Chapter Text
By A.J. Miller
Stranger Things: Rules as Written/Rules as Intended
Send a heartbeat to
The void that cries through you
Relive the pictures that have come to pass
--“The Beginning is the End is the Beginning”, The Smashing Pumpkins
Chapter 1: The Red Doom
March 30th, 1986
President of the United States Ronald Reagan’s address to the nation regarding the supposed geological cataclysm that befell a small town in Indiana was scant on details apart from the approximate loss of life and damage to surrounding forestlands as well as aftershocks detected in nearby townships. It was concurred that between a 7.0 - 7.5 magnitude earthquake on the Richter scale be reported to the United States Geological Survey.
“I’ve been notified by Republican representatives in Marion as well as Anderson and Kokomo, Indiana that a not insignificant loss of life is sure to be reported once all damage is assessed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.” Reagan stated bluntly, continuing an all together brief summary of events thoroughly unexplainable.
“Displacement of the residents of Hawkins, Indiana will be a regrettable reality as National Guard as well as other military personnel be deployed to contain any dangers, prevent further calamity, and ultimately preserve the American Way of Life for our friends and family who are in so dire a need of compassion in this moment of devastation. May God be with you Hawkins…and may God bless America.” President Reagan chirps out as a last perfunctory and all too rehearsed farewell to television audiences.
June 12th, 1986
The skies above the Wheeler household at noon ought to be bright. They ought to be clear. A soft palette mix of crystal blue and the brilliant yellow glow of a summer sun. They are, however, a blend of noxious gray, coal black, and a crimson glow of hellish and unknowable origin. The unholy mix of blood and ash. Not at all the summer vacation Mike Wheeler anticipated when he returned to Hawkins, Indiana a mere two and a half months previous. His life, he had to admit, has not been entirely ideal since junior high school. How exactly does one live a normal life, much less a single day, when monsters invading from another world is a regular occurrence? Monsters that stand the full measure of a grizzly bear with the power and claws to match. Monsters that gallop like rabid hounds, running down anyone venturing into the edges of town. Monsters that screech across the blackened sky at midnight, seeking what might be scavenged or swarmed like so much chum to piranha. The very same creatures that took the life of Mike Wheeler’s own friend.
Eddie… Mike thinks to himself, a pang of guilt stinging his thoughts as Dustin Henderson speaks amongst the gathering. His wounded and desperate voice jostling Mike from his brief reverie.
“We should say something shouldn’t we? I mean like to those dumb-asses from school.” Dustin insists aloud. He looks one by one into the faces of his friends, expecting verbal assent or at the very least nods of approval.
“And say what, Dustin? ‘Hey, sorry your homes are blanketed in extra-dimensional space spores and the sun is gone but can you find it in your heart to forgive an accused serial killer?’” Lucas Sinclair sarcastically offers. There’s a hitch of anger in his voice, however. Lucas was just as much a friend to the late Eddie Munson as any of the others.
“He’s not wrong, Dustin.” Mike offers reluctantly in kind. “I know— we know what he did for all of us and that has to be enough. You talked to his uncle right?” he asks in an attempt to at least momentarily placate Dustin’s simmering frustration.
“Yeah. For all that was worth.” Dustin mutters nearly under his breath. He peers down at the floor of the Wheeler’s basement thoroughly defeated, exhausted. They are all exhausted. Victorious in battle but not without cost and not without consequence.
I should have been here… Mike thinks again, his hands gripping the denim of his jeans at his knees as the four friends sit at a small table centered in the basement. He glances to each of his friends in kind, none of them meeting the eyes of each other except one.
Will Byers is looking at Mike with wide eyes and a furrowed brow. His hands nervously clasped together on the tabletop, fidgeting slightly. He looks almost surprised to meet Mike’s gaze but smiles pitifully.
“It wasn’t your fault, Mike.” Will says, his tone as comforting as he can muster. “You couldn’t have known this was going to happen.” Will adds and quickly looks down to the surface of the table where once an immeasurable joy of adventure was shared, where now resides an empty unnamed dread.
How did he… Mike quickly wonders but before a thought can truly form, his thoughts are cut off by a sudden outburst from Dustin.
“He’s the party leader! He should have god damned been here!” Dustin proclaims with a hard thump of his fist to the table. “Instead of skipping around Los Angeles or wherever… he should have been here fighting alongside his party!” Dustin stubbornly bellows.
“Man that’s not fair.” Lucas chimes in a quick retort. “You know El needed him close. She literally fought Vecna from across the country in Max’s…” and Lucas trails off, his voice cracking at the last. The pain of Max Mayfield suffering a curse worse than death is a daily reminder for Lucas Sinclair. Eleven, Jane Hopper, proved a worthy and powerful adversary to the demonic presence of Henry Creel - known amongst this group of friends as Vecna. A telepathic war of wills occurred across the span of the nation in the hopes of ceasing a spree of terror inflicted on the youth of Hawkins. This battle was not without casualty or deep, life altering injury to body and soul.
“Eleven is stronger than any of us and all of us put together, but without Mike and Will and Jonathan being in the right place at the right time…who knows what would have happened to her…and to us here at home.” Lucas continues, gaining his composure after another silence from the group. “A thousand miles or five miles apart, we all need each other if we’re going to get through this. Mike did what he had to do. So did we.” Lucas says with a stern look to Dustin. “So did Eddie. He wouldn’t want Hellfire to fall apart like this.”
