Apocalypse, Steve Harrington

Chapter Fifty-Eight. The Great Escape

FIFTY-EIGHT
— the great escape

        IN NOVEMBER OF eighty-three, when Will went missing, she thought she'd never feel light again. Light, meaning, doing regular-tasks without a burden, of any sort, weighing on her chest. She thought it was permanent, and even worse, it had multiplied— when the Mind Flayer took Will, when the Demo-dogs attacked, and Bob died, when they realized they were stuck in the secret-Russian-bunker. Now, though, she's pumped-up with some sort of drug, a truth-serum, probably, and she can't stop laughing. She's fourteen again, and her chest really isn't heavy, and her only worries are the Algebra I homework, and how to handle her brothers friendship with Steve Harrington.

      Her fingers are caught in the circular, cage-like wall of the funny-looking car Dustin stole. She can hear an alarm blaring, and she can feel her veins throbbing beneath her skin, and she can feel herself sandwiched between two-warm bodies. She still has her memory, and she knows what happened, with the Russians. . . but it's different, sort of. The people in her mind are turning pink and purple, they're hopping on one foot, and all she wants to do is shamelessly laugh. The vehicle swerves, and tips on its side, and her head is thrashed against someone's chest.

      "We're going really. . .  really fucking fast," she hollers, blinking quickly, "who gave this kid a license, huh?"

      He speaks, from behind her, "yeah, man! Slow down!"

      Robins speech is slurring, "what is this, like, the Indy five-hundred?"

      He hums, and it's pitched, and his finger is wagging in the dirty-blondes face, "no. . . it's the Indy three-hundred."

      It's instantaneous, and Lucy can't stop her eyes from rolling back into her head. She's sighing, and it's loud, and it's probably obnoxious, but Steve's mention of whatever the Indy three-hundred was, is bouncing off the walls of her brain, "it's totally five-hundred, Steve," she says, harsh, "don't be silly."

Steve huffs, "who made you the Indy-number-police?" he slurs, his bloody lips curling, to form a frown.

      Her hazel-colored eyes basically criss-cross, on their way to roll again. She's kneeling, and her brown-hair is in her face, and the vehicle is moving too fast for her to ground herself, "I'm self-appointed," she says, between a chuckle, "so, it's five-hundred, because, I say so."

Beside her, the dirty-blonde waves her hands in the air, "guys, guys," she clamors, "let's just say. . . a million."

They're all laughing, and she's obnoxiously slamming her hand onto the floor of the cart. Lucy can feel abdominal muscles growing, from how hard she's been cackling, and she's afraid her face is turning purple, "no, no, no," she shouts, grasping their attention, "A billion. . . a ga-zillion!"

      Through the overlapping laughter of the teenagers in the cargo-half of the vehicle, Erica turns to her curly-haired counterpart with wide-eyes, "what is wrong with them?" she whisper-shouts.

      Clearly, he's exasperated, "I don't know!" Dustin huffs, concerned, and worried in the slightest.

      He's not watching, as he drives. His foot is settled on the gas-pedal, if there's even any breaks, and he's too focused on the nonsensical shouts coming from back, behind him. Dustin's fingers curl tighter around the steering-wheel, and he doesn't even hear Erica's warning shout when he ram them straight into a pile of metal barrels.