06/21 (pt. 2)


The time had come, certainly, he surmised, that something more needed to be done. If naught else the meat he'd collected from his victims would soon begin to rot. already he could detect a change in the scent; the rich blood smell was starting to tinge with rot.
This was solved easily enough by the theft of a cooler from a construction site, but it was a temporary solution at best.
It was funny tho, how few people saw him; a tall, bedraggled man with a stained coat talking to himself as he helped himself to the things he chose to steal. Funny how while the city was abuzz with this new terror the very perpetrator could walk by almost entirely unnoticed.
It was time to wind it all back, Walter decided, return to the source.
In the first instance this was easy enough; he chose to return to South Ashfield Heights.

The landlord was a very hands-off, stay at home kind of guy these days; in essence the building was going. It wasn't a complete slum yet, per se; but there was evidence of garbage built up in the halls; odd stains and things left unswept.
There'd been construction on one of the walls on the second floor landing; Walter decided that this was, in fact the right place to come. He returned briefly to the subway to gather the things he was choosing to keep hidden; surely hiding them at 'home' would seem safer.Safer than what? It was only a niggling feeling in the back of his mind, but he had some sense the day might come his little subway tunnel nest might not be as safe as it used to be...
He almost didn't. To stop and knock at 302 would bring back old and bitter memories. All his childhood spent trying to get someone who probably was long long gone to open that door; being yelled at and chased off by unsympathetic grown ups...
no, better to just try the roof; there were always places to hide things on rooves. Still. he had to at least walk past. Touch the doorframe. Prove to himself he'd been there.

The keys were in the lock.
The last tenant had moved out a short while ago; renovations were being done on the room. Walter's heart sang; here at least was proof the universe was backing him, somehow in the horrid things he was doing.
The ceremony COULD go right, he thought, as he lay on the floor of the back room of the place that had once been his home.Sort of rolling around on the floor in bliss, just feeling so happy to be 'home', however briefly.Surely this was a sign. He knew he couldn't stay long this time. But maybe now he would be able to return and use this place while it was vacant.
He pocketed the keys and hid his goodies on a shelf of tools and brickabrack, stuffing his things far to the back.
Chances were even the tenants didn't have access to this room. It didn't seem to be a part of the apartment so much as one of the landlord's storerooms. Judging from the buildup of old boxes of fuses, dried buckets of paint, and dusty tools, Walter was sure his things would be safe here. It was time to move on.

Two voices certainly ruled Walter at this time; the demon's when he was moved to do wrong, but he still had his own sense of self, his own voice. It was rare these two voices ever agreed with one another, but in this mission they both had the same need. Source. Return to the source. Valtiel was ever clamoring back there wanting him to follow thru with the ritual; that this would mean more killing was not the issue at the moment. There were sacred tools that were needed, precise spells. The white chrism, the obsidian cup, the red tome. These things were all at the Temple of the Halo of the Sun, he knew, and that meant going back to Silent Hill, back to the Wish House. down to the tunnels where the secrets took place.
down where he had killed James Stone.

As much or moreso tho were Walter's own reasons in his head- he needed to know exactly what had happened to him. Why was this demon so free in him? just what the hell had these crazy people done to him to make him what he was becoming?
He went this time fairly level headed, and prepared for violence. He should expect violence. They owed him nothing, and they had played him for a fool. Thought him weak. He had certainly shown them tho, hadn't he? Turning the tables as he had.
The point certainly was that there would be no welcome party. if he needed answers he'd have to be prepared to beat them free. These people loved their secrets.
Walter was quite prepared for this eventuality. He wanted it, needed it. Could feel it so close he could almost taste it.

The familiar busride deposited him at the further end of the Toluca Lake park. he would have to walk down the trails and then branch off where he knew the secluded little orphanage was hidden.
Climb those high walls he had climbed often before.
and, if necessary, kill any of those mad bastards who got in his way.
Walter felt strangely calm contemplating this. There was a serenity in his troubled mind as he had not felt in some time.
It helped to have a bit of the white singing in his veins too, maybe. He had no idea what went into that drug, but he certainly wasn't putting it down anymore at this time. Once in awhile you just needed to have your blood sing, your every muscle feel like tigers. Once in awhile you needed to feel no pain.
Who could fault him?
He knew his way to the secret place where the rituals were held and crept there with a panther-like sureness.
Two of the priests were there, doing something. The one had hold of one of the cloths laid out on the altar at the times of sacrifice, and the other was rifling thru the safe.
Walter's eyes narrowed, and his smile was bemused. Without Stone's guidance was it all falling apart this easily? Valtiel had of late been not as present. Subtly nagging about the time being near and the things being needed, but not tormenting Walter with the litany of inadequacy, the incessant order to go and kill. As he felt the demon slip in beside him, Walter almost welcomed it like an old friend who had his back. This was interesting. Was he, then, the only true believer here? Annihilate them Valtiel urged, and it was almost a proper conversation this time; "not til I've found some answers," Walter whispered, and crept forward into the faint circle of light.
"Hello, Toby. Hello, George."

