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Silver's surprised, honestly, that he hasn't run out of reported ghost sightings within a radius he can reasonably travel without a car and make it home in time for tomorrow morning's breakfast (or, realistically, tomorrow morning's protein bar and juice, if he hasn't drained the carton). Still, that doesn't mean he's not skimming the absolute fucking bottom of the barrel when it comes to nice and comfortable hovels to skulk around with incense and rusty nails that definitely didn't come from an actual coffin, but seem to do the trick regardless. When his inbox is empty of people needing him to contact or exorcise a dead relative, he finds places like this to look into.
This weekend's location he's been avoiding since it popped up on his reddit a couple months ago, only mostly in part to the hour's trek from the bus stop up the highway and into the woods, after one and a half on the greyhound. If Silver had anyone to complain to about it, he'd be complaining. As it is, he's up to his ass in bushes growing in the hollow foundations of what used to be a seminary, back in the fucking nineteenth century. But he doubts he'll find anything worthwhile here anyways, with the foundations nearly returned to the earth and the amount of sightings online not at all correlating with the amount of reputable sightings. Still, he's poking around, dragging his palms along drystone walls and saying whatever he can think of to goad spirits out; the goal here, technically, is to help them move on from here. If he's being honest, though, half the goal is knowing whether or not there's anything to the rumors at all.
He finishes his initial loop of the place quickly, nothing to note other than an awful fucking bramble patch by the north wall of what he thinks was the dormitory. Even keeping an eye out for the snaring bushes wasn't enough to keep clear of them, and the thorns had snagged into the mesh of his sneakers, vines looping around his ankles. At least ten minutes of bullshit, untangling himself just to get caught up again a few steps later. Silver resolves to avoid the north wall completely when it's dark, and for now settles on a mostly intact piece of low-lying boundary wall to wait for the sun to go down, chewing idly on the gas station wrap he'd brought for dinner.
It's late summer, but he's been doing this long enough to know the heat leaves with the daylight, and the sweatshirt he'd brought doubles as a pillow, so after he eats, he balls it up under his head and dozes off looking at the graffiti sprayed on the handful of walls standing more than a few feet high and the surrounding trees. Honestly? This place was going to be a hell of a trip hazard in the dark, and it was more likely than not a completely mundane site.
There's a figure standing directly over him. Silver flinches awake, bringing his arm up to shield himself. Whatever he'd seen isn't there when he opens his eyes a second time, though it takes him a moment to adjust to the darkness. He swings his legs over the side of the wall, fumbling in his pocket for a flashlight, and in the seconds it takes his feet to hit the dirt, he realizes there really is someone, shuffling through the woods to his left, maybe thirty feet away. Way too far away to have been standing over him, moving too loud through the underbrush to be a ghost, probably. Silver flicks on his light, but keeps it aimed at the ground.
"Hello? Sorry to bother you, I just, ah, dozed off over here. I didn't want to startle you." It's better to make his presence known— he isn't doing anything wrong, this is public land, he's pretty sure, and he's in more danger from some stranger if he startles them, makes them think he's lurking around nefariously and shit. And if they're there for some nefarious purpose? Silver doesn't think the odds are high he's slept himself into the middle of anything more high stakes than a drug deal, at the most, and he'd rather play a clueless blunderer than try and sneak away. The figure in the darkness approaches before they speak, and Silver fights the urge to turn the flashlight on them. His light bounces off the leaf litter and rocks well enough to light the person partially, and it's honestly not that far past twilight, now that he's had a second to adjust to the darkness, so he can mostly make out the figure approaching him; a white man, older than Silver, with a buzzed head and a beard, wearing a dark leather jacket. Totally macho.
"You should leave. What are you doing here?" His tone is clipped, but from what Silver can see of his expressions, he's more disgruntled than aggressive. He's either expecting someone else, or expecting to be alone, and Silver isn't going to get in his way.
"Sorry, man. I didn't mean to sleep this long, I just, well." He scratches the back of his head, letting his palm drop back onto the wall beside him. "I'll be out of your hair in a second."
