LIFE IS LIKE A HORROR MOVIE
March 25th, 1986
⏰ 10:45 am, 📍Hawkins, Indiana
༺♥༻ "Is this a window?" Nancy picks up the page. "Stained glass with roses?"
"Yeah." Max nods and turns to Dustin. "See? I'm not so terrible after all."
Nancy studies the drawing along with the other ones. "Yeah, well, it helps that I've seen it before."
She takes a paper and starts folding, looking as if she knew exactly what she's doing.
Max and Stephanie give a look and a shrug to each other as Nancy draws lines around the folded papers.
"It's pieces of a house." Max realizes.
Nancy caps her marker. "Not just any house."
"The ghost house." Stephanie adds, remembering the run down mansion that has been sitting boarded up for thirty years.
"It's Victor Creel's house."
————
6:00 pm
༺♥༻ "Yeah, that's not creepy." Steve sighs as everyone stands in front of the Creel house.
They walk up the path to the door as Steve and Nancy pull the nails out of the board covering the door.
"What exactly are we supposed to be looking for in this shithole?" Steve scoffs as a nail falls to the ground.
"We're not sure." Nancy answers almost immediately. "We just know this house is important to Vecna."
"Because Max saw it in Vecna's red soup mind world?"
"Soup?" Stephanie repeats, raising her eyebrows.
"Maybe it holds a clue to where Vecna is." Dustin offers, taking the initiative as usual. "Why he's back. Why he killed the Creels. And how to stop him before he comes back for Max."
Stephanie watches everyone's faces, all sporting the same confused look as herself. "It's not like we're gonna find it written out to-do list to stop Vecna."
Lucas looks around. "We don't think he's in here...do we?"
Max shrugs. "Guess we'll find out."
Steve and Nancy let go of the board, revealing an old stained glass window and causing everyone to jump back due to the thud it made landing on the porch.
Stephanie looks down at her hand, which is now connected to Max's. The redhead gives a slight smile as Steve tries to open the door.
"It's locked." He fiddles with the doorknob some more. "Should I knock, see if anybody's home?"
"No need."
Everyone turns to see Robin holding a brick.
Robin looks at the brick and shrugs. "I found a key." She throws the brick into the window, making it shatter on impact.
"What if you just let out a ghost?" Stephanie whispers to Robin. "I saw it in a movie once."
Robin thinks for a moment. "Poltergeist?"
"Sleepaway Camp." Stephanie corrects staying in the back with Robin as the others slowly walk into the house.
"But that's not ghosts." Robin argues. "Just some creepy kid killing people."
"A homicidal maniac killing people." Stephanie shines her flashlight around the house. "The movie's still good, though."
"No, it's not. It's low grade horror." Robin starts talking louder. "The acting isn't even good. I bet you only like it because Katherine Kahmi's in it."
"What about it?" Stephanie scoffs, also becoming louder.. "She's hot."
"Nope."
"Says the one who in love with Phoebe Cates."
"So what?"
"So-"
"Are you two going to keep arguing like children or can we find Vecna?" The two girls look up to see Dustin scolding them and everyone else laughing to themselves.
"We can find Vecna but I probably won't be much help." Stephanie shrugs, making Max and Robin laugh due to her sarcastic tone.
"Hey, guys?" Max calls out from the other room, turning everyone's attention to the dusty grandfather clock Max is shining her flashlight on. "You see that, right?"
Stephanie stands beside her. "Yeah, I see it."
"Is this what you saw?" Nancy asks as everyone gathers around the clock. "In your visions?"
Max nods.
"I mean, it's...just a clock." Robin tries. "Right?" She steps forward, wipes the dust away from the glass, and looks back to the group. "Like a normal old clock."
"Why is this wizard obsessed with clocks?" Steve mumbles to himself. "Maybe he's, like, a clockmaker or something?"
"The hell are you?" Stephanie doesn't give Steve a glance. "Sherlock Holmes?"
Steve stares, confused. "Sherlock Holmes is Sherlock Holmes."
"Sherlock Holmes isn't real."
"Wait who's Sherlock Holmes, then?" Steve asks, running a hand through his hair. "Who am I thinking of?"
