Neighbors - Strangerthingsau

Chapter 27

She's Gone

The group waited at the cabin for three hours. After they came to the conclusion that El would not be returning, they needed to come up with a new plan.

"So what's the plan?" Dustin asked dodging a tree branch. The group was currently on their way out of the woods to Will's house.

"Well," Hopper thought out loud. "We go back to the house, see if she's there."

"And if she's not?" Jonathan asked worriedly.

"We will think about that if she's not there." He huffed. He honestly didn't know what to do, he just needed more time to think.

The group walked silently the rest of the way. As the house came into view, the group's pace began to quicken as they made their way into the house.

Once inside the group split up looking in every room hoping to see El standing in one of them. They all came back empty handed.

"What now?" Joyce sighed upset.

Hopper thought. He wanted to find El, he knew a way to do it but he didn't want to do it that way. In the end, he didn't have any other choice. "We make missing posters. And we hope that someone will see her and call us. Jonathan?"

"Yeah?" Jonathan looked up from the floor to meet Hopper's eye.

"Do you have any pictures of El we could use?"

"Yeah. Let me go get it." He said making his way towards the steps.

"Uh..." Hopper looked around the room before pointing at Joyce. "Joyce! Can you write down all of El's information? Like-like her age, height and things like that."

"Yeah." She said before retrieving a paper and pen, getting started on the poster.

"When we're done with the poster, we go make copies and start hanging them around town. I'll get a search party going, we'll get as many volunteers possible."

"That might work." Max said hopefully.

"You guys work on the posters, I'm gonna go to the office and get started on the search party." Hopper said grabbing his jacket and his hat.

The group got to work. Once Joyce got El's information down, Jonathan taped her picture in the center.

"Alright," Joyce sighed. "Looks good. Let's go do the copies."

It took what seemed like forever to get the copies. But as soon as they did, they split in to pairs to hang them around town. Joyce and Jonathan went downtown, Max and Lucas went to the mall area, Dustin and Will went around the school and arcade, Mike was left all alone to hang up posters in the neighborhood.

Nobody really talked to Mike since the fight. And he didn't really talk to anyone. He hated himself more than all of them combined. He just wanted to apologize to El and make things better. And hopefully, they'll find her so he can.

Within a few hours it seemed like the entire town heard about El and was looking for her.

Hopper was walking through the woods with the search party, looking for any sign of El. Nothing. There was nothing. No sign, no weird or different things in the woods, no El.

"El!"

"El Hopper!"

"El! Where are you?" The search cried out looking high and low for her.

A familiar chain link fence came on Hopper's left side as he walked past it. He took a quick glance at the lab to see it dead quiet. So quiet it made him feel uneasy.