"Hey, you remember what I said last year, right? We're Zombie Boy and Ghost Boy. I'm not ever gonna leave you."
"Promise?"
"One hundred percent."
***
In which Alistair fights the monster that possessed his friend alongside his friends, while trying...
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Chapter Sixteen: The Unwelcome Return
(The Sauna Test)
***
The Mind Flayer was back.
That was the only thing running through Alistair's head, the only thing he could think of. It was in Alistair's head during the bike ride back to the Wheelers—after Alistair had taken a quick detour back to his trailer to grab some clean shirts and underwear and one of his thicker flannels—and when they gathered back in the basement, ticking in his head like a clock, pounding fear in time with his heartbeat.
The Mind Flayer was back. And it took everything in Alistair to keep from utterly freaking out.
Due to the more pressing matter of the return of a creature Alistair had been hoping was dead and rotting, everything that had happened between them was put on the back burner. There was still tension, but Alistair was willing to force it aside to focus on the terrifying fact the Mind Flayer was back.
And that meant telling the rest of the Party it was back.
The four of them spent a mostly sleepless night in the basement, Alistair close to Will, his best friend wearing a long-sleeved shirt—to ward off the Mind Flayer and its penchant for having its hosts prefer the cold. And that was another thing that scared Alistair about the Mind Flayer returning—that Will could be possessed again. It had been exorcised out of Will, burned out by the flames and the power Alistair had wielded, but it had nearly killed Will in the process. Alistair was terrified if he was possessed again and they had to burn it out, Will wouldn't wake up after it.
So Alistair pressed close to Will, promising to himself he was not letting the Mind Flayer dig its claws back into Will again, holding his friend as he trembled, just as terrified as Alistair of the Mind Flayer possessing him again and using him as its puppet. That if it did happen, Alistair was using his power to exorcise it out—to bring Will back to the light before he could have the chance to be consumed in the dark.
The ghosts, funnily enough, didn't haunt his dreams or when he woke up after the nightmare of falling and pain—confirming what Alistair already suspected, that they were panicked about the Mind Flayer being back and trying to warn him about it, to have him stop it again. He just hoped the absence didn't mean what else they were scared about—that, somehow, the Mind Flayer had gotten into the ghosts, burrowing into their hazy bodies like a parasite. They were ghosts, after all. It couldn't be possible.
But Alistair also thought it was impossible for the Mind Flayer to come back, especially in summer. He just hoped they were okay, even the ghosts that had tried to attack him or bring him to the Mind Flayer and show him last night.
No one deserved to be used as a puppet by the Mind Flayer.
When the new day began, Alistair went to the tiny bathroom in the basement to quickly change into a new pair of underwear, a Led Zeppelin shirt and his thick flannel patterned in grey, brown and black. Stepping out and balling his old clothes into the seperate bag he'd also brought, he saw Mike had also changed in a new outfit, and they all gathered around the couch, Lucas' Super-Comm in his hands.
