Chapter 13

Dustin and Jamie had barely made it inside the Hargroves' kitchen before Max slammed the door shut. She locked the door with a hard click and drew the lace curtains shut, as if that would keep them safe. Lucas, Mike and Will were glued to the window next to the door, noses pressed against the glass and Jamie wondered if this Susan-woman was going to have a fit about that too.

"Do you see it?"

"What is it?"

"Is it the Demodogs?"

Whatever it was, it shrieked like a wailing ghoul from outside. Jamie shoved herself between Will and Mike. The light from the porch light reached maybe three feet into the backyard, everything beyond was pitch black. Not just dark or shadowy, but an impenetrable blackness that indicated mass.

"It's not the Demodogs," Dustin lisped, having pressed himself underneath Jamie's armpit to get a look through the window. Nothing was moving, but there was this overwhelming feeling of something looking back at them. Jamie had to agree with Dustin, it didn't sound like the Demodogs.

Billy asked: "What the hell is a Demodog?"

"Are we absolutely sure that all the Demodogs died?" Lucas asked with a hard voice.

"It's not a Demodog!"

"I know that, Dustin! But the Demodog was not in its final form!"

"I don't think it's a Demogorgon either," said Mike. "A Demogorgon would have attacked. This thing is staying back."

"A Demo-what?" Billy again.

"I'm saying, what if the Demogorgon wasn't the final form either?" Lucas asked and received a collective stunned silence in return. Jamie couldn't even picture how a Demogorgon could grow to be even bigger or nastier.

"No, no way," said Dustin quickly. "The Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes clearly says that the Demogorgon was its final physical manif-"

"This is not Dungeons and Dragons!" Max yelled to break up the hurried bickering between the boys. "Dart grew from a couple of inches to a full Demodog within a matter of days. It's been months now! What if it just keeps-"

"HEY!" barked Billy and clapped his hands loudly to get their attention. "What the hell is a Demogorgon?"

Dustin, the walking bestiary, explained: "A Demogorgon is a being from the 88th Abyssal plain that relies on- what? He asked!"

"Dustin, just, no," Jamie said and shook her head at her younger brother. She peered out behind the curtain of the door. "I think it's still there. We should call Hopper."

"It's probably just a moose or a bear," Billy said disgustedly and pushed Jamie away from the backdoor. "Jesus Christ, I'll scare it-"

"NO!" all shouted in unison and Jamie flung herself at the door to prevent him from opening it. Jamie hissed: "Are you insane, you can't go out there!"

"Because it might be a being from the 88th Abyssal plain?" Billy asked sarcastically, his face inches from hers, so she could see each individual strand of his sparse moustache. "I'll take my chances."

"It could be rabid!" Jamie yelled and slapped his hands away from the doorknob. She inched herself sideways so it was behind her, out of reach.

Billy supported himself on the doorframe and leaned even closer, a hairwidth from touching her nose with his: "A rabid moose?"

"Whatever it was, it sounded huge!" Lucas said and stammered when Billy glanced his way. "We should call Hopper."

"I say we call Steve," said Dustin and Jamie made a face.

"What, no! We're not calling Steve instead of Hopper!"

"He could help!"

"Uh, guys?"

"More than Hopper?" Jamie asked with pure incredulousness in her voice. This hero-worshipping was going a bit too far. "If anything we should call Nancy, she's the one with the gun."

"Wait, Nancy has a gun?" Mike asked at the same time as Billy said: "Nancy Wheeler?"

"Guys?"

"Yes, Nancy has a gun!" Jamie tried to press herself further into the door to get some space between her and Billy, trying to avoid coming into contact with his bare chest. "And so does Hopper, the freaking Chief of police!" She met Billy's unamused glare. "Even if it's a bear, what are you gonna do, have a fistfight with it?"

"GUYS!" The timid voice of Will finally cut through the arguing. "Something's going on with the light!"

"What?"

Jamie flipped around and twitched the curtain aside, only halfway aware of Billy pressing into her back to peer out over her head. The circle of illumination from the porch light was moving. Or...shrinking.

"Oh no," Dustin muttered. "It's a Shade."

Before even Billy could begin to ask what the hell a Shade was, the porch light went out without as much as fizzle. They could see the orange tungsten thread glowing for half a second before it too disappeared in the dark. Jamie took an automatic step back when the overhead light in the kitchen also started to fade. She stepped right back into Billy, who grabbed her elbows to keep her from falling over. Together, they moved backwards, instinctively trying to stay within the waning circle of light.

