Together Again

Chapter 2 - The Deputy (part 4)

Nancy and Steve drove to Hoppers house in a hurry. The wheels on the car squealed as they rounded the corner into Hoppers driveway. Steve pressed the break and the car screeched to a stop. Nancy jumped out as Steve put the car into park, then Steve followed her up the steps. Nancy knocked on the door. Hard. She waited for about 15 seconds. No answer, she knocked again. "Mike!!" She yelled. Still no answer.

  Nancy reached foreword and grabbed the doorknob. Before she could turn it Steve reached out and put a hand on her arm. "Let me go first." He said. Nancy didn't argue.

  Steve grabbed the doorknob and turned It. He walked inside slowly. No one was there. Once they realized that the house was safe, him and Nancy searched the house for Mike and El. They weren't there. "They must have gone to the hospital!" Nancy exclaimed.
Little did they know that something else had made it's way into the house while they were there.

  They ran out the door to go find Mike. They jumped in Steve's car again. He turned on the gas again and squealed out of the driveway. On the way to the hospital, Steve's radio went off. "We have a situation Steve, and we want this to be your first assignment. There was a break in at the middle school." Stated Flo, the secretary, from the other end. "Oh and I had a concerned paramedic call in, said they wanted to report something strange they saw on a 911 call. I wonder if it had anything to do with Hopper? They said that they would like to speak with whoever was filling in for Hopper, so I guess that would be you."

  Nancy and Steve both looked at each other. "El!" They both exclaimed, they knew that the strange thing the paramedic saw had to have something to do with El.

  "Okay, thanks Flo, I will get over to the middle school ASAP and can you set me up a meeting with the paramedic tomorrow?"

  "Yes, but I think you need to get over to school immediately. At least...Hop would have gotten over there immediately..." Great. Now Flo was trying to pressure him into going over there. And by using Hop!

  Steve looked at Nancy. "I'm sorry Nancy, but if I don't do what I'm told I could lose my job, I'm new and they are keeping a close eye on me, I have to go to the school."

  How could Nancy leave Mike? But she knew that Steve's job was important. She let him go to the middle school, but told him to be quick. She needed to get to Mike.

  They pulled into the middle school parking lot. Steve got out of the car. Nancy followed even though Steve told her not to. Making Nancy stay outside, Steve went into the school. He wandered through the hallways, carefully looking for any  clues. It was the weirdest break in they had seen. No doors were broken, and there were no footprints anywhere. But you could tell someone had been in there, plants were nocked over, and any glass decorations were shattered. There was no sign of where the intruder had gotten in.

  Steve had been checking all of the rooms, he opened the door to the AV room. He looked around and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. He was about to close the door when he remembered something. Dustin had gone on and on about how cool the heathkit ham radio that they kept in the AV room was. He looked around again. No radio. Was that what the intruder was after?

  ~Earlier that day~
All the teachers had left and the school was empty. Suddenly, a hole opened up on the wall, a long black horizontal tornado seeped out the hole. Wind blew in circles around the tornado. Stuff flew everywhere, glass shattered and doors flew open, then slammed. The door to the AV room opened, but did not slam, the tornado creeped into the room, and appeared to be sniffing stuff. It stopped by the heathkit ham shack. Then in a flash, the tornado went back into the hole, the heathkit was gone.

  Steve finished inspecting the school then went outside. Mr. Clarke was standing outside. He was the person who found the school had been broken into. All the teachers had left, but he had to come back to grab something from the school, and when he walked in the door, he saw it was a mess. "Do you still have that ham radio in the AV room?" Steve asked him.

  "Yes, why?"

  "It's gone." Mr. Clarke gasped, and then Steve gave Mr. Clarke the okay to go in the school. Then he left to go take Nancy to the hospital while Mr. Clarke looked to see if anything else was missing.

  Steve went back to the car to find Nancy sitting there, crying. "Hey, hey. What's wrong?" He said softly.

  "Everything." She replied, then said "Nevermind, it's stupid." She tried to wipe the tears from her eyes, but they just kept coming.

  "No, it isn't, c'mon Nance, you can tell me."

  "Well, there's Mike who's probably worried sick, and how is El holding up? And then there's the cloud, what if....something happens again. And then to top it all of Jonathan....."

  "Whoa, what did Jonathan do. Did he hurt you? Cause if he did I'm gonna kill the guy! I can't belie—" Steve was rambling when Nancy cut him off.

  "Steve! It's not like that..."

  "Then what is it?" He looked deep into her eyes.

  "Well....we had a big fight the other day." Nancy began. "And I don't know what happened. But...I think it might be over." Tears streamed down her face.

  Steve was hesitant at first, and he didn't know how to respond. But he realized that what she needed wasn't answers it was just someone to listen. He leaned in to give her a hug. There was nothing wrong with hugging your friends right?

  Nancy saw Steve's arms and practically fell into them. She sobbed into his shoulder. He felt familiar, yet distant. But she knew one thing for sure. She felt safe.