Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Prologue
November 6, 1983

      “Something is coming. Something hungry for blood.” Mike Wheeler leans over the table, a hush in his voice — yet he can feel his smirk stretching the skin of his cheeks. “A shadow grows on the wall behind you. It’s almost here.”     

     He can see his friends shift anxiously
in their seats. He’s proud his story is landing so well.

     Will looks at him with wide eyes, but Mike can see the glee in them. “What is it?” he asks, anticipation bleeding from his voice.

     “What if it’s the Demogorgon?” Dustin lisp breaks the mood Mike had set. “Oh, Jesus! We’re so screwed if it’s the Demogorgon!”

     “It’s not the Demogorgon,” Lucas says
with a roll of his eyes.

     Tired of their interrupting, Mike grabs his second-to-last figurine and slams it on the table in front of his friends. “An army of troglodytes charge into the chamber!” A smile crinkles his eyes shut as he sees his friends slump in relief.

     “Troglodytes?”

      Lucas gives Dustin a haughty glance, “Told you.”

     “Wait a minute,” Mike whispers before an argument can inevitably erupt between the two. He furrows his brows together and leans even closer to his friends. “Did you hear that? That…that sound?” The atmosphere he’d created before the interruptions is back. It’s magical. It’s powerful. It’s addictive. “Boom,” he mutters, “Boom…boom!”

     Slamming his hands on the table, he
feels his smirk turn wicked as his friends jump at the loud noise.

      “That didn’t come from the troglodytes, no, that…” He grabs the last figurine behind his board. “That came from something else. The Demogorgon!”

     His friends let out frightened noises as he slams the figurine in front of them.

    Dustin shrieks nervously, “We’re in deep shit!”

    “Will!” Mike shouts, startling said boy. “Your action!”

    Seemingly overwhelmed, Will glances at him, with a tight grin. He utters out a meek, “I don’t know!”

    “Fireball him!” Lucas yells.

    “I’d have to roll a thirteen or higher!”

    “Too risky,” Dustin inputs, never one to go long without talking. “Cast a protection spell!”

    Mike watches, amused as Lucas ignores Dustin’s urges, reiterating his suggestion to Will with, “Don’t be a pussy. Fireball him!”

    Dustin seemingly does the same as he repeats, “Cast protection!”

    “The Demogorgon is tired of your silly, human bickering!” Mike is, too. They’re on a schedule. “It stomps toward. Boom!”

    “Fireball him!” Lucas’ shrieks gets higher in pitch.

    “Another stomp. Boom!”

     Dustin’s lisp is getting more pronounced. “Cast protection!”

    “He roars in anger!”

    “Fireball!” Will shouts, throwing his dice on the table. They roll across it with a loud clatter before falling onto the floor.

    “Oh shit!”

    “Where’d they go? Where are they!”

    “I don’t know! I don’t know!”

    “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!”

    The four boys all dive to the ground, searching for the missing dice.
The fall to the ground is painful on Mike’s knees, but the suspense is exhilarating.

    “Can you find it?” Lucas asks.

    The excitement in the basement is pierced by his mom opening the door and yelling down the stairs, “Mike!”

   Sitting up on his knees he yells back, hoping to placate her, “Mom! We’re in the middle of a campaign!”

    His mom remains unimpressed, however, and puts her hands on her hips. “You mean the end?” she raises her eyebrows. “It’s fifteen after.”

   “But—“ he tries but his mom doesn’t stick around for his protests. Offense bubbling under his skin, he chases her up the stairs.
Behind him he can hear Lucas mutter, “Oh my god, freaking idiot.”

    As he reaches the top of the stairs Will asks a sad, “Why do we have to go?”

    His mom’s already in the kitchen when he catches up to her. She’s right, it is late, the windows are all dark. But he won’t admit that to her.

    “Mom, wait. Just twenty more minutes?” he begs.

     His mom lets out a long suffering sigh that almost makes him feel bad for her, but then the sound of his friends packing up downstairs reminds him of what’s to lose if he caves.

    “It’s a school night, Michael,” his mom says, seemingly having no such qualms. “I’ve just put Holly to bed. You can finish next weekend, okay?”

    Mike can feel his frustration growing. She just doesn’t understand. “But that’ll ruin the flow!”

    “Michael.” Uh oh, his mom is pulling out the disappointed voice. “I’m serious.”

    “Mom, the campaign took two weeks to plan!” he says, channeling his inner DND character. One more valiant attempt for his friends’ sake. “How was I supposed to know it’d take ten hours?”

    Big backfire, though. His mom whirls around, disbelief on her face. “You’ve been playing for ten hours.”

    What a mistake, she won’t be reasoned with. Mike almost gives up but then some indistinct TV noise behind him reminds him of his dad.

    His dad who’s sitting on the Lazy Boy, watching TV as always.

     Nancy always asks him for things when Mom says no. He says yes to her. Mom hates it, but it’s foolproof for Nancy. Heck, Mike’s even seen Holly do it a few times. It’s worth a shot for him, right? This is something super important and he’ll have to take his side.

     “Dad,” he ignores the waver of anticipation in his voice. “Don’t you think that—“

     His dad cuts him off, though. “I think you should listen to your mother.” He doesn’t even look away from the screen in front of him.

    Mike feels his heart plummet in his chest. Oh yeah, his dad doesn’t like him. Right, how could he forget?

    He looks at his mom with what he can only assume is a devastating look.

    She must see the heartbreak in his eyes, because her own eyes soften. Her face breaks into a gentle smile and, after taking a step closer to him, runs her fingers through his hair once. In a soft voice she says, “Tell you what. Jonathan called earlier. He said he’d picked up double and won’t be able to pick Will up tonight. Why don’t you bike back with him? Make sure he gets home safe.”

     Mike can literally feel the heavy gloom lift, instantly lightening his body. Why was he ever frustrated with his mom? She’s the best. “Really?” he asks, just to be sure.

    His mom’s smile grows. “Really,” she confirms.

    Impulse surges through his body and he reaches out to her, squeezing her in a tight hug. “Thank you!”

   His mom’s arms tighten around him for a second before he’s breaking out of them to meet his friends in the garage. “Shoes, Mike!”

    “Oh yeah,” he yells back, rushing to the front door where his Pumas are.

    His mother continues talking as he trips over himself, putting them on. “I’m going to be in bed so make sure your father knows you’ve made it back before you go to sleep, okay?”

    “Okay, mom!” he chirps back at her, rushing past her again to the garage. “Thanks!”

    “—ush on her!” Lucas’ mocking voice is the first thing he hears.

    The three boys are standing in his garage holding their bikes. Lucas is, as always, riling Dustin up. And Dustin is, as always, taking the bait. Will is watching with amusement.

    “No I don’t!” Dustin replies, obviously offended. “I just think—“

    Mike interrupts him, questioning, “Who do you have a crush on?”

    Lucas doesn’t let Dustin answer, though, and instead asks Mike, “Where were you?”

    “Talking to my mom,” he tells him before turning to Will. “Will, Jonathan’s working a double but my mom said I can bike back with you!”

    Will’s eyes brighten, “Really?”

    “Yeah!” Mike grabs his own bike, putting the kickstand up and mounting it. “Come on!”

    Will quickly clambers onto his bike, beating Mike out of his driveway.
Lucas calls out to their bikes as they fly away, “Bye, I guess!”

    Dustin lets out a few curses, trying to catch up to them. “No fair! I was gonna try to race Will!”

    “See ya tomorrow!” Mike yells back at them, cackling as he gets further away.

    “Bye Lucas!” Will says from beside him. “Bye Dustin!”

     Dustin never catches up to them, the wind rushing through their hair. There’s something Mike has always found relaxing about biking at night with no one around.

