Joyce
I tear into the box and set up the new phone hurriedly. I go to sit in the living room armchair, but the cord won't reach. I turn the chair around to face the outlet {or whatever you call that thingy} and scoot it closer. I breathe heavily, hoping for another call.

Hopper
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, careful," I say to Callahan, backing him away from the edge of the cliff. "I need you alive for the next few days, at least."

"Oh, hell, I could survive that," he says. I scoff. "What? George Burness made the jump. And he was drunk as a skunk. He did it on a ten-dollar bet."

"George is a liar. You make that jump from this height, that water turns into cement." I clap my hands together. "Hits you like a ton of bricks. Break every damn bone in your body."

He looks down. "Nah."

"Chief, you copy?" Flo calls in from the radio.

I open the radio. "Yeah, Flo, talk to me."

"Hey, Chief, we got a call from over at Benny's. I think you need to get there right away."

.^.^.^.^.

We pull up to Benny's, meeting the fire truck and ambulance that are already there. Inside is the lifeless figure of Benny, bullet shot in the head, gun in hand, lying on one of the tables. {Screw Barb. #JusticeForBenny}

"Oh, Jesus," Callahan chokes.

"Suicide?" Powell asks.

"Mm-hm," I hum in agreement.

"Missing kid, suicide . . . ," Callahan lists. "You must feel like a big city cop again, huh, Chief?"

"Well, I mostly dealt with strangers back then," I say. "Benny was my friend."

Jonathan
I park on the side of the road and walk to Dad's front door, peering inside the window before rapping my knuckles six times on it. {Eheh it was actually five but it's now six for reference purposes. Anyone? Anyone?} When no one answers, I shout out, "Hello?" I knock again, more aggressively.

That teenager Mom was talking about answers the door with a rude "Can I help you?"

"Yeah, is Lonnie around?"

"Yeah, he's out back. What do you want?"

"To look around." I let myself in, ducking past her.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing? Hey!" she calls after me.

"I'll be fast."

I walk down the hall and call for Will, a flicker of hope burning in my chest. We the flame dims and I start walking out, someone pins me against the wall—Dad.

"Get off!" I say, giving him a hard shove.

"Damn, you've gotten stronger," he says.

"Will someone please explain what the hell is going on?" the teenager asks.

"Jonathan, Cynthia," Dad introduces. "Cynthia, this is Jonathan. My oldest." He pulls me into a hug and I push him off, not wanting anything to do with such an awful father like he is.

(Y/N)
Dustin, Lucas, and I rush to Mike's. Once we get there and make it up to his bedroom, that girl is still there, sitting on his bed.

"Are you out of your mind?" Lucas asks Mike.

"Just listen to me," Mike says.

"You are out of your mind!" Lucas says.

"She knows about Will!"

"What?" I'm quick to respond. "What do you mean? What does she know? How does she know?"

Mike grabs a picture off his night stand—the one from our last science fair. God, I wish I could go back to that time. Back to the time where there was no trouble. There was no mysterious girl. And most importantly, there was Will.

"She pointed at him," Mike explains, "at this picture. She knew he was missing. I could tell."

"You could tell?" Lucas repeats.

"Just think about it," Mike says. "Do you really think it was a coincidence that we found her on Mirkwood, the same place where Will disappeared?"

"That is weird," Dustin says, giving sideways glances to Lucas and me.

"And she said bad people were after her," MIke continues. "I think maybe these bad people are the same ones that took Will. I think she knows what happened to him."

"Then why doesn't she tell us?" I ask. We glance at her, and then approach her. I look at her calmly and ask, "Do you know where he is?"

Lucas shoves me out of the way and grabs her shoulders. "Do you know where Will is?"

"Stop it, you're scaring her!" Mike says.

"She should be scared!" Lucas says. He turns back to her. "If you know where he is, tell us!" She looks near to crying.

Lucas whips back at Mike. "This is nuts. We have to take her to your mom."

"No! Eleven said telling any adult would put us in danger," Mike says.

"What kind of danger?" Dustin asks.

"Her name is Eleven?" Lucas asks.

"El for short," Mike says.

