CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
( getting will byers back )
MADDIE SAT IN the Byers kitchen as Hopper called someone on the phone. She hadn't really been paying attention, head leant on Max's shoulder who she was happy to see had finally been clued in on the mess of a town they lived in.
"Yes, Dr. Sam Owens. I don't know how many people are there! I don't know how many people are left alive. I am the police! Chief Jim Hopper! Yes, the number that I gave you, yes. 6767... I will be here." He slammed the phone down and Maddie moved her eyes towards him, watching.
"They didn't believe you, did they?" Dustin frowned, looking at Hopper. He turned around towards the kids. "We'll see."
"We'll see?" We can't just sit here while those things are loose!" Mike yelled, angrily staring at Hopper. Maddie understood why. They all just escaped a near death situation and not all of them did, it felt off to now just be waiting around for someone else to fix things.
Hopper gritted his teeth. "We stay here, and we wait for help." He left the room at that, leaving the middle schoolers with none other than Steve Harrington, which continued to confused Maddie to no end where he came in here.
The silence seemed to overtake them, some sense of sadness taking over the room. It was a mourning feeling, really. Joyce had instantly curled into herself mentally and physically, which was understandable. And no one else had anything they could say that would help that.
So they just sat, hoping time would pass and they could be out of this situation.
Maddie looked up slightly, removing her head from Max's shoulder when Mike stood. She watched as he walked towards a set of games, they very ones Bob had brought over earlier for Will before they'd lost him. "Did you guys know that Bob was the original founder of Hawkins AV?"
"Really?" Lucas responded, none of them had known that. It made Maddie smile. Mike turned back towards them, holding a rubix cube. "He petitioned the school to start it and everything. Then he had a fundraiser for equipment. Mr. Clarke learned everything from him. Pretty awesome, right?"
The boys smiled. "Yeah." Mike set the rubix cube down on the table before looking between his friends. "We can't let him die in vain."
"Well what do you want to do, Mike? Alright? The Chiefs right on this. We can't stop those Demo-dogs on our own." Dustin snapped. Max chuckled. "Demo-dogs?"
He turned his attention towards her. "Demogorgon. Dogs. Demo-dogs. It's like a compound. It's a play on words—" Maddie raised her eyebrows as Max cut him off. "Okay." Dustin sighed. "I mean, when it was just Dart, maybe..."
"But there's an army now." Lucas cut in. Dustin nodded. "Precisely." Mike stared forward. "His army." Steve turned his head towards the boy at that. "What do you mean?"
"His army. Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army, too." Mike offered and all the kids looked at each other. Mike began walking out of the room and they all shot up to follow him, Maddie following close behind to see what he was thinking.
He walked over to Wills picture of the monster and handed it to Dustin. "The shadow monster." Dustin noted. "It got Will that day on the field. The doctor said it was like a virus, it infected him."
"And so this virus, it's connecting him to the tunnels?" Max continued, picking up on what Mike was saying. "To the tunnels, monsters, the Upside Down, everything." Mike replied.
Steve put his hands up. "Whoa. Slow down. Slow down." He took the image from Dustin, looking at it as Mike explained. "Okay, so, the shadow monsters inside everything. And if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will." Lucas looked at Mike. "And so does Dart."
"Yeah. Like what Mr. Clarke taught us. The hive mind." Mike nodded. "Hive mind?" Steve questioned. Maddie bit her lip, she didn't know how he didn't know about a hive mind but ignored it. Dustin looked at his new friend. "A collective consciousness. It's a super-organism."
Mike pointed at the drawing again. "And this is the thing that controls everything. It's the brain." Mike turned to Maddie. "It's like what we talked about at the lab. Finding the vines brain in a separate location, well this is that brain we were looking for." Maddie smiled a bit, super impressed on how Mike had just figured it all out.
"Like the mind flayer." Dustin suddenly connected. Lucas snapped towards him, instantly catching on as Mike did too. "What?" Steve, Max, and Maddie questioned at once. She really wished she had started listening when the boys played D&D.
Dustin went looking for Wills D&D book until he found it, running back to the kitchen and looking for the page he needed. Once he had it, everyone had already gathered around as he slammed it onto the table. Maddie hadn't been too focused on them when they all went back into the kitchen, but at some point Nancy, Jonathan, and Hopper had joined them, ready to hear what Dustin had to say. "The mind flayer."
"What the hell is that?" Hopper replied, looking at the boy confused. "It's a monster from an unknown dimension. It's so ancient that it doesn't even know its true home. Okay, it enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains using its highly-developed psionic powers."
Hopper rolled his eyes. "Oh, my god, none of this is real. This is a kids game." Dustin shook his head. "No, I-it's a manual. And it's not for kids. And unless you know something that we don't, this is the best metaphor—"
"Analogy." Lucas cut off. Maddie threw her head back, not wanting a repeat of what always seemed to repeat between Dustin and Lucas. "Can we focus, please?" Dustin ignored her. "Analogy? That's what you're worried about? Fine, fine. An analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is."
