The Strangest of Strangers


Dustin sniffled. Who could blame him? Rejection from every girl...except the one behind him was tough. Sitting on the bleachers away from the eyes of everyone who judged him, he cried quietly.

"Man...have I been there..." A voice said as a stranger sat down to him. Dustin turned to him wiping his tears away quickly. Before he could even so much as open his mouth, the stranger spoke, "I know. I know you don't want people around you when you're crying. Guess what, I totally get it. I've been rejected too."

"Wh-Who are you?" Dustin sniffled.

"Name's Jack Peterson."

"Why aren't you volunteering?" Dustin eyed the stranger quickly. He had brown hair and was wearing black slacks and a white button-up shirt complete with a red tie.

As Nancy approached, she saw Dustin sitting on the bleachers talking to the stranger from afar.

"I'm not a student anymore. Graduated a few months ago." Jack shrugged, "Anyway, there's a redhead right behind you. She's lonely just like you man..."

Dustin looked behind to the girl who sat behind him on the bleachers by herself, who quickly saw the jheri curled boy and walked off disgustedly.

"Oh Jesus..." Dustin hid his face in his hands.

"Hey, hey, hey. It's alright." Jack reached out but the boy walked away covering his eyes.

"G-Go away, I don't know you!" Dustin said as he quickly walked out of Hawkin's Middle School's gym.

Nancy tried to walk after him but Jack stopped her flashing a badge, "Chicago PD ma'am. Police business."

"Aren't you a little young to be a cop?" She asked.

"I'm only 20 ma'am," Jack smirked as he walked after Dustin.

Nancy scrunched her eyebrow's together after he walked away, "Ma'am?"

Jack walked out into the blacktop outside the gym where Dustin was crying loudly, "Hey...come on now listen to me..."

"What do you even want?" Dustin asked as he cried.

"I...Kid, I don't know how else to put this...I know about the Other Place."

Dustin wiped his tears away, "The...the what?"

"Gloomy atmosphere with dust? Spookier than anything you've imagined?...Other...dimension-ey?"

"H-how do you know about that? Are you a cop?"

"Detective." Jack corrected, "Well...not really, it's a cover but still."

"Oh...piss off!" Dustin tried to walk off but Jack spoke after him.

"I know about your friend Jane."

Dustin stopped in his tracks...before whipping around, "You're not a cop."

"No. But still, let's just say a special part of the government-"

"You want to put El back in a facility again. You're one of them!"

Jack chuckled, "Again. No, if we're going off...middle schooler logic like you are...then you could say I'm a good guy."

Dustin laughed through his tears, "Right. And I'm just supposed to believe that?"

"Look kid-"

"You come here. To my school dance, like some creep. You know you Feds really piss me the hell off do you know that?"

"I'm here to help kid. There's been an investigation on this."

"Of course there has, that's what you guys do you stick your noses everywhere."

"For good reason." Jack blinked before pointing into Dustin's school gym, "All those people living in there. Your friends. They want to grow up, get married and lead normal lives. They're not going to have lives. No one, on this entire planet is going to have something called a life if you don't work with me."

Dustin looked at him, "What do you mean?"

"Do you think we sat around and twiddled our thumbs and knew about nothing? I spoke to your mother...something about her...cat disappearing randomly?"

"I...I told her it ran away."

"Yeah...she said the same. But still...we know who you are. We know who your friend Jane is. We know...more than anything you could possibly imagine about the Other Place."

Dustin flicked his nose upwards, "Yeah? Like what?"

"I'd like to tell you the details but here's the overview. There was a facility near here overrun by Things. A girl showed up here a while back..." Jack pushed his lip up, "Reports of...black dog demon monsters showed up?"

"Someone talked." Dustin frowned.

"Yeah, long story short: Your friend Jane and another girl named Kali Prasad along with a...number of other experiments ran off...They're not completely people kid."

"What? Of course they are!" Dustin said.

"Supernatural entities exist out of the blue...and suddenly there are people with supernatural abilities?" Jack shook his head with a smirk, "Nah. We're connected to the Other Place kid. To Him."

"We?"

Jack nodded, "Yeah. I'm not Infected if that's what you're wondering, but you could say as our dimension overlapped with His, some of his...quirks traveled over."

"How?" Dustin asked instantly.

"Scientists have been begging the same question for years. Gifts have always puzzled us...Feds as you put it. But I'll let you in on a little secret. But you got to promise not to tell anyone. Promise?" Jack asked.

Dustin nodded.

Jack leaned forward and whispered into Dustin's ear, "I've got one too."

Dustin looked at him, "Wh-what is it?"

"Don't worry about it. Just know that if I want to talk to you again, I know where to find you. See ya."

The rejected boy blinked and Jack had literally slipped into the shadows.

"Wait..hey!" Dustin yelled, "Hey where'd you go!" His Jheri curl bounced as he ran around the blacktop outside the gym, "Where the hell did you go!?" He asked in fear.


"Hey lion how'd it go?" Steve asked as Dustin got into his car.

"Terrible. Got rejected by everyone." Dustin shook his head as he looked off into Steve's side view mirror.

"Really?" Steve pulled away from the school's parking lot, glancing at his rearview to where he saw Nancy chatting with a middle schooler, "You messed up man, you weren't supposed to care."

"I didn't. But they...ugh...doesn't matter."

Steve glanced at Dustin as he drove back to Dustin's house, "For someone who had a shit time at the dance you really don't look that sad. Something else on your mind?"

"Steve..." Dustin sat up in his seat in Steve's car, "You know how we promised to never talk about what happened a month ago ever again?"

"Yeah?"

"Well...we're gonna have to break that promise now."

"Why?" Steve braked before a stoplight.

Dustin shook his head in the passenger side of, "All right. Promise you won't tell anyone you know this?"

"Lotta promises Dust...all right what?"

"This...guy...he showed up to the dance when I was...by myself. And-"

"Holy shit you got touched!?" Steve looked at Dustin with a protective look on his teenage face.

"What!? No!" Dustin looked at Steve incredulously, "He mentioned he was a cop and-"

"Ignore him. You know the drill D."

He shook his head, "This guy said some scary stuff...and then...he...he's like El Steve. He has a power."

"What?" Steve kept driving, "Wh-what you mean there're other people like her out there?"

"Yeah! He said there were...experiments and stuff...Goddamit, Lucas was right..."

"Right? Right about what?"

Dustin shook his head again, "Nothing. The point is, this guy...he disappeared right in front of me."

"How?"

"How the hell should I know!? I've been asking myself the same question for two damn hours!"

"All right so why'd you tell me this?" Steve asked.

Dustin sighed, "Because...because you were the only one I could trust with this."

"Really? What about Mike? What about Lucas?"

"They..." Dustin couldn't meet Steve's eyes, "They don't know me like you do all right?"

Steve fell silent.

Dustin spoke slowly failing to meet Steve's eyes as he looked over his shoulder, "How he disappeared...it scared me...it reminded me...of last month."

Driving for a bit more before arriving in front of Dustin's house, Dustin opened the door to Steve's car, "Remember. Tell no one all right?"

"Got it. Night."

Dustin nodded and walked back inside his house.

"Disappeared? The hell..." Steve shook his head as he drove off to his house. Something told him that Dustin wasn't lying, otherwise, he wouldn't have broken their promise. He honestly wanted to live a normal life just like everyone else he knew at Hawkins, but if someone was making his little brother- he meant Dustin- scared, then that guy had another thing coming.


STRANGER THINGS


If I had to choose an actor for Jack...it'd be Dylan Minette. Anyway, I hope you all are as hyped for Season 3 when it finally comes out...whenever that it...