Walter smiled to see them panic.
"Walter Sullivan?" Toby looked ready to bolt. The sacred cloth wrung in his hands like a security blanket, as if he hoped it would ward off the killer who stood before them now. They knew he had been the one to have killed Stone. If nothing else, they'd probably done a Ritual of Revealing, but it didn't take a rocket scientist, really.
Walter laughed."You know it." and lowered his head, looking at them darkly, "you mind explaining to me exactly what you fucks DID to me? All this time.. you'd been expecting to use me somehow, hadn't you? Sacrifice me at your leisure."
Their guilty looks and increased panic answered that one well enough, altho the other priest, George, was determined to try to bluff. If he spoke with authority, he figured, perhaps young Sullivan would be cowed. Old habits die hard, after all...
"YOu have no right to just barge in here, Walter," the man spoke, trying to hide the shakiness in his voice under a sheen of stern authorative tones, "you of all people should know that this is a sacred place."
"Oh, it is, uh huh," Walter agreed, "and that's why you're stealing the money of offering, I take it? Done with the sacred and ready to make a clean getaway to the world of the profane...
I am here for the chalice," he continued, "and the anointing balms. Any chance you guys might have seen it?"
The two men looked scareder still.A novice like Sullivan shouldn't even have known of these things. That he did meant only one thing... "You're going to attempt the 21 Sacraments?" George asked, incredulous, "but you can't...that's not for anyone who has not studied the secrets for years... you're too young! Just a kid!"
The man's choice of words began to flare the anger in Walter, and Valtiel stood somewhere just behind him, behind his eyes, ready to ignite it to a killing flare in a matter of moments. George Rosten was a cowardly man, obviously, and to be sure not good with children. It had been he who had called Walter a bastard all those years ago; he who had given Walter his first scar in a drunken outburst.
That he still saw Walter as 'just a kid' was enough to bring that anger up and set it boiling.
Valtiel and Walter seemed to speak as one. "you tell these children they are nothing, and then you lift up a few to be chosen. You fire their hope. a chance to be different, for their pain to have some semblance of meaning. and then? they become reduced to nothing, to less than nothing, meat for the rituals YOU do not even presume to understand. This body anointed, this body deemed chosen. But you have no idea. You had no idea what exactly this 'child' has been chosen for.
It is the will of Valtiel that this 'child' is the receiver of the 21 Sacraments. and for a new priest to rise, the weak one must die!"
That there was something more in there than Walter was a given to the priests; they knew what this was all about. Were they just going to stay there and die for the will of Valtiel? not if they could help it.
Toby Archbolt made for the exit. Because of the unique nature of what he had seen he would not be able to tell anyone; he would spend the rest of his life running, hoping to put as much distance between himself and the cult as possible.
George Rosten foolishly sought to destroy the god and so end all of this.
While Walter was talking he had grabbed the nearest available weapon, an iron pipe lying on the floor nearby.Hardly a 'sacred' object still, it would bust some heads nicely.
It hadn't even occured to Rosten to grab one of the ritual knives, or to look for James' gun. His own survival urge said to smash this kid; if he could get Walter down perhaps he could destroy the demon that possessed him too. Did Rosten know the demon was Valtiel? was he hoping to kill god rather than being punished for his crimes against the church??
Rosten had the upper hand, as Walter was disoriented for a moment after being the vehicle of Valtiel's message.
Rosten got behind him and struck him with the pipe, hard. Walter crumpled, of course. the blow had hit the back of his neck and his shoulderblades; the pain was unforgiving, and everything in his head was swimming.
He felt the second blow towards the middle of his back and could only wince, and roll over. Had it just been Walter himself at this point, he'd have been the one to die this night, no doubt; the onset of pain just set him back to his old patterns of taking it, being the victim. One arm up to ward off the expected blow to the head, his eyes wide with fear and the certainty of dying.
Rosten raised the pipe and prepared to crush the skull of Walter Sullivan.
but it was far from just Walter in there, and it was Valtiel certainly who caught the pipe in midair and plucked it from Rosten's hand like a child's toy.
Walter rose slowly, like an animated corpse.
This was an almost-complete possession. He was witness to the work done, but had no more control than a dog would over its master. Rosten had fallen now, tripped over one of the candleabras. He was the one with his arm up now, hoping to ward off blows he seemed to know with certainty were coming. The tables had turned.
"Never send a minion to do a god's work," *Walter felt his lips say in Valtiel's voice, and the pipe struck home.

