-8-

Fred screamed all the way through the Upside Down, scared by the quick flashes of weird lightning and the flashes of the wildlife, and the weird, twisted plant things in the Upside Down version of the desert.

Fortunately for the state of mind of Eleven, Will, and Mike, who were starting to regret bringing the old man with them, even if it saved his life from Jupiter's vengeance, the journey was over in a flash. When they appeared in the desert, by the pizza van, El and the others looked around for any signs of Argyle and Jonathan; to their relief, they were there, a small pile of junk right in front of them.

"Hey, guys!" Jonathan greeted them.

"Yo, what's up, my dudes!" Argyle was just as bubbly as always, with a slightly dazed and vacant look in his eyes, and Will felt his stomach sink, wondering why they bothered, nonetheless, Argyle had been a great friend, he had helped them get El back from Owens and Brenner and the military, and then he had helped them get into the pizza parlour. But there were moments when Will wished the guy knew when to keep off whatever it was that made him smoke his head off.

Fortunately, Jonathan was clear-headed now. "Why did you bring him here?" He asked, pointing at Fred, who was looking around now, with a shell-shocked look on his face as he tried to figure out how they had arrived.

"It was all a big trap, Jonathan," Will snapped as he helped his best friend and sister drop the rope to the ground. "These hills, it was all a trap, and this bastard knew the dangers here."

"What dangers?' Jonathan was confused. They'd only been gone 10 minutes, what the hell happened?

"There's a gang of cannibals in the mountains, Jonathan. The Department of Energy experimented on the people who lived here, and anyone who was pregnant, their kids became monsters," El explained grimly as they faced this latest mess from the Department of Energy.

"What?" Jonathan hissed.

"And when El says monsters, she means it; we saw one of them, he, like, burst into the window. He was enormous!" Mike added. "People have been dying out here ever since, just for these things to eat."

"What?"

"Humans don't taste nice," Argyle smiled, making the others stare at him, confused.

Casting suspicious looks at Argyle, wondering what kind of effect the drugs had on his head and how long he would be like this, Will said, "They kept Fred here alive, just so then he could make sure people came to this road."

"Did he now?" Jonathan's voice was full of danger, as he glared over at the still shaken Fred, but the old man was still not affected.

"Fred said, his own son Jupiter, almost killed his mother when she gave birth to him. He was big, hairy like a monkey. When he was just 10, he was as big as Fred is," El said grimly.

"So, we leave now?" Jonathan asked hopefully, casting a glance over at the hills and the rocky valley. He strained his eyes, hoping to pick up any movement, any slight sign of it, but there was nothing; that could have meant anything though, if these people had lived in the mountains, they would have learnt how to move slowly, keeping low and out of sight. For all they knew, there could have been someone out there, coming slowly towards them, and they wouldn't even realise until it was too late.

They had no weapons, no guns, no bats with long nails hammered into it. They had no bombs, nothing to use in a fight; while they hadn't been a problem in the past, it was still distressing; they had the supplies they'd gotten from further down the road, but could they come up with some kind of weapon they could all use?

Give them time, and they could come up with something.

They had El, but she had just gotten her powers back. The last thing they wanted was to be stranded out here, not when there was so much at stake.

"What do we do?" Jonathan asked.

"There are kids out there, Jonathan. They were captured by the cannibals," El said, drawing out the word cannibals; it wasn't a word she had in her typical vocabulary.

Jonathan and the others had known El for a long time now. They knew only too well what was going through her mind right about now. She liked to help people.

"Do you think you can find them, El?" He asked.

"I got a good look at the thing that came in through the shed; if I focus on him, I might get an idea of what to look for," El replied, but she did look uncertain. "The problem is I can focus on them, but there are some of them, according to Fred, who are different. Fred says every one of them here is like a bunch of wild animals, like Demogorgons. But I think I can find them, getting to them, getting to the survivors, that will be hard." El bit her lip. "I'm going to have to kill them, all of them, just so I can get to them."

"Are you sure you can believe him, El?" Will asked.

Will was only slightly embarrassed and yet completely indifferent at the same time when Fred, who'd just snapped out of his stupor, glared angrily at them, but mostly at him.

"I am not lying, boy!" He growled, storming over to Will, who looked slightly intimidated now, but Jonathan quickly got in front of him.

"Leave my brother alone!" Will growled, even angrier than Fred. "If anything happens to him, my friends, and my adoptive sister….I will fucking kill you," his muscles were tensed, ready for a fight.

But he shouldn't have been worried.

All of the fight had drained out of Fred's body and soul, and all he had left was just idle bluster. He felt the bile rising in his stomach, along with the nigh insane laughter of a man who was beaten and could see the funny side.

He did laugh, though but it appeared his body had run out of laughs. All that was left, was him leaning against Argyle's van, sobbing.

El watched him, a little bit sympathetically, but at the same time, she felt he deserved it. She turned to the others. "I'll do my best to track down those kids," she muttered and she got back inside the van.

The End of this part.