dunno, son. Can't you try to convince her to ditch the 'Shepherd'? Mary Shepherd to the slaughter? Marry Mary Shepherd to the slaughter? marry Mary Shepherd to bring her to the slaughter? It's not a bad name, dad, Jesus Christ. 'Shepherd-Sunderland' sounds fine. It's not like she's forcing ME to change it too, or do anything at all, because she gets on my fucking CASE all the TIME about the LITTLEST FUCKING GODDAMN THINGS and then acts like I'VE NEVER LOVED HER AT ALL, EVER, IN MY WHOLE GODDAMN LIFE!"
Ding, dong! (merrily on high, for Christmas bells are) Ding, dong! (the witch is dead! which old witch? the) Ding, dong! (the bells are gonna chooooime! so) a-and IT'S MY P-PAARTY and i'll CRY if i wAnt to CRRYY f'i wAaAnt to c-crryyyyy F'i want to.cRRYYY iF I WANT tOOooo
you would cry too if it happened toOOoOoo Isn't it funny how you two are going to Silent Hill and there's a Shepherd's Glen? Shepherd. Shepherd's Glen. She's not from there, dad. Oh. Oh, well. I still find it funny. Yeah, dad. Real funny if you say it almost every time. It never gets old. It'll never get old.
"Oh, James. Do me, Mary, and you a favor, little one:
Kill yourself, James."
(that's me.)
And
shhhhh is what the sound makes of something being retracted, something sliding down between the soft, compact pinch of velvet to protect and secure the glass. Retracting into a deep, in the water the water of T—l-a L— measured valley. Measured in its dimensions. Perfectly measured come in, come in, the water's fine. Like a gra—v—
.. aaahhhhh is what the sound makes of something being extended. There's a noise. Squeaking. A crank being turned. Something sliding up between the soft, compact pinch of velvet to protect and secure the glass. Extending into a deep, measured valley. Measured in its dimensions. Perfectly measured. Like a
the water's nice, and so pretty from in here.
peak of a pane of glass hitting the nice, snug ceiling of its frame. The window is up. There's no more noise. The no more noise is smothERIshhhhhh. (no more water. he's dry.) Easy, James; easy. (she? says?) Breathe, James Sunderland; b— easy. Breathe. _ (?)
going to try again.
(? why? who— .. aaahhhhh..
().
.)
The perfectly measured pane of glass hit the nice, snug ceiling of its frame with a cozy thunk. The window is up. The no more noise is peaceful, and so, so nice. It's peaceful in the cab; in the front seat. The driver's seat. And it's dry. Not even the hem of his pants are damp. he feels..?
?talking to him. There wasn't a voice; just the feeling of one, but it had words. The town spoke with visions, emotion, and pain. It was up to James to interpret what any of that meant. "The feelings swim around in my head like goldfish," he recalled telling Harry, probably yesterday or some long time ago, but goldfish weren't goldfish when they were tropical piranhas (so much teeth in his smile so weird he could have that many) and the feeling was freshwater, more organic; more local.
It is up to James to interpret what any of this meant, so he translated, because he can: (it's a ""gift"" with the price tag sticker still on it, from them to him):
Sorry. Please stop doing that. You need to stop doing that.
? do what? he asked.
But then:
Don't you have reading to do?
But before he could try to catch whatever the fuck was running around in his head grab the little fishy fishy fish swimming around inside his miserablelittleskull—
The conduit blinked, and looked around.
James stood in the Silent Hill Public Library. It was black around him, and light in front of him. There was a bookcase in front of him too, a bored audience of laminated spines, and trapped in his hand, the college-ruled notebook he and Harry found for him. He opened it. It was blank like before.
He closed it and referred to the bookcase. Squinting, James craned his neck to the side to make sense of the titles and pulled the diary from the line. Next he sniffed, checked the inner cover for the diary author's biographical blurb, glimpsed the title page, then sighed.
Stacking book atop notebook, James wandered off. He had the odd feeling that he'd just forgotten something important, or that something that had gone missing - but also strangely, it didn't worry him much. Maybe there was a chance he'd remember whatever it was later.
Later always had chances.
So on that note, he forgot to make a point in worrying about it until then - for his own sake.
James found a chair. It looked kind of comfortable. It was a standard lounge chair, the kind that was commonly upholstered in unmemorable contemporary patterns and commonly found decorating doctor's offices and waiting room floors. It would do. He sat down, opened the book - and a short time later, about thirty-something pages in, realized something stupendously important:
Harry wasn't kidding about Kafka. This guy was a doozy.
