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"Dead Man's Curve"

Won't come back from Dead Man's Curve

- Jan and Dean

Joyce tilted her head to look more closely at Will's drawing. "So, Hopper is here."

"Yeah. Now we just need to find out where 'here' is," Mike said. "Right?"

"Right."

"Did he say anything? I mean, before he left?"

Joyce tried to remember. "Something about … vines?"

They heard a car outside, and both turned to look. Hope rose in Joyce's heart—she hadn't realized until just now exactly how frightened she was that something had happened to Hopper. She ran to the windows to see him, needing to make sure he was all right.

Her heart sank when she recognized Bob's car. She immediately felt guilty about it—she should be happy to see Bob. She was happy to see Bob. But she wanted Hopper. The chill of fear had settled back on her as soon as she realized he wasn't here and safe. And explaining all this to Bob would be … impossible. Not without telling him more than she wanted him to know, more than she thought he was able to handle.

As Bob got out of his car and went to the trunk to get something, she considered what to do. But there really wasn't much of a question. If she let Bob in and he saw all the pictures on the walls, Will as he was, he would want to know why, and sweet and somewhat naïve as Bob was, he was also very smart and he would know that Joyce wasn't telling him everything. No, she couldn't risk it.

Joyce went outside, shutting the door carefully behind her.

Bob came toward her with a pile of boxes in his hands. "Surprise! I would have called, but you said not to clog up the lines."

"You know, we're fine, we don't need anything …"

"When I was sick as a kid—and I was sick all the time as a kid—nothing made me feel better than focusing on these brain teasers."

"Those are great," Joyce said, forcing herself to express an enthusiasm she didn't feel. If only what was wrong with Will could be solved by brain teasers.

"I can teach you how to play!" Bob looked so happy and so excited that she felt like a heel for wishing he would just go away.

"He's sleeping," she lied.

"Okay." Bob leaned forward a little, a smile starting to spread across his face. "I could wait with you."

Joyce wished she could let him; she wished she thought he could comfort her right now. "It's just not a good time." She felt terrible about all of this, so she tried to make it a little bitter. "You know what? I'll call you. Okay?" Leaning forward, she kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you."

Bob sighed. "You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Well, have him call me. They don't call me 'Bob the Brain' for nothing."

Joyce smiled, remembering high school. She turned to go back into the house. Then it hit her. Bob the Brain. Brain teasers. Puzzles. Bob had always been good at puzzles. He still was. And she had this massive puzzle inside her house, and Hopper out there somewhere in danger.

"Bob!"

He turned, thrilled to be needed, and held out his arms. "That's my name!"

"Okay. So, I need your help—but I also need you to promise, really promise, that you won't ask me any questions. No questions at all."

Coming toward her, Bob frowned a little. "This sounds mysterious."

"It is. And someday I'll explain it to you. For now, no questions. You promise?"

He seemed to see in her face how desperate she was, because he nodded very seriously. "I promise."

Bob was startled by the pictures, she could see that. He looked at them for a few minutes, really taking it in, with Will and Mike and Joyce following him. At last he said, "Huh." And then, "Huh," again. Turrning to look at Will, he asked, "You drew all these? Yourself?"

Will nodded.

"Why, exactly?"

"I told you the rules," Joyce reminded him. "No questions. Okay?" He nodded, still not understanding. Joyce headed toward the kitchen and the picture of where Hopper was. "We just need you to help us figure out—" She stopped, realizing he wasn't following her, still staring at the walls. "Bob. Bob! Over here!"

Bob handed Mike the stack of brain teasers and came into the kitchen, still looking wonderingly at the walls covered in pictures.

Joyce drew a big red X where Hopper was. "Where this is," she said as Bob came toward her.

"That's the objective," Mike explained. "Find the X."

"Yeah? What's at the X, pirate treasure?" He chuckled a little at his own joke.

"Bob? No questions."

"Okay." He looked up the pictures again while they all stared at him. Then he put an arm around Joyce's shoulders and drew her away from the boys. "Let me talk to you for a sec." They went into her room. "Joyce. You can talk to me. You know that, right?"

"Yeah. What's the … problem … exactly?" She tried to look him in the eye, but she knew she wasn't telling him everything, and he clearly knew she wasn't telling him everything.

"What's the problem?" Bob looked up at the walls, at the snaky lines of drawings everywhere. "Joyce, Will doesn't look well. You don't look well. What's going on?"

"Nothing! Nothing."

"Is this an episode? Is this one of Will's … episodes?"

"No. No, no."

"I, I'm, uh, I'm sorry, I just, I don't—see how any of this is good for Will. Or for you. And even if I wanted to play along, I mean—"

Joyce was getting frustrated. All this time, and Hopper was still in danger, wherever he was, and none of this was getting her any closer to finding him, and now she was going to have to tell Bob … something, eventually.

