An/
Okay I'm an idiot! I meant to say Mike's house was closer not Will's so that's where they were going in the last chapter. Sorry about that, I'll go back to banging my head into a table now.
Blackened Chapter 8
El held on tighter as Mike turned into the Wheeler's driveway, the rain still coming down in sheets making everything hard to see. They both got off, running up the rest of the way along with everyone else. Mike opened the garage door and everyone ran in, dropping there bikes finally escaping the weather.
"Nancy and Jonathan beat us back here," Mike said looking over at the cars.
"I radioed them after we found El," Will said as Mike opened the door to the kitchen.
They all piled into the warmth of the kitchen and found Mrs. Wheeler pulling out a tray of brownies.
They stopped as she looked up at them all and her eyes went wide. "What happened to you all?" she asked looking them over, water dripping on to the tiled floor.
They all shared a look wondering just how much to tell her, it had been that way for two years now. "We were just out trying to help Dustin contact his girlfriend Suzie and got caught in the storm," Mike said.
Mrs. Wheeler looked over at Dustin with surprise, "You have a girlfriend?"
"Why is everyone so surprised?" Dustin said making a face.
"No..I wasn't...I mean-" Mrs. Wheeler tried but Mike cut her off. "We're going to go change into some dry clothing now, can everyone stay over until the rain stops?"
"Of course," Mrs. Wheeler said, "I'll order some pizza and you guys can watch a movie in the basement, Nancy and Jonathan are already down there."
"Thanks," Mike called back as everyone passed her and headed upstairs.
"Dustin, Will, Lucas, you can borrow some of my clothes, El you and Max can take what you need from Nancy's room and we'll meet you downstairs."
Max nodded and grabbed her hand dragging her into Nancy's room. El looked back once to see Mike looking back at her before the door cut her view off.
Max closed the door before going over to Nancy's closet and pulled out two plain t-shirts and sweatpants. "God I'm freezing," Max said, "We never got rain like that in California."
El bit her lip hard, knowing it was her fault that they had all been out there in that storm. "I'm sorry you guys were out there looking for me."
Max looked up at her with a small smile, "El, trust me after the month you had running around the woods is pretty understandable at this point."
"Still," El said looking down.
Max shook her head and went over to her and took her hand, "El, I'm going to tell you something okay, and you have to promise not to tell anyone else got it?"
"A secret? But friends don't lie."
"Well, sometimes friends lie for other friends."
El was quiet a moment before she nodded, "Okay, I'll keep the secret."
"Okay...well the secret is that I was happy to have to go out and look for you, lately things at my house haven't been very good. My stepdad has been really quiet and everything just feels off like...like everything has been coated in gray."
El swallowed feeling her heart sink, "Do you miss him? Do you miss Billy?"
Max looked down and let out a breath, "I-I do, I mean he was an asshole a lot of my childhood and then he beat the crap out of Steve and hated Lucas for no god damn reason, but he was still my brother. He picked me up and drove me around when he didn't have too, helped me with my homework sometimes….but-but sometimes I think it could be my fault he died… "
"What do you mean?" El asked.
"For a long time I-I hated him and sometimes I wished he would just go off and die somewhere, I wished it so hard sometimes, like that night he came to find me last year...but I never wanted it to really happen. I know his dad has a temper and could be abusive, taking it out on Billy but then Billy would always take it out on others."
"Abusive?" El asked.
"It means he would...push him around, call him awful things and I think hit him sometimes but I never saw it."
El nodded remembering the man she had seen in Billy's mind, the one that called him a word she had never heard before, hit his mother, made Billy into who he was and it hit her then how much like Papa he was. Papa had never raised a hand against her but he made her do things she didn't want too and hurt people and never stopped someone from hurting her in that cold lab.
"Does he hit you?" El asked and when Max looked up she saw that El's eyes were filled with something dark.
"No, he's never done anything like that to me or my mom."
El nodded and for a moment the room was silent then El spoke, "You shouldn't blame yourself, he didn't die because of you." It was because of me, is what she thought, but didn't say out loud.
"Come on, we need to get out of these wet clothes before we get sick," Max said handing her the shirt and sweatpants.
El nodded and took them.
Lightning and thunder shook the house as she and Max started down the steps to the basement, the sound of talking reaching them.
El stepped off first and found everyone looking at her.
"Hey, " El said feeling small.
"Hey," Mike said getting up and moved over so she could sit in the large chair next to him. She let a small smile find a way to her lips as she went over to him and sat down.
Max went over to Lucas and soon the only sound was the rain over their heads and the tv, an episode of The A-Team playing all eyes still on her.
"What happened to your cheek?" Mike asked finally brushing a finger down her cheek next to the long cut she couldn't remember getting now.