Blinking down at the book's middle split, James contemplated his decision before he ruled it made, but the next course of action, to him, was clear. Deeply sucking in a breath, James scooped the twin covers in each his hands, and slapped the book shut on itself - CLAP!- with the ceremony and bravo of a worldly preacher ending a successful Sunday's sermon. We-ee-elp!
Nevermind trying THAT shit!
James grabbed the arms and pushed himself out of the dreadfully uncomfortable lounge chair, and headed over to put the book away on the shelf. Sliding it into place, his fingers hooked on, dangled, then slipped from the half-moon brim cupping the top of the spine when he stepped back to take a gander at the other titles on offer. He pursed his lips in, then out, then flat, and shook his head.
Nope.
Tipping his head back, James stared up at the second floor ceiling and fluttered his eyes.
Uuughhhh.. ughhh, goooddd, this SUUUCKS! Ugh-ghh! He squashed his face. Juvenile annoyance insensitively whined about the prevailing, first world problem that 'Reading. SUUUCKED!' to the unhelpful emptiness within and surrounding him, and left the adult man one impulse away from stomping his heels to prove his such great distress.
Ugh, he was so BOOOORED! Wwwhh-hhuh-hhyyy-iiieee.. .. hmm.
James thoughtfully reset his head on his neck, casting peer into the dark out of the corners of his eyes. Hmm.. wait a minute..
.. what about Poe? Yeah. Yeah, maybe he'd have a better job - or hell, maybe even luck! - with Poe. Hmm. Yeah, James decided, satisfied enough with the new plan to even feel confident about it: he'll try to see if he could like Poe, instead.
'Cuz that'd be pretty cool.
Turning on his heel, James went off to go do just that, keeping a few good hopes close to his chest that he'd be right.
—
The butterfly effect:
In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.
Synchronicity (noun):
The simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection; a theory developed by Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology.
Both of these things are much like the other one; both of these things, are very near the same.
Harry and Jodi Mason wanted to start a family. As high school sweethearts, they'd married young, and though Harry was working three jobs and Jodi was in school striving for her teaching bachelor's, they two had been living on their own for a couple years already. They were eager for parenthood - as were their respective families, itching for grandchildren - and there was no time like then-present.
Sadly, they'd soon find that conceiving a babe of their own would not be in their cards. However disappointing for the lovebirds in question and nigh-devastating for the clans Mason and Escobar, hope and cause was not lost, because it was Jodi's idea to adopt.
The vote was not only controversial in itself in the early '90s (as well as practically unheard of in the area where they lived), it was the source of tension amongst their conservative kin; and adding fuel to the fire, was her plan to adopt an older child. Harry? loved the idea. That sounded wonderful to his mind and future.
Their relatives were.. not so optimistic. Babies were everything, in their mind; but at the end of it, all ridiculous and exhausting arguments aside, the couple had iron resolve and a steel foot planted in the ground. You will love our child, or never be a part of their life, they said, hurting themselves more to say than it did their families to hear. Nonetheless, the threat did its job in getting the point across, and the darling three year old girl the Masons two would eventually bring home would, of course, win everyone over in no time.
Yet Harry could pinpoint the day he met the one who'd initiate the sequence of events that'd lead him here, sitting in the Silent Hill Public Library, ruing that fateful hour that took place in the early spring of 1994..
.. because how could he ever forget it.
That man - the butterfly - was in and out of their lives fast. His sole purpose, it seemed, was to provide the connections and means of which would lead them to adopting Cheryl. They used to consider him an angel for how painless he'd made it for them; problem was, Harry would dourly conclude a whole five years later, the process had been too easy, and that man, not the kind of angel they were duped into thinking he was.
Harry stared down at his notes. His unfocused eyes saw two sets of them, diagonally superimposed atop one another; and had, for a while. He didn't know when he'd bother to refocus them either, least of all get back on track with the work he was supposed to be doing. The notes weren't as important at the moment; not while he was remembering his face.
He wanted nothing more than to find that man and beat him right fucking in.
Basil Young, whomever he really was (for Harry would later dig into the crevices and cracks he left behind to discover that no Basil Young had ever existed outside of how they knew him, as the last man named Basil Young had died in 19-fucking-32), had oh-so-conveniently introduced himself as a case worker specializing in adoption through small talk, whilst Harry had been assisting him at Elmer's Hardware, one fine day. (Just that morning, he and Jodi discussed finding a caseworker, too; so call this one, 'synchronicity'.) It was Basil who paired them with Cheryl; and of whom had aaall the right connections to the people who'd pull aaall the right strings to expedite a (usually otherwise) frustrating and agonizingly slow adoption process.
Because naturally, he would.
