CHAPTER TEN:
AN OUTLET MALL...

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   WHEN THEY ARRIVED at the mall, it was silent. The mall had closed at least an hour beforehand but something seemed off when they walked in. They walked silently up to the railing that looked over the food court. Danny immediately got down when he saw a few men wearing all black and holding guns. Danny knew what he was involved in was serious but he didn't realize it was so serious that so many other people were involved, including scary men. Danny peered over again and saw Dustin Henderson, Steve Harrington, Erica Sinclair, and his own cousin, Robin, hiding from the men behind the counter of a pizza place. Danny couldn't believe that his cousin had gotten involved in all of this as well and he wondered how the hell Erica Sinclair got involved.

Eleven stood up from her crouched position and stepped up to the railing. Danny and the others stood up as well. Danny smirked as Eleven held her hand up and pushed it forward, slamming a display car into the men. The car flew into another restaurant, killing the men. Danny smiled at Eleven's abilities, impressed, once again. The group of four slowly stood up from their hiding spot, looking at the dead men, and the car before looking up and seeing everyone at the railing. When Robin's eyes landed on Danny, she looked just as confused as he did.

They all quickly rushed down to the first floor to reunite with their friends. Dustin laughed as he saw Eleven and ran into a hug with her and Mike, "You flung that thing like a Hot Wheel!"

"Lucas?" Erica yelled once she saw her brother.

"What are you doing here?" Lucas asked, shocked to his sister here.

"Ask them," Erica pointed to Steve and Robin. "It's their fault."

"True, yeah. Totally true," Steve nodded. "It is absolutely our fault."

Steve's face was bloody and bruised. He looked like he had been beaten to a pulp and Danny wondered what had happened to him. Danny looked at Robin and held out his hands, "What the hell are you doing here?"

"What the hell are you doing here?" Robin retorted before gesturing to the turned over car, a look of utter confusion on her face. "I don't understand what happened to that car."

Danny's face lit up as he turned to Eleven, "Oh, it's fucking awesome, Robin!"

"El has superpowers," Dustin explained, gesturing to Eleven.

Robin furrowed her brows in confusion as she looked back at her brother, "I'm sorry?"

"Superpowers," Steve repeated. "She threw it with her mind. C'mon, catch up."

"That's El?" Erica asked, pointing to Eleven.

"Who's El?" Robin exclaimed.

"I'm sorry," Nancy interrupted. "Who are you?"

"I'm Robin," Robin smiled. "I work with Steve."

"She's my cousin," Danny explained.

"She cracked the top-secret code," Dustin explained.

"Yeah, which is how we found out about the Russians in the first place, "Steve added.

"Wait," Danny held out his hands as a pause. He remembered the stupid Russian code that Dustin and Robin were obsessed with that Danny thought was stupid. He never thought in a million years that it was real. "That shit was real?"

"Russians?" Jonathan asked. "What Russians?"

"The Russians!" Steve yelled, gesturing to the two dead men on the floor, their blood now pooling over the linoleum. "Yes, they're real. The code was real."

Max gasped, "Those were Russians?"

Erica shrugged, "Some of them."

"What are you talking about?" Lucas exclaimed.

"Didn't you hear our code red?" Dustin asked.

"Yeah," Mike answered. "But I couldn't understand half of what you were saying."

Dustin shook his head, "Goddamn low battery!"

"How many times do I have to tell you with the low battery?" Steve scolded, slapping his hands together. Danny furrowed his brows around Steve and Dustin's friendship.

"Still only making friends with kids, huh, Steve?" Danny joked as Steve flipped him off. Danny retorted with a hand heart.

"Okay, well, everything worked out, didn't it, Steve?" Dustin tells him.

"Worked out?" Erica scoffed. "We almost died!"

"Yeah, but we didn't? Did we?" Dustin argued.

Steve chuckled, "It was pretty damn close."

"Okay, Russians?" Lucas started, wanting to know more about that subject. "As in, they're working for the Russian government?"

Danny rolled his eyes, "No, they're working for the Chinese government."

Lucas glared at Danny, "It's a valid question."

"What are you not comprehending? Am I not speaking English?" Dustin asked him, throwing his hands up in the air dramatically. "We have a full-blown Red Dawn situation!"

"So this has nothing to do with the gate?" Max asked.

"It has everything to do with the gate!"

"Okay, what the hell is this gate you're talking about?" Danny questioned, stepping forward. "I thought this was about the Mind Flayer, not Russians and a gate."

"No, it's all connected!" Dustin exclaimed prompting Danny to raise an eyebrow.

They all started to argue and exchange the information they had found out while away from each other. They were so distracted, they didn't even notice Eleven had walked off. When Eleven collapsed onto the floor, Mike rushed over, "El! El! El! What's wrong?"

Eleven started to whimper and her forehead had beads of sweat falling as she let out small cries of pain, "My leg. My leg."

