39. Chapter 39

So the first companion piece has been put up, I think it's been like a week, in case you guys wanted to check it out. That will be updated sporadically as ideas pop up in my head. As I said before, the companion pieces are mostly just smut that i feel would make me have to up the rating of this story and interrupt the flow of it. I will try to have a time frame for each piece either in the section or at the beginning to explain where each piece fits in here (key word being TRY). Hope you enjoy!

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Jessica was given a few minutes, as she'd said she'd needed, and used those minutes to drink some water and eat a piece of chocolate that Dustin had stashed away.

They all took in the state of the outside of the bus, all the claw marks and dents from the monsters trying to get in. If those things hadn't run away when they had, she was sure they all would've been dead because they would've gotten in the bus some way.

"A'right, I'm good," she said. "Let's get outta here."

For the most part, the kids kept to themselves while walking, while Steve and Jessica walked closely behind them. Max kept looking up and when asked about what she was staring at she said it was the stars. Back home in California she didn't get to see them much. She must've lived in the city.

"San Diego," Max said.

Every now and then they would hear something moving in the trees and they would freeze until the sound stopped or until they were sure it was safe.

"Are you positive it was Dart?" Lucas asked, referring to the first creature that had showed up at the junkyard.

"Yes," Dustin said. "He had the same yellow pattern on his butt."

"Okay, but he was tiny two days ago," Max said.

"He's molted three times already. He shed his skin to make room for more growth like hornworms."

Since the kids were leading the way they had the flashlights, but Jessica could see pretty well anyway. The moon was pretty full and there was light coming from something in the woods.

"When's he gonna molt again?"

"It's gotta be soon. When he does, he'll be fully grown, or close to it."

"Which means the other ones will be too," Jessica said. "We'll have an army of full-grown demogorgans on our hands."

"Yeah, and they're gonna eat a lot more than just cats," Steve said.

"Wait, a cat?" Lucas questioned. "Dart ate a cat?"

"No," Dustin said. "What? No."

"What're you talking about? He ate Mews."

"Mews? Who's Mews?" Max asked.

"It's Dustin's and Jessica's cat."

"Steve!" Dustin sounded betrayed.

"I knew it!" Lucas shoved Dustin's shoulder. "You kept him."

"No. No. I – I . . . He missed me. He wanted to come home."

Dustin looked at Jessica and she gave him a sympathetic smile but shook her head. She couldn't help him out of this one. He had lied to his friends.

"I didn't know he was a demogorgan, okay?"

"Oh, so now you admit it."

"Guys, who cares?" Max said. Apparently, she'd had enough. "We have to go."

"I care!" Lucas exclaimed. "You put the party in jeopardy. You broke the rule of law."

"So did you."

"What?"

"You told a stranger the truth."

Dustin shined the flashlight in Max's face and she squinted her eyes against it before Dustin could point it somewhere else.

Jessica had to admit that when it came to party law, she didn't know everything because no one had ever actually sat down to explain the rules. She was just an honorary member due to her helping them out the year before. Still, she knew they weren't supposed to lie to each other or put each other in danger on purpose. None of them were supposed to talk about the Upside Down stuff, but that had nothing to do with the party. That was just something they knew not to do.

"You wanted to tell her too."

"Yeah, but I didn't, Lucas!"

"Guys, could you argue about this later?" Steve said. "If those things decide to come back, they're going to know exactly where we are. I think all of Hawkins can hear you right now."

They had been arguing pretty loudly.

They continued walking, and every now and then they would hear a shriek. Everyone knew what was making those noises. The more they walked, the louder the sounds became and Jessica suddenly thought staying in the junkyard would've been a better idea.

"Why're we going towards the sounds?" Max asked.

"That's a good question." Jessica sighed. "We need to get back to Steve's car."

They had left Lucas's bike behind. They would have to go back and get it some time when they weren't trying to survive a monster crisis.

It wasn't until they reached a hill that Lucas used his binoculars to see if he could spot any of the monsters. They didn't want to accidentally run into any of them.

He couldn't really see anything as there was still a fog problem, but they still were able to get a pretty good idea where the things were going just by the directions the sounds were coming from.

The lab . . . they were going to the lab, back to the gate maybe.

It didn't matter where those things were going, though. It only mattered that they got to Steve's car to go and try to find the others.

Dustin and Lucas were looking at each other now, argument seemingly forgotten. They nodded once before taking off running towards the lab, and Jessica couldn't believe she hadn't seen that coming.

"Hey!" Steve shouted after them. "Get back here."

Like that was actually going to work.

