Chapter Text
The hallway was a blur of smeared crimson. The air, thick with the metallic tang of blood, felt heavy in his lungs, making every breath a struggle. He didn't look at the walls anymore; he only looked at that elevator button, his finger hammering it in a frantic, rhythmic desperation.
Then, the silence broke.
It started with a low, wet vibration that he felt in his teeth more than he heard with his ears. Then came the scuttle - a sound like a thousand dry fingernails dragging across glass at high speed. It wasn't one footstep after another; it was a chaotic, multi-limbed scratching that bounced off the metal walls, making it impossible to tell how close it really was.
He froze. His heart hammered against his ribs so hard it blurred his vision. Just as the elevator doors groaned and began to slide shut, a shadow flickered at the edge of the corridor. It was a pale streak of motion, too fast for the human eye to track—just a blur of snapping joints and the sound of wind being torn apart.
The last thing he heard wasn't a roar, but a soft, bubbling sigh right against the closing gap of the door. A sound of something hungry finally finding its mark.
———
“i’ll take your X-Men 134!” he shouts at Dustin, whose bike is already falling far behind. They had been lost in their D&D campaign at Mike’s until Mrs. Wheeler’s shouting finally broke the spell.
Will keeps pedaling, the wheels rattling against the cracked road as he passes the familiar “RESTRICTED AREA” sign he used to stare at and wonder about. Tonight, though, he doesn’t even look twice. As his speed climbs, the world falls into a vacuum of eerie, pressurized silence.
The weak beam from his bike light flickers across the road, catching broken branches and scattered gravel before plunging them back into darkness. Leaves rustle somewhere deep in the trees. Wind whistles between the branches in thin, trembling cries that make his stomach twist.
Cold sweat drips down Will’s forehead. His hands tighten around the handlebars, slick and slippery now.
He have used to this, biking alone in the middle of the woods like hundreds times before. Only tonight the cracking sound between his old bike and the road sounds a bit loud and different.
It wasn't coming from his bike.
The realization hit him a split second before the collision. He slammed into a tall, staggering figure. The last thing he saw was a pale hand traced with bulging purple veins before his bike skidded away. Will tumbled into the dirt, alone in the dark with a stranger whose neck had been ripped open.
Will froze. He wondered if this was a dream and he had fallen asleep at Mike’s house, but the way that thing groaned and the twitching sounds it made were more real than anything.
It motivates him to crambled up, running into the woods as fast as he could. Years of wandering these trails with Jonathan saved him; his muscles remembered every root and dip in the path even when his mind was screaming. He reached his front porch, fumbling blindly with his keys. Behind him, the guttural moans grew louder and louder.
The moment he wrenched the door open and threw himself inside, a heavy weight slammed against the wood. The frame shuddered. Using every ounce of his small body, Will throws his weight against the door, locks it, and collapses.
Hands on his head, Will hid in the bathroom. Everything got too loud and too quiet at the same time. the scratching of branches, the groan of floorboards, and his breathing that he tried to hold back. Will stayed in that same position for hours until a familiar voice called his name, pulling him back to reality.
“Will? What are you doing here? Are you okay?” said Jonathan, who had just found his brother tucked beside the toilet afrer a long shift.
Will looked up and it all replayed in his head. He cried out, he had been holding back his tears for what felt like forever. With Jonathan and his mom kneeling worriedly in front of him, he wiped his eyes and nose until they were all red.
“Z-Zombies, i saw them on my way home.” He couldn’t control his tears, his voice so high-pitched and broken that he feared nobody would understand him. “Its neck got bent over a-and-”
“Will, did Mike show you horror films again?” Joyce asked softly, wiping the tears that just formed in his eyes.
“Mom! You have to believe me! I-I saw them” he said, throwing his hands in the air. “Jonathan, you believe me, right?”
Sighing, Jonathan took Will’s hand and rested the other on his shoulder. “Will, you should go to sleep, and i’ll take you and Chester to the park tomorrow, alright?”
“Jon-” Will wanted to protest, but he couldn’t even say anything properly at this point. His throat hurt and his head felt like it was burning from anger and fear.
Eventually, he curled up in Joyce’s arms while she played with his hair and sang him to sleep.
————
“Jonathan! Mrs. Byers!! Please open the door!” Someone pounded on the door frame so hard that it woke the whole house up. Will bolted upright, that same icy dread creeping down his spine again.
Just as Jonathan opened the door, the boy rushed inside and slammed it shut immediately.
“Steve? What are you doing here?” Jonathan dont mind showing how annoyed he was by this popular kid’s appearance at this hour.
“T-There are dead people walking around my house! Like, how could they still walk if they’re dead? There were like five or six people or something, i dont know, they groaned at me and and-” Steve breathed hard, like he had never been able to breathe before. He slid down the wall to the floor.
Jonathan slowly turned his head back toward Will, who was frozen next to his mom. What the fuck is happening? Jonathan thought to himself and just stood there, staring briefly at Steve while trying to process all this information with his half-awake brain.
“Steve, calm down. Tell me what happened.”
He could see Steve’s eyes widen even in the dark. He probably thought Jonathan wouldn’t believe him, and Jonathan really couldn’t belive any of this bullshit that feels like it was pulled straight from Dawn of the Dead, but for Will’s sake, and for his family’s safety, he needed to know what was actually going on.
“I was at this party and got home late, but when I was about to pull into my backyard I fucking hit someone, and I thought oh fuck, but then that person just stood up and-”
Jonathan tilted his head.
“Their organs, they were everywhere. Some of it even got stuck on my car hood. And then a bunch of other people that looked like that reached my car.” Steve had his head in his hands. “I backed up and immediately drive to your house since it’s the closest.”
A heavy silence fell over the room, broken only by a small, trembling voice from the corner.
“I saw one, too”.