Hindsight would never be anything but 20/20, of course, but at the time, that man had given the happy couple the euphoric blessing of parenthood, rearing a child together in a loving home.. at least for a little while; for it'd happen all too fast that in the end, their little girl would only have Harry call her parent.
Exempting their unlucky roll from the Yahtzee! cup of life (an event of which this particular man could claim no firsthand responsibility for), Mr. Young had been an angel in their time of need. Truth be told, Harry still thought of him as an angel - an incredibly, cavernously flawed one, to be sure, but even in knowing what he knew now, the man had given him Cheryl - the second love of his life.
And yet it could be argued that Basil Young, in contradict, also took her away; and that duty took a different kind of angel, whose terms were harder to exonerate.
He furrowed his brows, and softly frowned as the alternative nickname he'd bequeathed to Mr. Young played over and over in his head; a broken record.
With a little shake of his head, Harry washed the thought like an Etch-A-Sketch from his mind, then lifted, and plunked his chin on his fist, looking out into the library. It was dark as the woods out there, beyond the flashlight pale. Brainless for once, he stared into the institution's night, his unfocused, slightly crossed eyes doubling his vision as well as threading a faintly metallic headache through the bridge of his nose. The sensation, however, wasn't a bother; Harry sort of liked it, and thought it was relaxing, in a way. Too lazy to reset his eyes, he merely sat there, and enjoyed the weird feeling for a spell while nothing happened in his skull.
Minutes passed.
Harry wondered what James was up to.
Brooding, probably, muttered the peanut gallery. That made him snort. Yeah, probably, Harry endorsed; then passively mused, I wonder if he's reading.. hrm.. what're the chances he's picked up the Kafka yet? Or maybe he went with Poe first..? Oh shit, Poe! That's right! On that distracted note, It'd be nice to read The Red Death or House of Usher again.. it's been awhile. Those're good ones. James's gonna like them.
Hmm.
A blink took the glazed-over look down in the corners of his eyes, studying his work in the blocky feeling in his head; of the hem and haw. Hmm.. mm. Maybe later.
Now.. where was he..? Oh, right.
Driving around, mad and irresponsibly drunk, on Memory Lane, in the vehicle his psyche called, the butterfly effect.
It's just one coincidence after the other, huh?
Sighing heavily through his nose, Harry revoked his own mental driver's license and dismounted his chin from his fist, ducked his head, and passed his hand over his hair. Uugghhh, he groaned in his brain, squashing his face as he straightened his spine, sitting up tall in the chair. Clasping his hands one over the other, he extended his arms out in front of him for a goooood STRETCH!, swung them over his head for a follow-up, then flopped them down into his lap with a giant whooooosh out from his lungs.
Sagging his body, the wayward man blearily looked around at his environment, afore directing the gaze due south to the hard- and paperback horizon he'd built by his own two hands. (Or, better known as the Great Wall of Absolute Total Bullshit, Harry deemed, in eyeballing it.) Proper eyesight realigned itself without conscious prompt, and settled on the parted wad of square paper.
Feh.
Welp, Harry reluctantly sighed, picking up his pen. Guess he's gotta get back to it..
.. then his brain detoured to wondering again, for a second time, where James went off to. Probably brooding, reminded the previous assumption. He exerted a half-chuckle. Yeah, you're right, he told himself. He's good at that. Ah, James.. what a guy.
.. what a travesty.
Okay, no more, no more of that, Harry firmly asserted on his voyaging mind, waving his hands and head to clean that particular, wrong-subject slate. Get back on track. Alright! Silent Hill 1999, take two! Harry announced within himself, rolling his head, shoulders, and giving a wiggle to settle in; and,
"This time, with much LESS feeling," ordered the grumbling author to his poor, dumb head. Oh, he didn't want to get back to this, but the world was a stage and he was the shittiest actor they had, and so with that—
.. aaaand..
—ACTION!
Harry stared at the page. And sighed.
(.. MAN, he thought with deep misery; I could really use a break.)
—
The conduit turned the page.
The grapnel caught at 2, P.M., precisely; and thus the whole voyage was completed in seventy-five hours; or rather less, counting from shore to shore. No serious accident occurred. No real danger was at any time apprehended. The balloon was exhausted and secured without trouble; and when the MS. from which this narrative is compiled was despatched from Charleston, James read, the party were still at Fort Moultrie. Their farther intentions were not ascertained; but we can safely promise our readers some additional information either on Monday or in the course of the next day, at farthest.
This is unquestionably the most stupendous, the most interesting, and the most important undertaking, ever accomplished or even attempted by man. What magnificent events may ensue, it would be useless now to think of determining.
And thus ended The Balloon Hoax.
