Steve Harrington had been standing outside the Wheeler house for twelve minutes.
He knew because he'd checked his watch four times.
He was also on his second cigarette, which Hopper would never, ever find out about.
The front door opened.
Mike came out backwards, hauling a cooler that had clearly been packed by someone who had never once in their life heard the words travel light. Behind him, El with a backpack. Behind her, Dustin with two grocery bags and his hat already sideways.
Steve looked at the cooler.
"...What's in there."
"Food—"
"Did you pack rocks."
"My mom kept adding stuff, I couldn't stop her—"
"Wheeler."
"She wanted to know where we were going and who was driving and why Will and Lucas weren't coming and it just — it took forever, okay?"
Steve grabbed one handle without another word and helped drag it to the trunk.
It was very heavy.
He dropped his end into the trunk harder than necessary.
"So why aren't Will and Lucas coming again?" Dustin had already claimed shotgun, feet up on the dash. "I feel like every time someone explains it I forget."
"Lucas's dad. Yard work." Mike slid into the back next to El. "He texted me like six times saying sorry."
"And Will?"
A beat.
"...Doctor's thing," Mike said. "Joyce didn't want him to miss it."
"The follow-up?"
"Yeah."
Nobody said anything for a moment.
El was looking out the window. Her thumbnail was pressed hard into the side of her index finger, leaving a small white crescent.
"Max?" she asked.
"Billy." Mike picked at a loose thread on his jeans. Pulled it. "Wouldn't let her go."
El nodded once.
...
"Well," Steve said, pulling out of the driveway. "More sandwiches for us."
"Oh thank God, I'm starving—"
"It's nine in the morning, Dustin."
"Breakfast sandwiches are absolutely a thing—"
"She didn't make breakfast sandwiches—"
"How do you know—"
Steve turned the radio up.
They'd been driving maybe forty minutes when Dustin said:
"Anyone else think it's kind of weird that we're doing something normal for once?"
"Don't."
"I'm not jinxing anything—"
"You're absolutely jinxing it."
"Mike, I'm literally just observing that we are four people in a car on a nice day with no monsters chasing us, how is that—"
"It's the act of noticing it out loud that does it."
"That is not how jinxing works!"
"It's exactly how jinxing works."
"..."
El, quietly, to Steve:
"Is it how jinxing works?"
Steve thought about it.
"...Kind of, yeah."
She turned back to the window. One small nod.
Dustin twisted around in his seat and pointed at Steve with one accusing finger, then gave up and faced forward again.
The road Lucas had recommended was a left turn past a sign that had half rotted off its post.
Steve took it.
Trees got dense fast. Sunlight came through in patches, flickering across the hood in a way that was nice if you didn't think too hard about it.
"Okay so theoretically," Dustin said, squinting at the tree line, "if there were a secret government facility out here—"
"There isn't."
"I know, I'm saying theoretically—"
"Dustin."
"What?"
"Picnic."
"...Right."
Steve glanced in the rearview.
El had gone still. Not regular still — she was always quiet, that was just El. But this was different. She was sitting straight up, both hands pressed flat on her knees, eyes open but not seeing the road. Her jaw had gone tight.
The reaching-out thing.
Mike noticed a second after Steve did. "El?"
The wind hit before she could answer.
Not like wind from a window. Like something grabbed the air and shook it. The temperature dropped hard enough that Steve's breath fogged against the windshield. His ears popped. The station wagon rocked sideways on its wheels like something had shoved it from outside.
"What the—" Steve grabbed the wheel with both hands, knuckles going white.
"Steve—"
"I got it—"
El pressed both palms harder against her knees. Her shoulders pulled back. Her eyes stayed fixed on something nobody else could see.
And then it stopped.
Wind: gone. Cold: gone. Ears popped back.
Nobody moved for a second.
"...Okay," Steve said. He realized he was still gripping the wheel hard enough to hurt and made himself loosen his fingers. One at a time. "What was that."
"Atmospheric pressure differential," Dustin said immediately.
Beat.
"...Maybe."
"El." Mike had both her hands wrapped in his, turning toward her. "What was that? Is it a gate? Is the Upside Down—"
"No." She blinked. Came back. "Not the Upside Down."
"Then what—"
"Something else."
"Something else like—"
"I don't know." A pause. "Old."
Mike stared at her.
"...Old."
"I don't have another word for it."
Steve had slowed down during all of that.
Which meant he was going maybe fifteen miles an hour when the tree appeared.
One second the road was clear.
