37. Chapter 37

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Jessica did, indeed, stay in her car until Dustin got home. She'd made sure the thing hadn't come out the front door, but she couldn't say anything about it having maybe escaped from the back door.

Her brother had come peddling up the drive way as if he were on a mission and he hadn't seemed to notice that she was in her car when he passed by her.

She called for him when she got out and he paused to look back at her.

"Jess? What were you doing in there?"

"I was in my car, Dustin, because there's a monster in the house," she said, her jaw so stiff she was almost talking through her teeth. "In your room, actually. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

"There's not a monster in my room. It's just Dart."

"Dart? The . . . slug you said escaped?"

Dustin looked down, guilty, before looking back up. "I . . . may have lied about that, but that's only because everyone else was saying we needed to kill him."

"Well, maybe you should have! It's not just a slug, Dustin! It's a baby demogorgan, and it's killed our cat!"

Dustin looked at her as if he didn't believe what she was saying. He probably didn't because if he'd thought it was a slug then it hadn't been as big as it was right now when Dustin had last seen it.

"Why else would I be hiding out in my car? Go peek in your room if you don't believe me."

Dustin went inside the house and put his bag down on the couch. Jessica followed him in and up the stairs. No way was she letting him go up alone. What if that thing got out?

The door was still intact, and there was no noise coming from behind it.

"Just a peek, Dustin. Don't open it all the way."

"No, I was only gonna barge in," Dustin said and rolled his eyes.

"Hey, chill with the sarcasm. You're the one who let it in the house."

"I didn't know it was a baby demogorgan!"

"No, but you guys thought – Mike said it could have been something from the Upside Down and you still brought it back here. You lied about it!"

There was a sudden thud against the bedroom door and it cut Dustin off from saying something back to her. He just looked at her and she stared back at him. The door was holding up okay, though, so at least they were safe.

"We need to get it out of the house," she said. "We just, we have to lure it out somehow."

"We could – what about the cellar?" Dustin asked. "We can't let it roam around town, but we can't let it stay in here either."

Jessica was already nodding. "Okay. Steve is coming after practice is over. He still has that bat, and . . . well, whatever that thing is, it's still pretty small. We can probably get rid of it that way."

They made their way downstairs and towards the kitchen so they could go outside to check out the cellar. Dustin had stopped at the cat bowl and just looked for a few seconds before starting off again.

"Look," Jessica said, grabbing his arm to stop him moving forward. "I – I know you didn't mean for this to happen. You never would've brought it here if you thought it would ever hurt us."

Dustin nodded but still didn't say anything, so she grabbed the key to get into the cellar and followed him outside. They kept the cellar doors padlocked and chained because they almost never went in there unless it was to add to the collection of stuff that was already in there.

She pulled on the chain a bit just to see how sturdy it was – they were pretty thick, so they should work nicely – and then she unlocked it and opened up the doors.

"Okay, so what now?" she asked. "How do we get it out here?"

"There's . . . deli meat in the fridge. And we have dad's old hockey stuff down there –" Dustin gestured into the darkness of the cellar –"his pads and the hockey stick."

"All right. You go get that stuff. I'll get the meat and make a trail of it from your room out to here. Okay? Once you have everything you need, go in the shed."

The shed was green and old. It probably wouldn't offer much protection if Dart tried to get in, but it was still a good place to hide. Hopefully Dart would be too distracted with the meat to try to get into the shed anyway.

"Jess, be careful."

"Yeah, no sweat."

Jessica did as she said she was going to and grabbed the bag of meat out of the fridge. Her mom had just bought it; they would have to think of a reason it wouldn't be there when she got back. They were going to have to explain Mews too.

She made her way upstairs, planted a piece of meat right outside of Dustin's door and then placed another piece on the floor every few feet to make a trail downstairs, through the kitchen and out the back door all the way to the open cellar doors and down a few of the steps as well.

"Dustin?"

"In here." His voice came from the shed, letting her know he had actually listened to her about hiding in there.

"Okay, I'll be right back out, okay? I've gotta go let that thing out."

"Be careful," he told her again.

She took a deep breath and let it out before heading back inside. When she reached Dustin's door, she stopped, leaned against the wall and got her bearings before cracking the door open. She couldn't see Dart at all, but she could hear movement in the room. She didn't want its attention on her, but she needed it to be if she was going to get it out of the house.

She threw the door all the way open and then took off at a sprint back down the hallway and down the stairs, not stopping until she was outside, where Dustin was waiting in the shed, door open for her to get in.

She slammed the door shut and then all they could do was wait.

Dustin had already put the hockey gear on. He even had a goalie mask, a hockey stick in his hands. It went against any other image she'd ever had of him and if the situation hadn't been so dire, she probably would've laughed.

