Chapter Twenty-Nine: Epiphany

The group decided to go to Mike's house to collect themselves and get things sorted out. Max was feeling somewhat better, having stopped crying some time ago. She didn't resist Annie and her hugs, so Annie felt that was good.

"Well, we should find Hopper. Have El see if she can find him once she's feeling better. He'd know what to do," Annie said, Max tucked into her side as they sat on one of the chairs.

Mike went to protect, but El immediately agreed. "I can do it. We need his help." So they turned the TV to a static channel and got El blindfolded.

They sat for a few minutes before El said, "I found him."

"Where is he?" Max asked.

"Woods."

Everyone was confused at that. "Woods?" Lucas asked.

El nodded ever so slightly then followed it up. "He's with... Will's mom."

"My- my mom?" Will asked, his voice cranking up a couple notches.

"What are they doing?"

There was a pause. "Ill... annoy?" El asked. "They're going to Ill-annoy."

"Illinois? Why would they need to get out of state?" Annie immediately asked.

Someone started knocking on the door to the basement. "Mike! Breakfast!" Mike's mom.

"Not now mom!" the child in question hollered up the stairs. He turned back to the group, looking to El. "Illinois? Like the state?"

El just shrugged and repeated, "Ill-annoy."

They sat in silence for a second before Max sat up and stood. "Come on, lets get you cleaned up," she said. The two girls went off to the bathroom and Annie decided to stay in the chair.

While they were gone, Mike stood and paced around. Annie was getting a headache watching him. "Something's not right. I can't get Hopper off my back all summer, now all of a sudden he's hiking with Will's mom to Illinois? And Dustin's MIA too? I mean, this can't be a coincidence."

"Mike would you please stop pacing, you're killing me," Annie groaned, adjusting in the chair so her legs were thrown over an arm and her back leaned on the other.

"Yes, please," Lucas said. "Why does it matter anyway? The bottom line is, they're not here. It's up to us." He gestured around the group.

Mike sighed, but stopped. "Up to us to do what exactly?" he asked.

"Find Billy and stop him," Lucas answered.

After a second, when Mike started talking again, Annie sat up with alarm. The boys all stopped and looked at her. "You okay?" Will asked, breaking the silence.

Annie looked at him, then around to the others before she answered. "I haven't heard from Steve. I left a note saying I'd be sleeping over with El and Max for those two nights but not for last night."

She immediately got out of the chair and went over to the phone by the stairs. "I'm gonna call and see if he's home." Annie couldn't believe she had basically forgotten about her brother. Especially after all those thoughts with Billy and Max.

After a couple rings, her mom picked up. "Hello?"

Annie tuned out the conversation behind her. "Hey, mom, uh it's Annie. Was wondering if Steve was home? Or did he already leave for his shift?"

There was a pause on the other end, long enough for Annie to grow concerned. "I haven't seen him, actually. He might've spent the night at a friends. Do you know when you're coming back?"

But Annie didn't care about that, she cared about her brother's safety. He never slept over with a friend, not after sophomore year. Claimed he was too old for that. So something was wrong. "Gotta go," Annie said, then slammed the phone back down on the receiver.

She turned around and saw the boys standing in a line, staring at the bathroom door. With an eyebrow raised, she asked, "The hell are you guys doing?"

They all looked over at her. "Why do girls like to hang out in the bathroom?" Lucas asked. He munched on some Cocoa Puffs.

Annie shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe cause there's a guarantee of no boys bothering us?" she offered up. But she realized they were spending some time in there. Maybe El or Max needed a second- Annie couldn't blame them.

Mike shook his head. "They're conspiring against me."

Annie let out a groan and Will said, "That's what you're concerned about right now?"

"It's not my main concern," Mike said in an attempt to defend himself. "It's just a sub concern."

"I thought it was already over," Will mentioned.

"Yeah, she dumped your ass, do you not remember?" Annie butted in, letting Lucas pour some Cocoa Puffs into her hand.

Mike sent her a glare. "It's not over! We're just taking a break right now."

"She dumped your ass, Mike. Did you not hear her or Annie just now?" Will asked. "That doesn't sound like a break."

"It wasn't!" Max yelled from the bathroom. "You guys do realize we can still hear everything you're saying, right?" The boys froze in terror as Annie started to double over in laughter. She had to work extra hard to make sure she didn't choke on the cereal in her mouth, but it was pretty hard.

Mike whispered something about 'conspiring' again when another knock came at the door. "Not now mom!" Mike yelled up the stairs again.

"Mike, open the door." Annie looked over at Mike.

"That didn't sound like your mom."

Mike gave her an annoyed glance as he walked by her and up the stairs. He opened the door and revealed Nancy and Johnathan. "What are you guys doing here?" Mike asked, but let them in anyway.

