"Just thank God I was there, Jim." Officer Wyatt Dawson still looked a bit pale staring up at him from the bench in the hallway near the front of the precinct, "He just barged through the damn door and started blasting away."
Hopper nodded, looking at the snub nose revolver in the evidence bag on the bench beside the man, "At least his aim was as shit as his plan. An official function like that? Only damn time we even have officers in the building."
Tapping his hat against his fist, Jim sighed, "Did he say anything? Anything that might tell us why the hell a high school shop teacher decided today was was the day he was going Charlie fucking Bronson?"
"That's the thing, Jim...," Dawson's face screwed up in confusion, "It wasn't like that."
"In fact, if you ask me? I'd say he was terrified." The younger man shrugged, "Like it was the last thing in the world he wanted to be doing. Then the whole drive in he just kept sayin' how sorry he was."
Hopper stopped playing with his hat, eyebrows raising at that, "He was apologizing?"
"Sure was." Wyatt sounded as surprised as he was, "Over and over again, like talkin' to himself. Kept sayin' it was 'the only way she'd let me see her again'."
That little revelation left the Chief even more confused. 'Her'? Walter's wife had died fifteen years ago.
The man's only other family, at least as far as he'd known was his daughter, and that wouldn't have made any sense either, considering.
Still, if it offered a clue as to why Marks had decided the new Mayor would look better in a pine box, he figured it made sense to at least ask the obvious question. "Any idea who he was talking about?"
"That's why I told you he'd lost his damn mind, Chief." Dalton fired a finger emphatically towards the holding cells, "He said 'the Angel' was gonna let him see Susan again!"
Hopper felt his eyes narrow, "Susan? You're sure he said, Susan?"
"Over and over." The younger man could only shrug, "Trust me, I was as confused as you were."
Glancing back and forth between his officer and the room containing their suspect a few times as he tried to make even the smallest amount of sense of what he was hearing, Jim sighed, "But Susan..."
"Died in the quake," Dawson finished for him, "Like I said - guy has clearly lost his damn mind."
On pretty much any other day of his life, Hopper would have agreed with the officer's assessment and moved on with his life. After all, people did crazy shit even before the town had gone to hell in a handbasket. Especially a guy who had recently lost his daughter.
But the outliers were enough to give him pause, at the very least. Marks wasn't a religious man, as far as he knew. It seemed pretty unlikely someone like that would just wake up one morning hallucinating about some 'Angel' telling him they could bring his daughter back from the...
Except Hopper had literally just left the company of a 'dead' man less than an hour ago.
No. This might not have made sense yet, but if the last few years were any indication, coincidences like this? They never WERE coincidences.
"I've gotta check on a few things," Jim tossed his hat back into place, uncommonly flustered as he started backpedaling towards the door, "You see what you can do about getting a statement. Record everything."
Stepping through the doorway, he called back over his shoulder, "And find out everything you can about this 'Angel'!"
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If a fully-loaded Byers house was akin to a hormone and Mountain Dew powered F5 tornado on a normal day, then the chaos unfolding as Nancy dragged herself out of bed and through the door leading to the livingroom was right up there with God telling Noah to get the boat.
The flurry of motion, the overlapping blur of half a dozen rapid fire conversations would have been disorienting even if she hadn't been jostled from a deep sleep and stumbled into the middle of it all like a passenger coming to as their plane lost cabin pressure.
As it was, she was less then thirty seconds into the melee and was already over it.
"You're not LISTENING!" El's eye-roll should have been pictured for posterity, her leg actually lifting a few inches off the ground before she managed to avert a childish stomp, hands clenching into fists at her sides, "It changed the colors!"
Sitting on the back of the couch, Steve appeared to be fighting to keep his eyes open despite the chaos, the dark puffyness around them even worse than she remembered them being at dinner as he waved his hand in impatient circles, "The... the 'blob' changed colors?"
"No!" Mike appeared to be as irritated as his girlfriend when it came to the man's inability to grasp the situation, "She said it was changing the colors!"
Harrington sighed wearily, running a hand through his hair, "The colors of the... the..."
