Chapter 4: No aliens in Hawkins

Mrs. Wheeler made sure to be very careful as she cracked the door to her son's bedroom open. "Micheal?"

He looked up from his bed, barely lifting his head off the cushion. "Oh, hi mom."

"Hi honey. How are you feeling?"

She went to sit beside him on the bed. He'd always been a little pale, but this time he almost looked like a skeleton. It stung her to see him like this, but she wasn't quite sure what to do about it, either. After all, being confronted with the death of your boy's best friend wasn't particularly a common thing as far as she could tell. Not in hully-dully Hawkins, at least.

"I don't feel good, to be honest. I– uh, I don't think I can go to school today."

"Oh, that's fine, sweetie, I understand." She put a hand around one of his wrists, tracing small circles with her thumb. "I need to drop off Nance, then I'm gonna check in on Barb's parents. Why don't you grab a book or something and come with me? We can stop by the video store on the way back, pick out whatever you want." She winked. "Even R-rated."

"Uh, I think I just want to stay home today. Maybe I'll attend the assembly. I'm not sure yet, but I just need some time to… you know. I mean, if that's okay?"

"Well, are you sure you're gonna be all right here by yourself?"

Oh, no need to worry about that, mom. Just ask the girl and the alien in the basement he thought. Speaking of the devil. Just as he opened his mouth to assure her he was definitely a big boy and he would be absolutely fine, they were interrupted by a couple of short thumps, seeming to originate from the kitchen. Mrs. Wheeler frowned. "What's that?"

"Uh, probably the pipes. Dad said they've been a little noisy lately."

"Did he?" She frowned. "I really can't remember him saying that –"

"Uh… yeah, why do you think? I mean, as long as he doesn't tell you, it's not like he actually has to get it done…"

"Oooh, I already see how it is." She smiled. "Just make sure you don't let him hear that, Micheal Wheeler."

"I won't, mom," he replied, a stupid grin on his face.

"Anyway, I'll just leave you alone then. But if you need anything, call dad at work. You know," she winked, "if he isn't 'busy' with anything."

"I will. Bye, mom."

"Goodbye, sweetie."

She gave him a peck on the forehead, then gave his hand a final squeeze before she walked out of the room. Mike almost had to strain himself trying not to immediately jump out of the bed as she left. Just as he heard her footsteps fading away in the hallway, another set appeared, and before he even got the chance to lift the bedspread the woman came strolling into his room, casually chewing on some biscuits.

"What the hell?" he whisper-shouted. "What are you doing here? She could have seen you! I told you I would get you guys!"

"Fwot fwy fwalt," the woman answered, cheeks swelling up. "I fwust fwanted fwome fweakfwast –"

"What?"

She swallowed. "Sorry 'bout that. I said: I just wanted some breakfast."

"For God's sake, I would have brought you something if you had just waited!"

"Language. And sorry, Mike, I really am. Won't do it next time. Say, I suddenly have an enormous cravin' for custard creams. You wouldn't happen to have any, do you?"

"No," he sneered, kneeling down to look for the walkie-talkie. "We have eggos, go get some of those if you're hungry."

"Eggos? What are those?"

He was ready to throw his hands up in frustration as he came up again. "Do you have to ask about everything? Just look for a yellow box. It's in the kitchen."

"Yellow? Oh, no, that's not goin' to work, I'm afraid. I gave that to Eleven."

"Good for y– wait, what?" He stared up at her. "The whole box?"

"Well, ya. What is she supposed to do with a half box? Half's not good."

"Yeah, but it isn't exactly…" He shook his head. "You know what, never mind. I'm going to call Lucas and Dustin."

"Sure. I'll be off for a bit then. Goin' wherever the universe needs me." The cheerful expression on her face suddenly transformed into a more thoughtful frown. "Right… that does remind me of somethin', but I can't really put my finger around it…"

And off she was, mumbling to herself as she left an eye-rolling Mike behind. He turned the walkie-talkie on and took the antenna out. "Lucas, do you copy?"

No reply. "Lucas, come on, I know you're there! This is urgent!"

Silence.

"I'm serious."

Just interference.

"I'm not gonna stop until you answer. Lucas. Lucas! Lucas, Lucas, Lucas, Lucas, Lucas Lucas, Lucas, Lucas, Lucas, Lucas, Lucas, Lucas…"

The radio finally crackled as Lucas' muted voice came through: "Go away, Mike. I'm not in the mood, alright? Over and out."

"No, not out– Lucas? Lucas!"

