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Shane looks at the plane ticket to Hawkins, Indiana in disbelief.
Ryan had told him about this case and emailed him one of his stupid info packets. And it was weak. It was a real shit weak case with nothing but a couple accounts of anecdotal evidence. Shane had written it off immediately and told Ryan to find something else to waste their time on.
Ghost mermaid. As if.
But Ryan has bought them plane tickets to the town listed in the info packet. And if he's bought plane tickets, he's already gone and planned the entire thing with their team behind Shane's back.
Ryan is in front of him now, and he's on a roll, in full narrator mode:
"Listen: this kid, Mike Wheeler, his friend, Will Byers, goes missing in 199—. It was found out later during the investigation that Byers was kidnapped by his abusive homophobic dad, kept in the fucking trunk of his car, real disgusting shit. But before Byers was found by officials, Wheeler was trying to find him. Making a big mess of things, really acting out.
"A few days after Byers goes missing, Wheeler and his friend Dustin Henderson are confronted by some kids that had bullied them for years. A bunch of words are thrown around, and Henderson ends up in a headlock being threatened by the ringleader. Wheeler is told to jump off the cliff they're next to, in exchange for Henderson going free.
"Wheeler walks to the edge of the cliff, and sees a mermaid. A mermaid, Shane! Sees her jump out of the water and dive back in. Of course, no one believed him. But he's not the only one to see her; there have been a few other accounts and you can't deny the evidence—"
Shane had let Ryan finish his rambling because Shane does love to hear Boogara spin a yarn, but now he scoffs and cuts him off. "What evidence, Ryan? Some poor, bullied, traumatized kid making things up to cope? That's your hard hitting evidence that we're supposed to follow? Spend our company's real money on?"
"I have a hunch."
"Oh, you and your hunches—"
"I have a hunch. I am following it. Are you coming with me?"
Shane waves him away. "Yeah, yeah. Someone's gotta make sure you don't fall off a cliff."
Ryan punches him, happy. "Yes! Thank you! You feel it, too. You got a hunch."
"I don't have a hunch and neither do you!"
***
Three days later, they're sitting in a diner across from none other than Mike Wheeler and Will Byers.
Shane learns later that Ryan had first reached out to Wheeler and been given a harsh rejection. A few days after, Byers had contacted Ryan and told him they would meet with the Ghost Files team.
In the years since his mermaid sighting had hit the news and turned him into a laughing stock, Mike Wheeler had recanted his account of the events. Numerous times. Acknowledged that it was the workings of his over-active imagination, which had been in hyper-drive at that time in his life.
Mike, who has clearly been dragged here by Will, tries to explain it to them now.
"Look, I was a dumb kid. My best friend had just gone missing, and my other friend was being threatened by our bullies, and I just. I looked out over the cliff and really, really thought about jumping, and I… I saw something that wasn't real."
Thought about jumping hangs in the air.
"What did you see?" Ryan asks.
Mike shifts uncomfortably and Shane interjects, "What did you think you saw?"
"I… I was staring out into the waves—it was real windy that day—and I saw a girl. I saw her breach at the top of a wave, and dive back down. As she dove, I thought I saw a tail. A fish tail. Big fins. Whatever."
Will bumps Mike's arm. "C'mon. There was more."
"At first, I thought I saw Will. I thought it was Will in the water. And then I realized, no, it was just a random girl who looked like him. And then she dove, and I saw the tail."
Shane keeps his face as neutral as possible. He's not going to laugh or scoff at a kid recounting a shitty event from a clearly traumatic time in his life. It's what their audience would expect of him, he's sure, but it's simply not helpful or useful to anyone here. Especially not to these poor kids.
There is a lull as Ryan waits Mike out.
Mike sighs. "Look, it was stupid. I was so desperate for something to explain why Will was missing and why no one could tell me what had happened. Why no one else cared. And my dumb ass went and told everyone about it, because I thought maybe it was connected to Will's disappearance. Maybe he saw the mermaid, too, and someone was trying to keep him quiet."
He looks away, eyes brimming.
Will grabs his hand; Mike flinches away at first, eyes darting to Shane and Ryan. Shane tries to make himself as non-threatening as possible. It's okay, kid. We don't give a shit. Mike relaxes his hand, lets Will rub his thumb up and down the back of it.
