Tales of the Wheeler Family
Chapter 1: The Invitation
It was a beautiful summer day. There wasn't a cloud or airplane in the sky to lessen any of the glorious beams of sunlight gently sent towards the surface of the earth.
El Wheeler was thanking God for this beautiful day as she stared out at the blue sky from the kitchen window. This is paradise, she thought to herself.
It still amazed her some days that this was her life. No longer experiment 11. Now a daughter, a wife and a mother. After rescuing Hopper from the Soviet Union, life had returned to normal. Hopper and Joyce married, the Party all graduated from High School in 1989, each going on to pursue their own paths.
Mike had gone on to become a writer of horror and Science Fiction using the pseudonym "Stephen King".
Dustin after finishing College finally met Suzy's Mormon parents. After the initial shock of him not being Mormon her parents had come around to Dustin and his likeable sense of humour. Dustin after finally marrying Suzy became a scientist working for NASA.
Will would also finish college and go on to become an animator for many children's show.
Max had gone on to work with organisations and charities aimed at getting children out of abusive homes as well as start her own skateboarding class, teaching young kids especially girls to skateboard.
Lucas would join the Indiana State Police Department before getting a job offer to join the Chicago Police as a detective. He and Max would eventually move to Chicago together but not before finally tying the knot as husband and wife.
El meanwhile had also graduated college, getting a diploma in Childcare. She was a very quick learner and despite her lack of a formal education under Brenner exceeded her teacher's and sometimes even Hopper and Mike's expectations. She and Mike would eventually marry and after the success of Mike's second book El would announce to her friends and family she was pregnant with their first child Sara, followed soon by Eleanor and finally James.
Unfortunately that paradise was soon interrupted by a loud echoing scream of "Mom!"
Sighing El turned away from the window as her 14 year old daughter Eleanor Wheeler came racing into the kitchen. Eleanor was short with blonde hair in small little ponytails. She was a bundle of joy and had large amounts of energy.
"Yes dear?"
"James is hogging the shower. Again." Eleanor said her little face frowning.
Of course "Tell him to get out, it's all most time for school. Where is your sister?"
"On her phone. I already did. He didn't listen."
"Tell your brother to get out of the shower then get ready for school. The both of you." El ordered looking at the nearby clock in the kitchen and realising the time.
"Fine." A pouty Eleanor said as she left the kitchen.
El smiled and made her way from the kitchen to the stairs. "Sara! School time!" She sang out hoping to get her eldest daughter's attention.
As usual there was no reply. Damn mobile phones El cursed as she reached the top of the stairs to where her daughter's room was. Knowing Sara wouldn't answer, El flicked her head to open her daughter's door.
Seated on her bed, Sara looked like a deer caught in the headlines, her phone as usual on her lap. Sara looked almost exactly like El, right down to the curly brown hair she had once had in '84. She had also inherited her father's tallness and towered over the rest of her siblings much to her delight.
"Oh my god Mom! Have you never heard of privacy?" She yelled as she prepared to slam the door closed.
"Honey, have you never heard of listening? I need you to get ready for–" Before she could finish Sara had closed the door again.
El sighed. "Get her a phone, you said. It will be fine, you said. All teenagers have them, you said. We did and look what happened! Our daughter became a moody, texting monster!" She said to herself remember back to how Mike had managed to convince her to give Sara a phone. BIG MISTAKE!
"Mike! Are you ready? We have to drop the kids off!" El sang out as loudly as she could.
A knock came from the front door. Just what I need "Eleanor! Can you see who that is for me please?"
"But you told me to get ready for school!" Eleanor yelled back.
"Just do it please!"
"Fine." A half dressed Eleanor said as she raced down the stairs.
"It's the postman! He has a letter for Daddy!"
"Yes thank you dear. I hear you. No need to shout." El reminded his daughter. "Can you get it so I can give it to your father?"
"Here." Eleanor said as she handed the letter to her mother.
"Thank you. Now go get your brother okay?"
Eleanor nodded and made her way to the kids shared bathroom. "James! Mom says it's time to get ready for school. James?"
As she crept into the bathroom, a figure dressed in black suddenly jumped out in front of her causing Eleanor to let out a blood-curdling scream. It was James, dressed head to toe in a Darth Vader costume.
"Bow before the Dark Lord!" He said.
"MOM!"
"What?" El said making her way back down the stairs to see what was going on.
