suıʞʍɐɥ oʇ ǝɯoɔlǝʍ sƃuıɥʇ ɹǝƃuɐɹʇs

Chapter Fifteen: Continued

pǝnuıʇuoɔ
uǝǝʇɟıɟ ɹǝʇdɐɥɔ

November 4, 1984

"And so this virus, it's connecting him to the tunnels?" Max asked. "To the tunnels, monsters, the Upside Down, everything," Mike told us. "Whoa. Slow down. Slow down," Steve said. "Okay, so, the shadow monsters inside everything. And if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will," Mike explained. "And so does Dart," Lucas said. "Yeah. Like what Mr. Clarke taught us. The hive mind," Mike said. "Hive mind?" Me and Steve asked in unison. "A collective consciousness. It's a super-organism," Sustin told us. Mike pointed at the picture, "And this is the thing that controls everything. It's the brain."

"Like the mind flayer," Dustin said. "The what?" Max said at the same time Steve and I said, "What?" The boys got Will's D&D book out and opened it to the page they needed.Everyone including Nancy, Jonathan, Hopper, were around the table. "The mind flayer," Dustin said. "What the hell is that?" Hopper asked. "It's a monster from
an unknown dimension. It's so ancient that it doesn't even know its true home," Dustin explained. "Okay, it enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains using its highly-developed psionic powers."

"Oh, my God, none of this is real. This is a kids' game," Hopper said. "No, it's a manual. And it's not for kids. And unless you know something that we don't, this is the best metaphor..." Dustin said. "Analogy," Lucas corrected. "Analogy? That's what you're worried about?" Dustin said, looking at him. "Fine. An analogy for understanding
whatever the hell this is," he said. "Okay, so this mind flamer thing... Flayer," Nancy says before Dustin corrected her. "Mind flayer," he said. She sighed and looked up at me. "Dustin," I said and he rolled his eyes at me.

"What does it want?" I asked. "To conquer us, basically. It believes it's the master race," he said. "Like— like the Germans?" Steve stammered. "Uh, the Nazis?" Dustin asked, looking at him. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Nazis," Steve said. "Uh... If the Nazis were from another dimension, totally. Uh, it views other races, like us, as inferior to itself," Dustin explained. "It wants to spread, take over other dimensions," Mike adds. "We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it." We all look at Lucas.

"That's great. That's great. That's really great. Jesus!" Steve said and walked away. "Okay, so if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then if we kill it..." I said. "We kill everything it controls," Mike said. "We win," Dustin says. "Theoretically," Lucas adds. Hopper took the book from me, "Great. So how do you kill this thing? Shoot it with Fireballs or something?" He asked. "No. No, no Fire... No Fireballs. Uh, you summon an undead army, uh, because...because zombies, you know, they don't have brains, and the mind flayer, it... it... It likes brains," Sustin stammered. "It's just a game. It's a game."

"What the hell are we doing here?" Hopper asked, slamming the book down. "I thought we were waiting for your military backup," Dustin said. "How are they gonna stop this? You can't just shoot this with guns," Mike told Hopper. "You don't know that! We don't know anything!" Hopper said. "We know it's already killed everybody in that lab." "We know the monsters are gonna molt again," Lucas said. "We know that it's only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town," Dustin added.

"They're right. We have to kill it. I want to kill it," Joyce said. We looked over at her and Hopper walked over to stand in front of her. "Me, too. Me, too, Joyce, okay? But how do we do that? We don't exactly know what we're dealing with here," he said. "No. But he does." We looked at where Mike was pointing at Will on the couch. "If anyone knows how to destroy this thing, it's Will. He's connected to it. He'll know its weakness," he said. "I thought we couldn' trust him anymore. That he's a spy for the mind flayer now," Max said. "Yeah, but he can't spy if he doesn't know where he is."

So we got to work fixing up the shed. We had to make sure Will, the shadow monster, didn't know where we were. I was helping Steve and Nancy put up a tarp to cover the walls. Nancy was ripping tape while me and Steve held up the tarp. "Hey. What you did, um, helping the kids... that was... really cool," Nancy said to Steve. "Yeah. YN helped though too. Those little shits are real trouble, you know?" He said. "Believe me, I know."

We finished everything up and strapped Will to a chair and made sure there were bright lights in his face. Joyce, Jonathan, Mike, and Hopper were out in the shed with him and the rest of us stayed inside. Then they came back inside. "What happened?" Dustin asked. We were all gathered around the table. "I think he's talking, just not with words," Hopper said and started making dots and dashes on a piece of paper. "What is that?" Steve asked. "Morse code," Lucas and Dustin said. "H-E-R-E," Hopper said. "Here." Hopped looked up at everyone, "Will's still in there. He's talking to us."

Jonathan grabbed the boom box and they went back out to the shed. We stayed inside and helped translate the Morse code message. "Dash, dot, dash, dot." Hopper was sending it through the walkie as Will gave it. "Yeah, got it," Lucas said. "C," Max told Nancy and she wrote it down. "L. O. S. E. G. A. T. E." We all looked up at each other, "Close gate." We jumped when the phone started to ring. "Shit. Shit." Dustin sprung for the phone, picked it up and hung back up. Then it rang again and Nancy pulled it off the wall and threw it. "Do you think he heard that?" Max asked. "It's just a phone," I said. "It could be anywhere. Right?" Steve asked

We heard the familiar screeching noise and walked to look out the window. "That's not good," Dustin said. We were all looking out the one window when Hopper came in. "Hey. Hey, get away from the windows! Do you know how to use this?" He asked Jonathan as he held out a gun. "What?" He asked. "Can you use this?" Hopper asked again. "I can," Nancy said and he gave her the gun.

Hopper and Nancy had the guns and me and Steve got ready without bats. The screeching was getting closer and closer. "Where are they?" Max asked. We heard them around the house. "What are they doing?" Nancy asked. We could hear them growling and the chattering noise outside but then it all stopped all of a sudden. Then one w came bursting through the window but didn't move. "Holy shit," Dustin said. "Is it dead?" Max asked as we walked closer to it. There were creaking noises outside the door and we all turned towards it. The door unlocked on its own and opened. Then El walked in.