chapter twenty-one
on the run

        Mike turns and bolts up the stairs, two at a time, after instructing El to remain in the basement.  Against, their better judgment, Alex and Dustin are quick to bolt after him but not before Alex takes one last glance back at El.  So much has happened in the past few minutes, it's no wonder that she looks so lost and confused.  She promises herself, then and there, that once all of this is over when they are safe, she'll teach El about the world.  And then, she follows Mike and Dustin, taking the stairs two at a time. 

Alex, Mike, and Dustin crowd in the window, breath billowing and fogging up the glass pane, a lone van branded with Hawkins Power and Light is parked on the side of the street in front of the Wheeler's house.  Through the glass pane, Alex can just make out a lone figure that sits in the driver's seat of the van.  Alex's heart leaps into her throat as the figure shifts in their seat, as if craning their neck to get a better look at the three children who crowd in the window.  Surely this is just a coincidence.

"What's that guy doing?" Mike asks.

Dustin turns to him with wide eyes.  "You don't think..."

"Anything's possible," Alex answers.

Mike sucks in a sharp breath and tears away from them and into the kitchen where Alex can faintly hear Karen conversing with somebody on the phone.  Karen is lucky.  Ignorance is bliss.  Karen cannot fathom the danger that they are in.  With hope, they will leave Karen alone.  Karen knows nothing about the girl that Mike had hidden away in their basement.  Alex hopes that it will remain one day. 

They're just kids.  They're just kids fighting in an adult war.  They should be out, enjoying what little sun they have left before winter blows in.  They should be laughing and singing and jumping into piles of leaves.  Instead, they are hiding.  It's open season in Hawkins, and they are being hunted down.  They're just kids.  They shouldn't have to fear monsters that lurk in the shadows and monsters that come in the form of humans.  They should be worrying about their next math test.  They're just kids.

She and Dustin remain at the window, her feet are rooted to the ground.  She cannot move.  She is paralyzed with fear.  The bad men are coming.  The bad men have latched onto their scent and they don't know what they are capable of.  They can run, but they can't hide.  Alex gasps as a line of vans tears down the street toward the Wheeler's house.  Figures with indiscernible features fill the windows of the vans.  A chill runs down Alex's spine as the closest van pulls past the house.  The window is rolled down and Alex can see the dark expression on the man's face as he peers at them maliciously.  Alex curses under her breath and leaps back, away from the window, just as Dustin snaps the curtains shut.  Alex lets out a breath as they are bathed in darkness and exchanges a glance with Dustin.  They both know that they're too late.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit," Alex whispers as she and Dustin stumble into the kitchen where Mike and Karen are engaged in an argument.  Mike is asking desperately about any repairs scheduled, and Karen is almost glaring at him, her hand covering the mouthpiece of the phone in her hand.

Dustin is panting heavily, clinging to the side of the counter.  "Mike!"

"One second," Mike snaps, waving them off, not even turning in their direction.

"MIKE!" Dustin and Alex scream.  At this, Mike whirls around to face them.  It's then that he sees the wild panic that dances in their eyes.

"We need to leave..." Dustin pants, "right now."

"They're here," Alex tells him.

Karen's expression melts as her gaze focuses on Alex.  "Oh, Alex, I didn't know you were here.  Your mom's on the phone—"

But Alex and Dustin are already bounding away before Karen can finish her sentence.  If only they had more time.  Alex would've taken the phone from Karen.  She would've talked to her mom.  She would have reached out and bridged the gap.  She would have apologized for everything: the rage, the vases, the drywall.  She would tell Laura that she was sorry and that she did love her, even if their relationship had consisted of screaming matches until both their throats were raw and torn.  Because on the good days, Laura was tender, and on the good days, Alex knew that Laura loved her.  But time is not on Alex's side.  Time has never been on their side.

