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Ted clutches his phone to his ear, knuckles white and brows drawn together so tightly he can feel the beginnings of a headache thumping in his temples. He listens intently as his phone rings, and rings, and rings, driving a spike slowly into his skull with each harsh, blaring noise (Not helping his headache, by the way). He holds his breath, gaze frantically jumping around the room, trying to find something else to focus on besides the cold plastic of the phone case in his hands and the wild beating of his heart.
Sorry, I can’t get to the phone right now but if you leave a message I’ll—
“Goddamnit, Pete, pick up!” Ted yells in frustration, throwing the phone to the floor where it thunks on the black and white tile, tumbles over itself and lands with a sharp crack. Ted runs a hand through his sweaty hair, fingers snagging on the tangles, and reaches down to pick it up. Sure enough, a fissure runs from the top of the screen to the bottom in a perfectly clean line, like it had been sliced with a knife.
He curses, tapping the screen and watching it flicker slightly before turning on, the steady bluish glow no less depressing than the blank screen. He calls Pete again, stupidly hoping that he might pick up and explain—in that obnoxious, nasally voice of his—how he was just in class and why did Ted call him ten times while he was trying to study?
Sorry, I can’t get to the phone right n-
Ted shuts his phone off and shoves it into his pocket, his eyes pricking as tears threaten to form. He swipes angrily at them with one hand, but more bubble up in their place. God, you’re not some fucking baby. Get a grip. He pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes, the pressure in his head building to a migraine. Fuck. He doesn’t need this right now. He’s already trapped in this creepy ass bunker-fortress thing with a grandpa who’s off his rocker and his loser coworkers and this random girl Paul picked up along the way— and now his brother’s dead.
Fuck .
Ted drops his hands, blinking dazedly as colors dance in front of his eyes before fading away, and he’s left staring blankly at the dusty grand piano in the corner, barely visible due to the professor’s obsession with unnecessarily dim lighting. He doesn’t even know what room he’s ended up in, this place has entirely too many fucking rooms. Not to mention the garish black and white tile, and the drab gray walls, and the ceilings so high they’re completely shrouded in shadow. He cannot be stuck here.
The door opens with a creak (There’s that too, this place must be a century old), and Bill steps in, a phone pressed to his ear and worry plastered all over his face. He looks like he’s trying to find somewhere private, glancing around briefly before walking hurriedly in and closing the door, but doesn’t even notice Ted in the low light before he starts pacing back and forth, clasping the phone with both hands like it’s gonna run away from him.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know you’re scared,” he’s saying, forehead glistening with sweat and eyes wide. He listens as whoever he’s talking to says something Ted can’t hear, then asks, “What’s wrong with Deb? She’s doing what ?”
Deb. He must be talking to his daughter Alice, then. Who’s still alive, presumably. A sickening wave of both jealousy and fear crashes through Ted’s body, and he becomes acutely aware of the weight of the phone in his pocket. Maybe if he just called one more time—
“Alice? Okay, listen to me— you get away from her, you understand? You get far away— no, this has nothing to do with me not liking Deb, right now you need to run and hide, okay?” Bill’s voice rises with panic as he begins to pace faster, gripping the phone like a lifeline. “Where are you?”
Ted fingers the phone in his pocket, traces his thumb over the crack. If Alice is still alive, surely Pete managed to escape too. His brother isn’t a total idiot. He can be resourceful, he’s got good instincts for when something goes wrong. He and his two nerdy little friends are probably huddled under the bleachers somewhere, playing with their Pokémon cards or flipping through comics or overall too preoccupied to answer their phones when their brother calls them.
“Everything’s going to be fine. I love you too,” Bill says, then hangs up.
“Where is she?” Ted asks, and Bill jumps, gaze snapping to Ted as he notices him for the first time.
“Oh, it’s you,” he replies, his annoyance at realizing Ted overheard his entire conversation momentarily trumping his panic. It’s back in an instant though, and Bill starts his pacing back and forth again. “It’s Alice, she’s stuck in Hatchetfield. Dang it— I need to take the car, she’s in Hatchetfield High she’s locked herself in the choir room,” he says, talking more to himself than to Ted.
Hatchetfield High. If Pete is alive, that’s where he’ll be.
“Okay. Let’s go,” Ted says, striding past Bill and heading for the door.
“What?”
“I’m coming with you.” Ted swings the door open with a loud creak and looks back at Bill, raising an eyebrow.