Each of the four boys meet Lucas’ eyes and then glance to each other in at least a tenuous understanding. The past two months have been as close to a Hell on Earth as can be imagined, at least for those residents remained—or trapped—within Hawkins.
“A party. A team, only stays alive if they can work together.” Lucas states with an authoritative finality. A practiced statement only self-discipline might bring. The discipline of the party’s Ranger. Strategy and rules of logic came easy to him.
“Yeah..” Dustin again mutters to himself. “…Go Tigers.” As a subtle but pointed jab at Lucas’ alignment. He hasn’t forgotten Lucas’ brief betrayal in favor of their high school basketball team.
“Dustin that doesn’t matter anymore, alright? Lucas is right. He—.” Mike offers but Dustin quickly cuts him off.
“I understand, Wheeler. I got it. It just really would have been…easier…with all of my friends here when—“ But he stops short and abruptly stands from his chair. “I gotta go. My mom made me promise to check in before nightfall…” as he checks his Seiko digital watch. “…and she feeds the stray cat she brought in but hasn’t been feeding herself.” Dustin explains half-heartedly but quickly in one breath as a quick escape. He raises his hand in farewell and swiftly slips into his oversized trench coat and climbs the stairs of the Wheeler basement, his steps slightly louder than what might be comfortable for his tattered shoes. Mike watches Dustin disappear through the door at the top of the stairs and once again silence envelops the basement, his hands still gripping his knees.
Everyone is leaving. El, Dustin— Mike thinks and again meets Will’s gaze.
“He’ll be back, Mike. Don’t worry. No one can leave this place anyways.” Will muses with a forced smile to Mike, again an attempt to comfort but…
What—How did—
“I should probably head out too, Mike. Staff at the hospital is so short and I wanna be sure Max is taken care of before dark.” Lucas says before rising from his own chair and grabbing his thin basketball zip jacket with green and orange ‘Hawkins’ scrawled across the chest. “I’ll catch up later.” He says with a smile and nod to both Will and Mike before following Dustin’s footsteps, with less dramatics, up the basement staircase. Before stepping through the door, Lucas looks back down at the two remaining boys at the table.
“You’re staying here now, right Will?” Lucas asks.
“Yeah…a-at least for now.” Will responds with a noticeably nervous tone. “Me…and Jonathan too of course.” He adds while clearing his throat.
Lucas nods an understanding and exits. “See you guys.”
Mike and Will look at each other for the smallest fraction of a second before averting their gaze to the empty tabletop.
“Are you…” Will speaks finally, breaking the heavy silence, “…are you okay, Mike?” He looks at Mike now, waiting patiently for him to speak. The return journey to Hawkins from California was full of such silence between the two boys. Despite an outpouring of guilt, self pity, and ultimately reconciliation, Mike Wheeler and Will Byers still struggle to recapture a flowing dynamic that allowed them to become such fierce friends to begin with.
“Y-yeah. I guess so. Dustin’s hurting. I get it. Eddie was my friend too. And the others who were killed—it’s all just a lot to deal with. I guess I just hoped with everyone back home and at least in the same time zone we could…” Mike gestures with one lazy hand around the basement in a movement that’s meant to encompass their entire world together. “…I dunno maybe we could figure this all out like we always do. I haven’t seen El since May and I know she’s focusing on getting stronger and she’s got help from Hop and Dr. Owens. Dustin walks like a zombie now and Lucas moves too quick to keep up with since he’s back and forth from the hospital to his own home.”
Will nods silently, understanding bit by bit the overwhelming frustration plaguing his best friend. He wishes desperately to live up to his name—The Wise. To offer some small comfort of wisdom and ease the burden that they all feel bearing down. But such comfort would be merely fleeting in the face of a seeming ongoing apocalypse.
“I don’t understand what we did wrong. We won…right? Vecna is gone. Dead. Right?” Mike raps his knuckles gently onto the tabletop in a defeated gesture. “Why is this all still happening?”
After a moment of quiet contemplation, Will speaks up.
“Mike…I don’t know. I don’t think anyone has even the slightest idea. I mean, yeah we beat Vecna but he still got what he wanted. The Upside Down is spilling into our world and our whole town is going to Hell. Most of the town didn’t even stay long enough to pack up their lives before leaving Hawkins….maybe for good.”
Will laces his fingers together in his lap and looks down in a meditative beat, clearly weighing his words carefully.
“But we have to believe there’s a way out of this…this nightmare. We can’t give in to despair, Mike. We can’t.” Will looks at Mike with almost pleading eyes.
Mike considers Will for a moment, looking into his eyes for a time. A warm flush rises in his cheeks. He is consistently surprised how easily Will can bring him back from a cliff’s edge. The corner of his mouth lifts in half a smirk.
“Always lookin’ on the bright side, huh?” Mike says with a slight chuckle. Not believing his own words considering the sun itself is a stranger to him now.
Will nods confidently, “I have faith in my friends. I wouldn’t be sitting here if it weren’t for how stubborn you are. Or how clever Lucas is or how much of a brainiac Dustin can be.”
“Yeah they reall—wait, are you saying I’m not smart?” Mike says wryly, raising an eyebrow inquisitively.
Will had to suppress a teasing snicker. “You’ve got your moments, Mike. You’re plenty thoughtful.” Both boys share a soft chuckle before Will looks back down at his hands in his lap.