The man's posture relaxes almost imperceptibly, and Silver takes a moment to pull his hoodie on over his head, flex his knee to make sure it hasn't gone stiff or numb while he slept. Then he stands, flashlight in hand, and something right behind him screams.
He starts forward, towards the stranger, who pivots as Silver stumbles away from the noise, drawing and firing a gun at something in the darkness in the seconds it takes Silver's to steady himself.
"Jesusfuckingjesusshiit," he hisses, or something just as eloquent. "What the fuck?" He turns, peering into the darkness, and can't see shit, so he turns towards the man again. "What?"
"What the fuck are you doing here?" His voice is tight now, words forced through clenched teeth. Silver can't stop glancing behind him, more shook up than he's been on a hunt in months, years even. None of the alleged sightings said anything about screams or strange men in the night. When he glances back at the man, he's shoving something into his ancient looking gun.
"Is that salt? Are you here for the ghosts?"
The man looks back at him, anger giving way to something closer to disgust. He does something to his gun that's probably what 'cocking it' means. Silver looks away, checking behind himself again.
"Fucking ghosts. I'm here for a ghoul."
"What?" He squints at the man. "What, like vampires and werewolves and shit?"
"It's retreated for now. Are you parked nearby?"
He can't figure out if parking close would be a good or a bad thing. It takes him too long, heart still racing, to decide on a lie.
"You need to get out of here. I'll take you to your car." The man's face is twitching, the only motion in a body otherwise strung taut. Silver's in over his fucking head.
"I walked," he admits, face blank and tone light. The man shoots again without warning, and Silver's hitting the ground before he knows what's happening, his own cry of shock and pain drowned out by another awful scream, and another shot.
He can't fucking see what's behind him, he hears the man shout,
"Get your back to the wall!" Before he knows where he's headed, he's scrambling to his feet, staggering the few meters to one of the more intact walls where he slumps against it, trying to catch his breath. He'd dropped the flashlight, and it shines off into the woods from where it lies.
No issue, Silver knows better than to only bring one flashlight, except for the fact that the beam illuminates something, heaving and bloody and all too human. His stomach turns. He can't look away, but he's vaguely aware of the man beside him— he has to look away, make sure it's him and not something worse— the man backs up against the wall beside Silver, reloading his gun. The monster in front of him rises. It looks almost like a naked person, grayish and clawed and staggering to its feet.
"Get ready to run. Can you find the road in the dark?" Something touches Silver's hand. He looks back at the man, passing him a long serrated blade. He gets a firm grip on it on the second try, handle gripped in both shaking hands.
"Can't run. What do I need this for?" The man fires at the monster again, a succession of shots that knock it back to the ground but don't stop it moving.
"Fuck. You're hurt?" Out of the corner of his eye he can see the man look him up and down, scanning for injuries.
"Disabled." It's just over a quarter of a mile back to the road, something he could maybe jog on this prosthetic on flat pavement, in the daylight. He doesn't stand a chance through the woods in the dark, which wouldn't be a fucking problem with ghosts. He grips the handle of the blade tighter, like ten inches of metal is enough to protect him.
"Fuck." Silver rolls his eyes, almost automatically. The thing is back on its feet, standing and staring at them.
"Are you going to fucking shoot that thing?"
"Salt shot," he says like it means something to Silver. "It's not lethal to ghouls. I need it to get closer."
"Fuck. Then what?"
"Then I fucking kill it. Destroy it with fire or dismember it." The thing steps closer, bleeding and swaying.
"Jesus. What the fuck am I supposed to do?" The man raises his gun with one hand, a smaller knife in the other, and the ghoul bobs its head from side to side. Silver thinks he sees its mouth curve in a smile as it stops approaching.
"Ideally? Not be here in the first place. Seeing as that's not fucking possible, and neither is escaping, try not to let it touch you."
Fuck. He grips the knife, pushes off the wall so he's not leaning on anything, and tries to ready himself.
"It's not coming any closer."
"Probably knows I can't do much damage at this distance. Trying to bait me off the wall, then it'll rush in."
