SEVENTEEN: THE CREATURES

THEY FINALLY ARRIVED AT THE JUNKYARD, Heather and Daniel getting there only a few moments after Steve and Dustin.

Steve surveyed the scene, "Oh, yeah, this'll do. Good call, kid."

So, they got to work. In no particular pattern, the four began dropping pieces of meat around the premises. As they collectively dumped what was left in the center, a new voice joined the group.

"I said medium well!" Lucas yelled, waving at them as Max stood beside him.

"Who's that?" Steve asked, squinting his eyes at the girl.

"That's Max," Daniel sighed, "She's kind of great, but I'm not sure yet."

Dustin nodded in agreement, but his face looked disappointed. Steve looked like he understood, but Heather and Daniel were both lost as to what the situation was. The siblings shared a mutual look of confusion and shrugged. Dustin went off to talk to Lucas while Heather and Daniel went to lean against one of the abandoned exoskeletons of an old car.

"I wonder what that was all about," Heather sighed, wiping the sweat off of her forehead. For November, it was an unusually warm afternoon. Maybe it was the immense pressure they were under or the imminent danger they were in. Who's to say?

"I've never seen him get so quiet," Daniel nodded, watching his best friend talking with Lucas. The boy was a little surprised Mac was here, but he assumed Lucas must have let her in on at least some of what really happened last year. Daniel didn't really have a problem with that, she seemed to be apart of the party now, for better or for worse. The curly haired boy would be lying if he claimed to be one-hundred-percent okay with that, but he didn't hate Max. In all honesty, she seemed pretty cool.

Heather pursed her lips into a thin line as her eyes drifted over to Steve Harrington. "This doesn't feel real."

"The fact that we're fighting the supernatural again or that Steve Harrington kissed you?"

"Both. Definitely both."

"I don't know why you're surprised. About Steve, I'd be surprised about the baby Demogorgon, too. But like, Steve, I think he's always kinda liked you. I mean, we all heard him say he wanted to kiss you that night at his house. I'm just surprised it took this long for him to man up and confess how he feels."

"Since when are you some therapist?"

Daniel laughed, "I totally feel like I'm having deja vu right now. I mean, the Upside Down, me giving amazing advice, ugh, just like last year."

"You're a dork," the girl giggled nudging her brother in the side. "Except last year, you were sad because you thought your boyfriend was crushing on Eleven and I thought I was doomed forever, so, there's some progress."

Daniel was about to respond when there was a loud bang that caused both siblings to jump. Steve hit the car Dustin and Lucas were talking behind with a rusted, metal folding chair and yelled, "Hey, dickheads! How come the only one helping me is this random girl? And you two! Come on! We lose light in 40 minutes. Let's go! Let's go, I said!"

Heather bit her lip, holding in a laugh. Her brother sighed, looking up at her, "You're a woman obsessed! You look at him with stars in your eyes!"

"Shut up!" the girl exclaimed, hitting her brother in the upper arm, just hard enough to hurt slightly. "Now, come on, dweeb, get to work!"

And so they did. Like a cheesy montage from a teen movie, they loaded sheet metal into the bus, clearing the area of obstacles, they rolled empty cans down the hill, it was a lot for Daniel's very weak arms. Finally, after the sunset, they loaded into the bus and waited. Daniel was having flashbacks to last year when they were hiding from the Hawkins Lab workers. That was the day Daniel's life changed. Not to be dramatic, but that was the day (or, well, night) that Mike kissed him for real, when they beat the Demogorgon, when Daniel realized he really did care about El, that night was a lot.

Daniel watched with anticipation as Lucas climbed through the emergency exit on the ceiling of the bus to get a wider perspective of the junkyard. It was too silent, too quiet for comfort. Daniel sat against the back, Steve and Heather sitting next to each other against a where a seat might have been a million years ago. The boy was playing with his lighter, opening and closing it while the girl just rests her head on his shoulder. It was a sweet gesture and if not for the tensity of the moment, Daniel might have made a joke about it. Instead, he just laid against the back of the bus with his eyes closed, thinking of Mike Wheeler. It had been too long since he heard his voice.

Finally, Max broke the unwelcome silence. "So you really fought one of these things before?" Steve looked at her and nodded. "And you're, like, totally one-hundred-percent sure it wasn't a bear?"

"It's face opened up like a pretty, deadly, flower," Daniel defended in a bored voice.

Dustin sighed, interjecting before anyone else could respond. "Shit. Don't be an idiot, okay? It wasn't a bear." Daniel was shocked to hear this kind of rudeness coming from Dustin, but he decided not to question it aloud for fear of becoming his next target. "Why are you even here if you don't believe us? Just go home."

"Shit, Dustin," the boy muttered under his breath, earning a glare from the other.

Max, however, was unbothered. She stood up and said, "Geesh. Someone's cranky. Past your bedtime?" Before anyone could say anything else, she climbed up the ladder, following Lucas. Daniel couldn't blame her.

"That's good. Just show her you don't care," Steve nodded approvingly, earning a slap on the arm from Heather.

"Yeah, look where that got you," she snorted, crossing her arms over her chest. Steve just nudged her with his shoulder.

"It got me sitting next to the most beautiful girl I've ever seen," he tried with a cheesy smile on her face.

