Joyce
"Will!"
It's 9:00pm. They've been searching since 7:00.
They called the Wheeler house first, hoping for reassurance - Yeah, I'm still here, would you stop worrying? - but no one answered, and then no one answered twice, and three times, and when Joyce drove across town to knock on their door, the only response was a distant and familiar barking.
That solves the Chester mystery.
But no Will. No one at all.
Jim and Nancy checked the cabin. No one there. And now he's worried about El, and Joyce and Jonathan and worried about Will, and Nancy is worried about Mike, and the last of the light has faded from the sky.
They came home hoping to find someone there. Maybe they just missed each other.
Jonathan was the one who suggested Castle Byers. When the windows were dark and the house was empty, and Joyce's abject panic was buzzing in her veins like TV static, Jonathan lifted his head and said, "The fort."
He would be there. He had to be there.
They all but ran, tripping on branches, shoelaces getting caught on undergrowth and burrs sticking in their socks, flashlights swinging wildly in their hands, Nancy stumbling a little in Jonathan's too-large boots from the house and holding her skirt bunched in one fist. It was far too familiar, far too reminiscent of another time, a time of search parties and flashlight beams and her son's name yelled over and over until it started losing meaning even to her.
And now, Joyce finds herself screaming.
"Will!"
"Mike!" Nancy shrills, and then for good measure, "El!"
Not this. Not again. He's there, he has to be. Him and all the others. Mike and El and Dustin and Lucas and Max. They came to hide in this small, safe place, out of the way, where the lab wouldn't look for them, where the monsters wouldn't see them. Will brought them here. To his castle. The safest place he has, he shared it with all his friends, because of course he would. Of course he did.
But there is no glow of lanterns or flashlights through the trunks and bushes, no murmur of young voices in the distance.
Joyce slows at first when she spots the structure through the trunks, knowing immediately that something isn't right. The shapes are wrong, the angles too low, too flat.
And then her feet speed again, blundering forward in an unthinking panic, heart in her throat as the dark silhouette resolves itself. The beam of her flashlight sweeps across the reds and blues of an American flag crumpled in the mud, and then a splinter of wood, a beam that used to be upright, a tarp that used to be a wall, and a strangled noise presses itself out between the fingers plastered over her mouth.
Jonathan arrives on the scene just behind her, sputtering dismay, Nancy at his heels. And last, Jim, out of breath and jogging, and Joyce is already in the ruins. Ripping planks of wood aside, digging through detritus, splinters in her palms and the smell of singed wood in her nostrils, and he's not here. No pale hand limp in the mess, no curled form huddled under the fallen structure. Just a pulpy mess of torn-up papers, smashed paint bottles, pigments soaking into the dirt, comic books and action figures waterlogged and scattered.
Questions swarm in the air between them, thick as the heat and humidity, and no one has to speak. They're all thinking it - what happened here. Where is he. Where are they. Who did this. Are they too late.
A broad, warm shape appears at Joyce's arm, still huffing and puffing a little but reassuringly solid where she feels so lightheaded she might float right off her feet, and she folds against Jim's chest. Hands fisted against the front of his uniform, face buried, eyes screwed shut against her worst nightmare come to life.
A large hand touches the back of her head. Not quite stroking her hair.
"We're gonna find them."
The words rumble through his chest and into her skull, and she shakes her head, wildly, without even knowing why.
"They're smart kids, they'd look out for each other."
She emerges. "Where else would they be?" It's a demand more than a question, strained and frustrated. They checked everywhere.
Except the mall, something in her whispers, and she shrinks from it, but it rings true. Of course they'd go to the one place that's most dangerous.
Jim lets her go as she starts tugging out of his grip, and he pokes through the rubble as he talks. Nancy is standing with her jaw squared, eyes burning and fists clenched, staring at the empty fort like it personally ate her little sibling. She's been the most vocal about the possibility of kidnapping by the new Hawkins Laboratory.
"Mayfield house, maybe. Dustin's place. Lucas's place. Hell, maybe Harrington's."
"We already checked Lucas's house," she retorts, "When I was at Mike's, Jonathan went -"
"Where did they say they were going?" Jonathan himself says suddenly. The two turn to look at him. His bangs are stringy, face gray and haggard in the stark beams of the flashlights. "The other day. Where did they say they were going?"
Nancy frowns. "The movies?"
"No - Will said they were going somewhere to set up Dustin's radio. And then -" He points his flashlight at Jim, nearly blinding him - "you said that Dustin said he picked up this -" His other hand swishes in the air, impatient and agitated. "- government chatter, or... something on his radio, right?"
Jim bats at the light like it's a physical thing until Jon lowers it, then grunts, "Yeah?"
"So maybe they're going back there, back to..."
"Weathertop," Joyce remembers.
"Where's that?" Jim has long since given up questioning the kids' penchant for fictional place names.
"It's the ridge overlooking the town, on the back end of Winze street."
Before the sentence is out of Joyce's mouth, Nancy is already moving. "Good. Let's go." She stops in front of Jim, hand out. "Borrow your knife?"
He produces a small folding knife from a pocket without question, and Nancy sets to hacking at the lower half of her skirt. Popping a puncture wound into the fabric with the dull little blade, then grasping the material in both hands and tearing, yanking it apart until she has an uneven rip all the way around. Mud and twigs and pine needles come away with the hem - she got caught up several times on the way through the woods, and now she tosses the bundle aside without looking where it falls.
She turns back to the others after a few steps, flashlight casting her in a contrasted silhouette of frizzed hair and tattered skirt. "Are you coming?"
Will
The hike up Weathertop seems both longer and shorter in the dark.
Urgency nips at their heels, driving them, pulling them, and they don't stop, not even once. They're all gasping when they near the top, Mike most of all. He and Lucas have been limping the whole way, aided by Max and Will, respectively. Will hates watching them labor up the slope, hates that they have to do this when they're both in pain, but no one even suggested leaving them behind. Split up the Party? Now? No. It would have been suicide. They all know that. They have to stick together or something will happen. It always does. And anyway, Lucas and Mike both would have rioted at the idea.
So now, the Party approaches the crest at a much slower pace than normal, encumbered by the reduced speed of their ranger and paladin but tight-lipped and uncomplaining.
Their flashlights swing and flare in the blue-darkness, illuminating the black silhouettes of trees and blades of grass like little bolts of lightning. Fireflies blink back. Swirls of them drift and dance in the rising bubbles of heat like floating embers from a fire. Crickets peep in the grasses. Frogs chirp in the distance, probably basking happily near the stream that runs nearby. The smell of the fields is thick in Will's nose. Cool night air, crushed grass under their sneakers, the distinct scent of firework smoke drifting up from the town below - where, already, pops of color rise and burst from fields and parking lots and people's backyards. Night has fallen, and the celebrations have begun.
The hill is warm where the air is beginning to cool, the earth still retaining a trace of the sunlight it soaked up throughout the day. The warmth is a vague haze around his ankles, tangled in the grasses, seeping into his palm when his foot catches in the undergrowth and he almost takes Mike down with him, only catching himself at the last minute.
