Nancy
I look at Steve, who's sound asleep on his bed, and think about what Barb said. Maybe he really does just want to . . . "get in my pants".

I put his sweatshirt on. "Steve?" When he doesn't reply, I put my hand on his bare back, shaking him a little. "Hey, Steve?" He moans in response. "I'll . . . see you tomorrow, okay?"

"Mm-hm."

I purse my lips, grab my stuff, and head out. I'm left to walk home, and once I get there, I sneak inside. The light blinks on and Mom comes walking down the hallway.

"Oh, Jesus, you scared me," I say.

"Oh, I scared you?" she asks, clearly mad at me for being home late.

"I know I should have called," I say.

"Where have you been?" she yells, then lowers her voice. "We agreed on ten."

"After the assembly, some people wanted to get something to eat," I lie. "I didn't think it'd be a big deal."

"You didn't think to call and let me know? With everything that's been going on?"

"I didn't realize how late it was, okay? I'm sorry, Mom. What more do you want?" I start up the stairs and she stops me.

"Hey, wait, whose sweatshirt is that?"

"Steve's," I answer after a second.

"Steve's," she repeats. "So is Steve your boyfriend now?"

"What? No! It was just cold, so I borrowed his sweatshirt. It's not a big deal." I continue back up the stairs but am stopped again.

"Nancy?"

"What?"

"You can talk to me. You can talk to me. Whatever happened."

"Nothing happened," I say sternly.

"Nancy."

"Nothing happened. Can I please go?" She doesn't answer, but I take it as a "yes" anyway.

Jonathan
I wake to the sound of Mom's muffled talking. When I hear her say Will's name, I immediately slip on a shirt and rush out of my room. When I go into Will's room, Mom's at the foot of the bed, talking to . . . a bunch of lamps.

"Mom?" I ask.

"Jonathan! Come here." She beckons to me. "Come here."

"Mom, what is this?" I ask, joining here on the bed. "What's going on?"

"It's Will. It's Will," she says. "He's . . . He's trying to talk to me."

"He's trying to talk to you?"

"Yes, through . . . Through the lights," she says.

I shake my head. "Mom—"

"I know. I know. Just . . . Just watch. Will, your brother's here. Can you show him what you showed me, baby? Please . . ." A light blinks and she gasps. "Did you see that?"

"It's the electricity, Mom. It's acting up. It's the same thing that fried the phone."

"No! It's is not the electricity, Jonathan! Something is going on here! Yesterday, the wall—"

"What? What about the wall?"

"I don't know!"

"Mom, first the lights, then the wall?"

"I just know that Will is here."

"No, Mom."

She stands. "Maybe, if I get more lamps . . ."

I stand, too, and cup her face in my hands. "No, Mom! You don't need more lamps! You need to stop this, okay? He's just lost. People are looking for him and they're going to find him."

"Okay," she stammers, nodding her head, sitting back down.

"This isn't helping."

"Okay, I'm sorry," she snivels. "I'm sorry."

"Can you do me a favor, Mom?" I ask. "Can you just try and get some sleep? Huh? Can you do that for me?"

"I promise. I will. I just need to sit here for a minute."

"All right, I'll go make breakfast."

"Okay."

"Yeah?" I head into the kitchen.

(Y/N)
"We just tell our parents we have AV club after school," Mike says. "That'll give us at least a few hours for Operation Mirkwood."

"You seriously think that the weirdo know's where Will is?" Lucas asks.

"Just trust me on this, okay?" Mike says. "Did you get the supplies?"

"Yeah," Lucas says, and starts digging around in his bag, pulling out each item. "Binoculars from NAM, army knife also from NAM, hammer, camouflage bandana . . . and the wrist rocket."

"You're gonna take out the Demogorgon with a slingshot?" Dustin asks.

"First of all, it's a wrist rocket," Lucas says. "And second of all, the Demogorgon's not real. It's made up. But if there is something out there, I'm gonna shoot it in the eye." He pulls back on the elastic and lets go. "And blind it."

Mike sighs. "(Y/N)?"

I bite my lip. "I don't really have anything at home." At least Mike understands my life. My friends—the boys—are the only ones I truly trust with the fact that my family—meaning just my mom, the only so-called family I have—sucks. Will was the only one who could truly, fully understand. . . .

"It's fine. I understand. Don't worry about it. Dustin, what'd you get?" Mike asks.

Dustin dumps his bag out on the table, and everything is an edible product. "Well, alrighty. So, we've got . . . Nutty Bars, Bazooka, Pez, Smarties, Pringles, Nilla Wafers, apple, banana, and trail mix."

"Seriously?" Lucas says. {To be fair trail mix basically fuels me.}

"We need energy for our travels," Dustin says. "For stamina. And besides, why do we even need weapons anyway? We have her." He gestures to El.

"She shut one door!"

