"Burning Love"

I feel my temperature rising

Higher, higher

It's burning through to my soul

- Elvis Presley

At Hopper's cabin, Jonathan hoisted Will over his shoulder and Nancy and Joyce grabbed all the various heating components they had been able to find at Joyce's house.

Inside, Nancy turned on the lights. Most of the furniture was the same as Joyce remembered from the few times she and Hopper had tried to fool around here—but it was a lot cleaner. Had it been this clean years ago, it would have made a much better makeout spot.

"It's actually … kind of nice," Nancy said, and Joyce turned to look at her, wondering if she had been thinking the same thing Joyce had.

But there was no time for that—no time to reminisce about the past, no time to wonder about Jonathan and Nancy. They had to get that thing out of Will, and they had to do it quickly. Joyce knelt in front of the wood stove. Once they got a fire going inside it, this would be the hottest spot in the cabin. "We'll do it here," she said.

They dragged a bed out of one of the bedrooms and put it in front of the stove, laying the still-unconscious Will down on it, and filled the stove full of wood before starting the fire. They tied Will securely at ankles and wrists, so he couldn't get away, and surrounded him with space heaters.

Joyce stood there in front of him, with Nancy and Jonathan behind her, trying to work up the nerve to torture her son. Never mind that it was for his own good, the only way to save him—this was her boy. Her instinct was to protect him, and she had to go against that instinct right now.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Jonathan whispered.

It was, she told herself. It had to be. "This thing has had Will long enough. Let's kill the son-of-a-bitch."

Nancy lit the fire in the stove and Jonathan and Joyce turned on the heaters … and they waited.

The room heated, more quickly than Joyce had imagined it would. All three of them had stripped off a couple of layers of clothes and were down to T-shirts, and still sweating in those, before the heat woke Will out of his drugged sleep.

He shifted a little at first, then, when he found he couldn't move his arms or legs, he woke fully, his whole body rising off the bed as he tugged at his bonds. His head twisted on the pillow until he saw Joyce. "What's happening?" He started fighting the bonds harder. "It hurts. Oh, it hurts!"

The silent cabin filled with the sound of the springs creaking as Will fought his bonds and his voice crying out "It hurts!" over and over again.

Jonathan had been sitting down, and now he stood, instinctively wanting to go to Will's aid as much as Joyce did. Nancy reached for his hand, offering her silent support as Will's cries of "It hurts!" changed to the now-familiar scream of "Let me go!"

For the moment, this wasn't Joyce's son. This was the thing that had killed Bob. Gentle, kind Bob, who had loved her and wanted to love her for the rest of her life. She went around the room turning all the heaters up as high as they would go.

"Mom!" Jonathan protested, his voice a moan even as Will's screams grew louder.

"No!" She was not going to feel compassion for this thing, not when it was using her son, taking him away from her.

Will's shrieks rose to the point that he could no longer form coherent words.

Jonathan turned away, his arms around Nancy, holding on to her as though she was all the safety there was left in his world.

Joyce looked down at the shrieking child in the bed. This was going to work. It had to. There was no other choice.

How long they stood there watching Will scream and shake and try to get free, Joyce didn't know. Nothing seemed to be happening beyond that, no change in him, no sign that the heat was going to drive the thing out of him.

Jonathan, shaking along with his brother as though he felt Will's pain, turned to Joyce. "It's not working. It's not working! Mom, are you listening to me?"

"Just wait!" Joyce shouted, because it had to work. It had to. She didn't know how she was going to save her boy if it didn't.

"How much longer? Mom! Look at him!"

"Jonathan, just wait!"

"It's killing him!" Jonathan screamed, nearly at the end of his endurance.

"Just wait," Joyce said again.

But Jonathan couldn't wait any longer. He reached down and started untying one of Will's wrists. Joyce leaped to stop him.

"No, leave it!"

"Mom, you're killing him!"

Slowly they both became aware of Nancy's voice. "Jonathan. Jonathan! His neck. His neck!"

They looked, and they could see the veins in Will's neck turning black, the blackness creeping up toward Will's face. It looked—horrific, but it had to mean the creature was coming out of him. It had to.

Will started shaking, as if something else was shaking him, his face slack. He tore one hand out of his bonds and reached for the other.

Joyce leaped on him, grabbing his hand. "No! Oh, no. No!" She was not going to let this thing get free. Not while it was working. Not a chance.

With his free hand, Will grasped Joyce's throat, with a strength that wasn't his own, squeezing. She fought for breath, trying in vain to get him to let go, but his fingers wouldn't be dislodged. His face was covered in those black veins now, the creature fully in control.

Jonathan was next to her, trying his best to pry Will's grip free, while Joyce gasped for whatever breath she could get. The lights were flickering … or maybe that was just her vision dimming as Will's grasp on her throat tightened.

And then something happened, and Will let go so suddenly that Joyce fell backward.

Only once she had regained her balance did she see Nancy standing there with a poker, its tip glowing white. She had jabbed Will in the side with it. And thank God for her—neither Joyce nor Jonathan would ever have been able to do that. Not to Will.

Will stiffened, making a sound Joyce would hear in her nightmares for the rest of her life. All around the cabin the lights started blinking.

Suddenly Will screamed as loudly as Joyce had ever heard anyone scream, and a thick column of some black … thing streamed out of his mouth. It swirled above him like a tornado twister for a few minutes, while Joyce watched in terror, afraid it would turn around and plunge right back into her boy—but instead it shot toward the door, bursting it open, and was gone.

Nancy ran out after it, and Jonathan started yanking the plugs on the space heaters. Joyce leaned over her boy, near tears, untying him. "Will. Baby! Will!"

He was so still. His face was pale and covered in sweat, with dark circles around his eyes. He looked—he looked awful.

Joyce shook him a little. "Please. Will! Please. Do you hear me?"

Jonathan was with her now, his voice joining hers. "Come on. Come on, now."

"Will!"

His eyes opened. Joyce caught her breath. Was he okay? Was he her boy again?

"Mom?"

Weeping with relief, she held him close, and Jonathan held them both. It was over. They were together, and it was over.

But not quite. They couldn't forget Hopper and Eleven, and the task they still had to do. With a final gentle touch on Will and Joyce's heads, Jonathan scrambled for the CB. "Chief! Chief, are you there? Chief, do you copy?"

Hopper's voice came through from the other end. "Yeah, I copy."

"Close it."

And then they huddled together on the bed, Will in Jonathan's arms, with Joyce cuddled close up against him, and Nancy on Jonathan's other side, holding his hand.

They weren't expecting anything to happen, but one of the lights came on, burning more brightly than any lamp should burn. It lit up the room, shining through every crack in the cabin walls out into the woods … and then it was normal. Just a lamp.

It was really over.