      Especially with Will. He’s still giggling softly at their dramatic departure.

    “That was fun,” Mike says to him.

    “Yeah,” Will responds. “Your campaign was really cool. I really liked it!”

    “Really?”

    “Yeah! It was the best one yet, I can’t wait to finish it!”

    “Cool.”

    “Cool.”

    They ride in silence for a bit, slowing their fast pace, before Mike remembers the missing dice. “Oh, did you ever find your dice?”

    Will looks over at him, a contemplative look on his face. “Yeah,” he finally says.

    Curious now, Mike asks, “Yeah?”

     “Yeah,” is all Will says back for a moment before he sighs. “It was a seven.”
Mike furrows his brows. A seven? “What?”

    “I rolled a seven,” Will explains. They turn onto Mirkwood. “The demogorgon, it got me.”

     Well that’s disappointing. It’s not any fun to play without Will. He thinks for a moment before a feels another wicked smirk on his face. Whispering theatrically to Will he says, “Not if I do something to save you.” And he totally can, especially if he has this whole week to plan it.

    Bashful as ever, Will replies, “You don’t need to do that.”

    “What? And be stuck with Lucas and Dustin. The two’ll never finish the campaign. They’ll be arguing the whole time.” Besides, Mike’s already made up his mind on how he’s gonna save Will. It’ll just make the game much longer. And he’ll need his own NPC.

    Will laughs, “That’s true.”

    They’re coming up to his house now. It’s empty with no lights on or cars in the driveway. But they knew it would be.
Mike lets his bike fall to the ground so he can help Will lift his up into their porch.

    Will turns to him with a grateful smile. “Thanks, Mike. I’m okay now. You can go home.”

     “Are you sure?” Mike double checks. He’d hate to be home alone this late even in his suburban neighborhood with Lucas next door.

    But Will’s braver than him. Always has been. More resilient, too. He just scrunches his nose and Mike and opens the door. “Bye Mike. See you tomorrow.”

    Mike waves, “Bye Will. See you tomorrow.”

    He waits until he hears the Byers front door lock and a light inside to turn on before he picks his bike back up.

    It’s cold now that Will isn’t with him. Darker too. With one last look behind him, Mike takes off into the night. He barely makes it to Mirkwood when he starts shivering. It seriously wasn’t this cold when he was with Will. And why is it taking so much longer on the way back?Mirkwood seems to loom on endlessly in front of him.

    Something cracks in the forest to the right of him. He whips his head to look at it, accidentally turning his handlebars too much. His bike abruptly changes directions, pulling out from under him. Mike’s body slams into the ground. His face slams into his handlebars.

    The world goes dark for a second before he wakes up, side pressed into the asphalt underneath him. Rocks dig into his left check, cold but a warm liquid — blood — makes it uncomfortable. Blood, shit. The right side of his face is on fire where it’s exposed to the cold night air. The right side of his face that had slammed into his handlebars. Shit, shit! A whimper falls from his mouth before he can stop it. It hurts. God, it hurts. He wants his mom. He wants Will.

    Will! He’d just left Will’s house. Will can help him if he goes back. And he can call his mom.

    A wheeze escapes his lungs as Mike shifts. White hot pain flares up his arms and down his legs. Shit, he must be more scraped than he’d realized.

    Clenching his fists and squeezing his eyes shut, he pushes himself up from the ground. A gasp he’d be embarrassed about in any other situation cuts through the night air as he gets situated on his knees. But he got up. Now he just needs to get to Will’s.

    But before he can move, a growl behind him pierces the quiet of the night. Whirling around, he’s met with the sight of a lanky, looming figure.

    The world around Mike freezes as fear paralyzes him. His breathing, his brain, and his body all stop. The only thing that keeps going is his heart. It’s pounding in his ears as the human-like thing moves closer to him.

    Holy shit? Holy shit!

    With a loud boom! it’s a step closer. Another boom! and it’s even closer. The third boom! jolts Mike out of his temporary paralysis.

    Pain forgotten, he scrambles up — slipping around in the puddle of blood he’d left for a moment — before running into the woods.

    Listen, Mike’s never claimed to be an athlete. He outwardly hates athletics, in fact. And he knows where he ranks in terms of athletics with his friends, okay? He’s the worst one and it’s fine! Lucas has always been the best at it, and Will is amazing runner and not half bad at baseball. Even Dustin is a better runner than Mike, but it’s never bothered him. It’s fine. It is! Or it was up until he had to start running for his life. Like now, for instance.

    So it’s not surprising that he trips. It is startling, though, to slam into the ground. Again.

    Mouth full of leaves, he scrambles up, faster this time. Spinning around to look for the monster that had been behind him, he’s met with nothing. No boom!ing footsteps. No un-Earthly growls. And no monster.

   “What the fuck?” he mumbles, breath slowing now that he’s not in immediate danger. “Where’d it go?”

   Heart thudding painfully in his chest he stays still. Waiting. Listening. He breathes in and out, thinking about it deliberately each time. The trees around him crack a bit, but as time goes on he realizes it’s just the noises of the forest. The monster isn’t coming. It’s gone.

    He taking his first, wobbly step back to the road when the smell hits. Rotten, putrid, decay. It’s coming from behind him. He whirls around to look.

    And Mike Wheeler vanishes from Hawkins only a little before nine.

Chapter Text

Chapter One

November 7, 1983

      The stairs creak loudly under Karen Wheeler’s feet as she climbs them in a huff. “Mike!” she calls loudly.

      In the kitchen, presumably, she can hear her husband mutter something about loud wives.

      “I’ll stop yelling when our son starts listening!” she snaps at him, stepping harshly on the top step with a loud thud! . “Maybe if you’d help!”

      Her husband’s voice grumbles something else but she’s too far away to hear it. Good, it’s probably for the best. Her fuse is extremely short today and she can’t handle the attitude. And to top it off, her son hasn’t come downstairs for breakfast yet and is probably still

in bed. Perfect. She should’ve stopped his game earlier.

      “Michael!” she yells again, mostly just to annoy her husband.

      Her son doesn’t respond, though. His door is shut and while normally she’d give him a bit of privacy, she figures the circumstances warrant her slamming his door open. Any frustration she was getting ready to voice dies on her tongue in an instant.

      The room is empty. Sunlight filters in through the open blinds, as if Mike hadn’t closed them before going to bed like he normally does. And bed is made but her son isn’t in it. It doesn’t even looked ruffled or slept-in. In fact, the sheets are crisp and tight to the bed, just as they had been yesterday. Yesterday when she herself had made the bed after washing all the bedding in the house.

      An ugly feeling begins to grow inside

her gut. Worry. Something is wrong. Where is her son?

      Breath hitching, Karen steps out of the room to look down the hallway. The door to bathroom her children share is wide open and her son isn’t in there either. Unless he’s is slumped in the bathtub, it’s empty too.

      “Nancy!” Her hands shake on the banister as she begins to climb down the stairs. Did Mike not come home last night? Did he stayed at the Byers? Hopefully, but she couldn’t get rid of the worry pushing on her lungs.

      “What?” her daughters voice calls out

as Karen reaches the bottom of the steps.

      “Is Mike in the basement?”

      “I dunno.”

      Helpful. Karen’s family, besides Mike, are all sitting around the table in the dining room. It’s a new rule she’s been implementing, to eat breakfast together.  It usually warms her heart to see them all together. Yet, with the worry and frustration that have her in a chokehold, she can’t appreciate it today.

      “Well can you look for me, please.” She

tries to keep the exasperation out of her voice. Her daughter hasn’t done anything wrong this morning.

