Chapter Text
“Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch!” Niall says, as he rushes through his living room. He flips over couch cushions, moves lamps and starts destroying the room.
“Niall?” His mom asks, sitting on the plush sofa.
“Mom, can I look under your couch cushion?” he says motioning to the sofa she's sitting on.
“Niall, what why?”
“Mom, please it’s an emergency!”
She grumbles then stands up, Niall looks under her seat and smiles as he brings up two shiny quarters.
He runs off towards his bedroom, “Love you mom” he says as he passes her. In his bed he reaches under his bed and grabs his walkie talkie. “Liam, do you copy? I’ve got four quarters, what’s your haul?”
“Take your punny haul, and multiply it by five.” Liam responds
“What how?” Niall asks
“While you were scouring around like a lazy bum, I mowed old Humphy’s lawn.”
“Well, do you know how much Louis has?”
“You go call Louis, I’ve gotta go take a shower from doing real work, over and out.”
Niall radios over to Louis, “Louis, how much money do you have? Liam and I have about $6 total.”
“Shit, I don’t know. Go call Zayn while I get some coins.” Louis says as he sits up from the fort he still has set up in his basement.
He runs up to Taylor's bedroom and digs through her drawers until he finds a piggy bank, he brings the bank to her bed and untwists the lid, he dumps out the money and grabs nearly all the coins.
“What are you doing?!” Taylor yells at him
“I’ll pay you back!” Louis says as he runs past her and downstairs. Taylor chases after him, but he makes it to the garage and slams the door on her face. By the time she reopens it Louis has grabbed his bike and is running down the driveway, biking into the night sky.
He peddles over to the arcade by the middle school, where he meets Niall and Liam. As they all park their bikes, Zayn pulls up in his moms car. He waves her goodbye and then heads inside with the other boys.
The first game the boys play is Dragon’s Lair, Niall has been trying to beat Liam's highscore for the past week, always being just below his previous attempts. Today is no different, Liam laughs and rubs it in Niall's face how he makes the same mistakes every time he plays.
“Whatever, I’m still top in Centipede and Digdug.” Niall remarks
“You sure about that?” Keith the arcade worker says behind the boys.
“Sure about what?” Niall asks, Keith just shrugs his shoulders and continues eating the bag of cheetos in his hand.
Niall runs over to Digdug and sees right on the screen the highscores are not what it was last time he was here. Up at the top the top score is replaced by SlaynSabrina.
“750,300 Points!" Zayn exclaims “That’s impossible!”
Niall turns to Keith “Who is SlaynSabrina?”
“Better than you.” Kieth licking a finger covered in Cheeto dust.
“Is it you?” Zayn asks
Kieth scoffs “You know I despise DigDug.”
“Then who is it?” Liam pushes
“If you want information, then I need something in return.” Kieth says gesturing to Louis
“No! No! No way, You’re not getting a date with Taylor!” Louis states
“Come on, Louis just got him a date.” Liam urges
“I am not putting my sister up for sale!”
“But it’s for a good cause.” Liam continues
“No, don’t give him the date.” Niall bursts in “He’s gonna spread his nasty ass rash to your whole family.”
“Acne isn’t a rash, and it isn’t contagious, you prepubescent wastiod.” Kieth fights back
The boys continue fighting with Kieth, when Zayn steps away from the group, he begins to hear rumbling outside. He steps outside to see what it is.
Zayn turns back to the group “Hey guys, do you see-”
He pauses and freezes, because just then he sees himself back in the Upside Down. Vines covering everything, bone chilling air, dark skies, just like the last time Zayn was there. He takes another step outside and stares into the lightning striking in the sky frozen.
Someone grabs Zayn's shoulder, “Zayn. Are you okay?” He turns around and gasps to see Louis standing behind him. He’s no longer in his vision of being stuck in the Upside Down, he’s back in Hawkins.
“Come on, you’re next on DigDug.” Louis says “Let’s take that top score back.” Louis says as he walks up to Zayn and they walk back inside together.
____________________________________________________________________________
Desmond walks into the station, cigarette already lit, even if it’s only eight in the morning. As he gets out of his car, he gets stopped.
“Des, hold on a second. We need to talk.” A middle aged, blading detective tries to stop Des from entering the station.
