Chapter 1: Power Surge
Chapter Text
November 8th 1983. The day Danielle Cameron fell down an endless rabbit hole of hell. A hole that left her with so many regrets. Something that would always be permanently etched into the back of her brain, never to be forgotten. Because these scars would never fade.
That sounded edgy as shit.
She supposed that's the only way she could articulate things. By being edgy and mysterious.
Monday. November 7th 1983.
Cam always hated getting dressed in the morning. It always reminded her of how hard she tried to disguise herself. How she bottled everything up.
Boop
Edge-o-meter going up.
She threaded a belt with a thick buckle through the belt loops of her flared pants. The metal clinking as she moved.
She stared at herself in the mirror, frowned, and her reflection stared back at her.
She found it repulsive. The huge dark circles around her eyes clearly revealed her erratic sleep schedule.
Cam grabbed her eyeliner off the side of her bedside table, drawing heavy eyeliner on her eyes.
A large spike from the outside corner and several spikes underneath, getting smaller the closer into the corner of her eye they got.
Eyeliner was a kind of self-expression to her. She just drew whatever she felt like on her face. Once she got carried away and ended up drawing a whole flower garden around her eye.
She quickly applied dark purple lipstick to her mouth, rushing downstairs.
Cam had a quick bowl of cereal and then brushed her teeth before gathering her stuff into her backpack.
“Mom! I'm leaving to go get Nancy!” She hollered up the stairs.
Cam collapsed into the driver's seat of her silver Toyota Corolla, flinging her bag into the back of the car.
Less than a couple minutes later, she pulled up outside the Wheeler's house to pick up one of her best friends, Nancy Wheeler.
The front door promptly flung open, and Nancy dashed out to the car, hopping in the passenger's seat.
The drive over was peaceful as usual. The conversation between them was mundane.
Cam was born in January 1967, so she could already drive, so Nancy appointed her as her temporary chauffeur until she was able to pass her driving test. Nancy would likely pass it extremely quickly, she had been studying for it way before her birthday late August.
Cam should really have been in the year above at school, but she was held back before she started middle school. It's not like she actually needed it.
Not with her 4.2 GPA. She put in the work, thinking she was dumb, but everything just stuck in her brain, like when you accidentally super glue something together and then it decides to stick properly. If that makes sense.
Nancy was going on and on about grades and school related stuff. Cam was only half listening, focusing on the road. There were huge piles of leaves all over, scattering everywhere as she drove through them.
Cam had one of her mixtapes blaring through the car, blasting AC/DC's Highway to Hell.
She could tell it wasn't exactly Nancy's cup of tea from her expression alone. But after all, it was Cam’s car, so she'd have to lump it.
They managed to arrive at school before the buses did, so the car park wasn't mobbed with a mixture of moody and overzealous teenagers.
Cam popped the cassette out of the player and slotted it into her Walkman before getting out of the car, slamming the door, and locking it.
Cam and Nancy then ran into Barbara Holland, their other best friend, the third in their circle, at the doors to the high school.
She says best friend, but considering Cam didn't have very many friends, Nancy and Barbara were two of her five or six friends at the most. Seven if she was feeling lucky (or counting Eddie Munson, who she hadn't spoken to since her freshman year).
“So did he call?” Barbara asked loudly.
“Keep your voice down!” Nancy hissed.
Cam rolled her eyes, “Are you actually going out with that douchebag?”
“Cam!” She swatted lightly at her arm.
She glanced at Barb, giving her an ‘is she for real?’ Look. Which Barbara returned swiftly.
“Did he?” Barb prompted.
Nancy groaned. “I've told you both. It's not like that.”
Cam raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, okay!” Nancy caved, “he likes me, but not like that.”
She had that half-real half-fake smile she always wore when she lied.
“Bullshit~” Cam sang.
Nancy gave her a disapproving look as Barb just laughed.
“Really guys. I'm serious,” Nancy popped open her locker, “we just - made out a couple of times.”
Cam snorted. She said it like it was nothing.
Barbara raised a brow, “We just,” She paused, “made out a couple of times.”
Nancy gave Barb a reproachful look, ignoring Barb's insinuation.
“He's probably just tryin’ to get into your pants, Nance.”
Nancy looked scandalized by Cam's rather acerbic comment.
“Cam, it's not like that.” She repeated. “It was just a one-time – two-time thing.” Nancy corrected after gauging her two friend's reactions..
“You're going to be so popular now, Nance.” Barb jested.
“Barb,” Nancy sighed.
“All I'm asking is that you still hang out with us. Who knows what would happen if you became friends with Tommy H. or Carol.”
Cam screwed her nose up at Barb's words, and so did Nancy, “God no!” She looked disgusted.
“What's that?” Cam asked bluntly, pointing at a folded up piece of paper she had noticed inside Nancy's locker. She had a feeling she knew what it was going to be.
Sure enough, she was right.
Nancy opened the note. It read “MEET ME. BATHROOM - STEVE.”
It looked like it had been written in felt tip. And by an elementary schooler.
“Told ya.”
“Looks like it'll be a three time thing.”
Nancy quickly dashed off to the bathroom, and Barb went off to dump her books in her locker.
Cam turned on her heel and marched along to her homeroom.
She was slightly pissed at Nancy for running off to Steve. She knew perfectly well neither she nor Barb liked him and he didn't like them in return. Especially not Cam.
Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington. One of the biggest assholes at Hawkins High School. He was a massive slacker and notorious for having gone to bed with about 50% of girls their age, and he had a ridiculous head of hair, earning him his nickname.
He was a junior, the year above them, he usually hung around Tommy Hagan and Carol Perkins, a shallow and cruel couple, who were particularly nasty, and had a lot of sex. Not always with each other
SMACK
Speak of the devil.
Cam peeled herself off of the floor, standing up to see eye-to-eye with Tommy H after he ‘accidentally’ bumped into her.
Actually, he was slightly smaller than her, so he was not quite eye-to-eye.
“What do you want?” She snapped.
“Amusement” Tommy sneered. Carol laughed from behind him.
“Big word for you, huh? Piss off, you dick. You won't find it here.”
“Of course we will,” Carol laughed, “You're a gothic little shit, who spends all of her time moping and brooding. Doesn't seem like you do anything else. I could mistake you for a twig.”
“A freak.” Tommy added.
Cam sniffed, “Thanks for the compliments, guys. I think ‘gothic’ and ‘brooding’ really capture my style.”
“I know that was supposed to be demeaning, but I am a masochist at heart. So, bite me.”
She shot them a wry smile.
None of those insults were surprising to her. Neither Carol nor Tommy were very imaginative, so they just recycled their impertinence for another day.
She was also sure they had a collective GPA of about 2.0. It made her want to smack Tommy across his freckled face and yank Carol by her curly hair.
Not the GPA part. She didn't give a shit about that.
With that, Cam spun on her heel and marched off.
“Assholes,” She muttered.
Cam parked outside the Wheeler's house, popping the door open for Nancy, who hopped out.
“I'll see you tomorrow, Cam.”
“See ya Nance.”
Cam checked her watch, 2:50pm. She was home slightly earlier than usual.
She let herself into the house, toeing her shoes off.
She paused, listening.
“What… is that?”
Cam rushed upstairs to answer her phone, launching herself onto her bed to grab the receiver out of the cradle.
“Hello?” She spoke into the receiver. “Hello?!”
“Cam?” The voice on the other end asked. “Is that you?”
“Jonathan? Yes, it's me. What is it? What's wrong?”
“You sure took your time," he remarked.
“I just got home.” She sighed. “Jonathan, what's going on?”
“I need you to meet me at the library to print out some posters.”
Jonathan Byers. The only reason Cam even knew him is because her younger sister, Kate, and his younger brother, Will, were the same age and used to hang around each other at the beginning of their elementary school days.
“Will’s missing.” Jonathan croaked.
“What?”
“He's missing. Will didn't come home last night.”
“Holy shit, Byers! Why didn't you call me this morning?”
Her sharp outburst must've been louder than she had thought, as Jonathan audibly winced.
“We weren't sure whether he had stayed over at the Wheeler's last night or not.”
“But we haven't seen him since yesterday morning.”
Cam nodded slowly. If he had, then he probably would've called home, or Nancy would've ended up ranting about Will and her younger brother, Mike, being pains.
Cam bit her lip. Will wouldn't have run away. He was a good kid, he cared too much about his family and friends to put them through so much stress.
So he either just got lost, or something else had happened to him.
“Right, okay. Let me just grab some change for the copier.” She scrambled up from off of her bed.
“Thanks, I'll be there to pick you up in 10 minutes.”
BEEP.
“Jonathan?” The line was quiet.
“Byers!”
Nothing.
“Son of a bitch, did you just hang up on me goddammit?!”
Silence.
She groaned overdramatically, digging her purse out of her backpack and stuffing it into the pocket of her pants.
Pulling out a black crossbody bag, she stuffed several tapes for her Walkman, a pocket knife, and her door keys.
The pocket knife was a habit. She never left the house without it.
Jonathan was there in minutes, speeding probably. Cam rounded the other side of the car, crawling into the passenger seat.
“Were you speeding?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Just a little.” He mumbled.
Jonathan looked like he'd seen every hour of the night. He had massive bags under his eyes and his hair was the most unkempt she’d ever seen it.
“Sorry…” She murmured. “About Will.”
“Thanks.”
Beep
Whirr
Beep
Whirr
Beep
The copier groaned and made a sound like a dying dog.
Cam smacked it, and it spat out a piece of paper with unintelligible words and a bunch of smudged ink. She grumbled, scrunching it up.
Jonathan was sorting through the posters, each one with ‘HAVE YOU SEEN ME?’ stamped across the front. There were two pictures of Will on the front. He was smiling widely, standing in front of what looked like a Christmas tree.
He went still for a second, immediately quietening down.
“Jonatha–”
His shoulders were shaking gently, his tears dripping down onto the stack of posters below.
“Whoa! Hey, hey. You're getting the posters wet.”
Cam patted her pockets for tissues to find she had none, so she handed Johnathan the scrunched up piece of inky printer paper.