"What - the hell - is going on?" Billy asked before all the lights went out.

"AAAH!" Jamie screamed when something slammed into the wall. In the pitch black of the kitchen, she held onto Billy, a confirmation that she wasn't alone in this sea of darkness, surrounded only by the other's screams and shrieks. The crockery rattled inside the cupboards as the whole house shook with a new blow. Every single instinct in her body told her to run as the thing outside let out a long mournful shriek. It wanted in.

"Get away from the window!" shouted Billy from somewhere beside her. Someone tumbled into Jamie, who she latched onto, not letting them go. It was Max, revealed by her scream when the thing hit the house again. The darkness got deeper by every second, like it was alive, thicker than air, latching onto their skin and sticking in their throats.

"Light," shrieked Dustin from the darkness. Jamie twirled around with Billy and Max in tow, trying to pinpoint the direction of his voice. "We need light!"

"Billy! Your lighter!" shouted Max and Jamie panicked when she nearly lost grip on Billy as he fumbled around to get to his jeans pockets. Because he let go off her hand and he was too weird to wear a goddamn shirt, she was left to grip his wrist awkwardly as he tried to force his hand into his way too tight jeans.

"Not making this easier, Madge!" he growled and Jamie relented her grip a fraction. Disoriented in the darkness, they moved around and crashed into another warm-bodied person. Jamie's hands were both busy, but she felt Max grab hold of the fourth guy to keep them together.

Another howl from outside and Jamie started cursing Billy for wearing those form-fitting jeans that he could barely walk in and why would he put his lighter in a pocket he couldn't reach and why couldn't he just wear a sh-

Billy opened his Zippo and struck down the wheel. In the blinding darkness, the tiny flame acted like a beacon. The assaults on the house's walls increased, even as the black shadows withdrew, and another wail came from outside. Jamie didn't dare to breathe, in case her breath would extinguish the fire and send them back into the void.

The flame illuminated Billy's face first, then Jamie's when he moved the lighter around. Max' face was revealed, and Will, who had been the fourth one they held onto. The house shook with each new assault and Billy whirled around to find the remaining three boys, all piled in a heap over some kitchen chairs.

"Okay, let's-" Billy started but was overpowered by another long shriek from outside. The blackness retreated like someone had pulled the plug in a bathtub. The light emitted from Billy's lighter grew and spread until it covered the kitchen and the ceiling light blinked back on.

No one dared breathe or speak. They all breathed heavily, every one latched onto one another, waiting for anything to make sense.

The front door burst open and they all jumped backwards, Jamie's fingernails squeezing into Billy's wrist. A tall man who looked like Billy and a smaller woman who looked like Max came in through the door, carrying shopping bags and chatting amongst themselves. They froze too, at the sight of the overcrowded kitchen and Jamie tried to surreptitiously let go of Max who she had her entire arm around.

"Hello," said the man, who was like Billy and not phased by small details like seven people huddled together in his kitchen, three of them on the floor with a chair wedged beneath them. Jamie had no idea how the situation looked like, with her and Billy standing way too close to both each other and Max and Will, with Billy not even wearing a shirt.

"Oh my God, did something happened?" asked the woman who she guessed was Susan. Jamie realized the comment was directed at her and Dustin - the pair of them were still covered in mud and scratches. Her words penetrated the stunned bubble and everyone began moving at once. Billy flicked his lighter shut, Jamie released both him and his sister, Max bent to pick up the chair so the three boys on the floor could get up.

"There was an accident," said Dustin and Jamie wanted to bash him into the snow again. He had a quick mouth, but not always something to say, and she feared Billy's no-nonsense looking dad wouldn't just believe any tall tale. "Weeeeeee...were biking home and then a car came out of nowhere so we slipped on the ice-"

"Not the Camaro!" Jamie cried out as Susan had given Billy a horrified stare. "It was a...uh, pick-up. Uh, we came here because-"

"-I go to school with Max-"

"-I'm Billy's lab-partner-"

She and Dustin looked at each other as they had spoken at the same time. "Uhh...yeah, Dustin goes to school with Max and I'm Billy's lab-partner. We were just gonna borrow a phone to call our mom and-"

"-and I invited them in to wait because they were soaked," said Max, having caught up on where the Hendersons were going with this. She grabbed the towels from the table and held them up as Exhibit A.

"And the rest of you?" Mr. Hargrove asked the three remaining boys and it might be her imagination, but he seemed to be extra wary against Lucas.