It's comforting, that warmth.
But he knows it'll be gone soon. The night will leach the heat from the earth and it'll go cold. Cool, dark, primed and ready for a cold-blooded army.
He puts on a burst of speed despite Mike's little gasp of protest, overtaking Max and Lucas as they near the crest.
They only halt once they reach Cerebro, Dustin sinking to his knees with a rough gasp and bracing himself for a moment before reaching out to fire it up.
Even Chester is wheezing a little, but he doesn't stop to flop in the cool grass like he normally would. He is, uncharacteristically, plastered to Will's side. A hot and panting mass of fur, heavy and inconvenient, tripping him up until Will has to push him away. Mike, on Will's other side, sags against him. He's breathing heavily through his nose, though he's trying to hide it by evening and lengthening his breaths. He's not fooling anybody. At least - he isn't fooling Will. He stinks of a sour sweat, a pain-sweat, and Will's own sweaty and shaking hands nearly slip when he tries to lower Mike to the ground to let him rest. His whole body is shivering with adrenaline, despite the sweat in his hair and clothes.
It's not fear. And it is. It's apprehension, unease, a dull dread - a sort of taut readiness, primed to spring into action, fight-or-flight kicked into top gear, but it's not a prey-fear. Not a blind panic like when he was there, not a paralyzing horror or animal terror.
He's terrified, he's scared shitless, he's sick with anxiety over Mike and Lucas and, hell, everyone else, and he's ready to fight.
And he doesn't want to fight.
And he wants to go home.
And he wants to tear the Upside Down apart piece by piece with his own fists, beating, ripping, smashing it into splinters like Castle Byers.
And he wants to hold Mike's hand again.
And he wants to forget so he doesn't hope.
The Party clusters around Dustin, quiet and breathless, only speaking in low tones and whispers. This isn't the triumphant ascent of two days ago, sprawling on the hill with playful griping. Everyone is on alert. Even Mike, a dark splotch seeping through the bandages on his calf, hauls himself up after a moment and hop-wobbles over to Dustin. He braces a palm on the bard's shoulder for stability as he huffs, "How long - is this gonna -?"
"Not long," Dustin says, but his voice is strained, and a quiet glance jumps like an electrical current between the other breathless members of the Party.
Lucas hisses out an expletive. He wrapped his ankle the best he could at the house, stabilizing it with thick, tight layers of bandage, but the trek up Weathertop couldn't have been easy on him. He and El lean against each other, Lucas standing one-legged like a flamingo, as Max gets out Dustin's binoculars to scan the treeline.
"What?" Will prompts, antsy and irritable. His tone wasn't called for and he knows it, but she's making him nervous doing that.
Max grimaces from behind the binoculars. "Uh, nothing." She drops them for a moment to glance over her shoulder to Will. "Nothing so far."
"What, did you see something?"
"No, Will, I'm just -" She gestures with the bioncs before lifting them to her face again. "Keeping an eye out, that's all. Take a chill pill."
"You take a chill pill," he mutters back, and from Cerebro, Mike calls, "Is this the time?"
"You're one to talk," Will and Max both mumble nearly in unison, and then cast a smirk at each other, and just like that they're allies again.
Will squeezes her shoulder with a murmur of, "Sorry. Just jumpy," before drifting away again.
She doesn't even tense up.
Coming from Max, so rarely open to physical contact, that's a compliment. And he feels the tiniest bit better.
Is that why he feels better?
Or is it because Mike just acted like Mike again? Keeping an eye and an ear on the party, trying to keep the peace, stepping in with the unspoken authority of the President of the AV Club if something went awry - that's something Mike does. Or, he did, before. Before he got too cool for everything, before he checked out and became a half-stranger.
But he's doing it again, now.
And despite everything, despite the trembling in his chest and throat, Will feels a knot loosen inside him because this, this is the Party. Not just a fragmented collection of couples drifting further and further apart, but a cohesive whole. A team. A family.
Sister, Will thinks suddenly, like he would think with El, and for a moment he wants to go bonk his head against Max's the way his other pseudo-sister does to signal forgiveness.
And now Will thinks he knows why he was annoyed. It took a second to click. In his mind, he has this handled. Well, he and El. But El can't feel the Mind Flayer like he can. Will knows when He's close. If the Shred was near, or Billy - or, whatever Billy is now - Will would know. Keeping a lookout feels... unnecessary, almost.
It's not. He knows it's not. They need as many eyes on the horizon as they can get. But feeling like his... his abilities are useful - he balks at calling them a gift, but a tool, rather than a curse - that feeling is... new. And he's protective of it. Even if no one else knows. Even if they couldn't possibly know, and even if it's not fair to be annoyed at them for not "trusting" him to handle it. Trusting him to look out for them. Protect them.
He scrubs a hand over his face, pushing away the sweat at his temples, and goes to Cerebro. Shit. This isn't the time to be having a one-man therapy session.
It's just... it's a revelation. Liking what he can do. Not hating himself for what's inside him. He feels restless and fitful, full of energy, full of everything, dread and hate and hope and love and rage and determination and he feels...
Powerful.
It's so potent right now that he can feel it under his skin, coursing and fizzing like a feedback loop, a closed circuit with no outlet, and as the Party settles in for what might be a fruitless endeavor, Will's fingertips sting with tiny, bright little pops of static.
He shoves his hands under his armpits and bounces on his toes.
Holy shit. Holy shit. Ho-ly shit.
He's giddy. It's so out of place that it's ridiculous, and he swallows a half-delirious hiccup of laughter. No one is paying attention to him right now, thank god, or they'd be asking questions. His bouncing-pacing-fidgeting just comes off as anxiety, it blends in with all the rest of them.
At Cerebro, Dustin grumbles a curse. Will suppresses his overwhelm-jitters to pause.
Maybe -
Maybe he can be useful here, too.
He drifts closer.
El is already there, hovering and clearly frustrated by her inability to help. As Will walks up he catches the rusty end of her sentence -
"... doesn't have to be a picture. Anything of hers."
"Suzie, this is Dustin. We really need your help right now. Do you copy? Over." He lifts his thumb from the button and gives the receiver a little toss, like he's saying shit-sucks-but-what-are-you-gonna-do. "Trust me, I wish I did."
"I could help if I had her signal, but..." El coughs, clears her throat, and spreads her palms, at a loss, and Dustin shakes his head. His jaw is set. Determined.
"Don't worry about it. She'll answer. She's gonna answer."
"She'd better." Lucas, nursing his ankle. He's managed to sit and scoot himself into the main center of action, and now he swats at a mosquito with a persistent scowl. Chester noses at his ear, trying to help in his own doggy way, and Lucas reaches up absently to scratch him under the chin. "Ten minutes," he says again. "Ten minutes and we're done."
He's been saying it at least for the past five.
"Okay," Dustin agrees, again, and lifts his free hand like he's settling a crowd. "Just wait. She's gonna answer. Suzie, this is Dustin. Do you copy? Over." An adjustment of the radio, a hiss of pain as he transfers the receiver to the hand with the sprained wrist. His stabilizing bandage is a white beacon in the haze of night. "Suzie, do you copy? This is Dustin. It's urgent. Over."
