In silent screams

In wildest dreams

I never dreamed of this

Hawkins, March 24, 1986

Just one day after Jason made his discriminatory case against Eddie Munson and his friends, Chrissy found herself in the woods with him. Afraid of the possibility of slipping into the visions again and having found little comfort in The Beatles after a particularly venomous argument with her mother, she had called Eddie up with tears running down her cheeks.

His voice had been thick with sleep. It was spring break; he had every right to be sleeping in past noon. Her call had obviously woken him, yet desperation kept any possible embarrassment at pay as Chrissy asked if he would maybe, possibly, let her try weed again.

"Yeah, for sure," had come his reply over the line. "Give me, like, ten minutes, okay?"

A sleepy haziness seemed to cling to him when she gratefully plopped herself into his passenger seat. Rather than returning to Forest Hills, though, Eddie headed in the direction of Hawkins Cemetery of all places.

"It's quiet there," he explained to her quizzical expression. "Not a lot of people around, y'know? And no church bells."

Heat had bloomed in Chrissy's cheeks as she muttered her thanks. Soon enough, she found herself sitting perched on an exposed tree root in the swathe of forest behind the graveyard. Eddie sat across from her, the two of them cloistered away in a close copse of trees. With her knees drawn up to her chest she watched the brief play of firelight over Eddie's features as he lit the joint. He inhaled deeply, getting it started for her, before passing it over. "You good?"

"Been better," Chrissy admitted after exhaling her first hit. "Did you hear about Fred Benson?"

"Yeah." Eddie was tugging mindlessly at blades of new spring grass while she smoked. "Crazy shit, huh? I hope they catch the bastard that did it."

"Wanna hear something funny?" Chrissy couldn't blame the weed for what she was about to say. The idea was so preposterous that she had been tempted to tell Eddie immediately after he picked her up. "Jason—you know Jason, right? Carver? He thinks it could have been you. And your friends. Because you play that Dungeon and Dragons game."

Perhaps the giggling she could blame on the weed. She found herself unable to stop, especially when Eddie's head sprung up with a blank, owlish look on his face. "Isn't that stupid?"

"Fuckin' Satanic Panic," Eddie said with a shake of his head. "I didn't think it would really make it all the way to Hawkins. Tell me you don't believe that shit." Chrissy tried to school her features into a contemptuous look but wasn't quite able to invert the curve of her lips.

"You really think I would let you take me out into the woods alone if I thought you were a murderer?" She asked, taking another huff of the joint.

"Fair point." Eddie held his hand out for the joint. When he exhaled, Chrissy decided she liked the swirl of white smoke contrasting with his dark features and clothes.

Just like the first night, the high was settling nicely into her head and joints. She felt relaxed enough to let her back rest against the massive tree trunk behind her.

"I'm sorry, I know he's your boyfriend, but that's such a dick move." He took another long drag off the joint before giving it back to her.

"I agree. I told him it was a shitty thing to say and not to go around saying it to anyone else. It is shitty and it's not fair to you and your friends." His mouth quirked into an almost-smile.

"I knew you were a good one, Chrissy Cunningham." She returned his smile, slumping lower as the weed continued to relax her body.

"It is stupid. If he wants to go the route of arguing religion, then all his basketball trophies he practically worships would be false idols. I don't really know what D&D is but, like, don't you just play out stories?"

"With characters and stuff, yeah."

"Then how is that different than Clue? Or my brother's video games? He just got this new one, Zelda something. Is he worshiping the devil because he plays a little 8-bit character saving a kingdom?"

"Your brother plays Legend of Zelda?" Eddie asked. "And you just weren't going to tell me your brother's cool?"

His surprised interruption of Chrissy's rant had her giggling again. "Yeah, his name's Caleb, and he does. He has all the Mario games, too."

They talked back and forth while sitting in their little hideaway, the sense of relaxation and content staying with Chrissy long after the joint was spent, and she came down from the high. Their feet were close together. Eddie tapped his sneaker against hers. "Have I told you yet that you're way cooler than I expected you to be?"

"Queen Chrissy, right?" She teased, tapping him back. "Can't go around letting the peasants get too close."

"Oh, I'm a peasant now?" Eddie tossed a handful of his plucked grass at her. Chrissy didn't get her hands up in time to block the barrage of blades. Giggling again, she dusted herself free of the grass.