"James scared the shit out of me! Dressed as Darth Vader."
"Eleanor language!"
"But Daddy says it all the time in his office."
"Well Daddy shouldn't be saying it and you shouldn't be listening to him." El replied making a mental note to tell Mike to watch his language around the kids.
"James, take the mask off and get ready for school."
"Who is this James? You will address me as Lord Vader!" James said speaking dramatically.
"Very funny but you have school."
"School? Ha! Lord Vader has rebel scum to crush!"
Suddenly James's Vader mask came flying off his face into El's outstretched hand. "School. Now."
Beneath the mask El could now see her son's face. He looked the spitting image of Mike at that age with the dark hair, wide eyes and a mischievous smile. He wasn't frightened by his mother's display of her powers – none of her children were. Growing up they had all seen displays of El's powers and accepted it as something that was "normal" at least for their mother. Mike and El hadn't told the kids about Brenner and Hawkins Lab – only that their mother was "special" and that they couldn't tell anyone about her powers not even friends. The children had agreed especially James who had grown up watching Sci-Fi Star Wars, Star Trek, and the X-Files. It delighted him that his mother had "the Force" and could "move thing with your mind". James certainly takes after his father, El thought.
"Fine. But can I at least bring the lightsaber with me please?" James begged.
El shock her head. "No. Last time that happened, we got a call from the principal's office about you trying to impel students. Now go get dressed."
James nodded and made his way up the stairs to his room followed close by Eleanor.
Finally there was silence in the Wheeler household again.
Realising she still had the letter addressed to Mike, El made her up back up the stairs to a room adjutant from their bedroom. This was Mike's office/study.
The room was filled with stacks of pages of manuscripts both finished and unfinished. Several photographs of El and their children were scattered throughout the room as well as ones with Nancy, Holly, Karen and Ted.
Mike was seated at his desk typing away on the large computer that took up most of his desk. He had grown his thick black hair out, it now reached almost to the back of his neck. Mike had taken to writing horror and science fiction after finishing college. His big break had been with his first novel "Carrie."
Composed on a portable typewriter El had bought him for his 14th birthday, Carrie had began life as a short story but after a discouraging spell of Writer's block, Mike had attempted to discard his idea by tossing the first three pages in a garage can. But it had been El who had encouraged him to finish the idea, promising to help him write from the feminine perspective. Mike reluctantly agreed and wound up finishing the story by expanding it into an epistolary novel. He and El were in such dire financial straits that when Carrie was picked up by Doubleday Books to be published in 1993, the phone line in their trailer had been disconnected and it would be weeks before Mike would even know his novel had been accepted.
Carrie would launch Mike's career and become a significant novel in the horror genre in its own right. Mike, now under the pseudonym "Stephen King", would follow up Carrie with 1995's Second Coming, a novel which wonders what it might look like if Count Dracula settled in a sleepy town in rural Maine, 1997's The Shining, 1998's The Stand; and the beginning of a new series of novels which would serve as a sort of fusion between Tolkien's Middle Earth and the American Wild West. The Dark Tower series, as it came to be know, would become a fan favourite among Mike's devotee's and a masterpiece.
With the money he made, Mike and El would move to New York and buy a house in Forest Hills.
"Mike? Didn't you hear me?"
"Sorry El I was writer mode. What were you saying?" Mike asked turning away from the computer to face his wife.
"I said we need to leave to drop the kids off. Plus you have a letter. Also you were wrong to convince me to get Sara a phone. She's on it all the time." El replied.
"I have a phone, you have a phone. Everyone has a phone. I'm sure it's not that bad."
"She hardly listens to me now. Too busy texting people."
"What people? Who?"
El shrugged."I don't know."
"You don't think she might have a...boyfriend?" Mike asked dreading the very idea. He'd rather deal with evil Russians and the Mind Flayer than some teenage dating his daughter. Now I know how Hopper felt
"I wouldn't even know that."
"Great. Just what we need, some teenage kid trying making out with our daughter."
"Maybe you can scare him off with Pennywise." El joked making reference to the clown villain from his book IT.
"Wouldn't that be great?"
"Dad! We're ready!" James sung out.
"Let the rat race begin." Mike said as he and El made their way down the stair to where their children were waiting for them.
After dropping their three kids off at school (during which James made the mistake of revealing to his mother that Mike had actually based the Turtle in IT on her much to her annoyance) the pair was finally able to enjoy the peace and quiet of the Wheeler house.
