Randy stared out the window as they drove.

She tried so hard to blend in with the passenger seat; tried so hard to be invisible; tried so hard to disappear – she even held her breath a few times, worried that Hargrove might hear her breathing or see it fogging the window, then suddenly realize that she was in his car. She hoped that the longer they stayed quiet, the less likely he would be to snap at her or ask questions. Not because she was scared of him, but because she was ashamed of herself. And she really didn't want to talk about it.

But even though the majority of the ride was spent in a tense hush, Randy could tell by the lack of radio and the stiffness of his posture in the window's reflection that he was absolutely going to talk. Probably chew her out for ruining his night.

She sunk down into her seat.

The movement must have caught his attention, because she could see from the streelight's glow on the window that he had glanced at her.

"As much as I like being a hero," he began around his cigarette, tone stern, "let's not repeat shit like this, got it?"

She wasn't sure if he meant the ride or Tommy, but decided it was probably safe to assume both.

"Yeah," she agreed. "Okay."

Hargrove toyed with the cigarette in his mouth.

"As for rides," he continued, smoke billowing from his nose, "they're only on weekdays. I said I'd drive you to and from school. I never agreed to play your chauffeur at parties."

The thought was laughable. She didn't, obviously, but imagining him dressed in a suit and tie with a nice little cap, opening his Camaro door for her with a bow, was painfully funny.

"Don't worry about that," she promised.

She had no plans on going to a party again. Ever.

Hargrove glanced at her, his reflection blurry but the action unmistakable.

"Why'd you come?" he asked.

"Nancy," she answered simply. "She wanted me to go. So did Ally."

"And what the hell are you even supposed to be? You do realize it was a Halloween party, right? And you're a what? Crazy cat lady?"

Randy lifted her nose. "I wouldn't expect a degenerate like you to know."

"Careful, princess," he warned, "I can still make you walk."

Randy contemplated this.

"And don't pretend like you don't care!" he snapped.

She lifted her shoulder. "Not a horrible option. But if you must know, I'm Samantha from Sixteen Candles."

Hargrove snorted. "The hell is that?"

"A movie."

"Not one I've ever seen."

"It's a romantic comedy. And it has boobs. You'd probably like it."

His eyebrows shot up.

"Well," he murmured, lifting his cigarette to his mouth. "Remind me to watch it."

"Pervert."

"But seriously, why would you dress up as some chic from a rom-com on Halloween night?"

"What would you rather have me go as?" she asked. "A playboy bunny?"

Now he was really grinning.

"Not a bad idea," he said roguishly. "A one piece, some fishnets, a little cotton tail–"

Randy gagged. "Please, you're blinding my imagination."

"You might have enjoyed the party more," he pointed out. "Men love that shit."

"You mean mindless dogs love it," she corrected. "And anyway, I didn't pick it out. It's Nancy's."

They passed beneath another streetlight, and Randy, something catching her eye, leaned towards the window. Outside, hovering in the outskirts of the trees and just barely visible, was a hulking shadow.

Her mouth fell open.

Was that–?

"Aren't you gonna ask what I am?" Hargrove asked with obvious arrogance.

Randy blinked and the shadow was gone, replaced instead by Willard's Gas Station and an array of parking lot lights.

Maybe she was seeing things?

She pulled back and peeked at Hargrove's costume, realizing she hadn't even looked at it until then. It wasn't really necessary, though — she would have been able to guess even without looking. With his level of self-pride, he would have chosen it.

"It's not hard to tell, Fabio," she said loftily. "The Outsiders love showing off their torsos, too."

He actually looked impressed.

"Well, well," he murmured with obvious interest. "Peters knows her stuff."

"I'm kind of a movie buff," she responded.

They fell into silence, and Randy redirected her concentration to the window.

She couldn't shake the feeling she had seen something, just then. Just like that one night, when it came out of the woods. But there were plenty of shadows up and down the street, and Hargrove was going too fast to tell, anyway. It was probably nothing, just her paranoia getting the better of her.

"So." The word broke through the silence like a knife, and Randy had a feeling she wasn't going to like what came next. "How long's it been going on?"

Well, she wasn't wrong. She didn't need him to clarify what "it" was to know what he was asking — it was pretty hard to ignore the glaring fact that someone was bullied.

She leaned back in her seat and kept her eyes glued on the window.

