CHAPTER NINETEEN.
2x08: The Mind Flayer

All walls, floors, and ceilings of the shed were surrounded by tarp, cardboard, tin foil, and paper so that Will wouldn't be able to recognize where he was. Not an inch of the shed went uncovered, everyone pitching in now to make sure of that—even Sam was allowed to get up, to leave the shed and help.

Hopper carried the unconscious Will into the shed, took electric rubber wire, and tied him against a support beam. He sat in the chair Corey had taped up with cardboard, his arms and feet restricted. Sam found herself stood between her friends with nothing to say for what was unfortunately not the first time, and most likely not the last either. They all waited in tense silence as Corey and Mike plugged in the blinding lights and pointed them at Will.

Everyone began to clear out after a few moments once it was done, and Mike called out to his friends in confusion as they followed Nancy and Steve outside. "Where are you guys going? He needs us too!"

"C'mon, man," Lucas shrugged him off, giving Mike one of those looks that meant he was being stupid again. "You know we don't have as much of a chance at getting through to him as you do."

"That—that's not true—"

"It's okay, Mike." Dustin smiled, as genuine as he could. "It's not bad. You guys are just... closer. Known each other longer."

Sam's eyes narrowed on Corey, when he looked physically pained by their words.

Mike sighed, wanting to argue for the equality of the entire party's friendship, but letting them go with a very reluctant frown.

"Oh, Sam, honey—don't you think you should stay too?" Joyce called out as she turned to leave. Sam thought it would have been insulting to Lucas, Dustin, and Corey, but they were also looking at her in confusion.

"Yeah, the fuck are you doing, Sam?"

"I—" Sam gaped back at her cousin dumbly, closing her mouth and swallowing. "I don't want to make anything worse..."

"You couldn't," Lucas protested, shaking his head. "There's not a world you could make things worse."

Dustin nodded, in agreement with Lucas and disagreement with Sam. "Yeah, what? You understand everyone better than like, anyone. You can get through to Will too."

Sam's fact tinted at her friends' confidence in her. It felt good, but it also scared her The higher of expectations people had for her, the worse it would be when she eventually let everyone down. She was trying to avoid ensuing disappointment by not joining Will, but it didn't seem like that would be an option.

"Okay," Sam caved. "Fine, I'll help."

And so Sam entered the shed again, closing the door behind her so that nothing could be seen from outside. She made eye contact with Mike, and both of them nodded to each other, albeit shakily.

"Alright," Hopper muttered to Joyce. "You ready?"

"Yeah."

Hopper shook a container of ammonium, and fucking great, Sam was thinking of Bob again. She clutched the necklace Joyce had just given her, and was surprised to find that it brought her at least a little bit of solace. She watched as Hopper poured someone of the ammonium on a cotton ball. Crouching in front of Will, Hopper held the ammonium-infused cotton under Will's nose to bring him back into consciousness.

Will shot awake with a gasp.

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Corey had taken to sitting on the couch with his head in his hands, leg jolting beneath him. Dustin was having an existential crisis in the kitchen whilst Lucas and Max sat across from each other against opposite sides of the hallway door frame. Nancy was in the kitchen, ignoring Dustin, while Steve practiced swinging his nail bat in front of Corey.

"If you accidentally take out my eye with that bat, Harrington," Corey muttered, feeling weird to speak in the dead silence of the house, "I'll kill you."

He lowered his bat, looking at Corey like he just remembered he was there. Steve was no longer swinging it, which soothed Corey a little—he was someone who couldn't stand watching people so much, as it only made him nervous to see them nervous. Corey watched Steve's gaze lower to the cuff of his jeans, and he already knew what Steve was thinking.

Steve nodded down at Corey's leg. "How're the claw marks?"

Inhaling through his nostrils, Corey grabbed his jeans and lifted them up as far as they could go—four nasty claw marks were scratched down his shin from one of the Demodogs back at the junkyard. He had been trying to protect Steve, trying to guard the door to the bus with a sheet of metal, but the Demodog's claws pierced through both the metal sheet and Corey's skin. Now his leg was left with an unruly scar.

"Definitely not as bad as Sam," Corey dismissed. His leg didn't even hurt, he wasn't even thinking about it. The only thing that played in his mind was his brutal imagination, wondering how Sam ended up in the state she was in. "And they look badass."

"True." Steve nodded, but he wasn't all that satisfied. "Why didn't you tell her what happened in the bus?"