      Nancy, however, is apparently looking to change that very quickly as she snarks back, “Why can’t you? He’s your son.” She doesn’t even look up from her plate. God, her children are more like Ted than they’d ever admit to themselves.

       Feeling her throat coiling up to snap words she knows she’ll regret to her daughter, she bites her tongue.

       The anxious anger choking her this morning will only be soothed by having a task at hand. So she turns on her heel and heads to the basement.

      The door is wide open, revealing only empty stairs. Mike’s friends must’ve left it open as they were leaving last night. If her son has been hiding down here he’s certainly been ignoring her calls for him. The open door leaves no room for any excuse about not being able to hear her.

      While the creaking of the main stairs were annoying, the creak of the basement steps are unbearable.

      Karen only needs to go down a few steps to see the entirety of the basement. The empty basement. The well-worn spot on the couch that had claimed years ago is empty of her son, though the knitted blanket from Nana is still there. Like the upstairs bathroom, the mud room’s door is ajar just enough for her to see inside. Empty. The table her son had set up yesterday for his little game mocks her from its spot in the middle of the room.

      The ugly feeling climbing up her throat bubbles precariously, but she bites it back. Instead, she taps back into the anxious anger she’s been feeling all morning. The lack of her son only provides more evidence that he’s not sleeping the day away — unaware of Karen’s shouts

— but that he was miles away, at the Byers, eating breakfast with his best friend.

      Letting out a huff, she whirls around and stomps up the stairs, forgoing any embarrassment about the thump! s and creaks that accompany the action.

      Her family is still around the table in the kitchen, painfully unaware of her anger. Ted sipping his coffee as he reads

to newspaper, uncaring of the loud slurps he makes. Nancy meticulously cutting her waffles, placing them delicately in her mouth like she’s compensating for something. And Holly staring at her big sister in awe, trying to chew the same way as her, but missing her mouth entirely. That’ll be fun for Karen to clean up later.

      “Ted,” she says, reaching the top step.

      Her husband ignores her, continuing his loud slurps and slow page flips.

      Annoyed, Karen barks, “Ted!” She clenches her fists to avoid hitting something.

      Her husband lowers the newspaper like a sloth, looking at her in a long blink. “Yes?” he finally asks in that slow voice that makes her blood boil.

      “Did our son come home from the Byers last night?”

      “How should I know?”

      Karen lets out a sharp breath, a wave-like sound roaring into her ears. “How should—“ She cuts herself off, to squeeze her eyes shut and force air into her lungs. Her husband will only be more uncooperative if she snaps at him. “I told you to wait up for him last night. Did he come home?”

      After another long blink, all her husband — the father of her missing son — says is, “No,” taking another long sip of coffee.

      Her oldest daughter, ever the saint, decides to provide her with some unnecessary input as Karen approaches the phone to call the Byers. “I don’t know why you’re surprised, Mom. Mike’s a little brat.”

      Worn out from the strenuous morning, Karen can only muster out, “Don’t call your brother that.”

      The ring of the phone is grating to her ears. It takes a while for someone to pick up, but it usually does at the Byers. So she taps her foot and waits.

      Finally the line is picked up.

      “Hello?” Joyce’s voice comes through the speaker, speaking in the rushed way she usually does.

      “Hey, Joyce,” Karen says, fighting to keep her voice light. Joyce doesn’t need her anger this morning.

      “Karen? Hi? Did you need something?”

      “Yes, actually. Did Michael happen to spend the night at your house last night?”

      “Mike?” Joyce sounds confused. That’s not good. Her voice gets muffled as she, presumably puts the phone down to ask her son, “Will, did Mike sleepover here?”

      Karen can’t hear Will’s response.

      Joyce’s voice cuts through the speaker again, “Will says he just dropped him off and went back home. Is he not there?”

      The anger leaves her body in one fell swoop, leaving her lightheaded. The worry comes crashing back in its wake. It’s paralyzing. It’s a tingling feeling under the skin like little bugs crawling all over. It’s her heart racing, pounding so hard in her chest it sends fire-like pain coursing through her body. It’s earth-tilting.

      “Oh,” she’s hardly recognizes the voice that comes out of her. “He’s probably just hiding from me in the basement. Thanks, Joyce.” She punctuates her sentence with a fake chuckle and hangs up the phone before the other woman can reply.

      Fuck, she doesn’t know where her son is. Fuck!

      Placing the phone back on the hook, she slowly backs away from it. Her legs wobble under her.

      His bicycle. Michael’s bike. It should be in the garage if he came back. If not… she doesn’t want to know.

      It’s an out-of-body experience, walking down the hall. Her head is so light it hardly feels attached to her body anymore, yet her legs drag like weights under her.

      Mike has always been particular

about where his bike goes in the garage. Without fail, each time he comes home, he meticulously walks it to the left side of the garage, parking it with care. Placing the kickstand down, he’ll refuse to take his eyes off it for at least twenty seconds before he feels it stable enough not to fall over.

      It’s a habit she’s always observed fondly, but a habit that will also indicate if her son is in any danger.

      Hurt, lost in the woods, kidnapped. All the scenarios flash through her mind as she flicks the garage light on.

     No bicycle. Mike didn’t come home last night.

      Her breath catches in her throat, her are lungs being squeezed. Where is he?

      A loud slam catches her attention.

      Next door, the youngest Sinclair is following her mother outside. “—point of Lucas biking to school if I still have to go early?” her loud voice proclaims.

      “I’ve told you, Erica, I have a hair appointment today so I need to take you early. Lucas is still biking,” Sue responds. How she has patience to deal with her daughter Karen has yet to figure out.

      “Well I think that’s a load of bull,” Erica says just as Lucas came flying out of the front door.

      Sue let out a sigh Karen could hear from her house. She replied to her daughter as Charles stepped out of their home. “I know Erica.”

      For a moment Karen lets her hopes rise. Did Mike stay at the Sinclair’s? Maybe he and Ted got in a fight after he got back so he went over to cool off. It had only happened once before, but Michael’s only gotten more hot-heated as he’s gotten older. A trait he definitely got from her. A trait he hasn’t yet learned to restrain as she has.

      But that hope is crushed as Charles turns to lock the door behind him.

     And Lucas doesn’t seem to be waiting for anyone. He jumps on his bike, yelling out a, “Bye mom! Bye dad!” as he bikes down the street quickly.

      The telling sting of tears pricks her eyes. Where is her son?

      Sue ushers her daughter into her car.

      Erica yells out a, “Bye nerd!” before she lets herself be pushed into the car.

      Charles finishes up with the door, kissing his wife before she gets into the car herself. They exchange a few words before the door shuts.

      Karen remains frozen, watching as Lucas disappears down the street. Watching as Sue’s car backs out of the driveway, following her son down the road. And watching as Charles’ car turns to opposite way, disappearing behind Karen’s own house. All three departures rips out any lingering hope in her heart and stomps on it.

      All of the sudden the sensation of heavy legs and a light head in her body is swapped.

      Legs so light she feels as if every step is missing the ground, she walks mechanically back into her house.

      Her head so heavy, it strains her neck and tenses her shoulders.

     Nancy has risen from the table by the time she makes it back into the room. She’s standing above it now, sorting through her backpack. Double checking it like she does every morning. She looks up as Karen practically trips in.

      “What’s wrong?” she asks.

      Karen walks to the counter, placing her head on it. “I can’t find your brother,” she admits, out loud, for the first time.

      What a failure of a mother she is. She had no clue her son never made it home last night and now she can’t find him. And to top that off, she hadn’t even noticed until breakfast. What kind of mother doesn’t notice when her son isn’t home?

      Oblivious to her moral peril, her daughter questions, “He wasn’t at the Byers?”

      Karen just shakes her head in denial.

