Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

November 24, 1978

Today’s the day, motherfucker!

Pinball Vance Hopper’s words echoed in Finney’s head as he paced in front of the phone. The line was severed, the receiver packed with dirt. Today’s the day, motherfucker! Today’s the day he would finally stand up for himself. He’d done what the ghost boys had told him, and now it was time to get out. He didn’t have any more attempts after this. This was it. Do or die, the Grabber was going to kill him. 

“Raise the phone,” Finney muttered under his breath as he paced, repeating what Robin had told him. “Take a fast step back, step forward, step back, swing.” God, he missed Robin. He missed Gwen. Hell, he even missed his dad. Finney was so tired, he just wanted to go home and sleep in his bed. He just wanted to feel safe again. But in order for that to happen, he had to use what the ghost boys gave him and save himself. No one was coming for him. “Raise the phone. Take a fast step back, step forward, step back, and swing.”

There was a groaning, creaking sound. It was coming from the phone. Finney stared at it, hardly breathing. It was just like before. It was warning him. He paced over to the phone quickly and grabbed it, turning to face the basement door. It was time.

The door creaked open and Finney braced himself, forcing his eyes away from the cord he’d stretched across the room. He didn’t want to draw attention to it before he needed it; didn’t want the Grabber to see it too soon. But when the door opened, it wasn’t the Grabber. It was someone he’d never seen before. 

“No fucking way,” the man said, eyes wide. “I knew he was hiding something from me down here, but holy Mary, mother of God!” So the brother, then. 

Finney stepped away from the wall. “Please help. Can you call my dad, call my sister?”

“Oh, listen. Don’t worry, he’s not here. He had to go into work. Uh, I’m Max, man. Stay-stay calm. No wonder he was freaking out this morning. Hey, you wanna know the story about how I found you, man?” Max was talking way too fast, too loud, taking too much time. Finney wanted to shout at him, shake him, anything to make him see the gravity of the situation. Didn’t he know that Finney was about to be killed by his psychotic brother? He needed out of this godforsaken basement, not to hear the story of how this idiot couldn’t figure out that the missing boys were in his brother's own house the whole time!

Finney was already shaking his head no to the story, about to ask Max again to call his dad when he saw feet on the stairs, coming down behind the man. “No, no, no, no, no,” Finney murmured to himself. He was powerless to stop it, and the man had no clue what was happening until the Grabber had already brought down the axe, cleaving into his skull. The man gasped and took a few steps forward before collapsing. 

Finney screamed. The sound it had made—

The Grabber stepped all the way into the room. He looked…God, he looked livid. He wore a new shirt Finney hadn’t seen before and only the top half of his mask, all of it covered in blood. In his brother’s blood. “Look what you made me do,” the Grabber said with a forced calm, his voice trembling with barely contained rage. “You made me kill my brother!”

Finney shook where he was standing, his knees weak. Oh God, he was going to die. “It wasn’t me. I—”

“He was an idiot. But he was my idiot.” The Grabber took one big stride over to Max’s body and started working the axe out of his head. Finney could hear the squelching and cracking of brain and bone as the Grabber ruthlessly yanked the axe out of his brother’s skull. “I’m sorry, Max. Now I’m gonna have to put you with the others.”

C’mon, Finney. This is it. With the axe free, The Grabber turned his attention back to Finney, whose hands were clenched tight around the phone. “What’s with the phone, huh? I told you it doesn’t work! Normally, I would use a knife. But you are special, Finney. I’m gonna take my time. I want this to really hurt.” The pure malice in his voice set Finney’s heart racing. The Grabber took a big breath before bellowing, “Samson!”

The biggest, scariest dog Finney had ever seen came bounding down the basement stairs, his crazy, cognizant eyes locking on the boy. Finney, his heart pounding desperately in his chest, clenched his teeth and kept his chin up while The Grabber chained Samson to the wall. He couldn’t show any fear. Not now. He shook out his hands and hopped from foot to foot, waiting for the Grabber to advance. Here we go.

Finney’s eyes were locked on the Grabber, and even though he saw the man move, he still wasn’t quick enough to get out of the way. The Grabber brought the axe down in an overhead swing, hard, and Finney couldn’t get his feet moving quick enough to get out of the way. He shrieked as the axe made contact with his left shoulder, sinking through his flesh easily. He heard the impact the axe made with his collar bone, felt the white-hot pain of the bone breaking. The Grabber wrenched the axe free and advanced again. Finney scrambled back and tripped over Max, crashing to the floor. The Grabber laughed, high pitched and crazy, swinging again. This time, the axe made contact with his leg, right above the knee. 

I don’t wanna die for nothing, Robin’s voice rang in his head. I want to at least have died for a friend. Finney screamed, full of rage and pain, and, as the Grabber dislodged the axe again, Finney kicked out with his good leg, getting the man right in the knee and causing him to stumble. With the few seconds he bought himself, he scrambled to his feet and limped over to the bathroom. A whistle of air behind him and the axe dug into his side, slicing deep and through with the force of the swing. Finney groaned but kept going, hopping over the hole. His leg gave out from underneath him but he ignored it, adrenaline racing through his veins as he spun around and grabbed onto the cord and pulled it tight. The Grabber, on his tail and giddy with bloodlust, didn’t see it and tripped, falling into the hole Bruce had told him to dig. He heard the snap of bone and the Grabber shouted in pain, stuck up to his chest in the pit and caught off guard. 

Finney got to his feet with great effort, every breath like a knife twisting in his lungs. His heart was pounding and blood poured freely from his shoulder down his arm, making his grip on the phone slip. He switched it to his right and jumped back, his leg nearly buckling again, but he held strong and jumped forward again, then back, and swung as hard as he could. He did this again and again as much as he could stand. His strength giving way, he swung again, but the Grabber latched onto his wrist and pulled him off his feet. He’d forgotten to jump back. The Grabber had the axe still, but he couldn’t get a good hit in while in such close quarters, but he tried anyway. With his right arm tight around Finney’s neck, he brought down the axe as hard as he could, cutting deep into Finney’s hip. Finney screamed, throaty and raw as the blade hit bone, and he reached behind him, desperate to grab onto anything he could. His hand found the horns of the mask and he pulled, ripping it off the Grabber’s face. 

The Grabber screamed, shrieking like he’d been the one hit by the axe as he hurried to cover his face. Finney used the distraction to hit him with the phone again. And again. He felt the phone cord between his fingers and measured out a good length of it before jumping over the hole and wrapping the cord around the Grabber’s neck. The man gasped and choked as Finney planted his weight right behind him and pulled as hard as he could. His vision swam and he had to blink black spots out of his eyes. He could almost swear the phone was warping again against the far wall. And then, miraculously, the phone began to ring.

He remembered Bruce’s phone call then. The Grabber hears the phone, too, but he doesn’t want to believe it. As much as he wanted to talk to Robin again, he knew this call wasn’t for him. Keeping the cord tight around his neck, Finney put the phone up to the Grabber’s ear. “It’s for you,” he growled, scowling, voice shaky with rage and his waning strength.

“Welcome to the nightmare end of your pathetic little life!”

Griffin laughed. “You don’t have much time.”

“Today’s the day, motherfucker!”

“I can’t kill you, you hijo de puta, so Finn is gonna do it for me.”

On instinct, Finney breathed in deep, lifting the Grabber’s head as he did.

“Finn’s arm is mint!”

Finney brought his arm down hard, snapping the Grabber’s neck with an echoing finality. There was a ringing in his ears as he let the Grabber go. The man, lifeless, slipped farther down into the hole and Finney let the phone clatter to the floor. He sat there for a few moments, numb. His hands were tingly, he couldn’t really feel his fingers. 

Samson barked, loud and sharp, and Finney jumped, shocked out of his stupor. Right, the door. The door was right there, he had to get up. He had to move. It took three tries to get to his feet, and he realized that he couldn’t make it to the stairs because Samson was guarding the door, so he forced himself to step past the Grabber again to get to the freezer. He fumbled a steak a few times, trying to get the cling wrap off. Finally, he got it and limped back to the main room. His left arm hung uselessly at his side, blood thick and warm dripping off his fingertips and onto the floor, soaking through his shirt, filling his shoe. He tossed the steak to Samson and, once the dog was distracted, staggered past. He got four steps before he collapsed, dragged himself up three more, and then closed his eyes.

—

Gwen stood outside of the red brick house with the scary dead tree and stared at the door. The house number said7741, just like in her dream with Vance Hopper. As soon as she woke up, she’d gotten on her bike and rode up and down the streets until the ghosts of five boys appeared in front of her, scaring her so badly she fell off her bike. But they weren’t trying to scare her, they were trying to stop her and show her where to go. So with the street name in mind, she got right back on her bike and hurried home, running up the stairs to grab her bible, and got out the business card Detective Wright had given her. The call was quick, and in no time, she was back on her bike. She beat the police there and stood outside, waiting. 

“Come on, come on, come on,” she muttered, and finally, she heard the sirens in the distance. She didn’t look away from the front door when the tires screeched and the doors slammed. Footsteps hurried over and then Detective Wright and Detective Miller were there.

“Is this the house?”

“Yes,” Gwen answered quickly.

“Are you sure?”

“I’d never seen it before today, except in my dreams. The tree, the door, the address, the gate. Every detail.”

They nodded and told her to back away before rushing to the house. 

