✨CHAPTER 28✨
The walk started feeling like it was taking forever, Hailey's legs were starting to hurt. "You're positive that was Dart?" Lucas questions the Henderson siblings.
"Yes. He had the same exact yellow pattern on his butt." Dustin states focusing on the road ahead. "He was tiny two days ago." Max says, confused, Hailey still wasn't too happy with the girls presence, but she knew and there's nothing that could be done about that. "Well, he's molted three times already." Dustin points out.
"Malted?" Steve asks, Hailey shook her with a smile as she corrected him. "It's molted, Steve."
"Shed his skin to make room for growth like hornworms." Dustin took it upon himself to explain what the words meant.
"When's he gonna molt again?" Max curiously asks.
"It's gotta be soon. When he does, he'll be fully grown, or close to it. And so will his friends." Dustin explains to them, Hailey rolled her eyes at her brother, still not very happy with him. Yeah, and he's gonna eat a lot more than just cats." Steve states.
"Wait, a cat? Dart ate a cat?" Lucas asks, looking at Dustin intently. "No, what? No." Dustin denies, one thing about the Henderson siblings they were terrible at lying.
"What are you talking about? He ate Mews." Steve points out, obviously not getting that there were some tension about this creature.
"Mews? Who's Mews?" Max questions confused.
"It's Hailey and Dustin's cat." Steve states, only having the Henderson siblings say is name in different voice tones.
"Steve!"
"I knew it! You kept him!" Lucas yells.
"No! No. No, I... No, I..." Dustin fell over his words not sure what to say. "Dustin it's better if your gonna be honest right now." Hailey says.
"He missed me. He wanted to come home." Dustin states, a little sad that everyone was mad at him for this.
"Bullshit!"
"I didn't know he was a Demogorgon, Okay?" Dustin says sadly.
"Oh, so now you admit it?" Lucas questions him.
"Guys, who cares? We have to go." Max says, only to have Lucas start shouting. "I care! You put the party in jeopardy! You broke the rule of law!"
"So did you!" Dustin shouts back.
"What?" Lucas asks, confused, Dustin turned around putting the flashlight in Max's face, and says, "You told a stranger the truth!" Only making the girl scoff out in anger, Hailey and Steve looked at each other not sure if they should step in or leave them to finish their little argument. "A stranger?" Max asks, stepping closer to the two boys.
"You wanted to tell her, too!" Lucas points out.
"But I didn't, Lucas, okay? I didn't tell her! We both broke the rule of law, okay? So we're even. We're even." Dustin states.
Screeching not that far from where they were, grabbed the attention of both teenagers, taking a few steps forward they looked in the direction the noise came from.
"No, no! We're not even. Don't even try that. Your stupid pet could have ate us for dinner!" Lucas yells.
"That was not my fault!" Dustin shouts.
"Guys?" Steve says, trying to get their attention but they didn't hear a thing.
"He wasn't gonna eat us." Dustin says, a little softer this time.
"He was crawling to come say hello?" Lucas asks.
"Guys!" Hailey yells over their yelling as the screeching in the distance continued, leaving their argument at that, they walked in the direction behind the teenager, a confused max followed behind them, as she couldn't understand why they were going towards the danger.
When they got to a certain point, they tried to see where those things were headed. "I don't see him." Dustin points out, Lucas took out his binoculars looking through them. "It's the lab. They were going back home." Lucas states.
The group made their way towards the lab, as they got closer to where the main gate is located they heard someone shouting, Hailey didn't hesitate to grab Steve's arm. "Hello? Who's there? Who's there?"
Coming out from the woods, they saw two very familiar faces. "Steve? Hailey?" Both Nancy and Jonathan asks confused as to why they were there.
"Nancy?" Steve asks suprise to see her.
"Jonathan." Hailey says in a slight greeting. "What are you doing here?" Nancy asks, ignoring how close Steve and Hailey was. "What are you doing here?" Steve questions back, not feeling like he owns her any sort of explanation.
"We're looking for Mike and Will." Nancy says.
"They're not in the lab, are they?" Hailey asks, a little worried.
"We're not sure." Nancy says.
"Why?" Jonathan asks concerned, the monsters screeching in the distance gave him the answer, making him look towards the lab worried for his family.
