Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The sound of heavy breathing pelted the backdrop of distant screams.

He was running, running, running and he wasn't quite sure from what.

Monsters appeared from every corner. Those weren't the things that made his heart race, his blood started to turn in his skin. It was the faces. Gaunt, bloody, evil and desperate for release from the hell they existed in, they appeared.

Chrissy was always first. She'd cry, and then the sounds of bones cracking would rattle in his skull and he'd relive how she'd tumbled down the hill and landed, skin purple and torn and her eyes rolled back into her skull.

He had no information on how Fred and Patrick looked, but it was almost certain that they were in a similar situation when they'd died. The images were almost worse that way. They were more imaginative, less solid, but they were horrifying and full of blood and pus and gore and anything else that his imagination could supply.

The energy in his heart as it pumped as hard as it could made the ringing in his ears only that much worse, his calves aching from running and landing on the dull, hard ground of the Upside Down as he ran from the monsters.

Nothingness came next. Big, open, thundering fields as black and red clouds loomed in the distance, beckoning the damned man closer, towards even more people he'd hurt and even killed. Empty faces of those lost in the quake passed him by as he saw a face he did know, one he never thought he'd wish he could still see.

He tripped. He winced as his hands were enveloped in blood and dirt, the smell of bleach filling his nostrils. The body was beyond recognition, but as he scrambled to find his footing he landed on a red first aid bag and a yellow lifeguard’s whistle. Heather.

Bloody, broken, and torn apart, the once adversarial Steve Harrington lay dead in the grass, eyes glassy and marred by blood and muscle that had broken free in the attack. No sure image of how he'd actually looked when he died, so the imagination was doing its job for him.

He heard a scream, and ran to help. He tripped over the body on his way. A tendril wrapped around his foot. He watched Nancy and Robin get flung, eyes rolled back into their heads.

And then, he was running again. Dreams were weird like that. The yelling didn't sound familiar, but he knew it was Max. She was somewhere, and she was hurt, and there was still a chance to save her.

Barreling through the woods, he wasn't sure what to expect. It wasn't Castle Byers.

The creaky old shack that had been built out of sadness and turned into something beautiful, only to be torn down again in a moment of haste, of anguish and anger. It was never his to mourn. The shivering figure inside sang a familiar tune to himself. His little yellow and red puffer vest did very little to shield his cold, wet body from the elements, much less the monsters that lurked around every corner. They seemed much bigger from inside the Castle.

Wracked with motion, the scene and Castle Byers were demolished in one fell swoop as a large, dripping monster made of flesh and meat loomed above him. A mess of hair and a yellow shirt appeared, screaming to try and keep the thing at bay. She was knocked to the ground, blood dripping, crying for help as the monster loomed over, closer and closer, snarling as it unhinged its jaw and growled in anger. In hunger.

It was going to be his fault.

No, no, no, no-

"Jonathan? Jonathan!"

Rain pattered against the one small window in the basement of the radio station. The curtains that hid the nook where their beds were stayed open at night so they could see natural sunlight while they slept. It was still dark outside now, though.

El was shaking his shoulder. Jonathan turned, his threadbare blankets all bunched up at the far end of his cot.

"What? What?" Jonathan said, panicked.

"You were screaming," El explained, concern imminent on her face even in the low light of the night. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm okay…" Jonathan rubbed his eye. "Nightmares."

"I understand."

"Yeah."

Of course she did. El understood better than fucking anyone. Jonathan figured he looked downright silly to her.

"I'll be okay. I'm sorry I woke you." Jonathan insisted, placing a hand over where El's sat on his shoulder.

El furrowed her brow. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," Jonathan said with a little laugh in his voice. "As good as I can be, at least. We'll both be worse off if we don't try and go back to sleep."

He could tell she didn't quite believe him. But, the clock on the table between their beds read 3:24 A.M. and she knew he wasn't wrong about needing sleep. So, she slowly stood. In the flickering light of the lamp she'd turned on, Jonathan could see the name HENDERSON written in big letters across the back of the old t-shirt El wore to sleep. He smiled. It was kind of cute, he couldn't lie.

She looked back before Jonathan had a chance to look away. It was clear that El was not in the mood to go back to bed, if only for the fact that she knew Jonathan would never talk about this again if he could avoid it. That was how most of these nights had gone since they'd shared a room. Forty percent of the time, one of them would have a nightmare. Only about ten percent of the time would they actually talk about it.

Jonathan turned the lamp off once El was back in her bed. Tonight was not a talking night.

The things I believe can't all be true, though one of them must be. But I believe in them, all three versions of Luke, at one and the same time. This contradictory way of believing seems to me, right now, the only way I can believe anything. Whatever the truth is, I will also be ready for it.

This is also a belief of mine. This may also be untrue.

One of the gravestones in the cemetery near the earliest church has an anchor on it and an hourglass, and the words "In Hope".

In Hope. Why did they put that above a dead person? Was it the corpse hoping, or those still alive?

Does Luke hope?

Erica was in bed, reading the words aloud to herself when the brrt-brrt-brrt of an alarm clock came muffled through the bedroom wall. She knew it wouldn't be heard. Rolling her eyes, Erica knocked on the wall with a fist, and got up as soon as she heard a thud! on the other side. She stuck a bookmark in her book and placed it next to her backpack, along with her return library books.

The flashlight that sat on her window sill came next. Pressing it to her bedroom window, Erica flickered the torch on and off three times in a row. Then, she waited.

From next door, a light flashed in the second story three times in steady succession. Satisfied, Erica set the flashlight down and turned to face her meticulously organized bedroom. Her day could begin, so long as Lucas got his ass up on time.

She clicked her favorite cassette into her radio and let music inform her day. A good day. Erica only had those when she made them. Her mom would yell at her for playing her Janet too loud and not eating enough of her breakfast, but to Erica, it was all in a good day's work.

One house over, Holly Wheeler was enthralled in the last few pages of her own book. Holly eagerly thumbed the pages, her eyes betraying her and falling to the ends of the paragraphs before she had even finished them. This was her favourite book, bar none. It was her third read through that year. Even if this particular passage was one of the sadder parts.

“I wanted you to do it all for me. I wanted everything to be all easy and simple…So I tried to pretend that it was all your fault...because I was scared, and I didn’t want to have to do anything myself—”

“But I wanted to do it for you,” Mr. Murry said. “That’s what every parent wants.” He looked into her dark, frightened eyes. “I won’t let you go, Meg. I am going.”

“No.” Mrs Whatsit’s voice was sterner than Meg had ever heard it. “You are going to allow Meg the privilege of accepting this danger. You are a wise man, Mr. Murry. You are going to let her go.”

Mr. Murry sighed. He drew Meg close to him. “Little Megaparsec. Don’t be afraid to be afraid. We will try to have courage for you. That is all we can do. Your mother—”

“HOLLY!” Karen’s voice boomed from the bottom of the stairs. Shoot! She was running late again. “I need you to round the troops!”

“COMING!” Holly shouted back. She groaned, dog earring the page for later. She bounded over to her bedroom window, grabbing her flashlight off the bookshelf and giving Erica her signal.

Once satisfied, Holly rushed out of her room and began knocking on doors. Nancy’s, then Mike’s, and then down the stairs to the basement to get up Will and Mrs. Byers. It was one of Holly’s little tasks.

It was kind of fun having such a full house. It wasn’t that big a change, after all, other than getting two mom’s attention and having Will over for an extended sleepover. She didn’t understand why her dad seemed so annoyed about it. But Holly paid him no mind. Once everyone was up, Holly scampered into the kitchen.

“Sweetie, can you set the table for me?” Joyce asked, handing Holly some plates. She and her mom were in the process of cooking. They liked to work together. It made her mom seem a little brighter in the mornings.

“On it!” Holly said, excited to have a job. She loved helping.  

Holly narrowly avoided crashing into Will who had just come up the stairs, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. Holly thought he looked better ever since he had a haircut. She had not been impressed by the long shaggy look.

“Sorry, Hols,” Will said, putting his hands up, giving her a goofy smile.

“All good!” Holly said, maneuvering under his arm to set the table. She noticed Mike in the corner of her eye, stretching and yawning. He was wearing that long, baggy navy sweater he always had on these days. Holly thought it swallowed him like a tent.

Holly thought she had gotten used to seeing his face like this, but it still scared her. In her heart, she knew it wasn’t coyotes that hurt her brother, it was the monsters. But Erica wouldn’t tell her anything anymore, and Mike didn’t like to talk about it. Still, Holly knew better.

She finished setting the table, and hugged Mike from behind.

“Hey, let go,” Mike said, not fighting her. “I have to take a leak.”

“Ewww!” Holly laughed.

Breakfast was chaotic as usual. Her family had never been quiet, which was good for Holly because it usually meant she got lost in the shuffle. It gave her more time to read her book. She was just fine with blending in.

“Holly? Holly?” Her dad said, his voice increasing in volume. Holly jumped, putting her book down on the table. He was cross already. Holly gave him a guilty smile before handing the bacon to Nancy to pass to Joyce to pass to Ted. Then she was absorbed back in her book.

“Holly, we’ve got to go,” Mike said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Put that thing down. We’re gonna miss the morning broadcast.”

“Oh!” Holly said, frantically shoving her book into her backpack. And just like that, she, Mike and Will were leaving for the day. She heard her dad make a snide comment from the doorway, though she let it brush off her shoulders. That was just what he was like.

She waved eagerly at Erica from across the street. Erica gave her a nod, a small smile appearing on her face. Erica didn’t talk as much as she used to, but Holly didn’t mind. She had been her favourite person to see for years, quickly followed by their school librarian, and then maybe Mike and Nancy if they were lucky.

“Morning, Barbie,” Erica said as she got on her bike. Lucas gave her a nod as well.

“Good morning,” Holly greeted. The five of them started pedaling to school, as Will turned on the morning broadcast on his radio.

“Happy Halloween, Hawkins. I’m your host Rockin’ Robin on this very spooky Friday morning here at the Squawk,” Robin said into the microphone. She spun in her chair with a ghost cue card in hand.

The sound effect that followed was certainly not what she’d been anticipating as a loud HONK! played instead. Goose, not ghost. Robin shot her sound guy a frown. Jonathan gave her an apologetic look. At least it was on theme for Squawk.

“I’ve gotta say, the chilly air this morning has been much more tolerable than the last few months of whatever came out of the ground after the earthquake. Can you believe it’s been seven whole months since quarantine began? Well, I certainly can, because today is my 215th broadcast. That is just about fifty weeks of hearing my lovely voice.”

A cheering sound played. Robin gave Jonathan a thumbs up.

“But today isn’t about me, it’s about all the kiddos out there ready to go trick-or-treating. I know that quarantine has been hardest on the youngest of us, but tonight is your night! Get out there, have fun, and stay on the path. Eat some candy, go into a sugar coma, and rinse and repeat,” Robin said. “We have a very fun morning lined up, with spooky tunes heading your way all day long.”

She was giving Jonathan another chance to play the ghost cassette, but to his horror, he still couldn’t find it. He fumbled around, looking for it through the various cassettes, before it flew right into his hands in the nick of time. Jonathan let out a sigh of relief, pushing it into the cassette player. He turned to look at his helper over his shoulder, mouthing the words ‘thank you.’ El smiled back.

The door opened to the radio shack. Nancy must have arrived. She was just in time.

As soon as El heard the coffee maker ding, she rushed over to the counter. She had everyone’s orders memorized down pat. First, she grabbed the brown mug, adding lots of evaporated milk and sugar. Jonathan. Next, she grabbed the light blue cup and added some milk and a bit of sugar. Robin. The pink mug only needed the lightest splash of milk and no sugar at all. Nancy. Lastly, was the purple mug, El’s. She had never been a fan of coffee before living at the shack. Now, it gave her something to do, and she liked being part of the routine. Now, she couldn’t imagine her mornings without it. She added a spoonful of hot chocolate mix to her cup and an extra splash of milk.

A week earlier, Robin had brought El a bag of Halloween decorations so she could get the shack ready for the Holiday. She had been sick of her ‘schoolwork,’ so El delighted in the opportunity to do something fun. Inside was a bag of googly eyes that El thought was hilarious. She had never seen them before. A day later, she had put googly eyes on just about everything. Robin’s microphone, the bathroom mirror, and most importantly, the coffee maker. It had made El strangely fond of it. When prompted, Jonathan had affectionately named the coffee machine ‘Joan Jett,’ and Robin had dubbed their coffee breaks as a ‘Joansing.’

Living in the shack wasn’t so bad. Sure, it was boring and there was nothing fun to do. It had already been seven months with no end in sight. But she would take the radio station life over her year in the cabin or god forbid, the lab. Here, she had a job, and tasks to do. She got to spend time with Jonathan, Robin, and sometimes Nancy. She missed her friends, and only got them after school, and only sometimes, but it was better than not at all. But she was making the most of it. At least now, Nancy had been taking her on Crawls.

They had just finished their third go together the week prior. Nancy had been on twelve. They already had a solid routine. Nancy was precise, and always said exactly what she meant, not leaving any room for ambiguity, which El appreciated. They were able to search the Upside Down as a team. While the Crawls themselves were generally pretty awful and stressful, she appreciated the comradery that came with it. She really liked having Nancy around.

El started her coffee run.

Robin spun around in her wheelie chair, already anticipating El to be there. She gave her a big smile and a good morning wave as she talked into the mic as Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” played. Robin drank her entire coffee in one go, handing the mug back to El for her refill. She did it every morning. El went back to get her a second cup.

After that, she brought Nancy her coffee. Nancy was peering at the table that was sprawled with the crawl maps that Dustin had made, like she usually did. They had only searched about a third of the Hawkins, if that. Most of the map, Nancy had filled out herself. She was lost in thought, always planning their next move. El gently tapped her on the shoulder, nodding towards the cup in her hand.

“Thanks,” Nancy said, taking a swig. She stared at El for a minute, a smile curling at the corners of her lips. “Your hair is getting long enough to braid now.”

El smiled. Ever since Nancy had cut her hair, El was no longer the person with the shortest hair in their group. It made her feel a little more confident, especially since the short length on Nancy didn’t make her any less pretty.

Lastly, El brought the cup to Jonathan.

“Thanks,” He mouthed to her. He nodded towards the stairwell and mouthed “ten minutes.” Almost time for ‘school,’ if you could even call it that. It was in no way an official or vetted routine. El would read one of the books Nancy had brought to her and write a report for it for Jonathan to read, who would later help her with grammar and spelling.

Dustin had taken out some science and math textbooks for her from the Hawkins High Library, though she could only use them for about a week before he had to return them. Occasionally, Nancy or Jonathan would give her a presentation about something they had learned in their high school history class. Joyce would also prepare worksheets for her. But none of it was anything like school. She sometimes wondered what the point of it all was, but she didn’t have much of a choice about doing them. It was something she could do during the day while she waited for the afternoon when she and Jonathan would go training.

Just a few more hours, and they’d be at the junkyard, and she could run her obstacle course. She was getting better and better. All that work and determination were going to go somewhere. It had to.

"Now, I know we've all heard this a million times by now, but we do not touch the terrifying sheet metal pathways," Robin pressed on. "No matter how much fun they might be to sled on- totally not speaking from experience- if the velocity doesn't kill you, the big military guys with their machine guns will."

Jonathan laughed. At least Robin didn't go asking for a gunshot sound effect.

"And as always, remember when in-time is. Halloween is no exception to curfew, apologies to the youngsters."

Robin saw El dancing by with a stack of records in her hands, her purple flannel shirt fluttering behind her as she returned them to their rightful spots on the shelves.

"But as long as you can be out for before the bell rings: have some fun! Have that dinner, see that movie, go on that date. Speaking of…"

Hearing the lilt in Robin's voice, El's hands dropped as she turned to look back at the booth with an incredulous smile.

"One of my very own minions here at WSQK has been chattering nonstop about a very important Halloween date tonight. Let this story inspire you to get out there and live the good life, Hawkins!"

She set down the needle on the seven-inch and spun in her fancy rolling chair, turning to Jonathan in delight. El was red in the face, trying to cover her blush with her vinyls as the song rang through the station.

Well, she was just seventeen
If you know what I mean
And the way she looked was way beyond compare
So how could I dance with another
When I saw her standing there?

Even Nancy bobbed her head along as she emerged from the tape room, readjusting the three emergency Walkmans on the wall and turning the lights off. Just as Paul McCartney's voice began to ring in the second verse, though, the sound began to cut in and out. Robin frantically ran to check the record, but it was perfectly fine. No skipping, no scratches.

"What's going on?" Jonathan asked upon exiting the booth.

El was stood over at the wall with all the frequency readers, which were all completely on the fritz. "I don't know, there is some kind of interference."

"Interference?" Nancy asked. "We have the highest frequency tower in the region, the only thing that could interfere is-"

Nancy paused. It was like a collective eyeroll passed over the room as they realized. Using her fancy title as station manager, Nancy had made the folks on watch promise that they'd keep their military nonsense outside of broadcasting hours, a request made for the secret convenience of the crawls, but clearly something had changed. Nothing was supposed to cause direct interference at the station itself.

"What did we do during that crawl when we lost touch?" Robin wondered out loud, still walking around inspecting things.

"I didn't do anything. Dustin called me an idiot and did it himself!" Jonathan exclaimed.

Robin rolled her eyes. "Of course he did."

As the song cut out completely, Robin angrily dove for the walkie-talkie on the coffee table in the lounge next to the booth. She extended the antenna with a frown. "Dustin, do you copy?"

…No answer.

Robin tried again. "Dustin, do you copy?"

Still no answer.

"Damn it," Robin grumbled. She looked around. "Is this one all wacked out on interference too?"

"It shouldn't be," Nancy answered. "It's on a completely different wavelength."

Robin let out a frustrated sigh. Then, she tried again. "Dustin Henderson, I know you can hear me. Will you pick up your goddamn radio?"

"Let me try."

El approached with her hand extended. Robin handed off the radio to El, walking towards Jonathan and Nancy with fire in her eyes.

"I swear, that little shit is getting on my every last nerve…"

Nancy placed a comforting hand on Robin's back as El tried the radio.

"Hello, Dustin, do you copy?" El asked gently, looking out the window at the rising sun.

There was a crackling on the other end of the walkie-talkie. And then, "Hey El, I copy. What's up?"

Robin was just about ready to snap someone or something in half. She brushed off Nancy and Jonathan's concern and went to retrieve her coffee.

"There is interference at the station. Our broadcast shut down." El explained.

"I know, I heard."

El folded her arms. "Well, do you know how to fix it?"

"The satellite radio head is probably crashing," Dustin said over the radio. "Check the manual, I have to go to school."

"Oh- um, okay, sure," El said, sadness creeping onto her face. "I will see you tonight, right?"

"Of course."

She looked over to where the older folks had started to search for the manual and lowered her voice. "Okay, I will see you then. Have a good day."

"Sure thing, babe. See you later."

"See you."

El giggled as she turned the radio off and turned to help her friends look for the station manual.

"Well, if you were looking to set any records, I think that was your shortest Morning Squawk yet." Jonathan was saying. The girls laughed, still sifting through boxes and filing cabinets.

It was almost funny. In the six years Dustin had lived in Hawkins, he'd gotten used to being ignored and brushed past in the hallways at school. The only time he saw students part like the Red Sea was when there were popular kids in those rom-coms he watched at El's behest. It always came with spunky music and slow motion hair flips, indicative of the fact that there was a very important character on deck. Dustin never expected it to happen in real life, and especially not to him.

Granted, freshmen didn't leer out of his direction because he was popular or respected. It was largely because "how long before Henderson brings a gun to school" seemed to be a frequent gossip topic among Dustin's classmates.

