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chapter thirteen
IT TOOK DIANA TWO DAYS to understand that the Mind Flayer was still present in their world. She hadn't spoken to anyone in those two days, entirely too caught up in scrying in an attempt to find out how the creature was covering so much ground so quickly. She'd come up with names—dozens of them scribbled on notebook paper and probably barely legible to anyone but her.
The list began with Billy Hargrove, his name larger than all of the others, and Diana knew that that was no coincidence. She also knew that he was the boy in the picture she'd drawn and that the screams she heard belonged to Heather Holloway.
She'd recorded the list out of order, and although Billy was first on the list, she'd written his name last. When she'd called Max's house after searching through Lucas's things for the number, no one picked up, and her worry began to mount. It was still morning, but Diana was running out of time. She called Mike's house, and his mother answered, explaining that all of the boys, including her brother, were in the basement.
Diana had asked if she could go over there under the guise of needing to bring something to her brother, which wasn't completely a lie. She needed to show him the list, and she needed to warn them.
On her way out, she noticed Erica's room was void of the girl, and her bed was untouched. Diana paused then backtracked to her parents' room. She knocked on the door and poked her head in to find both her parents sitting up in bed, her father reading the newspaper and her mother studying the pages of some book.
"Where's Erica?" Diana asked slowly.
Her mother answered, looking up above her reading glasses. "Good morning to you too. She slept at a friend's house, why?"
"Just wondering." That didn't feel true, but her mother clearly didn't know any better. She would have to deal with that and the radio silence from Steve later.
"Where are you going this early?" Her father questioned as she backed out from the doorway. He'd obviously noticed her styled hair which had replaced a usual silk wrap.
"The Wheelers." She gave them what she thought was a reassuring smile. "See you."
When she'd finally arrived at the Wheelers, Mrs. Wheeler led her to the basement then left her to her own devices. Diana descended quickly. "Mom," Mike called out, not realizing it was her. "I said not now—"
"Diana," Eleven murmured, her eyes wide and her face a bit pale.
Seven pairs of eyes were now on her. "Good," she said, greeting them—Nancy, Jonathan, Max, Mike, Eleven, Lucas, and Will— solemnly, "the majority of you guys are already here."
"We were just about to leave," Nancy told her.
Lucas stood. "What are you doing here?"
Diana dug the list from her back pocket and placed it on the center of the small coffee table. "I'm here because of that." She'd formed a list of people possessed by that damned creature, and she'd had a feeling they already knew some.
Mike tentatively picked up the paper, unfolding it with great care. His eyes widened gradually as they traveled down the extensive list. "She—she's got a list of all the flayed."
If that's what you want to call them, she thought.
"Billy—" Diana began, but Max interrupted her.
"We know."
"Good. You stay away from him," she said lowly as Nancy took the paper. She didn't add that they were as good as dead for Max's sake.
"What does he want with this many people," Jonathan asked her, glancing at the list.
"It's building something." Diana swallowed and began to pace slowly. "At first I thought maybe an army, and it—he is, but I don't think an army is his end goal."
"What's his end goal Di?" Max asked.
She paused, looking down at all of their young faces—too young. They were all too young for this. "In general? The same thing it's always been: take over our world. With possessing all these people? He's making them into the same shit he's made out of."
Lucas gave her a sideways glance. "Which is?"
"Hell if I know," she muttered with a shrug, but she could see the flayed becoming something else. "I do know that if he wants this world, he'll come for you next." She looked to Eleven whose eyes were still wide. "Then he'll get me for good measure because he doesn't like to be watched, and that's all I do these days."
"He wants to be the only one who can see," Will whispered and Diana nodded.
"How can you be so calm about this?" Mike asked.
She shrugged again. "I hardly am, but now's not the time for being—hey," Diana interrupted her first thought, noticing their clothes and the dirt on them for the first time, "When was the last time any of you took a shower?"
"Not important," Nancy answered. Diana shared a look with Lucas. "We have to go to the Holloways' house. All three of them are on this list." Everyone aside from Diana headed to the stairs, so Nancy glanced over at her. "Aren't you coming?"
Of course she was.
It wasn't a long drive nor was if a long trip. Inside the house, it was clear that Billy and Heather, or some skewed version of them, had taken Heather's parents by force and offered them up to the Mind Flayer. There were spots of blood throughout their living room and kitchen, and stretched ropes and bloody wine bottles on the floor.
There was also a table full of open, mostly empty, cleaning supplies. It was clear that to make these flayed more like him, he was forcing chemicals down their throats.
Making something new, the kids had pointed out.
