Chapter 30: THE CHIEF
Merrill's pumpkin farm spread across the hillside like a bruise on the Indiana landscape.
I'd driven past it twice already—once during my initial reconnaissance of Hawkins, once a few days later when the rot had caught my attention. The dying patches had expanded since then. What had been isolated circles of decay were now spreading zones, the healthy pumpkins drowning in a tide of blackened vines and collapsing fruit.
The tunnels. Spreading underground, killing everything they touched. The show had explained it eventually—the Mind Flayer's influence spreading through root networks, poisoning the soil itself. But seeing it in person was different. Worse.
I pulled the Camaro off the main road and parked at the edge of the field. The wrongness was stronger here than in town—not the crushing pressure of the lab, but a persistent unease that made my fire stir in response.
I was halfway across the field when I noticed the other vehicle. A police truck, parked at the far end of the property. Distinctive. Official.
Jim Hopper.
He was walking the field edge when I spotted him, head down, examining the damage with the focus of a man who'd seen something like this before. The distinctive hat, the slightly rumpled uniform, the world-weary posture of someone carrying more weight than anyone should have to bear.
I considered leaving. Hopper was investigating the same phenomenon I was, but we were doing it for different reasons. He was law enforcement; I was a civilian with no official standing and a secret that would land me in a government facility if the wrong people found out.
But before I could retreat, he looked up. Our eyes met across the dying pumpkins.
"Kid." His voice carried the flat authority of someone who'd spent years dealing with people who didn't want to be dealt with. "You're a long way from anywhere."
I walked toward him rather than away. Running would only make me look more suspicious than I already did.
"Billy Hargrove," he said as I approached. "New in town. Max Mayfield's stepbrother." He'd done his homework. "What's your interest in dying pumpkins?"
"Noticed the rot driving by." I gestured at the spreading decay. "Got curious."
"Most people aren't curious about agriculture."
"Most people don't pay attention."
Hopper's eyes narrowed. He was reading me the way cops read everyone—looking for tells, inconsistencies, the small signs that separated honest citizens from people with something to hide.
I had plenty to hide. But I'd been practicing this face for months.
"The farmers are worried," Hopper said, watching my reaction. "Think it's some kind of disease. County extension office came out, took samples, couldn't identify what's causing it." He kicked at a rotted pumpkin, and it collapsed into black mush. "Weird, right?"
"Very weird."
"You seem awfully calm about weird."
"I've seen weird before."
Something flickered in his expression—recognition, maybe. The awareness that he was talking to someone who knew more than they were saying. It takes one to know one, and Hopper was carrying enough secrets to fill a library.
"Stay away from places you don't belong," he said. The friendly tone was gone, replaced by something harder. "This town has dangers you don't understand."
"I understand more than you think."
The words hung in the air between us. Hopper studied me for a long moment, and I could see the calculations happening behind his eyes. Who was this kid? What did he know? Was he a threat or an asset?
I knew things about Jim Hopper that he didn't know I knew. That he'd lost a daughter to cancer. That he'd found a strange girl in the woods and taken her in. That he'd faced things from another dimension and survived, barely.
He was a good man doing an impossible job. And he had no idea that the teenager standing in front of him might be his ally when the darkness came.
"Then you understand staying away." His tone had finalized. End of conversation. "Go home, Hargrove."
I didn't argue. Fighting authority was a losing game, and I'd already learned what I needed to learn. Hopper was investigating the rot. The official channels had failed to explain it. Something was going to break, soon, and when it did, Hopper would be at the center of the response.
I walked back to the Camaro, feeling his eyes on me the whole way. He'd remember this encounter. File it away. Wonder about the California kid who seemed too interested in unexplained phenomena.
That was fine. When the time came—when the tunnels erupted and the Demodogs emerged and Hawkins went to hell—I wanted Hopper to remember that I'd been paying attention.
I wanted him to know I was ready.
The Camaro's engine caught on the second try—the Indiana cold was starting to affect it, making the starter sluggish. I'd need to adjust the timing soon, or risk getting stranded somewhere inconvenient.
Pulling back onto the main road, I watched Hopper shrink in the rearview mirror. He was still standing in the field, still examining the rot, still carrying the weight of secrets he couldn't share with anyone.
We weren't so different, really. Both of us protecting people who didn't know they needed protecting. Both of us preparing for a battle that hadn't started yet.
The difference was that I knew what was coming. And when the time came to fight, I wouldn't be fighting alone.
The wrongness pulsed beneath the Indiana soil. The tunnels spread. The clock ticked toward a crisis that would change everything.
But I had fire. I had allies. I had knowledge that could make the difference between victory and catastrophe.
Hopper might be good at his job. But he wasn't the only one watching. And when Hawkins burned, I planned to be ready to put out the flames.
Or maybe just redirect them toward something that deserved to burn.
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