"Eleven?" Mike asks as he gets closer to her.
"Mike." Eleven says and the hug and cry.
"Is that..." Max trails off and the boys nod at her.
"I never gave up on you." Mike smiles at her. "I called you every night. Every night for-"
"353 days." Eleven finishes, Mike's smile falling. "I heard."
"Why didn't you tell me you were there?" Mike asks. "That you were okay?"
"Because I wouldn't let her." Hopper steps up. He walks to Eleven. "What the hell is this? Where have you been?"
"Where have you been?" Eleven retorts. To everyone's shock, they hug each other.
"You've been hiding her." Mike realizes. "You've been hiding her this whole time!" He shoves Hopper, not doing anything, really.
"Hey!" Hopper grabs Mike's collar. "Let's talk. Alone." They leave the room to go talk.
Eleven goes and hugs Lucas and Dustin. They talk for a moment. Max tries to introduce herself, but Eleven ignores her and walks to Mom. Mom hugs her, happy that she's okay. Mom leads Eleven to Will's room per her request.
Mom shows Eleven what we got out of Will's message in morse code. He tapped out the words, 'close gate'.
Eleven having opened the gat before, Mom asks if she can close it as well. Determination flows through her eyes and she stays silent.
...
Hopper and Mike come back and we start talking about the gate around the kitchen table. Hopper knows something that we don't.
"It's not like it was before. It's grown. A lot. And, I mean, that's considering we can get in there. The place is crawling with those dogs." Hopper says.
"Demo-dogs." Dustin corrects as he turns around to Hopper.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"I said, uh, Demo-dogs. Like Demogorgon and dogs. You put them together, it's sounds pretty badass-"
"How is this important right now?"
"It's not. I'm sorry." Dustin turns back around.
"I can do it." Eleven says quietly.
"You're not heating me." Hopper shakes his head.
"I'm hearing you. I can do it."
"Even if El can, there's still another problem." Mike jumps in. "If the brain dies, the body dies."
"I thought that was the whole point." Max says, brows furrowed in confusion.
"It is, but if we're really right about this... I mean, if El closes the gate and kills the mind flayer's army..."
"Will's apart of that army." Lucas connects.
"It'll take him down with it." I say with a shaky sigh.
Mom's face goes stony in fear as she looks around at us. We go into Jonathan's room where Will lays on the bed.
"He likes it cold." Mom mumbles as she looks at the open window.
"What?" Hopper asks, confused about what she said.
"It's What Will kept saying to me. He likes it cold." Mom clarifies with a nod. She closes the window. "We keep giving it what it wants." She says, frustrated.
"If this is a virus, and Will's the host, then..." Nancy trails off.
"Then we need to make the host uninhabitable." Jonathan says as we look at Will.
"So if he likes it cold..." I mumble.
"We need to burn it out of him." Mom says with fear and frustration.
"We have to do it somewhere he doesn't know this time." Mike says.
"Yeah, somewhere far away." Dustin joins in.
...
Mom, Jonathan, and Nancy decide to go to Hopper's cabin where he's been hiding Eleven. Take Will there and burn that sonuvabitch out of him. They're using my truck to put the heaters in the back for more room.
I wanted to go, but Mom said she needed me to stay behind with the kids so that nothing happens to them.
Hopper is going to take Eleven to the gate so that she can close it and end this for good.
They all leave as Me, Steve, and the kids watch them go.
...
Dustin and Steve clear out our refrigerator to stuff the Demo-dog in. I watch with pain as they dump everything onto the floor.
Steve holds the dog in a blanket, it's face facing me. I pick up a screwdriver and poke it. Steve looks at me with a disgusted look on his face, causing me to chuckle.
Dustin finishes cleaning it out. "Alright. It should fit now." Dustin says
Steve looks at him. "Is this really necessary?"
"Yes, it is, okay? This is a ground-breaking scientific discovery. We can't just bury it like some common mammal, okay? It's not a dog." Dustin spits.
"Alright, alright, alright." Steve says as he walks to the fridge.
"I'm gonna bury you like some common mammal for dumping out the rest of our food that I'm going to have to pick up." I say to Dustin and he holds his hands up in surrender.
Steve attempts to put the dog into the fridge before saying, "Christ. Help me out."
"What am I supposed to do?" Dustin asks, panicking slightly.
"Get the door, man."