Mike sighed. He looked frustrated when the woman came walking in again, a tad absently as she bit her lip. "Somethin' up?"

"He doesn't want to listen. Didn't you say you were going out a minute ago?"

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Ya, I did. It was a lovely stroll if you're wonderin'. Went for a nice walk around the house."

"Our house doesn't even go round."

"Really?" For a second, she pulled such a shocked face that he nearly forgot he was meant to go mental at Lucas' stubbornness. "Now that's a mystery right there, young fellow."

"Anyway, you better get out, because I'm about to go crazy at Lucas here –"

"Why would you? Here, I have a much easier solution."

Before he even blinked, she had snatched the walkie-talkie from his hands and proceeded to fiddle with the buttons. "Well, this would go a tad smoother if I had my sonic, but it'll just have to do. Just make sure you put somethin' in your ears, 'kay?"

He was a bit uncertain – not to mention freaking scared – about the weird woman's plans, but he put his fingers in his ears anyway. It turned out he couldn't be more grateful for her warning. After some more fiddling, the walkie-talkie emitted a shrill, screeching sound that would've been enough to blow his eardrums to shreds. Lucas was audibly less fortunate as the noise was followed by a strings of colorful language that made the woman frown in disgust as she turned the buttons again. "Jesus Christ Mike, what the hell was that?"

"Kolerian battle hymns," the woman replied. "Quite a lovely race, but their music stations are dreadful. Anyhow, now that I got your attention, Lucas, you better make sure you get a shift on before I start playin' their thirty-three symphonies as well."

"Alright, alright! Just what do you want me for?"

"Mike got some news about your friend. You know, the lost one, not the askin' questions-one. So get here, and bring your friend with you. Not the lost one, the askin' q –"

"Yeah, I know what you mean. Be there soon, over and out."

"There," the woman said, giving an approving nod as she threw the device back to Mike. He almost looked like he'd just seen water burn. "Thanks. Where did you get that idea?"

"Oh, I've put up with quite some tenacious people in the past. There was this lady – forget what her name was, but it might've been something with a D… Oh well. I'm just going to check the house one more time, in case I've managed to accidentally open a black hole or somethin'."

"Uh, sure. See you in a minute then,"

"Cheerio!" As the woman left, Mike could not help but allowing a slight giggle to slip past his lips. He just wished he could've seen Lucas' face.

Eleven showed up just a couple of minutes before the arrival of the boys.

"Oh, hey," Mike said as he greeted her. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the walkie-talkie in his hands. El went to sit beside him, again preferring the silence over the possibility to answer. It was only now that he finally realized she was still wearing the woman's torn coat. He raised his eyebrows in surprise, but chose not to say anything about it.

"Look, El, I know I've already apologized to you yesterday, but I just… I just want to say sorry one more time. You were just trying to help and I shouldn't have come at you like that."

"You were… worried," Eleven said, trying to find the right words.

"I know. But that doesn't give me the right to shout at you or call you a liar and that stuff." He sighed. "So, you know, if you want to call me a mouth breather or something, go ahead."

Eleven looked up at him. There was something in his eyes that she vaguely understood, or maybe she just thought she did – she wasn't sure. Hesitantly, she asked: "Mike, are you scared?"

Mike frowned. He wasn't so taken aback by the question, but rather by how right it was. Would it indeed be fair to ask if all of this scared him? Was the lure of the novelty and excitement of it all stronger than the fear of the unknown and, more importantly, the possibility that it could be dangerous?

"Well, I'm not– I'm not sure. You know, it's a bit weird and all. Not that I want to say you're weird –"

"Weird is bad?"

He stared at her, yet again not quite sure what to say. "No. No, not at all. Sometimes weird just means, you know, different. That's not bad. The mouth breathers I told you about – Troy and James, they think we're sort of different, so they bully us for it. Especially Will…"

El noticed his face falling and reached out to gently touch his arm, not quite daring to take one of his hands in her own yet. "You'll find him."

"Yeah, I suppose. With your help… and the crazy woman's, right."

"Mad."

"Uhu. Do you really think she's from space?"

El didn't answer. At first he thought she couldn't comprehend the word (whatever place she'd come from, he very much doubted she had ever had the chance to look at the sky, let alone understand what was behind hit), but then she finally nodded. "Yes. From the stars."

"Huh. Hey, are you absolutely sure you don't know her? Like, maybe not from the bad place, but from somewhere else?"