Corey looked down at the four bloody marks engraved into his skin, thinking carefully—something he wasn't really used to doing. Sam knew everything, she figured out everything. So the fact that she hadn't noticed by now was just really worrisome to Corey, especially considering Sam was usually the worrisome one. If she was too tired to notice he was in pain (she seemed as if she could feel everyone's pain), then he thought it better to keep quiet.

He looked back up at Steve. "She's already been through enough tonight. And this is barely a bump, compared to everything happening."

"That doesn't mean it didn't happen. That doesn't mean it doesn't matter."

"Who are you, Sam?" Corey raised a judgmental eyebrow. "I didn't tell her for this reason. I don't want to answer these questions."

Steve scrutinized Corey with a look that just pissed Corey off. "Well, the kid's smart. She knows her shit. Maybe you should answer them."

Corey knew Sam was smart. Corey knew Sam knew her shit. That didn't mean it was easy, and that didn't mean he wanted her to. He still couldn't properly express his feelings, and the frustration from that alone was enough to send him into another burst of anger. To avoid it, Corey usually shut the hell up, or he talked to Mike. The latter wasn't an option, considering Mike was in the shed, and neither was the first, since Steve kept asking him dumb questions.

"Or maybe I shouldn't," Corey snapped. Harshly, he picked up Steve's bat and shoved it into his hands. "Keep practicing your stupid baseball moves."

With that, Corey shoved himself off the couch and marched into the kitchen.

╰━━━ ◦ ✸ ◦ ✸ ◦ ━━━╯

Will looked around the room, disoriented, blearily trying to see what was going on and who was around him. When only met with blinding lights and a tarped-up room, he began grunting and moving—this caused him to realize he was tied up.

"What? What? What is this?" Will looked around, trying to see where he was, shaking to try and get out of the restraints. "What? What is this? Why am I tied up?"

Joyce crouched down in front of Will so that he could see her, putting her hands on his knees gently. "Will," she soothed, "we just wanna talk to you. We're not gonna hurt you."

"Where am I?" Will demanded.

Hopper crouched down as well, putting a hand on Will's shoulder. He held up Will's drawing of the Mind Flayer for him to see.

"You recognize this?" Hopper asked. And then, when Will gave a response, "Do you recognize this?"

Will shook his head no, and Sam knew he was lying.

"Hey," Joyce said softly. Will looked back at her. "We wanna help you. But to do that, we have to understand how to kill it."

"Why am I tied up?!" Will yelled now, and everyone flinched back at the sudden infliction of his tone. Hopper went behind Will, stabilizing Will with both of his hands on Will's shoulders. He started thrashing like earlier, screaming, "Why am I tied up?! Why am I tied up?!"

"Hey—"

"Will—"

But Will wouldn't stop freaking out.

"Why am I tied up?!" Will shrieked as the lights started flickering. "Why am I tied up?! Why am I tied up?!" Sam had to cover her mouth with a shaking hand, watching Will thrash violently as the lights flickered wildly. "LET ME GO!"

Sam heard Mike's tiny, scared gasp at the change in Will's voice. She could commune in his fear, because that wasn't Will shouting back at them. His voice had changed from his screaming one into a deep, demonic voice. Hopper had to keep his arms around Will in a forced embrace. Sam's heart was breaking all over again.

"Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!" Will's warped voice screamed, trying to wrench out of all his restrains. "Let me go! Let me go! LET ME GO! LET ME GO!"

Will's head twitched around as his body shook. Somehow, in all of his tantrum-throwing, his eyes landed on Sam, who was off to the side and anxiously biting her pinkie nail. His eyes only seemed to narrow, growing darker, and next thing Sam knew:

"THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!" Will roared. Sam jumped back with a gasp, running into the support beam behind her; she clutched the wood for some semblance of comfort. "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!"

Hopper was trying to keep Will still, arms wrapped around him tightly. He wanted to shut the boy up, but there was no way of doing that without Joyce shutting him up indefinitely. It hurt to hear this words come out of Will's mouth, and it hurt even more to see Sam's reaction to them.

