Room 302 South Ashfield Heights Apartments.
he knew that was where he was from by heart. when he'd finally been told this was the place of his origin he had gone there as often as he could, everytime he could, even tho it was at great risk to himself.
Knocked on that door, believing his mom was still in there.
The landlord might have known their names; the couple who had lived there so many years ago, but then again, maybe not. They had rented it paying with cash, and had always seemed sort of edgy, like people in danger, people on the run from something.
And so they had been. Scant hours after Walter had been born his parents had vanished, taking nothing with them, not even the furniture. Not even him.
He should have died there, probably. Babies need things- food, comfort, changing...somehow he hadn't died. In later years he would convince himself that somehow the room itself had nurtured him; made itself his mother, somehow. He would remember or at least imagine feeling safe in there, held, comforted, validated.
At least he had something to believe in. Nothing in the rest of his brief life would give him any solace or validation.
He was adopted by the Wish House. The name was far cherrier than the reality ever was.
From a young age, he remembered asking where he was from.
The priest drew back his hand and backhanded the boy; the edge of his ring catching the youthful cheek and drawing blood. Walter still had the scar. That, and countless others. “You're nothing, you come from nothing, and you'll never amount to anything. Your parents are gone, they left you and never looked back. now be thankful we bothered to take you!"
This wasn't a Christian orphanage; not by a longshot. This place was run by the Temple of the Halo of the Sun; a cult who had long lived on this land. Later when he was able to get out more Walter had read up on the history of his town and the neighboring ones; it was a dark and bloody history that spanned back well into the 1500s. and thru it all this cult; they had their own crazy agendas that made the Puritans look tame by comparison. Humiliating the children was a common practice, as was making them humiliate themselves. Tattling was rewarded, and petty evils punished severely; the worst 'crimes' were punishable by time in the old water tower.
Part of a penal colony building in 1812; later converted to a POW camp in 1862, the children would be placed in rooms around the cylindrical building far out along the cold lake. The cells rested against a single hub, and there was no way to tell if anyone was in that hub room or not; the children were constantly kept in a state of paranoia wondering if they were being watched in their cells.
They had every reason to fear. Food was only given sporadically, and no one knew -exactly- what was in the bland broth; rumors were the body chutes for when children died here led right into the kitchen area. Add to that the guard- one Andrew DeSalvo, later to be known as victim #18/21(but we'll get to that eventually) was sexually abusing his little charges.
Walter spent a lot of time in that dank place for his tendency to run away and back to South Ashfield.He learned to do 'services' for DeSalvo so as to be allowed out sometimes; while out he'd catch the gulls who nested on the rocks or the bitter sea slugs; in this way he kept himself from starving.
His escapes to the city weren't exactly picnics either; as there were new tenants in the rental he considered his home, he was constantly yelled at or driven out of SA Heights for loitering in the halls and making noise. No one had any sympathy for the strange little boy. He was just an irritant.
Eventually after years of extra chores and beatings and soakings with hoses, after sleep deprivation and being straitjacketed and punked by that damn guard Walter had finally realized he had no choice- he needed to try hard to be whatever was expected of him to be.
He began to take more interest in the cult. In their religion. He behaved himself and learned the books and joined in in the cruel things the cult did to others. It seemed he was shaping up after all, was becoming trustworthy. He was even, after a time allowed to attend school.
The orphans were under strict orders to never mention anything of their lives inside. These other students, after all were 'non-believers', and wouldn't understand the rituals the cult held dear.
Walter studied hard and showed promise.
He was such a dazzling pupil that one of his teachers finally really started to notice him and realized with growing concern how scarred and thin this kid actually was.
Steps were made to help him file papers to emancipate himself; to become legally adult at the age of 16. No such luck; he was yanked from the school and imprisoned in the tower again. No outsiders were allowed access, and so the teacher who'd tried to help him never saw him again.
Walter studied his holy books-all he had inside- and dreamed of his mother, his only real hope!- and waited for the cult to notice he was behaving.
Finally, he was moved back to his room in the main building.