"Her leg, her leg. Okay," Jonathan rushed over and took off the bandages that Max had put on.

Gasps were heard around the group as well as groans of disgust. The wound had gotten worse. It was glowing and something had started moving underneath her skin like a some sort of worm or bug. Eleven started to moan in pain before letting out a loud scream. Danny observed her wound and saw something alive inside her leg. He felt like throwing up at the sight.

   "There's something in there," Mike said.

"Keep her talking," Jonathan ordered them. "Keep her awake, okay?"

Jonathan sprinted off to find supplies, trying to search through all the different food places in the food court they were currently in. Eleven's wound oozed out blood onto the linoleum. Her moans of pain had stopped as she was starting to drift in and out of consciousness. Danny watched with wide eyes as Mike started to shake her, "Hey, hey hey. Stay awake, awake." He turned to Dustin and Steve. "Let's get her on this side, on this side."

"Uh... you know, it's — it's not actually that bad. There was a..." Robin started rambling as Mike, Dustin, Steve, and Nancy attempted to move Eleven. "The goalie on my soccer team, Beth Wildfire, this other girl slid into her leg, and the whole bone came out of her knee, six inches or something, it was insane!"

The whole group stared at her, all of them extremely confused as to what that story was doing to make the situation better in any way, shape, or form. Danny shook his head at her. Steve pursed his lips, "Robin."

"Yeah?"

He shook his head, "You're not helping."

Robin nodded, "I'm sorry."

Jonathan sprinted back to them, his shoes pounding on the hard linoleum before he kneeled beside Eleven. He had a large knife, gloves, and a wooden spoon in his hand, "Alright, El, this is gonna hurt like hell, okay?" He put on the gloves. "Need you to stay real still." He then handed her the wooden spoon. "Here, you're gonna want to bite down on this, okay?"

Mike put the spoon in Eleven's mouth. Danny stepped back to give Eleven, Jonathan, and Mike some space. Jonathan grabbed the knife and moved it closer to Eleven's shin. He hesitated before dragging it across her skin, blood pooling out. Eleven started to scream the second the knife sliced through her skin. The entire group, even Jonathan, looked disgusted by the sight in front of them. Danny gagged as he turned around, trying to keep himself from throwing up. Jonathan threw the knife down before closing his eyes and reaching into Eleven's wound, causing her to scream even more. Jonathan dug through the wound with his fingers, the squelching noises making Danny throw up in his mouth a tiny bit.

"Jonathan!" Nancy called out.

"Stop talking!" Jonathan yelled back as he dug deeper into the wound. He was trying to grab whatever was in there but he couldn't get a good grip on it. "Goddamn it!"

Eleven shook her head, the spoon falling out of her mouth. "No! Stop it! Stop!"

Nancy had to pull Jonathan back to get him to stop. Eleven sat up, tears falling down her face as she muttered in pain, "I can do it. I can do it."

Mike and Eleven helped Eleven sit up. She took a deep breath before holding out her hand over her wound and squeezing her fingers together. It caused more movement to occur in her leg as she started to try to get the creature out. Danny finally turned back around, trying to keep his food down. Eleven squealed in pain as the creature moved and fought back inside her leg. She cried out and screamed as the tiny, slimy creature that resembled a slug slowly came out of her leg. She screamed so hard that the glass window behind them shattered and landed among the group. Danny shielded himself from the glass. Eleven threw the creature across the room before it was stepped on by Chief Hopper.

The entire group looked across the room, seeing Chief Jim Hopper, Joyce Byers, and another man that Danny didn't recognize. Danny was extremely confused as to how Chief Hopper and Will's mom were involved in all of this. The group relocated to the center of the mall, right at the fountain the food court. They had started explaining what was going on, Hopper mainly wanting to know about the Mind Flayer. Danny was trying to put everything together as to how everything was connected and what exactly had happened ever since Will had gone missing in November of 1983. All of it was connected.

"The Mind Flayer, it built this monster in Hawkins, to stop El, to kill her and pave a way into our world," Mike explained to Hopper as he nodded along.

"And it almost did," Nancy added. "That was just one tiny piece of it."

"How big is this thing?" Hopper asked curiously.

"It's big," Jonathan nodded before pursing his lips as he guessed the size. "Gotta be thirty feet, at least."

"Yeah. It sorta destroyed your cabin," Lucas nodded as Hopper sighed, not seeming surprised at that statement. "Sorry."

"Okay, so just to be clear, this... this big fleshy, spider thing that hurt El, it's some kind of gigantic... weapon?" Steve asked. Nancy nodded. "But instead of, like, screws and metal, the Mind Flayer made its weapon... with melted people."

Nancy nodded, "Yes, exactly."

Steve nodded, seeming very weirded out by the whole thing, "Yeah, okay. I — Yeah, I'm just making sure."

