Episode 6 (Part 2) - Bad Blood
Part 2
Chapter 31
“You shot an officer. One of our own.” Chief Hart’s voice was heavy with disappointment, his usual gruffness tempered by something closer to grief. “There’s nothing I can do.”
Casey stood in the doorway of Hart’s office, rainwater still clinging to his jacket. His hands hung at his sides, empty without the weight of his badge or his gun.
“I know. I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
Hart’s eyes flicked up from the stack of paperwork littering his desk. The incident had spawned reports, statements, and inquiries, each one heavier than the last. Casey was being put on mandatory leave, effective immediately, his eventual return pending an initial invesitgation and pyshcological screening. Nothing about it looked good.
“Good news is,” Hart started, “Johnson looks like he’ll pull through. Lost a lot of blood and he’s not awake yet. But he’ll live.”
“I thought it was Crawley. Thought that—”
“That he had a knife. One you described as carved from some kind of stone. That he was going after Ms. Fischer. I’ve read the reports, Benson.”
“Then you know that Crawley was there. He had the Topia boy. He can confirm that too. I’m making this up Frank.”
“The kid was knocked out Casey. He can’t confrim shit. Nothing about it looks good.”
“They found Crawley’s blood at the scene.”
“He’d in the wind. And he’s a suspect in all of this now. That doesn’t change the fact that you shot Travis Johnson.”
Casey scoffed. “So you’re just going to let Reeves cover up everything?”
“Wherever you claim you were Casey, we didn’t find anything in that pipe. Neither did the feds.”
“Of course not.”
“It’s crazy talk son. Some kind of underground operation, a mammoth storage facility guarded by black ops? Have you been hearing yourself?”
Millie Thompson found alive, Travis Johnson shot, the tunnel beneath Prince Milling erased as if it had never existed—it all felt like a fever dream, one that left Westville more fractured than before.
Both of them were in the same hospital—Mary’s Heart in Iron Falls. Millie had been close to dehydration, starvation, and low on blood. Marks on her syringe marks on her arms. She hadn’t said much yet. If she had Casey wouldn’t know. Joe and Erin and offered that he could come to see her.
“I’m sorry too,” Hart said, leaning back in his chair. His pale eyes, lined with age and wear, softened briefly. “You had a future here, Benson. Hell, I wanted better for you than this. Just wish you could’ve wanted it for yourself.”
The words cut deeper than Casey expected, but he didn’t flinch. He stood there, numb, as though the weight of the last two days had dulled his ability to feel anything except shame. He wanted to argue, to tell Hart how wrong he was—about him, about this whole damn town—but what would be the point?
His gaze drifted to the desk where his badge and sidearm sat untouched. They’d been there since he’d turned them in yesterday, symbols of a life he wasn’t sure he wanted back.
“Take care of yourself, Frank,” Casey said finally, his voice quieter than he intended.
Hart looked up at him, holding his gaze for a long moment. The chief’s jaw worked like he wanted to say something—anger, forgiveness, maybe both—but in the end, he just nodded. “You too, Benson.”
As Casey turned to leave, he felt the weight of Hart’s silence pressing against his back. It wasn’t forgiveness, not really. But it wasn’t condemnation either.
It was just... the end.
Casey pulled up outside Fischer’s Café. The neon sign buzzed faintly, casting a warm glow against the wet pavement.
Aly opened the door before he could knock. “You’re leaving,” she said, her voice steady but her eyes searching his.
Casey nodded. “I need... I don’t know what I need.”
She crossed her arms, leaning against the doorframe. “So, that’s it? You’re running again?”
“I’m not running,” he said, though even as the words left his mouth, they tasted like a lie.
Aly shook her head. “You always do this, Casey. Push people away when it gets too hard.”
He stepped closer, rain dripping from his jacket. “I just keep screwing everything up. I shot Travis. I almost... I can’t keep making things worse.”
“Then stop,” she said, her voice breaking. “Stop running and face it. Face us. Face yourself.”
For a moment, he thought about staying. About trying. But the weight of everything—Millie, Travis, The Red—pressed down on him.
