A/N: Not sure I can keep up with daily updates on this one, I'll try to make the wait between each one worth it.
Mike
Mike felt that there was something wrong when he walked into the house after biking home from the last day of school. He knew his parents were going to be away for the weekend. They had taken Holly along when going to New York to check out colleges with Nancy.
Mike would never be able to put his finger on it. Something just felt off. Like there was something in the air. He wasn't too worried about it. Nothing ever happened in Hawkins.
His friend Max, was off to California to visit her dad. So he had nobody to hang out with this weekend, and possibly not all summer. He was a little bummed, Max was fun to hang out with, the only kid his age that he was good friends with. She had even given him a little hug when saying goodbye. That had surprised the hell out of Mike. He'd gotten the idea that maybe she didn't really want to be going off to the west coast, even if it was to visit.
Tonight he was looking forward to watching some rented movies, eating junk food, and sleeping in the next day till 2 or 3 in the afternoon. He smiled to himself just thinking about it. It was going to be a glorious first day of summer vacation.
Tomorrow he would bike around...to the quarry, maybe the junkyard. He would have the whole day to himself...well the part of the day he wasn't sleeping of course.
It always seems like that night before the first day of summer vacation is the best sleep you'll ever have. No school, no homework, no projects due. No nothing.
Mike's dreams of staying up late were just that. Dreams. He'd never been able to stay up late, the night before summer vacation was no different. He fell asleep before the first movie was finished.
Nothing ever happened in Hawkins.
Except for the night Mike Wheeler had the best sleep of his life. There were sirens, there were screams. A few shots were fired. There was an air raid siren. There were cars taking off in every direction.
The power went out...and stayed out.
Mike slept through it all. When he woke up at 2 in the afternoon, he thought it was little quiet. Too quiet, something was missing. He finally figured what it was, there didn't seem to be any hum, no background noise coming from the house.
He recognized the sound, or rather lack of it. When there was a bad winter or summer storm in Hawkins, almost guaranteed the power would go out. When it did it sounded exactly like this. Eerie silence.
The VCR light that showed the power was out. He'd have to reprogram it later. Nobody else in his family knew how to do it, despite the manual with it's clear instructions.
He took his time getting upstairs. When he passed by the front door he noticed it was ajar. He was sure he'd closed it, he shrugged and was about to close it when he stopped and stepped outside.
It was quiet. No kids screaming. First day of summer vacation always had kids screaming while they played. He had the feeling he was being watched. It passed after a minute or so, but it was definitely there.
He waited for the occasional car to drive by. There were none.
He didn't see any cars in any driveways. Could be all his neighbours had the same idea for the first day of vacation. Except it was only summer vacation for kids. Teachers and parents still had to work. It was a Saturday, he thought there was a good chance at least one of his neighbours would be home.
Without any power he wouldn't be able to cook for himself. Not even Eggos. He'd go down to Benny's and get a burger or something. His mom had given him money to buy food the entire weekend if he wanted to.
He'd planned on ordering pizza tonight, only... if there was no power in the entire town of Hawkins, he might not be able to….no burger at Benny's either. Shit.
It was time to scout around to see what was going on.
If Mike was going to be honest with himself, he had admit that the first week was the hardest, he missed Holly, even Nancy...he missed his Mom's cooking. It was clear to him and Nancy that their parents were oblivious to the life of their kids. He could have had a girl living in his basement for a week and they would have never known. He knew that maybe he was too young to feel the full impact of whatever had happened. He was glad he wasn't a blubbering mess, not that anyone would have seen.
Mike had searched the entire town. He couldn't find anyone. He shouted "Hello" a good number of times and loudly, nobody ever came out of a house or a building.
Mike was truly alone.
In the first month, he raided the grocery stores for canned and dried food. He had used a grocery cart to start with. They were way too top heavy when he loaded them up, and he eventually moved to a steel Gorilla cart wagon that worked much better.
He couldn't use the stove, but barbecues, matches, propane tanks, all were in plenty of supply in Hawkins. He wouldn't starve or have to eat cold food. At least until he could figure out the farming thing.
He hit the library and grabbed books on camping, surviving in the woods and living off the land, along with books cooking, and farming. He had plenty of time to read, and not feeling like reading was going to be the same as not wanting to eat, so he was motivated.
He found oil lamps and supplies at Melvald's of all places. That store seemed to have everything from christmas lights to telephones. He'd grabbed all the batteries he could find, and a few different types of radios. There were no stations left on the air. He gave up on listening to static, he was just using up batteries he might need for something else.
In the second month, Mike knew he was going to have to prepare for winter. He wasn't too worried about food, he was pretty sure he had that covered. Heat was the real issue. There wasn't going to be any. If the Hawkins water supply held out he was ok with water. Running water had stopped weeks ago, probably some kind of automatic fail safe if there were no people maintaining the water plant...or where ever the water was being treated. He found arctic rated sleeping bags, updated winter clothes, pocket hand warmers.
He had surprised himself with how easily he was dealing without electricity. He knew he could find a generator, although he didn't want to be dependant on it. He knew that if it broke down he'd wouldn't be able to fix it, and he might not be able to find another one. No, it was just easier to live without electricity.
The oil lamps provided enough light to read by if he needed to, he'd gotten used to getting up just before the sunrise, and getting in his sleeping bag after sunset.
By the third month, Mike was prepared for riding the winter out in Hawkins. He also knew something else. His family was never coming back. He had a bad night when he became fully conscious of that fact.
What was much harder for him to come to terms with was the knowledge that he would never see Max again. They had only known each other for three years. Max was Mike's only real friend. They were never boyfriend-girlfriend by mutual agreement, and were never going to be, also by mutual agreement. They had just been really good friends. Calling them best friends, wouldn't have explained it. That didn't seem like quite enough. More like in-between best friend and girlfriend.
They never lied to each other, they told each other their worries and their fears, and any bad things that happened to either one of them on a daily basis. They also shared their triumphs, their hobbies, and they each kept their promises.
If either one of them were having a particularly bad day, they knew they could call the other, and talk on the phone or meet up somewhere to talk. They were each other's support system. Max didn't have a good home life, so she spent very little time there if she could help it. Mike wanted to be there for her any time day or night she wanted to talk. He'd done that on several occasions, sneaking out of the house to meet her somewhere.
He couldn't remember having any fun in Hawkins without Max there with him. She he was sure she would have said the same thing if asked.
He was really going to miss her.
"Goodbye Max," Mike put his face down in his hands and cried.
The Wheeler house didn't have a fireplace. Mike thought it would be a good idea to have firewood in case he wanted to move into a house that did. He spent the third and almost all of fourth month chopping firewood. When his axe got dull, he just went and got another one. He figured sharpening an axe or a knife might be a good skill to have, so he practised. He began to carry around a knife also. He was never going to carry a gun, he didn't know how to use one, and he didn't want to learn how. It wasn't a useful tool. A good knife was.
His parents had never let him have one, not even for whittling. The only knife Mike knew how to use effectively was a butter knife.
He decided that was using a knife as a survival tool was skill he wanted to learn. He figured he had plenty of time to learn how to use one and how to sharpen one.
At the end of the fourth month, and a lot of firewood chopping Mike came to a conclusion. He no longer wanted to stay in Hawkins.
He would stay the winter. He was already making a list of things he would need to do to get ready for that kind of trip.
He would never know if anyone else was alive unless he travelled.
He was pretty sure nobody was coming to Hawkins to see if Mike Wheeler was still alive.
Mike was wrong.