Chapter Eleven: That's When

The plan was to take the shed in the Byers' backyard and transform it so that Will wouldn't recognize it. They started by emptying the shed, then they covered the walls with tarps and discarded papers of all kinds, and they even got an interrogation looking set up going.

Now, that they finished it, they were waiting inside. Mike, Mrs. Byers, Johnathan, and the Chief were out in the shed with Will to "interrogate" him. The kids were anxious as they waited. Some sat and leaned on walls, waiting for something to happen. Steve had his bat in the living room and was practicing his swings.

Max and Annie sat in the hallway on opposite sides, but their closest legs were touching. "So, I realize I don't know a lot about you," Annie said, quietly breaking the silence.

Surprised, Max looked up from her lap and saw Annie smiling very lightly. "We should play that game, twenty questions. We each get to ask the other person twenty questions," she suggested when Max didn't say anything.

"Okay... should we have rules?" Max asked.

Annie thought for a second. "One question at a time, we alternate asking. No two part questions- you have to use your next question for the second part. And nothing too personal, we should stick with some basic stuff for now," she said. Max agreed.

"What's your favorite color?" That was Max's first question.

Annie tilted her head and thought for a second. "Maybe yellow, but pink is a close second. I don't know, yellow just makes everything brighter," she answered. "What's your favorite snack?"

"Ooh, I don't know, I kind of like Twinkies a lot. We never got them a lot so I always looked forward to them every time we did," Max explained. "What's your favorite movie?"

"Footloose, no questions asked. I don't know what it is about that movie, but I love watching it and I don't think I could ever get bored." Annie smiled as she talked about the movie and Max smiled back at her the same way.

When she wen quiet, Max said, "I don't think I've ever seen that movie."

Annie's jaw dropped at the statement. "Never? Oh my god we have to fix that as soon as possible! Fair warning, I will sing every song. I won't repeat any lines, but I will be singing the songs. Steve got me the cassette of the soundtrack and it was all I listened to for a couple months."

Max nodded. "Sure, we'll have to plan it out once all of this is over. Besides, we have a different movie to make up," she brought up. "I feel like we should do Nightmare on Elm Street this weekend, then Footloose the next, and just keep coming up with movies one has seen and the other hasn't."

Annie's heart sped up as Max talked about movie nights every weekend. She would love to do that with her. It brought up mental images in her head of them sitting on her couch at her house, eating snacks or sugar or dinner or whatever while laughing along to each movie. In her head, there was also the image of her curled up next to the redhead as they shared a bowl of whatever the hell they were eating.

Her cheeks heated up and Annie had to look down for a second. "You okay there?" Max asked, unsure of where the other girl's head just went.

"Yeah, just trying to figure out some other movies we need to see after Footloose. Can never plan too far ahead, you know," she said, but had gotten a bit quieter. Oh god, she hoped she wasn't looking too far into this. The bigger possibility was she was, but maybe she wasn't...

The lights in the house suddenly started flickering, causing both girls to look around and then stand up. They followed Steve, Nancy, Dustin, and Lucas to the kitchen window to look out at the shed. Annie remembered Steve and Dustin mentioning how lights flickered when the Demogorgan was near. Did Will find out where they were?

She didn't dare ask the question out loud, fearful it would come true.

Not even thirty seconds later, and the flickers slowed to a stop. There were no growls in the distance. Annie let go of the breath she was holding and knew they were good for now.

They didn't know what to do after that, so everyone stayed in the kitchen. It wasn't long until the Chief came running in the room followed quickly by the other three. Immediately Annie looked at them, worried. Why were there here? Did something go wrong?

"What happened?" Dustin asked for the group as the Chief grabbed things from around the room and brought them to the kitchen table. He sat down and everyone quickly surrounded him.

"I think he's talking, just not with words," he vaguely explained. Annie and Max looked at each other, lost, and then back to see the Chief writing something down. They weren't letters, though, they were dots and dashes.

"What is that?" Steve asked.

"Morse code," everyone answered at once. Annie looked up at her older brother and gave him a smirk, to which he just rolled his eyes in response.

The Chief wrote the letters underneath while spelling out loud. "Here." The kids looked at each other with some hope in their eyes.

"Will's still in there. He's talking to us," the Chief said.

Now, it was set up time. Johnathan took his boombox out to the shed to play a favorite song of Will's, Should I Stay or Should I Go, to try and get Will "speaking" again. The Chief had a radio with him and relayed what Will tapped. Inside, the kids worked on writing down the dots and dashes sent and then Lucas would translate them so Nancy could write down the full message.

It was making Annie go nuts. The anticipation, wanting to know what Will had to tell them and how this would all go. She was freaking out inside trying to keep herself calm but physically couldn't at this point. It took a lot of strength for her not to collapse under the weight.

A hand took hers and she looked down at it, and followed the arm up to see Max smiling at her. There were no words exchanged between the girls, they just smiled and understood each other.