They were in the shed for about five minutes before the baby demogorgan made its way outside. It seemed hesitant and Jessica remembered that the thing didn't seem to like the sunlight. The draw of the food was apparently stronger than any dislikes it had, though, because it made its way to the next offering of meat and slurped it up; it didn't even seem to have to chew.

When the thing had made its way to the middle of the yard, it stopped and looked towards the shed. There were spaces in between the pieces of wood that made up the shed, so they could see it, but that meant that it could see them too. It crept closer and closer and Jessica was sure it was thinking about making them food rather than the deli meat they'd laid out for it.

Dustin suddenly let out a battle cry and rammed through the shed door. It all happened so quickly that Jessica couldn't stop him. She actually let a scream out herself, only hers was from fright.

The creature seemed to have been frightened too, because it quickly moved backwards. Dustin cornered it, making it go towards the cellar doors, and then Dustin hit it with the hockey stick. It flew backwards, down into the cellar, and Dustin ran to shut the doors before it could come back up.

"Jess, the key!" Dustin shouted, quickly wrapping the chains around the handles on the doors.

It got her moving, though, and by the time she'd reached Dustin he had used the padlock to secure the chains.

Dart was thudding against the door, but it was holding up pretty good. Dustin slumped against the doors as Jessica used the key on the padlock and then she slumped against it as well.

"What now?" Dustin asked.

"Steve. We wait for Steve."

Steve pulled into the Henderson's driveway around five-thirty. He'd left the school as soon as he'd showered after practice. He'd been knocked on his butt again – by Billy Hargrove again. The guy had said something about him needing to plant his feet and draw a charge, but mostly Steve had just been wondering what Billy's problem was.

Honestly, if he thought knocking Steve around was going to win him points with Jessica, Billy was going to be sorely disappointed.

Steve shut his car off, only then realizing that Jessica's car was in the driveway, and that she should have been gone already. He got out and hurried inside. Something must've happened to make her stay home since she'd already told him she wasn't going to.

"Jess?" he called out.

"In here," her voice came from the kitchen.

He was expecting to find her heating pizza up for Dustin or something, but they were both there just staring out the back door.

"What are we looking at?"

He noticed hockey equipment piled on the floor, stick up against the wall, and he was even more confused.

Jessica looked at him. She was pale and there was a shine to her eyes.

"There's a baby demogorgan in our cellar."

His bag fell to the floor as he tried to take in what she'd said.

"What?"

"That slug I told you about . . . It grew."

She went on talking about how she'd come home and heard something in Dustin's room and had checked it out and then everything that followed, all the way up to them finally being able to lure it to the cellar and lock it in.

"Anyway . . . we were waiting for you because you still have that bat," she said. "The thing is about the size of a dog, not like – not like before."

"I – Okay. Let me go get the bat, I guess."

"Is it still in the car?" Jessica asked.

"Yeah."

"I'm coming with you. Dustin, keep watch."

Jessica followed him out but didn't speak until they were outside.

"After we get rid of that thing, will you help me clean up Dustin's room? There's blood and Mews, and I'd rather he not see it."

To be honest, Steve wasn't sure he wanted to see blood and a dead Mews either, but he wasn't about to make Jessica face it alone.

"Not sure how much help I'll be, but yeah, sure."

They reached his car, but before he opened the trunk, he pulled Jessica to him and just held her.

She was tense, so he knew she needed it, but he also needed it. He'd been almost as stressed as she was since finding everything out the day before. He'd just wanted to keep it together for her. They couldn't both be completely freaking out at the same time.

The tension slowly left Jessica's body, but he could hear soft sniffles coming from her now. It just made him hold her more tightly.

"I'm sorry you had to find that thing when you were alone. Dustin never should've let it in the house, no matter what it was when he found it. He didn't know what it was."

"Yeah." She sniffled once again but lifted her head from his chest. "I already sort of yelled at him, and I know he feels bad about Mews. So . . . maybe don't be too hard on him?"

"Yeah, okay," Steve said.

They stood there for another minute or two before Jessica stepped away and gestured to the trunk.

It was time to do this.

Once Steve had his bat, he and Jessica went back inside and went back in the kitchen, where Dustin was still standing a sort of guard at the back door.

"Okay, little dude," Steve said. "Let's do this."

They all made their way outside and to the cellar, where Steve banged the bat against the doors a few times, just to see if it would make whatever was in there react.

There was nothing.

"Well, you did hit it earlier with that hockey stick," Jessica said, looking at Dustin. "Maybe you hurt it."

"That would be nice," Steve said. "Who has the key?"

Jessica dug the key to the padlock out of her pocket and moved forward to unlock it and unravel the chain.

"You ready?" she asked.

"Not really." He took a deep breath and let it out. "Open it."

