CHAPTER 4
THE BODY
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When the inevitable time would come when either Laurel would be told that Will was alive, or Will was dead, she prepared herself for how she'd react. If alive, calm but cautious. If dead, she had no clue how much control over her emotions she'd have.
When the police told her family they found Will's dead body in a lake she never thought that not a single tear would come out. At the time of her thinking this she was sitting, speechless and sickly pale, on the old sofa in their living room. She barely even noticed the gaping hole in the wall her mother created after seeing some sort of monster erupt from it. Everything when in one ear, out the other, as if she was just a spirit of the girl she once was. Stoic on the outside, but mind racing on the inside. The only problem was she couldn't comprehend anything in her mind either.
Her mother, Joyce, seemed to be acting the same way, totally oblivious to Hopper's explanation of how Will died.
Laurel's head started to clear up, as if she resurfaced from being underwater, hearing her mother's voice. "Whoever you found, is not my boy. It's not Will."
Hopper shook his head. "Joyce-"
"No, you don't understand. I talked to him, a half hour ago..."
And just like that, Laurel went back underwater. She was drowning out the sounds all around her, just as she was drowning under the waves too. Talking to Will. The lake. The monster. Steve and her camera. It was all too much to understand at once. Laurel sunk into the couch, glancing down at her dirt covered yellow sneakers. They were swirling-no, the floor was swirling. The floor beneath her almost carried her away.
She would've fainted at any second if it weren't for Jonathan's hand placed on her shoulder, almost startling her. She resurfaced. They didn't need to speak to understand each other; they never did.
"It's after him, he's in danger, we have to find him!" Joyce cried out as Jonathan stepped forward to try and console her; to no avail.
"What exactly was this thing?" Hopper asked. Laurel was surprised at how calm he was through this whole ordeal. "Was it some kinda animal you said-"
"No, it was...it was almost human, but it wasn't. It had these long arms, and...it didn't have a face..."
Hopper sighed, trying to get her to sit down. Jonathan seemed too fed up with everything as he stormed off. Laurel thought it'd be best to follow. Usually Jonathan would keep his door wide open, as it was normal to expect his twin to follow him in times like this, but this time it was shut. Laurel gulped, her dizziness leading her to lean on the doorway. She pushed herself off of it, and into her room. Closing the door, she rubbed her eyes and fell onto her bed.
Laurel wanted to cry, crying always helped. But for some reason it wouldn't happen. Her tiredness refused to keep her eyes open, but she felt too vulnerable on her bed.
Lowering herself onto the floor, she crawled under her bed and laid on the carpet beneath. All throughout her childhood under her bed was her space, and no one elses. Well, maybe besides Jonathan the odd time. But she felt secluded, and safe. As she laid on her stomach, curled up in a ball, the night began to sweep her away as she fell into a sleep.
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In just a few minutes the three Byres would be led into the morgue. Hopper suggested they'd do this to prove to Joyce that he was really dead; Laurel wanted nothing to do with it. But deep down she wanted to see his face one more time, so she followed through.
A glass window stood between the body and the Byres. The body laid under a sheet, as if it was some magic trick ready to be unvailed. Ta-Da! He's really dead! It all seemed like a joke to Laurel. Soon the cameras would appear and they'd be on some prank show.
But the moment the doctor pulled back the tarp Laurel knew this wasn't a joke. Will's body was pale, and cold. And dead. It only took one second for Laurel to feel like she was going to explode, and storm out, along with Jonathan feeling sick behind her. With blurry vision she somehow made it back into the waiting room, sat in a chair and held her throbbing head in her hands.
A few minutes passed before Hopper changed seats, sitting closer to Laurel. She took her head out of her hands as he began to speak to her. "How's your mom doing?"
Laurel shrugged.
"How long has this stuff been going on? With the lights, and uh...Will and the thing in the wall?"
Laurel finally brought up the courage to speak up. "Since the phone call, the one I picked up, I think. She's had anxiety problems in the past. Got it from her. But...this is different."
Laurel took a deep breath, feeling Hopper's stare on her as her eyes fell to the floor. Laurel sniffled, a few tears making their way to the surface. "I think she'll be okay, we'll be okay. Mom's tough. Don't get that from her though."
"She is, and you are too," Hopper said while placing a hand on her jean jacket. Laurel highly doubted the second statement, and Hopper seemed to notice. "Hey, your whole family is."
The corner's of Laurel's mouth twitched into a smile slightly, before pulling back.
"Ma'am I need you to stop!" A voice suddenly shouted, the door into the morgue slamming open as the worker chased after her mother, Jonathan following.
"I don't know what you think that thing is in there, but that is not my son!" Joyce screamed at him. Laurel's eyebrows scrunched up, but returned when she realized she was probably being doubtful as always.
"Joyce, wait a second-"
"No!"
The worker shouted at her to calm down even more, until she had enough and stormed out. Of course, Jonathan followed, so Laurel did too. Somehow she was running so fast that both twins had to jump in the car and drive after her. Finally closer into town they drove up beside her.
"Mom, would you just get in?" Jonathan asked.
"No, I need to think, just go home," their mother replied.