James, with his ass steadily growing numb in the uncomfortable chair, sat there staring down at the vast, blank remainder of the page; and, contrary to UNpopular belief - not brooding.
Huh. Well, then, he thought to himself; that was unexpected.
..ly enjoyable. When he'd set out to read Edgar Allen Poe as per Harry's recommendation, James never thought he'd be reading a news essay about goddamn hot air balloons; or even actually enjoy it. It nevertheless had to be said that Harry had - yet again, he begrudgingly acknowledged for the umpteenth time - been right about one thing: Poe really was more than The Raven. Huh!
Well, then, indeed.
That was cool.
James advanced to the next page. He guessed life was still just full of surprises; like how Edgar Allan Poe was also way better than Franz fucking Kafka.
After a considerable amount of time passed, the so-called "lounge" chair finally won the sitting match against his bony behind. James, not even a page into The Fall of the House of Usher, gave up on for now and stood, dropping the book into the chair, and commencing a stretch of his legs and back. "Ow," the resident muttered, rubbing the soreness in his butt. Jeez.. weren't these meant to be comfortable..? Guess not, he reasoned; the library probably didn't want people loitering around all day, but "Man, my ass hurts.."
Soft grey light from the peripheral left caught his eye. He looked towards the source. Slipping his hands into his jacket pockets, the conduit strolled for the balcony railing and there, set his eyes upon the Silent Hill morning.
Up here in the mezzanine, one could really appreciate the main hall's earthly splendor. The outside's clouds recreated yesterday's postcard-perfect tableau, showering the interior in ghostly silver and white gold light through the windows and heavenly dome. Casting gaze to the milky glass panes, James imagined patrons of past whispering amongst themselves that the day's weather forecast Looks like rain, because it sure as well did. He of course knew better than that, though thought that it'd be nice to get some rain.
Drifting his eyes away from the windows, James gandered at the library's beauty, thinking about its descent into strange obscurity in a besmirched town, then looked due south for a surprise.
Harry was still down there, bowed over his work. Furrowing his brows, James observed his friendly accomplice busily write, refer to a book, and take to scrawling again. The resident then formed his mouth into an incredulous arch. Didn't he take a break? he huffed to himself. Hypocritical asshole. Oh, sure, let's take a break, James, mocked a rousing, and illegally accurate caricature of Harry's voice in his head; I'm gonna go read some Dean Koontz, I'm gonna flip my shit over Franz Kafka, we need to take a break, go take a break James, nyeh-hyeh-heeeh.. dickshit.
The resident stood still at his vantage point, viewing Harry, their inventory layout, and additions to the collection Harry'd amassed, from above. He found himself equal parts disgusted by the messy hoard his charge had made, and disappointed that their spread looked less impressive from up here.. but the author continuously pilfering their supply probably had a lot to do with it. It was an overall weird feeling to have.
His eyes drifted to the man in study.
An urge came upon James, strong as a merry band of traveling warriors; a smirk did, too. He's so zoned in, James thought of Harry; he probably doesn't even notice it's morning. .. god, wouldn't it be funny if..? Ooh, I'd love to see the look on his face..
Pulling his hands from their deep hammocks, James placed them on the banister, and held on. Adolescent glee swelled excitement and anticipation in his chest, with the prospect of pranking Harry so gloriously helping to muster the gumption to follow through. No doubt the echo would be great; the acoustics were phenomenal in here, and oh, when he yelled down at him his face'd be gold..!
.. but then, his hands slid from the polished wood. James stepped back and turned away. He'd thought better of it. Reigning in his inner child, the civilian silently returned to the stairs to meet, or rather interrupt, Harry at work like a normal, mature adult person would do.
Many years later - though in reality, it'd just been a few hours (but time doesn't fly in Silent Hill), Harry declared 'CUT! That's a wrap!' within himself as he was finally, at last, well and truly DONE with this bullshit (for now). He began to put some order into his Picasso-esque workstation just in time to hear the rhythmic click, click of motorcycle boot heels walk the floor. Raising his head and blinking owlishly towards the sound, Harry registered the perpetually bored face looking as bored and aloof as ever, and smiled good and big.
Greeting James was more important than organizing his life, Harry thought, and ditched the task. Slouching his weight into the chair, he propped his arms on the built-in rests, and beamed up at James as he came to stand at his side.
"Heeey! There you are! I've been lookin' all over for you."
"Hi, Harry."
"What's up?" he asked, ironically craning his neck to look up at him.
James shrugged. "Nothin' much."
"How was your brooding session?"
He frowned. ".. my what?"
"Your brooding session."
It turned grave. "I wasn't brooding," he snippily replied, flat with offense.