"Shit, you're telling me that thing's sentient?" It smiles again at that, hollow eyes meeting Silver's in the dark. "This is fucked."
"Yes." The man steps off the wall, approaching the creature at a measured pace. Silver is going to see a man die. Shit, Silver's going to die.
The ghoul doesn't move as he approaches, staring the man down, and then suddenly, it's springing forward. He only has a moment to realize it's moving before it feints, passing the man, closing the meters between itself and Silver faster than should be possible. A shot goes off, but he can't tell if it hits anything. Another, and Silver flings his arms up to shield his face, and the ghoul is on him. Even in the rush of the moment, it's palpably, disgustingly cold.
He strikes blindly with the knife in his left hand, connecting to no avail. He pulls his arm back and plunges the blade down, and pain bursts across his forearm. It takes him a moment to process; it blocked his strike by catching the side of his arm in its jaws. He thrashes, trying to free himself, trying to fix his grip on the knife, something, and it bites down. He drops the blade. Another shot, impossibly close and impossibly loud, and he hits the ground in a spray of blood.
Above him, a human cry of pain, and by his head two pairs of feet, churning. He tries to roll away, and his hand brushes metal. The knife. He grabs it, passes it to his uninjured arm, and pushes himself until he's back against the wall and can lean against it until he's standing again. His head spins with adrenaline and the throbbing in his arm, but he's good at falling and hasn't hurt himself further. Still, it takes him almost too long to regain his bearings. The man is bloody, grappling the creature from behind as it tries to sink its claws into him. He's lost the gun, is sawing at its throat as it gushes blood, movement unhindered.
Silver jolts forward, not sure if he has it in him to attack. He should escape. But the movement catches its eye, and it staggers towards him under the weight of an entire human body. He steps back, holding the knife like it could make a difference. But the distraction is enough. Clinging to him, the man adusts his grip, gets both arms around its neck, and twists.
The sound of its neck breaking echoes, and Silver's mouth fills with spit instantly, seconds before he's gagging, vomiting into the dirt. His mind spends more time noticing the splatter on his shoes than realizing the creature is still moving, twitching and writhing as it sinks to the ground. Not at all like something with a snapped neck is supposed to move, he realizes as he comes back to himself, beats back the rushing in his ears. He slumps against the wall again, letting his knees buckle as the man rises, pulling something from under his coat. A little metal can of fuel, he realizes after the man's uncapped it, poured it out. Pushing against the wall for purchase, Silver staggers backwards as the man lowers a lighter to the ghoul and steps back.
It catches instantly, but the thing keeps moving, starts screaming again the while time it burns. Silver retches again, and can't stop. When the hand lands on his shoulder, he raises the knife instinctively. He hadn't noticed the man's approach. But the knife is taken from his hand, and when he identifies the noise around him as words, it's easier to focus in on it. In theory.
"What?"
"Get up." He looks hollow, haggard. He's standing in front of Silver bleeding, though Silver's sure not all of the blood is his. There's a gash in his head, and the leather jacket hides any injury to his upper body, but blood flows from under his sleeve down his hand. "We need to make it to the road."
Silver gets up. He staggers and catches himself, following the man. It's slow going, and he pulls his second flashlight out to see where he's putting his feet, but to his surprise the man doesn't outpace him, either by choice or some other, unseen injury. Either way, they reach the road together, and the man doesn't comment when Silver leans against a tree on the roadside to catch his breath.
"Fuck, man. I—"
"My car's just around the bend. I'll give you a ride out of the— where are you staying?"
"Fuck." Silver shakes his head. Even if the man gives him a ride to the bus station (what time is it? Had that whole experience even taken an hour?), he wouldn't be allowed on the bus, covered in blood as he is. He starts moving again, in the direction the man had indicated. "Whatever motel's closest? A fucking laundromat?"
The man huffs, a half-laugh, and Silver turns to blink at him. For a moment, he looks softer, amused in the low light.
"You're not close by?"
"Richmond." Far by bus, barely faster without the stops in between.
"Oh." A different expression sets in on his face, something Silver can't read. "I know a, uh. A doctor there." He gestures to the cut on his scalp.