      Ted walks in with impeccable timing, holding his briefcase. “What’s going on?”

      “Mike isn’t home,” Nancy answers before Karen can even open her mouth.

      “Where is he?” her husband asks her, eyes boring into her, a sharp glint in them. Accusing her. Blaming her.

      Anger flares inside her once again. If she’s to blame for her son’s absence, then Ted is even more guilty. He was supposed to make sure Mike made it home — staying up, worried sick — until he tucked him into bed with a kiss goodnight, knowing he had home safe. He was supposed to march into the middle school — eyes blazing with sweat coating his upper lip — to confront the principal after Mike came home with yet another scrape, this one requiring stitches. He was supposed to turn the TV off, sit up in his godforsaken La-Z-Boy, and smile until his dimples showed as listens to the wild stories Mike concocts in his little brain. He was supposed to be a father. He was supposed to be there.

      Whirling around, Karen shrieks, “I don’t know! I don’t know, Ted! He’s not in his room! Or the basement! Or any of the bathrooms! His bike is gone! He wasn’t at the Byers or the Sinclair’s! And he probably didn’t sleep in his bed last night!”

      Her kitchen goes silent as her family pauses to stare at her, all sharing the same wide-eyed, ‘I’m-innocent’ look. God, curse Ted for giving that to them.

      “I’m sure he’s fine, honey,” Ted eventually says, raising his arm to placate her as if she’s a wild animal.

      “You can’t know that, Ted,” she fires back.

      “He probably just went to school early with his little nerd friends,” Ted suggests.

      Nancy zips up her backpack.

     “I just saw Lucas Sinclair leave,” Karen retorts, not having it. Why can’t they see how big of a problem this is? “And Will was still at the house with Joyce. Who else would he go early with?”

      Ted starts to the garage door, obviously not putting much stalk in his wife not knowing where their son is. “He loves the science teacher, doesn’t he? He’s always talking about him, never shuts up. Maybe he’s with him?”

      Ted opens the door, a clear indication to Nancy to be ready or be left.

      Throwing her bag onto her shoulder, Nancy walks past her. “He’s right, Mom. Mike loves the school. He’s probably just being a little jerk and trying to get out of trouble for getting home late.”

      The position of being the only one worried about Mike presses on her chest, choking her up. “Ted,” she barely manages to get out. “Will you drive by the middle school to check for Mike’s bike. Please?”

      Over his shoulder, Ted gives her one last long blink before he says, “If that’ll calm you down.” And then he’s out the door.

      Nancy follows him, letting the door swing shut with a loud bang!

      Karen stands in the middle of her

kitchen for an indistinguishable amount of time — gazing at nothing — before her youngest daughter’s voice snaps her out of her stupor.

      “Mama? Mama, I’m done!”

      The next twenty minutes are a haze of

dishes and situating her daughter. Karen’s mind is occupied the whole time, doing the tasks half-heartedly as she counts the minutes until Ted most likely will make it to work.

      At the twenty minute mark, she finally

allows herself to approach the phone again. In her hand she clutches the number to Ted’s office as she dials it into the phone.

      This time it only rings twice before the

other line is picked up. Ted’s office’s secretary’s voice speaks up. “Hello, this is Brewster Finance, Pamela speaking. How may I help you?”

      “Pam?” Karen’s voice is deceptively

calm. “Hey, it’s Karen Wheeler.”

      “Oh, Karen! How are you?” The older woman’s voice gets significantly more cheerful, probably happy to talk to another woman. But unfortunately, that’s not something Karen can provide today.

      “I’m alright, thanks.” You know, not like her son is missing or anything. “Has Ted gotten in yet?”

      “Oh, yes. He got in a few minutes ago. Is something wrong? Do you need to talk to him?”

      “I do. If you could put him on that would be great.”

      “Sure thing, honey. You let me know if you need anything.” Pam’s voice is followed by some beeps and more ringing.

      It takes Ted longer to answer, “Ted Wheeler speaking.”

      Karen, forgoing all the politeness she’d been speaking with, asks sharply, “Ted, did you see Mike’s bike?”

      “What?” her husband asks after a long pause.

      She rolls her eyes, despite her worry. “Mike’s bike? Did you see it? At the middle school.”

      Ted hums, taking another pause before saying, “Yes.” He only pauses his speaking like that when he’s lying. He needs to create a script in his head if a conversation doesn’t follow the normal interactions he deals with on a daily basis. So why is he lying?

      “You’re lying,” she tells him.

      Ted sighs, grumbling a few things under the breath before he says, “There were a lot of bikes. I didn’t think I saw his but I couldn’t be sure.”

      Breathing in sharply, Karen lets out,

“Oh God.”

      But Ted doesn’t allow her to spiral

further. “Hey,” his voice comes through the speaker, surprisingly soothing. “It’s probably nothing. If he doesn’t come back after school we can report it. But this is probably all a big misunderstanding. Mike’s smart.”

      “Yeah,” she agrees. Even still, Karen feels tears well up in her eyes.

      Her and her husband exchange goodbyes before she hangs the phone back up.

      Not sure what else to do with her time, she decides to retrace the path she had gone on this morning when looking for her son.

      The time around, the groans and creaks of the stairs are more grounding than annoying as she climbs up them. The hallway is bathed in sunlight from when she’d opened Mike’s bedroom door earlier.

      As she enters his room she takes special note of anything that might indicate where her son could be.

      His prized walkie talkie is propped against the window. The walkie talkie he’s spent many nights talking with Lucas late into the night on. He wouldn’t leave it.

      The binder full of Joyce’s boy’s drawings is open on the floor of his messy closet. The binder he’s been putting together for years, treating each piece of it with care. If he’d run away, he surely would’ve taken that, no matter how heavy the overstuffed thing is for his skinny, little body.

      His bed is cold as she gently sits atop its covers. It’s never cold after Mike has slept on it. He’s a little space heater when he’s sleeping, a fact she became well acquainted with during the first five years of his life. He wouldn’t sleep without her for the world.

      Papers are thrown about on his nightstand. Papers they include his favorite notebook is open underneath the others. The favorite notebook that even Karen can’t read. He’d never leave it open like that if he wasn’t coming back. It feels wrong to look at it so she turns her head.

     Out of the corner of her eye, something grabs her attention. A navy blue strap peeking out from under his bed.

     Sliding off the bed, she kneels, grasping the strap with her hand. Her tugging reveals Mike’s backpack. Mike’s only backpack. The one he uses for school.

      Feeling her heart let out a precarious hiccup, Karen unzips the backpack in a rush. All of his papers for school are inside. She pulls a few out. Most of its homework. Even more of it includes completed homework that’s due on the sixth. Today. Her son didn’t go to school. He wouldn’t without his backpack. He couldn’t.

      Something is wrong. Something is really, really wrong.

      She doesn’t bother putting the papers back in the bag. Her son can worry about that when she finds him.

      Rushing down the steps in a way she usually scolds her kids for, she skids around the corner and is met with the sight of Holly sitting in front to the television.

     She’d set her daughter there earlier — the moving picture captivating the young girl — so she could panic about her son without worrying her daughter.

      Good, her daughter’s still here. At least she can keep track of one of her kids.

      Arlene Hardy hates her secretary job, but it pays good money. Especially since Dale can’t hold down a job to save his life. If only the deadbeat had listened to her and gone to goddamn college.

      At least she can gossip with Bridget while they work.

      “I was at tea with her at that one place just out of town, Roane Cafe or whatever, you know the place?”

      Arlene nodded her agreement, leaning closer to Bridget’s desk.

      Bridget reciprocates the action, whispering conspiratorially, “Well she told me not to tell anyone but I’m going to tell you. It turns out she and her husband are cousins! First cousins!”