At some point Hailey felt like a headache was forming, as everyone was talking over each other, were they weren't actually listening to what the others were saying.
"We haven't seen Will..."
"I haven't seen him since..."
Nancy noticed the power going back on walking forward, Hailey looked to where the Wheeler girl was looking, to see there was a lot more light than before.
"The power's back." Nancy states.
Jonathan ran back to where he was trying to open the gate, but it still didn't wanna open one bit. Dustin joined his side, speaking up, "Let me try."
"Hang on..." Jonathan mutters, but Dustin pushed him out of the way, yelling. "Let me try, Jonathan!" Dustin also tried pushing the button, but there was no luck. "Son of a bitch! You know what..." Dustin says, only to have Hailey glared at him, so he kept on pressing the button until the gate actually opened up.
"Hey! I got it!" Dustin chuckles out in victory. "I got it!" Nancy and Jonathan got in his car without any hesitation speeding towards the building leaving the others at the gate.
The kids stood in the road, waiting, Hailey and Steve stood against the small building, staring at the woods, they had so much to say to each, but both knew know wasn't the time to talk about it.
"Guys?" Max says, as she saw two pairs of headlights heading their way, Jonathan honked the horn, telling them to get out of the way. The chief came stopping right next to them.
"Let's go." Hopper says hurriedly. Steve quickly rushed the kids into the car helping Hailey in as well as he yells, "Come on! Come on, let's go! Let's go! Come on!" When he got in, he hit the side of door, letting Hopper know he could drive away, and that's just what he did, driving straight to the Byers house.
Hailey and Steve stood by the wall, in the living room where Will was Laying on the couch out cold, Hailey was just so worried about her little wizard she rubbed her arms nervously. Behind them Hopper was on the phone, but he didn't sound too happy throughout the entire conversation.
"Sam Owens. Dr. Sam Owens."
"How many people at the lab?"
"I don't know how many people are there! I don't know how many people are left alive!"
"Have you contacted the police?"
"I am the police! Chief Jim Hopper!"
"Is there a number I can reach you at?"
"Yes, the number that I gave you, yes."
"Okay, yes, I got it."
"6767... I will be here."
"I'll have them contact you."
"They didn't believe you, did they?" Was the first thing Dustin asked, when the Chief put the phone down, steve walked towards the window, behind where the kids were seated, hailey following, knowing that seeing nancy so affectionate with jonathan must be bothering him.
"We'll see." Hopper says.
" 'We'll see'? We can't just sit here while those things are loose!" Mike states, trying to make a point, but the Chief didn't have any of that, as he states firmly, "We stay here, and we wait for help." Hopper turned around walking away towards the room Mrs Byers locked herself in, because her lover, Bob was killed by those monsters.
Hailey stood staring at the window, the night was so misty that she couldn't see a thing, her mind went to the moment earlier when she kissed Steve, when Mike spoke up, she shook her head turning to look at all of them.
"Did you guys know that Bobwas the original founder of Hawkins AV?" Mike asks, holding the game, Bob brought earlier that day for Will to play with.
"Really?" Lucas asks.
"He petitioned the school to start it and everything. Then he had a fund-raiser for equipment. Mr. Clarke learned everything from him. Pretty awesome, right?" Mike says, walking back to where the others were seated.
"Yeah." Lucas and Dustin mutters together.
"We can't let him die in vain." Mike points out.
"What do you want to do, Mike? The Chief's right on this. We can't stop those Demo-dogs on our own." Dustin says, making a pretty good point.
"Demo-dogs?" Max questions.
"Dustin like to do a play on words, so if he can put words together, he'll do that, like he just did." Hailey spoke up, cutting the conversation short, knowing Dustin would have dragged it out.
"Okay."
"I mean, when it was just Dart, maybe..." Dustin states.
"But there's an army now." Lucas points out.
"Precisely."
"His army." Mike mutters softly.
"What do you mean, Mikey?" Hailey asks, seeing the boy having a thinking look on his face. "His army. Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army, too." Mike says, quickly walking towards will's room, the rest following behind him, grabbing a picture Will drew not so long ago, showing it to them.
"The shadow monster." Dustin says, in realization.
"It got Will that day on the field. The doctor said it was like a virus, it infected him." Mike explains.
