Stranger Things: Harringrove

Ch. 2: The Beginning (Pt. 2)

Words: 6215

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Billy's heart races in his chest, they leave the bus and walk through the woods to find the train tracks from before. "Say, Billy, how'd you find us out here anyway?" Max asks. These two are walking at the back of the group. The blonde shakes his head. "Just took a wild guess and picked a direction." He throws his hands up into the air in exaggeration, he pauses the talking to light a cigarette. "Seen Harrington's car parked next to some woods, so I kinda figured he was with you or something...." he sighs. "The other places I checked kept telling me different..... It was like a fucking goose chase, Shitbird."

Max places her hands in her hoodie pockets feeling a raising frustration enter her heart.

"Okay, but how'd you know I was here?" she quietly asks. "I could've been anywhere else, why'd you think I was with Steve?"

He shrugs again. "The dumbass apparently spends a lot of time with you guys, babysitting or something." The blonde shakes his head. "Figured I could ask him where you were."

"What if he-"

"You ask too many questions, Shitbird. Do you ever shut up?" He's beginning to get irritated. Why? His brain is really foggy, and he isn't thinking clearly. This is why he didn't bring up leaving the group yet. The thought just simply hasn't crossed his mind.

"You shouldn't talk to her like that," Lucas speaks up. Billy glares at him with a small head tilt and a sinister smile. "Whatch' gonna do 'bout it?" It scares Lucas enough to look back forwards again.

Dustin suddenly changes the topic to Dart and the bus. "Ya think it was Dart?"

"He was tiny a few days ago," Max pipes in, speeding up to walk with the two middle schoolers, leaving Billy to walk alone. He's completely fine with that. He stumbles a few times only because he's dragging his feet. Fuck, he's tired. The stiffness in his shoulders is veginning to hurt a lot.

"He's molted three times already," Dustin corrects.

"Like a fucking reptile?" Billy mumbles out. Dustin shrugs a nod. Steve turns to look at the blonde, he gives him a confused look. "What?" Billy makes his eyes big as he shakes his head to look over to the brunette with his head facing down a little bit.

"Steve." Dustin taps him on the arm, the brunette tares his eyes away from the blonde and down the the curly haired boy. "Reptiles molt their skin."

"...."

"They shed-"

"Yeah, yeah. I got that." Steve shakes his head and turns back to looking forward.

"You think he'll molt again?" Max asks.

"Maybe." Dustin shrugs, keeping his flashlight to the ground. "Once he's fully grown, he'll be huge. I can only assume."

"He won't just be feeding on cats-" Steve half-heartedly mentions. Lucas turns Dustin to face him.

The group stops walking.

"Cat? Dart ate a cat??" Dustin shakes his head. "N-no, he didn't. No."

Billy isn't sure what they're talking about, but he assumes it's some kind of creature that can molt it's skin like a reptile that eats cats. 'Are they talking about those things at the bus?' he wonders. His vision blurs slightly, so he blinks hard a few times to stop it. Steve happens to glance back at the blonde in the back. 'He really doesn't look so good. What happened?' he wonders.

Steve stops with the two and turns to look at Dustin. "What do you mean? 'He ate, Muse'."

"Muse? Who's Muse?" Max asks, looking at Steve.