CHASING ALEXEI through the woods had brought Ana and Hopper to a 7-Eleven off the highway, which, in turn, had led to the trio carjacking some unsuspecting businessman named Todd. The yellow convertible they'd commandeered wasn't exactly subtle, to say the least, but, thankfully, the banana on wheels encountered no roadblocks before converging on Hopper's friend's lair. But, perhaps compound was a better term for where Murray Bauman resided.
Approaching the steel door, the police chief punched the buzzer with a thick finger, and the three waited anxiously. Eventually, static crackled noisily before them and an omniscient voice sounded after. "Look at the camera," it spoke through the intercom. Hopper lowered his face to eye-level with the metal encasing he'd pressed, only to be told, "the camera, above you to the right."
Alexei, Hopper, and Ana all turned immediately towards the indicated direction. She offered up a middle finger in salutation, while her mustached boyfriend threw out his hands in exasperated question. "Identify yourself," the speaker instructed again.
"Jim Hopper, Ana Thompson, and Smirnoff," Hopper verbalized for the group, gesturing to himself and the woman beside him individually before gripping Alexei's cheeks in his left hand.
With a roll of the eyes at his incessant childishness, Ana corrected, "his name is Alexei."
"Fine, Alexei," Hopper conceded, though he didn't seem pleased about it. The Russian's name rolled off his tongue with a distasteful twang.
"Surname?" The man on the other end of the communication system questioned, growing impatient.
"I don't know," Hopper huffed in an equally annoyed cadence.
"Family name!" Demanded the aggressive intercom voice in response.
At the amplified offense coming through the speaker, Hopper's patience seemed to snap like a shriveled and hollow twig beneath a heavy boot. "Yeah, I know," he shouted. "I told-I don't know, okay? Open the damn door!" Only stifling silence followed his little outburst as they lingered outside, the voice box going decidedly mute.
"What is this shit?" Ana questioned under her breath, side eying the agitated man next to her. "Where did you even bring us?" She had to assume the unfamiliar man was still observing them, silently, from within his fortress.
Closing his eyes and taking a deep inhale, Hopper seemed to steel himself before proceeding. "It's alright. Don't worry." he promised on the tail end of a sigh. "He's a little bit eccentric, but he's completely harmless."
Boy, Hopper was 0-2 that day. When the front door was finally thrown open, it was followed by the sound of a shotgun being racked. Said firearm was then thrust in Alexei's face, who threw his hands up in surrender at the sight.
On the wielding end of the weapon was a bearded, balding man wearing large framed glasses, cut off jean shorts, a wife-beater, and...was that an open bowling shirt? "Name?" The newcomer demanded again.
Alexei responded to the antagonistic request in Russian, but the only word Ana could decipher was 'American.' However, when Murray began replying fluently in kind, both her and Hopper's mouths hung open in fascination.
Ultimately, their brief and foreign dispute concluded with Murray letting out a rolling bark of laughter. Turning back to the couple, he let out a brisk, "hi, Jim," before reluctantly allowing them into his house.
Ana had never been inside a doomsday bunker, but Murray's home was exactly what she would have pictured one to be. There was a ridiculous collection on televisions encompassing one wall, many noticeably broken, and various contraptions and boxes littered the place.
They weren't granted much access to the home, though, before Murray was instructing the threesome to wait in the entryway. Halting them in the hall, he replaced the shotgun in his hands with what appeared to be a metal detector and began sweeping the machine over Alexei's form. The scientist didn't seem all that thrilled with the unwelcome intrusion, especially when the beeping device lingered too close to his privates, which caused the two to begin bickering back and forth in Russian once more.
Hopper tried interjecting into their argument by asking, "how long is this gonna take, because I-" However, his question was cut very much short by Murray snipping out a no. "No?" Hopper asked, brows knit in befuddlement.
"No," Murray shot right back at him. "No, you do not get to question me." His statement was punctuated by a tapping of the metal detector harshly against Hopper's chest. "You have dragged an enemy of the state into my home as carelessly as a child drags in shit on his shoe! I will search him until I am satisfied." Would he ever be satisfied, though, really?
Hopper looked quite close to losing it on Murray then. He had raised his left hand, pointer finger poised to be waved in the idiosyncratic, former journalist's face, when Ana interjected. "As delightfully vivid as that simile was," she started because she did throughly enjoy any elaborate use of figurative language. Honestly, how could she not? "Do you think we could just skip the theatrics and get to what we actually came here for?"
Murray blinked several times while staring at Ana in the ensuing stillness, almost as if he'd forgotten her presence entirely, before brandishing the device in her direction instead. "Who even are you?" Right, they hadn't bothered with the niceties of proper, formal introductions while being throughly accosted.
She roughly pushed the machine out of her face, so it trained on the ground, and responded confidently, "Ana Thompson, like he said," she remarked, jutting her chin in Hopper's direction. "Hawkins Middle School, Reading teacher."
