Flower Girl (Billy Hargrove)

Chapter Twenty Eight

We all ran to my car and drove over to Mike's house. How great. He snuck us in and we all went to the basement where we all fell asleep for the night. I was woken up by the sound of the kids talking. They were all sitting in front of El while she had a tie around her eyes. She was looking for someone.

"Did you find him?" Max asked and El nodded her head "In the woods...with Will's mom." Who the hell are we looking for and why the hell are they in the woods with Joyce. Then El mentioned something about them talking about going to Illinois. Me and Max took El to the bathroom to clean her nose. I got a bit of water on a washrag and cleaned the blood off her face. "Does it still hurt?" Max was talking about the huge mark El has on her neck from Billy. I couldn't help but feel guilty, I should've done something sooner to protect El. "Only when I talk." El explained while lightly touching the mark "Well at least you're not like Mike or you'll be in constant pain." I said as I started mimicking Mike and how he's been complaining nonstop since last night about the slight mark Billy gave him. All three of us started laughing.

When the three of us walked out the bathroom we sat Nancy and Jonathan with the boys. They sat us down and Nancy started explaining something about some lady and rats that she was doing a report on and last night when Nancy was in the hospital with the lady she started screaming and she had black veins all over her body just like Billy. We told them about what happened with Billy and the sauna test. They both happened at 9pm. They're both flayed and then we realized that there's more. There's a whole army. Billy, Heather, and the rat lady are all part of that army.

Nancy mentioned Heather's dad because I guess Nance and Jonathan used to work for him and when he fired them yesterday morning something seemed off with him. We all piled together in Nancy's car and we went to Heather's house. The door was wide open when we got there and it smelled like straight chemicals. We walked around the house and in the kitchen there were chemicals everywhere and even the oven was flipped on its side.

"Do you think they've been eating chemicals?" Jonathan asked while picking up an empty can of ajax "That or they went on a cleaning spree." Jonathan looked back at me and had the look of 'are you serious right now' something wasn't right about this and everyone realized that when we started talking about the differences between last year when Will got flayed compared to now. Last year Will didn't eat chemicals. So something is different and more dangerous.

We walked into the dining room and the way the table was set looked the same as when we were here "The table is still the same, even the same pan of cookies is right here. This place hasn't been touched in a day or so." Everyone's eyes got huge as Max and El agreed with me. We continued our way into the living room where there was a spot of blood on the carpet and then an empty wineglass that had blood on it "Tom, yesterday he had a bandage on his head. He was attacked." Nancy said as she spotted more blood on a hallway carpet that led to a room.

We followed the trail of blood from where Billy had dragged Heather's dad and mom and it led us to the garage where there was rope lying in the middle of the room. "He took them somewhere." Nancy spoke up "What if the mind flayer is staying somewhere." My idea was probably dumb but once again it was just an idea "Wait, you're right because when she was taken to the hospital last night she said she needed to go back. What if she meant that she needed to go back to where the Mind flayer is. She needed to go back to the rest of the army and we can find him and stop him and see what the hell is going on." We all looked around because it made sense but we don't know where the mind flayer is "But how do we find it." We all stayed quiet because El was right, she couldn't see where Billy was because the mind flayer wouldn't let him.

"Mrs. Driscoll." We all turned to will "If she wants to go back so bad why don't we let her and let her lead the way to him." We once again all piled up in Nancy's car and we drove to the hospital. We all went inside but me and the kids had to stay in the waiting room while Nancy and Jonathan went to go see rat lady. Max and Lucas were eating snacks that El knocked down in the vending machine, me and Will were looking at a magazine, and Mike and El were talking about their relationship or something. I don't know, all I know was that Johnny depp looks hot in this magazine. The lights started flickering as Will touched the back of neck and started shivering.

"He's here." We we're all in a circle and Will was in the middle. Nancy and Jonathan came running towards us and screaming at us to go and get to the car so all of us started screaming while running to Nancy's car. As soon as we got in she stepped on the gas pedal as hard as she could the tires screeched as we all screamed. We started to all calm down as Nancy started to drive like a sane person. After a bit of driving we got to Hoppers cabin, I've been here a few times to visit El.

When we got in the cabin El went to her room with all the pictures she got of the people that we know that are flayed. Nancy and Jonathan and Will were in the kitchen calling people while Mike was complaining about El being in her room for too long and some other stuff like supposedly we are abusing El's powers. I was just laying down trying to go to sleep "Shut up Mike." I mumbled into the pillow which caused him to not be able to hear me and he kept complaining "Shut the hell up Mike!" I yelled while sitting up and looking at him while everyone turned to look at me.

El walked out of her room and observed everyone "What's going on?" She said quietly "Oh you know, just a family discussion." I said while giving Mike a dirty look. "Oh... I found him." We all looked around to see if anyone knew who she was talking about since she was looking for like five different people "Found who?" Nancy said which caused El to look at her. She sat down in the living room area of the cabin where I was and turned the tv and made it go to the static, right as she was about to put her blindfold on she turned and looked at me. "Billy." That's who she found, she found Billy. We all huddled up together on the couch while El went back to finding Billy.

After a few minutes her breathing started to pick up and she was breathing heavily like she was out of breath. She took off her blindfold and wiped her nose and she got a cup out of the kitchen and filled it up with water. She took a few sips before she started explaining how Billy was just sitting there in his room which is definitely not normal especially today. I went outside because I need air and space, lots of it. There was a rocking chair outside on the porch that I sat in. I listened to the wind as it lightly blew, I listened to the bird chirping to one another, but for most of the part I listened to nothing. The silence. There wasn't any yelling or fighting or screaming or crying. There was nothing except the occasional birds and the wind. It's like this was the calm before the storm and I feel like it's exactly what it is. Tonight isn't going to end well, we can't make it out unharmed every time and I need to brace myself for that.