THEY looked frantically for as much metal as they could find around the old bus. They found sheets and oil drums and lined their chosen vehicle with it; Steve used a can of gasoline Evelyn hadn't known he brought and poured it over the large pile of steak they'd dumped a few metres away and to the doorway of the bus. Admittedly, as night fell, it no longer felt like a game anymore.
Eve ushered the kids to get in the bus, not sure what she was getting gradually more afraid of. Steve nodded to her as she climbed in and then all they had to do was wait.
Evelyn was watching as Steve flicked the flame of his lighter in his hand, watching the orange light dance between his fingers and then disappear as he snapped the lid shut. She sat with her back against the wall and her arms around her legs.
"So-you really fought one of these things before?" Max asked and Evelyn's eyebrows furrowed. She looked up to Steve, hurt, who avoided her eye because he could see she didn't know why he wouldn't have told her that. All he could do was nod - he couldn't bring himself to answer when Evelyn sighed and looked at the floor. Evelyn was struggling to comprehend Hawkins anymore. She was either being lied too, crazy secrets being concealed away from her when she believed that they never were - or this was just a big practical joke they were all playing on her. She sighed, and stretched her legs out. "And you're a hundred percent sure it wasn't a bear?"
"Shit." Dustin scowled, "don't be an idiot, okay? Evelyn looked up at Dustin and looked at Max's surprised face.
"Dustin!" She scolded, wanting him to apologise, and he turned to his stand-in mother with his arms out.
"What? It wasn't a bear." Evelyn shook her head, muttering something like 'Christ' and crossing her legs when he turned back to Max. "Why are you even here if you don't believe us?" Eve sighed, wiping her forehead. "Just go home."
"Someone's cranky." Was all Max said, climbing up the ladder. Evelyn thought, 'good for her.' "Past your bedtime?"
"That's good." Steve said when Max had disappeared. "Just show her you don't care."
"Good?" Evelyn whisper-shouted. "It's horrible!"
"I don't care." Evelyn was looking at her hands, muttering something about boys being idiots. "Why're you winking Steve?" Evelyn looked up from beneath her hair at his face. "Stop." And she laughed at Steve's awkwardness.
As the silence settled, Evelyn closed her eyes, almost tired, but then she heard something she never expected too. Evelyn's eyes snapped open and she jumped so much her back thudded against the wall of the bus. Her eyes were wide and startled and she ran to the window they'd placed a wired gate over and almost climbed on top of Steve to get to it. It sounded like a dinosaur - a deep screech travelling from somewhere in the woods. It clicked now that everything Dustin had told her was true and not the excitable imagination of an twelve year old boy. She looked at Steve and he was looking back at her with the same panicked eyes.
"You see him?" Dustin says but both Evelyn and Steve shake their heads, no. At least Steve knew what to look for, Evelyn was panicking that the trees where going to pull themselves out the ground or something and come and kill them too.
"I've got eyes!" Lucas shouted from the top of the bus and Evelyn's grip latched on to Steve's coat when she heard a deep growl now closer than it had been. But she wasn't clinging to him for help, it was as if she barely noticed she was doing so because she was edging closer to the door of the bus for a better look.
"Eve!" Steve hissed, waving his hand towards her to come back to him but she didn't even turn. She just waved her hand in dismissal, her lips parted with curiosity.
"Ten o'clock! Ten o'clock!" Lucas's voice was loud and breaking and it snapped Evie out of her daze, hearing one of the boys in distress. After a minute she looked back through the grate and her breath hitched.
"Oh my god." Eve's eyes had found something in the mist settling on the Hawkins floor. Her lips pressed together in a thin line as she swallowed and exhaled audibly. There was a creature stepping through the clearing; it was larger than a wolf but it's body moved in a way she'd never seen before. It's head was like a flower bud and she could see it had a large tail swishing behind it. She realised something bigger than them was happening, something she'd never known before and it also hit her that something much worse could be happening to Will as they stood here, trapped.
"He's not taking the bait, why's he not taking the bait?" Steve voice was foreboding and alarmed and Evelyn held her breath.
"Steve." She said quickly, touching his arm and his eyes snapped to her. "You're stressing me out."
"He's not hungry." Dustin said and Evelyn moved her eyes back to the weirdest looking dog she'd ever seen.
"Maybe he's sick of cow." Steve moved from the window then and Dustin's panicked voice forced Evelyn to look at her friend now stood by the doors of the bus. He lifted the lighter in his hand and passed it to Evelyn. The girl laughed at him, of all things to do, and passed the lighter into Dustin's hands. Both Dustin and Steve looked at her with furrowed eyebrows but with her heart beating deafeningly loud in her ears and her chest painfully tight, Evelyn pushed past Steve and stole the bat from his hand before he could even react.
"To hell with that." Evelyn pushed the door open harshly, too scared to stop and shaking so badly she had to be quick before she may have seized up all together. Steve was telling her no, Dustin was shouting at her to not go anywhere. She knew the least of all of them, she'd never done this before, never seen it before, but Evelyn being more stubborn than they could have imagined, and more selfless than they thought humanly possible, would have only let one of her friends walk out into that clearing if it were over her dead body. She didn't care what they said. And so she ran into the fog before they could stop her. Steve had his hands ripping out his hair and Dustin had his hands covering his mouth in fear.
Evelyn clutched on to the bat with shaking hands, she breathed in and out more than she thought she'd ever done before and her eyes desperately scanned the misty fields searching for the grumbling concealed from her. It's squealing was louder, closer and unable to take it any longer, riddled with fear, Steve ran to her side. Evelyn snapped her attention to him with an anger he'd never seen on her face before but it came from a place of worry.
