✓ Adventures In Babysitting / Steve Harrington ¹

𝙫𝙞. mind flayer

"We are doing something," Hopper responds gruffly.  "We are staying here, and we are waiting for help."

The kitchen succumbs to silence once more as Hopper turns and wanders further into the house.  Abby rests her face in her palms, she can't help but let the utter hopelessness that fills the room wash over her.  What else are they supposed to do?  In the wake of the death of Bob Newby and the deaths of all the staff members of the lab, they are faced with still a bigger dilemma.  They are powerless against whatever is contaminating Will, they don't even know what it is.  They are running on nothing but the blind, false hope that maybe, just maybe help will come to them.

After a few moments of silence, Mike finally pushes himself up out of his seat and walks toward the coffee table that sits in the living room.  He picks up the blue box tied with a white string that sits atop a stack of other puzzles and brain teasers.  He holds it tightly in his hands and gazes down at it.  Finally, he says, "Did you know that Bob was the original founder of Hawkins AV?"

"Really?" Lucas asks.

Mike turns back to face them.  There's a bittersweet smile on his face despite the tears that glisten in his eyes.  "He petitioned the school to start it and everything.  Then he had a fund-raiser for equipment."  He begins to walk back toward them, the brain teaser still in his hands.  "Mr. Clarke learned everything from him.  Pretty awesome, right?"

"Yeah," the others chorus. 

He sets the brain teaser down on the surface of the table in front of the others.  Abby rests her chin in the palms of her hand and gazes at the blue cube.  He takes a breath and looks around at his companions in the kitchen.  "We can't let him die in vain."

"Well, what do you wanna do, Mike?" Dustin snaps.  "The chief's right on this.  We can't stop those demodogs on our own."

Max raises her eyebrows.  "Demodogs?"

Abby shakes her head.  "It's really not that important you don't need to—"

"Demogorgon, dogs," Dustin holds out a hand for each word before pressing them together.  "Demodogs.  It's like a compound.  It's like a play on words—"

"Okay," Max interrupts before Dustin can continue on his tangent.  

Dustin swallows and shakes his head.  "I mean, when it was just Dart, maybe ..."

"But there's an army now," Lucas finishes.

"Precisely."

"His army," Mike murmurs.  There's some sort of dawning realization that grows on his face as he continues to stare down at the table.

Steve, who hasn't said a word since they arrived at the Byers' house finally asks, "What do you mean?"

"His army," Mike repeats.  He looked around at the teens gathered in the kitchen who all fix him with similar looks of confusion.  "Maybe if we can stop him, we can stop his army too."

With a renewed determination, Mike dashes into the next room over and soon returns with a sheet of paper in his hands.  He places it on the center of the table and Abby leans forward to get a better look at the illustration before her.  Chills crawl up and down her spine as she studies the spider-like creature with its tall, towering legs of shadow.  There's a storm depicted behind the creature on the paper, red-tinged lightning strikes through the sky, stormy clouds of black gather around the creature.