Me, Myself, and Her

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Three: ...Ready For It?

"He said he was building something. That is was all for me."

El was now sitting on the couch in between Max and Annie, the latter holding El's hand and rubbing the back with her thumb. She had calmed down some since she first came out of there and had been given water and time.

Now, she was relaying the message. "Building something... is he talking about the flayed?" Max asked, looking up at Mike in front of the couch. Will sat next to Max, up on the back of it, Lucas paced around behind the couch, while Nancy and Johnathan sat off to the side.

"He must be," Nancy answered.

"So, he's building an army. Just like we thought," Lucas said.

"Yeah," Mike agreed, but kept on, "but he's not building this army to spread."

"He's building it to stop Eleven," Will finished.

"Last year, El closed the gate on him. I have a feeling that really pissed him off," Mike explained.

"Like, royally," Lucas added.

"And the Mind Flayer now knows she's the only thing that can stop him. But if she's out of the way-"

"Game over."

El took in a deep breath, causing Annie to give her hand a light squeeze. "He also said he was gonna kill all of you."

That made everyone freeze. Annie's thumb stopped its motion and she looked at El, then to Max. "Yeah, well, that's nice," Max said. The sarcasm hid how truly scared she felt and Annie wished she could give her a comforting hand.

Everyone remained silent. Movement caused Annie to look over and she saw Nancy moving toward one of the windows opposite of them. "Do you guys hear that?" she asked, her voice a whisper.

No one said a word, listening to the silence intently to see what Nancy was referencing. "It's just the fireworks," Johnathan said, in a volume soft enough not to scare anyone.

"Billy," Nancy said, turning around. "When he told you this, it was here, in this room?" El nodded.

Annie caught on. "You don't think... oh god." She moved to look out the window as best as she could, trying to see if she could see anything moving. They were about to be royally screwed.

"He knows we're here," Will said, and Annie turned to look at him. His hand was on the back of his neck. He could feel the Mind Flayer getting close.

Johnathan hurried to the door, everyone following right behind. He flung open the door and the group went outside and through the woods to see the road.

There, in the distance, they could see fireworks, but also something so much worse.

"Holy shit," Annie said, taking in the size of the Mind Flayer. It was bigger than the entire cabin and would rip them apart.

"We gotta get ready," Nancy said, turning to everyone.

Annie's eyes went wide. "'Get ready?' How about we run instead?" she asked.

"Out run that thing? It'd catch up before we even started!" Mike yelled.

"Yeah well that thing will crush us if we just sit in that cabin and wait- do you see how huge it is?" she asked. Her voice was cutting in and out as she spoke, but very slowly getting better.

"Guys we have to get inside now! We don't have time to argue or run at this point!" Johnathan yelled.

Annie sighed but hurried inside right behind Max. The kids started to get the place fortified, putting up heavy things in the windows to stop it from coming in. Nancy went out to Hopper's shed and tried to find any sort of weapon, Johnathan going out to grab an axe.