A moment of quiet in the basement, the ceiling above them reverberating with footsteps and the recurrent peals of far away thunder from the ashen storm swirling even still in the center of Hawkins. The vibration itself is a sobering note that brings them back to the moment and with it a reminder for Mike.
“Hey…speaking of thoughtful. Y’know I swear sometimes you’re like El.”
“Huh..?” Will responds quickly. “What do you mean?” He shifts uncomfortably in his seat.
Mike’s eyes narrow slightly as if to show suspicion but merely in a joking manner.
“You can read minds.” Mike says plainly, leaving the air between them still while pointing his wagging finger in Will’s direction. Though Will is not quick to realize Mike’s capricious accusation.
“Mike I’m not sure I know wha—.”
CLANG
The boys jump in their seats as the sound of metal crashing against wood resounds through the basement. Loud thumps follow, trailing across the ceiling before reaching the top of the basement stairs as the door flies open with a creak-squeal of old hinges.
“Hey are you two alright?” Nancy Wheeler half shouts down the stairs, meeting at once the gaze of Mike and Will in unison. Her hair is a frizzy mass of curls and her short stature leaves hallway light beaming in above her head, but her eyes are steel and glint in the light from the basement below.
“Y-yeah. Yeah we’re good.” Will answers before Mike can and stands from the table at last. “What the heck was that?” He asks with a glance to Mike who still sits, confused.
“You guys might wanna come upstairs. Something’s happening.” Nancy says, a hint of worry in her voice.
——————
The wooded periphery of Hawkins has always been the subject of much superstition, particularly to the youth at large. At least one disappearance that was reported in early 1923, which remains unsolved, has resulted in a plethora of ghost stories whispered of in elementary school classrooms. The spectral shades that occupy the miles of forest which surround and vein their way through Hawkins are regrettably beyond rumor. They are nightmares made flesh. One such creature strides on four wiry legs, stalking along the overgrowth and crunching brittle limbs of the oak and elm trees near a lone wooden cabin. A Demodog, so named for its canine physique and particular animal traits—namely territoriality and predation on organisms perceivably weaker than itself. Its senses, sharp as razor, seem made for the purpose of the hunt. And it has caught something—or someone’s—scent.
The cabin itself is ringed and interspersed by two concentric circles of corrugated metal sheets, laced together with aluminum baling wire and topped with spooled barbwire. It’s not an especially impressive defensive wall, but necessity is the mother of invention. Jim Hopper removes thick work gloves, tosses them into a toolbox sat at the edge of the warped wooden porch, and surveys his additions to home security.
“Not enough.” He breathlessly sighs out of the corner of his mouth.
“What were you hoping for, Jim? Artillery and armed patrol?” Joyce Byers steps out of the front door while wiping her hands on a soiled washcloth. “I think I finally got that mold out of the sink, by the way.”
Hopper turns to Joyce behind him and smiles warmly, “You’re a superhero, Joyce Byers.”
“Of course I am. I’m a mother. We’re all superheroes.” She returns his smile and playfully swats his forearm with the dirty rag and shifts her eyes to the shotgun resting against the windowsill next to the front door. “Do you really think we’ll need that today? It’s been over two weeks since we had any of those…things…around us.”
“Better to have it and not need it—.” He responds, placing a hand on the grip of his Smith and Wesson Model 66 revolver still in it’s holster. Attached to the holster, his gun-belt hangs slightly slack around his waist and at his right hip. “—than to need it and not have it.”
Hopper clops down the front steps of the cabin slowly, scanning the immediate surrounding woods beyond his makeshift barricade and exhales through his nose in a huff.
“They should be here by now, Joyce.” He says, shaking his head in disbelief. It has been several hours since he last spoke to his daughter, Jane “Eleven” Hopper, and he’s beginning to worry. “I told her ‘Thirteen hundred hours’, that was three hours ago.”
“I’m sure they’re just fine, Hop. Dr. Owens said the lab has been on lock down all week, didn’t he? And they’ve been working non-stop on their ‘mission’ thing.” Joyce shrugs her shoulders, herself in disbelief in the complicated nature of their lives to this point. “It’s a wonder they let him off so easy after California.”
The wind in the late summer afternoon is powerful enough to rattle the metal sheeting surrounding the patchwork cabin and the wood planks of the porch and railing themselves. With the wind are carried small gray particles, setting lightly like a dusting of snow at Hopper’s boots. He looks down and grimaces before kicking his leg outward to shoo away the remnants.
“God damned stuff is spreading. I can see it.” He gestures ‘out’ into the forested area. “And I can smell it sometimes too.” He glances down again at the fresh earth beneath his feet. It was not long ago that they were all gathered in the hills beyond the limits of Hawkins township where he, Joyce, her sons and his daughter witnessed the rot of the Upside Down creeping into the flora with surprising speed mere hours after five portals to the shadowy dimension ripped apart their realities forever.
“And who the hell knows what it’s doing to us now that we’re all breathing it in.” His thoughts stray to years past and all-consuming illnesses that can tear apart the foundations of parental joy as surely as any hellscape.
“Well…hazmat suits are a little hard to come by. I should think those Army grunts have the lion’s share, and maybe some at the lab. It’s not something we haven’t seen before, Jim.” She rests her hand on his shoulder in an attempt to reassure the man she loves. “We’ve seen worse.”