"Okay. Alright. I got the door." Dustin roughly closes the door just as Steve gets out of the way.
Steve pats Dustin's head with a 'phew!'
"Okay, no. You're cleaning that. I am most definitely not." I shake my head as I walk out of the kitchen, Steve following.
Mike paces as Max and Lucas clean the glass from the window.
"Mike, would you just stop already?" Lucas calls as he stops sweeping.
"You weren't in there, okay, Lucas?" Mike says as he faces him. "That lab is swarming with hundreds of those dogs."
"Demo-dogs!" Dustin corrects from the kitchen.
"The chief will take care of her." Lucas argues.
"Like she needs protection." Max mumbles with a shake of her head.
"Listen, dude, a coach calls a play in a game, bottom line, you execute it. Alright?" Steve joins.
"Okay, first of all, this isn't some stupid sports game. And second, we're not even in the game. We're on the bench." Mike retorts.
Steve stammers. "So my point is..." we look at him, waiting for him to continue. "Right, yeah, we're in the bench, so, uh, there's nothing we can do." Steve says as he throws the dish rag he was using to clean the slime off his arms over his shoulder.
"That's not entirely true." I speak up and they look at me. "I mean, these dog- Demo-dogs, they have a 'hive mind'." I put air quotes around the word 'hive mind'. "When the ran away from the bus, it seemed like they were called away."
"You have a point." Dustin nods his head.
"So, if we can get their attention..." Lucas mutters.
"Maybe we can draw them away from the lab." Max continues.
"Clear a path to the gate." Mike finishes.
"Yeah, and then we all die." Steve says.
"Well, that's one point of view." I shrug.
"No, that's not a point if view. That's a fact." Steve says.
Mike gasps and runs into the kitchen. "I got it!" We follow him. He crouches down and points to a spot on the tunnels Will drew. "This is where the chief dig his hole. This is our way into the tunnel. So..." he gets up and walks back to the living room and points to another spot where all the tunnels connect. "Here, right here. This is like a hub. So you got all the tunnels feeding into here. Maybe if we set this on fire."
"Oh, yeah? That's a no." Steve shouts him down.
"The mind flayer would call away his army." Dustin says, ignoring Steve.
"They'd all come to stop us." Lucas.
"Hey." Steve calls.
"We circle back to the exit." Mike.
"Guys." Steve calls again.
"By the tune they realize we're gone-" Mike.
"El would be at the gate." Max.
"Hey. Hey! Hey!" Steve claps. "This is not happening."
"But-" Mike tries to say.
"No, no, no, no. No buts. I- we," He gestures to me and himself. "Promised to keep you shitheads safe, and that's exactly what we plan on doing. We're staying here. On the bench. And we're waiting for the starting team to do their job. Does everybody understand that?"
"This isn't a stupid sports game." Mike argues.
"I said does everybody understand that?" Steve asks again. "I need a yes." Silence.
Suddenly, there's the sound of an engine revving outside. We run to the window.
"It's by brother." Max says. "He can't know I'm here. He'll kill me. He'll kill us."
Steve walks outside, me following. We watch a guy I've seen at school get out of his car. He inhales his cigarette and lets the smoke fall out of his mouth.
"Am I dreaming, of is that you, Harrington?" The guy asks.
"Yeah, it's me. Don't cream your pants." Steve answers.
"Got a new girlfriend, huh?" The guy points to me before taking his leather jacket off and putting it in his car. Steve sighs and shakes his head before silently telling me to stay where I am and walking off the porch and closer to the guy. "So, what are you doing here, amigo?"
The guy meets Steve halfway. "I could ask you the same thing. Amigo."
"Looking for my stepsister. A little birdie told me she was here."
"Huh, that's weird. I don't know her."
"Small? Redhead? Bit of a bitch."
"Doesn't ring a bell. Sorry, buddy."
The guy nods before taking the cigarette out of his mouth and sighing. "You know, I don't know, this... this whole situation, Harrington, I don't know. It's giving me the heebie-jeebies."
"Oh, yeah? Why's that?" Steve asks.
The guy shrugs. "My 13-year-old sister goes missing all day. And then I find her with you in a stranger's house. And you lie to me about it."
Steve chuckles. "Man, were you dropped too much as a child, or what? I don't know what you don't understand about what I just said. She's not here."
The guy uses his cigarette to point to the window. "Then who is that?"
