You decide to drive over to the Fun Fair, hoping some fairway games and fried food will lift your spirits.
As you enter the fairgrounds, you see the Hawkins High marching band play a jaunty, patriotic song. The mayor, Mayor Kline, beams and walks to a podium on a raised platform.
"Now, doesn't that just lift your spirits?" he says, voice dripping with political machismo. "I hope you're all having a good time tonight. I want you to know that we spared no expense to provide you with the very best entertainment money can buy! But enough of my blabbering. Who wants to see some fireworks?"
He gets the crowd properly amped up and the marching band begins playing once more. Colorful explosions and sparks rock the night sky.
"Happy Fourth of July!" Kline cheers.
You roll your eyes at his enthusiasm—it seems forced—and wander along. You want to play some (rigged) carnival games and have a good night, but you're on edge. You can't help but feel like something is wrong. And not just the hospital massacre and Billy's potential involvement. It feels like something else is happening in town...
Your stomach drops like a stone. What is it that Steve and Dustin were doing earlier in the week? Hunting for 'evil Russians'? And now, you haven't seen either of them in days. Robin went with them, and you haven't seen her either.
There's no way, you think No way they actually got caught by Russians...right?
You start to wonder if the town you chose for your fresh start is actually a lot more sinister than it seems. What would your father think if he was still around to see his kiddo get sucked into all this craziness?
You see a surly man and a petite woman barrel past you. You think you recognize the man from around town—he's the police chief, Jim Hopper. He looks too stressed to be on a date, but he and the woman are walking so close, you can't help but wonder if that's what's happening here.
You shrug and continue on. You end up at the balloon darts booth. You try your best to win a prize but fail spectacularly.
A man in glasses and a button-up white shirt asks quietly with a slight accent you can't place, "May I try?"
"Sure," you say, stepping aside. "I'm having no luck tonight."
He pays the carnie and begins throwing darts. He hits one green balloon, two green balloons, three. He pops a fourth, and the group of kids gathered around the booth go wild.
"One more for the big prize!' the carnie says, handing the man one final dart.
He focuses, zeroing in on his target, and then—
Pop!
You and the surrounding crowd cheer as a bell rings, signaling his victory.
"We have a winner!" the carnie says. "Pick your prize, sir."
The man scans the toys and gestures to a large Woody Woodpecker stuffed animal. He takes it and hoists it over his head, garnering another collection of cheers.
He begins to walk away and you follow.
"Dude, you should teach lessons or something!" you say. "I'm shit at carnival games. Or, are you, like, a professional ballooner dart player?"
"No professional," he says. You think his accent is Eastern European. "I am scientist."
"A scientist...of balloon darts?"
He laughs quietly and shakes his head. He recognizes someone in the corndog line—a man in jorts—and calls over to him: "Murray!"
He then speaks Russian, and ice floods your veins. Russian. Evil Russians. But this guy can't be evil. Right? Evil people don't play balloon darts and watch Looney Tunes.
The man and his friend Murray continue their conversation in Russian. You're freaked out, but cognizant enough to notice a tall, angry-looking man marching your way.
He has a gun. He has a fucking gun. And he's aiming it at the Looney-Tunes-lover on your left.
He raises the gun. He's going to kill this guy!
The kind Russian frowns, but seems to accept his fate—there's no way to get out of this situation. Unless...
"HE'S GOT A GUN!" you scream at the top of your lungs, pointing to the man in question.
Chaos ensues. The gun-wielder scowls and puts his finger on the trigger, but he can't take the shot because a throng of panicked people push him aside as they race toward the exit.
The kind Russian looks to you in surprise.
"Come on!" you shout, grabbing his arm and dragging him away. His friend Murray darts through the crowd to follow you both.
You feel a twinge of pain in your arm but keep running, bringing your new allies with you. You glance behind you and see the angry guy scanning the panicked crowds with his gun tucked in his jacket, still looking for his mark.
"This way!" you say, darting between some tents.
"Why are you helping me?" the kind man asks, brow furrowed behind his glasses.
"Honestly?" you say. "I have no idea."
"Who are you exactly?" Murray asks.
