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"Should I Stay or Should I Go?"

Should I stay or should I go now?

If I stay there will be trouble

If I go there will be double

So ya gotta let me know

Should I stay or should I go?

- The Clash

The ringing of the phone beneath her fingers woke Joyce from a fitful sleep. She had the handset in her hand before she had fully awakened and remembered why she was sitting here by the phone—but by the time she had said "hello" and heard the faint breathing on the other end of the line, it had all come back to her in its awful clarity.

She couldn't stay seated. Rising to her feet, she cradled the phone in both hands. "Hello! Who is this? Who—?"

The person on the other end drew in a deep, shuddering breath, like a child crying. Like her child crying. Could she ever forget holding Will when he was a baby, a toddler, a small boy, crying in her arms, hearing that shuddering sigh as he tried to get hold of himself? This was Will. She knew it as well as she knew herself.

"Will?"

More breathing.

"Will, it's me." She was on the verge of tears herself, trying to hold it together and be calm for him. "Talk to me. I'm here! Just—just—just tell me where you are, honey. I can hear you. Please!"

"Mom?" His voice sounded as though it was coming from far away.

Joyce gasped at the sound and the lights flickered, as though they were as happy to hear from him as she was. "Will! Yes, it's—it's me. Yes!" She held the phone closer, tighter, as if it were Will she was holding. "Where are you? Where are you? Just talk to me!"

And then lightning arced from the phone, crackling across her fingers, and she screamed and dropped the handset instinctively, jumping back, only then realizing that the phone, her one precious slender connection to her missing boy, was fried. Again. And there had been no storm to blame it on this time.

Joyce knelt, picking up the handset, sobbing incoherently as she pounded on the little plastic reset buttons on the phone's base, holding the handset to her ear as she cried out "No!" over and over again and strained to hear something, anything, on the other line.

All her strength left her. She collapsed next to the chair, against the dead phone, weeping, feeling more helpless than she ever had before.

Damned phone! She was just about to get Will to say where he was! Just about to know where her boy was, to be able to get him. She shrieked aloud, picking up the whole heavy piece of plastic and heaving it away from her, tearing it from the wall, and then sat there weeping and screaming and generally having a tantrum that even Jonathan on his best—worst—day as a toddler couldn't have matched.

As she sat there, shouting out her pain and her anger and her fear, the lights flickered again. And then again. She looked up, then, realizing that only the lights in the hallway were flickering. Two bulbs in the sconce, so unless they were both about to burn out, it couldn't be the bulbs. Was there something wrong with the wiring?

Curiosity got the better of her tantrum, and she got to her feet, investigating, standing beneath the lights as they continued to flicker.

"Jonathan?" she cried weakly, even though she knew he wasn't there. No one was there. No one could be frying her phone or making her lights flicker. As she moved down the hall, they flickered again, and again. And then they stopped, and the second set of lights, farther down the hall, did it, while the first set stayed normal. "What?" she muttered, trying to catch her breath, to stop crying long enough to figure out what was going on.

The lamp on the small table outside her room flickered now. Twice. Then one quick blink.

And from Will's room, the sound of that song he liked, the one Jonathan had introduced him to, blasted out. Joyce shrieked in surprise and fear, plastering herself back against the wall. What, who, was in her house?

Under the closed door, she saw lights flickering inside the room, and the song kept playing.

From fear she moved into anger. If this was someone's idea of a sick joke, if someone was here playing pranks on her while her boy was missing, she was going to make them very sorry. With a determined effort, she pushed herself off the wall, tiptoeing hesitantly across the hall with her hand stretched out, trembling, reaching for the doorknob. Inside Will's room, the song kept playing.

The hallway had never seemed so wide. Finally, her hand was on the knob. She opened the door and stepped in, finding—no one. No one was there. The tape player on Will's desk was playing by itself. It had turned itself on.

How did that happen? Outside of horror movies, this kind of thing just didn't happen.

As she stood there, losing her anger and descending into sadness, the light by the window blinked. It blinked again as she moved toward it. Joyce put both hands on the lampshade, holding the lamp, staring down at the flickering bulb. What did this mean?

"Will, is that you?" The question came from somewhere inside her. Who else would be in his room?

As if in answer to the question, the lightbulb burned more brightly, nearly blinding her as she stared down at it. It was impossible that any lightbulb could shine this brightly.

