CHAPTER 7
THE DOWNSIDE UP

WHEN Edward Moreda's eyes connected with the hole in the ground of Merrill's farm, they widened in fear. Slimy, dark vines circled around the hole, moving before his vision. He cautiously picked up his walkie, speaking into it with a stutter, "Ch – Chief?" He swallowed hard. "Chief, where are you?"

He got no response. Edward didn't know what to do, who to call. He knew something weird was going on with this investigation, but not something this weird. The moving vines looked like they came out of a horror movie. Edward pinched himself to find out if he was dreaming. He wasn't.

Edward's mustache tickled the speaker of the walkie. "There's no one here. I am standing before a ... hole ... covered in vines. They're moving." He sighed heavily. "I might shit my pants."

Suddenly, he saw a pair of headlights drive onto the scene. Edward cupped a hand over his eyes, noticing the familiar looking car pull up to Merrill's farm. Out walked Joyce Byers, a common resident of the police station all last year while her son had disappeared. Another man, whom Edward assumed to be her partner, sprinted with her.

"Joyce?" Edward called with a confused expression. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same, Officer Moreda." She gulped down her worry, and Edward noticed it clearly. They both stood before the gaping, horrific hole in the ground as if it weren't there.

Edward was then staring at it. "Hopper asked me to come down here because he found something, but –" he tried to mask the fear in his voice "– this isn't what I was expecting."

"I don't have much time to explain," Joyce said, cupping her partner's hand, "but me and Bob needed to get down there. That's where Hopper is trapped."

"In the hole?"

Joyce nodded eagerly before stepping down inside the dug-out. She grabbed the lone shovel lying in the dirt and hit the curling vines with it. Suddenly, Edward watched the vines disperse like snakes. He blinked his eyes a few times, but the reality in front of him was too odd to believe.

"Officer Moreda, Bob – keep watch," she ordered while sliding herself inside the whole. "I'm going in."

Before Bob could argue against her decision, Joyce Byers was down the hole of the Upside Down. "She can't be down there alone," Bob thought aloud.

"Here," Edward handed Bob his large flashlight. "Go down there. I'll watch."

Bob nodded and took the flashlight with a grin. He moved towards the hole and carefully jumped inside, leaving Edward to wonder if the two would ever come back. This new discovery was too much for him to handle, and it was coming at him, all at once. He wasn't sure what to think. Edward turned to his right, noticing more cars flooding onto the scene. But these weren't police cards. Inscribed on the side was Hawkins' National Laboratory. Two children encased in Joyce's car ran out to help.

The laboratory workers sprinted to the middle of the field, and one approached Edward in a hurry. "Where did they go? What's going on down there?"

Edward's eyes were about to bug out of his skull. "I don't know!" He exclaimed. "All I saw was creepy, moving vines that led to a place below ground. Joyce Byers and her husband went down there looking for my boss."

"Allow us, officer," the lab contractor said, pushing Edward lightly out of the way.

Men in full body, white suits approached the hole and slid in. Edward ran his hands through his short, black hair, feeling his eyes well up with tears from stress. This couldn't be happening, he thought to himself. But as he watched the scene before his eyes, he knew his suspicions a week prior were nothing but true.

Veronica was never going to believe him.

•••

"So you want me to believe that the reason why little Will Byers disappeared last year was because he got trapped in some otherworldly dimension full of monsters?"

Steve glanced to Veronica with pity as he drove to Dustin Henderson's house on the east side of Hawkins. The kid in question sat in the back seat, adjusting his headset and hat. "Demogorgon," Dustin corrected after Veronica's statement.

The blue-haired girl's brain hurt. She held her temples in agony, trying to think of what exactly to say. "Do you guys think I'm naïve?" She asked with a brow raised. "Demogorgon? Seriously?" She rolled her eyes. They must have thought her to be incredibly stupid, but she'd never believe this tall tale. It sounded like a bowl horse shit. Will Byers had been kidnapped, or so her dad thought, and they thankfully got him back. To say that he went to some other dimension was maybe a coping mechanism.

"Why would we make something like this up?" Steve asked dubiously. "Do you honestly think I'm that good of a liar?"

Veronica scoffed. "This is real life, and you're suddenly living in a fantasy land. Admit it."

"He's not though," Dustin whispered.

"And you, kid," she turned in her seat to look at Dustin. "Now you've just suddenly come here to drag us on a little made-up quest for your LARP Dungeons and Dragons game, saying that there's some kind of 'Demogorgon' in your shed. Why are you wasting our time?"

Dustin smiled big. "Just you wait, lady."

Veronica sighed loudly and sat back against her seat again. She stared outside her window, itching for a cigarette, although she wouldn't smoke in front of the younger boy this time. "I swear if this is a joke –"

"We'll see what it is, Ronnie," Steve interrupted as he began to speed down an empty road. Leaves blew across the windshield with ease. He looked to Dustin in the rearview mirror. "Wait a second. How big was it again?"

