Hell Is Empty - Part 2
Billy Hargrove x GN S/O
AN: To all the people who requested a second part, this one's for you! Sorry about the long wait and thank you so much for being patient with me! Enjoy!
Word Count: 1,994
Main Page
Warnings: PTSD, Panic attacks, Murder.
“What the fuck!? What the fuck was that!?” Mason babbled hysterically in the passenger seat, his wide eyes darting toward the rearview every few seconds –like he was paranoid that they were being followed– while the girls in back, who were practically clinging to each other, began to sob.
You remained stubbornly silent as everyone else broke down, knowing that if you opened your mouth right now, you’d begin screaming and wouldn’t stop until your voice gave out. So instead, you kept your shaking hands on the wheel and your gaze glued onto the road in front of you as you took turns way too fast, driving all of you directly to the local police station.
You numbly parked in the first available spot you saw and climbed out of the car, ignoring Jade –who was begging you to take her home– in favor of walking right in the front door. You heard the other three exit the car and join you inside as you reached the front desk, demanding to speak to the sheriff to report a murder.
Everything moved quickly after that.
The four of you were split up and you were taken to a bare room that contained nothing but a table, two chairs, and a large mirror that took up the majority of one wall. While there, you were asked all sorts of questions, but you stonewalled until you had the officer interrogating you confirm that they’d dispatched a patrol car out to the house to look for Tara.
“Alright, kid. Tell me what happened.” The officer said and you took a deep breath to ground yourself before starting at the beginning.
“It was just a stupid dare. Everyone’s heard the rumors about the house on Cherry Lane, but no one believes them…” You relayed quietly as you wrung your fingers together nervously. You openly admitted to trespassing with your friends and left no detail out as you told the officer how, what should have been nothing but quick in and out, ended in a horror show with the arrival of a teen that you didn’t recognize.
“What did he look like?” The officer asked and you dropped your gaze to the gray table top, your knee bouncing restlessly as you thought back to that terrifying moment where everything went wrong.
“He had uh, a blond mullet. It was curly. Um, tan skin, blue eyes. And I mean really blue, like they were almost glowing?” You said slowly and, when the officer didn’t immediately respond or prompt you to keep going, you hesitantly looked up. “Are you okay, sir?” You asked hesitantly, your brows furrowing when you noticed how pale the man looked. It was as if he’d seen a ghost.
“Yeah. Yes. Could you tell me what happened after you saw him?” The man stumbled over his words, his eyes darting over the mirror a few times as you continued recounting what had happened to Tara, the horrible screaming, the loud scraping of the woodchipper…
The officer vacated the room not very long after that, leaving you sitting alone with not even a clock to let you keep track of how much time had passed as you waited for him to return, or for someone to let you out, whichever came first.
An undetermined amount of time later, the door opened with a click and a severe looking woman entered, the badge pinned to her chest identifying her as the sheriff. You flinched when the door slammed shut behind her and warily watched her as she approached the table you were sitting at, the woman coming to a stop right where the officer from before had been standing while talking to you.
“Your guardian is here to pick you up, let’s go.” The woman said as she handed you a bag of your belongings, the ones that had been confiscated when you’d arrived. You stared at her blankly for a moment before shooting to your feet when she turned on her heel –your stomach rolling when she motioned for you to follow in a way that was far too reminiscent of a certain blond teen– and made her way over to the door without looking back.
“What about Tara? Did they find her? Or the other boy?” You asked as she led you down the hallway and back toward the main area. When she didn’t immediately respond, you stopped in the middle of the corridor and crossed your arms over your chest, silently refusing to move until she gave you something, anything.
The sheriff stopped a few paces away from you before turning to face you with a sigh. “There was no sign of your friend, there was no evidence of anyone else having been in the house other than yourself and your peers. So, in short, there was no sign of Tara Hall and no indication of foul play.”
“But the woodchipper–” You barely got the words out before she was interrupting you.
“That house is one story. There is no basement, I know that for a fact. And Neil never owned a woodchipper.” She stated matter of factly and, when you opened your mouth to ask some follow up questions, she cut you off with a look.
“You and your buddies had a bit too much to drink, maybe even dabbled in certain illicit substances, and your mind played tricks on you. Now get on home before I decide to stop being nice and make every single one of you pee in a cup.” She snapped, her face twisting up with a mix of anger, frustration and something you couldn’t identify before she turned away and began walking again.