Jessica did, throwing the doors open and hurrying backward in case the thing decided to jump out at her. Nothing happened, though. No noise, no movement. Maybe Dustin had actually hurt the thing.

Since nothing was going on right that instant, Jessica looked at Dustin.

"You stay up here. If you hear anything . . . not good, you get inside as fast as you can and don't come back outside unless one of us tells you to."

"I'm not gonna –" Dustin began, but Steve interrupted with, "Listen to your sister, dude."

A few seconds later, Steve said, "I don't hear anything."

"He must be further down there," Dustin said.

Steve sighed and began his descent into the cellar, stopping every few steps. Jessica followed him down, clutching the back of his jacket firmly, making sure to stay only a step or two behind.

There still wasn't any noise or movement coming from the cellar, and Jessica didn't know what to think until they reached the middle of the room and was able to turn on the light.

"What the hell?" Steve said.

There on the floor was another pile of vomit-inducing skin, wet and slimy – dripping even – like the stuff she'd seen in the tank in Dustin's room.

"It's – it's . . . It must've gotten bigger."

But where was it?

"Jess?" Dustin called out from above. "Steve?"

"We're fine," she called back. "It's not here."

"What?"

Steve moved forward slowly. This time he grabbed her hand to pull her with him. There, in the corner, was a huge gapping hole, as if something had burrowed into the wall and had just kept going.

"Dustin, you can come down now."

Jessica heard his footsteps but didn't turn to him until he reached them.

"No way," he said.

"Yes way."

They stared into the hole and realized they had no clue how far it went. Jessica didn't want to know how far it went.

"A'right . . . Dustin, I need you to get in touch with the others. Mike, Lucas, Will. I'll try Hopper, but we've gotta clean your room first.

They needed to have everything done by the time their mom got home.

Dustin tried calling Mike's house but kept getting a busy signal and he didn't get a response at all when he tried the headset. No one was answering at Joyce's either, and Lucas' sister had turned his walkie-talkie off. When he'd called the house, Mrs. Sinclair told him Lucas wasn't home.

"Okay, well, we can't do anything about anything today, anyway," Jessica said. "It's too late."

She and Steve had already removed Mews from Dustin's room. The cat was now in a garbage bag – there was enough woods connected to their backyard that they could easily bury it there.

Jessica had never really had much to do with Mews and even though Mews had followed Dustin home, the cat had chosen their mom to be its human.

She sent Dustin to go dig a grave for Mews while she and Steve tried to get the blood out of the chair and the carpet. She was scrubbing as hard as she could and it just wasn't coming out.

"What am I supposed to say when mom can't find Mews?"

"Uh . . . she ran away?"

"Yeah. Maybe she – maybe she escaped when I opened the door coming in or something." She huffed. "And these stains? What happens when she finds them?"

Jessica had been on her knees, but she collapsed onto her behind and threw the brush she'd been scrubbing with on the floor, where it rolled a few feet away.

"This is so messed up!"

If she hadn't just had her hands on a nasty cleaning brush, she probably would've been running her fingers through her hair, maybe even pulling at it a little.

Steve, who had been working on the stain on the chair, stopped to look at her. Jessica knew he was completely out of his depth on this as well, but he was trying and she was so thankful for that.

She eventually picked the brush back up and got back to work. She was going to leave the explanation of the stains for Dustin to figure out. He was always doing experiments, so . . . maybe he could blame it on that.

Once everything was as done as it could be, Jessica went to take a shower. Her mom was back by the time she got out, and Dustin had taken the blame for letting Mews out. It gave Jessica the perfect excuse of why she wasn't at work. In reality, she'd called in sick – calling in to get time off to find a cat was just as bad as calling in just because she was tired.

Steve was still in the shower – he'd gotten in right after she had gotten out even though he'd taken one after practice – and at the moment Jessica was heating up the leftover pizza from the night before.

Jessica wasn't even hungry, but the others needed to eat and she knew she did too, even if it was just a slice of pizza.

Dustin and their mom were in the living room; they were going to pick out a movie to watch while they ate dinner. Jessica was going to try and get through it without falling asleep.

When Steve came back down from his shower, his hair was still wet – not dripping but wet – and he sat himself at the kitchen table.

He had dark shadows under his eyes and his skin was a shade paler than it normally was. He'd had just as hard a day as she had. Since the pizza was heating in the oven, she went to stand behind him. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed his neck.

"Thank you so much for today," she said. "I know – I know we shouldn't have to even deal with stuff like this, but I just threw it at you and you did."

She sat beside him and he turned to her, grabbed her hands. "Of course I did. I wasn't going to make you face this stuff alone."

"I love you. So much."

Jessica couldn't help it as her eyes started to water. Steve moved closer and even though it was an awkward fit with them both in kitchen chairs, he still put his arms around her.

