Harrington

Chase

I sit with Dustin in Mike's basement, El and him in the bathroom together.

I wanna laugh just thinking about it. I offered to clean her up, but Mike wanted to. So now he's in there, the door only open a crack, probably washing Eleven's face.

"I'm sorry," Dustin says, "About Lucas."

I shrug, "No sweat, it's not your fault."

"You know, he's a good guy. He's just stubborn." Dustin leans forward into a sitting position and I cross my legs.

"I know he's a good guy, and probably has the most sense out of all of us. The problem is I'm stubborn too, and two wrongs don't make a right in this situation."

I bring my hair back into a ponytail and sigh. Everything's quiet until static comes over Dustin's walkie talkie.

"Guys?" I can hear Lucas shout and I grab the thing.

"Lucas?" Dustin shouts.

I can hear him talking, but his words are static.

"He's too far or of range." I say, watching as Dustin goes to get Mike.

Mike and El come out of the bathroom and join me by the walkie talkie. Lucas is shouting now, and Dustin turns to us.

"Remember when he said he was going to look for the gate?"

We nod our heads.

"Well what if he found it?"

I hear more static from the walkie, and I pick it
up.

"Lucas?" I ask, "Lucas can you hear me?"

"What's he saying?" Mike asks.

"I dunno he's way outta range!"

Mike grabs the device from me and presses the button, "Lucas if you can hear me, slow down, we can't understand you."

"..... about Eleven!" The static selects a few bits of words and we try to understand the rest, "You hear me?......the.....are coming!"

"Mad hen. Does that mean anything to you?" Dustin says frantically, "Like a code name or something?"

"The bad men....coming!" Lucas's voice gets through and me and Mike look at each other.

"The bad men." I whisper.

"Bad men." Mike says to Dustin and looks at El.

"Stay here." He then runs upstairs, followed by me and Dustin.

We rush to the window, and our eyes lock on a white truck that sits across the street. There's a man inside it, and he makes eye contact with us.

"What's that guy doing?" Mike asks.

"You don't think...?"

Mike rushes into the other room as Dustin and I continue to stare at the man.

"Uh...Liz?" Dustin nudges me and I break eye contact with the man to see what he sees.

"Shit." I watch as a trail of more white vans come driving in, and my heart races.

As the cars drive by, I see a man look at us harshly. I shove the curtains closed as Dustin swears.

"Mike!" We stumble over each other and enter the kitchen.

"MIKE!" Dustin shouts and Mike and his mom turn to look at us.

"We need to leave, right, now." Dustin says and Mike glances at his mom.