"What're you doing!" She hissed but then a snarl from the darkness turned them away from each other and Evelyn adjusted her grip on the bat.
"...come on buddy." Steve started saying and Evelyn tried to pretend she wasn't terrified. She began whistling for it. As they walked through the unknown, closer to their impending deaths, their breath was heavier and clouded the air around them. "...Dinner time." Steve was saying and Eve scoffed.
"Jesus." Through their nerves they breathed a laugh, not able to do anything else in their terror, but then they'd found it; they knew they had. They could hear it growling and snarling in front of them. Quickly they looked at each other, and nodded. But then Lucas's voice startled them as he shouted desperately, destroying their silent plan.
"3 o'clock!".
"Little busy here!" But Evelyn dared turn her head over shoulder, feeling the hairs stand on the back of her neck. She wished she'd never looked.
"We've got company." To Evelyn's horror and complete surprise, there were two more of the creatures she'd never believed to exist surrounding them. Evelyn could taste her heart in her mouth.
"Abort!" Dustin's voice bellowed, the bus door opened with a harrowing creak. Evelyn stood with her back against Steve's.
"Evie! Steve! Abort! Now!" And both teens looked up to him, panic stricken. The creatures were hissing, riled by Dustin's loud voice. They turned as one ran at them, Steve went to push Evelyn out of the way but she took one powerful and unexpected step forward and swung the bat with such force she sent the beast flying back into the darkness on the other side of them. She heard Dustin cheer.
"Okay." Evelyn said with shaking hands. "Not a lizard."
One lurched from their right and this time Steve jumped out of its way, pushing Evelyn in the other direction. Evelyn heard his back slam against one of the cars around them and that's when she turned and looked for the distance between themselves and the bus. Steve wasn't going to make it but her path was clear. She thought, now or never.
"Steve!" Evelyn shouted above the screaming voices of their children. She threw him the bat and he caught it, all of the creatures seeming to follow him, knowing he was down. He smacked one of the creatures while another jumped at him. Eve placed her fingers in her mouth and curled her tongue, impulsively. A splitting whistle erupted from her lips separating the fog around them and catching all of the monster's attention. Steve used the opportunity she gave him to frantically scramble back towards the bus, but seeing the hissing creatures lurch for Evelyn, he screamed her name.
Evelyn jumped as high as she could to avoid one; she landed in the mud and rushed desperately back to her feet. A loud and blood-curdling scream burst from her when one jumped at her face and she pulled a metal sheet over her body in the last available second. She felt the rusted copper cut deep into her arm as she let it sandwich herself against the floor and beneath the beast on top of her. She was yelling, deafened by the fatal hiss and screech above her and the screams of the children and Steve somewhere behind. Her face was wet with fearful tears, she was crying and squirming. She moaned and wriggled beneath the metal as she moved her face away from the creature as it lurched for her eyes. More importantly, despite all of her inconceivable fear, she was still fighting. Evelyn kicked and thrashed, trying to push the metal sheet higher into the air. She screamed as she forced more strength to manifest from her trembling body, she managed to scramble in the space she had made for herself and without looking back, she ran as fast as her feet would take her. She watched the doorway of the bus, dreamed of it as she ran. Steve was already there, having made it back when she'd called them over to her but his face was red from screaming her name, veins prominent in his forehead from his distress. His arms were ready to catch her, grabbing at the air as if it would let him reach her and bring her closer and with nothing to loose as the creatures got so close she could feel their saliva flicking at her heels, she jumped. She threw herself to the doors. Steve's hands knotted in to her clothing the moment she was in available proximity. Tiny hands grabbed at her too and they all yanked her desperately into the bus. Evelyn kicked the doors shut with a screech; they saw the creatures face split open like a bloomed flower lined with fangs. She laughed with no humour; she was alive.
The creature then thumped against the door with more force then Eve expected and Steve's body joined hers against the shuddering metal in a blind panic. He grabbed her hand painfully tight and she was certain her nails would be piercing his skin as she threw her head against the door and groaned with the strain of trying to keep it shut.
"Oh my god!"
"Think of something!"
"They can't get in! They can't!" But then, on queue, the door exploded open and everybody screamed: the creature broke through the gap and Steve immediately hit it with his bat, over and over, until it's screeching silenced to nothing. Evelyn was panting, clutching hold of Lucas who was terrifyingly close to getting eaten.
Dustin was shouting in to his headset, calling for any sort of help, and then they heard thuds on the ceiling and they knew they were on their own. Evelyn, with a shaking hand, pointed to the open window they used as a look out from the roof.
"The hatch!" She shouted desperately. By the time they looked up, a creature was already there. Max yelled in fear and both Steve and Evelyn pushed the kids instinctively behind them and stood at the base of the ladder. Steve used the bat above them, shouting at it, coaxing it. Desperate to distract it away from the children. Then, there was a different louder and deeper growl than what they'd heard from the creatures around them. The fear that filled them was unexplainable, yet the creatures looked away from them. The monster above them then, unbelievably, jumped away from the hatch and abandoned the bus.
There was silent uncertainty as the growls and shrieks grew faint. Steve and Evelyn looked around, not believing that they could have been left alone but after a moment, as Steve edged forward to look out the window in to the clearing, Evelyn's croaky and broken voice spoke softly into the room around them.
"Is everyone alright?"