Frankly, the allegations of being Steve Harrington's little murder apprentice weren't so much upsetting anymore as they were annoying. So what if Dustin stopped wearing his natural curls and started wearing Steve's jacket almost daily? His house was destroyed. He needed clothes, and it wasn't like Steve was using them anymore. Give him a fucking break.

His locker was bent out of shape and hard for Dustin to open and to deposit his books into. It, and Dustin himself, had become the prime punching bag for one particular super senior and his cronies who clearly needed somewhere to let out their pent up aggression about still being stuck in the hellscape cesspool that was Hawkins High School. Dustin certainly would.

Or, maybe he was just upset about word getting around that Charles Sinclair had sent him running from the hospital crying like a baby the year before. Either way-

Slam!

Speak of the devil.

Dustin's head quickly found the crevice of his locker that had formed from getting slammed into it so many times before. It was a shock that he didn't have any lasting cranial nerve damage. His eyes glossed over the sea of green and white letterman jackets with no particular enthusiasm. "Gentlemen."

Jason looked…bad. He looked awful, actually. He walked around with his shoulders hunched and bags under his already crazed and wild eyes. The energy in a room seemed to go completely on the fritz whenever Jason and the basketball team entered. The team still wore their jackets, still went to practices together, even though they would not be playing any games this year- no one wanted to bother with all the paperwork it took to come and play against a team in a town that was quarantined because no one knew if the ash flakes that came falling from the sky every so often were highly contagious or not. For all they knew, the town was toxic, and everyone inside was just waiting to die.

"I'm not dealing with your weird bullshit today, Henderson," Jason said, voice low and scarily even. "And I won't have you scaring anybody else either."

"You think I'm scaring people?" Dustin asked, eyebrows raised. "You're the one stalking the halls like Frankenstein's Monster."

Jason punched the locker, right above Dustin's head. "Say that again. I dare you."

"I can smell your breath, dude. Lay off."

Dustin shoved Jason out of the way, but he was quickly grabbed by the collar of his sweater and slammed back into the locker. It was yet another Steve hand-me-down, a basic yellow sweater, but it was also one of the only shirts Dustin actually liked from the collection. That's what made it all the more upsetting when Jason started to yank and stretch it.

"You better fucking watch yourself, cause I know what I've seen," Jason spat. "I know what you and your stupid little cult are capable of. And I'll be damned if I let you hurt anyone else."

Dustin scoffed. "You know, I'm getting a little sick and tired of listening to you talk nonsense day in and day out. You were stupid enough to get held back, I figured that would've humbled you a little bit."

Riiiiip! Dustin felt his nice shirt tear as Jason slammed him against the lockers again, Andy and Chance on either side of him laughing with their dumb, empty-faced little smiles.

"You better watch what you say to me."

In all honesty, Dustin knew it to be true. As close as he might've been to completely snapping, Jason seemed like he was even closer. He didn't know why anybody hadn't noticed it as much as they did him.

"Do you ever shut the fuck up?"

The trio in jackets seemed to turn in perfect unison towards the voice they heard down the hall.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Chance laughed, nudging his teammates. "Peg Leg over here wants to play superhero?"

Mike rolled his eye. Will and Lucas were right there next to him, arms folded and dour looks on their faces.

"You know, I'm sure Coach Hurder would love to hear about you getting into physical fights in the middle of the hallway," Lucas threatened. "Again."

"You gonna tattle on us, Sinclair?" Jason asked. "You betray us once, you betray us again?"

"I didn't betray you, I was trying to save someone's life-"

"I don't give a fuck what you think you were doing!" Jason exclaimed. "See, you can't trick me anymore, Sinclair. Not you, or the pirate over here, or Zombie Boy with his dead brother's sacrificial manifesto."

Will couldn't even really say anything. He had retorts, sure, but this was just the kind of nonsense Jason spouted on a daily basis now. His attempts to clear Jonathan's name had all been in vain so far, mainly due to the fact that they all thought Will was the Antichrist, and Jonathan didn't really seem to care since he was legally dead anyway, so he figured it was a lost cause to even try.

"Can you just leave him alone?" Mike pleaded. "No one is helping anyone else by beating the shit out of each other."

Slowly, Jason creeped over to Mike and stared him down. That was, however, all he did.

Dustin was easy to pick on. He was largely defenseless, sometimes even on purpose, and the most obvious lieutenant of the cult behavior that the basketball team had been trying to squash last year. Lucas and Will were a bit harder to intimidate physically, given their improved strength over the summer and intimidating them with words was hard when they used so few themselves. Jason wouldn’t dare to touch Will, anyways, not with his history. He was unsafe, not meant to be here. That made him dangerous in his own right to folks who bought the Jonathan story. And Mike, well…sometimes Chance and Andy had to pull Jason back, remind him that Ted and Karen Wheeler had both the money and the audacity for a legal team should anything happen to their kid who was, oh yeah, already missing an eye.

That was the only thing keeping an all out brawl from starting in the middle of the hall. Jason made sure to shove Will's shoulder as he burst past the group, the other two following suit slowly.

There was no final threat, no snappy comments or "watch yourselves" or intimidating faces like in El's movies. They just skulked away angrily, like sad husks of people that genuinely used to be Lucas' friends, cool guys who were just in different social circles than the boys.

Mike turned back to look at Dustin first. "Dude."

Ignorance won out, Dustin immediately turning to trudge down the hall even as the other three pursued him.

"Hey, what the hell was that?" Lucas asked.

"Same thing it always is. You know those guys are always after me." Dustin answered.

"Yeah, but you keep provoking them," Will said. "That girl from Chemistry said you were carving shit about them into the desks yesterday."

"You can't prove that."

"Look, it's annoying, and I know you want to fight back, but the more we get involved, the more attention we bring to ourselves." Mike said.

Dustin leaned against the wall, staring out at the sea of students rather than at Mike. "I dunno, I think some of us are doing a fine enough job drawing attention without even trying."

There was a moment of shocked silence. Mike looked down. He tried to pull his hair down over his face.

"Don't be an asshole, Dustin," Lucas said, shaking his head. "Things suck right now, a lot, but you can't keep doing this to yourself. It's not…healthy, or something like that."

"Right, cause you work as a candy striper for six months and suddenly you're a medical genius." Dustin shot back.

Lucas stammered. "Uh, actually, they only call the girls candy stripers, but- that's- that's besides the point!"

"Look, we have jobs to do. Jobs that require us to sneak around and not get noticed," Will insisted. "If we want to have any chance of being able to keep doing that, we need to lay low."

"You guys are all fuckin' hypocrites, you know that?" Dustin turned sharply. "I happen to be rebuilding my life. I do what I want, I go to class, I go on dates with my girlfriend, I'm living like any other normal teenager would! You guys, on the other hand, are little soldiers. You don't care about standing up for yourselves because you'd rather blend into the crowd like we used to."

"Yes! Because then people didn't bother us!" Will exclaimed.

Dustin's head lolled against the wall, a low groan from his throat. "You guys wanna lay low, is that it? We don't really have a choice. Everyone already thinks we're in a cult,"

He turned to Lucas. "That you put your girlfriend in a coma,"

He turned to Will. "And that your brother made ritual sacrifices to keep you alive after raising you from the dead,"

He clapped his hands together, pointedly not saying anything to the last member of their group. "It's a little too far gone for lay low at this point, don't you think?"

"Dustin." Lucas called.

Shifting his weight, Will moved so that Dustin bumped into him as he tried to leave the group.

"Don't you guys gang up on me," Dustin frowned. He sniffed, making a face. "...You smell like pot."

Will folded his arms, deadpan. He inspected Dustin close. "And you have a hickey on your neck."

"Thanks, your sister gave it to me," Dustin said, pushing past the blockade of his friends. "At least one of us is getting some action."

Mike and Lucas watched Dustin go, their faces less shocked at this point and more so just tired of the behavior.

On the other hand, Will scoffed and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Screw this. I'll be out back."

"Will," Lucas turned, face falling. "At school?"

Will pointed to where Dustin was still storming off down the hall. "You guys wanna deal with that sober all day, be my guest."

He turned and walked the other direction down the hall. Mike and Lucas shared a look.

"G'morning, rocketeers!"

Erica heard the voice down the hallway before she'd even turned the corner. She braced herself for the social interaction she was going to have to make her way through and started down the hallway, teachers' heads poking out over the sea of snotty seventh graders she waded through.

The school had some decorations up for Halloween, albeit much less than they had the year before. The whole town was still very much in "necessities only" mode. There had been a big push by some of the community to get candy for Halloween, give the kids something normal to distract from being stuck in a quarantined town. Erica wasn't even sure how she'd been convinced to dress up, but she and Tina were to be taking Holly trick or treating that night nonetheless.

"How do you do, Miss Sinclair?"

Erica turned. "Morning, Mr. Clarke."

She would never admit it out loud, but Lucas could be right about things sometimes. Mr. Clarke had turned out to be Erica's favorite teacher. At the very least, he tried engaging people, and he didn't make Erica feel weird for actually being interested in the concepts he was explaining.

He pointed to the books in Erica's hands. "Where has this week's curiosity voyage taken you?"

"Uh, dystopia," Erica answered, shuffling her feet. "Proposed futures based on the imminent downfall of structured society.”

"Well, that's…exciting," Mr. Clarke said, clearly a little taken aback. "You know, uh, Orwell, I can understand. Mrs. Ritter does a whole Animal Farm unit in her English I class. You'll probably be taking that next year."

Erica looked down at the book she'd brought to return to the library. Mr. Clarke was either blind or trying to make a point, because it was very clearly 1984, not Animal Farm.

Mr. Clarke pointed to the other book in her hands. "Now, the Margaret Atwood, that surprises me. That just came out last year, right? I didn't think we even had it in our school's library."

"…Well, we do." Erica said plainly.

"Of course, I see that, it's just-" Mr. Clarke paused, lowering his voice. "Do your parents know you checked out this book? I mean, it's…woof, it's pretty dark stuff for a kid your age."

"I'm twelve, not a baby. I can handle myself." Erica sniped.

With that, she turned tail to make the rest of the way down to the library. 

The library had really been her one saving grace so far in the year. It was quiet, barely anyone ever bothered her while she read and it was a great place to kill time while she waited for Lucas to remember she existed and come to get her. The smell of old books and cologne filled the air as Erica sidestepped an eighth grader rushing out the door with a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird in hand. It wasn't like the library was very big, but it was cozy, and Erica felt more at home here than she did anywhere else in the building.

"Morning, Erica."

She turned to the voice with a smile. Mr. Jacobson was the new librarian this year, and he was much more helpful than that fussy old man from the year before. For one, Mr. Jacobson actually let Erica pick out the books she wanted to read, not capping her at arbitrary reading levels she was already far beyond.

"I finished this one." Erica slid the copy of 1984 over the return desk.

"Even the index? It's a part of the story, you know." Mr. Jacobson said, grinning as he marked the book down in a big binder.

"Of course I did. I always read cover-to-cover." Erica answered like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Mr. Jacobson nodded in approval. "Good girl. I actually just got something in today that I think you're really going to be excited about."

The head of perfectly coiffed hair disappeared behind the desk and reemerged with a big cardboard box. He produced three books and laid them out flat on the table.

"I finally managed to track down the first three tragedies from the 1953 Arden Shakespeare second editions. Macbeth, King Lear, and Titus Andronicus all fully annotated, in mint condition." he announced proudly.

Erica's jaw dropped. She held her book close to her chest and inspected the books. "Wow. Were these the only ones you were missing?"

"I'm still looking for Love's Labours Lost, but I so rarely get shipments in I doubt you'll even still be a student here by the time I finally get my hands on it." Mr. Jacobson said with a laugh.

"Well, maybe I'll come get these after I finish this one." Erica offered, lifting her flimsy copy of The Handmaid's Tale.

"How are you liking it so far?"

"Good," Erica shrugged, flipping through the pages. "Kinda scary to think of predictive work that gets mistaken for science fiction by everyone except for those who can't do anything about it."

"Very thorough," Mr. Jacobson nodded. "And what does that say about you? You don't think you can do anything about it?"

"I can't even drive, how am I supposed to stop a mass religious revolution?" Erica replied with her usual level of snark.

"What, you don't think Hawkins, in all its weirdness, is the perfect answer to the Moral Majority?" the librarian joked.

"What is that again?" Erica asked.

Mr. Jacobson shook his head. "I'll find some scholarly journals if I can. You ought to be heading to class."

Erica threw her head back in a groan. “Sitting there with all the other little ducks, waiting for the next random activity we have to do otherwise we’ll get docked for ‘disobedience’?”

“Exactly,” Mr. Jacobson leaned forward. “Yes, I suppose it’s important to listen to your elders, respect them, all that nonsense. But here’s the ticket; you make sure they respect you in return. It’s an exchange, not an obligation.”

“...Thanks,” Erica nodded. “I think I know how to demand respect.”

“I’m sure you do, Erica. You have a good day now, hear?” Mr. Jacobson said.

“Sure thing. You too!”

Erica raced down the hallway to make it to homeroom before the bell. It was a sharp contrast in energy going from the library to boring, bland, Mr. O'Brien's History classroom, the last place any kid wanted to be at eight in the morning, but especially Erica, who threw herself into her desk next to Tina's and groaned.

"We live in the goddamn Twilight Zone and now I'm being told what I should and shouldn't be reading?! What else am I supposed to do?" Erica exclaimed, leaning back in her chair.

Tina shrugged. "Maybe you could take their advice. You completely stood up me and the guys when we were supposed to get ice cream last week because you got carried away reading."

She laughed as she said it, but Erica knew that she meant it. She was always trying to set Erica and herself up on these "not dates", ignoring Erica's expressed disinterest in boys or dating for what, frankly, should have been obvious reasons.

The conversation got cut off by the bell ringing. Erica stuck her nose back in her book even as the door slammed shut and the dragging of footsteps should have alerted her.

"Good morning, class."

"Good morning, Mr. O'Brien."

"…I said, good morning, class. My whole class."

Erica felt Tina's foot nudging hers. She looked up. All eyes were on her. She closed her book and sat up, plastering on a big, overcompensating smile.

"Good morning, Mr. O'Brien. Are you dressed up for Halloween today?"

Tina rolled her eyes. Here she went again.

Mr. O'Brien let out a long sigh. "Let's get started with ordinances."

"What?" Erica scoffed. "You're not even gonna let me finish my joke?"

"No."

The teacher approached the chalkboard, hands taut behind his back. He'd never say it out loud, but it seemed clear that he preferred how Erica was at the beginning of the year, when she didn't talk at all. She was apparently a model student in all of her other classes, but homeroom was the place where she acted up. It certainly didn't have anything to do with the fact that homeroom was where they recited the military's rules for existing in Hawkins every morning.

The view outside the window was much more interesting. It may have been the brick wall outside of the building next door, but it was the condemned part of the school where a portion of the wall had fallen into the cracked earth during the earthquake back in March. If Erica got lucky, she could see men and women in gray and green safety suits peeling up the panels of sheet metal that covered the pulsing fissures to inspect and take samples.

It was easier to look in the daytime. She was sure if she caught a look at night, in the dark, she'd be thrown back to that horrible night. Erica wouldn't admit it, but she still had nightmares. There may or may not have been a few nights near the beginning when she and Lucas had impromptu "sleepovers". In her defense, sometimes it was because he was the one screaming in his sleep. She was no damsel, thank you very much.

"The curfew is when?"

Erica wondered what lie in the areas of the Upside Down that were directly underneath the fissures. As the world tore in two on the surface, what became of the things that were on the fault lines below? Did they fall into oblivion, the dead space between the two worlds, never to be seen again? Was that the main reason why they placed a headstone with nothing under it in Roane Hill back in April, or was there another reason why they didn't try and go back for him?

"Erica."

She was brought to attention once again. "Hm?"

"When is curfew?" Mr. O'Brien repeated. "We go over this every day."

"Nine P.M. for children under thirteen, Eleven P.M. for children under eighteen, and midnight for adults."

"See, that wasn't so hard, was it?"

Erica kicked back in her seat, arms folded. She was back to not talking.

The other kids whispered, they always did. Erica was the weird kid, who at the drop of a hat could switch between being the only kid answering questions to refusing to speak in any capacity whatsoever. She got overwhelmed when she heard dogs barking and read books that they didn't think were allowed.

Things would be much easier if Erica just listened to what the teachers and military officers said. It was too bad she wasn't keen on making things easier for herself.

The manual was in a cardboard box labeled "showtunes", which just went to show how organized the crew at the Squawk had become in the months since they'd taken up residence.

Outside, the sun was beating down against the pale bricks of the station building as the four traipsed out back towards the tower. Nancy held the manual, dictating out loud that someone was to reset the switches on the top and the bottom of the tower.

This meant that someone had to climb to the top, naturally. The tower was rickety and covered in rust, and Dustin certainly hadn't had to climb up there the last time the tower needed reset.

"I can do it," El offered. "It will be easy for me to save myself if I fall."

"Yeah, no way I'm letting that happen," Jonathan cut in. "Sorry. You should be getting started on your schoolwork anyway."

El folded her arms and groaned. Jonathan tossed off his sweater and passed it to the girls as he headed for the base.

"If it's any consolation, I brought you your new book today," Nancy tried to say. "We haven't done The Great Gatsby yet, right?"

They hadn’t. It wasn’t any sort of consolation, but El shook her head anyway and pretended it was for Nancy's sake. She'd start reading once she made sure Jonathan didn't get himself killed falling off of this thing. They watched the doors swing open as Jonathan approached the electrical switch on the bottom of the tower and flipped it off and back on again. He turned and gave the girls a thumbs up before hurrying to the ladder around the side in a frenzy.

"He is trying really hard to impress you." Robin said plainly.

"What? No way," Nancy shook her head. "He's just…doing his job."

"While making funny faces at you." El added.

Robin nodded. "Exactly!"

Nancy scoffed. "You two are ridiculous."

There was a creaking noise as Jonathan appeared on the roof of the shack. He dove for the ladder and started to climb, his chest visibly puffed as his patchy blonde hair flew around in the wind. He stumbled on one of the rungs and the girls yelped in concern, but Jonathan quickly regained his balance and insisted they stay where they were.

"If you want me to help, I can!" El called, wondering if he could even hear her at this point.

"I'm okay!" came a small, distant voice in return.

Robin shrugged. "It looks like he's got it, guys."

They watched Jonathan make his way up the ladder until he was a small spot in the distance, making his way to the landing and waving down at the others from below.

The station suddenly shot back to life with electricity, cluing in the girls to the fact that Jonathan had succeeded and turned the breakers back on. He started to scramble down the ladder.

Nancy turned to El. "Let's get to work, junior."

Joyce liked her new job. It was quiet a lot of the time, just her sorting the shipments and making sure they got to the right stores within town, or working the surplus outlet for anybody who needed cheaper stuff. There was a weird limbo that most Hawkins citizens were in at the moment- so many people had left that it opened up a lot of necessary jobs, but there were still so many people displaced after their places of work were destroyed that the need for proper jobs was still so great.

She heard the rumbling of a truck, clearly not the military ones because of how much rattling she was hearing. Must've been the mid-morning supply shipment. Those were the ones Joyce always had to look out for. The ones she scheduled usually came with…extra luggage that needed to be sorted very particularly.

She knew not to ask where the supplies came from. El's friends weren't exactly law abiding citizens. Joyce didn't really care about that, but she did know that asking questions warranted answers, and answers could potentially be overheard by military men in suits just up the road.

