'...Sixteen points, Fireball to the weak spot, lethal damage, the Demon King falls.' Mike propped his head in one hand, watching the dice settle on the sand-table, and said listlessly.
'Yes! We win!' Will whooped, answered by half-hearted cheers from the rest of the gang.
They'd run six straight sessions of D&D. Only Will's enthusiasm hadn't flagged; Mike, Lucas, and Dustin were sick of it.
'Come on, guys, cheer up. When do we ever get a whole day to hang out without adults breathing down our necks?' Will protested, seeing how drained they looked.
Lucas waved him off, face planted on the table. 'I'm done.'
'Same.' Mike was almost asleep.
Dustin blinked and gave a dry laugh. 'Anything gets old if you do it long enough. And right now, how can we not worry about Chade and the others? None of us can focus.'
Will had to admit that was fair. 'Then let's do something else—watch a movie. Chade's got stacks of classic tapes.'
'Better not,' Mike refused with a sigh. 'Watching will only make me miss Eleven more. I wish I could help her right now.'
Seeing Mike's gloom, Dustin soothed him, 'The best help we can give is staying out of their way.'
'Exactly,' Lucas agreed. 'We're not superheroes who can fly and phase through walls like Richard's crew. Well, they can't either, but they're still way stronger.' He grinned slyly. 'You should worry about how you're going to date a superheroine instead.'
Will's face went blank for a moment. Then he laid a hand on Mike's shoulder. 'You've done plenty for her. While she was stuck inside, you were the peer who stayed with her the longest. Her first friend. You gave her her first nickname... I think, to Eleven, you've always been someone important, someone who's helped more than enough. She'll remember.'
Mike smiled at their comfort. 'Thanks, guys.'
'Speaking of which, we still don't know where Richard and the others rushed off to,' the four boys said, packing up the D&D gear and sprawling on the couch.
Mike flicked a sesame puff from the fruit tray into his mouth, crunching. 'No clue...'
The four lapsed into silence, just grabbing snacks from Richard's tray and munching.
Suddenly Dustin stopped mid-chew, swallowed the sweet puff, and said, 'Hey, remember the places Chade told us never to go near?'
'You mean The Lab?' Mike and the others blinked, then caught on. Will named the first spot.
'The sewer tunnels.' Lucas folded his arms.
Dustin clapped. 'And the woods behind the pet sematary by my house.'
None of those felt like the answer. There was one more place Richard had warned them about—the one spot in town absolutely off-limits.
Will lunged for the TV cabinet, rummaged through the tapes, and held up a cover showing him made up as a blue-faced demon. 'This one!'
'The Creel family ruin!' Mike and the others blurted in unison.
'No. Absolutely not.' Steve shot the idea down at once, dead serious. 'Henry is in The Upside Down at that exact spot. The moment we step inside, he'll sense us—and then we're dead.'
A year ago Henry could only invade Richard's mind inside that house; now he can open gates between worlds like Eleven. His power has grown. If they go near the Creel ruin—
Instant death.
Steve knew his limits.
Nancy, Jonathan, and Robin, who'd come with him, felt the same and rejected the kids' plan.
Only Maxine, Lucas's girlfriend, disagreed. 'Sure, walking straight into the Creel house is stupid, but are we really going to do nothing and leave it all to Chade, Eleven, and Chief Hopper?'
The older teens fell silent. It wasn't lack of guts; growing up had shown them their limits. They wanted to help, but feared getting in Richard's way. If anything happened to him because of them, the guilt would haunt them forever.
'Even if we don't go inside, we could still mess with Henry's casting,' Dustin piped up.
Everyone looked at him. He grinned, confident. 'Henry and Eleven have the same power—remote sensing. When Eleven uses it, she needs total concentration, right? In that state her body's helpless and her senses are dull.'
'Right. The power started in the sensory-deprivation tank—shut off the five senses to boost telepathy,' Steve said. After living with the powered kids he'd heard plenty about The Lab's experiments. 'So what's your idea?'
'To enter that state they need quiet, or at least a steady rhythm of sound,' Dustin explained. 'The two worlds can sense each other. The Upside Down can mess with our power and lights, and we can send sound into theirs—'
'Sonic interference attack!' Steve cut in.
'Love the name.' Dustin beamed, showing every tooth.
Robin laughed. 'That's a tactic Richard used. He trolled Henry with it before. If you hadn't brought it up, I'd have forgotten that childish prank of his.'
"Childish, but effective, right?" Nancy smiled; sometimes she found Richard a very odd person.
Richard possessed a maturity and rationality beyond his years, yet at times he could also show a naiveté and simplicity below them.
Of course, only those two words would do—he was anything but innocent.
Jonathan's grin widened. "Maybe we could take it up a notch?"