He accepted it and moved to wipe his face. Once he realized what it was, he shot her a cynical look, chucking it into the paper bin.
“We'll find him, Jonathan. Don't worry.” Cam rubbed his shoulder, sitting down next to him.
His eyes were red and slightly puffy.
“We'll make sure he gets home safe.”
The copier grumbles again. Abruptly catching their attention. The lights flickered violently, and the copier and out flew a flurry of posters.
Cam glanced at the copier then at Johnathan. He had a look of confusion on his face that she assumed was similar to hers.
“What the shit was that?!” Cam burst.
“Some kind of power surge?”
The flickering ceased, sending out small sparks. The copier ground to a halt, ink dribbling out of it.
Cam moved to pick up some of the sheets of paper. Each one was identical. The words were warped and squiggly, and there was no way of telling what they said.
The pictures of Will were disfigured, and they bore some resemblance to Edvard Munch's The Scream painting.
“What is it?”
“The copier's being weird. Hold on.”
She smacked it again.
The copier spat out another identical poster.
“Shit!” Cam cursed.
“What is it?”
She handed one of the posters to him.
“The hell is this?”
“Exactly.”
Chapter 2: The Party
Chapter Text
Tuesday. November 8th 1983.
“Nothing?” Cam frowned, “absolutely nothing?”
“Nothing.” Jonathan affirmed gloomily. Cam's loud voice was probably too much for him on a Tuesday morning.
“It's bullshit!” She exclaimed, “he can't have just… disappeared!”
Jonathan held a poster up to the notice board, and Cam poked a thumbtack through, securing it in place.
“They're going out again tonight. Hopefully, something will turn up then.” Jonathan grumbled.
There was a search party for Will last night. Nearly half the town had joined the search for him. They hadn't found anything since his bike.
She nodded. “Do you need any more help putting up the posters?”
He shook his head.
“No, I'll be okay. We've already put up more than half.”
He gave her a soft smile.
“I'll see you later then, Cam.”
Cam didn't bump into Nancy or Barbara until lunch towards the end of lunch. They were busy revising for a chemistry test.
“Hi… what's up with you guys?”
She sidled up to them, walking next to Barbara.
“Studying,” Nancy replied, “I have a chemistry test tomorrow, so...”
“How are you doing today, Cam?” Barbara asked, shooting her a grin.
She rested her hands on her hips as they walked.
“Surprisingly good,” she replied. “It's lunchtime, and I haven't been bothered by anyone yet!”
Usually, by about this time in the day, she had been bothered by at least one person who didn't like her. Which wasn't uncommon, considering at least 70% of Hawkins High disliked her in some way.
Either people had started getting bored of pissing her off (which she sincerely doubted), or no one bored enough had stumbled across her.
Barbara and Nancy laughed, before Barb went back to firing questions at Nancy from her flashcards.
“When alpha particles go through gold foil, they become…”
“Unoccupied space.” Nancy answered without missing a beat.
“A molecule that can–”
Barb was cut off as the flashcards were snatched out of her hands by none other than Steve Harrington, with Tommy and Carol in tow.
I knew it was too good to be true! Cam thought.
As they went past, Carol shoved her shoulder harshly, and Tommy twisted Barb's ear.
“Hey!” Nancy exclaimed, glaring at Steve.
“Uh, I think you've studied enough, Nance.” Steve chuckled.
“Steve.”
“I'm telling you, you've got this, don't worry.”
Cam shifted uncomfortably, scooting closer to Barb. They were standing too close to them for her liking. She didn't look very comfortable either. Nancy was the only one who wasn't constantly tormented by Steve, Carol, and Tommy. Even then, Carol and Tommy still bitched about her behind her back.
“Anyway, onto more important matters.” Steve continued. “My dad has left town for a conference, and mom has gone with him because, you know… she doesn't trust him.”
“Good call.” Tommy added.
“...So are you in?” Steve finished.
“In for what?” Nancy asked.
Cam groaned at Steve, “Is that really what you call important?”
Cam knew what Steve was getting at, or at least, what he was suggesting.
Parties were one thing she had swore to not partake in or get too invested in. Her mother always told her, ‘If you ever do go to a party: No alcohol, no drugs, and no sex.’
It wasn't like she was planning on doing any of those things any time soon, and she had assured her mother of that. She just felt the need to repeat herself.
By ‘wasn't planning it any time soon,’ Cam meant alcohol and sex. She never planned on doing recreational drugs.
“Can it, you ditz!” Tommy snorted, tugging at her hair.
“Bite me.” Cam snapped, smacking his hand away.
“Oooooh.” He mocked.
Carol looked at Nancy as if there was something she should be getting, “No parents, big house…”
“Party?”
“Ding ding ding.”
Steve grinned when the thought clicked in Nancy's head.
“But it's Tuesday.” She frowned incredulously.
“It's Tuesday.” Tommy mocked while he and Carol snickered at Nancy.
“Watch it!” Cam barked.
“Bite me.”
She scowled, clenching her fists to stop her from doing anything stupid. Like punching him.
“Geez,” Steve slapped Tommy gently with the back of his hand. “Come on.”
That action made her dislike Steve a little less. Only a little.
“It'll be low-key. It'll just be us.” He put his hands on his hips. “What do ya say? Are you in, or are you out?”
“Mmmm…” Nancy hesitated. Barb and Cam both knew Nancy was on house arrest, because Will was missing, and Cam wasn't allowed out of the house without at least one trusted person accompanying her.
“Oh, God.” Carol interrupted. “Look.”
The six of them all turned to see Jonathan several meters away. He was pinning up more missing posters on the noticeboard in front of him.
“Oh, God, that's depressing.” Steve glanced at Jonathan.
Nevermind, Cam's hate for Steve was reinstated.
“Should we say something?” Nancy asked nervously.
“I don't think he speaks.” Carol snipped.
“Maybe not to you.” Cam chided.
“How much d'you wanna bet he killed him?” Tommy chortled.
“You, shut up,” Steve hissed, pushing Tommy slightly.
“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Cam burst, watching Nancy move over to Jonathan.
“There's nothing wrong with me, oddball!” Tommy retorted.
“What's wrong with you, is that you're a horrible person! And you look like a malnourished pig!” She leaned forward, jabbing her finger at him.
“Whoa! Geez, calm down.” Steve put his arm out, holding her back.
Cam glared at him, shoving his arm down.
“Don't touch me, Harrington.”
“Okay then.”
She turned to Barb, “I'm going to class now.”
“I don't blame you.” She sighed. “I'm going to wait for Nancy.”
Cam sat in the back of Barbara's car. She didn't know how Nancy managed to convince both her and Barb to come with her to Steve's dumbass party. Even if there would only be six of them.
Barbara shared Cam's point of view. In no way, shape, or form did she think this was a good idea. It wasn't. It was a dumb idea. Nancy had told her mom that she was at the school assembly for Will, strangely enough, her brother hadn't wanted to come with her. Lucky for her, Cam supposed.
Barb and Cam had both lied and said they were staying over at Nancy's to study. In reality, they were there to babysit her. There was no way they'd tell Nancy that, though.
“Barbara, pull over.” Nancy told her abruptly.
“What?”
“Pull over!”
“Why on earth?” Cam slumped against the back seat.
Barbara did so, before rounding on Nancy.
“What are we doing here? His house is three blocks away!”
“She's probably being funny about it.” Cam massaged her temples.
“We can't park in the driveway.” Nancy said it like it was obvious.
“Are you serious?” Barb sighed, glancing back at Cam.
‘Told you.’ She mouthed.
Nancy was being unreasonable. She seemed to do that a lot when it came to Steve, being irrational. It was unlike her.
“Yeah, the neighbors might see.”
“Really? Nance, that's such a fuss.” Cam grumbled.
“This is so stupid.” Barbara shook her head, “I'm just gonna drop you off.”
Cam sighed, I could probably get out of the car and walk two blocks before they noticed.
“Calm down, Barb. Come on.” Nancy reached out towards Barbara. “You promised that you'd come. You're both coming.”
She tacked that last part on just so Cam wouldn't try and wriggle away. She was genuinely planning on it. She knows Cam better than Cam thought she did.
“We're going to have a great time…”
“He just wants to get in your pants!” Barbara cried.
Cam shot up from the back seat, “Exactly! That's what I said!”
Nancy glared at her friends sternly. “No. He doesn't.”
“Nance… seriously.” Barbara murmured, “He invited you to his house. His parents aren't home.”
Barb frowned, “Come on, you are not this stupid.”
“Tommy H. and Carol are gonna be there!” Nancy burst. She was screwing her face up, trying to convince them
Cam snorted.
Barb scoffed, “Tommy and Carol have been having sex since, like, seventh grade.”
Cam gaped, “That long?!”
Barb nodded.
“They've been banging since they were thirteen?!”
“Ew, Cam. Phrasing.”
She gently shoved Barb for scolding her.
“This party's probably going to be an orgy or something.” She smirked, the joke rolling off her tongue.
“Ew! Gross!” Nancy turned pale.
“We’re serious.” Barbara agreed.
“All right, well,” Nancy struggled to get her jumper up and over her head. “You guys can be, like, my guardians?”
“We shouldn't need to be.” Cam groaned.
“You guys can make sure I don't get drunk and do anything stupid.”
“Like having sex with Steve?” Cam chimed in.
“Cam!” Nancy scolded. “That's not what this is!”
“Right.”
The look on Nancy's face told her the exact opposite. That she had every intention of doing… things with Steve.
Nancy managed to haul her jumper up and over her head, tossing it on the center console.
Cam shifted in her position leaning on the back of Barb's chair, so she could see what Nancy was doing.
“Is that…”
“Is that a new bra?” Barb cut in, sighing.
“No.”
Nancy was frowning over them eyeing her suspiciously new-looking bra.
“Yes it is.” Cam argued, “you left the tag on at the back.”
Nancy balked. Her dumbstruck expression was rather amusing.
“I forgot to take it off when I first got it.”
Cam sighed, moving to remove the tag from the back, stuffing it into her trouser pocket.
‘Why is she spouting bullshit?’ She mouthed to Barb. She shrugged.