Valtiel could do many things with and for Walter, but healing him didn't seem to be a priority, and Walter was panicked. His back ached, and his hand could barely close; a few bones had been cracked in catching the pipe in mid air. Or perhaps in pounding George Rosten's head to mush; Walter wasn't clear when it had happened.
All he knew was his breathing was labored, and his vision was murky; he hadn't gotten off scot free this time. Relax, Valtiel told him casually, you've done very well this time. for a treat? you can sleep in the apartment tonight. I promise no one will dare disturb you. Walter let this promise calm him. Still, hauling the things back from the tunnels and all the way to Ashfield was not anymore easy for that promise....
He had them now. The chalice. The anointing oils.Some books, and some packets of the white claudia; he'd need this more than ever for the pain. and of course, the heart of George Rosten.
Somewhere back there a body lay, it's head a ruin of crushed bone and brainmeat. The chest cavity, however, had been neatly sewn back shut and sealed with black thread; across the body was carved the numbers. 06/21
Walter was nothing if not obssessed. Each little detail had got to be right. He made his way back to South Ashfield Heights without incident, and into the storeroom in the back of 302.
There he slept dreamlessly for an indeterminate amount of time, recovering a little from his wounds.

07/21,& 08.
Again, a sense of the world moving along without him.
His back was a fire of agony that the white claudia just barely numbed; his hand was almost no good it was so stiff. It was hard to roll onto his side and manage open those packets with his stiffened and shaky paw of a broken hand so he could sniff the drug and lie there in an almost comatose state of fever dream awhile longer.
It had to have been days. He could hear the workers as they came in and out of 302; knew when a day was up by their departure. There was no darkness here; the neon sign of an across-the-street hotel lit his sickbed. Odd, because the windows were caked with grime. The walls and ceiling and even his own mottled skin seemed to move with vibrant, fevered psychedelic life. Walter wondered idly if he was dying. It certainly seemed possible. His injuries were bad, and Valtiel seemed to have no healing for him, just this rest and respite here in the storeroom of the place of his birth.
Would the room nurse him back to health for a second time?
Walter felt the pain when the drug would wear off, and he was not quiet about it. That the drug was addictive was clear too when it's decay time brought new pains with it. Walter laid there. he rolled around, and he sweated, and he cried out for his mother.
Blessedly? no one heard him.
It was as tho he in his room and they, the workers in the room as well were in separate timelines, separate realities. He was aware of them, but they seemed to have no awareness of him. He was alone in his suffering. Alone in his solace.
Alone, anyway, until Valtiel returned for him.
get up, voice an intrusion. Like a cop catching him sleeping on a train. Walter tried to ignore it. Feign sleep, death, whatever. Go away and leave me alone, he intoned wordlessly. get UP, Valtiel was not buying the ruse. there was no playing possum around an omniscient being.
Next time the irksome voice was a clarion call, a not to be disobeyed scream.
getupgetupgetupGETUPGETUP
Walter scuttled awkwardly to a crouch, anyway, yowling at the voice to shut up. He spun in a hunkered circle, trying to find its whereabout."who are you what the fuck do you WANT?" he roared at it.Valtiel's presence had long ceased to be a privilege. Walter wanted nothing more than to have his head for his own again.
But the voice seemed amused by his outburst. you've had your 'down time'. You know what you must do.
"I don't want to kill anyone," Walter was determined; he was staying put. fingers in his ears; yeh, like that would shut out the voice in his head. "I'm finished, alright? I don't WANT to do the ritual. Get someone else..."
It was a good thing the god had him under some sort of cloak of protectiveness, because anyone who saw or heard him now would not know what to make of the crazy man who had run screaming thru the halls of the building and all the way down to the alleys below. Valtiel had a deeper hold in him, somehow. It could hurt him. he had run from the building screaming because he was sure that he was on fire. On fire, and crawling with maggots. The sensation was everything nasty that could happen to a creature with skin. He crouched in the alley now, whimpering. shook up by this little 'lesson'. You WILL do as I tell you. because you're mine. never forget that, Walter Sullivan. you're nothing without me here. the voice was smug in its own surety. now MOVE.
Walter moved, but he was just as determined as before to not kill anyone. He wasn't going to. He wasn't. Hell, he didn't even have a weapon so...fuck that.He'd show Valtiel...
go get that, Valtiel ordered, and Walter wasn't able to refuse. He didn't even use the little hammer to break the glass; he just punched thru - aaah, FUCK, my HAND- and took the fire axe. a dirty bloody torn piece of his shirtsleeve wrapped around both the axe handle and his hand as a sort of tourniquet so he could hold the haft in place.Going down the road....
NOTgoingtokillanyone,NOTgoingto,won'tdoit... a monster was blocking his path. A horrid monster. Its head an expulsion of guts likeJimmySTONE!whenyoushothim.., its body a hideous mutation, like a thing patched together of rotting pieces. It was clothed in bloodied cloth, like the one around his hand. Held together, rather. Walter stared at it in abject horror.
ohmygod,what IS that thing? kill it! killitkillitkillit... Walter charged the monster with his axe. Funny how easily it went down; it only took one swing. a mewling sob escaped it as it fell. as he stooped to inspect the hideous beast he'd just felled something sprang on his already sore back and started pummelling him...
The pain roared to life and Walter didn't think, he just acted. Shaking the figure off his back easily enough... another axe blow took this one down as easily as the other.
Funny how they seemed almost human now, these figures. smaller tho... the hearts, Valtiel reminded him quietly.
"Hearts? from these? but they aren't even people." Walter almost laughed. So this was the big kill he'd been woke up from his sickbed to commit? Well, fine. If these hearts counted, he would finish up.
It had almost become rote this part, he could do it so quickly and effectively now. The hearts. the numbers. the chest cavities sewn...
He was just finishing the last one when it was as tho a fog had cleared, and he could really see what it was he'd done.
This was the big kill after all. The biggest one of all. These weren't monsters, these were innocents. Walter got up, shaking his head, incredulous. "no..."
He was standing in the middle of a suburban street. The bodies of two children at his feet. The numbers stared back at him, blood glistening, like an accusation.
Why or how he kept hold of the hearts as he ran away was as much a mystery as everything else.

