GLORY DAYS ｡STEVE HARRINGTON

CHAPTER THIRTY ; THE INTERROGATION OF WILL BYERS

"Like the Germans," Steve piped up, and Stella ran a hand down her face, wanting to smack him. He tried. 

"Uh, the Nazis?" Dustin quipped, staring at him in disbelief. 

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Nazis," Steve stumbled over his words, though he nodded quickly to get himself back on his feet. 

"Uh, if the Nazis were from another dimension, totally," Dustin reluctantly admitted. "It views other races, like us, as inferior to itself."

"It wants to spread, take over other dimensions," Mike added. 

"We're talking about the destruction of our world as we know it," Lucas agreed, smacking his hand on the table dramatically. 

"That's great, that's great. That's really great, Jesus!" Steve huffed, turning away from the table and running his hands through his hair exasperatedly. 

"Okay," Nancy began speaking again, leaning forward to read the words printed next to the drawing. "So, if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then if we kill it..."

"We kill everything it controls," Mike finished for his sister, who glanced up at him, nodding her head in understanding. 

"We win," Dustin said.

"Theoretically," Lucas stated further.

"Great, so how do you kill this thing?" Hopper asked, stepping forward and taking the book out of Nancy's hands, finally paying attention. "Shoot it with fireballs or something?"

Dustin chuckled, shaking his head. "No. No, no, fireballs. Uh, you summon an undead army, uh, because...because zombies, you know, t-they don't have brains, and the mind flayer, it...it likes brains."

The room fell silent. 

"It's just a game," Dustin admitted, causing Hopper to throw the book on the table angrily. "It's a game."

"What the hell are we doing here?" Hopper snapped, storming to the other side of the room. 

"I thought we were waiting on your military backup?" Dustin called after him, clearly not caring about overstepping boundaries with the adult. 

"We are!" Hopper shot back, his thick eyebrows narrowed. 

"What if they come? How are they gonna stop this? You can't just shoot this with guns," Mike argued angrily.

"You don't know that!" Hopper said, like a true American police officer would. "We don't know anything!"

"We know its already killed everybody in that lab," Mike insisted.

"And we know the monsters are gonna moult again," Lucas continued.

"And we know that it's only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town," Dustin finished, matter-of-factly. 

"They're right," the raspy, tired voice of Joyce Byers interrupted before anyone else could voice their opinion. Everybody turned around to look at the broken woman, the one that had lost the most out of them all. She was still wearing her turquoise scrubs and her hair was a mess, but there was a glint of determination in her eyes that made Stella stand a little taller. "We have to kill it. I want to kill it."

"Me too," Hopper assured her, knowing that she was still suffering from the loss of Bob, the man that had always been so kind to her and the Byers family, the man who Stella had the upmost respect for after seeing him interacting with Will. He was the father he always deserved, but never had. "Me too, Joyce, okay? But how do we do that? We don't exactly know what we're dealing with here."