You tell them your name, but before you can explain how you ended up at the Fun Fair, the pain in your arm increases tenfold.
"Agh!" you cry out, looking down and seeing blood. You were shot in all the confusion, and the bullet went right through your arm. The wound is nasty and makes your panic increase tenfold.
"Shit!" Murray says. He tears off his overshirt. "Alexei, you stay with them and keep pressure on the wound. I'll get help so we can get out of here!"
You and the kind Russian—Alexei—hunker down between two booths, hiding in the shadows of the tents. You hiss in pain as he presses Murray's shirt against your arm.
"This town is bullshit," you groan. "I should've never come here."
"I feel the same," Alexei says with a sigh. "But it will be okay."
He smiles at you kindly. You smile back, but it turns to a wince.
Murray returns and says, "Jim and Joyce are on their way, and then we're getting out of here. You're coming with us, Heroic Stranger."
You repeat your name, but Murray isn't paying attention. He's searching the crowd for a familiar face.
"There she is!" Murray says. He rushes off and returns moments later with the short woman you saw with Chief Hopper earlier—Joyce.
"Oh, dear!" she says. She crouches by you. "Alexei, who is this? What happened?"
"They were with Alexei at the balloon darts booth," Murray explains. You croak out your name and Murray continues: "They saw some meathead Russian with a gun. He was here for Alexei! They shouted and caused a distraction so we could get away but got caught in the crossfire."
"Sweetie, it's all right," Joyce says to you urgently. "We'll get you out of here. Okay? Does anyone have a belt?"
Alexei strips off his belt and hands it to her. She fashions a makeshift tourniquet for your arm. It hurts like hell and you groan in pain, but that plus the shirt tied around your arm slows the bleeding.
The four of you leg it to the parking lot. Joyce stops to give the mayor a piece of her mind—in the form of physical violence—and then you all hop into a fancy convertible. The license plate reads "TODFTHR."
You aren't sure why you follow them. Maybe you should've stayed in the fair and asked a security guard for help. But you assume they're busy hunting a gunman, and if these four are working with Chief Hopper, they must be good, or at least somewhat capable in an emergency.
Joyce drives you all to another side of the fairgrounds, slamming on the brakes when Hopper leaps into the backseat, squeezing next to you and Alexei.
"Hit it! Go! Go!" he shouts. Then, he scans you and says, "Who's this?"
Alexei says something in Russian. Murray repeats it: "A new ally. A friend."
"They're bleeding," Hopper says.
"Very astute observation, Sherlock," you say, teeth gritted as you try not to cry out in pain. "I got shot."
A Russian voice echoes out from Hopper's walkie-talkie. Murray translates and informs the group that a Russian in the mall has found some children in the food court. Their children, presumably: Will, Jonathan, and a girl named El.
You wonder if Steve, Dustin, and Robin are there too. You really, really hope not.
When you arrive at the mall food court with Joyce, Hopper, Murray, and Alexei, the sight is a wild one: four dead soldiers, the prize-winning contest car nestled into the Sbarro, and Steve and all his friends, most of them covered in blood or some kind of goop.
When Steve notices your bandaged, bloodied arm, he yelps and races over.
"Holy shit, are you okay? What happened to you?"
"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" you say. You gingerly reach up and place a hand on his bruised cheek. He grimaces. "Shit, Steve. What happened?"
"You should see the other guy," he says, trying to joke. It doesn't land.
"We need a first-aid kit," Hopper barks, helping his daughter El to her feet. "We'll wrap your leg and their arm. And then we'll make a plan."
***
Introductions are made and context is given. Dustin's friends have spent the past few days fighting something called the Mind Flayer, a disgusting creature from another dimension. You finally get your answer about Billy's strange behavior when you're informed that the Mind Flayer has possessed him and is using him as a lackey of sorts.
Steve has been MIA because he, Dustin, Robin, and Erica Sinclair found their way into a secret elevator that leads to an underground Russian bunker and got stuck down there.
When a plan is formed to end the shitshow in Hawkins once and for all, you try your best to keep up.
Steve offers to help clean your wound and rebandage it, which is how you end up at the sink in the kitchen of Hot Sam's Pretzels.
You hiss in pain when Steve wipes rubbing alcohol over the bullet wound.
