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“Found you.”
The chase was at an end; the predator had finally caught his prey. It hadn’t been as easy as he’d hoped; they were cunning little things hiding away in places they knew he couldn’t reach, whispering words of encouragement to each other alongside their ambitions of escape. He’d give the girls an ounce of credit for the sheer tenacity of it all if he didn’t find them to be such a thorn in his side.
Maxine and Holly had put up a good fight, it had to be said, but all games must come to an end. Didn’t they realise this was his domain after all? Absolutely nothing slips through his grasp here; that’s by design, a mere glimpse of the perfection that will soon befall the cesspool called Hawkins.
Something truly remarkable is being built under his watchful eye, better than the prison of normality they delude themselves into believing is freedom.
Fools, the pair of them. Try as he might, he’s never been the most patient of souls, but he had tried all he could. He can only be merciful for so long, and now that generosity has finally ceased.
How dare they. He gave them all he had! True freedom and a new lease on life. A paradise in which neither girl had to hide! And they spat in his face. So desperate to return to that excuse of a town, back to normality, to chains.
He’ll make them pay for this damning transgression; let them suffer for their lack of vision. It will be a kinder fate than he was ever afforded.
They wanted to see the monster? The beast behind his ashen flesh was just tearing and howling to break free.
So be it. He won’t show either girl mercy, not anymore.
Complete and utter terror sweeps over Maxine and Holly; the fear, sweet unadulterated fear, is so palpable it reverberates off the very walls, shaking and trembling much like the girls in front of him.
Good, they should be afraid. Let him feast upon it; such visceral emotion only makes his job easier in the end. If they won’t accept his salvation, then let them taste oblivion.
They call him Vecna, the undead, the ghoul. A demon from the depths of hell itself. He feels his body begin to warp and crack with this identity; the oh-so-familiar carcass of vines starts to emerge from his arms, black and binding and utterly frightening.
Vecna feels powerful, unstoppable. Nothing will stand in his way.
He drinks in the fear as he takes a moment to truly relish in his victory. Oh, how he’ll enjoy watching them splinter and break. The weak ones always do in the end.
The monstrous claw of his appendage makes a deadly rise towards its helpless victims. He takes those final steps down the wooden staircase, prolonging the torment. Holly looks as if she’s about to faint, her little face bone white with horror. And Maxine? She appears devastated; dare he admit there’s an undeniable flash of pity in those blue eyes of hers.
Why? Accept your fate.
He has. And he’s happier than ever for it. Can’t they see that?
Before Vecna can cast the killing blow, Maxine’s aforementioned look of pity bores into his very soul, stopping him right in his conquest. It seems he’s now frozen in place. Unable to cause any lasting damage like he so desperately desired.
His body locks up. Frozen in place, Vecna hasn’t felt this way before, not in a long, long time, not since –
“How could you, Henry?” Maxine asks as Holly cowers behind her, acutely seeking comfort from the older girl in front of her.
Funny, he was certain Alice would perform a similar response in the presence of their mother.
Where did that come from?
Maxine asks him the same question; she calls him by that name, that horrible, odious name. The boy – he tried so hard to cast aside and mould him into something better, someone powerful and impenetrable.
Henry Creel was nothing. But as Vecna, he was a titan amongst men, someone ultimately worthwhile. Humanity feared Vecna and spoke his name as if it were a symbol of tyranny, a creature beyond this world. Beyond the scope of their pitiful minds.
Henry, on the other hand? No one cared about little old Henry Creel. He was just a mama’s boy, a soft and inconsequential speck of a thing. Not a person on this planet wanted him.
That’s not true.
A freak, a mistake. How dare Maxine utter his pathetic self in Vecna’s presence?
Vecna attempts again to move his body in any capacity, still stuck on the steps of this godforsaken house.
Both Holly and Maxine take notice of this; Vecna can particularly smell the newfound hope engulfing their tiny forms, and it makes him feel enraged in a way he never has before.
He growls at them; this is his house. Who are they to confine him?!
“She loved you, Henry.”
A strike of fear ploughs through Vecna at those words from Maxine’s mouth, who trembles as she stands her ground, neither moving forward nor backward. Holly gasps at her statement, cheeks glowing pink with realisation.
No. No. No. Vecna saw them flee into the caves; there was no way to escape them. Not a chance in hell they could’ve found anything else. He made sure of that, spending years burying and confining these pathetic parts of him to the deepest recesses of his mind. Both Maxine and Holly sense his mounting anxiety, the light at the end of the tunnel, as it were. They do not falter in pressing further, too courageous to give up the fight.
