Max and Lyn were at the Wheeler's dining table. Max was drawing with her headphones on. Lyn had Mike's cassette player. Tina Turner was blasting through the headphones wrapped around her neck. She was playing with Holly on her new toy, Lite Brite. She looked up when she heard someone running up the basement stairs. Dustin and Nancy rushed into the kitchen to let out a breath of relief at seeing them. "Good morning… is everything okay?" Mrs. Wheeler asked when she saw her daughter's face.
"Yeah, everything's great." She stares at Max and Lyn.
"I think it's sweet that you guys are sticking together like this." She put some pancakes on a plate.
"Try sticking together at someone else's house for a change." Mr. Wheeler grumbles. Everyone gave him an unimpressed look.
"You know you're welcome here anytime." She told Dustin.
"Of course, we are like family. May I?" He pointed at the pancakes.
"Absolutely." She smiled.
"Yeah, why not? Take us for all we are worth." He drank his coffee. Lyn bites the side of her cheek. She wanted to remind the man that she drove his kid everywhere. It wasn't like gas was cheap.
"Okay." Dustin piles the pancakes on his plate. Lyn snickers at his actions.
Nancy sat between them. Max turns off the music. "Are you guys okay?"
"I just couldn't sleep. People kept blasting music in my ear for some reason." Max smiled, making Nancy snicker. "But, Holly let me borrow some crayons."
"We've been having a fun morning." Lyn put in a colorful peg.
"Is this what you saw last night?" Nancy looks at the drawing that Max was doing.
"I mean it's supposed to be. I thought it would be easier to draw it out than explain it but, not so much." She couldn't make it detailed enough.
Lyn moves to sit closer to them. Nancy picked up a drawing of people being stuck in some type of red tree. "It was like they were on display," Max explained. "And then there was this red fog everywhere. It was like a dream. A nightmare." Dustin joins them at the table.
"Do you think Vecna's just trying to scare you?" Nancy asked. Lyn looks at the drawings of the ruined-looking area.
"With Billy, yeah, but when I made it here, I dunno, something was different. He seemed surprised, almost like he didn't want me there." She noticed the shift in his attitude.
"This is his domain. Everything up until now has been personal. This has nothing to do with you." Lyn knew all the mind games he played.
"Maybe you infiltrated his mind. He invades your mind, right? Is it that big of a leap to suggest you somehow wound up in his?" Dustin suggested.
"When you have a mental connection with someone it goes both ways. He probably didn't even realize he was leaving himself vulnerable." Lyn didn't see why it couldn't go both ways.
"Oh, this is like Freddy Krueger's boiler room." He said with excitement in his voice.
"Freddy Kruger?" Holly thought that was a funny name.
"He's super burnt up…." Lyn punched his shoulder before he could finish.
"He's just someone from school." She told the child. She nodded her head before going back to the toy.
"Just think about it. What if you somehow unlocked a backdoor to Vecna's world? Like maybe the answer we're looking for is somewhere in this incredibly vague drawing." He picked up a drawing that had red dots and a door with a stained glass mirror with a rose on it. "God, we need Will."
"No shit, but we tried him this morning and it's the same busy signal." Max was trying her best.
Lyn took the paper for him. "This door is interesting. Everything else is decaying and in pieces but this door."
"Is it a door or a window?" Nancy looked over her shoulder.
"It's a door, see I'm not so terrible after all." Max shot a smug look at Dustin.
"They didn't know if it was a door or window?" He pointed out.
"It's the door that Victor described, isn't it?" Lyn remembered him describing the beautiful house.
Nancy began to fold the papers and piece them together like a puzzle. She grabs a sharpie to give it more shape. "It's a house." Max couldn't believe she got that.
"Not just any house, Victor Creed's house." Nancy stared at it.
"The house that evil called home." Lyn looked at what could have been a beautiful home.
Nancy got up. "Where are you going?" Dustin asked.
"To wake the others. I have seen that house before." Nancy went to the basement. Dustin, Max, and Lyn exchange looks before getting up to follow her.
"Fuel for the road." Dustin grabs Mr. Wheeler's coffee.
Everyone got out of the Wheeler's car to go up the walkway to the abandoned house that Nancy took them to. "Yeah, that's not creepy." Steve and Nancy were taking out the nails from the board that covered the door. "What exactly are we looking for in this shit hole?"
"We're not sure. We just know this house is important to Vecna." Nancy undid a nail.
"Because Max saw it in Vecna's red soup mind world?" Steve asked.
"Basically." Lyn grabs Max's hand.
"Great." He felt like it was a long shot.
"It might hold a clue to where Vecna is. Why is he back and why did he kill the Creels? And how to stop him before he comes for Lyn or Max." Dustin knew Steve needed it explained in detail for him to understand.