"The people, Steve!" Dustin elbowed his friend from his position beside him on the couch, not even garnering so much as a cringe for his effort, "Whatever it was, it was like... like trying to mind-meld with the sleeping people!"
Joyce frowned from her seat in Hopper's oversized recliner, folding her legs under herself while nursing her coffee, "Mind-meld?"
In other circumstances it would have been comical how nearly every conversation in the room came to a halt simultaneously as the occupants took a moment out to eye the older woman like she'd spit on their shoes.
"What?" She actually looked down at the baggy shirt she'd worn to bed as if she'd spilled something on it before turning back to her son, "You know I didn't like Star Wars."
Cutting through Dustin's pained groan before this could become a whole thing, Steve actually snapped a bit harder than he'd intended, "Okay! But what IS it?"
"You said it felt like Vecna, right? But, like... not. At the same time?"
Feeling a pang of sympathy at the sight of both her haggard ex and a clearly stressing Joyce, Nancy slipped through the room towards the kitchen to put a pot of coffee on to brew while paying as much attention as she could to the chaos surrounding her.
The kids had stormed up the stairs from Will's basement hideaway more than an hour ago and the adults in the room were still trying to play catch up.
"No," Sensing the stress positively rolling off the usually laid back man in front of her, El took a deep breath before squeezing Mike's hand and walking over towards the couch, "I said it didn't feel right."
Trying to come up with an analogy that might help her explain what she'd experienced, El's face screwed up a bit, "Sounds and echoes. Understand?"
At the blank look on Steve's face, she took a deep breath and plowed ahead.
"One... one makes the sound, and what comes back is expected." Eyes widening, the girl adopted and electric smile as it came to her, "The sound changes, but you expect that! Still know what it will make, even different."
Having long ago gotten used to the way she tended to shorten and simplify her speech when excited, Steve nodded along as his sluggish brain translated, "The echo is different, but you still know what caused it? Like a voice in a tunnel."
"Exactly!" El's shoulders visibly sagged in relief, "The sound was the same, but the echo was... wrong. Before when he spoke, the echo was fear. Sadness."
Still trying to wake up herself, Max sighed from her position with her head resting on Lucas's shoulder. Not having bothered with her now customary shades, her glassy eyes looked on impatiently, "That's kinda what he does though, right? It's definitely what he wanted from me."
"This sounded different. Felt different," El insisted. "Like music!"
Giving up her search for coffee when she finally noticed the empty Folgers can in trash can by the cupboard, Nancy leaned against the wall with a yawn. "He was what? Singing to them?"
Growing increasingly frustrated by the admittedly understandable fact that everyone around her had no frame of reference for what she saw and felt in her trance state, El glowered at the woman, "Not singing. MUSIC."
"Like... lullabies." The girl closed her eyes, trying to remember what it had been like, "Soothing. Soft. Like everything was better now."
Steve pinched the bridge of his nose, "But it WAS him, right? You're sure? The same 'voice'?"
"I... think?" El couldn't help but look a bit sheepish, "It was gone so fast. But the voice - the one calling out to the sleeping people. It sounded different."
Stifling a yawn, Mike closed the distance between them, wrapping his arms around her stomach and resting his chin on El's shoulder, hoping his touch would calm her. "Different how, babe?"
"Same music, different voice." Knowing this part would make the least sense to them, as it certainly didn't make any to her, El frowned, "It sounded like a woman."
Lucas glanced around the room tiredly, searching for any sign that he wasn't the only one completely lost before deciding to speak for the rest of the group, "But he's not a girl, El."
And the glower was back full force, "I am aware."
"Okay!" Hopping down off the back of the couch, Steve shook himself a bit before continuing, "So this thing... this um, maybe-Vecna?"
Dustin laughed, elbowing Lucas, "New Vecna."
"Yeah, yeah, 'same great taste'," It spoke volumes about how exhausted he was that even Harrington's jokes were coming out in a monotone, "But whatever this is, it was trying to what? Turn people? Mess with their minds?"
El shrugged, "I wasn't here to see it happening last time. Not from the outside. But it was definitely changing something. Their colors changed."