"You're something, alright," Chrissy told him. The day had been warm, but it was starting to cool as the afternoon wore on. Even with those last hints of winter in the breeze, Chrissy knew the sudden icy chill running down her spine was something other. Her smile slipped from her face, eyes widening as she looked first at Eddie and then at the woods around them.

"Hey, Chris—" Eddie began, laying a hand on her leg, but he was cut off by another voice.

"Max!" the voice cut through the relative quiet of the forest, desperation clear in that one syllable. Max, Chrissy thought. Did she know a Max? Eddie had stiffened at the voice, dark gaze drifting away from her. He pushed himself to his feet and reached down for her, hauling Chrissy up before taking her by the hand.

"That's Henderson," was the only explanation he gave before he began running with Chrissy tagging along behind him.

Max! Max! Max!

The shouts came in three different voices, growing clearer as they ran through the forest. Wayward branches slapped at Chrissy's arms and legs; neither of them took the time to swat them away. That coldest was spreading through Chrissy, leeching from her spine and into her torso, her chest. Her stomach dropped when they burst through the trees together just in time to see a younger, red-haired girl begin levitating across the cemetery.

"Fuck, that's Max," Eddie mumbled to himself. A quiet, faraway part of Chrissy's mind noted the irony, but she was mostly saturated in her own fear. The cold dread was washing over her in waves now, her head tipping back to watch as this Max floated in the air. She took a half a step back, as if she could hide from it behind Eddie.

Steve Harrington, she knew him. Recognized him from years past when he had played on the basketball team. The two younger boys were strangers to her, but all three stood below Max, jumping in futile attempts to bring her back down to earth. All three were shouting the girl's name, but their voices sounded distorted to Chrissy, as if she herself were underwater.

Suddenly, it ended. Whatever force was keeping Max suspended in the air loosed its hold and she fell heavily to the ground with the three boys converging around her. Only then did Eddie step forward, drawing Chrissy behind him on her shaking legs.

"I thought we lost you," one of the boys was telling Max, holding her tightly in his arms. I know him, Chrissy thought. Basketball… he's a freshman… Lucas. Lucas Sinclair. Unable to bring herself to look at Max's pale, frightened face, she instead focused on the top of Lucas' head as he continued to murmur to her.

"Um," Eddie's voice was clearer for her, cutting through the heavy, chaotic static filling Chrissy's head, "I don't mean to interrupt, but… what the fuck just happened?"

The curly-haired boy's head snapped up, eyes bugging out of his face. "Eddie! Tell me you didn't see that."

"Yeah, uh, wish I could." Steve Harrington stood, placing his body between them and the three younger kids sitting on the ground. The light of the day was nearly gone, but his protective glare still burned over Eddie and Chrissy. Well, for a moment, until he caught sight of Chrissy's face.

"She doesn't look so good, man," he said, nodding over Eddie's shoulder to where Chrissy stood.

"I think I'm gonna puke," she somehow managed to tell Eddie when he turned toward her, though her face had gone numb. A few steps later, she did just that at the base of a tree. Eddie's hand was warm and reassuring on her shoulder as she retched.

"Are you okay?" he asked her softly once she straightened. Chrissy tried to covertly wipe her mouth with the back of her hand. She began to shiver when she managed to raise her eyes to his, shaking her head. Cursing under his breath, Eddie shrugged out of his jacket and quickly wrapped it around her.

"Um, can I ask you something?" The curly-haired boy—Henderson, that's what Eddie had called him—sidled up to them. "What're you and Chrissy Cunningham doing alone in the woods together?"

"What the fuck is Max doing floating in the air?" Eddie snapped. Henderson held his hands up, palms out. He backed away from them, retuning to the grave Max and Lucas sat in front of and helping both of them to their feet. Lucas kept Max close to him as the darkness fell fully over them, the sun having set.

"I think we should talk about all this somewhere else," Steve said, running his hand through his hair. "Max, you and Munson here are neighbors or whatever, right? Yeah? Alright, meet us at Forest Hills, then."

Steve's direction was given to Eddie and Chrissy, but he didn't stick around to see if they would follow it. Instead, he was shepherding the younger kids out of the cemetery. Eddie watched them go before turning back to Chrissy. "Are you up for that?"

