chapter 014,
problematic car rides

YOU COULD BE ASKING YOURSELF how it is that the situation was so dire that Max was the one who ended up behind the wheel. Lucy would agree, except she had been fussing so much over Steve that all of the plans for transportation had been arranged before she could even look up from her boyfriend's unconscious frame.

Boyfriend? Was that what he was? Not really. Not officially. Maybe-boyfriend. Almost-boyfriend. Boyfriend-turned-worst-enemy-turned-possible-boyfriend.

     Not the time to be worrying about that, Lucy. Stay focused.

The only question she could ask through her pained tears was "How in the hell are we all supposed to fit in one car?" but that was answered when Dustin sat in Lucas's lap and Leo squeezed onto Mike's. Max was in the driver's seat against Lucy's better judgement. Lucy and Steve reclined in the front seat, Lucy sitting awkwardly on her hip to care for Steve in the most uncomfortable way possible. Between her shattered knuckles and the position she was twisted in, pain was becoming Lucy's good friend.

"Come on, Steve," she muttered, using her good hand to hold an ice pack to his forehead. "Wake up, wake up, wake up.."

"Turn right up here," Lucas navigated from beneath Dustin, his voice muffled. "Right. I said right!"

The car suddenly swerved violently to the side, and Lucy was thrown hard against Steve's body, which then slammed into the door. She cursed, peeling his bloody face off the window. A quiet moan escaped his lips.

"Gentler next time, okay?" Lucy eased Max, her voice back to calm and collected. Taking her anger out on Billy had been almost therapeutic for Lucy. She was back to the Little Miss Sunshine everyone knew and loved, even if there were tears streaking down her cheeks and her clothes were smattered with blood.

Max puffed up her cheeks and exhaled a breath. She was hunched forward in the driver's seat, eyeing the road through narrowed lids and accelerating at a rapid pace.

Steve's eyelids began to flutter and his body tensed, which Lucy knew from her single semester in anatomy meant that he was beginning to wake up—so the numbness of being unconscious was waning. Steve was about to be in a lot of pain.

"Steve?" she said quietly, lifting the ice pack slightly away from his eyes. If he could even see anything through his bruises and cuts. His eyes were practically swollen shut. "Steve, you're awake!"

"Okay," Lucas called to Max, "you're gonna keep straight for a half a mile, then make a left on Mount Sinai."

"What's going on?" Steve's voice was croaky, heavily laced with exhaustion and pain. His eyes narrowed to slits when they landed on the driver's seat. "W–woahhh.. oh, my god—"

"Steve, don't freak out," Lucy said, using her best mom-voice, channeling the way she talked to Leo when he was doing something he shouldn't have been doing. "It's okay. She's a great driver."

"She's driven before," Dustin added helpfully.

"Yeah, in a parking lot," Leo argued, his eyes narrowed on Dustin. Mike's voice, muffled from beneath Leo, sounded his agreement.

"That counts," Lucas claimed.

"Oh, my god," Steve said again, trying to sit up and take control of the situation.

"Okay, don't move too much," Lucy said, wrestling against him as they both tried to fight to a seated position in the reclined passenger's seat. "You're hurt, Steve; you need to lie down."

Steve's refusals grew in volume and urgency as Max's foot slammed on the gas pedal and the car's engine gave a groan of effort, hiking itself faster and faster up the hill. Lucy tried to raise her voice as calmly as she could over Steve's panicked shouts of alarm.

"No, woah, stop the car," Steve groaned, "slow down—!"

"Go faster," Leo suggested. "Maybe he'll throw up."

"Leo!" Lucy yelled, turning around to glare at him. "I already kicked one ass tonight; don't make me kick another."

"STOP THE CAR!"

"I told you he'd freak out," Mike said accusingly to Dustin, glaring. "Now look what's happening."

"Everybody SHUT UP!" Max screamed, her voice only a few pitches higher than Steve's. "I'm trying to focus!"

"Oh, shit!" Lucas suddenly yelled. He gestured frantically to the left. "That's Mount Sinai! Make a left!"

"What?"

"Make left—turn left!"

The entire car broke into screams as Max whipped through a mailbox, knocking it off its post and sending it flying across the street. Max threw the wheel to the left and the car spun into a sharp turn. Each of its passengers swung with it, shouts and alarmed screams coming from everyone.

     "Okay, alright!" Lucy yelled over the panic, her voice still smooth as she reached a hand to grab Max's arm. "Yeah, you're good, Max; keep going straight—"

     She was cut off suddenly as the car jerked to a stop in the middle of what should have been the pumpkin patch. All of the crops were withered and rotted, but still sat lifelessly in the field, now hosting buzzing flies inside their cores instead of spooky candles.

Lucy's hands shot out to keep herself from flying through the dashboard. She still would have shot right through the windshield, but Steve's arms wrapped around her waist at the last second and held her back on impact. A moment later, after the car had come to a (somewhat) safe stop, she peeled her eyes open and surveyed the rest of the passengers for damage.

"Everyone okay?" she asked in a quiet voice, the newfound startled silence a stark contrast to the earlier levels of volume in the car.

Nobody replied. When Lucy glanced back at him, Leo's chest was heaving, his eyes wide and alarmed, the ghost of a curse whispering past his lips as he made eye contact with Lucy.

"I told you," Max said a moment later, finally peeling her hands off the steering wheel. "Zoomer."

Everyone piled out of the car as quickly as they could. Lucy's knowledge of their plans was foggy, tainted with blood and worry for Steve around the edges, but she knew the general idea of why they'd traveled so far out to the pumpkin patch: To do exactly what Steve had told them not to. And Lucy knew when he realized what was going on, he wasn't going to be happy with it.

The kids rushed to the back of the car and began strapping themselves up for exposure to the Upside-Down-dimension-thing that Lucy had heard so much about; bandannas, glasses, masks. Anything to limit as much inhalation of the fumes as they could. Once they were suited up, Lucas and Mike picked up the two bottles of gasoline and Leo pocketed the lighter.

Lucy and Steve stumbled over together, his arm around her shoulder for support.

"Where do you guys think you're going?" Steve demanded, however groggily he still was. The kids, to into their preparation to reply, all ignored him. He spun around to face Dustin. "What, are you deaf? Hello? We are not going down there right now. I made myself clear."

Lucy tapped her hand to his chest lightly. "You do realize they aren't going to listen to you no matter how much you yell at them, right?"

"I don't care," he replied. "I put my foot down earlier. This ends right now!"

"Steve!" Dustin screamed, finally at his wit's end. He had swim goggles on and a bandanna tied around the lower half of his face. "I know you're upset right now. I get it. But the bottom line is, a party member requires assistance, and it is our duty to provide that assistance."

"I know you promised Wheeler that you'd keep us safe," Leo said from beneath a t-shirt and sparkly purple swim goggles. "So keep us safe."

The kid held out Steve's bat, poky nails sticking through the end of it. Steve met his eyes. The two shared a silent agreement, before Steve finally gave in and his palm grasped the grip of his bat. He looked back to Lucy.

"You in?"

She scoffed. "That even a question?"

Max and Lucas had tied an anchor rope to the front fender of the car, which they fed down into the opening of the tunnels. Lucy peered into the hole as they dropped the rope inside. The air down south was murky; some sort of flaky floaters swept around the atmosphere and it reeked of death, but still Lucy didn't change her mind. She swallowed her fear and looked back up to everyone else, her eyes glowing beneath a pair of black Aviators.

"Down we go."