"If it's anything like last time," Jonathan groused, finally making it out of his room, his hair in disarray and his shirt on backwards, "We'll know soon, right? When they start, you know..."
Max growled, her fingers digging into Lucas's thigh almost painfully, "When they start finding mangled bodies."
"Good point." Pulling his keys from his pocket, Steve snapped his fingers before turning abruptly and bounding down the stairs into the basement.
There was a distant shuffling followed by the sound of dozens of objects bouncing off the wall and floor before he reappeared up the stairs clutching the map that had been laid across the "strategy table" in the basement triumphantly.
"Dude!" Will tossed his hands into the air, already imagining the ungodly mess now littering his room, "We had OTHER maps!"
Seemingly considering that for the first time, Steve just shrugged it off, "Nah, this works."
Smoothing the wrinkled paper along the back of the couch, he tossed an arm over El's shoulders and brought her over beside him, using his other hand to point at the bottom corner, "This is us. Where did you see this thing floating around?"
Squinting at the map for a long moment, El reached out and spun it around to a few different angles before finding the perspective she'd had when floating up through her mindscape, eventually running her finger along a residential street a few blocks away, "It started here, then moved down that way before stopping... here."
Pulling a pen from his shirt pocket and quickly outlining the area she'd indicated, Steve accordianed the map into a fist, "I'll give it a look then head back this way."
He was already striding for the door when Nancy rounded the couch, jogging to catch up, "I'll join you!"
Glancing back over his shoulder and catching a look from Jonathan in the process, Harrington had to fight off an eye-roll, "I'm barely leaving the neighborhood."
"You're also barely keeping your eyes open." Using the tie around her wrist to jerk her hair into a messy ponytail, Nancy was already toeing on her shoes where they rested in the entryway.
"Nance..."
"Buddy system, remember?" Not budging an inch, she simply held out her hand expectantly for a few seconds before flexing her fingers impatiently, "Keys."
Finally giving in to that eye-roll, Steve dropped his keys into her waiting hand with a grunt as he shouldered the door open, ignoring the snickers of the teens behind them, "Fine!"
Trying to focus his eyes in the dim light of the streetlamps on the short trek out to the pickup, he couldn't exactly deny that is was probably a good idea for someone else to drive.
Still, though, "Do you even know how to drive a stick?"
Swinging around the front and hopping up into the driver's side, Nancy gave him a sardonic smile as she settled in behind the wheel, "I'm full of surprises."
"As long as one of those surprises is coffee," Steve yawned, letting his head rest against the cool glass of his window and folding his arms across his chest, "I'm all for it."
Casting a concerned glance towards the man while starting the truck, she forced a smile, "Gas station or diner?"
Too busy trying not to embarrass herself by killing the engine after her earlier bravado to notice the lack of a response until she'd hit the stop sign at the end of the lane, Nancy glanced over towards her passenger, "Steve?"
Soft snoring her only response, she promised herself not to rub in just how right she'd been to tag along when he finally came to, mumbling to herself as she pulled away, "Diner it is, then."
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"I... I think we went the wrong way on Cherry."
"Jesus, ya think Milner?!" Glaring a bit at the Corporal beside him on the lonely trudge through yet another nearly identical tree-lined street, Private Thomas squinted towards the street sign at the end of the road.
"We should have run into the rest of the guys like four fucking blocks ago!"
Catching a pointed glare about their volume from a middleaged man in a bathrobe a few lawns down as he waited for his dog to finish a very late night bathroom break, the Private shrugged sheepishly and resumed his long march down the lane.
"It's my first weekend pass in this shithole," Milner mumbled, focusing very intently on putting one foot in front of the other without falling over, "That's why I didn't drive, man. You think I know where anything is?"
"Okay, new plan!" Stopping the other man's progress with a hand on each shoulder, he waited until he met his eyes to continue, "This road here cuts through the whole town, right?"
Getting no response from his drunken squadmate beyond slackjawed staring, he sighed, "Right. So on the off chance they haven't ALREADY left us, our best bet is to walk it in both directions."
