-8-
The Gate in Hawkin's Town.
Jim Hopper cursed as he dragged a screaming Joyce away from the entrance to Hawkin's Lab, trying to exorcise the terrible screams and the sights of those disgusting things eating Bob alive. Hopper had come to like Bob, who had shown he could be extremely resilient even with all the shit that was happening in the so-called quiet town of Hawkins.
It was horrifying, that his beliefs that nothing ever happened in this one small corner of Indiana had become so increasingly bleak after Will and Barb's disappearances and the appearance of Eleven the year before.
Once he got into his truck, the car radio was blaring.
"Come in, Hopper!"
Hopper cursed, wondering what was happening now, but just before he could reach the radio, other sounds came over; screams of panic, gunshots, and more horrifyingly of all, the sounds of those same things from the Upside Down.
"What's going on?" Hopper shouted into the radio.
"Chief, thank god!" Florence said in relief, somehow managing to make herself heard even if it sounded like a full-blown war at the other end. "Where the hell have you been? We've been trying to get you for days!"
"Never mind that, Florence. I was trying to get some leads from Hawkin's labs," Hopper shook his head, "what's happening? It sounds like a riot!"
"It's not! These weird…things have started attacking the town! People are dying! We're trying to evacuate the town, but the attack's just started, and too many are dying!"
"What?" Hopper knew the Upside Down was capable of many terrifying, weird things, but surely it couldn't create some kind of forcefield, like what you saw in Star Trek. "What's happening there?" He asked while Joyce stared at him in shock at what they were hearing.
"People are being torn to pieces, Hop!" Florence shouted, she broke off and yelled to someone else, "Don't let them get in!"
"Florence, these things…do they move like dogs, but look like salamanders without heads?" Hopper knew the description was far from accurate, but it was good enough for him.
"Yeah, how do you know?" A note of suspicion had entered her voice.
Hopper wasn't in the mood for questions. "Later. Let's just say Hawkin's lab made a mistake that's spiralled out of proportion. What's going on?"
"Half of the town is ablaze; the mayor's called for outside help, but we're not getting through. We're trying to hole up in the town hall, the school gym, some of us are gathering supplies, it's like a scene out of a war movie," Florence said.
Hopper turned to Joyce, who looked back at him with fear while she tended to her son. Will was unconscious still, but Hopper wondered what was going through the things' mind.
"We'll be there soon, but I need to check up on something quickly," Hopper said, instantly thinking of El, feeling both worried and extremely nervy; for a whole year, he had kept the endearing and annoying telekinetic safe, but now it looked like they needed her badly.
With her telekinetic powers, she could stop this.
No, he physically flinched, knowing that was a harsh thing to think; Eleven was just a child, a sweet innocent child who'd been abused her entire life after being snatched out of Terri Ives, experimented night and day until she thought it was a part of life. He knew it had been unfair to keep her locked up so people like Brenner didn't get their claws into her again, but he had racked his brains for a whole year looking for a way of letting her out, but with the lab still in operation, it was just too dangerous.
Looking at it from her point of view, Hopper knew he'd made a mistake by keeping her locked up. It was the only life she'd ever known, and after experiencing life out in the open for the very first time, wasn't it understandable she would want to go out again?
But….would El be there at the cabin?
She hadn't picked up the radio or answered in Morse like he had taught her, and he was worried about her.
If anything had happened…he would and could never forgive himself.
"What?" Joyce demanded at the same time as Florence shouted, "HOPPER! GET YOUR ASS HERE, NOW!"
Hopper groaned and rubbed his aching head as he tried to mentally calculate how much time they'd lose if they made a detour to the cabin before they could get into town. The problem was the answer came back a big fat negative.
"Okay, okay, I'm coming," he snapped, tired of being yelled at. Irritably he shoved the radio back onto its holder, and he leaned out of the window to yell at Jonathan and Nancy.
"You'd better follow," he yelled after trying to get their attention for a couple of minutes.
"Why, what's happened?" Nancy called.
