Teenage Kicks - Steve Harrington

RUN

I decided that I wasn't able to go to any classes today because my brain is way to focused on the whole monster and lights situation. So I went to get out my books back in my locker, as I did so, Steve came up to me. "Hey, Avril." He asked, leaning on his locker thats next to mine. "Hey, Steve." I replied, looking up at him. "Uh..just, I really like Nancy. And if she found out about what happened in the janitors closet..." he made a slitting throat gesture with his hand, as I stood there unamused. "Look, can you just not tell anyone. We have a really great friendship and you have a lot going on in your life right now with your brother going missing. So, I think it would be best if we just forgot anything ever happened. Yeah?"

I stared down at my red converse for a few seconds, trying to keep myself from having a mental breakdown. "Uh, yeah, yeah. Totally." I looked back up at Steve and put on a smile that he could definitely tell was fake. "I knew you would get it. Thank you, Avril" he went in to hug me but I quickly stepped away from it. "Yeah, anytime. I'm going to go home now" I nodded off to the front door and Steve nodded back so I just awkwardly jogged off, cringing at everything I just said.

When I got home, I noticed all the windows had newspapers covering them.  I opened our front door and saw loads of colorful Christmas lights hanging up on every wall. "Mom?" I asked walking through the hall. "I'm in the kitchen." I heard her tired voice say.

I walked into the kitchen and was met by the image of my mum smoking a cigarette against the kitchen sink. "Has the lights started flickering or the wall creature return?" I asked her, taking a seat at the table. "No." She quietly breathed, shaking her head.

Just as we sinked into comfortable silence, some lights started flickering again. It seemed to be leading us in a trail to a pile of white LED lights that my mum had thrown into the corner earlier today. We both picked up the pile and held onto it tight. "Will?" We asked in unison and the lights turned bright for a few seconds. "Okay, good, good, good." My mum praised as they turned off again. "Will, can you blink once for yes, twice for no?" I asked him, looking up to my mom for a second to see her smiling at the lights.

The lights blinked once "oh, good boy. Good boy." My mom praised him as you would a dog. "Baby, I need to know. Are you alive ?" The lights blinked once again and my mum and I both sighed in relief, grasping onto the pile of LEDs.
"Are you safe?" I asked him, hoping to see the lights flicker once.

The warm white lights flickered twice, making my tears release from my eyes. "We need to know where to find you, honey. Where..where are you? Can you tell us where you are? Please, baby. Tell me what to do." My mom cried, holding her head down.

"I have an idea. Come on, help." My mum jumped up and stormed straight to the shed, with me following close behind her. She grabbed a ton of black paint with her shaky hands and gave it to me. "I need you...I need you to paint the alphabet on the sitting room wall." She announced as she sped walked back into the house.

I painted the alphabet on the wall and she put up the lights in order so that one light was for one letter. There was no words spoken between us for those few minutes, but we both understood what we were doing.

"Mum, this is crazy." I sighed as I took a step back to look at our work. "I know, sweetie. But it's the only way we're going to be able to get Will back." She put her arm around me as we stood looking at the wall.

"Baby, talk to us. Where are you?"  We waited for a second, until a green light flashed under the letter 'R' that I painted messily on. "Okay, 'R', that's good. Come on, come on."

We waited another second, til a blue LED flashed under 'I', then a red light under 'G', then orange under 'T', then green under 'H', then red under 'E', then orange under 'R', then blue under 'E'.

"Right here." I read, confused and looking around for him. "Right here? I don't know what that means. I need you to tell me what to do. How do I get to you? How do I find you? What do I do? " My mum asked Will through the lights on the wall.

A blue light lit up under 'R', surprising both of us.  Another one under 'U' and another one under 'N'. "Run? What?"  I mumbled under my breath before I saw every light in the house flicker and the monster break through the wall. I screamed as my Mum stood next to me gasping for air. "Mum!" I shouted at her, grabbing her arm and running out of our old house.

I held her arm, sprinting, til we reached the police station in town. I sat in the chair in the waiting room as my Mum tried to explain what we just saw to Hopper.

Hopper insisted on going to our house to check it out, even though they supposedly found his body in the river. I couldn't even get out of the car to go into the house when we pulled up outside, so, Jonathan decided to stay in the car with me when everyone else went in.

"Jonathan?" I looked up at him to see his face teary eyed. "Yeah?" He looked back at me from the seat next to me. "Do you think mum and I are gone crazy?" I asked him. I saw the looks my parents were giving my mum and I at the station, but hoped my twin brother would understand. "No, no. Look, you and mum are both tired and it's understandable to think you are hearing and seeing things when your tired and trying to grieve." He explained, talking to me like I'm a child. "So you think we were seeing things?"

"Avril, you said a monster came out of our wall." He looked at me as if I was stupid. "I did see a monster come out of the wall. I know it's hard to understand, I do. But there's just so much going on now. Like, Will isn't safe. He told us that. We need to help him. You didn't see the monster, that monster could kill him. It could kill all of us!" I ranted to my brother, desperately trying to make him understand.

"Avril, Will is dead. They found his body in the river." Jonathan told me, grabbing my hand and looking at me with pity. "No, mum and I were just talking to him. He's not dead." I told my twin with tears filling up my eyes in both confusion and frustration. "Avril, please..."

"I know what I saw, Jonathan." I told him, looking away from him and out the car window. I heard the car door slam and Jonathan storm off into the house, but u still stared out the window, trying to register into my mind what I saw.