Detective Wright led the way up to the house, stepping aside only for another officer to kick the door down when there was no answer to their knocking. Guns up, they rushed into the house, clearing every corner and peeking into every room. But, well, it was empty. 

“It’s empty,” one of the officers eventually said after they’d left a deserted living room for an emptier kitchen. Detective Wright’s shoulders sagged. It didn’t seem right. Gwen Blake said this was the house, but clearly, she’d been wrong. They were about to leave, when an officer shouted, “Wait! We’ve got a basement.”

Again, they pushed forward, but at the bottom of the stairs was a dark, dirt-floored room. There was no one down there, but—

“It’s the missing kids. This is where he buries them,” Detective Miller said, shining his light around the basement. Sure enough, there were five mounds of dirt and one freshly dug hole. A shallow grave. 

Detective Wright swallowed. “I think he kills them someplace else.”

“I think you’re right.”

When they emerged from the house empty handed and solemn, Gwen jumped to her feet and pushed her way past the officers she was supposed to be waiting with. “What happened? What did you find? Where’s Finney? Where is he, he’s supposed to be in there! Where is he!”

“He wasn’t there, Gwen,” Wright tells her. “I’m sorry. We’re still looking.”

“What do you mean, he’s not there? That’s the house! That’s the house, you dumb fucking fart—”

Wright interrupted her to speak to Miller. “Call forensics and the coroner, get them down there quick. Gwen, come along kid.”

“Where are we going? What’s going on? Why do you need forensics? What’s a corner?”

Wright herded her into the back of the car and got behind the wheel, Miller beside him. Miller’s face was red, and he didn’t say anything the whole ride, frustrated as ever to be in the same space as Gwendolyn Blake. Wright tried to answer her questions, but eventually just fell quiet as they pulled up outside of the Blake residence. 

The detectives walked Gwen to the door and encouraged Terrance to keep an eye on her, informing him that they hadn’t yet found his son, but that they were still looking. The poor man looked crestfallen, but he nodded, placing a heavy hand on his daughter’s shoulder and steering her back inside. 

The detectives hurried back to the car and made their way quickly to the station. Once there, they requested information on the registration of the house they searched and found that it was owned by a man named Albert Shaw, who’d inherited the house from his parents when his father died. “Person of interest,” Miller noted. 

“Get me more information on Albert Shaw,” Wright ordered, and soon enough he was looking at a file. There wasn’t much there, just that he’d graduated from the high school in 1946, worked as a part-time magician, and…and owned a second house right across the street. When he read that, Wright looked up at Miller, who had just read that same information. “That’s where he kills them,” they said at the same time.

Miller jumped up and lunged for the phone and dialed the courthouse. They had a warrant within the hour and as soon as it was signed, they were in the car, racing back down the street. When they arrived, paramedics were leaving 7741 with stretchers. Forensic specialists and police were in and out of the house, and the bodies on the stretchers were in body bags. 

Wright and Miller jumped out of the car, shouting for back up, and kicked in the door of house number 7742. It was harder to break into than the other door, and once it finally gave in, a blue master lock clattered to the floor. This house was lived in, that much was clear. The living room was a mess, coke lines on the coffee table and a poster board with all sorts of dates and pictures, connected with red yarn. This was one of the houses they’d canvassed and moved on from, they realized.

Moving through the living room, they got to the kitchen. There was a frypan on the stove with remnants of scrambled eggs, but otherwise the house was still. Silent except for a distant barking. Wright remembered there being a dog last time they were here, but they never saw it. He raised his gun and approached the door to the basement, Miller and the other officers right behind him. 

As soon as he pushed the door open, the thick scent of blood hit him. He pointed his flashlight down the stairs and a light reflected back, two eyes. He jumped. The dog, a hug, beastly thing, growled low, drool flicking from its jowls, and then started barking incessantly. He was hesitant to take a step toward the thing, and in his indecision, his flashlight beam dipped down. Miller choked on a gasp behind him and Wright looked where he was looking and—

And there was a body on the stairs. The body was small, like a child. “Oh God,” Wright murmurs, sorrow spreading through his chest. It was Finney Blake. They were too late. For a moment, all the detective can do is stare. The stairs are soaked with Finney’s blood. It pooled beneath him and dripped down, thick and tacky. It was hard to believe there was that much blood in him. Beyond him, Wright could see another body, but they couldn’t get in the basement, not with the dog in the way. 

“Miller,” he said, finally finding his voice. “Go get paramedics and forensics in here. We’ve got bodies. I’m going to shoot the dog.” Miller did as he was asked and Wright lined up his shot at the crazed dog. He didn’t feel good about it, but it had to be done. Once the dog was dead, he picked his way down the stairs, being careful not to step on Finney or in the puddles of blood. It was worse past the threshold. The first body, the one he’d seen from the stairs, was Max, the coked up fanatic they’d met on their first visit to the house. He lay face down just to the left of the stairs, eyes wide open, the back of his skull obliterated. Blood and brain matter had seeped out and the dog had been tearing apart his outstretched arm before they got there. It was cleaned down to the bone in some parts. There were puddles and splatters of blood leading to the left where there appeared to be a separate smaller room. There, dug into the ground, was a hole and in it, a man slumped forward, also dead. There was a phone next to the hole, slick with blood.

While Wright waited for Miller to come back with reinforcements, he spun a small circle. The basement was bare save for a dirty mattress bolted to the floor and a black rotary phone on the wall. High up, higher than a kid could reach, was a window. Wright stared out the window until he heard the footsteps on the stairs. He couldn’t stop picturing those boys down here—Finney Blake, Robin Arellano, Bruce Yamada, Vance Hopper, Griffin Stagg, Billy Showalter—all of them staring up at the sky, so close to freedom but unable to reach it.

Their next stop after the basement of 7742 was the Blake house. 

They took their time walking up to the house, and Wright when knocked, it was with a heavy heart. Terrance opened the door, face hopeful, but when he saw their expressions, he already knew. His face fell instantly, his lips started quivering, and he tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. “Mr. Blake,” Detective Wright says, but says nothing more. There’s nothing more to say. 

“May we come in?” Miller asks. Terrance moved aside wordlessly and they went into the living room. Gwen was there already and she jumped to her feet when she saw them. 

Before she could get a word in, Terrance said, “Go to your room, Gwenny.”

She didn’t listen and he didn’t ask again. Terrance collapsed bodily into an armchair. He looked for a moment like he’d be able to hold himself together, but fell forward suddenly, head in his hands, and started to sob. 

Gwen’s face went white, her body so taught she stood on her tippy toes. “W-what is it? What happened?”

“Mr. Blake. Gwen. We found Finney. I am…so sorry. He was dead when we arrived at the scene.”

“Oh God!” Terrance wailed. “Oh God, Hope, what have I done? Oh God.”

“But, but the house, they said it was the right house. I don’t, I-I don’t understand,” Gwen said, teeth rattling, shaking like a leaf. 

Wright knelt on the ground before her. “You did so good, Gwen. We were able to recover the bodies of the other boys because of you. You led us to where they were buried, and because of you, we’ll be able to give closure to all those boys’ families.”

“But I don’t want closure, I want Finney!”

“I know.”

“Where was he?”

“Well—”

“You said you found him, where was he?”

“...He was in the house across the street.”

Gwen’s screams and wails echoed in his ears long after they left the house. The two detectives didn’t sleep that night. After the Blakes, they went to the Arellanos, then the Yamadas, Mrs. Vance, Mrs. Stagg, the Showalters. It was very bittersweet news. The Grabber was dead, he wasn’t going to take anymore children. They’d found the boys. But they were dead. The nightmare was over, but they’d never get their children back, not the way they wanted. 

It wasn’t until later once the evidence was in that they were able to put together a timeline of events. Billy Showalter, kidnapped in April of 1975, was thought to have died sometime that summer, July or August. Griffin Stagg was abducted over a year later in September 1976 and, based on the body decomposition, died somewhere around one year and eight months ago, which would put his captivity up to a year and a half and his death in March of 1977. Shortly after that, in April of 1977, Vance Hopper went missing, and forensics put his death around April 1978, marking his time in captivity at a year. Bruce Yamada was abducted on July 18th, 1978, and supposedly died a month ago, which would be around the end of October, meaning he spent around three and a half months in the basement. Then, the Grabber seemed to be speeding things up, falling out of his routine. This was attributed to his brother Max staying at his house and messing up some of his plans. Robin Arellano was kidnapped on a Saturday, November 11, 1978 and the experts have found his body the most intact, seemingly only a week and a half to two weeks old. And then of course, Finney Blake was kidnapped on November 17, walking home from school on a Friday, and his body was discovered the next Friday, November 24th. 

Hearing the official report of Finney Blake’s time of death was especially difficult. They estimated that he’d died around 5:00 pm which was just about exactly when they were right across the street discovering the bodies of the other boys. If they had just gone to the right house, they could have saved him. Instead, he died alone on the stairs after fighting his own way out, while his sister and all the help he needed was focused on another lead. 

They were able to do an autopsy on Finney Blake, Robin Arellano, and Bruce Yamada. Unfortunately, the other bodies were either too decomposed or too mutilated. Finney Blake had been struck with an axe four times, once in the shoulder breaking his collarbone, once on the right side of his abdomen, once in the left hip, and once right leg above the knee. Despite these injuries, he managed to draw Albert Shaw into a trap and beat him with a dirt-packed phone, strangle him with the phone cord, and break his neck. They found traces of brain matter and bone fragments on the axe and have concluded that Albert Shaw murdered his brother before going for Finney Blake. 