Heather scoffed and rolled her eyes, challenging, "Oh? Is that all you've got?"

Before Steve could respond, there was an ominous growling from outside the bus. They all crowded to the window, watching in fear and anticipation.

"You see him?" Dustin asked, but Steve shook his head.

"No."

"I don't like this," Daniel spoke, his voice shaky, "Not one bit."

"No one does, little man," Steve said with a breathy laugh followed by a sigh.

"Lucas, what's going on?" Dustin called up to the roof, everyone eagerly awaiting the boy's response.

After a brief spout of silence, Lucas's voice rang down, "Hold on!" They held on. "I've got eyes! Ten o'clock! Ten o'clock!"

Following that direction, Steve searched and finally pointed, "There."

"What's he doing?" Dustin asked, everyone's eyes glued to the creature hiding in the fog, prowling through the darkness.

Steve shrugged, "I don't know."

There was a low chittering noise coming from the creature which made the hairs on the nape of Daniel's neck stand straight up.

"He's not taking the bait, why is he not taking the bait?"

"Shit, shit, shit," Daniel muttered, a comforting arm being wrapped around his shoulders courtesy of his sister.

Always one to offer a suggestion, Dustin said, "Maybe he's not hungry?"

"Or he prefers flesh of the human kind," Daniel spoke, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Steve was silent for a moment before he backed away from the window. With a daunting look, he grabbed his bat.

"Steve? Steve, what are you doing?" Dustin scrambled, his tone encompassing everyone else's mood as well. Steve was unresponsive, just silent as he headed towards the door, "Steve?"

The teen finally turned around and held his lighter up, saying, "Just get ready."

He stepped outside and without skipping a beat, Heather ran after him. Daniel tried to grab her wrist to stop her, but she just ripped it away without any hesitation. Dustin and Daniel immediately went back to the window to watch.

"Heather? What are you doing?" Steve whisper-yelled, probably trying to stay quiet as not to alert the monster.

In response, the girl pulled a rusted iron rod from under the bus and held it up in front of her. "If you're gonna be a dumbass, I'm not gonna let you do it alone and there's no way you're going to get me to go back inside that bus."

Steve understood this and his face fell into a hardened expression as both teenagers got back to business. The boy started whistling, hoping to subtly get the monster's attention.

"Come on, buddy," he hummed, holding his bat up at the ready. Heather followed closely behind, a safe distance away from the very dangerous bat, but still close. "Come on, buddy. Come on, dinner time. Human tastes better than cat, I promise.

Finally, the monster came crawling out of the fog, everyone able to almost see it clearly. Well, Dart sure had gotten a lot bigger. The creature was the size of a large dog at this point.

"Uh, Steve!" Heather called, turning to see that another creature had hopped onto the hood of a nearby car, "Looks like Dart made a few friends."

Dustin ran and opened the doors of the bus, screaming, "Steve, Heather! Abort! Abort!"

The monsters started sprinting towards the couple, One lunging at Steve, but he jumped out of the way, rolling over the hood of a nearby car. Heather jumped back, stabbing forward with her iron rod, jabbing one right in the throat as it opened up it's blooming face. This was badass, of course, but it left her without a weapon. Both her and Steve ran for the bus. Steve made it inside, being grabbed and pulled in by the four kids waiting for him. Heather was a beat too slow and as she jumped to get in, a creature opened it's mouth and grabbed her by the leg, wretching her out of the kids' grip.

"Heather!" Steve screamed, pushing past the kids with his bat in hand as he ran out after her. She was on the ground screaming, her leg still in the monster's grip as it dragged here away. She gripped at the leaves on the ground, looking for something to grip or something to use as a weapon, but she came up empty. Steve sprinted after her, hitting the monster using the bat with so much force it knocked it off of her. This, unfortunately, got the attention of the other monsters. As they locked their eyes on the couple, Steve picked the bleeding girl up bridal style and made a dead sprint for the bus. He got there, handing Heather off to the kids as she cried, clutching her leg. Beating off the monsters at his feet with the bat as he shoved the doors closed, ripping a piece of sheet metal from the front of the bus and putting it against the doors.

"Jesus, what are they rabid or something?"

"They can't get in, they can't!" Steve exclaimed, pressing his feet against the door as the bus began to shake.

The limb of a monster suddenly broke through and Steve immediately cursed and began beating it with the bat.

Crying into the walkie-talkie, Dustin screamed, "Is anyone there? Mike? Will? God! Anyone? Heather's, Heather's bleeding, we're under attack! We need help! Is there anyone there?" There was no response besides the pounding of the creatures hitting the sides of the bus. They were hopeless. "We're at the old junkyard and we are going to die!"

Those words rang over and over in Daniel's dead. They were going to die. This is how their world was going to end. Suddenly, Max stopped and looked up. A creature was coming in through the entrance in the ceiling. Max screamed.

"Out of the way, out of the way!" Steve shouted, climbing up the ladder, "You want some? Come get this!"

Then, the monsters stopped. The bus stopped moving, everything was silent. All of a sudden, they all fled. They left four terrified kids, a boy with a bat, and a bleeding girl, trying her damnedest not to scream in pain. What were they going to do now?

( note! )

uhhh sorry.. i guess?