Symmetrical Stranger Things Book Two

Chapter 8: The Mind Flayer

Hopper's gazing through the glass of the Hawkins Lab control room and a demogorgon clambering up out of the abyss. The monster is followed by a slew of his buddies, who hurl themselves against the glass in a positively Jurassic Park–ian fashion.

Despite some famous last words "They can't get through!" the demogorgons quickly break into the control room and are soon freely roaming the halls, stopping for a small bite out of someone's neck or abdomen. (Of course, the fools who try to take the elevator are promptly killed for their idiocy.)

Back in Will's room, where they hear the commotion, Mike recognizes that as long as Will is conscious, he can communicate with the shadow monster which means he's informing on them.

It's a risky move to just grab a bottle of a sedative and administer, oh, a totally random dose to a deathly ill child. But kudos to Joyce for doing what she's gotta do and jamming that needle so deep into Will's arm it most likely popped out the other side. (That's motherhood for you.)

Celeste was both confused and scared her best friend just called a bunch of monsters who are demolishing people. In their attempt to get out of Hawkins Lab, Hopper, Joyce, Bob, Will, Mike, Celeste, and Dr. Owens head down the hall, locking themselves in a surveillance room.

The power goes off, which also means the building has locked itself down (surely not a fire-marshall-approved protocol) and needs a manual reboot from the basement. Luckily, Dr. Owens carries building blueprints with him at all times, so he can show everyone exactly where they are, where the basement is, and how they need to escape.

Hopper volunteers to lead the mission to the breakers in the basement, but there's one small problem: It's 1984 and there's a computer involved, which means that only approximately one percent of the population has any idea how to even turn one on.

Luckily, Bob the Brain knows BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) and can manually override the system's locks and power. After a brief shooting lesson from Hopper "Point and squeeze, easy peasy" Bob heads down to the basement where he works a little bit of that finger magic and has the whole system operational in minutes.

With the doors unlocked, Hopper leads Joyce the boys and little girl out toward the front doors, while Dr. Owens valiantly stays behind to guide Bob via the surveillance screens. (It's really the least he can do.)

In some of the most intense moments, Owens narrates directions to Bob, who tiptoes down hallways, ducking into a closet when Owens spots a demogorgan up around the bend. Pressed against the wall, barely holding it together, our unlikely hero stands shivering and shaking. Sliding out after the monster has moved on, a broom nearly does Bob in as it clatters to the floor, alerting the demogorgon to his presence.

Bob runs for it, smashing through a set of doors and then yanking open another. He's saved the lives of Joyce, the kids, and Hopper, and now he's made it to freedom! Phew!

But that all comes to an end when a demogorgan leaps onto Bob who tries to fight it off but evidently gets impaled with it's claws and soon blood pours out of Bob's mouth and abdomen.

One last monster leaps out onto Bob, just as he's made his way to Joyce's line of sight. A hail of bullets fired by Hopper isn't enough, and Bob's intestines are officially demogorgon chow. Celeste sobbed into her brother's arms she got to know Bob he was a kind person, and now he's dead. R.I.P., Bob the Brain.

Meanwhile, Steve, Lucas, Max, and Dustin are making their way back down the train tracks, fighting as usual, when they hear the demogorgons off in the distance.

They head toward the lab, where they meet up with Nancy and Jonathan, who have been searching in vain for Will, Mike, Celeste, and Joyce. Once that trio emerges from Hawkins Lab, they all pile into cars and speed away back to the Byers' place.

The team is finally back together, although there's definite disagreement about how to move forward. Hopper holds out hope that the military will arrive, but the kids want to act especially Mike, who is justifiably untrusting of the adults who promised to keep him, his friends, and sister safe and then allowed not one but two monster attacks on his small town.

Clearly, they have to do something: The demogorgons are about to molt and get bigger, the tunnels have reached Hawkins, and the military isn't necessarily on the way. If there is one thing about all of this that has taught us, it's that middle-schoolers are ten times as smart as adults. "Maybe if we stop him," Will says, meaning the shadow monster, "we can stop his army, too."

Metaphorically speaking, the monster is just like DnD's mind flayer, Dustin explains. It's a monster "so ancient that it doesn't even know it's true home." It invades and conquers minds because "it believes it's the master race." But it isn't as simple as one big baddy. "We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it," Lucas says. Once the shadow monster gets going, there's no stopping it, and it wants the entire dimension for itself.

The only way to understand this shadow monster is to get inside its mind. And the only way inside its mind is Will, but he can't know anything about where he is or what's happening around him, or else he'll betray their location to the shadow monster.

To that end, Hopper hosts a very cathartic clean-out of Joyce's garage. They cover everything in newspaper and tinfoil so Will won't know where he is, tie the boy to a chair so he can't escape, and then wake him up with some ammonia like he's a Victorian lady who passed out from excitement over an exposed ankle.

Will is still alive in there, buried deep behind the shadow monster, but he needs to be lured out and made safe. Joyce and Jonathan and Mike work him over, sharing the most intimate stories they can recall including Mike and Celeste's tearjerker of a first-day-of-school tale hoping it will be enough to get Will to betray the monster.

He can't say it, but he can express it. Hopper, who if you remember has been using Morse code to check in with Eleven at the cabin, recognizes that Will is tapping out a message. "Close gate," he says, although at this moment nobody knows exactly what that gate is.

When the phone rings and jerks Will from his revery, the shadow monster alerts his crew of demogorgons, who head for the house. The team preps for battle: Hopper with a gun, Nancy with a shotgun, Steve with his bat, and Lucas with the wrist rocket.

There's a struggle outside and then a demogorgon comes flying through the window, already dead.
The lock turns. The chain slides off its hook. The door opens.
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The End of Chapter 8