"We don't think he's in there, do we?" Lucas didn't bring any weapons.
"I figure that this is his spot in the Upside Down. As far as we know, this is the first place he was able to reach someone, so who knows what is going to happen." She realized that he had the upper hand here.
"Ready?" Steve looks at Nancy. She nods her head. They drop the board to reveal the door from Max's dreams. "It's locked." He tried to open the door. "Should I knock to see if anyone's home?" He looks around for ideas.
"No need." Robin held up a brick. "I found a key." She throws it through the glass window and Steve reaches in to unlock it.
The door screeches as it swings open. They walk into the house. Lucas tried to turn on a light. "Looks like someone forgot to pay the electric bill."
Everyone flicks on their flashlights. "Where did everyone get those?" Steven noticed he was the only one that didn't have one.
"You knew you were going to an abandoned house and you didn't bring a flashlight?" Lyn tilts her head.
"Do you need to be told everything? You're not a child." Dustin scoffs.
"Thank you." Steve grabs the one from his hand. Dustin took off his backpack to grab his extra flashlight and dropped his bag on the ground.
The older females walk into the living room. "They left everything." Nancy shines her light to see the room was fully furnished.
"I guess a triple homicide isn't good for resale value." Robin shrugs.
"Hey guys, you see that right." Max was shining her light on a clock.
"Yeah." Steve and Dustin answer verbally while everyone else nods.
"Is this the clock that you saw?" Nancy asked.
"It's just a clock." Robin walks over to the grandfather clock and wipes the dust off the face. "Just a normal clock."
"Why is this wizard obsessed with clocks? Think he's like a clockmaker or something?" Steve wonders out loud.
"I think you crack the case, Steve." Dustin's words are dripping with sarcasm.
"It is taunting. Letting you know that your time is limited. Each tick-tock could be your last second." Lyn looks at the pendulum, expecting it to swing.
"All I know is that this place has the answers." Nancy could feel it in her gut. "Let's make sure we are never alone. Come on, Robin." Nancy led her upstairs. Max took Lucas to another part of the house.
"Hey!" Steve yelled when Lyn walked off. "You're not supposed to go alone." He follows her.
"You're leaving me." Dustin speed walks to catch up.
"Keep up, if you don't want to be left behind!" Steve looks over his shoulder to yell.
Lyn walks into the dining room. She circles the table until she stops in front of the radio. "This is it." She touched the knob like she imagined Victor did that night.
"What?" Dustin looks at the radio.
"This is where he killed Victor's wife. The doorways where he took the daughter. But, Victor was saved by this radio." She turned to them.
"And you'll be saved by Tina." Steve turned the cassette player up so he could hear the music from the headphones.
The three are moving from room to room. "Do you guys know what clues you were supposed to be looking for?" All Steve saw was dusty furniture.
"The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observed." Dustin puts on a British accent as he walks out of the room.
"Sherlock Holmes," Lyn told her confused boyfriend. She wanders over to the bathtub and shines her light on the drain. She was expecting a black widow to come crawling out.
"That's helpful." He rolled his eyes. He walked over to a vent by the toilet and lifted it to find jars. He picked up to see a dead spider. He felt something crawling on his shoulder. He got up in a hurry trying to brush it off.
"What's wrong?" She went to him.
He grabbed her arm to pull her out of the room and shut the door. "It was a black widow. In the vent in jars and on my shoulder."
"What?" She shines her light all over him to see nothing on him. "Hold still." She instructed.
"What?" He wipes his body down.
"Calm down, it's not a spider, just a web in your hair." She reached up to get it out.
"If there is a spider nesting in here, you'll never find it until it lays eggs and all the babies spill out." Robin comes around the corner with Nancy.
"What is wrong with you?" Steve snapped. She laughed as she went into the room that Dustin was in. "Robin, seriously. The girl got problems."
"You love her." Lyn laughed. She turns to Nancy. "Steve found a jar with dead black widows in them. I think he lived here."
"What?" Steve and Nancy asked.
"This place is special to him. I've been thinking it was because it was his first kill but what if it's more than that? The clock and the jars. This place is personal to him. He somewhat resembles a human. He has all the same parts but tentacles and brunt." She wished she could draw like Will so they could know what she was talking about.
"Guys! Come down here." Lucas yelled. They went down into the dining room, where the chandelier above the table was blinking.
"It's like the Christmas lights." Lyn listens to them buzzing.
"Christmas light?" Robin asked.
"It's how Will communicated with his mom from the Upside down," Nancy explained.
"Do you think he's trying to do that?" Steve asked.
"I don't know but he's in the Upside Down version of here." Lyn felt a weight on her shoulders.
The light turned off. "Do you think he left the room?" Robin asked.
"Turn on your light and spread out," Nancy instructed and they did that despite Steve's protest.
