A LOT OF YELLING
July 4th, 1985
⏰ 10:30 pm, 📍Hawkins, Indiana
༺♥༻ Stephanie and Max return to the aisle where El and Mike are. They see the rest of the group helping El stand up, even though they haven't cleaned her cut.
Mike explains that they need to find Dustin, and fast, that he could be in danger.
Stephanie realizes right then that she hasn't seen Dustin in almost a week.
The girls follow Mike and Will, who are helping El walk to the frozen food section in the store.
Everyone opens the freezer door as quickly as possible, so El can use the humming noise as a different form of static, like how she did at the pool.
Stephanie finds an American flag hung up near an almost empty firework display. She takes it off the wall and folds it up for El to use as a blindfold.
The others silently wait as El starts to look for Dustin. Then, breaking through the silence, a soda can opens.
Stephanie whips her head towards the source of the sound, Lucas, and over dramatically puts her finger to her lips, indicating for him to shut up.
"Quiet." Max whispers, wide eyed.
"Oh, sorry." Lucas apologizes, probably not actually sorry.
Mike looks at Lucas in disgust. "How do you even drink that?"
"Because it's delicious." Lucas says in an obvious tone.
"What?" Mike and Max exclaim in unison.
Lucas shrugs. "It's like Carpenter's The Thing." He explains. "The original is a classic, no question about it. But the remake..." Lucas takes another loud sip of Coke. "Sweeter, bolder...better."
"You're insane." Mike whispers, earning a chuckle from Stephanie.
"So you prefer the original Thing?"
Mike starts to talk louder. "What? No, I'm not-"
"How about we all stop talking?" Stephanie proposes, tired of the constant arguing.
Instantly, the boys stop talking and Max holds out her hand, offering a high-five. Stephanie graciously accepts, quietly hitting Max's hand with her own.
After a few moments of silence, El pulls of her blindfold. "I found him."
"Where is he?" Mike asks, not entirely ready for the answer.
"The movies." She responds, offering out her hand for Stephanie and Max to help.
Stephanie and Max help El walk to the door as Lucas pulls a shopping cart overflowing with boxes of fireworks.
Will and Lucas carry out the shopping cart as Max, Stephanie, and El slowly walk behind them. "Is this considered stealing?" Stephanie whispers, the thought only just now coming to her mind.
"I think so." Max shrugs. "I've stolen before, so it's okay." She adds, unnervingly nonchalant about it.
"I'm sorry, what?" Stephanie asks, entirely surprised at the fact that Max Mayfield would steal something.
Max only laughs as the girls catch up to Will and Lucas. "The movies?" Lucas repeats. "Dustin's so freaked out about the gate, he decides to go and watch a movie? Yeah, makes total sense."
"You're positive he said 'gate' and not 'great'?" Stephanie yells from a few feet behind, earning a glare from Lucas.
"Yeah," Will agrees. "Like, 'This movie Im watching is great.' "
"Sounded like 'gate'." El chimes in.
"Which would explain how the Mind Flayer's still alive." Mike adds.
Nancy sighs. "Yeah, we just have to shut it again."
"Then the monster dies." Stephanie says, turning to the side so the girls can easily exit the broken door.
"But if not," Max starts, turning to the side, mirroring Stephanie.
Stephanie catches onto what Max is saying. "We always have Lucas' fireworks." She gives the boy a look.
"Keep mocking my plan, woman. Keep mocking it. I wanna hear you say it again, because you keep doubting me. You keep doubting me!"
"I'm sorry, woman?" Stephanie scoffs, faking being offended.
"Ridiculous." Max mutters under her breath, obviously annoyed.
"Will? We're gonna prove those losers wrong right?" Lucas sighs, putting his arm around Wills shoulders.
"Definitely not." Stephanie groused, helping El into the backseat.
————
༺♥༻ The group enters through a dark back entrance of the mall, Stephanie not positive that they're supposed to be slinking around like this.
They slowly walk up to the railing and see four men dressed in all black, holding something in their hands which Stephanie couldn't see due to the distance.
What Stephanie does see is Steve, Robin, Dustin, and what seems to be Erica, hiding behind a counter in the malls food court.
All four men slowly walk over to the counter, now Stephanie realizes the men are holding guns, and are walking straight towards her friends and brother.