Alex tries not to break.  Today, she faces the possibility of never seeing her family again.  There are so many cut ties between them, so many unresolved threads and Alex wishes that she could have mended every single one of them.  But they're still so many worlds apart and there is not enough time to reach them and is not enough time for all the things that she could say to them.  Oh, what Alex could have done if she knew that she had such little time.  But they're not dead yet, she has to remind herself.  As long as they're still kicking and breathing, there's still a chance that they can make it out of this alive. 

Faintly, as she and Dustin race back down the basement stairs two at a time, she hears Mike's voice echo through the house, "If anyone asks where I am, I've left the country!"

In her haste, Alex misses the last step and stumbles but manages to pick herself up.  El watches with wide eyes as she and Dustin scramble for their backpacks and any last-minute supplies that they might need.  They won't be back here for a long time.  Their safe haven has turned into their prison.  They need to get out before the doors shut and lock forever.

The four tumble out of the basement door, Dustin first, followed by Alex, and then finally, Mike and El.  Their bikes still lay on the lawn, discarded in a pile.  Alex's heart palpitates in her chest as she scrambles to pick up the frame of her bike.  The four children tear across the sea of grass, arms pumping and chests heaving, only pausing to climb onto their bikes.  Alex is about to cast off from the lawn when she hears El's breath catch in her throat.  The girl trembles and clings tighter to Mike's jacket, her knuckles are stark white against the deep green of his corduroy jacket.

Alex follows her gaze, and the blood in her veins freezes and for a moment, she forgets everything—how to move, how to breathe—and can only stare with a palpitating heart and fear in her eyes.  On the other side of the chain-link fence, men in black are spilling out of the white vans and each pair of eyes is focused in on them.  The man who leads them is wearing a black suit with a long black trench coat.  His hair is pure white, and Alex thinks that with enough effort his cold, hawk-like gaze could pierce right through them.  It is him who Eleven fears the most.  And Alex thinks that it is not just El who should fear him.  He is the monster among men.  The monster who wears human skin.  The fence that separates them is not enough to fend him off. 

"Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go!" Dustin urges.  This snaps them out of their temporary paralysis, and they cast off, away from the vans.  Behind them, Alex can hear the revving of engines and the squealing of tires against the road.  They streak like bullets down the road, forming a blockade of bicycles.  (Not that it would do much against the vans).  "Oh my God.  Oh my God.  Oh my God.  Oh my God.  Oh my God!"

"Dustin!" Lucas's voice patches through Dustin's Supercom.  "Dustin, do you copy?"

"Yeah, Lucas, they're on us!" Dustin replies, shouting into the headset he wears. 

"Where are you?"

"Cornwallis."

"Meet me at Elm and Cherry!"

Alex lets out a small sigh of relief.  At least there is one small light in this tunnel of darkness.  Lucas is alive and Lucas is free, and Lucas is coming back to help them.  They can't do this without Lucas, but they can't do this without El or Mike or Dustin.  Together or not at all.

"Copy," Dustin replies, then cups a hand around his mouth and announces, "Elm and Cherry!"   

"Okay!" Mike calls back.

Alex knows Hawkins like the back of her hand.  She knows where each and every road leads, but today, she follows Mike.  She follows Mike as he guides his bike over a curb and back onto the road.  They coast down a small one-way hill that deposits them back onto the open road.  Alex can hear the revving of engines behind her and doesn't need to risk a look back over her shoulder to know that the vans are still following them.  The hairs on the back of Alex's neck stand on end as the revving draws closer and closer with each passing second, she realizes with horror that the vans are closing in no matter how violently she pumps her legs. 

"Shit!" Dustin screams.

"This way, come on!" Mike calls.

He careens into a driveway.  Dustin and Alex follow behind.  Alex is jolted by a harsh bump as her tires sail over the curb, but she keeps peddling.  They sail across the yard and down a grassy hill into someone's backyard, already inhabited by three girls who remain oblivious to their intrusion.  Two of the girls stand face-to-face, singing and clapping their hands against each other, while the other girl sits by herself at the wooden picnic table.     

Dustin frantically rings his bell to catch their attention, all the while screaming, "Out of the way!"