"Sorry, sorry," he says. He reaches for the bandages in the first-aid kit and adds, "You're doing great."
"Am I?" you ask. "Because I don't feel like it."
Steve tightly wraps the wound, hopefully stopping the bleeding. He tosses Murray's ruined shirt in the trash and says, "All done."
You sag against the countertop, letting out a sigh.
"This has been the weirdest week," you say.
"Tell me about it," Steve says, leaning next to you. He gently knocks his arm against your good one. "I missed you, Waldenbooks."
You smile at him. "I missed you too, Sailor Man."
"But I'm glad you weren't there with us," Steve continues. He clears his throat. "It was...bad. And really scary."
"It was scary out here too," you admit. "I mean, Billy almost attacked me, and there was that horrifying hospital massacre, and I got shot by an evil Russian."
"But you didn't get drugged," Steve says. You think he's attempting to keep the tone of your conversation light and playful to keep either of you from spiraling too deeply. You appreciate him for that immensely.
"Fine," you tease. "Your trauma is worse than mine. Happy?"
"Thrilled," Steve says.
"But I have a Dead Dad Pass," you counter. "So who's really the most traumatized?"
Steve frowns.
"Oh. I'm sorry, I didn't know—"
"Why would you?" you cut him off. "I don't talk about it. It's why I came to Hawkins. To get away from the painful memories. I wouldn't be getting away from them if I talked about them all the time."
Steve looks like he wants to say something else to you, but before he can, Robin races in with a set of car keys.
"We're heading to Cerebro!" she says. She tosses Steve the keys. "You're driving."
It's too dangerous for any of the kids, teens, or young adults to go back into the Russian base. You and the people that spent the past few days in that shithole are driving to Dustin's Cerebro radio to communicate with Murray, Joyce, and Hopper when they go to the bunker underground.
When you see the car in question, you grin. The car is awesome. Way nicer than anything you could afford for yourself. You're going to enjoy riding in this.
"'Todd-father'?" Robin says with a snort, reading the license plate.
"Oh, screw Todd," Steve says, hopping into the driver's seat and patting the steering wheel lovingly. "Steve's her daddy now."
"Did you just talk about yourself in the third person?" you ask with a snicker, rolling your eyes in the passenger seat.
"Did he just call himself 'daddy'?" Erica scoffs.
Steve ignores you both, asking Dustin for directions to a place called Weathertop.
"Suzie must be pretty special, huh?" Robin asks, referring to the girlfriend Dustin built his radio for. "I mean, if you built this thing and lugged it all the way to the middle of nowhere just to talk to her?"
"Nobody's scientifically perfect," Dustin says, "but Suzie's about as close to being perfect as any human could possibly be."
"She sounds made-up to me," Erica says. She leans forward to where Steve sits. "She sound made-up to you."
"Why are you hesitating, Steve?!" Dustin snaps, after about 0.5 seconds.
"I'm not!" Steve protests, squeezing the steering wheel tighter. "I'm not! I think she sounds real. You know, totally, absolutely real."
"Left!" Dustin shouts. "Turn left."
"There's no road here!" Steve says.
"TURN LEFT NOW!"
He guns it and makes a hard left, smashing through a fence and scratching the beautiful Cadillac's paint. The car struggles to drive up the heel due to the incline, but Steve follows Dustin's instructions. The car stops short of the top of the hill, wheels spinning in the dirt.
"Looks like we're walking the rest of the way," you say after Steve cuts the engine.
When you make it to the top of the hill, Dustin communicates with Murray on Cerebro, giving him instructions on how to navigate (and annoying the man to no end).
At the edge of the hill, Steve notices the mall lights flickering in the distance.
"Flickering lights is bad," he explains to you, fear in his eyes. "Really, really bad."
Dustin changes radio frequencies, and you all discover that the Mind Flayer monster is at the mall right now. You hear his shrieking, and you can't get a response from your friends.
Steve begins sprinting down toward the Todfthr.
"Where are you going?!" Erica asks.
"To get them the hell out of there!" Steve says.
You start to race after him, but he stops you.
"You're hurt," he says, nodding in the direction of your bandaged arm. "Stay here with Erica and Dustin and keep in touch on the radio."