"Psht, yeah you were. I know you brood. You know you brood. I know you know you brood. It's kind of your thing! Don't be ashamed of it, James. So how'd it go?"
Wow. On second thought, maybe he should've yelled at Harry and scared him outta his wits. What a way to say hello! Jerk. "I wasn't. Brooding."
The smile split to a grin. Harry's eye winked. "Suuuure, you weren't."
James crustily sneered back. Harry linked his fingers over his belly, defaulting his grin to one of his charming, friendlier smiles. "So how's the library?"
"Fine."
"Did you read?"
"Yeah."
"What? Didja read the Kafka?"
The jacket shrugged. "Not really."
Harry looked curious, and a bit shocked. "No? Did you give it a shot, or..?"
James started to shake his head, then bumped his shoulder and cringed, "Eh."
The greyed head nodded. "Yeah. Told you it's a doozy."
"A little bit." James sniffed. ".. I read some Poe, though."
Interest lit his face. "Yeah? Did you read The House of Usher?"
"Started to," James replied. "I was reading some of the other stuff, before I started it."
A disappointed twinge affected when he asked, "Why'd you stop?"
Sweeping his chin up and indicating at the overhang where he'd been sitting, James informed him that, "Th'chairs up there suck."
Harry chuckled. "Yeah - you're telling me! They're not much better down here either, I can tell ya that. Ugh! My ass feels like—"
"I read The Balloon Hoax, and some of the other stories he wrote for the paper back then." They gauged one another. "I thought he just wrote books."
Harry appeared quite pleased with the news. "Yeah, he wrote the short stories for the paper. He wrote a lot of 'em for the paper, actually, rather than on his own time to be published independently. There were enough of 'em to put into books, obviously, so I can see the confusion." He slanted his head. "Did you end up reading any poems?"
"No. I didn't get to them. .. I don't know if the book had the poems, anyway - I didn't look."
"Well, maybe you'll still get around to it? They're definitely worth reading, The Raven and all." Harry, smiling so broad, seemed truly chuffed to bits. "Sounds like you liked it.."
James, somewhat reluctantly, concurred with a nod. "Yeah.. it was good."
The resident quickly prepared for the inevitable 'I told you so', but his bracing was for naught; for what he thought was the inevitable to come, never came. What did, was worse.
"I'm really glad to hear it, James," responded unprecedented, benevolent affection that, in turn and unbeknownst to Harry, made an ass out of the conduit for assuming he'd hear a whip of snark. "I'm really glad to hear it. I was really hoping you'd like Poe."
".. yeah." Beat. "He's alright."
There was a nod, a smile, then general griping and groaning from Harry as he sluggishly hoisted his aching body up from the chair. "Ooohhff, fuck! Oohffff, okay, I'm done sitting in that thing for now," announced the wincing, near-fifty-year-old man stiffly shuffling out of the wedge between table and chair. "Ooof, seriously, my ass! Feels like, fuckin'.. stale marshmallows.."
James eyeballed him, wondering how the hell he knew what stale marshmallows felt like to sit on while watching the chair get pushed back into place. Harry hummed and stretched. "Mmmmmnnn, I'm gonna—"
"So, what, you didn't end up taking a break? You said you were gonna."
"—go and do that, heh, nope! Didn't get around to it."
"W—"
"Eehhh! Wasn't feeling it."
".. ah."
"So I'm gonna go make good on my word and go do that now. What're—"
"What'd you get done?"
"Oh, pptbhSHHhbth.." blew out Harry's great big raspberry, partially swiveling to look down at the clutter. "Uhhh.. fuck. A lot? Heh, I went ahead and reread most my notes, jotted a few things down," he said, leaning to the side over the chair to flip the pages of the notebook. "I wanna go back over some'a them with you, for later, when we decide to head out, so don't let me forget, and, Iiiiiii.. and I also got a head start on working out more of the ciphers, so.. there's that.."
"Ciphers?" James frowned. "What ciphers?"
"The cult ciphers - or, that's what I'm callin' 'em. So.. the cult's got a shitload of stuff they'd wrote and encrypted, that was all over the desk over at Balkan," Harry began, pawing some of the loose papers down off the books and spreading them out. "Looks like they were writing out some ritual stuff, like alchemy recipes, n'shit.. and since they chose to get all Indiana Jones, James Bond about it in keeping their secrets, I've been trying to do that, AND match up some handwriting, too, while I'm at it - since, as I'm going through all this fucking bullshit, I found a lot of it's been written by the same hands. There're about three or four I've been trying to figure out, but.."
".. why would you do that?" James skeptically replied. "That seems like a whole lot more work than you need to do, Harry."