Dustin showed a small amount of space with his two hands. "First it was like that." He made the space between his hands much bigger. "Now he's like this."

"I swear to God, man. It might just be some little lizard."

Veronica widened her eyes at Steve. "Oh, so now it's just a little lizard to you, Harrington? Not some monster from the Downside Up?"

Dustin held up a finger. "One, it's called the Upside Down." He then brought up a second finger before turning to Steve. "Two, it's not a lizard!"

"How do you know?" Veronica spun in her seat to face Dustin. Her skeptical eyes were starting to make him annoyed.

"Because his face opened up and he ate my cat!"

Veronica slowly leaned back in her seat, shaking her head. She closed her eyes and rubbed them. "What have I gotten myself into?" She whispered. Veronica felt the car pull up to a dark, empty house, and her insides caved in. She couldn't believe she had to deal with this nonsense, not to mention that she had a shitload of homework to do, and she was probably now going to be entertaining this kid they picked off the street all night.

She was planning on just staying inside the car, but Veronica decided that if she was going to be dragged into this, she might as well join in. She sluggishly tore off her seatbelt and got out of the car, while Steve and Dustin were already opening up his trunk. She approached the two, but found her eyes growing wide at the sight of the bat with nails poking out in Steve's hand.

"What is that?!" She exclaimed. "You've just been hiding a spiked bat in your freakin' trunk?"

Steve acted as if it weren't a problem. He then pulled out a hockey stick from the car, which was roughed in the same manner. "I also have this too."

He held the spiked hockey stick out to her, and she snatched it from his hands in frustration. Veronica leaned on the hockey stick. "I thought you didn't play hockey."

"We haven't hung out for a few years, Ronnie." Steve grinned slyly, shutting his trunk with a slam. "You don't know shit now."

The two teenagers softly laughed towards each other, leaving Dustin's eyes to go from one to the other. Dustin's brow lifted as he said, "Uh ... guys, we have more important things to do then give each other googly eyes."

Veronica's gaze then shifted to the shorter boy, and she narrowed her eyes. She tossed her faded blue hair to the side. "Then show us the damage, kid."

Dustin instructed them that the "Demodog," which – supposedly – was an adolescent form of a Demogorgon, was locked up in his underground shed. The shed was located in the woods near Dustin's house, and the cold air caused a shiver to run down Veronica's spine. Steve approached the shed with a lit flashlight and his spiked bat, but his steps were cautious. His light shined brightly on the locked shed, and he leaned forward to listen in. Veronica laid an arm on her hockey stick.

"I don't hear shit," Steve said.

"Shocker," muttered Veronica.

Dustin took a step forward. "He's in there."

Steve glanced to the curly-haired boy for a moment. He lingered his bat over the shed and carefully tapped the metal. They heard nothing. Veronica rolled her eyes and walked closer to Dustin's shed. "This is how you do it," she said before slamming her hockey stick onto the shed's doors.

Still no sound. Veronica eyed both of them with pride. "I hear nothing."

Steve turned and shined his flashlight on Dustin's face, causing the kid to shield his eyes. "Alright, kid, listen. I swear if this is some sort of Halloween prank, you're dead. Alright?"

"It's not a prank!" Dustin defended, and then released a huff. "Now get that light out of my face."

Steve lowered his flashlight and gestured towards the shed with his chin. "You got a key for this thing?"

Dustin sprinted into his house then, leaving Steve and Veronica in the darkness of the woods. The blue-haired girl sighed, already feeling sleep creep up on her. "I don't know if this is a trick," Steve said to his friend, "but I do know that everything I told you before is real. You gotta believe me."

"You know, Harrington," Veronica's face twisted, "I have a lot of homework to do. You guys better not be wasting my time."

Dustin appeared from his house and dangled a shiny, golden key in the air. Steve sent Veronica one last pitiful glance before taking Dustin's key and kneeling in front of the shed. He stuck the key in the lock, turned, and yanked it off. He then pried open the metal doors, which were a bit rusty, looking inside the dark shed with concern. Dustin shined a flashlight into the underground shed, and though Veronica didn't believe this charade one bit, she found herself peering inside curiously.

"He must be further down there," Dustin suggested. "I'll stay up here in case he tries to ... escape."

Both Veronica and Steve looked at Dustin with annoyed expressions. Steve plucked the flashlight from the kid's hand as Veronica muttered, "There's nothing down there anyways."

But as Steve lowered himself into the undercover shed, Veronica couldn't help the sudden feeling of fear show on her face. She swallowed hard, almost afraid that maybe – just maybe – what they said was real, and there were monsters eating children beneath Hawkins. Maybe that's where he brother was, maybe. Veronica thought of losing Steve then, and it scared her. He was the first person she got close to in years, and they had only been talking for a week. Veronica had lost a lot in two years, and in that moment, she didn't want to lose Steve Harrington.

•••

A/N: The tension is (very slowly) growing lol I love me some angst 🤠

( made by JustSav )