The neighborhood was really well lit. Not surprising, considering how rich the general area was. There's more than one reason why Steve gets called ‘The King.’ His status in school and… Cam didn't want to go into the others. Even thinking about it was nauseating.
Nancy was now sporting a red and white striped t-shirt and a gray hoodie, instead of her pastel sweater. Cam assumed she was trying to look cooler. She wasn't sure it even worked.
She walked by Barb as Nancy powered on ahead, eager to get to Steve's house.
“This is a bad idea.” She whispered.
“Yeah, I really don't want to spend my night being teased.” Barb replied.
“You and I both.”
There was a low hum of music emanating from Steve's massive house.
It was the biggest house Cam had ever seen in her entire life, excluding the ones on TV and stuff.
Nancy raced up to the door and rang the doorbell.
Barb was twitching the entire time the three of them waited.
“Barb, chill.” Nancy said gently.
“I'm chill.”
“It's fine, Barbara.” Cam whispered, “you and I'll stick together while Nancy goes off frolicking with Steve.”
Barbara gave her a pointed look. “The whole point is for her not to go frolicking!” She hissed.
The double doors opened abruptly to reveal Steve with a cocky grin on his face. The song blasting through the house was Trooper's Raise a Little Hell. Fitting. Cam didn't doubt this entire night would be hell. Sweltering, burning, flesh-rotting hell.
An exaggeration?
Definitely not, as turns out.
Being in the same vicinity of Steve, Carol and Tommy was depleting Cam's brain cells at an alarming rate. Nancy must be brain dead by now. She sure was.
The party was exactly like she had expected. Steve led them through his massive ass house and out into his backyard. If you could even call it a yard. It was way bigger than Cam's backyard at home and it had a swimming pool in it.
Carol and Tommy were mucking about by the pool, beers in hand.
Oh, God, of course there's alcohol, Cam bit her lip.
She watched Nancy take a seat on a white chair, and she sat down on the one next to her.
Barbara shuffled over and tentatively sat on the chair to Cam's left.
Their presence had finally caught Carol and Tommy's attention.
“Oh, you brought them…” Carol huffed, gesturing to Cam and Barb.
Barbara shifted in her seat to look away.
“I'm surprised you even let the oddball in your house, Steve.” Tommy sneered. “You might end up catching her diseases.”
Of course Cam didn't actually have any diseases - not to her knowledge anyway. It was just Tommy being an asshole.
“Make her shove off back to Willow Avenue.”
Another joke.
Carol had referred to a nickname she had somehow earned in high school, because of the gothic way she dressed - or even being a goth in the first place. ‘The oddball on Willow Avenue.’
Cam was over it.
They couldn't come up with an actually interesting nickname. It was a generic insult, paired with the name of the street she lived on.
See what she meant about recycling insults?
Luckily for her, only Tommy and Carol found their joke funny.
Cam stared at them blankly.
Tommy leaned in towards Carol, whispering loudly in her ear. “I heard that she's the reason her dad died. People say she–”
“Tommy, that's enough!” Steve snapped, pulling a pack of camels from out of his pocket.
A sick feeling swirled in Cam’s gut. They had no business saying shit like that about her.
They don't know shit about her.
Barb wrapped her arm around her friend, rubbing her shoulder, “Ignore them,” she whispered, “nothing they say should be taken to heart.”
Cam nodded, watching Nancy bite her lip at Steve as he slotted an unlit cigarette behind his ear.
Cam rolled her eyes at her as she watched Steve place the handle of a knife in between his teeth as he reached for a beer from the cooler behind his seat.
Sure he was ridiculously attractive, even Cam could admit that, but he was a complete jackass, so that essentially canceled that out in her mind.
He took the knife and used it to poke a hole in the bottom of the beer, before shotgunning the beer, chugging all of it.
Barb gave Steve a side eye before focusing her attention on the pool.
Cam looked back to Steve who had slumped down in a chair.
“Is that supposed to impress me?” Nancy smirked.
At least we were thinking the same thing. Cam thought, eyeing Nancy.
Steve placed the cigarette in between his lips, “you're not?”
“You are a cliché, you do realize that.”
“You are a cliché,” Steve flicked his lighter, “what, with your grades, band practice.”
“I'm so not in band,” Nancy laughed. “That's Cam.” She pointed at her.
Cam gave her a look, “Nance, I'm not in band either. I don't play anymore.”
“What did you play?” Carol asked.
“Violin, piano, teeny bit of electric and bass guitar–”
She stopped speaking when she realized Carol was making fun of her. She didn't know why she expected any more from her.
Cam sighed, leaning closer to Barb.
Carol let out a high-pitched cackle.
Steve turned back to Nancy, “Okay, party girl. How about you show us how it's done then?”
He handed her a can of beer and a knife.
“Okay.”
Barb squirmed comfortlessly. Anyone could tell she didn't like who Nancy was becoming. There was no stopping that though. They'd all grow apart eventually. Fourth grade seemed like eons ago, when they were all close knit.
Nancy just seemed to be moving on faster than Cam or Barb. Because she wasn't considered weird like Cam or as nerdy as Barbara. She was a ‘nerd,’ but she was sociable. She had an easier time making friends. She had more friends than just them.
“You just cut a hole in the–”
“I got it.” Nancy shushed Steve promptly.
“Yeah! She's smart, ya douche!” Tommy laughed.
Nancy poked a hole at the bottom of the beer can. She dropped the knife to the ground, and popped the tab.
“CHUG!” Steve egged her on. “CHUG! CHUG!”
Carol and Tommy joined in, “CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!”
Nancy leaned her head back to drink the beer faster.
Barbara crossed her arms, trying to curl herself up. As if she tried hard enough, she wouldn't be at this party anymore.
Cheers rang out, Cam whipped her head round to see Nancy drop the beer can in triumph.
She plopped down back in the chair, sighing with contentment.
“Do one of you guys want to try?” Nancy looked at her two friends staring back at her in disbelief.
“No. Definitely not.” Barbara replied immediately.
Cam shook her head.
“Yeah, how about it, oddball?” Tommy chimed in. “Join in a little!”
“Come on!” Carol taunted.
Steve rummaged in the cooler, offering Cam a beer.
“No.” She replied firmly.
“Come on!” Nancy shoved her lightly.
“Do you want one of these?” Steve held out the packet of camels, offering her one.
“No!” Cam said, even louder than the first time. “You know that shit kills you, right?”
“You actually believe that?” Tommy snorted.
“You don't?” She snapped.
“Come on Cam, join in,” Nancy pushed.
She was starting to irritate Cam now too.
Cam snapped, “Give me the beer.”
She stood up, catching the beer Steve threw in her direction.
“Cam…” Barbara trailed off.
She turned the beer over in her hands, brushing off the disappointed look Barbara was giving her.
She was usually fine with brushing off peer pressure - but not that night.
Nancy offered her the knife. She ignored her.
Tilting her head back, Cam slotted an edge of the beer can into her mouth.
“Who's gonna tell her she needs to make a hole first?” Carol jeered.
Cam ignored her, fixing her grip on the beer can with both hands.
She bit the bottom of the can sharply, using enough force to push her teeth through the metal.
She was damn lucky not breaking a tooth.
Simultaneously she popped the tab open and beer sprayed into her mouth.
She removed her teeth from the can and began to suck the beer out.
A sharp, spicy taste flooded her senses. It tasted like absolute shit.
Cam heard a mixture of cheering and jeering from in front of her. She had her back to Barb, but she could tell she wasn't impressed with her.
Cam's brain didn't even clock that she had finished the beer until she heard the empty can clatter to the floor.
Wiping beer from her chin, she stamped on the can with her platform boot, crushing it.
She collapsed into the chair, sighing. Her head was spinning.
“What a weakling!” Tommy chortled.
Cam groaned loudly, sprawling over the chair. Never again.
She should've guessed her body would react this way. Yes, she was tall, but she had an extremely slight build. Turns out, that made her a complete lightweight.
“Come on Barb, you try!”
“What?”
“Come on, Barb!” Nancy begged.
“No. I don't want to, thanks!”
“Don't force her, Nance.” Cam didn't even open her eyes. The bright lights were giving her a headache.
“Come on!”
“Yeah, it's fun.” Nancy held a beer and the knife out to Barb after her and Steve encouraged her.
Barb sighed, taking the can and knife from Nancy.
She stood up, taking a couple steps forward. Carol and Tommy had snide looks on their faces, as if expecting her to fail.
Nancy had an expectant look on her face. She glanced at Steve, who was smoking his cigarette with a smirk.
“Barb, don't…” Cam warned her, groaning.
“So you just…” Barb pointed the tip of the knife to the side of the can, pressing into it.
Cam squinted, trying to see clearer.
Barbara pressed the knife into the side of the can.
SLASH!
Barb gasped sharply, dropping the can and the knife. Blood pooled at the skin between her forefinger and her thumb.
“Gnarly.” Tommy laughed.
“Holy shit, Barb!” Cam exclaimed.
“Are you okay?” Nancy gasped, running to her side.
“Yeah.”
“Barb. You're bleeding.”
“I'm fine.” Barbara's face contorted in pain.
“Where's your bathroom?” She asked Steve.
“Oh, it's, uh, down past the kitchen, to the left.” Steve got up and pointed it out to Barb, concern written on his face.
What a load of bullshit.
Cam stood up shakily, “I'll come with you, Barb.”
“I'm fine, Cam. Sit down.”
Her knees buckled and she fell to the floor. Groaning, she hauled herself back into the chair.
Cam turned her head in the general direction of Steve, “Do you mind if I use your kitchen? I need a drink of water.”
“Go ahead.”
It took an alarmingly long time for her to stumble into Steve's kitchen. It was even harder to find glasses or mugs. She sat one down on the countertop, spinning round to find the sink, knocking the glass off of the counter. She surprised herself by the fact that she managed to catch the glass before it hit the floor in her state of inebriation.
“Wooooh! Hah! Holy shit! Look at me go!” She giggled, stumbling over to the sink to fill up her glass.
She had no idea how long she was standing at the sink, filling and draining her glass of water. Her head was spinning way less, and she could see properly again, but there was still an overwhelming feeling of nausea.