"Mom, please come back in the car!" Laurel attempted, but it didn't seem to work as she ignored the two, until Jonathan jumped out of the car and ran after her. They were just down the street and Laurel could still hear every word they were saying. The fight went on and on.
Finally Jonathan stormed off and came back into the car. He was clearly pissed at her delusions. Laurel on the other hand was in the middle of the two. Her mother might be right, what if she could tell that wasn't him? But they were having his funeral soon, and that was very real.
"Let's just go home," Jonathan said as the two began to put on their seatbelts, but Laurel's wasn't budging.
"Stupid...seatbelt...just...go!" Laure screamed in anger, trying to rip out the stuck seatbelt.
It took a few seconds for Laurel to realize Jonathan was calling her name, and how she was hysterically crying. "It won't work Jonathan! I can't-I can't..."
Jonathan knew she wasn't just talking about the seatbelt anymore as he leaned over and held her in a hug.
She didn't use the seatbelt on the way home.
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The two twins later that day had been standing in a funeral home, looking to buy a casket. Jonathan just wanted to get it over with, but it was hard when barely any of them were paying attention to what kind of wood it was made of or what colour the interior was. The worker was leading them to the next casket when a figure appeared at the entrance to the room.
What was Nancy doing here?
Laurel refused to believe that Nancy even wanted to look at her again, but here she was, here for her.
"I'll be back," Laurel said while exiting the room, awaiting her fate with the Wheeler girl. Did she want to yell at her? Did she want more questions about the photos? Did she want to end their acquaintance relationship?
"Hey," Laurel stuttered.
"Hey...your mother said you'd be here," Nancy said. Laurel nodded her head slowly. "I just...can we talk for a second?"
Nancy lead Laurel out into the hallway and the two sat on the bench. What Laurel didn't expect was for her to pull out the ripped up, now taped back together, image she had collected from the camera incident. Luckily it was just a photo of Barb by the pool, sitting on the diving board.
Nancy had asked her if she knew what that strange thing in the corner was. It looked like a figure, but it could've been a tree.
"My brother's better at photography terms...it could be perspective distortion, but I wasn't using a wide angle. But...it's definitely weird looking. Could be just a tree."
"And you're sure you didn't see anyone else out there?" Nancy asked.
"Yeah, I guess...it was just my brother and I." The events were unclear to Laurel, she could barely remember taking that photo. Until she remembered the strange sound. "I-I think she was there one second, and then...not."
"The cops are saying she ran away, but they don't know Barb. And I went back to Steve's, and I thought I saw something. Some weird man, or...I don't know what it was." Even if Nancy sounded crazy, and felt crazy, Laurel sat and listened kindly. Something about all these crazy occurrences made it more and more likely to be true, but wasn't that just in Will's comic books?
Nancy suddenly shook her head. "I-I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come here today, I'm so sorry." But Nancy had nothing to be sorry about, she was the next piece in the puzzle of this whole ordeal that Laurel was trying to figure out in her confused head.
Nancy began to walk away before Laurel spoke up. "What did he look like?"
Nancy turned to face her. "What?"
"The thing you saw in the woods, what did it look like?"
"I-I don't know. It was almost like he didn't-"
"Didn't have a face?" Laurel finished, wondering if it was the same monster that her mother saw.
The terrified look Nancy had gave her the right answer.
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There was only one way they were going to be able to see this picture better, and that was going to the school. The two girls found themselves in the dark room attempting to further develop the photo.
"So...you're doing what?" Nancy said in confusion as Laurel went to work.
"Brightening, enlarging."
"Did your mom say anything else? Like um...where it might have gone to?"
Laurel hummed in thought. "No, all I heard was that it came out of the wall. Then she ran."
Laurel placed the blank page into the water as Nancy asked another question. "How long does this take?"
"A few minutes." Laurel was desperately trying to keep conversation to a minimum, given the fact that she didn't wanna bring up that incident.
But Nancy kept on wanting to talk. "Have you been doing this for awhile?"
"Ever since Jonathan started, I followed. Since middle school, I think...I guess it's easier to observe than engage."
Laurel glanced to her left to see Nancy giving a warm smile, as if trying to understand her strange ways. "I know, it's...weird."
"No..."
"No, it kinda is. Sometimes people don't really say what they're thinking. When they're alone, they're usually their normal selves. But...if you capture the perfect moment, you see that person underneath."
"Who was I underneath? When you took that picture?" Nancy asked, making Laurel's heart beat faster. She sighed in annoyance at herself.
"I-I really shouldn't have taken that, I don't know what I was thinking. I'm...sorry. It's just..."
"That's it! That's what I saw," Nancy suddenly interrupted, pointing at the developed photo. Laurel turned to the picture, her breath catching in her throat at the more defined photo. It was a tall, dark figure that loomed eerily in the corner. It wasn't the figure of a man, nothing close.
"I didn't believe my mom at first...that's definitely not a human." Laurel shuddered at the thought of being in the woods at the same time as that thing.
"She said...that wasn't Will's body, she thinks he's alive," Laurel continued.
"And if he's alive, Barb could be too," Nancy added on, the two glancing at each other, piecing it together.
This puzzle seemed to being almost finished, as long as they kept searching for answers.
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love these bisexual partners in crime