STICKS AND STONES ↝ S. HARRINGTON

[27]

The sun rose low over Hawkins, bathing the small town in a peaceful, almost serene glow. Ironic, Anna thought, given the havoc being wrought upon them with the disappearance of d'Artagnan, but the people of Hawkins were none the wiser, going about their morning in sweet, blissful ignorance.

Since discovering the disappearance of the baby Demogorgon, Steve, Dustin, and Anna had spent the night putting together a plan to trap Dart, after a trip to Bradley's Big Buy for enough meat to lure him across town, and gasoline for once they'd finally manage to catch him. Their friends were still missing in action, leaving the three of them alone to bait the small creature, and hope they'd be enough to take him down.

"You're sure this is going to work?" Anna asked, eyeing the boys skeptically from where she sat on the couch in the Hendersons' living room.

Despite having no luck finding Mews at Loch Nora the day before, her mother and Aunt Nora had gone back out first thing in the morning, in an attempt to hang as many posters around town as they could to get their cat home. It twisted at Anna's heartstrings to see her mother so broken up about their missing pet, especially while knowing the truth about the feline's fate, but she couldn't bear for Claudia to know about what had really happened to Mews.

"Do you have a better plan?" Dustin deadpanned, and Anna put her hands up in surrender, shaking her head.

"Sorry," she murmured.

"Try Roberts one more time," Steve suggested, reaching for where his bat rested against the wall near the front door. "Nobody was home at my house still, but maybe he might, and he can find Becca and Michelle."

"Good idea," Anna agreed, pulling herself off the couch as she reached for the phone against the wall, punching in the familiar number before resting the device against her ear.

"Hello?" a familiar voice answered on the second ring.

"Landon!" Anna exclaimed in relief. "Where the hell have you guys been?"

"Working?" he asked skeptically. "I pulled a double last night. What's the rush?"

"We don't have a lot of time, but I need you to get Becca and Michelle and meet us at the old junkyard this afternoon." Anna explained. "I'm with Dustin and Steve, but we couldn't get a hold of anyone else."

"Anna, is everything okay?" Landon asked.

"If you have time to grab another hunting trap from the store, we could really use it." Anna said simply, and she could hear the sharp intake of breath from the other line.

"I'll find the girls and we'll meet you guys there." Landon said, a new tone in his voice that she couldn't quite decipher. "See you later."

Anna set the phone back on the receiver, her heart beginning to beat a little faster as she turned back towards the boys. "Let's go catch us a monster."

Each of them reached for a bucket filled with chunks of the meat they'd purchased from Bradley's Big Buy, piling into Steve's car, where the rest of the supplies already waited in the trunk. The drive over was eerily silent, as the three of them each pondered over their proposed plan of attack, though for Anna, it was more so about all of the ways everything could go terribly wrong if they weren't careful. Already they'd unleashed a horror upon Hawkins worse than anything the townspeople had ever faced, so it was up to them to capture it before anyone else met the same fates as Will and Barbara.

Anna stared out the window of the driver's seat as the sound of gravel crunched under the tires of the BMW, the train tracks on the edge of town coming into view. Steve shifted the car into park, killing the engine as they immediately opened the car doors, climbing outside into the cloudy morning air. Anna carried the buckets over to the trunk as Steve pulled the hatch open, and she set them down on the ground before moving to help him get the rest of the supplies out of the trunk and pack them into the backpacks on each of their backs. However, at the sound of static crackling from Dustin's walkie talkie, a voice followed soon after, causing them to jump from the sudden noise.