No Surrender | Eddie Munson

Chapter Eight: Come Together

CHAPTER EIGHT: COME TOGETHER

HOW TO SAVE A LIFE — THE FRAY

As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed

——————

She was dead.

I can still see her stare, eyes void of any emotions, any life. Worse than the nothingness I had become accustomed to. I had never really tried. I had never helped. Now it's too late.

If I can really manage to drown out the panicked buzz of thoughts, I can feel the coldness of her skin against my fingertips.

"Beth? Beth!"

Gasping, I tear my gaze from the ground. I'm sat inside Hopper's car, watching him and Nancy survey the street with his pair of binoculars. Men in suits swarm around the Wheeler house like wasps, bringing out box after box of their belongings.

The Chief's gaze softens slightly when he looks to me. "Can you tell me what happened again?"

"Mr— Mr C-Clarke told me about the pipe leading into Hawkins Lab. I got curious, decided to investigate. Then I got lost. It was dark, I tripped, got hurt trying to break my fall... a-and there she was, just standing over me."

Gently rubbing my arm, Joyce sends me an encouraging but wavering smile. "Did she say anything?"

I nod. It takes me a moment to force the images out of my mind before I can speak again. "Said her name was Eleven, she had a tattoo to prove it — zero-one-one, on her wrist. 'No parents'. 'No home'." The word 'Same' echoes at the back of my mind but I decide to leave that out. "Said... 'Papa is here'."

"And what happened then?"

"She pushed me... without even touching me, told me to hide. So I went— S-So I went to you. I figured the police station would be my safest bet if anyone wanted to come after me. Lots of witnesses. An attack on me in that building could be seen as an attack on the cops. You'd have no choice but to protect me. Plus, these past few days, you look like you've been through some shit."

His lips twitch into a faint smile. "Good thinking."

Wincing, I peer through the window to the strangers in the distance. A few leaf fragments still cling to my tangled hair and my skin is smeared with dirt. I think of Eleven again, of this faceless 'Papa' character, of everything that has happened in the past few hours until it leads me down a rabbit hole of anxieties, right back to my mother's dead body on the couch and the smell of that alcohol. I know it was them. It had to be. The realisation fills me with a hot anger and I try to stand, finding Hopper's hand on my shoulder. It tenses for a moment and he frowns, hurriedly recoiling.

Searching for a way to play it off, I glance back at Nancy and Jonathan. "So this thing you saw, the creature with no face, it took Will and Barb?"

"We think," she replies, shifting her anxious gaze to me for just a moment. "I have to go home."

"No, you can't."

She scoffs, glaring at the man. "My mom... my dad are there!"

"They're gonna be okay." But she won't listen. Dropping the binoculars, he rushes to hold her back before she can approach the house. "Hey! Listen to me! Listen to me. The last thing in the world we need is them knowing you're mixed up in all this."

Nancy is barely able to speak through panicked breaths, "Mike is over there—"

But he doesn't seem so sure. He directs her attention to the helicopter that flies in the distance. I can hear its hum from here, piercing my sensitive ears. "They haven't found him. Not yet, at least."