It did occur to her to tell him about her doubts – the way just looking at the woman, the way she moved and talked, almost reminded her of something, but she couldn't put her finger about it because it seemed like another shadow from the darkness that made up her past. And yet it didn't feel like just another of the shadows. It was much more brighter than that, and the feeling was way more different as well. Almost pleasant.

"I don't know," she replied, honestly. She was actually rather proud of that answer – it practically embraced all of her mixed feelings and she didn't have to lie to him about it, either.

Mike frowned and opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, he heard a rapid knocking on the door. "That's the others. Here, can you get Will on the supercomm?"

Not really expecting a reply, he tossed her the walkie-talkie and sprinted down to let his friends in. Eleven just stared at the device for a little while, then started to turn the buttons.

"So there are cyborgs that kill humans by cutting them in pieces and re-engineer them into other cyborgs? That's mental!"

"It's really not, Dustin, and if you could just focus for a sec –"

"Oh. Yeah, right. Sorry."

"Guys, quiet, I thought I heard something." Mike said, interrupting the small quarrel between Dustin and the weird woman. They were sitting in a circle in front of Eleven's bedspread tent, all looking in intense concentration as she kept turning buttons and the supercomm emitted a low, static sound. After a while, Mike almost jumped. "There it was again!"

"What?" Lucas asked, sounding sarcastic.

"Well, we keep losing the signal, but you heard it, right?"

"Yeah, I heard a baby."

Mike frowned. "What?"

"Mike, you obviously tapped into a baby monitor. It's probably the Blackburns next door."

"Oh, that's definitely not a baby," the woman said.

"Oh yeah? And how are you so sure?"

"Well, I speak it."

"That's bull–"

"Language, young man. And in case you're wonderin', that's really not a baby whimperin'."

"Yo, you should listen to the alien." Dustin chimed in.

"Guys, please. That was really Will."

"Mike–"

"Lucas, you don't understand. He spoke last night. Actual words. He was singing that weird song he loves. Even El and the woman heard him!

"That settles it. If the woman heard him –"

"Come on, Dustin, you're only really saying that because you think she's an alien."

"Nothin' is wrong with my hearin', thank you very much," the woman said, "well, I used to suffer from acute deafness whenever someone else was talkin', but that was different. Anyway, that was your friend singin' last night."

"And if the weirdo heard him as well," Dustin added, "Well, I guess… are you sure you're on the right channel?"

"I don't think it's about that. I think, somehow, she's channeling him. Wasn't that what you said as well, ma'am?"

"Sort of, ya. She might've used some kind of telepathy –"

"Like Professor X?" Dustin asked. The woman frowned. "Who?"

"Never mind him," Mike quickly interrupted. "So, telepathy?"

"Basically. You'll have to imagine it like a bit of a circuit. Right now, all of our brains are emittin' brainwaves just by speakin' or talkin' – or singin', for that matter. It's essentially the rhythm of your consciousness. Wherever your friend is right now, he managed to emit brainwaves that Eleven managed to pick up, so she kind of tapped into his telepathic circuit."

"Wow," Dustin said.

"I still don't get it," Lucas replied.

"So that would mean he's close, right?" Mike asked.

"That's hard to say, honestly. It partially depends on the extent of Eleven's powers as well. You either have a close transmitter or a very strong receiver."

"Oh come on, you aren't actually believing this crap, are you?"

Dustin shrugged. "I don't know, I mean– do you remember when Will fell off his bike and broke his finger? He sounded a lot like that."

Lucas let his dumbfounded gaze go around the circle, as if the very fact that they were sitting here was unbelievable on itself. "Did you guys not see what I saw? They pulled Will's body out of the water. He's dead!"

"Well, maybe it's his ghost." Dustin's eyes widened. "Maybe he's haunting us!"

The woman shook her head. "No, he isn't."

"Why?"

"I would've known. I fought against them,"

Dustin's eyes seemed to widen even more, so Mike quickly interrupted: "He's not dead."

"So how do you know that?"

"I just do!"

"Then what was in that water?"

Mike fiercely drew breath to answer, but found that he could not come up with one – the fact that the body in the water had seemed an awfully lot like Will's was one you couldn't even deny with all the optimism in the universe. Dustin's face fell. Even Eleven looked like she just wanted to shrink and disappear under the woman's coat. For one second, he couldn't feel anything but a deep hate for his friend – for the fact that he was right and he would try to persuade them to give it all up, and maybe he would succeed.

"You can give up, if you want."

