Because sometimes, the only people who understand are those who've been there. I like writing for Henry, and for James…so it seemed a natural thing to have them meet to discuss matters of mutual interest. That conversation grew into this story. This begins immediately after the "Eileen's Death" ending of SH4. Spoilers for everything, including the movie. Don't own it, don't profit from it, so please don't sue.

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"..the fifth victim, a Miss Eileen Galvin, was transported to St. Jerome's Hospital, where she died a short time later. Police say that Miss Galvin's injuries matched exactly those of the other victims…"

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The room was dark and small. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of beer and sweat.

When his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he looked around. Booths lined one wall, and a low stage took up the near half of the room. A single pole stood proudly at its front, gleaming faintly in the dim light. On his left, a bar stretched along one wall, between two neon signs. One was an outline of a woman, with the word "Paradise" above, while the other blared "Heaven's Night" in multicolored script. A strip joint, then. He hadn't been in one since college, the night of Phil's bachelor party, and the only thing he remembered about it was that the wings had been both expensive and unremarkable. Not an experience he wanted to repeat anytime soon.

There was one other person in the room. A man sat at the bar in a dark jacket and jeans, hands cupped around a beer stein. He was staring at the racks of bottles that sat in the shadows against the wall. His dark blond hair glowed pinkish in the dim red light. He looked familiar somehow.

"Hello," the man said, with a tired smile. His shoulders slumped, but his face was open and friendly.

"What the…"

The second man waved his hand over the barstools. "Please, sit down. Something to drink?"

"Thanks." The beer that was pushed in front of him was dark and rich, with a thick head. He accepted it gratefully.

"Good beer."

"Yeah, I was surprised too."

"Where...is this?"

"Don't recognize it?"

"No. Should I?"

"Never been here before?"

"No."

Maybe he'd been there before, but he was too tired to remember at the moment. He didn't remember much of anything, now that he thought about it...

An appraising glance. "No, I guess you wouldn't."

"What?"

The other man drank deeply. "He kept you in the woods, right? And in the prison. You never got near the town."

What's going on here?

It all came back to him then…the radio…no...Eileen...

Eileen is dead.

The other man smiled weakly. "Just as well, I guess."

"How did you know about that?"

A shrug. "Don't worry about that, Henry. That's why you're here."

The thick foam sloshed onto the bar as he slammed his beer onto the aged wood.

"No," Henry growled. "Not you too. I've had enough of this bullshit. Who are you and where the hell are we?"

The blond man smiled. "I'm James Sunderland," he said, holding out his hand, "and this is a small hole in the wall – "

Henry flinched, just a little, but his hands remained on his beer.

" - called Heaven's Night. In case you hadn't guessed."

"I had, thanks. And where exactly is this hole in the wall?"

"Silent Hill."

Henry frowned. James lowered the hand.

"Sunderland."

"Yeah."

"You're Frank's son?"

"Yeah."

Henry nodded. Of course. That's why he looks familiar. But didn't he…

James downed the last of his beer. "Refill time." His eye went to the puddle of beer around Henry's stein, and the drying wetness on the back of his hand. "Need another?"

"What the hell. Hit me."

Two full steins appeared on the counter. James took one and pushed the other toward Henry, then reached over the bar and tossed a towel to him. Henry wiped his hand and sat his half-empty beer on the towel. They sat in silence. It was so unlike what he'd been going through the last day or so…the silence was somehow more strain than the screams and howls had been.

"Going to tell me what's going on?" Henry asked.

"Yeah, I guess the ball's in my court," James said. He sat up and stretched his arms out wide, with a groan. Henry heard the joints pop and snap. "Get comfortable. When I first got here, it took about an hour to get through it all."

"I thought you might say that," Henry muttered into his beer.

"Hey, it's not all bad," James said. "Anyway, you need to be here."

"Since when is what I need your business?"

James smiled. "It is. More than you know, Henry. Who else have you got to talk to about all that crap?"

"What makes you think I want to talk about any of it?"

Yeah, I'm being an asshole. But I just don't have the patience for this right now.

"I know you do. Tell me I'm wrong."

"No. You're right."