"No—w-wait, no," Sam choked, shaking her head without realizing she was doing it. Everyone stared at her, and her vision grew blurry. "I—I-I didn't mean for any—any of this to happen," she cried, looking towards the other occupants of the shed, begging them to believe her. To forgive her. "I didn't want any of this to happen, I—I'm—I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry—"

"Sam." Jonathan had surged forward, putting himself in between Sam and Will so that neither could look at the other, because that wasn't a good idea right now. "We know," he reassured, his hands on her shoulders. "It's not your fault. Don't listen to him."

But how could she not? She could hear Will in the background:

"THIS IS HER FAULT! THIS IS HER FAULT! Let me GO! This is her fault!"

Sam pushed Jonathan away with a choked cough, using as much force she could muster right now, just so she could watch Will's outburst. She didn't care if he was saying horrible things to her, she wanted to see her best friend.

"Let—me—go...!" Sam watched as Will (or whatever inside of Will) began to grow tired, having used his voice raw. "Let me go... Let me go! Let me... go..." The lights had stopped flickering, and the demonic voice was pushed out of Will's tone.

At least he sounded like himself again.

"Her... fault... Let me... go," he panted, calmed down from the thrashing and shouting.

Slowly, Hopper took his hands off of Will, believing Will was no longer throwing a fit. He was right, and they all stared at Will, who stared back at Joyce right in front of him. While Sam couldn't see it, Joyce had a strong look of new determination in her eyes.

Joyce relieved her legs of the uncomfortable crouching position, and instead opted on sitting in another duct-taped chair only inches away from Will, not breaking their locked gaze once. For a while, all Sam could hear was the buzz of the blinding lights and Will's shortened breathing.

THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!

"Do you know what March 22nd is?" Joyce asked her son, or whatever was left of him, if there was even anything. When Will didn't respond, she smiled at Will sadly. "It's your birthday."

She inhaled shakily, and Sam's eyebrows pinched, because the look on Will's face... it was almost as if he was human again.

"When you turned eight, I gave you that huge box of crayons. Do you remember that? It was 120 colors... And all your guy friends, they got you Star Wars toys, but all you wanted to do was draw with all your new colors, using the sketching set Sam bought you. And you drew this big spaceship... but it wasn't from a movie. It was your spaceship—a Rainbow Ship is what you called it. And you must have used every color in the box," Joyce said, her breaths wavering as she started to tear up. "I took that with me to Melvald's, and I put it up, and I told everyone who came in, 'My son drew this.'And you were so embarrassed," she chuckled wetly, and Sam had to do the same, because she could just imagine the whole scenario right now. "But I was so proud. I was so, so proud."

Jonathan's breathing was unstable, watching their interaction from afar next to Sam. Then—

"Do you remember the day Dad left?"

Will's head turned to where Jonathan was. He moved forward to crouch in front of Will, right next to Joyce.

"We stayed up all night building Castle Byers just the way you drew it," Jonathan whispered to his baby brother, "and it took so long because you were so bad at hammering—" He was cut off by his own strained laugh, though amused. "You'd miss the nail every time. And then it started raining, but we stayed out there, anyway... We were both sick for like, a week after that. But we just had to finish it, didn't we? We just had to."

Will watched Jonathan like he wanted to cry, with wide, pure eyes that almost made Sam believe it was still the same Will looking back. She noticed Will tapping on the cardboard attached to the chair it his fingers. It made her inquisition rise, but she didn't say anything.

Not yet.

"Do you remember the first day we met?" Mike blurted.

Will looked up at Mike with those same eyes. Mike looked back with tears running down his face, though a nostalgic laugh contradicted the tears.

"It was... It was the first day of kindergarten," Mike explained in a constricted voice. "I knew nobody. I had no friends, and... I just felt so alone and so scared, but..." He sniffled as more tears fell down his face. "I saw you on the swings, and you were alone too... You were just swinging by yourself. And I just walked up to you, and... I asked. I asked if you wanted to be my friend. And you said yes," he choked, blinking his eyes tightly. "You said yes. It was the best thing I've ever done."

Sam had spent the past minutes trying to conjure her favorite memory with Will. It had to be perfect—and, oddly, with how long they knew each other, Sam's mind was nearly blank. She fidgeted with her new necklace, eyebrows knitted. Then, she remembered.

