pissing off the mind flayer... again

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

    Gabe helped push a table against the cabin's windows and tried to control his breathing. It felt like everyone was going in slow motion, which was not the way to go when a ginormous, hideous monster was about to be knocking at their door. Even from here, even inside the cabin, he could smell the rotting corpses and the blood that the creature had been built on. It had been big. Larger than anything he'd ever seen. Which meant that it had been made up of more than six people and possibly a couple of rats. It meant that dozens upon dozens had their minds sucked out, their flesh dissolved. It meant that nobody had been safe.

Nancy burst through the front door, shotgun in hand. Gabe remembered her proficiency last year with it and had a sick sense of déjà vu. Because, yet again, they were boarding themselves up in a house while a supernatural army prepared to launch its attacks. But this time it was a little bit bigger than a Demodog. Just a little bit.

El saved us last time, Gabe thought, helping Max seal another window with a couch cushion and a folding chair. This time, I don't think she's going to be able to do it alone. I think we're going to have to save each other.

Which was... unfortunate. All Gabe had was a Swiss Army Knife and a tendency to have small bursts of bravery, especially when it came to Will Byers. That didn't seem to be enough against a creature taller than a house.

He looked around, watching the others shut doors, push beds against them, block windows. Would all of it really be enough? And even if it was, the Mind Flayer had a personal vendetta against all who resided in this cabin. So what if it just waited for them to come out? Sure, they could survive for a little while, but eventually they'd run out of food and starvation would set in...

Gabe shook his head wildly. He couldn't afford to think about that kind of shit. He just needed to prepare himself. So, after he helped board up yet another window, he moved to the kitchen, scrambling through the cutlery drawers for more knives, because more than one definitely couldn't hurt. He found a meat cleaver jammed into a knife block and shoved that into his pocket along with three steak knives and a chef's one. Breathing heavily, he returned to the group just as Nancy told the others to get away from the windows.

The group joined together, forming a tight-knit pack, most of them armed with guns or knives or superpowers. The light emanating from Alina's clenched fists bathed their pale faces in a crimson glow, and El had her eyes narrowed, ready to attack anything that should burst its way through.

Gabe's knifeless hand found Will's, and they held fast, pressing themselves against each other with heavy breaths. Will. Will. Will. It was always for Will. And if Gabe was going to die, he might as well die protecting him.

As they waited with bated breath, a floorboard creaked. A lamp squeaked. Jonathan, clutching a sharp axe from the shed, nearly let it slip out of his sweaty hands. Alina shut her eyes, her face darkening in anger. And that's when the red light, which had been weaker before, suddenly grew stronger.

Gabe whirled to meet Alina's gaze. She was standing boldly, her shoulders squared, and such a quantity of red light was shining out of her closed fists that it looked like she was cupping the sun in there. And around her body was a shimmering aura of it, oozing out of every crevice in order to form a thick wall of heat.

"Holy shit," Lucas murmured, his eyes bulging and mouth agape as he stared down at his girlfriend. Alina gave him a shrug, and nobody else bothered to speak, but they couldn't take their eyes off the slowly flickering light she was producing. Gabe clutched the meat cleaver in one hand, and Will's hand in the other, and told himself that he could do it. That he was worthy. That he was not weak.

Another light began to swing, squeaking as it did so, and, with a rumble, a couple of plates rattled together. And that was when the lights began to flicker. The temporary flashes of darkness were terrifying, but not as terrifying as whatever lay out there. Whatever they were about to fight.

"It's close," Will murmured. Alina's energy multiplied, and Gabe grabbed another knife out of his pocket. For a tense second, Gabe squeezed his eyes shut.

You can do this. You're angry. You're angry and you're ready to fight.

Little did he know that Alina was thinking the exact same thing.

This could be it. Gabe could die right now. Every tense breath he was inhaling could be one of his last. Wasn't there some sort of statistic that said you were more likely to die on your birthday? He hadn't thought it was true then, but standing here in El's cabin, he realized it just might be.