She reached up as well and felt the stinging pain. "I don't know, I was running and I think a branch got me."
"Wait, what were you running from?" Lucas asked.
Billy she wanted to say, Billy and the others. But of course she couldn't because they would think she was crazy...but would they? No! No they wouldn't! They would believe her. Probably the only people who would believe her after everything they've seen-
Her thought was cut off suddenly by a voice ringing around in her head. "Shhhhhh, you don't want to do that do you? No, you wouldn't want to bother them. You wouldn't want to make them believe your crazy would you?"
"El?" Jonathan asked.
She snapped back to reality then, her eyes having to focus again.
"I was just trying to get out of the rain," she answered.
"Well that didn't really work out," Max said.
"Yeah, next time you feel like running away look at the weather report beforehand," Lucas said and El couldn't help a smile at his words.
"I can't believe we're going to be moving away," Will said and the mood in the room darken instantly.
"Your mom really wants to move to Iowa?" Max asked looking over at Jonathan.
"Yeah," he said, "I think she was thinking about it after everything that happened last year and now with what happened at the mall it just set everything it motion."
"Yeah but she's not actually going to do it right?" Mike said, "I mean school is about ready to start again, Jonathan has one more year to go and Will is going to start high school soon."
"I don't think that's going to stop her," Will said looking down.
For a moment everyone was quiet, the idea that for the first time they would be a part, not because of something supernatural, but simply because things had to change.
They were all snapped out of their thoughts by the doorbell ringing upstairs and a second later they heard Mrs. Wheeler call down to them that the pizza was there.
"Better hurry up there before dad gets to the pepperoni," Nancy said and got up, grabbing Jonathan's hand and pulled him towards the stairs. Max, Lucas and Will followed after them. Mike got up to follow as well and El joined him but stopped as a box caught her eye.
She went over to it and found a small box with cassette tapes, she reached in and took one out and saw it was already labeled with her name and was just about to flip it around to see the back when someone grabbed it from her hand.
She looked up with wide eyes to see Mike, his own eyes wide as well. "Sorry, I-I wanted to keep it a secret, I wasn't done with it just yet."
"Oh," El said, hiding a smile, Mike was always trying to do things for her.
"I'll have it done soon, then you can listen to it," Mike said putting the tape back in the box before he took her hand and they started towards the stairs. "Nancy was right, if we want any pepperoni we better hurry, my dad will literally eat the whole thing if he could, then we would be left with just cheese."
El made a face at that and heard Mike laugh at her reaction before he opened the door.
Everyone grabbed their food, Mike giving her the last piece of pepperoni before they all went back to the basement to watch the Ghostbusters, a movie that Mike and the others seemingly loved but felt a little too close to home for El.
The hours passed as they popped in two more movies, E.T. and Raiders of the Lost Ark, the rain still didn't lighten up, lighting and thunder still ringing through the sky.
El turned and looked up then as she heard the door open and saw Mrs. Wheeler come downstairs. "Everyone's asleep?" she said raising an eyebrow.
El looked down and a soft smile crossed her lips. Mike had his head in her lap sound asleep, the others were passed out in chairs or on the floor like Nancy and Jonathan wrapped together in a blanket, Max, Lucas and Will on the couch, their heads resting on one another's shoulders. The movie had long ago ended and now the tv rang out with static, the screen showing a snowy world of black and white.
"Well, that's fine. I was actually coming down here to tell all of you that it doesn't look like the rain will be stopping anytime soon. So it's time for bed."
El nodded running a hand through Mike's hair and a second later he woke up. "Is the movie over already?" He asked, his voice laced with sleep.
"Yeah, it has for a while now, but your mom says it's time for bed."
Mike sat up and rubbed at his face, "I can just sleep down here with you."
"Yeah I don't think so, anyone who is a couple will be sleeping in different rooms," his mom said going over and woke Nancy and Jonathan up.
"Nancy, Mike to your rooms, Lucas, Will, Dustin you can share the pullout couch. Max, El are you alright sleeping down here?"
"Yeah, " Max said and El nodded in agreement.
"What about Jonathan?" Nancy asked.
"He can sleep in your room."
"What!" Mike said, "Why does he get to sleep in Nancy's room but I can't sleep down here with El?"
"Because Nancy's room is right across from ours and I know they wouldn't do anything knowing that."
Mike made a face but got up and followed the others upstairs.
El watched them a moment before she laid back down and pulled the blanket up around her shoulders and closed her eyes.
The darkness around her seemed to go on forever and ever. El wondered how long she had been walking for. The sound of dripping water sounded from somewhere, but with its echo, it was impossible to pinpoint it. She turned a corner then and found the same hallway she had for the last month.
Ever since that night at the hospital she had been having the same dream over and over again. Not the one with Papa and the ever-growing darkness. No something just as terrifying.