We turn around to see the kids lined up at the window. I sigh and face-palm.
"Oh, shit. Listen-" Steve starts as he turns back around, only to be cut off as he's pushed back. He lands on the ground with a thud.
"Hey!" I call only to be ignored.
"I told you to plant your feet." The guy says before kicking Steve back down as he tries to get up.
The guy storms to the door. I attempt to stop him, but my flimsy female noodle-arms do nothing as I am pushed back as well. The guy bursts through the door before slamming it.
"Shit!" I say, noticing my leg was caught on a nail that was sticking up out of the porch. I groan in pain, tearing my leg off of it. I feel the blood trickle down my calf, but ignore it as I stand up and hear the kids screaming.
I get to the door just as Steve does. We open it and Steve runs inside and walks to the guy who was holding Lucas up by his collar against a bookcase.
Lucas kicks the guy where the sun don't shine and temporarily knocks him off.
The guy groans in pain. "You are so dead, Sinclair! You're dead."
Steve walks up behind him and turns him around. "No. You are." He punches the guy in the face.
Dustin laughs, but Max gasps as calls out to Steve, not wanting anyone to get hurt.
The guy stands up and starts laughing. I pull Lucas back to the kids and they hug him.
"Looks like you got some fire in you after all, huh?" The guy laughs with a bloody nose. "I've been waiting to meet this King Steve everybody's been telling me so much about."
"Get out." Steve says, tone deathly quiet, as he slightly pushes the guy away.
The guy stares at him before he throws a punch, but Steve ducks and dodges before punching him. The guy is knocked back into the table.
"Yes! Kick his ass, Steve!" Dustin cheers.
"Get him!" Mike joins.
I push the kids back protectively, trying to look for something that would hurt, but wouldn't kill the guy.
Steve punches the guy again when he stands straight and starts laughing again. The kids continue to cheer and Steve punches the guy to the sink.
"Shit. Shit. Shit." I murmur under my breath, n looking around for something.
The guy laughs before smashing a plate against Steve's head. The kids get quiet as Steve is knocked back around the table.
I grab Dustin and pull him out of the way of the hit zone as Billy, I heard Max call the guy's name, hits Steve again. They travel to the living room and Billy grabs Steve by the collar of his shirt. He says something before throwing Steve across the room.
"You son of a bitch." I mutter before grabbing a picture off the wall and smashing it against Billy's head.
Billy grunts and slams into the wall. "You bitch." He mutters before charging at me and slamming me into the cupboard in the hallway, breaking the glass on the doors. I cry out as the kids call my name.
"Fuck you." I say before slamming my head into his.
He's knocked back again, but quickly recovers. I hold my head in my hand as it starts to bruise.
He grabs me by the collar again and spins before slamming me into the wall that was behind him. He slams me into the wall again, my head hitting it hard, making my ears ring, before he throws a punch at my face and throwing me back into the kitchen and onto the kitchen table. I slide across, knocking everything off of it, and hit the ground where the shards of the broken plate were.
Billy travels back to Steve as I slowly get up again. He gets on top of Steve and starts hitting him, over, and over again.
I try to make it to them to stop him, but my head is spinning and I fall to the ground. The last thing I see before I black out is Max using the medicine we used on Will to knock Billy out and Dustin hovering over me protectively as he watches Billy, pleading him to stop.
...
I slowly wake up to the kids driving someone's car.
"What...?" I mumble.
"Hey, Y/n. You okay?" Dustin asks as he holds an ice pack to my head.
I look in the front to see Max driving. "Wha- What are you doing? Where are we going? What's going on!?" I say, my sentences getting louder every time.
"Hey. Calm down, calm down. It's fine." Dustin soothes as he pats my forehead, making me flinch. "Oops, Sorry."
"Where's Steve?" I ask before I look to my left, across Dustin, to see Steve passed out and beaten up. Dustin holds another icepack on his head. "Shit." I murmur. I sit up straighter, taking the icepack off of my head. "Pull over." I order.
"What? Why?" Max asks.
"Because you don't know how to drive and I do." I say.
"No! You can pass out any minute and kill us all. I'm driving." Max retorts.
Before I can say anything else, I hear a groan from across Dustin where Steve is. Steve slowly gains consciousness.
He looks at Mike who is holding a canister of gasoline and mumbles, "Nancy?" Mike looks at him weird. Steve groans and tries to touch one of his wounds only to be stopped by Dustin.