Further reports on all available bodies showed similar signs of abuse, especially on Arellano and Yamada. Most disturbingly, there were signs of sexual abuse on all three boys, and though the other bodies were too far along to confirm, it was assumed to be a pattern for all the victims. Mrs. Arellano requested an open casket for her son’s funeral, but was heavily advised against it. 

Minimal details were released to the public, just that the man called the Grabber was dead, killed by his last victim, Finney Blake, and that the bodies of the other children were returned to their families. The community’s long nightmare had finally come to a bittersweet end. 

Chapter Text

November 24, 1982

Gwen sits in the gymnasium with the rest of the school. It’s the end of a very long school day and they’ve been called to the gym for an assembly. It’s been four years since Finney died on the stairs of the Grabber’s basement, so close to escape. Four years since he killed the Grabber. The school holds an assembly on the 24th every year to honor all the victims of the Grabber, all six of whom had gone to school in this district, kidnapped and killed over the course of three years. The school board had commissioned a mural to be painted on the bricks on the side of the school. All six boys had a portrait painted with their names and the dates of their birth and deaths. It was only the years, though. Gwen suspected this was because no one could be sure exactly when they had been killed. Gwen never walked along that side of the school. She couldn’t bear to look at it.

As the principal droned on about the tragedy of the murders without actually going into any detail, Gwen zoned out. She’d been…distant all day. It was hard to think, hard to hold onto a train of thought sometimes, especially today when everything reminded her of Finney. 

Ernesto Arellano sat beside her on the bleachers. While she was still and numb, he shook, his shoulders trembling, tears welling in his eyes. The principal listed off the names of the victims to the solemn quiet of the gym. Gwen didn’t react to hearing Finney’s name, but Robin’s name got Ernesto sniffling and choking back a cry. Heads turned to stare in their direction, just like they did every year. In years past, Gwen would hear Amy Yamada sobbing, but the Yamadas had since moved out of Denver. They were ruined after Bruce’s death, and the city was a terrible reminder of what had happened. 

The general public knew little about the case. The only information that was given by Detective Wright and Miller was that the Grabber, a man named Albert Shaw, had kidnapped and murdered six boys between the years of 1975 and 1978 when his last victim fought back, strangling him with a phone cord before succumbing to his injuries. Everyone knew Finney Blake had killed the Grabber, but that was all. 

Gwen knew only a little more, and that never stopped bothering her. When her father was given Finney’s autopsy report, she hadn’t been allowed to read it. She just knew it was bad, if her father’s sobs had been anything to go by. She knew he’d not only strangled the Grabber, but had also snapped his neck. She knew he hadn’t died in the basement, but on the stairs. She knew he’d been in the house right across the street. She knew he’d died on those stairs while she’d sat against the fence of 7741, staring right at 7742. She knew he’d died alone while she sat right outside, useless, abandoning him. Those were the facts, that’s all she knew. 

She never forgave herself for her dreams. Her stupid dreams, and those stupid ghost boys. They led her to the wrong house and she was too late. She could’ve saved Finney, but she was too late, and that weighed heavy on her soul. Sometimes, when she couldn’t stand the not knowing, she would sneak around her house, trying to find the autopsy report, but her dad had hidden it well. Whatever was in there, he did not want her to know it. But she would find it.

“Gwen,” Ernesto whispered, nudging her with his elbow. His eyes were red and he sniffed, hands deep in his pockets. “Assembly’s over.”

She shook herself out of her thoughts, nodded, and got to her feet. She held out a hand to help him to his feet and the two shouldered their way out of the gymnasium, ignoring the pitying looks from teachers and students alike. 

Gwen held on tight to Ernesto’s hand as they made their way through the throng of students. Sometimes she wished she could cry like Amy had. She felt like she owed it to Finney to be as broken as the other girl. Part of her hated herself for not crying like that. But there was a wall inside her, one she couldn’t break through. She felt like all the heavy, devastating emotions were behind that wall, a wall that went up that night the detectives came to her house to tell her they’d found Finney, but that he wasn’t found alive. Most of the time, she was just numb, and despite it all, she was grateful for the wall. She needed the wall.

Their walk home was quiet, neither of them had anything to say. The two of them never really walked anywhere alone. Looking back on her hyper independence as a child, Gwen couldn’t believe how confident she had been. She remembers biking all around town alone in the middle of the night, looking for the house in her dreams. She knew the Grabber was gone, but still, she worried. And Ernesto, he just looked so much like Robin, it made her feel much better when they walked together, both for her own safety and for his. 

Terrance wasn’t home when they got there; he worked late on Fridays. Gwen used to go to Susie’s on Fridays, but they drifted apart after everything that happened. Gwen was hard to reach, and Susie was hard to talk to. She just didn’t understand, couldn’t understand, what Gwen was going through. No one could. No one but Ernesto. As Gwen and Susie drifted apart, Gwen and Ernesto drifted together. They gravitated to each other at the funerals, then at school, then outside of school until they were inseparable. It seemed like they were the only two people in the world who understood each other. A few months ago, Ernesto asked her out to a Duran Duran concert, and they’ve been together ever since. 

Terrance wasn’t the biggest fan of Ernesto, but he kept it to himself. Even he could see how much Gwen needed him, needed someone to rely on, someone who understood. “Come on,” Gwen murmured. “Let’s go to my room.”

She mindlessly led the way, part of her mind drifting still, part of her still in the hall with Ernesto. Down the hallway and to the right, she didn’t realize her mistake until she pushed the door open and flicked the light on. She halted in the doorway, the walls blue instead of pink. She stared, scarcely breathing, at the navy blue duvet with brightly colored cartoon planets, the teddy bear propped up against the pillows that wore an astronaut suit, the posters on the wall of NASA and the moon landing, Pink Floyd and The Who. Her door was to the left. She’d gone into Finney’s room without even thinking about it. 

That was all it took for Gwen to lose it, the numbness that had been clouding her all day left with the force of a tidal wave and she collapsed to her knees, choking with the force of the tears. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fucking fair! Finney was supposed to be seventeen years old, but instead he was still thirteen, always thirteen. How was it fair that Gwen had to look in the mirror and see herself older than her big brother had ever gotten to be. She was fifteen and he was still thirteen.

And that teddy bear. She’d found it in his closet, buried under some space pajamas he’d outgrown. I’m too old for that stupid thing she had imagined him saying, but she knew he loved it. He’d named it Teddy Armstrong and he used to sleep with it every night. When she’d gotten home from Susie's that Friday night after her dad called, she’d dug through his closet and found it. She’d slept with it every night that week, praying for dreams, and for years after Finney’s death. Now, it sat on his bed against the pillows. She could almost imagine he’d put it there after making his bed in the morning for school. 

Ernesto stood in the doorway as she cried herself out, waiting for her to come to him when she was ready. And finally, after what felt like ages, she was. She got unsteadily to her feet and walked over to him, her socked feet dragging on the floor, and fell into his arms. He wrapped her up in a steady hug, holding her close. They stood there for a long time, both of them just breathing. 

After a while, Ernesto spoke into her hair. “Hey, um, I found The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on VHS the other day, and I was wondering, well, it was one of Robin’s favorites, so maybe we could–”

“We can watch it, Ernie,” Gwen interrupted his rambling, squeezing him tighter. “Of course we can.”

He sighed in relief, then laughed. “I’ve never actually seen it, to be honest,” he admitted. “I was always too scared. But Robin loved horror movies. Our tio would always bring him to the drive-in to see them, but I was too chicken to go.”

He trailed off and the mood dipped. He didn’t say he wished he’d gone anyway, to have more time, more memories with his brother, but he didn’t have to. Gwen understood. 

The settled on the couch with popcorn and soda, Gwen curled into Ernesto’s side, his arm over her shoulder. The movie was alright, not as scary as she thought, but Ernesto was tense beside her. She couldn’t tell if he was scared of the movie or thinking of Robin. Or thinking of what happened to Robin. Maybe all three. 

The sun had since set out the window and they heard Terrance’s truck pull into the driveway. Ernesto tensed again, but Gwen didn’t bother moving away from him. Terrance opened the door and kicked off his shoes. “Hey, sweetheart,” he called, then looked up to see his daughter and her boyfriend together on the couch. He grunted his disapproval with a lingering look, but didn’t say anything. Gwen knew he wouldn’t. He’d changed a lot since Finney’s death. He still drank too much, but he didn’t yell and he didn’t hit. He just kept all of it to himself and steered clear of her for the most part. Most days, Gwen couldn’t decide if she loathed him for how he’d abandoned her in their shared grief, or if she missed him desperately. 

Gwen’s attention was severed from the movie and instead she tuned into her father’s movements as he crossed through the living room, stopping only to pat her fondly on the head as he continued on to the kitchen. Gwen and Ernesto listened as he opened the fridge, cracked a beer, and chugged it, then grabbed another. They listened as he took that one with him to his bedroom and shut the door. They listened as he cried miserably to himself, mourning the death of his son four years after his brutal murder. The two of them sat facing forward, only vaguely watching the movie, pretending not to hear. 

