The Search For A Scapegoat

"The search for a scapegoat is the easiest of all hunting expeditions." – Dwight D. Eisenhower

Following the nightmare with the Grabber telling Finn that he wasn't ever going to be rid of him, it became apparent that something else was also going on. When Finn looked in the mirror, in windows, in puddles on the street, he could see the bright bruises around his throat in the shape of the belt. It was the only wound that carried over from the nightmare into the real world. When he first spotted it, he was sure it was not only going to be impossible to hide, but it was going to be impossible to explain. Then the next morning happened, and no one said a word. Gwen didn't say anything, his dad didn't say anything, and none of the kids or adults at school said anything. It wasn't a lack of concern, and there was a lack of bullying, too; it was a complete lack of acknowledgement.

The next day, the bruises looked worse, as bruises often did, and when he pressed on them, they ached. The cold that seemed to follow him everywhere was still prevalent, along with that weight that had settled into his stomach, but now the bruise was there. Finn couldn't help it; he idly touched it that morning as they were eating.

"Something on your neck bothering you, Finn?" his dad asked.

"Maybe, do you see anything?" Finn asked. His dad walked over and moved his head to the side; it ached, but Finn did his best to hide the wince. Gwen was watching them closely, but she didn't seem worried.

"Maybe you slept on it funny," was the conclusion his dad came to.

"Yeah, maybe you're just getting old," Gwen said. Finn thought he did a pretty good job of playing the entire thing off, but if Gwen couldn't see them, then Finn was almost positive no one else would. He shivered a little in his chair, which prompted his dad to press a warm hand to Finn's forehead.

"Feeling sick?" he asked. "Your forehead feels completely normal." Those words made Finn realize that no one else had ever acknowledged how cold he was. No one else had ever said he felt cold to the touch, and he couldn't believe this was the first time he was realizing it. No one could see the bruises, and no one could feel how cold he was. It was as if Finn was partially existing in a completely different reality from the rest of the world. "It's Friday, so why don't you stay home and get some rest? It's been…" His father trailed off as he could somehow put the events of Alpine Lake into words.

"Thanks, Dad, I'll do that," Finn replied. He walked back to his room in a daze and collapsed on his bed as he stared at the ceiling. When the Grabber said he was going to do Finn a kindness and not invade the dreams of his father and sister, he didn't know this would extend into the real world as well. It made sense given what the ultimate goal supposedly was. If no one could see the evidence of what Finn was going through on his physical body, then he had no one to talk to; he would get lonelier and more isolated, and one step closer to ending his own life, just like the Grabber wanted.

You're going to do to yourself what I staged for her. Finn could hear him whispering those words in his ear, in the back of his mind, and he didn't know how to react to them. He wanted to say he wouldn't take his own life; he fought too hard, too many times, to live to willingly die, but somehow, the words tasted like ash on his tongue.

Finn shivered and crawled back under his pile of blankets. He didn't bother turning up the heat in the house because it wouldn't have made a difference. The bruises, the cold, they only existed for him.

+++

Finn knew this was a dream before he even opened his eyes because he wasn't cold. It was telling that the only time he ever felt warm or even comfortable was in his nightmares. The Grabber was right about the pain that came with the cold. He blinked, and the world around him began to come into focus. He was in the basement again, because, of course, he was. The black phone was sitting there on the wall, waiting to ring, but there was silence. The basement looked like it did when he was a kid, but Finn himself wasn't a kid. He was in his seventeen-year-old body for all the good it would do him.

He was surprised to find the door wide open. It was a trick, it was quite literally one of the things that got the others killed, but waiting here alone didn't feel like an option either. There wasn't any evidence of another soul in the basement, no bodies and no blood, so it wasn't a memory. Finn climbed the stairs and was shocked that the Grabber wasn't waiting for him. What he could hear was police sirens, and they were close. When Finn looked out the front window, he saw all of the cops at the house across the street where the bodies were. It was instinct to try to open the door, but he was unsurprised when it didn't open. Every door leading outside was going to be sealed shut, he was sure of that before he even needed to test them.

"Of course they're locked, no one is coming to save you today," an all-too-familiar voice whispered directly into Finn's ear. He jumped and turned around only for two strong hands to wrap around both of his wrists like vices. The Grabber slammed Finn into the door so hard it knocked the wind out of him. "So great that I get to see my favorite, special boy again. How did you like my gifts?"