"I didn't want them to bike home in the dark," Jamie said quickly. "It gets cold real quickly and the black ice can be lethal."

"Are you hurt? Did you reach your mom?" asked Susan and checked over Dustin quickly. He was a little rough around the edges, courtesy of Jamie herself, but he grinned his usual sunny grin and assured her he was fine.

"We couldn't get through to her office," he explained calmly, grasping Susan's hands in his, a move taken straight out of Billy Hargrove's book 'How to Charm a Mother'.

"Well, if my son can go put on some damn clothes," Mr. Hargrove began in a hard voice, even if he was smiling. He tossed his car-keys to Billy who caught them with one hand. "He can take the pick-up and get both you and your bicycles safely home. Isn't that right, son?"

"Yes, sir," Billy bit out with his head bent. He pushed past both Jamie and Max to his room. Jamie blabbed something about thanking them for their hospitality and began shuffling the boys with her to the front hall.

"This pick-up, you get a look at the license plate?" Mr. Hargrove asked Jamie as the boys filed into Max' room to get their coats.

"Uh, no," Jamie said and wished she could take a class on how to tell convincing lies. "I think it was a Chevy."

"Like that drunkard of a police chief drives?" he asked, but Jamie was spared having to answer as Billy emerged from his bedroom, wearing a fitted tank-top and his usual denim jacket. Jamie smiled awkwardly to his dad and physically pushed all of the boys out of the house.

Only Jamie's bike was on the front lawn, but the rest of them was hidden in the bushes, as a way to conceal their whereabouts for Jamie. She and Billy hefted them onto the flatbed of the pick-up. It was just a two-seater, but the four boys could just squeeze in behind the seats, sparing them a cold ride home outside with their bikes.

Billy said nothing as he drove, dropping off Will and Mike at the Wheelers, Lucas at his house, saving Jamie and Dustin for last. She could tell by the way Billy glanced back at Dustin that he would rather not have him present for any conversation, probably because Dustin had a way of explaining things like he assumed everyone had the same level of understanding as him on any given subject. That would explain why Billy barked at Dustin to get out of the car, but asked Jamie to stay behind when they reached their house.

He turned in his seat, the pick-up not a good fit for him, but he still managed. "What the hell happened back there?"

"I don't know!" Jamie answered truthfully. That hadn't been like anything she had ever seen before. The way that thing had spread the darkness around it...Dustin had called it a Shade, and she was gonna force him get his D&D-manual out before they went to bed tonight.

"You don't know?" Billy repeated with a hard frown. "Really? So this talk about Demodogs and Demo-whatever, all new to you?"

"That wasn't a Demodog," Jamie said and Billy slammed his fist into the dashboard.

"WHAT IS A DAMN DEMODOG?"

"It's a - uh - compound between the words Demogorgon and dog," Jamie explained, using much of the same hand-gestures as Dustin had used when he first explained it to Chief Hopper. "Because it is basically a Demogorgon the size of a dog."

Billy blinked slowly, like he hadn't heard her, and the fist on the dashboard clenched and unclenched repeatedly. "What-" he talked slowly "-is a Demogorgon?"

"A monster." Jamie's voice was thin and hollow. "From another world."

"A monster," Billy repeated and bent his head so a ringlet from his fringe fell into his eyes, "from another world? Like an alien?"

She shrugged. "Sort of. Uh...we're not really supposed to talk about this. Please don't mention this to anyone. I'm serious, Billy, you could get us all into real trouble."

"Real trouble?"

Jamie swallowed and leaned closer over the console. It was unlikely the car was bugged, but for all she knew, her driveway could be. She whispered: "Hawkins Lab was a secret government facility. Some very powerful people covered up what really happened to Will and to Barbara Holland-" and to her "-and we signed some confidentiality clauses that basically gives them the right to lock us up if we talk about this."

"Hawkins Lab? The cover-story blew before Christmas, some anonymous sources or whatever exposed what-"

"Yeah, uh, that was still not the truth, just a cover-cover-story. It's - uhm - we don't know if it's connected or not yet. What happened tonight was different. Please, Billy, I'm begging you, don't talk to anyone about this. Not your dad, not Susan, not even Max unless you know you're not under surveillance."

"Surveillance?" Billy rolled the word on his tongue and she saw the flicker of light in his eyes, the tiny sign that meant he was waiting to be in on the joke, for her to yell 'SIKE' and have the world back to normal again. It snuffed out. "You're serious."

