BILLIE JEAN ( eddie munson.. ) ✔

014. A Maniac On The Floor..

"How dare she run away from home?"

Anthony stomped down the stairs. The cherries were rotting on the kitchen counter, through the heat accumulated in the house. Deliberately ignoring everything which Barry or Sam were trying to tell him, Anthony was focused only on hos anger, on his spite, on that parental terror that his child betrayed him and on her act of stubbornness, she got herself in danger.

"Putting Sam in harm's way...," he kept mumbling.

"But I was alright!" Sam argued. Barry blocked his way and went first down the stairs after their dad. Devin didn't even bother joining the ruckus. He was locked in his room, probably listening to music louder than anyone should. "I was with high schoolers and some adults too... Nothing dangerous," Sam continued explaining either way. "Dad!"

"This is no time for her to be rebellious and stubborn," Anthony kept his own. Once downstairs, he stopped in the hallway and picked up the phone, ringing straight for the police.

If Billie wanted to play against his rules, because oh, Anthony could bet his daughter spent the night with that freak he had been kind enough to warn her not to see again, then she'd suffer the real consequences, through Chief Powell. One day in prison should be enough to scare her into being his well-behaved Billie again.

The line rang.

"Dad," Barry called while skipping the last two steps. Anthony brought the phone up to his ear just as his son grasped his shoulder. On the third ring, the tone changed to the tick of a clock and Barry's voice became, in a gradual fade, the suave voice fished from the back of his subconscious.

"Put the phone down, honey," his wife chuckled, luring Anthony in. With his heart stopping, his whole face brightening in hope, he obeyed in an instant. If he was the sinner, then her voice made him repent countlessly and forevermore with passion and wish to worship.

He let the phone down and turned around with his breath caught in a noose. It tightened before letting loose at the absolute relief of seeing her there. Not the nightmare, not the ghoulish memory of death and decay. His wife was standing before him, as radiant as the day they got married.

A beautiful lie which consciously, Anthony would have chosen any day over the truth.

His hands reached out towards her, but with a shake of her head and a gleeful laugh, the wife moved past him like a feather carried on the wings of wind. "Of course Billie ran away from home, honey," she murmured along a careless chuckle. "I'm surprised it took her so long to run the other way from someone like you."

"What?" Anthony was beyond confused, so he rushed to follow, around the corner after his wife. He stumbled right into the living room, not the one covered in morning light and the Hawkins simplicity, but their old living room, the one in which his children grew up and his wife died.

One look at the destroyed room, covered in the floating particles of white dust and the asphyxiating crimson hue accentuating the blood staining the floor, the walls... It was enough. But details kept on swarming, overwhelming him. There was blood dripping in curtains from the ceiling. The lightbulb in the kitchen was flickering in a slow, breathing tempo, while the air itself seemed to have grown toxic, scratching its way into his lungs, then hitting him from inside as a mockery to his five years without an inhaler.

Breathing became hard again and all Anthony could do in the midst of the storm called 'crippling fear' was turn around and hope that he'll see the sunny hallway once more. He was met with a grandfather clock instead, one he never ever had in his old house, in the reflection of which, over the passing time, he saw himself, terrorized as he was, and the dark shadows which appeared behind him. Four of them, one taller than the other.