He ran away not once, but twice! They tried cutting the soles of his feet with broken glass and burning them with candles, hoping to hobble him so he would not run again, but Walter was made of tougher stuff than they could possibly have imagined.
He limped away a third time and hid in the city. He was one of the city's homeless kids now, living mostly in old subway tunnels, and in the elevator loft of South Ashfield Heights when he could sneak in.
He was free now. Surely the nightmare was over. It wasn't. It was just beginning, really.
In his time with the cult there had been rituals done designed to bring down the cult's 'gods'- well, demons, really-to possess their followers. The leader of that time, a 'high priest' named James Stone saw a lot of potential in Walter- as a victim, that was. The kid was a throwaway; no family, no connections- ideal to be used as a vehicle for Valtiel, one of the many chaos demons, the lord of the 'taint'. One used a drug called white claudia to reach the demon. A powerful hallucinogen, extremely addictive, and soporific to a point even angel dust could not touch- on this drug you felt no pain, felt strong as a bull. Walter had been slipped a mickey. Valtiel entered into him.
That, of course had been in those dark times back at the orphanage. Walter's life was slowly starting to come together. He had a job, working in a sports shop. He was taking courses again. He still had no home but the man from the shop below his job, the pet store owner liked his company well enough and sometimes let him come down and talk to him while he, the pet store owner, was drinking. If Walter could 'outlast' Mr.Garland, that is, stay awake until the man fell asleep after too many beers he was able to sneak into the shop and catch a nap in one of the big dog kennels. It wasn't a great life, but it was a life. Better than he'd had before, anyway.
And then Valtiel began to speak to him.
At first? Walter was sort of flattered. for it to pick him, him! to speak to. All his life he'd been told he was nothing; that he didn't count, that so long as he did what he was told and tried not to do anything else he'd be given what little he had and that was really more than he deserved. Valtiel offered him more. Valtiel? offered him eternal life.
No thanks, Walter had said. What the fuck did he want eternal life for? His life already sucked, what good would more of it do? It could take ages to find your mother, the voice insisted, ages to track her down...what if disease were to catch hold and weaken his body? what if he had an accident, became crippled in some way? He might -never- see his mommy again. Never.
Walter began to listen to what the voices said.
There were rituals in the sacred books- secret! rituals only the high priests knew. But, Valtiel said, Walter was smart, and so very very good. It was more rightful that someone like he use them. The 21 Sacraments, for example. A ritual to invocate the Great Mother... now, for someone who'd been used his whole life, you'd think Walter would have known better. he KNEW the 'Great Mother' referred to the cult's goddess. He had only ever read one book in his whole life cover to cover and that under the threat of torture. Why did he possibly come to let himself believe he could use this ritual to bring back his mother>? He was to go back to the Wish House and steal the high priest's copy of the book. There he would find the good rituals, the ones that really did powerful things.
Walter went back as he was asked. He saw the high priest there, James Stone. Only...Stone was in the ritual hood the 'god' wore when it made an appearance- a pyramid shaped helmet. In his youth Walter had never known the awesome figure with the weird head was a human in a mask- it had all seemed real to him. Stone was in the act of raping one of the orphan girls, and Walter was horrified. Stone had left his pistol by the side of the altar and by some instinct-later he would swear to being possessed; Walter never remembered picking it up- Walter grabbed it. He felt hotheaded and self conscious and scared as he threatened the monster and perhaps if Stone had kept the hood on as he advanced Walter would never have gotten up the courage to do anything.BUt he didn't, and Walter knew then how he had been lied to. He fired a warning shot. The girl ran away, and now Stone was trying to too.Walter watched in some detached, faroff part of himself as he fired again and shot James Stone in the back of the head. His heart, Valtiel's voice reminded him, you need the hearts. The rituals! The ten hearts of the Assumption, the first part of the 21 Sacraments. It was from that same faroff place Walter watched himself do it- take the knife from the altar and cut away at the dead man's chest. The head was a horror to see, far worse than the mask had been. Exit wound thru the face. He learned that first time and ever after to carry something extra to break the ribcage; the bones weren't as brittle as they seemed. Some perfectionist need in him to put things right again made him sew the wound closed. His profound obsession with numbers made him carve some in. 01/21. The first of 21 intended. One down. Twenty to go, right?