The chief of police then popped up over her shoulder to proudly add, "she's my girlfriend."
The look her description received could only be described as unamused. "Great, you've brought an amateur along," Murray scoffed at the pair, but more specifically at Hopper.
The condescending tone in his voice, coupled with the exhaustion she'd felt after their tumultuous day's journey, had her seeing red. "Oh yeah?" She seethed. "I'll show you amateur," Ana ground out before lunging at Murray. Unfortunately, Hopper was quick on his feet and grabbed his self-proclaimed girlfriend around the torso before she could make physical contact with the outlandish stranger.
Dragging her back by the hips, Hopper attempted to create some distance between Murray and Ana while the latter continued to shout obscenities at the balding man. Against his wide figure, she couldn't do much to break free from his hold, but that didn't stop her from trying.
Murray, it appeared, wasn't wise enough to know when to let things lie because the next words out of his mouth only exacerbated the situation. "Jim, take your middling girlfriend outside so I can work without her yapping."
Ana stopped struggling for a brief moment while her mind processed Murray's statement. Although, when the words 'middling' and 'yapping' registered in her consciousness, her rage returned twofold, and she fought against Hopper's restraining hands even harder. "I'm gonna smack the shit out of him. Let me go!"
It seemed she wasn't the only one incensed by Murray's insults because Hopper also began yelling at their eccentric host. "Hey, you don't get to talk to her like that!" He roared while trying his best to contain a squirming Ana. However, he was fighting a rapidly losing battle.
Enacting a move she fondly referred to as 'going boneless,' Ana dropped all her weight at once, and Hopper inadvertently released her from his strong grip as she tumbled to the floor. Popping right back up, she was able to slink around his outstretched arms and stomped up to Murray. Standing face to face, she surveyed the bespeckled man momentarily before demanding, "what's your problem?"
Murray only leaned forward enough to screech, "please, stop talking," in Ana's face.
Something inside Ana burst, it could have been her sanity, but she was reasonably certain she'd lost a firm grasp on that ages ago. Murray Bauman's stature may have towered over her physically, but at that moment, she seemed to swell up like the Hulk. "No! It's been an exceptionally long day. We've been shot at, I was nearly blown up by that idiot," she vaguely gestured to Hopper before continuing. "We had to walk for hours through the woods, only to carjack some dude named Todd to get here. Now, you're apparently the only asshole who speaks Russian for miles, so translate what we want translated, and we can be done with it. God, I really have to pee!"
Only silence followed Ana's tirade. Murray looked beyond shocked, Hopper's face held a smug grin, and Alexei just appeared utterly confused by what had transpired. At least Murray had finally found the good sense to keep his mouth shut.
Begrudgingly, Hopper agreed to leave Ana with Alexei and Murray at the bunker while he went on a food run to Burger King. The police chief wasn't altogether confident that he wouldn't return only to find she'd strangled Murray in his absence, but it was a risk he was willing to take.
Once the front door closed behind him, and the sound of the yellow convertible pulling out of the driveway indicated Hopper's exit, Murray turned to assess Ana with a mischievous glint in his eye. Sitting on his hideous mustard-colored couch, she squirmed uncomfortably as he thoroughly appraised her from his perched position in an armchair across the coffee table.
Grinning like a meddling child, Murray asked, "so, you're Jim's girlfriend?" His tone was still somewhat patronizing, and it had Ana's face scrunching up in affront.
Crossing her arms over her chest in vexation, she challenged, "yeah, what's it to you?"
Murray found himself lightly chuckling at her defensive nature. "Oh, nothing. You're just too pretty for him, that's all," he concluded.
Ana had been anticipating an insult, not a compliment, and grew suspicious as to whether or not the conspiracy theorist was subtly mocking her. Her eyes turned to mistrustful slits as she told Murray, "I agree. Maybe you could talk to him about being more appreciative when he gets back."
A noise that resembled a snort escaped Murray's throat at her statement. Leaning forward, he propped both elbows on his bare knees and settled his chin on his closed fists. Again, Ana became uncomfortable under his judgemental stare. "So, what is it?" He questioned after some time spent gawking openly at her.
"What is what?" Ana repeated for clarification.
Grinning at her confusion, Murray elucidated, "what is it about a guy like that, that lands a piece like you?"
Well, being referred to as a 'piece' was extremely derogatory, but Ana chose to disregard the insult he probably considered a flattery. Shifting closer, and mimicking Murray's posture, she falsely confessed, "it's the uniform, obviously."
Murray's smirk only grew more prominent at the assertion.
Hopper's crankiness was at an all-time high upon returning from the fast food restaurant. After slamming the to go bags and previsions down on the coffee table, he plopped onto the weather worn sofa beside Ana and began stuffing his face with a whopper. "Burger King is nowhere near the 7-Eleven, by the way," he gripped at Murray between bites.
That ever-present, shit-eating grin graced Murray's features as he professed, "never said it was."