After that, Gwen couldn’t bring herself to focus back on the movie and instead fell asleep nestled into Ernesto’s side. She felt him chuckle fondly more than she heard him, and felt herself sinking deeper into sleep. And for the first time in a long time, four years to be exact, Gwen dreamed. 

Chapter Text

“Donna, Donna, Donna, mwah, mwah, mwah. Oh, Finney, would you be my lab partner?”

That was her voice, younger, far away. Gwen looked down. She was wearing a maroon corduroy overall dress with an orange turtleneck underneath. She looked up from her knee socks and to her right and gasped. It was Finney, he was standing right beside her, dressed in jeans and a gray shirt with blue sleeves. He was smiling at her, bashful. 

“Stop,” he said,  “shut up, you jerk.”

He looked exactly like he had the last time she’d ever seen him. 

“All right, see you tomorrow,” she felt herself say. It hit her then. This was the last time she’d ever seen him.

Finney shot her a confused look. “Where you going?”

“I’m staying over at Susie’s tonight. It’s a Friday, so…”

“Hang on,” Finney told her, reaching out an arm to grab her wrist as she turned to go off in the direction of Susie’s house. If only he’d actually stopped her that day. She would give anything to go back and walk home with him. “I have to show you something first.”

Puzzled but wanting as much time with Finney as the dream allowed, she followed. With a growing unease in her gut, she knew where they were headed long before Finney slowed to a stop outside the red brick house. It looked the same as it did four years ago, complete with a black van parked in the driveway. 

The house she led the police to that day was behind her, scraggly dead tree and all. For a moment, she was reminded of the first dream she’d had after Finney was kidnapped, of him standing just inside that door, pounding on the glass and screaming for help. “What are we doing here, Finney?” she asked. 

Finney didn’t answer. She looked over at him and shrieked. He was no longer the happy, carefree boy she was just talking to. He wore the same outfit, but it was dirty and covered in blood. He looked–

He looked just like the other ghost boys she saw on her bike that day. His big brown doe eyes looked down at her, pleading, while blood seeped from his shoulder, his side, down his leg. Her hands flew up to cover her mouth as she looked at him, horrified. “Gwenny,” he said, his eyes welling with tears. “Gwenny, you’ve gotta help us.”

“W-what?”

“He’s still here!”

“What? Wh-who is? Finney, what–”

“We all are. I thought killing him would get rid of him, but he’s still here, he’s still—he’s still here.” She watched as her older/younger brother wrapped his arms around himself in a makeshift hug, curling his shoulders in. “Gwen, you’ve gotta help us,” he said again. She took a step forward, her heart aching, needing to comfort him, but her knee smacked into the fence. 

“What?” Her hands flew up to the chainlink that wasn’t there a moment ago. Finney was on the other side, in the Grabber’s yard. He looked awful; he looked scared. When she was younger, she used to look up to Finney, both literally and figuratively. But now, he looked a lot smaller than she remembered. 

“Gwen, I’m scared,” he said. Over his shoulder, peaking out of the window of the front door, was a dirty, blood-splattered mask with horns and a wide, ugly smile. 

“The Grabber,” she exclaimed, the air rushing from her lungs at the realization. She’d only seen him once, in a dream, but it was definitely him. He threw his head back and started to laugh, pulling the door open. He sauntered over to Finney and put both hands on his shoulders and swung him around, leading him back up the stairs to the house. 

“No, no, no, Finney, Finney!” She screamed, pounding on the fence. 

“Naughty boy,” the Grabber sing-songed as he and Finney disappeared inside. The front door slammed and she jolted awake with a gasp. 

Gwen heaved and panted, tears running down her face. Ernesto sat up beside her, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. They were still on the couch. The TV had gone to static, the movie long since over. “Gwen?” he murmured. “What’s wrong?”

She couldn’t answer him right away and instead buried her face in her hands as she shook and cried, trying to catch her breath, gather her thoughts. She had seen Finney. She hadn’t had any dreams since Finney’s death, and now she had, and he’d been there. He’d really been there! “I had a bad dream,” she told Ernesto, who frowned. 

“Like, one of those bad dreams?” She nodded. 

“Tell me about it.” And so she did. All of it. Ernesto sat there and listened to her wholeheartedly. When she was done, they both sat there, staring at the TV static, thinking. “Do you think that was really Finney? Really the Grabber?” Ernesto asked finally. 

Gwen shrugged and pulled her knees up to her chest. “I don’t know. I think so. It felt so real. It was like…when I was trying to find the house after my dream and the ghost boys stopped me. They were really there in front of me, but they looked…dead. Finney looked like that. And, well, I don’t know exactly how he died or what he looked like after, so I guess it has to be real.” She paused, wiped a stray tear. “He was really scared, Ernie.”

“And he said they were all still there?” Ernesto asked. Gwen nodded. “Okay, then I think we need to check it out.”

Her head shot up, eyebrows drawn together. “What?”

“The house. If they’re all still stuck there, if the Grabber’s still there with them…we gotta help, Gwen. They don’t deserve that. After everything, we’ve gotta go check it out.”

Gwen found herself nodding. “Yeah, okay, you’re right.”

And then Ernesto stood up from the couch. Gwen narrowed her eyes. “Um, what are you doing?”

He quirked one eyebrow and jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “Going to the house?”

“Right now?!”

“Yes, right now! When else? Your dad’s sleeping, and it’s dark out, so hopefully no one will see us sneak inside. And Finney asked you for help just now, so we should go. Now.”

Gwen nodded, standing also. “Yeah, yeah, okay, what do we need? Flashlights?”

The two split up, Ernesto going to the kitchen to grab flashlights for them both out of the junk drawer, and Gwen ran into her room and opened up her jewelry box to grab the cross talisman she used to pray with. Then, she ran back into Finney’s room. His spaceship flashlight sat on his bedside table next to a framed school picture Terrance had put in there at some point. Gwen couldn’t bear to look at it. It was the same one they printed in the papers when he was missing, and again for his obituary. She grabbed the flashlight, running her thumb over the surface. It was old and worn, the blood mostly cleaned off. Only some rust colored stains remained in the crevices near the top. It was returned to the Blakes after the police were done investigating. It had been Finney’s favorite; he took it with him everywhere. It felt wrong for it to be left in his room. She figured she’d take it with her to the Grabber’s house. 

The two reconvened in the kitchen and snuck quietly out of the front door. Gwen brought Ernesto around the side of the house and into the garage. She first wheeled out her own bike, and then, after only hesitating for a moment, grabbed Finney’s old bike. “Here,” she whispered. “Let’s go.”

“You know the way from here?” Ernesto asked, settling onto the bike seat. His knees bumped the handles. It was a kids bike and Ernesto was now a fair bit taller now than Finney had been. 

“Unfortunately,” Gwen muttered in answer, and the two set off in the night. 

Gwen was getting serious deja vu as they biked up the road and came to a stop in front of 7742. The two dropped their bikes and hurried to climb over the chainlink fence that was put up shortly after the investigation. Ernesto dropped to one knee to give her a boost and she hopped over, landing in the grass on the other side and stared at the front door as Ernesto clambered over the fence from behind her. Once he was over, the two hurried up to the front door.

The glass was broken in parts, some of it still held together by the crisscrossed wiring, and Ernesto was able to reach inside and flip the lock. He swung the door open, gestured her inside, and then shut the door behind them. 

The inside of the house was stifling. Just stepping through the threshold left a terrible heaviness pressing down on her chest. The air was thick with sorrow. It felt like they were wading through it as they took a few steps into the house. “Come on,” she whispered, breaking the silence. “Keep your flashlight off till we’re away from the windows.”

The two moved farther into the house, past the coffee table with what looked like remnants of coke dust and an old peeling poster board that had been torn to shreds, held together in some parts only by pieces of red string. This place had been blocked off to the public and a fence had been put up, but evident of their own break in, it didn’t stop people from getting in and vandalizing the place. All things considered, the living room was fairly untouched. 

As they crossed into the kitchen, the light flickered on a few times, then stayed off. Ernesto and Gwen paused in the doorway. There was a chair set in the middle of the kitchen, pulled away from the table. It was facing an open door, and as their eyes followed the direction the chair was facing, they saw stairs beyond it. Stairs to the basement. Gwen sucked in a shaky breath. 

Gwen had never been in the house before. She wasn’t allowed during or after the investigation, and then when kids at school were breaking in on a dare, she couldn’t bring herself to go along. Not knowing what she knew about what happened here. And especially knowing how much she didn’t know. 

“Ready?” Ernesto asked her. She flicked on her flashlight and nodded, and the two of them stepped forward through the door to the basement stairs. And stood at the top of those stairs, unable to go farther. The heavy basement door had been left wide open by whoever had last been there, and they could see the concrete walls beyond, covered in graffiti. The dirty black and white tile had a lighter, cleaner square in the middle of the floor where Gwen figured the bed had been. And on the wall to the right, the black phone. The receiver was gone and the cord cut; she knew Finney had cut it and used it to kill the Grabber. Seeing it was different; it left a weird feeling in her chest, somewhere next to her heart. 

Gwen took the first few steps down the stairs and stumbled. Ernesto reached out a quick hand to catch her and she moved her flashlight beam down to watch the stairs and it hit her so suddenly, she choked on her next breath. The stairs had been cleaned, but they were wood. There was no getting rid of the stain. Gwen sank down to sit on the steps, tucked her face between her knees, and sobbed. The faded blood stain was huge, covering several steps. She couldn’t imagine poor Finney bleeding that much.

