Chapter Seven: Bad Moon Rising

Nothing felt like it made sense anymore. Within the span of just three days, my life was turning upside down. Even without all of the normal teenage love life problems, I was starting to question if I really knew anything about myself. So many things were changing, and I felt like I was just flowing with the tides, doing exactly what I was told instead of uncovering what was actually going on. There were already a few things I knew for sure. I knew Will was stuck somewhere no other human could get to, and I was the only person who had a connection to him. If anyone was going to be able to save him, it was going to be me, and if that put me in danger, then so be it. I wasn't going to give up on bringing him home, so I went to the only person that I knew would listen to me.

"Joyce—whoa"

Stepping into the Byers house felt like stepping into a sci-fi movie. Every inch of the house was wrapped in big, bright Christmas lights with lamps scattered all over the place. The walls were covered, curtains were drawn shut. It was like it had become a whole different house overnight. That's when I noticed her in the middle of the living room, a paint can in one hand and a stir stick in the other. I watched her start painting one letter after another, 'A, B, C, D,' each one stuck under its own light.

"Uh, what's going on," I asked her.

Joyce jumped at the sound of my voice, nearly knocking the paint can out of her own hand when she whizzed around to face me. "You need to leave," she hissed. "You can't be here. I don't want you here."

"I wanted to—"

"I don't care, you can't be here," she repeated. "You need to go home."

"Joyce, I'm tryin—"

Her eyes bored into mine. "Go. Home. Daisy."

I stood there for a moment, the two of us just staring at each other. I knew I wasn't going to leave. I couldn't. With that being said, I'm also not the bravest person in the world, and a death glare from Joyce Byers was definitely scary enough to put someone in their place. "I just need you to listen to me," I managed to choke out.

"No," she said with gritted teeth, now stepping down from the back of the couch to place a hand on each of my shoulders, "you need to listen to me. Leave."

I shook my head as sternly as I could. "I'm not leaving."

"Dai—"

"I know where Will is," I finally said.

She fell silent as soon as I had said it. For a second, I was worried that she didn't believe me, but the way the tears started pouring out of each of her eyes reassured me that she was listening now. "You saw him?"

I nodded. "I passed out at school a couple days ago, and I saw him. I thought I was hallucinating at first, but something happened at the doctor's today." She was now hyper focused on every word I was saying, her grip on my shoulders tightening with each mention of him. "He's alive, but he's in a lot of danger. The doctor—he—he told me I couldn't tell anyone about what I saw. He said I'd be in a lot of trouble if the wrong people found out. This isn't normal, Joyce, and I don't think I'm hallucinating. Wherever Will is, I think I'm connected to it somehow."

"I—I—I can talk to him," she said, "through the lights. He can hear me."

The lights, I suddenly remembered. Last night while Jonathan and I were, uh, yeah, you know, the lights flickered. There's no way Will had caused that, and hearing what Joyce was saying now, I'm not sure it was the electricity either. Did I cause that?

"Look," she interrupted, pulling me out of my mind warp. "If I put letters on the wall, he can spell things—he can talk to us. I just—I—I need to finish."

I nodded at her. Had this happened any other day of the week, I would've called the looney bin so quickly, but for some reason, I believed her. I didn't think she was crazy anymore, not after how the doctor had reacted this morning. When she turned back towards her little painting project, I waited patiently, feeling so sure that we were going to get the answers we needed to finally save Will. As she kept painting, my eye wondered towards one of the lamps next to me. I thought about it for a second. What if, I asked myself. I didn't even really know what I was doing, but I knew that if I was able to make this lamp light up, it was going to be a lot easier to explain myself to everyone else. I concentrated hard on it, trying to somehow transfer the energy from my body and into the light. Reaching out to graze it with my pointer finger, I closed my eyes for just a moment, hoping that something would happen. When I opened them back up, nothing had changed. The lamp sat untouched, the bulb yet to flicker. Maybe I was wrong.

Suddenly, there were familiar voices echoing from outside. "I told you she didn't know what the hell she was talking about," the first one shouted.

I looked over at Joyce to see if she had heard anything, but she was too consumed in her alphabet that I'm not even sure she'd hear me shouting. I decided to give up on the lamp and see what was going on outside. When I drew one of the curtains back, I was surprised to see a group of Will's friends sitting on their bikes just a few feet away from the backyard. The one who had been shouting was Lucas, the most level-headed friend of the group. With him were Mike, Nancy's younger brother and Will's closest friend, Dustin, who was easily the nerdiest one, and another boy that I had never met. None of them seemed to notice me, but I still felt something drawing me towards the mystery boy. I was sure that I had never seen him before, but I felt a strange connection anyway. Before I could figure it out anymore, the four were startled by the sound of police sirens in the distance and were already scattering after them.