---
02/21, 03/21

The next few hours were spent in denial, rationalization. Well, of course, you know..he'd been panicked, was what it was! The pyramid hood... except of course James had taken it off before he'd shot him shothim,backofthehead, incoldblood, yousawit,thebrainmattergushingout! still, it had been an act of spontaneity, surely, right? Fear. which is why you still have his heart, played with his blood... He had no way of knowing that the demon was messing with him, trying to make him feel the thing had been entirely his idea, his doing. No idea this mad state of fear and misery was as much food to the beast as the killing had been.
They're going to find you...going to catch you.No way you can get away with this...you'll be locked up, & away with the key, never be free, never be free again.. Walter staggered back to his former nest in the train station and he huddled there, sleeplessly. Sure any minute now someone would come and root him out, hurt him, catch him, punish him. Startling at every sound, every shadow. except....it never happened, did it? The next day saw everything back to normal.
After a time he got brave enough to creep out and sit in his customary spot near the stairs...other than a few new stains on his already filthy coat, and a secret,i'vegotasecret heart hidden in among his things down the tunnel, there was no sign anything had changed. No one noticed him, as usual. He was a homeless man, after all. Hundreds of eyes saw him, shifted past him everyday.
It was the perfect disguise, really. an ability to be invisible in broad daylight...

the next night saw him out again, prowling. He didn't want to think of it that way; he certainly didn't plan on anything wrong. But he felt stoked, and it was clear why; someone had lost a little packet of the white drug near him. Intentionally or accidentally? he hadn't known. all he knew was no matter how weird this stuff had made him feel before he felt drawn to pick it up, drawn to pocket it.
Drawn to snort it later when he woke with this compulsion to go out. The claudia in his veins felt like tigers and knives; he felt 50 feet tall and incapable of feeling pain. No one and nothing could stop him, and why should it?
It felt nice to be out in the night air. Right, in some ways... he headed down to the old school.
He hadn't been here since the time he had gone to classes here; hadn't returned since the orphanage had pulled him away from it. It seemed nice to sit out by the running track and just rest against the wall of the building; the heat of the day was still in the bricks somehow and he rested his face against their warm hard surface, liking the tactile sensation. In the grass he found something, and he picked it up.
What was this?
It was a tool of some sort, possibly, or somebody's little shop project; two smoothed pieces of wood. they fit in his hand as tho born to be there. suspended between, threaded thru holes in the wood was a long thin wire; probably an old guitar string.
Why was this here, and why, now that he had it, did it feel so right in his hands, so destined to be his? Walter pocketed it, slipping it in one of the pockets of his shabby blue trenchcoat.
Movement, sound. these had his attention now. He was not the only one out by the track.
a few students were out there, boxes of beer in hand. they were talking, joking, looking for a place to get drunk.
Walter found himself following them.
Bobby, Sein and Jasper were buds. They bonded over drinking, dirty jokes...they also had an interest in the occult.
They knew, as many people did, that there were local legends about a cult in this area, about a bloody history to this town and the one nearby. This wasn't as interesting to them tho as the age old teenage obsession about the devil.
They were heading past the high school, towards the Pleasant River University campus. there was a nice niche in the old woods by the dorms there that Jasper was sure would be a fine old place for raisin' the devil.

After a few beers, the boys were ready for their impromptu little ritual.
"you got the candles?" Bobby had, some discount shop candles his mom had probably intended for the dinner table.
"and the sacrifice?" that would be Sein's contribution.
he had had a paper bag that had been moving around.
as Walter leans forward, he sees what it is that was in it. and recognizes it.
Mr.Garland had been complaining about the expense of some of the more exotic pets he had imported recently; they weren't selling as quickly as he'd hoped. The iguana seemed dazed. It was probably dehydrated. these wannabe Satanists probably knew nothing of how to care for an animal like this... Sein's next words confirm this."I stole it from the pet shop." he told Jasper proudly, "old man was so hungover he probably didn't even see who did it."
Walter feels the rage rising within him as the boys started to chant.

