CHAPTER TWO
D'ARGATAN
The Henderson house is quiet. Too quiet for Abby's comfort. Abby has watched enough kids to know that when the house is silent like this, they're up to no good. This is the kind of silence that causes the hairs on the back of your neck to stick up and chills to run up and down your spine, the kind of silence where you know that everything is about to go wrong but there's nothing you can do to stop it. She knows Dustin Henderson, she's been babysitting him for years now, and she knows that the kid can easily wrap himself up in a sticky web of trouble. She isn't entirely sure why she's still being hired to take care of a thirteen-year-old boy, but she can use the money, so she doesn't complain.
And then she sees Dustin.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit!"
He's dressed in old hockey gear and old floral print oven gloves and armed with an old hockey stick. There's a football helmet over his head that hides his face, but she can tell that something has clearly scared him. There's a trail of lunch meat on the carpeted floor that Dustin seems to be following. His runs are desperate jumps, hindered by the old hockey shin guards secured around his legs.
Dustin's wild, panicked eyes land on Abby. "Abby, run!"
"What?"
"No time to explain━━just run if you wanna live!"
"Okay, fun, I'll play."
She's quick to follow Dustin out of the house and into the front yard. Leaves and twigs snap under their feet as they run to the old, faded, and chipped green-painted potting shed in the front yard. Dustin closes the old wooden door behind them with a loud bang and bends over with his hands on his knees as he catches his breath. She glances around the small dark shed as her eyes adjust to the dimness, the shed itself is empty, save for the leaves and twigs that had been blown in by the wind and coat the floor, there are a few gaps in the wooden walls, perfect to spy out of without being seen by the outside, which Dusting is quick to peer through.
Abby fixes him with a quizzical stare. "So ... are you going to tell me exactly what exactly we're running from and why you're dressed like an orange wannabe Pillsbury boy?"
"Shh," Dustin hisses. Abby furrows her brows before peering through one of the gaps in the wood. She could just barely make out the front porch and wide-open front door. The shed is filled with the same tense hair-raising silence before Dusting starts to whisper, "Come on. Come on, I know you're hungry."
As if on cue, something the size of a dog scurried out of the house. It moved on all fours, and it seemed to be eating the meat left in the trail. It lets out a small growl that sends a shiver down Abby's spine as it travels closer and closer to the shed. Abby clamps a hand over her mouth as the creature draws nearer and its mouth opens up like a flower, but this isn't a beautiful flower with a fragrant scent found in a sun-lit meadow. No, this is a rancid flower, this is a deadly, poisonous flower, lined with rows upon rows of sharp teeth, a flower one would find in the depths of a dark jungle. The creature is slimy, the sun glints off of its shiny, sticky skin as it draws nearer and nearer to the wide-open basement doors just across from the shed, its tail wags almost happily.
"Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes," Dustin whispers as the creature snaps up the last piece of lunch meat in its mouth.
The creature whirls around then, growling loudly and turning its flower-like head to stare directly at the shed where Abby and Dustin are hiding. The two recoil in horror and stare at the door, waiting for the creature to burst through the old wooden door and rip them to shreds, but after a few tense, silent moments, nothing happens. Dustin slowly inches toward the door and peers through another gap before slamming himself against one of the walls. Abby, with her heart beating rapidly in her chest and her thoughts swimming around and muddling in her head watches with a feeling of dread as the creature draws ever nearer.
It's then that Dustin lets out a loud, long battle cry and bursts out of the door. The creature, who up until that point had been slowly, menacingly, approaching the shed lets out a loud squeal as Dustin charges at the creature with his hockey stick flailing. Abby watches from the doorway with wide eyes as Dustin swings the hockey stick and the creature goes flying through the cellar doors and tumbles down the stairs. Before the creature can scramble back up the stairs, Dustin is quick to slam the doors to the cellar shut and collapse on top of them, holding them shut.
"Sorry," he mutters. "You ate my cat."
"Hey, so what the hell was that?" Abby demands as she strides across the pathway of dirt and twigs to Dustin.