James stopped and regarded Henry for a moment or two. "Sorry, man," he said. "About Eileen, I mean."

Henry was silent.

"You OK?"

"Yeah," Henry said after a while. "It's been a rough few days."

"That's the truth. I know, Henry. I'll explain how I know later, but I know. That's why you're here."

"Good. I could use some explanations."

"You're not the only one to…do what you've done," James continued. "There are four of us. There were, anyway. Harry...Harry died a few years ago." His Adam's-apple bobbed up then down as he swallowed hard.

"They got him at home. After all that...after all these years...they got him in his goddamn apartment. Left him to be found by his daughter. He didn't deserve that. Nobody does, but especially not Harry. No. Not Harry." James slung more beer down his throat. "He was the one who explained it all to me. He sat where I am now, and I was in your seat...listening..." His hand gripped his beer stein, and the knuckles were white.

Henry put a hand on James' wrist. "Do me a favor and hold off on that for a while."

James smiled weakly. "Yeah. I'll get started. You're here because of that damn town. Same for me, for Harry, and for Heather. We all got pulled in, and barely came out in one piece. Many people didn't. So many."

"I know," Henry said. "Everyone's heard the stories."

"But nobody else has seen them. The people who didn't get out. What happens to them if they don't make it…God…you know what I mean, more than anyone."

Henry was silent.

James took a deep breath. "There's nobody else in this world who understands," he said, leaning closer, "nobody except us. Even Douglas and Cybil didn't see it all."

"Stop. You're not making any sense. Who are all of these people? And what do they, and you, have to do with...with Walter?"

"I'll start at the beginning," James said. He straightened up and turned to face Henry. He snapped his fingers, and a shot glass appeared on the bar, half-full of what smelled like vodka.

"You're going to need that," James said. "Trust me. I did."

Henry took a swig of beer and put down his stein, not breaking eye contact. The shot glass sat untouched.

"This used to be a normal town. Ordinary, quiet, lakeside town, the sort of place you came to visit or retired to. You know. Tourist-trap gift shops, local hardware store, farmer's market, amusement park, the works. This area, where we are, was partly residential and partly commercial, while Old Silent Hill, up north on the other side of the lake, was even quieter than here. That's where the hotel and the amusement park are. Sort of place you could live a happy little quiet life in. Still is, for most people. My wife and I loved to visit here, way back when."

"Yeah. Mom drove us there a few times when I was a kid." Henry smiled. "The lake was my favorite part of town."

"Us too."

"Didn't like the amusement park as much. Hated Robbie. I was five the first time I saw him. Huge pink rabbit with a perma-grin, towering over me. Freaked me out. Never got over that."

I'm babbling. Why am I telling this guy all of this? What's gotten into me?

James laughed. "Same here. Dad never understood why I hated him so much. Mary got a stuffed Robbie from the gift shop in the amusement park the first time we came here. Never could look that thing in the eye."

"Eileen had one, too." After she went to the hospital, it looked me in the eye. Seems right somehow.

"Then, about twenty years ago, all hell broke loose. Literally. That's when it all started."

James paused to take a swig of beer.

"When what all started? The cult?"

"Hell no," James replied, wiping the foam off of his lip. "The cult's been around for a long, long time, in one form or another. What started was the fog and the evil. Harry told me. He was there. His daughter was the reason for it all. Well, kind of. That started another seven years before the fog..."

Henry waited as James took another deep breath.

"See, there was this woman named Dahlia. She was part of the cult, and she wanted to bring their god to this earth. So, apparently, the way she decided to do this was to create a vessel for the god, to carry it and give birth to it. Her daughter, Alessa. She bore this girl for the express purpose of sacrificing her body and her life so that their god could be born. Jesus, what a thing to do to a kid..."

"They seem to make a habit of using kids for this crap," Henry muttered.

"Yeah," James nodded. "Alessa, Cheryl, Heather, Walter...and who knows who else. But Alessa managed to defy them for a while. She was very powerful, apparently. Could do things with her mind. Big things. I don't know exactly what, since Harry wasn't sure himself, and Heather doesn't talk about it much. I don't blame her.