"Okay, you're the star athlete. Go get 'em."

Steve sighed and rolled his eyes, looked upwards as if asking for patience, but he still went after them.

To Max's credit, she had not just blindly followed after the boys, and she was still hanging back with Jessica. The girl had some common sense, at least.

"So . . . I take it back," Max said. "You and Steve aren't insane. Dustin and Lucas are insane."

"Yes, they are."

They still couldn't just let them go off on their own, which was why she'd sent Steve after them. It was why she was going after them now.

"I'm sorry you got caught up in all of this," Jessica said, beginning to take off after Steve and the other two.

Max shrugged. "Better than being home."

Even though Jessica had hesitated to reach out to her earlier, she did reach out now to take Max's wrist in her hand. Max didn't flinch or try to pull away. She just looked at Jessica as they continued walking.

"This happen a lot? The bruises?"

Really, there wasn't much she could do if it did. Max wasn't her sister and she didn't know Billy very well. But Max was just a kid and she didn't deserve to have bruises left on her skin because someone didn't know how to be nicer to her.

"No," Max answered. "He . . . Billy's never really done that before. He just blames me for us having to leave California."

"Why?"

"My dad's still there, and . . . Neil, Billy's dad, wanted a fresh start, so . . . small town America it is."

"Wow." Jessica let her wrist go. "He still shouldn't put his hands on you, though, not like that. He's a lot bigger than you and could hurt you without meaning to."

From what she'd gathered from Max, Billy was her step-brother. Neil was his dad and he must have married Max's mom. It was kind of messed up that they'd left California just to get away from her dad. It didn't seem like they really had a reason, meaning Jessica hadn't heard any type of tension in Max's voice when she'd talked about him. She'd only heard sadness.

They walked on for a few minutes in silence, but it wasn't awkward at all. It was more companionable than anything else. They were fully in the woods now and they could hear the voices of Steve, Dustin, and Lucas, which was good because Jessica didn't want to be there with only a crowbar for a weapon.

"You know, I think it's cool . . . you and Steve helping us. Most people wouldn't even bother."

"Well, considering I know all this stuff is true, I'd be a jerk if I didn't help you guys."

Steve wasn't that far ahead now, and Jessica could see that he had grabbed the two boys by the backs of their shirts when he'd caught up with them. It was probably a precaution – he didn't want them running away again.

Jessica followed his example when she and Max reached him. She grabbed onto the sleeve of Steve's jacket.

"Finally, you caught up," he teased.

"Yup." To the boys she said, "Why are we going towards the lab? We should definitely not be doing that."

It didn't matter what she said, though. She knew that even if she happened to convince Dustin and Lucas to come with her to find Steve's car, they would just find a way back to the lab on their own at some point. It was better if she and Steve went with them.

Steve really had no clue how long they all had been walking in the woods, but they had finally come out the other side. They had reached the clearing that led to the lab, which was surrounded by a huge barbed-wire fence. There was a car near the gate entrance, headlights on, which stood out clearly because the whole lab was dark. That couldn't have been right.

Whatever had happened to the lights didn't matter. What mattered was that Jonathan and Nancy were there at the gate entrance trying to get in. The gate wouldn't budge. Whatever power outage was happening at the lab, it had reached the front gate.

"What are you guys doing here?" Nancy asked once she'd caught sight of them coming out of the woods.

"What are you doing here?" Steve asked in return.

"We're looking for Mike and Will."

"They're not in there, are they?" Dustin asked, pointing towards the lab.

"We're not sure."

"Why?" Jonathan asked.

The screeching started up again. Nancy and Jonathan turned towards the noise.

"What was that?"

"That . . . was baby demogorgans," Jessica said, speaking for the first time. "Lots of 'em."

Dustin had to explain Dart to Nancy and Jonathan, and they had to explain why no one had been able to get in touch with them. They had been off finding that Murray guy to tell him the story of what had happened the year before.

Nancy and Jonathan had gotten into the lab somehow and had recorded a very incriminating conversation they'd had with Dr. Owens and they were going to use it to bring down the lab, which was troubling but not the main concern at the moment.

In the middle of all the explaining and talking over each other, the power came back on in the lab, and light flooded the area they were in.

The gate sill wouldn't budge, however, when Jonathan tried to open it. Dustin tried as well, which meant he just kept smashing the button that was supposed to open the gate.

About a minute later, the gate did open and Jonathan and Nancy got in Jonathan's car.

"We'll be back for you guys," Jonathan said. "But you all can't fit in here, not if we have to bring the others back. If we're lucky, mom will have her car here."

