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Now, the thing is, Billy’s not really avoiding Steve. It would be hard to avoid someone you only ever occasionally see. So he’s not, alright? It might be so that he has made sure not to go to any of the places he sometimes happens to meet Steve at. He goes to work, and he goes home. He’d snapped at Max and so she’d decided to take her skateboard or bike when hanging out with her friends. It’s a relief, because it gives Billy one less place to risk running into Steve.
It’s been two days since Steve kissed him. Since Billy kissed back. And then ran away. Because of course he did.
Steve hasn’t sought Billy out either. Which is probably a good thing, because Billy doesn’t know how he would react. It’s tied between kissing him and running away. Again.
He knows they’ll eventually run into each other. After all, Hawkins is a small town. But Billy’s afraid of what will happen, although he’s loath to admit it even to himself. He’s afraid of rejection. Afraid Steve will be angry and won’t want Billy after he left him there in his Beemer. Logically, he knows that would probably be for the best. But his heart is yearning.
Right now, he’s making sure to distract himself from everything by going to the motel he’d asked Mrs. Wheeler to meet him at. He wants a distraction. And he wants a hug from someone who is older than him and soft. He needs the comfort. Especially after Neil punched him earlier.
He’s busy imagining what he will say to her and checking himself out in the mirror. Needs to make sure he still looks hot, that he’s not starting to bruise. That the stitches make him look dangerous and attractive, rather than sad and pathetic. He’s distracted and misses the animal standing in the middle of the fucking road. For it has to be an animal. Billy can’t imagine why a person would be walking in the middle of the fucking road. Can’t imagine himself actually killing anyone.
He loses his grip on the wheel. Thinks he hears glass breaking. He’s lost all control of the car and it goes skidding down the road. Billy’s head swims. Everything is just blurred colours outside his windows. He’s feeling nauseous. It’s like the worst rollercoaster he’s ever been on. And Billy likes rollercoasters.
The car only stops because it hits something. A tree. Maybe. Billy doesn’t know, because the sudden stop makes his head lurch to the side and hit first his wheel and then the door.
He groans and sits up once he’s sure the spinning is only in his head. His eyes fall on his cracked windshield and his heart hurts.
Not his car. Not his baby. He worked so hard to be able to buy her and to fix her up.
“No... no...” He tries to get her to start. Nothing. “Piece of shit!”
There’s something hot and wet running down the sides of his head. He brings a hand up and sees blood on his fingers. He can feel that the wound he only got stitched together three days ago has reopened but he’s also got a new one, a worse one, on the other side.
“Shit.” He hits the dashboard. “Damn it!”
His whole body hurts, but fuck it, he has to see what’s wrong and see if he can fix it. He’s gasping as he gets the door open and stumbles out.
She’s wrecked. It’s dark out and his vision’s swimming, so Billy can barely see but he knows he can’t do anything out here. With no real tools and almost no light. He’s fucked. He’s going to either have to sleep in his backseat until morning or try to walk back into town. His head hurts too much for him to figure out which is more likely to make him end up dead.
He stops when he gets to his windshield. There’s a rotten smell clinging to it. He’s almost afraid to look. But he thinks of his father calling him a coward and fuck, he may have already proven to himself that he is one, but the question is how much of one is he? He refuses to be afraid of whatever’s on his windshield. It’s probably the aftermath of whatever animal he struck.
Billy leans over the hood of his Camaro and reaches out. There’s some kind of... goo on the glass. He’s pretty sure there’s blood there, but it’s not all blood. It’s sticky. It’s not like any animal Billy knows about.
“What the hell-?“
There’s a sudden screeching sound from the other side of the road and Billy whips his head in the direction it came from. He suddenly realises he has no idea where he is. There’s a building, like a warehouse or something, but it looks old and abandoned.
He’s starting to feel afraid.
“Who’s there?!”
It’s eerily quiet. No movement, other than the leaves rustling in the wind. Billy’s starting to panic.
“Hey...! I said ‘who’s there?’!”
Something grabs ahold of his ankle, bites into it, and Billy screams. It pulls him down onto the ground and starts dragging him. He can feel his jeans rip and gravel scratches his skin where the fabric falls away.
He’s pulled into the building, dragged over the dirty, damp floor and suddenly he ends up over a hole - stairs - and finally he has something to grab a hold off. His arms are straining and he can feel the wound where the- the thing bit into him tear. Can feel it take a second bite, but this time it’s deeper, and he can almost swear it’s biting straight into his muscle. Billy’s never felt pain like that. He’s screaming his throat raw. But there’s no use, he’s not strong enough, and it pulls until he can’t hold on anymore.
His whole body hurts as he’s repeatedly knocked into the sharp edges of the stairs’ steps. He ends up a broken heap at the end of them and still the thing doesn’t stop, doesn’t stop until he’s in the middle of the room. Then it lets go off him and Billy knows he should run but he doesn’t think he can even stand up, so he just curls up and tries to make himself as small a target as possible. It’s something he used to do, back when Neil first started hitting him. Before he realised Neil saw it as cowardice and would only hit him harder. Over the years the line between cowardice and disobedience blurred and changed so many times Billy stopped trying to keep track. But now he’s back to that time, so he curls up and cries like he used to.