“ You? Why?” Bill asks, but follows him out anyway.
Ted scoffs, snatching the keys off the coffee table. “Like you can defeat an army of high schooler-alien-things alone. What are you gonna do Bill, kick all their heads?” he taunts, spinning the keyring around his pointer finger. Bill rolls his eyes and huffs, glancing around the room like someone else will materialize out of thin air and offer to go with him instead. But Paul and Emma and Hidgens are in some other room, probably on the other side of the house.
“I’m all you got, Billy-boy. You go with me, or you go alone.”
Bill stares daggers at him for a moment, then sighs and walks towards the door, plucking the keys from Ted’s grasp. “ I’ll drive.”
- - -
Hatchetfield High is eerily empty as Ted and Bill push open the heavy metal doors and enter the familiar halls. A sticky, blue substance coats the walls and lockers, some of which are hanging open with papers and books falling out and scattered across the floor like flotsam washed up on a beach. The hallway lights buzz and flicker, their incandescent bulbs long overdue for a change that will probably never come. It’s… dystopian.
Ted shivers a little, staying alert as he continues down the hall with Bill hurrying to catch up behind him. “The choir room’s on the second floor.”
“I know that,” Ted snaps, because he didn’t spend four miserable years at this school just to lose his way now. They climb the stairs, careful not to slip on the puddles of goo pooling and dripping over each step. The second floor is just as vacant as the first, but the hair on the back of Ted’s neck raises slightly as they cross the carpeted hallway and enter the choir room. The unlocked choir room.
“Alice?” Bill calls, scanning the room frantically for any sign of his daughter.
“Jesus, Bill, shut the fuck up,” Ted whispers loudly. “You idiot , they’ll hear you!”
Bill ignores him completely, flinging open a cupboard that is way too tiny to fit anyone over the age of five and peers inside. “Alice? Where are you, sweetie?”
Ted sighs, glancing out of one of the windows like he might see Pete just wandering around outside the gym or crossing the football field. From up here, he can see mobs of people lining the streets, singing and dancing in perfect synchronization. Pete could be in there.
“Alice?” Bill says behind him.
Ted turns back around, annoyed and afraid. “She’s not here, Bill, okay—“
He cuts himself off as he spots the girl in the doorframe, staring directly at her dad with something inhuman in her eyes. She’s flanked by two other girls—Deb, probably, and one of their other friends. They take a step as one, advancing on a frozen Bill.
“Holy shit— Bill, we gotta get out of here,” Ted hisses, grabbing Bill’s arm and yanking him away from the approaching girls. Bill jerks out of his grip, rounding on him. “No. I’m not leaving without Alice.”
“Are you fucking serious ? She’s dead, Bill!” Ted yells, backing up against the wall.
Bill doesn’t answer. He just calls out again to the monster pretending to be his daughter, paying no heed to Ted’s warnings.
“Fine. Fuck this.” Ted edges around the trio of girls and darts out of the room, not willing to lose his life over Bill’s stupid fucking decisions. This is always how it is with Bill, my daughter this, my daughter that. Any of Ted’s arguments would have fallen on deaf ears. Fine . Bill can stay there and die if that’s what he wants, but Ted has a brother to find. He won’t lose hope, not yet.
He makes his way back down to the first floor, worried about getting trapped if he goes further upstairs. Pete probably thought the same, and hid on the ground level. Ted just has to do a quick sweep of the first floor, find Pete, bring him back to the fortress. Easy.
He enters Ms. Mulberry’s biology classroom, just the same as he remembers it with anatomy posters lining the walls and potted plants crowded on every available surface. God, she’d pissed him off. Biology was never Ted’s strong suit, and she took that personally. Pete had her last year, and while he was too docile to deliberately pick fights with her, he frequently complained about her “biased grading system” once he got home from school. Biology isn’t Pete’s favorite either, Ted supposes. He’s more of a chemistry guy.
“Ted.”
Ted freezes. He’d know that voice anywhere , with the way it cracks and stumbles over the singular syllable, constantly stuttering and wobbling just like Ted’s did when he was 16. Something’s wrong, though. This voice is darker. It’s confident in a way his sophomore self never was, strong, and demanding. It wants something.
Ted turns around.
It’s Pete, of course. He stands in the doorway of the empty classroom, backlit by the yellow lights spilling in from the hallway. He looks like… well, Pete. Ted’s annoying younger brother, with the dumb bow tie and suspenders and glasses too big for his face. He’s different, though, and Ted knows that before he notices the blue goo leaking out of his mouth. He stands tall, his shoulders aren’t hunched for once in his life, and he has a gun. Where the fuck did he get a gun?