"Hey, I love you too. And we've got this. That thing last year was a lot worse. Right?"

She nodded and held her breath to keep a sob in. She spoke again when she felt more in control.

"Stay here with me tonight?"

She knew he probably had been planning on it anyway since his parents weren't home, but she didn't want to just assume. But she did need him with her that night. She didn't want to sleep alone.

"Of course." Steve grinned. "I'd be stupid to say no to the most beautiful girl in the world."

"Shut up," she said, but his words had pulled a smile from her.

They stayed just like that until the pizza was done heating up and then they went in the living room with the other two.

Dustin had chosen Ghostbusters as the movie, probably because it wasn't meant to be taken seriously, and they could just watch it and not be reminded of anything Upside Down related.

Their mom still had a glint of worry in her eyes, and she'd already said she was going to spend the next day looking for Mews around town, so at least they would have the freedom to do what they needed to do – whatever that was because they hadn't made up a plan yet. They would know more about what to do once they filled everyone else in on what had happened.

Once the movie was over, it was pretty much Dustin's bed time and because Jessica hadn't slept well the night before she decided it was her bed time too. She knew Steve was just following her lead when he went upstairs with her and Dustin, but she figured he had to be tired too. He hadn't gotten much sleep the night before either.

They all stopped at Dustin's room, where Jessica touched Dustin briefly on the shoulder.

"You gonna be okay in here tonight?"

"Yeah, I – I'll be okay. Thanks for cleaning up for me."

"No problem."

Before Jessica and Steve could step away Dustin had grabbed her around the waist and was hugging her tightly.

"I'm sorry for lying to you about Dart. And I'm sorry about Mews."

"I know. I know you wouldn't have brought it here if you'd known it was going to grow into that thing."

She ran her hands through his hair a few times to bring him comfort and waited for Dustin to let go first. It wasn't until he told her goodnight and shut his door that she continued making her way to her own.

She had grabbed Steve's hand and didn't let go until she made it to her bed. She turned to him then and noticed the very soft expression on his face.

"What?"

"Nothing." He smiled at her. "It's just . . . I'm not trying to be weird, it's just I was thinking that you're going to make a great mom someday."

"Oh . . ." Jessica smiled back. "I guess we both will have had practice by the time we decide to have kids."

She changed into her pajamas quickly and then went to the bathroom to brush her teeth, where Steve followed her to do the same.

When they got back to the bedroom Jessica got in the bed first and then Steve slipped in beside her. Once they were situated, it was quiet for a while, until her mom had already passed by the room to go to her own.

"Hey, Jess?"

"Hm?"

"Earlier today when you found that thing . . . why did you wait for me? I mean . . . What I mean is, why didn't you call Hop or something?"

It wasn't until right then that Jessica realized she hadn't tried calling him at all even though she'd said she would. She'd forgotten with everything else going on. She would try in the morning.

"I don't know. I just . . ." She leaned up to press a kiss against his neck. "You're the first person I thought of. And . . . even though Hopper is the chief of police . . . you're still the one I feel safe with above everyone else. So, yeah, of course I thought of you first."

Jessica caressed his chest a few times and smiled when she felt his muscles twitch under her hand. She kissed him on the lips this time and melted against him further when his hand found its way into her hair, his fingers scraping against her scalp.

After a few minutes of kissing, she pulled away enough to look in his eyes.

"Can you shut the door?" she asked softly.

She knew Steve knew what she meant, but he looked at her with confusion anyway.

"Jess?"

"I know – I know we shouldn't, okay? And if you don't want to then it's fine, I just –" she broke off and took a deep breath. "I need to forget. Just for a little while."

She knew Steve still didn't bring protection with him when he stayed at her house, so she knew they couldn't have sex, but she still craved his touch, craved the pleasure it could bring and the peace that would follow even if she knew that peace couldn't last.

"Are you sure? Your mom . . . and Dustin."

"I know. We can be quiet and then open the door after."

He caressed her hip and kissed her again before getting up to close the door.

Okay, so this was my latest offering! I'm getting more followers and favorites but I still feel like I'm not getting much feedback - but since you're following and favoriting, I guess that means I'm doing something right. :)

Anyway, I'm going to be working on companion pieces to this story. They'll mostly be the smut sections that I don't want to interrupt the flow of this story for. There won't be that many. Just a few of the parts where they're learning each others bodies even before having sex and then a few of the times they've had sex after the first time. I haven't written any of it yet because I've been focusing on the story. I just thought it would be fun to write them learning each other. I love romance scenes where things are still kind of new and innocent. I'm not much into just hardcore filth. I can't write that at all! (I also kind of feel that Steve is a vanilla kind of guy anyway)