“I don’t know. Maybe we should have left when we had the chance. Just take Jane and the boys and get outta Indiana. Hell…maybe make for Canada.” He looks up at the sky, the canopy of trees rustling loudly in the gusts of wind. The wind itself masking the crunching steps of a dull gray creature stalking forward on glistening slimy limbs from the west side of the cabin.
“You tried cold climates already, hun. The tundra doesn’t suit you.” She grins up at him and pats his back. “Come back inside and we can wait until Jane gets here before discussing any future travel arrangements.” Joyce turns to walk back through the entrance of the cabin but stops in her tracks. She turns to her right and before her, three meters distance, is a Demodog. Its face is a snarling mass before splitting into five petal-like flaps of flesh, themselves covered in needle teeth.
“Jim…?” She softly pants out.
Before she can plead for him again, Hopper has already leaped the short steps of the cabin porch and stands between Joyce Byers and the slowly forward-trodding creature. The thing splits its prehensile jaws further apart into a ghastly floral display of intimidation before screeching out in challenge.
“Joyce….Get. Inside. Now.” He says as he extends his arm to provide more of a barrier between her and the Demodog. “Barricade the door. Do not open it no matt—.”
Before he can complete his demand, the dog lurches forward with its jaws wide, turning its attention to Jim Hopper. Jim attempts to quickly free the revolver at his hip from its holster but before the barrel can clear the leather, the creature’s forelimbs make contact with his chest. In the impact of the collision, Hopper’s heavy pistol tumbles from the tips of his fingers and thuds against the soil in front of the porch. Hopper himself, knocked clear from the wood planks of the porch and onto the ground at the foot of the stairs, crawls quickly backward on the palms of his hand driving himself while his heels kick chunks of dirt in front of him in an attempt to distance from the monster.
“Joyce get inside!” He yells ahead and behind the Demodog, who is already stepping carefully down the porch steps and snarling again. Joyce, frozen at the entrance of the cabin feels her muscles turned to stone. Her hands are grasping the edges of the entrance, not sure to turn inside and run or faint. Or…
The dog leaps from the middle step and onto Hopper. He instinctively raises his forearms and knees in an attempt to shield himself from the attack. The creature’s chest lands squarely onto Hopper’s shins with its full weight, its foreclaws flail forward gouging into his jeans and sleeves of his brown hunting jacket. Blood is drawn at his hips and a large scratch rips the sleeve of his right arm, drawing fresh blood again as the dog thrashes, its head trapped only just between Jim’s knees. With an effort and a heavy grunt, Hopper kicks his legs upward with all his strength and launches the monster upward, catapulting it over his head and slamming it into the nearest piece of corrugated metal with a heavy and resounding crack. Hopper gasps in quickly catching his breath and flips instinctively onto his stomach and crawls back towards the cabin and in the direction of his pistol still laying in the dirt.
He pulls dirt and the bare tufts of grass, toes kicking backward now, scrambling for the firearm and reaches forward mere inches from grasping it. Sudden pressure from a slamming weight on his back drives the breath from his lungs and a flare of searing pain escapes his mouth as a scream as the Demodog rakes his back with both forelimbs. His jacket now a tattered brown and red mess as claws drag across flesh.
Joyce Byers stands, slack jawed and cheeks streaming with tears. She’s not at Hopper’s Cabin. She’s in the lobby of Hawkins National Laboratory in the darkened building, the polished floor occupied by a screaming Robert Newby, surrounded by a pack of these same demon spawn. They take his life as she watches powerless. Powerless and paralyzed by fear.
“Joyce run!!” Hopper screams as he struggles to turn onto his back again, attempting to once again kick the creature off of him.
“No…” Joyce says wide-eyed with fury and teeth bared. She looks down quickly and snatches the shotgun off of the cabin porch by the long, heavy barrel with her left hand and with her right grasps the stock and grip. With steady feet she clears the handful of steps quickly, the barrel trained in the direction of the creature, itself again roaring in Hopper’s face. His arms are up again, guarding against the creature’s screeching maw. Joyce forcefully pulls the pump-handle of the shotgun back and with the rack-clack of a chambered shell, she squeezes the trigger.
The noise is thunder directly in her ears, deafening her to the squealing yelp that the Demodog makes as it is blown back a full six feet from Hopper. Another screech from the creature as it writhes in the dirt a distance away from them. One of its forelimbs is gone and a messy stump is in its place, dark blood oozing from the wound. “Its still…alive…” She feels herself say, the sound escaping her throat but she doesn’t hear it. Her eyes locked on the squirming demon. She doesn’t notice Hopper is already on his feet until she sees his left hand slowly pushing down the barrel of the shotgun to be level with the ground, his right hand carries his revolver. Wordlessly he walks forward to the Demodog, aims down, thumbs the hammer. Another crack of thunder and a hole appears where the creature’s heart might have been. Stillness. Only the sound of the wind in the trees fills the silence.
Finally Joyce’s breath returns to her along with her hearing. She can hear her own heartbeat, and Jim Hopper’s gasping breath gulping for air. “Jim are you—.”
“I told you…to run.” He cuts her off, his eyes still on the creature at his feet.
She sees the blood running down his back and pooling slightly at his belt-line and strides to his side.
“I’m never running again. Ever.” She looks up into his face, her features stone but determined. Hopper looks down at her and smiles, his lips a tight line masking his pain but offering all the warmth that he can afford. He could not have chosen a better partner to face the end of the world with.
“I should have made it higher.” He says with a swift kick with his toes through boots to the sheet metal behind the dead Demodog.
