"Bad luck, bad luck, bad luck!" At this moment, Richard felt as if he were Jackie Chan, sprinting through a corridor strewn with blood and corpses. From time to time, his feet would slip on the greasy plasma on the floor, while behind him were over a dozen otherworldly creatures eager to feast on his brains.
Roar!
A canine monster suddenly pounced from the side of a hallway, opening its massive petal-like mouth in an attempt to crush and devour Richard's head. Richard anticipated the move, dodged it, and swung his butcher knife out.
Squelch!
Richard felt as if he were cutting through tofu; the canine monster was actually sliced cleanly into two unequal halves from its waist.
"Huh?! It's actually this fragile?" Richard hadn't expected this Demogorgon hound to be so vulnerable. Compared to the humanoid adult forms, its defense and recovery abilities were far inferior.
Even so, Richard wouldn't choose to face them head-on recklessly. Even if these canine monsters had defensive capabilities similar to an average dog, if those petal-mouths actually bit someone, it would be like eating mashed potatoes—they could crunch through hard bones like potato chips.
After running hundreds of meters through the seemingly endless corridors of the basement level, Richard finally found a half-open door. He burst through it without hesitation and immediately slammed it shut behind him.
Bang!
A kick violently knocked down the front door of Chief Hopper's suburban cabin. Several armed personnel holding firearms flooded into the wooden house with tactical precision. A large number of armed men from The Lab surrounded the cabin. Dr. Brennan followed them inside, adjusting his sleeves as he walked.
By now, there was no sign of the occupants. Dr. Brennan walked into the room directly facing the main door and found some items used only by girls. This confirmed to him that Eleven really had lived here.
"Who lived here?" Dr. Brennan could tell that this wasn't Eleven's solitary residence; he also discovered perfume and clothes used by a rugged adult male.
Agent Frazier reported, "Hopper. Jim Hopper."
Hearing that all-too-familiar name, Dr. Brennan couldn't help but chuckle in anger. "Ha! No wonder he was so persistent in making trouble for me. So that's how it is."
Before long, the professional Federal Agentss discovered traces likely left by the two during their escape—a cluster of footprints starting from the front door of the small cabin, circling around to the back, and then heading north.
"At first glance, there are footprints of at least three children and one adult," an agent responsible for investigating the prints said to Agent Frazier and Dr. Brennan after a careful observation of the ground.
"Children?" Dr. Brennan's brow furrowed slightly. It seemed that without his knowledge, Eleven was not only in contact with Chief Hopper but also with children from the town.
Dr. Brennan didn't overthink it. With so many men at his disposal, his personal safety was exceptionally secure, and he wasn't afraid of them playing tricks. He immediately got into a car without looking back, saying, "Go. One group follow those footprints, the rest get in the cars and wait at the bottom of the hill."
...Chief Hopper felt like his head was about to split open because he was surrounded by children. He really didn't know how Mike and the others had found his house; this place should have been known by no more than five people.
"We followed the bicycle tire tracks up from the bottom of the hill," the curly-haired toothless kid, Dustin, explained with a chuckle, his eyes gleaming with a hint of pride.
Bicycles? Hopper thought of Richard leaving on a bike and immediately understood what had happened, covering his face in annoyance.
Of course, although Hopper had a massive headache about babysitting right now, he was still very grateful for Mike and the others' arrival. It was precisely because they had found them and informed them just as The Lab members were about to close in that they were able to avoid being surrounded, which otherwise wouldn't have been easy.
Currently, there were six people and four bicycles. Hopper rode Mike's bike with Eleven on the back, while Mike sat on the back seat of Lucas's bike.
If they were escaping through the woods, Hopper's car wasn't suitable for driving. Cycling was a slightly risky but faster way to get down the mountain than walking.
Mike held onto Lucas's waist, his face pressed against Lucas's back, and asked Eleven with a smile, "El, are you okay?"