"Well James, my thought process is that there's a possibility that some of these works are signed, or have notes, or messages, to other people; and if I can figure out any names, or who wrote what along the way, then there's a chance we can dive deeper into getting an idea of the big players around here. I lost a lotta shit I had piled up when the town un-broke my nose back at Balkan, so I'm pretty pissed about that, but I think that I've made good headway with what I have." He looked at James. "Don't question it; it makes sense."
He looked at him flatly. "No, it doesn't."
He returned a huff. "It doesn't to you, but to me, it does. Hey, let the amateur master work, wouldja? Hmph. Ah, well," Harry said. "Anyway, listen; I've got something of a key started for the encryptions, if you want to take a look at it.. 'cuz in my opinion, it could use some fresh eyes."
The resident glanced at the load, with slight contempt for it, and the idea. "That's really not my thing, Harry."
"It's not really my thing, either," Harry retorted, pinching his face. "You kidding me? Fuck, I had to pull a bunch of books on cryptography n'shit! I'm a writer, not a fucking FBI cryptologist - god, I felt like I was trying to solve that one puzzle from the uhhh, the, uhh.. that one Zodiac Killer puzzle everyone's been at for ages." He smirked aside at him. "They still haven't done that, by the way— they haven't solved it, that is."
".. mm."
"In case you were wondering." He shrugged, and looked down again, and frowned. ".. ugh. I think half my problem is that I overthink it," rebirthed the bitching and moaning. "I just go 'round and around and get myself all turned around in a damn bunch of loops and knots.."
The sound of a snort trailed off any more irrelevant prattle, prompting Harry to look at its source.
"Took the words right out of my mouth."
"Yeah? Well, you can have them back - I don't wan'em." The two had a little chuckle together, but then, Harry sighed out. "Eehh, but seriously, James.. take a look at anything I got down if you want. Go for it, actually. I'd appreciate it if you did.. because like I said, it, and I, could use some fresh eyes - a new perspective, if you will."
James gave him a noncommittal shrug. "Mmmmhnn.. maybe. I dunno if I'll understand it— or any of the way you took down any notes for it," he added, darting a glance at the notebook.
"Eehh, well.. that's fair, I guess; I guess I—"
"You sort of encrypt your notes too Harry, you know."
The man spluttered and laughed. "Gee! —get outta my head!" Amused, he looked at him and said, "You're on top of your game today, huh? So what's this, you do telepathy, too? Is this a new thing? Because I'm starting to believe it, heh.. eh, I think you'll be fine, though. You're a tough cookie - you're a smart guy," he breezed, while casually ambling a few paces away. "Aaand I think you're just being humble."
Tracking his movements with a twist of the waist, James shot curious suspicion at the author's departing back. ".. yeah..? Why."
Harry paused, dismissively scoffing at him from over his shoulder. "Aaaauch! C'mon now, James; my old notes are full of shorthand. Don't try to lie to my face and tell me you haven't figured them out," he rebuffed, turning around and nodding at them. "C'moooon - I know you better than that..!"
A scowl rippled across James's lips. Ugh, yeah, he was right - Harry wasn't stupid, of course he'd know he'd end up cracking some codes. So much for feeling like he'd gotten the jump on him; dumb as it is, that kinda sucked. "Yeah. A few."
"My! when you're humble, you're humble." Harry smiled. "Heh. .. anyway. I'm finally gonna go take my break. What're you gonna do?"
"Mmrmn, eh.. m'gonna get back to the machines, I guess."
"Sssooouuunds good to me! You still got your notebook?"
James blinked and looked down at his hands in his jacket pockets, which surely didn't, and couldn't, hold something as big as the notebook. "Oh, shit. I forgot it upstairs."
Harry chuckled. "Well then, you better go get it! S'not gonna do you much good up there!" He smiled at the roll of green eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I know, 'Shut up, Harry', I hear ya." Reprising the gentle round of laughter, the self-aware soul began to walk off when he, remembering something he forgot, stopped short on a dime. "Oh!"
His hand spontaneously shot out of his pocket, fingers crisply snapped, and in one smooth motion swung around on his heels to confront the quizzical James. "Wait. One more thing:
"It might be stating the obvious, but I was thinking.."
James tilted his head. "Thinking's good."
Harry blinked, and snorted. "That's up for debate; depends on who you're talking to. But I was thinking—"
"Yeah.. I can see that."
"Would you..? Tch! Little shit. Shut up for a second - don't take after me."
"Heh. Wouldn't dream of it."
"Why, that's the best news I've heard all day. Keep that up! But anyway, what I was thinking was that we should look to hunker down and settle in for a couple of days, something like that." Sweeping his arm and stare in the direction of the table, he said, "Look. We've got so much shit. We've got aaall our work cut out for us, and then some. There's so much to do and we don't even know the depths of it; and I feel like that, despite our first efforts? They're noble, but we haven't even scratched the surface."
