Disclaimer - I don't own either Stranger Things or The Hills Have Eyes. I was inspired to write this and have wanted to write it for a while after a chat on AO3 with another crossover. It just seemed appropriate. The Carter family won't appear in this collection of short stories, which will be released like a serial collection.

Enjoy!

-8-

"I don't believe this!" Jonathan hissed with disgust as he sent a glare at the sheepish but still slightly smiling Argyle. "I told you last night not to smoke anything, and what happens, we're lost!"

"Hey man, I'm sorry!" Argyle apologised for what felt like the umpteenth time.

"Sorry's not good enough, not this time Argyle. Our friends are in danger!" Jonathan wasn't shouting nor screaming, but he was on the point of hysterics, not helped by his own drug intake while he thought about Nancy, Dustin, Lucas, and the others. But mostly about Nancy, especially about how he had been treating her lately.

In the back of the van, Will and Mike were sitting near Eleven while she sat in the lotus position, two small portable radios they'd bought earlier playing static with a blindfold over her eyes. Both teenage boys just watched as she submerged herself into her newest trance.

Will leaned towards Mike. "Do you think this will work?" He asked quietly.

Equally as quietly Mike replied, "No reason why it shouldn't. She's done this before."

"I know, but has she ever looked for someone over vast distances?" Will asked Mike pointedly.

Mike bit his lip. "Well, she helped Max, didn't she? Okay, so it was from California to Hawkins, but the point is it worked."

Will opened his mouth, but Eleven stiffened. It had taken her a while to find Joyce, she was seriously out of practice and she had begun believing that Brenner had a point, she had needed time to retrain herself to use her powers, but at the time she had been so desperate to return to Hawkins and to save Max and the others before they made the mistake of going after One, who was stronger than them all.

"I've found your mother. I've found Joyce," Eleven announced.

In the cab, Jonathan stiffened. "Is she okay? Where is she?"

"She's in Russia with Murray. I can see him," Eleven replied. "They….," a massive smile spread across Eleven's face. "It can't be!"

"What? El, what is it?" Will demanded.

"El, what's wrong?" Mike asked more gently.

Eleven's smile hadn't faded a bit. "Hopper. He's there!"

"Who?" Argyle looked confused despite being out of it a little.

"El's adoptive father," Jonathan said shortly, now was not the time to go in-depth about what their history was.

But Eleven's good news soured and became bad very quickly. "They're fighting in a prison."

Mike shrugged. "I guess that makes sense, if they're in a prison then Hopper's an inmate, and they'd need to break him out of it."

But El had stiffened and gasped in horror. "No, it's worse than that. The Russians aren't the problem. There are Demogorgons there, and a piece of the Mind Flayer there."

"What?" Will felt a thrill of fear rush through his system; he had so many terrible nightmares about his time in the Upside Down when he'd been kidnapped and dragged there - even now, he had no idea how he had survived before El found him when she'd extended her mind to reach out and find him and Barb, and even now he felt the strong guilt that he hadn't even known about her own fall into that awful reality - but the Mind Flayer was even worse.

The hive mind of the Upside Down had possessed him, and used him as a spy, and so many people had died as a result.

"How the hell did a piece of the Mind Flayer, and Demogorgons find their way to Russia? How did Hopper even come to be there?" Mike demanded.

"I don't know," El managed to say while she concentrated on being in two places at once while she delved deep into her memories of that terrible mess at Starcourt before Billy gave his life to stop the threat for good. "Joyce told us that Hopper had been fighting close to the Russian's collider; maybe they had something similar in Russia and they were trying to keep up their experiments there."

"But how did he get there in the first place, unless the Upside Down works like hyperspace in Star Wars?" Will said before he answered his own question with a spark of realisation.

Mike thought he understood at least. "You mean you go through one point in the Upside Down from our space, and then we come out somewhere else? But we've gone into the Upside Down, and it doesn't work like that," Mike said.

Will shrugged and gave up. "I dunno," he had another idea, "El, do you think if we stopped and you concentrated hard enough, you could open a hole into the Upside Down towards where Mom, Hopper and Murray are, and bring them here?" He asked.

El was silent as she struggled to concentrate. Being in two places mentally and physically was always confusing, and it always felt as if people were speaking to her underwater, and so she had to focus on the questions to concentrate on them.

"I don't know," El replied. "I've never tried something like that before. Besides, they're almost finished. Hopper's finished cutting up the Demogorgons…wait, it's changed. It looks like they're getting on a flight."

"That quickly?"

"I dunno. The fight at the prison could have happened days ago for all I know; bear in mind I haven't done this in a while," El said before she took a deep breath, signifying she was coming out of her trance. "I'm coming out," she added before she slipped off her blindfold, casually wiping her nose of the blood.

Will turned off the radios. "How are you feeling?" He asked her gently.

"Better. But the sooner we get back to Hawkins the better."

"I know."

"We'd get there faster if Argyle wasn't stoned at all hours of the day and night," Mike finished with a disgruntled glare towards the man. But El was more compassionate than that. More patient. While she knew the urgency was there, arguing amongst themselves was not really going to help them.

And besides…

Besides, El had had more than enough of the blame game to last a lifetime. She was already blaming herself for what happened between her battle with One years ago when he revealed his true identity, never mind his true history and what he wanted. She already blamed herself for what had happened to Max, to Chrissy, and everyone else One had killed just to get back to this world, and she had turned a lot over to Brenner.

But deep down, El knew only too well One would have come out of the Upside Down anyway.

"Don't blame him too much, Mike," El's voice was quiet. "We'll get there, but it won't do any good for Hawkins."

Will, Jonathan, Mike and Argyle were aware of what had happened to Hawkins; they'd heard it on the news before the distance and their location had made it impossible to get clear radio broadcasts that Hawkins had been hit by what they thought to be an earthquake, but they knew better.

The barriers between worlds had been broken, and Hawkins was now bleeding the Upside Down.

Suddenly Jonathan saw something ahead.

"Look, a gas station," he nodded ahead at a small white building in the distance, "we'll stop there and get some gas and some directions. With luck, we can be on the right road and stay there."

Argyle wisely kept silent.