Eleven held onto Hopper's waist with both hands and shook her head at Mike. "I'm fine."
"If we manage to escape successfully this time, how about I take you to see a movie?" Mike suggested, his heart full of infinite imagination.
Upon hearing this, before Eleven could answer, Hopper glanced back coldly. "Kid, it's too early to be thinking about that."
A double entendre!
Facing the fierce Hopper, Mike felt a bit intimidated and weakly lowered his eyes.
Lucas, in the front seat, agreed with Hopper's words and added, "Exactly, let's worry about surviving tonight first. Besides, what's the point of taking her to a movie? We should be playing DND together!"
"I see the main road!" Dustin shouted, interrupting the awkward conversation.
The group pedaled faster and soon reached the main road. Once they were on the road, the pursuers on the high wooded slopes could spot them instantly. Almost two seconds after Eleven and the others rode onto the road, someone on the slope shouted, "I've found them! They're on the road going down the mountain!"
The message quickly reached Dr. Brennan. Without any hesitation, Dr. Brennan ordered his driver, "Catch up to them, quickly!"
The driver immediately floored the gas, charging down and closing the distance between them and Eleven's group at high speed.
Eleven looked back coldly at the chasing cars. Steeling her resolve, she used her powerful telekinesis to lock onto a nearby large tree. The veins on her forehead bulged, her nose began to bleed, and a tree over ten meters tall was ripped out by its roots, crashing down across the road with a boom.
Bang, bang, bang!
Caught off guard, the cars disguised as a power maintenance company rear-ended each other one by one, successively crushing the car that had unfortunately hit the tree.
Dr. Brennan stepped out from the back seat of one of the cars and stumbled to the side of the road, his head bleeding slightly.
Instead of being angry about the accident, Dr. Brennan was actually quite pleased, muttering to himself, "To be able to use her abilities to this extent? Eleven, you've grown stronger again."
After his moment of joy, Dr. Brennan had the others who hadn't died in the accident help move the tree aside. They needed to continue the pursuit. He looked in the direction Eleven and the others had gone and had a rough idea of where they would head.
"Let's go to our school. Tomorrow is the weekend, so there won't be anyone there tonight," Will proposed a good place for a temporary hideout and rest.
Dustin agreed, "I didn't eat enough for dinner tonight, and I know where some delicious pudding is hidden!"
Chief Hopper turned back and asked, "Is there a phone in the school?"
"Of course, there's a phone in the office, and our school can even send telegrams," Lucas said confidently.
"That's perfect then." Chief Hopper nodded with satisfaction and told the children to speed up their cycling.
At that moment, a convertible carrying three people zipped past them. Seeing such a flashy car at this time, the children immediately realized something. They slowly braked to a stop and looked back, only to find that the red supercar had also stopped in the middle of the road. The three familiar faces in the car were looking at them blankly... "WTF..." Jonathan and his mother Joyce finally arrived at The Lab, only to discover the carnage. The mother and son, who had never seen such a scene, almost vomited.
Although they couldn't be completely sure the children weren't here, they at least didn't find the children's bicycles anywhere around The Lab, which meant there was a high probability the kids weren't inside.
Joyce crouched down, wanting to scavenge a gun from a corpse, but she found that the guns on the bodies all had empty magazines, and there were no spare bullets on them at all.
Seeing this, she and her son Jonathan exchanged a look, both realizing that there was an outsider in The Lab building who had taken all the ammunition from the corpses.
With great effort, Joyce finally found a revolver with bullets. She gave the gun to Jonathan; she herself still had the shotgun she brought from home.
Jonathan took the handgun, a hint of embarrassment in his eyes. Actually, after learning of the monster's existence, he had done some special training, but he found he was better suited for melee combat. When he took the shotgun from the family shed, he could only hit the target once out of ten shots at thirty meters, which had once made him feel deeply ashamed.
So, he didn't actually plan on using the handgun Joyce gave him; he just thought of it as holding the gun for his mother for the time being.