I thought this story was done, but then I got an idea for this. There might be more in the future, I'm not sure yet.
Also, can anyone spot the reference in this chapter?
Disclaimer: I don't own anything that doesn't belong to me.
Deputy Powell of the Hawkins Police Department slowly poked his head into the station's break room. Much to his relief, there was nobody inside. After glancing over his shoulder a couple of times to make sure nobody else was coming down the corridor, he quietly entered the room and made a beeline for the refrigerator, licking his lips in anticipation.
Florence, the station's secretary clerk, had brought in homemade chocolate cake for everyone the other day to reward everyone in the department for pulling together to stop an incursion of spider-bats from Dimension Q, and there should still be some left in the fridge. It was Powell's intention to eat what remained of the cake before anyone else could have some, and then frame his fellow Deputy Callahan for the deed, as payback for Callahan eating his meatloaf the other day. True, this sounded rather petty, but a lawman's lunch was sacrosanct, and anyone who violated it must suffer a grievous fate. He was pretty sure it was written down somewhere.
Practically drooling at the thought of the sweet, sweet chocolate cake about to grace his taste buds, he opened the refrigerator door, light shining out to bathe his form…
And he paused. The light emanating from the fridge was not only more baleful than it usually was, but what lay within was most certainly not shelves full of lunch bags and containers containing the meals of the station officers. No, it was something far, far worse.
"CHIEF!" He shouted, not daring to take his eyes off what lay within the fridge.
"WHAT?" Came the reply from down the hall.
"THERE'S A HELLGATE IN THE FRIDGE!" Powell yelled.
There was a pause. "AGAIN?"
"YES, AGAIN!"
"DAMMIT. I'LL BE RIGHT THERE!"
A few moments later, Powell was joined by his superior, Chief Jim Hopper, the toughest lawman Hawkins had ever seen, whose trek into a dark other world to bring back a lost child and return unscathed had made him the stuff of legends, and he had only done more and more extraordinary feats since as the town slowly became stranger. He peered over his subordinate's shoulder, a frown on his rugged features as he regarded the unearthly sight before him.
The refrigerator now appear to be a portal opening up onto a dark realm with swirling clouds crackling with lightning, a pyramidal temple with a long staircase leading to a pair of transparent doors flanked by a pair of altars and numerous obelisks and hieroglyphics floating in the midst of a void, glowing eerily with supernatural power as demonic vaguely canine creatures crawled all over it. "Hmm," Hopper said after a moment.
"What'd I tell you? It's a hellgate, isn't it?" Powell said anxiously.
"Not necessarily," Hopper replied.
Powell stared at his chief in disbelief. "How is it not a hellgate?! It's a portal to some spooky-ass other dimension that doesn't seem to have any ground and is full of horrible monsters!"
"Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a portal to an EVIL 'spooky-ass other dimension that doesn't seem to have any ground and is full of horrible monsters,'" Hopper replied. "For all we know, those freakish abominations could be perfectly friendly. You shouldn't judge someone for their appearance, deputy."
Powell, who knew quite a bit about being judged by one's appearance thanks to his skin color, gave Hopper an incredulous look. "Chief, every single time we've run into some horrible-looking creature from another plane of existence, it has, in fact, turned out to be a horrible monster instead of some friendly but ugly critter."
"Yes, but that doesn't mean that will ALWAYS be the case," Hopper said patiently. "Profiling is wrong, deputy. Until they act aggressively, I see no reason to engage in hostilities-"
One of the vaguely canine horrors looked straight at them and growled, "ZUUUUUUUUUUUUL."
Hopper's face hardened. "Ah. Well, that changes things."
Powell gave Hopper an exasperated look. "Oh, so we're not supposed to engage in hostilities until one of them snarls menacingly at us?! How do you know it isn't just saying, 'Hey neighbor, spare a cup of sugar?'"
"That's not just any snarl, Powell, nor is it a request for sugar. Zuul the Gatekeeper, along with its partner Vinz Clortho the Keymaster, are the two heralds of Gozer, an ancient ultra-powerful malignant entity from another dimension which was banished from our world 6000 years ago. If the two of them cross over, they'll possess people here in town and engage in a sacred mating ritual which will breach the dimensional barrier and allows Gozer to manifest fully in and destroy our world," Hopper explained.
Powell stared at Hopper blankly. "… Chief, how the HELL do you know all that?!"
"I date a librarian who has an incredibly extensive collection of occult texts," Hopper explained. "That, and apparently something like this happened in New York not too long ago, but some local specialists were able to repel Gozer and save the world. If you read the papers more, you'd probably have heard about it."
