꧁꧂
ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ꜰᴏʀᴛʏ-ꜱɪx: ɪ'ᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴀʀᴏᴜɴᴅ
"He showed me things that haven't happened yet." Nancy's voice stayed delicate as she recalled what she could. The Mayfield living room silent with the exception to herself. Everyone in the room listened, soaking in all of it. "The most awful things." She shook her head ever so slightly, still dazed as she thought about them all still. "I saw a dark cloud, spreading over Hawkins. Downtown, on fire. Dead soldiers. And this... giant creature... with a gaping mouth. And this creature wasn't alone- there was so many monsters."
A single tear fell down her cheek as she continued on. "An army. And they were coming into Hawkins. Into our neighborhoods." Hairs stood up on my arms and the back of my neck as I thought about it. Oh God. "Our homes... and then, he showed me my mom... and Holly... Mike... and they- they were all-" The girl started to cry again in her seat, shaking her head as she looked down at her lap.
I fidgeted around, looking everywhere but at Nance from where I stood, trying to dial down the fact that we may not have a choice and have to lose this battle. If the future was already saying this, then what the actual fuck?
"Okay, but... he's trying to scare you, Nance-" Steve began. I took a look back at Nancy from Steve. Sir? Do you have eyes? That must've been realistic as fuck if it was made up. "Right? I mean... it's not- it's not real." Part of me was now wondering if Steve was trying to convince himself rather than all of us unsteady in the room.
"Not yet." The girl seemed traumatized. In every single moment I had had a conversation with Nancy, been in the same room as Nancy, apologised for Johnathan's antics to Nancy, she had never seemed so fragile as she was right now. "But there... there was something else. He showed me gates. Four gates... Spreading across Hawkins... And these gates, they looked like the one outside of Eddie's trailer, but... they didn't stop growing." Growing? Fuck that. Nope. Nah-ah. I'm good thanks.
"And this wasn't the Upside Down Hawkins." She clarified. "This was our Hawkins... Our home." FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK-
"Four chimes." I look at leaning up against the same pillar as me. All eyes were on her as she spoke. "Vecna's clock... it always chimes four times. Four exactly." Four gates... four chimes...
"I heard them too..." Nancy murmured over to the red head.
"Four chimes... four gates..." I mutter. "So... four deaths..." After my words tension and awkwardness in the room rises slightly.
"He's been telling us his plan this whole time." Max says.
"If what you've said is true..." Dustin says, hands on his hips, much like Steve usually does. "about the... deaths... he's only one kill away."
"Oh- Jesus Christ-" Eddie's head falls into his hands as he curses. "Jesus Christ-"
"Try 'em again." Steve says, trying to divert the attention away from the Munson boy who was slowly losing his mind. "Try 'em again." He points over to the phone, hoping that someone from my place in Cali would pick up. Mum would be working right now, the line will be busy, either way.
Although I went to protest, Max didn't give me a second to even try, walking back to the same beige coloured wire phone against the wall. She dialled in the numbers, then waiting as she put it up to her ear. Moments passed before she sighed, placing it back against the receiver.
"Anything?" Dustin asks as she moves back to us.
"No..." She muttered, annoyed. "It rang a few times then went to busy signal." Yeah, mum was definitely working.
"Maybe you punched it in wrong-" Steve began. Dude. She knows the number to my house better than me. "Try again-"
"She didn't punch it in wrong." I fire back at Steve, arms now crossed as I leaned up against the wall.
"Well, I don't know-" He threw his hands up in the air for a moment, obviously annoyed that he didn't know what else to do.
"I think she knows how to use a phone..." Dustin murmured from where he stood.
"I'm just saying, she could've typed it in wrong." I glare back at Steve as he dares to even speak again.
With an annoyed look, Max moves back over the phone, taking her time to purposely type out each number perfectly before waiting again. I stare at the back of Maxine's head as we wait for a result. She places the phone back on its receiver after that, turning back to us in a slightly more passive aggressive way due to Steve's lack of belief that she could type numbers into a phone correctly.
"Same shit." She says in a mirroring passive aggressive tone.
"How is that possible?!" Lucas asks. It wouldn't be too much of a surprise to you if I told you Lucas has never tried to contact our family phone in Cali before.
"My mum is always working on the phone. Every moment she isn't on it, she's, quote on quote, 'losing money'." I say, making air quotes with my hands.
"Okay, yeah, that I get, but the phone's been busy for, what, three days now?" Max asks me. "Surely Joyce takes a day off every now and then. You can only talk to customers for so long. Something's wrong over there, too."
