Stranger Than Normal

Chapter Thirty

I made El leave to go find her mom and then zoned in, to Joyce to tell her about what I had seen. Apparently, Will had the same dream, vision, thing too. "Mom?" Will was behind Joyce who looked zoned out in thought. Is that what I look like when I zone out?

"Mom?" Will said again. She still didn't respond. "Mom?" He tapped her shoulder and she gasped and jumped in shock. "Yeah?" She asked him. Joyce was on the floor while Will was crouching slightly behind her and Mike was awkwardly standing behind Will.

"I saw him," Will told her. "You saw who, baby?" Joyce asked him, concerned and confused at the same time. "Hopper. I think he's in trouble. I think he's going to die." I drew in a shocked gasp and took a small step back in surprise. Will and I had the same dream.

Not too much longer, Will was at his desk drawing something. I recognized it to be the tunnel things from my vision. Then, Will'shead shot up when some thunder rumbled outside. My head shot up to, but Mike and Joyce seemed to not hear it.

"Hey, is this where you saw him? I-is this where you saw Hopper?" Joyce asked Will who was now finished with the picture. "I think so. Yeah." I saw flashes of the tunnel in my head and I saw Hopper was passed out on the ground for a split second. We need to hurry up. Hopper can't make it much longer. I sent to Mike, who nodded slightly. 

"Okay." Joyce sighed. She picked up the piece of paper and she and Mike started to scout for the place where that section of the puzzle would fit. I started to look around too and mind yelled to Mike that it was in the kitchen when I found it.

He ran over and found it quickly. "Here!" Joyce came running to where he was. She fell to her knees and placed the paper onto the wall to make sure that it did indeed fit. She grabbed some of the pieces of tape that were on her shirt and taped it to the wall. "Okay, so... so Hopper is here?" Joyce asked, making sure she knew what was happening.

"Yeah. Now we just need to find out where here is, right?" Mike confirmed. "Right," Joyce replied. "Did he say anything? I mean, before he, left?" Mike asked Joyce, trying to help Hopper as quickly as possible. Joyce sighed, "Uh, some... something about vines?" Just then we heard a car pull up to the house.

"Hopper," Joyce said aloud, hoping it was him. Joyce, Mike, and I all ran to the front of the house only to see Bob's car. Not Hopper's. Joyce opened the front door and stepped outside to talk to Bob and hopefully get him to leave. After about five minutes of them talking, and five minutes of awkward silence from us, Bob and Joyce both came in. 

Bob, for some reason, had a stack of what look to be puzzles of some sort. We all kinda crowded around behind him while he stared at the papers covering the walls, floor, and ceiling of the house. "Huh. Hmm. You drew all these yourself?" Bob asked Will, turning around. Will avoided his gaze and stared at the floor. 

Will looked a bit out of it, worried, and terrified all at the same time. So, I made it to where I could touch the things around me but not completely be there physically. I strained to do it, but I managed to grab his hand and just hold it. He jumped at first and looked around to see who it was. He either sensed it was me or hoped it was me because he squeezed my hand slightly hard.

"Mmm-hmm," Joyce answered for him. "Why, exactly?" Bob asked. "I...I told you the rules. No questions, okay?" Joyce immediately intervened. "Yeah," Bob replied softly, staring at the wall again. "We... we just need you to help us figure out what..." Joyce had been walking towards the kitchen and thought Bob was following her but turned around only to see him still in the same spot. "Bob? Bob?" He finally turned around. "Over here," Joyce said as she walked further into the kitchen towards the latest drawing to be put on the wall.

Bob passed the stack of stuff to Mike who just left it on one of the tables as they both walked into the kitchen where Joyce was waiting. I tugged lightly on Will's hand, telling him to come on and we met them in the kitchen. "Where... where this is." Joyce said, finishing her previous sentence.

She grabbed a red crayon and drew a big red X on the paper that supposedly tells us where Hopper is. "That's the objective. Find the X." Mike told Bob. "Yeah? What's at the X? Pirate treasure?" Bob asked, chuckling. We all knew he was joking, but it wasn't funny. At all.