"I don't know," she said, feigning aloofness. "Sometime last year, I guess. Since Nancy started dating Steve."

"Why?"

Randy played with her hands. She figured Tommy was angry at Steve for having ditched him, and because he couldn't take it out on Nancy (and obviously no longer on Barbara, who had been his victim before her disappearance) he had instead targeted her. How true that was, she couldn't say.

"Who knows," she finally sighed. "He's shallow. And a jerk. He probably just wants someone to mess with, and I guess I'm a pretty good target."

Hargrove exhaled a cloud of smoke that filled the car.

"You're a terrible liar, you know that?" he muttered over the stick.

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well, I don't like to talk about it. It's a touchy topic."

He hummed. "I find punching touchy topics to be most effective."

"Are you suggesting that I punch Tommy?" she asked, eyebrows shooting in interest.

"It'd be funny as hell."

She didn't say anything for a moment. Then, picking an invisible fuzzy off her coat, murmured, "I did smash his fingers in my locker door once."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah… He spent the rest of the day in the nurse's." She started to laugh, recalling his sulking expression with his swollen, bandaged fingers held against his chest. "He had to have his hand bandaged for a whole week. It was so pitiful."

Hargrove barked out a sharp laugh.

"Ah, shit," he said, shaking his head. "Wish I coulda saw that."

"Yeah, he deserved it."

Something flashed in the corner of her eye. She turned to the window, but once again, there were only dark trees. This time, however, a heavy fog had descended over the street.

"Shit," Hargrove muttered, leaning forward. "I can't see a damn thing. What's with this fog?"

An unsettling chill wrapped its arms around Randy. She remembered it from the night she had walked home – the night the creature had charged at her from across the road.

Suddenly, the car's radio began to go nuts. The dashboard lights brightened and then dimmed and the crackling voices of the stations began to rush together in a flood of static and broken syllables. The volume went up and down, like someone was spinning the dial erratically, but neither her nor Hargrove were anywhere near it. The headlights were flickering on and off, just the streetlight had that night.

Hargrove looked down at the dash in confusion, brows scrunched and mouth dropping open.

"What the–?"

"BILLY!" Randy screamed, pointing to the middle of the road.

Hargrove looked up in time to see the four-legged creature in the middle of the road, its face open, teeth glinting in the sporadic headlights.

"Fuck—"

He slammed on the brakes, spun the wheel, and swerved into the other lane. Randy gripped the dashboard as her body lurched to the left, head mere inches from smacking into the window as the force threw them violently around in their seats. The tires squealed and Randy's bag spilled at her feet, but they narrowly missed a head-on collision with the beast, something that seemed like a terrible idea when it was facing you with that mouth full of not-so-pearly whites.

When they were safely past it, Billy straightened out the car and pulled back into the safety of the right lane. The radio fell silent, the dashboard lights retained a healthy glow, and the headlights beamed normal once more.

Both of them collapsed into their seats, breathing as if they had just run a mile. Slowly, they looked at each other.

"Was that…?" he trailed, cigarette barely sticking to his lips.

"Yeah," she replied hoarsely. "That was it."

He had a white-knuckled grip on the wheel, face pale, and he suddenly looked like he was going to vomit.

"Alright," he whispered. "That's… that's not normal. That's really not–"

WHAM.

The car lurched to the side, and Hargrove barely managed to stop them from crashing into a tree as he frantically spun back onto the road.

Randy looked out the window. The creature looked back.

She screamed and clambered out of her seat and over to Hargrove, who started to yell with her when the car lurched off the road again as the creature rammed its body into the passenger's door.

"WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?" he bellowed.

A gurgling growl made Randy's skin crawl, eliciting another scream from both her and Hargrove.

"DO. ." she yelled, slamming her fist against his shoulder with every syllable.

Another body slam into her door and the car lurched to the right, but this time, Hargrove couldn't control it. The world turned into a merry-go-round, the headlights like sunbeams and the trees like inky wisps of paint. But luckily for them and the car, the trees had stopped and a small clearing had opened. The Camaro rushed down the divot and into the grass. Randy clung to Hargrove's arm, Hargrove clung to the wheel. They spun into chaos.

"Hold on!" he bellowed suddenly.