After several long minutes of silence broken only by Gwen’s sniffling, she got back to her feet. “Hey,” Ernesto said, a hand on her shoulder. “We can go back. If you’re not ready–”

“Shut up, I’m ready,” she insisted, straightening her shoulders and powering through, going down the rest of the stairs without pause. The basement was a mess. Graffiti covered every wall. Directly in front of her, right above the phone, were the words The Grabber Burns in Hell. She couldn’t help but agree. A sick feeling settled in her stomach, and that heaviness from upstairs returned with force. With a glance over her shoulder, she saw that Ernesto hadn't moved from the bottom step. He studied the room intently with his jaw clenched. He looked a bit green. 

Gwen took a half step back to grab his hand, interlacing their fingers. She waited until he nodded at her to continue on. They moved over to the left to see the bathroom area. There was a hole dug in the ground in the short hall with a metal grate at the bottom. Cones had been set up around it with caution tape, miraculously still in place. Farther on, there was another hole, this one in the wall across from the toilet leading into an empty freezer. Caution tape crisscrossed over that hole as well. And the toilet was missing the rectangular porcelain top. 

As Gwen stood looking down at the hole in the ground, Ernesto let go of her hand and wandered off. She knew without being told that this was where it happened. The Grabber died here; Finney killed him right here. It was the only thing that made sense. He’d always been so smart, of course he’d made a trap. Plus, the Grabber was a grown man and Finney was thirteen years old. Getting the man in the pit would be the only way he’d have the leverage to strangle him. 

A click, then a buzz, another click, another, longer buzz. Gwen turned around. Ernesto had wandered over to the phone and he was messing with the dial. “Why would he have a phone here if it didn’t even work?” He grumbled, picking up the severed wire to show her. 

She shrugged. “He was a sick, psychotic motherfucker. He probably got off on false hope.”

Ernesto shuddered and dropped the wire, instead resting his finger on the hook pressing down in an odd series of taps. “What are you doing?”

Ernesto flashed her a smile. “Morse code. Robin and I used to use it as kids. Our bedrooms shared a wall, so we’d talk after we were supposed to go to bed. Our tio taught us.”

Gwen’s heart gave a tug and she hugged herself. “What are you saying?” 

“Just hello.” He did it a few more times and then stopped, staring at the phone, waiting for something. An answer, a miracle. But there was nothing. 

“Maybe…maybe my dream was wrong,” Gwen whispered. 

Ernesto hadn’t moved his eyes from the phone for several minutes, but finally, he looked back at her with a frown. “Let’s just go home.” The disappointment was heavy in his tone, and she felt it too. He was back at her side in three strides and they turned to go when they heard it, a faint tapping. 

They both froze and, as a unit, turned slowly to look back at the phone. The hook was being depressed, tapping, slowly at first and then picking up speed. It tapped out the same phrase over and over. 

. . . . / — — — / . — . . / . —

Gwen smacked Ernesto excitedly on the arm a few times in quick succession. “What’s it saying?”

His face broke out into a grin and his eyes grew watery. “Hola. It keeps saying it, over and over. I think…I think it’s Robin.”

Chapter Text

Gwen couldn’t quite believe what had happened the night before. They’d been just about to leave when, by some miracle, Robin started talking to them through the old phone, communicating with Ernesto by morse code! They’d rushed back over and Ernesto tapped out Robin’s name and they got a message in response:

— . — — / . / . . . 

Yes. It was remarkable, incredible, amazing. It had them both in tears. Ernesto had been about to tap out another message when Gwen heard a whisper in her ear, sharp and angry. Hang up the phone. She’d jumped, spinning around, but no one was there. 

Ernesto frowned, oblivious to her reaction, and tapped at the side of the phone like it was broken or buffering. “Hello?” He said aloud. “Helloo,” but there was no answer. Once again, the air was still. If they were really talking to Robin, he’d left. 

Or maybe he’d been scared away. “Come on Ernie, let’s get out of here. Right now.” She had gotten serious chills and revulsion rose up in her throat, threatening to choke her. All of a sudden the basement had felt so terribly wrong and they practically ran up the stairs like something was chasing them, flew out the door, and reached inside to lock it again. It was only once they were back across the fence and on their bikes that the feeling faded. 

Ernesto laughed incredulously, and then like a dam was broken, he kept laughing, unable to stop. “That was Robin!” he shouted. “That was really him!”

She kept it to herself, but she couldn’t help but think, who else was there?

The two planned to go back the next day, but Ernesto called in the morning to apologize—his abuela had invited the family over for dinner, and then they were going to go Sunday night, but Terrance, in a rare moment of clarity, asked her if she wanted to watch a movie with him. He’d spent almost the whole weekend in his room crying over Finney, so she couldn’t find it in herself to turn him down. And then, of course, there was school and homework, so they didn’t have a free night to go back to 7742 until Friday. 

Terrance was working late again, and Ernesto pulled into her driveway right at 6:00 pm. “I figured we could get started a bit earlier. I can park down the street from the house.” She hopped in the passenger seat, and as she was buckling her seatbelt, she noticed a few shopping bags in the backseat. 

“What’s in those?”

Ernesto glanced over his shoulder quickly before returning his gaze to the road. “I was doing some research, cuz morse code takes a long time, and Robin and I are the only ones who know it. There’s this tech store in the strip mall on the west side, it’s got all sorts of stuff. Well, I told the guy I was interested in ghost hunting, and he showed me a bunch of stuff.”

Gwen nodded her approval. “Awesome.”

They pulled up a street over and got out of the car, moving swiftly down the sidewalk with their bags and trying not to look suspicious. With a few glances around to confirm they were alone, they hopped the fence, unlocked the door, and hurried inside. After closing the door and making sure the curtains were closed, they made their way to the kitchen to set up shop. 

Ernesto emptied his bags onto the kitchen table. First he pulled out a black remote-looking device with five colors on the end going from green to yellow to red. He turned it on and it crackled, the corresponding lights lighting up before going stagnant. “This is an…” he trailed off, tilting the device to read off the label. “An EMF reader. I guess it tracks electromagnetic fields and lights up when something…spikes. Or something.” 

He set it down, picking up the next thing. “And this, this is what I’m most excited for. The guy at the shop called it a Spirit Box. It’s like a radio scrambler, it just flips through a bunch of radio stations super quick while you ask it questions, and supposedly the spirits are supposed to be able to pick out words from the radio to answer you.” 

Finally, he pulled out the last thing. “And if all else fails, we’ve got a good old fashioned Ouija board.”

“They had Ouija boards at the tech store?” Gwen asked with an eyebrow raised. 

Ernesto reached up to scratch the back of his neck, bashful. “Okay, no, this I found in our basement. Pretty sure Robin got it years ago. Mama hates these things though, so it was hidden under a bunch of our old clothes in the basement.”

Gwen emptied her own bag onto the table and stuffed her cross and Finney’s spaceship flashlight into her pocket, grabbed a bigger flashlight, and rolled the other one across the table to Ernesto. “Where should we start?” She asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. We got Robin in the basement last time, but well, you said you heard…someone else down there, too. And remember the light flickered in here? Maybe we just start in the kitchen?”

“That sounds like a plan.” She walked over to the middle of the kitchen with the EMF reader turned on. “Is anyone here?” She asked. Several long moments passed in silence. “Hello? Is there anyone here who would like to speak to us?” 

Again, silence. “Robin? Finney?” She walked over to the basement door, still closed, and held out the EMF reader. “Um, Griffin? Bruce Yamada? Anybody? Are you here? Do any of you wanna talk to me?”

A buzzing vibration in her hand had her looking down. The reader had buzzed from the first green to the second. “Hello? If that was you, can you make this device buzz again?” Sure enough, it did, going halfway to the yellow light. 

She shot a look over at Ernesto. “Should we try that Spirit Box?” 

He was already nodding, opening up the back panel and popping in the batteries. He turned it on with a screech and then a jumble of static noises. Snatches of songs and conversations peaked through, but nothing legible. 

“Is there someone here?” She asked again. 

A pause, then ~oooh yeah~.

She couldn’t help but giggle, relief flowing through her. Maybe this could work. She bit her lip. “Finney? Is that you? Or Robin?”

The Spirit Box shh shh shhed as it flipped through stations, then spit out ~I’m not~.

“You’re not Finney or Robin?” Ernesto said. “Who are you?”

~going stag to the dance on Friday?~

“Going stag to the dance on Friday,” Gwen repeated to herself. “What—”

“Stagg,” Ernesto exclaimed. “Oh my God. Are you Griffin Stagg?”

~Yes! Yes! Yes!~

“Oh my God!” Gwen cheered. “Hi, Griffin! Um, my name’s Gwen and this is Ernesto. We’re here to help. I…I had a dream, and Finney told me you guys needed help. I’m Finney’s sister. Is what he said true? Do you need help?”

~help me!~

The triumphant smile melted from Gwen’s face. Suddenly serious, she asked,  “How can we help you?”

~shh shh shh he’s shh shh still heeerreeee! Shh shh we are stuck~

“You’re stu—”

~don’t. have. much. time~

The light in the kitchen flickered again, just like it had a week ago. The sick feeling returned. “Griffin? How can we help?”