"Do-do something!" Stephanie whisper yells, nudging El on the arm.
El looks around for a moment until she steps forward to the edge of the railing and extends her arm.
A display car suddenly starts to ring and honk, making the men whip their guns towards the car, only to find that there isn't anyone in the car, but there is someone a floor above it.
El pushes her hand forward, making the car fly and hit the men, most likely killing them all.
They all watch as the four slowly stand up from their hiding place, looking each way before up at everyone, who are now all at the railing.
Everyone makes their way down the stairs, Max and Stephanie finding one another's hands again.
Dustin immediately runs up to El, laughing. "You flung that thing like a Hot Wheel!"
"Lucas?" Erica asks, fully surprised.
Lucas' jaw drops open. "What are you doing here?"
"Ask them." Erica points to Steve and Robin. "It's their fault."
"True, yeah." Steve agrees. "Totally true. It's absolutely our fault."
"Steve!" Stephanie sighs as she runs up to hug her brother. "What happened?" She asks, reaching her hand up to Steve's swollen eye and various cuts around his face. "Can you see?"
Steve only shakes his head. "Not really. Not out of my left one."
"But that's your good eye." Stephanie crosses her arms. "Where are your glasses?"
Steve starts to explain before Robin almost immediately cuts him off. "I don't understand what happened to the car."
"El has superpowers." Dustin informs, pointing at El.
"I'm sorry?"
"Superpowers." Steve repeats. "She threw it with her mind."
"Come on, catch up." Stephanie claps, joking with her ice cream friend.
"That's El?" Erica points to the girl.
"Who's El?" Robin asks, looking around the mall as if she was missing something.
Nancy shakes her head. "I'm sorry, who are you?"
"I'm Robin." She answers, suddenly flustered. "I work with Steve."
"She cracked the top secret code." Dustin adds with a smile.
"Yeah, which is how we found out about the Russians." Steve explains.
"Russians?" Stephanie asks in shock. "What Russians?"
"The Russians!" Steve repeats louder, gesturing to the men that were laying dead on the ground.
"Those were Russians?" Max asks, fascinated.
Erica shrugs. "Some of them."
"What are you talking about?" Lucas exclaims, even more confused than everyone else.
"Didn't you hear our code red?" Dustin asks.
"Yeah." Mike answers. "But I couldn't understand what you were saying."
"Goddamn low battery!" Dustin exclaims.
Steve sighs. "How many times do I have to tell you with the low battery?"
"Okay, Mom." Stephanie chuckles.
Steve apparently took offense to that comment. "Oh, yeah? What's moms name?"
Stephanie scoffs, laughing about the obvious answer. "Danielle." She leans forward while answering her brother.
"Wrong. It's Diane."
"Oh-"
"Okay, well, everything worked out, didn't it?" Dustin continues, keeping the Harringtons back on track.
"Worked out?" Erica repeats. "We almost died."
"Yeah, but we didn't, did we?" Dustin crosses his arms.
"We still could." Stephanie adds.
"Steph, don't-don't say that." Steve sighs, putting a on his hip and brushing through his hair with the other.
"Lose the stance unless you want to be called mom again." Stephanie cringes, watching her brother quickly comply and take his hand away.
"Okay, Russians." Lucas confirms. "As in, they're working for the Russian government?"
"What is it that you are not comprehending?" Dustin yells in his usual aggressive tone. "Am I not speaking English? We have a full-blown Red Dawn situation."
"So this has nothing to do with the gate?" Max questions, not getting the movie reference.
"It has everything to do with the gate!" Dustin snaps, turning his head to Max.
Everyone was too busy figuring out information and exchanging insults to notice that El had wandered off from the group. The only turn to help as Mike rushes forward right when she collapses.
"El! El! El! What's wrong?" Mike panics, shaking her by the shoulders.
"My leg. My leg." El barely speaks out. Probably almost passing out.
"Her leg, her leg." Jonathan pants as he rips of the bloodied bandages. "Okay."
Groans of disgust are let out as they see El's wound.
Stephanie almost throws up, again. "Oh, God." She groans as she covers her mouth.
El's leg is covered in blood, staining her sock. Her wound is more of a lump than anything else. Something begins to vigorously move and shake inside her leg.
El wails in pain as the thing starts to move down her shin.