       The obnoxious ring of the phone on her desk accompanies her loud, “What?”

       “I know!” Bridget agrees, over the noisy ringing. “No wonder her kids are so ugly!”

        The phone, unfortunately, doesn’t go quiet. God, an annoyed mother already?

      Arlene sighs, picking the phone off the hook. “Hold on, girl,” she tells her friend before putting the phone up to her ear. She adopts her polite voice. “Hawkins Middle School, what can I help you with?”

      A woman’s voice comes through the speaker. Mother is right. “Hi, my name is Karen Wheeler. My son, Michael, goes to school there. I was just wondering if he’d made it to class today.”

      Arlene feels herself pause. The lady doesn’t know if her own son is in class? Did she not send him to school?

      Feeling herself wrinkling her nose, “You’re wondering if…”

      “If my son made it to class today,” the woman finishes for her, a weird strain in her voice.

      Raising her eyebrow, Arlene looks at Bridget.

      Bridget sends an inquiring nod, obviously curious about who’s on to r phone.

      Arlene maintains eye contact with her friend as she tells the lady, “Well we haven’t gotten the roll for first period yet, school’s only just started.”

      The lady, Karen she guesses her name is, sighs as if Arlene’s inconvenienced her and snaps, “I know! Okay? I know school’s just started but I didn’t see my son this morning and I was just wondering if he’d made it to class. Can you help me or not?”

      Appalled at the gall of this mother, Arlene sniffs before trying to reason with the dramatic woman. “Well what would you like me to do?”

      “Can you check. In person. Please?”

      No way is Arlene leaving her office just to look for some kid that’s playing hooky and lying to his mother. Not when his mother is speaking to her like this.

      Pulling the phone away from her mouth she leans close to Bridget and quickly conveys the conversation.

      Bridget, just as offended as she is, suggests, “Just page her into the kid’s teacher.”

      “You’re a genius, Bridget,” Arlene praises her, putting the phone back to her mouth. “Why don’t I just let you call into his class? The teacher can let you know if he’s there or not.”

      The lady on the other line is breathing obnoxiously loud. “That sounds great, thank you.”

      Arlene can feel her eyebrows lift even higher into her hairline. So the lady can be nice? “No problem,” she says pettily. “What class is your son in?”

      “First period is science with Mr. Clarke,” the lady responds, quick as a whip.

      Pulling the phone back slightly, she tells Bridget, “Clarke.”

      Bridget nods, flipping through a few papers on her desk before leaning over her to type the number in the phone.

      Arlene wastes no time hanging up on the rude lady. She doesn’t need any pleasantries when she has her son.

      The shrill ring of the phone on his desk cuts right into Scott Clarke’s tangent, disrupting both his lecture and his train of thought.

      “One moment class,” he tells the sea of blinking eyes in front of him, walking back to his desk to pluck up the noisy thing. “Mr. Clarke’s Science Room. How may I help you?”

      A woman’s shaky voice comes over the line. “Hey, Mr. Clarke. This is Karen Wheeler, Mike Wheeler’s mother. He’s in your first period. I was just wondering if he’d made it to class today.”

      That makes him pause. Why wouldn’t she know if her son made it to class? Especially little Mike who, like his friends, possesses a deep desire to learn. But now that he thinks about it, he does remember noting one empty seat today. And the freckled boy wasn’t with his friends when they walked in this morning. Mike isn’t  here today.

      Just to be sure, he scans the room quickly. Though a few students are turned, whispering to one another, most of them are watching him, curiosity burning in their eyes. Some of which are the little boys of his AV club. Three of them. Dustin, Lucas, and Will. But Mike, just as he’d remembered, isn’t next to them. His seat is empty.

      “I’m sorry,” he tells Karen through the phone. “He seems to be absent today. Is everything alright?”

      There’s a slight pause before the woman lets out a clipped, “Yep! Thank you!”

      There’s a click and then the line is dead in his ear. Huh. What a confusing interaction.

      Scott only allows himself a moment to brood on the thought before he smiles at his class. Clapping his hands he loudly asks, “Okay class. Sorry for the interruption. Does anyone remember where we were?”

       Lucas raises his hand but Dustin speaks up before Scott can call on the boy.

      “The definition of an experiment!”

      “Ah yes,” Scott indulges the excited boy, sending both him and his friend a smile. “Experiments.”

      As Karen hangs the phone back on the hook, she feels her heart plummet straight to her stomach.

      Her son is in danger. He didn’t come home last night. He didn’t sleep in his bed. He’s probably on the side of the road somewhere. Hurt or dead.

      Oh god. She needs to look for him.

      Rushing out of her room, she returns to her youngest daughter in the living room.“Holly,” she says in a rush. “We need to go.” She bends down, picking her up.

      Holly lets out a cry as her TV-time is interrupted but Karen really couldn’t care less if she tried. She begins moving rapidly again, hustling out the door to her car in the garage. Thank god she hadn’t locked her car yesterday. Throwing the car door open, Karen starts manhandling her daughter into her car seat.

      “Where we goin’?” Holly asks. She makes her discomfort known with some whines and a few kicks.

      “To find Mike.” Karen punctuates her short sentence by strapping the final belt on her daughter’s car seat, tugging it tight. She slams the door and gets in her own seat, forging her seat belt entirely.

      “Mike!” Holly lets out a happy cheer, previous discomfort completely forgotten.

      Karen puts the car in reverse, peeling out of the driveway faster than she ever has before.

Chapter Text

Chapter Two

November 7, 1983

     Chief Jim Hopper is hungover as hell. God, he really needs to cut back on the beers before bed. Self-medication can be a bitch.

     His stupor is interrupted by Flo’s nasal voice from the front of the building. “Jim! Someone’s here for you!”

     Grumbling a few choice words under his breath, he pulls out the cigarette from his mouth, putting it out in the ash tray. Just what he wants to deal with today. Some hysterical small town hick. Hauling himself up from the comfortable slouch in his chair, he lumbers out of his office.

     In front of Flo’s desk, silhouetted by the bright morning sun, stands a brunette woman with a little blonde girl on her hip. As she turns to look at him, Jim realizes he recognizes her.

     “Karen,” he grunts before he can stop himself, “Karen…” He doesn’t say any more, realizing it won’t be Childress anymore.

     Flashing him a tolerant smile, Karen finishes, “Wheeler.” It’s only now that she’s talked, with such a shaky voice, does he realizes how distraught she looks.

     Still, he feels his eyebrows lift to his hairline. “Ted?”

     The smile on Karen’s face gets tighter. She knows what he’s thinking. Karen the Cheerleader and Awkward Theodore Wheeler?

     Thankfully, Flo butts in before he can make an ass out of himself by saying that very thing out loud. “You tell Jim what’s going on, dear.”

     Karen’s eyes snap to the receptionist, inhaling sharply, long eyelashes fluttering. “My son,” she swallows. “I can’t find my son.”

      Taken aback, Jim forgets to listen to the few next words coming out of her mouth. It’s Monday. Shouldn’t her son be at school?

      “—arted driving to look—“

      “Are you sure he’s not in class?” He cuts her off.

      The woman in front of him adopts an offended, slack-jawed look as Flo sighs in disappointment.

      “She just said she called the school this morning, Jim,” the receptionist kindly informs him in a not so kind tone.

      Karen, voice pitched high, spits out, “I called the school! I talked to his teacher myself! He’s not in class!” She hefts the little girl up higher on her hip, who grabs her hair and tugs on it with a grip that looks painful.

      Wishing he’d kept his cigarette, and maybe grabbed another at that, Jim probes on, “You sure he’s not playing hooky.”

       “No! Mike— Mike’s not— he’s not skipping school,” she gasps out, a fire alight in her eyes.