"It was dumb," he continues. "And I only made things more miserable for myself, and wasted everyone's time. It was just a trick of the mind, and Will came home, anyway. We found him."
"Thank God," Ryan blurts. He grimaces and turns to Will. "Thank God you were found, I mean."
Will huffs and says, "Yeah, I got lucky."
Ryan can't help but steamroll ahead and turns back to Mike. "But, you're not the only one who has seen her. There were accounts from a senior student a few years later—"
"Eddie?" Mike laughs, cutting Ryan off. "Yeah, he just started saying that shit because he wanted people to lay off me."
"Ahhhh," Shane jumps in, glad to finally have something. "So that's where the 'ghost' of it all comes in. He was trying to one-up your original story, make it more absurd. Made himself the target instead."
"Yeah," Mike agrees. "Exactly."
"Alright, fair enough," Ryan says, putting his hands up in friendly surrender. He stirs his coffee, eyebrows pinched. He looks over to Shane. "No ghost or not, I still wanna go talk to Munson."
"Great, can't wait," Shane deadpans.
Mike is reluctant, but Ryan eventually wheedles Munson's contact information from him. Shane takes this moment to study Will, who is watching Mike intently.
"So, Will," Shane begins, "I have to ask. If the mermaid was a figment of Mike's imagination, and Eddie made up some ghostly lies to get the heat off Mike, why did you reach out to us after Mike told Ryan to fuck himself?"
Will fiddles with his bag and pulls out a few drawings and paintings. Mike looks out the window beside them, suddenly very interested in the street traffic.
"I know you have been denying you saw anything for years now," Will says to Mike, "but… when it's just us, you've also told me about the mermaid so many times she's become real to me. And I know she's real to you, in some way."
He spreads the drawings out on the table. Lilac scales and fins cover the pages. Brown hair that looks like it was shorn off and now growing out. She looks like she could be Will's twin. They're good, Shane thinks. The kid's got talent and has a great eye for composition. The mermaid almost comes to life on the pages.
Mike puts his head in his hands and groans.
Will winces but continues, addressing Shane and Ryan. "I've watched your videos and you guys don't make shit up for views. Or you seem like you don't. You seem earnest and honest, and, I don't know. Whatever you find, either way, might bring some closure."
And aw, shit, Shane feels for them, he really does. He can't believe he's going to really try and make an effort on this investigation.
***
"You do see the main flaw here," Shane says.
"Please don't start—"
"We have ghost hunting equipment. We know ghost hunting techniques. You don't know shit about finding mermaids!"
"Give me a little bit of credit here, Shane—"
"Coming all the way here for two sightings. One of which has been redacted, and the other full of shit!"
"You done?"
"Yes!"
"Alright, let's go."
***
Eddie Munson is a few years older than Wheeler and Byers. His shirt boasting the name of his own Dungeons and Dragons club tells Shane everything he needs to know about Munson: 1) that Shane wishes his club's dungeon master gave this much of a shit about their campaign, and 2) that Munson has a flair for the dramatic that Ryan is going to eat right up.
Ryan starts them off.
"So, how do you know Mike?"
Munson leans forward, hands spread. "He and his friends joined my DnD club when they got to high school. Byers and his family had just moved to California for the year, trying for a fresh start, y'know, and holy shit was was Wheeler a mope about it.
"And people were still giving him such a hard time about that thing with the mermaid… Look, I didn't believe him, either. But I felt bad for him. And, you've met the guy. He's just got that pathetic aura.
"Anyway, one day after making a run, if you know what I mean, I'm walking home and pass by that spot overlooking the quarry where Wheeler saw the mermaid, and I hear this, just, beautiful singing."
Here we go. Shane's favourite part of Munson's account. Singing. He turns the mermaid into a siren, first.
Eddie's wildly gesticulating now, really getting into it. "It's the tune of Black Sabbath's Heaven and Hell. My feet move of their own accord, taking me closer and closer to the singing. And then I see it…"
He pauses, shifts back. Eyes wide, staring off into the distance as if he's back in that moment. Let's the drama build. Ryan, of course, is right there with him and along for the ride.
