"I swear, if I'm dying tonight because of you, I'm gonna haunt your ass so hard, Harrington!"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah! I'm gonna go full Poltergeist and shit!"
"Then bring it, Graveswood."
"Challenge accepted."
***
In which after years of suppressing their...
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Chapter Eighteen: Files
(The Flea And The Acrobat, Pt. 2)
***
While a group of kids and psionic girl were figuring out the truth of where Will Byers was and of the Upside Down, police Chief Jim Hopper was in Hawkins National Laboratory, hunting for his own answers on where the real Will Byers was.
Stalking down the corridors, he looked into the rooms, shining a flashlight and keeping a gun raised as he shouted for Will, hoping the kid would hear him, or he would find him in one of those sterile, abandoned rooms. Above, the lights flickered, leaving the corridors in near-permanent darkness, as Hopper walked on, the air stuffy and cold inside this part of the lab.
One of the rooms the police chief had seen, which Hopper felt was more prison than room, had a little bed, a stuffed toy and a kid's drawing taped on the wall—stick figures with the names '11' and 'Papa'.
Hopper ignored the shiver through his bones as he walked forward, still shouting for Will, hoping to find the boy and get the hell out of the lab.
He came to an elevator, and didn't hesitate to walk in and press the button to descend, watching as Hawkins Lab guards ran down to stop him, yelling at him and raising their guns, only for it to be too late as the doors closed and Hopper went down into the belly of the lab, the place where no one who worked in the lab wanted any outsider to see.
When the doors opened, Hopper coughed, the air strangely thick and suffocating. Dust drifted in the corridor and the lights flickered even more. Apprehension burned in Hopper's gut, but he pushed on, arm to his mouth as he kept coughing, refusing to turn back, not if it meant leaving the kid in danger, shouting his name twice before the air got too thick to do anything but breathe.
When Hopper came to the corridor's end, he frowned.
"What the hell?"
In front of him, beyond a console and glass shield and a railing and a large tank filled with water, was a wall with... something splitting it down the middle.
Something that had stringy webs across it, that had decay and vines creeping out from it, that pulsed like a rotting heartbeat. Something that radiated wrongness.
Hopper's skin crawled.
He walked forward, making to touch it, and felt something shift beside him.
He looked down, and saw a stack of manila folders on the table next to him.
Shining his light on them, his confusion grew at seeing what was stamped in black on top.
'GRAVESWOOD, ROWAN LEONORA'.
"What the hell?" he muttered again, shifting the file to see more familiar names staring up at him.
Why did Hawkins National Laboratory have files on Aco, her niece and nephew and their dead parents, and their whole family? And what was inside them? What information did those files hold about the woman Hopper both disliked and had a grudging respect for, the kids he'd seen around Hawkins and the parents they lost, and their entire family, that was so confidential it needed to be in here?
What secrets were the Graveswoods keeping that Hawkins Lab knew about?
Hopper made to open Rowan's file, but was stopped when he saw something in his peripheral vision.
He managed to slip the files into his jacket before he turned and his flashlight caught a person wearing a HAZMAT suit, and then—
Darkness.
***
A wild Hopper POV chapter has appeared!
I know it was unexpected and short, but I promise this chapter—and the files—are important for later on in the story!