"Tricked me! You tricked me! I would never! Nevernevernevernever..." oh, he'd kept them, even stashed them with the others, but Walter and Valtiel were having a serious! discussion now. Down the back of the King Street subway station. As always no one bothered to notice the crazy guy talking to himself.
easy now. it was...an accident. you know i'd never steer you wrong, Walter. a little mistake. besides. i'm all you have. the voice's argument was persuasive, but Walter was having none of it.
"I am NOT doing this again,you hear me? NOT doing it.I'm not WITH you. ok? not with you. You're NOT my friend...you're out to destroy me." it was one of his saner moments, oddly. too bad it wasn't going to last.

09/21


not me, Walter, them, Valtiel assured him, they are out to destroy you. an offer that invited a look at the people coming and going from the trains. Now they seemed to notice him. Walter saw the occasional tight lipped smile, the sympathetic glances.
and hated it."no!" hands over his ears again, altho he already knew this gesture did nothing about Valtiel. he scurried up the stairs, awkwardly, all but falling in his stumble to leave the subway. His back no longer hurt, but it throbbed constantly, and felt terribly numb in places, like ice. His glasscut hand could barely move, and it was swollen so that the bandage was too tight. "you just leave me alone!"
but Valtiel would not. out to get you, he confirmed, and your time is running out. It was getting close now. Douglas Cartland was, at that time on the Silent Hill police force. He was in homicide, and had been following the string of murders most carefully. So far no one but him had realized the connection between the death of the children- thus far the most shocking murder and the one which had truly made the locals horrified to be out at night- and the ones in the cult compound at Wish House. Wish House, after all, was a private community, a secretive place. They had been none too happy with the detective's interrogations, and had clearly been trying to hold something back. Douglas was talking with his partner, Clark Gucci, about his findings.
"These people know something. I think the killer was someone they had known before. they just don't want to open up to 'outsiders' enough to reveal what they know."
Gucci didn't know what to make of that. "But...you'd think they'd want to tell you, that way they could sleep safe at night knowing the creep was behind bars and out of their hair."
"Aah, you'd think that, but some of these weirdy religious types would rather sleep next to poison than risk having their weirdo lifestyles exposed and ridiculed..." Douglas looked at the coroner's photos. Something about the numerals was disturbing enough...but the meticulous way the killer sewed the chests back up as tho he couldn't bear the sight of the holes was even more disturbing. Like someone who had to look at disorder and filth all the time. Someone who'd want to keep things tidy...
"I get the feeling we're right on top of this," Douglas said, "like this killer is right under our noses..."