"But anyway, when she was seven, she was horribly burned in a house fire. She should have died. Not only did she keep herself alive, she split her soul into two pieces..."

"Didn't know that was possible," Henry said.

"Me neither. Guess that tells you something about Alessa. But she did it, and one of those pieces ended up by the side of the road in a baby girl. Which Harry and his wife adopted and raised as their own. His wife died a few years later, but Harry brought up the girl, Cheryl, and they were happy. Things were normal for a while.

"Seven years after that, Cheryl wanted to go on vacation to Silent Hill. So Harry took her. Their Jeep crashed on the road into town, and when Harry woke up, Cheryl was gone. He headed into town to look for her. It was the wrong time of year for snow, but snow was falling, and the streets were filled with monsters. Definitely the wrong time of year for those. There's never a right time. He went through hell there, looking for her…and he learned a lot more about the town and the cult that he ever wanted to know.

"End result, Harry didn't get his daughter back. At least, not like he'd expected. Alessa and Cheryl rejoined, thanks to Dahlia's efforts to finally bring the god to earth, but Harry managed to interfere, and killed the god. He left town with a newborn baby girl and a cop, Cybil, who had been drawn into the whole mess and had helped him."

The room was silent. James sipped his beer.

"Jesus," Henry finally said. "A week ago, I'd have said that was unbelievable."

"Yeah."

"Alessa...I know that name. I found a note at the orphanage in the forest asking whether she'd been found yet..."

"That comes a lot later," James replied. "But yes, that's the same Alessa. Kind of."

"...Kind of?"

"Yeah. The story doesn't end there...not by a long shot. But that's why the town is the way it is. The evil that that woman Dahlia unleashed that day has never been eliminated. It's still here. Probably always will be. That's why I..."

"What?"

"I'll get to that later. Back to Alessa. Harry didn't have an easy time of it after that. He knew that he couldn't go to the police or his family or anybody. Nobody would believe him. They'd think he was crazy. So, it was just him, the baby, and a cult out for his blood. He took her with him and moved as far away as he could."

"What about...what's the cop's name? Cybil? Couldn't she help?"

"She did, to start with. Never told anybody about their existence, and helped him and Cheryl hide for a while. She was killed a few years later, under mysterious circumstances. Officially, it was during a drug bust, but Harry never believed that. He told me that he thought the cult did it, but there was no proof. Figured that they'd set her up. It was a White Claudia bust, so who knows…I wouldn't put it past them. But we'll probably never know for sure.

"They tried to kill him and Cheryl a few years after that. Harry and Cheryl escaped by the skin of their teeth. So, they moved again, and laid low for years. Harry changed their last name to Morris, started calling her Heather, and dyed her hair blonde. She started school, and he went back to writing novels, but under his new name. They didn't have a lot of money, but things were quiet for them. He told me once how proud he was that he'd been able to give her that.

"It worked for a while, but not long enough. When Heather was seventeen, the cult managed to find her again. They did that the old-fashioned way...they hired a private detective to do it. Apparently, the god wasn't dead, just slumbering...in Heather, and they decided that it was time to complete what Dahlia had started. They wanted their god.

"So one Sunday, Heather's at the mall. She's approached by this private detective, hides from him in the women's bathroom, and the next thing she knows she's fighting off undead monsters next to the food court. She had no idea what the hell was going on, just that she wanted to get out of there and get home. She fought her way across town to their apartment, and when she finally walked in the door..."

"Her father..."

"Harry was dead in his armchair in front of the TV," James said, with a shudder. "Killed by a monster created by the cult. Killed for revenge. Killed for the purpose of filling his daughter with hate to nourish the demon within her. Killed for no good reason at all.

"Well, it worked for a while. She was beside herself with fury. She went to Silent Hill with the detective, Douglas, to find and kill whoever did this to her and Harry. And she did. Damn near killed her and him, but she did it, and destroyed the god once and for all. That put an end to that. The cult hasn't been heard from since...well, except for Walter. He was a remnant of the old cult. Dahlia and the others made him what he was.

"But the town is still cursed. When the fog rolls in...people are called there..."