Mike has limped his way over to Lucas, where they show they care about each other's well-being by giving each other shit, and Will puts a casual palm on the main support beam of Cerebro as if to help himself balance.
What can he do? Would... more power help? Or would he just cause a short circuit and break the whole thing? What they really need is a signal boost, but that's kind of El's bailiwick. He can't do that. Can he do that?
While he waffles, El is up and moving, determined to make herself useful however she can. Like she's making up for not being able to get Suzie's signal on her own - helping Dustin check the wires, suggesting that they re-angle the antennae, directing the others in the Party to keep an eye out in the four cardinal directions.
It's good, seeing her like this. She seems better. Better than earlier today, at least. Even frustrated and stressed, there's a steadiness about her that Will remembers from their early days of knowing each other.
He eyes her as she sits and closes her eyes, putting a hand on the base of Cerebro like she's trying to boost the signal anyway, not knowing where to send it, just throwing it out into the universe indiscriminately. Her brows furrow with concentration. She sways a little. Chester makes a nuisance of himself by standing directly over the radio and snuffling at her hair, wondering what she's up to, and Max coaxes him away.
El told Will once, on the supercomm late at night, that she so often felt like she was "doing it wrong." When he asked, she simply clarified, "life." She said it like she was mis-interpreting a character, mis-delivering lines. Like she was supposed to act a certain way and kept missing the mark. Like she never fit right, no matter what she did.
She was worried. She wanted to get it right. She wanted to have a normal life, be a normal girl. And she was trying to. She was trying really hard.
He saw it in her, sometimes. The strain. The performative undercurrent in her demeanor. Like she was trying to imitate someone on TV; like she was doing an impression of someone else.
He doesn't see that now.
He wonders if it means anything. Maybe he's seeing things that aren't there. Projecting his own little triumph, his own sense of revelation onto her.
Maybe they can talk later. If they're alive. If the world is still here.
That thought sobers him and he re-focuses.
There isn't much he can do.
So he does the only thing he can.
Maybe it'll break something, but... screw it. Lucas is right. They need to get moving soon anyway. Either this works, or it fails catastrophically. Either way, they can move forward.
He tries, for starters, just to feed some of his own restless energy into the contraption, his own... power.
That word is still foreign.
But he can't tell if it's doing much. He doesn't exactly have a lot of practice at this. It's a little easier now that it's flowing so close to the surface, right under his skin, so hot and sparkling and present in his whole body that he feels like if he pricked a finger he'd bleed sparks. But it's still a struggle. He doesn't quite remember how to get ahold of it, how to wrangle it and aim it - especially while keeping a nonchalant façade.
It's when he takes a break, flexing a numb and pinprick-burning hand, that he notices it. He's tilting his head back, searching his pockets for something to absorb the drop of blood before anyone notices, and something catches his attention. There's a little cold spot somewhere along the main tower, near the top. Well, not cold - more just empty. Blank. A blip of nothing where there should be an unbroken path of energy.
He grabs the offending wire and tugs. "What's this?"
"This is Dustin. Over. What?"
He tugs again. "This."
"Oh, uh." Dustin leans back and squints up, aiming his flashlight directly in Will's face and making him curse and cringe away. "That connects the radio to the -" He waves a hand. "Antenna. Well, most of them. The big ones. This -" He pinches a smaller wire. " - connects to these, but the ones on top were too high so I had to add another -"
"It's not connected."
"Huh?"
"It's, like, torn or something. Here, give me a boost."
Dustin kneels and laces his fingers, letting Will step into his hands, and hefts him up with El's help. The others are gathering around now, filling the air with curious whispers, and Will wobbles on his unsteady perch. Cerebro, spindly as it is, isn't much help in that department, and he nearly pitches over and brings the whole contraption down with him, but -
There. His hand runs up the main beam and catches on something, something physical, not just an emptiness. The foam-and-duct-tape-wrapped bundle of wires is frayed. Like the wind tugged it until something snapped.
"I need a light." He reaches a hand down, pitching again as someone tries to be helpful by getting underneath his other foot. After a moment he steadies, and a flashlight presses into his palm. By its ringed yellow light, he finds the wound.
Not just one snapped wire, but nearly every one. A casualty of the storm, maybe? Or maybe it happened even before that, before they even put Cerebro up. That could explain why Dustin never reached anyone farther than Starcourt.
It's finicky work, twisting bits of wire together, making sure the metal touches, making sure a signal can get through - and that would be on the best of days. Working in the dark, standing on two sets of interlaced fingers, with a weak flashlight wedged between his ear and shoulder, well. It's not a fast process.
But it's working. He doesn't have to wonder. He can feel it. Wires lighting up in the dark in a way only he can see. The branching metal antlers above him beginning to glow.
Max - his second human step-stool - is griping and groaning about her poor arms, and Will has sliced a finger on a sharp wire-end by the time he waves the white flag.
"Good enough," he announces, slipping down, and Max and Dustin give groans of relief.
"Jesus, Byers," Dustin huffs, "You're heavy."
"Yeah." He shakes out his own limbs with a little grin. They were cramping, trying to stay balanced. "Must be all the muscle."
Lucas snorts and gives him a little shove, rising to the challenge - "Oh, yeah? You got nothin' on these guns."
Max's eyes roll.
They're both just going through the motions. And they think he is too. He can tell. They're scared, and acting normal helps to ease the tension. Putting up a front soothes the nerves. So maybe that's why they don't question the uncharacteristic moment of feigned confidence.
Which is probably a good thing. Will doesn't think he's ready to explain the unpredictable and convoluted mood he's in.
"Try again," he tells Dustin, and then to Lucas - "Five more minutes. I really think it'll work this time."
Lucas's head shakes and his forced-playful smile hardens into something grim, but he just says, "Sure, man. Your call."
He avoids El. He can tell she's looking at him.
Dustin sinks once again into the Dustin-shaped divot in the grass. His voice, which had settled into a sort of resigned drone, comes back to life. A last hurrah.
"Suzie, come in, this is Dustin. Do you copy? Over. Suzie, please say you can hear me. This is Dustin, and I really need your help. Please come in. Over."
"Good call," Mike says at Will's elbow, and Will twists his hands together hard to hide any nervous-excited sparks that might express from his fingertips or palm.
"Yeah. Maybe that'll -"
His words stop before he knows why.
It's quiet.
The crickets aren't singing.
The nape of his neck prickles with gooseflesh.
It almost pulls him in. It flickers in front of his eyes, the double-vision, here-and-somewhere-else at once, and he feels the bottom of his stomach drop out in that cold-sick whoosh. But this time - this time, when he's expecting it - he digs in his heels. In the forest he couldn't stop it. Fleeing from the Shred behind Castle Byers, he was hurled from one reality into the next without mercy, battered like a ragdoll between dimensions with no control, and he fights that same sensation now. He controlled it in the locker room. He did it on purpose. He can do it again. He can.
He does.
The Viewmaster jumps, shudders, and grinds to a halt - in his own world.