Sure enough, the junk truck pulled around to the silo doors of the outpost and honked in a funny little pattern to alert Joyce. they were lucky that the only other people working there were a couple of kids who would've been college freshmen right about now had fate not trapped them in Hawkins. With Joyce as their manager, they didn't really care what she did unless it was directly to do with them. So, it wasn't unlike the old part-timers she'd had to take under her wing at Melvald's.

Mick was the driver, so she was always the first one out of the truck. There was also a big man who called himself Funshine- Joyce was certain that had to be a nickname- who was in charge of the real supplies, making sure their front was secure and that people actually got what they needed. There was a third girl, with wild blonde hair, who Joyce sometimes saw, but she never left the truck. She kept watch of the radio readers stashed in the trailer.

"There's crates with orange tags that have clothes, purple tags are non-perishables, blue tags are hardware items, and green tags are special order items."

They spoke completely professionally with each other when there was other people around, even if it was just the not-college kids unpacking boxes inside. They got a kick out of Funshine, who showed up to deliver supplies in a studded denim jacket and had brought them fresh-baked goods on more than one occasion, so even if the code that Joyce talked to Mick the Driver in was completely obvious, they had an extra layer of distraction to keep their operations hidden.

Joyce signed off on the real supply receipts and inspected the second page, her face scrunching in confusion as she reached the end of the sheet. "Tomorrow night? Are you sure? It seems a little late notice for a red box delivery."

Mick shrugged. "Last minute change of plans, I guess? We don't get the why, just the when."

"I guess that's our job," Joyce made a note at the bottom of the page and ripped it out, handing the clipboard back. "Thanks."

"Any word on that return?" she asked, a hand stuffed in her pocket.

Joyce shook her head. "None whatsoever. We can't even find the guy…who placed the order."

This was the typical question and answer that ended out their shipments. El had had no luck finding Henry and Kali. It was disappointing to everyone keeping up with the search on a regular basis, even more so to Kali's longtime friends who had little to no context for what was going on.

"Shame," Mick looked down. "Anything else we can do to help?"

"No, I don't think so. Um, my son, Will, he said he asked for some candy or something, he asked me to ask if you got it."

"Uh- yeah," Mick stifled a laugh. "Candy, sure, let's go with that. It's in the green tags."

“Perfect. Thank you.”

Joyce turned back to head into the building again. The boxes were loaded out and they'd officially passed the threshold of how long they could stay before it started to become suspicious, so there was nothing left for Joyce to do but start unpacking the crates that were meant to be here and wait for Robin and Nancy to come and get the ones that were to go the radio station. 

She never liked to see the truck leave, knowing they'd be without outside information until they came for their next unannounced delivery, but at this point, it was all she could do.

“I swear, he’s lost his mind,” Lucas said, letting out a loud sigh as the boys gathered around the lunch table. Will could tell he hadn’t stopped thinking about it since that morning. To be fair, neither had Will. Anything that had to do with Jason and his cronies tended to get under his skin. Will took a seat next to Lucas and Mike sat across from them.

“He’s encouraging them on purpose,” Mike murmured. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he wants to get decked in the face. Maybe he wants to match with me!”

“Not funny,” Will said, limply picking at the bland food that Karen had packed for him and Mike. Not her fault, the grocery stores were as low on stock as ever. The quarantine had affected all sectors in Hawkins, including food supply. That meant a lot of flavourless rice.

“I’m not trying to be funny,” Mike said. “It’s getting worse. Is he even talking to El on a regular basis now?”

“Yeah, he is. I think,” Will said, with a shrug. “El says he’s still showing up to their dates, anyway. So he hasn’t gone off the deep end just yet.”

“Well, that’s a minor miracle,” Lucas said.

“What’s a miracle?” Dustin asked, sliding into the seat next to Mike. Mike jumped, not seeing him on his blind side till then. Will shot him a look. He must have done it on purpose to mess with him.

“El,” Will quickly supplied, thinking fast. “Her time on the new obstacle course is down to twelve minutes. Mine is still at fifteen. She’s doing, like, really good.”

“Mmhm,” Dustin said, eyeing Will from across the table. He had definitely heard them. Shame burned in Will’s chest. “Of course she is. She’s El. She’s good at everything.”

“Not true. She sucks at Monopoly,” Mike joked. Dustin ignored him. That was par for the course these days. The boys ate in an awkward silence.

“How’s Max doing?” Mike asked, after a while. Will’s ears perked up. All eyes turned to Lucas.

“Not much to report,” Lucas said, shrugging. “She finally kicked her cold. I was getting worried about her.” Max had had a mild sinus infection that had been worrying the doctors. Lucas had spent even more time in her room, cutting into his volunteer hours at the hospital that had already been reduced, but luckily she had fought it off. Even in a coma, she was kicking ass.

“Good. I was worried,” Will said, giving Lucas a gentle smile.

“It’s pretty common for coma patients to fight off colds. It’s not like your immune system shuts off,” Dustin said.

“Yeah, but, at least it’s good news, and not more depressing bullshit,” Mike said. Dustin ignored him again.

The lunch bell rang, and Will got to his feet. He ignored the look that Dustin gave the boys as he stormed off to wherever he went to brood. He could only get so many warnings from the Principal before he got a suspension for missing class, though Will didn’t think Dustin would be bothered by it. He only came to school because of the routine.

Will was worried, but what was he supposed to do? Dustin didn’t want anyone’s help. He was the most civil with Will, probably because he was El’s brother, but that didn’t mean much. He was the only one he couldn’t blame, was probably more accurate.

At least the next class was history. Will did pretty good in all of his classes, but history was his favourite. He and Lucas always had a good time goofing off in the back of class.

“Ready?” Lucas asked, taking Will’s tray from him to put on the counter.

“Yep,” Will said, smiling. He always felt a little safer in the Hawkins High halls with Lucas at his side. Mike waved goodbye, heading to his gym class that he not so secretly loathed, especially with the new lack of depth perception.

The hallways were noisy, as always, but Will was good at tuning it out. He ignored Chance and Andy as they leered at him from across the hall. He was always going to be Zombie Boy to them, worse now than it had ever been. Will just followed behind Lucas.

Until he wasn’t behind Lucas anymore.

Suddenly, he was in a different place entirely. He was in a familiar class, with posters he had spent years looking at lining the walls. An aquarium sat on the teacher’s desk. He felt smaller. He couldn’t tell if the room had expanded or if he had just shrunk. At the front of the class stood Mr. Clarke. He made eye contact with Will.

“Eyes up here, everyone,” He announced, moving over to the chalkboard.

SLAM!

Will fell backwards after walking straight into a door. He had hit his head, hard. Lucas quickly grabbed his arm, helping him steady himself.

“Dude, what happened?” Lucas asked, wide-eyed. Will was bewildered, looking around frantically. He was back in Hawkins High. Had he been daydreaming? What was that?

“I…don’t know,” Will said, his eyebrows furrowing. “It was like a weird memory or something. Probably nothing, I guess.”

“Are you sure?” Lucas asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Will said, waving it off. “Come on, we’re gonna be late.”

Although Will didn’t remember Mr. Clarke having a pet gecko in his class back when he was a student. What a strange detail.

The sound of Lt. Akers boots against the grated floor reverberated through the base. Otherwise, it was silent, other than the occasional sound of fire crackling and squeals of monstrosities from the other plain. If Aker was being honest, it gave him the creeps. The various creatures that had been captured by the lab leered at him through the glass, though Akers questioned if they even had eyes. They were abominations, all of them, but it wasn’t Akers place to cast judgement.

Dr. Winifred Kay sat at her desk. She had her toolkit pulled out, which seemed more like various torture devices to Akers. She was using it to dissect some sort of rodent-like creature that the military had acquired. It squirmed violently, its chest cavity peeled open. Dr. Kay seemed to relish in it. Akers looked away, clearing his throat. Dr. Kay turned to look at him, already unimpressed.

“Status update,” She ordered. Akers had been under many generals in his time in the military, but few could get under his skin in the way that Kay did.

“We’ve confirmed that the girl isn’t in Chicago,” Akers said. “All sightings of Indigo activity has been radio silent for the last two months. I have a team headed for Detroit tonight.”

“No, cancel that,” Dr. Kay said. “I want all teams to return to home base. Tonight. The girl is closer than we think she is. She doesn’t have the survival skills to have survived on her own this long.”

“Are you sure, general? The people of the town aren’t going to take kindly to heightened surveillance,” Akers cautioned. He resisted the urge to audibly groan. He was not looking forward to telling his men that they had to return that night, but whatever Kay wanted, she got. She glared at him.

“These are your orders, soldier. I’ve also noticed that the folks in town are getting too comfortable breaking curfew. We need to crack down on them. Starting tomorrow, curfew for adults begins at Eleven P.M., Ten P.M. for children under eighteen and Eight P.M. for children under thirteen. Anyone who is caught breaking the curfew will be fined. Tell the girl at the radio station to announce it. I have the policy already written,” Dr. Kay said, handing him an envelope. “Now, status update on the relocation project.”

“Everything is ready in Nevada,” Akers confirmed. Dr. Kay grinned.

“Excellent. Has the ground team made a selection?” She asked.

“They’ve narrowed it down to five potential candidates.”

“Select three,” Dr. Kay said, sitting back down at her desk.

“Three? Already?” Akers asked, not doing much to hide the shock in his voice. Kay turned to look at him again, scowling.

“Yes. That is what I said. Don’t make me repeat myself.”

Akers took in a deep breath. “Understood. It will be done. How soon do you want them?”

“As soon as possible.”

Mr. Castro was on the phone. He'd been on the phone for the last three minutes. He had done nothing but nod and say "uh-huh". There was an algebraic equation on the board that the entire class had had solved for a considerable amount of time now. Erica looked around at how her classmates barely even turned to look at each other anymore, they didn't pass notes or whisper under their breath or kick each other the way they always did before. The drills they'd been doing in Mr. O'Brien's homeroom were really starting to make her classmates look more and more like robots every day, too scared to act out of line and get in trouble. And they told Erica that she was the one not acting like a kid anymore.

When the teacher finally hung up the phone with an "okay, I'll tell her", he flipped the projector to a new equation that was quickly scribbled down by the class as he called out to them. "Erica, could you come here briefly?"

She looked around. There were a few oohs and ahhs as she slowly slid out of her desk and made her way up to the front- that sounded more like the classmates Erica remembered from last year.

"Yes?"

Mr. Castro smiled, his eyes and nose crinkling the way they did when he was clearly over the administrative nonsense that interrupted his teaching on a near constant basis these days. "Mrs. Smith would like to see you in her office after class."

Erica frowned. Mrs. Smith was the guidance counselor. She was nice, but Erica was confused as to why she would need to go to her office. "Why?"

"I'm not sure," Mr. Castro shrugged. "They just said to go once school was dismissed for the day."

With a disgruntled huff, Erica turned and went back to her seat. Tina wasn't in this class, so she didn't feel the need to answer anybody's questions as she sat back down and started working on her next equation. She had other friends besides Tina, but Erica didn't talk to them nearly as much. She'd had a lot more friends before, say, Spring Break the year before.

When the bell finally rang and everyone began to gather their things frantically to get out of the building, Erica waited. She packed her things meticulously and let the sea of kids move her to her locker naturally, stretching out her time as the dread built in her stomach of why she was being called to the counselor's office.

The hallway was empty save for some athletes and a few other stragglers as Erica slowly but surely made her way down to the office. She could hear the drama club down the hall in the choir room singing and the echoing of the dissonant harmonies were not calming her nerves whatsoever.

The situation certainly didn't become any better once she turned the corner and realized that her parents and Mr. Clarke were sitting in Ms. Smith's office, looking at her expectantly. Erica started to breathe heavily, already convinced that something was terrible was going to happen and it was all her fault, she'd screwed something up-

"Hey, Erica, come sit with us."

She couldn't feel her feet as she walked forward to sit down next to her mom. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything's gonna be fine, honey, I promise," Sue assured her daughter, gently rubbing a hand on her back. "We just wanted to talk about something."

Erica shot Mr. Clarke a death glare. That morning he'd been asking all about her books and now he was getting her parents involved?! What. A. Snitch. This was why Erica didn't tell anyone anything anymore.

"I know you're smart, Erica, but I'm just a little concerned about your reading choices," Mr. Clarke explained gently. "I thought it would be better if your parents, a-and Ms. Smith, were here to help."

Ms. Smith nodded, turning to face Erica. "This is not a punishment, or anything like that. I was just wondering if you could tell us what made you pick these books? What about them specifically stood out to you?"

Erica shrugged. "I- I dunno, I just thought- they seemed like good books. I'm sorry that I need something a little more stimulating than Judy Blume."

"Dystopia," Mr. Clarke echoed Erica's words from earlier. "Proposed futures based on the imminent downfall of structured society."

"…Yeah? It's scary, but…" Erica looked down at her feet. "This town is scary now. I see a lot of the things happening around us and they look a lot like what I read in my books."

She didn't bring up the desolate endings. Room 101, the brainwashing, how her last book had seemed to imply that there was no way to make the world change and it didn't seem like her current read was headed anywhere better either.

Charles hummed, tapping his foot on the floor impatiently. "It shouldn't be surprising. Military escorts lining the streets, mandatory curfews. It's awfully familiar."

"Still, we don't want to make a habit of encouraging reading that influences our behavior," Ms. Smith commented. "And I've heard some…reports. You've been quiet lately. Only speaking up to make non-conducive comments towards your teacher."

Mr. Clarke looked puzzled. "Really? You've been fine in my class."

"That's because I actually like your class," Erica grumbled. "Just because I can't stand Mr. O'Brien and his 'procedures' doesn't mean my behavior is being influenced."

"Erica." Sue said pointedly.

Erica looked over at her mom. "Just the facts."

After a few more minutes of asserting that this isn't an attack and we care about you, they send Erica into the hallway to sit and wait for the adults to finish talking. Typical.

There were paintings from the art class on the walls, hung out for display. Erica noticed that she wasn't the only one seeing in dimmer colors these days. It was hard to feel like there was anything worth celebrating in town, that's why she got so lost in her books.

"Erica? Why are you still here?"

She turned to see her brother coming down the hallway, a textbook in his hand. "Why are you here at all, dorkus? I don't need an escort, Mom and Dad are already here."

Luca frowned. He peered into the counseling office to see his parents in a lively discussion with Mr. Clarke and Ms. Smith. "Why?"

"Because I'm an extremely troubled kid with an emotionally disturbed brain, apparently," Erica said, deadpan. "…They don't like the books I'm reading. Think they're inappropriate."

"Man, they did the same thing to us, you know?" Lucas said. "Sixth grade, they found a Playboy in Will's backpack. We didn't even know it was in there. Took three rounds of calls home for his dad to even answer and fess up that he'd stuffed it in there as a hiding spot."

Erica rolled her eyes. "Not that kind of inappropriate."

"Right. Totally." Lucas furrowed his brow. "Then what's the problem?"

"I don't talk anymore cause I'm always reading, and my books are dark and making me have bad thoughts or something."

"You know what I think?" Lucas asked, folding his arms. "I think they're just intimidated by your brilliance. I know I am."

"Mom and Dad are not scared of me being smart." Erica insisted.

"There's a difference between being scared and being intimidated. Trust me, the day I'm scared of you is the day I've been replaced by an imposter," Lucas laughed. "But intimidated, yes. Sometimes I think you're gonna figure out too much too fast and get yourself into some trouble."

"Like how I figured out how to build that magnet last year with Mike?" Erica asked. She looked down solemnly. "I mean, that did get us in trouble, so you may be right there."

"I know Mr. Clarke means well," Lucas leaned against the wall next to Erica. "But he, and that other guy, that O'Brien guy? They can't get you down. Adults just don't get how a genius brain can often be mistaken for a crazy one."

Erica laughed. "I mean, some of them do. Mommy always tells me to keep learning. And Mr. Jacobson, too."

"Who's that again?"

"The new librarian," Erica explained. "Kind of his fault that I've got these books in the first place."

"I guess so," Lucas checked his watch. "I gotta run. You gonna be alright?"

Erica nodded. "Yeah. Am I still not allowed to come with you?"

Lucas shook his head. "Afraid not. Sorry. It's better that way. Could you give this back to Mr. Clarke for me?"

He extended the textbook for Erica to take. She accepted it, inspecting the cover while Lucas took off down the hallway.

A sleep science textbook. It couldn't have even been war history or something else that Lucas was actually into.

Mike and Will were by themselves at the bike rack when they saw the last trailing pack or middle schoolers making their way out across the parking lot, but no sign of the Sinclairs. Mike tapped his foot and checked his watch impatiently. “Man, I don’t have time for this. I’ve gotta go get Holly.”

Will opened his mouth to reply just as Lucas came barreling over the hill, completely wiping his train of thought.

“Man, what took you so long?” Will called.

“Sorry, sorry,” Lucas panted as he caught up to the other two. “They’re giving my sister a freakin’ inquisition in there.”

Will frowned. “Why?”

“She said it was something about her books, and how they think she’s acting weird.” Lucas explained.

There was a small pause. Mike averted his gaze to the ground. He couldn’t help but feel a little bit responsible for that.

They were still one short. Lucas looked around. “Where’s Dustin?”

“Probably doing exactly what we told him not to and aggravating those mouthbreathers again.” Will posited.

“You’re not totally wrong.” They heard.

Dustin was emerging from the high school doors with a shit-eating grin, looking awfully pleased with himself. Mike frowned. “Oh no. What’d you do now?”

“Nothing to be concerned about,” Dustin said, turned to face Lucas. “Jason’s locker just needed a little redecorating, is all.”

“Dustin…” Will started.

Dustin lifted a finger. “Don’t you even try that, Will. It’s not like I did anything drastic. It was just a snake.”

Mike’s eye went wide. “You did what?!”

Just as the boys were about to start going in on Dustin, Will’s radio crackled to life, like a saving grace.

“Will Byers and Lucas Sinclair, you are late!”

Will and Lucas shared a look. Lucas whistled. 

“Yeah, I know, we're on our way." Will replied. 

El’s voice rang through again, not quite angry but still expectant. "Well, I will not wait forever. I happen to have plans tonight."

"That's my cue," Dustin began to walk his bike out to the road. "I'll catch up with you gentlemen later. Don't piss her off." 

Will rolled his eyes. Dustin, in addition to just kind of being a dick lately, was the only one of them without a sister and didn't seem to understand that "pissing each other off for no reason" was the default setting. 

“We'll be there soon." Will said into his walkie. 

He and Lucas packed up and headed off, leaving Mike to get a shaky grip on his bike and attempt his solo ride to the elementary school. Riding a bike with no sense of depth perception had proven remarkably difficult, making it one of the many things Mike had had to dedicate a lot of time to relearning.

As he finally got the kickstand up and struggled to gain his bearings, he was alerted by the sound of arguing in the distance. Mike watched as Erica and her parents appeared over the hill. She was pleading something to her mom as her dad loaded her bike into the backseat. Both Sue and Charles seemed receptive to Erica's plight, but neither of them seemed to be trying to change anything with her in that moment. 

Well, Mike was no eavesdropper, and he had a sister of his own to pick up, so he wobbled along the open road until he finally felt stable and took off in the direction of the elementary school. 

It was one of his least favorite things to do. Sure, it was a responsibility, something he barely got at home or during crawls because everyone walked on eggshells around him, but that was the very same culprit that made all of Holly’s classmates terrified of him. Mike could only hope that he wasn't causing Holly problems making friends. He and his eye caused enough problems everywhere else.

Dustin tossed his bike to the side as he arrived at the Roane Hill Cemetery. The sun was just starting to set, casting an orange light over the graveyard. Leaves crunched under his feet. He had been coming there a lot the last few months. At first, he had found no comfort in it. He hadn’t wanted to visit the grave at all. Now, it was the closest thing to comfort he could get.