Henry lifted the shot glass to his eyes. The transparent liquid within reflected the dim multicolored lights and distorted the wall beyond. He sniffed at it, then tilted his head back and tossed the contents down.

"Told you you'd want that," James smiled.

"Never doubted it," Henry returned. He turned the glass upside down and placed it firmly on the counter with a thunk.

"Need another?"

Henry nodded. A second glass identical to the first appeared in front of him, and met the same fate.

"And I thought I had it bad," he said after a pause.

"You did, Henry," James said. "You didn't do anything to deserve that. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"No. There's more to it than that. Now that I think about it…I felt drawn to the apartment when I first saw it, like I was supposed to be there somehow. Guess now I know why."

James' eyes were wide. "Damn, Henry. I didn't know. We just thought…"

"So did I, until just now."

Henry was silent. His eyes drifted around the room. Then, he stood and strode over to the stage. He reached out to the single pole at its front, and ran his fingers up and down it. It was cold and smooth.

"Who knows how many women have danced on this," he said.

"More than any of us can count, I'm sure," James said. "Gonna give it a try?"

"No. Walter's play has ended. No more stage time for me."

He stood there for a long moment, staring into space. Then, he sat down hard on the edge of the stage. A lone poster sitting on the old boards slid to the floor beside him.

What was that quote? "All the world's a stage…" Even Walter's. Well, the show's over. The puppet master is dead and gone. You can breathe now.

Can I? Really?

Something was moving in his head…it hit him that for the first time in a day, he wasn't running from Walter any more. That was really over. At least, he knew that it was over. He'd seen Walter die. But he hadn't really realized it until then. So, no need to worry. Why was he feeling the tide of panic rising, then? His brain tried to step back, to analyze, to reason its way out of this.

Is it a natural reaction to all of that? Now that I have the time? Maybe. But I don't panic. That's not me. I've never…well, not since Robbie when I was five, anyway. I Don't Panic.

Don't panic…

He felt himself slipping…slipping into that place that he'd fought so hard to keep out of all of the previous day. He had felt numb, emotionless, dazed, or so he'd thought. Now, he realized that of all the battles he'd endured, that had been the hardest. He just hadn't known it at the time.

Thank God. But now…

Henry's hands went to his head and pressed tightly to keep his skull from exploding. He squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth.

No. I. Will. Not. Freak. Out. Not here. Not now.

"It's OK if you do."

Henry's head shot up. James was sitting beside him on the edge of the stage, fidgeting with the bar towel.

"I know what it's like," he said softly. "To realize once it's all done that there's a future to be dealt with as well as a past. Still scares the hell out of me. But you have to deal with it sooner or later. You've been through things that would drive a lot of people over the edge for good. Hell, if you weren't having problems right now, I'd be worried about you, Henry."

His eyes met Henry's, and for once Henry dropped his guard and stared into them unabashedly. Under the dark blond hair, they were a light green, like a deep and hazy pond with algae at the bottom, and seemed far too old for the still-youthful face that held them. There was something else in there, too…

He really does know. I'm not alone. He really does know. It's OK.

The panic was washed away by a tide of relief.

It's safe here. Completely safe. Oh Jesus…

That was the final straw. Henry slumped backward onto the stage. He felt the weight lift just a little, and his head fell back. All of the things that he'd held back and tried to ignore and put away for later or for never flowed unbidden. The blood and the cold and the

smell GOD the smell and the taste I could taste it and feel it and HEAR them moaning and screaming and dying and I WAS KILLING THEM TOO! I HAD TO. I had to or they were going to kill me or maybe they weren't, not if Walter didn't want them to, I don't know if he did or not and I'll never know and I'm not sitting here with 21/21 sliced into my neck WHY? I should be, I should be standing at my own door whispering evil nothings into my peephole as Walter settles into his hellish womb but no, he's dead and I killed him too.

He dug his nails into his palms and clenched his jaw and closed his eyes tightly against the tide before it could overtake him. And overtake him it did.

Blessed fatigue came to his rescue after several minutes. Sweet, sweet tiredness that started in his head and numbed his brain and dripped into his limbs until they lay still and all that was left was his chest lifting and lowering slowly.

That, and the certain knowledge that this was just the beginning.