Down the path to the cabin a white panel van approaches, crackling across dead limbs and dry soil under slowing tires. With an abrupt stop, the van’s side panel slides open and a young girl in an improvised uniform of white laboratory pants, a purple t-shirt, and an overly large denim jacket hops out quickly. Ten meters ahead of her stand Joyce Byers and Jim Hopper looking the worse for wear.
“Dad…?” Eleven says with a trembling tone.
“Hey kid.” Jim says simply with a sideways, pained smile.
———————
“Henderson, if you don’t stop pacing you’re gonna wear your soles down to your socks. Jesus, sit down already.” Steve Harrington says quietly but insistently, leaning forward in an uncomfortable vinyl upholstered hospital chair. Dustin is pacing back and forth in front of Steve a distance, shuffling his feet impatiently all the while. Oppressively bright fluorescent light tubes shine overhead, lining the long hallway of the hospital wing adjacent to the intensive care unit.
“Seriously, stop. You keep blocking the vending machine and I can’t decide if I want chips or chocolate.” Steve gestures with pleading palms to the glass cabinet of treats behind Dustin.
“We’ve been here at least a couple hours already. Does he really do this every day? We’ve got other things to do today y’know. Other places to be.” Dustin says, looking down at his watch. “It’ll be dark soon…”
“Dustin, it’s the middle of summer and there’s a radioactive shit cloud hanging over the town. It’s always dark here.”
“It’s not radioactive, dude. It’s an airborne xenoterrestrial mycellium materia. Toxic over time, sure. Not radioactive.”
“Okay? Toxic. Radioactive. Same difference.” Steve mutters and flips a quarter into the air, catches it, stands from his chair and walks to the vending machine Dustin has crossed a dozen times already.
“It is an absolute mystery how you graduated high school…” Dustin says with a shake of his head, and finally relenting he sits in the chair next to the seat Steve was just occupying. “He’s been here practically every day with her. Playing that cassette and talking to her like nothing’s changed. You don’t find this all a little hopeless?”
Steve, punching buttons on the vending machine, doesn’t immediately respond but merely waits for his decision to present itself in the form of a bag of Fritos. The machine whirs to life and the corkscrew wiring holding his snack snags at the last second, holding his prize hostage.
“Oh for fuck—.” Steve raps the glass panel display and follows it immediately with a kick to the side plastic panel.
“Hey. Hair. Did you get any of that?” Dustin says, losing his patience he removes his baseball cap, dark curly hair falling like a curtain over the sides of his face. He whacks Steve’s empty chair with the brim of his cap.
Finally the vending machine relents and drops the bag of corn chips into the receiving trough to which Steve responds with a quick and decisive snatch.
“Gotcha. Yes, Henderson. I got that. Perhaps it’s not something you’re too familiar with but maybe one day when you’re a big boy like the rest of us you’ll understand.” He stands a distance in front of Dustin and peels open the bag of chips, immediately picking a single chip out with thumb and forefinger. “Mmm. Salty.”
“Understand what, exactly? It’s not my first time in a hospital. Mom was here one time with appendicitis. I get it.”
Steve merely shakes his head. For once feeling just a small measure more intelligent, albeit emotionally, than Dustin Henderson.
“Nah man. Not the same. Lucas is in there with Max because he has to be. Y’know. Cause he likes her. Like a lot. Like…like the whole world stopped when he realized it. And the only way his world will keep on turning again is if she wakes up.” Steve stops crunching chips suddenly and looks almost solemn. “Because she’s his world now.” He looks down at his feet for a moment, remembering old joys before plucking another chip from the bag and crunching down obnoxiously loud.
Steve sits back down with a squeak of vinyl in the chair next to Dustin and offers a corn chip to him, to which Dustin declines with a shake of his head.
“Like I said. One day you’ll understand. And anyways man, I didn’t come pick you up from your house and bring you along with us just to get an ear beating for my troubles.” He crumples the half empty chip bag and stuffs it in his pocket, which prompts a disgusted scoff from Dustin. “Bad enough I had to pick up Robin just to bring her here to see her precious little red——hey man, know what? Go grab me a soda. Nothin’ fancy. Tab will do. Throat’s dry and what not.” Steve quickly changes the subject, pointing at his throat and clearing it to indicate he’s done speaking to him.
“I didn’t even bring any—.”
Before he can finish his complaint, Steve is holding out a single dollar bill.
“I expect change.” Steve says with a more than casual look of parental chiding.
A few minutes pass, intolerably long for Dustin Henderson, before the sound of Robin Buckley’s Converse Chuck 70s shuffling loudly against the vinyl composite tiles of the hospital hallway announce her coming. Her hands are in the pockets of her jeans and her forest green sweater is a blur with her speed.
“She shoots and she scores, boys.” Robin victoriously declares.
Steve is the first to rise from his chair, soda can in hand, and raises it in a mock of a toast.
“Mission accomplished, I take it?”
“Ohhhh yes. She’s—.” She begins but stops upon seeing Dustin. “Oh. I woulda thought you’d be with Lucas, man. You know he could really use a friend in there.”
“I respect boundaries. And privacy. He’s a big boy, after all.” Dustin says with a sharp sideways glance to Steve, who responds with a shrug of confusion in Robin’s direction and a sip of soda. “We were supposed to ride over to the old Brimborn Steelworks and check our markers today but—.”
