TWELVE
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❪ tw: strong language, mentions of guns, blood, violence, and descriptions that may be disturbing ❫

STRANGER THINGS
(season 4, ep 7)
part two

                  THE GROUP OF FIVE walked into Nancy's house and just being in there gave Finley chills. Everything was in the exact same place. She stared at the dust and vines that covered the entire house as Steve clicked on his flashlight. "Might be time to get a maid, Wheeler." Robin joked.

     Nancy looked uneasy. "Come on. I don't want to stay here longer than we have to." She spoke quickly before walking up the stairs.

     Everyone else followed behind her but once Steve was halfway up the stairs, he heard something no one else did. It sounded like voices. Finley followed behind Eddie and watched Nancy scramble around her room. She opened the closet door and picked up one of the shoe boxes on the shelf but, when she opened it there was only a pair of heels. "Those aren't guns." Eddie pointed his shaky finger at them.

     "These heels are a bit pointy, but I was hoping for something along the lines of a deadly projectile."

     Nancy was at a loss for words. "I don't understand." She shook her head.

     "Please tell me that you just picked up the wrong box." Finley leaned over from Eddie's side to look at Nancy.

     "There's a six-year-old in the house. I know where I keep my guns." Nancy raised her voice in defense. "And also, I threw these away years ago."

     Nancy started to look around the desk before she saw a stack of flash cards. The three of them collectively gave her the same look while she flipped through them. "I get that grades are important to you, but perhaps studying can wait till we get out of here?" Robin suggested

     "These are from sophomore chemistry." Nancy's voice almost overlapped hers. "And this... this wallpaper, this is old wallpaper. And this mirror, this went to a yard sale." She frantically walked around the room pointing at things that weren't there in their world. She was right. Finley remembered being in Nancy's room yesterday and the walls didn't look like that. "And you . . . you're not supposed to be here. No, I gave you to Cousin Joanna two years ago."

     After she set down the teddy bear she picked up the dairy on her nightstand and started flipping the pages. When she stopped they all noticed the panicked look on her face. "What is it?"

     "Nance..." Finley stared at the back of her head.

     "Nancy? You're freaking me out."

     "I think the reason that my guns aren't here is because they don't exist yet," Nancy explained.

     Eddie made eye contact with Finley before he looked back at Nancy. "They don't . . . exist?"

     Nancy turned to them. "This diary should be full of entries. It's not. The last entry is November 6, 1983. The day Will went missing. The day the gate opened. We're in the past."

     Finley took a step back, making Eddie hold onto her arm in hopes to make her feel better. "Dustin! Dustin!" "Dustin!" They heard Steve's screams from downstairs and they all went running out of the room. "Can you hear me? Dustin!" Steve was standing in the middle of the house calling out to Dustin and he just didn't look like he was in his right mind. "Du... Hello? Hel... Hello?"

     "What the hell?" Finley's eyes widened.

     "Maybe he really does have rabies," Robin whispered, leaning closer to Nancy.

     "Steve. What are you doing?"

     "Hello!" Steve screamed and pointed his flashlight straight into their eyes.

     Finley groaned. "Thanks for blinding me, Steve."

     Steve walked up to them. "He's here. Henderson. That little shit, he's here. He's like . . . he's in the walls or something. Just listen." Finley was creeped out but the crazy look he was giving them. She looked up at Eddie who just shrugged his shoulders. "Dustin. Dustin! Dustin! Dustin! Dustin! Can you hear me?"

     "That brings us to the question you first raised. How and why is there a gate at Lover's Lake?"

     "Holy shit," Finley muttered after hearing the echo of Dustin's voice. "Dustin!" She yelled, starting to run around the room. Everyone was screaming for him but, he never responded and they didn't find him anywhere in the house.

     "All right, either this kid can't hear us or he's being a total douchebag."

     "Will found a way," Nancy mentioned.

     Steve turned to her. "What?"

     "Will. He found a way to speak to Joyce through the lights." She reminded him of the events of 1983 even though he barely knew what was going on back then.

     Nancy tried to turn on one of the lamps and Steve came up behind her. "The switch. Try the switch." Steve pointed.

     "It's not working." Nancy sighed.

    Steve looked over by the chandelier and saw what looked like sparkling dust particles forming around it. "Guys? You seeing this?"

     Nancy walked up to it, running her fingers along the particles and they started to glow. "Whoa." Steve watched in awe as Finley came up next to her.

     Eddie and Robin walked up to them and they all placed their hands up to it. "Oh my god." Finley chuckled. It was a weird sensation. It tickled her skin but felt warm at the same time.

     Nancy pulled her hand back when an idea came to her. "Does anyone know Morse code?" Nancy looked at Finley.

     "No." Everyone else shook their heads before Eddie remembered something.

