The drive didn't take long, and soon enough we were standing in front of the door. We had stopped and bought Joyce some flowers on the way. Taking a deep breath, I knocked on the door, waiting a few moments before Jonathan answered. I didn't say anything as I hurriedly wrapped my arms around him and pulled him into a tight hug. He stiffened up for a second and then slowly melted and wrapped his arms around me, returning the hug. "I heard about Will. I'm so sorry that this happened, you must be feeling terrible." I pulled away from the hug and he looked at me, something in his eyes that I couldn't read. He let us inside, and I saw that Joyce was asleep on the couch with an ax in her lap. "Is she okay or does she always sleep with that in her lap?" I looked at what Ezra was talking about. Taking the flowers out of his hands, I took them to the kitchen and prepared them to put in a vase. "Last night, something apparently came out of the walls and attacked her. When I got back last night, I found her running down the driveway. It freaked me out, I don't know what to do." I walked back into the living room and looked over at the sleeping woman, adding my two cents to the conversation. "She's probably just stressed out, y'know? Or maybe it was just a lucid dream." Jonathan shrugged and looked at his watch to check the time and started to walk over to Joyce. "Mom, mom. Mom! Wake up." By the third call, she jumped awake. "What? What time is it?" I went into their kitchen and started to make some coffee for her, and truth be told, for myself as well. I came back with two cups of coffee, listening to the conversation. "To see Will." I looked down at the mug in my hand with a sad look, before speaking. "We didn't mean to intrude this morning. We just wanted to express our condolences and we also brought you flowers. I've put them on the dining room table." Joyce looks at me with sad eyes and nods. She gets up without another word and leaves the room. I shrugged, not sure if anyone paid attention to it, and went to go sit down on the couch. Taking a sip of my coffee, I look over at the two boys. Ezra was staring at his hands, a sign that he felt uncomfortable with what had just transpired. Jonathan was staring back at me, but I couldn't tell what was going through his mind. Not knowing what to say, I continued to sip my drink and sat in silence until Joyce came back out into the living room. "Okay, let's get going, although I know for a fact that whoever they found is not my son." I looked at Joyce with confusion written all over my face. "It's not? But then who is it?" you questioned while following her out of the house. After locking up the house, me and Ezra followed her to Jonathan's car and hopped into the backseat. "I don't know but what I do know is that I talked to him last night. It's gonna sound absolutely insane but I think he's lost somewhere. He was talking to me through the Christmas lights."
"Wait, if he's lost somewhere, then how were you able to communicate with him? Are you sure it was Will?" I had sat forward in my seat a bit as Ezra spoke. It certainly sounded crazy, but somewhere deep down, something told me that she wasn't lying. "I'm positive it was him. I'm sure Jonathan told you about the thing that came out of the walls. Well, before that happened, the lights started to blink, but only individual bulbs. It was leading me out into the living room. There was a bunched-up string of lights that I used to establish contact. Blink once for yes and twice for no. When I asked if it was him, it only blinked once." Joyce had turned around in the passenger seat to look at the two of us. She had this serious look on her face that told me that she didn't just dream everything that happened last night, and it also wasn't a delusion. She took a deep breath before continuing, "I painted the letters on the wall, and he used them to warn me about the creature from the wall. The minute he told me to run, that thing came out and that's when I ran outside, and Jonathan pulled up into the driveway. I don't know exactly where he is, but he's in danger and I need to find him." Looking over to Ezra, I saw the shocked look on his face and put my hand on his shoulder and squeezed it lightly. Joyce turned back around and the drive to the hospital morgue was silent. A few minutes had passed before I spoke up, "Wherever he is, I want to help find him. What you told us sounds crazy, and most people wouldn't believe you, but for some reason I do." I saw a ghost of a smile appear on her face. "I'm gonna help as best I can, too. It sounds absolutely insane, but I believe that there are things that can't be explained away by rational science." Hearing Ezra say that surprised me a little. He wasn't the bravest guy in the world, and I often teased him about how he reacted to the scares in horror movies. I had thought that he wouldn't have offered to help because the whole encounter that Joyce had sounded absolutely terrifying. I looked over at him to see how determined he was, almost as if he was going to push himself to be more courageous. I patted him on the back and smiled at him.
The rest of the drive was left in a comfortable silence until we had arrived at our destination. I walked into the building and were soon led to where Will's body would be waiting. The person escorting us had stopped at a giant window, and I stopped before I could see what was on the other side of it, not wanting to see Will like that. Jonathan noticed that I had stopped and made his way over to me. "You okay?" I looked up at him and nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just don't want to see him like that. I don't like to remember the people that I care about in devastating ways. When my grandma was in the hospital for the last time, she was lifeless and while everyone was visiting her, I couldn't because while it was her body... it wasn't her, y'know? I didn't want my last memories of her to be in the hospital." I had started to tear up at the painful memory. Jonathan wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into a warm and comforting hug. We stood there for what seemed like an eternity, grateful that I had someone like him in my life. We let go of each other and I sat on a nearby chair and waited for them to be finished.