"No, don't touch it." Dustin says before Steve looks at him. "Hey, buddy...Shh. It's okay. You put up a good fight. Both of you did. He kicked your asses, but you put up a good fight, buddy. You're okay."
Steve looks at me and furrows his brows before Lucas starts talking.
"Okay, you're gonna keep straight for a half a mile, then make a left on Mount Sinai."
"What's going on?" Steve asks with a hoarse voice, eyes becoming panicked when he starts to realize that we are in a car that's being driven by a 13-year-old. "Oh, my God!"
"Just relax. She's driven before." Dustin tries to calm him.
"Yeah, in a parking lot." Mike retorts.
"That counts." Dustin says.
"Oh, my God!" Steve says again, becoming more panicked.
"They were gonna leave you two behind." Dustin tells us. "But I promised that you'd be cool, okay?" Dustin says as Steve becomes more panicked.
"This is one of the reasons why I should drive." I say as I lean on the passenger seat in front of me that seats Lucas. "Well... a nap would be nice." I murmur as my eyes close.
"Whoa, whoa. Okay, Y/n, I need you to stay awake, okay?" Dustin says as he lightly taps my bruised face.
"Ow." I flinch back. Ignoring Steve's panicked cries.
Suddenly, max speeds the car up and I'm thrown back into the seat, now realizing the damage on my back and the back of my head as well. I groan in pain and hold the back of my head as Steve exclaims in fear, telling them to stop the car.
"I told you they'd freak out!" Mike yells at Dustin.
"Technically Y/n isn't freaking out." Dustin yells back.
"Stop the car!" Steve exclaims.
"Everybody shut up! I'm trying to focus!" Max yells at us.
"Oh, wait, that's Mount Sinai! Make a left!" Lucas yells to Max.
"What?"
"Make a left!"
Max turns and hits a mailbox, causing everyone to scream in fear as we turn sharply down a road.
Steve continues to scream at them to stop the car and I struggle to stay awake. We suddenly stop and Steve exclaims. The boys impressed by what Max just did.
"Told you. Zoomer." Max says before we get out of the car, Steve not so gracefully.
I look around to see that we are in a pumpkin field with a large crater on the middle of it and a shovel. This must be where Hopper was dogging to the tunnels.
"Guys..." Steve groans as he leans against the car and the kids puts goggles and masks on. "Oh, no. Guys." Dustin gives me a bandana and a pair of goggles. I sigh and put them on. Mike grabs the gas canister and starts walking to the tunnel entrance. "Hey, where do you think you're going?" Steve asks as he watches Mike walk by, Mike ignoring him. "What are you, deaf? Helloooo?" The kids continue to get ready. "We are not going down there right now! I made myself clear." Everyone ignores him. "Hey, there's no chance we're going to that hike, alright?" Steve looks at me. "Y/n, help me out here. We're supposed to be protecting them!"
I shrug. "I agree with this plan, though. I was the one who brought it up at first, remember, dingus?" I say as I fix the bandanna over my mouth and put a pair of gloves on.
Steve groans and heads to the back of the car and throws Dustin's stuff back in. "This ends right now!"
"Steve, you're upset, I get it. But the bottom line is, a party member requires assistance, and it is our duty to provide that assistance." Dustin says. "Now, I know you promised Nance that you would keep us safe." He pulls a backpack out of the trunk, the bat sticking out of it. "So, keep us safe." He shoves the bag into Steve's arms and hands me my hatchets. Steve sighs and puts on his own mask and goggles.
We jump down into the hole using a rope that was attached to the car. The tunnel is slimy and weird. There's some kind of ash floating around everywhere sans there are vines all over the walls.
"Uh... yeah, I'm pretty sure it's this way!" Mike calls, using a map they drew with crayon.
"You're pretty sure, or you're certain?" Dustin asks.
"I'm 100% sure. Just follow me and you'll know!" Mike calls back before turning at beginning to walk.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey, hey, hey. I don't think so." Steve stops him. "Any if you little shits die down here, we're getting the blame. Got it, dipshit?" Steve says, gesturing between Me and himself. He grabs the map. "From here on out, I'm leading the way. Come on, let's go!" He calls back to us.
I stay in the very back behind Max so that nobody gets taken or left behind.
...
We continue our way through the tunnels, nearly getting lost a few times, but we found our way.