Nancy sighed. "Okay, so this mind flamer thing—" Dustin cut her off. "Flayer. Mind flayer." She sighed. "What does it want?" Dustin instantly had his response. "To conquer us, basically. It believes it's the master race."
"Like the Germans." Steve tried to contribute, causing heads to turn his direction. "Uh, the Nazis?" Dustin replied, wondering if he understood Steve correctly. Steve nodded. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Nazis."
"Uh... if Nazis were from another dimension, totally. Uh, it views other races, like us, as inferior to itself." Dustin further explained. "It wants to spread, take over other dimensions." Mike added. "We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it." Lucas finished.
Steve began freaking out. "That's great. That's great. That's really great. Jesus!" He walked away from the group a bit, just trying to get some space. "Okay, so if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then if we kill it..." Nancy began, hoping someone would answer. And Mike did. "We kill everything it controls."
"We win." Dustin added. "Theoretically." Lucas noted. Hopper took the manual from Nancy, who had began walking around looking at it. "Great. So how do you kill this thing? Shoot it with fireballs or something?"
Dustin chuckled. "No. No, no fire— no fireballs. Uh, you summon an undead army, uh, because... because zombies, you know, they don't have brains, and the mind flayer, it... it... it likes brains. It's just a game. It's a game." Hopper slammed the manual down. "What the hell are we doing here."
"I thought we were waiting for your military backup." Dustin replied as Hopper walked away from him. Maddie ran a hand through her hair, anxiously watching between the two. "We are!" Hopper responded. "But even if they come how are they gonna stop this? You can't just shoot this with guns." Mike spat.
Hopper turned to him. "You don't know that! We don't know anything!" Mike continue with the same fire. "We know it's already killed everybody in that lab." Lucas nodded. "And we know the monsters are gonna molt again."
"And we know that it's only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town." Dustin finished. "They're right." Joyce spoke, causing everyone to turn towards her. Her voice sounded raspy, as if she had been crying. Maddie frowned at the idea, though it made total sense why she would Maddie didn't like the idea of Joyce crying.
"We have to kill it. I want to kill it." Joyce continued as Hopper walked up to her. "Me, too. Me, too, Joyce, okay? But how do we do that? We don't exactly know what we're dealing with here."
Mike cut in. "No. But he does." He walked forward. "If anyone knows how to destroy this thing, it's Will. He's connected to it. He'll know its weakness." Max frowned. "I thought we couldn't trust him anymore. That he's a spy for the mind flayer now."
"Yeah, but he can't spy if he doesn't know where he is." Mike realized.
And so, they all began work. Turning the Byers shed into a discloses location Will wouldn't be able to recognize. Maddie joined Max in creating a chair Will couldn't get out of and looked at the red head, guilt overtaking her.
"Hey, uh... I'm sorry I didn't tell you about all this. It was really shitty." Max looked towards Maddie, a bit confused on why she was apologizing. "It's not like I would have believed you anyways. Besides, Lucas told me about how you guys were sworn to secrecy so I get it."
Maddie shrugged. "Still, you deserved to know what really went down the minute you saw Dart. We shouldn't have locked you out." Max smiled. "I appreciate that. And by the way, I totally get why you all liked El so much. She seemed really cool."
Maddie's smile grew, she was happy Lucas told Max about Eleven. "She was." Max became intrigued. "So, uh... was she like, your best friend?" Maddie thought about it for a moment, she honestly didn't know the answer to that. "I'm not too sure. I think it felt more like a sisters thing. I had never really had a female friend my age before El and something kinda clicked." Max nodded her head, continuing to work on the chair. Maddie lightly kicked her with her foot. "But you know, if anyone was going to come into my life and help me make another female friend I'm glad it was you."
Max smiled. "Yeah? I'm glad to have helped." Both girls laughed a bit, happy to share one moment in these dark circumstances. Maddie truly was happy to know Max. She was definitely up there right next to El with coolest people Maddie knew.
Though it seemed sort lived. "Do you know why Mike hates me so much? I just— I don't care I just want to know." Maddie frowned. "He doesn't hate you. He just... he misses El. He feels like we'd be replacing her, which could never happen because you're both your own people, but he thinks that way. Assumes we all just want to move past El rather than leaving her spot open incase she ever comes back."
"And will she? Ever— ever come back?" Max wondered. Maddie shrugged, standing up. "I don't know. I hope so, but I just don't know." Max nodded at that, deciding she was done with the questions. Maddie gave her a small smile. "I'm going to see if Hopper needs my help, you got this?" Max gave the brunette a thumbs up. "Totally got it handled."