Dustin knew that the grave was empty. Steve’s corpse was decaying somewhere in the Upside Down. It had probably been ravaged by the creatures until he had been picked to bone. Still, it was nice to at least talk to a headstone. He could pretend a little easier that way.

He and his mom had picked out the headstone. Steve’s parents hadn’t wanted to be associated with the rumours surrounding Steve and Jonathan. No, their reputation couldn’t handle having a homosexual cult leading serial killer for a son, whether or not any sane person would realize that was complete bullshit. Dustin didn’t give a fuck if he was associated with those rumours. If his name was said in the same breath as Steve’s, he was doing a good job.

Dustin knelt down next to the grave. Unsurprisingly, the word ‘Necromancer’ was written across the headstone in red paint. Dustin sighed. He already had paint thinner with him to wipe it off. It was par for the course these days.

“Hey, Steve,” Dustin said, sitting down. “It’s Halloween today. Robin and El dressed up the Squawk to be all ‘spooky.’ I just know you would have screamed like a little bitch at all the spiders that Robin hid. I know Jonathan did yesterday. You would have never let him hear the end of it. I’m supposed to go see El tonight. We’re gonna watch a scary movie, eat popcorn, do normal couple shit.”

Dustin laughed self-deprecatingly.

“What a poser, right? Sitting, watching movies, pretending everything’s fine when you’re fucking dead. But it’s not like its El’s fault. And she expects me to be there. But jeez, man, nothing has felt real since you left,” Dustin said. “Sorry, by the way. I left your VHS of The Black Cauldron in California. On the bright side, Family Video is gone, too, so I couldn’t even return it if I tried. But you were right, to worry I mean. In the end, I couldn’t even return your stupid movie.”

Dustin was quiet for a moment. “I wish you could tell Robin to fuck off for me. She’s always in my business. Everyone wants to pretend like everything’s fine and normal. That we should just blend in and do nothing while fucking idiots go around town calling you a murderer. You’d hate it, by the way. Your name and Jonathan’s name go hand in hand. They think you were boyfriends or something. I think you must have dipped because you didn’t want to deal with all the bullshit. I can’t blame you for that, anyway.”

Dustin smoothed out the seams of his pants, not looking at the headstone anymore. “You shouldn’t have listened to Wheeler’s stupid plan. He didn’t know what he was talking about. He had no way to confirm if it would actually work. What we needed was a real, vetted plan, not a leap of faith that could get someone killed. I wish I could have told him that it was a bad plan. If I had been there, none of this would have happened.”

Dustin reached forward to touch the paint. But it was weird. It was warmer and stickier than usual. Dustin brought his fingers close to his face. Blood. Dustin looked down, gasping in shock and scrambling away from what he saw.

Jake the Snake, lying dead in the grass.

Dustin put a hand over his mouth in alarm. Why would someone do that?

He knew who would.

“And there he is, Dustin Henderson!” Jason’s voice boomed from behind him. “Always at the scene of the crime. Always two steps away from the necromancer.”

“Are you here to make this Night of the Living Dead?” Andy asked with a smirk.

“Or are you here to jack off to your dead mentor, like the rest of you satanic gaywads?” Chance asked. The three boys were flanking him on all sides. They had been planning it, waiting for their opportunity to strike.

“What the fuck do you want?”

“Now, I’m not here looking for any more trouble,” Jason said, putting his hands up. Yeah, so that was why he killed a defenseless cornsnake. “But you’ve been stepping out of line, like you’re advertising your little cult. It’s been scaring people. Making people talk.”

“What? Because I don’t want to pick flowers and sing songs with you?” Dustin asked. “I guess I’m just a little irritated that you dumbass who can’t tell his ass from his elbow is going around spreading lies about my best friend.”

Jason’s face darkened. “You didn’t see what we saw.”

“Yeah, but I know you jumped to conclusions like an idiot, and now you’re fucking delusional,” Dustin said. Jason grabbed him by the already ripped sweater.

“You want to repeat that?” Jason asked, with a wild look in his eyes.

“Jason, let go,” Dustin said, his voice calm. He was giving him a warning.

“I said, do you want to repeat that?” Jason shouted. “Or are we done here?”

“Actually, you know what? I do have something to say. I heard you call Mike a pirate again today. Why don’t you two match?” Dustin asked, opening the bottle of paint thinner and throwing it into Jason’s eyes. Jason released him, howling in pain. Chance and Andy ran at him. Dustin hastily threw paint thinner in their directions. He cast the can aside, punching Andy in the face when he grew too close. A wave of pain shot through Dustin’s arm. It felt good.

Oh, he’d been waiting for this.

He kicked, bit and scratched and relished the moment every time a fist collided with his face.

Chase tackled him to the ground. Dustin hit his head, hard. He punched back, hearing a crunch noise against Chase’s nose. The bigger boy screamed, rolling off him. Then it was Jason on top of him, furiously punching down again, and again, and again.

“He helped kill Chrissy,” Jason seethed, hot breath wafting towards Dustin’s face. “He’s the reason my Chrissy is gone. He’s the reason Patrick’s gone. And you helped, too. You took them away from me!”

And he hit him again. And again.

Dustin was seeing stars, and then, he was seeing nothing at all.

By the time Lucas and Will got to the junkyard, the course was already set up, with Jonathan and El waiting impatiently for them.

“Took you guys long enough." Jonathan joked. Even out here in the junkyard, he still wore his cap and sunglasses out of caution. It made him look like some kind of secret agent, With Will, El, and Lucas as his rookies.

Lucas and Will smiled at each other, the latter digging his hands in his pockets in embarrassment.

“It's my fault," Lucas said. “I got caught up."

“I understand." El smiled. Lucas was very busy these days. It was a miracle that they got him out of Max's hospital room whenever they could. It was fun to see all of the ways he maneuvered around the obstacle course without powers, making last second detours for himself every time Jonathan changed the course without telling the kids. Ever since he quit basketball, they could tell he appreciated the opportunity to get out.

“Alright, fall in line,” Jonathan called, brandishing a stopwatch. “Timer starts in forty-five seconds."

The trio raced for the start of the course, all laughing and pushing past one another even though they knew Jonathan wouldn't start the timer until they were all in place.

“You ready?”

Their spots were always the same. El went on the left, with the most difficult setup, Will in the middle, with things that were slightly simpler, and Lucas on the end so that he could run around those pesky telekinesis-only bits.

“Ready!” El gave a thumbs up.

It wasn’t like Will had seen much improvement in that regard anyways. It was disheartening, to say the least- he could do things in the void, but he had no idea now to do them in the real world, not in the way El did.

“Ready…set…go!”

For example, the first set of pumpkins on wooden poles that they passed had gone down the same way for a month. Lucas simply waited while El sent one exploding into pieces without a second thought and Will had to pause and focus all of his energy, just for his to limply teeter off of the pole and fall to the ground with a dull thud. It didn’t even break half the time.

The bus was the next big struggle. Lucas just ran around it. El had a short ramp, giving her a small boost for her to launch herself over the bus with. Will also had a ramp. It was very long and the gap between it and the roof of the bus was embarrassingly short. The intention had been for Will to practice jumping the way El did and they would shorten the ramp the better he got at it.

He had not gotten any better at it.

No, all he had to show for this obstacle was bruises on his chest from slamming into the roof and hoisting himself over it as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, his sister was flying like Wonder Woman, and while they'd worked a lot on the fighting and the weird resentment since they’d moved back to Hawkins, Will couldn’t help but feel a little upset that she was improving so much and he wasn't.

It didn't matter in the long run. Will knew he didn’t have powers in the same way El did, so they were likely never going to be the same. They still played music for each other and fought over ice cream flavors, and Will painted El’s minis for her and El sewed patches into Will’s clothes when they got holes. That alone meant more to him than having the same powers as her.

Besides, he may or may not have had an ace up his sleeve.

He dove under a thatch of rotting wood, army crawling and ignoring the amount of splinters he was certainly getting in his back and arms. El and Lucas were already on their way to the next part, but Will could tell that Lucas was going slower for Will’s sake. He wasn’t being timed for a reason the way El and Will were.

As he reached the end, he saw a hand extended down. Lucas was not supposed to help. Sometimes he did anyway. He pulled Will to his feet and the two took off down the rest of the course.

Lucas still gained ground on him even after stopping to help. Will was light on his feet, the need to run and hide and not be heard an unfortunate necessity of his nature from an early age, but the fear of a Demogorgon or the Mind Flayer or his father were no way to properly motivate himself, keeping him exerting from the prowess he’d once had. The strength needed to come from his own self, through grit and training rather than instinct.

The training was mainly for stamina, anyway. Both he and El knew that things would be much different vis-a-vis adrenaline when they were staring down Henry’s grotesque form instead of pumpkins on wooden stakes. Maybe Will would finally be able to come to his senses under pressure and figure out what he was doing wrong. Maybe he was doomed to be a human emergency kit, a walking deus ex machina that could help when needed and was dead weight the rest of the time.

Either way, he finished the course one and a half minutes after Lucas and a full three after El. Jonathan clicked the stopwatch a final time and tried to hide his grimace at the result. He collapsed in the grass and watched as the sky spun above him.

This happened sometimes. Will also wanted to get better at the course for the sheer sake of his stamina, but it turned out that breathing Upside Down air for a week straight had left his lungs a mere fraction of what they used to be.

And the weed. That too. But Will had been wheezing long since before he moved to California.

There were a lot of things that had changed since then, he'd realized. For years, he'd been questioning his purpose in this grand scheme of things. Why everything had happened the way it did. Every time Will got a little closer to thinking he had it all figured out, something pulled him back again.

“Head up.”

Will obliged, lifting his head as he felt El dragging him close to elevate it. Jonathan appeared to hand Will his inhaler.

“I’m fine,” Will wheezed, but took the inhaler anyway. He beat his chest as he sucked down a breath of the medicine and let out a sputtering exhale. “Course still sucks.”

“El’s still the only one who’s been able to do it in under twelve,” Jonathan announced as Lucas appeared with three water bottles that dripped with condensation. “You gonna be good to try it again?”

“Yes, Jonathan, I wanna do it again.” Will answered. He sat up, taking his water bottle from Lucas and getting water absolutely everywhere as he cracked it open.

"We have to," El said sadly. "I don't know what is coming, but we have to be as prepared as possible."

It was a dire thought, especially as they all sat in the soft grass in the afternoon sun like nothing was particularly the matter. Jonathan watched as the younger kids giggled amongst themselves, some sort of inside joke coming to the front of their minds, he supposed.

El thought it was like being on the hill again. The party had had a few breezy summer days just like the ones last year, but nothing captured the energy of having Max with them. Before Starcourt and everything that came after.

Will splashed the last of his water in Lucas' face. He retaliated by flicking his bottle cap at Will.

"Woah, woah, okay," Jonathan cut in before it could become an all-out water war. "Remember that we have limited resources, guys."

He fumbled for something around his neck. Robin, the little shit, had given Jonathan a whistle. He puffed it three times and had El, Will, and Lucas groaning.

"We are sitting right here, bro," Lucas groaned. "Do you really need to go full volume with that thing?"

Jonathan shrugged. "There's no other volume setting on a whistle. You guys ready to go again?"

Forcing himself to sit up through the ache in his joints, Will turned to El.

"Pumpkin race?" El asked.

Will nodded. El stood and extended a hand to help Will to his feet. How she was still so spry was yet another mystery for him to investigate later.

As the two raced off to see who could rest the pumpkins the fastest, Jonathan laughing at the sight of his siblings chasing each other, Lucas downed the last of his water and picked up the other bottles from the ground.

"Thanks again, man," Lucas said as he and Jonathan stood up. "Don't tell Will and El, but I kinda need these."

"Of course," Jonathan said, giving Lucas a firm pat on the back. "And don't tell Will and El, but I think they're a lot happier when you're around, too."

They turned. They noticed that Will was staring back at them as he replaced the pumpkin he'd gently knocked to the ground earlier while El had to retrieve a new one entirely.

Jonathan blew on his whistle. "Alright, fall in line!"

There was a towel under Max's head. This was typically the case in the hours after her hair had been washed, a few hours before the pillows were to be changed. The best time for styling was when the hair was just damp. Erica had come to learn that she needed to bring her own brush and detangler, and soft hair ties that wouldn't hurt because if she didn't, the nurses would use the little standard issue rubber bands that always snagged when trying to get them out. She always started on the left side, Max's right.

"And then she told me that I had been rude to my teacher," Erica grumbled. "You really should see the guy. He's totally lame, and makes us do all these weird listening exercises and everyone just does them because he's our teacher!"

There was nobody in the hall, but Erica felt as if she had spoken too loud and needed to lower her voice anyways. She finished the first braid and set it down gently along Max's chest. As she got up to move to the other side of the bed and start the second braid, she could've sworn she saw a glimpse of a nurse or someone else in the room. Just as quickly, though, the figure was gone.

No matter. Erica was used to seeing things these days.

She began her routine all over again. First, she lifted Max's head as gently as possible and smoothed out the hair behind.

"And you'd think he dresses funny, too, like the guy from The Fly in his suit, halfway through becoming that monster."

She paused. The Fly had only just come out that summer. "We'll have to watch it someday. I thought it was gross and scary, so you'd probably think it was awesome."

The second step was to spray detangler, with a hand precariously placed so that nothing would get on Max's face.

"It doesn't matter. I don't really think my mom and dad are going to stop me. I have every sob story in the book to try with."

The third step was gently brushing, starting from the ends and working her way to the top, running her fingers through any big tangles so that she didn't tug on Max's hair accidentally.

"Lucas thinks they're intimidated by me. I mean…they could be, but I think they just don't want to deal with me," Erica continued. She got quiet. "I've been having a really weird time lately. I want to tell my mom, but…I don't know. She seems so worried about everything else going on. My dad too. I don't want to bother them anymore than I already have."

The fourth step was parting the hair into three sections to braid.

Erica began to lay the pieces of hair over top of one another. "And I don't even know where Lucas runs off to all the time. He's not here every day. He's not here right now. He always comes home really late, with Nancy and Mike and Will, too. They still won't tell us anything. Me or Holly. I'm not little like her. I don't know why they always leave me behind."

The fifth step was to secure the braid with a hair tie. The first braid had been tied with a red one. Erica chose yellow for this braid. Max wouldn't have wanted them to match.

"Well, I'll be back in a few days," Erica said, laying out the second braid flat. "I'm taking Barbie trick-or-treating tonight. Maybe we'll strike gold on your old route."

She finished by putting some lotion on Max's hands. As Erica checked out of the hospital, she could've sworn she saw that figure of a nurse in the corner of the pediatric waiting room.

Jonathan sat on the roof of one of the old, busted junkyard vans El neared the finish line of the course for the third time that day. He was proud of her. She was getting better every day. Will was doing great as well, but Jonathan wasn’t going to be letting him go on any Crawls any time soon. That he wasn’t ready for.

Lucas was next to him, lying down on the hood with his eyes closed. Even with his reduced volunteer hours at the hospital, Jonathan could tell that Lucas was wearing himself too thin. This wasn’t the first time he had dozed off in the junkyard. But it wasn’t like he was training himself to fight against Vecna, so Jonathan didn’t say anything. He was glad someone was getting some sleep.

Jonathan looked down at his stopwatch as El finished the course. Eleven minutes and three seconds. Her best time yet.

Just as he was standing up to tell her her score, Robin’s voice crackled through the radio, in her usual jovial tone. She had been playing Halloween tunes all day. Jonathan had heard Monster Mash three consecutive times, and he was over it, but he had to keep the radio on him in case of emergency.

“Now, I know some of you may be getting sick of all the spooky songs this fine Halloween morning, so why don’t we take a break to turn this day upside down?” Robin’s voice rang, before the Diana Ross song of the same title began to play.

Lucas’ eyes snapped open. He sat up, already reaching into his backpack to grab a pen and paper.

“Already?” Jonathan asked, in shock. Lucas’ reflexes were faster, already beginning to write.

“Little known fact about the lovely Diana Ross,” Robin started to ramble, as the boys quickly deciphered her code. They had gotten used to it.

“Jonathan?” El asked, striding towards them. “What was my time?”

“Not now, sorry,” Jonathan said, guiltily, as he listened for the instructions.

“At least we have some time this time around,” Lucas noted, the Crawl schedule for the next day. Will finished the course just after that, panting and wheezing, though not having a full-on asthma attack this time. He was distinctly disappointed to see everyone huddled around the radio.

On the other side of town, Joyce had just left for a smoke break, the little portable radio she carried around with her always at her side. Joyce sighed. She’d learn Robin’s instructions that night when she went to the Squawk. They were getting too frequent now. Sending El and Nancy off to the Upside Down to look for Henry had not been her first choice, but it was the only one they had, so she put up with it. She stepped on her cigarette butt and lit a new one, already needing it.

In the Wheeler basement, Mike quickly scribbled down in his notebook Robin’s words, coming up with a plan of action for the boys. He and Nancy were the team leaders of their respective groups, after all.

Inside the Squawk, Robin swiveled around in her chair once the announcement was finished. She looked apologetically at Nancy, who was on sound effects duty when Jonathan was away. She was even worse than him, but she was cuter than Jonathan, so Robin let it slide.

“You up for a Crawl tomorrow night?” Robin asked, as Nancy organized sound effect tapes. Nancy shrugged.

“I was already going to do some target practice tonight, so it came at as opportune a time as any,” Nancy said. Robin nodded.

“Are you taking the tunnels? The military jokers are seriously cracking down on people outside curfew,” Robin cautioned. Nancy shrugged.

“I haven’t been caught yet.”

“Nance.”

“I’ll be careful,” Nancy said, without looking up.

“You better be. You’ve been lucky to not run into any soldiers in the Upside Down so far, but with all those military trucks coming in, you and El had better get ready,” Robin said.

“I know,” Nancy said, with a tight smile, looking up at her. “We know what we’re doing.”

“I know. I’m just…”

“Worried,” Nancy said. “But as you know, it’s the only way.”

“I don’t believe that,” Robin said.

“You don’t have to,” Nancy said, standing up. “But El and I are still going out tomorrow, and we’ll keep going out until we find him.”

Robin sighed as Nancy walked over to the coffee maker. She was pushing herself again. Robin didn’t like it. It felt like Spring Break all over again. As the song came to a close, Robin turned back, looking down at her selection for what song to play next.

After some deliberating, she picked Monster Mash.

Joyce was late coming home, which she felt a tad guilty about. She didn’t like to keep anyone waiting. She hung up her purse, took off her jacket and made her way into the kitchen, where Karen was emptying a bag of chips into a bowl. She hated to host anything without snacks. Karen gave Joyce a look as she entered the kitchen. Joyce gave her an apologetic smile.

“You’re late,” Karen whispered.

“Sorry!” Joyce whispered back. “Is everyone here?”

Karen nodded her head. “Is Ted still asleep?”

Joyce peered into the living room. As usual, Ted was dozing in his La-Z-Boy, dead to the world for the night. Joyce let out a sigh of relief and nodded.

“Okay, let’s go,” Karen said. The two women headed towards the basement. Waiting for them, sitting around the table in a heated conversation was Sue and Charles Sinclair, Claudia Henderson and Susan Mayfield. It was their weekly Friday night meeting.

“Sorry to keep you all waiting!” Karen announced, putting the chips on the table.

“No worries, dear, we know you two are busy,” Claudia said, patting the seat beside her. Once the two ladies were settled in, they began.

“Today marks the fiftieth week of the military surveillance in Hawkins,” Charles began, with a grim look on his face. “Still no end in sight. In fact, just an hour ago I saw a whole fleet of military vehicles entering the border of Hawkins, like it didn’t already feel like a surveillance state.”