      “You never know.” His mother never did, she never did learn to stop seeing him as the little boy he once was.

      Karen apparently does, however, as she tries to interject, “He’s not—“

      Jim goes on, though, “My mother thought I was on the debate team, when really, I was screwing Chrissy Carpenter in the back of my dad’s boat.” She should know. Her and Chrissy Carpenter were good friends back in the day.

      It only serves to further piss the woman off, though. Something Jim’s been awfully good and recently.

      “Mike’s not like you!” the woman practically screams, breathes coming out short

     The station behind Flo’s desk does a piss poor jobs of pretending not to be listening to the conversation. Fake conversations on the phone don’t make it any less obvious.

     “He’s not like you! He’s not like me! He only has three friends! Just the three! He gets bullied! God, he gets bullied! He comes home every week with bruises and the worst kind of words written on his face in permanent marker. The kind of shit we used to do to kids! And he’s a nerd! He spends all his time in the basement playing fantasy games! For God’s sake, he’s in that nerd club Bob the Brain started back in middle school!”

     Reeling back from the screaming woman, he tries to reason with her. “Jesus — look. Nerds skip school, too.”

     Seemingly coming back to herself, in a voice much quieter, Karen utters, “Not Mike. Not if Will’s there.”

     A bad inkling of an idea creeps into his thoughts. “Joyce’s kid?” he questions. He knows she has a son named Will.

     Karen nods sharply, face suddenly withdrawn, clearly having a similar train of thoughts as him.

     But stuff like that doesn’t happen in Hawkins. Yeah, it’s bad here for kids that are a little different, but it’s easier to leave. It’s Hawkins, not New York, so he has to explore other options first.

     Swinging his arms up in a wide shrug, “So he’s not skipping school. What do you think happened then?”

     A sharp look of realization flashes in Karen’s eyes and her face crumbles a bit, her mouth quivering. “He got—“

     But he doesn’t want her going to the worst possible thing first, either, so he interrupts, “I’ve worked here four years, you know that?”

     “Jim—“

     “You want to know the worst thing that’s happened?”

     “Jim!—“

     “When the owl attacked Eleanor Gillespie. Thought her hair was a nest. I mean—“

      “I found his bike!”

      At that, the entire station falls silent, almost as if all the air has been sucked out of it. The only noise is Karen Wheeler sucking in sharp, heavy breaths. The guys in the back have given up any pretense of being occupied by any other duties aside from eavesdropping.

      Karen sniffles and takes a shuttering breath before talking again. “His bike. On that street between Cornwallis and Kerley. In the middle of the road. There was— there was blood.”

      Heart falling to his gut, Jim rubs his hand down his face. “Shit,” he mutters. That means he has a kid lost in the woods. An injured kid lost in the woods.

     “He’s only twelve. I mean, there was blood on the handlebars, and on the ground, and—“ She sucks in a breath so sharply she hiccups. “He’s hurt. He’s hurt and in the woods. He’s never even been camping!”

     God, only twelve? Jesus Christ.

     The little girl squirms in her mother’s arms, tired of being held. Yet she looks at her mother with big eyes, blue eyes. “Mama, you are sad?” she asks in a little voice.

      And oh, does that hurt. His Sara was blonde. Blue eyed, too. God, the two don’t even look too similar aside from those two features, but oh, does Jim want to hold his baby girl again.

      Ignoring his own inner turmoil he soothes the distraught woman in a gentle voice he seldom uses anymore, “We’ll find him.”

      Karen, however, continues on as if she hadn’t even heard him. “He didn’t sleep in his bed last night. He never made it home. It was so cold. So-so cold. He’s probably freezing. He didn’t even have a jacket on.”

     “Come on,” he interrupts before she can keep spiraling. It was cold last night. “How about you show me where his bike is?”

      Blinking out of whatever daze she’s been in, Karen shutters, looking at him with wet eyes. “I— but uh, Holly—“

     Flo speaks up, her usual deadpan tone notably absent, “The little one can stay here. I’ll can call someone to come get her for you.”

      Karen squeezes the girl, Holly, Jim guesses, even tighter, as if it’s painful to let her go. And why shouldn’t it be when one of her kids is already missing. Still, she says in a tight voice, “Thank you.”

      “Of course, dear,” Flo rounds the corner, gently opening her arms to indicate she’s ready when they are. “Who would you like me to call?”

      “Um,” Karen pauses. “I haven’t told Ted yet, but, uh, he’s probably the only one I want with her right now.”

      “Alright, I’ll give him a call and have him come down,” Flo says, a smile still on her face. She edges closer to the mother and daughter duo, raising an eyebrow.

      Heaving a great sigh, Karen squeezes Holly tightly, “I’ve got to go look for Mike, okay Holls?”

     Jim looks away, trying to repress all the memories threatening to come back.

     He hears Holly’s young voice ask, “Is Mike hidin’?”

     Karen, in a choked voice, answers, “Yeah, but Mama’s gonna find him.”

     “Is not hard, Mama.”

     “What’s not?”

     “Findin’ Mike.”

     “Oh, really?”

      Jim can’t help himself but look back.

      Holly is still clutched in Karen’s arms, Karen with her eyes squeezed shut like she’s cherishing it.

      Holly continues their conversation, voice hushed in a child whisper, “Yep! Mike is a bad hider.”

     “Yeah?”

      “I find him. Ev’y time.”

      “Hmm, maybe that means you’re a good finder,” Karen opens her eyes, smiling that fake smile again. She pulls back and looks at her daughter fondly.

      “Uh-huh, the best,” Holly agrees.

      “Are you okay staying with this nice lady until Daddy comes to get you?”

      “Daddy!” Holly cheers and gets a kiss pressed to her cheek for the effort.

      Another pang cuts through Jim’s heart.

      Karen reluctantly hands the girl to Flo, hugging herself as soon as her arms are free of the weight.

      Flo gently cradles the girl, smiling warmly at Karen. “I’ll give your husband a call. Best of luck to you.”

      “Thanks,” Karen whispers.

      Jim waits until she looks at him again to nod his head to the door. “You ready?”

      With one last glance at her daughter, she heads out of the station, a barely noticeably shake in her falsely confident gate.

      Jim follows, shouting back into the station, “Powell! Interview Wheeler when he gets here for his kid!”

      He hears a distant, “Got it Chief!” as the door slams shut behind him.

      For the second time today, the phone on Ted’s desk starts ringing, startling him out of his bored stupor.

       Sighing, he picks the phone up, fully expecting Karen’s voice to come through the speaker. He’s shocked, however, when he hears an unknown woman on the other line.

      “Ted Wheeler?”

      “Yes?” he asks. Hardly anyone calls the office and most that do are driven away by Patty’s chattering.

      “My name is Flo and I’m calling from the Hawkins Police Station.”

     “Police?” Ted hears himself monotone. He’s too occupied by his reeling mind to react as the world around him expects him to, instead reverting to the muted reactions he’s most comfortable with.

      “Yes,” the woman says in a weirdly gentle voice. In the background of her call he can hear some little kid chatter. “Your wife, Karen, came in a few minutes ago with your daughter, Holly. Karen just left with Chief Hopper but Holly’s still here if you could come pick her up.”

      “Why was my wife at the station?” Ted feels himself ask, questions pounding on his head, in what will inevitably lead to a migraine. “Why did she leave Holly?”

     Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Patty standing at the entrance into his cubicle, twisted expression on her face. Matt, his boss, stands over her shoulder, the same weird look on his face. Randy’s head is peeking out of his cubicle behind both of them.

      The woman only says, “It would be better if I let you know here. Are you able to leave work?”