"No," she told him honestly. Despite his body heat still warming the jacket he wrapped around her shoulders her teeth were chattering. "But I think I need to."

"Yeah, okay. Great." Eddie took a deep breath and blew it out through his nose. "Y'know, I wouldn't make it in Scooby-Doo. Couldn't cut it in the Mystery Gang. If it weren't for you, Chrissy, I would have just pretended today didn't happen."

Perhaps he was trying to lighten her mood or perhaps he was only ranting. Chrissy couldn't be sure and, honestly, she didn't currently have the energy to figure out which. With slumped shoulders, she followed Eddie through the dark cemetery back to his van.

It was not until they were in the relative safety of the cab that Chrissy spoke. "Eddie… I don't really know what's going on, but I think… I think what happened to Max, I think that's happening to me. Or going to happen."

The cab light was fading as she said it, so that she just barely caught the look of horrified resignation on his features. "Fuck," he cursed again. "Okay, yeah. Of course. Alright, Queen Chrissy, let's go crack this mystery."

For the second time in less than a week, Chrissy found herself in the living room of the Munson trailer. This time, though, she sat in a wooden chair taken from the kitchen table with Eddie's jacket still heavy and comforting on her shoulders. Eddie sat beside her, ankle crossed over a knee, slouching in his own chair and smoking a cigarette while he listened to the tale being woven for them.

"We have this friend," Dustin Henderson explained, sitting on the coffee table so he could face Eddie and Chrissy head on, "her name's El. She can… do things… that other people can't."

Lucas and Max sat on the couch together. The latter was still pale, her hair too red against her pallid cheeks. An awkwardness seemed to have settle over her and Lucas; he no longer held her, not even her hand, and there was a carefully measured amount of space between them. Steve Harrington also sat on the couch, watching Dustin carefully.

"Like float in the air?" Eddie asked before taking another drag. He had offered Chrissy a cigarette as well, though she had refused.

"Not that I've seen," Dustin said, pursing his lips and raising his eyebrows so that they disappeared beneath the brim of his hat, "but I wouldn't put it past her. But, uh, one of the things she can do is go to this place we call the Upside Down. It's like another version of Hawkins, in another dimension. When Max was, um… airborne… her consciousness was in this place. And she wasn't alone."

"Your friend was there?" Chrissy asked hopefully. It was dashed instantly when Dustin shared an uneasy look with Lucas.

"A… creature," Max amended. "He showed me Billy, m-my brother. And then himself. I, I ran from him, and when I ran, I found that kid, Fred Benson? His body was all contorted and he was, like, strapped to a pillar by these… tentacles."

A shiver wracked down Chrissy's spine. "Have you… seen the creature before?"

"Earlier today," Max admitted. "Right before we went to the cemetery."

"And why the hell wouldn't you have told us that?" Steve asked from down the couch. "That's important information, Max."

"You didn't even know about him until this afternoon!"

"Hey, hey, hey!" Lucas interjected. "We don't have time to fight, okay? This thing already got Fred and he's not going to get Max."

"Do you hear a grandfather clock?" Chrissy's question cut off Steve's rebuttal, his jaw snapping shut as the room stilled and eyes flicked to her. "When the creature's close, do you hear a grandfather clock chiming?"

Max and Chrissy met each other's horrified gaze. The younger girl nodded. A sob ripped from her chest before Chrissy could clamp a hand over her mouth.

"Fuck," Eddie said for the millionth time that night, just as Dustin gave an emphatic 'holy shit'.

"Okay." Steve pushed himself up from the couch and began pacing, running a hand through his hair. "This isn't good, but at least we know more than we did this morning. Nancy and Robin said that music helps, right? I mean, we saw that ourselves after we put the music on for Max. So we know there's a defense, at least."

"Where's this friend?" Eddie asked, returning from the kitchen with a wad of paper towels in his hand for Chrissy. "El, was that her name? I kind of got the vibe she could maybe stop this?"

"She's in California," Lucas lamented. "We're a little on our own here."

"No," Steve said, whirling on his heel. "Nancy and Robin went Penhurst. We have the music thing from Victor Creel himself, okay? We're gonna figure this thing out."

"Penhurst, as in the mental hospital? Harrington, what the ever-loving fuck is going on?" Eddie's gaze flicked between Steve's determination and Chrissy's fear. She dried her face with the paper towels, giving him a wobbly attempt at a smile in thanks.