You silently trailed after her, her words running circles in your mind as you stepped out into the lobby, your guardian rushing over to you the moment you walked into view. You couldn’t see any of your friends so you figured that they’d gone home already and made a mental note to text them later as your guardian ushered you out into the car and took you straight home after a short conversation with the sheriff.
You dodged all their questions on the drive by claiming you were tired, staring out the passenger window as they began scolding you, only half listening to their disappointed rant about how irresponsible you are for drinking while underage and then to go breaking and entering.
You silently accepted your punishment of getting your car taken away –which would be picked up from the station later by a family friend– as well as being grounded, with no chance of going to another party anytime soon, until further notice. You nodded in agreement when prompted to and popped the car door open the second that your guardian had parked in the driveway, immediately going straight to your bedroom after getting into the house.
You plugged your phone in and left it on the nightstand, since it was at pretty low battery, impatiently waiting until you heard your guardian rooting around downstairs in the living room before pulling your computer out of your backpack. You sat on your bed, setting your computer on your lap, and stopped to listen again –just to make doubly sure that you weren’t about to be interrupted– before opening a new browser.
You had known the second that the sheriff had initially refused to give you any information about the house on Cherry Lane –and what happened to Tara– that it would be up to you to conduct your own investigation in order to get some answers since all the adults seemed to want to sweep the entire situation under the rug to be forgotten.
You began by looking up the house’s address and, when nothing came up for that, you stopped to think for a minute before quickly typing in 1984 –the year it happened– along with Hawkins, IN… huffing in frustration when that didn’t unearth anything either.
From there you tried to cast a wider net by just searching any murders that happened in the same year before narrowing it back down with ‘Cherry Lane domestic’, but again… nada. And your attempts just devolved into simple, short searches with words like, woodchipper murder, dead teen, drunken father kills son. You even went through accident records just in case they’d buried it under a false ruling.
It was strange, the way that there was just nothing. No hint of anything sinister having happened in the small town of Hawkins… like the story was just that, a story. But you knew what you’d seen, knew that you weren’t crazy, though that didn’t change the fact that you needed undeniable proof… but you had no idea how to get it.
And then you thought of something that could lead you to what you so desperately needed. Something that could’ve easily been missed.
Your fingers flew across the keyboard in your excitement, adrenaline making your heart pound as you selected the link that came up and navigated the website, clicking through digital pages as your eyes scanned over the screen obsessively.
Then you froze, your finger hovering over the mouse when you found what you’d been looking for.
There. In the yearbook for Hawkins High in 1984 as a part of the graduating class, was a picture of him. It was the spitting image of the teen you’d seen at the house, the one who’d taken Tara, all the way down to that terrifying smile.
Your fingers went numb as you stared wide-eyed at the screen –as if the small photo would simply disappear if you blinked– and your gaze dipped down to the name typed in standard font in order to read the name there.
Billy Hargrove.
Then it hit you all at once.
He was dead. You were looking at a picture of a dead kid.
One who’d been brutally murdered.
One who had killed your friend.
You slammed the laptop shut and only once you couldn’t see that face anymore, did you notice how fast your breathing had gotten, leaving you practically hyperventilating on your bed. You swallowed hard as you squeezed your eyes shut, slowly counting down from thirty until you felt less like you were about to throw up or pass out.
You heard the stairs creak and you cursed under your breath when you recognized your guardian’s gait as they climbed the steps, most likely to check up on you. You leapt from the bed on socked feet and stuffed your laptop back into your backpack before rushing back to bed, turning out the bedside lamp and settling beneath your blankets seconds before the knob turned and the door to your room was pushed open.
You took measured breaths, keeping your eyes closed even as the silence began to wear on you. And, right as you began to think that you’d been found out, you heard the door close with a soft click and opened your eyes and rolled over onto your back in order to sit up and look around your dark bedroom.
You didn’t bother getting out of your bed or collecting your laptop, not yet anyway since you didn’t think you could stomach looking at that picture again, and grabbed your phone off the nightstand. You sent off a text to the group chat in the hopes that one of them would respond before flopping back down onto your mussed bed, resting your phone face down on your stomach as you stared at the ceiling.
Billy Hargrove.
You closed your eyes, trying in vain to stop thinking about it, but it was like that night’s events were burned into your mind. The hair-raising feeling you got when you saw him, that spine-chilling smile, Tara’s panicked screaming, it was all right there. Vivid. Like it had happened just minutes ago as opposed to hours.
You pressed your palms into your eyes until you saw black spots dotting your vision and tried not to cry.
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Taglist: @garnishclickicon, @yesiamshe-74, and @mihawksdemoness
