chapter thirteen
the voice of a ghost

        Hope.

There were a lot of things that Alex used to hope for when she was little.  She got some of those things because her parents could afford them and they didn't know how else to make up missed dance recitals and school plays while they were tucked away in their offices.  Of course, Alex knew what they were doing—she was smart, too smart for her own good, they used to say—buying compliance out of her.  But Alex was okay with this relationship constructed of bank transactions because then, she had hope.  Because at least they cared enough to feel guilty.  So maybe, that guilt would manifest until they decided that they could afford to look up from their work and see their life—their bare house and two kids.  But that hope had always been fickle.

But this hope is different.  This hope is radiant and infectious and tangible because right now, Alex thinks that anything is possible.  This is the kind of hope that overpowers the pits of anger that dwell deep inside of Alex, the kind of hope that makes her heart light up with joy.  Dustin and Lucas catch her up to speed because seemingly everything, everywhere, all at once has happened between the hours that Will was found dead and this very moment, and Alex isn't there to witness it. 

They pile into the AV Room, one after another.  Alex is the last one in and Mike slides the bolt into place behind her, and Alex thinks that this might be the start of his acceptance.  She's sealed in on the inside rather than sealed out because she half expects Mike to slam the door in her face before she can enter the room.  Or maybe, he just doesn't want to deal with the calamity of Alex pounding on the door, because locked doors have never done much to stop Alex. 

"Come on," Mike whispers.  Eleven follows him through the cramped room with the overhead lamp as their only source of dim lighting.  He pulls out the single chair for Eleven to sit down in as the rest crowd around them.

"Now what?" Dustin wonders.

"She'll find him," Mike answers flipping the switches of the Heathkit.  He turns back to the girl.  "Right, El?"

El looks pale in the dim light with her eyes locked on the radio before her.  Alex feels the compulsion to put a hand on her shoulder and squeeze it tight.  Eleven glances up at her and Alex only gives her a soft smile.  "You got this."

Eleven nods and Alex thinks she sees the ghost of a smile on her face.  Radio static fills the room as Eleven places her hands flat against the table.  Her eyes close and the same high-pitched ringing fills the air once more.  Her eyes seem to be swimming beneath the lids as if searching for something in the landscapes of her imagination.  The light above them flickers and dims and the boys look at each other in amazement.

"She's doing it!" Mike exclaims softly.  "She's finding him!"

"This is crazy," Dustin marvels.

"Calm down," Lucas voices, "she just closed her eyes."

The light bulb above them flickers out suddenly, with a small pop, and plunges them into darkness.  Alex finds herself clutching the top of the chair for lack of anything else.  There's still a lot that they don't know about Eleven.  They are only looking at her through a keyhole and there's a part of Alex that wants to widen that keyhole, but another wants to stay in blissful ignorance of whatever Eleven's capabilities are.

"Shit," Alex mutters.

"Shh," Mike whispers.

"Shh," Alex whispers back, more intensely.

"Both of you, shut up," Dustin hisses.

Alex turns her attention back to Eleven.  She seems unbothered by the activity around her, too far gone in the landscapes of her mind—or wherever she has withdrawn to—illuminated only by the lights of the radio.  The static fades away to solid, clear clanging noises sound from the speakers of the radio.  Alex flinches as the first clang lands but soon becomes entranced by the steady beat, leaning forward with the rest of the boys as if this might enhance their experience.

"What is that?" Dustin finally asks.  There's a slight tremor in his voice.

And suddenly a voice patches through the clanging.  "Mom?"

Alex's blood runs cold.

This is the voice of a ghost.

"No way!" Lucas gasps.

"Mom..." Will chokes out.  Alex shrinks away from the radio.  She had been eager to hear Will, to break through whatever barrier is keeping them apart, but not in this way.  Will sounds so small, so scared and Alex has never been more certain than she is right now that there's something out there hunting him—hunting them all.  Something hungry for blood and marrow.  "Please...Mom!"

"Will!" Mike yells into the microphone.

"Will!" Lucas calls desperately, a sob tearing at his voice.  "Will, it's us!  Are you there?"