"Bob, no questions." Joyce scolded him. "Okay. let me talk to you for a second. Hang on guys." Bob told the boys before dragging Joyce into her room to talk. Mike and Will walked over to the kitchen table where they sat down. Because Will and I were still holding hands with a death grip, he was basically dragging me too. I wound up sitting on the floor next to Will's chair with Mike's chair on my other side, not that I minded much.

Will's thoughts were so loud they were hard to ignore and with my growing weakness, I caved and just listened. Six? Please tell me it's you. Or give me some kind of sign. Squeeze my hand twice if it's you. Or just send me a mental message. He had a scared look in his eyes, but there was also a speck of hope in them.

I decided to ignore literally everything Hopper has ever told me and let Will know that it was me and that I was there. I squeezed his hand twice and sent him a message. Hey Will. It's me. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you that I've been here but Hopper didn't allow me to. But I've been watching over you like your own personal guardian angel. And as your guardian angel, we're going to get him out of you.

I decided not to tell him about the Shadow Monster infecting me too because I didn't want him to have any extra stress. He smiled and looked down to where I was and gave my hand a big squeeze. That's when Bob came running out of Joyce's room with a very confused Joyce following him. "Okay, I get it. That's Lake Jordan. And if that's Lake Jordan, then you can probably find..." He snapped his fingers as he walked down the hallway pointing various places on the wall out.

"Yeah, that's, uh, Sattler's quarry. And if you just follow it naturally... it moves to... the Eno River. And there it is... That's the Eno, do you see it? Okay, so the lines aren't roads. But they act like roads. And they act like roads 'cause when you follow 'em, you'll see... they don't go over water. And that's the giveaway. That's the giveaway. Ha! Don't you get it? It's not a puzzle, it's a map. It's a map of Hawkins." Bob explained while rapidly moving around the house. He ended up in the kitchen near Mike. Will and Mike shared disbelieving looks while Joyce looked flabbergasted. "Right, will?" Bob asked Will who just looked at him in shock. 

Bob found a map and put it down on the table and sat down in front of it, pulling a pen out of one of the inside pockets of his jacket. "All right. All right. I'm 3.6 inches, what do you got?" He asked Mike and Joyce since they were the ones with the tape measure, measuring what needs to be measured. 

"I'm not sure. Mrs.Byers?" Mike yelled to Bob, and then to Joyce from one of the bedrooms. "Hold on. Twenty-one feet, four inches." Joyce called to Bob. "What about Tippecanoe to Danford Creek?" Bob asked, not looking away from his map. "Danford? Where's Danford?" Joyce asked looking around. Will had been walking around trying to find where Mike and Joyce needed to go. Which meant he was dragging me along with him since we both refused to drop the others hand. 

"Dining room," Will yelled slightly to his mom, with a sense of urgency. Joyce ran in and sighed. "Sixteen feet, four inches," Joyce told Bob. "What about Danford to Jordan?" Bob asked. "Oh, come on. T-this has gotta be enough." Joyce complained just wanted to find and rescue Hopper. 

"It's not. It's... it's really not." Bob told her. Mike walked in from the room he was previously in and Joyce, Mike, Will, and I technically all surrounded the table with Joyce looking over Bob's shoulder. "Okay. Can't you figure it out?" She questioned him. "W-well, it's hard. The ratio isn't exactly one-to-one. I mean, if you're twisting my arm, and you are twisting my arm," He turned to Joyce and gave her a dirty look. He kept making lines on the amp while he talked.

"I would say that the X is... maybe a half-mile southeast of Danford?" He guesses while looking up at Joyce. Joyce sighed, "Thank you." She kissed his cheek. "Thank you." She then grabbed the map and ran out the door towards the car. Mike, Will, and I were soon to follow. Bob yelled something about us actually going, which, why wouldn't we after all this work, but whatever. And with that, we were in the car on the way to save Hoper. Hopefully, we weren't too late.