She heard voices coming from farther down the hall. Cam set the glass down, her lipstick leaving dark smears on the glass.
She peeked out of the kitchen.
Nancy, Steve, Tommy, and Carol were soaking wet. She presumed they had been in the swimming pool. They were drying off with towels. They'd need more than towels to avoid hypothermia.
“Y’know Carol, at least Steve's mom's room has a heater.” Tommy smirked walking towards the stairs. Carol giggled, latching onto his arm.
Cam screwed up her nose, disgusted.
Steve groaned, “Really? Whatever, you're cleaning the sheets.”
“Come on, let's get you some dry clothes,” Steve placed his hand on the small of Nancy's back, before shuffling to the stairs.
None of them even noticed Cam.
“Nance! Nancy!” Barbara suddenly rushed to the bottom of the stairs.
“Where are you going?”
“Nowhere,” she replied, “just upstairs, to change. I fell in the pool.”
Cam couldn't see Nancy, but she could tell she was smiling.
“Why do you and Cam just go ahead and go home?” Nancy sighed. “I'll get a ride or something.”
Maybe not a car ride.
Cam scowled as her brain betrayed her. Bad joke. That was a bad joke.
“Nance…”
“Barb. I'm fine.” She chuckled.
“This isn't you.”
Barbara had a dejected look on her face, like she had just faced the biggest betrayal. She had, in some ways. She just refused to believe that this was Nancy now.
“I'm fine,” Nancy continued, “go ahead and go home, okay?”
Cam heard Nancy's footsteps recede up the stairs, catching glimpses of her through the gaps in the stairs.
“How does it make you feel, Nancy just abandoning us?”
Barb sat on the diving board of the pool, her feet dangling above the water.
Cam shrugged.
“She was growing apart from us for a while. I kind of expected…all this.” She gripped the edge of the pool as Cam crossed her legs.
“Maybe not as harshly as it happened. But… I can't say I'm surprised.”
“And you're okay with it?” Barbara sniffed.
“I'm not sure.”
Cam trailed her hand in the pool water. Up close, she could smell the sharp scent of chlorine from the pool, which mixed with the stench of cigarette smoke, creating a pungent odor.
“We're getting older, of course we'll drift apart.” A melancholy smile was drawn on her face, she splashed water at Barbara, who frowned.
Cam glanced up at the windows, where she could see Nancy taking off her shirt. She sighed, averting her gaze.
“Sorry.” Cam wiped her hand on her pants.
“It's okay.”
“Of course, I don't want us to drift apart, but it'll happen. One way or another.” She stared into the water. “That's just how the world works.”
Barbara didn't say anything, surveying her reflection in the swimming pool.
“How's your hand?” Cam nudged.
“It's okay. Are you feeling better after you downed that beer?”
Cam slumped, groaning, “Yeah, a bit. I still feel nauseous, though.”
She nodded.
Cam lay back on the ground, her stomach gurgled, and she felt like puking.
“Actually,” She sat up, scrambling to her feet. She retched, “I'll be back in a minute.”
She dashed off into the house, trying to remember where Steve said the bathroom was.
Flinging open the door, she collapsed onto the floor, lifting the toilet seat before emptying her stomach.
Cam stared at her puke in the toilet. She felt pathetic, slumped against the toilet, on the floor of Steve Harrington's bathroom.
Her face was sweaty, and she had puke around her mouth. She peeled her hair out of her face, smearing a mix of sweat and puke all over her face.
Another retch had Cam hunched over the toilet bowl, head spinning. Vomit splashed out of the bowl and onto the floor. She groaned, shakily getting to her feet.
She scrambled with the faucet, trying to get it to turn on.
The water rushed out in a cool stream. She splashed it on her face, sipping some out of her hands.
A shiver ran down her spine. Goosebumps pricked on her neck while an uncertain feeling stirred in her gut.
The sound of electricity buzzing filled the bathroom as the light flickered nonstop in a power surge. Cam just stared at it. It was making her head spin.
Cam rushed out of the bathroom and back over to the back door, desperate to get away from the lights. Barb was still sitting by the pool, until she blinked and she was gone. Leaving drops of her blood swirling in the pool.
A scream. Barb. Coming from the woods.
“Barb?” Cam croaked out a call to her. It was too quiet to be of any use, she could barely hear it herself.
She gazed off into the woods. Trees rustled in a way that wouldn't make sense if they were blowing in the wind.
Something's out there.
Cam took a look back to the house before sprinting off.
She wasn't thinking, she just needed to find Barbara.
Chapter 3: Taken
Chapter Text
Cam’s breath was sharp and ragged, her heart was beating out of her chest. She didn't even know what she was looking for. She was just running straight on.
It was too dark to have any real sense of direction, apart from the lights on back at Steve's house.
“Shit!” She lay sprawled on the ground after tripping over something, she shifted, pulling her foot out of a ditch. Groaning, she pushed herself up on her hands.
A searing pain shot through her palm. She flipped it around to see blood trickling out of a gash.
A sharp twig lay on the ground where her hand had been.
CRACK!
Cam’s head snapped to look at the source of the noise. The trees and bushes rustled.
“Hello?” She shakily got to her feet. “Who's there?”
“Hello?!”
She clenched her fists, striding forward. She flicked the blade of her pocket knife out. She was glad she kept it with her.
Sweat trickled down her forehead, running down her nose. Her fingers dug into her cut as she clenched her fists tighter.
Blood trickled down her knuckles. Her heart was in her throat, she could feel it pounding.
Fuck.
Cam’s head was throbbing. She lay on her back, staring up at the sky, blinking drowsily. It was pitch-black all around.
She sneezed.
Dust-like particles were swirling all around, kind of like the pieces that floated around when you burn paper. Or burn stuff in general.
But there was no way anything could be burning here. It was too damp and chilly for that.
The overwhelming scent of rotting filled her nostrils.
She sat upright, using her hands to prop herself up.
She winced. The cut on her hand was still open.
Obviously. She checked her watch. It had only been half an hour. Of course it was still fresh.
Cam planted her hands on the ground, pushing herself up to her feet. In doing so, a thick goop covered her palms. She gagged, wiping them on her pants.
She surveyed her surroundings. The frigid air made the darkness all the more unwelcoming. She could feel goosebumps sprouting all over her arms and legs.
Cam wasn't afraid of the dark. She was afraid of hypothermia, starvation, and dehydration.
The gloom of the sky cast a shadow over the forest, making it hard to discern anything. Red lightning flashed across the sky, followed by a loud clap of thunder.
A scream echoed in the darkness.
Barbara.
That was Barbara, she was almost certain.
It came from her right.
Scrambling to her feet, she dashed in the direction of the screams.
“Nancy! Cam!”
100% Barbara.
“BARBARA!” Cam hollered, trying to yell as loud as she could.
“Cam! Nancy!” Barbara kept screaming.
As she kept running, a house came into view. It was run down, with vines crawling up the walls, all the lights were off, and as Cam got closer she could see the windows were smashed. For some reason, it seemed familiar.
The realization hit her like a train.
She stumbled over a vine, squelching underfoot, collapsing into a pile of leaves.
Breathlessness washed over her. It wasn't the easiest to breathe anymore, her rapid breathing and the air particles were making it rather difficult.
Spluttering on the contaminated air, she lifted her head to double check what she'd seen. In the distance, staring back at her was Steve Harrington's house. Apart from the fact it wasn't.
The building was completely abandoned.
Thick vines covered the house, wrapping it up like a present, breaking through the windows and the roof.
The same vines had crawled into the empty pool, making it remind her of the sea floor, or something in an aquarium.
“NANCY!”
Barbara's screaming had stopped abruptly. It was dead quiet.
“Barb?!” Cam choked out a yell. “Barbara?”
She scanned the house and the garden.
A figure stood up from the pool. It looked like a man, but it had no face. Its long, spindly body was towering out of the pool.
A scream was caught in her throat. She felt her mouth open as if she was trying to let a scream out, choking on her breath. Even as the thing started moving towards her, no sound came out. Even as she scrambled to her feet and ran.
Adrenaline was pumping in her blood vessels, coursing through her veins and arteries.
Jumping over roots and vines strewn across the ground.
She tripped. Again.
Running was never really her strong suit. She was a swimmer, she’d swam for Indiana once or twice.
Unfortunately she wasn't swimming.
Practice makes perfect, so they say.
What better way to practice than when running for your life away from a faceless stranger?
Cam pushed herself up from the ground, continuing her sprint for existence.
Focusing on making her strides longer would probably help. But with her lack of coordination from the alcohol probably still in her system, it was hard.
Now when she looked back, she could hardly remember anything that happened after that.
Things just blurred together.
She hardly remembered the light emanating from a large hole in a tree trunk. She hardly remembered trying to crawl inside or why, for that matter. She hardly remembered cutting off a chunk of her hair because it became tangled in shards of wood. She hardly remembered crawling through the tree trunk. She hardly remembered passing out on the leaves from exhaustion.
Wednesday. November 9th 1983.
Despite the coldness of the day, the sun glared down into Cam’s eyes.
Her movement was slow to shield her eyes. Her limbs were stiff and covered in dirt. Her head was aching, most likely from the beer. The pain radiating from her hand however, had dulled to a gentle sting, but her back was screaming from lying on the floor for hours.
Hours…
Speaking of hours. Cam had no idea of the time.
She shot up from the ground, promptly collapsing to the ground again from standing up too quickly.
Luckily, her watch was still intact and working.
9th. Twenty-two minutes to eleven in the morning.
She had slept in.
Slowly, she got to her feet and began her walk in the general direction of Steve's house.
She wasn't rushing, using the time to try and process what happened the night before.
Who was that figure? Where was their face? What happened to Barb? What was that place?
Cam’s breathing was beginning to grow less wheezy now that she was getting to inhale clean air.
Shit. Mom's gonna kill me. She's actually going to slaughter me when I get home.
Cam arrived home a little after one. The walk home was refreshing, helping to clear her mind.
Luckily for her, she also still had all her belongings. Otherwise, she'd be locked out of her house.
The first thing she did was disinfect all her cuts. Getting an infection was the last thing she needed. The slight sting of the antiseptic was soothing. In a way, it washed away the pain.