"You mean your gift where no one can see bruises or how I'm constantly freezing cold? Yeah, they're great," Finn deadpanned even as his heart raced. There was almost no space between them, but this version of the Grabber was not the malformed demon from hell. This was Albert, and he wasn't even wearing the bottom half of his mask.

"I told you that I wouldn't touch them; you should learn to trust my promises more," he said with a smirk. "I said I won't touch them because they'll suffer when you kill yourself. I wouldn't do this for anyone, but you're the one, Finney, you're it."

"Yeah, I'm the one who killed you, and then I'm the one who sent you back to hell where you belong," Finn replied. The grip on his wrists was gone, but was replaced with one hand around his throat and another that slammed his skull into the door so hard Finn swore he saw stars. The blow left him dazed, but he still scratched at the Grabber's hands as the edges of the world began to darken. The Grabber slammed him down onto the floor, but finally relinquished the hold on his throat. Finn sucked in precious oxygen, but it made his entire chest ache.

"No, Finney, that isn't why you're the one," the Grabber said as he circled Finn as he lay on the floor. "Sure, the boys at Alpine, the first two here, I was scratching this itch I didn't know I had. I couldn't explain it, so I just treated it, but then your mother came along. She stuck her nose into my business, and I had to take care of her. She saw Billy, so she had to die. I wanted to see, though, so I watched. I saw your dad find her, but then I saw you. Little ten-year-old Finney and I knew you were my boy. I didn't know until that moment that the others were just placeholders until I found you."

Finn tried to slow his breathing, but the ache in his chest, his wrists, his head, all of it was making it hard for him to think.

"You're lying," Finn whispered. The Grabber laughed and yanked him to his feet by his hair. The world around them blurred, and Finn could see Albert, in his van, watching a ten-year-old version of himself from a distance.

"Your mom led me straight to you," the Grabber whispered into Finn's ear. "I thought about taking you the next day, but you were a little too young, and I wanted to make sure the game was perfect for you. And there's no better way to make something better than to practice."

Finn squeezed his eyes shut, hoping that he would wake up, but the world tilted, and his back hit a wall. His eyes opened as the Grabber pinned his wrists to either side of his head. He was smiling like someone just told him a joke.

"Say it," he whispered, but Finn shook his head. "Say it, say why all of the others had to die, including that faggy little friend of yours. Say whose fault it is." Finn still couldn't say a word; it felt like his entire world was beginning to cave in, the reality he used to know coming undone right before his eyes. The Grabber leaned forward until they were chest to chest and put his mouth directly on Finn's ear; "Whose to blame?"

"Me," Finn whispered, surprised at how broken his own voice sounded. "They died because you wanted me, and I wasn't old enough, and you wanted the game to be perfect." The Grabber released his wrists, but Finn couldn't react. He just slid down to the ground and hugged his legs to his chest. The Grabber knelt and smiled at him. The smile was strangely kind, and it was somehow more frightening than the rotting corpse from Alpine Lake.

"I wonder how willing they would be to chat over the phone if they knew you were the reason I killed them," he said, casually. "You, me, and your mother, we were those boys reckoning." Finn jumped as the phone rang, and the Grabber smiled. "I wonder which one is calling?" Finn was too busy staring at the phone that he didn't notice the knife in Grabber's hand until it was in his stomach. He looked down at the blooming stain of red on his shirt. Finn collapsed to the dirty ground of the basement as the phone rang. The Grabber stood over him and watched. This time, bleeding out took much longer, and Finn could tell he was enjoying every second of it.

+++

Finn came out of this nightmare slowly. He didn't gasp or scream; he just opened his eyes and realized he was in his room. The house was quiet, and the clock on the desk read two in the afternoon. Of course, the house was empty, Gwen was at school, and Dad was at work. He shivered, and that pit in his stomach rolled. That was the indication that he was awake.

Finn's entire body protested as he swung his feet out of bed, but it was his wrists that immediately drew his attention. There were hand-and finger-shaped bruises around both of them. Somehow, Finn knew that no one would be able to see these either. He wasn't hungry, but made his way to the kitchen anyway.

The sound of the phone ringing made Finn freeze in place. Logically, it could be anyone calling. It could be Dad calling to check in. It could be a wrong number. There were a million explanations that had nothing to do with his personal sleep demon. I wonder how willing they would be to chat over the phone if they knew you were the reason I killed them. Yet when Finn went to pick up the phone, he hesitated, and a wave of cold so intense came over him that it ached.

The phone went unanswered as Finn crawled back into bed and didn't move for the rest of the day.