“We saw it all, Henry, your memories. Your family, Brenner and the lab, the high school.” Maxine confirms their crimes against him, her trademark cockiness floating back to the surface.
He feels a sense of violation not felt in decades, like an exposed nerve set aflame. Leave it to little Holly Wheeler to deliver the killing blow as she proclaims a name he hasn’t said aloud since that grotesque night. A name he was completely unworthy to say, the name of the girl he killed.
Someone he loved, his only love.
“Patty Newby, we know about her too. She was your girlfriend.” Holly squeaks.
Vecna wants to scream, but no sound leaves his lips; he remains immobile as Maxine doesn’t hesitate to present her attack. The ace up her ratty sleeve.
“Patty, she was kind, beautiful, understanding… She was the only one who stood by you… cared for you. What a voice as well, I’ll tell you that much.”
Stop, stop it. Please. Maxine marches on, unfazed by the growing discomfort of the creature in front of her.
“After all she did for you… I’m glad she didn’t have to see what became of you. Patty deserved better than that. What would she think if she saw this?”
Finally it seems he and Maxine can agree on something. He can see her, Patty, so clearly now in his mind's eye.
She was exquisite, the most beautiful of souls to walk upon this godforsaken Earth. How he had adored her, her beauty, her loving touch, that melody of her voice. Her capacity for mercy and love even for someone as vile as he.
Vecna finds himself able to crook his skull-like head; he uses this brief range of motion to gaze upon his vine-encased arm. The arm of a demon, he tries to imagine threading through her curls with it. Like he would when he was younger, before he had such a power alongside a damning lust for blood.
“Would she have accepted you as you are now, Henry? I think she would’ve been horrified.”
The arms of Vecna, cherishing her, holding her. For all Patty’s bravery, he’s certain she would’ve screamed at him and run far away to safety, away from the monster who adored her. He’d murdered countless with these hands after all. So steeped in blood they may as well have been red themselves. Hands of a demon such as he – never deserved such an angel, for she burnt at his very command.
Even in the end Patty let him kiss her. He remembers it as if it were yesterday: one more greedy, desperate kiss from her pretty lips before he sent them both to hell. Before she fell at his hands into the dark depths of his memory.
“I want to ask you something before you murdered her. The girl who believed in your goodness, she cried for you, Henry. Adored a monster like you till her bitter end. What were her last words to you before you killed her?”
Maxine’s remarks are ones of damnation, her steely gaze and resolve ever strengthening.
Vecna feels something he believed himself to be utterly incapable of. Tears start to cloud his vision. Wet and real, rolling down his gaunt cheeks.
Her last words are something he’ll never ever let himself forget.
“I love you.” Patty had said, clear as anything.
I love you, Henry Creel. I love you.
And Maxine thought she knew what loss was; she didn’t know the half of it, the agony, the pain. He lived with it all every day, clawing at him, stripping away at the very last fragments of his heart.
What little there was belonged to Patty Newby; it always had, and it always will.
“You can’t admit it to us, to yourself or to her. You murdered her in cold blood. You’re a coward, Henry Creel. Patty’s love was wasted on a bastard like you.”
WASTED. WASTED. WASTED.
Maxine’s statement is the final straw to his sanity, what little there was to begin with. Vecna feels the power consume him in a way it never had before – dangerous and supremely unpredictable. Black veins start to trickle their way up his throat. As he starts to move and shift, his body shaking and contorting, the lights around the house flicker and pop in equal measure. He can hear a guttural scream, unsure if it’s from himself or someone else.
Henry, 001, Peter Ballard, Mr Whatsit, and Vecna. He’s gone by many names and identities. But only one that ever mattered to her.
If he focuses hard enough, he thinks he can still hear her sweet voice telling him he’s a miracle, someone good. Worthwhile.
My Henry, my Captain Midnight.
He’s glad she’s not here to witness what he’s about to do. Blood will be spilt, and he will dance in it, dance on their very graves.
I’m sorry, so very sorry.
Vecna tells the girls to be prepared, and for once they heed his command. Ready to run. They won’t outwit him a second time; no second chances, no weakness to exploit, just him and them and the thrill of the hunt. He hopes they suffer dearly, that it burns as he butchers them.
Run, rabbit, run.