Complicated • Stranger Things

6 - The Monster

"Jonathan! Jonathan!" Nancy screamed as we ran through the woods.

"Jonathan! We're right here!" I shouted. "Jonathan!"

We could faintly hear the sound of Jonathan's voice calling out to us, but we had no clue where he was, so we just kept running.

"Jonathan!" Nancy continued to scream.

"Nancy, Jordan, follow my voice!" Jonathan called out to us. We tried to follow his voice but ran into the monster instead.

It hadn't seen us yet so we slowly started walking away, hoping to go unnoticed. Of course, we weren't. The monster let out another roar and we started running again as Jonathan continued calling out to us.

"Jordan! Nancy! Follow my voice!" He shouted.

We tried to follow where we thought his voice was coming from, but we eventually hid behind a tree from the creature. We heard it start to pass the tree as we tried to stay as silent as possible. Nancy slightly nudged me and motioned over to the tunnel we came through.

We looked at each other and nodded before slowly walking over to the opening, making sure not to step on any branches. Nancy went through first, followed by me soon after. We collapsed onto Jonathan when we emerged from the tunnel. We were both crying as we clung onto Jonathan like our lives depended on it. When we calmed down we stood up and looked back at the tree to see that the opening was gone.

"Can we get out of here now?" I asked, still staring at the spot where the tunnel used to be.

"Yeah." Nancy replied as she grabbed her bag and her bat. We all went to Nancy's house and I was the first to get in the shower. When I entered Nancy's room, she and Jonathan were sitting on the bed.

"You can shower now." I told Nancy.

"Okay." Nancy replied before standing up and grabbing some clothes and heading to the bathroom.

"What happened in there?" Jonathan asked as I sat next to him on the bed.

"I don't know. We crawled through that opening and then there was this...this thing. It was eating the dear, and then it started chasing us. It was terrifying, Jon." I recalled the night's events, which just made me want to cry.

Jonathan pulled me into a hug until Nancy came back then we got ready for bed. Nancy and I shared the bed while Jonathan slept on the floor. Nancy and I were still too shaken up so we left the lights on. I had a hard time sleeping, but after hours of tossing and turning, I was finally able to fall asleep.

In the morning I woke up to see Nancy already up with books laid all over the bed. Before I could say anything Jonathan also woke up.

"Hey, did you guys not sleep?" He asked as he got up and sat at the end of the bed. Nancy shook her head. I was only able to fall asleep once the sun rose, so I wasn't sleeping very long.

"Every time I close my eyes I see that...that thing. Where ever we were, that place...I think that it lives there. It was feeding there. Feeding on that deer. That means that if...if Will and Barbra..." Nancy trailed off.

"Hey. My mom said she talked to Will." Jonathan said.

"If he's still alive, then maybe Barbra is too." I added.

"That means that she's trapped...in that place." She pointed out. "We have to find it again."

"What? You want to go back out there?" I questioned.

"Maybe we don't have to. When we saw it, it was feeding on that deer, meaning that it's a predator, right?" Nancy asked and Jonathan and I nodded. "And it seems to only hunt at night, like a..." She opened one of the books and flipped open to a page with a picture of a lion. "Like a lion or a coyote, but it doesn't hunt in packs like them. It's always alone like..."