"Mike, what kind of danger?" Dustin asks again.

"Danger danger," he says. He holds his fingers, shaped like a gun, to Dustin's forehead, my forehead, then Lucas's forehead.

Lucas swats his hand away. "No, no, no. We're going back to plan A. We're telling your mom." He storms to the door, opening it, but having it slam shut shortly thereafter. I let out a sharp gasp and quickly cover my mouth, a habit I obtained from years of my parents fighting and many things breaking.

He opens it again and it shuts again. The doorknob locks. We look back at the girl and find she's standing up, blood dripping from her nose, looking daggers at us. Yet, it's like the daggers are supposed to keep us safe.

"No," she says sternly.

Jonathan
"Take a look at this beaut," Dad says, bringing me out by his car. "Took me a year, but it's almost done." I open the trunk. "Really? You want to check up my ass, too?" I slam the trunk down. "I told you the same thing I told those cops; he's not here and he never has been."

"Then why didn't you call Mom back?" I ask, stalking up to him.

"I don't know; I just . . ." He shrugs. "I assumed she just forgot where he was. Thought he was lost or something. That boy was never very good at taking care of himself." {I should be there with Jonathan. You know, I can pack a punch.}

"This isn't some joke, all right? There are search parties, reporters . . ."

"Hopper's not still chief, is he?" he asks.

I shoot him a glare.

"Tell your mother she's gotta get you out of the hellhole. Come out here to the city. People are more real here, you know." He shrugs. "Then I could see you more." I shake my head. "What, you think I don't want to see you?"

"I know you don't."

"See, that's your mother talking right there. She even know you're here?"

I don't answer besides another glare.

"Oh, great," he says sarcastically. "So one kid goes missing; the other one runs wild? Some real fine parenting right there." {Says the one who called his freaking son a fag.} "Look, all I'm saying is maybe I'm not the asshole, all right?"

I look at him for a few seconds before reaching into my bag and pulling out one of the posters, which I shove onto Dad's chest. "In case you forgot what he looks like." And with that, I leave him.

Hopper
"Just doesn't make any sense, Chief," Earl says, attempting to light his cigarette with a crappy lighter. I lend him mine.

"You, uh, notice anything . . . odd about him the last few weeks?" I ask.

"No, we're fixin' to go fishing down to Etowah next Sunday," he says. "I mean, he was lookin' forward to it. I know it."

"He got any enemies you might know about?" I ask. "I mean, people who might not want him around?"

He sighs. "The exes didn't like him that much; that's for sure." He shakes his head. "Nah."

"When was the last time you saw him?"

"Yesterday. Lunch, same as always."

"Just you and the boys?"

"Me and Henry and . . . Well, there was this, uh, this kid. No kid did this."

"Kid? What are you talking about?"

"Yeah, at lunch, uh, there was this boy that, uh . . . I mean, he was trying to steal food out of Benny's kitchen. Can you imagine that?"

I glance at Callahan, who know exactly what I want. "This kid . . . What'd he look like?"

"Well, he was about yea high." He holds his arm up. " You know, tiny-like. I didn't get a good look at him, though. He was back in the kitchen." {Heh with that description, no wonder they thought it was Will.}

{I'm a terrible person.} Callahan hands me the paper and I show it to Earl. "He look like this?"

"Oh, no," he says, shaking his head. "That's . . . That's Lonnie's missing kid. No. This was a different kind." He hand me the paper. "This one had really short hair. I mean, it was buzzed. Nearly down to the scalp."

"Yeah, well, let's . . . You know, let's forget about the haircut. I mean, if this kid had a buzz cut, could it be Lonnie's kid?"

{Hello LA Devotee just started playing.} "Well, I . . . I didn't get a good look at him. About the right height, though. I mean, could've been. Yeah, that's . . . Could've been."

Nancy
"'Cause I don't want to go by myself," I tell Barb over the phone. "Barb . . . Barb, it's not rocket science. You just tell your parents you're gonna stay at my place afterwards. No, tell them we're . . . studying."

"Nancy! Dinner!" Mom calls from downstairs.

"Coming!" I shout back.

I put the phone back to my ear. "Look, I gotta go. I'll see you in an hour."