“It’s madness,” Susan said, shaking her head and crossing her arms. “Just madness. You can’t walk two feet in front of you without seeing a soldier.”

“I guess my theory about the military loosening their grip turned out to be false. What can I say, I live in hope,” Claudia said with a sigh.

“Unfortunately, I think they’re going to start cracking down even harder if they’re calling in reinforcements,” Charles said.

“Reinforcements for what? This is Hawkins for crying out loud!” Claudia said, with a sigh. The other adults murmured in agreement. Karen had a troubled look on her face.

“Did you hear the Squawk this evening?” Sue asked, leaning forward. “They’re moving the curfew an hour earlier for adults. They’re gonna start giving out fines to grown adults for being out past eleven o’clock! It’s ridiculous.”

Karen shook her head in frustration. “I heard from Sally at the bank that they’re stopping cars at intersections to count passengers. What could they possibly need to do that for?”

Joyce felt a twist in her stomach. She hadn’t heard about that. She would need to tell Jonathan not to drive anywhere with El, even during Crawl nights. They would have to take the tunnels as much as possible.

“This whole operation is a travesty,” Sue said, with a strained sigh. “It has been traumatizing the children. Erica has been reading these dark and hopeless books. Ever since the earthquake last year, my baby has completely closed off. It’s like they stole her joy. How are our children supposed to heal when they’re being monitored twenty-four seven?”

“It’s the same with Dusty,” Claudia lamented. “The way people talk about Steven…and Jonathan.” Her eyes got misty as she looked at Joyce. “I’ve been doing everything I can to figure out who’s been putting those posters up, Joycie. I’m not going to let these shitheads talk about your boy like that anymore.”

Joyce gave a forced smile. “Thank you, Claudia. That means a lot.”

Karen made eye contact with her from across the table. The fewer people who knew Jonathan was alive, the better. As much as Joyce loved Claudia, she had a big mouth and would inevitably let it slip. Sue loved to gossip, and Joyce hadn’t known Susan well before these meetings. For simplicity’s sake, Karen was the only one who knew, and that was only because she had been the person hiding Jonathan while Joyce had still been miles away.

“The entire town’s lost its mind,” Charles said, shaking his head. “They truly think that this whole tragedy had to do with devil worship. Now, I don’t know what killed those kids last year, but I know it wasn’t your boy.”

The other adults gave affirmative nods to Joyce.

“How’s Max doing, sweetie?” Claudia asked, turning to look at Susan. She sighed, looking down at her hands.

“No changes. She got over her cold, but otherwise…” Susan trailed off, her eyes getting glossy. “I just wish that Max and I had never come. We should have stayed in California. You know, Neil was lucky that he could get away from this whole mess. I envy him sometimes.”

“I believe that your girl is going to wake up,” Sue said, reaching across the table and taking the ginger woman’s hand. “And neither of you are alone. We’re all here for you. We have all lost in this earthquake, you more than most. But our boy would never leave Max’s side, and we won’t leave yours.”

Susan sniffled, wiping a tear from her eye. She gave a grateful nod.

“All of our kids have been hurt by this,” Karen said, shaking her head with a sigh. “I think we all know that this town isn’t like other towns. There’s something that none of us are seeing. And I’m afraid that Mike and Nancy see it. They’ve become so distant, so removed, but it’s like they’re always fighting this secret battle they won’t let me into. Nancy’s a brick wall, and Mike is like a ghost haunting this house. And I just know that it’s because of the military.”

Joyce often wished she could just tell Karen the truth. That she knew far more than she could ever let on. That there was another world with horrible creatures that had taken Mike’s eye the year before. That had killed Nancy’s friends. But it would just put her in more danger, and Joyce would never do that to her.

Suddenly, Karen got to her feet. “I say, enough is enough. If they want to tighten curfew and bring in even more reinforcements, then we hit them back.”

Charles nodded his head. “I agree. We’ve stayed silent long enough.”

“What did you have in mind, honey?” Claudia asked.

“A protest,” Karen said, making eye contact with Joyce with a twinkle in her eye. “A full on, widespread protest across Hawkins. They can’t ignore us if we get loud. We can’t just take it lying down. Not just for our children, but for everyone!”

Susan nodded her head. “You’re right. I want this place to be safe when Max wakes back up.”

“I want Erica to have hope for a better future,” Sue said. “I say we do it.”

“I know everyone is upset right now, and for good reason, but we need to proceed with caution. These guys are serious. We need to go about this so no one gets hurt,” Joyce said. She loved her friends, and admired their drive, but she worried about them. The more they pushed, the harder the military would push back. She had been dealing with these assholes for years now.

“We’ve been cautious for long enough. It’s time we act,” Charles said. The room erupted into vigorous agreement. Karen smiled at her.

“Together, we’re going to take Hawkins back.”

Nancy found El in the basement with a scattered assortment of makeup around her. She was trying to pry the plastic wrap off of a blush compact with freshly painted fingernails and failing miserably. Nancy laughed as she walked down the stairs and extended a hand to help.

"Thanks." El said with a smile as she handed Nancy the compact. Her hair was bouncing up to her natural curls after washing it and was tied back with one of her favorite scarves, covered in leaf decals.

"You look pretty," Nancy said, handing El the opened blush. "Did you add a new flower to your skirt?"

El nodded, showing off the long, flowy skirt she wore that had flowers embroidered on the hem, each one added by El whenever she got bored. "It's a California poppy. We used to have them in our yard."

Right. The house in Lenora. What had even become of that house? Nancy figured it must've been sold or repossessed or something. After everything else Joyce had had to deal with since coming back, Nancy could only hope that that process had been simple.

"Another picnic on the roof?" Nancy asked. El nodded. "! figured. You know, one day you'll be able to do things like go to dinner or out dancing. Real dates."

“What kind of dates do you and Jonathan go on?" El asked.

“Did. Past tense.” Nancy reminded her.

El made a face. There should have been Something given that El and Robin spent the most time around Nancy and Jonathan these days and they were the ones having the hardest time believing that they were broken up for real.

"What kinds of things did you do then?" El clarified. She dipped her brush in the blush pot and started to apply the soft orange color to her face.

"We went on drives together, and we watched movies and did day trips in Indy," Nancy trailed off. She sat down at the table, watching as El methodically went over her process. "It really wasn't proper planned dates most of the time. I'm not really good at planning stuff like that."

El nodded. "I understand that."

El didn't look unlike how Nancy used to get ready for her dates with Steve in her sophomore year. She would play her music and talk on the phone with Barb, trying to convince her to go along with the sleepover excuse. Those dates would make good suggestions. Joyrides and cafes and football games.

She tried not to think about how both of the people in that story were dead now, specifically because they'd gotten caught up in Nancy's antics.

Reality wrought Nancy back in as El extended a tube of mascara in her direction. Will you help?"

Nancy smiled. "Course I will."

She delicately unscrewed the lid and instructed El to look up. They giggled as El's nose wrinkled and a little bit of black got on her face, but they would just wipe it off after.

"You know we have a crawl tomorrow," Nancy said as applied the makeup to El's other eye. "So don't go to bed too late."

"I will try. Curfew is at eleven now. What if Dustin stays too late on accident and has to sleep over?" El posited, a grin on her face.

"Then he'll sleep on the couch upstairs." Nancy informed her, point blank.

"What?!" El exclaimed. "But there is a perfectly fine couch down here."

"You are not having a sleepover with your boyfriend the night before a crawl!" Nancy insisted. "God, you're turning me into my mom."

"Your mom is cool."

"…Yeah, she is."

Nancy and El laughed. El wiped the messy mascara off of her face and uncapped a lip gloss as Nancy stood up.

"I'm headed home. Have fun, okay?"

She said it like it was the most important thing going on. Nancy knew that it was.

"Thanks, Nance."

Nancy paused at the top of the stairs. That might've been the first time El had used her nickname.

Halloween used to be Erica’s favourite Holiday. Erica stared at herself in the mirror, at the costume that had felt like the most important thing in the world to get right when she had been planning it.

She and Tina had picked out their costumes all the way back in February. Their parents had taken them all the way to Indianapolis to go to the mall, where Erica had painstakingly dragged Tina through nearly every store to find the perfect pieces for their costumes. Erica had found a jean skirt and an orange plaid short sleeved shirt, along with cowgirl boots and a hat. She had embroidered by hand the apple pattern onto the skirt and had borrowed one of her mom’s blue ribbons to tie as a bow around her hat. She had even found apple bobble clips to put in her hair. Those lay unopened in the box, since she had never ended up getting braids anyway.

Tina had bought a blue blouse and a flowy purple skirt. She had spent hours making purple wings to wear across her back. Erica had also helped her embroider the lightning bolts into her skirt. They were going as Applejack and Firefly from My Little Pony. A few months ago, Erica had been counting down the days on her calendar until it was finally Halloween night.

Nowadays, her calendar still said May.

Erica forced a smile as her mom took pictures of her and Tina posing.

“You girls look so adorable!” Sue said, with a delighted grin on her face. “All that hard work you put into these costumes really paid off.”

Erica supposed it did. When she looked in the mirror, she could recognize that her Applejack costume looked great.

But it still didn’t feel like Halloween, and Erica didn’t know if it ever would again. Her mom was smiling and laughing like a few hours earlier Erica hadn’t been being grilled about reading books above her grade level. Maybe her mom was only pleased with her when Erica acted like a little kid.

Once Sue was thoroughly satisfied with her pictures, the two girls headed next door to the Wheelers to pick up Holly. That was one constant in Erica’s life, looking after the youngest Wheeler. Holly said it like it was, and Erica respected that.

Mrs. Wheeler eagerly greeted the girls at the door, gushing about their outfits as she ushered them inside to take even more photos with Holly. Erica felt more like a set piece than a person. At least Holly looked cute. She was bouncing at the heels of her feet, clad in ruby slippers as she wrapped her arms around Erica. She forced another smile as Mrs. Wheeler snapped a picture, before finally setting them free.

“I’m so excited!” Holly said, sliding her hands down her Dorothy Gale costume. It was brand new. “Mommy said last week she didn’t think they were gonna allow trick or treating this year.”

The kids are school had been questioning it for months if it would even be possible with all the empty grocery stores. But Holly had remained hopeful. The military surveillance certainly bothered her, but it never seemed to bring her down completely. She was still young. A real little girl.

“Okay, so I’m thinking we hit up every house on Maple Street. We should avoid Cherry Road at all costs,” Tina began, already having their route thoroughly planned out. They had made a map back in February. It was somewhere in Erica’s room, lost somewhere under her bed. “What do you think, Erica?”

Erica shrugged, falling behind as Tina and Holly went on ahead. Tina was great with Holly. She was a nice respite from Derek, at least. Tina and Erica’s hangouts were almost exclusively at the Sinclair residence because Erica did not care for Derek.

“Erica, come on, you’re being so slow!” Tina said, looking over her shoulder at Erica. She pouted. “Can’t you cheer up a little bit? Halloween only comes once a year. We’ve earned this!” Had Erica earned it?

“Yeah! They restocked the candy in town just for this!” Holly said, turning to tug on Erica’s arm. “The monsters tonight aren’t real. It’s all pretend. You don’t have to worry.”

“It wouldn’t kill you to be a kid for once,” Tina said, crossing her arms.

Erica gritted her teeth, but said nothing. She couldn’t say what she really thought, which was real kids aren’t supposed to see their friends get ripped to pieces right in front of their eyes.

“I’ll race you to Mrs. Leary’s house,” Erica said after a moment, if nothing more than to placate her friends.

After a handful of houses, she felt herself slowly begin to relax. The frustration from that afternoon inside the guidance counselor’s office was melting away. Erica even found herself giggling when Mrs. Leary gave her a full-sized chocolate bar. How she had gotten them into Hawkins was a mystery.

“I just know Mike is gonna ask for some of my candy,” Holly said, mournfully, peering into her bag.

“Tell him no labour, no reward. We worked hard for this,” Erica said. Holly nodded her head, defiantly.

“Oh, I don’t know. I feel bad for Mike,” Tina said. “The kids at school all say he gives them the heebie-jeebies. He doesn’t need to go out tonight because he has a scary face all year round.”

Holly stopped in her tracks, looking up at Tina in shock. Erica cringed. She had heard them say that, too, but she’d never say that to Holly.

“I don’t think that!” Tina said, quickly. “It’s just what I hear.”

The scar did scare Erica, but only because she had been there when he got it. Just thinking about it made Erica’s arm feel numb. She still sometimes got phantom pains. It had taken so long to heal. Her memory of how exactly it had happened was still foggy. Everything from that night was foggy, except for the parts that were painfully detailed, like the way Steve looked when he was dying.

Erica clutched at her arm, mindlessly. Her friends were walking a pace ahead of her again. She must have been doing that thing again, where she’d get so lost in thought that she’d stop hearing what anyone had said. They’d given up on her.

Suddenly, Erica felt eyes on her. She stopped in her tracks, the chilly Autumn air whistling past her ears. Erica slowly turned her head.

“Mr. Jacobson!” She called, waving her hand. The librarian was standing at the end of the street. He waved back, smiling wide at her. She was relieved to see someone she could really talk to. He always managed to cheer her up.

“What are you doing?” Tina asked, cocking an eyebrow at her.

“Saying hi to Mr. Jacobson,” Erica said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Tina gave her a funny look.

“You’re so weird. Come on,” Tina said, taking Erica’s hand and pulling her along to the next house.

The glow of the TV was the only thing illuminating the living room where Mike lay on the couch, his knees pulled up to his chest and underneath the warm fabric of his sweater. He was only half paying attention to the scary movie playing on screen. His parents had already gone to bed. His mom knew he’d stay up to wait for Holly to get home from trick or treating. Mike rarely went to bed before 2am.

The screen was hard to focus on with only one eye, so he tended to just listen. He had turned the volume up as loud as he could without waking up his parents on account of being deaf in one ear. In just one bite, a Demogorgon had halved his senses. As Mike watched a zombie bite into a woman’s head, he giggled to himself, knowing from experience that it was nothing like that.

The front door opened. Mike peered at the entryway. The voices of giggling preteen girls rang through the first floor of the house. Mike picked at a loose thread of his sweater, remembering the Halloween of 1984 when he and his friends had dressed up like Ghostbusters. He remembered Dustin and Lucas loudly humming the theme song as they biked to school. Dustin joking around with him, laughing so hard he had to grab onto Mike to stay standing. Lucas, pining after Max and following her around like a puppy. Will, finally getting a short-lived taste of freedom when Jonathan let him trick or treat on his own.

Mike hadn’t known how precious that memory was going to be back then. Now all he wanted to do was to go back.

Holly scampered into the living room.

“Mike, look at my dress!” Holly said, giving a little spin. Mike smiled, sitting up.

“Very pretty,” He complimented. Holly grinned, throwing her bag of candy down on the coffee table and sitting down next to him.

“You can have some of my candy, but keep your hands off my full-sized bars! We worked for those,” Holly said, crossing her arms and looking him up and down. Mike laughed.

“What’s got you so generous tonight?” He asked, reaching into her candy bag to grab a tootsie roll. Holly never shared her candy without Mike goading her into it. The grin on Holly’s face melted away. She snuggled into Mike’s side.

“I like the way you look,” Holly said, earnestly, which startled Mike. That was the last thing he had expected her to say. He looked away. He knew it wasn’t true. Holly had cried the first time they took the bandage off his face. She spent a solid week not being able to look at him. Still, he appreciated her words.

“I like the way you look, too, Hols,” Mike said, putting an arm around his baby sister. The living room was quiet for a moment, except for the sounds of people screaming on the TV.

“Why are you sad?” Holly asked, looking up at him.

“I’m not sad,” Mike said, his back stiffening. Holly raised an eyebrow. Where was this coming from?

“Mike, you’re moping in the pitch black in the fetal position,” Holly said. Mike didn’t like how easily she could read him. He missed the years when she was blissfully unaware of everything. Now, Mike felt as though he had to be hyper vigilant or else she’d call him out. He couldn’t ever seem to fool her these days.

“My friends are mad at me,” Mike admitted. “I did some things last year that I can’t take back, so who knows? They might always be mad.”

Holly looked into his eye, her face very serious for a seven-year-old. “I’m not mad at you.”

Mike felt like he could cry. He held it in. “Thanks, Hols. I appreciate it.”

Holly turned from him, grabbing her bag and emptying it out on the couch between them. She systematically began to sort the candy between them.

“Wanna pull an all-nighter?” Holly asked, conspiratorially. If Mike didn’t have a Crawl the next day, he’d probably say yes.

“How about we stay up until we get stomachaches?”

“Deal.”

Dustin knew he was in pain.

He didn’t know exactly when he had woken up, or how long he had been out. He had moments of clarity, before he would lose consciousness again. Every time he opened his eyes, he would see floaters fill his vision. His head ached like a bitch and his wounds stung to high heaven. It was easier to just close his eyes, because he didn’t want to deal with it.

Now, when he opened his eyes, he realized it was dark out. The sun had gone down, and he had missed his date. Part of him had wanted to. Part of him had hoped that it would happen, that Jason and his goons would find him and beat the shit out of him. He’d got what he wanted, and he still felt like shit.

He was just hoping that they’d have done him the decency of finishing the job.

Dustin closed his eyes again.

Jonathan wrapped his sweater tight around himself as he stepped out into the cold October (one hour until November) air. He walked out until he could see his sister sitting by herself on the rooftop. He waved to get her attention and called out. "El, what are you doing up still? It's eleven o'clock, time for bed."

His shoulders slumped as he watched El take a shuddering breath and stand to her feet, pulling up the picnic blanket under her feet in despair.

“El. El!” Jonathan moved around the side of the building to meet El as she scampered down the ladder angrily. "Did Dustin never show?"

"Obviously not!" El exclaimed, wiping a mascara stained tear from her cheek.

"God, El, I'm sorry," Jonathan called, following her back inside. "Did he never call? No word, nothing?"

"No! I don't know where he is, and I don't really care.”

She threw herself on the lounge couch and tried and failed to ward off tears. Jonathan sat down next to her and drew his hands down his jeans with a sigh.

“I don't know what to say. It sucks, El, I’m sorry." he began, letting El lean onto his shoulder. "Do you want to call him?"

El shook her head. "I don't want to think about him. I will get too upset."

"That's fine, too," Jonathan insisted. "How's this- what do you wanna do?"

"Well, I wanted to be having dinner with Dustin."

"Okay, yeah, I see that-" Jonathan let out a breathy laugh as he wrapped his arm tighter around El. "Um, is there anything that- that I can do to help you forget about that?"

El was quiet. She was still mopey, shaking with tears that streaked down her face.

"Do you want to eat something? Watch a movie?"

El looked up through watery eyes. "I thought it was time for bed."

Jonathan shrugged. "Eh, it's Halloween. Friday night. I think I can make an exception. Don't tell Mom.”

“…Okay,” El said. She extended her pinky for Jonathan to take. He rolled his eyes, but obliged. "I will make the food. You pick the movie?"

"Sounds like a plan."

Jonathan went downstairs white El headed into the pantry, searching for the popcorn and the hot chocolate at the coffee station. As she started to brew the hot water, she wiped more loose tears from her face.

She didn't know why Dustin hadn't shown. And she didn't quite care at that point in time. All that mattered was that she was upset. And they were going to do something to make it better.

As comforting as it was to spend this time with Jonathan, she thought there was something missing that would make the night better. She looked at the clock. Eleven o' six. Surely this would work.

She didn't bother with the radio itself. She didn't need it for this- she was just going halfway across town. El turned on her walkie talkie and sniffled as she wrapped the bandana that had been in her hair around her eyes. It was going to be washed anyway- so what if it had some teary mascara stains on it?