Not this time, he thinks, jaw clenched so hard with the effort he feels like his molars might crack. His vision tunnels and for a moment he thinks he might pitch over, but then the grains of black clear from his vision and feeling returns to his limbs. You're not getting me this time.
The second his body unfreezes, released all at once from its silent and unseen battle, he stumbles to Mike. Chester appears at his knees, whining, sensing that something is wrong but not knowing what.
He's dizzy, drained - he had no idea how much effort that would take, how much energy, pulling away when the Shred wanted to pull him under, pull him to its home turf where it would have the advantage. It took so much more out of him than switching over in the locker room, of his own volition.
Despair flickers in the back of his mind. If that, just that nearly drained him, how can he even hope to fight?
No time. No time to think. No time to worry. It's coming.
"Will?"
Mike tries to step around him, but a clumsy shove keeps him back.
"Everyone stay behind me." His voice rasps, and El understands before Will even turns to her. He can tell by the glint in her eyes. "El, I'm gonna need some help."
Wordless, she nods. Rises. Comes to stand by him.
Max is the one that says, "Is it -?"
"Yeah."
Lucas says, "Where?"
Will points. Lucas's flashlight trains itself past Will's extended finger. To the east. Towards the woods.
He hears them cluster, once again, around Cerebro, but he doesn't turn to look. He keeps his eyes on the treeline. Watching. Waiting.
"How close?" El says, all business.
"Close."
"Suzie, this is Dustin. Do you copy? Now would be a really good time! Over!"
Treetops begin tossing. One, then another, drawing closer. Distantly, the crash of tree limbs splintering. Chester starts growling, winding around Will's legs with his hackles raised like a viking battle dog.
"Suzie, do you copy? Suzie, do you copy?"
And then -
"This is Suzy - I copy!"
Will's head whips around just in time to see Dustin do a violent, victorious fist-pump. "Yes! Suzie!"
"Dusty-Bun?" Her voice is high but not shrill, with a slight nasal quality, and it's -
Real.
Everyone else appears to be experiencing this revelation as well, because they're gaping around at each other with wide eyes while Dustin grins at the radio receiver like it's his beloved herself.
"Where have you been?" she demands, and Will remembers to face forward again as the sound of lashing leaves and breaking branches draws perilously close.
"I'm so, so sorry, I've been really busy -"
And the monster breaks through the tree line. Skittering heavily on many thick, trunk-like legs, the hulking shape skids on the grass and comes to a halt, shakes off the detritus of trees and bushes, opens a tooth-lined maw, emits a clicking, grating, ear-piercing shriek, and lunges for the Party.
El
"I thought he would be guarding the mall!"
"Yeah, well, he's not!"
"Yeah, no shit!"
"Run!"
They're scrambling for weapons, for backpacks, pushing and shoving and tugging each other in the direction of the bikes - all the way down the hill.
All except Dustin.
He's still kneeling in the grass and El does a double-take, slipping as she runs back to him.
"Come on!"
"Uuuhhh, hold on a minute Suzie-poo, we have a small emergency, I'll be back in just a second - stay on this channel!"
Finally, he gets up, fumbling for his supercomm inside his backpack as El pulls him along. They're separated when Max almost falls, her gouged leg hitting a bad angle, and Dustin darts forward to prop her up - but then he turns back to El and thrusts the supercomm in the air with his un-injured hand.
"El! Can you keep Suzie on this channel?"
"Yeah!"
She lifts her hands, ready to catch, and he tosses it.
It hits her hands so hard it hurts, and she concentrates as she runs. Reaching for Cerebro, feeling out the signal, tracing it to Suzy. Getting a lock on her frequency. Channeling it into the supercomm and keeping it there.
And just in time, too. There's a metallic crackle-crash, a gurgling growl. When she chances a look back, strands of hair obscuring her sight, the Billy-Monster is disentangling itself from the remains of the giant ham-radio - having blasted straight through the place Dustin sat mere moments ago.
But she has it. She has the signal. She has Suzie. And it's a relief. Even as they're sprinting helter-skelter down the steep slope, skidding on grass and stumbling on rocks. She felt so awful and useless, standing there watching the seconds tick by on Dustin's watch, letting precious time slip past and not being able to do anything. It's bad enough that she's weak right now. She's supposed to keep them safe. She can't fail them now.
But this, she can do. This is nothing.
She channels Suzy into the supercomm, and she runs, and she reaches for a hand - anyone's, Mike's Will's, Max's, even Lucas - and -
Will. Will's not with them.
He's yelling. Chester. He's calling to Chester, trailing behind the rest of the group, but the big white dog is planted firmly in place. Ears plastered to his skull and shaking in every limb but with legs stiff and fur bristling. Barking his snarled, full-throated warning-bark, his pale coat ghostly in the gathering darkness. Standing his ground against the beast hurtling towards them as if he plans to rush it with his teeth bared.
"Leave the dog!" Max is screaming, but Will takes off instead, towards the monster, and El's breath catches hard in her throat because she doesn't know if she has the strength to stop it right now. It's so close she can smell it. Bitter-rot. Upside-Down decay. Open wounds.
El doesn't do it. Her hand is raised, her head is aching with preparatory concentration, but it wasn't her. She swears didn't do anything - but as Will reaches his dog and hauls him away by the collar, fighting him tooth and nail until Chester finally gives in and follows, the Billy-Monster recoils from a flash.
It was fast, too fast to register in all the chaos, and all El knows is that the dripping teeth snap shut in the air just behind Will and his furry companion as they practically leap down a steep part of the hill. Overlapping shouts of fear and encouragement and beratement welcome them back into the group - that's a new one, beratement, although right now blitz might be more applicable and -
Tears blur the world. Her legs burn with exertion. Her lungs hurt from heaving.
What use is she if she can't stop this?
She wishes her d... Hop was here. She doesn't want to handle this anymore. She's tired, she's been tired for hours, and the thundering drum of footsteps is right behind them, a blast of hot and putrid air sending threads of saliva flying past them, so close she's sure they're all about to die, it's going to rip them apart, her friends are screaming and Mike and Lucas are losing a lot of speed to pain and -
Lights. Two of them, down below, twisting through the trees, along the road and -
"There's a car!"
"Hey! Help us!"
"Over here!"
"Guys, it's -"
"Hopper!"
"Hop!"
"Over here!"
It's like magic. She thought of Hop, Hop with his words, gently correcting her when she makes a mistake, and -
There he is.
It's his car. It really is.
She wants to cry.
The Party waves and screams, and the car beeps back, fishtailing on the gravel road as it swings around - and even from here, El can make out Joyce's horrified face in the passenger window as she spots what's half-tumbling down the hill behind them.
It's a close thing. The monster makes a false step, a bloated foot sinking into some rabbit hole or hollow, and it gives them just enough time. The car doors seem to open on their own - one more little miracle, she thinks, until she sees Nancy and Jonathan in the back seat. It's so fast, so crowded, that El only registers getting a faceful of tangled orange hair, someone's elbow spiking into her ribs, and someone else's hand using her arm as leverage to pull themselves in. Then, the familiar solidness of worn leather seats underneath her, bodies crushed around her, and they made it, they're safe, except for -
Dustin, last of all, scoops up Chester like a baby and leaps through the open door, neatly smacking his skull against the door frame and crashing onto everyone else's laps, and bellows, "Go, go!"