"A turtle Mike really? You made me a turtle?"
Or at least Mike was trying was still annoyed at finding out she was the turtle in IT.
"What? That turtle saved the Losers Club! Just like you did when you closed the Gate. I thought you'd be flattered."Mike explained. "Please don't dump my ass."
"Well considering we're married and have three kids your stuck with, Mr Wheeler." El said as she rested her head against his body.
"I can live with that."
"If anything I'm more like Carrie." El replied.
"Why? Because she goes crazy and killed half the school?"
"I've killed people before." El said as if she was discussing the weather.
"Bad people." Mike corrected her.
"Half the people at that school were bad. What they did to poor Carrie? And her mother? How could she hurt her own daughter?" El closed her eyes for a minute as if she was contemplating the pain that Carrie had endured.
"Hey you know it's just a novel right?" Mike said.
"Yes but you based it off me. I have almost the same powers as Carrie. I was hurt by Brenner just like Carrie was with her mother. I could have been like Carrie if you, Dustin and Lucas hadn't found me."
"But you weren't." Mike reminded her taking her hand in his.
"Thanks to you." El said lightly kissing his forehead.
"You're welcome." Mike said as he separated from her hands to pick up the letter.
"This isn't fan mail is it? Last thing I need is people asking me for a lock of my hair or how I get my ideas."
"Why would they want your hair?" El asked puzzled.
"I don't know! Some fans are nice and friendly and others less so. This is exactly why I chose a pseudonym in the first place. So no one would know the real me."
"So does that make me Mrs King?" El teased.
"Hell yeah it does." Mike said as he opened the envelope and took out the letter.
Quickly giving it a quick read, he groaned."I'd prefer the fan mail."
"Why? What's it say?" El asked.
"A school reunion for the class of '89."
"That's great! Let's go."
"Are you kidding? I don't want to set foot back in that school." Mike said as he crumpled the letter into a ball.
"What? Oh come on it'll be fun. We can drop the kids off at your parents and see the Party again."
"We're not going. Why would I want to go back to Hawkins? The place is a dump." Mike said. As if on cue, his mobile phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Mike, it's Lucas. Are you and El going to the reunion?"
"Hi Lucas no we're not."
"What? Why not?" Lucas's voice replied.
"Is that Wheeler? Put him on." Mike heard Max say.
"Listen Wheeler you and El are going to this reunion." Max ordered.
"Yeah come on Mike everyone else is. Dustin, even Will." Lucas said.
"Wait Will's going?" Mike wasn't expecting Will to attend the reunion given everything that had happened to him.
"Yeah. He called me straight away and said he was coming." Lucas explained.
"He called? I haven't spoken to him since graduation."
"We can ask him about it when we see him. Dustin's even going to bring Suzy."
Before Mike could reply, his phone began buzzing alerting him to an incoming call. "Hang on I got another call. Hello?"
"Hello Michael." A familiar voice on the other line answered.
"Mom." He said loudly so El would know who it looked at him, unsure of what would happy. Mike loved his mother of course but recently they hadn't been on good speaking terms.
"Please tell me you're going to this reunion."
"Wait how do you know about the reunion?"
"I helped plan it, Michael. Now please tell me you coming."
"No."
"Why not? Ted and I will watch the kids while you and El go meet up with your friends. You can stay the night. It would be a good chance for us to...talk."
"I don't think so Mom. Every time you and I try to talk it ends in an argument remember? It's why you and Nancy don't talk anymore."
"Yes well it would be a good opportunity to clear the air...between us."
El looked at mike shaking her head yes while Mike shook his head no much to El's frustration. She desperately wanted her husband to reconcile with his mother.
"Look Mom I don't think that's going to happen. I got Lucas waiting so I gotta go. Bye." Mike said as he ended the call.
"Lucas? Sorry about that it was my mom. Listen I'm going to be too busy with writing to go. Say hi to the rest of the part for me. Bye." Mike said as he abruptly ended the call before Lucas could even get a word in. He looked up at El, who had her arms crossed and gave him a disappointed look.
"You can go but I'm not."
"Yes you are. We're both going."
"What? Why?"
"It's the perfect opportunity for you to clear thing with you mom. Plus we can see the old gang again."
"Look if you want to talk to my mom and catch up with the Part that's fine. But I'm not going to the reunion." Mike said definitely.