Stranger Things: Beyond the Silver Rainbow

[9] (Nancy)

Steve stopped the car on the road in front of Nicole's house. While technically bigger than a trailer, the house was even smaller than the Byers'. It stood upon a shallow hill in a wide horseshoe of bald trees, wearing a tinfoil wreath on the door and four wooden candy canes in the garden.

The gravel driveway was empty. All of the windows were dark.

Nancy caught Mike looking at her and closed her eyes. Yes, she knew what this probably meant. No, she wasn't going to say it out loud. She found her bubblegum lipgloss in her bag, glossed her dry lips and stuck it in her back pocket.

Steve got out of the car and immediately jumped up on one foot. "Hah!"

Nancy prickled. "What's wrong?"

"Hah! Shit!"

She fumbled with her door for far too long and ran around the rear of the car. "What―"

"Hot shoe, hot shoe!" Steve fell back into the driver's seat, trying to yank his sneaker off his foot without untying it. The sole had a wide black mark on the heel and it was wisping. Nancy fell to her knees and dove for the laces through a chemist's cloud of who knew what.

"Here!" Mike yelled.

Wet swim trunks thwacked Steve in the face just as the shoe flew through Nancy's hands and into the road. He yanked his sock off, wiped the swim trunks across his heel and then wrapped them around his foot, hissing for a moment. He tipped Mike a nod. "Nice reflexes, Starsky."

In the middle of the dirt road, the white sneaker with the red Nike swish kept smoking.

"The leeches have acid inside them?" Mike wondered.

Nancy didn't care. "Steve, are you okay?"

"The patio's gonna be wrecked." He dragged a hand down his face.

"Are you okay?"

Steve peeled the wet trunks away from his foot, looking at Nancy rather than the wound. "You tell me."

His heel was red, but not blistering, at least not yet. Nancy sighed out her relief. "Looks like it's just a first degree burn. You'll be fine. Try not to walk on it?"

Steve just looked at her, lost.

She combed her fingers through his damp hair. "Stay here," she said. She jogged across the tufty straw lawn and up the two steps to Nicole's crumbling little cement front porch, and pushed the backlit yellow bell. Faintly, it announced her presence to the inside of the silent house. Nancy rocked on her feet, tonguing air through her front teeth.

"There's nobody home!" Mike yelled.

"Shut up." Nancy leaned over the railing to look in the front window. A frayed gossamer curtain blocked her view of everything inside.

"There's obviously no one here!"

"Shut up Mike!"

"Seriously, Nancy..." Oh come on, was Steve about to agree with Mike? "Her dad works the night shift most of the time."

"The night shift?" Nancy turned around and threw her arms down at her sides. "Where even is there to work a night shift around here?"

Steve sat on the front of his car with his feet on the bumper, one shoed and one bare. "I dunno, some factory in Cartersville or Eerie or something."

"That's like an hour away!"

"What do you want me to say?"

"You could have told me earlier!"

"And is there any chance that would have stopped you?"

Nancy tiptoed and thumped down on her heels a few times, thinking. No, that wouldn't have stopped her, and this wasn't going to stop her either. "But what about Nicole herself? Why isn't she here?"

"Maybe she's sleeping," Mike said. He hopped onto the front of the car beside Steve. Steve raised a hand to push him off, but then only mimed a shove and dropped it.

Nancy jabbed the bell again, and again. She thumped the door with the side of her fist. She rapped hard with her knuckles, tried the bell again, hammered the door with her palm faster and faster and before she knew it she was trying the knob. Violently.

"Woah woah woah..." Steve stood at a slumped angle beside the porch with a hand on the railing, having limped up and taken her by surprise. He kept his volume very low. "Were you about to break into the house?"

"Sorry." Nancy let go of the doorknob and shook herself, sheepish. "Sorry, that was stupid."

"I'll say. Jesus, Nancy, take a breather." He leaned in. "I know it's been scary but we've got to keep it together for the little guy."

"I'm going to Will's," Mike announced. "His house is just through the trees sort of..." He slid off the front of the car and craned his neck around to scan the woods. "That way, sorta. I'll find it."

"Wha-what? All by yourself?"

"What do you mean, all by myself? Yeah, Steve, all by myself. I'm not a little kid." Mike dropped his mouth open, aiming contempt at Steve. "I'm not ten."

Steve leaned closer to Nancy and through the side of his mouth asked, "How old is he?"

"I'm not even short!" Mike shouted. "What the hell?"

Nancy jumped off the porch to jog back to the car. She passed right by Mike, opened the door and dragged her backpack by a strap along the back seat. "Gonna go see whether Jonathan's home?"

"Yeah, obviously. That and I want to talk to Will."

Nancy fished a little key from the pocket of her jeans, grabbed her backpack by the smaller front pouch, and unlocked the heart-shaped diary lock linking the pull tabs of the double zipper. She took her gun from the pouch. "Are you sure you can show up this late without freaking out their mom?" she said. "Because I can't, and I don't want her to know quite yet. I might be wrong."

"I'm there all the time, it's normal." It had taken Mike about two seconds to get impatient. "Maybe just leave the gun here? Not loaded?"

"Leave the what?"

Well, this was inevitable. Nancy waited. One beat, two beats.

"Oh no," said Steve. "Nah nah, you don't need that again, Nancy..."

Nancy didn't feel like arguing. She opened the chamber, grabbed a handful loose bullets from the pouch and began loading the gun, dropping them into place one after another. The guys held a silent argument behind her, swishing fabric and whispering unintelligibly while the bullets clicked home. With the gun fully loaded, she faced them and tucked it into the back of her pants.

"Yes I do need it," she said, looking up at the three-quarter moon. "There might be another thing out there." She eyed Steve. "Remember?"

"Monster bear shark," said Steve, glassy. He leaned on the car with his forehead in his hand.

"Mike, if anything comes after you I want you to yell. Scream your head off. I don't care who you freak out, just scream. I'll come. But―wait, don't yell whatever pops into your head. Say 'monster' so I'll know."

Mike bowed a decisive nod. "Shoot it in the mouth. That's what Lucas did. I think it helped Elle."

"Right in the middle of the mouth?"

"Right there. Bullseye."

"Got it," said Nancy.

"Bye," said Mike.

They shared a little smile. It was nice. Mike ran away.