"Okay, okay, let's backtrack so we're all on the same page." Dustin waved a hand at Steve to sit down again. Once all were settled, Dustin launched into a synopsis of El and their misadventures with her: Will Byers' disappearance and his subsequent connection with the Upside Down, demogorgons—this made Eddie snort and Dustin give a bashful smile—demodogs, the mind flayer, the truth of the Starcourt Mall burning. Now this new creature.

Nancy had been the one to discover Fred's body in the road after he disappeared from their journalistic investigation, Dustin revealed. How, already being privy to both the Upside Down and the eldritch horrors wrought from that dimension, Nancy had been immediately suspicious about the circumstances of Fred's death.

He connected the dots for Eddie and Chrissy. Nancy found Fred, his body—particularly the gouged eyes and snapped bones—smacked of otherworldly interference. She made the connection between Fred's murder and the infamous Creel murders before the police even arrived on scene. Somehow in the twenty-four hours since Fred's death, a plan to sneak into Penhurst Mental Hospital to speak with Victor Creel had been formed.

"And then everything with Max this afternoon, which you guys saw. And, I guess," Dustin waved a hand toward Chrissy, "he's, uh, been bothering you, too, huh?"

Chrissy sniffled and nodded. "I think so. I've never seen it… him. But…"

"You can feel him," Max finished for her. "I can tell. So can I."

"Music is what keeps this creep away?" Eddie asked, tossing a look Chrissy's way. "That's all we've got?"

"Happy memories, too. I think," Max said softly. "When I ran from him, I was only able to because I heard the song and started thinking of things that made me happy."

Chrissy's chest tightened. How many times in the last few days had she unwittingly pulled herself away from this thing's clutches by listening to her father's favorite music, by thinking of her childhood memories with him? She swallowed, her stomach in revolt again.

She looked at Eddie, studied his profile as his brows drew together and he digested the information Dustin had given them. He had unknowingly saved her by telling her about how music had helped him in the past. She was overcome by the urge to take his hand but resisted, balling her sleeves in her palms instead.

"So," Chrissy ventured, her voice shaking over the word, "what do we do now?"

"I don't think either of you should be alone tonight," Steve asserted firmly. "Especially not Max. She's had the closest run-in with this thing. We'll meet up with Nance and Robin tomorrow, pull all our information together, and go from there."

"I'll stay with her," Dustin offered immediately. Both Lucas and Max deflated a little in relief at his words. "I'll tell my mom I'm at your house, Lucas."

Chrissy and Eddie shared an uncomfortable glance of their own. "You can have my bed," he offered. "Unless you want me to sneak into your house."

"You'd have to bring your own ladder," Chrissy told him. "My room's on the second floor. I, um, can tell my mom I'm somewhere else, too."

Dustin and Chrissy took turns calling home and lying to their parents on the Munson home phone. Then the five of them departed from one another for the night, Dustin and Max to her trailer, Steve and Lucas to return home. Somehow, Chrissy managed to keep the rest of her tears at bay until the others had left. Alone with Eddie, though, she fell heavily onto the living room couch and hung her head in her hands as she sobbed. Eddie's weight joined her a moment later.

"Hey," he said softly, laying a tentative hand on her shoulder. "That was a lot today."

Chrissy nodded, wiping at her eyes. The tears had crashed hard and fast over her, the dam breaking for emotional release. She took a few deep breaths just as he had shown her a few days ago and straightened to look at him. "It's a lot to find out how I-I could have died," she forced the words out, "if it hadn't been for you."

"Me?" Eddie's eyebrows disappeared beneath his feathery bangs in his disbelief. "Chrissy, I—"

"Yes, you, I didn't know anything about handling any of this until you taught me. I don't care that it was a lucky guess because we didn't know a few days ago, that monster thing would have gotten me if it weren't for you, Eddie."

He averted his gaze from her, swallowing hard as he did so. "I kind of got the feeling this isn't gonna be over any time soon," he admitted. Beside him, Chrissy shook her head.

"No," she said so softly that the word hardly carried any of her voice. Then she looked up at him, makeup smudged all around her eyes from her crying, but her jaw set in determination, and she held a hand out to him. "But I'll see it through if you will."

He looked down, the fear flicking plainly across his face, but then Eddie took her hand and shook it firmly. "Deal, Chris."