~the~

~phone~

“The phone? The phone’s broken. It’s not hooked up and the receiver’s gone.”

~don’t. Care~

“Are you getting sassed by a ghost?” Ernesto smirked. She elbowed him to shut up.

“I don’t understand. What about the phone?”

What came through next sounded like the middle of a police report. ~Finney Blake~

Her head shot up to lock eyes with Ernesto, but before she could say anything, it was followed by ~talked on the phone~

“Finney Blake talked on the phone? He talked to you on the phone?”

~Mmmhmm~

“So that’s how? We need to get the phone so we can talk to you?”

~I don’t know, man. It worked before~

That shocked her out of her seriousness. She scoffed. “Was that a full sentence?”

And then, a young boy’s voice, clear as day:

~You. Don’t. Have. Much. Time~

“Griffin?” But there was no answer. The kitchen light flickered again and the boy’s message caught up to her, reminding her just whose house they were in. “We better go. Come back another time. And we need to get that phone.”

Ernesto nodded and started shoving their equipment into the bags. He glanced back over his shoulder as they were leaving, a sorrowful half smile on his face. He lifted a hand to wave. “Bye, Griffin. See you soon.”

In their hurry to get back to the front door, Gwen kicked something across the floor. It skittered away and hit the closet door and she knelt quickly to see what it was. It was a blue Master Lock, latched with a loop of metal still attached. She looked up at the metal lock loop on the door and saw that it was broken off, presumably from when the police busted in here. She looked back down at the lock in her hand and flipped it over. Written on the back in permanent marker on a dirty strip of masking tape in a child’s handwriting was the name Griffin Stagg.

Chapter Text

Gwen was dreaming again. There was a fuzzy quality to everything around her, like she was looking at the world through a finely meshed veil or an old film. The sun was shining hot overhead and the grass was green and lush. A bell rang in the distance and Gwen turned in the direction of the sound. She was standing in front of the middle school and the doors had just opened with a flood of students. Gwen wasn’t sure what the dream was trying to tell her, so she stayed where she was and observed. Another door opened on the side of the school, one Gwen knew fed from the school gym. 

A little boy, one of the smallest around, pushed his way through the door and made his way over to the bike rack. No one seemed to notice him as he slipped past, nobody stopped to say hi. “Happy Birthday, Griffin,” he muttered to himself as he reached his bike. “Wow, thanks! I can’t believe you remembered.”

It wasn’t until he’d said his own name that Gwen recognized him with a pang. This was Griffin Stagg. She remembered now, hearing the stories after he’d gone missing. Classmates saying he’d gone missing on his eleventh birthday, and how sad was that? Only they hadn’t cared about him before that fact. He was basically invisible, nobody knew much about him until after he’d disappeared. This was the kid she’d spoken to on the Spirit Box, the one that had said you don’t have much time. 

Griffin reached down for his bike lock, a familiar blue Master Lock with his name written on the back over masking tape. “23317,” he whispered to himself as he spun the lock. “23317.”

The lock clicked open and he clumsily shoved it into the side pocket on his backpack, hopped over the seat, and started biking away, presumably toward home. Gwen followed him, a deep sorrow aching in her chest. She could only watch as Griffin hit a pothole, jolting him. He cursed under his breath but steadied the bike and kept going. Gwen could only watch as the bike lock slipped out of the side pocket, through a tear he hadn’t seen, knocked loose by the bump in the road. She watched as the black van pulled up beside him and a man with white facepaint and a top hat flew out of the driver’s side door and bent down to retrieve it. 

She could only watch, unable to stop any of it as the man called out to Griffin. “Hey kid! I think you dropped something. This your bike lock?”

And Griffin squeezed the handle brakes and put his feet down off the pedals to look behind him. “Aw, shit. Thanks man, I didn’t even hear it fall out!” And Griffin swung his leg over the bike and kicked down the kickstand, jogging over to the Grabber, who held the bike lock out for the taking, his palm face up. Griffin reached for it, and quick as lightning, the Grabber reached out with his other hand and grabbed his wrist. Griffin was too stunned to shout and before he could do much of anything, he was spun around, back to the Grabber’s chest with the man’s arm around his neck. He started to really struggle, kicking and trying to scream, but the Grabber had already gotten the back door of the van open and grabbed a bundle of black balloons, effectively hiding Griffin’s small form from view, and dragged him bodily inside. Gwen covered her mouth with her hands, listening to Griffin shriek and struggle for a few fleeting moments before it all went quiet and the Grabber slipped back out with a scowl on his face and slammed the door, a few stray balloons flying free. Gwen stood there in the middle of the street, next to Griffin’s abandoned bike, as the Grabber hopped back into the van and peeled away from the curb, driving off in a hurry to 7742. 

Gwen’s heart broke in two for Griffin, knowing what would happen next, knowing that poor boy was about to have the worst birthday of his life, knowing he was going to spend the next year and a half in that basement, knowing he was going to die. 

“Hey,” she heard behind her and spun around with a gasp. 

It was Griffin. But not as she’d just seen him, full of life and riding his bike home from school on his birthday. This Griffin…she’d seen him before, four years ago, standing in her way with the other ghost boys. This Griffin was dead.

She could hardly look at him. His death had clearly been brutal. He didn’t seem to be in any pain, but he couldn't stand up quite straight. His legs were bent at odd angles and his back…something was wrong with his back. But worst of all was the gory mess the Grabber had made of his throat. It was hacked right open, deep and terrible, spurting blood from his visible arteries, one side of his neck clear across to the other. She’d never seen anything like it and would probably never stop seeing it. 

Gwen was speechless, sure if she had been able to find words, they’d get tangled with the bile climbing up her throat. Griffin shrugged, looking bashful, and when he went to speak, blood bubbled up out of his mouth, spilling over his lips and down his chin. He cleared his throat with a weird, gaspy, squelching sound and tried again. “Sorry, it’s hard to talk sometimes.”

“Oh God,” was all Gwen could say.

“You’re Gwen, right?” the boy asked. She nodded, and he smiled wide, blood in his teeth. “Finney talks about you sometimes.”

“Finney?” She whispered. 

Griffin nodded and took a stumbling step forward. Gwen took a quick step back and then hated herself for it when she saw the way Griffin’s face fell. “Sorry,” he said again. “I know it looks scary.”

Her heart melted. “No, no, Griffin, I’m sorry. It’s not your fault, I’m just…I’m just getting used to it. It’s–it’s awful what he did to you.”

Griffin got a far away look in his eyes then, and started mumbling under his breath. “23317, 23317, 23317.”

“That’s your bike lock combination, right?” He looked up, startled, like he’d forgotten she was there. “Oh, yeah. I was scared I’d forget it, so I carved it. With a bottle cap, in the wall.”

She nodded along, not sure exactly what was going on. He’d seemed lucid at the beginning of their conversation, seeking her out to tell her something, but now he seemed distant. She shouldn’t have mentioned his death or the Grabber. 

“Griffin? Were you going to tell me something?”

“Hm?” Blood gushed from his throat when he hummed. He coughed it away. “Oh, yeah. Um, the phone. You need to find the phone.”

“Where is it? You said Finney talked to you on the phone. What do you mean by that?”

He shrugged. “The phone in the basement, it’s not hooked up to anything. But it rings. It rang for everybody. Well, except Billy, he was first. But everybody else, it rang for them, but nobody heard it. Nobody but Finney.” He shot Gwen a side eye at that. “And you could see us, in your dreams. And that one time in the street.” It wasn’t an accusation, just an observation. She nodded along. “Well, when Finney was taken, he heard the phone ringing and we talked to him, all of us. We were trying to help him get out. We really were. He almost made it, too.”

Gwen’s expression crumbled at that, remembering the blood stain on the stairs. “Sorry he didn’t make it, Gwen,” Griffin murmured. “We really tried.”

“I know,” Gwen whispered. “Thank you for trying. I’m sorry you didn’t make it out either.”

Stupid, stupid. The words were out of her mouth before she realized she wasn’t supposed to mention his death, but Griffin was already wandering away from her, his broken legs carrying him in a painless but stilted gait. 

“Griffin? Where are you going?” She’d been expecting him to wander back to the house like Finney had in her dream. They’d both told her—Finney in the dream and Griffin on the Spirit Box—that they were stuck in the house, but Griffin was hobbling in the opposite direction. 

“The phone,” he said. “You have to find the phone.”

Much quicker than they would’ve gotten there if they’d actually been walking, they arrived at the police station. Gwen turned up her nose. She hadn’t been there since everything went down with Finney and the Grabber and she didn’t have very fond memories of the place. 

Griffin held the door open for her and they slipped inside. “The phone is in evidence still. You have to get it. There’s cameras…” he trailed off, drifting farther into the police station, past the front desk and the holding area and down a hall. “There’s a bathroom here, you can say you have to pee or something. This camera,” he said, pointing up to the corner. “It catches the edge of the men’s bathroom door. If you go to the women’s bathroom and then keep walking, there’s a blindspot between this camera and the next as long as you stay really close to the wall. The filing room is just here,” he opened another door, and the inside was just rows of industrial shelving and filing cabinets. “There’s no camera in here, but you’ll have to be quick. And quiet.”

