Chapter 59: Night and Day
Eleven races down the hallway of Hawkins Laboratory. The lights are flickering above her as she flees barefoot for her life. She's dressed as she always was when with Papa… it's what made her a patient… an experiment… not a human being…
Her heart is pounding in her ears and her legs are exploding in pain from running so hard. The only other sounds are her bare feet slapping the linoleum floor and her pants mixed with sobs of fear and desperation. Her eyes occasionally fill with tears, blurring her vision and preventing her from seeing correctly. It distorted her vision and made the hallways she wanted to escape from looking worse. Her mind races with what she just escaped from. They wanted to do more medical tests on her including ones with big needles. She'd pushed the doctors away and fled. Their voices had called out for backup as she ran. Trying to escape Papa.
Eleven never dared to stop to try a door to try and hide, she knew they would all be locked.
Turning down another hallway, she finds a door with a big red exit sign… which never actually existed in the lab… or at least wherever she had been kept.
With little hesitation, she sprints towards it and grabs the handle. To her horror… it's locked!
She pounds on the door, desperate to escape them… She wants to scream out, but barely a sound can escape her lips due to her exhaustion from running and crying at the same time. Noises were approaching in the distance, and she slammed her hand on the door.
It takes a moment for her to realize that she should be using her telekinesis to open it. Quickly, she uses her powers to unlock it, hearing the footsteps of Papa's helpers getting closer.
The sound of a faint click was music to her ears.
However, when she uses her abilities to open the door, the dull fluorescent lights still flickering above cause Eleven to freeze in her tracks. A tall, looming figure stands in the shadows, a dirty silver jumpsuit with lots of ruffles and orange pom poms stretched over its thin frame. When the lights hit its face, the girl could see it caked in white make-up spreading up a sloped forehead that led to patches of messy orange hair and bright red lips. The red lips stretch up into a grin, showing uneven-looking teeth. It was all so familiar and it made Eleven even more terrified. The clown! The CLOWN!
The figure opens its eyes to reveal eerie yellow eyes that focus on the person in front of him.
His smile becomes wider.
"Want to see a neat trick?" the clown chuckled in a cheery voice.
Eleven backs away, tears pouring down her face. She holds her hands out in front of her to try and protect herself.
She's about to turn and flee the other way when several Hawkins Lab guards come around with batons or other kinds of weapons to subdue their runaway target.
Eleven lets out a shriek of terror as she is now trapped between two horrible things. She turned back to the clown as there was only one of him.
"I'm going to make them all disappear," he laughs.
His mouth begins to open wider than any human could go, showing rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth, ones that look like shark teeth. He then crouches down on all fours like a dog and then leaps.
Eleven ducks down and screams, but the clown leaps over her towards the guards.
The horror that erupts behind her is one she can't bear to see. The screams of the adults and the laughing of the clown as whatever happens… happens. Eleven keeps her eyes shut tightly and puts her hands over her ears to get rid of the horrible noises. She curls up into a ball and sobs hysterically.
When it grows dreadfully silent again, she doesn't want to remove herself from the safety of the fetal position, but she knows that the clown will come for her next as she was the only other living thing.
She slowly rises from the floor, seeing only glimpses of the horror as the tall clown stands there with his back turned facing her. There is blood everywhere… on the walls, on the doors, even the ceiling of the hallway. It was painted and looked like one of Dustin's horror movies.
Panting and still crying, Eleven slowly begins to back away towards the exit again, but keeping her eyes on the clown at all times. She goes as quietly as she can to avoid letting this monstrous creature that she's still in the hallway. Maybe IT thought that it got her too.
Sadly, it was wishful thinking as whether it was her breathing or a footstep or the beating of her terrified heart, the creature's head turned first. It turns completely 180 degrees, as Eleven had learned with Mia in math. His face is covered in blood, mixing with the white makeup but his eyes remain yellow. Then his body turns to join his head.
"Ta-da!" he smiles, revealing blood-soaked teeth. Globs of drool also leak out of his mouth. His hands and arms go out in a pose like he'd performed a magic trick.