Silver eyes him. "Like..?" He raises his bloody left arm, which is a bad fucking idea, pain he'd pushed out of his conscious mind crashing back onto him. The man's eyes lock on it like he's seeing it for the first time, and Silver can't help but clutch the arm to his chest, digging the nails of his right hand in like that'll overpower the sharp, tearing pain.
"You're hurt."
"I— fuck— yeah." It's a miracle he stays walking. He can see the car by now, which helps.
"Should I take you to the hospital? It's hours to Richmond."
"God. No. I don't—" They reach the car. He leans against it, and the man opens the passenger side door, throws a few things into the backseat. He doesn't ask if he's even good to drive, with the head wound and whatever else. Gift horses and mouths.
"Get in." Silver gets in. He pulls the door closed and leans back, pressing himself against the seat. Eventually, the pain subsides, and he fumbles in his bag for painkillers and a bottle of water. The perscription bottle is fixed so he doesn't have to fumble with a childproof cap, because he's not a fucking child, so he gets to the pills one-handed, easier than the water. Finally, he gives in and passes the bottle to the man in the driver's seat, who takes it and unscrews it without a word.
"Hey, what's your name? Since you saved my life and all." He swallows the pills and offers the man the water.
"Flint." He takes the water. Silver watches him swallow it, wipe the back of his hand across his mouth. Silver watches him notice his gaze, lock eyes with him.
"John Silver. Call me Silver."
"Right. You're gonna make it to Howell's?"
"What?"
"Doctor." Right.
"Yeah. No hospital. I gotta get home anyways."
Flint turns the key in the ignition, and the car jumps to life.
Silver lets the silence sit out of some degree of gratitude to the man, which is to say he lasts about eight minutes before the urge to say something about whatever the fuck that was overpowers his exhaustion.
"So… ghouls." Not his best work, and Flint's teeth have been bared in a quiet little grimace the whole drive, so he's not sure if he needs to tread more carefully.
"Yeah." Flint casts a glance at him before turning his gaze back to the road. Abruptly, Silver wants to shrink away from him. "You would have been eaten. Slowly, still living."
"And you kill these things? There's more of them?"
"Yes." Then, almost an afterthought, "Don't fucking go looking."
"Fuck, I'm not trying to get myself killed."
A huff. "Could've fooled me. Whatever ghosts you think you're messing around with? Stop."
"I've been doing this shit for decades, it's literally never been like this." Silver looks out the window when he catches Flint's eyes on him again. He's not sure if the decades comment will work in his favor or not.
"Hm. You a medium?"
"Yeah."
"Stick to small stuff. Stay out of the woods."
Anger courses through him, hot and undeniable. He's in over his head, sure, but who the fuck is this man to act like this?
"The fuck are you ordering me around for?"
Silence. Silver tries to let it sit. There's no winning this conversation (argument?) if he breaks the silence first. He pulls the tie out of his hair, letting it out of the tight bun he keeps it in when he's doing something that requires peripheral vision. Flint's form to his left disappears behind the curtain of his hair.
He looks out the window. It's interesting, kind of, in the way that a highway is interesting. All this same-architecture, same-trees and same-signage, and every once in a while there's something, graffiti on a retaining wall, or a particularly eyecatching piece of side-of-the-road junk, like a reward for passing by the right place with his eyes open. It's not that interesting. He reaches across himself with his right hand for the stereo, and Flint doesn't stop him from turning it on. Silver flips a couple stations, and ends up on a song he doesn't recognize, an alt-rock chord progression and gritty-voiced singer.
The minutes pass. Silver tugs at his hoodie sleeve. He doesn't think he's bleeding anymore, but the fabric is torn and soaked through. He'll have to cut the sleeves off, wear it as a hooded tank, if the rest of the cloth hasn't been bloodstained, too. Or he'll keep the bloody thing as an indoor-only layer. His wrist protests the attempt to look at it, so he goes still again, eyeing the half-circle shape of the stain. He wonders if he'll scar in the shape of teeth. He wonders if he should be having an easier or harder time accepting the existence of the non-ghost supernatural.