When I headed back into the living room, Joyce was just finishing up her painting. She stopped to look back at me, oblivious to the fact that I had even left the room. She gave me a weak side eye as I stepped forward to help her off of the back of the couch. "Okay," she said, her voice just barely above a whisper. "Okay, talk to me, baby, talk to me. Daisy's here. Where are you?"

A beat passed before the lights began to blink one by one. Joyce grabbed the side of my arm as Will started spelling out the first word.

E

"Right here," Joyce read aloud. "I—I'm not sure what that means, baby."

"It means he's here, but he's in the other world. He can hear you—or maybe even see you—I'm not sure—but he's not in the same dimension as us."

The lights flickered once, agreeing with me.

Joyce looked back at the lights. "What do we need to do? How do we get to you? How do we get you out? What should I do?"

R U N

"Holy shit," I breathed out.

In a matter of seconds, all hell broke loose. Every light in the house began to surge before flickering on and off over and over again. Joyce let out a gasp, causing me to turn around and follow her line of sight. When I saw what she was looking at, I couldn't help but scream. Something was in the walls, fighting to come out with nothing but wallpaper holding it back. In just a matter of seconds, its claws her breaking through. My heart sped up as I watched it crawl out, realizing my worst fear was coming through. I wasn't dreaming this time. This thing was real, and it was here in reality, with its spiney limbs and a face that vaguely reminded me of a Venus flytrap.

Joyce turned to run, but the monster was too close. Just as she put the first leg in front of the other, it had knocked a shelf right in front of her, causing her to fall face first onto the ground. I called for her, running over like I was going to be able to save her. I crouched in front of her unconscious body as I braced myself for what was about to come. The monster lurched at me with an intense hunger. I closed my eyes and instinctively reached out a hand as if that were going to stop it. I was confident that if I was going to die, at least Joyce would have a chance to wake up and escape. The monster would be too busy with my body to notice her.

As its claw reached out to me, I let out a scream, but instead of feeling the hot sensation of my arm getting bitten into, I felt a surge of electricity traveling through my body. Thinking that this was just what it felt like to be killed, I kept my eyes closed and shielded Joyce, who had started to stir just as the white-hot wave washed over me. I felt it travel from the core of my body and rush into my fingertips. The electricity shot out of my hand like a lightning bolt. When it came out, I cracked one eye open and noticed that I was, in fact, shooting some kind of white light out of my hand. "Wicked," I whispered to myself before turning my attention back towards Joyce, who was now very much awake.

"What was that? What did you do?"

I didn't answer her, mostly because I didn't really know the answer, but also because I was a little more worried about the gut eating being heading back towards us. I helped Joyce up as fast as I could before turning back towards the monster, feeling a kind of cockiness that I had never known before. My eyes locked in on him as I raised my hand again. I wasn't really sure how to shoot any more lightning out of my hands, but I was sure that I would definitely be able to command it by will. That was until I actually tried to command it by will, because when I did, literally nothing happened. Nothing. I was standing there with my hand outstretched towards an actual demon like an idiot. And as soon as I realized that, I did the only thing I could think to do. Get the hell out of there.

The two of us ran as far as we could from that thing and never looked back. Joyce was in front of me, and I was determined to get her out of this alive if it was the last thing I did. Thankfully, that wasn't a problem. Once we were a few miles from the house, it seemed to disappear. Of course, I didn't dare look behind us in fear that I was wrong, but the atmosphere had changed. I wasn't sure how to explain it, but the air was suddenly lacking the fear and desperation that had been there inside the house. Joyce turned to look at me for a split second, and I gasped as I saw a pair of headlights head towards her. I tried to grab her arm, but she was too far away. The driver stopped before she could get any closer.

"Mom," the driver asked, and I almost let out a sigh of relief.

Jonathan.

"What's wrong?" He hurried out from inside the car and ran over to us, his eyes focusing on me as he asked the question. "What happened?"

Believe me, I wanted to tell him everything about what we just went through, but I knew I couldn't. Not yet. He would've thought I was just as crazy as his mom was. So I didn't say anything. I just shook my head and wrapped my arms around his torso, hoping that it was actually as safe as it felt. He didn't ask anymore questions. We stood like that for a few minutes, Joyce joining in right after. Tears of relief started trickling out as I saw red and blue lights flashing just a few miles down the road. I pulled away from them when I noticed it was the entire Hawkins police force barreling towards the Byers house. My heart stopped when I realized what that meant.

They had found Will.