"Yeah, just go," Steve said. "We'll be here."

The tires squealed as they took off and Steve heard Jessica let out a huge huff of breath. It wasn't long after that that she sank to the ground against the fence. She landed on her butt with a grunt. She hadn't fainted or anything. It just seemed as if everything was catching up to her at once.

He squatted down beside her. "You okay?"

"Yeah. I'm just . . . so tired."

"You crashing?"

"I don't know."

Steve stood back up. "Hey, Dustin? You have any more chocolate?"

Dustin, who had been absorbed in some kind of conversation with Max and Lucas, looked at Jessica then, a slightly worried expression on his face, and then dug through his pockets to pull out two bite-sized Hershey bars.

He handed them to Jessica, who quickly unwrapped one and stuck it in her mouth.

"At least now we know why we couldn't get in touch with anyone," she said. "Nancy and Jonathan weren't even in Hawkins, and Mike, Will, and Joyce are here."

After a few minutes Jessica stood back up, but she leaned against the fence, crossing her arms over her chest. She was working on her second piece of chocolate, but she still seemed drained. Her face was pale from her earlier bout of vomiting even though she claimed she was okay now.

If this wasn't such a life or death situation, Steve probably would've gotten after Dustin and Lucas for taking off when they knew Jessica just wanted to get back home – or at least back to town where they could reach Hopper, and then they could go home.

Steve ended up on one side of Jessica, Dustin on the other, both of them leaning against the fence as well. Nobody talked, but Steve could tell that Jessica appreciated them being there anyway.

It wasn't too long after that that Max and Lucas were coming to lean against the fence as well because Jonathan's car was rushing back through the gate entrance. He didn't stop for them, though, because another car had followed him out. It belonged to Hopper. It was his police vehicle.

Hopper stopped by them, his car empty aside from himself.

"Let's go!"

Nobody hesitated. Lucas, Max, and Dustin shoved themselves into the back, while Steve and Jessica got in the front.

Other than the first command to get in, Hopper was being quiet. Not that he was usually a chatterbox. But this was different. From the way the chief was staring out the window into the night as if he were on autopilot told Steve that something had happened. Even the kids in the back were being quiet, so Steve knew he couldn't be just imagining it. Nothing made the kids be that quiet.

"Are Will and the others with Jonathan and Nancy?" Jessica asked.

"Yeah."

"Are they okay?" Steve asked.

"They're –" Hopper started but cut himself off. "It's . . . complicated. We'll explain everything when we get back to the house."

It was obvious from the roads they were taking that they were headed to the Byers' house.

"What were you guys doing at the lab, anyway?"

Jessica sighed and slumped against Steve before pointing to the backseat and saying, "Ask them."

Jonathan and Nancy were already there, everybody getting out of the car, when Hopper pulled into the driveway of the Byers' place. Hopper got out of the car first and quickly made his way to the others. Jessica watched as he got a sleeping Will out of Jonathan's car and she wondered why exactly Will was sleeping.

Everyone met up at the door and Joyce let them all in.

Jessica had expected to find the lived-in messy house that she was used to, but this was not it. Not at all.

"What is all this?" she asked as she took in the hundreds of drawings on the walls and floors.

With all the pictures put together, it almost reminded her of when she'd learned about veins in biology, how they were mapped out in the body.

"They're tunnels," Mike said. "They're underneath Hawkins."

"It's what's killing the crops and the trees," Hopper said as he put Will down on the couch.

Jessica noticed that Joyce was taking off down the hallway, which wasn't like her, not with Will passed out on the couch.

She looked at Mike then. "Okay, what's going on?"

They ended up in the kitchen – her, Steve, Mike and the other kids. Hopper stayed with Will until he went to go check on Joyce and then Jonathan and Nancy sat with him.

Apparently, Will had been having episodes, which Jessica only knew a little about, but it turned out the episodes were something from the Upside Down trying to force its way into Will – like a possession. He was now possessed, which was why he was asleep. Joyce had used a tranquilizer to sedate him. Whatever had been possessing him – Mike called it The Spy – was . . . well, spying on them.

It had used Will to draw a bunch of soldiers from the lab into the tunnels and once they'd gotten there a whole pack of baby demogorgans had ambushed them, killing them all.

Jessica locked eyes with Steve across the room. She knew he'd made the connection as well: that was why the things had left them alone suddenly – they'd been called away to deal with a more immediate threat.

Will had been slowly losing his memories of everything and the thing had now completely taken over. Will was no longer the one in control.

"How long has this been going on? The . . . possession?"