Speaking impolitely around the chuck of burger he was trying to masticate, Hopper proceeded. "Let's try this again. Ana," he said while waving his hand to indicate it was her time to talk.
"Alexei," she called, the man in question gazing up at Ana with his own mouth full of greasy hamburger. "The generators, what are they powering?"
Her line of questioning didn't get much further because Hopper decided to interject, "and tell him that we know it is not the Starcourt Mall, so he can stop selling us that crap."
After nodding along to Hopper's rant, Murray began translating. However, Alexei seemed far more interested in watching cartoons than cooperating with their inquisition. Taking a sip from his Slurpee, the scientist promptly spit the mouthful out onto the floor, before rapidly speaking in Russian.
Hopper's face was one of stone when he asked, "what'd he say?"
Murray looked far too pleased when he responded. "He says, it's strawberry."
Oh, God. Were these three really going to argue over Slurpee flavors? Yep, Ana realized, as the men began squabbling back and forth about cherry versus strawberry, that's precisely what they were going to do. Hopper's face was growing redder by the minute, while Alexei's countenance settled into one of obstinance. Again, Murray looked far too entertained by the whole ordeal playing out in front of him.
Hopper took in a shuddering breathe when Murray informed him, "no cherry, no deal."
Licking his thumb and forefingers slowly in contemplation, Hopper smiled sarcastically at Alexei and chuckled humorlessly. Then, all at once, he was pulling himself up off the couch and rushing towards the Russian scientist. Grabbing Alexei by the lapels, he threw the man onto the table between them while Murray began yelling.
"Stop him!" Murray frantically instructed Ana over the brawl taking place before their very eyes.
She merely offered him a noncommittal shrug at the directive, interested to see where the whole discourse would lead them. "I can't control what he does," Ana admitted, even if it wasn't entirely truthful.
"I'm not gonna hurt him!" Hopper shouted while pressing Alexei further into the wooden table. Then, lifting the Russian to his feet, he shoved the scientist back into the recliner, which collapsed under the weight. Murray continued screeching unsuccessfully as Hopper pulled Alexei off the chair, and began dragging him towards the door. "I'm just giving him an opportunity to get his own damn cherry Slurpee!" The last word was punctuated by Hopper tossing the foreigner out onto the driveway, where he landed ass first on the pavement.
Alexei's glasses had flown off on impact, but he was barely able to retrieve and put them back in place before Hopper chunked both the handcuff and car keys at him with flourish.
Storming back inside, the police chief slammed the door behind him, then turned to rest his heaving frame against the entrance, barricading anyone from entering or exiting. "Jim, that man is an enemy of the state," Murray exclaimed after the display of male dominance had ended.
"Yeah, who's been jerking us around for a full day," Hopper said through clenched teeth. "I get him his cherry Slurpee, then what? He wants a helicopter to charter him to his own private island?" Each sentence was accompanied by a dramatic waving of his hands. "I've dealt with assholes like this my entire life. Yesterday in the woods, he could've escaped, but he didn't. He stuck with us. Why do you think that is? It's because he's scared."
Yep, Ana's boyfriend had undoubtedly lost his marbles, but she allowed him the courtesy of finishing his lecture without interruption anyway. "He's scared. Not of us, of them," he reasoned emphatically. "He's scared of that seven-foot-tall Russian freak who could've killed him just as easily as us. Smirnoff knows that if he runs back to his comrades without a scratch on him, they're gonna think that he spilled his guts. So, whether he likes it or not, we are the best chance he's got." Hopper concluded the speech by rubbing his hands together confidently. "I give him 30 seconds before he comes knocking on that door, right back into our arms, with a new sense of humility."
Some of that confidence drained from Hopper's face, though, when the engine on the convertible revved, and Murray acknowledged, "I, uh, believe he has started the car."
"You know, he's testing us. He's just calling my bluff," Hopper assured. Although, he suddenly didn't look quite as cocksure about his theory.
"I believe he is now driving away," Murray announced, agitation clear in his voice.
At that statement, Ana rushed for the door, but Hopper blocked her path. Crashing against his broad chest, she rationalized, "come on, babe. We can't just let him go." Eventually, he shifted out of the way, allowing her to exit the front door with Murray hot on her trail.
The sight that awaited them on the other side of the door was...unexpected. Alexei had indeed started the car and begun to drive off, but his progress halted at the end of the driveway. Instead of disappearing into the Illinois countryside, the scientist just sat in the driver's seat, motionless.
Slowly, the convertible reversed towards them, and Alexei parked the vehicle before sulking back inside Murray's home, whispering something in Russian as he went.
"I'm sorry, what did he say?" Hopper asked with barely contained arrogance.
Murray's head was bowed as he admitted, "he says he likes strawberry, too."
Ana gazed upon her boyfriend in amazement. "God, I love you," she announced, which only made Hopper's grin grow wider.