"There's no chance keeping the Upside Down hidden and all of that top secret shit's been thrown out of the window," Hopper said, inwardly pleased since it meant all of the lies this fucking lab had been spreading for years would finally be exposed, if only so many others didn't have to pay the price. "The Town's under attack."
"What?"
-8-
It's funny, for a whole year I cursed my parents and everyone else for not bothering to question what happened to Will last year, but I never expected this, Mike thought to himself, shaken out of his mind by the wanton destruction he and his friends had seen outside. He had lived in Hawkins his entire life, but seeing the town devastated, and so many corpses everywhere brought home just how wrecked their lives had become.
The drive to the Town Hall was a nightmare; more than once, more of the Demogorgons (DemoDogs, as Dustin insisted on calling them!) came charging for them, and stragglers were torn to shreds, shrieking in agony and terror as they tried and failed to get them off. It was understandable why so many people weren't trying to escape, they weren't being given the chance.
Mike was terrified. They had never seen such a full-scale attack from the Upside Down before, nothing like this.
Getting to the Town Hall was the easy part, getting in was a different matter entirely.
With Hopper's guns, they managed to get in quickly enough, before the doors were slammed shut, leaving Mike, Dustin, Max, and Lucas reeling from the noise.
"Mike! Mike!" Mike turned and sighed with relief when he saw his parents rushing towards him and Nancy, cradling a screaming Holly in Karen's arms. He gasped when his mother wrapped him in her arms and refused to let him go, and he choked when his mother shifted and he groaned when he felt someone's head banging against his own skull.
"Ah, mum, we're okay," he heard Nancy whisper.
"Where have you two been?" Karen was panic-stricken. "The whole town was attacked, and your little sister was nearly killed by those things."
"What?" Mike shouted, instantly checking on Holly. The poor girl was screaming her head off, with a nasty head injury, but it didn't look too deep.
"Is Holly okay?" Nancy demanded, backing up and checking her little sister.
"She's fine, I managed to get that thing away from her," Karen directed a pointed, angry look at a sheepish Ted, who was far from his normal, oblivious self. Mike and Nancy looked at each other, knowing there was a story there, a grim one.
"Chief Hopper, where the hell were you?" The mayor demanded angrily as he stormed up to Hopper.
"What were those things?"
"I've never seen anything like them!"
"What are they?"
"You said Hawkins' lab created those things-!"
Hopper groaned, his headache growing worse and worse by the minute as so many people began shouting and demanding answers. Finally, he had enough. "Shut up!" He yelled, repeating himself until everyone calmed down. "I wasn't here because I was trying to investigate those dead pumpkins; that and what's happening is connected, because of an experiment in Hawkin's lab last year that's still causing us problems right now."
"How can that be?" The Mayor demanded, waving down the potential questions. "What are you talking about, what experiment?"
Hopper wasn't sure how he could even begin to explain the horrifying events of last year; all of those weird, terrifying experiences mixing with so many conspiracies of the government who were playing with fire, and what they'd done to El….
"Well, we're waiting, Chief," the Mayor said.
"Hey, what's happened to the Freak?" Joyce looked up in shock when two boys she recognised as Troy and James, who'd mercilessly bullied and harassed her youngest child and his friends since Day One noticed the state Will was in.
"That's enough!" Hopper stepped forward protectively.
"Is he behind all of this?" It never failed to amaze and disgust Joyce how quickly people could turn on one another, to say nothing of how illogical so many accusations were made. But in this case, she tightened her grip and glared fiercely at anyone who dared try to do anything.
She had never been so disgusted in her life. If any of these people whom she had known and grown up with tried anything, she would wrestle that gun away from Hopper and begin shooting, and fuck the consequences.
"He was getting treatment when the attack happened," Dustin ground out, stepping in front of his friend protectively. "We brought him here to keep him safe."
That part was largely true, and they knew it.
Will suddenly gurgled. "It's so hot…so hot….No…."
"Will, calm down," Joyce urged, but it was too late; Will's skin was becoming a mottled black, and the sight of it made everyone step back in horror and gasps of anger and fear reverberated through the hall.
"What's happening?"
"What's wrong with him!?"