     "Wait, does SOS count?" Eddie looked down at Nancy. "Is that . . . is that good?"

     A smile grew on Finley's face. "Perfect."

FINLEY SAT ON THE floor between Robin and Nancy, right where Dustin told them he was, in front of Nancy's bed. "Okay, you guys seeing this?"

Nancy held out her hand, gliding it against the same particles that were just around the chandelier and it glowed the same way. "Things just keep getting weirder today," Finley whispered.

"We're not moving it, but we're gonna unplug it. Stand by." Dustin announced making Nancy pull away. "Okay, try it now. Try it now."

"Okay. Um . . . uh . . ." Nancy took a second to think before she spelled out "Hi".

"That worked!" Dustin called out.

The five of them collectively cheered. "Yes! Yes!"

Eddie's arms wrapped around Finley's waist and he leaned over her shoulder before staring at the particles. "Hi!" He was basically speaking back to Dustin even though he couldn't hear them.

Robin and Finley started laughing while Nancy thought of the next thing she was going to write. "Okay. Um . . . um . . ." Nancy mumbled, bringing her finger up to trace the letters.

"Stuck." They heard the three kids say in unison. "Uh, you can't get back through Watergate?" Dustin asked.

Dustin's question brought the same look to all of their faces. "What the hell's Watergate?" Steve looked over at them.

"Cause it's in water and it's a gate," Robin explained.

Steve's eyebrows raised in understanding. "Oh."

"Clever." Finley nodded.

Eddie tilted his head a little. "That's cute."

"Um, no. It's . . ." Nancy trailed off and started to write out the word guarded.

"Okay. Uh, Watergate's guarded." Dustin finally understood.

Eddie started to clap and everyone else now felt a sense of relief. They had hope that they could make it out of here tonight.

"We think we have a theory that can help with that," Dustin mentioned.

"Thank god." Finley breathed out.

"Genius child."

Dustin continued to explain his theory. "We think Watergate isn't the only gate. That there's a gate at every murder site."

"Does anybody understand what he's talking about?" Nancy asked.

"No." They all shook their heads.

Nancy drew a question mark which was quick to irritate Dustin. "Okay. Seriously? How many times do I have to be right on the money before you trust me?"

"Why does he always have to yell?" Finley questioned.

Steve rolled his eyes. "Jesus Christ. This kid's gotta get his ego in check."

"It's his tone. Right?" Eddie leaned over to look at Steve, his head now next to Finley's.

"I know."

Finley shut her eyes and placed her hands on the bed. "Okay, Patrick died in the water. That's why there's a gate there. Fred died in the street, and Chrissy died in Eddie's trailer. We could go through either gate but we have to go through his trailer the street obviously makes no sense."

Nancy nodded. "Okay. So... So how far is your trailer?" She looked up at Eddie.

"Seven miles." He answered.

Robin looked over at Nancy. "Nancy? Uh, I know your house here is, like, weirdly, creepily frozen in time and shit, but haven't you always had bikes?"

FINLEY DROPPED HER bike and followed behind everyone up to the trailer. "That's gotta be a Guinness World Record. Most miles traveled interdimensionally."

"Just inhaled a bunch of that crap." Steve coughed. "It's stuck in my throat."

"You okay there, Steve?" Finley looked at him over her shoulder.

He cleared his throat. "Yeah."

Eddie walked in first with Finley behind them and it wasn't hard to notice the red light shining in the room. Finley looked up at the ceiling, seeing the gate that formed up there. "Goddamn," Steve whispered.

"This is where Chrissy died. Like, right where she died." Eddie explained and noticed the fear on Finley's face. When she got the time she thought about Chrissy every now and then. She thought about how her body would've looked based on Eddie's description of it but mostly she thought of how she could've maybe stopped it. Maybe she could've gotten the drugs for her or just stayed with her but, she knew it was going to happen no matter what she did.

"I think there's something in there," Robin spoke up.

There was a shadow spreading across it and then something was now sinking into the material from the other side. "What the hell is that?" Eddie blinked.

Whatever it was came back up for a second before it pierced through, creating a hole. Finley screamed as Eddie grabbed her and moved her behind him. Now that they could see it looked like someone was stabbing the gate with a stick. Steve slowly walked back over to it and everyone followed behind him though Eddie made sure that he didn't let go of Finley's wrist. "No way," Steve muttered.

Finley looked up in shock, above them was Eddie's real trailer. "What the fuck..."

As they got closer they noticed that Dustin, Lucas, Max, and Erica were all there, staring up at them but it looked like they were flipped. Upside down. "Hi there." Dustin and Lucas waved with smiles spread across their faces.

Steve waved back. "Hi." They all responded.

"Holy shit, this is trippy." Robin chuckled.

"God I love these kids," Finley mumbled.