She followed him past three shelves and on the forth, to the right and at eye level, was a brown box with Albert Shaw, 7741 and 7742 written on the side in black marker. Griffin pulled the box off the shelf and opened it. Inside was a bunch of files, a bloody bandana in a plastic bag, a few other things she couldn’t see that Griffin flipped by too fast, and finally, the black receiver for the phone, crusted in blood and sealed in a clear plastic bag. 

Griffin lifted it out of the box and gave her a meaningful look. “You can talk to us with this. But you have to hurry. The Grabber…well, he can’t kill us again, but he’s still mean. He’s real mean, Gwen. And he’s angry. Angry at Finney mostly, you know, for killing him. He’s…real mean to Finney.”

There was a massive lump in Gwen’s throat as she stared at the phone in Griffin’s hand and thought about the torture her brother and these other boys were going through. One of the only things that had comforted Gwen over the years whenever she was hurting was that at least it was over. At least Finney could rest, and he didn’t have to be scared anymore. He didn’t have to be hurt anymore. And now, to find out that even in death these boys couldn’t escape, it tore her heart out. It just wasn’t fair.

“We’re gonna help you Griffin,” Gwen said, her voice hard and determined, eyes blazing as she made eye contact with the ghost, for once, her gaze stayed locked on his eyes and didn’t drift down to the garish wound across his throat. 

Griffin smiled, warm and bright, like she imagined he had when he was alive. She imagined then, for just a brief moment, that, had he made it home on his bike that day, he would’ve smiled like that and blown out the candles on his birthday cake. 

“I know you will. Finney said you would.” He said it with such confidence, such surety, and Gwen knew she couldn’t let them down. Griffin put the phone back in the evidence box and slid it back onto the shelf. She followed him out of the filing room, eyes flicking up to the cameras and their angles as Griffin pointed them out again, memorizing them, and then the two of them stepped out into the fresh September air. September 8th, 1976. Griffin Stagg’s eleventh birthday, the day he was kidnapped by the Grabber. 

She turned to say goodbye, but Griffin was gone and she was alone. She turned back to look at the police station, a contemplative look on her face. 

And then she woke up.

Chapter Text

The final bell rang at the end of the school day on Monday, and Ernesto slipped his notebook into his backpack and stood, making his way calmly through the crowded hallways. His mind wandered as he walked out the front doors to the parking lot, to better times, times long since past, of days when Robin was still alive. Days where the two of them would play together, watch TV together, knock on the wall between their rooms to communicate. Days when their mama would smile, wide and joyful, as Robin would catch Ernesto under his arm and ruffle his hair. 

He’d been thinking about Robin a lot lately. Being in that house, in the basement his brother had died in, brought a lot of memories back to the forefront of Ernesto’s mind. He didn’t think he’d ever stop grieving Robin, but he’d been doing better. Being with Gwen had certainly helped, and his mama smiled more now, but ever since he’d heard Robin tapping hola on the phone hook, he hadn’t been able to look anywhere without seeing the empty space Robin should’ve been occupying. Piecing together more and more about the basement and the ghost boys made him sad, sure, but it also brought to light a terrible anger that had been buried for a long time under heavier, more depressive emotions. Now all he could think about at times was how much he missed his brother and how angry he was at the monster who’d taken him away from him.

Ernesto was shocked rudely out of his thoughts by the honking of a car horn. He jumped, realizing he’d stopped right in front of his car. Which was on, headlights shining. He narrowed his eyes. His own car had honked at him. The headlights shining in his eyes created a glare on his glasses and he squinted, moving over to the driver’s side door and opening it. Gwen sat in the passenger seat, a determined look on her face, one that meant she had an idea. It was a face that always led the two of them to some kind of trouble. 

He sank into the driver’s seat and twisted to face her after he pulled the door shut. The key was in the ignition. “How—when’d you get my keys?”

“During lunch,” she waved him off as if the question was irrelevant. “I didn’t honk at you so we could have a long conversation, I honked because we have to get going.”

“I’m gonna have to start watching you, sticky fingers.”

She glared at him. “We have a mission.”

Ernesto raised an eyebrow. “What kind of mission?”

“One that requires speed and not so many questions. Come on, Ernie! Put ’er in drive!”

He put the gear in drive but kept his foot on the brakes. “Gwen.”

“Don’t worry about it, okay? Plausible deniability and all that.”

“Gwen, why would I need plausible deniability?”

She whipped around in her seat, her expression razor sharp. “We’re getting that phone.”

“I thought it was still in evidence?”

She didn’t say anything. “Gwen.”

“Hm,” she wouldn’t look at him. 

“Gwen. Tell me we’re not breaking into the police station and stealing the phone.”

She shrugged. “Plausible deniability.”

“Oh my God,” Ernesto exclaimed, slamming his head back against the headrest. “My mama’s gonna kill me.” And without further ado, he pulled forward out of his parking spot and started driving in the direction of the station. 

“What, so that’s it? You’re not going to push back anymore? I’m asking you to break into the police station.”

Ernesto side-eyed her. “Like that’s gonna stop you. And like hell am I gonna let you go on your own. We’re in this together, remember?” That earned him a warm smile.

“I had a dream last night.”

Ernesto glanced over at her but said nothing. “It was Griffin. His abduction. It was his birthday,” she got choked up for a moment before pushing forward. “And then it was him, but as a ghost. He showed me where the phone was and how to get it out by avoiding the cameras.”

“Perfect, so what’s the plan?”

“We’re going to go in and ask whoever’s at the front desk if we can use the bathroom. There’s a blindspot in the cameras between the men’s bathroom and the file room. The women’s bathroom is in that blindspot, so I’m going to slip out, sneak into the file room, and grab the phone. Griffin showed me exactly where it is, and I wore my dad’s jacket today, so it’s baggy enough where no one will notice. In and out, and no one will know it’s gone.”

Ernesto nodded along. “Sounds solid. What am I gonna do?”

“You’re gonna go to the bathroom.”

“Yeah, I got that part, but what else? How am I helping?”

“You’re going to go…to the bathroom.”

“...Gwen.”

“Ernie.”

“Gwen, come on, the bathroom?”

She nodded. “The blindspot covers the women’s bathroom, but not the men’s. So to keep appearances, you’re going to go to the men’s room and stay there for a while, I’ll get the phone, and then we’ll leave. Simple as.”

Ernesto groaned dramatically, “But Gwen, that’s so boring! How am I supposed to spend a super badass heist mission in the bathroom?” 

Gwen giggled. “I’ll be doing the badassery, you’ll be…pissing or something, I don’t know. Whatever you wanna get up to in the bathroom.”

“Ew, Gwen.”

She punched him in the arm. “Just let me do the talking when we get in there, and I’ll knock on the bathroom door when I’m done and we’ll leave. And try not to look suspicious.”

He spluttered. “What? I never look suspicious.”

Gwen twisted in her seat and raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh, come on. What about that time when we were trying to sneak alcohol past your mom. Huh? You were beet red and couldn’t look her in the eye. We got caught immediately!”

He admittedly had no defense for that one. “Okay, but that’s not always.”

“Ernesto. You can not lie to save your life! So just keep your head down and go to the bathroom.”

“Ugh, fine.”

Shortly after his concession, Ernesto pulled into the police station and parked, turning the key and slipping it into his pocket. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and looked over at Gwen, staring at the door in determination. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he murmured. 

Gwen looked like she was about to give him sass again, but something in his tone stopped her and she just nodded instead. “I know what I’m doing.”

The two got out of the car and headed inside. As one of the only Mexican guys in North Denver, Ernesto was more than a little nervous about just waltzing into the police station, but Gwen took the lead, walking right up to the older woman working at the front desk. The woman’s eyes slid right over Gwen and settled on Ernesto. He felt his cheeks start to heat and he offered a nervous smile, then looked down at his feet. 

“May I help you?” the woman asked, though Ernesto got the impression she wasn’t too committed to helping them at all. 

“Yes, actually,” Gwen said, hopping from one foot to the next. “Listen, is it all right if we use your bathroom? Normally, I would just walk over to the Grab ’N Go, but there was a creepy guy walking around out front and, well, I don’t know, I just didn’t feel very safe.”

The older woman slid a pointed look Ernesto’s way, and his blush spread up to his ears, heavy with shame. Why, he didn’t know. He hadn’t even done anything, this old white lady was just assuming things about him, but still he felt bad. 

Gwen clocked the look immediately, of course. “He’s with me,” she asserted firmly. The older woman finally looked away from him and he was able to let his breath go and relax a tiny bit. “It’s just, well you know, with my brother…you know who my brother was, right? Finney Blake? When I see a creepy man, I figure it’s best to just…be better safe than sorry. And I really have to pee, so can we use your bathroom? Please?”

The woman’s eyes widened at the mention of Finney and, flustered, she waved them past the desk and down the hallway. “You had to bring Finney into this?” Ernesto whispered under his breath. 

Gwen shot him a look. “She was being a racist pig, I wanted to make her uncomfortable so she’d let us through. Now go piss.”

He chuckled and rolled his eyes, pushing the men’s door open and slipping inside. He caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror, flushed red. He stood there, just looking, and shook out his hands and splashed his face with water. It was all up to Gwen now. 

—

Gwen didn’t bother pretending to go to the bathroom, bypassing the women’s door entirely and pushing into the one next to it, full of confidence. She figured if someone was inside, she could play dumb and pretend she wasn’t paying attention to where she was going. Thankfully, the file room was empty. 