All turned to face the woman – and Mike was simply scared. Her face wasn't contorted or angry, but he saw an expression in her eyes that had his guts twisting just by the appearance of it. "There's nothin' withholding you, Lucas. If you feel encouraged to give up, you can just get up and leave. But one way or the other, he will know you let him down."

Lucas didn't even manage to come up with at least an attempt to reply – he just shrank at her hard words. Looking down in shame, he softly nodded.

"So Will's alive," Dustin said. "Have you tried talking to him?"

Mike shook his head. "It didn't work last night. Maybe we can try if Eleven manages to get him on the comm again, but so far it doesn't seem to be working. Unless you know something," he added, nodding to the woman. "Well, as I said, it's difficult." she said, gently reaching out to El so that she could give her the device, "But so far, the only problem seems to be that the device is strugglin' to pick up the signal again. I could've fixed it if I had my sonic, but my pockets are awfully empty. Meanin' that –"

"We just have to take her to a stronger radio," Dustin finished.

"Exactly. You're really the brightest one 'round here, aren't ya?"

He smiled so broadly that for a second, Mike was afraid the few teeth he had would fall out. "Wow, if you could just say that to Mr. Clarke –"

"That's it!" Mike piped up. "Mr. Clarke's Heathkit ham shack! That would be strong enough, wouldn't it?"

Finally daring to give some input again, Lucas spoke up: "The Heathkit's at school. There is no way we're gonna get the weirdo in there without anyone noticing. I mean look at her!"

Now, all eyes drifted to Eleven, who simply tried to stare at all of them as she strengthened her grip on the coat.

"We could use a disguise," Dustin said. "That shouldn't be too hard,"

"Give her some make-up, other clothes, take her to school," Lucas added.

"And get her to call Will on the Heathkit." Mike finished. "Yeah, could work!"

"Brilliant!" The woman smiled, patting both Dustin's and Lucas' heads. "I knew you could do it, little schemers. Tomorrow, you'll rule the world."

She stood up – surprisingly fast, Mike noticed – but then suddenly started to totter, legs shaking as she reached for her chest with a loud gasp. The boys quickly got up as well. "What's wrong?" Dustin asked.

"Well, I remember somethin' – I felt a tad feverish this mornin', but I couldn't quite determine the cause."

There was a sudden jerk of her body as she nearly fell backwards, causing all the boys to yelp in shock. "Is she having a stroke?" Lucas almost yelled.

"Don't worry – it's nothing major, I suspect. Quite fascinatin', really. It's like your whole body is rearranged and all of your little cells are wrigglin' and shakin' inside," the woman answered, letting out a frantic giggle.

"Uh, that sounds painful." Dustin said.

"Well, yeah, but I should be alright. I'll just– ow!"

This time, she couldn't keep herself from toppling over, and the boys speeded to steady her as she rocked up and down. "Okay, this might've been a tad worse than I thought. One of my hearts just collapsed. Terribly sorry, but I think I'm about to pass out, so if you lot could catch me in a minute –"

"Wait, did she say one of her hearts?" Lucas asked.

"When are you going to pass out?" Mike shouted. Just as it started to occur to him that it was a rather stupid question – like you could really know when you were going to pass out – the woman stuck a finger up her nose, and inhaled deeply. Strangely, Mike immediately realized what she was doing; she was trying to smell the time. Was that even near remotely possible?

"In two minutes nineteen seconds. No, wait." She took another deep sniff. "Forgot the two minutes, nineteen –"

At last, her legs started to wobble and her eyes rolled back as she mumbled: "Oh, this new nose is so reliable."

With some effort, the boys managed to catch her before she could hit the ground. They laboriously put her on the floor, all drawing a deep breath to overcome the shock as they got up again.

"Is she… is she dead?" Dustin asked, sounding distressed.

"No, I don't think so," Mike answered. "She's still breathing. Look, her chest is going up and down."

"This is a hell of a problem, though." Lucas said. "How are we supposed to bring her along to school now?"

"We can't. You don't know a way to drag a unconscious woman into a building full of people without anyone noticing, do you?"

"So what do we do with her?" Dustin asked again. "Leave her here?"

"Well, I'm not exactly comfortable with keeping her in my basement."

"You serious? You kept the weirdo in here, too. You're literally being racist right now."

"Oh, give me a break. Are you saying your mom isn't going to freak out when she finds a unknown woman in your basement?"

"But a bald girl wouldn't be a problem?"

"That's different. El can hide."