Thick brown eyebrows, one of which hidden behind the curled drop of blond bangs, furrowed low over now-humorless eyes. Cooly, James shifted visual address to their equipment and materials while Harry, judging his reaction, rubbed the back of his neck. "It's hard enough knowing what to tackle.. and let's be real: we can't feasibly get anything done in a day or two. We're gonna need a little more time than that."
"Like.. how much time were you thinking?"
"A few days? or more."
The prediction wasn't exactly what he wanted to hear. "A few days? .. I thought we were doing a good job so far in like, knowing what to tackle.. I mean.. we did get a good start on things, or I thought we did.."
Harry hid the subsequent wince from James. Poor guy sounded so deflated; it really sucked to have to pop the rest of his balloon. "Yeah.. yeah, we did. We did get a good start. But putting thought into the whole spectrum of it, it's a whole lot more than it even looks."
"We knew it'd be a lot, Harry," matter-of-factly countered the younger. "I mean.. I figured we'd probably spend a day or two here, but.."
"James, between all of the cult stuff, the bugs, whatever's going on with the reading machines, how so much of it is gonna tie together, consider all the domino effects any of this is gonna have on how much research we get done.. you gotta look at the bigger picture, James. I think it's playing it safe if we take a few days camping out here."
"I think you're overthinking it again, Harry."
"Not this time. I'm gonna pull the 'I think I know what I'm doing when it comes to research' card on this one," Harry contested. "Look, I know you don't get it, but just trust me and the process, okay? I know four days sounds like a lot, but, when you put it into perspective.."
Unfortunately for James, he was going to require binoculars to get a clearer outlook from where he currently stood on the proposal. "Eugh.. I dunno, Harry.. we could just end up wasting time."
"James, listen - let's be real for a second here, alright? We are always going to waste time. It's unavoidable. One way or another, we're gonna be wasting time, and we're already wasting time arguing about this, and you better believe we're gonna waste more of it in the future. I hate it too, but that's a fact of life.
"Also fact, since I'm apparently chock full of trivia today," Harry sarcastically went on, "is that whatever we do here is going to determine what we do when we leave, where we're going." He spread his arms. "I'm lost, bud. I've been here before but I'm damn lost, because I don't have a shit's throw of an idea of what we're supposed to actually be doing right now, or if we're better off being someplace else. Did we miss something? I don't know where to go or where to be, do you?"
Slowly, the one-man judge and jury shook his head. "No."
"Okay." He lowered his arms. "I don't plan to make it my prerogative to fuck around here and waste time, okay? I just want to be meticulous." Annoyed with the maroon sleeves inching down his hair-ridden forearms, Harry shoved each in turn upwards again to sit like compressed polyester accordion wrinkles at his elbows. "And I'm being such a hardass about it because I really want to avoid having to turn right around and come back here after we leave, because we didn't just sit down and take some real time to understand what we're working with," he punctuated tiredly, crossing his arms on his chest. ".. do you get me now, or yet, or..?"
"Yeah.. yeah, I guess."
"Cool. Cuz the moral of the story? Is that I just don't want to keep ending up with my limp dick in my hand, and not knowing what to jack off to."
Approximately one second later, James fully turned to him with unabridged and open repulsion. "What the fuh..? That's disgusting, Harry! Seriously, what the— why are you like this?!"
He grinned back at him as the cat that got the cream. "Gets the point across, doesn't it?"
"You're. Disgusting."
"Aahh, you prude. Alright, so, we good, boss? Comprende?"
Trying so hard to swiftly scrub his hands and brain of Harry's horrible choice of comparison, and actually get back to work, James nodded and waved it off. "Yeah, yeah.. I get it, that's fine." Afterthought took James's keek over at the shameless older man nearby with a small, wry smile. "Just par for the course, right?"
From the filthy-minded in question, fluttered a light-hearted chuckle. "Just par for the course." The words, however, sounded uncharacteristically bleak and tenebrous. James watched with some unease as Harry's tides turned somber. ".. Heather's out there."
".. yeah."
"And I don't know how long it's been. Or where she is - or what kinda danger she's in. I want to get to her as fast as I can, James, and I know we're trying our best - and I really do want to get out of your hair and leave you alone - and thanks for bearing with me for as long as you have - but I feel like it's taking too long.. like maybe, like.. like something's wrong, or.. I don't know what."
What else could the town conduit do but shrug as he so frequently does, and frequently does best? "I— I-I don't know what to tell you, Harry. It takes a long time to do anything.. or find anyone around here, you know that.."