"I wish I wasn't," Jamie croaked and blew air out her mouth in an effort to prevent herself from crying. "You better get back before your dad wonders where you are." She noticed how his jaw set firmly at the mention of his dad. "If something happens, call Jim Hopper, okay? He can help."

"Jesus Christ. All right. Jim Hopper. Gotcha." Billy got out of the car and lifted her and Dustin's bike off the pick-up.

"Jim Hopper," Jamie repeated and saw Billy nod before he drove off. Into the night. Into the dark.

The next day, Dustin slipped her a note at breakfast to meet at the AV room after school.

He had been waiting for her just inside the front door last night and she nearly pissed her pants when she came in after talking to Billy. Dustin had of course been watching her the whole time and demanded to know what she had told him and she had to clamp her hand over his mouth to stop him from talking, trying to indicate with her hands that their house could be bugged with listening devices. She was taking a note from Nancy when it came to paranoia, but better safe than sorry. Jamie was working on a signal detector to find any hidden devices, but it was still a work in progress.

No, better to talk in the AV club, even if it meant an awkward trek from Hawkins High to Hawkins Middle after school. She had seen Billy, who was not her lab-partner, but did have Chemistry with her, and avoided gaining eye-contact. The less involved he was, the better. Same went for Steve, who she was forced to talk to when he came rushing to ask her about what had happened yesterday.

"Uh, yesterday?" she repeated dumbly before it was clear that Steve was talking about her getting arrested, not being attacked by some sort of shadow monster. In an effort to at least get something off her chest, she relayed the story of the Henderson Special and the guilty middle schoolers.

"Oh, man, really?" he had said and they had jibed about how much trouble those little shits were. He mentioned something about talking to Dustin, and it made her wonder just how much time they were spending together. Not that she felt her position as the elder Henderson-sibling was under threat, but she was worried about Steve not really having close friends his own age. He would graduate this Spring and he had been completely mum about how his college applications were going.

The school day passed in a blur and Jamie knew that Nancy was suspicious of her behaviour. She had to feign an excuse about talking to Mr. Clarke about something to make Nancy leave her alone after classes ended.

"Shades," said Dustin and opened up one of his many D&D-manuals. "Humanoids who have merged with shadowstuff, resides in the Shadowrealm. Most powerful in the dark, can leap from shadow to shadow and decrease light, like it did with the lights at Max' house."

Max stood there with folded arms. She was not an avid D&D-player as far as Jamie knew. "What do you mean, humanoid?"

"They kinda look like humans," Dustin explained. "You know, walks on two legs, has two arms, a head."

"Did anyone get a look at the thing yesterday?" Jamie asked, still perplexed that the AV-club looked exactly like it had when she was in Middle School.

No one had.

"It had to be huge though," said Lucas and the others agreed. "I thought it was gonna break down the wall."

"Unless," Dustin said, "we're dealing with a spellcaster."

"Okay, okay, I can accept that monsters are real," Jamie said and nudged Dustin. "But I draw the line at magic."

"Really?" her brother demanded to know. "After you've seen what El can do? Really?"

"Are you seeing her after school today?" Lucas asked Mike and the boy in question blushed deeply. Apparently he was. "Maybe you can ask her, you know, if she's heard of this stuff before."

"She's talked about her sister before." Mike preferred to stare at the table rather than look at them. Jamie had no idea of the nature of his relationship with El, but it was obviously something he wanted to keep private. "She can make people see whatever she wants."

Dustin nodded as if that made perfect sense. "Could've been an illusion, sure."

"The whole house was shaking!" Jamie protested.

"Or someone wanted you to think it was shaking!"

"Oh my God," Jamie muttered and rubbed her eyes. "What am I doing here?" She shut the book to look at its cover. Monstrous Compendium. "Why are we not telling Hopper about this?"

"What's he gonna do?" Mike was not Chief Hopper's biggest fan after he found out Hopper had been hiding Eleven at his cabin for almost a year.

"Uh, I dunno, investigate?" Jamie asked and wondered if Nancy would be upset if Jamie smacked her little brother around a bit. "'Cause he's the police and all."

"What's there to investigate? No one got hurt, no one got taken, there wasn't even a mark left on the house this morning, right, Max?" Lucas said and turned to Max who shook her head to confirm this.

"No, nothing."

"Which does support an illusion-theory." Dustin picked up his bestiary and began flipping through it. "And that leaves us with about a hundred different options, if it doesn't turn out it was just Eleven's sister."