"from the point of darkness in the heart of Satan..let darkness stream forth into the world of men. let darkness destroy the earth..."
The ritual was pretentious and boring; bits of Goffy poetry intoned by Jasper, who was far from the smartest of people to begin with.the other two tried to take it serious for awhile, after awhile they stopped even pretending and began to drink the beer again.
This was taking too long. they just wanted to kill the lizard and go home.

Bobby was the first to wander off. Jasper warned him "don't break the circle! anything could happen!" but Bobby was drunk and needed to pee; he flipped Jasper the bird and headed into the dark of the woods.
He never even saw Walter coming.
Again, Walter felt there and not-there; a thousand miles away watching himself as he all but rode the boy's back, the strangle cord thing he had found dug deep into the meat of the kid's neck. The boy bucked and struggled and finally, weakened by the lack of air, hit the floor; Walter kept tightening the cord for a good few minutes after he was already dead. Finally it was clear the boy was gone; Walter turned him over to look at the face. Eyes bulging, tongue protruded, it almost didn't look human, it looked as tho the boy were mocking him.
Walter pulled his knife and the little geologist's hammer he had decided upon as a tool of choice for ribcage cracking... as tho he had all the time in the world he sewed the chest shut after. His fingers bloodied as they held the thread.
Sein was starting to worry. he had forgotten all about the ritual; "but we're almost ready to make the sacrifice.." Jasper had said. "fuck the sacrifice! Bobby hasn't come back. what if something...what if something happened to him, man?" Sein was pacing aggitatedly. he didn't want to believe in spooks or anything, but this was all kind of creepy...and even if it was nothing of the bump-in-the-night variety, who knew who all else might be out here? "I'm going to look for him..." Sein did. and Walter was there for him.

Jasper kept his cool for a little while longer. he wanted to do this Satan thing, and now everyone else was gone. it was probably a joke, he figured. they would probably jump out and yell boo at him.
Well, he'd scare them.
T'hell with it. He was gonna cut this pet up anyway. and if the devil truly came well! who'd have the last laugh then?
He picks the iguana up by the tail and begins chanting again.
Something was coming thru the woods.
He barely notices when the iguana lets its tail go, leaving him holding nothing but a tail. A tall wild eyed man burst thru the clearing, face and clothing matted with blood. He was holding something. two human hearts.
"so. you want to see the devil, do you?"
Jasper turned and ran.

the only thing that stopped Walter from pursuing him, really, was the sight of the lizard lying there. it's tail severed. From what he knew it weakened these poor things badly to lose a limb like that. They could grow back a new one, but it would take them awhile.
Walter stops to gather the things together. His two new acquisitions. the injured lizard. and the empty beer bottles.

Well hey! he WAS homeless. bottles were worth money.

04/21,05/21
Walter had been working up at Albert Sports for a few months now. He'd been crashing at a friend's house at the time; his life had been looking up a bit. In a moment of rare lucidity he had cleaned himself up and applied for the job; gotten it.
He was homeless again now, of course, but he made it his business to make it in to work religiously. He was a hard worker. Mr.Albert had been slowly but surely docking his pay knowing Walter was in no position socially to argue about it; some weeks he'd 'forget' to bring the money and Walter'd have to accept an IOU on his boss's alleged good graces; he was already working for below minimum wage. After work Walter would often go below and sit with Steve Garland, the old man who ran the pet shop; Walter liked animals very much. He also knew the old man liked company as he got drunk at night and, altho Walter himself did not drink he liked to talk; he knew so few people.
Besides, if he could 'outlast' Mr.Garland, that is, sit there until the old man passed out drunk in his chair Walter was able to enter the store. he'd pet a few pets, and then stretch out in one of the big dog kennels for a few hours sleep someplace more comfortable than his nest in the subway tunnels.
After Walter's latest kill he had something more than just the hearts of his victims to worry about; the two boys he had killed had stolen an iguana earlier from Mr.Garland's store.
If he hurried, Walter hoped, he could get the lizard back in its cage and maybe, just maybe Mr.Garland would be none the wiser. The lizard's theft was not technically Walter's fault but then, in a way it was; if old Mr.Garland had no one to sit with when he drank he didn't always get as drunk. The boy had said Garland had been hung over. and perhaps in his panic at the realization that he had done it again! Walter felt some sort of need to put something right to make amends for all this evil...