"Do you remember my tenth birthday?" she asked, and half of the occupants in the shed wondered why Sam was choosing a story about herself rather than Will, but the other half knew the significance of Sam's tenth birthday. "I spent it at my parents' funeral, disassociating the whole day. It was you who realized I needed help, needed an out, so—" Sam was cut off by her own laugh, wiping at her tears with the sleeve of Jonathan's sweater, "so you stole me. You brought me all the way back to Castle Byers and shared your safe space with me. And then you asked me... why we chose yellow and pink flowers for the funeral instead of traditional ones. That was it. We just talked about flowers. You were the first person in days who I felt like I could talk to. You told me that yellow lilies were your favorite, and I... I-I promised that one day I would give you all the yellow lilies in the world." Sam coughed out a sob, meeting Will's eyes desperately. "And I will, alright? I'll get you those flowers, just.... just come back to us."

A single tear fell down Will's face at the story. His mouth was gaping open with furrowed eyebrows Sam couldn't help but mimic.

"Will," Joyce whispered, reaching forward to put a hand on Will's knee. "Baby, if you're in there, just please... please talk to us. Please, honey, please, can you do that for me?" Will began breathing shakily, trying not to break his stoic face. "Please. I love you so much."

And, for a second, Sam foolishly thought it had worked. Will looked so close to breaking. So close, but...

Will successfully contained all emotion from his face. "Let me go," he ordered, quietly and eerily.

Joyce exhaled in defeat, believing her son was no longer there. Sam's whole body deflated, and she had to pace to the other side of the room just so she wouldn't break down in front of everyone. Will was gone. Their Will was gone. He was—

Examining Will from the other side, Sam noticed the movement of his fingers again. She realized he was tapping, but not mindlessly. There was a certain pattern to it.

Tap, tap, tap, tap—tap—tap, hold, tap—tap.

Sam stuck out an arm, because Hopper was just about to storm out of the shed, but she thankfully caught his attention. Trying not to bring much attention to herself, she nodded slowly to Will's right hand.

Tap, tap, tap, tap—tap—tap, hold, tap—tap.

Hopper's eyes widened, realizing Will was communicating in morse code, just like how he'd been communicating with Eleven. He grabbed Sam by the bend of her elbow and motioned for everyone (besides Will) to join them in exiting the Byers' house. Sam and Hopper led them, walking into the kitchen determinedly. Those that were in the shed and those that stayed in the house all followed the pair, sharing each other's confusion.

"What happened?" Dustin asked.

Hopper picked up a blank envelope as Sam grabbed a pen. He slid the envelope to Sam, and she quickly began writing before she forgot.

Dot, dot, dot, dot—dot—dot, line, dot—dot.

"We think he's talking," Hopper explained, as Sam finished writing and handed the pen to Hopper. She looked up at the group while Hopper took his turn translating.

As Hopper began writing letters under Sam's dots and lines, Steve asked, "What is that?"

"Morse code," Sam, Hopper, Lucas, Mike, and Dustin said in unison.

"H-E-R-E," Hopper said, finished with his translation.

"Here."

"Will's still in there," Sam said, feeling a new hope swelling inside her. She needed hope. She hadn't felt it in so long. "He's talking to us."

╰━━━ ◦ ✸ ◦ ✸ ◦ ━━━╯

And so a new plan was formed—they needed to get more memories out of Will. They needed him to continue speaking to them.

Jonathan ran into his room, grabbing his cassette player and Will's favorite song on cassette, and brought it to the shed. "Should I Stay Or Should I Go?" by The Clash played whilst everyone continued relaying memories to Will.

As they did so, Sam handed Hopper Will's walkie, making sure there was at least one member in the group in the house who had another walkie. As Will would tap, Hopper would discreetly click the button on Will's walkie so that the group inside the house could jot down Will's morse code. They were in charge of translating and gathering Will's communication.

It was a good plan. Sam knew it would work. It had to. She didn't know what she would do if it didn't—she needed a win right now.

"Do you remember the first time I played you this?" Jonathan asked, referring to the song coming from his cassette player's speakers. "Mom and Dad were both arguing in the next room, so I played you the mixtape I made you, and it was the first time you got into music. Real music."

Hold, tap, hold, tap.

"...and then the Party escaped into the sewers," Mike rambled, "and there were those big insect things, and you guys were still on level one..."

Tap, hold, tap, tap.

"...then you cast Fog Cloud and you saved us. You saved the whole Party..."

Hold, hold, hold.

"...it was Dustin's idea, of course," Sam recalled. "You tied the string around my tooth, Mike held me still, and Lucas slammed the door shut..."

Tap, tap, tap.