"Can you hear us?  We're here!" Dustin calls.

"Will?" Alex tries tentatively.

"Hello?  Mom?"

"Why can't he hear us?" Lucas cries, all desperation and anguish and panic.

"I don't know!" Mike shouts.

This is a connection, Alex realizes, not a communication.  This isn't a two-way street.  They're on the outside looking in, and there's a barrier between them and Will watching everything unfold.  But this isn't the type of barrier that Alex can break through with nothing but her fists, so all they can do is stand there and watch.  It's like a car crash, there isn't anything you can do to stop the collision of the cars, so all you can do is watch it all happen.

"God," Alex whispers.  This should be comforting.  This is supposed to make her feel better.  This is supposed to make her feel something other than the nothing that she had been feeling all day because Will is alive.  Will is alive and breathing and there, wherever there is.  But somehow this is worse than when he was nothing but a corpse being pulled out of the Quarry. 

"Mom!" Will calls again.  "Mom!  Mom...it's coming!  It's like home but it's so dark...it's so dark and empty!  And it's cold!  Mom?  Mom!  Mom, please!"

An inhuman screech sounds from the radio as Will's voice fades away in a shower of sparks.  A flame billows from the wreckage and the four who surround Eleven jump back instinctively, screams escaping from their mouths.  The fire alarm rings throughout the school, rattling Alex's skull as she stands in the midst of the chaos, helpless.  Dustin is the first to jump into action, pushing past petrified Alex and Lucas to grab the fire extinguisher tucked in the corner and douses the flames in foam.

Mike places his hands on Eleven's shoulders and turns her in the chair so that she's facing him.  "El, are you okay?  Can you move?"

Eleven doesn't reply and that is enough of an answer for the rest of them.  A trail of blood drips from her nose and onto the front of her pale pink dress, perpetually staining the fabric red.  Beads of sweat cling to her forehead and veins pop beneath her pale, almost porcelain skin.  What color the boys have given her with makeup is overpowered by the starkness of her pale skin.  Her eyes are vacant and Alex thinks that she's on the brink of succumbing to the darkness.

"Hey, you gotta stay awake," Alex tells her softly, crouching on her other side.  "Can you do that for us?"

Eleven doesn't answer.

Mike's eyes dart to Alex and then to Lucas.  "Here, help her up."

Mike and Lucas grip her under each arm and pull her out of the chair.  She hangs limply, like a rag doll, feet dragging on the ground as the two boys make their way to the exit.  Alex hefts Eleven by the feet as they lift her onto a rolling table that has been shoved into the corner of the room.

And together, they wheel her out of the room.

. . .

Alex perches on the arm of the couch, knees drawn up to her chest as she rests her chin on her folded arms.  Eleven lays on the couch next to her, face down with her head resting on the pillow.  She hasn't spoken a word since the AV Room, but the color has returned to her face and the trail of blood has stopped.  Mike sits at the other end of the couch arms crossed over his chest and leg bouncing against the floor.  Lucas sits in a chair across the room with his face buried in the palms of his hand while Dustin has taken a seat on the basement steps.  They've made it back to the sanctuary of the Wheeler's basement, but Alex itches to do something other than sit and think.

Will is out there and Will needs them but here they are sitting here in the basement because they don't know what to do.  And that makes Alex want to punch something.  She doesn't like not knowing and she doesn't like being helpless.  Thinking that Will is dead was easier than knowing that he's alive and hunted because then there was a lot more that she did know.  Because here are the facts this time around: Will is alive, Will is being chased by something, and they don't know where Will is.

"What was Will saying?" Mike wonders as he pushes himself up from the couch and crosses the length of the room and back again.  "Like home...like home...but dark?"

"And empty," Lucas adds with a heavy sigh.

"Empty and cold," Dustin repeats.  "Wait did he say cold?"

"I don't know," Lucas answers, "the stupid radio kept going in and out."

"He did," Alex confirms weakly.

Dustin lets out another sigh and lets his gaze trail up to the ceiling.  "It's like riddles in the dark."