"And so this virus, it's connecting him to the tunnels?" Max asks trying to understand what they were talking about. "To the tunnels, monsters, the Upside Down, everything." Mike answers her.
"Whoa. Slow down. Slow down." Steve says, looking at the picture, trying to process what the bunch was talking about.
"Okay, so, the shadow monster's inside everything. And if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will." Mike explains to the teenager.
" And so does Dart." Lucas states.
"Yeah. Like what Mr. Clarke taught us. The hive mind." Mike says, having Steve looking at Hailey, then Mike in confusion. "Hive mind?" He asks.
"It's a super-organism, like a collective consciousness." Hailey tells him, leaving him impressed, he had no idea that she was actually so smart, but he guess there was a lot he didn't know about her. "And this is the thing that controls everything. It's the brain." Mike says pointing to the thing in the picture.
"Like the mind flayer." Dustin says, a certain look in his eyes.
"The what?" Max asks.
"What?" Steve asks, not getting an answer as they got everyone except for Mrs Byers to gather in the kitchen, to explain what they thought might be going on.
"The mind flayer." Dustin states, his D&D book open infront of him.
"What the hell is that?" Hopper asks the kid.
"It's a monster from an unknown dimension. It's so ancient that it doesn't even know its true home. Okay, it enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains using its highly-developed psionic powers." Dustin explains to everyone. "Oh, my God, none of this is real. This is a kids' game." Hopper says in annoyance, he wasn't even sure why he was listening to this.
"No, it's a manual. And it's not for kids. And unless you know something that we don't, this is the best metaphor..." Dustin says, getting corrected by Lucas, "Analogy."
"Analogy? That's what you're worried about? Fine. An analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is." Dustin says, getting a little annoyed with being interrupted. "Dusty, what does the mind flayer want?" Hailey asks her brother, hoping he would just get to the point.
"To conquer us, basically. It believes it's the master race." Dustin says.
"Like the Germans?" Steve asks nervously, making Hailey smile at how vulnerable he looked at that moment.
"Uh, the Nazis?" Dustin asks.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Nazis." Steve nervously says.
"Uh... If the Nazis were from another dimension, totally. Uh, it views other races, like us, as inferior to itself. It wants to spread, take over other dimensions." Dustin tells everyone.
"We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it." Lucas states.
"That's great. That's great. That's really great. Jesus!" Steve says, starting to panic, he didn't wanna die, he had so much he wanted to do and say, especially to Hailey.
"Okay, so if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then if we kill it..." Nancy says as she was looking at the book. "We kill everything it controls." Mike points out.
"We win." Dustin says.
"Theoretically." Lucas states.
"Great. So how do you kill this thing? Shoot it with Fireballs or something?" Hopper asks, picking up the book, trying to read what it said about the mind flayer. "No. No, no Fire... No Fireballs. Uh, you summon an undead army, uh, because...because zombies, you know, they don't have brains, and the mind flayer, it... it... It likes brains. It's just a game. It's a game." Dustin states, as he saw Hopper looking at him in disbelief.
"What the hell are we doing here?" Hopper asks frustrated, turning his back towards everyone. "I'm pretty sure you said we're waiting for your military back up." Hailey spoke up, not too happy with the adults attitude towards the children that were actually looking for answers.
"We are!"
"How are they gonna stop this? You can't just shoot this with guns." Mike states, having a pretty good point, Hopper was the only one who didn't agree as he shouts, "You don't know that! We don't know anything!"
"We know it's already killed everybody in that lab." Mike says.
"We know the monsters are gonna molt again." Dustin says.
"We know that it's only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town." Lucas states, just as Mrs spoke up in agreement, "They're right. We have to kill it. I want to kill it."
"Me, too. I... Me, too, Joyce, okay? But how do we do that? We don't exactly know what we're dealing with here." Hopper says, pointing out the most important factor of all of this.
"No. But he does. If anyone knows how to destroy this thing, it's Will. He's connected to it. He'll know its weakness." Mike spoke up, looking towards the couch where will was laying down on.
"I thought we couldn't trust him anymore. That he's a spy for the mind flayer now." Max says, trying to understand how the group usually does these things.
"True, but he can't spy, if he doesn't know where he is." Hailey points out, slowly making everyone think of a plan.