She counted the shelves in her head as she went, one, two, three, four, and over to the right, eye level. Sure enough, just like Griffin told her, the box labeled Albert Shaw, 7741 and 7742 was right there. Without even a glance over her shoulder, she pulled it out, slipped the top off, and rooted around. There she found the black phone receiver in a clear plastic bag, and she slipped it quickly inside her jacket. She was quick to stick the lid back on and return the box exactly how it had been when she got there. She didn’t anticipate them opening the box any time soon, so if she was careful about it, they might not notice the box was tampered with for years. 

Once that was done, she slipped back out into the hallway. She walked normally, didn’t look to make sure the coast was clear or anything, and just took a few steps up to the men’s bathroom. She knocked on the door, “Ernesto? You okay in there?”

He opened the door, his face damp. “Yeah, I’m good.” 

“Good,” she smiled, grabbing his hand and leading him back down the hall. “Thanks so much for letting us use the bathroom!” She called over her shoulder to the woman at the desk and then they were out. 

She had to fight not to skip back to the car, and she stayed calm and stoic until they were around the corner and down the road. “WOOHOO YES!” she screamed. 

Ernesto jerked the wheel. “Oh my God, warn a guy!” 

She laughed, loud and sharp, and whipped the phone out of her jacket. “We got it! Ernesto, we really did it! We can talk to them!” 

His responding grin was everything. 

Chapter Text

“Guys, guess whaaaat,” Griffin sing-songed as he stumbled down the stairs to the basement. “Ah, fuck,” he murmured to himself as he missed the last few stairs and went sprawling. His stupid legs didn’t work and he preferred floating, so that’s what he did, laying back into a backbend. “Ah, that’s better.”

Vance glanced up at him. “Why do you do that, you fucking weirdo creep?”

Griffin grinned, the blood from his throat pooling in his mouth and staining his teeth. “Probaly cuz you hate it so much. Plus it’s comfy.” 

Vance gave him a disbelieving look but didn’t say anything else. 

Billy blew his hair out of his eyes from across the room. “All right, I’ll take the bait. What, Griffin?”

Griffin giggled. “Well, I’m so glad you asked Billy, thank you. I…” he trailed off dramatically. 

“Fuck’s sake,” Vance murmured. All six boys were in the basement, not how it is but how it was. There was no graffiti here, no broken phone, no hole dug in the hall. This is where they spent most of their time, though sometimes they would venture upstairs when the Grabber was…gone. None of them really understood his comings and goings. 

“Are you gonna let me finish?” Griffin scolded, still floating upside down. 

“Just spit it out, Griff.”

“I…talked to someone!”

Vance raised an eyebrow. “You talk to people all the time, dipshit.”

“Yeah, your ugly mug!”

“Who’d you talk to, Griffin?” Bruce asked.

The six of them tended to be contained to the basement. No matter how desperately they all wanted to escape, they were stuck here. They thought when Finney killed the Grabber, when their bodies were discovered, they would be free. But no one who died in this basement ever really left. 

It was hard at times to stay lucid. The time passed weird there, all syrupy and thick. It was easy to drift, to get lost in the monotonous terror of the basement. With or without the Grabber around, the basement was a deeply, intensely traumatizing place for all the boys to be. Yes, it was easier to disassociate from it all, but the longer they tended to drift and stay away, the more parts of themselves they tended to lose. The ghost boys found different ways to stay lucid. For Vance, it was his anger. He had always been an angry child, but what the Grabber had done to him filled him with a terrified, festering rage that never seemed to dim. Griffin had his humor. Being the youngest of them all and the longest in captivity, he’d faced the Grabber in ways the others hadn’t. There were times where Griffin would drift for a long time, his mind far, far away. It would take a lot to get him back. Vance always gave him hell for how creepy his giggling was, but his sorrowful, painful cries were absolutely haunting. So when Griffin was in the mood to joke, no matter how morbid, the others tended to go along with it. 

What kept Billy’s consciousness at the surface was his conviction. Billy had been the Grabber’s first victim, and had met the man at his most unpracticed and unfiltered. The violence he’d endured, the mind games he’d suffered were hard for him to fight through, but when given a life raft, Billy was able to fight to the surface of his mind and hold onto himself. Robin, on the other hand, was held together by his protectiveness. It was in caring for the boys around him that brought himself into focus. He’d always been a protector in life, and death couldn’t take that from him. 

While the strong tide of sorrow threatened to drown Vance’s anger, Bruce fought hard to hold onto his kindness and compassion. That was perhaps one of the hardest things to keep. Despite what was done to him and how easy it would have been to turn to bitterness and lose himself in it, Bruce stayed true to himself. He stayed kind.

Finney’s lifeline was the hardest for him to hold onto. He spent most of his time in the basement and throughout the house drifting. He wasn’t lucid very often. Something in him had broken so severely in his death, in his failure to escape. He’d been on the stairs, he’d been so close, but not quite close enough. Finney’s lifeline was hope, something that was quite hard for him to come by.

Before Griffin could tell everyone who he’d spoken to, Robin looked up from where he’d been intently watching Finney pace, who had a vacant, faraway look in his eyes, one they’d been unable to break him out of for weeks. 

“Was it a nerdy looking kid with glasses?” Robin asked, his head tilted to the side. 

Griffin rolled his eyes. “Well, yes, but that’s not really who I was referring to.”

“You really talked to him?” Robin asked, a wide smile spreading across his face. 

Griffin’s expression softened and he rolled over in the air, lowering himself to the ground to sit so he could actually look at the other boys. “Yeah, I talked to the specky kid. On a radio machine. He called it a Spirit Box.”

Robin was beaming. “That was Ernesto. He’s my little brother. I talked to him too, just briefly, on the phone. With morse code!”

“Yeah, he was here, in the house. I talked to him, but then, I talked to someone else. In a dream.”

“In a dream?” Billy asked. 

“Yeah. She said her name was Gwen.”

For the first time in a long time, Finney stopped pacing and looked up. Clarity surfaced in his eyes and he looked right at Griffin. “Gwen?”

“Yeah, Finney. She told me that you asked her for help.”

Robin and Bruce perked up at that. It was essentially unheard of that Finney would have the wherewithal to reach out for help, but it impressed them that he had done so. Finney had always been full of surprises. Whenever they expected him to stay down and give up, he always managed to get back up. 

“Yeah,” he murmured, his eyes getting foggy again. “I did that. We need help, and Gwen…Gwen can help. She can…she can help.” He started pacing again and Robin’s face twisted, defeated. 

“Well, he was here for a few seconds at least,” Billy commented.

Bruce glanced back over his shoulder where Robin was trailing behind Finney like a lost puppy, calling after him and trying to get his attention again. Bruce turned back to Griffin, sitting down across from the boy. “Tell us about the dream, Griff.”

Initially, death had been a reprieve for the boys. Yes, they were stuck lingering between the two houses, stuck watching each boy be taken, tortured, and killed, stuck making hopeless, desperate phone calls. But at least they could rest. They didn’t have to be afraid anymore. They didn’t have to hurt anymore. 

When Gwen had led the police to 7741, they thought that was it, that they would finally be free to move on to the next place. They’d been halfway there, too, before something called them back. Robin had looked over his shoulder then, a look of despair on his face. “Finney,” he’d murmured, before running on his ghostly legs back to 7742. They’d all thought for sure that Finney had beaten the Grabber. They’d watched him as he set up every trap and got ready to face the Grabber, the most hardened and determined look on his face. When they felt Gwen outside, they’d had to leave to stop her from pedaling farther, and then, well. They thought he’d succeeded. But he hadn’t. Not really. He’d killed the Grabber, but he hadn’t made it out of the house after all. And when Robin took those first steps back into the house and the other boys had followed him, when they saw Finney standing on the stairs of the basement, covered in blood and confused, they’d known it wasn’t over. From that moment on, they hadn’t been able to leave the house.

The Grabber hadn’t been around, not at first. It was just the boys and, every once in a while, the Grabber’s brother, an absent-minded man with an axe lodged in the back of his skull. He tended to wander around the front living room, staring at the remains of his murder board, or else bothering them by invading their space in the basement and repeating, “You shouldn’t be here,” and, “Holy Mary, mother of god…”

It didn’t seem fair that the Grabber was allowed to escape this prison in the afterlife and his victims weren’t, but they would take the time away from him when they could. He couldn’t physically hurt them post-death, but he sure tried his best to continue to cause them harm. He had always been good at mind games and manipulation in life, and with that being his only weapon in death, he wielded that sword often. 

While he loved to mess with all the boys, there was an entirely different level of hate in his heart for Finney. The Grabber was relentless in his torment, and it was all the other boys could do to get in his way, distract him, or just comfort the thirteen-year-old. The Grabber was very bitter that Finney had not only killed him, but as he claimed, made him kill his own brother. So at the end of the day, it was maybe not such a bad thing that Finney had an especially hard time holding onto his consciousness. But then again, the boys were never sure what was left with Finney when he drifted. Maybe he was thinking of times long since passed. Maybe he wasn’t thinking of anything at all. Or maybe he was thinking of all the worst parts of his life. 

As Griffin explained his dream to the other boys, how he led Gwen through the police station to find the phone, they all found their gazes drawn to Finney at one point or another. They could feel it in the air then, something that had been absent from these walls for a long, long time. Hope.