“Get away from me Ed.” Des says brushing past him.
Ed follows him into the station. “I think you’re really gonna want to hear this.”
“Yeah, and I want a date with Bo Derik. We all have things we want, so get away from me.” Des says.
“This isn’t a laughing matter Des, this is serious! I’ve really got something here!”
“Morning chief, morning Ed.” Powell says to them both.
“Got any proof of your alien theory yet?” Callahan asks
“I believe there was, and very well still may be a Russian spy in Hawkins.” Ed says sternly
“Russian spies!” Des laughs while taking a sip of coffee.
“Now, are the Russian spies in cahoots with the aliens? I’m confused.” Callahan jokes.
“There are multiple reports of a Russian child here in Hawkins.”
Des pauses mid sip. “A child, what are you talking about?”
“A boy, who may have psychic abilities.” Ed confirms
“Hey, Chief, what about that boy who made that kid pee himself?” Callahan questions
“That was a prank.” Des turns to Ed “you’ve got five minutes to talk, not a second more.”
Des goes to his office, sighing as he sits down, and puts his feet on his desk seemingly half listening to Ed.
“I talked to a Big-X employee who said some little boy shattered the building's front door with his mind.”
“I heard that one.” Des says “Did you hear the one about the fat man with a beard who climbs down chimneys every year?”
Ed sighs and continues. “Then, last month a co-worker of Scott Tomilson claimed some Russian boy was in Tomilson's basement. Scott now denies this, but it’s a start!”
“Wow, that’s a surprise.” Des says sarcastically “Enlighten me more on this story.”
“This Russian boy, he’s some kind of weapon right? My client Selena sees this boy and tries to help him, perhaps, but before she can, the Russian finds them and takes them away.”
“So, you’re telling me Selena Gomez was kidnapped by Russian spies?”
“Maybe even killed. Don’t you get it Des, this potentially has international implications. I’m talking a full on Russian invasion right here in Hawkins!”
“Do you have any proof of this boy? Has anyone seen him recently?”
“No, but these are separate sources-” Ed is cut off by the phone ringing, Des goes to answer it.
Flo is on the receiving line "Merrill called, he wants you to check out his pumpkins, says they’ve been contaminated by his vengeful neighbor Eugyne.”
Des puts the phone down and stands up “God, I really hate to do this, but I've got to run.” He says sarcastically to Ed.
“You gave me five minutes!” Ed says
“Yeah, but I liked your alien theory a lot better. You want my advice, stop bleeding those people dry and go home. Alright?”
____________________________________________________________________________
Anne sits at the counter at her job in Melvelds convenience store, sewing together Zayn’s Halloween costume this year, when the bell on the front door rings.
“Hey, there,” a man her same age asks “Do you happen to have these in any other colors?” picking up a jack o ' lantern candy basket. “I’m not a big fan of oranges.”
“I don’t know, let me check in the back,” She enters the back room and behind her follows the man, he shuts the door and she turns around. She smiles then leans in to kiss him, they make out for a few more minutes.
“You’re gonna get me fired, Robin.” She says
“Well, that’s my master plan to get you fired so you can work for me and we don’t have to hide back here.”
“Well, I have to get back to work.” She tells him. “Go sell your electronic device things, and I’ll see later for movie night.”
“Jonathan’ night to pick?”
“Yes.” Anne says quickly, pecking him on the lips.
Robin begins to walk out, and at the door he stops, “Hey look a green one.” He points to a green jack o lantern on one of the shelves.
____________________________________________________________________________
Taylor sits with Travis in his car, before school. She is holding an essay paper while he nervously taps on the steering wheel next to her.
“I know my essay is shit.” Travis mutters
“It’s not shit.” She replies
“Well, it’s not good Tay.”
“It’s going to be good, it just needs some reorganizing.” She sighs, she grabs a pen from her bag and starts marking it. “In the first paragraph you use the basketball game championship as a metaphor for your life, which is great. Then, you start talking about your granddads' experience in the war, and I don’t quite see how they’re connected.”
“It connects because,” he stammers, “Because we both won.”
“When’s the deadline?” Taylor asks
“It’s tomorrow for early application.” Taylor biters her lip at this. “Could you come help me tonight?” Travis asks,
“No, we have our dinner tonight, remember?” Taylor reminds him. Tavis groans at this, and grabs his paper and crumbles it up.