With a sigh, Cam turned the water off after a much needed shower to wash all the blood, dirt, grime, and make-up off.
Having that shit caked on her face overnight can't have been good for her skin.
There was also a bunch of dirt smeared and stuck on the necklace she had been wearing. It took her a good half hour to scrub the muck out of the silver crevices of the hollow heart pendant on the chain.
Squeezing the water out of her hair, Cam stepped out of the shower and began toweling off.
She tugged at her hair, trying to see the damage in the mirror. She shoved her clothes on and slipped downstairs to fetch the kitchen scissors.
Returning to the bathroom, she began to hack away at her hair, trying to make it even.
Yeah, there's no chance of a career in hairdressing for me.
She ended up cutting her hair choppily, so it brushed her shoulders, itching them. She groaned, that was going to be a pain. Cam disposed of her hair clippings and cleaned up the bathroom.
She snatched a bunch of paper out of her desk drawer once she had made it to her bedroom after over 12 hours of being away. Her social battery was completely drained, coupled with nearly dying, maybe.
Cam started drawing what she had seen last night, trying to get it down on paper before she forgot anything. It's unlikely that she would, Nancy and Barb had always marveled over her exceptional memory. She just wanted to make sure she had another copy.
She wasn't sure what she was going to do about everything.
Tell someone? They wouldn't believe me. I would be thought of as even more crazy than the town even though I was.
Her mom arrived earlier than usual. Probably due to the fact Cam didn't come home that morning. Surprisingly enough, she gave her a rather short lecture after Cam pleaded her case. Cam thought she was just glad to have her home. She told her that she had heard that Barb went missing too, and that Cam should call Nancy because she was worried sick.
I didn't think of that last bit. I probably should, shouldn't I?
The phone rang once before Nancy picked up.
“Hello?”
“Nancy!”
“Cam?!” Nancy spluttered, her voice breaking, “You're okay! I was so worried about you!”
“I know. I'm sorry.” Cam paused, Should I tell her?
“Hold on,” she jumped up from her bed and locked her bedroom door with a snap.
Nancy would believe me.
Lowering her voice, she began to tell Nancy everything that happened after she chased Barbara.
“You were in the woods behind Steve's house?”
“Yeah,” Cam nodded.
“I went to check around the back of his house today. Why didn't I find you?”
Nancy's voice was quiet. She sounded nervous. Cam didn't blame her.
“Uh, I was pretty far in. It took me a while to get home.” She mumbled, picking at her chipped nail polish.
“Right, and this place you saw? A dark version of…”
Nancy trailed off, trying to comprehend what she was hearing.
“There was a man in the swimming pool. He was tall, seven or eight feet. He also… had no face.”
“What?!” Nancy screeched. “You saw it too?!”
“Too?”
“Yeah, too.” Nancy affirmed. I saw something like what you're describing this morning, when I was looking for you and Barb.”
“Okay…” Cam believed her. There was no way she couldn't with all that she'd seen in the last 19-ish hours.
“I'll speak to you about it tomorrow. We can work out a plan to look for Barb. If you want to. I mean… I don't know if you want to. What you described sounds…”
She spluttered.
Cam bit her lip, running her fingers across the chain of her necklace, recounting the events of the previous night.
“There was something else that happened. Right before Barb disappeared, there was a power surge. It's been happening all over Hawkins. It happened on Monday when I was copying posters with Jonathan Byers. Maybe it's some kind of warning or signal.”
“Possibly–”
A sharp sound came from Nancy's end of the line. The sound quietened, and Cam heard Nancy's muffled voice talking to someone.
“...yes…Cam is…yes…no.”
The muffled noises disappeared as Nancy came back to the phone.
“Sorry, that was just my mom. I told her you were okay. I really have to go now, I'll talk to you at lunch tomorrow.”
“Wait, don't you want a ride?”
Uh…no. I'll get one with my mom.”
“Okay.” Cam huffed. “See you tomorrow Nance.”
She slammed the receiver down, lying down the length of her bed, processing the information she had just learned.
Dinner was awkward. The family sat around the table, pointedly ignoring the elephant in the room. Cam’s mom, Mrs Cameron, and Kate, her younger sister, kept exchanging glances. They didn't even try to disguise it.
They hardly spoke while they were washing up either. Cam stood there, dozing off while rubbing the plate in her hand over and over again with the dish towel.
This thing that I saw last night, what did it do to Barb? A sinking feeling swelled in her gut. A feeling that Barb wasn't safe. That something had happened to her.
“........”
“Danielle!” Her mom repeated.
“Hm? Yeah?” Cam snapped out of her daze.
Her mother was staring at her.
“I said turn the news on the TV, will you?”
Cam set the plate and dish towel down, “Yeah sure.”
The noise of the TV was deafening.
“Kate!” Cam hollered up the stairs, “what the hell did I tell you about not having the TV volume too loud?!”
She immediately twisted the knob for the volume, turning it down.
“That shit murders your eardrums!”
“Language!” Mrs Cameron reprimanded.
“You're one to talk, asshole!” Kate screeched down the stairs, “You've always got your Walkman volume far too high!”
“Don't call me an asshole, you little shit!”
“Girls! watch your language! Where did you learn all of this profanity?”
“You, Mom.” Cam massaged her temple in exasperation.
“Holy shit.” Her mother gasped, her attention drawn to the TV.
Cam groaned at her mother disproving her own point before she turned and tuned into the TV.
Her stomach dropped, a sickening feeling welling inside as the TV blared.
“Byers’ body was found in the water of this quarry by a state policeman earlier this evening. He was discovered by…”
Cam’s mouth went dry. Her vision blurred as she stared at the face of the news reporter standing in the middle of the screen.
“Kate!” She croaked.
“Ugh! What now?!” Kate groaned obnoxiously as she slumped downstairs.
Her eyes flitted to the TV, reading the headline displayed at the bottom of the screen.
“Holy shit, Will...” Her voice was shaky and breaking as her eyes filled with tears.
Mrs Cameron didn't even reprimand her about her language. Cam pulled Kate into a hug, trying to comfort her. They all still felt pangs of grief from Dad, even now, years after he had passed. None of them needed to go through all this shit again.
Mrs Cameron turned the TV down as Cam and Kate collapsed onto the couch, sobbing. She didn’t know Will as well as Kate did. She used to clown around with ‘the party’ occasionally, (as they called themselves) but she had known Will the longest out of the four boys.
Right then, Cam decided that she and Nancy had to figure out what the hell was happening in this fucking town and find Barb.
Chapter 4: Photography
Chapter Text
Thursday. November 10th 1983.
Cam hardly slept that night. Her dreams were plagued with nightmares about the party, the weird-ass place she woke up in, Barb, and the faceless man. She probably ended up looking even more like a corpse than usual. She ended up drawing massive spikes around her eyes in eyeliner to try and disguise it. She doubted it worked.
Cam didn't even get to see Nancy at all before first period, as she was hounded by her next door neighbor and her friends as soon as she was spotted.
Cherri Taylor had slung her arm over Cam’s shoulder and had guided her to the girls bathroom, promptly shoving her against the sink after one of her best friends, Scarlett Peterson had yelled at all the girls in the bathroom to ‘Piss off!’
“Where the hell were you yesterday?!” She burst.
“Rumors were spreading like wildfire, saying you got kidnapped like the Byers’ kid!” Another one of Cherri's friends, Mckayla Gray added, popping up beside Cam.
“You have no idea how worried we were when we saw the news about the poor kid last night.” Scarlett huffed.
“And then you walk into school the next day covered in scratches and an awful haircut! Not to mention your clothes.” Mckayla jabbed, running her fingers through Cam’s shaggy hair, inspecting the damage.
She frowned, glancing down at her Metallica t-shirt, “I look fine.”
“You look like hell, Cameron.” Cherri finished, she gave her a sympathetic smile, countering the harshness of her addressing Cam by her surname.
“Thanks.” Cam’s sardonic tone made Cherri cackle.
She smacked her arm gently, cracking a smile, “Lighten up, Cam.”
“We're just looking out for you.” Scarlett remarked.
“Yeah! We freaks gotta stick together!” Cherri declared, hugging Cam tightly and pressing her blemish-free honey-colored cheek to hers.
Cam had to admit, Cherri had amazing skin. It was very easy to make the rest of them jealous.
She Mckayla often broke out due to forgetting to take their makeup off (a bad habit they were both prone to), Scarlett just hid her acne-covered forehead under her mousey fringe.
Cam smiled softly. Cherri lived as an outcast at Hawkins High School because an unnamed person had outed her for being a lesbian when she was in freshman year. She had received so much abuse from the homophobic assholes of Hawkins High, and her ‘friends’, she just ditched them.
Now she was a senior, and she claims all that was behind her, saying that she had people who accepted her, and those people weren’t any of them.
Cam wasn’t sure she believed her entirely, her demeanor always changed drastically whenever she passed her ex-friends in the halls. It was clearly still weighing on her shoulders.
Scarlett was a nerd. A title she embraced. Scarlett was an absolute know-it-all, and the definition of ‘doesn't give two shits.’ Hell, she even joined the goddamn Hellfire Club, which was a D&D club. She was a month older than Cam, but fortunately for her, she didn't get held back, so she was in junior year.
Mckayla was labeled a freak because she didn't follow the crowd. She was vocal about her opinions and didn't necessarily follow trends. She just did what she wanted. Talked to who she wanted, wore what she wanted, and did what she wanted.
I mentioned that twice.
She was probably the most badass senior in the entire school.
A sharp tug of Cam’s hair from Mckayla caught her attention.
“I can't believe you actually left the house looking like this,” she scoffed, tugging her hair again. She was training to be a hairdresser, so her opinion was most likely correct.
“Ouch! Quit that!” Cam moaned.
“What did you do to your hair?” Mckayla muttered incredulously. “It looks like you stood in front of a mirror and chopped it all off with a pair of pruning shears.”
“I did not!” Cam spluttered, “I used kitchen scissors!” She said defiantly.
Mckayla snorted, mocking her, “‘Cause that's so much better!”