“Huh…?” Robin responds, her voice gruff but perplexed.
“Henderson here is planting his flag across town.” Steve says with a couple of nods in-between sips of the nearly empty Tab.
“Flags. Plural. Lucas and I have spent the last two weeks charting Hawkins in graticule to keep track of the rot.” Dustin says finally with a sigh of frustration. It was not very long ago that this same concept had to be explained to Steve, an explanation which seemed interminable in scope due to Harrington’s limited understanding of cartography.
“The gray rot that’s been spreading for months now. It started at the edges of town, close to the four gates. At first we noticed it was growing outward. Outside of Hawkins. But it’s not just that. It—.”
“It’s growing inwards.” Lucas declares. His voice echoes down the hall as he strides to Robin’s side and stops. Dustin nods to him in acknowledgment while Robin and Steve share a glance of sudden horrific clarity.
“We don’t know what the exact effects on the people left here is gonna be but…I struggle to say it’s anything good. The flora is dying or dead. It’s like the life is being leeched out of everything.” Dustin says.
“The wood in some houses around Loch Nora is even beginning to fall apart. Bad news for the wealthy in town.” Lucas adds.
Dustin nods again. “Even the concrete isn’t immune. Some streets, some sidewalks look like they’ve been around for decades. Loch Nora was just built like four years ago.”
“I guess even money can’t protect ya from Armageddon.” Robin chimes in.
“The point is….matter, all matter, is breaking down with the Upside Down leaking into our world. It’s being corrupted at the very least.” Dustin says.
“But like…corrupted into what?” Steve finally asks cogently.
“We don’t know. We’ve only just been tracking it’s progress. We don’t have the means to find out what it’s doing to Hawkins, exactly. We figure…” Lucas says and looks at Dustin almost asking permission to say. Dustin nods reluctantly.
“We figure the Lab would know. They have to know. And they’re just not saying. Or worse, they don’t know and we have no way of lettin’ them know.” Lucas finishes.
Dustin shifts in his chair, squeaking in the seat, and shuffles his shoes against the hospital floor.
“And we don’t exactly have a way of contacting El. That’s….kinda where you come in, Harrington.” Dustin says.
“Huh?” Steve responds, both eyebrows raised as he shifts his eyes to Lucas, Robin and finally Dustin in quick succession. Dustin stands from his chair and stands next to Lucas.
“We’re gonna need you to drive us to the lab.” Dustin announces.
——————
“It started a few minutes ago. I don’t know what to make of it. Jonathan neither.” Nancy Wheeler quietly says to Mike, not wishing her father Ted Wheeler nor her younger sister Holly to hear. Not that they would, as they’re preoccupied with the VHS tape Holly has insisted she watch with her father. Nancy looks back to make sure she wasn’t heard.
“At first we thought it was just a…I dunno…puff of spores. But it’s moving weird. And that happened.” Jonathan says, pointing out the window to the paved driveway ahead where lies a metal sign almost a meter in length. A yellow traffic sign “Trucks Use Left Lane” inscribed.
“It’s been really windy out there all day but it feels like it’s getting worse. Dad didn’t even bother getting up when it hit our garage door.” Nancy says incredulously but only partly so. Ted Wheeler was ever the unconcerned sort even after the events of March.
The storm surge in the middle of Hawkins was visible to anyone with a clear line of sight to the town library in what would be considered ‘downtown’ Hawkins. The surrounding city block was quarantined, for lack of better terms, by what were assumed by the remaining citizens to be Army Corps of Engineers and National Guard. In truth, the three squads overseeing the enclosure of the open gate to the Upside Down are part of the self-named ‘WOLF PACK’. The members of this military unit are empowered by the U.S. Government to act with near impunity to study and contain the effects of otherworldly phenomenon such as the ongoing event that has quadrisected Hawkins, Indiana.
Five meter high walls of steel, back-buttressed with more steel beams and make-shift scaffolding were erected in the city block surrounding Hawkins Library as a containment zone to prevent curious eyes or hands from investigating the pulsing red gate into another dimension that split the library itself in twain. In regular intervals, to this point, plumes of black and gray dust spew from the gate and into the skies above central Hawkins. Noted in reports recorded by Lt. Colonel Jack Sullivan is the fact that during these events, the other four portals surrounding Hawkins also belch out gouts of the same dark miasma almost in concert with the central gate.
The intervals, however, are shortening.
“Do you think it’s opening again?” Mike whispers to Nancy.
“Can’t tell. We remember what happened last time, huh. The Demos. How many more can there be?” Nancy says, again quietly.
“Yeah but they hardly touched anyone. Heck, they ignored people and just tore ass to the edges of town and the woods.” Jonathan chimes in himself. “It’s like without ‘Him’, they’re kinda just here without direction. Even the bats. Besides, they don’t come out dur—.”
“Well see now this doesn’t make any sense at all! Why would this Marty kid just end up in some stranger’s bed?” Ted Wheeler proclaims loudly, pointing at the television and looking at Holly annoyed. Back To The Future plays on the family’s Mitsubishi VHS player, the volume just loud enough to mask the voices of the group at the living room window.
“I had this horrible nightmare. Dreamed that I went…back in time. It was terrible.”
“Well…Safe and sound now back in good ol’ 1955.”
“1955!?”
Holly gasps in amazement, as though she had not seen the film thrice already.
“See dad? The machine worked! He wasn’t dreaming!” Holly exclaims.
