Beginning of the End

Mike

"When did you last see her?"

Mike shrugged, turning away guiltily. His mom tightened her grip on his shoulders and bent over to face him. Overhead, the evening sky was a rich purple after the day's rain. Stars were slowly twinkling to life and in the growing dark, Mike watched a group of people to his left turning on flashlights.

"I don't know," he said, shaking his head. "This morning, maybe? Before she left."

His mom dropped her head sadly. Behind her, Holly held a Barbie doll in one hand and a cup of juice in the other.

"I'm sorry," Mike added.

Lifting her head to meet his eyes, she said sternly, "Stay near me." It wasn't a warning. Mike could understand that much in the desperate shake of her voice. She was terrified. "Don't leave my sight," she said.

Mike nodded as, to his left, the first cries echoed out: "Nancy? Jonathan!"

Most of the campsite's residents took part in the search. Those without flashlights grouped around others who did. Everyone created a ring and fanned out, lining the edge of the forest. Two small groups broke away and followed the dirt road leading away from the camp. Mike kept close to his mom and held Holly's hand, while Dustin and Will stayed nearby.

"Nancy!" Mike shouted into the trees. The flashlight he carried shone weakly into the underbrush, lighting up the dull gray surface of a stone, the creeping white of lichen on a tree trunk, the raindrops still clinging to the fronds of a fiddlehead fern.

"Jonathan!" Will cried. He still had the same panicked look from earlier—a look that hadn't eased even when Mr. Clarke assured an equally nervous Mrs. Byers that his generator was just on the fritz. The flickering lights were nothing to be alarmed about, Mr. Clarke had said easily. But as the day wore on and afternoon turned to dusk, the absence of Jonathan and Nancy turned from a nuisance to a serious concern.

After sunset, the chief had rallied River Valley's temporary inhabitants and created a search party. Mike hadn't said anything at the time—wanting to ease Will's obvious anxiety—but the entire scenario felt a little too familiar and, given the state of Hawkins, Mike was beginning to understand Will's panic.

"Nancy!" Mike yelled as loud as he could, stepping into the tree line, crushing brittle leaves beneath his sneakers.

To his right, Dustin's parents were sweeping the forest floor with their flashlights calling out with Mr. Clarke for Jonathan. A dozen flashlights over, Troy stomped angrily after his mom, refusing to participate.

"Where's Nancy?" came Holly's delicate voice next to him. Her warm little hand fit snugly into his and in her other hand was the Barbie doll from before. Mike wondered vaguely what happened to her juice cup.

"Um," Mike settled onto his knees next to his sister and set his flashlight down. "She's in the woods, Holly." Behind him he felt his mom watching silently. "She's lost with Wills' brother and we're going to find them." Holly stared back silently, absorbing every word. "Is that okay?" he asked. The moment of applied patience felt calming.

Holly nodded with a smile and turned, calling out, "Nan-CY!" The last syllable slipped into a high-pitched squeal.

Mike picked up his flashlight again and moved forward, slowly, leading Holly into the woods. Voices echoed around them, crying out for Jonathan and Nancy. But they were met with silence. Mike's mom corralled them forward as they climbed the first hill—the one that led to that block of shale he'd sat on, while planning their rescue attempt for Lucas. As they passed the stone, he turned to his friends and reflected their morose stares. As long as he left for his aunt's house tomorrow morning, they'd have no chance to find Lucas.

"Nancy!" his mom shouted.

"Jonathan!" Will screamed into the darkness.

The trees turned black, their leaves turned black, the ground was a collection of sweeping spotlights.

"Jonathan!" Mrs. Byers cried to his left. Then, more quietly, "Oh, please, Jonathan, please…"

He watched Chief Hopper wrap his arm around Will's mom and belt out Jonathan's name, only to be met with the same silence.

"Dude," Dustin asked under his breath. "Do you think there's a chance the Demogorgons travelled this far?"

Mike glanced at his sister before replying quietly, "The chief said they were expanding their territory…" He gave Dustin a knowing glance.

"Nancy! Jonathan!" Dustin yelled.

On Dustin's left, Will abruptly stopped.

"Will?" Dustin asked, slowing to a tentative halt. "Don't do that. You're freaking me out."

"Shh.." Will said quickly. His eyes were wide, darting left and right.

In between the shouts on either side, Mike heard it—a cracking branch or twig. Someone walking through the woods? Then the sound stopped. Mike stood still with Dustin and will, listening intently. His mom turned to him and drew her eyebrows down, curiously. "Mike?"

Almost indiscernibly, Mike shook his head. Another crack carried down from up the hill. This time the chief and Mrs. Byers heard it. On the other end of the campsite, people still screamed out Nancy and Jonathan's names.

Their entire strip, including Dustin's family and Mr. Clarke, Steve and his mom, Mrs. Byers and Hopper, Mike and his family, held still, barely breathing as they stared into absolute darkness and waited for another sign of movement.

It began as a hum, then a quiet mumble. Then Mike could finally pinpoint Will's steady stream of "No no no no no nonononono…"

At once their flashlights began shorting. The entire circle flickered in artificial light, like an S.O.S. beacon.

"This is bad," Dustin announced, taking a step back.

There was movement all around suddenly: cracking branches, rushing leaves and a chilling growl that seemed to emanate from the heart of the group.

To his left, Mrs. Byers lunged for Will and Hopper's voice, cold and clear, cut through the night: "Run!"

It was meant for everyone—every person in the park. But only their group understood its weight and meaning. Only their small group.

And the people on the other side of the campsite who'd begun shrieking a rending, blood-curdling screech.

At once the entire population broke into panicked screams—nothing like the death throes across the site, but a cacophony of wails ensued as everyone stampeded back to the cabins.

Mike's hand, still wound around his sister's, tightened involuntarily as a familiar, sinewy form materialized before him. He didn't have a chance to scream or even close his gaping mouth before his mother's vice-like grip snared his wrist and dragged him and Holly frantically down the hill.

In the back of his mind, Mike could just register Dustin's voice crying over and over, "They're everywhere! They're everywhere!" And even further away he heard those screams again, layered and piercing and, one by one, cut short. And in their wake he felt a cold numbness overwhelming him.

Everywhere was black. The flashlights were gone, dead or forgotten. A flurry of movement ripped him one way and then the other, but an unrelenting grip kept him anchored to his sister and he was being directed firmly by the other arm.

Dustin was gone.

Will was gone.

Everyone was gone but Mike and his leader and his anchor. Together they wove through the unfamiliar—darkness, blind movement, cries, pleading, the wet gasping of pain. Shots were being fired. A gun. Then a cruel flash of white hot light as someone shattered an oil lamp, its reflection dancing bizarrely in the pond's rippling surface.

More screams, and another piercing light from the headlights of the first car to start. And Mike understood where they were running. The cars! He pulled Holly ahead, ready to carry her if need be. Ahead he caught a flash of the chief, his pistol raised, and Mrs. Byers, shielding a small form as together they rushed toward the dirt road.

Behind them: mayhem, destruction, agony.

Mike bolted ahead, guided by his mom's determined strength. He could see the cars! He turned to look at Holly, her wide eyes shining in the headlights of a roaring truck as she watched her brother intently. She was working so hard to keep up. Mike offered her a quick, reassuring smile: We're going to be okay.

Then the hand holding his other wrist, leading them forward, was ripped away.