       But Ted isn’t listening. Like when he finally gets the antennas at just the right angle to get the best service on his television, his brain starts working. “Is this about Mike?”

      “Please just come to the station, Mr. Wheeler.”

      Offense burning under his skin at his questions being left unanswered, he mumbles, “I’ll be there,” and hangs up the phone.

     Patty speaks up as soon as he slams the phone back on the hook. “What’s happening? Is Karen okay? Was that your son you mentioned? Are you leaving?”

     Ignoring her, Ted stands up, putting his folded coat over his arm. “I’m leaving,” he tells Matt, shoving past the two in his doorway.

      “What happened!” Patty calls after him, her heeled footsteps tapping obnoxiously on the linoleum hallway.

     A moment later, Matt asks, a weird tone in his voice, “Where you going?” His footsteps have wider pauses between them but sound louder in the echoey halls.

     Ted didn’t answer either of them, his wife, daughter, and son on his mind. Did Mike get in trouble? He’s a mouthy kid and an asshole a fair amount of the time but he doesn’t know enough about the world to really get in serious trouble yet. He doesn’t even know anyone he could get in trouble with, aside from maybe the Henderson boy. Ted’s always had an off feeling about him and his authority issues.

     Did Michael provoke someone into beating him up? It’s pretty likely. Mike’s a frustrating kid, difficult to get along with. It wouldn’t surprise Ted that someone might want to beat him up.

     As he pushes open the office door, Patty and Matt still trailing him, he hears Randy call out, “You forgot your briefcase, Ted!”

     “Oh,” Patty gasps in such an over the top way, Ted doesn’t think he could even begin to recreate it. “You can’t leave without that!”

     “I’ll get it later,” he grumbles, tired of them already, despite only having been at work for just over an hour.

     “Update us, honey!” Patty calls out just as Ted lets the door slam shut behind him.

     It’s paralyzing. The fear. The silence. The doubt. The anticipation. It’s driving Karen Wheeler crazy not knowing if she imagined it all. The bike. The blood.

     The radio is off in the car — the Chief had turned it off when they’d gotten into the car.

     They’re driving on Cornwallis now. “A right here?” the man asks, a gruffness in his voice. God, what would he do if she imagined it all?

     “Yep,” she tells the man, taking a shaky breath.

     Her heart begins pounding as the turning car shifts her in her seat. Oh god, she can’t do this again. But she can’t not. Her son needs her help.

     Sitting forward in her seat, she keeps her eyes peeled on the road. And there it is, right where she saw it the first time. Michael’s bike.

     Jim stops the car just in front of it, turning his flashers on despite no one being around.

     The fear freezes her to her seat. She can’t do it. Mike was home just a few hours ago, his smile flashes in her mind as the feeling of phantom limbs encircle her hips in a tight hug. Why did she let him ride his bike at night?

     The car door opens beside her. Jim stands there, beckoning her out with a grimace, and somehow, this gives her the confidence to move.

     Legs shaking, she places them out of the car, one after the other, and pushes herself up. Heart thudding she leads the man to the abandoned bicycle.

      It looks worse now, the blood somehow more prominent. On its side, away from the Byers house, the front wheel is perpendicular to the pavement. Almost as if Mike had jerked it to the side, causing it to fall. Causing him to fall. Causing him to get hurt.

     “Jesus,” she hears Jim mutter under his breath. The man walks closer, bending down to get a closer look. He brings a hand to the blood on the handlebars.

     “There’s so much,” she whispers.

     “He probably hit his head on it,” the man tells her, a sense authority taking over his voice. “Head wounds bleed a lot.”

     “They also cause a lot of damage,” she counters, not ready to be consoled. Not until she finds her son.

     The man, somehow sensing that, looks her dead in the eyes, and says in a firm voice, leaving no room for argument, “And that’s why we’re going to find him.”

     Overwhelmed at the direct eye contact, Karen shifts her eyes away abruptly, bringing them to the woods alongside the road. The woods her son is probably lost in.

     With a grunt, the police chief stands from his squat, questioning her with, “Have you looked in the woods around here yet?”

     A sharp pain squeezes Karen’s heart. “No,” she spits out around it, shaking her heat. “I came right to the station after finding it.”

     “Alright,” the man says. He pauses for a minute before walking back to the car.

     Alarm shoots through her body. They can’t leave yet! They haven’t even looked.

     Thankfully, the man only grabs the radio in his car. “Powell,” he says into it, voice low. “You there?”

      A few seconds later, a voice replies. “I’m here, Chief.”

     “Is Ted there yet?” Jim questions.

     “He just arrived, you still want me to ask him some questions?”

     “Yep, and after that raps up would you mind helping Flo out. I want you two to call around, get volunteers for a search party in the woods out by Cornwallis. And let everyone know to keep an eye out for the Wheeler’s boy.”

     “Copy that, Chief.”

     “Is Callahan there?”

     Another, younger sounding voice cuts through the radio, with an affirmative, “You called, Chief?”

     “I need all units out to Cornwallis and Kerley. We got a missing kid, lost in the woods. We need a canvas of the area. And bring a camera.”

     “You got it, Chief,” the young man replies, sounding unnervingly peppy.

     Jim puts down the radio, grimace even more prominent on his face. He turns to her, “When Callahan gets here we’ll take some pictures of the bike then I’ll take you back to the station. We can narrow down where he might be there.”

     Offense bubbles up in her heart. “No!” Karen practically shouts. “I’m not going back to the station. Not until we find Mike!”

     “Karen—“ the man lifts his arms in what she assumes is supposed to be a placating manner. It’s not.

     “The hell am I going sit on my ass while the rest of the town is out looking for my son. You can’t make me go back,” she snarls at him, heart pounding in her chest so hard she worries she might collapse in a cardiac arrest at any given moment.

     Jim stares at her, eyes flickering across

her face as she pants before him. He must see the stubbornness in her eyes because he deflates, relenting. “Fine, if you promise to stick with Callahan I’ll let you look around for a bit.”

     Her inner-feminist flares up at the words, but even she knows to take the win when it’s granted.

     The Chief continues on, “After some others arrive, I’m gonna go back, check on your daughter and husband. Ask them a few questions. His friends, too. You mentioned three of them earlier?”

     Relief floods Karen’s veins. Yes, yes. He’s doing things. People are gonna search. Search the woods and search the town.

     “Yes,” she tells him. “Three. You already know Will Byers, but we’re neighbors with the Sinclair’s and their son, Lucas, is a good friend. And Dustin Henderson’s been attached to the three ever since him and Claudia moved back to town.”

     Looking down at the bike again, Jim pulls a notepad out of his pocket. Muttering under his breath he writes on it with a pen from his shirt’s pocket. “Will…Byers. Lucas…Sinclair. Dustin…Henderson.” Looking back up at her, he asks, “And what time did you say he left home last night?”

     “Just after 8:15,” Karen replies, the night playing vividly in her mind. “They finished up their little fantasy game and I sent the three boys home. Jonathan, Joyce’s other son, usually picks Will up but he’d called earlier and told me he had picked up a second shift so he couldn’t. I figured I’d let Mike ride home with him so the Byers wouldn’t have to worry about it. But um, he didn’t come home.”

     Still scribbling on his notepad, Jim flipped the page. “And he didn’t spend the night at the Byers?”

     “No, I called and he wasn’t there. Hadn’t been all night. He didn’t even go in the house.”

      “And his friend, Will, wasn’t lying to cover his ass?”

     Irritated at the continued questioning, she says, “No, Will’s a sweet boy. Especially to Joyce. He wouldn’t lie to her — not about something like this. She worries too easily, you know?”

     “Yeah,” the Chief says with a huge sigh.

