Other Friends

6

Being back at school did not feel normal for the two girls; the duo were missing their third best friend, so everything felt off now. They have yet to get any information from Hopper, any adult they could talk to were focusing on Will's disappearance rather than both him and Bella's. For all the school's concern, she just ran away. But this is Bella, never missed a day of school even when she was sick Bella; so the fact that no one but the two girls and a couple of middle schoolers were taking this seriously was upsetting to the teens standing in the parking lot.

"This is weird right?" Windy brings up, making the other girl look her way. "Being here without her? Without knowing if she's okay?"

Lizzie looks away, "It's weird not having her run off to go turn in some random book she got from the library." she says trying to not get as upset as she felt.

"God I hope she's alright." Windy says with a sigh.

"She has to be alright. We have to think positive like she would or else we'll go crazy." Lizzie brings up in a half angry tone causing her friend to raise an eyebrow.

"Liz, if you're upset you can talk to me." She tries to convince her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Tommy was talking about Bella, and I was so close to hitting him and that bitch Carol too. God, I hate them." she groans in annoyance.

Windy's eyes go wide, "Woah, back up. What did they say?"

"They were calling her a buzzkill and lame. They even got Nancy talking about her. I got so mad at that. What's even worse was that they didn't even know her name. They talk bad about someone they didn't even know." Lizzie explains, scoffing at the thought of them, crossing her arms.

"Tommy H and that bitch Carol have the emotional range of a teaspoon." Windy grumbles causing Lizzie to crack a smile. "I'm more surprised you didn't hit them."

"I didn't want to stay there any longer than I had to." Lizzie explains with a shrug.

"Hey, man." Steve's voice gains the two's attention.

"What's going on?" Jonathan questions, trying to continue on his way.

"What the hell?" Windy says as they watch a group form around Johnathan.

"Speak of the devil." Lizzie grumbles, as they see Tommy and Carol.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Jonathan tries to move past the group, but Tommy snatches his bag from him. This causes the two girls to make their way over to help Windy's boyfriend.

"Hey! Please, give me my bag." Jonathan tries to argue.

"Give the man his bag." Lizzie steps up, getting in Tommy's face, causing the boy to toss the bag over to Steve.

"Here we go." Steve says pulling out some photos.

"Hey, those aren't yours." Windy tries to grab the pictures but Steve moves out of her reach.

"Oh, man." Steve mutters as he looks through.

"Let me see." Tommy says giving over to his side. "Dude!"

Steve scoffs, "Yeah, this isn't creepy at all." Carol says as she grabs them.

"I was looking for my brother." Jonathan tries to explain but the group ignores him.

"No. No, this is called stalking. Mhm- hmm." Steve says as they continue, making the girls now confused as they stand by the Byers teen.

"What's going on?" Nancy says as she walks up to the group, standing next to Windy.

"Here's the starring lady." Tommy jokes, making all the girls look at him.

"What?" Nancy questions.

"This creep was spying on us last night." Carol says before handing a photo to Nancy, "He was probably gonna save this one for later."

Nancy barely had any time to look at the photo of her as Windy snatches it out of her hand to see the photo of Nancy that Johnathan took. Windy looks up at her boyfriend with shock and betrayal in her eyes. She hands the picture to Lizzie before storming off, not a word was said.

Lizzie looks down at the photo and scoffs, "Nice one Byers." she says before shoving the picture in his chest and following after Windy.

The two make their way back over to Windy's car, before they could get in, a shatter was heard. They look over and see a smashed camera on the ground and sad looking Jonathan watching the bullies take their leave.

A new anger bubbles in Windy as she watches the stupid popular kids walk away, shutting her car door she makes her way towards them. "Hey, Harrington!" she says getting his attention. As he turns, she wastes no time decking him in the face. "That's for talking shit." she says before walking away, a small smile on her face.

—------

After cooling off and dropping off Lizzie, Windy makes her way over to Johnathans house to talk out this whole mess. He has to have a reason for taking pictures of Nancy right? She just has to hear him out. Walking up to the doorstep and knocking on the door, she was met with nothing. Confused as it was later into the day, Windy decided to just use her spare key.

Opening the door, she was met with Christmas lights. Lots and lots of Christmas lights. Slowly making her way into the living room she sees Joyce. "... are you alive?" the woman asks to a bunch of lights that were in her arms. The lights blink once, and Joyce sighs in relief.

"Uh, Joyce?" Windy questions a bit confused on what was going on.

Joyce turns around to look at the teen, a small smile on her face, "Windy! Windy come here." the teen listens, still confused. "Here. Watch. Will, sweetie. Is Bella with you?"

Windy just watches as the lights blink once. "Is she alive?" they blink once, again.

"What is going on?" Windy asks in a whisper, still confused.

"They're alive Windy! They're alive... somewhere. They can talk to us through the lights." Joyce explains, hope in her eyes.

Windy knew what she was hearing was insane, but she believed her. "Are they safe?" the lights blinked twice.

"They blinked twice, is that..."

"A no." Joyce frowns. She stands, tears gathering in her eyes "I need to know where to find you, honey. Where... where are you?" she pauses to take a shaky breath. "Can you... can you tell me where you are?" she begins to cry, making the teen begin to tear up. "Can you.. " she whimpers, "Please, baby. I need to find you. Tell me what to do. Please just..." the two hug each other and begin to just cry.

Sniffling, Windy pulls back. "I have an idea. But we're gonna need some paint."

The two begin to work through the tears, gathering old paint Joyce had, they begin to paint the alphabet on the wall, hanging up the lights according to letters. "Okay... Okay we're ready."

Joyce nods, "Okay baby, talk to me. Talk to me. Where are you?"

The light above the R lights up making the two gasp, "Okay R!" Windy says still a bit amazed this was working.

"R. Good, good, good, good. That's good. Come on, come on." Joyce encourages as the light turns off. The lights then continue to turn on and off, "I...G... H...T...H...E...R...E..." she reads out.

"Right Here? What do you mean, right here?" Windy asks, confused on how they could be right here.

"I don't know what that means. I need you to tell us what to do. What should we do?" Joyce says out for them to hear. "How do we get to you? How do we find you? What should we do?"

The two watch as the lights turn on again, R...U...N... Suddenly all the lights begin to flicker on and off all around them, freaking them out as they turn and see something, pushing against the wall. A hand tries to reach through the wallpaper, as the two watch on in horror as the wall breaks open and a creature crawls into the flashing living room. Joyce grabs Windy and pulls her out of the room silently, quickly making their way out of the house, running. Running as fast as they can.