“I heard that the police are coming into school. To question everyone who may know anything about Barbara Holland's disappearance.” Scarlett rolled a discarded cigarette under her foot from her seat on the bathroom floor.
“Apparently the last place she was seen was at Steve Harrington's house!”
“You're joking!” Scarlett scoffed.
Mckayla was snipping away at Cam’s now damp hair with the hairdressing scissors she kept in her pencil case, “You really believe that?”
“Do you mind if I give you layers?” She asked Cam.
Cam shrugged, “Don't mind. I trust your judgment.”
“Good.”
“I know it sounds absolutely bonkers,” Cherri pushed herself up onto the counter next to Cam, playing with her chestnut-colored hair. “But apparently, there was some kind of party at The Hair's house. I heard Perkins talking about it earlier today.”
Should I tell them? Or would that only make matters worse? Shit!
Cam had no clue what to do or say. Should she just put them out of their misery and tell them?
Scarlett looked up at Cherri, raising a brow. “You do sound bonkers. Why the hell would The Hair invite Barbara?”
“Sucking up to Nancy so he could get some action.” Cam interrupted, opting to just cut to the chase. Maybe it would help her to talk about things.
“You think so?”
“I know so.” She bit her lip. “Me and Barb were only there in the first place to babysit Nancy.”
“You were there?!”
“Never again” Cam was about to shake her head before Mckayla gave her a light slap, reminding her she had scissors right next to her head.
Cam’s stomach twisted up inside her, tying her gut into knots.
“What the hell happened?” Cherri had a sympathetic look drawn across her features.
“I was convinced to shotgun a beer to show those assholes up - Harrington, Perkins, and Hagan, that is - I got really drunk and… I think I was the last person to see Barb… because Nancy had gone upstairs and ended up sleeping with Harrington…”
Yes, I was pissed with Nancy for ditching the both of us at the party. But at the end of the day, she was my best friend, we had to stick together.
She had decided to omit the whole faceless man part of the story. She didn't want to burden anyone else with the information. So much had happened that week, and it was only Thursday.
Scarlett made an overly exaggerated gagging noise.
“Ew! Wheeler actually had sex with that dickhead?!” Cherri looked horrified.
“It was probably horrible.” Scarlett said matter-of-factly, picking at her chipped red nail polish.
“I heard Perkins mocking Nancy yesterday at lunch about it.” Mckayla giggled.
“What did she say?” A grin crept onto Cam’s face, momentarily forgetting about everything else going on.
“Well, it kind of went like this:” Scarlett smirked, throwing her head back and letting out a gasp that sounded like Carol and Nancy simultaneously.
“Oh, Steve! Oh!”
Scarlett was leaning back against the wall, her arms by her head and her legs moving back and forth across the linoleum floor. She had her neck tilted back far enough to see her veins through her pale skin.
The recoil was instantaneous. The bathroom was filled with a cacophony of fake retching and whines of disgust.
Scarlett's impression made Cam feel physically sick.
“It looks so wrong coming from Scarlett's mouth!” Cherri cried out.
“Quit moaning Scarlett!” Mckayla brandished a pair of thinning shears that she had seemingly pulled from nowhere.
“Watch what you're doing with those!” Cam screeched.
“Sorry!”
“If I ever end up dating someone anything like The Hair. You guys have my permission to give me a slap around the head.” Cam laughed, brushing off the panic from Mckayla with her scissors. “Knock some sense back into me.”
“I will hold you to that, you know?” Cherri snorted.
“You are setting the bar very low! Anything like The Hair?” Scarlett chortled, “if you ever get a partner, we’ll interrogate them heavily.”
Cam raised her eyebrows. “What are you guys? My moms?”
“Yes!” Mckayla said firmly, “you now have four moms.”
“SHIT SHIT SHIT! WEREN'T ANY OF YOU KEEPING TRACK OF TIME?!” Cherri yelped as she shoved the other three girls out of the bathroom.
“WHY WEREN’T YOU?!” Scarlett screeched.
“Quit whining.”
This comment earned Mckayla several looks of disdain.
“I have an excuse,” Mckayla snapped, tossing her dark curls over her shoulders as she jogged out in front of the others, “I was cutting Cam's hair!”
She did a fucking good job of it too!
Cam’s hair hung around her face, in a long bob with soft layers, different from what was currently in style. Didn’t really matter, Cam would be teasing the shit out of it anyway.
Cherri dashed off round the corner, yelling about a math test.
“I better go too” Cam called, “Mr Kaminski will kill me if I'm late again!”
Cam was pulled out of class just after midday, as the police wanted to question her and Nancy about the events that had happened a couple nights before.
Karen Wheeler, Nancy's mom, was there to accompany them both since Cam’s mom was busy at work.
The officers, Powell and Callahan, had the two girls sit down opposite them for questioning.
“Then me and Barb had an argument before I went upstairs. That was the last I saw of her.” Nancy finished.
Officer Powell looked to Cam for her retelling.
“Basically, what Nancy just explained. I saw the argument from the kitchen, I was getting a glass of water.” She took a shaky breath in.
“I sat with Barbara outside for a bit, then I had to go to the bathroom. Something I ate disagreed with me and I ended up puking.”
Cam tried to lie as convincingly as she could, today was NOT the day to get busted for underage drinking.
“When I came back outside I saw Barbara for a split second, then she was gone.”
“She just disappeared?” Officer Callahan asked. His tone was slightly condescending.
“That's what I saw!” Cam was beginning to grow exasperated.
Officer Powell turned to Nancy, “This… argument you had with Barbara. What exactly was it about?”
“It wasn't really an argument,” Nancy replied slowly, “she just wanted to leave…I didn't. So, I told her..I told her she and Cam should go home.”
“But neither of us went home that night.” Cam chimed in, desperate to get the information into these officers' heads.
“Then what?”
Nancy hesitated, glancing at her friend for support. Nodding slowly, Cam prompted her to finish.
“Then I went upstairs… to put on some dry clothes.”
Cam could tell she was trying to avoid the topic of Steve, considering her mother was there.
“And the next day, you went back and saw a bear, you think?” Powell frowned, trying to get a grasp of their account.
“I don't know what it was,” Nancy replied, a little disgruntled, “but I think, whatever it was, maybe, took Barb.”
“You need to check behind Steve's house because that's–”
“We already did.” Callahan interrupted, “There's nothing there. No sign of a bear.”
“And no car.” Powell added.
Surprised, Cam looked at Nancy. Her face wore a similar expression.
“What?”
“We figured that Barbara came back last night, then took off somewhere.”
“Has she ever talked to either of you about running off, leaving town, maybe?”
“No!” Nancy replied instantly, “Barb would never. She isn't like that.”
“Were either of you listening to what I said?” Cam snapped. Mrs Wheeler shifted uncomfortably in her seat at her outburst.
“Barbara. Didn't. Leave that night.”
Powell ignored Cam, asking Nancy another question, “She wasn't, maybe, upset that you were spending time with this boy, uh…Steve Harrington?”
She slumped in her chair, irritated.
“What?! No!” Nancy exclaimed.
“Maybe she was jealous because she saw you go up to Steve's room?” Callahan prompted.
Cam gaped at the ridiculous question.
“That's bullshit! That had nothing to do with Barb!”
“Calm down, we are just trying to establish–”
“That’s bullshit. None of that had anything to do with Barb!”
Cam hadn't even realized she had stood up from her seat.
“Thank you, Miss Cameron. We have no more questions for you.”
She was furious. These shitty policemen weren't listening to anything either of them were saying. They had chosen a story and it seemed as if they already decided it was set in stone, not questioning its validity.
Cam snatched her bag up from the floor and began to march over to the door.
“Honey, just wait outside for us and we'll take you home.” Mrs Wheeler called.
Nancy and Mrs Wheeler were only in there for about five more minutes.
When Mrs Wheeler offered to drop Cam off at home, Nancy cut in, suggesting that she go home with them, as her house was empty.
Cam frowned at the suggestion, but agreed with Nancy when she shot her a look from the passenger seat.
There was unresolved tension between Nancy and her mother in the car. Clearly, something happened after Cam had left the room. She decided not to say much for the ride back to Nancy's place. All she had were complaints about the police officers.
“How about you go and wait in Nancy's room, dear.” Mrs Wheeler placed a hand on Cam’s back, ushering her upstairs.
“Okay…” She dashed up the stairs and into Nancy's room. Gently sitting on the end of her bed.
She heard yelling from downstairs.
Cam pulled her Walkman out of her bag, playing some music to drown out the yelling.
A couple of minutes later, Nancy burst into her room and collapsed on the bed next to her.
Neither of them said anything until Nancy broke the silence.
She rummaged in her bag, pulling out torn up pieces of a photograph.
One particular piece of photograph caught Cam’s eye, “Barb…”
She was sitting on the pool diving board, her feet dangling over the edge.
“Where did you get these?” Cam asked.
“Yesterday, after Carol and…Steve ripped up Jonathan’s pictures. I picked up the pieces because I saw Barb in them.”
She stared at Nancy, dumbfounded. “Steve did what? Wait, what pictures?”
“Jonathan Byers was in the woods the night of the party. He was taking pictures, trying to find his brother.”
“Why in the middle of the night?”
“I don’t know why, but there was a slightly perverse photo of me and Steve saw it, got mad and smashed his camera.”
Cam narrowed her eyes, “Jonathan did what?” She let out a tense laugh, “Y’know for once, Nance, I actually agree with Steve.”
Nancy sighed, “Just let me confront him about that particular image, okay? I don’t need you butting in all aggressive.”
“Nancy, it’s a crime.”
Nancy ignored her, rifling through the pieces, inspecting them.
Cam snatched a piece off of the bed, “The hell is this?” She held out the picture for Nancy to see.
“Do you think it's the…?”
Nancy took the paper from her. There was a tall mark across the picture that looked like a figure, but it was hard to tell.
“Maybe...” Nancy scanned the pieces, “we can piece this together.” She retrieved her tape from her desk.
It took the two of them minutes to tape the picture up.
They were staring at an image of Barbara sitting by the poolside with the blurry thing right behind her.
“Holy shit.” Cam breathed.
The image transported her back to Tuesday, staring at Barb before she disappeared into the night. Except from the fact it was from a different point of view.