He could hear leaves rustling from outside, and a cloud of dust collapsed from the ceiling. Through the one window they hadn't managed to board down, trees swayed. Footsteps rumbled. A mug collapsed off the shelf and broke, followed by three more. Each sound made them jump, and the scariest part was that nothing horrible had happened yet.

And then everything went quiet. Completely and utterly silent.

"Where'd it go?" Max hissed, looking younger than Gabe had ever seen her. Her face was completely pale, and she was trembling, trying not to show how deeply afraid she was. Nobody responded, because they didn't know, and mere seconds later, it seemed that they didn't have to.

Because a fleshy appendage burst right through the wall.

Everyone screamed as it shrieked towards them, groping with its strange hands for the party. Gabe dodged out of the way, letting go of Will's hand, heart in his throat, going into fight or flight mode. He slammed onto the ground, causing his still-injured head to yelp in pain, but he was up in an instant, because whatever the hell that thing was clawing its way towards El, who was pinned against the wall with Max and Will.

"No!" Gabe shouted, but before anyone could react, Jonathan slammed his axe down on the arm. The stench of rotting corpses got stronger and blood sprayed as he attempted to pull it out of the arm, yelping in fear. He finally managed to do so, and slammed it again with his axe, his arms coated in the filth. The thing flailed, squelching in pain, and just as Jonathan was about to hit it again, it caught him in the chest, sending him flying against the wall.

"Jonathan!" Alina shot a beam of red light as the flailing thing as it snaked its way towards Jonathan, and Nancy seemed to have the same idea, because she was shooting it as well, the sound echoing throughout the cabin. The dual attacks caused it to shrink away from Jonathan, still shrieking in pain. Nancy shot it again and again, cocking her shotgun with extreme accuracy, but, just like with the Demodogs, the bullets didn't seem to be doing much.

And then Nancy's gun jammed, and she was left defenceless. Her eyes widened, and she began backing up, and although Alina shot another burst of red light at it, bits of it breaking off, it still managed to make its way for Nancy. And Gabe was just standing here and Nancy was going to die and the thing was hurt but it was still moving, and it was about to pierce into her head.

Time slowed down for Gabe, but this time it was good, because it gave him a couple of moments to get his head and pounding heart in unison as he lunged forward, wielding the meat cleaver and the chef's knife with a feral yell. With the grace of a lynx, Gabe dodged a blow from it and slammed both knives down on the fleshy appendage, hard, nearly severing the thing in two.

It wobbled, dripping onto the floor, just as Gabe pulled his knives out of it and slammed them down on the arm again. He was screaming louder than he ever had, and as the arm wiggled this way and that, El shot out her own arm and pulled it away from Nancy. It trembled, continuing to shriek as Gabe continued to hit it with blow after blow until his face was covered in its filth, and it bubbled with blood until El jerked her arm, severing the clawed hand from its own.

It fell to the ground, blood spraying, and Gabe was unlucky enough to get a face full of it. He spat it out, the metallic taste mingling in with something more chemical, and wiped at his tongue with his collar as he watched Alina pelt it with red light. It broke further, and further, until it wiggled right out of the wall it had burst through, narrowly missing Max on its way out.

There was a second's relief, just time for Max to mutter "Holy shit," before another one burst through, whole and undamaged, which was immediately stopped by El's powers. Her face was already glistening with sweat and her body trembling from exertion when another burst through the window on the other side, and now El was holding two, each occupying her free hands and snapping at her fingers like little mouths.

El, her arms outstretched, glared whatever these were down, her eyes narrowed, blood streaming from her nose, and, after a worrying moment, jerked her arms down, severing the two hand-like things from the arms. More blood littered the floor, but that was the least of anyone's concerns as the arms snaked their way back through the holes. Gabe slammed his meat cleaver down on one of the flailing hands as El took a second to take a deep breath.