     The sound of distant police sirens pierces the eery silence of the woods around them. It itches Karen’s skin. She just barely restrains herself from running into the woods, calling out her son’s name.

     “She still working at Melvald’s?”

     Nodding tightly, she turns her head to look at the other side of the road. Why the hell is he still asking question? Why can’t he let her look around?

      The police sirens get closer.

     “I’ll swing by there, ask her for her account,” Jim says, tucking his little notepad into his front pocket, pen still inside it. “Can you think of anyone else I should talk to?”

     And it’s horrible. It’s really horrible, but this is the first time her oldest daughter has crossed her mind since she’d left for school forever ago. Nancy’s probably sitting in class, unaware of the danger her brother is in. So with a sinking feeling in her gut, she tells the man, “My oldest daughter, Nancy. She’s at the high school, if you could send Ted to pick her up. She’ll want to know.”

     Two police cruisers swing around the corner as the Chief’s eyebrows raise to his hairline. “She’s at school?”

     But Karen is paying him no mind, because three officers step out of the cruisers. And one of them is young, holding a camera, and has a badge with the name Callahan on it.

     She can finally get in the damn woods.

     The loud sound of the doorknob turning interrupts Mr. Barker’s monotonous lecture. Eager to have a break from taking notes, Nancy Wheeler feels her head snap to the door along with everyone else in the class.

     Mrs. Janey from the office steps in, eyes flickering over the student’s faces until they land on hers. And they stay there.

     A pit starts forming in Nancy’s gut, her mother’s worry from the morning flooding back into consciousness.

     Before Mr. Barker can say anything to the woman, though, she speaks, “Sorry to interrupt, but I need to borrow Nancy Wheeler for a moment.”

     Feeling her eyes widen, she looks to her left, seeking comfort from her best friend.

     Barb’s wide eyes meet hers, confusion evident in the furrow between her brows. That’s right, Nancy hadn’t told her about her mom not being able to find Mike. She’d been too busy being probed on Steve.

     But she figures she can tell her later as she delicately stands from her seat. The fleeting thought that if she makes too much noise something bad will happen crosses her mind. But that’s insane.

     Still, she tries not to make any noise as she walks across the room as if it were a funeral march. Her classmates’ immature “ooohs” and “Ms. Priss is in trouble!” hardly faze her.

     Mrs. Janey’s warm smile does nothing to soothe her nerves. The woman holds the door open for her, and as they step out into the empty hallway, informs her, “Come with me to the office, dear. Your father wants to speak to you.”

     That is perhaps the most alarming news of all. She’s never had her parents come for her during school hours. She’s never been picked up early for being sick and she’s never gotten in trouble. What could her father possibly need?

     Hands clamming up, she follows Mrs. Janey down the hallway, the lockers seeming to stretch as they walked further. They’re footsteps echo in the emptiness.

     Finally they round the corner to the office. Mr. Baker’s office is thankfully close to the front of the building.

     Her father is standing just outside the door, Holly in his arms. A deep furrow is etched between his brows and he’s standing even more hunched than he normally does. Even Holly looks subdued.

     “Dad?” she feels herself ask, a sort of breathlessness taking over her voice.

     “Nanny!” Holly cheers, a smile lighting up her face as both her and their father snap their heads up at her voice.

     Nancy doesn’t respond, instead walking closer. “What’s wrong?”

     Her father seemingly flanders for a moment, not knowing what to say before he sighs, setting Holly down.

     Taking a step closer to her, he sets his large, warm hand on her shoulder and says the words that are going to haunt Nancy for a long time. “Nancy, it’s— it’s your brother. We can’t find him.”

     Anticipation leaps in Will Byers’ chest as the bell screeches through the classroom. Finally.

     His classmates around him jump up from their seats, eager to get out of the classroom. Conversations picks up, voices rising rapidly as they all file out of the classroom.

     Will too, jumps from his seat, but unlike his classmates, he takes his time packing his stuff up. He’s not looking forward to getting out of the class, no. He’s looking forward to it being empty.

     In front of him, Dustin and Lucas wait with their bags slung over their shoulders, an a curious look in their eyes.

     “Dude,” Lucas prompts, impatience clear in his voice. “What are you waiting for?”

     “Yeah, man,” Dustin pipes up. “One more period ‘til lunch and then it’s us and the AV Club!”

     Will ignores them, leaving his backpack on his seat. He walks to Ms. Waller’s desk. The phone call Mr. Clarke had received this morning had given him an idea and she’s the teacher that will most likely let him get away with it.

     “Will,” the young woman greets when she sees him approach. Her yellow dress flutters at her heels as she turns to look at him. “How can I help you?”

     “Hey, Ms. Waller,” he greets, preparing to use the script he’d been planning all period. But before he can even start, the classroom door opens.

     Whirling around, he’s met with the sight of the Principal and another man in the doorway. A man in a tan uniform. A chief uniform.

     The anticipation bleeds from Will’s body, making way for anxiety. Shit. Is his mom okay? Is Jonathan? Or Mike? Is Mike not actually sick like he’d thought? He was gonna ask Ms. Waller if he could call the Wheeler’s to ask, but what if he’s too late? What if something bad happened to Mike?

     The principal’s voice pierces Will’s increased breathing. “Mr. Byers. Mr. Henderson. Mr. Sinclair. Would you boys come with me?”

     Clearly knowing nothing about time and place, Dustin asks, annoyance evident in his tone, “What about our next class?”

     Will feels the anxiety flare in his stomach like an unpleasant pit at the words. His eyes flash to Chief Hopper’s face, looking for anger. Instead he only finds an upset look, leaving a shadow over his eyes.

     The principal just sighs and says, “You’ll be excused until we’re done.”

      Clearly sensing the potential for the Chief to be a bearer of horrid news, Lucas grips Dustin’s sleeve and whispers, “Dude, come on. Let’s just go.”

     Sending the most genuine smile he can at Ms. Waller, Will hurried after his friends, picking his backpack up as they go.

     The hallways are still packed with students trying to get to class, so there are plenty of curious eyes scrutinizing Will and his friends as they follow the two men down to the principal’s office as if were a funeral parade. Rumors about expulsions and arrests are probably already circling.

     Lucas and Dustin walk in front of him, whispering conspiratorially. He thinks he hears Dustin mention his mom and Lucas mention Erica.

     Leaning forward, he whispers, “Its Mike.”

     “What?” Dustin whisper shouts, turning to look at him, an alarmed expression pinching the features on his face.

     Lucas, too, looks back, his own face widening. “Mike?”

     Glancing at the men in front of them again, Will humors them, anxiety giving his throat a heartbeat that’s hard to talk around, “Why else would they call all three of us at the same time?”

     Dustin adopts a pale look while Lucas’ usual confident walk wobbles.

     They can’t respond though, because they’ve reached the office. The principal holds the door open as they follow Chief Hopper in. However, instead of stepping into the room, he just closes the door behind them, leaving them alone with the Chief.

      “Why don’t you boys sit?” the Chief asks, not really asking.

     Eager to avoid offending the man, Will quickly crosses the room to sit on the uncomfortable looking couch against the wall.

     Lucas slaps a hand over Dustin’s mouth before he can challenge the Chief’s authority anymore.

     Dustin retaliates by slapping his arm.

     Just as a fight is about to break out the towering man clears his throat and lifts his eyebrows.

     Will’s friends clam up and clamber over to the couch, sitting on either side of Will.

     Chief Hopper doesn’t appear pleased that they listened. In fact, he still seems as upset as he was before, furrow evident between his eyebrows. The man sighs, sitting heavily atop the Chief’s desk.

     Will feels dread pool in his gut as the man asks, perhaps the most telling question he could.

     “When’s the last time you boys saw Mike Wheeler?”