The engine growls and the tires spin on gravel - the monster is screaming down upon them -
And it crashes into the space they just occupied in the millisecond after the car jumps forward, tires catching at last.
Lucas finally manages to catch the open door and pull it closed, and the relative silence is like a splash of cold water in the face.
She's in the back seat. Lucas on her right, Max on her left - and left of Max, Nancy, and left of Nancy, Jonathan. Dustin and Chester crush down on top of all of them collectively, and Nancy catches a heavy, muddy paw in the cheek as the dog scrambles to join Will and Mike in the wayback. Dustin follows suit, kneeing Lucas in the chin and stepping hard on El's thigh, while a storm of voices overlap and swirl together until they're meaningless. Mike groaning something about his leg, Lucas one-upping him with his ankle, Will asking if they're okay, Joyce trying to check on everyone at once, Hop telling everyone to put on seatbelts, Nancy and Jonathan exclaiming over the Party's rough appearance, Lucas trying to tell Hop to head for the mall, Chester yipping.
El goes to press her hands over her ears, only to clonk herself on the ear with the supercomm.
That's right. She still has Suzy. That's the important thing. She did it. She kept Suzy on the channel. And they're alive.
Holy shit, they're alive.
The yelling has not stopped.
Over the muddle of scared and confused voices rises Hop's authoritative roar.
"Hey! One. At a damn. Time!"
"How did -?" Mike starts, but Hop cuts him off.
"Nope, my turn. What the hell is that?"
He jabs a finger backwards as if they all summoned the monster specifically to make his day harder, and a jumble of explanations swells in answer.
Max's voice is the one that cuts above the rest. "It's Billy!"
Hop and Joyce both say, "What?" but Jonathan and Nancy just look at each other.
El never quite knew what the phrase "dawning horror" looked like until now. It's clear on both their faces.
"It's like -" Nancy says, and Jonathan finishes, "The rat."
"Rat?" Will says, but if he says anything else, El doesn't hear it. He's drowned out by Chester's sudden barking.
When she twists to look back, El sees what he's barking at.
The Billy-Monster has not given up the chase.
Will has both hands clamped around Chester's muzzle, shushing him, but the dog is determined. He yips and bays and snarls, trying his absolute best to scare away the monster, and Joyce has to shout over him -
"You!" Everyone in the back seats jumps guiltily, but she's pointing at Will. "I told you to stay at the Wheeler's!"
Will yells right back. The argument is happening vaguely over El's head, and she slides down as far as she can in her own seat.
"What, so I'm supposed to just sit around?"
"You're supposed to stay safe!"
"I'm not just gonna cower in a corner and wait for Him -" Will flings a hand towards the rear window, where, when El peeks, the strange silhouette is growing larger. "- to ruin my life again!"
"Everybody hold on," Hop warns, and jerks the wheel to the left. The car lurches, spins, skids. Everyone in the back seat slides to the right, squashing Lucas, and then all the way to the left again as Hop steers them around another corner. In the back, there's a skitter of claws and a yelp as Chester struggles to keep his footing.
"Hop!" Joyce protests, then makes a hiccupping noise as the car jolts hard enough to send her head banging into the ceiling. The whole metal structure of the vehicle vibrates. They're not on a road anymore.
Hop's voice vibrates with the car, like he's speaking through a fan - "I'm tryin' to throw it off, just hang on."
Another big ba-bump, which sends everyone flying and apparently either threw Mike onto Will or Will onto Mike, based on the sheepish apologies back there. They're back on a road - asphalt, this time, and Hop floors it.
"Let's see if this fucker can do eighty," he mutters. Trees begin to flash past on either side. In the back, Chester has finally stopped barking - maybe because the monster is out of sight, maybe because he's concentrating too hard on keeping his feet.
A hand thrusts out between the heads of Nancy and Jonathan and Dustin yells, "Gimme Suzie!"
El had forgotten she was even holding the supercomm. She passes it back as Joyce says, "What's Suzie?" and Lucas supplies, "Dustin's girlfriend can crack the code to get into the lab so we can break in and stop them."
Joyce's eyebrows lift. "Girlfriend?"
But Dustin, apparently, isn't taking any questions at the moment.
"Okay, everybody shut up!"
Mike chimes in to help - "Guys, be quiet, he's gonna call -"
Jonathan whispers, "Who's Suzie?" and Max whispers back, "Girl he met at camp, I guess she's really smart or something -"
"Uh, guys? I think it found us."
Sure enough, there's a distant crackle of unfortunate trees breaking, and a familiar loping shape appears in the distance. A fresh buzz of conversation breaks out and Dustin waves a hand through the air.
"Guys, shut up, seriously!"
"Make it fast, then, loverboy," Lucas suggests tensely, and Dustin shoots him one more look before lifting the radio.
"Suzie? This is Dustin. Please say you're still there. Over."
A moment of static-fizzing silence, and El thinks every single person in the car is holding their breath - even the adults, who have no clue why this is so important - and then -
"This is Suzie, I copy."
"Oh, thank god." Dustin's sigh of relief takes him all the way down past El's field of view, but he sits up again after a moment and adjusts his hat. "I'm so sorry, I tried to call. Cerebro had a busted -" He sees the expressions directed towards him and waves it away. "You know what, it doesn't matter. Things have just been kind of crazy, I, uh. I've been trying to fight off evil interdimensional forces with my friends."
The friends in question gawk at him, but Suzie just giggles and says, "Of course you have."
He giggles back, nervous - maybe because of all the why-the-hell-would-you-tell-her-that-you-moron glares he's receiving - and says, "Right, yeah. That's, uh, that's classic Dustin. Okay, so listen - I... need you to crack a code for me. It's monumentally important."
"Okay, let me just be clear on this - I haven't heard from you in a week, and now you want me to crack a code...?"
They all seem to notice it at once. They pounding vibrations. They feel it in their chests more than they hear it, and then Mike's frantic gesturing draws everyone's attention outside of the car again.
Apparently, when given enough of a straight and even runway to gain momentum, the Billy-Monster can gallop.
And it's fast.
"God, I wish I had my gun," Nancy murmurs, and Joyce breathes something like, "Jesus Christ, it's - is it gaining?"
Max starts making hurry it up gestures at Dustin while Lucas dramatically mouths, we are going to die! and then makes an exaggerated sad face at him, to emphasize the severity of the situation. Dustin nods back at them like a bobblehead and shoves Lucas's face back over the seats.
"Suzie-poo, I promise, I will make it up to you as soon as possible."
Her voice tilts with mischief. "You can make it up to me now."
"What?"
"I want to hear it."
Dustin's eyes go wide. "Not right now."
"Yes! Now, Dusty-bun!"
By now, everyone in the back seat - even Nancy and Jonathan - have turned fully around to stare at him, hanging over the back of the seats in a way that gives them a perfect view of both the approaching monstrosity and Dustin's lobster-red face.
