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CHAPTER THIRTEEN MOTHMAN IS A VERY DANGEROUS INDIVIDUAL
Abby Foster is set for life—she's not so much of a hard-ass anymore, she's learned that there's more to life than just endlessly fixating on the future and that time is a precious thing. By the end of her senior year at Hawkins High school, with a giddy sort of excitement, she had opened several crisp manila acceptance letters. She's one step closer to college, one step closer to seeing once and for all what lays in wait for her just beyond the borders of Hawkins, Indiana (of course, she still needs to actually choose a college to attend, but the decision has been so overwhelming; there are too many factors, too many unformed ideas of what she wants to study. So she's elected to ignore it). The excitement that rushes through her veins day and night will keep her fueled through a monotonous summer full of slinging ice cream with one of her best friends and her snarky co-worker, but all the same, daydreaming isn't enough.
"Hey, I never did ask you what happened to your forehead,"Robin Buckley muses as she leans back against the counter behind the wide-open Scoops Ahoy windows. A whiteboard leans against the wall, divided into two sections, there are six tally marks under the side labeled YOU SUCK while the side that is labeled YOU RULE remains bare. Robin bounces the dry-erase Expo marker on her knee as she awaits Steve Harrington's poor attempts to flirt with the customers.
Abby raises a hand to where the gash in her forehead had been stitched together. Sometimes, when she thinks about it too much, she can still feel where Billy Hargrove had slammed her head against the Byers' counter. She remembers the white-hot pain that had seared through her head and the torturous journey through the tunnels that had burrowed deep underneath the surface of Hawkins. She had been condemned to bed rest to allow her concussed brain to heal, those days had been lackadaisical and torturous, and she had only wished vehemently for them to end.
"Oh, I was attacked by Mothman," Abby answers offhandedly as she peers around the divider to gaze out into the mall.
The interior of Starcourt Mall glows. It's a wonderland of bright neon-flashing lights and loud upbeat music that reverberates and clashes with the other music blasting from the storefronts. One can get lost in the maze of Starcourt Mall for hours on end, spending much more money than they had initially anticipated they would. There's always something new to be admired in Starcourt Mall, some new eye-catching product displayed in the storefronts, or a new clothing line at the Gap. Abby's grown used to the clamor and the excessive amount of people that always swarm the sleek tiled floors of the mall.