"Yeah, I know that, but.." Defeat lowered his gaze at the floor. Soon, the cutting shape of Harry's natural widow's peak hairline was pronounced by his palm traveling his hair flat back all the way over his head. It caught, and lingered behind his neck, anchoring for the feeble pitch and fall of his shoulders. He fell still until simmering acrimony took over, shaking his head, and threw his hands into the air.
"I just— I feel like we have barely any leads despite all the shit we've been through, you know?" His hands fell and smacked his thighs. "Our first and biggest one was when you said you felt her come in, back at the lot - when you said she was in Old Silent Hill, and since then, we've got nothing. Nothing to go on."
"Harry, I.."
"Has the town said anything about her since? Or.. lately, at all? Please, James," the teen's father beseeched, "has there been anything at all, even the smallest tidbit, to give us a clue..?"
A slow negative response shook James's head. "It's been quiet, Harry," he shared at a volume low and candid enough to be an understood attempt at secrecy. "I would've told you if I heard anything. I swear. It's been quiet. I don't like it either," he then professed to the blue look he got in return. "It's not normally like this. Okay? It's weird. I'm sorry, but there's literally nothing I can do."
Seeing the crestfallen response worsen, the ambassador lamely swallowed and then, quieter than a slumbrous dormouse, added the best apology he could offer: "I've tried."
Accepting it at face value was the only thing Harry felt he could do. He was ready to take the break; he could practically smell, let alone taste, the fumes leaking out of his burning brain. "That's.. great. That makes me feel just.. great. Ahh, well.. no, no I know that you've probably— I know that you've tried," he pardoned, wantonly pathing his hair stone flat, again. "It's alright.. it's obviously not your fault, the town does whatever it wants, whenever it wants.. it's alright. It's not your fault."
The conduit, receptive and thankful for the recognition, humbly dipped his head. Harry, on the other hand, averted his eyes down and away after giving back a tepid nod. "I guess there's shit-all we can do until you get a ping.. or until we figure something out ourselves, which, heh - which is what we've been trying to do all along, but.. y'know."
"Yeah.. I know."
There fell a brief lull between them. James felt sorry for the other man; Harry, malapropos of his nature, looked downright impoverished and barren. He gnawed his lip. That look had to go; it was awkward, he couldn't stand it. "I'm sure we're gonna find her soon, Harry," James told him softly, with a dose of well-intentioned altruism. "So don't worry; we'll find her."
The patriarch's smile came compliments of good manners, but not much more. "Yeah.. we will. I know we will, one way or another."
A nod.
Then another. That seemed to be that, so Harry took a polite and cursory look around to preface his exit. "Anyway, I'll see ya when I see ya. I promise it won't take too long. Wish I had my phone so I could set an alarm but, eh.. aaahh, oop, you won't get that - sorry, nevermind."
Per advice, it was left alone. James whisked his lake-water eyes to their sides, clocking Harry's act to go. Almost immediately afterwards, he abruptly raised his head, and looked at his author companion before he could pass him completely by.
".. you're a good dad, Harry."
He stopped. Looking at him in surprise, Harry roved speculative gaze across his guardian's face, unsure of what he'd find, though what he did was a candor that brought an authentic and obliged smile to his lips. With warm regard present in his expression as well as his heavy hand, Harry laid two sturdy pats atop the conduit's olive shoulder, then closed on it tight. "Thanks, James."
James didn't respond. Harry's misplaced warmth and camaraderie persisted as he briefly wobbled James's balance through a few gentle shakes bestowed via his shoulder, and when the veteran dropped his hand, the soldier avoided his eyes, and listened to him walk away.
And then, he was all alone. Again.
Ah.. fuck.
Bringing up his hand, James veiled the ingredients shame, torment, and anger concocting poison on his face from the rest of the room, emitting a sigh so small that he barely heard it, himself.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
GOD!shit, fuck, FUCK how he hatedthe choice he'd made!
His fist balled over his nose. GOD!shit, fuck, SHIT, shit, SHIT! ranting in his head counted the beats his knuckles jammed, ruthless as an iron door-knocker, into his brow. Shit. Fuck, SHIT! splayed his fingers like starfish limbs, then immediately rocketed them upwards and entangled them in blond fisherman's knots of his hair.
And pulled.
—god. Shit. FUCK! What the fuck had he been thinking?! oh, fuck dammit how he wished he hadn't made all of Harry's shit HIS problem back in South Vale; that he hadn't WANTED to help Harry Mason through Silent Hill - that he offered; that he could take it all back! - that he could've said something;that it wasn't too late, now.
And, above all else? good fucking god, how he hatedthat part, the most.