"You saw what?" Ryan asks excitedly.
"The ghost, man. There she was, waving her fish tail around, sitting on a rock. Singing the sweet tunes of heavy metal, luring me in. Her ghostly apparition glowing—"
Shane tunes out here and lets Ryan finish the interview without interruption. He knows he's not giving anything and his lack of participation will be boring for the viewers but he just can't be assed. An absolute load of bullocks not even worth his skepticism.
Munson is extremely animated and spins a fun yarn, Shane has to give him that. And he's a nice guy, who clears cares about the kids who look up to him.
It's not personal, Shane just holy shit does not give a single fuck about any of this.
***
They catch the evidence on a complete fluke. Sheer dumb luck.
No forethought has gone into planning the time of day or the filming. They are merely scouting out the quarry for places to film.
Shane hears the splash and alerts Ryan to it. Ryan fumbles out his phone and presses record. They don't even know what made the splash or where it came from, but Ryan beelines over in the general direction, trying to be as quiet as possible.
Shane wants to not care, would like to stay right where he is and finish mapping out this filming location, but that unnameable feeling in his gut churns and he swears, following Ryan.
He crouches next to Ryan, who has stopped to hide behind a fallen tree on the edge of the water. From here, they see a young woman with wild red hair, about Mike Wheeler's age, at the entrance of a small cave. She is motioning furiously at the water in a "come here" gesture.
Shane looks to the water and can't believe it.
There she is, the mermaid from Mike Wheeler's sighting. Her lilac scales shimmering in the sun. As if she's been lifted from the pages of Will Byers' drawings.
"Shane," Ryan whispers, his voice trembling.
"I know, buddy," Shane replies. The shake in his voice surprises him. "I see her."
And that's the crazy part: he really does see her. He sees her. His skeptic brain should be listing off a dozen reasons just to start with as to why the mermaid in front of them is not actually a mermaid. But instead he feels it, the faith that so many others must feel every day.
He can't explain it. He just knows, intrinsically, that what his eyes are seeing is real.
The mermaid quickly swims into the cave. The red-headed girl slips in behind her. Ryan, who has miraculously captured the scene, lowers his phone in shock.
Middle of the day. Sun high in the sky and shining. Broad daylight. Excellent lighting. Sure, on a phone instead of their high-caliber filming equipment, but Shane knows Ryan's eye for camera work. Doesn't even need to see it to know the video will be clear as day.
"That was Max Mayfield," Ryan whispers, referring to the red-haired human. "She's friends with Wheeler and Byers."
"Do you think they know? What would their angle be?"
Ryan shakes his head. "No way that they know about this."
***
Back in their hotel room, the display of the laptop lights up Ryan's face.
They are, naturally, fighting over the footage. Shane will give Ryan almost anything, but he can't budge on this. He just can't.
"Shane, you cannot be serious!" Ryan scoffs. "We finally found something REAL."
"Yeah, and that's why we need to delete this footage. I mean shit, if they were ghosts, I'd be right there with you—"
"Oh my God you just cannot stand to lose—"
"This isn't about winning or losing!" Shane yells, surprises himself with it. He clears his throat. "This is about a very real living being. Flesh and blood. We upload this footage and we upend her entire life. Her life, Ryan. This isn't a ghost story; she isn't a pretend creature from a made up story."
Ryan, for once, is quiet.
Shane reaches for Ryan's hand and closes his eyes. "Yeah, bud. We finally found something real. Something real and beautiful and so full of life and I am so, so honoured."
Ryan smiles, squeezes his hand.
"Please," Shane pleads. "We need to leave them alone. If she becomes a test subject because we posted this online, I don't know how we'll live with ourselves."
The silence between them is long and heavy. Ryan watches the footage, he face earnest as everything he's worked for has finally paid off in good, real, indisputable evidence. His expression turns wistful and he buries his face in his hands.
Shane's heart tugs. He knows what he's asking of Ryan and hates himself for it.
Would hate himself more if he didn't.
"Yeah," Ryan whispers. "Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay."
Ryan lets out a long sigh. His shoulders go slack. He meets Shane's gaze once more, nods, and then deletes the file.