He can hear movement all around him. But it’s not from a human. Not from something big. It’s a hundred small feet scurrying around him. Then suddenly there comes a sound like a tiny explosion. And another. And another. They start up all around and from everywhere. Billy has to look.
He regrets it the second he does.
There seems to be a million rats filling the entire floor. And they are exploding. One after the other. The smell of rot, of guts - and Billy never thought he’d smell that - is overpowering. Billy starts retching. His stomach convulses and brings up everything he’s eaten.
When he’s done and looking back up he can’t believe his eyes, because what’s left of the exploded rats are moving. They move deeper into the shadows and Billy can’t see where they end up. But once the last ones are gone, he can suddenly hear it. Heavy steps, making the floor and Billy’s entire frame shake in time.
Billy’s never been that much of a fan of horror movies. He’s seen some, sure, mostly because people expect they’re something he would like, and he would hate to disappoint. But he’s never really liked them. Never seen the pleasure in being voluntarily scared, at looking at fantasy or sci-if monsters. Billy’s scared enough every day as it is. Scared someone will find out he doesn’t actually like pussy, scared Neil will find something to be angry about every time he steps into the house. He doesn’t get nightmares from horror movies; his nightmares all connect back to his father in some way.
But what steps out of the shadows can only be described as a monster from a horror movie. It doesn’t seem real. But it has to be. Because Billy can hear it, can smell it, can see it move. But it can’t be. It can’t. He wonders if it’s all some kind of dream and he’s actually sitting passed out in his car.
It’s towering over him. And then Billy knows it’s real because it has a tentacle - a tentacle, Jesus Christ, how is this his life? - reaching for him and there’s teeth on the end of it, a fucking mouth, and it’s biting into his leg again and it makes Billy scream. Again. His voice is broken from it. But god, it hurts.
He can feel something moving. From the bite and into his leg. It’s moving into him. He wants to throw up again but there’s nothing left. And then suddenly its - its face is leaning down to just above Billy’s and it’s opening the mouth there and Billy thinks it’s going to eat him.
It doesn’t. There are shadows swirling deep inside its maw and they’re moving out and towards Billy. It goes by so quick. One second he’s staring at the shadows and screaming, the next he can’t let any sound out because they’re forcing themselves in through Billy’s mouth, nose, ears, eyes. He can’t see anything. Can only feel.
Feel how that monster is forcing itself into him and nothing has ever been as painful as that. As having something forced into him, feeling so helpless.
And suddenly all he wants is to go home. Home is Steve’s house. It’s Steve’s guest bedroom and if Billy hadn’t been so afraid then it might have even been Steve’s room. Steve’s bed. He would honestly even take his own house over this. Because Neil may be a monster but at least he’s one in human form, and those Billy knows how to deal with. He has no clue what to do about this. There’s nothing to do. It’s too big and it’s everywhere and it makes him hurt so much.
He’s terrified. The terror makes him scream. Or try to, but he can’t, not like before, because now he’s suffocating. He can’t get any air into his lungs. There’s just black shadow filling his throat.
He realises he will probably die here. In this cold and damp abandoned warehouse. Without ever getting the chance to kiss Steve again. To make him laugh. Without getting to see Max.
Without apologising and saying goodbye.
He wants to sob. Wants to scream. Wants to run. But he can’t do anything.
And then suddenly he doesn’t have to, because he can’t feel anything. He’s drifting.
—
When he comes back to his body he’s crawling on the ground floor of the warehouse, away from the stairs. He can hear the thing down there, and it’s enough for him to summon enough strength to get to his feet and run to the Camaro. It starts without trouble and Billy doesn’t question it. Doesn’t ask how it can suddenly work. He just wants to get out.
He saw a payphone on his way here, and he drives as fast as he can towards it, fully aware he’s breaking multiple traffic laws. But it’s an emergency.
He’s throwing the car door open the second he’s there, and then he’s running as quick as he can and into the phone booth. His fingers tremble as he punches in the number.
“991, what’s your emergency?”
Her words make everything come back and flash before his eyes. The lights start to flicker overhead and the line goes dead. Billy’s gasping.
He leaves the phone and stumbles out onto the street. There’s a big group of people walking down the road towards him. He can only see their silhouettes. The only lightning comes from the Camaro’s headlights.
“What do you want?” He says, exhausted. There are so many people they sound like an army, walking in step with each other.
“Hey, I said ‘what do you want?’!” Billy doesn’t know why he’s moving towards them, but he is. “I said ‘what do you want?!’”
Lightning flashes to the side of him, in the distance. It’s red.
The leader of the group steps forward. And Billy can only stand there and stare, because it’s him.
“To build.” But it doesn’t sound like Billy. The voice is too deep, too ancient sounding, too monstrous. Nothing like a scared, angry seventeen-year-old. “I want to build.”
“To build what?” Billy’s breathless, and he can’t imagine he actually got an answer.
“What you see.”
“I don’t understand.” He doesn’t. He’s so confused and everything hurts and he just wants to go home. Billy’s not seeing anything. It’s dark and the people are only silhouettes and the sky is red.
The lightning flashes again and then they’re all gone, doppelgänger Billy and his silhouette army.
“I don’t understand!” Billy screams at the empty road. He turns around, but there’s no sign of them anywhere. “What do you mean; I don’t understand?!”
There’s no answer. Billy’s alone.