The thing then wipes its mouth on its sleeve, smearing the blood and makeup even further.
"For my next trick… Want to see a floating trick?"
Eleven doesn't wait any longer. She flees towards the door and wrenches it open. She hopes that if she shuts the door, it will at least slow the monster down.
However, the minute she steps into the darkness, there is nothing beyond it and she plummets. Down, down, down into the void of darkness. Her scream is caught in her throat… either that or the void is so vast that sound doesn't even reach her ears. She feels utterly helpless, her limbs flailing as she cannot scream, not knowing if she will ever stop falling.
…
Eleven's bed slams down hard on the floor as she jolts awake. She's soaked in sweat and her blankets are tangled up in a mess. Once again, she's crying, and her entire body is pumped with adrenaline.
Max sits up on the floor out of her sleeping bag, panicked by the sound. The redhead had found the heat of the night so intense that the dirty floor and faded carpet of the cabin were more bearable. However, she was now questioning that as she swears El's bed went 3 feet in the air and nearly crushed her when she came down.
She hurries out of the sleeping bag, over to Eleven's vanity to turn on the lamp.
Both girls squint in the sudden light, but their eyes adjust quickly.
"Geezus what was that?" Max asks. She then notices her friend panting and shiny with sweat. "You look like hell. Are you okay?"
"I'm… fine…" El manages to get out, still panting. She wipes the sweat from her face.
"You sure? You don't look fine…" Max says
Just then the door bursts open and a sleepy Hopper hurries into the room wielding his gun around and in old pyjama pants and a white tank top, causing both girls to duck out of the way in case the weapon actually fired.
"I heard... I heard…" he stammers still just waking up. "What happened?"
"No officer. I won't answer any of your questions while you're holding two teenagers at gunpoint," Max says sarcastically. Even after just having woken up, she could still have some zingers. She's extremely worried about gun safety in this house. "Put the f*cking gun away!"
"I heard the noise. What happened?" he shouts, still trying to gather his thoughts while anger surges through him for not only at being woken up from a dead sleep but Max giving him attitude.
"A nightmare," Eleven admits. "And my bed moved when I woke up."
"Oh… geez," Hopper says. "Another nightmare. That's the fourth one in two weeks."
Eleven shrugs. "Sorry, Papa."
"It's all right kid. After what you did to your closet, I thought that was the worst it could get…"
"Uh, I'll believe you when I don't have a gun waved in my face!" Max shouts.
"The safety is on kid settle down," the chief grumbles. He lowers his service weapon and stands there rubbing his eyes to wake up more.
"Yeah, excuse me for not believing you when you barge in here like a maniac," the redhead continues.
"Are you just nastier at night?" Hopper retorts glaring at the girl. "Remind me never to wake you up at 2 am."
"Yeah, I'm always like this when I'm nearly crushed by a bed and threatened with a gun in the middle of the night."
"Okay, walking away now," Hopper growls, removing himself from the scene so he doesn't say what's currently in his head. "Try to go back to sleep if you can."
He then practically slams the door, causing the whole room to shake.
"Yeah, not likely after what I just saw," Max mutters. "I'll never be able to unsee any of that will I? I'm going to have to wash my eyeballs out with bleach."
El rolls her eyes and takes a sip of water from her nightstand.
"Are you sure you're, okay?" Max asks. "I mean your bed literally did almost kill me."
"I'm fine," Eleven insists, laying back on her pillows. "It just happens sometimes when I have nightmares."
"Yeah, well remind me to never be in the line of fire," the redhead adds, looking over where Hopper had tried and failed to put El's closet door back together with some kind of construction putty, but all it did was create a massive mess and make the old door uglier with splotches of putty. Apparently, he was ordering a new one. "Of either of you. I'm starting to miss sleeping in the same house as my asshole stepdad and stepbrother."
Eleven rolls her eyes once more and wipes more sweat from her brow. She felt disgusting. While she did sweat a lot with her bad dreams, the added heat did not help her. She looked like she'd been walking out in the rain.
