KATE BUSH IS COOL
March 24th, 1986
⏰ 3:45 pm, 📍Hawkins, Indiana
༺♥༻ "Alright, it's been too long." Stephanie mutters, jumping off the car.
Lucas looks up. "Just give her some time, Steph."
"Number one, don't call me that. Number two, it's been long enough, man." Stephanie says, turning around so she's walking backwards.
Stephanie jogs up next to Max and claps her hands to grab Max's attention. "Hey, Max?" She walks closer. "It's been a while, we should probably head out soon, yeah?" Stephanie immediately turns terrified as she sees Max's eyes red and rolled to the back of her head. "Max?" She bends down, shaking the redheads shoulders. "Max, please wake up!" Stephanie waves the boys over, yelling, "Steve! Something's wrong. Something's really wrong!"
They rush over, yelling at Max to get out of her trance. Stephanie's positive she's blacked out at this point, repeating Max's name over and over. Steve yells something at Dustin, to which Stephanie couldn't hear. But out of the corner of her eye she sees Dustin fall over himself, scurrying to the car for God knows what reason.
Dustin runs over, sliding on the grass spilling tons of cassette tapes. "Her song! What's her favorite song?"
"Why?"
Dustin splutters out nonsense until he repeats again, "What's her favorite song?"
Everyone quickly shuffles around the various tapes when Stephanie yells out, "Kate Bush!" She pushes Dustin's hand away. "It's the Kate Bush one!"
"There's two!" Dustin screams back, holding out two tapes.
Stephanie looks between the two, trying to remember what song she hears leaking through Max's headphones everyday at school. "Uh...It's this one!" She grabs Kate Bush's Running up that Hill, takes the tape out of the case, and quickly puts it into the Walkman with shaking hands.
Steve puts the headphones on Max's head as Stephanie presses play on the Walkman.
Stephanie shakes Max by the shoulders as the boys keep yelling her name.
This can't be happening. No. No, no, no. We just made up! Is this her favorite song? Why isn't it working? Are Robin and Nancy wrong about the music? Jesus Christ, Max, please wake up!
Stephanie breathes in, making room to yell more. Her breath gets caught in her throat as she watches Max lift into the air by some invisible force.
No. No. No. No. She can't die. She won't. How the fuck is she levitating? Is this how Chrissy died? Oh, my God. Oh, God I'm gonna throw up.
All Stephanie could do is watch and hope. Hope that the son of a bitch Vecna will somehow magically die while trying to kill Max. And watch as Max hung in the air, exactly how Eddie described Chrissy was before she died.
Then, she falls.
Max hits the ground, feeling around for Stephanie. She's hyperventilating as Stephanie pulls her into a hug, calming her down slightly.
"Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God." Stephanie holds onto Max tighter. "It's okay. You're okay. We thought we lost you."
"I'm still here. I'm still here, Steph."
Steph. The name that meant so litte but so much. The name that Max had used the first time they ever met. When Max was skating around the school and Stephanie was writing an essay. When they were younger and thought they saw the worst, thought they've been through the worst, thought they've fought it all. When all they cared about at that moment was the strange girl before them.
Unknowing what would become of them.
————
March 25th, 1986
⏰ 10:15 am, 📍Hawkins, Indiana
༺♥༻ A static jolts Stephanie awake.
"Hey, Dustin, this is Eddie the Banished. You there?"
Stephanie rubs her eyes and reaches for the walkie. "Hey, Eddie, it's Stephanie." She says through a yawn.
"Hey, Little Hair!"
Stephanie rolls her eyes at the nickname.
"Um, I'm gonna need a food delivery, like, really soon, unless you want me going out into the world."
"No. No, you don't need to do that. Stay there, and I'll tell Steve as soon as he wakes up, okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, um...can you pick me up a six-pack?"
Stephanie falls back onto her jacket she used as a pillow last night.
"I know, it's stupid as shit, drinking right now, but a cold beer would really calm my jangled nerves. You can get any brand, but not the Budweiser shit. That one tastes like ass."
