Tʜᴇ Fʟᴀʀᴇ ꕥ Lɪᴢᴢɪᴇ Jᴏʜɴsᴏɴ

sᴇʀɪᴇs ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ ꕥ 10

"He- he said he was building something," Lizzie said with difficulty, as she and El sat on the sofa with everyone around them. "That- it was all for El."

"Building something?" Max furrowed her eyebrows. "Is he- talking about the flayed?"

"He must be," Nancy bit her lip.

"So, he's building an army, just like we thought," Lucas paced behind the sofa.

"Yeah, but he's not building this army to spread," Mike looked shaken.

"He's building it to stop Eleven," Will nodded.

Jonathan and Nancy's heads turned. They hadn't thought of this.

"Last year, El closed the gate on him," Mike elaborated. "I have a feeling that really pissed him off."

"Like, royally," Lucas was getting it.

"And the Mind Flayer now knows that she's the only thing that can stop him," Mike said. "But if she's out of the way-"

"Game over," Lizzie and Lucas said in unison.

"He also said," El spoke for the first time. "That he was going to kill all of you."

Everyone digested this. "Oh, well, that's nice," Max muttered sarcastically.

But before anyone could laugh, a screeching noise sounded in the distance.

Nancy got up and walked towards the door. "Do you guys hear that?" She whispered.

A few more seconds. "It's just the fireworks," Jonathan shook his head, as tonight was the fourth of July and Hawkins was having a display.

But still, Nancy's eyes widened. "Billy," she said, turning round. "When he told you this, was he here, in this room?"

Lizzie and El nodded.

Thunder rumbled... then Will touched the back of his neck...

"He knows we're here."

Well, shit.

Nancy led the way as they opened the door to the cabin, going outside into the dark night, seeing the fireworks...

And the huge monster that was climbing through the woods.

It was like a bigger version of the one they had seen in the hospital; with the same mouth and bigger legs, but this time was different, this time it knew what it was doing.

It was killing El.

"Go! Go, go, go!"

They ran back inside, Nancy fetching guns of Hoppers from the shed and everyone moving the furniture to block the way into the house.

But they weren't stupid. They all knew it wouldn't keep the Mind Flayer out.

"Yeah, that's good like that," Mike nodded, as he and Lucas lifted a bookcase to block the window and Nancy and Jonathan a sofa to block the door.

Then everyone stood in the centre of the room, Nancy with a gun, Jonathan with an axe, everyone else unarmed.

Lizzie could feel herself trembling as the light in the corner of the room and the plates in the drying rack shook.

"He's close," Will said fearfully.

More shaking, more trembling, more fear.

Then a huge arm broke through the wall.

"AAAARRRGGH!" As everyone tore to the side of the room to avoid it, Jonathan took a swing at it with the axe, but only managed to cut it a quarter of the way through.