Alex used to love riddles.  They got her mind whirring excitedly.  Solving riddles was like feeling the relief of a scratched itch and satisfied the churning of her mind because peel back the anger and you find an unsatisfied prodigy that's been smothered by the smoke of the burning anger.  Had the Alex that sits on the arm been the Alex before the anger, she would have been eager to mull over Will's words.  But all that is left of the prodigy within Alex is a burned-out candle stub.

"Like home..." Mike repeats.  "Like his house?"

Lucas perks up.  "Or maybe like Hawkins."

Alex perks up too because now, they're circling back to her multiverse theory.  Except maybe, instead of worlds where events play out differently, they're worlds parallel to each other.  Fundamentally the same, but vastly different.

"What about like our world?  Like...an alternate dimension?" Alex wonders.  The boys' heads turn toward her and she swallows.  "I don't know.  It's stupid."

"It's not," Dustin replies.  "You might be onto something, actually."

"Upside Down."  The words tumble out of Eleven's mouth, dray and rough.  Their heads snap to her and she shrinks away under the sudden spotlight of their attention.

"What'd she say?" Lucas asks, glancing over at Mike.

"Upside down," Mike murmurs.

"What?"

Mike lets out a small gasp and takes a seat in the vacant chair next to the card table as Alex, Dustin, and Lucas all rise from their respective spots and join him at the table.  The backside of the board still faces them but that is soon replaced by the front as Mike flips the board over.  "When El showed us where was, she flipped the board over, remember?"  He flips it again so the backside is facing them as they take seats in the other vacant chairs surrounding the table.  "Upside Down.  Dark.  Empty."

"Wheeler, that's genius!" Alex says with a nod.  Fundamentally, the two worlds are the same.  There's Hawkins, full of life and color.  And then there's the Other Side.  Will's side.  Dark and empty and devoid of life. 

"Do you understand what they're talking about?" Lucas questions after a beat of silence.

Dustin blinks.  "No."

"Guys, come on, think about it," Mike urges. "When El took us to find Will, she took us to his house, right?"

"Yeah," Lucas replies slowly, "and he wasn't there."

"But what if he was there?" Mike continues.  "What if we just couldn't see him?  What if he was on the other side?  What if...." he flips the board back over again, "this is Hawkins?" he flips it again, "and this is where Will is?  The Upside Down."

Dustin's eyes light up.  "Like the Vale of Shadows."

"The what now?" Alex asks.

"The Vale of Shadows," Dustin repeats, "it's a plane in Dungeons and Dragons.  Basically a plane—"

"Not important," Lucas interrupts.  "Get the book."

Dustin retrieves a gamebook from the nearby bookshelf and sets it on the table, flipping through the pages, a folder of knowledge.  "The Vale of Shadows," he reads, "is a dimension that is a dark reflection or echo of our world.  It is a place of decay and death.  A plane out of phase.  A place with monsters.  It is right next to you, and you don't even see it."

Alex raises her eyebrows, almost impressed.  "Chilling."

"An alternate dimension," Mike murmurs.

"But...how...how do we get there?" Lucas wonders.

"You cast Shadow Walk," Dustin answers.

Lucas rolls his eyes.  "In real life, dummy."

Dustin shrugs and looks to Alex and Lucas follows in suit.  Alex glances between the two boys before spreading her arms.  "Why are you guys looking at me?"

"You're the one with the multiverse theory," Dustin replies.

"Yeah, about how it exists, not how to travel in it," Alex retorts.  She glances over her shoulder at Eleven who has remained still this entire time.  "Besides, we can't shadow hop—"

"Shadow Walk."

"—but maybe she can."

At this, the rest of the boys turn back to gaze at Eleven.  She stares back at them with her wide brown eyes that scream nothing except I'm tired.  It feels cruel to ask the girl of anything right now.

"Do you know how we get there?" Mike asks softly.  "To the Upside Down?"

Eleven shakes her head.

"Oh my God," Lucas groans.

And Alex can't help but agree.  Despite everything they've learned, she can't help but feel as if they're all the way back on square one.