The two friends sit in silence for a few minutes. The only sounds are the crickets outside and the occasional rustle of leaves. Not a sound from Hawkins could be heard out here and that was usually a good thing.
"So, you've been having nightmares for weeks?" Max asks.
Eleven nods.
"Do you want to talk about them?"
She shakes her head fervently and wipes more sweat from her face. She swallows heavily as well. She also pulls her fingers through her hair to get rid of the strands that stick to her forehead.
"Not right now…" is her reply.
"Okay, well maybe we should leave the light on," Max says softly. "Always helped me when I had nightmares."
"Thanks."
The two friends smile at each other before Max begins to get back into her sleeping bag. Due to the heat, she wasn't zipped up in, but it gave her a sense of security to have something protecting her. She also inches away from the bed to avoid any other potential bed-crushing incidents.
"Let's try to get some sleep if you can," Max adds. "If I can after seeing your dad like that."
Eleven just giggles and turns over her pillow. "Good night."
"Good night."
Cradling another pillow in her arms, El settles on her side away from the light, staring at the blank green wall of her room… Blank like the one at the lab, but at least this one was old, discoloured, cracked, painted a weird colour, and worn out. It "had character" as Papa phrased it. The place was old, drafty, and a little unsafe, but it was her home… a real home.
She waits patiently until the soft but heavy sounds of Max's breathing can be heard, meaning she's asleep. Eleven then takes the moment to reflect on her nightmare.
It mostly comes back in flashes, and it causes her heart to race. The desperate chase, her nearly running into the clown, his massacre of the guards and her plummeting into the darkness. It all made her squeeze the pillow tighter. What scared her the most was the clown… The voice was the same as what they'd heard last night over Cerebro. It taunted her as it taunted them. It laughed at her as it laughed at them. The more she thinks about it, the more certain El becomes that the clown on the radio is somehow stalking her in her dreams. How that is possible she could not begin to guess. From what Beverly, Ben and Bill told her, they don't know the extent of this monster's powers. Maybe he was like Kali/Eight and could make things appear in her mind. But she had to be close to doing that… did that mean…
El sits up and looks at the shade drawn over her window. She swallows as a small gust of wind makes the shade dance slightly in the light over her room. It seems to move on its own. For a moment, she imagines one of the gloved hands reaching through the window to grab her. She scrambles across her bed, away from the window and prepares herself in case she has to use her powers. If that clown was close by, she could still fight him if she had to.
However, nothing happens. The shade still flaps in the wind but nothing else happens.
Her hands are shaking severely, and her heart is threatening to break her rib cage, but El knows she can't look outside. She couldn't risk that thing… that IT… that clown from seeing her. Seeing her fear because according to the kids from Derry, that's what it wants the most.
She grabs her pillows and moves to the far end of her bed, away from the window and curls up. She forces herself to close her eyes and try to think about anything else but her nightmare.
…
When Monday comes along, the group reunites at the top of Weathertop after school. The wind had taken a turn and the cool air had given Hawkins a break from the strange early autumn heat. Eleven can't stand to look at the damage that she'd done to Dustin's precious Cerebro. She knew that it was his only way to talk to Suzie without causing long-distance charges. Apparently, Dustin had ignored said charges because he sucked it up and secretly called his girlfriend. He explained to her what happened, and it was a pretty brief conversation because she had to go to Temple that Sunday, but he vowed that he would do whatever he could to fix it and told her to keep checking her radio often. He knew his mom would freak out when she got the phone bill at the end of the month, so he was already thinking of ways to make some extra cash. Another stress on top of trying to fix the radio and stop an evil/murderous clown with shapeshifting powers and the return of the Demogorgon. Once again it was up to them to save the world… it was a heavy burden to carry.
According to Bill, there hadn't been any weird sounds in the house all weekend, nor had the lights done anything weird. Georgie actually slept in his room on Saturday night but was back to sleeping on the floor of his parent's bedroom by Monday… which Bill was okay with. The knowledgeable one of the family tried to observe from afar, maybe catch a glimpse of the creature, but Will warned him about getting too close. The creature would eat him or take him into the Upside Down if it wanted to. He couldn't risk anything for himself or his family.