“Hey, Trav, calm down.”
“I am calm, I just don’t see how it matters, I’m just gonna end up working for my dad anyway, I mean it has insurance, benefits and whatnot. Also, if I took it that means I could be around your senior year.”
She smiles at him, “Travis-”
“You know gotta make sure you don’t forget about this pretty face.” He leans in to kiss her, “I love you.”
“I love you too,” She pauses when she hears the sound of an engine revving. They both turn to see a new student, in a Chevrolet Camaro pull in. He steps out of the truck, full on mullet, tight jeans, the epitome of a “bad boy”.
In the passenger seat emerges a short blond girl on a skateboard. She quickly dashes away towards the middle school without even saying goodbye to the guy in the car.
Meanwhile, In Mr. In Clarke's classroom he begins a lesson about the human brain, explaining its functions and abilities. All the students seem bored out of their mind, except for Niall whose eyes light up at this information. Then the door opens and enters the blond girl from the high school parking lot.
“Oh, this must be our new student,” Mr. Clarke welcomes her. “Niall drum roll please,” Niall pulls out his textbook and begins to tap on the cover creating a drumroll sound, while Mr. Clarke begins to say “Class, welcome all the way from sunny California to our latest passenger on this curiosity voyage, Sabrina!”
Liam whispers to Niall, “It’s SlaynSabrina.”
As Sabrina moves to her seat in the back, the group of boys all turn around and stare at her.
Later, the boys stood off to the side in the school's courtyard during recess. They are all watching Sabrina.
“That’s gotta be her.” Liam says
“No way.” Louis replies
“How many Sabrina’s do you know?”
“Yeah, and she shows up at school the day after my high score is beaten,” Niall adds “Plus she skate boards, so she must be pretty awesome.”
“Excatly, she’s gotta be SlaynSabrina.”
She then walks inside the school, but not before throwing a piece of paper into the trashcan. The boys dash over to it, and Niall digs to find the paper. When he uncrushes it, it reads “Stop Spying on me creeps.” In big bold handwriting, they all let out an annoyed sigh.
“Zayn,” the principal asks behind them, “your mother is here.” Zayn says bye to the boys, and is led through the halls to the front of the school, where his mom stands waiting for him.
____________________________________________________________________________
Des walks through the fields of Merrill's pumpkin farm, except the pumpkins are all rotten, every single one is infested with flies and some kind of fungus.
“You said these were all fine yesterday?” Des asks, scrunching his nose as he steps on one of the pumpkins.
“These pumpkins were prize winners chief you should’ve seen them.” Merill tells Des. “For the life of me I could'nt figure out what happened, but then I remembered… Eugene.”
“Well, what about him?”
“Well, he’ll complain about me, to just about anybody who’ll listen.”
“Why’s that?” Des says again trying to avoid stepping on pumpkins.
“Well, he started this "Pick your pumpkin” thing. Basically copied me.”
‘You’re telling me, nice old Eugene, came here after dark and doused your field with poison?"
“Well, not him, but one of his workers. Listen chief, you know I don’t go around throwing accusations lightly, you know me. But, this happening the day before Halloween when sales are at an all time high, seems pretty suspicious.”
“I’m sorry, Merill, I’ve got somewhere to be, I’ll call one of my buddies at the station to look further into this, until I can tomorrow, alright?”
Des, drives off to Hawkins Lab, where he meets Anne and Zayn. They walk into the lab together and meet Zayn's new physician, Dr. Paul Higgins . While waiting Anne tells Zayn just to tell the doctors what he’s seeing and that everything will be fine.
A nurse calls Zayn and begins to check his weight, take some bloody routine check up stuff. Lastly, she puts stickers connected wires onto his head.
Dr. Higgins enters the room “Zayn, how are ya?” He greets you warmly. “Let’s see what’s going on here,” He sits in a chair beside Zayn. “I see you’ve shaved off a pound since we saw you last, making room for that Halloween candy huh?” He chuckles, “What’s your favorite candy? You’re on a desert island and have to pick one, what would it be?”