IT WAS TIME. They had finished setting everything up and now Maddie found herself facing an unconscious Will. She didn't fully know why she was in the shed, part of her wishing to be with the rest of the kids and teens (besides Mike and Jonathan who would also be in the shed) so she didn't have to watch her friend forget her.
But the other part was happy, because obviously she could help Will more if she was there. Will had been tied up against a post as bright lights shinned in his eyes, another chair against a post apposing his own. Hopper took some ammonia on a cotton ball and held it under Wills nose, allowing the boy to breath it in and wake up.
He gasped awake, instantly trying to find some identifier for where he was. He began trying to get out of the binds, looking around to see he was tied. "What? What? What is this? What? What is this? Why am I tied up?"
"Will, we just wanna talk to you. We're not gonna hurt you." Joyce spoke, crouching in front of her son. He looked away from her. "Where am I?" Hopper moved down next to Joyce and showed Will his drawing. "You recognize this? Do you recognize this?" Will shook his head no.
Joyce called for his attention to go back to her. "Hey. We wanna help you. But to do that, we have to understand how to kill it." Will just began screaming again. "Why am I tied up? Why am I tied up? Why am I tied up? Why am I tied up?"
"Hey." Hopper tried, holding onto the boy as he began fighting with everything in him to escape. "Why am I tied up? Why am I tied up? Let me go! Let me go!" The lights began flickering as Wills voice seemed to become more demonic and he continued to thrash around. "Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!" Hopper held onto him, applying pressure to something on the boy to try and calm him down. "Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go... Go... Go..."
Maddie wiped her eyes quickly as Will just stared at his mom, breathing heavily. She looked towards Mike quickly, interlocking their hands with a squeeze before turning right back towards Joyce and Will.
"Do you know what March 22nd is? It's your birthday. Your birthday. When you turned eight, I gave you that huge box of crayons. Do you remember that? It was 120 colors. And all your friends, they got you Star Wars toys, but all you wanted to do was draw with all your new colors. And you drew this big spaceship,
but it wasn't from a movie. It was your spaceship. A rainbow ship is what you called it. And you must have used every color in the box. I took that with me to Melvald's and I put it up and I told everyone who came in, "My son drew this." And you were so embarrassed. But I was so proud. I was so, so proud." Joyce remembered, smiling.
Jonathan took in a shaky breath from where he stood. "Do you remember the day Dad left?" Will tuned to him as he made his way down in front of the boy. "We stayed up all night building Castle Byers... just the way you drew it. And it took so long because you were so bad at hammering. You'd miss the nail every time. And then it started raining, but we stayed out there anyway. We were both sick for like a week after that. But we just had to finish it, didn't we? We just had to."
"Do you remember the first day that we met? It was... It was the first day of kindergarten. I knew nobody. I had no friends and... I just felt so alone and so scared, but... I saw you on the swings and you were alone, too. You were just swinging by yourself. And I just walked up to you and... I asked. I asked if you wanted to be my friend. And you said yes. You said yes. It was the best thing I've ever done." Mike cried, holding Maddie's hand as tight as he could.
Maddie took a small step forward, wiping her eyes with her free hand as she looked at Will. Maddie looked at Will, tears in her eyes, "do— do you remember when my mom died? I shut everyone out and— and I wouldn't even leave my room for like a week. All you boys came by all the time but I always turned you away... until— until one day I left my window open and you climbed through. I told you to leave, but... you— you said no and we just sat on my bed in silence. You didn't make me talk, or— or express anything. You just let me sit in silence and you were just there. You were just there, Will. And the next day I was able to bring myself to let the rest of the guys in, all because you had been there when I unknowingly needed it."
Will looked between his two friends in what was almost sadness. Maddie couldn't tell who was looking at her and it killed her, but a part of her hoped it was actually Will.
"Will, baby... if you're in there, just please... please talk to us. Please, honey, please, can you do that for me? Please. I love you so much." Joyce begged. Wills face shook as if he was crying but no tears left his eyes. Before suddenly it stopped and he went cold again. "Let me go."
Maddie covered her mouth and leaned into Mike, begging herself not to cry right then and there. But Hopper looked at them all. "Follow me." He walked towards the exit, which was on the other side of the room blocked by the lights. Everyone followed, a bit confused but they still followed him back into the Byers house.
Everyone who had been waiting for them inside immediately jumped up, but Hopper just grabbed paper and a pen and sat down. "What happened?" Dustin questioned, seeing all the teary faces.
Though everyone just crowded Hopper. "I think he's talking, just not with words. "What is that?" Steve questioned, looking down at the likes and dots Hopper had drawn. "Morse code." All the kids replied, figuring out what Hopper was getting at.
HERE. Maddie smiled. "H-E-R-E." Hopper spelled out. "Here." The boys spoke and Hopper looked at them all. "Wills still in there. He's talking to us."
AUTHORS NOTE!
was gonna keep going but I'm just gonna add the other part of this to the next chapter