"That," Dusting pants as he pushes himself up and points down at the red-painted doors of the cellar, "was a demodog."
Abby blinks. "A what now?"
"You know, Demogorgon, dog, smashed together?" Dustin demonstrates this by holding up a hand for each word and threading his fingers together. "Demodog?"
"I don't care about the wordplay, Henderson," Abby interrupts, "I care about the fact that I'm supposed to keep you out of trouble, and yet you seem to have already gotten yourself into it."
"Okay, listen, I can explain everything," Dustin responds calmly. "But first, we need to make sure that Dart stays in there, and, uh, bury my cat."
"I'm sorry, you named the thing that just tried to kill us?"
"Abby," Dustin groans. "I'm all for your babysitter lecture when we're out of danger, but please, get the chain and padlock on this before Dart does manage to kill us both."
"Right. Sorry."
✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.☆.*｡･ﾟ✫*
The car drive is tense. Abby stares ahead at the road while her knuckles clutch the steering wheel tightly, her knuckles are white, and she's desperate to think about anything but what Dustin has just told her. Dustin is sitting in the back, absentmindedly tracing the carved initials with his finger as they drive. He hasn't said anything since he told Abby the truth about Will Byers' disappearance the year before.
The smell of cleaning detergent and cat blood still cling to Abby and Dustin. The foul scents intermingle with the air freshener that she's hung with the small baby shoes on the rearview mirror. The keys to the cellar padlock feel heavy in her back pocket. Dirt from the plot of land where Dustin and Abby had buried Mews, is packed beneath her fingernails and she has yet to get the image of Mews' lifeless body out of her mind. Dustin's attempts to reach his friends have not been very successful; Erica Sinclair had turned off her older brother's radio, Mike Wheeler and Will Byers never answered and only Alex Harrington has answered Dustin's desperate calls.
Finally, Abby breaks the long silence. "So, you knew Dart was from the parallel place━━"
"Upside Down."
"━━and you kept it anyway? Because you bonded over nougat?"
"Why is that always the big takeaway with you people?" Dustin groans.
"Kid, you kept a monster that you know is dangerous, what do you expect?" Abby glances up at Dustin in the rearview mirror. "Gosh, what happened to playing Dungeons and Dragons in a smelly basement?"
When Abby pulls into the Wheelers' driveway, Dustin jumps out before the car can come to a complete stop. He dashes up the cement pathway followed by Abby. When there isn't an immediate answer at the door, Dustin rings the doorbell in rapid succession, desperate for another one of his friends to emerge from the depths of the two-story house. Abby merely pinches the bridge of her nose in between her pointer finger and thumb.
"Your line has been busy for almost two hours, Mr. Wheeler," Dustin says as soon as Ted Wheeler answers the door. There isn't much to bed said about Ted Wheeler, he hasn't made much of an impact on the community and tends to stay indoors. "Do you realize this?"
"Oh, I do realize," Ted responds.
"Is Mike home?" Dustin prods.
Ted shakes his head, seemingly unbothered. "No."
"No? Then where the hell is he?"
"Karen, where's our son?" Ted calls into the house.
"Will's!" comes Karen Wheeler's response.
"Will's," Ted repeats, about to close the door.
Dustin lets out a sigh. "Nobody's picking up there. Nancy. What about Nancy?"
"Karen, where's Nancy?" Ted calls.
"Ally's!"
Ted turns back to Dustin and Abby with an exasperated expression on his face. "Ally's. Our children don't live here anymore. You didn't know that?"
"Seriously?" Dustin responds, exasperated.
"Am I done here?" Ted asks.
"Son of a bitch," Dusting mutters, shaking his head. "You're really no help at all, you know that?"
Abby takes that moment to jump in and place her hands on Dustin's shoulders. As she steers him off the front porch she calls back to Ted, "Thank you, Mr. Wheeler, we'll be getting out of your hair now!"
Dustin lets out a groan and throws his head back. "So, that was a no-go. We need to go to the Harringtons' place now━━oh, speak of the devil."