“I don’t know.” Zayn sighs “I guess, Reece's Pieces”
“Good call, I’m more of a Snickers guy, but peanut butter and chocolate, can’t go wrong with that.” He puts some papers in his hands onto a table behind him, “Alright, so tell me about this episode you had.”
“Well, my friends were there with me at the arcade, but then they weren’t, and I was back in the Upside Down.”
“Alirght, so what happened next?” Higgins asks calmly
“I heard this noise, so I went outside, and it just got worse.” Zayns says slowly
“How was it worse?”
“There was this storm, and I felt frozen.”
“Frozen from the cold, frozen to the touch?” Higgins asks again.
“No, like how you feel when you’re scared. Like you can’t move or breathe.” Zayn says coldly “I felt this evil, like it was looking at me.”
“Evil?” Higgins clears his throat “Well, what did this evil want?”
“To kill.”
“To kill you?”
“Not me, everyone else.”
Later, Anne and Des sit in Dr. Higgins office in a meeting with him. The office is full of warm light, coffee mug on the table, plush carpet on the floor, his degrees hanging on the wall.
“If I'm gonna be honest with you,” Higgins begins “It’s gonna get worse before it gets better.”
“Worse?” Anne questions “He’s already had two episodes this month.”
“And he’ll likely have more before the month is over. It’s called the anniversary effect, we see it in soldiers all the time.” He begins to explain “The anniversary of an event brings back traumatic memories, it opens the neuroglocal floodgates so to speak.”
“What does this mean for the kid?” Des asks “He's gonna have more episodes, nightmares and whatnot?”
“Yeah, maybe some other symptoms like personality changes. He might get irritable or lash out.”
“What do we do when that happens?” Anne questions
“Well from what we know about post traumatic stress, is to treat him like normal. Be patient with him, don’t pressure him to talk or explain things, just let him lead the way.”
“So, what you’re saying is it’s just gonna get worse and worse, and we’re just gonna pretend like it's not happening?”
“It sounds counter intuitive, I know, but I assure you it’s the best thing we can do for him.” Higgins sighs “I understand what you went through last year, but I want you to know that those people are gone. I’m on your side. I need you to trust me.”
After they leave, Higgins heads down to the final story in the lab, there he enters the gate to the Upside Down. He’s in a room that has a glass panel separating him and other technicians and doctors from the still open and exposed gate.
There he greets a technician who is being put in a hazmat suit to go to the gate. The technician enters a decompression chamber and then walks to the vines slithering by the gate. There he takes the flame thrower in his hand and begins to light the thing on fire, the vines screech and slither away in pain.
____________________________________________________________________________
Taylor and Travis walk up to the Gomez’ house, as they pull up Taylor notices a “For Sale” sign in the front yard, but they go to the front door, and are greeted by Mrs. Gomez.
The inside of the house is decorated traditionally, only there are dozens of photos of Selena hanging on the walls, on shelves, on tables, any place you could put a photo there is one.
Taylor, Travis and Selena’s parents sit at their dining room table, eating KFC. “I’m sorry I didn’t have time to cook. I was gonna make that baked Ziti you like so much.” Mrs. Gomez explains.
“It’s fine, it’s great.” Taylor reassures.
“I love KFC,” Travis nods.
“So, I noticed a “For Sale” sign out in your yard, is that the neighbors?" Taylor asks
Mrs. Gomez sighs and grabs her husband's hand next to her “We hired a man named Ed Sheeran, He was an investigative journalist for the Chicago Sun Times.” She sighs “ Anyway he’s freelance now, and he’s agreed to take the case on Selena.”
Taylor and Travis look at each other worriedly “What exactly does that mean?” Taylor asks
“It means he's gonna do what that lazy ass Desmond Styles-” Mr. Gomez starts but gets cut off by his wife. He sighs and takes a deep breath “Sorry, what the Hawkins police haven’t been capable of doing.”
“It means we’re going to find Selena.” Mrs. Gomes smiles.
“I mean he’s already got leads, my god he’s worth every last penny.” Mr.s Gomez says
“Is that why you’re selling the house?” Taylor asks
“Don’t worry about us sweetheart, we’re fine” Mrs. Gomez begins “We’re more fine, for the first time in a long time we have hope.”
Taylor stands up “Excuse me I’ll be right back.” She says as he heads off to the bathroom, with tears in her eyes.
