Billy Hargrove: Possessed Trash Bandit

For @awickedplacethisis​

Steve was always aware of the motion lights around the swimming pool, after Barb.  He’d stood at the ready menacing maple leaves that had fluttered in front of the sensor, inflicted mutual terror on at least five deer, and the evening a Canada goose landed clumsily on his roof, thudding and scraping as it rolled the entire way down, he nearly batted it into Christmas dinner.  

He was immediately aware when the lurching human being crept from the door to the Upside-Down in the tree by his pool.  

At first he just grabbed his bat, wondering why he didn’t screw a piece of plywood over the hole, or at least wrap the whole tree in duct tape, but he registered a human head, and hair, and—and it wasn’t like the figure was menacing anyone, stumbling around Steve’s pool, finishing off the leftover beers and a half-box of Cheez-its.  He waited until it had shaken the box three times, and pulled out the bag, scraping long broken fingernails inside the Cheez-it box looking for more.  

“Got some cold pizza inside,” he said, from the shadows, and the figure stumbled back, shielding its face.  

“What,” it asked hoarsely, and Steve recognized the voice.  The bat nearly slid from his fingers.

“Hargrove?!”  It—Billy Hargrove, who was supposed to be dead—flinched, and Steve lowered the bat.  “Billy,” Steve tried.  “Let—lemme call someone.  Hopper.  Your sister Max, she thinks you’re dead—”

Billy shook his head violently, holding his hands up, and Steve dropped the bat.  

“Come here,” he said, trying to keep his voice level.  “...come inside,” he whispered, thinking of Max, sitting alone on Billy’s bed in his empty room, and Eleven, who Billy had sacrified himself to save.  “Come get some food.”

Billy lowered his hands, so Steve finally stepped closer, grabbing a thin, dirty hand, cold in his grip.  

“Jesus, Billy, are you even alive?”