Mike
(Y/N), the guys, and I have barely touched our food.

"Something wrong with the meatloaf?" Mom asks.

"Oh, no, I had two bologna sandwiches for lunch," Dustin says. "I don't know why."

Lucas chuckles. "Me too."

"It's delicious, Mommy," Nancy says, obviously kissing up. She must want something. When does she not?

"Thank you, sweetie," "Mommy" says.

"So, there's this . . . special assembly thing tonight . . . for Will at the school field," Nancy says. There it is. "Barb's driving."

"Why am I just hearing about this?" Mom asks.

"I thought you knew," Nancy passes it off innocently.

"I told you—I don't want you out after dark until Will is found," Mom says.

"I know, I know, but it'd be super weird if I'm not there. I mean, everyone's going."

Mom sighs. "Just . . . be back by ten. Why don't you take Mike and his friends, too?"

"No!" I counter, as the others give their cries of protest.

"Don't you think you should be there? For Will?" Mom asks, and I can see (Y/N) flinch when she adds "for Will".

I choke on my milk as the figure of Eleven strides down the stairs. Dustin bangs on the table as a diversion.

"Sorry. Spasm," he says.

I grab a napkin to clean myself and catch a glimpse of (Y/N) giggling at me. I meet her gaze and playfully glare at her. God, she's adorable.

Hopper
"Hey, you think Earl really saw Will?" Callahan asks, while we're on another so-far-unsuccessful search party. "I mean, what's he doing with a shaved head? And stealing food from Benny?"

"Tell you what—when we find him, we'll ask," I say.

"Can't ask a corpse a question," Powell says. I look at him to say "What the hell is wrong with you?" when someone calls for us to follow them, blowing their whistle.

"Hey, what do you got?" I ask once we reach them.

"Not sure. Maybe nothing," Scott Clarke says. He shows me a scrap of fabric. "I found this in there." He points to the long tube-pipe-thingy {when you don't know what something's called}. I shine my flashlight down it.

"No way a kid crawls through there," Powell says.

"I don't know . . . ," I say. "A scared enough one might. His brother said he was good at hiding." {Well he did win an award for being the most committed Hide-and-Seek player so}

We venture deeper into the forest in the direction from which the pipe came and come to face a fence marked "restricted area".

{Woot woot the Stranger Things extended theme song just started playing.}

(Y/N)
We enter the basement with a plate of food for El. Mike tells her that it's just us and hands her the plate of meatloaf. She looks at the other guys nervously.

"Don't worry; they won't tell anyone about you," Mike says. "They promise. Right?"

I bring my thumb and forefinger across my lips like a zipper and pretend to flick away the key, something Mike and I'll always do when we're keeping each other's secrets. {I DON'T KNOW IF ANYONE'LL GET THAT REFERENCE BUT NNNGGG}

"We never would've upset you if we knew you had superpowers," Dustin says. Mike hits his leg.

"What Dustin is trying to saying is that they were just scared . . . earlier," Mike explains. "That's all."

"We just wanted to find our friend," Lucas says.

"'Friend'?" El asks.

"Yeah. Friend," I say. "Someone you really like—love, even—and for whom you would do anything and everything." Will is my anything and everything and so much more.

"You lend them your cool stuff, like, comic books and trading cards," Dustin says.

"And they never break a promise," Mike finishes.

"Especially when there's spit," Lucas adds.

"'Spit'?" El asks.

"A spit swear means," Lucas says, spitting into his hand and shaking Dustin's, "you never break your word. It's a bond."

"That's super important, because friends . . . , " Mike says. "They tell each other things. Things that parents don't know."

Okay but Noah is such a shrimp and it's adorable.
Oh and shrimp are delicious.
Now I want shrimp.
Oh and WHO WANTS TO TWIN WITH ME FOR HALLOWEEN???
STRANGER THINGS HALLOWEEN SQUAD, MY FRIENDS!!!
But there's apparently this Halloween store near me that has, like, a whole section on Stranger Things and we're going and I'm eXcItEd.
But just imagine how hard it'll be to choose.
Wish me luck.
Okay bye.