"Do you think you can fix it?" Will dares to ask once Dustin has evaluated the extent of the damage.
The curly-haired teen looks up at his friends.
"It's going to take a lot of work, but with the right tools, it should be up and running again," he says.
"Until then, should we use the radio in the middle school to try and find IT again?" Ben asks.
"Wait, you actually want to find that thing again?" Lucas gasps in shock. "Did you not hear IT's message? IT wants to kill us all."
"We heard it, but we've heard that before," Beverly says. "It likes to threaten us because fear makes us taste better…"
Those from Hawkins cringe at that.
Bev shrugs. She'd faced this creature solo before, and IT hated when she wasn't scared any longer. "So, the less afraid we are, the better off we will be. We also know how to beat IT. Honestly; I wouldn't be surprised if it's threatening us because we kicked its ass last time."
"Excuse me for not being reassured," Lucas mutters.
"It's a g-go-good way to track IT," Bill adds. "M-Maybe we can l-learn more about IT's plan."
"We can't use the radio at the school," Dustin says.
"Why not?" Max asks.
"Not only would Mr. Clarke not believe that all of you are interested in helping the A/V club." He gives a pointed glance at Max. "But someone could overhear us and put us all at risk. Plus, a lot of the wiring is still fried, and I need to fix it."
The three boys who were with her give a glance at El. She'd fried the radio pretty badly when trying to find Will.
"F-Focus on C-Cerebro," Bill says. "We'll f-find some way to track IT over the radio."
Mike glances at Eleven for a moment, thinking that if she used her powers, she might be able to track or channel this thing, but never would he suggest such a thing. He doesn't want to put his girlfriend at risk for something they've never faced before.
"And how are we going to do that?" Ben asks. "Does anyone else in town have a giant radio centre that can reach long distances? Where would we find one?"
Something suddenly flashes through Bill's mind.
"I-I think I do," he says.
He begins to hurry back down the hill towards his bike with the others soon following, once again confused. This was the second time that Bill took off when he figured something out and hoped that this time, he wouldn't show them another picture of a Demogorgon.
A/N: Chekhov's Radio. The one in the Denbrough's basement. Another eerie nightmare for El and they appear to be getting more intense. Please follow and review. Let me know if you like the title of this chapter, or if you can suggest anything better let me know in your reviews.
GlaringEyes: (Response to Chapter 56/57) Yes, like peeling back the layers of an onion, slowly the final secrets of Hawkins will be revealed to the Loser's Club. You predicted correctly that Eleven will use her powers again and then it will all be revealed.
(Response to Chapter 58) Yeah, it is good that Steve knows that Mia didn't stand him up unintentionally. Robin, despite always giving him a hard time is a true friend and is there for Steve when he needs it most. Yes, communication is key. It's amazing how many problems can be and could be solved with a conversation. I do agree that Steve needed to confirm the date with Mia beforehand and yeah he is a bit of a hopeless romantic and was probably overexcited about going on another date again.
Yes, the MindFlayer is going to spread out and build itself up more for the coming battles.
Larry: Yes, I am looking forward to that too. I really admire the show always doing its best to weave all the separate storylines together and bring it all full circle. Some people might not like that kind of format, and that's okay, but I hope with my story I can achieve a similar effect. The teams will come together for a huge showdown.
I appreciate your compliment on my story too.
jackie: Yes, I will try to build on that too. They would make a good duo.
Jr: Small spoiler, yes all of the Loser's Club and the Party will unite to fight the threats. As for Hopper, no spoilers. Sorry.
44: Me too. They are fun to write. Hope you keep enjoying the story.
Naruto: Yes they are.
Raven: I haven't really thought about having Suzie come to Hawkins. She is good for some information here and there but I don't view her as too vital to the story at this point. Don't worry, you're allowed to have your opinion about bringing her and Mike Hanlon around and how the final battle should go down. I appreciate your interest in my story. If you have an ideas, don't be afraid to share them.