Abby turns to look where Dustin has set his gaze. Sure enough, a red car has pulled up to the sidewalk, and none other than Steve Harrington clambers out. There's a bouquet of red roses in his hands and he's muttering reverently to himself. Another figure clambers out of the car, tall and gangly, they almost trip on their way out. Everybody knows the temperamental mess that is Alex Harrington, for a while, she's terrorized the streets of Hawkins with her split knuckles and unsuppressed rage. People say she's less angry now, less hostile, that she's working to become a better person and manage her anger, but that doesn't stop Abby from paling slightly.
Dustin seems unfazed by Alex's reputation and a relieved grin breaks across his face as he bounds toward her. "Oh, thank god!"
"You can call me Alex," Alex responds with a smirk. "Anyway, what's up with Dart? You sounded really wigged-out on the radio."
"I'll explain everything later," Dustin replies. He then tilts his head toward Abby. "That's Abby, by the way."
A dawning realization spreads across Alex's face and the corners of her lips a malicious sort of grin. "Oh, so you're the famous Abby Foster, huh? You know, Dustin here used to━━" Dustin stomps on her foot "━━ow!"
"Steve!" Dustin calls, jogging toward the older teen before Alex can stomp on his foot. "Are those for Mr. or Mrs. Wheeler?"
Steve glances down at the roses and then back up at Dustin dubiously. "No."
"Good," Dustin replies. He yanks the roses from Steve's grasp and stalks back over where Abby and Alex are waiting. Abby bounces slightly on the balls of her feet as she shoves her hands in her pockets, and Alex has leaned back against Steve's car with her arms crossed over her chest as she watches patiently.
"Hey. What the hell? Hey!" Steve calls after Dustin.
"Nancy isn't home," Dustin informs Steve.
"Where is she?"
"It doesn't matter, because we've got bigger problems than your shitty love life, brother dearest," Alex calls. "And you can't exactly make up with Nancy if we're all dead."
"You still have your bat?" Dustin questions.
Steve blinks. "Bat? What bat?"
"The one with the nails?" Dustin clarifies, swinging his own arms as if he has a bat in them.
"Why?"
"I'll explain it on the way," Dustin answers as he climbs into Steve's passenger seat. Alex lets out a grown and mutters something about Dustin being a dick before she clambers into the back seat of Steve's car.
"Now?" Steve asks, staring at Dustin.
"Now!" Dustin exclaims, exasperation clear in his voice.
✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.☆.*｡･ﾟ✫*
Darkness has fallen over Hawkins. The trees in Dustin's front yard cast ominous shadows on the ground, illumined by the moonlight overhead. The hairs on the back of Abby's once again are standing up straight and goosebumps are crawling across her skin. Although, she is strangely comforted by the presence of the two thirteen-year-olds and Steve Harrington, but that still doesn't help her creeping trepidations.
Dustin leads the small group to the storm cellar. Steve's flashlight beam lands on the red-painted doors of the cellar, and for a few long moments, the group merely stares. None of them really want to open Pandora's box and risk the chance of letting a vicious monster out from the depths of the dank cellar. It's eerily quiet, too quiet, the same quiet that had filled the Henderson house earlier that day.
"I don't hear shit," Steve finally voices.
"He's in there," Dustin assures him.
"Are you sure?" Alex asks. There's a quiver in her voice, something that Abby is surprised to hear from Alex Harrington.
"Well, where else would he be?" Dustin responds. He gestures toward the cellar doors. "Everything's still in tact, where else could he be?"
"Dead?" Abby suggests.
"I doubt it," Dustin responds.
Tentatively, Steve reaches out with his bat and taps the doors of the cellar. The bang echoes, but there is no immediate reaction from within the cellar. The four wait in silence for a few long moments before Steve sucks in a breath and raises the bat higher, this time succeeding in causing a much louder bang. Nothing.
