Other Friends

Chapter 10 - Lies

Windy spent her morning when Saturday finally arrived helping her mother look for their cat. "Mews!" she shouted as she walked along the side of her house.

"Mewsy! Mews!" She could hear her mother crying out from the front lawn.

"Mews!" Windy called out again but no cat came running.

The two enter the house with a sigh seeing Dustin on the phone, "Dusty, baby, you're sure she's not in your room?" their mom asks but Dustin just holds up his finger telling her to hold on.

"Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Thank you so much, Mr. McCorkle. Thank you so much. You are a true lifesaver. All right, this was great. Thank you. All right. Have a good one. Bye-bye, now. All right. You, too." Dustin says before hanging up. He turns and gives the two a smile. "All right, great news."

Their mother looked like she could cry at his words. "They found her?" she asks.

"No. But they saw her wandering around Loch Nora." Dustin informs them.

Windy scrunches her face. "Loch Nora? What is she doing all the way out there?" she questions confused as Claudia cries out.

"I don't know. Lost, I guess. But they're gonna look for her. And, I'll stay here, just in case they call again. And you two are gonna go help look? Yeah? Yeah?" he says, avoiding looking at his sister as their mother hugs him.

Windy looks at him, he's trying to kick them out. "Actually mom. I think it's best I stay and look after Dustin." she suggests.

Claudia sniffles but nods, "That's a good idea." As Dustin tenses up a bit, but nods.

"Great idea." he says, "You're gonna find her."

"Okay." Their mom nods, heading to the door, and grabbing her keys and bag.

"We can find her." Dustin tells her reassuringly.

"We can find her." Claudia repeats.

"We love you." Dustin says, pulling Windy into a side hug as he blows their mom kisses. Now Windy knew something was up. But she smiles at her mom and also blows kisses seeing as she was still crying.

"I love you two." their mom repeats before closing the door, leaving them alone.

Windy holds Dustin in the side hug. "What the hell did you do?" she says as she listens for their mom to drive away.

"Don't get mad." he says before rushing out of her hold. "I got a plan!" he calls out.

"Oh god." Windy says as she watches her brother run out to their backyard and open the outer basement doors. She stays on the porch and just watches as he runs back inside. "Are you actually gonna tell me what's going on?!" she shouts to him.

"Dart got bigger and I'm going to trap him in our basement!" Dustin shouts, still grabbing stuff inside.

Windy blinked, "Wait, Dart? As in the monster you lost at the school? You found him?" she asks, confused.

"Yeah, I didn't want them to kill him." he explains as he slowly walks out, in makeshift armor dropping bologna on the floor. "You also might want to back away."

Slowly Windy follows in step with him as she realizes what's going on. "Oh my god. Did Dart kill Mews?! He was inside and you let him kill Mews!"

"I didn't let him, now shut up!" Dustin replies and drags her with him to hide in the shed after throwing the rest of the lunch meat down the stairs.

From the cracks in the shed walls, they siblings watch as a much larger Dart slowly wanders out of the house. "Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes." Dustin began to repeat in a whisper as the creature was eating and getting closer to open doors.

Then Dart growls and turns looking right at the shed they were hiding in. "Shit." the two whisper. Windy grabs her brother and pulls him back afraid Dart might charge at them but nothing happens for a moment. They slowly try and look only to find Dart fully turned and facing them.

The siblings go against the furthest wall. "What the hell do we do?" Windy whispers.

Dustin takes a few deep breaths before shouting and bursting out of the Shed and charging at Dart, scaring the large but smaller then Dustin size creature.

Dart backs up a bit but not enough as Dustin whacks him with the hockey stick and makes Dart go flying down the basement stairs. Dustin continues to shout as he closes the doors, before just falling on them as Dart hits the doors, but it doesn't budge. "I'm sorry. You ate my cat."

Windy looks at her brother with wide eyes from the shed doors. "Holy shit, Dustin. That was awesome! Insane, but awesome!" she says as he was still laying on the doors. "Now what?"

"Now... Now we bury the cat." Dustin says, still sounding exhausted.

- - - - - - - - -

Liz didn't think she'd be scared when her Uncle had gone awol, seeing as she last saw him before school Friday morning, but nearly 2 days later, the worry was growing as she drove towards the Byers home. She had spent last night with Billy, and most of the morning but stopped by the station for their Saturday lunch only for some of the cops to tell her they hadn't seen him since lunch yesterday which was concerning for her.

She stops, seeing only Joyce's car and Bob's car. With a sigh she parks her car and gets out. Better start here in case she was just blowing this out of proportion. Knocking on the door she was quickly greeted by Joyce and the explosion of paper spread throughout her home.

"Have you seen my Uncle?" she asked, getting to the point.

Joyce sighs, this got much more complicated.

- - - - - - -

"Guys, this is Dustin again." Dustin says through his walkie headphones as Windy watches him with crossed arms as he buried their cat. She refused to help, seeing that this was literally his mess to clean up. "Does anyone copy? This is a Code Red. I repeat, a Code Red!" he says but gets no response.

This went on for a while. The cat, his room, his closet, he had to clean everything. "I really need someone to pick up here. Hopper's MIA, and I've got a Code Red. Code red! All right, it's Dustin again. Seriously, I have a Code Red." he tries and tries again.

Windy sighs as she leaves him to scrub the blood out of his carpet. After some time Dustin rushes into her room, gloves gone. "You go get your friends, I'm going to hunt down mine."

She raises an eyebrow at his attitude. "Why am I doing this?"

He sighs in frustration, "Because... WE HAVE A CODE RED!" he shouts before storming out of the house.

She listens, grabbing her keys as she watches him ride his bike away. Now, where to find Lizzy and Bella?