“Pete,” Ted replies stupidly. He stares at his brother, so familiar and yet a complete stranger. He’s detached and wrong, moving like a marionette as blue ooze drips down his face and onto the floor. Maybe Ted shouldn’t have been so harsh with Bill, because with Pete’s gaze boring into his own he finds himself unable to move. Not that running would do much good with Pete blocking the door.
“What are you doing here, Ted?” Pete asks in a voice so uncharacteristically full of loathing that it snaps Ted out of his trance. His eyes go wide and he ducks behind a table, trying to put something between him and the loaded gun pointed at his chest. “I was trying to save your stupid ass,” he replies, peeking over the top of the desk, just enough to meet Pete’s gaze again. His eyes are devoid of anything human, so wide and crazed he might as well be seeing the entire town at once, more than willing to tear it all apart brick by brick if he has to. One boy with a gun who’s going to take down the whole world but is starting with his older brother.
Ted realizes in that moment that there’s nothing left of his brother. The Pete who maintains a 4.0 GPA like his life depends on it and who comes home with a black eye more often than not and who started wearing a bow tie in the eighth grade because he thought it was “high class” is dead. He probably died alone, and scared. Fuck, don’t think about that. Ted can’t save him now, maybe he never could, but all he knows now is that he needs to get out. He makes a break for the door.
Bang!
The warning shot shatters one of Ms. Mulberry’s potted plants, sending soil spraying everywhere and ceramic shards clattering across the floor. Ted yells and dives behind another table. Fuck fuck fuck .
“ Jesus , you are a fucking idiot.” The disdain in Pete’s voice is palpable as he crosses the room, the sound of his footsteps growing closer. “I thought your self-preservation instincts would’ve kicked in by now. You are really good at only caring about yourself.”
Ted inches away from the sound of Pete’s converse on the tile floor, looking around for a weapon, anything he could use to slow his pursuer. But there’s nothing, and Ted is trapped.
“I feel like I’ve been living in your shadow my whole life,” Pete continues. “It’s always ‘Oh, there’s Ted’s nerdy little brother ’. You know how embarrassing that is? Being associated with you all the time? No one even likes you.”
“Oh please. Plenty of people like me,” Ted counters with a snort, but it comes out much less confident than intended to, more like a plead. Like he’s trying to convince himself.
Pete laughs, the sound nowhere near the awkward squawking chuckle he’d had when he was alive. This laugh is humorless and icy cold. “Name one person. Paul and Bill don’t like you. Charlotte certainly didn’t like you. Jenny didn’t even like you. Picked some guy from Clivesdale over you, holy shit. Now that’s embarrassing.”
“She didn’t— God, will you shut up? You’re not above me, alright? As if you’ve gotten within a three foot radius of a girl in your life.” Christ, he’s getting under Ted’s skin. Why is he letting him do that?
“Your life has never amounted to anything. And it never will. Not just here, but everywhere. Doesn’t that make you sad?” Pete ignores him, now standing directly in front of Ted’s table. He lifts the gun.
“What the fuck are you saying,” Ted snaps, but his voice wavers a little. Not just here but everywhere? What the fuck does that mean?
“You’ll know soon enough.”
Bang!
Ted screams, a full on girl-in-horror-movie shriek as the bullet drills into his shoulder. Hot blood spurts out of the wound and splatters onto the floor, holy shit there’s so much blood, and it keeps coming, pooling on the white tile and soaking into his shirt. The pain comes next, spreading through his entire body, leaving each and every neuron screaming in agony. His vision goes black, then white, his ears ring and then everything goes silent. Then it starts all over again.
Ted slips on the blood as he tries to scramble to his feet, distantly, he hears Pete laughing. Ted had almost forgotten he was there. He feels Pete clamp a fist around the back of his collar, yanking him off the sopping floor and, somehow, into the air where he dangles helplessly, drifting in and out of consciousness.
Ted’s bloody clothing sticks to his body and his head lolls to the side, unable to hold up its own weight anymore. He feels his body give up on him in the same moment Pete plunges a hand into his stomach, twisting his innards and ripping them out of his body with a triumphant grunt. Ted doesn’t even feel it. Instead, everything goes black, and his brother drops his lifeless body to the ground.