“Can’t see how. It’s just a car. A Ferrari can go a darn sight quicker than eighty-eight…” Ted trails off.
“Wouldn’t it be so radical though, dad? Back in tii-iiiime.” She sing-songs, thoroughly pleased with the fantasy.
“Will…do you..Y’know?” Mike gently places his hand on Will’s left shoulder, an almost pleading look in his eyes as Will looks back at him.
He feels something… Mike thinks to himself.
“No. I don’t think it’s ‘Him’.” Will says, his left hand raising to grasp the back of his neck in a reflexive gesture, his hand briefly brushing past Mike’s own. Mike withdraws his hand at this grazing touch and lets his hands drop to his sides. Nancy looks to him and raises an eyebrow, not missing Mike’s change in posture and the sudden crimson color in his cheeks. “But he’s still in there. Hiding. Wounded.” Will says with no small amount of worry.
“How can you be sure if you can’t…feel him.” Mike looks back to Will, in equal level of worry. Nancy nudges Mike and furrows her brow.
“Trust me, Mike.” Will says insistently, to which Mike nods.
“I do.” Mike says confidently and smiles. Nancy meanwhile gives Mike a glance out her sight’s periphery then looks to Jonathan. He places a warm hand to her back between her shoulder blades as if to support her standing in place.
——————
The undulating plume of black and gray haze rising from Hawkins Library, or what remains, is not merely drifting up into the equally dark clouds above. It begins to swirl now. The gusting winds slicing through Hawkins this particular afternoon are converging into its center, increasing in breadth until the entirety of the library is swallowed by a twisting cloud as dark as vehicle exhaust.
“Lieutenant Akers! Sir! It’s happening again, sir! Orders!?” A Wolf Pack grunt stumbles through the Hawkins Police Station doors and into the Roll Call squad room, each table occupied by piles of papers, folders, half empty assault rifle magazines, and two separate seismometers strategically placed at the front of the room. Behind the machines stands Lt. Robert Akers in dark military fatigues with very little insignia apart from his First Lieutenant Rank Bars across the epaulettes of his jacket. He has company command of the 30 stationed soldiers within Hawkins town limits. Half of these men stand meters away from a hellish black and red gate a mere half city block from the police station containing the other half of the occupying platoon. All of them fear for their lives. None of them can voice this fear, lest it be made manifest.
The police station serves now as a temporary forward operating base for what remains of a military emplacement whose sole purpose was to seize facilities directed by Dr. Martin Brenner and his fellow scientists. From the deserts of Nevada to small-town Indiana, these men have seen more than what they enlisted for. And they have yet to see the worst of it, including the crimson maw belching out the Upside Down into the clouds above Hawkins.
“Sit rep, people. Modified Mercalli Intensity?” Lt. Akers barks out in command to two soldiers, each at a respective machine with scribbling needles streaking across paper and a ticker-tape stream firing out of one end.
“M-M-I Four, sir!” responds one uniformed grunt, while the other rushes forward to Akers with a meter length of paper the width of two fingers.
“Minimal damage possible to structures but—.”
“But the air, sir. Barometers read eight hundred millibars. Sir, we’re in the eye of a hurricane!” The first soldier finally losing his composure, looks out the nearest window to see the remaining half of the platoon clamoring for the entrance to the police station. Each carrying an assault rifle that serves no purpose.
“Take cover!” Lt. Akers screams, barely audible over the now howling winds pressing air into the small station.
——————
Hawkins Memorial Hospital stands steadfast to the north of Hawkins Public Library, what has been known these past weeks as The Fifth Gate. The windows of the tall brown brick building are rattling with a terrifying vibration, the sound of which has woken bed-ridden patients as well as startling the six candy stripe nurses patrolling the corridors.
On the ground floor of the hospital, near the intensive care unit, Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley, Lucas Sinclair and Dustin Henderson are all on their feet, the floor beneath them resonating with a low rumbling.
“We all feel that right?” Steve asks aloud to no one in particular. He looks down at his shoes and can see his shoelaces wiggling from the vibrations.
“The foundation is….shaking?” Lucas’ eyes shift across the floor then up the walls.
“Is it happening again?” Robin shakily asks, grabbing Steve’s jacket sleeve and tugging insistently, all the while looking behind her down the hall.
“It’s not the same.” Dustin shakes his head and half whispers. He takes long strides down the hall to the nearest window, directly next to the Emergency Department intake section on the southside of the hospital itself. The three others follow him in quick succession to observe what Dustin has just seen.
“Lucas. You seeing this?” Dustin grabs the edged profile of the window-sill in front of him and leans forward, his face nearly flush with the glass.
“I am. But what am I looking at, man?” Lucas turns his head to Dustin.
——————
“You take too many risks, Hopper. How many times have we asked you two to come with us to the lab?” Dr. Sam Owens chides Jim Hopper. He’s not in his traditional labcoat but a simple flannel shirt tucked into khaki pants. Not the mad scientist most might have thought, but more the representative of the U.S. Department of Energy he has presented himself to be for years under Martin Brenner. Papa, to some.
“Dad are you sure you want to stay out here? Traps aren’t enough for them anymore. They never were, really.” Eleven now speaks, with a confident energy she wouldn’t dream of possessing months ago, the bullied transplant to California from nowhere, Indiana.