"She's right..." Nancy murmurs, standing from her seat. "It can't be just coincidence now. It can't be." She began towards the window that looked out at the trailer park. "Whatever's happening in Lenora is connected to all of this." Will... Oh god what about El? "I'm sure of it... But Vecna can't hurt them... Not if he's dead." Nancy Wheeler has the confidence I wish I had pass it on.
"We have to go back in there." She begins, turning back to us. "Back to the Upside Down."
"WHOA- NONONONONO-" Which shouting from Eddie and Steve took place, I shook my head, now kind of finding this ridiculous.
"Okay? And I need to go to therapy? What's your point here?" I fire back, not liking that she was so sure of going back to there after just leaving there.
"LET'S THINK THIS THROUGH-" Steve gets up from the couch while I then noticed how in thought Robin was.
"What is there to think through?" Robin, do you see how much your girl is popping off right now? It's insane, babes.
"WE BARELY MADE IT OUT OF THERE ALIVE-"
"WE WERE UNARMED." I then shouted back, trying to even out the playing field.
"EXACTLY." Nancy shouts, hand gesturing over to me as thanks. "But this time, we will be." Eddie looked like he was far too sober to be taking in this conversation. "We'll get weapons and protection; we'll go through the gate, we'll find his lair, and we'll kill him."
"OR he'll kill us." Steve argued back. You can really tell that Steve was up for the idea of going back, couldn't you? "THE ONLY reason you survived is because he wanted you to. HE'S NOT SCARED OF US." THANK GOD FOR CAPTIAN OBVIOUS IN THE ROOM.
"And for good reason." Robin stood up, finally back in the room and conversation. "We were wrong about Vecna- Henry- One-" She shakes her head and looks around at the group. "Sorry, what are we calling him now?"
"One." Dustin says.
"Vecna." Erica then corrects.
"One." Lucas argues with his sister.
"Henry." Nancy then butts in.
"Well done, guys. That answered it..." I murmured.
"RIGHT- we've learned something new about Vecna/Henry/One." Robin says, bringing us back to topic. "He's a number like Eleven, only a sick, evil, male, child-murdering version of her with really bad skin." She's popping off with the skin point... "BUT- But my point is, he's super powerful. He could turn us inside out with a snap of his fingers. It's not a fair fight."
It's not a fair fight... Oh my god-
"So why are we fighting fair?" I asked, now stepping properly into the conversation.
"What?" Robin asks back, not getting at what I was saying.
"You said it's not a fair fight because Vecna has the upper hand." I recall from moments ago, "Because Vecna is like Eleven. You know- our best friend/sister who we know all her strengths and weaknesses of." A wave of realisation finally falls around the room, one by one as I continue.
"Weaknesses?" Erica questions me. I forgot she hadn't been here for the full ride...
"Right- so when she travels through her mind to find people in some... weird way," I begin to explain to her. "she goes into this trance. Or- well- trance-like state. Since Vecna is the same as Eleven, who's to say it's not the exact same thing for him?"
"That would explain what he was doing in that attic..." Lucas says from where he's stood.
"Exactly." I say, only now actually connecting that dot but pretending like I already had connected such an important dot.
"When he attacks his next victim," Dustin says. "I'll bet you he's in that attic, physical body defenceless."
"Defenceless?" Steve asks, attention diverting to him. "What about the army of bats?" He asks, referring to the dried blood and cuts all over his body.
"Right, okay..." I murmur. "Good point... we'll... find a way past them, too-"
"Distract them, somehow..." Dustin murmurs along with me as we tried to get back to the main problem at hand that we've solved.
"And, uh, how do we do that... exactly?" Eddie asks, now standing up from the couch, eyes looking between me and Dustin.
"No idea." Dustin says, causing Eddie to sit right back down. "But once they're gone, he doesn't stand a chance."
"It's like taking out the Emperor in his own throne room." I say as though the world isn't riding on this right now.
"That all sounds good, in theory, but there's no pattern to Vecna's killings." Robin tells us. "I mean, at least not one that I can decipher."
"Actually-" I begin, index finger up to answer, but Robin continued before I could cut in with the facts we knew.
"We don't know when he's going to attack next." The tall girl tells us. "We don't even know who he's going to attack-"
"Yeah, we do." I feel every part of me go slightly colder as I glance over and who had just spoken. Max was still leaned up against the side, arms crossed as she didn't look at anyone else other than me. "I can still feel him."
If any smile, any glimpse of happiness was on my face at some point today, it certainly wasn't anymore. I wasn't loosing Maxine. I mean, sure, had she survived him before? Yes. By luck. What if she doesn't this time? I can't loose the girl I've been so careful to keep safe for so long. Not now.
"I'm still... marked." She wasn't serious. No. Any moment now, Max was going to say, 'April fools!' even if it wasn't April first. "Cursed." She thought for a second. "If I ditch Kate Bush, I draw his attention to me."