She found Will in the bathroom. He was looking in the mirror, brushing his teeth. He was wearing pajama pants and a towel around his shoulders. It took a few more seconds and El getting a little closer for him to stop dead in his tracks as the rest of the bathroom disappeared around him and he realized he was being pulled into a conversation.

Spitting out toothpaste, Will turned around as he wiped his face in annoyance. "El- warning, please! I could've still been in the shower."

"But you aren't." El managed to say. Her voice was croaky as she still wasn't quite done crying.

Will seemed to notice this, softening as he walked to meet her in the middle of the Void, the bathroom disappearing behind him. He'd had a firm grip on the bathroom sink in the physical world as he felt El pulling him in. He knew he at least wouldn't fall and crack his head on the sink or something like that. He did, however, wonder if he'd locked the door. Will didn't want Holly to walk in or something and see him with his eyes rolled back into his head.

"You look pretty. What happened?" he asked, noticing the makeup-y tears streaming down El's face.

"He never showed." El shrugged.

"Who? Dustin?"

El started to crack again, letting Will pull her in for a not-quite-real hug and he realized he'd guessed correctly.

"I'm sorry."

Will resisted the urge to start saying nasty things. Dustin was still one of his best friends. You don't exactly road trip across the country with someone and not come out of it bonded one way or another. However, recently he'd been acting like a real asshole and Will didn't exactly have the best temper as of late. He used to be extremely gentle and patient. He fought to let that side of himself win as he ran a hand through El's hair comfortingly.

"You want me to call him? Curse him out?" Will asked. What? He wasn't entirely gentle again. "I'll do it."

"No, no," El shook her head. "I do not want to think about him. Jonathan and I are going to watch a movie."

"Oh! That sounds good, I think Mike and Holly are doing the same thing tonight." Will nodded.

"Oh…" El trailed off. "Do you want to stay there? I was going to ask if you wanted to come here."

Will grimaced. On one hand, the idea of his siblings actually inviting him to be a part of what they were doing was an opportunity he so rarely got outside of training, but…

"It's past curfew, I don't know if I can," Will said. "I'll get in serious trouble if I break the rules."

El frowned. "You do drugs, like, every day."

"…Not every day, c'mon. I've cut back."

"Are you coming or not?" El asked.

Will wrinkled his nose. He thought about it. He was pretty good at running and hiding, especially from cops if last year was anything to go off of.

"I'll see what I can do," Will said, squeezing El's hands. "Don't eat all the snacks before I get there."

"No promises!"

As the bathroom rematerialized around Will, he wiped the streak of blood from his nose with his towel and threw his t-shirt over his head. He'd head out the back door in the basement, less likely to be caught by his mom that way, although he'd have to call in the morning and let her know where he was.

When Will landed on the first floor and walked around the stairs to the basement landing, he saw Mike and Holly lying on the couch in the living room. There was a black and white horror movie playing on the TV and candy wrappers scattered around the coffee table, the couch, and the floor, including where Mike's arm was slung over Holly as they slept.

Will snorted at the sight. He tiptoed over to the TV and turned the volume down before heading downstairs.

The only truly silent place that Nancy could find in Hawkins was the woods.

Four years ago, the woods had made her uncomfortable. It was this eerie place on the border of town that separated it from the rest of the world. It was in the woods where Barb had presumably been dragged off to by the Demogorgon. It was the first place she saw the monster. It was in the woods that she had first discovered the Upside Down. She spent years avoiding it if she could.

But now, it was her quiet place.

Nancy set up her shots all in a row. She had long since grown from target practice with empty beer cans. Now she needed more difficult shots. She had got El to sketch X’s into trees that Nancy couldn’t reach herself. She wondered if she could get some practice done when El was free so she could use her powers to give her moving targets. Then they would be in business.

Nancy took a deep breath and began to shoot.

Any time a bad memory would pop into her head, she’d shoot another target. She’d gotten pretty good at pushing it all down the last few months. In some ways, the Crawls had been good for her. They gave her a purpose. A mission. A goal. An end in sight to have made all her mistakes mean something.

Nancy’s first Crawls had been less than ideal. She had been so scared the first time that she had tripped and taken a layer of skin off her knee. It had taken her a bit of time to get into the real swing of things. But by her seventh Crawl, Nancy had her routine down. Now with El tagging along with her, the Crawls were a piece of cake.

It hadn’t been easy. Nothing was ever easy. But Nancy got herself there.

Nancy heard a twig snap in the distance. At first, she assumed it was just a deer. But as the sound of footsteps started to draw closer, Nancy realized she was in trouble.

She moved quickly and carefully through the woods, trying to keep her head down the whole time. It sounded like footsteps were coming from every direction. She tried to keep the panic from rising to her chest. She had to stay hidden.

Nancy spotted a small dip underneath a fallen tree, and a large rock on the other side. She carefully nestled herself inside the gap. She had gotten good at keeping her breathing quiet. Still, she was scared. No matter how much she hardened herself, fear always seemed to creep back in.

Soldiers. There were soldiers scanning the woods.

“No sight of the girl,” A man’s voice said from the other side of the rock. Nancy tried to bury herself even more. Were they somehow looking for her?

“There were sightings of her about four years back in these woods. If you ask me, I doubt that she’d go back to her old stomping ground,” A younger soldier’s voice said.

“I hear you, but this is what the boss wanted.”

“We’re wasting our time.”

“It doesn’t matter. These were her orders.”

“Yeah, because she’s on a power trip.”

“Keep your voice down! What if someone heard you say that?”

“Oh, come on. These woods are empty.”

Two pairs of boots began to walk further and further away. Nancy readied herself, before bolting towards the tree line.

Robin hadn’t been kidding about the increased surveillance.

Chapter Text

"We're going tonight, a-and I really think we might make some good ground. If this isn't El's final crawl, it's going to be one of our last. I can feel it. Right, Lucas?"

Will was sitting next to Lucas as they remained vigil at Max's bedside. It was a rush job for Will to get out of the radio station in the wake of his and his sibling's pity party the night before and to the hospital by mid-morning, but he and Lucas were insistent upon seeing Max before the crawl that night. Lucas had watched with empty eyes as Will took Max's hand and figured it wouldn't hurt to try and search for her again. He knew it would just be a whole lot of squeezing his eyes shut and hoping the void appeared around him. Still, even after all this time, he couldn’t go anywhere unless El was with him. But, there came the upsetting truth that even if searching was something Will could do without El, it would have led nowhere anyways. They had not found Henry, and they had not found Max.

"Yeah, sure." Lucas murmured.

There were a lot of silent moments shared between the three of them in this room. Sometimes they wouldn't talk or even play Kate Bush. They just held hands and tried to pretend things were normal for a moment.

Will shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "I'm, uh- I'm gonna go get something to drink. You wanna come with?"

Lucas shook his head no.

Will stood, brushing off his pants and heading into the hallway. At this point, Will had spent so much time in that room with Lucas and Max that it felt weird to detach himself from them for too long. Between Max and Mike, they'd all spent far too much time in this hospital for Will's liking. He didn't know how Lucas managed to do all that extra volunteering in addition to seeing Max. Personally, Will hated hospitals. He'd spend a hefty percentage of his seventh-grade year in them. Well, the lab wasn't quite a hospital, but it had the same cold, clinical hallways and same-clothes people milling about with big, dangerous, important things to do.

Today, though, the hospital looked even more like the lab with how many military officers were strewn about the halls. They always were right before a burn, restocking on supplies just in case.

Not like any civilians are in dire need of medical attention. Will thought with sarcasm echoing in his brain.

He froze up anyway. He always preferred to be invisible. Not to mention he had no idea if one of them had spotted him sneaking through the woods past curfew the night before and was just waiting to see the kid again and book him. Will had spent far too much time feeling like he was being watched these days. He needed a break. And a cigarette.

Lucas remained in Max's room. The energy always shifted when Will left to "give them a moment alone". The air became heavy and desolate.

"It's gonna be really hard to do this without you," Lucas began. "I know you're in there, that you're fighting. Please keep fighting. The party isn't complete, we need you. El needs you. She misses you so much. And- and…"

Lucas was trying not to cry. If Max could hear him, it would be the first thing she teased him about when she woke up. He could picture it now.

"You really thought I was worth all those tears, Stalker? I'm right here."

To be fair, Lucas wasn't really offered the opportunity to cry much these days. Between being at the hospital and sitting with Max, training with El and Will, monitoring crawls, schoolwork, and making sure his sister wasn't completely off the deep end, Lucas hardly had time for himself in general.

For his birthday in October, Lucas had gotten a book about the history of the Punic Wars from his parents. The party had pooled together enough to get him a new Technic Control Lego set. They'd both remained unopened on his desk for weeks. No time.

The silence started to weigh on him. He figured one more try couldn't hurt, loading the Kate Bush cassette into the radio and hitting play.

"Good morning, Hawkins! Hope everyone's recovered from the Halloween festivities last night and ready for a candy coma weekend. You may have heard the rumors about the curfew, and I'm here to let you know that they are, in fact, true. The new curfew for children under thirteen…"

Robin and Jonathan were doing a bang-up job making a weekend broadcast by themselves. They were usually low-maintenance because they had considerably less listeners on weekends, and besides, Nancy and El were preoccupied with important Crawl-related things.

Well, Nancy was preoccupied with Crawl planning. El was sitting on the couch, hoarding the "I'm sorry you got stood up" candy stash Robin had gifted her that morning as she lazily watched a movie. She didn't like it very much. It was about a girl whose family had forgotten her birthday. It made her feel very sad to watch. El had wanted to go all out for birthdays in the quarantine, trying to make sure everyone felt special, but a lot of people didn't really have the energy to celebrate too much these days.

The movie kept playing, though, because it made El feel better than doing nothing.

"I'm starting to get really worried about Dustin." Nancy said, checking her watch.

"Ugh, who cares?" El groaned.

Nancy put down her pen and stared at El, deadpan. "You clearly do. You're still wearing his shirt."

Damn it. El looked down. She was indeed wearing her usual sleep shirt, which just so happened to be Dustin's scholastic decathlon shirt.

"It's been nineteen hours," Nancy said. "If this were a kidnapping, which it very well could be, there is a twenty-one percent chance that he's still alive."

That made El sit up. "You- you don't think someone actually took him, though, do you?"

"I don't know! That's the thing! But there's always a chance that that little asshole has gotten himself into trouble with the military and there's nothing that any of us can do about it." Nancy explained.

She quickly went back to her work mapping out the Crawl as El thought to herself. She brushed candy wrappers off of the couch and wondered if something really was wrong. Dustin had been acting…strange, lately, but he hadn't ever ditched El like that before. The more she sat on it, the more likely it became in her mind that something had happened, and she became extremely worried.

Slam!

El's walkie talkie appeared on the coffee table and her blindfold was in position to go around her eyes as she turned to Nancy. "I am going to look for him."

Looking up, Nancy nodded. "That's a good idea. I'll be quiet."

With the black fabric tied around her head and the white noise pouring from her radio, El took a deep breath and tried to focus. It was hard to insist to her senses that she wanted to see Dustin because the truth was that she was still very upset with him, but she made her leap into the unknown anyway.

The void was dark and dreary, as always, El padding through on light feet as she wandered through the nothingness and tried very intently to locate her boyfriend.

"Dustin?" El called out. It wasn't because he'd be able to hear her or anything- it was moreso in an attempt to focus her mind on her target. It was something she'd always done, and she didn't know why.

It took a full thirty seconds of walking for El to realize she wasn't going to find him. It meant he wasn't awake. Still alive, thankfully, but not awake. She found awake people just fine. She found corpses sometimes. Being asleep, or unconscious, was somewhere in between. El didn't know what the reasoning was, but it was a relocation of the consciousness. It was the same thing when she tried to find Max. When she tried to find Max's mind, the void became thick with fog and there were parts El couldn't go into. This was similar.

With a frown, she pulled the blindfold off of her head and used it to wipe the blood from her nose. "He is either asleep or unconscious."

"…Is that a good thing?" Nancy asked.

"It means he is not dead," El stood, depositing her blindfold on the table and walking towards her and Jonathan's curtained nook to get dressed. "That's as much as I care to know."

Dustin figured it was about time to get up.

His joints ached as he forced himself into a seated position. His back felt like a plank of wood. He tried to stretch, but the various bruises that covered his body made it a miserable experience. But he pushed through it, eventually willing himself to his feet despite every part of his body telling him no.

His vision was blurry. He could barely put one foot in front of the other without feeling like he was going to fall on his face. After a few cautious attempts, Dustin was able to reach his bike he had callously tossed aside the night before. He grabbed his backpack and started digging. Dustin ravenously ripped open a protein bar and drained his water bottle. It only made him feel a tiny bit more human.

He wasn’t ready to go back to the Squawk. Not yet. He knew whatever waited for him there wouldn’t be good. On the other hand, he wasn’t ready to go to the boarding house he and his mom shared with his loud, boisterous roommates. Instead, Dustin started to drag his bike towards the woods. There was only one place he wanted to be. Skull Rock.

Hesitantly, Dustin fished his Walkman out of his backpack. He wasn’t supposed to take it out of the radio station. Everyone had one. If Vecna could take Nancy by surprise, he could take anyone. The reason Dustin wasn’t supposed to be carrying it was that if a psychic asshole entered his brain, he couldn’t put the headphones on himself. But he didn’t really care. He pressed play.

Ground control to Major Tom
Ground control to Major Tom

David Bowie had become a favourite of his. The giant poster found in Steve’s belongings had been the start of his foray into his music. Robin and Dustin had found it while sorting all of Steve’s stuff that first week after the Earthquake. He still had trouble wrapping his mind around the fact that his parents had given all of his stuff to them.

They didn’t have anywhere else to bring it, so the radio shack briefly became a sorting zone. They had made four different piles. Donations, for Jonathan, for Robin and for Dustin. Dustin had kept the David Bowie poster, even if he didn’t have anywhere to hang it.

Both he and Jonathan dressed like Steve did. The only difference was that Dustin had a choice.

This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today

No one came to Skull Rock anymore, other than Dustin. Hardly anyone went into the woods at all. Everyone was too afraid of the military. They had all the townsfolk on edge, and for good reason. People were getting citations left and right. But Dustin didn’t care. He had already received plenty, and he expected he’d get plenty more.

What else was there to do when you were stuck?

Here am I floating in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do

El was going to be mad. He’d never missed their dates before. Hurting her was the last thing he wanted to do. But maybe it would be okay if she hated him. Maybe it would be better that way. After all, he had been a pretty shit boyfriend as of recent. She deserved to be happy. It would be the happiest ending for her if she broke it off.

Besides, what could hurt more than the person he loved breaking his heart?

Though I’m passed one hundred thousand miles
I’m feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell my wife I love her very much, she knows

Dustin reached the path that would lead him to Skull Rock. He didn’t even need a compass anymore, he had the route memorized. He had heard so many stories from Steve about his escapades. It had been the place that he went to blow off steam. Sometimes, he felt a little bit closer to Steve there than he did at his empty grave.

Ideally, he would go to Weathertop, but that wasn’t an option anymore. It was the home of one of the four corners of the fissure, making it completely inaccessible. There was no way to ever recover the body if he tried. He really would never see his best friend again.

Ground control to Major Tom
Your circuits dead, there’s something wrong
Can you hear me Major Tom?
Can you hear me Major Tom?

Dustin turned off the tape.

Knock knock knock.

"Erica? Can I come in?"

"Mm-hm."

The bedroom door creaked open slowly. Sue came in to sit on the edge of Erica's bed, gently placing a hand on her daughter's blanketed leg. "Are you feeling alright? How was trick-or-treating?"

Erica shrugged. She was reading her old copy of A Swiftly Tilting Planet, needing a brain break and something she was already familiar with, but Handmaid's Tale was stashed in her dresser for the next time she was able to pick it up.

"It was fine. I already gave Dad his peanut butter chocolate tax."

"Your father doesn't need that, trust me," Sue laughed. "…I wanted to talk. About yesterday."

"It's okay, Mommy," Erica said. "I know you guys were just worried."

"Well, we are. But I don't want you to think that we're trying to punish you. It's just…"

Erica looked up from her book. Her mother seemed to be genuinely stammering, fighting off the urge to tear up.

"I know that things are scary right now. That you've seen a lot of things that no little girl should ever have to see," Sue explained, rubbing Erica's leg reassuringly. "But I hope you know that it's okay to still be young. That you don't have to know everything just yet."

Erica ignored the urge to roll her eyes. If only her mom knew just how much she didn't know, and how utterly annoying that was for her.

"I know. I think sometimes…I want to read my books and learn about all the sad things in them because it helps me not to think about the sad things in real life." Erica explained solemnly. She thought there was probably some truth to that sentiment.

Sue grimaced and nodded, clearly downtrodden. "Sweetheart, there are so many sad things in life. There are always going to be. But there's so many happy things, too. And you are in just the right spot to still be able to see all of them. I don't want you to lose that."

"I won't, Mommy," Erica smiled. "You're gonna have to try a little harder to get rid of this imagination."

She tapped her head with a finger and laughed with her mom.

"That's good to hear," Sue smiled. She ran a hand through Erica's curls. "Your father and I have plans with Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler tonight. Do you want to go over there and hang out with Holly?"

Erica scoffed. "Is this your nice way of telling me I'm babysitting?"

"…Yes."

"Alright, I guess…" Erica forced her lips into a small smile. "I'm kidding. That's fine. Never a dull moment with Barbie."

"Does she…like that you call her that?" Sue asked.

"She kind of gets mad when I don't, to be honest."

Joyce was laughing. She had been doing that more lately.

Karen was just finishing unloading the dishwasher, grabbing the two wine glasses that they had snuck the night before at 2am when neither she or Joyce could sleep. They had sat on the kitchen counters and giggled like they were schoolgirls again, occasionally shushing each other to remind each other not to wake any of the others in the house. She had gone to bed with sore ribs from laughing so much.

Despite the constant surveillance, food shortage and anxiety that hung in the air, Joyce was happier in Hawkins than she had been in California, and that was in no small part due to Karen. They had always been friends, but now they were best friends.

“And of course, that was after Patty moved away. Otherwise, I would have told her everything,” Karen finished her long-winded story. Joyce stilled at the mention of Patty Newby. Any mentions of the Newby’s made her heart stir a little bit. But when Karen smiled up at her, it made Joyce feel at ease.

“By the way, I have the lunches in the back of the fridge,” Karen said, quietly.

“Thank you,” Joyce said, with a sigh. Karen was a machine at cooking. She always had food for both families ready, including El and Jonathan. Joyce had always hated cooking. It was really nice to share the responsibilities with someone else who actually liked to do it. For her thirteen years being married to Lonnie, she had been fully responsible for all the chores and cooking, until Jonathan had stepped up to help. But they could only be a team for so long, and it wasn’t right to put all of that responsibility on him. Joyce still felt ashamed of it. But with Karen, they were on equal standing, and she wanted to help her.

“No problem. By the way, they’re doing a rerun of My Fair Lady on the TV tonight. What do you say we kick the kids out of the living room and watch it together?” Karen asked. They had gone to see the film in theaters together when it had first come out. They used to sing the songs at each other under the bleachers when they were teens. Karen was a natural at I Could Have Danced All Night.

“Oh, gosh, I can’t tonight,” Joyce said, regretfully. Not with the Crawl slated for that evening. That was the downside to their arrangement. Joyce couldn’t tell Karen anything. Not about the Crawls, definitely not about the Upside Down. Her even knowing of El’s existence to the extent she did made Joyce nervous for her safety. The secrets weighed on her, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. “I have to restock down at the shop. Some of my guys called in sick.”