"Okay," you say. "Wait, Steve!"
He turns back to you once more. Before you lose your nerve, you give him a quick kiss on the cheek.
"For luck," you mumble.
Steve is shell-shocked, touching his face where you kissed it. It takes Robin shouting at him to "C'mon, dingus!" for him to snap out of it and hop into the car, peeling down the hill.
You, Dustin, and Erica listen to a conversation had by Murray, Hopper, and Joyce. Apparently, Murray doesn't know Planck's constant—a famous number and the code to unlocking the safe. But Dustin knows someone who does.
"Suzie, do you copy?" Dustin calls into the radio. "Suzie, do you copy?"
After a beat, you hear a girl's voice: "This is Suzie. I copy."
"Suzie!" Dustin says with a beam.
Suzie calls him "Dusty-bun," and you and Erica share a look of disgust.
"Where have you been?" Suzie demands.
Dustin tries to vaguely explain why he's been MIA, but as suspected, Suzie thinks it's all a lie. They change frequencies, and Dustin asks her for Planck's constant. She's about to hang up on him, until...
"I want to hear it!"
"Not right now!"
"Yes, now, Dusty-bun!"
"Hear what?" you whisper. Dustin glares at you.
"Suzie-poo," he says into Cerebro, "this is urgent."
"Yes, yes!" Suzie snaps. "You're saving the world. But Ged is also saving Earthsea and he's about to confront the shadow, so this is Suzie, signing off."
"Wait, wait, wait!" Dustin cries. "Okay, okay, okay." He sighs and grumbles, before bursting into song.
Yes, that's right. He bursts into song. You have to clap a hand over your mouth to keep from laughing. It's cute, but it's also corny. So corny.
Suzie sings along with him, the pair of them belting "Never-Ending Story."
Mollified, Suzie rattles off the number Hopper needs: "Planck's constant is six-point-six-two-six-zero-seven-zero-zero-four."
"You just saved the world!" Dustin says, beaming proudly at his girlfriend's intelligence.
"Gosh, I miss you Dusty-bun."
"No, I miss you more, Suzie-poo."
"I miss you more, multiplied by all the stars in our galaxy."
"No, I miss you more than—"
"Enough!" Erica snaps. She flips a switch, turning off Cerebro. Dustin scowls at her.
"Hey! We weren't done saying goodbye!"
"You can call her again tomorrow," you say. "You know, after the world has been saved."
"What do we do now?" Erica asks, turning her head toward the mall in the distance. The lights are still flashing.
"Wait, I guess," you say. "And pray. And hope our friends are all right."
Dustin tries to keep up with what's happening on his Cerebro. At some point, Steve shouts that they're out of time, and Dustin screams for Joyce and Hopper to close the gate. You wait with bated breath for some sign that it happened.
"Did they do it?" Erica asks with a tense whisper.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! You all look up in time to see a fleet of helicopters zooming over your heads and heading to the mall.
"The cavalry's here," Dustin remarks. He scoffs. "A little late, don't you think?"
"Who is that?" you ask, incredulous.
"The U.S. government, probably. Coming in to clean up our mess after we saved the world. Again."
You watch as the helicopters land in the field by the mall. You hope everyone is all right. If you get back to Starcourt and discover that Steve didn't make it...
The thought raises a new question.
"Uh, guys?" you ask, scanning the empty hillside. "How are we going to get back down there?"
***
A black SUV, driven by a stuffy government official, arrives about an hour later to drive you all back into town. When you make it to Starcourt to get your arm checked by paramedics, you're relieved to see Steve is alive and no more harmed than he was before.
He's slumped in the back of an ambulance with a shock blanket wrapped around his shoulders. At the sight of you, he drops it and races over.
"Hey," you ask. "Are you—"
He interrupts by pulling you into a tight hug. You think he might be crying, but you aren't sure.
You hug him back, trying to be careful with your injured arm.
"It's okay," you say, attempting to soothe him but unsure of the right words. "I'm here. I'm right here."
Over his shoulder, you watch ash swirl into the sky, spinning like flurries of snow.
It's haunting.
It's almost beautiful.
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