"We think it happened the other day outside of school when we found him in the field. Dr. Owens is comparing it to a virus. Will is the host, it's connected to him. They tried burning a piece of the tunnel and . . . Will felt everything. If we hurt the virus, we hurt Will."

"Oh . . . great." Jessica sighed. "And the tunnels?"

"I don't know. It's maybe part of the Upside Down. The way Hopper described it, it sounds a lot like how Will described it. We know it doesn't like heat because of the fire the lab used to burn a piece of it, but again . . . Will."

"Do we . . . do we have any idea how to get it out of him?"

Mike shook his head and her throat tightened as tears tried to make their way out of her eyes.

"Um . . . and Joyce? Why isn't she out here with Will?"

"Bob was here. He dropped off some games for Will because he thought Will just wasn't feeling good."

"Okay . . ."

"He's the one that figured out the tunnels were actually a map of Hawkins. He helped us find Hopper. We've all been at the lab since yesterday."

"Oh. We tried getting in touch with you guys yesterday and today."

"Yeah. Bob . . . was at the lab too."

"Was?"

"When those things came out of the tunnel there it caused the blackout – or something did, anyway – and the only way to get the power back on was to override the system. Only Bob knew how."

Jessica's breath caught in her throat and she stood up from the table. Mike kept using the past tense, which meant that . . .

"He was almost out, but they got him."

Bob had been killed.

Jessica wanted to get away from the room, go outside for just a minute to get her bearings. She needed to just catch her breath for one minute, that was all she was asking. But Mike had tears in his eyes now too and Dustin was sniffling and rubbing his eyes and even Lucas was losing his cool. She couldn't just leave them in here even if there were other adults present. She was an honorary member of their party, and you don't abandon the party.

"Come here," she said, opening her arms for the three boys to basically stumble into her.

She held on to them, letting them get their grief out, and Steve held on to her, helping her hold hers in, helping her be strong for just a little while longer so she could be there for the kids.

After a while, everybody had pretty much calmed down from their conversation, but they were still in the kitchen, the kids seated around the table, Steve and Jessica leaning against the counter.

Things had been silent for a few minutes now, but eventually Mike stood up and said, "did you guys know that Bob was the original founder of Hawkins AV? He petitioned the school to start it and everything. Then he had a fund-raiser for equipment. Mr. Clarke learned everything from him. Pretty awesome, right?"

The kids agreed.

Jessica had to admit that she hadn't really known Bob all that well. She knew he had worked at the Radio Shack in town and he could talk science and technology with the boys when they went in for some part to a gadget they needed. He'd always seemed genuinely friendly.

She knew Joyce had been seeing him for a few months and that she'd seemed happy with him.

"We can't let him die in vain," Mike said.

"What d'you wanna do, Mike? We can't stop these demodogs on our own," Dustin said.

"Demodogs?"

"Demogorgan dogs. Demodogs. It's like a compound. It's like a play on words. Anyway, when it was just Dart, maybe –"

"But there's an army now," Lucas said.

Steve sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, shoved it through his hair. Jessica grabbed his hand and smoothed his hair back into place before linking their hands back together. He squeezed lightly and she squeezed back.

"Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army," Mike said.

"Why are we using he?" Jessica asked. "Who is he?"

"The shadow monster," Mike said. "The spy. Will said it was like a shadow."

Mike took off into the living room, where Will was still laid out on the couch with Jonathan and Nancy watching over him. When he came back, he was holding a drawing that Jessica was assuming Will had made. The drawing had been done on a piece of sketch paper with a black crayon.

Jessica could see why Will had called whatever this was a shadow. It was huge and seemed to be hovering over everything. It had more than four legs and its head was oddly shaped. There was a vague resemblance to a demogorgan head, but this thing's head was slanted downward.

Mike placed the drawing on the table.

"This is what's connecting Will to the tunnels?" Max asked.

"To the tunnels, to the monsters, to the Upside Down, to everything. The shadow monster's inside everything, and if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will."

"And so does Dart," Lucas said.

"Wait. What?" Steve asked. "How'd you come up with that?"

"We learned it in science class," Mike continued. "Mr. Clarke taught us about the hive mind."

"Hive mind?"

"A collective consciousness," Dustin said. "It's a super-organism."

"And this is the thing that controls everything." Mike pointed to the picture. "It's the brain."

"Like the Mind Flayer."

"The what?" Jessica asked the same time as Steve did.

"It's something from Dungeons and Dragons."

Mike took off out of the kitchen again, this time down the hallway and into Will's room. He made so much noise in there that it brought Hopper and Joyce out of her own room.