The other three at the table just stare at each other, until Travis says trying to break the tension “This is finger licking good.”
____________________________________________________________________________
Louis sits in his basement digging through a box of toys his parents told him to throw out, he looks over to the fort in the corner, and goes to sit inside it. He grabs his walkie talkie and begins to speak.
“Hey, it’s me, Louis. It’s day 352, 7:20pm, I’m still here, if you’re out there please say something or give me a sign. I just wanna know if you’re okay Harry.” He gets no response, only static crackling off the radio.
____________________________________________________________________________
Zayn is sitting in his room drawing a picture, when Jonathna enters holding some VHS tapes of movies, “Hey bud, I didn’t know what you’d like so I got some variety.” Jonathn says holding up the movies.
"It's your night, so whatever you want.” Zayn says still drawing.
Jonathan goes to sit down next to him, “What are you working on?” He looks at the picture and sees it's a zombie, “Zombie boy? Who’s that?”
“Me,” Zayn replies ‘
“Why did someone call you that?” Zayn doesn’t respond,only scowls “You know you can talk to me right?”
“Stop treating me like that!” Zayn snaps
Jonathan jumps back “Like what?”
“Like everyone else does, like something's wrong with me.”
“Zayn, what are you talking about?”
“You, Mom, Niall, Liam, you all treat me like I’m a baby and that I’m gonna break. It just makes me feel like I’m a freak.” He explains
“You’re not a freak.”
“Yeah. I am.” Zayn tells him
“You know what, you’re right, you are a freak.” Jonathan tells him. “So what? Do you wanna be normal? Be just like everyone else? Being a freak is the best, I’m a freak.”
Zayn smirks “Is that why you don't have any friends?”
Jonathan rolls his eyes “I have friends, Zayn.”
“Then why are you always hanging out with me?”
“Because you’re my best friend, and I would rather be friends with Zombie Boy, then with a boring nobody.” Zayn stares at him confused. “How about this, who would you rather be friends with, Bowie or Kenny Rogers?”
Zayn groans, “Bowie, obviously.”
“Excaclty no contest.”
“Well some people like Kenny Rogers.” Zayn says
Robin walks by “Kenny Rogers? I love Kenny Rogers.” He chuckles, and sees the VHS tapes Jonathan has. “Is that “Mr. Mom”, that's perfect! Let’s watch that.” The boys agree and head over to the living room to begin movie night.
Of course the joy doesn’t last forever, that night Zayn wakes up and heads to the bathroom. When he turns on the water, it’s like a switch and he’s back in the Upside Down. He steps out of the bathroom and he sees the front door creak open. In the sky he sees a giant shadow figure that looks almost like a spider, but the size of a building. Zayn gasps and closes his eyes. When he opens them, he’s back in his bedroom.
____________________________________________________________________________
Des drives through a windy backroad in the woods, his car's headlights shine through the pitch black forest. He pulls to a stop at a small cabin barely visibly and nestled between the trees.
He gets out and heads towards the door, stepping over a raised electrical wire surrounding the house, as reaches the front door he knocks rhythmically two times, pause, one time, pause, and then three times.
At this the door unlocks, he enters and takes off his shoes and coat, a TV is playing in the background. He walks through the dimly lit living room, past the old sofa, and other furniture, into the kitchen. There he opens the fridge and grabs a beer, he turns to the table by the counter, there sits two diners wrapped in foil and a half eaten Eggo.
“Hey, what’d we talk about?” He calls out
“No signal,” A quiet voice says “It’s 8-1-5 you’re late.”
“Yeah, I lost track of time, I’ll signal next time alright?” Des sits down at the table “Also, you say 8:15 not 8-1-5.”
Then, Harry moves to sit across from Des at the table. He smiles at Des, and rolls up the sleeves to the grey sweater he’s wearing underneath denim overalls. “8:15?” He asks
“Yep, now what did we talk about?” Des says motioning to the half eaten Eggo on the table. “Dinner first, then desert, always. That’s the rule, yeah?”
Harry nods, “Yes.”
Des smiles at him, and then peels the foil off his food and begins to eat. Harry follows suit, and digs into the ham, ignoring the peas. He drinks out of his cup with little dinosaurs on it, and continues to smile at Des.