"Whoever finds them doubles back and grabs the other one." Snapping his fingers loudly in front of Milner's face, he ducked into his line of sight.
The Corporal narrowed his eyes, wobbling on the spot as his friend withdrew the support of his hands, "What if I get lost, Pete?"
"We're already lost, Derek!" Thomas pointed emphatically in the other direction, "Get walking. Worst case, you'll end up back at the Hideaway and call a cab."
Turning on his heel and setting a faster pace down the road, he shouted in the vain hope that Milner's drunk ass would remember when he arrived back at the bar 20 minutes later, "And for the love of God make sure they pick me up on the way!"
Unfortunately for both men, they'd been recent transfers as the bulk of the Army Corps of Engineers boys who had been tasked with both constructing the new post as well as repairing the critical infrastructure of the town was being cycled out in favor of the security and maintenence specialists now assigned to keep the place on hot standby in the event it was needed.
For what, most of them had no idea. But with the amount of light armor and ordnance they were maintaining, apparently the brass was expecting the damn Soviets to tunnel through the planet and pop out in the middle of Indiana.
It has taken Thomas almost three months before he'd managed his first weekend pass, which in this hick town had meant a movie followed by dinner and more than a few drinks at some hole in the wall called the Hideaway.
Considering the now very real possibility he wouldn't be checking back into post until after the required time, the mediocre food, annoying cover band, and the distressing lack of female companionship now hardly seemed worth the ass-reaming he would most likely be enduring for his trouble.
As if in answer to his prayers, the Private caught sight of the road opening up ahead, trees spreading out and thinning as it dumped out in the direction of a large, decently lit parking lot.
"Thank Christ!" Picking up his pace with a clatter of combat boots he'd have swapped out for his tennis shoes had he known all the walking the night would entail, Thomas didn't let up until he cleared the tree line...
Just to see that the empty parking lot he'd been approaching surrounded what appeared to be an abandoned mall with only a large sign promising a reopening by summer 1989.
"What the... seriously?!"
Glancing in every direction and seeing nothing particularly promising in any of them, Pete decided his best bet was probably to stay put for a minute.
At least then he couldn't manage to end up more lost. Besides, the area was reasonably well lit and if he got desperate enough, he could probably find a pay phone.
"Let's go into town, they said..." Flopping down onto the curb, Thomas pulled out his cigarettes and knocked one free of the crumpled soft pack with three quick strikes, "It'll be fun, they said."
Lighting up and taking a long drag, Pete glowered forward into the darkness, "Fucking hick town in the ass end of..."
"We all have to be from somewhere though," A melodious voice from behind nearly caused the soldier to choke on the smoke he was trying to exhale when it pierced the silence of the night.
Quieting a coughing fit while whipping his head around, Pete found himself following a long, milky leg upwards until encountering an even whiter slightly pleated skirt hugging a slender waist.
Forcing his eyes up past the low V shape of the neck line, he finally made his way to a pair of startlingly blue eyes framed by reddish-gold bangs and an endearingly buck-toothed grin.
Before he could gather his wits, the girl was speaking again, having somehow managed to get within a few feet without him hearing her approach in the quiet of the night around them, "But I've always found where we're going to be SO much more interesting... wouldn't you agree, Pete?"
The fact she'd known his name causing the man to search her face again for some sign of recognition, Thompson was coming up blank. He'd surely have remembered running into a girl this attractive in the bar.
"Um... do I know you, sweetheart?" Standing up with only the slightest of wobbles, Pete tried on his most winning smile.
Reaching forward without the slightest hesitation, the girl's cold fingers brushed along his own as she snatched the cigarette from them and brought it up to her deep red lips.
She took a long, unhurried drag and exhaled over those adorable teeth before smiling widely, "You can call me Crissy."
Laying one hand on the man's chest softly, she leaned her weight into him, using the other to return the cigarette between his lips, "But who I am isn't what you should be worried about, Pete."
"What you should be asking yourself," The girl's grin only seemed to grow as she leaned in, whispering softly into his ear, "Is how can I make your dreams come true?"
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