He tugs his hat way down to try to cover it. "Suzie-poo, this is urgent!"
"Yes, yes, monumentally important. I heard you the first time. But Ged is also saving Earthsea and he's about to confront the shadow, so this is Suzie, signing off."
"Wait wait wait! Okay! Okay. Okay." Dustin puts the radio down in his lap and sighs, "Shit."
All eyes are on him. All impatient, all curious, all flabbergasted.
And then he lifts the radio, thumbs the button, and begins to sing.
And behind them, the boom of giant footsteps grows louder, closer.
"Turn around..."
As the car begins shaking with every gargantuan footfall, heads turn nearly in unison to stare at the creature gaining on them.
"Look at what you see..."
El sees something fleshy, heavy, and huge.
Dustin's voice wobbles, creaks slightly, and then - somewhat to El's surprise - evens out to something... really pretty decent.
"In her face, the mirror of your dreams..."
"Make believe I'm everywhere," Suzie bursts in triumphantly in an only slightly nasal soprano. "Given in the light..."
"Written on the pages, is the answer to a neverending story! Ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah..."
El just barely hears Hop mutter, "... okay," before Dustin is launching into the next verse, not as timid now, and waving to the others to join in.
"Reach the stars," he sings, waving urgently at the party until Will, of all people, ventures, "Fly a fantasy...?"
"Dream a dream," Joyce joins uncertainly, eyes casting about as if she's trying desperately to remember the lyrics as she sings them, and from there it's Max, flopping her arms once as if saying, yeah, sure, why the hell not, and by, "And what you see will be," Dustin has most of the car singing vaguely along, shooting each other dazed and baffled looks.
"Rhymes that keep their secrets," Dustin sings louder, trying to lead them, and shoves Mike on the shoulder until he starts mumbling along.
Why are we singing? Lucas mouths to Max, who shrugs with wide eyes.
El doesn't know the song, but she hums as best she can past the rough and swollen tissues of her throat, even as Hop is white-knuckling the wheel to swing around impediments in the road while the monster behind them matches them at seventy-five, eighty, eight-five.
As Hop would say - hell with it. Apparently this is what they're doing. She won't ask why it's supposed to help if Dustin says it will.
Suzie is one of the better singers of the group, and improvises a harmony with gusto - "Will unfold behind the clouds..."
"And there upon a rainbow, is the answer to a neverending story! Ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah..."
"Story!" Dustin and Suzie finish out, tackling the high note and drifting down again with another set of ahs, and then Dustin giggles, and Suzie giggles back.
"Greetings, friends of Dustin!"
Her greeting is returned in the form of some scattered heys and Hi, Suzies.
"We didn't think you were real," Lucas offers, and is rewarded by Max leaning across El to smack him.
"Are you?" Suzie fires back, and Dustin grins.
"We'll gather some scientific proof and get back to you."
"Evidence, Dusty. There is no proof in science. However, I will accept a mathematical proof if you can manage one."
"Oh!" Dustin clicks his fingers. "Speaking of mathematical equations, we have a little bit of a problem with -" He swings around to point those fingers at -
Jonathan gives a short little scream, Nancy curses loudly, and Will jerks away from the rear window - just in time to dodge the fleshy, tooth-ended appendage that punches through the glass and stabs into the back seat where he was just resting.
"Did you forget about that?" Mike snaps as he grasps at a kitchen knife from his survival pack and takes a swipe at the tendril, and Dustin snaps back, "I was kinda busy!"
"What was that?" Suzie says from the supercomm, but Dustin is too busy beating the tendril away with his wrench to pick it up.
"Jim -!" Joyce starts to say, but he says, "On it!" and stomps on the breaks.
El grunts as she's thrown into the in front of her, nearly tumbling straight through the gap, and there's the sound of shattering glass and a gust of mixed warm-cool, stinking air as something wet and squishy-solid bashes against the back of the car so hard that the whole thing jolts forward, throwing El back into her seat, and then there's Hop is yelling, "Seatbelts! For fuck's sake, seatbelts!"
The creature gives a screech-growl of pain and anger as pieces of glass from the rear window catch and stick in its face - well, what used to be a face - and two more mouth-limbs rise and try to snake into the wayback -
But then Hop is slamming on the gas again and the tires screech until they catch some friction and shoot the car forward. For one sickening moment, one of the flesh-tendrils catches on a lip of the now-broken back window - and then it's gone, ripped away by the momentum of the car.
They slowed it down. But it isn't stopping.
"Which one of you is a better shot?" Hop says, directing the question at Nancy and Jonathan before spitting, "Shit," and twitching the wheel just in time to bring them around a shallow curve at speed. The supports of the guard rail beside the road strobe past mere centimeters from the windows.
"Her," Jonathan says without hesitation, and Hop instructs without taking his eyes off the road.
"Rifle's under your feet, ammo's in the box under the passenger seat. Load it up and get in the back. That thing gets close again, you blast it. Understand?"
"Yeah."
Nancy is already hauling up the heavy gun, unwrapping it from its protective blanket roll, and Lucas pulls the thin cardboard box from under Joyce's seat before Hop stops talking. Wind pushes into the car from the broken window like a cool, clean stream of water, pushing El's hair into her face and drying the sweat on her forehead.
As Nancy takes her weapon and clambers from back seat to way-back - Jonathan tugging down her tattered skirt when the action almost shows her underwear - Dustin has finally fished the supercomm out from underneath Chester's whining, shivering form.
"I'm here," he says to a concerned Suzie, "Sorry. We're in, uh, a little bit of a car chase. I swear I'll explain later - right now, I really, really need your help, please."
There's a brief, bewildered silence, and then - "Of - course."
Dusting sags. "Thank god - okay, do you have a pencil?"
"Affirmative."
"Okay -" He's rummaging in his survival pack, almost elbowing Nancy in the ribs as she settles herself in the back with a reassuring squeeze of Mike's shoulder, and after a moment he pulls out a much-crumpled spiral-bound notebook and flips it to a bookmarked page. "Use a full light of twelve percent solar brightness at an angle five-point-one-four-five degrees..."
"Slow down, I can't write that fast. Full light... of twelve... percent..."
"Solar brightness," Dustin prompts, and as Suzie transcribes the code, Nancy takes aim.
But there's a problem. As they reach a straightaway, the monster shifts trajectory and plunges into the forest. El leans over Lucas and they press their noses to the window side-by-side, trying to see past the shadows.
"Is it... gone?" Max asks hesitantly, but -
"No," Joyce says. She, too, is pressed to her window. And sure enough, there's the telltale slam-crackling of something large and clumsy bulldozing its way through the trees without caring what it crushes along the way. Treetops shiver here and there. As Dustin finishes relaying the code to Suzie and she promises to solve it as quickly as she can, the noise in the forest doesn't fade. It's keeping pace with the car at a parallel course.
Until Hop is forced to slow to take a curve. The road curves, unavoidably, right. Towards the monster.
And like it knew that, the thing makes a ninety degree turn and rushes them. Cutting them off at the peak of their deceleration.
But Nancy isn't shooting.