Nancy met Cam's gaze, “I think we need to have a chat with Jonathan Byers.”
Cam swung her car into the parking lot near the convenience store, popping open the door.
“It might take us a while to find him,” Nancy slammed the car door shut, following Cam down the sidewalk. “What made you so sure he wouldn't be at his home.”
“There's probably too many hurtful memories at his house right now. It's just a big reminder of Will.”
“He also might not feel like talking to us either,” She bit her lip. “Greif does that to people.”
“Hey,” Nancy gently shoved Cam's arm. “Is that Joyce Byers?”
She pointed out a rather disheveled looking woman, marching down the other side of the street. Joyce Byers. Jonathan’s mom.
“So it is.” Cam murmured, “maybe she knows where Jonathan is.”
“Maybe.”
“Hey, Ms Byers…”
“Oh! Danielle! Nancy!” Ms Byers exclaimed. “Funny seeing you both here.”
Cam cringed at the use of her first name, smiling tightly before she properly took in the woman's appearance.
Joyce's hair was messy, and she had tear stains on her face. She looked like she hadn't slept for a couple of days.
“How are you holding up?” Cam asked her.
She sighed, “I'll be better as soon as I find Will.”
“Will?” The two girls glanced at each other in confusion.
What is she on about? Will's body was found last night.
Neither of them decided to say anything about her comment. She looked distressed enough as it was, without them reminding her that her youngest son had died.
“Um… Ms Byers,” Nancy spoke hurriedly. “Do you happen to know where Jonathan might be?”
“He's shopping for caskets.” She spat out the last word with a kind of venom Cam had never heard from her before.
“Right, okay. Thank you.”
“See you later, girls.” With that, Joyce departed, in somewhat of a hurry.
The change in mood from when they stepped into the funeral home was precipitous. The building had a somber atmosphere compared to the sunny one, outside.
Luckily for Cam and Nancy, there wasn’t currently a funeral being held.
Nancy led Cam to the back room of the building. She peeked through the door to see Jonathan browsing caskets.
He noticed them in the doorway almost instantly.
“Can you give me a minute?” He asked the funeral worker.
“Of course.”
Jonathan walked over to them slowly. Unlike his mother, he didn't look any more unkempt than usual.
“Hey.”
“Hi,” Nancy replied.
Cam nodded her head in greeting. “Your mom said you'd be here.”
“Can we talk to you for a minute?” Nancy asked slowly, like she was struggling to speak.
They sat down on the chairs in the main hallway. Nancy brought out the picture from her bag and handed it to Jonathan.
“That.” She spoke quietly, “on the right. What do you think that is?”
She gestured to the figure standing tall over Barb on the right-hand side of the photo.
Cam looked over at Jonathan, trying to gauge his reaction.
He blew air out from his lips before replying, “It looks like it could be some kind of perspective distortion, but… I wasn't using the wide angle.”
Cam pulled a face, only understanding about 70% of that sentence. Her photography knowledge was limited, and all of it came from Jonathan.
“I don't know.” He handed the picture back to Nancy. “It's weird.”
“And you're sure you didn't see anyone else out there?” Nancy pressed.
“No,” the boy sighed, shaking his head. “It was like she was there one second, then the next, gone. I figured she bolted.”
“But she didn't.” Cam argued. “I blinked, and she was gone. I blinked. And did you see the lights flashing?” She rounded on Jonathan. He looked rather surprised at her outburst.
He nodded, “Yeah. Like that day at the copier.”
“The cops think she ran away,” Nancy continued, “but they didn't know Barb.”
“I went back to Steve's and… I thought I saw… something in the woods. Something… a weird man… I don't know what it was.”
“I saw it too.” Cam cut in. “The night of the party, not long after Barb disappeared, when I ran into the woods.”
Jonathan nodded, “I vaguely remember seeing you run into the woods.” His gaze floated down to the floor solemnly.
Cam glanced at Jonathan, and realization hit.
“We're sorry,” she stood up, “we shouldn't have come here today. I know what it's like grieving, and this is probably the last thing you need.”
Cam doubted Jonathan needed anything else on his mind at this moment. It was most likely filled to the brim with worries and problems needed to solve. He needed space, and they weren't giving it to him.
Nancy stood up, looking horrified, “Gosh. Cam's right. We're really sorry.”
“What'd he look like?”
Jonathan’s voice snapped Nancy out of her rambling, causing her to turn around. The question piqued Cam's interest, too. Why would Jonathan care about what the man looked like?
“What?”
“The man, what did he look like?” He repeated. All traces of sorrow were gone from his exterior, replaced with a seriousness that didn't sit well on his face.
“The man?” Cam spoke slowly, trying to figure out why he was asking such a question.
“It… he was…” Nancy shook her head.
“Like he didn't have a face?” Jonathan finished.
Nancy looked at Cam, and she looked straight back at her.
“How did you know that?”
Cam and Nancy watched closely as Jonathan fiddled around to enlarge the picture.
They had all bundled into the dark room at the high school. The bright dark red lights scattered around didn't help to see all that much, casting a red glow over the room.
Being in such a dark place reminded Cam of when she was a toddler, and her parents used to tell her that eating carrots would help her see better in the dark. She guessed she should've chowed down on more carrots.
“How long does it take?” Nancy gestured to the photograph Jonathan had just set down into the tray with the chemical mixture to develop the picture.
“Not long.”
“Have you been doing this a while?” Nancy asked.
“Hm?”
“Photography.”
“...Yeah.”
Cam tuned out of their conversation, getting lost in her own thoughts. Jonathan had said his mom saw the strange man tear through the wall in their home. Maybe it came from whatever place she had found herself in on Tuesday night.
How did I even get to that place in the first place?
She bit her lip. She was really drunk that night, and still had lots of alcohol in her system in the forest, regardless of how much she threw up, so she couldn't remember jackshit outside of running away from the man.
The monster thing had to have come from that odd place. This isn't some comic book. Monsters didn't just appear out of nowhere and start kidnapping teens and almost-teens.
It was the only theory Cam had that made half sense, even though it didn't make sense.
None of it did.
Nancy gasped, snapping Cam out of her thoughts.
“That's it. That's what I saw.”
She beckoned her friend over, “Cam, come take a look. Is this what you saw too?”
As soon as she laid eyes on the picture, Cam's breath hitched, letting out a shuddery gasp.
She squeezed her fists as her palms grew sweaty.
She was staring at an image of the man she saw in the swimming pool.
There was no doubt about it.
She didn’t need to say anything, they understood based off of her reaction alone.
“I thought my mom… she must be crazy,” Jonathan started, “because she said, that's not Will's body, that he's alive…”
“And if he's alive…”
“Barbara.” Cam finished breathlessly.
They stared back at the photo once more.
“We’ll meet at some point tomorrow.” Jonathan declared.
“Wait, I thought Will's funeral was tomorrow?”
“Good idea, Cam. We can meet after the funeral.”
Nancy spluttered in bewilderment.
“Are you sure?!” Cam demanded, “even if he's not really dead, the atmosphere of funerals can really get to you and–”
“We'll meet tomorrow.” Jonathan said again, more firmly this time.
Neither Nancy nor Cam decided to argue against that.
Friday. November 11th 1983.
Cam pulled a black dress over her head, buttoning up the front. She drew more simple eyeliner, more modest and respectable than usual. Her mom had told her not to bring a bag, so she ended up shoving her pocket knife in her bra.
She met her mom and Kate downstairs before they got in the car to drive to Will's funeral.
It was a rather small one, only people close to Will and the Byers family were there. They stood towards the back of the gathering. Cam stood with the crowd, paying her respects. She tried not to get too upset, but the sorrow-filled atmosphere was really getting to her.
At the end of the service, Kate threw a rose on the casket in the ground like several other people did.
When the crowd began to disperse, Nancy grabbed Cam's arm and hauled her over to Jonathan. They collapsed on the grass, against a small fence a little ways off from the shrinking crowd.
Jonathan dug around in his pockets before brandishing a map that had about a fifth of Hawkins inked onto it. There were three red crosses that he had marked, all close to each other on the paper.
“This is where we know for sure that it's been.” He spoke in a hushed tone.
Cam peered at the map over his shoulder, “Your house, The Hair's house, and…”
She pointed to the last cross on the map as she trailed off.
“That's in the woods where they found Will's bike.”
“It's all so close…” Nancy murmured.
“It's not traveling far.” Cam chewed on her lip.
“Exactly,” Jonathan agreed.
“You wanna go out there, don't you?” Nancy whispered.
Cam turned to Jonathan, surprised.
“We might not find anything.” He looked at both of them.
“I found something,” Nancy countered. There was hope in her eyes. “Cam saw something, too.”
Cam nodded in agreement, “It's worth a shot. If we find it, we can kill it.”
Going out searching for this thing was the last thing Cam wanted to do. She kept hearing Barbara's screams in her nightmares, she couldn't forget that place.
But she wanted to find Barb as much as Nancy did.
Chapter 5: Monster Hunting
Chapter Text
Jonathan hopped up off the grass, darting over to his dad's car parked down the other end of the cemetery.
His father was back in town for Will's funeral. Jonathan said it was the first time he'd been back since he left. There had to be some other reason why he was back. He didn't particularly care for Will. He used to call the poor boy slurs and other forms of abusive language.
It was horrible. Jonathan once told Cam several years ago. His father wasn't particularly nice to Jonathan either.
She was surprised Joyce had let him hang around for the funeral.
Jonathan cracked open the door and started to work open the front compartment with a knife he seemingly pulled from nowhere.
The compartment popped open and Jonathan rummaged inside, bringing out a revolver.
“Are you serious?” Nancy hissed, as Jonathan handed Cam the gun, after checking it wasn't loaded, and a box of .38 bullets.
The cool metal of the gun made her stomach twist. She had never held a gun before. It didn't feel right in her hands. It was also a lot heavier than she had expected.
She stuffed the box of bullets in the inside pocket of her blazer, out of sight.
“What?” Jonathan snapped, “what do you suppose we do? Take another photo? Yell at it?”
“We have to kill it, if we don't, who else will?”