I shook my head, my vision going blurry for a moment, but I acted as though that wasn't even happening. "Max, you're not seriously considering this-" I began, head slightly tilted. She can't have been. No Kate Bush, too? The idea can fuck right off. "He will kill you." I emphasise. "We are lucky to have you here right now-"
"I survived before." I stop halfway through my sentence as Max speaks over me. "I can survive again." This was tempting fate. She was willing to risk herself again for the world. To go up against Vecna again. What was the chances that it was going to be the exact same? "I just need to keep him busy long enough so that you guys can get into that attic... and then you can chop his head off... stab him in the heart. Blow him up with some explosive Dustin cooks up- I honestly don't care how you put this asshole in his grave. Just... whatever it is... whatever you do... try not to miss."
⊹˚˖⁺
Eddie placed down the book, pointing at one of the adverts in the corner. "Check this out. The War Zone." Well, you couldn't make it more American if you tried... "I've been there once." Well, to say I wasn't extremely shocked by this- "It's huge. They've got everything you need for, uh... well, killing things, basically..."
"Do you think fake Rambo has enough guns there?" Robin asks, eyes not moving away from the picture. "Is that a grenade? I mean- how is any of this legal?"
"You wanna bring the law in... now?" I asked Robin. "When we're about to kill something in a different dimension...?"
"This- this place is just far enough outside of Hawkins." Eddie continues, ignoring what Robin has said. "As long as we steer clear of main roads, we oughta be able to avoid cops and, uh, angry hicks..."
"If" Erica then butts in. "we're trying to avoid angry hicks, maybe we shouldn't go to some store called the War Zone..."
Oh. She has a point.
"Normally, I'd agree," Nancy says. "but we need the weapons... So, I think it's worth the risk."
"Me too..." I say. "Get there and choose the murder weapon of your choice. Fun."
"But is it worth the time?" Dustin questions. "It'll take all day to bike there and back." Oh.
"Who said anything about bikes?" Eddie asks us, looking between all present. Sir? What you wanna get a taxi there or something?
"What? You got some car we don't know about?" Steve counters Eddie.
The other boy stood up straight to speak to Harrington, voice lower. "It's not exactly a car, Steve." Anyone else's gaydar going off? Just mine? "And it's not exactly mine, but, uh... it'll do." Well, fuck the laws we were talking about earlier, then... "Hey, Red?" He looks back to Max behind me. "Uh, you got a ski mask or a bandanna, something like that?" All eyes turn to my girl as she thinks for a moment before a single eyebrow is raised.
⊹˚˖⁺
While Eddie, wearing Max's Michael Myers mask, took the lead towards one of the caravans, we followed behind him, slightly confused on why he was the only one needing a mask.
He glanced around the corner before looking back at us. I wouldn't say I was laughing at the mask; it was more of a feeling of uncomfortableness due to the history that there is with all of this. He signalled for us to go onwards, following him as we ran around the other side of one of the vans, trying to stay out of the sight of a family outside, listening to a radio broadcasting.
The Munson boy slapped his hand against each window there was on our empty side, eventually finding the back hatch free and easy to open up. After throwing his bag through the small hatch of a window, the boy fell in right after it, with Steve following right after him.
With all of us, one after the other climbing into the mobile home, we quickly found out how much of a horrible idea it is. Incase the bang from an exhaust bellow us wasn't enough, the shouting and screaming from residences around didn't really help that much either.
We had been in it for less than ten seconds, and the chaos was already higher than what it was in the Mayfield home. "EVERYBODY, HANG ON TO SOMETHING." Shouting from all of us around the vehicle began after Steve's wise words, and he wasn't even on the move yet.
"OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD-" Came from Lucas as he rushed to find somewhere to sit down.
"LET'S FUCKING GO." I meanwhile shouted, only just sat down on the pull-out couch at the back of the vehicle. "STEVE? DRIVE?!"
And then suddenly, we were off, driving away from the poor old family who's home was just stollen. As Steve turned a corner I found myself falling over onto Max, which was only a little bit awkward due to the shouting all around the place. The girl only smiled, and I blushed like an idiot, still.
"Hi..." I murmur gracelessly with a blush and smile growing on my face.
"SHIT THEY LOOK PISSED." Dustin screeched from the other side of the couch.
"Well, it's not every day you lose your house and car in one fell swoop..." Robin says. I mean, she had a point.
"HOLD ON- HOLD ON-" Steve's only reply from us was shouting as he did another sudden turn, nearly sending me across back into the window we'd entered from. Whoever the fuck gave Steve Harrington a driver's license is going to need to revaluate...