"I got him," Robin announced. They ran to where she was on the stairs. "Oh, I had him." She pouted when her light went out.
"I got him." Steve's light was on. He moved with it up the stairs and down the hall. "Shit, I lost him."
"No." Lyn points to the door that had light shining from underneath it. They open the door to find another set of stairs.
"Oh, the attic, how nice." Robin sighes.
"You know this could be a trap," Dustin warns. Everyone went up the stairs anyway. He whines as he follows them. The light bulb up there was buzzing as it flashes.
"It makes sense, Victor said this is where he could feel the stare on him the hardest." Lyn looks at Nancy and Robin. She dropped the flashlight and cassette player when her body froze.
"No… No…" Steve held her tight as her eyes went blank.
"Shit, it's busted." Lucas tried to get the cassette to play.
In the blink of an eye, the attic seems to be refreshed. It was no longer dusty, it was clean and everything was in good condition. "Should I be flattered that you are trying to get to know me?" She turns to see a little boy sitting in a rocking chair.
"So, I was right. You did live here, Henry Creel." She recognized him from the old newspaper clippings.
"You were able to figure it out in two days… Impressive." He mockingly tilts his head.
"Wasn't that hard? You were the only one in the family that didn't get visions. You were passed on the ground, but not harmed." She has been putting the pieces together.
"My father still hasn't solved it." He snickers as he stands up and morphs into a young man wearing all white. "Everyone else in this town hides secrets that eat them alive in shame but you, you hide them in rage."
"So what? I have a right to be bitter." She told herself that a thousand times.
"Then why do you hide? No one knows how you wish her to die. That time she freaks out about the cat sneezing and drives it to the vet despite it being parent-teacher conferences night for you, you hoped that she crashed. You got pleasure from imagining." He was circling her.
"I'm not going to be judged by someone who killed his mom and sister." She tried to keep the emotions off of her face.
When he stopped in front of her he was in his final form: gray and tentacles. "I'm not judging, I'm stating facts. No one is ever going to understand you. You are living under the duty to take care of your family. Let me release you from those social contracts." He raises his hand.
Lyn took a deep breath as his hand lay over her face. She remembered this was in her head. Her mind, meaning that he was in her domain. She stares at his hand wanting it, willing it to burn. While it didn't light on fire, he pulled it back with a hiss. "You wished for it to end many times, begged god to take you in your sleep so why do you resist?" His stare was almost curious.
"No, please." Steve cried when she slipped from his hands to be pulled into the sky.
"Sing." Dustin orders.
"What?" He looked at him.
"Every time the song comes on, what does she make everyone in the car do? She makes us sing loudly to the point you can't even hear Tina Turner." Dustin pointed out. "Out of the ruins. Out from the wreckage. Can't make the same mistake this time. We are the children, the last generation. We are the ones they left behind." Dustin started it off.
"And, I wonder when we are ever gonna change. Living under fear, 'til nothing else remains." Steve sang the next lines.
"We don't need another hero. We don't need to know the way home. All we want is life beyond Thunderdome." Everyone joined in. They sang at the top of their lungs, hoping to reach her. It wasn't pretty. Robin's ears were ringing at how off-pitch everyone was.
Lyn smiled when she heard Steve howling out the chorus to her favorite song. "Looking for something, we can rely on. There's gotta be something better out there. Ooh, love and compassion, their day is coming. All others are castles built in the air." She sang out the next lines with them. "That's it you know, love and compassion are what's stopping you from taking another step."
Vecna tried to move to find that he couldn't. "If it weren't for them I would probably be running into your arms. Begging for you to do what I never could in ending my life."
She walks over to the light where she could see her loved ones circling her singing. "It's a shame because you had that too but you're a sociopath so I guess you can't even imagine that feeling. I almost feel bad for you." She looks over her shoulder at him. All of a sudden he didn't seem so scary.
He glares but suddenly looks off to the side like something else got his attention. "I'll leave you, for now, Henderson. There is easier prey."
Lyn gasped as she found herself back in her physical body falling from the ceiling. Steve, Lucas, and Dustin caught her laying her down on the ground. Robin found a pillow to put under her head. She looked up into her boyfriend's eyes, they were filled with tears. She grabs the collar of his jacket to pull him down into a kiss. It was hard as she searched desperately to feel like she was in the real world.
"Oh my god." Dustin gags. Nancy smacks him on the shoulder while keeping her eyes on the floor. She felt like she was invading an intimate moment between the two.
She pulled away from his lips to rest her forehead against his. "I'm sorry. I've been so distant and cold. I didn't want it to hurt more when I go."
"You're not going anywhere." He helped her up.
"I can't believe that ear-bleeding singing saves you." Robin teased. "You're sick."
"He only let me go because he said there was easier prey. Someone is dying right now." She put an end to their relief.