-8-
"What happened?" Eleven asked Kali, as they both watched the car skid off the road.
"I don't know," Kali watched as the people in the car started getting out, cursing and jeering at one another, yelling insults at the others, especially the driver for causing the crash. "Something on the road, perhaps," she said, not really caring about what the answer was.
Just as indifferent since the two girls had quickly learnt to fend for themselves, Eleven was about to suggest that they go off, and confront that man at the gas station and find out what was happening here, when she caught movement in the corner of her eye.
"Kali," she warned.
"What?"
"Look, there's someone over there," Eleven whispered as she pointed off, pointing in the direction of the woods. Kali looked in the direction Eleven directed her to, and she spotted a shadow of someone large, hidden by shadows of trees, bushes, and behind the foliage; Kali couldn't see too much, but they were moving slowly, and surely, through the woods, getting closer to the car and to the arguing people.
The sight of it made her heart seize slightly. She knew instantly that this was the reason the car had crashed, and why the man at the gas station had been so pleased they'd been alone. Kali cursed herself for being so open with a stranger when she should have known better than to talk, or give people too many red flags they would alert the authorities, even in a remote place like this.
"He knew," she hissed like an angry cat in realisation.
"Kali?"
"The man at the gas station. Don't you understand, Eleven? The man at the gas station must know about these…people, and what they're going to do. They must have done something to that car, and caused it to crash," Kali's anger at how all of this was happening was growing and growing.
Eleven caught on quickly, and she was getting angry as well. "He wanted us to die," she whispered, her mind spinning as she began to understand what was going on here slowly. "When we told him we didn't have any family, he must have thought he was lucky. But why? What's going on? Shall we stop what's going to happen?" She added, looking at her big sister.
Kali considered the question closely. Truth be told, Kali didn't really care, nor did she want to get involved with any normal people, even if she was curious about what was happening. She knew, whatever was going on, she and her sister were in mortal danger.
And so were these people, she realised.
Okay, while a part of her genuinely did not care for them, it was still something she knew.
A part of Kali wanted to see what was going to happen, the other part wanted nothing more than to take her sister and run, and the other part wanted to make themselves known to those down there, on the road. But the other part of her didn't want to risk endangering herself or Eleven to whatever was lurking in the woods.
Eleven turned her attention back to the road. The teenagers were still arguing. Everything they were saying was just so utterly pointless that she didn't really want to follow it.
"Kali, if you keep us invisible, we can sneak over to the other side of the road, go into the woods, and see who's there," Eleven pointed out quietly.
"And see who the man at the gas station's working with," Kali nodded. "Okay."
More blood trickled down from Kali's nostril as she maintained the mental screen which kept both her and her sister invisible and unseen. At the same time, Kali also made sure that when they made a sound or pushed some branches away, that it was just in their imagination if anyone noticed. But she needn't have bothered, since the teenagers were still fighting, pointing fingers of blame at each other for the mess they were still in, and they were too far from the person lurking in the woods for them to notice either.
Knowing that Kali's powers and her constant use of them were exhausting her, Eleven was starting to second-guess this idea. She didn't want Kali hurt, even to satisfy her own curiosity. But the girls both knew that this would have happened no matter what since they would have needed to be unnoticed if they made the return trip to the gas station.
The sound of the teenager's arguing was still loud and clear in the woods, and the two girls waited for the person stalking them to appear. They didn't have to wait that long, either while they both hid high up the tree they were hiding behind before Eleven used her powers to float them both to the top, to give Kali the chance to relax.
But they both looked down at the ground, waiting.
Eleven gasped in disgust. Kali, who was a little bit lightheaded from just how long her powers had shrouded them so they wouldn't be noticed, grimaced in disgust, and made a face.
The person who'd come into view was hideous. Their hair was lank, thinning, and unkempt. Their eyes were deep set, sunken, and they were deformed. Completely deformed. The figure was lumbering through the undergrowth as if he had problems moving properly. The figures' clothes were old, tattered, stained and so filthy the two girls, who possessed a really good sense of smell each since the sterile environment at the Hawkins' lab made their noses sensitive, and hold their noses even if he was below and a slight distance away. But as he passed them by, Kali and Eleven both saw him take something from some kind of carrier on his back.
An arrow!
He had slipped a bow off of his shoulder at the same time, and he was preparing to fire it, and they saw him move towards the teenagers….