"I always knew he was a freak-!"
"SILENCE!" A cold, high-pitched voice, so deceptively quiet, but echoed throughout the Hall snapped out of Will's mouth and everyone shut up as if someone had flicked a switch. Will looked around, his face and hair soaked with sweat. He looked around and snarled with disappointment.
"Where is the girl?" He demanded, his voice a bizarre mix of Will's, and the high-pitched cold voice.
"What girl?" Kline demanded, his mind racing with how he could satisfy this…this thing and save his own neck while making it look like he'd saved the town.
"Do not fool me! You do not know what I am saying through my host," the thing in Will dismissed Kline as he looked around, before focusing on Joyce and Hopper. "Where is the girl? I felt her mind. I saw her enter my domain."
"He must be talking about El," Dustin hissed to Lucas and Mike, but he wasn't quiet enough.
"Yes, El," the thing spoke mockingly before its voice turned serious. "Where is Eleven?"
"She's not here," Mike shook his head, unable to hide the sadness in his voice. "She walked into the Upside Down, and that was it," he added, hoping what he was saying wasn't the truth, that his feeling El had been outside was not an illusion, but he had no intention of telling this thing that.
The thing in Will smirked evilly. "So you don't know?"
"Know what?" Mike snapped.
"She got out. She found a gap in my domain, and re-entered this world."
"Mike, what's he talking about? What is going on?" Karen hissed, her eyes full of confusion and terror.
She loved Will, but this thing was more evil than anything she'd seen on TV and its very presence was oppressive and it made the back of her neck come out in goosepimples.
Will smirked. "Yes…Mike. Tell your…mother how you hid a supposed Russian girl with a shaven head in your basement den, only she was not Russian, but a girl this stupid country kidnapped and experimented on all of her life until she finally opened a hole into my domain after she mentally touched one of my subjects, and used her in turn to find my host's body."
"El's my friend!" Mike's shout stunned his family and the onlookers with how passionate he was. It also didn't escape their notice he didn't mention Lucas and Dustin, either.
Mike was furious but in his heart, it felt like he was floating.
El...El was still alive?
El wasn't in the Upside Down?
But then where was she?
Why hadn't she come back?
Was she okay now?
"What they did to her was disgusting! She was scared out of her mind, frightened of everything around her. She didn't have any human contact. They kept her in solitary confinement and made her claustrophobic. She didn't even know how to speak fully. Don't you dare insult her! Why do you want her anyway?"
The thing in Will made the poor boy smile. It came off more as a grimace that showed Will Byers was trying to fight it, and failing. "She is the only true threat," it said simply. "With her destroyed, there will be no way to stop the spread when the One is done."
"The spread? The One?" Mike repeated, his eyes widening in horror as his mind conjured more Demogorgons coming out of the Upside Down, this thing spreading even more. He shook his head, "We can't keep him like this; as long as this thing is in his head, those dogs-."
"Demodogs," Dustin corrected instantly.
"Will come for us." Mike finished, sending an annoyed look at his friend for the pointless interruption. "But who is the One?"
"How about now?" The thing in Will grinned maliciously, ignoring his question, and the walls of the town hall shook, cracks appearing and spreading on the walls. Holly and many of the younger kids screamed, and whimpered in fear.
And then…it just stopped. They just stopped.
"What are they doing?" Max whispered.
Mike shrugged while Lucas and Dustin both didn't know. Suddenly, something exploded into the room, from a hole in the wall, making everyone scream in fright, a dark thing flew over, crashing into the wall opposite. Then it went quiet outside.
The thing was one of the DemoDogs.
"Is it…dead?" Max asked Hopper.
Hopper prodded it with his gun. "Yeah."
"How did it come in?" Someone asked.
The sound of the locks on the door clicking open made everyone jump, and the cops in the room pointed their weapons at the doors. They opened slowly. Mike gasped in shock.
Petite, dark hair slicked back with eye makeup that made her look like a panda, making her look like a Goth…it might have been a year, but she had featured in so many of his dreams, that Mike was left paralysed.
Eleven was back, and she had eyes only for him.