"I swear, if I'm dying tonight because of you, I'm gonna haunt your ass so hard, Harrington!"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah! I'm gonna go full Poltergeist and shit!"
"Then bring it, Graveswood."
"Challenge accepted."
***
In which after years of suppressing their...
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Chapter Forty: Stand Off
(The Upside Down, Pt. 4)
***
Alistair stared in bewilderment at the cafeteria fridge's contents, stunned that Dustin had been right.
"Found it!" the boy in question cried as he opened the door and grabbed handfuls of chocolate pudding, mumbling, "I knew she was hoarding it. I knew it."
"Yeah," Lucas concurred with a grin as he also grabbed chocolate pudding, Alistair soon joining in with a sharp nod, still in disbelief that Dustin had been right about the lunch lady hiding the chocolate pudding for herself.
"Always lying, saying she's out," Dustin went on with a scoff. "Bald-faced liar. MIKE! I FOUND THE CHOCOLATE PUDDING!"
Alistair winced at the volume, rubbing his ears with a free hand. "Geez, Dustin, did you ever learn volume control?"
Dustin ignored him, still grabbing armfuls of chocolate pudding. Alistair felt his arms getting sore from how much pudding he was holding, and as he waited until Dustin was satisfied with how much he was stealing, he thought about Rowan and Aunt Aco. He hoped they were okay, especially his aunt, as well as Mrs. Byers and the chief. He never saw the Demogorgon, but he did see the fear in his big sister's eyes when she talked about her encounters with it, and knew he never wanted to face it, let alone walk in its home dimension.
Like Will has.
Alistair swallowed. God, he hoped Will was okay, that he would be rescued. He had sounded so weak over the walkie, and it made Alistair hurt, too, to hear how fragile his friend had become. But it had also made him afraid, that Will's mom and Aunt Aco and the chief wouldn't find him in time, that Will could die. That his ghost could haunt Alistair, just like Barb's had.
No. It's gonna be fine. Mrs. Byers and Aunt Aco and Chief Hopper are gonna find Will, and he's gonna come back home, and we're gonna be playing D&D and reading comics and watching Star Wars together like before. It's gonna be fine.
But Alistair couldn't dispel that feeling worming inside him, that everything wasn't going to be fine.
Finally, Dustin seemed satisfied with how much pudding he'd pilfered—though he claimed when Alistair asked that he's just, "reclaiming what should be given to the people", to which Alistair took a guess that the "people" meant Dustin—and the three boys headed back to the cafeteria, where El waited. Alistair frowned, noting Mike was gone, which was odd; his friend had hardly left El's side after she'd found Barb's body and contacted Will, worried about how much it took out of her.
That feeling grew, seeping through his bones.
"This will charge your battery right up, I'm telling you," Dustin cheerfully said to El, snapping Alistair out of his thoughts, just as Mike barged through the doors, panic all over his face.