"How am I going to figure anything out if I don't understand the context of the game?" Bob was clearly getting frustrated, too. Then he stopped talking, staring over Joyce's shoulder.

"What? What is it?" She followed his gaze to a circular arrangement of drawings on the wall.

"I know that shape. It's Lover's Lake." He looked at her, pointing at the shape, which she supposed did look a little bit like a heart, now that she thought of it. "It's Lover's Lake," Bob repeated. "I get it. Okay, I get it." He stopped in front of some drawings in the hallway. "That's Lake Jordan. And if that's Lake Jordan, then … we'll probably find—" He pointed at the wall, snapping his fingers as he tried to remember. "Yeah, that's, uh, Sattler's Quarry. And then if you just follow it, naturally, it moves to the Eno River. And there it is." Pointing, he turned to Joyce. "That's the Eno, do you see it?"

She tilted her head to the side. Maybe she saw it? It sounded plausible, anyway.

Without waiting for her to respond, Bob was off again, working it all out as he went. "Okay, so the lines aren't roads. But they act like roads. And they act like roads 'cause if you follow them you'll see they don't go over water. And that's the giveaway. That's the giveaway! Ha!" He was gleeful with his success. "Don't you get it? It's not a puzzle. It's a map. It's a map of Hawkins."

The boys and Joyce looked at him and at each other and at the wall in wonder. None of them had seen that, or even thought of it.

Bob looked over his shoulder. "Right, Will?"

"Uh … right."

Deep in the tunnels, Hopper kept moving. Whatever he did, he had to keep moving and find his way out. He had lost all sense of direction now, and he was running low on cigarettes, dropping pieces as he went in hopes they would help him find his way back where he started. He could have walked for miles and not known it—everything down here looked the same. Damn Owens, anyway, how could he not have known how extensive this was? Maybe he did, but Hopper would bet he didn't. He'd bet Owens had blinders on, wanting to think they had this under control.

He kept trying on the walkie, even though he doubted anyone would be able to hear him. "Does anybody copy? Look, if anybody copies, this is Jim Hopper, Hawkins Chief—"

Something crunched under his boot. Until now, everything had squished. Hopper stopped where he was, looking around him, to see that he was in a large room. The central chamber, he'd bet. Him, and a whole lot of bones. Something down here had been eating.

He got out his lighter to see better, and the vines lining the walls squealed and flinched when the flame came near. Fascinating.

Ripping off his uniform top and breaking a bone off one of the things on the floor that he didn't want to think too hard about, he made a rudimentary torch, holding it against the vines until they moved aside, making a hole that he tried to dig his way through.

Bob got out a map of Hawkins that he had in his car, and sat down at the table to try to figure out where the X was. Joyce and Mike took tape measures. Labeling the places on the walls that they recognized, they started trying to measure the distances.

"All right, I'm 3.6 inches," Bob called. "What have you got?"

"I'm not sure. Mrs. Byers?"

"Hold on." Joyce dragged the tape measure around the corner into the living room. "21 feet, 4 inches."

"What about Tippecanoe to Danford Creek?"

"Danford? Where is Danford?"

"Dining room!" Will called.

"16 feet, 10 inches."

"What about Danford to Jordan?"

"This has got to be enough." Rolling up the tape measure, Joyce hurried to Bob's side.

"It's not. It's really not."

"Can't you just figure it out?"

"Well, it's hard. The ratio isn't exactly one to one. If you're twisting my arm—" He looked up at Joyce. "And you are twisting my arm. I would say that the X is … maybe … a half mile southeast of Danford?"

Relief flooded Joyce. If only they were in time. She bent to kiss Bob's cheek. "Thank you! Thank you." She grabbed the map out from under him. The boys followed her as she rushed out of the room, and Bob came after them.

"What, are we really … going?"

Hopper had worn himself out trying to crawl through the wall. He was so tired, and so thirsty, and so … yeah, he was pretty damn scared that he wasn't going to be able to get out of here. He just didn't think he had it in him to dig anymore, and he wasn't getting anywhere anyway.

He sank down against the wall, moaning from weariness and exhaustion and discouragement. It was hard to breathe; he kept coughing up stuff. He took his cigarettes out of his pocket. They wouldn't help with the cough, but at least he'd feel somewhat normal with one in his hand.

Before he could light it, though, he felt something moving up his leg. One of the vines was snaking its way across his boot and upward. And then another.

"Son of a bitch!" He got to his feet, trying to run, but the vines are already around both feet, and the ankles, and heading toward the knees. Hopper reached for his knife and started cutting through them, but as fast as he cut one three more came in its place. They were all over him now, curving up his back and around his shoulders, pulling him down to the ground, keeping his arms spread so he couldn't cut them anymore, tugging his head down while he pleaded. "No! Wait, no no! No!"

But it was too late. They were over him now, and he thought of Eleven, and then, inexplicably, of Joyce, before blackness took him.