Jamie folded her arms while rolling her eyes. Middle schoolers. "All right, smartasses, answer me this: Why did it or they attack us? Why that house?"

There was no immediate answer, but theories ranged from Will being 'marked' after his possession last year, or even Jamie, because of the bite from two years ago. They did agree on one thing though, that this somehow felt vastly different from when the Demogorgon or the Mindflayer had attacked. Less corporeal, but every bit as scary.

The only thing they could agree on was to be careful and to pay attention to anything that would indicate something suspicious going on in Hawkins - again.

It was almost four o'clock when they filed out of the tiny AV-room, straight into a smiling Mr. Clarke.

"Jamie!" he exclaimed happily while she wanted to sink into a hole in the ground. There was not one viable explanation as to why she had been hanging out in the AV-club with her brother and his friends, but luckily, he didn't ask. He did ask for a quick word though, in private.

"Jamie, do you remember back in 6th grade when you built that magnificent potato cannon?" he asked after her brother and his friends were at least presumably out of earshot. Jamie nodded awkwardly, like she could just barely recall the missile launcher in question. Mr. Clarke usually didn't pay much attention to current events in Hawkins and had obviously not heard that Jamie was arrested yesterday. "Now, I hope you don't mind, but I kept a copy of your drawings. I was hoping if you ever listed me as a reference on your college applications, I could bring out those drawings and show just how adept you were, even in 6th grade."

"Oh," said Jamie at this sudden turn of events. "Really?"

"Yes," Mr. Clarke said with his trademark friendly smile that doubled in size because of his mustache. "Only, I had to switch offices recently - mold, you know - and when I went through my archive, I couldn't seem to locate your drawings. Some of the kids helped me move and they must've mistaken that box for junk. Do you still have the original?"

"Uh, yeah, I think so," Jamie said and stared at the quintet of heads watching her and Mr. Clarke from around the corner. Three guesses as to who 'those kids' were. "I'll have to check back home, but I think so, yeah."

"I would love to make a new set of copies," Mr. Clarke said and leaned in conspiratorially. "If you ask me, Hawkins PD does not appreciate good craftsmanship when they see it."

"I'll see if I can find them," Jamie assured him and bid him a good evening. So that was where those little shitheads have found her drawings, huh? That meant it had to be the cat that was making a mess in her room after all.

At least she hoped it was the cat.

Miss Kim had knocked her to the floor at least ten times now and Jamie was getting sick of getting up all the time. When she went down again, she groaned and decided to take a mini-break by just taking her time to sit up.

"You seem distracted tonight," Miss Kim commented. This was her first lesson on footwork other than the correct stance.

"Had a long week," Jamie said and got up. Miss Kim was usually not interested in small-talk, preferring to spend their limited time together in deep focus and agonizing pain on Jamie's part. She settled down in the first stance and shuffled her feet while Miss Kim watched. "Ow!"

Miss Kim did not look perturbed at kicking the teenager to the floor yet again. "You're not balanced."

"You're not balanced," muttered Jamie from the floor, but not loud enough so Miss Kim heard it. She sat halfway up and leaned on her elbows. "I'm just...not seeing the point right now."

"The point to learn taekwondo?" Miss Kim correctly guessed and Jamie nodded. Now Miss Kim sighed and dropped to her knees next to Jamie. "And why is that?"

"Because my biggest opponents aren't people. I can't fight them with my bare hands."

Miss Kim nodded slowly. "You know the meaning behind the name 'taekwondo'?"

"Uhh," Jamie said because Miss Kim had told her a few weeks ago. "Empty hand?"

"That's karate."

"Sorry."

"It's okay." Miss Kim got to her feet and centered in a basic stance. "Tae means foot, to kick." Her leg flew out to the side, hitting an invisible enemy. "Kwon means hand, to punch." Her fist tore through the air in front of her. "And do means head, to-"

"Headbutt?" asked Jamie and Miss Kim rolled her eyes.

"To think," she finished and sat back down. "Your opponents, who aren't people, those you cannot kick or punch, you beat those with your head, your thoughts. By not letting fear paralyze you or let doubt stop you, that is how you defeat those opponents."

Miss Kim had misunderstood Jamie's words completely, but she appreciated the pep-talk. In an abstract way, it made sense too. Eleven defeated both the Demogorgon and the Mindflayer with her mind.

It's probably not the Demodogs...

Thank you for the awesome reviews on the last chapter! It means a lot that there's people reading and liking this story. Hope I won't disappoint :)