slay 'em dead//Steve Harrington

2

I head to Jonathan's house early. I know it's been hard on him and his mom. I just want to be able to help in some way. I help Jonathan make breakfast for his mom. Joyce sits at the kitchen table surrounded by posters with Will's face on them.

"All right, Mom. Breakfast is ready," Jonathan tells her.

"What?" Joyce asks, snapping out of a haze. She goes to move the missing poster her and Jonathan have been working on. "No, be careful of the poster."

"Yeah, okay. All right," Jonathan says as he puts a plate down in front of his mom.

"I can't eat," Joyce insists.

"Come on Mrs Byers," I say. "You need to eat."

"Listen. Listen, the Xerox place opens in, like, 30 minutes," Joyce says. "And I don't want you to go alone..."

"No, I know. I told you, I got it," Jonathan assures her.

"...so, I'm gonna have Karen take you, 'cause I should be here," Joyce explains. "We need to make, what, 200, 300 copies? How much is a copy?"

"Yeah, okay. Okay, Mom. Mom," Jonathan says, trying to get her to listen.

"10 cents?" Joyce asks. "If we... Ten cents..."

"Mom. Mom. Mom!" Jonathan puts his hand on his mom's. "You can't get like this, okay?"

Joyce covers her face with her hand, and I can see she is holding back tears. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"No, it's okay," Jonathan tells her.

I smile slightly. "Jonathan and I are both going to help you. This doesn't need to fall on your shoulders alone."

There's a knock on the door. It's Hopper.

"We've been waiting six hours," Joyce tells him.

"I know. I came as soon as I could," Hopper insists.

"Six hours," Joyce repeats.

"A little bit of trust here, all right?" Hopper tells her. "We've been searching all night. Went all the way to Cartersville."

"And?" Joyce asks.

"Nothing," Hopper tells her.

Joyce stifles a sob. "God."

"Flo says you got a phone call?" Hopper asks.

"Oh, yeah," Joyce says before leading Hopper to the phone.

He looks at the charred handset. "Storm barbecued this pretty good."

"The storm?" Joyce asks in disbelief.

"What else?" Hopper asks.

"You're saying that that's not weird?" Joyce questions.

"No, it's weird," Hopper states.

"Can we, like, trace who made the call?" Jonathan asks. "Contact the..."

"No, it doesn't work like that," Hopper explains. "Now, uh, you're sure it was Will? Because Flo said you just heard some breathing."

"No. It was him. It was Will," Joyce insists. "And he was scared. And then something..."

"It was probably just a prank call. It was somebody trying to scare you," Hopper tries to reason.

"Who would do that?" I question.

"Well, this thing's been on TV," Hopper reasons. "It brings out all the crazies, you know. False leads, prank calls, uh..."

"No, Hopper, it was not a prank. It was him," Joyce insists.

"Joyce," Hopper says.

"Come on, how about a little trust here?" Joyce says repeating Hopper's own words back to him. "What, you think I'm... I'm making this up?"