Thalassophile (Billy Hargrove)

Hostess

Chapter 36
Unedited

I had never driven this fast in my life, my hands shaking around the steering wheel as I swerved through the empty Hawkins streets. I kept whispering to myself repeatedly like a prayer, like it would change the outcome. "Please be okay, Billy. Please be okay."

My sneakers tapped anxiously on the pedals as my car wheezed beneath me, not meant for speed, but it was doing its best. I didn't care. I couldn't care. The image from the vision haunted me, the blood, the scream, the Brimborn sign tilted in the red-tinted dark.

As I turned the last corner and the rusted skeleton of Brimborn Steel Works came into view, I slammed the brakes. The car skidded slightly as I jumped out, gravel crunching beneath my shoes. The wind had picked up. The air was thick and electric, like the world was holding its breath. I ran. The warehouse loomed before me, every instinct telling me to stop, turn around. But I pushed forward, sneakers slamming into the pavement, heart racing, throat dry. I climbed through the half-bent gate and ducked under jagged metal beams until I saw it..

Billy.

He was crouched against the wall, blood on his temple, panting, eyes wide with confusion and fear. In front of him, standing with an eerie stillness, was Heather Holloway. "Billy!" I shouted, and he looked up, like he was seeing color for the first time.

"Kai?" His voice was hoarse. Heather turned toward me, her expression blank, too blank. It was like something else was looking through her. Her skin was pale, and her eyes... her eyes weren't right.

"Back up slowly," I said, moving toward Billy without taking my eyes off Heather.

"Kai, she's not... she's not Heather anymore," Billy warned, trying to stand but stumbling.

"I know. I saw it."

Heather's head twitched. She stepped forward.

I reached into my jacket and pulled out the small flashlight I kept in my car. Weak, but enough. I shined it directly in Heather's face, she shrieked, hissing, staggering back just enough for me to grab Billy's arm.

"Come on!" I yelled, slinging his arm over my shoulder.

We limped together out of the building, but just as we crossed the lot, the warehouse trembled behind us. A loud, unnatural howl echoed in the distance.

"We need to go now."

We got in the car, and I started the engine with trembling fingers. Billy sat slumped in the passenger seat, bleeding but alive. Alive. "You... saved me," he said quietly. I reached out to take his hand in mine as I drove further away from the warehouse.

"You said you saw?" Billy frowned, his blue eyes locking on mine, full of something between fear and awe. I nodded, still trying to piece everything together as I recounted the dream or vision, whatever it was. He filled in the blanks from his end, too how he stopped after seeing Heather's car parked outside Brimborn, how he heard screaming and ran in thinking someone was in trouble. "It was all a trick," he said, his voice bitter. "Heather... she was just standing there. Blank. Like something had turned her off and flipped her back on wrong."

"So you can see in its head," Billy muttered more to himself than me, his jaw tightening. "You think that's because of your time in..." he trailed off, not daring to say it. Instead, he pointed vaguely downward, and I gave a small, humorless laugh. "Yeah," I whispered. "I think Will and I have a... connection to it. Like our minds are windows, and it's trying to find the open ones."

I pulled into the driveway, still trembling. My neighbors were two yards over, drunk off cheap beer and screaming the lyrics to whatever synth-pop trash had just hit the radio charts. For a second, I envied them so much it hurt. How nice it must be not to know what's lurking in the shadows of this town. How peaceful to pretend monsters don't exist.