The girls part just in time as Alex and Dustin sail through the gap that they have created between the girls, followed swiftly by Mike and El.  They cut through the backyard and onto another driveway.  Alex's calves burn, but the thought of the imminent danger that lurks behind them is enough to keep her going.  If they can't hide, then they can run.  The three bikes slow to a stop in the center of the street where Elm and Cherry converge. 

Alex lets out a heavy sigh of relief as Lucas Sinclair appears around the corner.  He wears his camouflage bandana around his forehead and smeared eye black beneath his eyes.  His radio is taped to the handlebars of his bike, and a compass is secured to the top with a rubber band.  His army knife hangs from a loop in his pants, hidden away in its sheath.  His chest is heaving, and he looks as exhausted as the rest of them, but he's alive and he is here.  He looks just as relieved to see them, as they are to see him—if not more.

Alex had spent the past twenty-four hours in the company of her friends.  Lucas had not.  Whatever horrors he had faced getting there with them, he had faced alone.  Alex doesn't know if she would have made it this far if she did not have the boys and El with her.

"Lucas!" Mike exclaims in relief. 

"Thank God," Alex murmurs. 

"Where are they?" Lucas asks between panting breaths.

"I-I don't know," Mike replies. 

"I think we lost them," Dustin says.

He spoke too soon.

Five heads turn at the sound of screeching tires, hundreds of yards away.  But that's not enough distance between them.  No distance will ever be enough to shake them.  They're just kids.  They're just five kids with no place to run and no place to hide.  It was stupid of them to think that they ever stood a chance against the monsters among men. 

"God, damn it, Dustin," Alex groans.

"Go, go, go, go, go!" Mike screams. 

Dustin lets out a scream as they push off against the road.  The vans whirl around the corner, close together.  There is no way they can weave through the blockade that they have formed.  They have no choice but to keep pushing forward. 

"Go, go, go, go, go!"

"Faster!  Faster!"

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!"

Alex lets out a strangled scream of horror as another van turns onto the street, cutting off their chance to escape.  It's like the cliffside all over again, except this time, it is so much more real.  At least at the Quarry, there was still a chance to escape.  At the Quarry, they were running from knives and fists, but now, they're running from something so much bigger than two bullies whose words cut across their jugulars and are defeated in two swift motions from El.  Dustin lets out a long scream, but it barely registers in Alex's ears.  

Alex has stared death in the face countless times—when she sailed through a traffic light the first time she had ridden through the streets alone; when she dangled from a branch in the tree and let go just to see what would happen (the edges of shattered bones had pierced through her flesh, she still has scars to remind of her incident); just the day before, in James' constricting grasp—but nothing could prepare her for this.  All those other times, she had scapegoats.  But there is no way out. 

This is where it ends.  Alex, like every child, had always wondered what it would feel like to die.  Are you shown your life one last time before the darkness consumes you?  Where does your consciousness go?  But more importantly, what would it be like after she died?  Would her funeral be empty save for her parents and her brother?  Or would it be like Will's?  Would the town conveniently forget her anger and paint her to be just another sweet kid gone before her time?

At least she won't die alone.

The van continues to hurtle turn them.  Alex hopes by some miracle that they only intend to scare them.  That the van will stop at the last possible second, and instead, the men will swarm out and whisk them away to wherever they came from.  But Alex would rather die than be caged up like a feral animal. 

The van draws closer and closer and closer with no signs of stopping, and finally, Alex closes her eyes, bracing herself for the inevitable impact.

Except...it never comes.

The familiar ringing sound fills the air and Alex cracks an eye open to see the van soaring through the air above them.  The hood is smashed in as if some invisible force had crashed into it and a thin crack runs through the windshield.  Alex watches, mouth agape, as the van soars in a graceful arc above them before crashing to the ground behind them.  Alex doesn't need to look to know that it is El who has saved them once again.  The world falls silent again as the children continue to peddle on down the road. 

Alex doesn't look back.