"What are you doing?" Hopper asked, sticking his head into Will's doorway.

"Looking for something."

When Mike finally came back into the kitchen, he was carrying a Dungeons and Dragons handbook or playbook or whatever it was called.

Hopper joined them in the kitchen while Joyce finally allowed herself to go be with Will. The kids explained their theory to Hopper, who appeared to be just as lost as Jessica and Steve were.

"So what's a Mind Flayer?"

"It's a monster from an unknown dimension," Dustin said, playbook in front of him. "It's so ancient that it doesn't even know its true home. Okay, it enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains by using its highly-developed psionic powers."

By that time, Nancy and Jonathan had made their ways into the kitchen and had joined the group around the table. Jessica could tell that even though they had been in the living room, they had still been paying attention to what had been going on elsewhere.

"None of this is real," Hopper said. "This is a kid's game."

"It's just how they relate to it, Hop," Jessica said. "Like the name demogorgan – they took it from the game, and how the place they thought Will had disappeared from is Mirkwood is from The Hobbit."

"Also, it's a manual and it's not for kids," Dustin said. "Unless you know something that we don't, this is the best metaphor –"

"Analogy," Lucas corrected.

"Analogy? That's what you're worried about?"

Steve let out a huff of air that might have been a short laugh, and Jessica elbowed him gently in the side even though she was halfway grinning herself.

"Anyway, it's the best analogy for whatever this is."

"Okay, so this Mind Flamer thing –"

"Flayer. Mind Flayer"

"What does it want?" Nancy asked.

"To conquer us, basically."

"Oh, that's . . . lovely," Jessica said, grin now gone. "Why?"

"It believes it's the master race."

"Like the Germans?" Steve asked.

"Uh, the Nazis?"

"Yeah, the Nazis."

"If the Nazis were from another dimension, then . . . totally."

Hopper groaned behind them and Jessica watched as he pinched the bridge of his nose as if trying to fight off a headache. She could sympathize. This whole thing was a headache.

"It sees other races, like us, as inferior to itself."

"It wants to spread," Mike said, "take over other dimensions."

"We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it," Lucas chimed in.

Steve pulled away from the table, hands shoving through his hair again. He hadn't reached the level of stressed out he'd been at a year ago when he'd first found out all of this stuff, but he was getting there.

Jessica reached for him and took his hands in hers again just so he'd stop messing with his hair.

Nancy picked up the manual and began walking around the kitchen with it.

"Okay, so if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then if we kill it . . ."

"We kill everything it controls," Mike said.

"So how do we kill this thing?" Hopper asked, taking the manual from Nancy. "Shoot it with fireballs or something?"

"You summon an undead army because . . . because zombies, you know, they don't have brains and the mind flayer . . . it likes brains."

"Dustin!" Jessica exclaimed. "Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if zombies were real at this point, but . . . not exactly helpful right now. We need to get it out of Will, and we need to kill it."

Hopper tossed the book on the kitchen table and huffed out in exasperation.

"I can – I can at least call for back up for those hell creatures."

"Demodogs."

"Whatever. At least it'll be something until we can figure out how to deal with everything else."

"Even if they come, how are they gonna stop this?" Mike asked. "You can't just shoot this with guns."

"You don't know that. We don't know anything."

"We know it's already killed everybody in that lab."

"And we know the monsters are gonna molt again," Lucas said.

"We know that it's only a matter of time before those tunnels reach town." Dustin shrugged. "They're not just gonna stay in the fields and the woods."

There was a moment of silence before Joyce walked into the kitchen and said, "They're right. We have to kill it."

Her face was tear-stained, pale but also blotchy from crying, and Jessica wanted so badly to just go to her and hug her.

"I want to kill it."

"Me too," Hopper said. "Me too, but how do we do that? We don't exactly know what we're dealing with here."

"No, but Will does," Mike said. "If anyone knows how to destroy this thing, it's Will. He's connected to it. He'll know its weakness."

"I thought you said we couldn't trust him anymore," Max said, which was definitely a good point, because according to Mike . . . Will didn't remember anything and had been completely taken over. "You said he's a spy for the mind flayer now."

"Yeah, but he can't spy if he doesn't know where he is."

"Well, he'll definitely recognize the house," Joyce said. "But it we clean out the shed . . . board it up a little . . ."

"I'll check it out," Hopper said, going towards the back door.

Jessica went the other way, towards the front door. She stopped by Joyce and hugged her like she'd wanted to when she'd first seen her. She didn't say anything, she just held her for a few more seconds than were strictly necessary and then walked out the door.

She really needed that minute now.