"We have a problem," Nancy started, making her way to the couches and chairs. Annie knocked on the bathroom door, getting the other two girls out so they could listen to what Nancy had for them.

"Okay, what kind of problem?" Will asked.

Nancy hesitated. "An Upside Down problem."

The kids looked at each other, wondering what else they had to deal with now. This look didn't go unnoticed by Johnathan. "Wait wait- what was that look. What do you guys know?" he asked.

So the group told her and Johnathan about the sauna test and how they were trying to see how Billy reacted to heat to see if he was the new host for the Mind Flayer. It worked and he nearly killed El. It was quite the story to tell.

"Now what's your problem?" Annie asked, and wondered if they were connected.

Nancy sighed. She stood an explained the whole thing, about this woman named Mrs. Driscoll and how she had called about some 'rabid rats' who ate her fertilizer. Nancy went to see if she could take the rat to show her bosses at the Post but found Mrs. Driscoll eating fertilizer instead and called an ambulance. When she went to visit the old woman in the hospital last night, she went crazy as well as the machines and the lights.

"It was the same thing, the exact same thing Will went through last year," she said. "And look at this, look at the body temperatures." She handed the kids a piece of paper that showed jus how cold Mrs. Driscoll's body got.

"He likes it cold," Will said.

"Okay," Mike started. "So this crazy old woman who was eating fertilizer-"

Nancy stopped him there. "Mrs. Driscoll."

"Right, yeah, Mrs. Driscoll. What time was this attack?" Mike asked.

"Last night," Nancy answered.

"Right, but what time last night?" Mike asked again.

"Around nine."

Johnathan stopped and looked at Nancy. "You waited all night to call?" he asked.

Nancy stuttered for a second then said, "I was waiting for the doctors to run some tests."

Then Will jumped in. "Wait, you weren't there?" he asked.

Johnathan threw his hands up. "Well, I'm here now, aren't I?" he asked.

"Hallelujah," Nancy scoffed, causing Lucas to 'ooh' in sympathy for Johnathan. Annie just paused and wondered about all the boy drama that was seemingly going down with (almost) all the girls involved with the Party.

"Um, so wha- what time was your... sauna test?" Nancy asked, desperate to keep moving.

"Around nine," the group agreed in unison.

Nancy looked like she struck gold. "Well, that proves it. That proves my theory."

"She's flayed. Just like Billy," Mike said.

"Flayed?" Johnathan question, Annie also slightly confused where this word came from.

"The Mind Flayer. He flays people, takes over their minds. Once they do that, they basically become him," Mike explained.

Lucas jumped in with, "If there are two flayed..."

"We have to assume there are more," Will finished.

The same thought passed through Max, El, and Annie's heads, El just got the words first. "Heather." She looked over to the other two and they all nodded. "Billy was doing something to her. She was scared. She was screaming. Bad screams."

"What's a good scream?" Lucas interrupted.

"Max said-"

"We're not gonna talk about that right now," Annie interrupted, trying to keep her face as neutral as possible.

Nancy came in at the perfect time. "I'm sorry, I'm lost, who's Heather?" she asked.

"She's a lifeguard at the pool," Max explained.

"Heather Holloway?" Nancy asked, her voice sounding as if she just got something confirmed. Like she knew Heather. The girls nodded their heads and the older teens looked at each other. "Tom."

"Tom? Who's Tom?" Annie asked. The name rang a faraway bell.

Johnathan answered. "Her dad."

"Come on, we've got somewhere to be," Nancy said, motioning for the others to follow her up the stairs. "I think her dad might be another flayed."

Annie shared a look with Max, but didn't say anything else on the matter. If she was thinking was Annie was thinking, it would be almost their fault. Her dad and maybe her mom could've been flayed the night they stopped by.

They followed Nancy up the stairs. "Mom, I need to borrow the car, I'm gonna take the kids to the movies!" Nancy called, grabbing the car keys off the counter.

"Okay honey, have fun!" Mrs. Wheeler called back, smiling at the kids. They all did their best to act normal and offered small smiled back as they hurried out of the house.

Nancy was driver and Johnathan took shotgun, leaving the kids to figure out their seating. Annie, Max, and El hurried into the middle seat, leaving the boys to scoff. "Seriously?" Mike asked.

Will just laughed. "Welcome to my world." They crawled into the back of the car and closed up the trunk.

As Nancy got ready to drive, she turned back and looked pointedly at the kids. "Seatbelts." Those who could got themselves strapped in as Nancy started to drive. Annie decided to ignore the fact that Nancy backed into their bikes and focused on the fact that they were getting deeper and deeper into shit.

A/n: I realize I don't have any of season 4 written so I should probably get on that lol