And then it stopped, blinking off entirely, and the music stopped. And … the wall began to buckle inward.

As Joyce stared at it in horrified fascination, she realized that some … thing was pushing it. A rounded something, pressing against the inside of the wall, stretching the paint in ways Joyce wouldn't have imagined it could stretch. There were ridges, now, and something that looked like fingers. Big fingers. Almost like claws.

She screamed in terror and ran, getting herself out of the house as fast as she could. She made it to the car, finding the extra keys she kept on the visor, turning it on, before she heard the song again, that "should I stay or should I go" song. The lights were blinking in Will's room again.

Joyce stared at them. That was Will. She was absolutely sure of it. Somehow Will was making the lights blink and the music play. But it hadn't been Will coming through the wall. That had been something else, something—something that chased Will away, she thought, remembering how the lights and the music had turned off just before the wall had bulged.

She should get away. She should run.

But if she ran, how would she help Will? She had promised her boys she would be there for them, and God help her, she had failed them more often than she should have. And tonight, she was not going to fail Will, not when he needed her.

Joyce turned the car off and got out, moving slowly back toward the house, wavering between fear and determination, as the music played into the quiet night.

Morning found her still in Will's room. She had been awake all night, unable to tear her eyes away from the lights, her precious connection to her missing boy. She'd brought every lamp in the house into the room, watching them and asking questions when they blinked. Will wasn't able to stay in the lights long enough to tell her anything substantive, though, so it was more that tenuous connection than anything else.

She didn't know when Jonathan had come home last night, and she felt vaguely guilty about that. When they found Will, she would make it up to him.

Hunched over at the end of Will's bed, staring at the lamps, she was waiting for another reappearance when Jonathan opened the door and called to her. She brought him over to the bed, holding onto his hand. "It's Will. It's Will. He's trying to talk to me."

"He's trying to talk to you," Jonathan repeated, trying to wrap his head around the idea. Joyce understood—it was hard to believe.

"Through the lights," she confirmed.

"Mom."

"I know. I know," she told him. She really did know how this would look, and sound, especially coming from her. If she was Karen Wheeler, now, people would still think she'd gone off the deep end, but it wouldn't be quite the same. "Just—just watch." Turning to the lights, she said, "Will, your brother's here. Can you show him what you showed me, baby?"

As they waited, one of the bulbs flickered.

Joyce gasped and pointed at it. "Did you see that?"

"It's the electricity, Mom! It's acting up, it's the same thing that fried the phone!"

"No, it is not the electricity, Jonathan!" Nothing would make the electricity flicker as specifically as what she'd seen. "Something is going on here!" She pointed to the wall where the thing had tried to come through. "Yesterday, the wall—"

"What about the wall?" Jonathan shouted. He was worried about her and scared for his brother, she knew he was, and he was so used to being the voice of logic and reason, he couldn't help but be skeptical now.

"I don't know, I don't know!"

"First the lights, then the wall?"

"I just know that Will is here."

Tears were welling up in Jonathan's eyes, and she hated that he had to be scared for her sanity. "No, Mom."

Where was Will? Had something happened? Joyce looked around the room, getting to her feet as she thought it through. "Maybe if I put more lamps out—"

Jonathan got up, too, cradling her face in his hands. "No, Mom, you don't need more lamps! You need to stop this! Okay? He's just lost. People are looking for him. They're going to find him."

Yes. That made sense. They would find him. Joyce nodded, a wave of weariness crashing over her. She sank back onto the bed, her legs unable to hold her.

Jonathan's hand was on her back, reassuring. He had always been there, so dependable. "Can you do me a favor, Mom? Can you just try and get some sleep? Can you do that for me?"

She nodded. "I promise." He didn't need to have to worry about her on top of everything else.

He went to the kitchen to make breakfast, and she told herself sternly that she would eat it, no matter how little she might want food right now.

Left alone, she looked around at the lights. Jonathan was right, as far as he knew, but she was right, too, as far as she knew. Could she give up on what she knew just because it seemed so unbelievable?

She managed to eat enough to satisfy Jonathan, who gave her a long hug before he left. "Now, you're going to get some sleep?"

"Yes. Are you going to be okay at school?"

He shrugged. "Am I ever?" It was a familiar refrain—Jonathan had always hated school, feeling like it was a waste of time when he could be doing more important things. Then he smiled and cupped her cheek with his hand. "I'll be fine."