Stephanie looks to the couch we're Max was sleeping last night and realizes she's not there.
"Hey, I'm gonna have to call you back."
"No, don't you da-"
She switches off the walkie talkie and shakes Dustin awake. 'Shake' being used very lightly. More of a punch awake. "Dustin!"
Dustin slowly lifts his head up, hitting it on the TV behind him.
"Aren't you supposed to be on Max watch?"
Dustin comes to his early morning senses. "Yep. Yep, yep, yep. Sorry."
Stephanie gestures to the empty couch. "Okay, then where is she?"
"She's right there." He points to the couch, eyes going wide in realization. "A second ago. I swear, I just dozed off for..." He looks at his watch. "An hour."
"Oh, my God, man." Stephanie sighs as she pulls Dustin by the arm up the stairs.
She lets out a sigh of relief once she sees Max sitting at the kitchen table.
"Morning, guys." Mrs. Wheeler smiles, making breakfast. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah. Yeah, everything's okay, thanks." Stephanie fake smiles, trying to hide her subsiding fear.
"I think it's so sweet that you guys are sticking together like this." Mrs. Wheeler exclaims, referring to the well thought out ruse that everyone thought it was safer to be together rather than apart while the serial killer is loose.
"You could try sticking together at a different house for a change." Mr. Wheeler remarks, looking up from his newspaper.
Stephanie goes to sit down next to Max. She takes notice of the multiple drawings, all colored with red as Max takes her headphones off.
"Hey, you okay?" Stephanie smiles, already knowing the answer.
"Just couldn't sleep." Max shrugs. "People kept blasting music in my ears for some reason."
Stephanie chuckles and looks down at her lap. "It was Nancy, not me."
"But Holly let me borrow her crayons." Max continues. "We've been having a fun morning, right, Holly?"
Stephanie picks up one of the papers. "Is this what you saw last night?"
"I mean, it's supposed to be." Max studies the paper. "I thought it'd be easier to draw it out than to explain it, but...not so much."
"Is that..." Stephanie starts, drawing her attention to a drawing of two people trapped in what looked like spikes coming out of the ground.
"It's like they were on display, or something, I don't know." Max catches on. "And then there was this red fog everywhere. It was sort of like a dream." Max stops. "A nightmare." She corrects.
"Do you think Vecna's just trying to scare you?" Stephanie suggests, thinking of the best possible outcome.
"With Billy? Yeah." Max nods. "But when I made it here..." She gestures to the papers filled with red fog. "I dunno, something was different. He seemed surprised, almost. Like he didn't want me there."
Dustin takes a seat at the table. "Maybe you infiltrated his mind."
Stephanie stares.
"He invaded your mind, right?"
Max stares.
"Is it that big of a leap to suggest you somehow wound up in his?" Dustin's eyes go wide. "Like Freddie Krueger's boiler room!" He says with a smile.
"Freddie Krueger?" Holly speaks up.
Dustin takes a deep breath and starts to explain like it isn't almost the end of the world. "He's a super burned-up dude with razors for fingers. And he kills you in your-"
"It's not his fingers it's a glove, Dustin." Max rolls her eyes.
Stephanie looks between the two. "I wouldn't know, I just watched it for Johnny Depp."
"Either way, you're gonna scare her." Max adds, giving Dustin wide eyes.
Dustin realizes his mistake. "Sorry. It's a movie. It's not real." He turns back to the girls. "Just...think about it. What if you somehow unlocked a backdoor to Vecna's world? Like, maybe the answer we're looking for is somewhere in these incredibly vague drawings." He turns his head side to side, trying to make an image out of the image. "God, we need Will."
Stephanie crosses her arms. "Yeah, no shit."
"I tried them again this morning and it's the same busy signal." Max shrugs, taking the paper from Dustin's hand.
Nancy comes through the door to the basement, breathing heavily. "Oh, there you are."
She takes notice of a drawing, containing a door, with stained glass at the top. "I think I've seen this before."
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two chapters in one day!???!!?!?
look at me go
anyways i don't really like this chapter title so if you have a better one pls comment it here
6/28/23