The next there was a tree across both lanes. Trunk probably four feet wide, roots still trailing dark chunks of earth, branches spread out like it had been thrown there. No way around it. Forest too tight on both sides.
Nobody said anything.
"...That wasn't there," Dustin said.
"No."
"Trees don't just—"
"I know."
"But it definitely wasn't—"
"Dustin."
El leaned forward between the seats, both hands on the headrests, and stared through the windshield at the tree.
Her nose was bleeding.
Just a small one. A thin line from her left nostril, which she wiped with the back of her hand without looking away from the tree.
"We should go back," she said.
Steve was already shifting into reverse.
"Something is wrong here." Same flat voice. Just a fact. "We need to leave."
He got them turned around in three moves that he would never describe out loud to anyone and hit the gas.
They drove for about two minutes.
The trees thinned.
They pulled into a town.
...
Steve's foot came off the gas by itself.
Normal-looking houses on both sides. A diner with its lights on. Community hall further up. A swing set between two houses, the swings hanging completely still even though there was clearly a breeze moving through.
Not a single person anywhere.
"...Where did this come from," Mike said. Not quite a question.
"We were going backwards." Steve kept driving, slow. "We should've hit the highway."
"But we didn't."
"But we didn't."
"There's gotta be a road out the other side," Steve said, mostly to himself. "We go straight through, we find the highway, we go home."
Simple.
He drove through the town. Eyes moving the whole time — every window, every doorway. The diner looked like it should be open. No one behind the glass. Houses with cars in the driveways, curtains, welcome mats. Completely normal. Nobody home.
El had turned fully around in her seat, both hands braced against the headrest, watching the town through the rear window. A second thin line of blood tracked down from her nose and she didn't bother wiping it this time.
"Keep driving," she said.
Steve kept driving. Last houses fell away. Road curved back into trees.
He exhaled through his nose.
There. Through it. Just keep going straight and—
The trees opened up.
The diner. The houses. The swing set, swings not moving.
Steve hit the brakes.
The car rocked forward and stopped.
"Steve," Dustin said. Very carefully. "That's the same town."
"I know."
"We just drove through it."
"I know."
"We literally just left—"
"Dustin. I know."
Steve put both hands flat on the steering wheel. Pressed down. Took one breath. Then he shoved the car into a hard left, tires spitting gravel, and floored it down a different street.
Different road. Different houses. Curved past a small church, broke back into trees—
Town.
"Okay." Mike's hands came up and pressed against the back of Steve's headrest. "Okay that's the same — Steve—"
"I know—"
His palm came down on the steering wheel. Hard. The horn blipped once, loud and stupid in the silence, and Dustin flinched.
"I'm trying again."
Four more times.
Different streets. Reversing. Flooring it in a straight line and refusing to slow down for anything. Sitting at the edge of the tree line and inching forward like somehow that would trick it.
Every single time.
Diner. Houses. Swing set.
The fifth time they coasted back in Steve let the car die on its own in front of the diner. Put it in park. Sat there with both hands loose in his lap, staring through the windshield at the empty street.
Dustin opened his mouth.
"Don't," Mike said.
Dustin closed it.
Steve looked in the rearview.
El had her back pressed into the corner of the seat, knees pulled up, both hands wrapped around them. A smear of dried blood under her nose. She was watching the town through the window, very still, the way she went still when she was listening hard to something nobody else could hear.
"El," Steve said. "You said it felt old. Before the tree." He kept his voice even. "What else."
She took her time.
"The Upside Down is like a shadow," she said finally. "Dark copy of our world." Her eyes stayed on the diner. "This is not a copy."
A pause.
"This is its own world." She met his eyes in the mirror. "And it knows we're here. It is keeping us."
The car was very quiet.
Steve looked at the empty street. The diner with its lights on and no one inside. The houses with their welcome mats and nobody home. The sky where the sun was sitting noticeably lower than it had any business being.
He pressed his thumb hard into the center of his palm. Let the pressure hold for a second. Let it go.
Cut the engine.
"Okay," he said. "We get out. We find whoever lives here. We figure out what's going on." He looked at each of them. "We stay together. Nobody goes anywhere alone."
"Understood," Mike said immediately.
"Yeah," Dustin said.
El was already opening her door.
They stepped out into the stillness. Steve's door shut behind him and the sound of it — the solid, final click — sat in the air longer than it should have.
He looked up at the sky.
He'd told Hopper he'd have everyone home by six.
...
Yeah.
That wasn't happening.
END OF CHAPTER 1
.