"Are we sure this thing is still out there — still alive?" Joyce asked.

"El beat the shit out of it," Max tells her, nodding. "But, yeah, it's still alive."

"But if we close the gate again —"

"We cut the brain off from the body."

Lucas nodded, "And kill it. Theoretically."

"Yoo-hoo!" A voice called out, approaching the group. The man that Danny still didn't know, made his way over to the group as he waved his arms at them and held some papers in his hand. "Yoo-hoo!"

He set the papers down on one of the food court tables and pointed at what looked like a map, "Okay, this is what Alexei called, the hub. Now, the hub takes us to the vault room."

"Okay, where's the gate?" Hopper asked, looking over the man's shoulder.

He pointed to another room on the map, "Right here. I don't know the scale on this, but I think it's fairly close to the vault room, maybe 50 feet or so."

Erica Sinclair stepped up, shaking her head at the man, "More like 500. What, you're just gonna waltz in there like it's commie Disneyland or something?"

"I'm sorry..." The man was taken back by her tone. "Who are you?"

"Erica Sinclair," She answered, putting her hands on her hips. "Who are you?"

"Murray... Bauman."

"Listen, Mr. Bunman," Erica held her hand up to silence the man, making him scoff at her attitude. "I'm not trying to tell you how to do things, but I've been down in that shithole for 24 hours." She looked around the group. "And with all due respect, you do what this man tells you, you're all gonna die."

Hopper furrowed his brows while Murray just scoffed, "I'm sorry, why is this four-year-old speaking to me?"

"Um, I'm ten, you bald bastard!"

Danny snorted while Lucas scolded his sister, "Erica!"

Erica whipped her head towards Lucas, "Just the facts!"

   Danny looked at Lucas and smirked, "Dude, your sister's awesome."

"She's right," Dustin agreed. "You're all gonna die, but you don't have to. Excuse me." He gestured to Murray's paper. "Sorry, may I?"

Murray smiled sarcastically, "Please."

Dustin sat at the table and pulled the papers towards him. He pulled a pencil out of his vest pocket and pointed to a room on the map, "See this room right here? This is a storage facility. There's a hatch in here that feeds into their underground ventilation system. That will lead you to the base of the weapon." He looked at Hopper and Murray. "It's a bit of a maze down there, but between me and Erica, we can show you the way."

Hopper raised his eyebrows, "You can show us the way?"

"Don't worry, you can do all the fighting and the dangerous hero shit, and we'll just be your... navigators," Dustin assured them with a smile.

"No," Hopper tells them. He shakes his head before giving Dustin a smile. "Nope."

Hopper walked off with Murray to prepare to go down below the mall to where the Russian's lab is. The kids grouped together by the fountain again while the adults went to work, grabbing weapons and any other supplies they might need. Erica met up with the group by the fountain before concluding, "Well, that settles it. He's gonna die. They're gonna die."

Dustin nodded, "Yep. Most likely."

Lucas furrowed his brows in confusion, "You guys survived."

"Barely," Dustin scoffed. "We really could've used you guys down here."

Mike nodded, "Could've used you up here, too.

Lucas nodded, "Yeah, man. We missed you, dude."

"Yeah," Will nodded. "Big time."

"I barely know you, so..." Danny said awkwardly.

Dustin walked towards his friends and they wrapped their arms around each other, doing a group hug as Dustin smiled at them. Danny couldn't help but smile at the sight and wished he had friends like that, "I missed you guys, too. Big time."

"Alright, enough of this shit," Danny waved his hand. "Too emotional for me."

Erica gives them a disgusted look, "Please don't cry, nerds."

"Erica," Lucas warned.

Erica narrowed her eyes at him, "Keep saying my name, see what happens."

"Hey, heads up!" Hopper called out as he walked over to the kids. He tossed a walkie talkie to Dustin. "You can navigate, just from someplace safe."

"It's not that simple," Dustin argued. "The signal won't reach, not with this. You need something with a high enough frequency band to relay the Russians' radio tower. But for that to work, you need someone who has both seen their comms room and has access to a super-powered handcrafted radio tower, one preferably already situated at the highest point in Hawkins." Dustin smirked. "Oh, wait. That's me. If you want us to navigate, you got us. But we need a head start. And a car."

Hopper pulled keys out of his pocket and tossed them to Dustin. Dustin and Erica rushed over to Steve and Robin before exiting the building to head to Dustin's radio tower. It was decided quickly between Hopper and Joyce that they needed to get everyone out of the mall that didn't need to be there in order to be safe. Nancy and Jonathan would take the kids to Murray's house where they would be safe while Hopper and Joyce ended things with the Russians in the mall. Danny had a feeling that it wasn't going to be that easy as it hasn't been that easy for the last couple of days. Something was brewing and Danny was growing nervous.

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