Me, Myself, and Her

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty Six: Tied Together With A Smile

"The Mind Flayer, it built this monster in Hawkins, to stop El, to kill her and pave a way into our world," Mike explained.

"And it almost did. That was just one tiny piece of it," Nancy continued.

"How big is this thing?" Hopper asked.

Annie immediately cringed, remembering the place he lives. Steve took notice, his arm still slung around Annie's shoulders. She turned and looked up at him, then over to her right to glance at Max briefly.

"It's big," Johnathan said. "Thirty feet at least."

"Yeah, it sorta destroyed your cabin," Lucas said, breaking the bad news.

Annie sighed. "Yeah, sorry about that."

"Okay, so, just to be clear, this... this big fleshy spider thing that hurt El, it's some kind of gigantic weapon?" Steve asked. Annie looked over to El, who was curled up with Hopper. He held a cloth to her head, trying to help. She wasn't looking too good.

"Yes."

"But instead of, like, screws and metal, the Mind Flayer made it's weapon... with melted people?" Annie stiffened at the words, but didn't say anything. She'd tell Steve later.

"Yes, exactly," Nancy said.

"Yeah, okay, I- yeah, I'm just making sure."

"Are we sure this thing is still out there, still alive?" Joyce asked.

Max scoffed. "El beat the shit out of it, but yeah, it's still alive," she said.

"But," Will started, "if we close the gate again..."

"We cut the brain off from the body," Max finished for him.

"And kill it. Theoretically," Lucas said.

There was a pause of silence suddenly interrupted by Hopper and Joyce's new friend. "Yoo-hoo!" Annie jumped slightly and turned with the others to look at the man in jean shorts. He was waving around a bunch of papers. "Yoo-hoo!"

"Yes?" Hopper said, and Annie could tell they were just the best of friends. The man- Murray- just waved the papers around. "Right, yeah, the other part of all this."

Murray threw the papers down on a table that everyone gathered around. He put his finger down on a spot and explained. "Okay, this is what Alexei called 'the hub.' Now the hub takes us to the vault room."

"Okay, now where's the gate?" Hopper asked.

The man pointed to another spot. "Right here. I don't know the scale on this, but I think it's fairly close to the vault room, maybe fifty feet or so," he said, dragging his finger across the paper.

Then came Erica, stepping up to the table. "More like five hundred." Murray looked up at her, mouth open. "What, you're just gonna waltz in there like it's commie Disneyland or something?"

At this point, both the men by the table looked shocked at Erica. Annie was liking this girl more and more.

"I'm sorry, who are you?" Murray asked.

"Erica Sinclair. Who are you?"

"Murray... Bauman."

"Listen, Mr. Bunman..." Annie's jaw dropped. "I'm not trying to tell you how to do things, but I've been down in that shit hole for twenty-four hours. And with all due respect, you do what this man tells you, you're all gonna die."

"I'm sorry, why is this four-year-old speaking to me?" Murray asked.

"I'm ten you bald bastard!"

Annie wheezed at the sass this child held and stepped away, otherwise she'd make things worse by encouraging her. Lucas called her out and then Dustin stepped in to say something. At this point, Annie wasn't paying attention anymore.