“I’ll see you around, Aly,” he said finally, turning toward his car.
“If you leave now, Casey...” She stopped herself, swallowing whatever she was about to say. “Take care of yourself.”
The sun was setting by the time Casey finished packing his car. He’d thrown what he could into boxes, leaving behind the furniture that came with the rental. The maps and documents he’d accumulated lay in a pile by the door - everything connecting Prince Milling to Janus Global, the strange hexagonal pattern over Westville, the reports of red lights and whispers in the woods.
He should burn them. Forget all of it.
But he couldn’t. Not really.
The image of Travis’s body haunted him - crumpled in the mud by the river, blood pooling around him. Casey had acted on instinct, seeing the knife, seeing Travis moving toward Aly. But in that last moment, as the light faded from Travis’s eyes, Casey had seen something else there. A flicker of relief, maybe. As if death had freed him from whatever had taken hold.
You’re the guilty ones...
The whisper that had plagued them all. Casey rubbed his temples, trying to ward off the memories of that hissing voice. He’d heard it first by the scout cabin the morning Millie disappeared. Travis must have heard it too, near the end.
He grabbed the last box and headed for the door when someone knocked. Through the window, he saw Dr. Heiser standing on his porch, hands clasped behind his back.
“Going somewhere?” Heiser asked when Casey opened the door.
“You shouldn’t be here.” Casey moved to close the door, but Heiser held up a hand.
“I know what you saw in Travis’s eyes,” he said quietly. “The same thing you saw in Crawley. The Seethe takes hold slowly at first. Makes them paranoid. Angry. Then they start to hear the whispers.”
Casey’s jaw tightened. “I don’t want to hear this.”
“But you need to. Because it’s not over, Mr. Benson. Janus Global didn’t just choose Westville by accident. The ley lines here, the convergence points - they’re trying to open something. And they’re using people to do it. People like Travis. Like Crawley.”
“And Millie? What was she to them?”
Heiser’s expression darkened. “A key. Just like all the others they’ve taken over the years. Young souls are more... susceptible to their methods. They need that connection to make the breach permanent.”
Casey thought of Millie in the hospital, how she hadn’t spoken since they found her. How she would stare at nothing for hours, tears rolling down her cheeks.
“I can’t help you,” Casey said finally. “I’m done.”
Heiser nodded slowly. “You can leave Westville, Mr. Benson. But Westville won’t leave you. Not now. Not after what you’ve seen.” He reached into his coat and pulled out a small notebook. “When you’re ready to understand what’s really happening here, these are the places you’ll want to start looking.”
He set the notebook on top of Casey’s box and walked away into the growing darkness. Casey watched him go, then looked down at the notebook. Inside were coordinates, names, dates - a web of connections spanning decades.
On the last page was a simple note: “They need three keys to open the door. Millie was only the first.”
Casey stood there for a long moment, the weight of the box growing heavy in his arms. Then he set it down, grabbed his keys, and walked to his car. He had a long drive ahead of him.
But as he pulled away from the house, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Heiser was right. Whispers that this wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.
And those whispers only got louder the further away he drove.
Chapter 32
Olivia sat beside Millie’s hospital bed, watching her friend’s chest rise and fall in shallow, uneven breaths. The rhythmic beeping of monitors provided a sterile counterpoint to the silence. Millie hadn’t spoken since they found her. The doctors called it trauma-induced catatonia. Olivia called it bullshit.
They didn’t know what she’d seen down there. What they’d all seen.
“You should eat something,” Erin said, touching Olivia’s shoulder gently. She held out a paper bag from Fischer’s Café. The scent of grilled cheese—Millie’s favorite—wafted from it, but it only made Olivia’s stomach turn.
“I’m okay,” Olivia said softly. “Thanks, Mrs. Thompson.”
Joe paced by the window, his reflection ghosting across the glass like a restless spirit. He hadn’t sat down once in the three hours Olivia had been there. His hands kept clenching and unclenching, like he was fighting the urge to hit something—or someone.