Because, like, on the one hand, having irrefutable proof of ghosts should make the rest of it easier to believe, right? One kind of undead to another is not an extreme logical leap. But on the other, as far as he can tell, he's been seeing ghosts his entire life, and monsters have stayed in their place, on Silver's TV screen.
"Why haven't I ever seen a ghoul, or a vampire, or something? Like, why now and never before?" Damn. He'd cracked.
"They're safer when they're not seen, more successful predators. Not like ghosts, they have… agency. And most of them need to feed."
Silver blinks. "Ghosts have agency."
"Sure, they can interact a bit. But they're echoes, they're just repeating what they were. They might be closer to human than most things, but they're as sentient as a photograph."
He's not one to argue, but Silver's really, genuinely 100% sure Flint's wrong. He thinks back on some of the more interactive ghosts he's met. He drags his tongue along the inside of his teeth, worrying the uneven rows.
By the time Silver starts to recognize, vaguely, the streets and homes they pass, the throbbing in his arm has been joined by more familiar pains. He keeps looking out the window, a less than mediocre distraction.
Flint pulls over when they're still in an area Silver would define as "aspirationally suburban." He's not sure the bus to take him back to his apartment runs out here. Either way, Flint parks in the street out front of a shabby, beige bungalow with a concrete porch and single light shining through the windows. It takes three steps to straighten out his gait, work through the stiffness that comes with holding his knee in a single position too long.
Flint's doctor meets them at the door before either of them reach it. With long, stringy brown hair and a track jacket, he doesn't look like any doctor Silver's ever been to, which would be something of a relief if the man's entire demeanor were… something other than what it is. He glowers at Flint, who's long since stopped bleeding, but not stopped being bloody, and steps aside to let them in.
"Howell, Silver," Flint says, with all the enthusiasm of a man who doesn't give a shit whether or not the two know each others' names. To Howell, he says, "Treat him first."
"Clean up. Towels in the bathroom." Silver is led silently from the sparsely furnished front room to a sparsely furnished back room, and motioned up onto what looks like a vinyl tattoo bed. The situation is just left-of-expected enough, the hour late enough that anything he can think of saying dries up in his throat. He can hear water running in the other room. "You got bit?"
"I… yeah." He's been holding his arm still, close to his waist, and doesn't see the point in moving it until Howell needs it. Currently, the man is pulling on a pair of gloves and setting various instruments on a metal tray.
"Sit down. Over there." He gestures to the vinyl bed. "Just your arm?"
"Yeah." Silver sits on the edge of the bed and looks anywhere other than Howell's hands. Flint joins them, jacket under his arm. He's washed the blood off his face and scratched up arms, but his (close-fitting, distracting) gray t-shirt is still wet with it, dark stain covering his left side. His eyes fall on Silver momentarily, and he watches Flint clock the prosthetic, visible in the gap between his pants and shoe.
"I left the towel behind the door. Reopened the shoulder."
Howell snorts. "I won't waste good advice on you saying it a second time."
Silver accidentally catches Flint's eye as he settles into a chair, and Flint's mouth twitches upwards, cutting his eyes at Howell behind his back. Silver smirks, and then Howell's leaning towards him, pulling over a vinyl covered stand that, again, reminds Silver more of the tattoo studios he's seen than clinic rooms. Silver keeps his expression steady, and at Howell's expectant look, sets his arm on the stand so the doctor can get at it.
He looks away when Howell starts cutting at his sleeve with a pair of medical scissors, but the feeling of silicone gloves on his skin is worse when he's not looking, so he bites the inside of his cheek and watches Howell, who looks over the wound, then tells Silver to move his arm, move his fingers. He probes the bone beneath the skin, feels the muscles as Silver lets himself start to drift. The doctor declares no obvious damage to the muscle and bone underneath, adding that Silver is welcome to get an x-ray later if he'd prefer.
Silver doesn't respond, and neither of his companions seem inclined to idle conversation— when he looks over again, Flint's pulled a book out of what seems to be thin air. Normally, the silence would bother him, but now it's one less thing demanding his attention as Howell stops probing and starts cleaning. The holes in his arm, in the exact shape of a human's jaws, continue to ooze blood slowly. Some of his skin had been torn back as he struggled, leaving the punctures gaping and jagged.
