Drowning • Billy Hargrove

Chapter 57

Nobody could believe that the Russians were so unprepared that they let the Demogorgans overtake them in the span of 9 hours.
"This is crazy." Joyce yells as she pours cereal into bowls for all of the kids.
"I know." Steve says leaning against the counter. He also stayed over last night after joining the search party for El and I.
Things haven't been on the best terms with us, but I still loved him, as a friend.

"I want to go find Brandon." I mumble breaking the silence.
Billy and Steve both look at me as if I had two heads. "No." They both say in unison.
"Come on!" I plead. "If we don't get to him everybody could be in danger."
"Babe, we're not going out there." Billy grabs onto my arms and says.
I can notice Steve roll his eyes out of the corner of his eyes. He still hasn't given Billy a chance yet.
I push past Billy and grab his keys from his jacket that was hanging on the hook.
"Kate!" They both yell at me as I open the front door.
I look back to see all the kid's and Tyler staring at me. "You're either coming with me or you're not."
They both sigh and follow me out the door. Behind them, Tyler follows us out into Billy's car.

"This is stupid." Steve mutters to himself from the backseat.
Billy puts the keys into the ignition. "Nobody asked you to come, dude."
I gently hit Billy on the shoulder and he just chuckles in response.

As we emerge from the forest and into the centre of town, we begin to see what's really going on.
"Oh my gosh." I say, putting a hand over my mouth. Everybody was evacuating their houses and filling their cars with boxes.
I rolled down my window to eavesdrop on their conversation.
"It's not safe! We have to go! The monster got daddy!" One woman said to her three children who were all in tears.
"Hurry up and grab the final bag!" Another man said to his wife.
"This is crazy." Tyler said from the backseat.

Suddenly, everybody started running and in front of us we could see a Demodog emerging from a house.
"Holy shit!" Billy yells as he puts the car in reverse.

But we weren't the main targets. Instead the Demodogs next meal was the woman evacuating with her husband. We watched the monster close in on the woman and we heard her horrifying screams as she was tackled by the monster.
"Lucy!" Her husband cried out, too far away to save her.
He slouched against his car, box still in hand, watching.
"Dude! Get in the car!" Billy yelled from the window.
The man cried as he watched his wife get ripped apart. Tears came to my eyes as I watched his whole world fall apart.
After the monster was done with her, as we expected, it moved onto the man. We all yelled at him as he still had time to take shelter, but he didn't move. He seemed too numb to do anything and he just gave up.
"No!" I cried out as the Demodog closed in on him.
Billy shook his head and stepped on the gas pedal, speeding away just in time so we didn't watch another murder.
In the distance, you could still hear the poor mans cried until they just stopped.

I looked to the backseat to see both Tyler and Steve in tears.
"We need to find a way to stop this." Steve declares.
"I agree."

We arrived at the hospital and as we expected, it was complete chaos.
"We were right all along." I say, staring up at the hospital. "The Mindflayer is still in him."
"Is it too late?" Tyler asks.
"Yeah, we can't save him now. He's already gone." Billy says while lighting a cigarette.
"We can help everybody else." I grab the cigarette, right out from Billy's fingers and take a puff. I don't know why, but I just needed that extra boost after what we were going to put ourselves through.

Everybody was sprinting out of the hospital, screaming and crying hysterically.
"Shit." I can hear Steve say.

We ran down the long halls of the hospital, looking for Brandon's room.
We soon arrived and he wasn't there. The arm and leg restraints were broken and there was black goo everywhere. The flowers I left for him a couple of weeks ago were knocked onto the floor and the picture his little brother made was torn into a million pieces.
"Oh no." I say, examining the trails of black stuff.
Tyler gasps and runs to the side of the bed, closest to the window.
I follow close behind and Mr. Miller, Brandon's dad was lying on the floor, not moving.

The boys prop him up on the bed and he was extremely injured. He had a huge gash across his forehead that stretched all the way to the back of his head. We could tell that he was bleeding a lot because of the pool of blood that was on the floor.
"He must've hit his head off of the window sill." Tyler says, pointing to a blood stain on the window.
I nod my head. "Brandon probably pushed him."
"That's what I was thinking." Steve responds.
"I think he's dead." Billy says, checking for his pulse.

"Yes he is dead. I killed him."
We all turn to see Brandon standing in the doorway.
"Shit." Billy mumbles.
"Brandon." I say softly. Based on my past experiences with people who were being controlled by the Demogorgan, I knew that they were still in there.
I walk closer to Brandon, smiling.
"Kate stop it." Billy whispers aggressively.
Brandon's face softens and the black veins bursting from his skin fade away. "Kate." He struggles out.
I smile and nod. "Yeah it's me, Kate. We're going to get you out of there, okay?"
The real Brandon quickly disappears and the Mindflayer turns on me as the lights begin to flicker.
He walks closer and grabs onto my shirt. All at once, Steve, Tyler, and Billy attack Brandon. The plan worked and he let go of me, now we just needed to find a way out.

Brandon takes a medical cart and pushes it into  Tyler, causing him to fall. Brandon begins to laugh as he closes in on us.
I look over at Billy to see him deep in thought. He grabs all flammable items from the shelves and throws them into a pile on the floor.
"What are you doing?" Steve yells over Brandon.
"Shut up!" Billy yells back. He grabs his lighter from his pocket and from that moment on, we all knew what he was doing.

"Go!" Billy yells at the three of us. Tyler, Steve and I all run by Brandon. He didn't seem to care because he had his full attention on Billy now.

Billy lights his cigarette lighter and throws it onto the extremely flammable medical equipment.
"Get out!" I scream because I know that it'll take only a second to blow up.
Billy ducks under Brandon's arm and makes a great escape for the door. He gets out and closes the door behind him just before a loud explosion happens.