Hopper emptied the entire storage space in the back of the yard where the Byers kept all their tools and things they didn't use as much, the rest were in charge of getting stuff that could be use to cover the walls. Steve and Nancy were the once who started to cover the walls, which was super awkward.
"Hey. What you did, um, helping the kids... that was... really cool." Nancy says, trying to break the awkwardness surrounding them.
"Yeah. Those little shits are real trouble, you know?" Steve asks, getting higher on the latter to get the garbage bag to stay in place.
"Believe me, I know." Nancy says, but both knew there was one person who knew that better than anyone, and that was Hailey, those boys practically looks up to the older Henderson.
One by one everyone started helping with covering the walls, to get it done faster, when done, those who were not needed had to head back into the house.
Steve stood in the living room swinging his bat around, where he won't hit anyone, hailey stood by the opening just looking at him the entire time.
"You gonna keep on looking at me, or do you wanna say something?" Steve spoke up, as he kept swinging the bat.
"Who says I was looking at you?" Hailey asks, Steve only shook his head putting his bat down sitting down against the wall, patting the space next to him, silently telling her to sit, and she did.
"Why'd you kiss me in the junkyard?" Steve asks after a long pause of silence.
"Because I like you, and I thought you were going to die with your reckless acts, and I thought I should do it, before you die. Why'd you kiss me back?" Hailey asks, after giving him her reason.
"Because I like you too." Steve mutters, it made Hailey's heart flutter, but before she could say anything, Hopper came walking into the house in a hurry grabbing a pen and paper, sitting down by the table, everyone quickly got to the table, to hear what's going on.
"What happened?" Dustin asks, watching the chief write something down on the paper, the Chief sighs, before he spoke up. "I think he's talking, just not with words."
"What is that?" Steve asks, not familiar with what he was looking at, but Hailey and the boys were as all of them muttered out, "Morse code."
"H-E-R-E." Hopper spells out.
"Here."
"Will's still in there. He's talking to us." Hopper says, and so those who was with Will went back to talk about all of their memories they had with Will, meaningful ones, Hopper transmitted Will's message with the radio not to get caught, by Will or the spy.
And the rest were in charged of deciphering the message will was giving them.
"Dash, dot, dash, dot." Hailey says.
"Yeah, got it."
"C."
"L."
"O."
"S."
"E."
"G."
"A."
"T."
"E."
"Close gate." Everyone says together just as the phone started ringing. "Shit. Shit." Dustin says, hanging up the phone, only for it to ring once again, Nancy ripped it off the wall throwing it to the floor.
"Do you think he heard that?" Max asks, looking at the two teenagers standing next to her. "It's just a phone. It could be anywhere. Right?" Steve asks, being uncertain himself.
In the distance, they could clearly hear the screeching of monsters getting closer to where they were. "That's not good." Dustin says, as he looks out the window.
"Hey. Hey, get away from the windows!" Was the first thing Hopper said to the children, since all of them were peaking out the window, he held the gun out to Jonathan, asking him, "Do you know how to use this?"
"What?"
"Can you use this?"
"I can." Nancy spoke up, as the screeching started getting closer to the house, Hopper threw her the gun and everyone stood ready with their weapons. Steve didn't hesitate to have Hailey stand behind him, he knew he would feel better that way, Hailey grabbed onto his jacket for comfort, as the monsters screeching weren't that far anymore.
"Where are they?" Max asks, hearing them growl, there was a loud thudding against the house, everyone moved their weapons in the direction the noise came from.
"What are they doing?" Nancy asks, holding the gun tightly.
They could hear them snarling and groaning, circling the house, their screeching almost shaking the walls of the house, until their screeching came to a sudden stop, it was silent for a few seconds, when a demo-dog came flying through the window as it screeches, it hit the wall pretty hard, making everyone scream out, the monster didn't get up after that.
"Holy shit." Dustin mutters, grabbing his sister's hand, who was being held tightly by Steve.
"Is it dead?" Max asks, Hopper walked closer to it still pointing at it, when he got near it, he tapped it with his foot, confirming that it was dead. The doors looks started opening having everyone on edge once again, Steve didn't hesitate to hold Hailey even tighter, watching as the last lock opens, and the door creaks open. The person stepping into the house had everyone frozen to their spots, since they were told that she was dead, Infront of the stood, Eleven.
°•Unedited•°