November 12th, 1983

HAWKINS, INDIANA

In the morning, after a few bitter hours of sitting on the bench at soccer practise, Georgie was out to go find the boys. She checked at home first, and Dustin was already gone. When she got to Mike's however, she saw Lucas gearing up to leave at the end of his driveway. He rolled his eyes when he saw her but stayed put none-the-less. She didn't like the looks of that.

"Where ya headed? Meet the boys?" she asked, stopping right next to him.

"No, they left to find her, I'm going to find it," he said.

"Well, you're not going alone. Get in," she said, unlocking the passenger door. "But we don't go through it or do anything with it without back up."

"Deal," he said, pushing his bike into his lawn and climbing into the car.

"All right, Rambo, just tell me where to go," she said, driving the car off again. As she drove by a power van, the guy working was staring at her as they drove, and she would've sworn that he looked at her license plate. "You ever see that guy working out front before?"

"No, why?"

"Just wondering."

"I'm serious you know," she said, dragging her sunglasses off her head and over her eyes. "We're not doing anything at the gate without back up. That just seems like an easy way to lose."

"I know, I know. I just don't want to look for crazy." Lucas crossed his arms and looked out the window.

"Be nice," she warned.

"How can you say that when you were there," he said, exasperated. "She threw me. She cut your leg open. Dustin said you got like twenty stitches."

"The cut wasn't her fault, it was yours and Mike's. And it was eight stitches, not twenty." Georgie turned where Lucas told her too. They stopped in almost the same place as last time and got out of the car.

"Guess the lying hadn't started until after this," Lucas said. "Unless she's lurking around the corner.

"C'mon man, she was scared of it. Maybe she was afraid of the monster. Maybe she's seen it or something." Georgie got out of the car, limping slightly. Lucas looked at her and shook his head, whispering a rushed apology before grabbing his backpack. "Don't be sorry, just don't start fights around scrap metal."

"I didn't start it," he said.

"You both did, don't even try to blame someone else."

They began walking through a lot of the same track. And they cut off the track at the same part. It was when they had to change direction off the tracks is when they realized it was different. They had to head left, not right. They kept walking, but their light chatter had completely stopped and turned into silence as they tracked trough this new territory. Knowing that they were heading towards this thing was creepy, to say the least.

"So, what do we do. Find it and report back? Seems like a waste of time," Lucas said. "What if it get shut down or something? And Will gets trapped?"

And Barbara.

Georgie shuddered.

"So what do you propose? We storm in? Ask for Will and Barb back with our mean voices? I can't even walk right. You're our first line of defence and we're not even sure it's only one monster." Georgie rolled her eyes. "And we have no weapons."

"I brought weapons, you didn't?" he asked, tripping slightly over a branch.

"I brought a pocket knife because my house isn't big on monster killing equipment."

They wound up in front the Hawkins Lab. It's always been there – they just had no idea what happened inside it. Lucas climbed up in a tree and used his binoculars to watch what was going on. Georgie moved closer to the fence to see what was going on. She could see a handful of vans, but that's about it. Nothing interesting at all. Until Lucas passed down a set of binoculars.

The boy was prepared.

She saw those vans before. They've been all around the neighbourhood. They'd been at Lucas' less than a few hours ago. She felt sick. Someone was onto them. Knowing that they were in danger, and her letting the kids play renegade has put them all in danger. She should've known better. She could cry.

"We have to get back," he said, in a whisper-yell. He crouched down and Georgie moved in closer. "Those vans were the same as outside my house. And this is where the compasses lead."

"Oh God, someone knows about us looking around." Georgie thought for a moment. "If they had found you..."

"They must know about the others."

Without hesitation, both of them took off running the way they came. Georgie could feel her thigh burning as the stitches ripped open, but she didn't care. Not one bit. She had to find her brother. All Georgie could hope was that they found El and had already gotten back to Mike's house.

They kept running at a steady pace. Lucas was yelling that he saw all of them getting into vans and driving off. Lucas was trying to communicate with the others while they ran but even she knew that they were still way to far out of range.

Georgie fished her keys out of her pocket and tried to ignore that the keys themselves had blood all over them. Another pair of pants bloodstained. Fantastic.

The last time Georgie had run this fast, and pushed her self this hard was when she tried out for soccer. And now she was rushing to save her brother and his friends.

