CHAPTER VII:
holy sh*t!

( March 1986 )

THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING BREAK HAD FINALLY ARRIVED, PEOPLE WERE FLYING OUT OF STATE, OTHERS WERE FLYING IN, AND THEN CLEODORA KIM'S FAMILY WAS GOING ON A CRUISE. Without Cleodora. The average person would be distraught to be left out of such a relaxing getaway for an entire week; no school, no basketball jerks, no Hawkins.

      But after an incident a few years back in the summer of '84, Cleodora was deemed unable to withstand the idea of being in large bodies of water. So in 1986, Cleo being on a cruise was the worst possible vacation to go on. So she stayed home.

While her parents would be boarding a flight to go to some tropical part of the country, Cleo was contently blasting her music as loud as she possibly could while on the way to her place of work with a breakfast burrito in hand.

As Paranoid by Black Sabbath arrived in the ears of the early birds that had eagerly waited outside of the Palace Arcade, they knew their mornings were about to get numerous times better when they recognized the pristine Audi Quattro park in front of the arcade.

      Turning off the engine and ejecting her cassette from the center console, Cleo weaved her way through the small bunch of people who gathered around the door. Through the windows of the Family Video Store, Cleo and Robin exchanged two-fingered salutes while Cleo spun her keys around her index finger.

Unlocking the door, the crowd filed into the arcade waiting for her to power on all the games and when she did it was a free for all with people rushing to their favorite games.

While she would no longer be bugged to do anything in the meantime, Cleo continued to eat her breakfast behind the prize desk and put her custom mix tape into the cassette player that she had left hidden under the desk. Nothing like getting kids to look at her while she played music their parents told them was for the Devil at nine in the morning.

"WE'RE IN THE FOREST HILLS TRAILER PARK IN EAST ROANE COUNTY. WE DON'T HAVE A LOT OF DETAILS NOW, BUT WE CAN CONFIRM THAT THE BODY OF A HAWKINS HIGH STUDENT WAS DISCOVERED EARLY THIS MORNING." Cleo's jaw dropped as she watched the news anchor speak about the trailer park she had remembered Eddie Munson to be living in.

"Holy shit..." she gaped.

The thought of Eddie being the murdered student made her stomach want to bring back up the breakfast burrito she had eaten an hour or two before receiving the news. Though she and the metalhead didn't always see eye to eye on everything, their relationship hadn't been completely erased from the history books.

But now hearing about how someone had died, Cleodora was afraid of the possibility that it truly had been erased.

Bringing her out of her frozen state, the door of the arcade chimed behind an also shocked Robin who came from next door.

"Holy shit," Cleo said to her.

"Holy shit." Robin nodded.

"Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!" the flute player began to panic as her fears had begun to properly sink into her brain for her to process. She turned around while being behind the counter and began to slide down out of sight.

      Robin's head poked over the counter, she had been practically laying on it with her head upside down over the edge to look at her panicked friend. "Hey, I'm sure it's not him," she poorly reassured her. "It's a one in a million chance...but this is Hawkins..."

      "Robin!"

      "Sorry, not helping."

      "Robin- what are you doing?" The voice of Steve Harrington followed by the chime of the door was heard.

      "She saw the news and is panicking," Robin lifted her head up a bit to talk.

      "Well, could she like, panic next door? Henderson showed up with Max and I can't handle both of them on my own."

      Robin ducked her head back down in front of Cleo. "You up for that?" she asked. The girl nodded and Robin crookedly smiled at her while pulling her up and getting them both to slide over the counter.

      "Keith, I'm going on break!" Cleo called to the back of the arcade.

      "But you just went on break!" he answered back.

      "Take it out of my paycheck if you want but I'm one of your best employees so it would really suck to underpay your staff," she reasoned as he walked out.

      "You're practically my only employee."

      "Exactly, I knew you'd understand. See you!" And then she was out the door with her friends without another word.