"...you got the tooth out, which wasn't a problem—It was when I fainted at the sight of my own blood. You guys thought I was dying," Sam grinned, as did Mike. "The moms were so mad..."

Tap.

"...you saw that little girl, and she was in the sandbox, and she was crying," Joyce said. "You gave her your Tonka Truck, and I told you we couldn't afford to buy another one. You said she should have it because she's sad. 'She's sad, Mommy'..."

Hold, hold, tap.

"...it took so long to convince Steph, Nancy, and Jonathan to agree," Sam said. "But they finally took us to Lover's Lake in the winter when it froze over..."

Tap, hold.

"...I crashed into Sam, and she crashed into you, and we all went falling down on the ice," Mike continued. "You started crying because it hurt, but Sam started crying because she felt bad..."

Hold.

"I remember that," Jonathan said. "Nancy had to pay you guys just so that you wouldn't tell the moms."

Tap.

Back in the Byers' kitchen, with Corey, Lucas, Dustin, Max, Steve, and Nancy, everything was happening in a blur. Corey was holding a walkie in his hand, calling out the dashes and dots Hopper was sending their way; Lucas and Dustin were translating the beeps into letters; Nancy wrote the letters down on the back of a notepad with a bright red crayon in her hand. Max leaned over Corey's left shoulder while Steve read Nancy's handwriting over her right shoulder.

When there was a lack on feedback from the walkie, they assumed Will was finished. They gathered around the kitchen table to read what he was saying. On the back of the notepad, in bright red crayon, they all looked at the same thing.

C-L-O-S-E-G-A-T-E.

"Close Gate."

All of a sudden, the phone began ringing, and unknowingly to the group in the house, Will snapped out of himself again.

"SHIT!" Dustin cursed. "Shit, shit!" He pushed through everyone and ran to the Byers' home phone. He picked the phone off of the wall before slamming it back into place to end the dinging of the call. "Shit!" he cursed again, slamming his forehead onto the wall.

Corey joined his side, staring at the blue phone nervously. It was silent again, but Corey feared that it didn't matter—that Will had already heard it, that he'd figured out where he was.

Then the phone trembled again, ringing loudly once more. Corey didn't hesitate to pull it off the wall, slamming it onto the floor. It broke apart into pieces from the impact.

"Do you think he heard that?" Max asked slowly, eyeing everyone in the room for an answer.

"I mean, it's just a phone," Steve muttered. "It could be anywhere, right?"

Wrong.

From inside the shed, everyone was panicking. Sam felt like a headless chicken trying to solve this unsolvable problem—which was, of course, Will had definitely recognized the chiming of his own home phone.

Will's eyelids fluttered shut, and they could see his eyes moving back and forth.

"Hey," Joyce started as Will began breathing heavily. "Hey, can you hear me?"

Will was heaving in and out, but his eyes weren't opening. It reminded Sam of how Will spied to find Hopper, how he spied to double-cross them and lead the Demodogs to the lab.

"He knows," Sam realized. "He knows where we are."

Tap, tap, tap—hold, hold, hold—tap, hold, tap—tap, hold, tap—hold, tap, hold, hold, Will was trying to say with his fingers. He was sorry. He was so, so sorry.

"Oh, shit," Joyce hissed, moving to grab the sedative needle. Quickly, she injected it into her son, knocking him unconscious once more.

Mike, Jonathan, and Hopper rushed out of the shed and outside to see if anything was happening. To their great, utter, horrible luck, the three of them heard monsters howling in the distance. It didn't take Sam's level of genius to realize what those creatures were.

"They're coming!" Jonathan shouted, running back into the shed. He and Mike slid to either of Will's sides, starting to untie him. "Come on!"

"Come on." Hopper quickly aided the boys in untying Will. "Come on. We gotta got. We gotta go."

Jonathan carried Will out of the shed. Sam was trying to make sure everyone got out of the vicinity before she did, but didn't contribute for Hopper, who was much more protective than she was. He—who also had been making sure everyone got out as he stayed behind—shouted at Sam to get inside. She jogged into the house, Hopper only falling a few paces behind. She realized what he'd been doing when he returned with two shotguns in his grasp.

It seemed that the group in the house had also heard the howling and knew that Will had heard. They knew he'd spied. They knew what came next.

Jonathan laid Will in his bed while Sam, Lucas, Mike, Max, Corey, and Dustin all were fighting each other to peek out the front blinds, squeezing up against each other anxiously. Hopper marched into the living room to pick up his machine gun when he realized what the kids were doing.