It took them less than an hour to get back to her car. They jumped it, and Georgie started it up right away.

"Before you do up your seat belt, I need you to reach into my soccer bag and grab the bandages out of there," she said, turning the car on and going. She did up her own seat belt as the car began to move.

"Okay, hold on." Lucas did as he was told and came back with the bandages. "Here." He handed her the roll, but squished some fast food napkins in-between and held down the edge so she could pull it around. Together they wrapped her leg until Lucas snapped some clips in place to hold it all together. Then he got back onto trying to connect with everyone else.

Dustin started answering, but it was choppy and unintelligible. Which meant that's what Lucas probably sounded like to them.

"Shit!" Georgie shouted, hitting the steering wheel. "What's the range?"

"From Mike's house... uh, Auburn street," Lucas said, gripping onto his car door handle. Georgie was driving over the speed limit and Lucas trusted her, but it was still kind of scary.

"Okay, okay," she said, going even faster. She ran a stop sign without fully stopping, and it was like she was trying to race the road. She did slow down a bit when they got to Auburn street though. Still over limit, but not as bad.

"Lucas? Do you copy?" Dustin asked, still choppy, but understandably so.

"I copy!" Lucas shouted. "They know about us! The bad men are coming, the bad men are coming! All of them!" he shouted. They didn't know if they were coming in clear, so Lucas kept repeating it.

"C'mon, fuck!" Georgie shouted when someone turned in front of her and started driving like Miss Daisy. "You have to be kidding me."

Georgie sped up slightly, and went around the car. Did people not realize this was life or death for some people. Of course they didn't. How would they?

"Dustin! Dustin! Do you copy?" Lucas shouted, they were much closer, now, it should be clear.

"Yeah, Lucas! They're on us," Dustin replied, clear as day. Georgie felt her heart speed up.

"Where are you?" Lucas asked.

Georgie didn't hear the answer, but she heard Lucas answer Elm and Cherry. She took a hard left to get there faster. "Do we have a plan?" Georgie asked, taking another quick left.

"Don't get caught by the bad men, I think."

Four blocks away.

Three blocks.

Two blocks.

As she pulled into Elm, the boys and El were biking past, with a bunch of the vans behind them. She shouted for Lucas to unlock the back door, and the boys ditched their bikes onto someone's front lawn. "Get in, get in, get in!" Lucas shouted, watching as the vans got closer.

As soon as the three kids were in, Georgie put it in reverse and went back a full block until she could quickly turn at an intersection.

She was driving like a maniac. Someone was going to call the cops. And that might actually be what kills them. Oh God, she would be the reason her little brother and all his friends are dead.

"Where are we going?" Georgie asked, driving straight. She had to push out the panic, right now her focus was the kids.

"The junk yard, it's the only place I can think they haven't seen us," Mike said.

Georgie nodded quick, speeding down the street. When a van turned the corner it completely blocked her in. "Shit," she mumbled. It was over, she couldn't drive through a house.

They were blocked.

"Drive fast," El said, gripping onto the head rests of both of the two front seats. Georgie didn't say anything she just continued speeding towards the van.

She was terrified they were going to crash, and it felt like that what was coming. Oh God, she should've realized the danger they were actually getting themselves into. When the van got close enough that Georgie could see the driver as the very man she saw at Lucas' house, the van flew into the air above her own car, flipping and landing behind them – completely blocking the road. She continued to drive, laughing at the mess behind her as she drove. It was kind of exciting.

Until she thought that maybe the man in the van didn't live. Then it wasn't so funny anymore.

But she did still feel super alive.

"What is going on?" Dustin finally said. "What did you guys find out."

"Shh," Georgie said, slowing at a stop sign. "First we make sure we're far away from those guys. Then we talk. They know about us. For all we know the car is bugged or something. That guy knew that we left Lucas' and the car was alone for a while." The was a chorus of okays and all rights. "Anyone hurt? El, sweetheart there's more bandages in the duffle bag, it's at your feet there. You can wipe your nose."

"Your leg," she said, looking at it.

"Yes, it's very hurt. But we can deal with that later. For now we have to worry about living. Stitches are going to have to wait."

Georgie kept driving. Her only focus was saving the kids and getting them the hell out of here. After that, she had no plan.

No God damn idea what to do.