This did not surprise Powell in the slightest. Crazy shit happened in New York all the time, maybe even crazier than what was happening in Hawkins these days, and everyone knew that the locals were tough enough to take care of something as a measly as an interdimensional God of destruction. "How did they do it?"
"With specialized equipment which, regrettably, we don't have access to. Fortunately, given that Zuul is clearly still safely on the other side of the portal, that means neither it or its counterpart have crossed over to our realm to possess anyone to open the way for their master, so the situation isn't nearly as dire as it was in New York. At least, not yet. Therefore, we still have time to nip this problem in the bud," Hopper explained.
"Okay. What do we do?" Powell asked nervously, glancing into the portal. The canine demons seemed to be eyeing him hungrily.
"I'm going to go to the armory to pick up something that should take care of this. Don't close the fridge door while I'm gone, it might close the portal," Hopper ordered his deputy, turning for the exit.
"Close the…But isn't that what we WANT to happen?!" Powell asked incredulously.
"If we close the portal now, they'll just reopen it elsewhere and send either Zuul or Vinz Clortho through," Hopper explained. "But so long as it's open here, we can access their realm just as much as they can access ours… Which is something I think they will soon regret."
Powell grimaced. "Well, okay… But if any of them make a move for me, I'm slamming this door right in their faces!"
"Duly noted," Hopper said, leaving the break room and bustling down the corridor towards the armory.
A few years ago, the department armory had been very sparse, with barely enough guns to keep every officer on the force armed. Ever since things had turned upside down, however (in more ways than one), the formerly unassuming room was now full of shelves upon shelves of heavy-duty weapons confiscated from the numerous military forces that had been dispatched by shady government officials to try and reclaim El or otherwise try and clean up the many and varied messes their meddling with forces beyond their ken had created in the first place. Since none of those agents were in any condition to reclaim their property, the Hawkins Police Department saw nothing wrong in taking their gear and using it for a far better purpose. There was also some rather more… Exotic equipment obtained from visitors to Hawkins that weren't quite from around there, but nobody was entirely sure how it worked, so it was all stored in a relatively safe corner of the armory until a decision could be made as to what to do with it.
As always, Officer Torres Owens was standing behind the cage mesh separating the armory shelves from the outside world. Owens had been in charge of the armory for several years now, and while one might find it odd that a man who repeatedly and vehemently protested against the use of guns ever since his daughter was accidentally killed by one was in charge of the departments weaponry, there was no better man in Hawkins who understood how important it was to be responsible with firearms than he. "Morning, chief," Owens said cheerfully as Hopper entered the room. "What can I do for you?"
"I'm gonna need a rocket launcher, Owens," Hopper informed the man. "We've got a Hellgate in the fridge."
"Again?!" Owens asked in disbelief. "But this is the fourth time this month!"
Hopper shrugged. "Hey, I'm not the one who keeps opening them."
Owens sighed. "Yeah, yeah… Well, you know the drill. Here's the paperwork," he said, sliding a clipboard full of several sheets of paper through a slot in the mesh to Hopper. "Can't give you anything until you fill it all out, same as usual."
Hopper shook his head in bemusement as he started filling out the various requisition forms to gain access to the rocket launcher, something he was more used to by now than he probably should have been. "Crime dramas never show people just how much paperwork is involved in doing our jobs."
"Would be a much less exciting show to watch, I imagine. Would get terrible ratings," Owens commented as Hopper returned the paperwork to him. "Huh, you finished that fast. You're getting way too used to this."
"Unfortunately," Hopper grunted as Owens wandered into the shelves and returned shortly thereafter with a sizable hand-held rocket launcher.
"Here you go, chief," Owens said, sliding the rather large weapon through a recently-added slot big enough to accommodate it. "This should do the trick. Hopefully. "
"Thanks, Owens," Hopper grunted, staggering a little as he lifted the very, very heavy weapon into the air. "It loaded?"
"Naturally. Safety's on, of course. Wouldn't want it to go off in the station," Owens informed his superior.
"In that case, with any luck, our fridge will be our own again in short order," Hopper said, patting the side of the rocket launcher.
"You have any idea why hellgates keep opening in the refrigerator, anyway?" Owens asked.
"I can't be certain, but I suspect it's a combination of resonance from the still-open portal to the Upside-Down beneath the Department of Energy research facility, the station being built atop a convergence of Ley lines as well as two graveyards-one Native American, the other not-and the fact that the architect who built this place was an insane cultist who deliberately constructed the station in such a way as to harness supernatural energy to tear open gateways to other realms and unleash unspeakable horrors upon our unprepared world," Hopper theorized.
"Huh. Is that why I keep finding indecipherable messages written in blood on the bathroom mirrors and the coffee machine can make nothing but decaf?" Owens asked.
"No, that's just the ghost inhabiting one of the toilets playing pranks on you and a witch's curse," Hopper replied.