"HEY!" Hopper snapped. "Hey, get away from the windows!"

Sam jumped off the couch so she couldn't be seen through the window. She inspected the three guns Hopper was holding with magnified eyes, and for a second, she stupidly wondered if he was going to try and shoot all three.

That was until Hopper locked eyes with her.

"Hughes," he said, tossed her a shotgun. "Here."

Sam caught the gun in her grasp, forcing the shaking of her hands to stop so she could properly clutch the weapon. It was another gun she'd never held before—like the machine gun one year ago at the school—but it was also another gun Sam forced herself to get the hang of. While she preferred handling pistols, shotguns weren't the hardest to understand.

Sam ignored everyone's bewildered stares—because this normally cheery thirteen-year-old had gone eerily serious and focused with a fucking shotgun in her hands—as she placed the palm of her right hand along the stock wrist before resting her index finger on the trigger and wrapping the rest of her fingers around the wrist. She gripped the foreend of the gun with her left hand, lifting the stock up to her cheek. She wedged the end of the gun into her shoulder pocket, keeping her feet planted, and aimed right at the front of the house in case the group was truly under attack.

"Damn, Sam," Max muttered, dazed at the sight of Sam Hughes holding a gun with such ease.

Hopper still had one more shotgun in his hands that he needed to get rid of. As everyone finally filed into the living room, Hopper held the gun out to Jonathan. "Do you know how to use this?"

"Uh... what?"

"Can you use this?" Hopper demanded.

Jonathan gaped, staring with fearful eyes back at the gun. "Um—"

"I can," Nancy stated, stepping forward. She caught the large gun when Hopper tossed it to her. She looked at it for a moment before expertly loading it.

While the trio clutched their guns, Corey had quickly grabbed the axe he'd stolen from the junkyard. He'd had a feeling that wouldn't be the last time he needed a weapon, and was very grateful for his previous thinking, because now he was able to use the axe at this very moment.

Corey held up the axe in preparation while Steve did the same with his bat; Sam, Nancy, and Hopper held up their guns; Lucas prepared his slingshot; and Mike was... holding an empty candle holder?

Those that didn't have weapons stood behind the armed group members. Everyone was put on edge when they heard a screeching in the distance. The gang spun around, trying to look for the source of the sound. With the distance they kept from the window and how dark it was outside, it was relatively useless to try and see.

"Where are they?" Nancy worried.

There was a loud thudding from the kitchen, and everyone whipped towards the noise with a gasp. Sam kept her aim straight—Deep breath in, hold to aim, slow breath out—the end of the shotgun pointing wherever she heard the Demodogs make another sound.

"What're they doing?" Sam exhaled, with an edge of frustration.

There was snarling from the front of the house then too. They turned again before they heard the Demodogs squealing in pain—

Complete silence. The room became quiet, nothing but the sounds of their shallow breathing.

Then the glass shattered. Yells ran around the room when one of the Demodogs crashed right through the front window. It slid on the floor until it hit one of the coffee tables in the corner, inert. Hopper snuck forward to inspect if it was actually dead or not.

"Holy shit," Dustin muttered.

"Is it dead?" Corey wondered, axe still held up.

Hopper kicked the Demodog with his boot—it didn't move.

Then, before anyone could breathe again, the front door creaked from behind. The group whipped around with strained gasps. When one of the locks suddenly unlocked itself magically, they raised their weapons again.

The sliding latch fell as well, and Sam held her gun straight for the door, ready to shoot down whatever threat was about to head their way. She wouldn't let the Upside Down take someone else. Not like it did Bob.

With that, the front door was opened, and a new body most of them had not seen for a long while—some others not at all—stepped into the house.

Eleven.

Sam's shotgun clattered to the floor in shock.

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Published: January 14, 2024
Re-published: October 30, 2025

BAILEY YAPS...

Sam "stay strapped" Hughes and Nancy "walk 'em down" Wheeler finally seen together!

Honestly I really don't know why I decided to give Sam a gun, but I think it's so funny. I saw that bubbly little blonde girl and I said she needs a fucking gun

(In the original drafts of this story, where Steph was apart of the group, she was the one who wielded the axe. So I gave Corey the axe to honor that. Sorry Stephanie Hughes blame Sam for your ignorance to the plot not me.)