"El, El, are you okay?" Mike yells, shaking his girlfriend by the shoulders.
El let's out another scream as the thing seems to try and break out of her skin.
"What is that?" Erica gasps, leaning forward.
"There's something in there." Mike concludes.
All Stephanie could do was hold onto Max's hand and hope.
"Oh, I have an idea." Jonathan stand up. "Keep her talking. Keep her awake, okay?" He yells as he runs farther away from the group.
El's screaming starts to die down, indicating that she is probably about to pass out.
"Hey, hey, hey. Stay awake, stay awake." Mike turns to Dustin and Steve. "Let's get her on this side."
"Easy, easy, easy." Steve whispers as he helps El move .
"You know, it's not actually that bad." Robin starts, already breathing heavily. "There was a...The goalie on my soccer team, Beth Wildfire, this other girl slid into her leg, and the bone came out of her knee, six inches or something, it was insane."
"Robin." Steve says, trying to get the girls attention.
"Yeah?" She answers, oblivious.
"You're not helping." Steve frowns as he gestures to El.
"I'm sorry."
Jonathan comes back with a knife, gloves, and a wooden spoon. "Okay. Alright, El?" He says while putting the gloves on. "This is gonna hurt like hell, okay?"
"Okay." El responds through choked sobs.
"I'm gonna need you to stay real still." Jonathan hands the wooden spoon to Mike. "Here, you're gonna want to bite down on this, okay?"
Jonathan hesitates before slicing the heated knife through the skin.
Eleven screams as the knife cuts deeper into her skin.
Jonathan drops the knife and takes a deep shaky breathe before digging two fingers into the freshly opened cut.
"Jonathan, stop!" Stephanie yells, squeezing onto Max's hand tighter and tighter
Nancy took notice to Stephanie's attempt and tries to get Jonathan's attention. "Jonathan!"
"Hey, stop talking!" He yells back, completely unaware.
He digs deeper into El's skin, trying to catch the...whatever it is as it burrows deeper into her ankle.
"No!" El yells, the spoon falling out of her mouth. "Stop it!"
Nancy hits Jonathan on the shoulder. "Stop!"
"I can do it." El's cries slow as she shakily lifts herself up to a sitting position. "I can do it."
She puts her hand to her leg, already screaming from the pain. "God!" El fights more and more with the thing, it refusing to move.
El let's out one continuous scream, pulling the thing out of her leg while doing so. And while breaking the window from behind them.
Instinctively, Stephanie throws herself behind Max, trying to protect Max from the flying shards of glass, also while getting cuts about the third time in a week. New record.
Once the worm looking creature is face to — whatever with El, she throws it far across the tiled floor, leaving it whimpering in pain.
But before it could crawl anywhere else, a big shoe crushes it.
Hopper.
Stephanie looks up to Hopper, finding Will's mom and another man, who looked to be probably too bald for his age standing with them. Safe to say that Stephanie didn't recognize him.
Everyone collectively moves to the water fountain, ready to explain to the others what is going on.
"The Mind Flayer." Mike starts as Hopper nods along. "It built this monster in Hawkins, to stop El, to kill her and pave a way into our world."
"And it almost did." Max adds. "That was just one tiny piece of it."
"How big is this thing?" Hopper questions.
"Its big." Stephanie confirms. "Thirty feet, at least."
"Yeah." Lucas comments. "It sorta destroyed your cabin."
Hopper sighs as Lucas only quietly apologizes. "Sorry."
"Okay, so, just to be clear, this...this big fleshy spider thing that hurt El, it's some kind of gigantic...weapon?" Steve repeats what everyone has been saying multiple times.
"Yes." Nancy nods.
"But instead of, like, screws and metal, the Mind Flayer made its weapon...with melted people."
Nancy nods again. "Yes, exactly."
"Yeah, okay. I-Yeah, I'm just making sure." Steve stutters while running a hand through his hair.
"Are we sure this thing is still out there, still alive?" Joyce asks.
Max sighs. "El beat the shit out of it, but, yeah, it's still alive."
"But if we close the gate again-" Will starts.
"-We cut the brain off from the body." Max finishes.
"And kill it." Lucas adds.
"I mean, yeah, but this thing is bigger than anything we've ever dealt with." Stephanie comments with a sigh. "Who knows that closing the gate will actually kill it?"
