Another side

Chapter 21

I'm woken up by the sound of Nancy talking. "Hey, it's Nancy." I can't really hear the person on the walkie but I'm assuming it's Eddie. I sit up tired and look up when I notice an empty spot on the couch where Max was sleeping. "Nancy, hang up." She jumps before looking at me. "Shit, Jess. You scared me." "Doesn't matter. Max is gone." Her eyes widen. "Hey, I'm gonna have to call you back." She goes up to Dustin and shakes him. "Dustin! Wake up." 

He sighs as he wakes up. "What?" "Aren't you supposed to be on Max watch?" "Yep. Yep, yep, yep. Sorry." "Then where is she?" "She's right there. A second ago. I swear, I just dozed off for..." He looks at his watch and his eyes widen. "... an hour." The three of us stand up and run upstairs. I breathe the biggest sigh of relief when we find her sitting at the table while colouring a picture. "Morning, guys. Everything okay?" I smile as I nod. "Everything's fine, Mrs Wheeler." 

She smiles. "I think it's so sweet that you guys are sticking together like this." "Could try sticking together at a different house for a change." I chuckle before moving towards Max and sitting beside her. She takes off her headphones. "Hey." I smile. "Hey. You okay?" "Just couldn't sleep. People kept blasting music in my ears, for some reason." Nancy sits beside me and chuckles. Max nods. "But Holly let me borrow some of her crayons. We've been having a fun morning, right, Holly?" "Mm-hmm." 

Nancy looks down at what Max has drawn. "Is this what you saw last night?" "I mean, it's supposed to be. I thought it'd be easier to draw it out then to explain it, but.... not so much." Nancy grabs a rather gruesome part of the drawing with Fred and Chrissy's dead bodies. "Is that....?" Max nods. "It was like they were on display. And then there was this red fog everywhere. It was like a dream. A nightmare." I look at her. "You think Vecna's just trying to scare you?" "With Sam? Yeah. But when I made it here..... I dunno, something was different. He seemed surprised, almost. Like he didn't want me there." 

Dustin walks up. "Maybe you infiltrated his mind. He invaded your mind, right? Is it that big of a leap to suggest you somehow wound up in his? Like Freddie Krueger's boiler room." Holly looks at him confused. "Freddie Krueger?" "He's a super burned up dude with razors for fingers. And he kills you in your dreams." Holly's eyes widen and Nancy looks at him. "Dustin, seriously?" "Sorry. It's a movie. It's not real. Just... think about it. What if you somehow unlocked a backdoor to Vecna's world? Like, maybe the answer we're looking for is somewhere in this incredibly vague drawing. God, we need Will."

Max rolls her eyes. "No shit. But I tried them again this morning, and it's the same busy signal." I look down. I'm getting worried about them. Sure, Mom's job requires her to be on the phone a lot, but never this long. Nancy breaks me out of my thoughts when she grabs one of the drawings. "Is this a window?" "Yeah." "Stained glass with roses." "Yeah. See? I'm not so terrible after all." Dustin nods unconvinced but my focus is on Nancy. "Yeah, well, it helps that I've seen it before."She starts putting all the pictures together and when she's done I look at it closely. "It's pieces of a house." "Not just any house. It's Victor Creel's house." She stands up and Dustin looks at her confused. "Where are you going?" "Waking the others." 

We drive to the Creel's house and it looks haunted. Steve looks at it. "Yeah, that's not creepy." Steve and Nancy start working on opening the door. "What exactly are we supposed to be looking for in this shithole?" Nancy looks at Steve. "We're not sure. We just know this house is important to Vecna." "Because Max saw it in Vecna's red soup mind world?" "Basically." "Great." "Maybe it holds a clue to where Vecna is. Why he's back. Why he killed the Creels. And how to stop him before he comes back for Max." I nod at what Dustin's said.

Lucas looks at us worried. "We don't think he's in here, do we?" Max shrugs. "Guess we'll find out." Steve and Nancy look at each other before moving the wood that was boarding up the door. Steve tries to open the door and he sighs. "It's locked. Should I knock, see if anybody's home?" "No need." We turn to Robin who's holding a brick. "I found a key." She throws the brick through the door and Steve puts his hand through pulling the door open. It's worse inside. We pull out our torches and start looking around. 

"Hey, guys?" We turn to where Max is and she's standing in front of a grandfather clock. "You all see that, right?" We all nod. I look at her. "Is this what you saw? In your visions?" She nods. Robin moves forward. "I mean, it's... just a clock. Right?" She walks towards it and wipes the dust of the face. "Like a normal old clock." "Why is this wizard obsessed with clocks? Maybe he's, like, a clockmaker or something?" Dustin looks at him. "I think you cracked the case, Steve." Nancy brings us back on track. "All I know is the answers are here. Somewhere. Okay, everyone stay in groups of two. Robin, upstairs." 

She salutes her. "Billy, you're with me. Let's go." "Yes, ma'am." He follows behind me and we walk in the opposite direction of where Nancy and Robin went. Max and Lucas follow behind us but we split up in the hall. We're looking around when we hear something behind us. "Hey?" I jump. I turn to see Robin. "Jesus Christ, Rob, you need a bell or something." She chuckles. "Have you guys found anything?" "Nothing useful." "Hey, guys, meet downstairs," Max yells from wherever she is. 

We all move into action. We look at the flashing lights. "It's like the Christmas lights." Robin and Billy look at us confused. "Christmas lights?" I nod. "When my brother was in the Upside Down, the lights... came to life. My mom hung up Christmas lights so she could talk to him. Vecna's here. In this house. Just on the other side." The light stops flashing and Robin speaks up. "I think he just left the room." Max looks worried. "Did he hear us?" Steve looks even more worried. "Can he see us?" Lucas tells Max to put her headphones on. "Wait, wait. Everyone, turn off their flashlights and spread out." We do as Nancy says and turn off our flashlights before walking around, this time alone. Robin yells out that she's got him but then he fizzes out when we get there.

He moves onto Billy's torch. "Oh, whoa." Billy starts walking because Vecna is moving. I follow close behind him. Suddenly the light switches off. "Shit. I lost him." "No, you didn't." We look at Max. She opens a door. We look in and you can tell Vecna is in there. Max walks in first and we all follow behind her. Robin sighs. "It's an attic. Of course it's an attic." "Hold up, guys. What if he's leading us into a trap? Guys, guys." We all ignore Dustin. When we walk in our flashlights start lighting up. Steve looks at us confused. "Okay, what's happening?" None of us can answer him. Suddenly all our torches start exploding and the light above us explodes.