Everyone stares.
"Oh!" Steve snaps his fingers and points to Stephanie. "Tom Selleck! That's who I'm thinking of."
Stephanie's jaw hangs open. "How did you get to Tom Selleck from Sherlock Holmes?"
Steve shrugs as Nancy interrupts the two. "All we know is that the answers are here."
Lucas turns in a circle, looking around the nearby rooms. "Somewhere."
"Okay, everyone stay in groups of two." Nancy says, backing up towards the stairs. "Robin, upstairs."
Max and Stephanie turn to each other. Max nods towards a room, dragging Stephanie along with her. "Come on, let's go."
————
༺♥༻ "I wish we had a longer loop."
"Forty-six minutes isn't bad." Max shrugs as the tape rewinds. "I think there are bigger concerns."
"Like what?"
"What if, by listening to this over and over, I get sick of it, and suddenly it's not my favorite anymore? Will it still work? Or will Kate Bush, like, lose her magic power or something?"
Stephanie scoffs, pretend annoyed. "Kate Bush would never lose her magic powers. She's too good for that."
"You're a Kate Bush fan?" Max gives Stephanie a look through her eyelashes. "Since when?"
"Well, I'm more of an a-ha slash Tears for Fears kind of girl, but, under the circumstances, Kate Bush is up there on the list."
"Oh." Max gives a disbelieving laugh. "There's a list now?"
"A mental list." Stephanie smiles to herself. "A-ha is definitely on top, though. Tears for Fears in close second and Wham in third. Kate Bush can take, like, one and a half." Stephanie sees Max enjoying her bit, so she continues. "Temporarily. Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith will replace her once all this is over. Wait, do you think they know each other? Probably not."
Max nods with wide eyes. "Are you on something?"
"I mean, I feel like we're gonna be able to kill Vecna and you'll be okay. Kate Bush'll be like Eleven and the Mind Flayer." Stephanie turns to the big piano in the corner of the room. "I bet if I play something on here, it'll save you. What do you like? Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star? That's all I remember."
Max laughs, probably one of the more real laughs in a while. "You played piano?"
"Back in the day." Stephanie replies, sitting on the dusty seat in front of the piano. "Like, circa 1981. I wasn't too bad, actually."
Max sits down next to Stephanie. "What if you play something and the wall opens up to his secret lair?"
"Holy shit, like in The Goonies?"
Stephanie plays random notes on the piano.
Max shrugs. "I don't know, I've never watched it."
"Seriously?" Stephanie gasps. "You've seen Sleepaway Camp though, right?" She looks expectingly at Max.
"No?" Max shrugs. "I don't have the time to watch movies."
"You're crazy, kid."
The tape deck clicks and Max presses play. "Work your magic, Kate."
The abnormal thrumming of a light grab the girls attention.
Max walks closer to the light. "I promise I'm going to stop asking this, but...you're seeing that, right?"
Stephanie looks at the light. "I wish I wasn't."
Max reaches her hand out to touch the light, but it dies as soon as she touches it.
A light in the hallway flashes on.
Stephanie points. "Look."
The two slowly follow the trail of lights.
Stephanie goes to find everyone else and tell them about the lights.
"It's like the Christmas lights." Nancy breathes as everyone gathers around a blinking chandelier.
"The Christmas lights?" Robin whispers.
"Did no one fill you in?" Stephanie whispers to Robin as Nancy starts to explain.
"Yeah, when Will was in the Upside Down, the lights...came to life."
"Vecna's here." Lucas concludes. "In this house. Just on the other side."
The light dies.
"I think he just left the room." Robin says. "Did he hear us?"
"Can he see us?" Steve frowns.
"Uh, headphones." Stephanie points to Max's Walkman, remembering that the girl is still very cursed.
"Wait, wait." Nancy stops everyone. "Everyone, turn off your flashlights and spread out."
Stephanie clicks off her light and turns around.
"But we're not gonna be able to see if we turn of our flashlights." Steve looks around and the kids, already out of the room.
"What?" Stephanie speaks up from behind Steve, scaring him. "You scared of the dark?"
༺♥༻
how do we feel about a robin fic?
7/2/23