time is running out... the words plagued Walter, they tortured him, and it felt to him now as if every sewer grating held a hidden microphone, every pigeon looking down from rooftops was a messenger bird, all carrying every subtle detail about him back to the people who wanted to hurt him, hate him, punish him for the crimes he hadn't even wanted to commit... time was running out. Time...
He saw something shiny in the dirt and it caught his attention. With numb, shaky fingers he managed to pick it up after the third try... a watch. an ornate old pocketwatch. Walter shook it, put it to his ear. Well of course it wasn't running...suddenly, inexplicably he knew that he wanted it to run. Moreso, he needed it to run, so he could know exactly how much more time he really had...
walking was getting more and more difficult but he did it now with purpose, sure in all his wanderings in the streets of this city he had seen a sign advertizing what he needed now...
Ashfield was bigger than it seemed, and the wrongness in his back was weakening him. it was nightfall when he finally found the place- a clock repair shop.It was on a back street and the front door, Walter found, was locked; it was by appointment only. He lurches towards the back door, which was down an alley.
William Gregory was the watch shop owner. He didn't plan to stay this late, but he had always loved his work, and when he was repairing a thing time all but stopped for him he was so fixated upon his task. He had left the back door open. The air in the alley smelled none too pleasant, but it was the only way to get a breeze in.
He was startled when he realized the shabby man had been standing there for some time watching him, but when he saw what the destitute creature was holding out to him with an imploring look in his eyes, he could think of nothing else. "This watch...you need it repaired?"
Walter nodded, and let the man take the watch from him. He was feeling pretty weak about now, and sort of let himself slide to a seated position in the doorway.
The watchmaker had little interest in him tho. He had moved back to his bench and turned on a little mobile lamp, swung it over to have a better look at Walter's pocketwatch. it was an ornate little thing, very old. This watch may very well have been Swiss, and was probably pre WW2.
With no regard for time or his 'guest' or anything, Gregory set to work on Walter's watch. it was a remarkable piece and all he wanted was this time alone with it. Walter could have died in his doorway there and it would hardly have mattered; when Gregory was fixing clocks, nothing existed in all the world except for him and that clock.
It was well past midnight when the watch finally could be coaxed to tick. and like clockwork Walter rose from his pained stupor at the sound of that tiny ticking. He got up, awkwardly, hand out for the watch.
"I can't pay you any money..." he admitted, altho of course if he'd had some and the man would have taken it without incident, perhaps all would have been well. Perhaps.

There was a pesky twinkle in the watchmaker's eye as Walter said this. he was putting away his tiny toolset and now he thought how easy it would be to cheat this bedraggled old bum of his treasure.
"Really. well then you realize I'll just have to hold on to it until you bring me some."
William Gregory, of course, had no intent to give the watch back at all. He could sell this thing easily and make more than this bum could ever afford. Could, but at this point Gregory coveted the thing he had repaired. He would neither sell it nor, certainly, return it to Walter. he wanted it for himself.
This avarice was his fatal move.
Gregory put the watch in a little jewelbox and, before he could even voice his witty retort, tell Walter he had no intention of giving it back until Walter had paid for it, he was dead.
Walter gave a nervous little cry when he realized what he had done. Maybe he hadn't even intended this. But as soon as he'd realized the man was going to steal his watch he had just acted.Picked up something to hand- a screwdriver. Thrust it with such force and anger when the man turned around- such weird precision. It had split the eye, gone up the socket into the brain. The body was still twitching on the ground, but Walter knew by now how a person moved when they were dying, and he had just killed this guy without thinking.
Walter moved to retrieve his watch. It was ticking now, and he was pleased about that. He was about to go...when he looked at the body of the clock repairman on the floor.
Valtiel hadn't even had to be a part of this, had he? and yet...
Yet Walter knew Valtiel was determined he go thru with the 21 Sacraments. Walter knew this and, for all his yelling at Valtiel, for all his hatred of the vile and violent acts the ritual entailed, Walter was curious about it. To live forever? to find his mom? Maybe, Walter mused, if I take this heart for the ritual, it'll be one less for Valtiel to nag me into doing.
He stooped, and did the thing he did so well.
09/21. If all went well, he was almost halfway there- and one away from having enough to begin the Ritual of Assumption.

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