And then more burst through the ceiling, and El wasn't fast enough, because one of them caught her by the leg, wrapping its tendrils around the appendage and dragging her into the air. A second one made its slimy way to Alina, but Lucas lunged forward and stomped on it, grabbing a plate and hurling it at the arm. "Get away from my girlfriend, asshole!" he howled, and it did indeed flail away, but not there was the issue with El being pulled up through the roof.

She screamed, even as Mike grabbed her hands, keeping her from flying away. Alina and Gabe both lunged forward and grabbed onto him, and then Jonathan, Max, and Will were holding on, too, all of them desperately trying not to let El succumb to the waiting jaws of the Mind Flayer. And it wasn't an arm, Gabe realized, it was a tongue, a tongue curling itself right out of a sharp-toothed mouth, ready to devour. He could see the saliva dripping from its yellowed teeth as he held on, his body tensed from the strain. Even with everyone's help, it was still a difficult task, and Gabe thought, for an awful moment, that they might just let her go.

"Pull!" Mike screamed, and pull they did, all of their arms trembling as the Mind Flayer roared, aggravated, desperately aching for El to become its next meal. And then Nancy began to rattle it with bullets, causing the Mind Flayer's head to twist this way and that, shouting in pain, El continuing to scream in complete agony, but it still wasn't going to be enough. They were all going to soon collapse, and El would be gone, and the next step would be the killing of the rest of them.

But then came Lucas Sinclair. His hands found Jonathan's discarded axe, and, leaping onto the table, he let out another feral yell, slamming the blade into the tongue. Thrusting his axe out of it, his eyes wild, Lucas cut into it again as Nancy continued to fire, and the others held on, screaming in agony, because, oh, it burned! Gabe's entire body was tense, his face screwed up, his head thudding with a terrible rhythm.

And then Lucas Sinclair, savior yet again, cut right through the tongue and caused them all to tumble to the ground. Gabe's back slammed against the wooden floor as Mike clutched El, holding her, murmuring to her. Gabe could see even from here that her face was streaked with tears.

But there was a large, squealing piece of that tongue still in her leg, thrashing and shrieking, and Mike quickly got to his feet and pried it out of her with his bare hands. El screamed yet again, and the pain must've been agonizing, and Mike, his eyes narrowed with fury, threw the thing to the side. Alina shot a beam of light at it, breaking it in two, and one half of it slithered its pitiful way out the window while the other half stayed behind, unmoving.

But the Mind Flayer's face was still staring at them through the tear in the roof, roaring, drool slipping its way from its horrible mouth, but before it could send any more of those things after them yet again El got to her feet. Her hair was matted to her face, and she was limping—Gabe could see blood dripping from the slice in her leg—but she kept going, because she was El, and she was strong.

And just as tongues began to burst their way out of its mouth, El flung out her hands, and the Mind Flayer shot back, roaring in pain. And then, impossibly, it began to rip, slowly splitting apart piece by piece until it burst into two.

El immediately collapsed into Max's waiting arms, but there was no time to lose—they needed to get out of there. "Go, go, go!" Nancy was screaming, waving at the teens to make their way to the cabin door.

"Come on, come on, go, go!" Jonathan urged, and Gabe scrambled to his feet, his body aching, and he, along with the others, sprinted towards the front door. They pulled the barricades down as quickly as they could, and Jonathan flung open the door. They all raced outside, Max and Mike supporting El, and crammed themselves into the car, uncaring about seatbelts or who sat where. It immediately got extremely cramped, but that didn't even matter now, because they needed to get out of there.

As El wailed in pain, Mike yelled, "Drive! Drive!" and Nancy started the engine. Soon enough, the car was moving, and they were rolling out of there, away from the cabin where the Mind Flayer screamed, thrashing its great body, its head halves flailing. It made no move to chase them, probably because it was in as much agony as El seemed to be.

As the car made its way onto the road, Gabe, his face covered in blood and muck, still clutching his knives, only managed to say one thing. "Holy shit, we're alive."

And yes, they were, for now. But Gabe had the feeling that the Mind Flayer wasn't done with them yet, and it was very, very pissed off. Or, as Lucas would say, it was royally.

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