“She’s got a point, Jim. Maybe….maybe it’s time we leave this place behind after all. Like you said.” Joyce says softly, as she wraps bandages across Hopper’s bare torso from behind him and across his right shoulder to reach his back. His forearms, already bandaged with gauze and sterile wrappings, rest on his thighs as he sits on a wooden stool. With a sudden snag and tightening of bandages by Joyce, Jim Hopper winces through clenched teeth and looks back at Joyce.
“My grandfather built this cabin with his bare hands.” Jim says, looking down at the warped wood plank floor, then up to the short rafters and the walls on either side of him. “Here I thought I’d leave it as an inheritance to my own grand kids.” He thumps the wood floor with the heel of his boot. “I guess they could do worse….but I can do better.” He says as he stands finally. With some effort, he slips on a plain olive drab button down long sleeve shirt. Very reminiscent of the dress one might find offering coverage to soldiers in Vietnam two decades prior.
“Hopper, there’s facilities we have available. Not some Army tent barrack. In the building proper there—.” Dr. Owens is interrupted by Eleven doubling over in pain. Bent over at the waist with one hand on her hip and the other to her right temple.
“AGH! W-WHA..!” Eleven’s eyes are squinted shut, Joyce and Jim are at either of her sides in a blink, their hands on her shoulders and back.
“Kid! What is it!?” Jim’s eyes are wild with worry.
“Jane. How many?” Dr. Owens asks calmly. He’s seen Eleven in such pain before.
“It’s….it’s just one. The main one.” Eleven stands to her full height, her eyes opening slightly in increasing focus. Before elaborating, Eleven is already out the front door and looking northeast. Her view is obscured by thickets of trees but in the sky, the clouds seem to be pulling into town. The wind through the elms makes it seem as though she is being pulled along with the clouds into town, however her feet are planted firmly on the old wooden porch. “Oh no…” Eleven says under her breath, afraid to speak more in case she spoke her fears into reality.
——————
The gate encompassing Hawkins Library could be mistaken for an open volcano to the uninitiated eye. Great gouts of gray coal smoke and black spores spew from the blood red aperture as the wind swirls the gaseous mass into what can only be described as a tornado from Hell. This great funnel reaches into the skies above, feeding the black mass of clouds and forcing the darkness further out across Hawkins town limits. Tendrils of gray haze grasp at summer sky beyond forested ground and fully obscure what little sunlight reaches the homes and businesses of Hawkins proper. The sun is entirely gone. It’s six in the evening in the middle of summer, and night has come. Darkness has come.
Crimson lightning streaks across the sky and ground shaking thunder serves as the harbinger to the storm from another world. What few eyes remain in Hawkins are on the wounded clouds. The gales streaming through the streets and air drag dust from crumbled flora and spores spewing from each gate toward the center of the town and above the library, followed by a barrage of red lightning coming from all directions to the town center. A convergence of elements beyond human understanding. Beyond humans themselves.
A color from beyond Earth is seen above the geographic center of Hawkins in a sphere bristling and crackling with red lightning and black mist. The air around the sphere gurgles with gray mist, almost seeming to briefly contain the brilliant red sun illuminating the center of town with blood red light.
Until the invisible field holding the sphere of red lightning can contain it no longer.
———————
The Wheeler household is rattling from floorboards to ceiling. Karen Wheeler has since joined her family in the living room and stands in front of Holly, blocking her view of the window. Ted Wheeler frantically runs to the garage and quickly pulls the wide wooden door down by the handle, securing the twisting lever lock.
Nancy, Jonathan, Mike and Will still stand at the living room window watching as the skies above have blackened to night, the lightning they saw previously is gone, but far in the distance above town…
Will what’s happening? Mike thinks to himself. Instinctively feeling that his best friend, who has seen nightmares beyond his comprehension, must have some idea what—
“Mike…” Will looks into Mike’s eyes. “I don’t know what’s—.”
Before he can utter another word, the air becomes deathly still. The vibrations of the house cease and all sound is drawn to silence. The air is drained of life and substance.
The sky erupts into scarlet fire. From the center of town a wave of crackling energy sweeps outwards in all directions. An oscillating surge of lightning pierces clouds in a massive blast as Byers and Wheelers alike look on in horror until the wave passes over their house and out of sight.
Will….? Mike pleads out in his mind. Grasping in spirit for the boy he’s known most of his life.
Mike? MIKE!? Will answers in thought. For the briefest moment, Mike hears Will’s voice in his mind but Will’s mouth hasn’t moved. It’s agape in terror while looking at Mike.
Mike’s vision blurs but he can just make out Will dropping from his sight, his ceiling swooping into view and the hard bump of his back meeting the floor. Darkness takes his sight and Mike Wheeler’s body lies still on the floor of his home.
MIKE! MIKE!!! WAKE UP!!
——————
October 31st, 1983
“Mike. Mike! Wake up! Honey, you’re going to be late for school, you need to get up.” Karen Wheeler shakes Mike Wheeler’s shoulder before tousling his hair as he begins to stir.
“It’s barely Wednesday, sweetie. You can’t possibly be this tired.” Karen adds as Mike sits up from his bed.
“Mom…? Wh-wha…You look…” Mike is groggy and still half asleep.
“Breakfast in five, kiddo.” Karen declares, leaving his room.
Mike’s hand rises to his cheek, streaks through his shortened hair as his eyes trail down to his bedsheets. A dark blue comforter he hasn’t seen in years.
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.
“Time”, Pink Floyd
End of Chapter 1