When Will had suggested they let Mrs. Driscoll, a older woman possessed by the Mind Flayer and hospitalized because of it, go back to the place she'd been fighting to go back to in order to find the source and the Mind Flayer's base, Diana all but screamed 'no'.
"That's a bad idea."
"Can you find it? Can El?" Jonathan asked.
Diana looked at her scuffed converse. She'd stupidly put on white ones this morning. "Maybe. It might be too risky. Everything's all about doors with this stuff." At least that's what her grandma had always cautioned her. "And doors are two ways, and if you open one there's no certainty that you can close it."
"So we'll go to the hospital, and if that doesn't work, at least we exhausted the option," Nancy said, and Diana couldn't argue with that.
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So Driscoll hadn't been at the hospital, but Mr. Holloway and his employee at the newspaper, Bruce Lowe, had been. Not too long ago, she'd written both of their names on that list.
And not too long ago she saw them both turn into a disgusting pile of moving pink sludge after they'd formed into the Mind Flayer, or at least some fleshy version of him. Eleven had thrown the thing out of the window of the hospital, sending it hurtling several stories. When they chased after it, it was merely a puddle of flesh and bones sinking into the sewage grate.
Holloway and Lowe—the Mind Flayer—had come looking for a fight and according to Nancy and Jonathan and what was clear in the use of El's powers, they'd gotten one. The latter were bruised and bloody, and if it hadn't been for Eleven, they'd probably be dead.
Diana couldn't see it happening not only because the flayed were hard to locate and the Mind Flayer was actively moving in in darkness that was sometimes too murky even for her, but also because she'd been looking for Steve and Dustin and Erica and kept seeing that mall for all three of them, and it was late in the evening. And if Steve had somehow pulled her sister into his search for the Russians, she was going to kill him.
Lucas was angry about her lack of precognition about the night's events, so he started an argument.
"I'm spread this thin," she breathed, holding her thumb and forefinger close together. He'd pulled her off to the side in the parking lot, away from the ears of their friends just to take his frustrations out on her. "And I'm trying to find our sister, so I'm sorry if a bad idea turned out to be a bad idea."
"What do you mean your trying to find our sister?" He asked after a pause.
"I mean that I don't know where she is, and I'm trying to change that fact."
"Is she—is she hurt?"
Diana's tone softened a bit at his worry. "No and she won't be. That much I know."
"Then stop trying to see everything and focus on one thing," he murmured, grabbing her shoulders.
She rolled her eyes. "And what exactly should I focus on?"
"The flayed and the Mind Flayer."
"That's two."
He nodded and began to lead them back to the car, which everyone else was beginning to pile into. "I realized when I said it."
During the car ride back to the Wheeler's, it was decided the Diana would take Eleven and Max back to Eleven's house where she would spend the night with the two girls in Hopper's absence. Lucas would spend the night at Mike's, and Will and Jonathan would go home. They would all meet at Hopper's cabin in the morning. Because she'd had a hunch that the day's events would lead to this point, she'd packed herself some clothes and thrown a few things for Lucas into her car too.
Once everyone had gone their separate ways and Diana, Max, and Eleven were all settled in the cabin, the two younger girls had begun grilling her about her relationship with Steve.
"After all that happened today, you guys want to ask me about a boy?" She questioned with a laugh.
"We're curious," Max replied, a small smirk on her lips. "Besides we could use a little distraction." She saw the girl's eyes dim for a second, but it was gone too soon.
Diana looked at Eleven who was seated right beside her. "Aren't you tired?" The girl only shrugged, and Diana sighed. "Steve and I aren't together."
"But..." Eleven began, tilting her head, "you love him?"
Diana shook her head a little too fast. She felt her silk scarf stretch around her head with the movement. "I tolerate him, at best."
"You like him," Max chuckled.
She easily relented. "Maybe a little."
"Do you two kiss?"
Diana's eyes widened at Eleven's question. "No. I told you we're only friends." She flipped the questioning on them because she wanted to see them squirm a bit. "Are you two still seeing Mike and Lucas?"
"No," they both answered. Max was a little bit more decided and stern in her answer, but they were both clearly no's.
Diana sighed again. She wasn't even going to ask about what was going on there. She saw Eleven yawn. "Maybe you two should go get some rest."
Max looked to her exhausted friend and nodded. They both stood, bidding her goodnight, but El paused at her bedroom door and made her way back over to Diana. She clearly had something to say. "Will you teach me?" The younger girl asked.
Diana gave her a confused look. "Teach you what?"
"How to see."
"Eleven, you scry better than I do. You do not need me to teach you," she said with a slow shake of her head.
El shook her head too. "But I can't see the things you see."
"And be glad that you can't." She patted Eleven's arm. "You've got enough to deal with." And it was true, no matter how much Diana wished it wasn't.
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