Billy drops me off at the front door and I don't even say goodbye before walking up the drive and stepping into the front door. I am immediately met with Steve and Dustin standing in my hallway. "Perfect," Dustin chimes, a grin filling his face. "Goodbye, Mr. Peterson, we'll have her home by eleven," he waves to my father standing in front of him.

Dustin exits the building and heads towards Steve's car, which I was completely oblivious to when walking up the drive. "Maybe twelve," Steve truthfully tells my Dad. He just shrugs his shoulders. I look out the door to see it is starting to get dark out.

"It's fine," he chuckles to himself. "Come back in one piece and I don't mind when you get in." I nod my head at him and begin to slip into some more comfortable shoes. Whatever Dustin is wanting me for, it's most likely going to be something I have tried to stay out of as long as possible.

"When I get in, I'll show my face before I go to bed," I tell him, walking out of the door after Steve, closing it behind me. Dustin is standing at the passenger's door and we both look at each other wide-eyed. "Shotgun!" We both yell in sync. We turn to Steve to decide the person riding in the front.

"Sorry, squirt, haven't seen Liz in a while so she gets shotgun," Steve shrugs his shoulders, opening the door to his car. Dustin starts to sulk as he takes his seat in the middle at the back.

As we begin to drive away I break the ice. "Okay, so what crazy shit am I getting myself into, now?" I ask them both, preparing myself for the worst. Dustin begins telling Steve, who is just as oblivious as me, and myself all about a mini slug, lizard he found.

"Wait a sec," Steve interrupts him, still driving over to his house. It is already pretty dark and I'm not sure I want to enter another horror movie like I did last year. That scarred me pretty badly. "How big?"

Dustin sits forward and put his finger and his thumb around three inches apart. "First it was like that," he tells us. "Now it's like this." He readjusts his hands to around a foot apart from one another.

"I swear to God, man," Steve complains, still not convinced. "It's just some little lizard, okay?" I like Steve's train of thought. The longer we normalize the situation, the longer we live a normal life.

Dustin exhales, sharply. "It's not a lizard," he shakes his head at Steve, not agreeing with him. Dustin seems to believe that what we're dealing with isn't normal.

I decide to speak up to try and distract myself from the fact my life is slowly getting sucked back into this shit again. "How do you know?" I question Dustin, trying to get more details about the lizard. Dustin raises his brows. "How do I know if it's not a lizard?" He replies, defensively.

"Yeah," Steve nods at me in agreement. "How do you know it's not just a lizard?" Steve shrugs his shoulders, the two raising their voices at one another.

Dustin takes a deep breath in and looks at Steve dead in the eyes. "Because its face opened up and ate my cat." Silence fills the car. I look at Steve and his eyes meet with mine. We both know that this is the last moment as a normal teenager for the next few weeks and the fact we will probably need intense therapy after this.

A few seconds later, we pull up at Dustin's house and we all scramble out of the car. Steve opens up the trunk of his car and pulls out a baseball bat. The baseball bat. The baseball bat with nails sticking out of every angle. I grab the flashlight that has probably been there just as long as the baseball bat. He slams the trunk shut and lets Dustin lead the way to the lizard-not-lizard.

He takes us into his back yard and stops at the exterior basement door. I turn on the flashlight and point it to the handles to find the handles have been chained together and locked by Dustin to keep whatever the hell it is trapped inside. We all stand in silence, listening for any noises made by the creature. "I don't hear shit," Steve speaks up after a few moments.

Dustin looks up at Steve and shrugs his shoulders. "He's in there," he says pretty damn certain. Steve nods his head and looks between the three of us before tapping the door handles with the bat. No sounds are made from the inside of the basement so he swings the bat a little harder, making it hit the door a little louder. A low rumble fills the silence around us.

I look at Steve in fear and he exhales sharply. He snatches the flashlight from my hand and points it into Dustin's face. "All right, listen, kid," he starts, getting defensive. "I swear if this is some sort of Halloween prank, you're dead."

Dustin shakes his head at Steve. "It's not," he replies. "It's not a prank. Now get that out of my face," he scolds Steve. I take it out of his grasp to stop Dustin from getting retina damage or something.

I point the flashlight back down to the basement door. "You got a key to this thing?" I ask him, hoping to God he would tell me he has lost it. Dustin nods his head, pulling out the key and handing it to me. I give him the flashlight as I begin to unlock the padlock. I weave the chains back from around the handles, pull them off and throw them on the floor. I take a moment to take a deep breath and open the doors.

Steve kneels down at the entrance, looking down the stairs. Dustin holds the flashlight, shakily, meaning Steve can't get a clear view of what's going on. "Let me see that," Steve says, softly, holding his hand out for the flashlight. Dustin drops it into his hand, to which Steve begins scanning for any threats.

Dustin squints his eyes down the stairs and none of us see anything. "He must be further down there," Dustin announces, suggesting my worst nightmare. I do not want to go down there. I do not want to go down there at all. "I'll stay up here in case he tries to... escape."

I look at Dustin with wide eyes and nod my head. "Ditto," I rush out, quickly. Steve looks over both his shoulders at us in disbelief before exhaling sharply. He shakes his head as he stands up and begins to make his way down the stairs.

As Steve has the flashlight, the further down he goes, the darker it gets and the less Dustin and I can see. No sound comes from the basement at all. We watch as the main light in the basement switches on, and still nothing. "Steve?" I call out, hoping for a response.

No response comes and I look at Dustin in a panic. He begins to look alarmed, also. "Steve, what's going on down there?" He questions, almost like an extra person calling for him would help. Steve shoots the flashlight up the top of the stairs, the light not only blinding us but startling us too. "Get down here," Steve instructs us.

We both reluctantly make our way down there to see Steve holding up the bat with what looks like shedded snakeskin dipped in gloop. "Oh, shit," Dustin mumbles under his breath at the sight. I feel the knots in my stomach tighten. I'm not good at this sort of thing anymore.

He points a flashlight into the corner of the room, revealing where the bricks in the wall had been removed and an easy escape for the lizard on our hands. "Oh, shit," I say, copying Dustin, unironically. We move closer to the hole in the wall and point the flashlight down to reveal a tunnel it had dug to escape. "No way," I shake my head. "No way."