He turned the wheel sharply and kicked the car into reverse. The tires spun. The engine screamed. The world stopped spinning and the car shot backwards and back towards the road. Mud spattered the windows, forcing Hargrove to flick on the windshield wipers, smearing grass and liquid brown across the glass. The tires hit asphalt, squealing like small animals, and Hargrove promptly slammed the car into drive again, throttling the vehicle forward and down the street.

"Is it still there?" Hargrove demanded, looking terribly stressed as he peered in every mirror possible.

Randy released him and clambered back over to her seat. She craned her neck to see behind the car, and pressed her face against her window to see if the thing was following them.

"No," she declared, pulling back. "I think it's gone."

They settled back down, and Hargrove began to frantically puff away on his cigarette, while Randy stared dead ahead, feeling like she might be sick.

"Well," she began edgily, forcing a smile, "that was—"

Suddenly, the headlights illuminated something again–

And it was coming right at them.

"Shitshitshitshitshit!" Hargrove cursed, veering to the left.

The creature followed, rearing up on its hind legs. Its face split open, it roared something horrible, and then it threw itself at Hargrove's side.

The car spun.

Hargrove let out a torrent of cusses while Randy screamed and clung to the dashboard. The world went topsy turvy before Hargrove managed gain control of the car, and by the time they were straightened and shooting forward again, they were both sweating and panting and very, very frustrated.

"This always happens!" he yelled, extenuating his words with a slam on the wheel. "Every time I'm around you, shit goes down! Every. Damn. Time."

Randy sputtered. "What? You think this is my fault?"

"Well it didn't start happening until I met you!"

"Well it didn't start happening until you, either!"

They were flooring it now, going much faster than Randy recalled him going the night they had first encountered the monster.

"I don't get it!" he barked. "What the hell is it?"

"How should I know?" she retorted.

"Uh, because you live here?"

"Yeah, but those don't! You're from California — you should know what an alien is when you see it!"

"Area 51 is in New Mexico, dipshit!"

"And I'm the geek?"

They drove for some time in silence, both too shaken to say much else lest it be screaming nonsense back and forth.

Hargrove clearly felt the need to use her as a scapegoat, but no matter how one looked at it, there was no proper explanation. Because for as long as Randy had lived in Hawkins (which had been her whole life, darn it), she had never seen or encountered anything like they just did. Ever. And oh, lord, she prayed she would never again.

What felt like an eternity later, the Camaro finally pulled into Hargrove's driveway. The clock read 1:31am, but Randy was quite sure it was closer to 5 or 6. The drive had been so long and so arduous, there was just no way it had only been a half hour.

There was an obvious trepidation to both of their movements as they reached for their doors. Neither one felt like getting out of the car. Knowing something was outside – really knowing, this time – was disconcerting, and being out in the dark didn't feel right. But after a minute or so of fumbling with the levers, glancing every so often at each other, it was obvious they couldn't delay getting out for much longer without it just being weird. So, on a silent count of three, they threw their doors open.

Randy knew before Hargrove even fully emerged that he was going to check the condition of his Camaro. And she had a feeling he wasn't going to like it.

Running his hand along the muddy side, his jaw worked overtime. He clenched and unclenched his teeth, his face twitched, and his eyes narrowed as he assessed every inch of the vehicle. From what Randy could tell, most of the damage was mud. She didn't see any nicks or dings, scratches or dents, which was pretty unbelievable considering the strain it went through with the creature tossing its weight against it.

"Aw, shit," he grumbled, bending down.

He ran his finger over a pretty good sized dent on Randy's door, and she could tell by the look on his face that things weren't going to end well.

"Considering what happened, the paint held up good," she offered helplessly. "I mean, it's a small dent – barely there. No one will notice. Right?"

"I notice," he ground out.

"I mean, otherwise, it just needs a good bath," she continued, pretending not to notice the slow, steely gaze turning on her. "Not-" she slapped her hand on top of the car, "a-" she slapped it again, "problem."

CLUNK.

They stared down at the passenger mirror, which was now laying on the ground by Randy's feet.

Hargrove's shoulders tensed.

"Well…" Randy began quietly.

His hands balled into fists.

"I guess I'll just…"

He rose from his crouched position.

"Get going…"

Without another word, she took off towards her front door, threw it open, and ran inside.

She didn't miss the bellowed "PETERS" that came from behind her, and was pretty sure the neighbors didn't, either.