"Elllll, " a soft whisper reached her ears from all sides then. "Elllllll, come find ussssss."
She closed her eyes and covered her ears as she kept walking down the long hall that never seemed to end, but it never helped. The words still reached her.
"You need to find us. It's the only way to make us stop."
El opened her eyes back up and dropped her hands and started running down the hall as the voices started to get closer but like always they simply followed her.
The hall would keep going and going and going the voices getting louder and louder as she got closer to the end of the hall, a flickering light at the end.
"El you can't run from us, you need to save us! You need to stop this because we can't! Find us or he will find you!"
"Find us! Find us! Find us! Find us! SAVE US!"
El felt her breath catch in her lungs, making her chest hurt to the point of tears in her eyes, blurring her vision. The light started to flicker faster and faster as she reached the end of the hall.
El turned as she reached the end and just like always she found a wall blocking her way. The words, "Save us before he finds you first!" written in a deep black ink, just like the rain.
It slowly dripped down the wall and pooled on the floor, the inky liquid starting to slowly run down the hall towards her. As if it had a mind of its own. Just like always she started to back away, her breath ringing out around her in short gasps as her blood pounded in her ears.
She didn't dare take her eyes off of the blackness as it seemed to run faster towards her as she backed away. Suddenly the liquid split into five rivers, still running at her, almost like it was a hand, the fingers reaching out to grab her.
She started to back away faster and faster, her breath turning panicked. She turned to run then but she ran into something hard that send her stumbling backward.
She looked up and felt her heart sink at the man who stood in front of her.
"El?" Hopper said, surprised.
El felt her mouth open in shock, a low cry of sadness escaped her lips. Hopper didn't look like the others with their blackened eyes and black veins. His beard, once cut everyday was long and unkempt, he wasn't in the same clothes she had last seen him in but a loose gray long-sleeved shirt and pants the same color.
"H-hopper?" El said her voice shaking.
"El, is-is that really you?"
She watched him reach out a hand but right as he was about to touch her cheek he disappeared just like Mike had when she had tried to touch him.
"HOPPER!" El called out, trying to grab the smoke but it was no use.
"No!" El screamed her heartbreaking. Tears were running down her cheeks now but they weren't out of fear now.
Suddenly El let out a scream as something grabbed her ankle. She looked down and saw the black ink had wrapped around her ankle sending a cold chill down her spine. She tried pulling away but the ink was like spider webs, sticking to her skin and even as she tried to pull away it went with her.
"Get off!" El said trying to pull away, even when she knew it was no use. After all she knew what happens next.
Suddenly the thing holding on to her started to pull her back and just like always, she started to panic. The things started to pull her back towards the ever-growing pool of blackness and she reached for the thing wrapped around her leg and tried to pull it off, but it only started to stick to her fingers and hands. She slipped then and fell to the floor, the air being knocked from her lungs.
She tried to grab at anything but it was too late. She looked back and saw that the black pool had turned the wall completely black.
El felt her eyes go wide before she was pulled in.
She opened her eyes to see nothing but a world of black. She started to sink down, bubbles escaping her lips. She reached out trying to swim upwards even when she knew there was no use because there was no top, she could only go down. But she wouldn't stop fighting.
"You need to stop, your not going to win!" A deep voice shouted from somewhere in the black, "I will find you no matter what I have to do." El kept swimming trying to reach the top but finally she had to suck in a breath.
El shot up, her breath seemingly stuck in her throat as if she was still in that inky water, drowning. She started coughing then and covered her mouth trying to keep quiet.
She coughed for what felt like hours but could only have been minutes. Finally, the coughing died down and she was left wheezing, her hands coming away wet. In the dim light, she looked down to see them covered in the black ink as if she was still in her dream.
"El?"
She jumped than as she heard her name and looked to up see Mike. He was wrapped in a blanket, his hair a mess from sleep but she watched as his eyes went wide as he looked down at her hands.
She felt a gasp escape her lips. Could he see it?
"What is that?" Mike asked looking up at her, meeting her eyes with his own worried ones.
"I-I don't know."
An/
Okay sorry about that change at the beginning and sorry it was a long wait, it's just been f**king crazy with the storms we have had in AZ. But I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, not going to lie (because friends don't lie) but this isn't the last cliffhanger, I'll tell.
But I do have to tell you though that it will be a long cliffhanger because for the next four weeks I'm going to be busy writing ten horror/creepy stories of my own to be posting in October for Halloween. But I'm not going to abandon this fanfic (I hate when people do that) So I'll see you all October first. As always thanks for reading it means a lot to me. If you want to review and give me your thoughts and or any criticism on what I could do better or just that you liked it please feel free, it always helps.