𝐒𝐌𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐒 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐏𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐓, e.m.

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐄𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧

CHAPTER ELEVEN | THIS IS MUSIC!
    "Whatever you guys are doing, hurry up!" Erica ran into the room, telling everyone that they needed to hurry, as they searched for music.

    "Yeah? No shit!" Briar searched through the box on the bed, finding nothing that she thought would save Nancy.

    "We're trying. We can't find anything." Robin turned to Eddie, at least ten tapes in her hand.

    "What is all this shit?" Eddie slammed the tapes down on his bed, making the box Briar was looking through flip over.

    "What are you even looking for?"

    "Madonna, Blondie, Bowie, Beatles? Music! We need music!" Briar slammed her hands down, grabbing the tape out of Robins hand.

    "This is music! Good music!"

..........

    "He showed me things that happened yet." Briar says on the floor, leaning up against the couch, sitting in between Eddie's legs, as Nancy softly spoke. "The most awful things. I saw a dark cloud spreading over Hawkins. Downtown on fire. Dead soldiers. And this... giant creature with a gaping mouth. And this creature wasn't alone. There were so many monsters. An army. And they were coming into Hawkins. Into our neighborhoods. Our homes. And then... he showed me my mom. And Holly. Mike. And they... they were all..." The group listened to the girl in horror before Steve spoke up, the boy sounding just as scared as the girl.

    "Okay, but... he's just trying to scare you, Nance. Right? I mean, it's not real." Briar rested her head against the Munson boys left knee.

    "Not yet. But there... there was something else. He showed me gates. Four gates. Spreading across Hawkins. And these gates, they looked like the one outside of Eddie's trailer, but they didn't stop growing. And this wasn't the Upside Down Hawkins, this was our Hawkins. Our home." Before anything could say anything, Max spoke softly.

    "Four chimes." Everyone looked at her in confusion, Briar looking down at her hands, wondering what the fuck they were gonna do. "Vecna's clock. It always chimes four times. Four exactly."

    "I heard them too." Briar looked up at Nancy before looking over her shoulder at Eddie, her left hand reaching across her body and over her right shoulder to hold Eddie's left hand that was sitting on his left knee. "He's been telling us his plan the whole time."

    "Four kills. Four gates. End of the world."

    "If that's true, he's one kill away." Eddie let go of Briars hand, the girl moving away from the boy.

    "Jesus christ, oh, Jesus Christ." Steve sighed, shaking his head.

    "Try 'em again. Try 'em again." Max walked over to the phone, dialing the Byers family house number, the line continuously beeping until the line went dead, Max turning to the grip as Steve sighed. "Maybe you punched it in wrong." The Mayfield girl scoffed as she held the phone up towards her ear, telling the Harrington boy she didn't punch it in wrong. "Well, I don't know."

"Anything?" Briar watched as Max shook her head, placing the phone back on its spot on the wall.

"Are you sure you're punching it in right?" Briar sighed as she placed both hands on her face, letting out a deep breath.

"I think she knows how to use a phone, Steve." Steve raised his hands in surrender as Briar glared at him.

"I'm just saying, she could've typed it in wrong." Briar stood up, moving from her spot on the floor, walking over to the phone and typing in the numbers herself. She held it up to her ear for a moment before the line went dead again.

"Fuck. It's the same shit."

"How is that possible?" Briar shrugs at her younger brother as Dustin speaks.

"Joyce has this telemarketer job. Always on the phone. Mike won't stop whining about it." Max sighed, looking at everyone as she stood next to Briar.

"Yeah, but this phones been busy for, what, three days now? That's not Joyce. No way. Somethings wrong." Briar and Nancy looked at each other, nodding their heads.

"She's right. It can't be just a coincidence. It can't be. Whatever's happening in Lenora, is connected to all of this. I'm sure of it. But Vecna can't hurt them. Not if he's dead. We have to go back in there. Back to the upside down." Everyone suddenly began to shake their heads, no one wanting to go back there.

"Let's think this through."

"What is there to think through, Steve. I don't want to die because we're letting this motherfucker just kill people. We have to kill him first, before he kills us." Steve sighed before he began to argue again.

"He's not scared of us."

"And for good reason. We were wrong about Vecna. Henry. One. Sorry, what are we calling him now?" After Robin asked, Erica, Lucas, Nancy, and Dustin answered at the same time with a bunch of different answers, making Robin sigh. "Right. We've learned something new about Vecna/Henry/One. He's a number, like Eleven, only a sick, evil, male, child-murdering version of her with really bad skin. But my... my... my point is, he's super powerful. He could turn us inside out with a snap of his fingers. It's not a fair fight."

"So why fight fair?"