"Nancy," Mike says, but she says, "Not yet."
And Hop is trying to pick up speed again but the monster has a lead on them, and it's extending tendrils to grab the car, mouth gaping as if it means to swallow one of them whole.
Mike is scrambling backwards, trying to pull people away from the windows. "Nancy!"
"Hold on!"
Two tendrils latch on. One poises itself to stab at Hop through his window and El gives a weak slash of her hand, cutting it down - but it barely wavers before rising again. Everyone is yelling, telling her to shoot, but Nancy waits until the thing is right there -
El can see the reflection of the muzzle in one black, saucer-sized pupil when Nancy fires nearly point-blank. Everyone claps their hands to their ears, yelping as the sharp crack seems to split their eardrums.
But it's gone. An instantaneous stumble-and-fall brought it down screaming, and when they look back, the creature is struggling to its feet. And this time, it doesn't return after stumbling into the forest.
Breaths of relief. Jonathan reaches into the wayback to clap Nancy on the shoulder and Will says something that El can't hear over the ringing in her ears. Dustin jerks his head to the side and knocks at the opposite ear like he's trying to shake water out of his ears. Chester, whining beside him, is attempting to perform a similar maneuver.
The car soars forward.
In the quiet, breath-catching moments afterwards, Joyce turns to El with a tired smile. "Hey, sweetheart, I didn't get to -" And then her eyes light on Will, really taking him in for the first time, and she cuts herself off with a double-take. "Honey, your face, what happened to - oh my god, your hair."
"Why are we here?"
Hop is putting the parking brake on in the circular driveway of the Byers' house, and Max is holding her arms up in a what the hell gesture.
Hop just climbs out of the car and shuts the door behind him with a curt, "Supplies."
El starts to slide towards the door, but Lucas doesn't budge. "Dude, we gotta get there, like, yesterday. They could have opened the Gate already."
"Will and El would know if they did," Nancy counters.
"They haven't." El has to clear her throat again. Ever since Billy lifted her off her feet by the throat, her voice has been going in and out at odd intervals. Talking hurts. Coughing hurts. But she has to cough nearly every time she has to talk.
Max's frown is nervous. Her arms are crossed over her chest, like she's trying to protect herself. "I'd rather not give them that opportunity."
Various mutters of agreement.
"We could take the Pinto," Will ventures with a glance at his mom. "Max can drive. Right?"
"What?" Jonathan is saying, "No."
But Max is nodding along when Hop appears at the broken rear window, leaning an arm on the glass-less lip. Chester snuffs at his face and then jumps out, following Joyce to the house with a tucked tail.
Hop gives each and every one of them a look El has come to know well. A stern, listen to me look. "Where do you think that thing is going right now?"
"The mall," Lucas says immediately. It's what he's been saying all along.
"So where do we maybe not wanna go?"
There are noises of protest, and Hop puts up a hand.
"Listen, I hear you. I hear you. But we have to think about this. We're assuming that thing is controlled by the Mind Flayer, yeah?"
Will shifts a little where he's sitting in the back. "It is."
"So, it's smart. It probably expects us to head straight to the mall. Now, I'm not saying no one's gonna go -" This, in response to more protests - "But if we're smart about this, we might take it by surprise." He pushes himself off the car and straightens again. "In any case, I'd rather not face HNL Two-Point-Oh with a single gun and a Mars Bar. So." He slaps the side of his car. "Everybody out."
Jonathan and Nancy go without further comment, trying to coax the Party with them.
They collectively consider it for a moment before Dustin says, "We need to give Suzie some time to crack the code, anyway. And I don't know about anyone else, but I gotta pee like a racehorse."
Lucas admits, "We could use some better weapons."
But Hop's brows lift. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. We need weapons." He gestures to himself and the house, indicating Joyce. And Nancy and Jonathan? El isn't sure; they're already climbing the front steps. "You are going inside and staying there."
"Good luck with that," Dustin mumbles as he pops open the back door and slides out, and Will says, "We're going with you."
Hop sighs, lifting two fingers to pinch at the bridge of his nose - another familiar gesture - and says, "Just - just get inside the house. You wanna argue, fine, but we're not doing it out in the open."
"Five minutes," Mike directs the Party as he trips out of the back and bounces on his good leg to recover, facing backwards as he hobble-jogs with five fingers extended. "Okay? Then we're going."
The house is a wreck. Worse than El's room ever has been when Hop calls it a pigsty. Furniture overturned, couch cushions ripped open and spilling their innards, drawers hanging open and empty and utensils scattered across the kitchen floor, lamps bald without their lampshades and paintings ripped down from the walls.
"Whoa," Lucas says upon entering at the same time that Mike whistles and Will says, "What...?"
"It was us," Hop says, heading off further inquiry, and gestures vaguely overhead. "Bugs. Caught two of them. That should be it."
"I'd go for a fly swatter next time, my dude," Dustin quips, and Lucas groans.
Newspapers plaster the windows, blocking any and all view of the outside world. El touches one with her fingertips. So this is what they were doing in the Void. They were making a safe place. Somewhere unobserved. Somewhere to recover. Somewhere to plan.
The Party takes advantage of it now.
They guzzle water, scarf down peanut butter sandwiches from their survival packs, take rapid-fire turns in the bathroom, swallow pain pills, re-wrap wounds with sloppy haste. Chester settles by the front door with his fuzzy chin on his front paws, ears pricked forward, growling a low, long growl every once in a while. Nancy reloads the rifle, Jonathan insists on dabbing antiseptic on Will's scraped and bruised cheek, and Max braids back first her own and then El's hair.
Lucas and Dustin volunteer to check the sheds out back for anything useful, coming back with a gleeful haul. A crowbar, a nail gun, an axe for chopping wood like the one Hop has at the cabin, a baseball bat - and, best of all, a short single-bladed sword with a wooden handle that Lucas calls a machete. Joyce says it's not really a sword. She says it's just a big knife, and Lonnie used to use it to clear out the encroaching forest from their property - probably just so that he could take out his anger on something. Just so he could feel powerful.
Mike hesitates when she says that. His hand withdraws. But Will nudges him with a shoulder as he passes by with a first aid kit and says, "Take it. That'll be good if we need it."
So he does, wiping off the grime on the tail of his shirt, and El can tell he's pleased.
She chooses the baseball bat for herself.
Joyce casts her a worried look, and she tries to shrug it off.
She can't count on just her powers anymore. Not now.
"How long do we have?" Dustin says through a gulp of water from the tap, and Mike flicks his watch into place and says, "One minute thirty seconds."
"Right." Dustin sticks his head under the faucet again, swallows, straightens, and says, "Let's go back out, see what else we can get."
He and Lucas disappear out the back again, the screen door banging behind them, and Max hefts the crowbar experimentally.
Jonathan scolds them when he comes in, telling them to put the weapons back because they're not coming along - but picks up the axe for himself on his hurried way back out.
That particular argument has been ongoing and sporadic. Hop appears with a second shotgun and argues while he checks over the components and ammo. Jonathan takes his side. Nancy seems to agree but doesn't say much, only giving a practical, "If they're determined to go, they're going to. We can't chain them to the furnace."