“I totally understand,” Karen said, putting a hand up. She never questioned Joyce, even when she had every reason to. She sometimes stared at her like she was trying to piece together a mystery, but she’d never voice the thoughts. Maybe one day Joyce could tell her everything. That would be nice. “Hey, there will be other movies to watch.”

“Yeah,” Joyce said, grabbing supplies to clean the stove. They continued to clean in a comfortable silence.

“I heard Susan got a citation,” Karen said, her mouth forming into a tight straight line. “For walking too close to the earthquake fissures in the trailer park. You know, the fissure that runs through the trailer park.”

Joyce’s eyes widened. They never talked about the military outside of the car and the basement. Ted was staunchly supportive of the government, and he shut down any conversation where it was criticized. She couldn’t believe that Karen was talking about it out in the open. Joyce looked into the living room, noticing Ted asleep in his chair.

“Really?” Joyce asked, her voice just a whisper. Karen gave a deep nod.

“It’s going to get worse before it’s going to get better,” Karen said. “It’s just the beginning. First, it’s the curfew adjustment, next the soldiers are going to be doing house checks! I heard they were sniffing around the boarding houses, looking for someone. Claudia called this morning to tell me.”

Joyce paled. They were looking for El. She knew it in her gut. Karen was giving her a serious look.

“That’s…”

“Yeah,” Karen said, looking Joyce in the eye. “I’m worried about him.”

Having two children on the lam wasn’t easy. Joyce sighed.

“We just…need to wait it out,” Joyce said, going against every instinct in her body. What she wanted to do was reassure Karen that they were going to find their old classmate Henry Creel and beat the shit out of him, but she couldn’t. Instead, she had to caution Karen so she didn’t get herself hurt.

“Joyce,” Karen said, taking a step towards her. She gently grabbed hold of Joyce’s arm. “I think we should go forward with the protest, as soon as possible.”

“What?” Joyce asked, her breath catching.

“I mean it,” Karen said, grabbing hold of her other arm and gently rubbing her thumb across the top of it. “You’ve never been afraid of taking a stand and doing what’s right, and it’s inspiring.”

“Oh, come on,” Joyce said, trying to wave it off. She hated when Karen did flattery. It was embarrassing.

“I mean it. You’re brave, and courageous, and you don’t let anyone give you shit. Well, now the military is taking too much from us, and someone has to say something. So why not me? Why shouldn’t I be the person to say no, to make a stand?” Karen said, her face breaking out into a smile. “I’m just…sick of being a pushover.”

Joyce could hear Ted snoring in the other room. Joyce closed her eyes but nodded. She was never going to make Karen feel like she wasn’t good enough.

“Revolution leader Karen Wheeler,” Joyce said, with a smile. Karen laughed.

“Hardly,” Karen said, letting go of her arms. “I’m gonna sweep up. Are you good to clean the stove?”

“Already on it.”

Jason’s mind was elsewhere when a basketball shot right past his head, narrowly missing his nose. That was par for the course these days. Chance stopped, sighing loudly. Jason jumped.

“You still playing, Carver?” Chance asked, propping a hand on his hip.

“Come on, space cadet. You were the one who wanted to do this,” Andy said, running to retrieve the ball. Jason gritted his teeth and walked to sit down at the picnic table. It was midday at the park. This place had been Jason’s saving grace for months, though lately not even the fresh air and exercise had been helping him. The bad feeling in his chest was just getting worse. He stared across the street at Mr. Jenkins’ yard, covered in Halloween decorations. Jason would usually stop the boys from kicking in pumpkins on peoples lawns, but this year he hadn’t said anything. Chance and Andy had crushed a dozen.

“Come on, Jason, we didn’t mean it,” Chance said.

“I just need a break,” Jason said. Chance and Andy exchanged looks, before joining him at the table.

“What’s wrong this time?” Chance asked.

What was wrong? Everything was. Not a single thing in Jason’s life had felt right since March. Back then, he had a plan. He had a girlfriend. He had friends who didn’t talk about him behind his back. He had a scholarship lined to a good college. His grades had been excellent. He wasn’t stuck in a horrible town that let cultists run free. Now, everything had changed.

“I can’t believe they didn’t cancel the Halloween celebration after everything that happened in this town,” Jason eventually settled on answering. “It’s distasteful.”

“What? Did you think Jonathan Byers was going to rise from the grave to kill more cheerleaders?” Andy asked. Jason shot him a look. He always did that, and Jason still never laughed.

“Shut up,” Jason said, crossing his arms. He thought about that night everyday. How scared Chrissy must have been as Jonathan Byers and Steve Harrington broke every bone in her body in their sick ritual. Had she cried? Had she asked for him? Was there anything he could have done differently to save her, or had Jonathan always planned on hurting her?

It made him wonder if every horrible tragedy that happened in this town was tied back to them. Barbara Holland’s car had been last seen at Steve Harrington’s house. Jonathan Byers had been one of the survivors of the mall fire.

It had always been him. He had taken everything from them, even Chrissy and Patrick.

“Mr. Jenkins has little devils in his yard. It makes me sick,” Jason said, unable to bear to look anymore. “He was at the rally in March. Said he stood with us. Now look at him, making light of our friend’s murders.”

“Come on, it’s just a stupid decoration,” Andy pointed out. “Besides, Jonathan Byers is dead. It’s over now.”

“But his little cult isn’t,” Jason said. “Zombie boy is still around, and his group of friends. They’re always together, whispering, plotting…I don’t know. I just can’t shake the feeling that something horrible is going to happen.”

Both his friends were silent. They never trusted his instincts.

“Nothing is gonna happen,” Chance assured him. “Do you want us to put up some posters again?”

“Not like it’s done a lot of good,” Jason sighed. “No one cares anymore. No one even talks about Chrissy and Patrick, or the other boy who died. Everyone is content to wait until they strike again. Until then, they’ll just let bygones be bygones.”

“So what do you want to do, Carver?” Andy asked.

“I don’t know yet. But I want to keep an eye on them,” Jason said. He took in a deep breath. “Want to shoot hoops?”

“Of course, man,” Andy said, helping Jason to his feet.

Every second that passed without word from Dustin was beginning to set Robin over the edge. Her eyes hadn’t left the clock in the corner of the radio station, and her hand was always in reach of her walkie-talkie just in case. She had already called Claudia earlier that day, and she said that Dustin had never come home that night.

Robin was scared.

Aside from El and Jonathan, and Nancy in the evenings, the person Robin spent most of her time with was Dustin. Brenner’s journals had bound them together in their shared efforts to crack it. Just a week earlier, Robin had thought she found a usable cipher after translating what she thought was a full sentence, but it didn’t work past that point. Dustin had stormed out in frustration. He did that all the time now. Still, Robin persisted.

It had been hard to watch Dustin change. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t miss the old happy go lucky Dustin she had known for the last two years. But he had become a completely different person. A mean, short-tempered person who felt far too comfortable slinging insults at Robin. She knew why he was doing it. Half the time she wanted to sock him upside the head. But she wouldn’t. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. Instead, she had decided she was going to do the much harder thing and not leave him alone.

“I’m gonna go look for Dustin,” Robin informed Jonathan, grabbing her bag from the counter. “You can play whatever you want. The station is your oyster.”

“The Clash it is,” Jonathan said, taking a sip of his sixth coffee of the day. Robin would call him out on it if she hadn’t been doing the same. “I hope you find him. Walkie me if you hear anything.”

“I have a pretty good idea where he might be,” Robin shrugged. She walked outside the radio station and grabbed her bike.

Robin had a car now, but no license. Even if she had her license, she didn’t know if she could set foot in the beamer that Steve’s parents had left in her driveway a week after the earthquake. It was a huge gift, but one she still felt like she couldn’t accept. So, it sat and collected dust. One of the many, many reminders of his absence. He still took up so much space in her life despite being gone.

As a distraction, Robin listened to the sweet voice of Whitney Houston through her Walkman that she had snagged on the way out. There was nothing like her favourite pop star to take her mind off of the things she didn’t want to think about.

It wasn’t a short bike ride. It took her twenty minutes to reach the graveyard. Robin rarely came there. The only times she did was when she was looking for Dustin when he was in one of his moods. So more often than she’d like.

Robin parked her bike at the edge of the cemetery. She took a deep breath and stepped forward.

“Hey, dingus!” Robin called as she walked towards the inevitable. She just wouldn’t look. She’d find Dustin, chew him out for being an idiot, and remind him of the Crawl that night. Business as usual. Maybe if she bribed him with 3 Musketeers bars she had snagged from the earthquake relief, he would sit down and help her decipher before the Crawl.

Whether they ever figured it out or not didn’t matter to Robin. What mattered was that he was thinking about something else for a change. If she didn’t look out for Dustin, who would?

The little shit wasn’t anywhere in the cemetery. Robin groaned to herself. Part of her wanted to turn and leave, but it had been so long since she had visited Steve’s grave. She took a hesitant step towards it.

“Hey, Stevie,” She said, crossing her arms. Her eyes landed over top of the grave, not on it. “You know, I could really use some help right now. Our strange little child friend is turning into a real asshole without you around. I love him, but man is he hard to like sometimes.”

The leaves rustled around her. Robin paused her Whitney and took another step towards his headstone.

“It sure would be helpful if you and Jonathan actually had been Necromancers. Then we wouldn’t even be in this mess,” Robin joked half-heartedly. The empty grave said nothing back. “I guess, the truth is, is that I don’t know what I’m doing with Dustin. I don’t think I’m doing anything right. Dustin hates me, El and Jonathan are going stir crazy, and we’re no closer to catching Vecna.”

Robin rubbed her eyes. She shivered. It was going to be a chilly November. “I just…don’t feel like I have anyone I can talk to anymore, that’s all.”

She took in a deep breath and turned around. She had a few more places that she could check before she became really worried. She still had a few hours before the Crawl, and Jonathan would be thrilled to have full control over the music for a while. At least she had a chance to breathe.

Only Tina could convince Erica to get out of bed the morning after Halloween and go on a bike ride with her. Erica loved sleeping in as long as she could on weekends.

But it was nicer than she had expected. Tina put her radio in her front basket, giddily singing along to Queen’s Crazy Little Thing Called Love. It wasn’t a typical Robin pick for the Squawk, but Tina was pleased. Erica rolled her eyes at Tina as she bobbed her head to the music. They biked through the streets of Hawkins, hardly needing to pay attention to their surroundings since traffic was basically nonexistent since the lockdown.

“Come on, Erica, sing with me!” Tina said, striding up to Erica’s side.

“And make a fool of myself? No thanks,” Erica said.

“Or you’re just too scared to sing with me!” Tina teased, batting her eyelashes at her.

“I’m not scared of anything!” Erica said, with feigned shock. She would admit only to herself that the wind felt nice against her skin. They were gaining momentum, cruising through the streets of Hawkins, and Erica found herself giggling.

“Good morning, ladies,” Erica heard a familiar voice say. The girls’ bikes came to a screeching halt. Tina’s back straightened, putting on a deliberate smile, while Erica scowled at the man in front of her. She already had to spend every day in Mr. O’Brien’s boring classroom with his stupid drills. He was the last person Erica wanted to see on her Saturday.

“Good morning, Mr. O’Brien,” Tina responded. Erica didn’t say anything.

“I see the two of you are having a fun morning,” Mr. O’Brien said. If it was meant to be jovial, it didn’t meet his eyes.

“Yeah, we have to get in a good bike ride before it gets too cold out,” Tina said, turning off the radio. Erica gritted her teeth.

“Well, be sure to stay away from the fissures,” Mr. O’Brien said. “They have been more active recently, spitting up all kinds of strange things…just be safe.”

“Of course. We’ll stay on the path,” Tina said. Erica wanted to groan out loud. Everyone rode their bikes near the fissures. The entire town was full of them, and they didn’t have a whole lot of options, unless they rode their bikes in the woods. But according to her dad, the military was stationed in the woods now, too. It was suffocating.

“Good. And keep your music down. It’s disturbing people’s mornings,” Mr. O’Brien said.

“Yes, of course, sir,” Tina said. Erica shot her a look. She was bowing down that easy? God, why was her best friend such a pushover?

“Erica, remember to hand in your assignment on Monday before class. I will not be giving you any more extensions for the rest of the semester,” Mr. O’Brien said.

“Excuse me?” Erica asked, aghast. It was only November. The school year had barely started.

“You’ll never learn if everything is handed to you,” Mr. O’Brien said. “Good job on your assignment, Tina. I expect big things from you this year.”

“Yeah, thanks for the advice, but if you would be so kind, I’d ask you to mind your own damn business,” Erica said. Mr. O’Brien raised an eyebrow.

“Erica!” Tina said, with a sigh. “She didn’t mean that, sir. I’m sorry.”

“I hope not.”

With that, Mr. O’Brien strolled away. Tina and Erica began to bike in the other direction. Well, Erica’s day was officially ruined.

“What a freak,” Erica said under her breath.

“You shouldn’t antagonize him,” Tina chided. “He’s just doing his job.”

Erica didn’t respond.

Mike's bike came to a screeching halt in front of the hill leading up to the radio station. As he stumbled to hop off and start walking it up to the door, he turned to see two more bikes barreling down the gravel road and in his direction.

"Watch out!"

Maneuvering to the side, Mike watched as Lucas and Will brought their bikes to a stop at nearly the same time, laughing and arguing with each other as they got off of theirs.

Mike furrowed his eyebrow. "That one was close. I think I'm leaning towards Lucas, though."

Will scoffed. "What? That's impossible! I was totally faster."

"Just face it, baby Byers," Lucas clapped a hand on Will's back. "No one is ever gonna beat my need for speed."

Will shrugged off Lucas' hand with a laugh. The three boys turned towards the station and began to walk their bikes up together, the late afternoon sun betrayed by the November air that whistled through the trees.

"Anybody heard from Dustin yet?" Mike asked.

The other two boys both shook their heads no.

"We both called him," Lucas said. "And his mom. She said she thought he was at one of ours."

"Oh, crap," Mike groaned. "At least she knows not to trust the cops anymore."

That was true. None of their parents really trusted the Sheriff's office or the military, except for maybe Mike's dad. Claudia was especially so, after everything that went down with Steve last year and how she had ended up in charge of a lot of his assets when Robin couldn't handle it all herself.

"Maybe El and I can look for him when we get inside," Will offered. "If she can even stand to do that. She was pretty pissed last night."

"Rightfully so," Lucas said. "He did totally ditch with no word to anyone. Not really a smart move in circumstances like ours."

When they got inside the radio station, the pre-Crawl activity was the same as always- Everyone was scrambling like absolute madmen in a flurry of unavoidable chaos.

Jonathan was stacking papers and folding them into binders. Robin and El were organizing everyone's emergency cassette tapes, making sure they were rewound and ready to go should the worst happen and someone needed them. Nancy was reloading her artillery, the radio station briefly turned into a gun supply store as magazines and other random material pieces lay strewn about the lounge area.

"Hey boys," Joyce called as she ran upstairs with a cup of coffee in one hand and a duffel bag in the other. "Go ahead and get suited up, alright?"

Everything about the crawls felt wrong. They were fine, and unfortunately necessary, but they were just kids who happened to be living in this town when everything went wrong and now they were running a warfare espionage operation out of a remote radio station.

Mike was no longer allowed to leave the radio station during crawls. He used to wait in the tunnels for Nancy, but after El joined there was no reason for him to be down there anymore. It was annoying, because he knew he could help, but he figured he would need to prove he could keep his balance on his bicycle before they would let him out into an active military zone in his condition.

It still sucked.

He sat on the couch and started to help Jonathan clean up the station notes while Lucas and Will ran downstairs. They would be putting on camo gear and army clothes to go do a cool and important stakeout job while Mike would stay in his dumb sweater (and it wasn't even his big comfy one) and stay and listen on the off chance that anything was to go wrong. And even then, Joyce did most of the work in real time. The most he ever did was lay out the plans. Once it was go time, he was dead weight.

"Did Dustin not show up anywhere?" Mike asked.

Jonathan shook his head. "Robin and El both looked for him. El said he's alive and that she didn't wanna look for him anymore. I'm going off of that."

"Then who's going to go in the van with you?" Mike looked around. "I- I could go, if you needed someone to monitor."

"Uh- sorry, I already told Robin I'd take her," Jonathan said awkwardly. "Plus, it requires listening with the headphones, and…"

Right. Half deaf. Mike would only be half as useful. but that was better than his current usefulness, which felt like a grand total percentage of zilch.

"That's alright."

It was weird, the two of them. When Jonathan had first come back for Spring Break, he and Mike had really bonded over their anxieties and being wallflowers on the outside of the basketball game. It was the last normal thing either of them did before everything went downhill. Now, Mike was a medical anomaly and Jonathan was quite literally a dead man walking, and they had barely exchanged pleasantries since Mike accused Jonathan of cheating on Nancy.

"El! You ready?"

Speaking of, Nancy stood with all her little straps and attachments making her look like a super soldier spy from an action movie. But when Mike looked at her face, he still just saw his big sister.

El was dressed, too. She lifted two cassette tapes, a Madonna one that slid into her pocket as she handed Nancy hers. Her black clothes and the ring of faded eyeliner around her eyes were reminiscent of when she had first come back from Chicago, dressed all punk.

She tossed Mike and Jonathan their tapes as well. Jonathan caught his, but Mike's flew past his face and onto the floor behind him. El winced.

"Whoops. Sorry."

"It's okay, it happens," Mike laughed softly, retrieving the tape and sticking it in his pocket. He sat back up to look at El. "You always look so funny in your crawl getup. I prefer regular El."

"Yeah, I prefer her too," El sat down next to Mike, spinning her cassette in her hand. "But she will be back."

"You think tonight is the night?" Mike asked.

El's shoulders dropped as she thought to herself. "I never know. I try not to get my hopes up."

"Well, good luck either way," Mike gave her a side hug. "Come back safe, okay?"

He couldn't feel it when El reached up and gently touched the scarred skin on his face with a frown. It was clear she felt terrible about it still. She'd never quite been able to get over it, over anything that had happened that night. "I will.”

A little over a year ago, they’d been cooped up in Hopper’s old cabin with the door open three inches. They were being dumb teenagers, trying to test the waters of what they could do to get steam coming out of her dad’s ears. And in that time, Mike and El had never been more distant from each other. 

Now, after everything, it was like that first week all over again. They were best friends again, right when it meant dire circumstances for them both. The irony was unmissable.

Nancy and El left first. Lucas and Will followed behind. When Jonathan and Robin headed out to the van, Mike and Joyce were left in the radio station by themselves for monitoring.

Downstairs, the two worked in tandem to turn on all of the receivers. Mike watched Joyce sit down at the microphone and lean in close. "Does everybody copy?"

Robin's voice came in first. "Topside copies!"

"Eagle's nest copies." Lucas said next.

"Upside Down team copies," Nancy said last. "Tuning back in once we've reached our destination."

Mike would never get used to his sister using so much fancy lingo and talking like a soldier. Then again, he hadn't gotten used to literally anything that had been going down in the last seven months.

“Karen, what the hell is this?” Holly heard her dad call from downstairs. Holly sat at the banister, staring at the wall. She hated when her parents got like this. It would only get worse from here, so she strapped in. “You drank the Merlot?”

“Yes, Ted, I did. With Joyce. It wasn’t like we were ever going to drink it together,” Her mom responded. “Why do you even care? When was the last time we had a glass of wine together?”

“Oh, settle down, Karen. It’s not like we’ve had any opportunity to with crazy Joyce Byers and her kid free loading on us,” Her dad said, agitated.