Owens blinked. "A witch cursed our coffee machine?"
"She was very angry when Callahan wrongfully arrested her for allegedly putting a hex on someone's dog and it just turned out to have worms," Hopper explained. "She could have done worse, but she realized that a police station without caffeine is one constantly on the brink of collapse and decided that would be nasty enough."
"What a wicked woman," Owens murmured, shaking his head in dismay. "Well, good hunting, chief. Those bastards won't know what hit 'em."
Hopper made the return trip to the break room, moving slower and more carefully due to carrying a rather heavy and very dangerous weapon. When he finally reentered the room, he found an increasingly twitchy Powell still guarding the room, looking only seconds away from drawing his firearm and filling the refrigerator with lead. "Chief! About time you got back here!" Powell exclaimed in naked relief. "From the way these mutts have been eyeing me, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be much longer before they tried to eat me!"
"Don't be silly, Powell, they aren't going to eat you," Hopper chided his subordinate. "After all, if they ate you, then none of them can possess you to open a gateway for their master."
Powell shot Hopper an annoyed look. "Gee, thanks," he said sarcastically. He frowned. "Hey, wait a minute, why do they even need to open a gateway when they've got a portal right here? Can't Gozer just pop right through?"
"Gozer is a godlike being. A standard issue refrigerator portal isn't going to be big enough to let it through to our reality, its minions have to come through first to prepare the way for their master," Hopper explained. "That's why, even though the dimensional barriers are growing thinner and thinner around our town, the really nasty stuff can't just cross over whenever they please."
"Thank goodness for that," Powell muttered.
"Yeah, but there's no telling how much longer that'll last. Like I said, the barriers are growing weaker. Unless we can find a way to close up all those cracks in reality for good…" Hopper shrugged in resignation. "Well, that's a problem for another day. This, I think, is something that can be resolved more easily through judicious use of high-yield explosives."
"Amen to that," Powell said, moving out of the way as Hopper approached the fridge, got down on one knee, and aimed the rocket launcher through the portal, making sure the crosshairs were pointed right at the ominous temple on the other side. The demonic hounds, noticing what the chief was doing, paused, looking concerned, as well they should.
"Chew on this, you ugly bastards," Hopper snarled, removing the safety and squeezing the trigger.
With a tremendous roar, a rocket streaked out of the launcher tube and sailed through the void towards the temple. Hopper, having been knocked back and his shoulder nearly dislocated from the recoil, shouted at Powell, "Close it! Now!"
Powell quickly slammed the refrigerator door shut just before the rocket could hit the temple. There was the sound of a muffled explosion, and the refrigerator shuddered, the lights flickering for a moment. The two officers stared at the refrigerator for a few minutes once it settled back down, waiting to see if that was it. "Think it worked?" Powell asked finally.
"Only one way to find out," Hopper grunted, putting the rocket launcher on the ground (after making sure to reset the safety first) and standing up, rubbing his shoulder with a wince.
Cautiously, they approached the refrigerator, which was silent and still, like most refrigerators should be. Hopper nodded at Powell, who very reluctantly pulled open the door…
And the duo stared in horror at what awaited them inside, the sight infinitely worse than the dark realm they had just witnessed. "Those sons of bitches," Powell swore, furious. "They stole all of the food!"
Hopper shook his head solemnly at the spotless and completely empty shelves filling the interior of the fridge. "Truly the scum of the multiverse."
"Now we're going to have to get takeout for lunch! Like savages!" Powell yelled angrily.
Hopper patted the deputy's shoulder sympathetically. "Well, Powell, I think having to suffer through takeout is an acceptable loss for saving the world from destruction by an evil extradimensional entity."
"Just barely," Powell grumbled, slamming the refrigerator door shut with a solemn look on his face.
"By the way, that reminds me: what exactly were you doing in here anyway? It's nowhere near lunchtime," Hopper said, giving Powell a suspicious look.
Powell froze. "Well, uh, the thing is…" He began nervously.
…
Elsewhere…
"Really? Really?!" Gozer the Gozerian, the Destructor, the Traveler, Volguus Zildrohar and Lord of the Sebouillia uttered in frustration, looking at the smoldering heap of ruins which was all that remained of its temple, its loyal Terror Dogs moaning and whimpering as they struggled to pull themselves out of the rubble. "I just finished fixing everything after that embarrassing debacle in New York!" The deity sighed in exasperation. "Honestly, maybe I should just give up Earth as a lost cause. The humans have gotten much stronger than I would've expected while I've been away. Surely there are other worlds that would be easier to conquer…"
The extradimensional being paused, then stuffed another forkful of Florence's chocolate cake into one of its mouths. "Still, at least the food is nice…"