"We can hide the woman too. Just lay her on the couch, put a blanket over her, or hide her behind some boxes…"

"Dustin." Lucas grabbed his arm. "I have to agree with Mike here. The woman's a lot more unpredictable than the weirdo. Look, if we just bring her to the police –"

"We're not going to bring her to the cops!"

"Just let me finish, Jesus. If we bring her to the cops, maybe they can find out who she is, or how she can get home. It's just safer. If we keep her here, who knows where she'll run off to?"

Dustin appeared to be preparing himself for a strong-worded comeback, but he did see the sense in his friends' concerns. Even though the idea of handing an alien over to Hopper – who didn't exactly seem to take a liking towards any stuff that could be possibly regarded as "dumb fantasy play" – sounded ridiculous to him, it would be the most strategic thing to do. It was better to play safe – and he didn't need D&D to tell him that.

"Alright then. But how are you planning on transporting her, genius?"

"I might have an idea," Mike said. "We'll disguise El first, and we'll drop the woman off on our way to school."

"Yeah, but how?"

"You'll see. Now stop complaining and get to work."

And to work they went, hurrying up the stairs to Nancy's room to find old clothes as the woman laid on the basement floor, drifting in the darkness.

To say that Jim Hopper wasn't particularly amused by the sight of three boys and a girl hurrying up the walkway with a wheelbarrow in front of them was a mere understatement – he was pretty freaking pissed. He'd been intending to go back to the station and question Gary about all the mysterious shit surrounding the finding of the Byers boy, but now he stopped dead in his tracks as the kids came to a halt in front of him.

"Mr. Hopper!" the one pushing the wheelbarrow gasped. To his surprise, he recognized him as one of Will Byer's friends – Wheeler. Now mentioning it, they all seemed to belong to the group Joyce described to him, except the girl.

"Look, kids, I know you're very upset about Will, but I really don't have time for games right now."

"We're not playing any games, really. It's just that we have found something and –"

"And it's really heartwarming that you're trying to help, but I've got more important things to worry about now. So if you want to report something, just speak to Flo, and she'll –"

"Can you just listen for a second?" Dustin suddenly shouted. Hopper frowned and looked at him. They could already tell there was a strong answer forming on his lips – and he probably wasn't going to ask him what they had found.

"We've found a woman." the boy said, now more calmly. "Look."

Surprisingly, Hopper did as he said and suddenly noticed a couple of legs sticking out from under the cloth covering the wheelbarrow. The Wheeler boy pulled it off, revealing the legs to belong to the body of a blonde woman, dressed in some kind of ragged magician's suit.

"What the hell did you kids –"

"She's not dead," Wheeler quickly said. "Just unconscious. We found her tomorrow when we uh, wanted to meet up to talk about Will."

"And do your parents now about this?"

"No, they don't. They uh, they were out for work and groceries and… stuff."

"Right." Hopper took a few steps to have a closer look, but he made sure to keep his distance. From experience, he knew drunks naturally weren't very harmful – that was, until they suddenly jumped up and knocked you out to have a better look at your wallet and pocket contents.

"You are aware that you guys could very well just have picked up a random drunk, right?"

He wondered what her age was. She wasn't young, but she wasn't old either – somewhere in her thirties, maybe. Meaning that he was now stuck with a dead boy, a hysterical mother and a woman in a midlife crisis.

"We don't think she's drunk,"

"And why's that?"

"Well, she doesn't smell like she is."

Hopper had another look at the woman. He wasn't very eager to lean over and take a sniff, but he didn't think he had to either – even at this close distance, he didn't recognize the characteristic smell of alcohol. He came up again and let out a deep sigh. "Alright then. I'll take her in, see what I can do. But I don't want you to walk around on the streets without your parents knowing, okay? Not until we know what happened to Will. So either go home, or go to school."

"We will. We're going to the assembly at school now."

"And be careful with her," Dustin said. "She's an alien."

"She's a what?"

"Uh, we gotta go now, or we'll be late," Mike quickly interrupted. "If you need anything, uh, information –"

"I'll know where to find you. Now get on your way."

"Okay. Bye, sir."

Hopper looked on as the kids got on their bikes and took off in the direction of the Hawkins Middle School. As he looked back at the woman, he sighed deeply and went to lift the woman from the wheelbarrow. She felt a little fragile in his hands, but very warm too – almost like she was on fire. Letting out a frustrated grunt, he turned around, and started to carry her up the stairs.

He couldn't even fathom what Calvin and Phil were going to say.