There'd been a gun show a few months back. Walter remembered it; it was down near Silent Hill. Garland had been all hopped up for it and, wanting company, had had Walter tag along; as Walter rarely got out of Ashfield anymore it was nice to go out for a ride. For some reason the old man had become obsessed with an old WW2 machine gun; it was a piece of junk that barely fired anymore but he HAD to have it. as if he wasn't already barely breaking even selling pet supplies, and pissing away his money on beer...he had to have this hoary old war toy.
Walter'd found it funny at the time; what a wacky thing to do. They'd hauled it to the car and once in awhile Garland would put some paper targets on the back wall of the alley and squeeze the trigger oh so gently, letting off a tiny spray of bullets. Never too many...they were hard to come by, and he didn't have a license for the gun anyway (altho all the neighbors knew he had it.)

as Walter crept in to the shop he was hoping Garland would still be asleep; he would slip the lizard back in its cage and that would be that.
He wasn't tho. and as he saw Walter holding this thing, his hands still a bit bloody, Walter felt afraid. He'd been caught redhanded, as it were. There was no way Garland wouldn't take him to task for this.
"Walter! what the hell are you doing? don't you know that's a very rare and delicate animal? Give me that...." Walter lowered his head, feeling shame burn on his cheeks. It hadn't been his fault the lizard had shed its tail, but now he was getting the blame. Mr.Garland took the iguana from him. "What the hell did you... oh jeez, Walter. you clumsy asshole. Look at this. You made him lose his tail."
Walter was starting to feel just a little bit angry. He didn't deserve this, really he didn't. He'd been trying to help.
Suddenly, as if right on cue he felt feverish and as tho the world was going surreal again. Valtiel. the god was here.
Walter lifted his head and looked around.
The blood on his hands was not the only blood here.

"Wait a minute... Mr.Garland. what are you doing?" the place was a horror show. There were dead puppies and kitties and bunnies in a pile.
The machine gun had done this, Walter could see. Garland had done this.
Walter almost regained control, he was so aphalled. "Steve, why?" It was Mr.Garland's turn to look guilty, but the guilt didn't last long, giving way to drunken anger. "why should you give a fuck. you little white trash bastard..." It came to Walter in a flash- the insurance. There was a can of gasoline by the door when he'd come in, and some rags.
Garland was destroying his business for the insurance.
And the animals for his own amusement.
Valtiel found Walter's rage, teased it back up, flared it.
The look he was giving Steve Garland was far from human, and the old drunk must have seen it; he was backing away from Walter.
"you sonuvabitch..." Walter hated people who were cruel to animals. He hated people who were cruel, period...every rotten guard at the Wish House who had tortured him as an orphan child came back to mind, and he saw Steve Garland now as nothing but a way to repay all those debts owed.
Garland ran out to the alley.
Bad move.
Walter moved to the gun as if in a dream, and it seemed almost in slow motion the way the bullets ripped into Garland's flesh, tearing it like wet tissue paper.
Somehow impossibly he seemed to be shooting him accurately and expertly everywhere BUT the chest, and he knew why... he needed Garland's heart, of course.
a litany had come to him, and he remembered it from long ago, something the cult had been chanting about in one of their rituals... ten hearts. ten souls. the ritual of returning...
Walter moved across the carnage, drawing out his knife. When he had taken what he wanted he found himself once again tidying up; sewing up the wound, and carving in the numerals that perhaps meant nothing to anyone but himself... 04/21

There was a moment of peace as he surveyed what he had done... and then he heard a door open up the fire escape.
His boss! Mr.Albert from the sports shop.