"With her mind! Are you kidding me? That's insane! Imagine all the other cool stuff she could do. Like . . ." He picks up our spaceship thing {I'm so awful at knowing words}. "I bet that she could make this fly!" He holds it to El, taking her attention away from the walkie-talkie. "Hey, concentrate, okay?" He drops it and it hits the ground. "Okay, one more time." He tries again and it falls again.

"Idiot," Lucas says.

Mike grabs the ship. "She's not a dog!"

"Kids!" Mrs. Wheeler calls from upstairs. "Time for school!"

We gather our stuff and Mike stops to tell El not to let anyone know she's there and to meet us at the powerlines behind the house after school.

Nancy
I walk through the school halls, avoiding people's gaze, with no sign of Barb. I reach my locker and open it. Someone comes up behind me, startling me.

"Hey," Steve says.

"Hey!" I say.

"Is everything okay?" he asks.

"Yeah. Yeah, totally. I just . . . I feel like everyone's staring at me."

"Oh, I didn't . . . I didn't tell anyone," he says.

"I know. I know. Of course not. But what about Tommy and Carol?"

"You're being paranoid."

"I'm sorry."

"No. No, it's cute. Hey . . . I had a good time."

"Yeah. Yeah, me too."

He kisses me and I smile when he pulls back. After he leaves, I grab my books and head to class. When I get there, Barb isn't. I ask Ally where she is.

"Um, shouldn't you know?" she asks.

"You haven't seen her anywhere at all?" I ask.

She shakes her head and I'm left to wonder what's going on.

Hopper
"There she is. Emerald City," Powell says as we pull into the

"I heard they make space weapons in there," Callahan says.

"Space weapons?" Powell asks.

"Yeah, you know, like Reagan's Star Wars," Callahan says.

"I guess we're gonna blow the Ruskies to smithereens," I say.

We pull up to the gates and the guard asks, "Can I help you?"

"Uh, yeah, we're here for a tour," I say.

"Oh, we don't give tours," he says.

"Okay . . . a quick look around."

"You have to get clearance for that. You can contact, uh . . . Rick Schaeffer at the Department of Energy."

"Maybe you seen it on TV. We got a local kid that's missing. We have reason to believe he might have snuck in here."

"Like I said, you have to speak to Mr. Schaeffer."

"What's your name?"

"Patrick." {I love when someone asks for someone else's name just to address them personally when they're trying to negotiate.}

"Patrick, I got a panicked mayor, and I got reporters breathing down my neck, and I got a very upset mother. Now, I know the kid's not in there but I gotta check off this box. Patrick, would you do me a favor? Would you speak to your boss and see what you can swing for us? I'd really appreciate it. I'm talking ten minutes, tops."

He nods.

Eleven
I ate everything Dustin had. I'm making the thing he wanted me to make float float. I drop it. I turn back to the Supercomm. I decide to go up the stairs. I know Mike said not too. I'm bored.

I walk around carefully. I play with the La-Z-Boy. I pick up a little machine. It beeps. I make the sound it does. I walk over to the TV. I press a button. It lights up. A talking man appears on the screen. I press another button. A cartoon with lots of colors comes on the screen. I press the button again. Again. Again. A Coca-Cola commercial comes on the screen. It brings bad memories.

Papa nodded. I looked at the can. I focused. I crushed the can with my mind. Blood dripped from my nose.

I press another button. The bad picture goes away.

Joyce
I pull out the box of Christmas decorations and grab the string of lights. I put nails up around the house and attach the lights to them. They don't stretch far enough, so I go to the store and buy around fifty more boxes, as well as another phone.

"Joyce—"

"Just ring me up, Donald."

Hopper
"And you think this missing boy could've crawled through there?"

I examine a sewer pipe {aye that's what they're called} with a flashlight. "Well, that was the idea."

"Yeah, I just don't see how that'd be possible. We've got over a hundred cameras. Every square inch covered, plus all my guys. No one breaks in here. Certainly not some kid."

"Those cameras. You keep the tapes?"

.^.^.^.^.

"If you don't mind me asking, what do you do in here?" I ask as we're lead through the building.

"You're asking the wrong guy."

"Staying one step ahead of the Russians?"

"I expect. Something like that."

"Who's in charge here?"

"That'd be Dr. Brenner."

"And he builds the space lasers?" Callahan asks {same}.

"Space lasers?"

"Ignore him," I say.

.^.^.^.^.

"This is the night of the sixth and the seventh we're seeing here?" I ask as they play the tape.

"That's correct."

The tape stops.

"Is that it?"

"Like I said, we would have seen him."

.^.^.^.^.

"The night of the seventh, we had a search party out for Will," I say, Callahan, Powell, and me walking out of the building. "You remember anything about that night?"

"Not much to remember. Called it off," Callahan says.

"'Cause of the storm," Powell says.

"Yeah, a lot of rain that night," I say. "See any rain on that tape?"

"What are you thinking?" Powell asks as we climb in the car.

"I don't know. But they're lying."

Whewee I've officially released a chapter on both of my fanfics today and I'm proud.
Yanyway bye.