El doesn't even bother arguing back. Her throat hurts too much, and the rest of the Party is good at being stubborn.
They're gearing up to leave again, openly planning the theft of Will's mom's car as their escape vehicle, when Hop's hand comes down on the top of El's head to ruffle her hair.
"Hey," he says, and she glances up at him without lifting her chin too much. She doesn't think he's noticed the bruises yet, in all the chaos, and she knows he'll flip, as Mike would say, when he does.
"Hey."
"Everything okay?"
"Yeah," she croaks, keeping her hands busy with the crackers and Cheez Balls she's packing into the survival backpacks to replace the sandwiches.
Max, from the other room, pipes up, "She and Mike broke up earlier."
"Oh," Joyce says sympathetically, appearing out of nowhere, "Really?"
"Wait, when?" Nancy is peering into the kitchen from the dining room.
Even Jonathan heard. He's right behind her, and he gives a little grimace and a conciliatory, "Aw, man. That's rough. Sorry, El."
El turns to glare at Max and she shrugs. "Well, you did. I'm just explaining."
"Not important," El says coolly, and goes back to her packing.
It's only when the others have drifted off that Hop speaks up again, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed uncomfortably. "I, uh. You know, I'm sorry to hear that."
She shrugs. He sighs.
Then he tries again.
"You know, if you wanna talk, or..." A long inhale. He doesn't know how to say something that he's trying to say. He's bad at saying things. They both are. "You can talk to me. If you want. Okay?"
Her hands stop halfway through shoving a juice box into the final backpack. The backs of her eyeballs are heating up again, her nose hot, and it's not because she's thinking about her and Mike not being boyfriend and girlfriend anymore. And after a second, she shoves the pack aside and goes straight to Hop, face-planting against his chest and letting him wrap her up in a bear hug.
And she whispers, "Okay."
Will
He should have trusted his instinct.
Stupid. He should know better by now.
He's felt like something was off since they entered the house, but he attributed it to the disarray. His home torn apart, lying in pieces - well, even though his mom and Hopper explained why they did it, that it wasn't the lab or some other nefarious force breaking in, it's not reassuring.
So when some little alarm bell buzzed at the back of his mind, he didn't pay attention.
Until Chester started barking.
"What's his deal?" Max says, frowning over at the dog from where she's winding old tee-shirts around her forearms and securing them with thick layers of duct tape. Bite guards, she calls them, and Will was just thinking of doing the same until Chester started going nuts.
His barking has already drawn everyone to the dining room - and it doesn't take long before, one at a time, they start following his gaze upwards.
Nancy is the first one who spots it. She inhales sharply and grabs Joyce's arm, pointing with her other hand - "There."
Now Will sees it.
A small shape crouches on top of an unlit hanging lamp. Hiding in the shadows. Watching them with beady eyes.
Jon dives for the light switch, and the rat squeals and runs up the chain, across a wire and somewhere into the dark corner of the room, vanishing, and dread is turning over in Will's stomach.
"A rat?" Max says, confused and disgusted, and Will shakes his head with hollow certainty.
"No. A spy."
How long has it been there? How long has He known they were here, not headed to the mall?
And how long would it take the Billy-Monster to reach them?
Mike is the one that says what they're all trying not to think. "So much for surprise advantage."
And like a punctuation to his sentence, something outside cracks like Nancy's gun.
Will's eyes meet Jon's.
The trip wire.
Wordlessly, Hopper holds a finger to his lips, pumps the shotgun, and creeps to the front window.
Dustin
They're frozen in place. Dustin holding a bundle of rope and Lucas's arms full of old 4th of July fireworks.
The naked bulb above them is swinging, sending shadows rocking back and forth, making him dizzy when he turns to Lucas and whispers, "Was that a gunshot?"
"That or someone's being patriotic."
But the Byers don't really have any neighbors close to them, and who else would be setting off fireworks right now?
Plus, Lucas has the majority of the Byers' fireworks gathered up in his arms.
It was a lucky find. They were looking for armor, really, but when they came across this mother load... Well, how could they not? It's the perfect weapon. Long-range, easy to use, and they pack a double-whammy of bright light and heat. Ideal against Upside Down creatures.
They were just about to bring their spoils in to the rest of the Party, when... that happened.
Dustin opens his mouth to say, We should go back inside, but Lucas shushes him.
"No, we -"
"Just - shh."
"You shh!"
"Shh!"
Lucas bats a hand at him as he creeps to the wooden door of the shed. He stops, listens, and frowns. "Chester's going apeshit."
"Uh, yeah, he has been for the past half hour." But Dustin knows it's more than just that. He was just really, really hoping he wouldn't have to do this again today.
Lucas reaches for the latch, lets his hand rest there for a moment - and then lifts it. He eases the door open just a crack, peeking out - then retreats with a face like he just stuck his nose into a carton of sour milk.
Dustin doesn't need to ask what. He just hisses, "Shit," and goes to look for himself.
Crawling up the back of the Byers' one-story house, like a swollen tick blown up to mammoth proportions, is the thing that was once Billy. Except, it's bigger than Billy ever was. Lumpy and twisted with extra flesh, like it's been growing, metastasizing into something that could barely fit through a back door -
Which, in fact, is what it's trying to do now.
"Dude, it's trying to get in." His whisper is strained, panicked. And then, with an awful, guilty tug in his guts - "We left the damn door open, dude, we left the door -!"
"Why aren't they shooting it?" Lucas has joined him once again at the crack, shouldering him aside to see. "What the hell are they doing?"
"I don't think they knew it had a goddamn stealth advantage!"
"We gotta -" His head wobbles as he licks his lips, brain running on overdrive as he tries to come up with a solution. "We gotta draw it away, or -"
Lucas's whisper is a hiss. "We don't have weapons! They're all inside! If we draw it over here it's gonna rip us apart!"
"We gotta do something!"
"We have rope and fireworks, I'm open to suggestions."
But Dustin has already thought of something. He left his backpack inside for El to re-stock with food and supplies, but he swears he -
Yes. Thank god, hallelujah. He clipped his supercomm to his belt.
Will
His mom is the one that breaks the silence to whisper, "Where is it?"
They're all at the front windows, peeling up little corners of newspaper to peek out, weapons at the ready. But not a single person has seen anything - other than the lax trip wire.
"Maybe it was a person?" Max suggests, and Hopper rumbles back, "Then where are they?"
They can't stop Chester from barking. No matter what they do he won't stop, and now it plays as a constant background loop as they station themselves at various windows, straining to see into the darkness without even a porch light.
Will reaches for his dog, thinking maybe he can just try to hold his mouth shut again, and something in his stomach clenches.
Chester isn't looking at the front windows.
He's facing the back of the house. Spine stiff, tail down, paws planted between the kitchen and his humans.
Just as the implications flash through him, Mike's supercomm crackles and squeals on the dining room table.
Dustin's voice filters through, hushed and urgent but clear enough for everyone to hear.
"Code red! This is a code -!"
And out of the semi-darkness shoots a fleshy appendage, crushing the radio into silence.