Steve turns on Dustin and shines the beam of his flashlight into the boy's face. Dustin recoils and throws up a hand to block the light as Steve lets out a small sigh. "All right, listen, kid. I swear, if this is some sort of Halloween prank, you, Alex, and your friend over here are dead."
"It's not," Dustin replies with the shake of his head. Steve only fixes him with a harder stare. "It's not a prank. Get it out of my face."
"You got a key for this thing?" Steve questions.
Abby nods and digs the cellar key out from her back pocket and tosses them to Steve who catches them easily. He grumbles to himself as he crouches down next to the doors and slides the key into the lock. The red cellar doors open with an ear-splitting screech. Instinctively, Abby stakes a step back and throws a protective arm in front of both Dustin and Alex, waiting for something to leap out from the cellar and attack them. Dustin bats her arm away but Alex lets Abby's arm remain protectively in front of her. There's something about the expression that the girl has that causes Abby's heart to twinge.
It's no secret that the Harringtons are one of the wealthiest families in Hawkins, but wealth and prestige has always come with a price. Laura and Joseph Harrington hop from plane to plane, from business meeting to business meeting, and when they are home, it's only for a few weeks before they're off again. Growing up, Abby has never had a shortage of family members, she's always had enough parental and familial love to wrap herself in a soft, warm blanket of. Sometimes she forgets that not everybody is that lucky.
Dustin edges closer to the wide-open cellar doors as Steve peers down the dark staircase. Dustin's flashlight beam shakes and quivers as he focuses it on the dark shadows of the cellar. Steve glanced up at him before taking the flashlight from the boy as he mutters, "Let me see that."
"He must be further down there," Dustin says as Steve shines the light along the walls. "I'll stay up here in case he tries to ... escape."
"Me too," Alex agrees with a small nod.
"I'll watch these two just in case," Abby adds.
Steve lets out a sigh when nobody makes a move toward the cellar. Abby, Dustin, and Alex watch with bated breath as Steve slowly descends into the dark, dank cellar. Just over her shoulder Abby can hear Alex's rattling breath.
"Steve?" Alex calls out after a few moments of painful silence.
Dustin edges closer to the steps of the cellar. "Steve, what's going on down there?"
Suddenly, a bright light jumps out from the depths of the cellar. Dustin flinches as the powerful beam of Steve's light is once again aimed at his face. Through the force of the beam, Abby can barely make out Steve's face, but already she can tell that whatever news he has cannot be good.
"Get down here," Steve orders.
Abby, Dustin, and Alex hesitantly comply. Abby is the first to step into the shadows of the cellar, the hairs on the back of her neck are standing up straight once again. She braces herself for whatever she's about to see, and for a moment, all she can think about is Mews' lifeless, bloody body. Alex follows behind her, she tries to mask her rattling breath, but Abby can still hear it just above the sound of her own beating heart. Dustin is the last one to enter the cellar, he glances behind them every so often as they depend down the staircase, ready for something to spring down the stairs and attack them.
"Ugh, what the hell is that?" Abby murmurs as Steve holds up his bat. Hanging from the nails is some slimy substance that hangs limply, and almost seems to glow under the cellar lightbulb.
"Oh shit," Dustin curses. Steve then directs the end of his bat toward the farthest wall across from them where a gaping hole sits in the wall. The bricks had been ripped away and scattered around the ground, behind the once seemingly-fortified cellar wall lays a dirt tunnel. "Oh, shit!"
Alex raises her hands to her head as she starts to pace and murmurs, "Oh god, we are so fucked."
The four approach the tunnel slowly and crouch before it. Steve shines his light into the tunnel, but even the beam isn't powerful enough to penetrate the darkness before the tunnel takes a sharp turn. Abby's breath hitches in her throat. Dart can be anywhere.
"No way," Dustin murmurs. "No way."
Abby lets out a groan and rests her face in her hands. "I don't get paid enough for this shit!"
author's note: alex has made her return! i'm probably going to focus on this fic a lot more than my others for the time being because i'm super motivated and want to get through season two quickly because i'm excited for season three!