Holly pulled her knees up to her chest. She already knew this was going to be a long one. Usually when this was happening, she would go to Mike’s room and bother him. Mike almost never heard the arguments because of his hearing loss. It was nice. Holly could pretend for a little bit like it wasn’t happening. But Mike wasn’t there. Neither was Nancy, Joyce or Will. At least Erica would be there soon.

“That’s a horrible thing to say, Ted. She needed our help. What, was I supposed to just throw them out on the street? After her son died, Ted?” Holly had her doubts that Jonathan was really dead. She didn’t think her mom believed it, either. Nancy would be sadder if it was true.

“We can’t give everyone handouts,” Her dad said. “You’re so busy ‘helping’ the Byers these days that I barely see you anymore! Sneaking off with her to the basement all the time. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were hiding secrets from me!”

“Hiding secrets? Are you serious?” Karen yelled. “I am the person holding this family together right now. And you know what, Joyce has been a much bigger help to me than you have these last few months. Did you know that she sewed Holly’s Halloween dress to fit her when she grew? That she’s been making our children lunches for school?”

“She’s not part of this marriage, Karen!”

“Well at least Joyce knows how old our youngest daughter is!”

“That’s a low blow, Karen,” Ted said, gruffly. “If you aren’t hiding secrets from me, tell me what you’ve been doing Friday nights for the last five months. Tell me you haven’t been opposing our government.”

Her mom didn’t answer.

“Joyce has been a horrible influence on you, putting these radical ideas in your head. I’m kicking her and the boy out next month. I’ve had enough.”

“You can’t do that!” Her mom shouted.

“They’re living on my wages, so I most certainly can.”

Holly turned around and ran into her room, tears streaming down her cheeks. She could still hear her parents arguing, but luckily the pillows cushioned the sound out. Holly hated when they fought. She didn’t understand why they couldn’t just love each other. Holly loved them both so much and she would never treat them like this. Did you become cruel when you became an adult? If so, Holly never wanted to grow up.

She grabbed her Barbie dolls off her floor, and started to make believe.

The tunnels being as long and twisting as they were had nothing on the group's navigation skills after the months they'd spent doing this. Nancy had gotten lost the first couple of times she did it on her own, but now it was second nature. With the right timing, they would arrive at the abandoned Radio Shack in the MAC-Z at the same time as Lucas and Will would be arriving at the chapel down the street.

"You feelin' any better?" Nancy asked, watching how El focused on her feet in front of her and not much else.

"A bit," El said quietly. "I think I am ready for this to be over."

"Aren't we all," Nancy forced a laugh. "We're getting close. We have to be. There's only so much ground to even cover."

El furrowed her brow. "I know, but…sometimes, it feels like the Upside Down is…changing."

"Changing?"

"It moves sometimes," El theorized out loud. "Like it is breathing, almost."

A chill ran down Nancy's spine. The very idea made her stomach turn.

"I am scared about what we will do when we find him." El said after a minute.

Nancy paused. She couldn't help but feel a little scared too. They had a plan in place to kill him, but it all depended on El and Nancy and sometimes they both felt they were under prepared for such an attack.

"Me too," Nancy admitted. "But that's a hurdle we'll have to cross eventually."

They reached a rickety old ladder that led up into the Radio Shack that used to sit next to Melvald's, where Susan Mayfield had sat counting out pennies on the counter last July to afford a Walkman for Max's birthday, the best she could do in the wake of Neil's ditching the family after Billy died. It was where Will had wandered the halls on the odd afternoon after school, when he got bored of the general store and Bob asked him to help put a stereo back together, even though he knew Bob could've done it himself, Will thought it was very nice to let him assist with something.

Now, there were pieces of debris scattered over the floors and rotting wood boarding up the windows to keep the unsuspecting military agents outside from noticing the people who had come sneaking in and out in their pursuit of the monster in the Upside Down.

Nancy looked to El before she headed up the ladder. "You ready?"

"Yes." El replied.

"Upside Down is in position, go for Eagle's Nest." Nancy said into her walkie.

Bikes had to be ditched a quarter of a mile away, so Will and Lucas had to walk, undetected, to the chapel at the end of the street for the best possible view into the MAC-Z without being caught. Lucas always got nervous about making sure their bikes were covered once, twice, three times, and then tapped the sides of the bushes they were tucked behind for good measure. Will thought this was unnecessary. They ducked around the far side of the building, Lucas extending a hand behind him to keep himself and Will flush against the wall.

The two scurried inside the back door, locked by a plank of wood under the doorknob, and made their way up the stairs to the second floor. After that, they had to climb a rickety ladder up to the bell tower that always made them nervous it might fall.

When they reached the top, Will immediately slumped against the side of the barricade, catching his breath. Lucas reached a hand into one of the many pockets on his army vest and procured an extra inhaler, but Will shook his head.

"No thank you," Will breathed. "It's not that. I just hate that thing."

"Me too. Hopefully we don't have to climb it much longer." Lucas agreed, sitting down next to Will. With the cold spell, they could see their breath as it hung in the air and threatened to reveal their positions if they tried hard enough.

Will wrung his hands together. It was the third November since he'd first been abducted. Whenever the calendar changed he always felt the dread creeping up into his throat like a ticking time bomb until the sixth of the month came. Last year had been slightly better, when he was in Lenora. He still woke up shaking. Jonathan and El had come to sit with him and they all fell asleep in a pile on the bed.

It seemed impossible to know whether it was better or worse that he could put a face, albeit a hard to make out and disfigured one, to the specter that had been haunting him all these years. In the radio station, they had a 1958-1959 school year Hawkins High School yearbook that Mike had snagged from his living room. They all wanted to look at their parents first, but then Joyce had flipped to the section of ninth graders and shown them Henry. The real Henry, what he used to be before he was Vecna.

He had looked so young. He was even smiling in the picture. There was a second photo of him at another spot in the book, a memorial dedication to his life with a picture of him and Bob's little sister in the school play. To know how that kid, that Henry, had become what he was now, was easy if you were talking physically. Late one night, when the Party had packed up their game and settled in for a sleepover on the station basement floor, El finally told the full story of what had happened, and how she'd launched Henry into the Upside Down in a power surge after he'd murdered her siblings. She cried, and the boys held her until she felt okay again, and then she asked Lucas to tell a funny story so that she could laugh, and he did, and that was the end of it.

"You okay?"

Will snapped back at the sound of Lucas' voice. That seemed to be a recurring theme these days. Will would get lost in himself and one of his friends would have to sound off and get his attention. At least Lucas was the only one who didn't get annoyed when he had to do it.

"I'm okay," Will nodded. "Are you okay?"

Lucas nodded. "Of course. I'm fine."

"Upside Down is in position, go for Eagle's Nest."

The radio buzzed with life. The boys reached for it and turned the volume down just loud enough to be able to hear without alerting anybody else. Will picked it up and went to talk into it.

"Eagle's Nest is in position, go for Ground Control."

"Ground Control is in position, go for Topside." came Joyce’s voice.

Robin’s voice rang out next. "Topside is in position, on standby for green light." 

Will and Lucas grabbed their binoculars and peered over the side of the bell tower, watching as the black military van started to rev up and inch towards the Upside Down.

When the signal went off, there was an impossibly quick mess of black and blue that was only noticeable to the boys because they were looking for it. The shadows disappeared under the truck and were gone just as quickly. They sent up a silent prayer for the girls' safety and watched the truck disappear through the gate with an ugly squelching of tentacles that never got any more tolerable to listen to.

"We're Upside Down." Lucas breathed into his radio.

"Topside, you have the green light."

As his mom's voice came over the radio, Will knew that that would be Jonathan's cue to start driving. He always looked so silly on crawl nights, still wearing his cap and sunglasses thrown over stringy, unkempt blonde locks, behind tinted windows to reduce the risk of people connecting the mysterious Squawk van driver to the deceased Jonathan Byers.

That was as much as the two in the bell tower had to do until the return. They mainly just kept lookout during the crawls to watch for abnormal activity and alert the others if anything suspicious arose. Nothing ever did. So, it was mainly just Will and Lucas sharing a whole lot of silence until Nancy and El came back and they had to sneak back to the radio station.

So, the first inclination that tonight was going to be different was when Will felt the goosebumps trailing down his spine.

His vision started to go fuzzy. He knew the feeling. It was similar to how it felt when El pulled him into the Void. But that wasn't quite it. No, this was a feeling that Will hadn't had properly for some time now.

Not since he'd been thrown into the minds of the Flayed. Of Billy, and Heather. When fog poured out of Max's brother's face and, in a voice that was not his, told him that his "usefulness had run out."

"Lucas."

"Yeah?" Lucas whispered, still observing the MAC-Z attentively.

A shaky hand clutched Lucas' arms, catching his attention. He turned to see Will with his head back against the barricade just as his eyes rolled back into his head and he started to convulse, collapsing to the floor.

"Will. Will!" Lucas exclaimed.

He shook Will to try and get him back, to no avail. Lucas moved to lay Will's head against his leg so that he wouldn't be thudding against the concrete floor and reached for the radio.

"This is Eagle's Nest. We've got a potential code K."

Lucas heard questions coming over the walkie talkie, but he turned the volume down as he scrambled through his backpack to find one of the emergency Walkmans. He reached for the Clash cassette in Will's pocket and went through the motions of placing it on his head and turning the song on despite the fact that in his heart of hearts, Lucas knew the truth.

This wasn't a typical Vecna attack. It never was with Will. When Vecna struck, like he did with Max and Patrick and Nancy, they stood upright, they didn't move until they were floating in the air. Will's seizures were different. He hadn't gotten them for a while, but Lucas remembered when Will had thrown himself into Billy's mind last summer, how he'd flopped against the floor the same way he did now.

But Lucas didn't know how to save Will when that was happening, so Walkman it was.

The perpetual motion couldn't have kept Will from knowing that whoever he was looking at right now was in the Upside Down.

He was running and jumping and leaping through the scraggly forests at a nauseating pace, swinging and dive rolling with no regard for the slithering, living tendrils that sensed motion down there. There was a military base in the Upside Down. A small facility with a big fence around it to keep the ecosystem out, although Will had no clue what was actually keeping them out. From his memory, there was very little that kept the creatures of the Upside Down out, and even then, they didn't seem to operate based on any logical or instinctive systems.

The fear started to settle in as he heard snarling and red seeped into the corners of his vision and Will realized just what he was.

"Demogorgons." Will croaked out.

Lucas turned frantically. "What? Will?"

He was confused. Will was still convulsing, but he'd very clearly just spoken. Wherever Will was, he was aware of himself and trying to communicate something.

"Demogorgons," Will stuttered out again. "The truck."

Lucas' face fell. He didn't know what was going on exactly, but he kept one hand secure on Will while the other reached for the radio. "There's demos at the truck."

In the Upside Down, the only inclination that anything was wrong was when a shiver ran through El's body. She grimaced, turning to Nancy with a panicked look in her eyes.

"Something is wrong," she whispered as quietly as humanly as possible. "Danger."

Nancy was silent, but her eyes went wide. She mouthed "What?" and looked around frantically.

And then, the entire truck rocked from side to side violently.

The girls held on tight to their hiding spots as the truck thrashed, throwing them back and forth recklessly into the ammo cases they'd hidden themselves amongst.

They heard a snarling and then some yelling and gunshots. And then the entire truck tipped over on its side.

El yelped as she crash landed into Nancy, piled up against the boxes and willing more away before they could slam into the girls from the other side. They heard more gunshots and yelling outside, but whatever had attacked the truck was making mincemeat out of those soldiers if the noises were anything to go off of.

"The back," Nancy whispered. "While they're distracted, run for it."

A gash appeared in the side of the van, a Demogorgon claw reaching its way into the truck, blood dripping from its flesh.

"Human blood," El whispered. "Go."

Nancy slid out first, scrambling to avoid the rattling tires and hiding in the fog of the exhaust as a cover to help pull El out after her. Once they were out of the van, there was no waiting, simply running to the closest patch of forest they could see. El only looked behind her once as they ran to make sure they weren't being seen.

The demogorgons were tearing into the soldiers, their bullets very little to stave them off. It wasn't until a general approached with one of the giant flamethrowers that El shook off the tiny voice in the back of her head telling her she should help. Or were her instincts telling her something, else, too? Without warning, El took hold of Nancy with her powers and pulled her down as a stray bullet careened into the wall above her head.

“Oh…my god,” Nancy breathed, looking at El in horror.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you,” El reassured her.

She felt Nancy take her hand and pull her further into the woods.

"Were we spotted?" Nancy asked as they ran. "Why'd you stop?"

"They're all gonna die." El said. "All of them."

Nancy nodded. "Good."

They kept running. They wouldn't stop until Nancy deemed it safe to.

Will was still seizing.

Holding Will’s head as still as he could, Lucas fought off the urge to start tearing up. It was stupid, he knew, to get so concerned about this, but after what had happened to Max, he really didn't want to see any more of his friends get hurt.

He shakily grabbed his binoculars and looked back over the barricade. There was a flurry of activity going on at the MAC-Z, likely in the wake of said demogorgons at the truck, people chasing each other and yelling with guns locked and loaded in their hands as an extra troop of soldiers stormed the gate on foot.

"Upside Down? Do you copy?" Lucas asked warily into his radio. "Upside Down, do you copy?"

"This is Topside, we've lost the signal," Jonathan's voice came through. "We're trying to track them again, but they're way off course."

"What's your reading?"

"Um- Robin, what's the-"

The signal started to fizzle.

“Did they not- the breakers-“ came Mike’s voice.

“What is-“

Jonathan's voice gave way to a screeching round of feedback that made Lucas shut the radio off frantically. He looked over the barricade. Still safe. He turned back to Will.

"Will? Buddy? Any time you wanna wake up, that would be really good, please?"

Will stayed right where he was. Lucas could hear the tinny sounds of The Clash through the Walkman headphones.

 If Nancy and El had made it out of the carnage, Will couldn't tell. Blood filled his vision as he took a harrowing, bile-inducing backseat to the demogorgons tearing soldiers apart and running off wild into the distance.

He watched them tumble and run past the old fairground where the temporary lab had been set up, and past the Upside Down version of Dustin's house which had been destroyed by the gates just the same as the Rightside Up one. They raced past the abandoned community pool and rounded the corner on a street that Will knew all too well.

"Will? Will, please, wake up, please."

Suddenly, the snarling faded. Will came to with a gasp, swallowing air as the real world configured itself around him, the night sky and the peeling white wood of the chapel and Lucas' face staring down at him in concern.

"Mike's house," Will spat out. "They're going to Mike's house next."

Lucas immediately scrambled for the walkie talkie while Will laid back and tried to recover. He could hear Lucas pleading over the radio, to no avail, but the noise was muffled by…music?

"You're happy when I'm on my knees, one day it's fine and next it's black, so if you want me off your back-"

Oh. That's what it was.

Will sat up slowly, pulling the Walkman off and setting it aside.

"Not what that was. But thanks, anyway," Will murmured, still catching his breath. "But good thinking."

"Yeah, yeah, of course," Lucas heaved, wiping his face. It's not like he definitely, definitely thought that was about to be something much more dangerous. "Mike? Mrs. Byers? No one's answering. What's going on?"

November, Will wanted to say.

"Will? Lucas?" Joyce called over the radio. "What happened? We lost power, Mike just ran to reset the breakers."

"Mom!" Will snatched the radio out of Lucas' hands and held it close as he stood, Lucas following close behind as they ran down the stairs. "You need to get to the Wheeler's house right now, they're on their way."

"Who is-"

"The hivemind, the demogorgons, something is coming to attack the house, Mom!" Will had to fight not to yell and be heard by the soldiers right up the street in his panic. "Say you're going, please?"

"Uh- yeah, yeah, we're going, just- be safe, boys, okay?"

"Mrs. Byers?" They heard Mike in the distance. "What's going on? Is everything okay?"

Will lowered the radio antenna as he and Lucas raced to their bikes. They just needed to get there in time.

"Who's in the house right now?" Lucas asked.

"I don't know, but it won't be good for any of them!" Will insisted.

The two rode off in the direction of the Wheeler house, frantic and hoping that El and Nancy would manage without them.

Erica walked over to the Wheeler's house at the very time her mother had told her to and no sooner. She would've sat with her book for the rest of the night if she could've. She usually loved taking care of Holly, but lately she'd been too tired to do much of anything she normally liked.

Getting dragged out for a bike ride earlier hadn't helped. Seeing the debris in the wake of Hawkins' attempt at a normal holiday and running into Mr. O'Brien had dampened Erica's spirits in a way she couldn't really explain. He was so strict, and for what? Erica tried not to let the people in charge tell her what to do without reason, which made it especially hard to watch Tina "yes, sir" her way through a conversation they didn't need to be having in the first place.

Mrs. Wheeler answered the door, her mouth pressed into a thin line. She was clearly upset about something, if the thick tension in the air was anything to go off of.

"Hey, Erica. We're just about out the door. Holly's upstairs, I'll let you girls know when we're leaving." Karen said with an airiness to her voice that reeked of exhaustion.

As Erica entered, she saw that Karen was wearing an orange dress with a sweater, shiny high heels and makeup to match. Ted, however, was in his chair, wearing the same shirt and pants he seemed to always wear. Erica wondered if his closet was just a line of the same shirts over and over again, like some kind of cartoon character. She hid the urge to laugh to herself as she headed up to Holly's room.

"And voila! A meal fit for a family."

Holly had her dolls sat around a table when Erica entered. There was some doll food placed in spots around the table, but also things like bottle caps and thimbles Erica remembered painting and gluing with her to make up for the little pieces she'd lost.

"What's for supper?" Erica asked.

"Erica!" Holly lit up. She picked up the blonde Barbie at the head of the table and smoothed out her hair, showing off a clearly hand-sewn apron. "Mrs. Harrison made unicorn stew."

Erica cocked her head to the side as she sat down. "Interesting. What's that taste like?"

"Like beef stew, but with more glitter."

"Oh. Tasty."

"It is! But Mr. Harrison doesn't like it," Holly explained, pointing to the Ken doll to the left side of the table. "He always says the carrots are hard or the broth is too spicy. But whenever he is mean to Mrs. Harrison, she always knows what to do."

Erica cackled as Holly placed a medicine cup from a bottle of cough syrup on Mr. Harrison's head.

"Very creative solution," Erica pointed to the three other dolls sitting at the table. "And who are they?"

"These are Mr. and Mrs. Harrison's kids," Holly pointed to the two bigger Barbies. "Laura and Wendy. They are always going off together and playing without Anna."

"Anna," Erica breathed. "Is that the little one?"

Holly nodded, picking up the smallest doll and smoothing out her hair the same way she did Mrs. Harrison. "She has to play with the farm animals and the superheroes and the dinosaurs because Laura and Wendy are grown-ups and won't play with her anymore."

"Well, why doesn't she play with her Mom and Dad?" Erica asked, gently looking back at the door she'd closed behind her.

"Because Mom and Dad don't play. They never do," Holly suddenly and without warning dropped the doll to her side. She frowned. "I don't want to play this anymore."

"That's okay. Did you have something else you wanted to do?" Erica asked.

Holly shook her head. "I thought you would. My games get boring after a while."

"I've always got something," Erica offered, reaching for her backpack. "It just depends on what you want to do first."

As much as she complained, Erica really couldn't get tired of this when it always made Holly so happy to have one of the big kids' attention. It said more about Holly than it did Erica, really, that she was more tolerable than Erica's classmates or "friends" these days.

There was a rumbling outside, likely a car coming or going through the cul-de-sac. A lurching sound alerted them.

“What was that?” Holly asked.

The room began to shake.