WHISTLEBLOWER | ❝It only gets stranger...❞
Hawkins has never looked back on the events of November 1983. They know the surface-level story. 'The boy who came back to life.' Will Byers is alive and well, while the futile search for Tonya McCarth...
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THURSDAY 1st NOVEMBER, 1984
NANCY'S pastel wallpaper drowns itself in the grey, afternoon light sieved through her lacy curtains — the colours reduced from a pleasant pale to a depressing dull. It seems all the more fitting for what they are about to do, the plan in question still making Daphne's stomach churn with anxiety.
Simply put, Daphne knows that in a few minutes she will be making a phone call to Tonya's parents, to arrange a meeting about their daughter; only after Nancy has done the same for Barb's parents too.
When Nancy first put forward her plan, she thought the girl was insane. Of course she knows how the Hawkins Lab are covering things up is unjust. So many questions still linger about Tonya, ones which clamours for answers for on the nights she can't sleep. But the thought of running headfirst into looking Mrs. McCarthy in the eyes and telling her the truth... it sends Daphne into a cold sweat. Her soul is torn between the compulsion to go along with Nancy and push for justice at last, and equally the chilling memory of how Dr. Owens laid bare the sheer power of the lab almost a year ago...
"You sign this, and that's it," she hears him say again, the lab coat-clad man materialising in her memory. "Wecan leave you alone, you can leave us alone. But if you don't... that is when things get complicated."
The tiffany blue phone set sits on the neatly-made, patchwork quilt of Nancy's bed. Such a seemingly innocent object, and yet suddenly weighed down with so much purpose. It seems Daphne isn't the only one who is staring at it tensely either, Nancy fixated on it while Jonathan paces back and forth.
Finally, he lowers himself down to sit at the end of Nancy's bed. "Okay, are you sure about this?"
"No..." Nancy blinks rigidly at the phone.
Still, she takes the plunge, and with such suddenness that it startles Daphne. The air in the room thickens and tightens with anticipation, the painfully slow click-clack of the rotary phone permeating their silence. Nancy then holds the phone to her ear, her gunmetal blue eyes alert.
Daphne can tell Mrs. Holland has answered, her voice muffled through the receiver — but Nancy sits paralysed, holding her breath. Jonathan gently places a reassuring hand on her knee, which snaps her back into reality.
"Mrs. Holland! Hi, it's um... it's Nancy." Her knuckles whiten around the receiver. "I, uh... I need to tell you something. About Barb. I... I haven't been honest with you."