It took a bit, but they finally got the final message from Will. The kids crowded around Nancy to see what had been written. "Close gate," the read out loud at once.

There was barely any time to process the message when the phone on the wall started ringing. Immediately everyone freaked out, with Annie reacting quick enough to pull the phone off the receiver then slam it back down.

The ringing stopped for a second and everyone breathed heavily. And then it rang again. Nancy, who had run up behind Annie, grabbed the entire phone- receiver and all- and ripped it from the wall and threw it to the ground, causing Annie to jump back slightly in surprise.

"Do you think he heard that?" Max asked, making Nancy and Annie turn their heads towards her.

Steve tried to reason, saying, "It's just a phone. It could be anywhere, right?"

Nancy nodded. "Yeah... yeah it's just a phone ringing, there's nothing distinct about it."

However, despite the words being said, it didn't look like a single person in the room believed them. "We're fine, right?" Lucas asked the group.

To answer his questions, the group heard screeching and roaring in the distance. They all moved to look out the front window. "That's not good," Dustin commented.

Steve quickly found his sister and stood right next to her, and Annie immediately found Max's arm and grabbed it. With her other hand, Max held onto Annie's hands wrapped tightly around the redhead's arm.

The boys went up to the living room window and leaned on the couch to look outside while Max, Steve, and Annie stayed in a small group. "Shit, this isn't good," Annie whispered.

Mike, Mrs. Byers, and Johnathan holding an unconscious Will came running in through the back door. "What happened?" Nancy quickly asked.

"He knows," was all that Mike answered. But it was enough to confirm their suspicious and have fear trail down Annie's spine.

Johnathan hurried to lay Will down somewhere as Mrs. Byers and Mike stayed with the others. He came back into the room shortly after.

Chief Hopper came rushing in next with a big gun in one hand. He grabbed the other he brought from the lab and yelled, "Get away from the windows!" Immediately the kids flew back off the couch and hurried back towards the wall.

Then, the Chief held up the smaller of the two guns at Johnathan. "You know how to use this?" he asked, and tried again when the boy looked confused.

"I can," Nancy answered. With no questions, the Chief tossed her the gun and she got it loaded.

Now, it was defense time. The adults who were armed stood in front of the unarmed kids. Lucas, armed with a wrist-rocket, stood slightly in front of Max and Annie and got ready to release a rock at anything that moved.

There was more screeching in the distance, and it was getting closer. "Where are they?" Max yelled, the fear coming through. Annie squeezed her arm and Max squeezed her hand back.

"What are they waiting for," Annie asked, quieter and even shakier than Max's yell. Steve spared a glance back at his sister and wished he had never brought her into this, that she never knew about the Upside Down and the real horrors within Hawkins.

No one said anything more after that, they just stood and waited. The growls got closer and Annie could feel her heart beating faster than it ever has before. This was a fear she's never known, not when she heard the first smash in the kitchen during her parents fight, not when she got her first C on a test and didn't want to tell her parents, not when she heard about Barbara going missing in her own backyard, not when Holly nearly drowned one summer in their swimming pool.

She might not make it out of this alive.

A loud thud outside made everyone gasp, Annie suppressing a scream in her throat. The adults continued to circle around the kids who were huddled close to the wall of the living room.

"What are they doing?" Nancy asked. The bushes rustled ominously outside the window.

"Oh dear god I wish this had been a prank I wish I had gone to the movies instead why did I do this oh my god-"

A snarl sounded towards the front and the group quickly turned to face the front again. They continued to screech outside, but they turned from angry, hunting ones to ones of pain and fear. Her heart didn't slow down, but Annie became more confused than scared at this point.

The sounds abruptly stopped and the world felt as if it were completely silent. The only things making sound were the people breathing in the living room of the Byers household. Annie let out a shaky breath as they all stared intently at the window.

Something suddenly smashed through one of the windows and Annie finally let out the scream begging to be released from her throat. Everyone jumped back in horror and the armed people moved to be in between the kids and the monster. Annie for sure thought this was it and had her eyes screwed shut and she gripped Max's arm with all her strength.

But an attack never came. Slowly, Annie opened her eyes and relaxed her grip on Max. She looked at the redhead, who looked back at the brunette, and then they looked at the monster laying on the ground in the corner.

"Holy shit," Dustin breathed.

"Is it dead?" Max asked just as quietly.

The Chief slowly crept forward and kicked the thing with his foot. When it didn't react, they had their answer. The room felt as if it were relaxing at the dead monster before them. All Annie wanted to know was what the hell just happened.

She opened her mouth to ask, but a creak at the door cut her off. The group snapped their heads towards the sound and watched as the deadbolt unlocked itself. The Chief, Nancy, and Steve got back into their defensive positions quick and moved to be back in between the new danger and the kids.

The chain on the door slid off on it's own and Annie let out an audible, shaky breath.

Ever so slowly, the door creaked open and in came a...

Girl?

A/n: yay! Welcome to the book, El 😁