The doctor asks him a question. Silver squints at him, like adjusting his vision will make the words clearer.
"I'm going to spray lidocaine. Are you allergic to any medications?"
"Huh? No, go ahead."
He can't feel the numbing taking effect, but he also can't really feel anything but pressure. Howell sets his arm down and Silver doesn't register what he's prepping until the suture needle is in his arm. He watches his skin pull and distort with the tugging of the needle. Distantly, he feels his stomach turn. He tastes blood, but keeps biting the inside of his mouth.
Howell finishes stitching the parts of the bite he silently deems need it, seals a few others with butterfly closures, and secures a gauze square with rubber bandages. As he busies himself with cleaning up, Silver pulls himself back together. He bends his elbow and wrist experimentally, makes a fist. Still fucking hurts. He doesn't ask Howell about weight bearing on the arm, because he doesn't want to hear the answer, and doesn't want to talk to him, either, despite the lack of questions, lectures, and paperwork so far aimed his way.
His head spins when he gets off the bed, and he leans against it for a moment, pressing his eyes closed. When he opens them, Flint's making eye contact again, eyebrow raised. Silver ignores it, turning back to the doctor as he sprays and wipes down the bed.
"What do I owe you?"
"You got forty bucks on you?" Huh. Silver pulls out his wallet. A twenty, two tens, and thirteen ones. His bus pass is electronic. He counts out the money and offers it to Howell, who looks at him, still dour. "I'm keeping a sterile environment, kid. Save it for when I'm done with him."
"I'll leave it with him. There a bus stop around here?" Howell opens his mouth to respond; Flint beats him to it.
"He won't be long, I said I'd give you a ride home." He says it like a fact, like he doesn't care one way or another. Honestly, Silver had figured the drive back to the city was the ride home, that he'd just have to figure out the last stretch of the trip. Silver looks at him. He looks back at Silver.
"Sure, yeah, if that's fine." He remembers to smile.
"Yeah."
Howell, finished resetting his little station, gestures Silver out of the way and beckons Flint in. He finds the chair Flint had been sitting in, and tries not to look too close when Flint pulls off his shirt, ignoring the freckles clinging to his fat and muscled frame, ignoring the moon tattoo in the center of his upper arm, ignoring—
"Is that a bullet wound?" Howell's already dabbing at the near-perfect circle, bloody and inflamed but clearly not fresh, in the man's shoulder. He looks at Silver, grimace already forming under Howell's ministrations.
"Yeah," Flint says again, voice rough, and Silver's train of thought catches on the enunciation.
"Damn," he manages, when his thoughts catch up with him. Flint doesn't offer any further explanation, and Silver never risks pushing with a direct question. He wonders what a bullet hole feels like. Howell makes Flint rotate to check his back, too, and Silver wonders what it's like to feel a hole punched all the way through you. Flint, at least, appears unbothered as Silver watches. He's pulled his book out again.
Howell announces only the front stitches tore. Flint grunts in response, and lets him restitch the hole, slap antibiotic and bandaids on his arms, and hold his scalp closed with a pair of butterfly closures. Silver has a better sense of time when it's not him on the table, and true to his word, Howell finishes quickly. Flint stands, thanks Howell gruffly, and pulls his bloodstained shirt back over his head. Silver only slightly mourns the change in scenery, too busy standing and passing the cash to Howell. Flint shrugs his jacket back on— in this light, Silver realizes it's textured, decorative little holes punched into the outer layer. He follows Flint out of the house and back to the car, cut sleeve flapping from the elbow as he moves.
Flint takes his address, pulling out a smartphone for the first time, and following his map back out of the suburbs. It's a short ride, and a quiet one. Silver thanks him for the ride, but nothing else, and Flint nods. He doesn't pull away from the curb until Silver's let himself into the building. Once in his unit, he heads directly for the bed, and dreams of being chewed to pieces by people he knows but can't place.