"Okay."

Joyce watched him go. Then she turned back into the house, thinking she probably should get some sleep. But what if Will tried to make contact? She should be ready.

In the garage, she found the box of Christmas lights, and started tacking them up around the living room. But there weren't enough, so she left the house, lingering in the doorway long enough to assure Will she would be right back, and drove into town, where she convinced Donald to advance her enough for a new phone and quite a few boxes of Christmas lights.

When she was done, the house looked beautiful. Like fairyland. Lights were draped back and forth across the ceiling, shining brightly. "Okay, Will," she whispered to herself. "Any time now."

But nothing happened, except the startling sound of a knock on the door. Karen Wheeler sure could pick her times, Joyce thought, forcing a smile as she opened the door. She liked Mike's mom, of course she did, but they had nothing in common. Although at least Karen had never made Joyce feel judged, like some of the other moms had over the years. Karen seemed to accept that Joyce's life was different, and not to think much about her beyond that, which was just fine with Joyce.

While the oven preheated for the casserole Karen had brought, Joyce tried to explain the lights as a way to make it feel like Will was coming home, that the house would be ready and decorated for Christmas. But what she really wanted was for Karen to leave so Will would come back. Instinctively, Joyce was sure if anyone would see the lights, it wouldn't be Karen Wheeler. She meant well, but she didn't have the imagination to believe the impossible.

At the end of the visit, Karen's toddler, Holly, had gone off exploring in Will's room. Joyce was convinced Will had been there and Holly had seen the lights, so she rushed Karen out the door, turning around and leaning against it with a sigh.

"I'm here, baby," she told the lights. "Talk to me."

And then it happened. One string of lights lit up, in order, again and again, pointing to a particular place in the wall. Joyce followed them, pushing the bookcase away from the wall and opening the large built-in cupboard, which was where the lights seemed to be pointing.

But there was nothing there, no lights. How could she talk to him?

There had been one bundle of lights left. She grabbed it, plugging it in, and climbed into the cabient with the ball of lights in her lap. "Will," she whispered to it. "Are you here?"

The lights lit up with a bright white glow, and she gasped in delight, cradling them as though they really were Will.

"Okay. Good, good, good. Blink once for yes, twice for no. Can you do that for me, sweetie?"

The lights lit and faded.

She patted them. "Good! Good boy." Being so close to him, feeling him as though he was here with her, was almost more than she could bear, but she had to hold up, for Will. "Baby, I need to know, are you alive?"

One blink. The relief was overwhelming. If he was alive, she could help him. She could do anything.

"Are you safe?"

Two blinks. Which shouldn't have surprised her, but she had wanted so badly to be reassured.

Gripping the lights, she said urgently, "I need to know where to find you, where are you, can you tell me where you are? Can you—" How could he tell her, with one blink for yes and two for no? But he had to tell her, somehow. "Please, baby. I need to find you, tell me what to do. Please."

The lights were silent, Will as uncertain how to communicate what was important as she was.

For a moment, the fear and frustration overwhelmed her. Then she shook the lights a little. "Stay here. I'll be right back."

In the shed, she found a can of paint, and on the wall she painted the alphabet, hanging lights so that each bulb matched up with a letter. Standing back, she was proud of what she'd done. One way or another, she was going to communicate with her son.

"Okay," she said aloud to the room, sure that Will could hear her. "Okay, baby, talk to me. Talk to me, where are you?"

The letters lit up, one at a time. R. I. G. H. T. H. E. R. E.

"Right here. Right here? I don't know what that means. I—I need you to tell me what to do. What should I do? How do I get to you? How do I find you? What should I do?"

The letters lit up again, the message crystal clear. R.U.N.

Behind her, the wall bulged, the same shape as before, and the lights went crazy. Joyce stared at it in horror, frozen to the spot. What was it? Was this what kept Will from being safe? A claw of some kind ripped through the wallpaper, a long white skeletal arm covered in some kind of glistening skin reached out, and a whole creature followed it, humanoid but not. A monster. A real-life movie monster, here in Hawkins, Indiana.

The reality of what she was seeing broke Joyce out of her trance, and she did what Will had told her to do. She ran.

Outside the house, Jonathan was just pulling up. In her terror, Joyce ran in front of his car. He got out, coming to her, and they held each other, even as approaching lights and sirens lit up the night.