Things Stranger

Prologue [Mike Wheeler]

"Mike, your sister's on the phone," Alice's voice called from the hall before she inevitably tried to spark some normal conversation with Nancy. Nancy's been calling all week and I've been unfortunate enough for Alice to have picked the phone up in enough time for her to make small talk with Nance instead of just waiting for me to get the phone from her.

Slowly I roll off the couch, cursing my sister's timing for ruining my nap, and walk toward the phone. "Alright, got it—" I start as right as Alice puts the phone back on the receiver for me to question, "did you just hang up on Nancy?"

Alice looks at the phone and then at me in confusion. "No, she had to go, but she invited us to a housewarming party this weekend. I told her we'll be there, so she gave me the address." She holds up a small piece of paper with her neat handwriting on it. "I'm so excited to meet your family! She said all your friends would be there too!"

I took a double take really quickly as I processed her words. I've known about the party, but not where or who was attending. "Everyone? Where?"

"She didn't mention any names, but it's at her house at 2 Morhead Street, Hawkins, Indiana," Alice recited from her paper. "I told her we'd probably drive since it's only eleven hours."

I hold in laughter, thinking how ironic it is that I'll probably see El after driving eleven hours. "And when should we be leaving so we can get there?"

She started walking to the kitchen, likely to heat water for tea, when she answered, "Neither of us has any classes this week so we could leave early Thursday morning and try to beat the morning traffic, mostly, and be there by later that day. She says the party is Saturday, so we'd have a day to rest and help her get ready for everybody else."

"If Will's going, which he probably is, since as far as I know Nancy and Jonathan are still together, he'll have a similar idea, so let's just leave Friday." Anything to stall going back there.

She rolled her eyes at me as I grabbed a book and threw myself into a chair. "Mike, I want to leave a good impression on your family and I already told Nance my plan." As she started filling the kettle, she looked at me. "Tea? Or do you want me to make you a pot of coffee?"

Letting the topic go, knowing we'd be in Hawkins in three days, I open the book and say, "Either's fine, Al."

I imagine what it will be like, being back there, and taking Alice with me. The idea sends me into a spiral of memories, but mostly guilt. I left them because I couldn't deal with it anymore, but most of them had it so much worse than I did. Now I just need to make sure Alice doesn't get dragged into any Hawkins nonsense and keep the peace between her and Eleven.