bury me anywhere (but hawkins, indiana) | harringrove

chapter four: the hat

JUNE 30TH, 1985

ELEVEN | A LITTLE EARLIER...

The raincloud that's been looming over Hawkins all afternoon breaks hard, rattling against the old roof of Hopper's cabin. The dim glow of the windows only goes so far before it drops off into darkness around their perimeter. Hopper's truck is still cooling outside, erratic clicks stuttering underneath the forest's cicada drone. The rainfall drowns all of them out, turning everything into one wet, static hum as it turns the warm June earth to mud.

Soon, across town outside a locked and dark Community Center, a lake-blue Camaro will snarl to life and begin its steady glide toward Brimborn Steelworks, path as fated and sure as a bullet. The driver, white-knuckled but glacially calm, won't be given more than a second look - let alone his unconscious cargo, latched into the trunk.

Back in the cabin, Hopper's falling asleep in his old armchair, clutching an empty bottle of Chianti and betrayal as he starts to snore in fits and jags. Past his seat, the tv chattering on low masks the sound of music filtering under the door from El's room.

Inside, Max dances along to the stereo, corded microphone spiraling after her. Her hair shines like fire, long and pretty in the lamplight, and she knows every word to the song playing. El doesn't yet, but it makes her happy, listening cross-legged on the bed as she thumbs through the stack of glossy magazines about even glossier boys that Max had hauled over along with her plastic boombox. She basks in the giddy cheer of a real sleepover, and friends that aren't liars, and the singular and very novel joy of a girl friend.

By the time they've made up their own spin the bottle board (well, mostly Max) and found an empty Coke bottle, they're both tipsy on the laughter of it. It's a rush, ranting about their for-now-ex-boyfriends and their flippant comments, Max buoying El up, making her feel right and righteous and justified instead of... well, lonely, with no Mike on the other end of the line.

And when the bottle's spin lands it squarely on Billy, Max's brother, they don't question it. They lock gazes, and crack into laughter. Max immediately looks flustered, listing out warnings - "He gets up to weird stuff," and, "If he's with a girl, and they're being weird at all– just get out of there before you're scarred for life," but El only scoffs even as she settles cross-legged onto the bed. She tugs the blindfold over her eyes, confident– why shouldn't she be?

She can hear Max messing with the stereo, white noise filling out the corners of El's senses. And then, with a breath, El drops back Below for the second time that night.

Billy, she thinks, letting the tug in her chest pull her down, natural as anything. She steps into the black, looking, but she knows she's going the right way. She can feel it. Him.

It's the car she sees, first. It's sleek, dripping wet from the same rain on El's roof– it can't be far. The pouring water takes the flat color and turns it deep, gleaming. It has to be bluer than any car El's seen.

The windshield is cracked, and she runs her perfectly dry fingers just above the center of the fine-lined spiderweb. Inside, distorted by the water sleeting down the windows, the seats sit empty.

El notices the trunk lid raised open despite the rain, stepping around the back of the car to peer at it. There's a weird moment of trepidation just before she rounds the corner - why? - but it's empty, too.

She takes a step back, anyway. It feels wrong.

Her bare heel lands on something, and she jumps at the brush of stiff fabric with a gasp before she gathers herself. Above, Max is saying something, but El is busy staring at a muddy hat. It's half-submerged in a opaque puddle at her feet, stiff white fabric turned dingy as it soaked through. It's a strange style but sort of familiar. Bold blue letters swoop across the front of it.