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...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
FRIDAY 2nd NOVEMBER, 1984
WITH a new morning comes a new atmosphere of awkwardness in the Delaney house. When is it ever going to end? Thomas thinks sceptically, brewing his breakfast coffee as routinely as usual. Cath's face appears strained with deep thought, while Daphne's is vacant as she glazes over in some daydream. Peggy, on the other hand, picks at her eggs with her fork as if repulsed by them. At least the radio softly playing The Style Council smooths out the mood into something more comfortable.
Peggy finally pushes her plate away, giving in. Thomas frowns at her plate still filled with breakfast. "Aren't you hungry?" he asks her.
"Yes and no. I don't know, I'm kind of nauseous and the eggs aren't helping," she shrugs quickly. Something about her manner seems erratic, almost secretive, as she averts her gaze while gulping down some coffee of her own. "I'm gonna go out for a smoke."
Thomas watches his sister vanish out onto the porch and light a cigarette from her pack — as he instructed her to do, because he doesn't want the smell lingering in the house. He's been slightly paranoid about it ever since Cath got bronchitis when she was younger.
While he waits for his coffee to finish brewing, he tilts his head towards a drooping Cath. "Hey, honey, you okay? You're looking a little... I don't know..."
Perking up automatically, Cath nods sharply. "I'm fine," she replies. "Just thinking about stuff I guess."
She seems to do that a lot lately, Thomas thinks worriedly.
"Why don't you invite some friends over after school?" he suggests, an idea which makes his daughter pause and think for a moment. "Maybe if Will isn't feeling better yet, you could bring over someone else. Some of the boys, or that new girl you told me about. What was her name again?"
"Max."
"Right, yeah, her. And obviously, Andrea could—"
Before he can finish, Cath lets out a strangled yelp and her eyes pop open in what appears to be horror. Thomas and Daphne watch her, totally perplexed, as she speeds through quick mouthfuls of breakfast and gulps of water. What just came over her? "What's wrong now?" he asks quizzically.
"I just remembered something I forgot," she replies hastily.
