Bloody Negatives {Stranger things}

Chapter Seventeen

《Chapter Seventeen》
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"I don't want to miss the funeral."

"Tally, you're ill," his mother insisted, making an odd tsk-ing noise with her tongue.

"I'm not," he insisted, struggling to stand up. He refrained from wincing as he at last managed to get on two feet. He waved his arms around as if to say 'see, I can do it!'

The woman shook her head slowly. "I want you to stay home another week or two."

A week or two felt like an awfully long time. She hadn't even made him stay home for that long after he went missing. Or after he witnessed Fred's murder.

Heck, she'd barely seemed to care at all.

"I know it's a long time," she sighed. "But with everything that's been happening lately. All the police visiting. I think you should stay inside. I don't want anyone thinking anything."

Tally felt his muscles tense. Was that really her only concern?

Tally's mother turned around and sat down at the table in the chair across from her son. "You know that you can... tell me anything that's been happening, right? Even if it's bad."

She didn't seriously believe the rumours, did she? Tally wanted to cry again. Even his own mother was against him.

"I have nothing to say," Tally stated simply and confidently. When it came to his mother, there wasn't any other way to talk to her.

The woman nodded, seemingly disappointed. Tally had the feeling she was about to say something else, though a loud, somewhat angry knock interrupted her.

Tally's mother rushed to the front door, almost desperate, for some reason. Like she was expecting a solution to all the world's problems to show up on their front doorstep.

It wasn't a solution. It was the opposite, actually. Jason Carver, in all his paranoid, exhausted glory.

Tally stumbled over to the door to talk to his friend, who looked slightly more horrified than usual. Though of course, that made sense after what he had to watch happen to Patrick. He clearly hadn't been sleeping. Tally doubted the boy was eating. Or taking care of himself at all for that matter.

"Hey," Tally coughed, stepping outside and closing the front door so his mother couldn't hear his and Jason's conversation.

"Are you okay?" Jason asked, panic rising in his voice.

Tally nodded rapidly. "Yeah, yeah. I'm okay. Why? What's wrong?"

Jason looked to his left, and then to his right. The poor kid was practically psychotic by now. "Nothing's wrong, just wanted to make sure Munson didn't try to curse you or anything."

Tally nodded slowly. "Are you okay, Jason?"

The basketball player stood still for several long seconds. He didn't speak. He didn't move. He barely even breathed.

He was incredibly still. Tally knew this kind of still. It was the kind he found himself stuck in often.

Jason may have looked half-dead, though Tally already knew his mind was racing.

"I'm...not," Jason said at last, narrowing his eyes, as if confused by his own statement.

"What?" Tally asked, even though he'd heard the boy perfectly fine. People like Jason Carver never really admitted when they weren't okay. The words came as a shock to Tally.

"I don't think I'm ever going to be okay," Jason shook his head, running a hand through his hair frantically. "How could I be okay after... after everything that's happened?"

"Woah," Tally murmured, more than a little amazed by the outburst.

Jason sunk to the ground, pulling his hair. "I can't deal with this anymore. I have to find Munson, Tally. I have to make him pay for what he did to her."

Tally knew who 'her' was without Jason once using her name.

The blond stood up all of a sudden, almost scaring Tally to death. He stumbled back, into his house's front door.

"I will find him," Jason declared. "And when I do, he's going to regret ever being born."

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