"Bada-bada-boom!"

THE KIDS HAD a plan to get them out safely. They were currently scrapping around Eddie's trailer for things while the five adults waited. Max and Lucas set down a mattress for down so they wouldn't hurt themselves when they fell. The mattress had some questionable stains on it and Eddie was immediately embarrassed. "Those stains are, uh . . ." He stared up at it with wide eyes before looking at Finley and Robin who were already staring at him. He blinked at them a few times before avoiding eye contact again. "I dunno what those stains are."

"Mmm." Robin hummed in disgust and Finley was just trying not to laugh.

Dustin and Erica were tying sheets together to make a makeshift rope. Dustin threw it through the gate and let go of it and surprisingly, it was staying. "All right, pull on it! See if it holds!"

Robin stepped up and tugged on it and it didn't move at all. "Yeah, this is definitely the weirdest thing I've ever experienced." Finley snickered.

"Let Finn go first!" Dustin instructed.

Since she was the injured one they felt that her going first was necessary. "Throw the walkman up," Lucas added.

Finley removed the headphones from around her neck and unclipped the Walkman from her belt before throwing it up. "Okay, go. Let's clear the landing pad." Dustin picked it up before backing up to give her space.

She took a deep breath, looking through the gate before she climbed up on the sheets. "Got it?" Steve came up behind her.

Finley nodded. "Yeah." She started to climb up but she went slow. Even though she was moving at such a slow pace she still felt a lot of pain. You could hear her grunts and see her face getting red but she powered through it. Now she was halfway between both worlds and it was the weirdest thing she ever felt. She let go of the sheets and let herself fall to the mattress and the feeling of knowing that she was safe for now felt great.

A smile spread across her lips as she sat up and caught her breath. "That was pretty painful. But pretty cool at the same time." Max held out her hand and Finley took it.

"Are you okay?" Max asked, gently placing her hand on her shoulder.

"Yeah."

Max's eyes traveled down to the tear in her shirt. "What happened to your shirt?" She gestured towards it.

Finley looked down at it. It looked different in this type of lighting. Her skin around the bite was red and there were small traces of blood still there. "A man-eating bat tried to kill me." She explained.

"What!?" Max exclaimed.

"I'll explain later." Finley insisted. Max relaxed for a second and she handed her back her Walkman. "Thank you."

Robin was the next down. "Oh, thank God. That was fun." Robin laughed before she was helped off the ground by Dustin.

Seconds later, Eddie was falling down onto the mattress. "That was fun. Shit." Eddie took Finley's hand.

"Your shoulder okay?" He looked down at her.

Finley lifted the shoulder of her shirt to look at the skin. It was still red and purple but not as vibrant as it was before. "Yeah, I just might need some more ice though."

"I'll get you some in a second."

"Alright, haul Nance up," Dustin yelled

But for Finley, Dustin's voice was muffled. It was muffled because it was drowned out by the sound of a clock ticking. Finley looked down the hallway where she thought the sound was coming from and saw nothing. "Hey, guys." She turned back but now the house was dark and nobody was there. "Shit."

She looked back down the hallway and saw that the door to Eddie's room was opening by itself. She slowly walked over to it and stared at the grandfather clock in the middle of the room. The glass was breaking like it was in her first vision and now it all shattered and went flying toward her. Finley screamed out in pain when one of the glass shards stabbed her in her stomach, making her drop to her knees. "Times up, Finley." Vecna's voice echoed through her head.

When Nancy fell onto the mattress instead of smiling like everyone else she looked up in terror because when she looked up she saw Finley. "Guys."

"What?" They all gave her a look before she pointed.

Finley looked how she always did but she was shaking and twitching more than usual. "Oh, shit." Eddie quickly picked up her Walkman that fell from her hand.

"Can this asshole ever leave her alone!?" Dustin ran over to them.

Eddie placed the headphones on her head. "Finn. Finn!" He shook her.

When Vecna walked, you could always tell it was him and Finley heard him walking towards her. She held her breath as she ripped the glass shard out of her skin and groaned in pain. "Do it already, okay?" She looked up at him, strands of hair falling on her face. "Kill me!" She forced out a weak scream causing tears to roll down her cheeks. "I'm just so tired of all this shit you're putting me through."

Vecna just stared at her. "I'm not putting you through anything. You did this to yourself. Killers should always own up to what they've done. You can't hide from me anymore. You can't hide from them anymore." Finley gave him a puzzled look before she looked over to her right seeing two shadowy figures. When they stepped into the light it was her mother and sister covered in dirt and blood.

KARISSA SPEAKS !
—heyy so sorry for the delay but i had a lot of time on my hands today so i finally finished this chapter

—it made more sense to have vecna show everything to finley instead of nancy in this book so that's why it's changed

—vol 2 is about to be a little crazy