The group is left in silence until a voice comes yelling from behind them. "Yoo-hoo!" Murray — who Stephanie has now learned the name of from angered grumbles from Hopper. "Yoo-hoo!"
He sets the papers down on a nearby table, which everyone gathers around. "Okay, this is what Alexei called 'the hub'." He starts, unfolding some type of hand drawn map. "Now, the hub takes us to the vault room."
Hopper leans over the paper. "Okay, where's the gate?"
"Right here." He points to a spot on the map with his finger. "Now, I don't know the scale on this, but I think it's fairly close to the vault room, maybe fifty feet or so."
"More like five hundred." Erica steps forward. "What, you're gonna waltz in there like it's commie Disneyland or something?"
"Im sorry..." Murray looks at her with his usual stare (Stephanie didn't need to know this man that long to know that the look is constantly on his face). "Who are you?"
"Erica Sinclair. Who are you?"
"Murray...Bauman."
Erica puts a hand up. "Listen, Mr. Bunman, I'm m not trying to tell you how to do things, but I've been down in that shithole for twenty four hours. And with all due respect, you do what this man tells you, you're all gonna die."
"I'm sorry, why is this four-year-old speaking to me?" Murray scoffs.
"Um, I'm ten, you bald bastard!"
"Erica!" Lucas yells, surprised by her words.
"Just the facts!" She defends.
"She's right." Dustin agrees. "You're all gonna die, but you don't have to." Dustin walks up to the table. "Excuse me." Before he takes the papers he asks for permission from Murray, probably trying to get onto his nerves. "Sorry, may I?"
"Please." Murray responds through clenched teeth.
Dustin sits down and pulls the papers towards him. "Okay, see this room here? This is a storage facility." He circles the room with a pencil from his pocket. "There's a hatch in here that feeds into their underground ventilation system." He draws a line from one room to another. "That will lead you to the base of the weapon. It's a bit of a maze down there, but between me and Erica, we can show you the way."
"You can show us the way?" Hopper enunciates, not completely sure if Dustin's joking.
Dustin nods. "Don't worry, you can do all the fighting and the dangerous hero shit."
"I don't think he was worried." Stephanie adds from a few feet behind Hopper.
"And we'll just be your...navigators." Dustin finishes.
Hopper nods his head. "No." He shrugs his shoulders as Dustin's face falls. "Nope."
The adults go off to find supplies and weapons while the kids stay back near the water fountain.
"Well, that settles it." Erica sighs. "He's gonna die. They're gonna die."
"Yep." Dustin's eyes widen. "Most likely."
"You guys survived." Lucas shrugs.
Dustin turns around. "Barely." He adds. "We could have really used you guys down there."
Mike nods. "Could've used you up here, too."
"Yeah, man." Lucas agrees. "We missed you, dude."
"Yeah. Big-time." Will adds.
Stephanie goes into a group hug with her friends and whispers, "I'm not saying anything super cheesy, but I still agree."
"I missed you guys, too." Dustin smiles. "Big-time."
"Please don't cry, nerds." Erica says from behind.
"Erica." Lucas scolds.
"Keep saying my name, see what happens." Erica's eyes narrow.
"Hey, heads up." Hopper calls, throwing a walkie to Dustin. "You can navigate, just from someplace safe."
"It's not that simple." Dustin points out. "The signal won't reach. Not with this. You need something with a high enough frequency band to relay with the Russians' radio tower. But for that to work, you need someone who has both seen their comms room and has access to a super-powered handcrafted radio tower, one preferably already situated at the highest point in Hawkins." Dustin smirks. "Oh, wait. That's me." Hopper just stares, waiting for Dustin to stop talking. "If you want us to navigate, you got us. But we need a head start." Dustin looks to Erica. "And a car."
Hopper pulls out a set of keys from his pocket and throws it to Dustin. Him and Erica find Steve and Robin, then they leave the mall, set out for his radio tower.
Hopper decided that it would be best for everyone else to go to Murray's house.
They leave the mall and get into Nancy's car, Stephanie finding Max's hand yet again.
༺♥༻
longest chapter yetttt
btw song will be posted later bc i'm at school sooo
i get all my adjectives from netflix captions -me
5/30/23