"What are you thinking, bro?" Steve asked, looking at him.
Jonathan beamed. "Richard's Star Court Shopping Plaza is about to open—how about we throw it a huge music party?"
Steve caught on and smirked. "Ha, definitely. Let's find that kid Eddie, drag him back, and tell him we're throwing him concert number thirty-two in town."
The two guys were still grinning wickedly when Robin, Nancy, and Maxine exchanged glances, strode into Richard's room, down the little-known hidden staircase, and hauled out several jerry-cans of gasoline and a thoroughly illegal rocket launcher.
Robin's voice rang out, fierce and delighted. "Haha, how about we top it off with a bonfire party?"
The boys' faces froze, palms sweating—were the girls the ruthless ones after all?
...Thick storm clouds blanketed the horizon; crimson lightning flickered within them. White flakes like charcoal ash drifted from the sky, while the air reeked of a pungent, choking stench.
Along streets, alleys, and mountain forests, untraceable vines of every size crawled over the world, gnawing at familiar buildings like maggots, pervasive and inescapable.
Richard, Eleven, Hopper, Ricky, and the twin sisters picked their way along a street, cautiously stepping over the vines strewn across the road. Every creature in The Upside Down shared a hive-mind; disturb one and Henry would instantly know their location.
This was Henry's home turf. Through the Mind Flayer avatar he could control every living thing here. It was like a video game: before facing the final boss, you had to conserve your strength.
Of the six, the two ordinary humans were ready for war: Hopper wore a pistol and flamethrower on his back; Marcy gripped a shotgun in both hands with a dagger strapped to her thigh, both of them carrying incendiary bombs to protect Eleven and Ricky. The latter two wielded immense psychic power, yet unlike Richard they lacked strong bodies and needed guardians while using their abilities.
Richard walked on, focusing his mind. In The Upside Down his psychic senses were partially suppressed—probably the realm itself working against him—but the effect was limited.
He could still passively feel every stir within fifty metres; any danger would reach him first.
"Where are we headed?" Ricky asked. The Upside Down's hellish environment looked worse than any nightmare, and his breathing was ragged as he tried to steady his heartbeat.
"First to the Creel family house—Henry's lair," Richard replied, raising his pistol and firing casually to the left.
Bang!
A single round punched through a Demodog that had burst from the woods, entering its gaping maw and tearing the fragile oesophagus. The ambusher dropped dead.
"Pick up the pace," Richard said before anyone could marvel; the group tensed. "One dead Demodog will bring the rest of the Dimo Creatures down on us."
"Do we have to run the whole way?" Hopper asked, the flamethrower on his back making the prospect unpleasant.
Richard chuckled. "Of course not."
Hopper hesitated—in a world without gasoline, how could they drive?
He soon learned that in unscientific realms, science doesn't apply; you can drive without fuel.
Richard found an army-coloured Jeep beside the road and ushered everyone in. He placed his hands on the wheel, exhaled softly, and—as though God breathed life into the lifeless machine—the car began to move without a glint from the headlights, without his foot ever touching the accelerator; he merely released the handbrake and slipped into first gear.
It was a ghost-powered Jeep, propelled by twenty vengeful spirits acting as tireless strongmen who could steer and regulate speed on their own.
In the vehicle, ordinary Hopper's worldview shattered, and even the seasoned psychics stared wide-eyed.
So... spirits could be used like this?
Richard implied: obviously, or why else keep so many ghosts around?
A pack of Demodogs, led by several Demogorgons, chased the speeding Jeep over the rough road. After a while the dogs tired, but the Demogorgons kept up, their stamina far greater than the immature canines.
"Light 'em up!" Hopper snarled, watching the Demogorgons in the mirror. He drew his pistol, rolled down the window, and fired repeatedly at the pursuers.
Marcy and Richard followed, thrusting their guns out and spraying the relentless monsters.
Bang-bang-bang—
A storm of bullets, magnified by Richard's uncanny aim, soon left the Demogorgons that had chased them for kilometres dead on the asphalt.
Screeech—
Just as the last Demogorgon fell, a swarm of shrieks and wingbeats descended from the sky. Faces paled; Hopper's scalp prickled. "Demo-Bats—and a whole flock of them!"
"I'll—"
"I've got this!" Eleven started to rise, but Jamie's hand pressed her shoulder. "My power's best for crowd control. Save your strength for Henry."
Eleven nodded. Jamie chuckled, popped the sunroof, stood on the back seat, and shouted at the swarm diving toward them.
Boom!
A detonation burst from her palms, a column of flame spewing sparks. Fire swallowed most of the swooping Demo-Bats; the few that escaped the blaze fled in panic from the searing heat.
"Eat my fire, you bastards!" Jamie laughed wildly, blood dripping from her nose.