Royal Pain || Stranger Things

thirty-one || death certificate

"Are you sure about this?"

Hopper and Joyce pulled up hesitantly outside of the Hess Farm, killing the headlights as they rolled past a Lynx delivery truck and stopped just shy of the farm donning lights within the home.

It was verging on one in the morning where most of the facility was asleep, and both Hopper and Joyce were wishing they were too.

"It looks like someone's home," Joyce said, panic laced in her voice.

"This is where Tatum said to go." Hopper killed the car's engine. "She wouldn't set us up."

Joyce and Hop climbed out of the vehicle with flashlights in their hands and hearts in their throats, slowly making their way up to the house. The hefty front door swung open without resistance as Hop pushed the panel, poor lighting welcoming them inside.

Hop drew his gun, motioning a finger for Joyce to keep quiet as they made their way through the run down house that donned minimal furniture but active signs of life.

"Do you hear that noise?" Joyce whispered as they walked into a bedroom, an odd pulsating sound in the air.

Hopper turned a sharp corner, letting out a soft breath. "Where's that coming from?"

Joyce stared at the unused bed with an odd, solid base, crouching down on her knees and pressing her ear against the floor. "It's below us," she told Hop, the pulsing intensified.

And that was when she saw the vent with a thrumming red light behind it.

"The bed," she said. "Lift the bed."

"What? It's a bed."

"How many beds have vents in them?"

Together, Hopper and Joyce picked up the corners of the frame, the entire bed lifting up to the wall to reveal a secret stairway below.

The strange, unsettling sound amplified, booming menacingly from within the hidden corridor, taunting them to come find out what was inside.

Hopper quickly brought his gun back out, pulse thumping in the back of his throat. "I really wish she had given us more information."

"We'll have to make do with what we have."

Descending the stairs into the fluorescently lit hallway, both Joyce and Hopper held their qualms with the fact that they would be able to get Tatum out of the base.

All they had received over a radio transmission was the address to Hess Farm and a time.

Everything else was left up to chance.

Not incredibly far away from where Joyce and Hopper had entered the facility, Tatum, Alexei and a maintenance man were placed strategically in an operating zone that could cut the power to the Key.

Tatum, however, to sell her reasoning for being outside of her room, was handcuffed behind her back and lingering behind Alexei and the man who genuinely thought he needed to fix something. Still donning her half-assed soviet uniform, she nodded lightly to Alexei as he took a tepid look back to her.

If they took much longer, someone would come looking for them.

And although Ben had been slipped a note to meet them there, he had yet to arrive.

Tatum was prepared to leave without him.

"Hey, dipshits!"

The workman's ratchet clattered to the ground, him and Alexei hesitantly stepping out from behind the power panel.