“The police want to talk to her again,” he said suddenly, his voice tight. “About what happened in the tunnel.”
“She’s not ready,” Erin snapped, her tone sharp. The dark circles under her eyes seemed to hollow her face, aging her by years. “Those federal agents can wait.”
Olivia reached for Millie’s hand, gently cradling it in her own. It felt cold, lifeless. Like something left too long in the dark. She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, not sure if she was speaking to Millie or her parents. “If I hadn’t pushed us to go looking...”
“Don’t,” Erin said firmly, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. “You found her. You brought her back to us.”
But did we? Olivia thought. The girl lying in that bed looked like Millie, breathed like Millie—but something was missing. Something vital had been stripped away in that place beneath Prince Milling.
The door opened softly, and Aly stepped in, her presence a quiet disruption. “Hey,” she said gently. “Time to go, Liv.”
“Five more minutes?” Olivia asked, glancing back at Millie.
Aly shook her head, her expression kind but firm. “Mom’s waiting. You need rest too.”
Reluctantly, Olivia stood, her legs stiff from sitting so long. She squeezed Millie’s hand one last time, willing her friend to squeeze back. But there was nothing. Only stillness.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” she promised, her voice catching in her throat.
Out in the hallway, she paused outside Travis Johnson’s room. The door was closed, but through the small window, she could see him lying there, tubes running everywhere, machines breathing for him. The official story was that Officer Benson had shot him in self-defense—that Travis had attacked him in some kind of psychotic break.
But Olivia had seen the red light in Travis’s eyes that night. The same light that had chased them through the woods on Halloween. The same light that pulsed through the tunnels beneath the mill.
“Come on,” Aly said softly, tugging Olivia’s arm.
As they walked away, Olivia couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t over. That whatever had taken hold of Travis, whatever had hurt Millie—it was still out there, waiting.
The night nurse makes her rounds at 2 AM, checking vitals and adjusting IVs with mechanical efficiency. She notes nothing unusual in Millie Thompson’s room—just another sleeping patient in the quiet dark, the girl’s mother curled up on the couch on the other side of the room.
The nurse doesn’t see the figure standing in the corner.
It emerges from the shadows as soon as she leaves, moving to Millie’s bedside with unnatural grace. Moonlight catches the golden surface of an old pocket watch in its hand, the soft ticking echoing in the still air.
Red light begins to pulse around the figure, casting strange shadows on the walls. They twist and writhe, taking on shapes that shouldn’t exist—antlers and claws and hungry, reaching things.
The figure holds the watch over Millie’s chest. The ticking grows louder, more insistent, falling into rhythm with her heartbeat. Their merged cadence seems to make the air itself vibrate.
“Soon,” the figure whispers in a voice like grinding metal. “The door is almost open.”
Millie’s eyes flutter beneath closed lids, tears leaking from the corners. The monitors show her heart rate climbing.
The figure tucks the watch away and reaches out with long, pale fingers. They hover over Millie’s forehead, trembling slightly, as if held back by some invisible barrier.
The shadows on the walls grow larger, more grotesque. The red light pulses faster, brighter, until it seems to fill the whole room with its bloody glow.
Then, as suddenly as it appeared, the figure is gone. Only the lingering scent of ozone and the sound of Millie’s sleeping whimpers fill the room.
In the town of Westville, in a silent, empty house, Joe Thompson shoots awake from a fitful sleep. He thinks of his daughter, asleep in that hospital bed. She should be here, in her own. But it’s the ticking pulse that wakes him. The counting of the seconds, minutes, and hours. A debt piling up that no one can ever repay.
He eyes the black gun safe in the corner of the room with disdain and dread, and walks over to it. The pulse grows louder. He enters the combination: 10, 13, 18, 98.
It clicks open. He pulls his shotgun from the rack, then his hunting rifle. He slides the secret panel loose and sees it.
The dull golden pocket watch, rusted with dark copper in an unnatural way. It ticks endlessly—but the hands don’t move.
Then he hears it again. The truth. The terrible, looming truth.
It’s time to repay. It’s time to Seethe.