We stop when we hear Dustin scream. I was behind him and got a bit left behind. I catch up with him when the others do.
"What happened!? What happened!?" Steve exclaims as he pushes through the screaming kids.
"It's in my mouth! Some got on my mouth! Shit!" Dustin screeches before coughing and spitting. He goes silent and looks up at us. "I'm okay." I says in normal volume.
Everyone sighs and voices their annoyance before walking again. Dustin catches up and I catch up behind them.
Eventually, we make it to where we were headed, a giant empty space where the tunnels meet.
"Alright, Wheeler. I think we found your hub." Steve says as we look around.
"Let's drench it." Mike says and we get to work.
We drench the entire room in gasoline. It doesn't take long and eventually the entire room is coated including the walls and the ceiling.
We get to a safe distance and Steve throws the lighter into the room, setting it on fire. The vines come to life and squeal in pain as the wriggle and whip around.
"Go, go, go!" Steve yells to us and we start running.
I stay behind them to make sure everyone gets out safely. The growling of the Demo-dogs can be heard in the distance, fueling our adrenaline.
Suddenly Mike trips as a vine grabs his leg. I run to him and start hacking at the vine with my hatchets as everyone else pulls Mike's arms to get him free. Soon enough, the vine splits in two and Mike is freed.
But, if that's not enough, we hear growling from behind us. Dustin stops everyone, realizing something.
"Dart." Dustin calls before walking closer. Everyone voices their protests, but Dustin shushes us. Dart walks closer as well.
Dustin starts taking off his mask and goggles. "Hey. It's me, it's me. It's your friend, it's Dustin." He smiles at Dart and crouches down as Dart draws closer. "You remember me? Will you let us pass?" Dart's face opens up as he snarls at Dustin. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry about the storm cellar." Dart calms down. "That was a pretty douchey thing to do. You hungry? Yeah?" Dustin reaches into his bag and pulls out a 3 Musketeers. "I've got our favorite. See? Nougat." He holds it in front of him with a smile to show Dart.
Dart grunts and excitedly draws closer as Dustin opens the candy bar. He sets in in front of Dart. "Eat up, buddy. Come on. Come on." He whispers the last part to us and we slowly pass Dart as he eats. Dustin gets up and follows before he looks back. "Goodbye, buddy." And we get going again.
We run through the tunnels before we're stopped again by a giant rumble and screeches of the dogs. We turn around when we hear many footsteps approaching.
"They're coming!" Mike says. "Run! Run!"
And we do just that. We turn and start running for our lives. We turn a corner and see the rope. Everyone calls out their own things as we spot it.
Steve and I help nearly everyone up before it's too late and the dogs start running at us. Steve, Dustin, and I the only ones left in the tunnels. Steve readies his bat and I ready my hatchets.
We expect to be mauled by them all, but they just run right past us. We weren't what they were after. They're after something else.
"Eleven." I hear Mike say from above us.
Once we are all up, we see the headlights of the car start to brighten insanely. We cover our eyes from the brightness of the light before it fades back to normal again.
...
It's been a month since everything went down. Nancy and Jonathan's tape they got when we were out throwing meat on the ground was sent to several news stations and papers. It addressed the incident including Barbra Holland, Nancy's late best friend, only it was watered down so that they would be believed. There was a funeral for her that we attended and now she can rest in piece and her parents can have some closure.
Nancy and Steve are now broken up and Jonathan is now with her and they're happy.
Eleven is back with us and Will is doing great. Though the loss of Bob was hard on Mom, her smile came back with a little time. She's still beat up about it, but she's getting better.
Dustin's mom got a new cat and is happy, though she's still mourning the loss of Mews.
Mike's parents have no idea what just happened.
Right now Mom is practicing how to dance with Will due to him going to his first school dance, Jonathan filming them.
"Do you always have to be filming everything?" Will asks Jonathan with a smile.
"No, no. Just the good stuff." Jonathan chuckles and I grin at them.
"Are you sure people still dance like this?" Will asks Mom.
"Yeah. It's just what's happening." Mom responds with a smile.
"Is it what's happening?" Will asks Jonathan and I.
"Yeah, yeah, it's what's happening." Jonathan says and I nod my head, trying to hold in my laughs.
It's been great now and I really hope that all of this stuff with the Upside Down is over. I really hope so.
Į ręäłłÿ høpę śô.
[Season 2 End]
*4359 words