It was near dawn, but still too dark to see. Albert saw only Walter there, none of the rest of it. Maybe it was the darkness, yes. Maybe it was the demon somehow clouding his mind too.
"Walter? is that you? what was all that racket out here?"
Walter slowly rose from his crouch, jamming the still warm heart in his pocket. it felt nice in there, wet and warm and very real. Even when he took his hand away he could feel its slight weight in there.
He walked up the metal stairs.
"Coming, boss."

Walter stepped in through the back of the store and looked around. the surreal crazy feeling had still not left him, and his vision seemed strange. Altho it was dark he could see everything. the walls seemed to pulse with a weird life. It wasn't like the time he'd tried some lousy acid at a friend's urging, tho the visions were simular. He felt alive. He felt powerful.
He felt like the business wasn't finished.
And Mr.Albert must have been feeling it too, because he seemed uneasy in Walter's presence.
"Walter? something's gone on down there, hasn't it? That old drunkard... he's done something, hasn't he?" Walter shook his head, shrugged. He laughed. He couldn't help it. There was blood on his hands, blood in his hair, even, and here was Mr.Albert, trying to act normal.
"I'm calling the police." Albert said finally.
There was a brief moment of panic, but it faded quickly. Of course, Walter couldn't let him do that...but this area was so secluded. No wonder these stores never got any business. Why...people could commit murder here, and no one would even see...
Walter watched Albert brush past him, and then he reached out towards the display racks. A golf club seemed to almost leap into his hands.
Before Mr.Albert could pick up the phone, Walter swung the club through the air. It collided soundly with Albert's head, and the man went down.
But Walter wasn't satisified yet or, more precisely, Valtiel wasn't satisfied yet.
The club swung down again.
and again.
and again...

Walter was back in the subway tunnel a short while later. He had taken the time to shower up in the pet store, carefully clean away all the fingerprints, and of course, do what needed to be done.
He slept soundly and with no remorse at all, and dreamed of his mother.

06/21 (pt.1)
As Walter slept an innocent's sleep, the world kept right on going. Of course the murders hadn't gone unnoticed. Whereas the Wish House had wanted to keep things quiet it had been outsiders, a janitorial crew who were hired to come thru and clean the place twice a month, tho had found Jimmy Stone.
The two students had been found, and their babbling buddy Jasper Gein had been taken into custody. That he claimed his friends had been killed by 'the devil himself' hadn't exactly helped his case.
The cops had had to cut him loose tho, after the two shop owners bodies were found.
It was more than clear now; there was a serial killer on the loose in the Ashfield area.
The police had been hesitant to release any reports on the killer's modus operandi, but a nosy reporter had gotten into the morgue and got a picture of the numbers on Rick Albert's corpse; because of the jagged way Walter had been carving these numbers in, the paper erronoeously reported that the number "05121" had been carved on the man; the slash mark just looked like another 1 to them.
Since neither Rick Albert nor Steve Garland had any other close friends and their stores did a very slow business, no one was there to really remember for the police that the two store owners had a mutual friend; no one there to let them know that Albert had had an under-the-table assistant.
And again, Walter was homeless, Walter was near-to-invisible to almost everyone in Ashfield. not even that many other homeless people who saw him at the soup kitchens knew his name.
He wasn't even a blip on the radar, and so not even a suspect.

As he didn't know that the city was aware of, in awe even, his wetwork, Walter continued on in his own little world.
Walter knew tho, that not all was well in that world.
He was, it would seem to anyone bothering to notice him, having an argument with the voices in his head. So far, it seemed, the voices were winning.
"Why are you doing this to me?" Walter screamed at valtiel; the subway drowned out the loudness of his voice. why are you yelling at me? lower your voice. people might see you for what you really are- a filthy worthless man incapable of even understanding his place in polite society, the demon taunted him. let's face it, you parasitic little mongrel, you're nothing without me. but I can change that.
the ritual, Walter. it's not too late. YOU will be the one. I will make you immortal. I will give you the power to shake worlds, and move the thrones of heaven.
"now just why the shit would I want to do that?" Walter hissed bitterly.
because you want to find your mommy. the voice replied with surety.

continue? 1