Nancy spluttered, dumbfounded, as she watched Cam slot the gun into her belt, throwing her blazer over the top to disguise it.
“This is a terrible idea,” She argued.
Jonathan got out of the car and slammed the door.
“It's the best we've got.” He tucked another box of bullets into his jacket and a revolver into his belt. “You could tell someone but they're not gonna believe you.”
“Your mom would!” Nancy retorted.
“She's been through enough!”
“Hey, guys. Let's stop arguing, okay?”
“She deserves to know.” Nancy ignored her.
“Hey!” Cam called out, irritated at being ignored, “hello?”
“And I'll tell her, once this thing is dead.”
Cam bit her lip again - it was a habit. She had a horrible feeling about all this. That everything would backfire in their faces. That they would end up in deep shit, or dead.
“It would probably be better to tell someone!” Cam hissed, deciding to back up Nancy.
But that fell on deaf ears.
“Holy shit.” Cam breathed. “I can't believe we're actually doing this.”
She was sitting on the mat of the backdoor of the Wheeler house.
They had all gone home and changed out of funeral clothes and Cam had promptly gone to the Wheeler's house to come and get Nancy.
She was wearing a black band t-shirt, and had shoved the revolver, bullets, and her pocket knife in the pockets of her cargo pants, also black. She was predictable.
Shoving a gun in her pocket probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, even if she did make sure it was unloaded and had the safety on.
Nancy picked up a baseball bat from a metal rack by the brick wall, and began swinging it around, her ponytail swinging back and forth.
Cam leaned back on instinct, as the bat came dangerously close to her face.
“Careful Nance! You almost took me out.”
“Sorry,” she laughed sheepishly, tucking a stray hair behind her ear.
Cam's eyes darted behind her, watching a familiar royal pain stride up the driveway towards Nancy.
She coughed loudly, “Have you eaten since we got back, Nancy?” Cam blurted, “I'll go get us some food.”
She hurriedly dashed inside the house before Nancy could utter a word, watching through the window on the door to see Nancy keep swinging her bat, and nearly hit Steve in the process.
Slightly disappointed that she missed, Cam retreated from the window to raid the Wheeler's kitchen. She was genuinely hungry, and they always bought the expensive fruit. It was Nancy's fault for letting her loose in her house unsupervised. Plus Nancy would probably end up getting pissed at her because she would end up getting pissed at Steve. Or something like that anyway.
Steve was really good at making Cam want to strangle herself, like when dog owners try and comfort you by saying ‘It's okay, he's friendly, when their rottweiler jumps up at you.
She hadn't actually had a rottweiler jump up at her.
That was an over exaggeration.
A chihuahua once bit her ankle though. The owner tried to tell her off for scaring it.
Yeah, sure. Try telling her that again after she had to get a tetanus booster at the hospital. The woman clearly never brushed her dog's teeth.
Cam returned to the window in the door, after washing two apples from the fruit bowl, to see Steve marching down the driveway away from Nancy.
Opening the door with a click, she jumped down the small ledge. Nancy had a sour expression on her face.
“Trouble in paradise?” Cam asked, tossing her an apple.
She snorted, taking a loud bite.
“He just apologized for something he did a couple days ago. Not the picture thing - something else.”
Cam prompted Nancy to go on.
She sighed, swallowing, “When he heard about the police investigation for Barb, the first thing he said to me was to not mention the beers.”
“Jesus, priorities?!”
“Right?” Nancy scoffed.
“You're supposed to hit the cans right?” Nancy idly observed Jonathan shooting at three cans from about 30 feet away.
“Ah, actually,” Jonathan smirked, “you see the spaces in between the cans? I'm aiming for those.”
“Sure looks like it.”
Cam's sarcastic comment earned a slightly irritated look from Jonathan, as she came to stand beside him.
“Holy shit!” She jumped at the abnormally loud thunk as Nancy dropped her bag on the ground.
“Don't do that, Nance.” She spluttered weakly.
“Sorry.”
They were standing in a clearing at the edge of the woods. They were about to go into the woods to look for the thing. As soon as Jonathan showed Cam how to use a gun.
“You load it like this… this is the safety… hold with two hands…”
After about ten minutes of instruction and five of Jonathan giving shitty demonstrations of how to aim. Or how not to aim, if you will. He was desperately trying to fill Cam's brain full of all the information he could possibly conjure up.
“Okay, so just, aim… and squeeze the trigger.” Jonathan scratched his nose, “I assume I don't have to tell you to never point it at anyone and always point it down when you're not firing–”
“Yup, I got it.”
Cam stood with her feet about shoulder width apart, grasping the gun with two hands.
She double checked the safety was off, glancing over her shoulder at Nancy and Jonathan, waiting for the go ahead.
“No one's there!” Jonathan called, “you can just shoot!”
Cam rolled her eyes, turning to face the cans again.
She clicked the bullet into place, taking a deep breath, aiming, and squeezing the trigger.
BANG!
She jolted, the kick from firing the bullet made her drop the gun.
“Holy shit!” She gasped, bending down to pick up the gun.
“Be careful!” Jonathan called, “the barrel will be hot!”
Cam stood up, walking back towards Nancy and Jonathan. She must've been pulling a face because Nancy tried to comfort her.
“Hey, you dropped the gun, but at least you hit a can.”
Cam whipped around to confirm, and sure enough, there were only two cans left.
“It's normal to drop a gun the first time you shoot one.” Jonathan added, “most people don't expect the kick.”
Jonathan moved to shoot at the cans again, missing each time. He groaned, turning to Nancy, “Have you ever shot a gun before?”
Nancy pulled a face, “Have you met my parents?”
“I haven't shot one since I was ten,” Jonathan reloaded the gun, “my dad took me hunting on my birthday, he made me kill a rabbit.”
“Holy shit,” Can murmured. That was a story she hadn't heard before.
“A rabbit?” Nancy frowned.
“Yeah, I guess he thought it would make me into more of a man, or something.”
He smiled sadly, “I cried for a week.”
“Geez.” Nancy turned back to the cans.
“What?” Jonathan laughed, “I was a fan of Thumper!”
“What’s Thumper?” Cam asked, confused.
“From Bambi?”
“Oh, I've never watched Bambi.” She said flippantly.
“What?” Jonathan asked incredulously.
“Why am I surprised?” Nancy chuckled to herself.
“Jesus.” She sighed.
“What?” Jonathan raised a brow.
“Your dad.” Nancy replied.
He scoffed lightly. “Yeah… I guess my parents loved each other at one point…” He sighed, “I just wasn't around for that.”
Nancy held her hand out, silently asking for a shot of the gun Jonathan was loading.
“Yeah sure, just point and shoot.”
Nancy cocked the gun. “I don't think my parents ever loved each other.”
Cam looked over to her, scanning her face.
“They must've married for some reason.” She snorted sardonically. “My mom was young, my dad was older, but he had a cushy job, money, came from a good family. So they bought a nice house at the end of the cul-de-sac… and started their nuclear family.”
“Screw that.” Jonathan said.
“Yeah,” Nancy bit. “Screw that.”
BANG!
The can flew off the tree stump with a clatter.
Nancy pointed the gun down to her feet, letting out a breathy laugh.
“Maybe you two should switch weapons!” Cam snorted, a wide grin on her face. She played with her hands, pinching her fingers. She was silent for a moment, until she started speaking again.
“I thought my parents loved each other.” She stared at the grass. “At least when I was younger, when I was more naïve.”
Cam's eyes stung as she blinked back the onslaught of tears pricking her eyes.
“But towards the end… their relationship grew more rocky, and I kept feeling like it was my fault that they were arguing. Then one day… it just stopped.”
She ran her hands through her hair, “Then about a week later his body was found in a car wreck on the interstate. It was after that that money became a problem. Dad's job was… good, great, even. Now my mom has to work double to pick up the slack. She thinks he was running away from us. Quit his job the week before he died.”
Nancy gave her a half-hug, trying to comfort her. Cam's story wasn't news to her, she was one of the people who helped her through it.
“Guess we all have family issues.” Jonathan, reached down to pick up the baseball bat.
When they set off into the woods, it was still light outside. Cam didn't think she'd have the guts to follow through if it wasn't.
She walked a few paces behind Nancy and Jonathan, the revolver dangling in her hand. She was starting to wish she had brought a jacket. Rookie error. Her long sleeved t-shirt wasn't exactly keeping her warm.
Nancy and Jonathan were chatting quietly ahead of her.
“You never said what I was saying,” Nancy murmured, “yesterday, you said I was saying something when you took my picture.”
Oh. So that's what they were chatting about in the dark room.
“I guess, I saw this girl, trying to be someone else,” he paused, “but for that moment, it was like you were alone, or you thought you were, and y’know, you could just be yourself.”
“That is such bullshit.” Nancy scoffed, she turned around, stopping face to face with Jonathan.
“I am not trying to be someone else just because I'm dating Steve and you don't like him.”
Jonathan pushed past her, “You know what? Forget it. I just thought it was a good picture.”
“What was the picture?” Cam asked, suspiciously.
Not to her surprise, they ignored her.
Okay, so probably the perverse one.
“He's actually a good guy,” Nancy continued.
This made Cam scoff. Yeah right.
“Okay.” Jonathan sounded like he wanted this conversation to be over as much as Cam did.
But Nancy kept going.
“Yesterday, with the camera, he's not like that at all. He was just being protective.”
“Yeah that's one word for it.”
“Oh, and I guess what you did was okay?!”
Cam opened her mouth to whisper to Nancy, but she held a hand up to shush her. Cam groaned for what felt like the hundredth time that day.
“I never said what I did was okay!” Jonathan snapped.
“He had every right to be pissed.”
“Okay! Does that mean I have to like him?!”
“No! Cam doesn't like him either, she makes that abundantly clear!”
“Nancy, he's been a dick to me ever since we met! What do you expect?” Cam huffed, not wanting her to get irritated with her too.
“Don't take it so personally.” Jonathan turned to face Nancy, “I don't like most people, so he's in the vast majority!”
“You know?” Nancy started, “I was actually starting to think you were okay!”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah!”
“Guys, can we not do this right now? It's not what we need.”
Usually, splitting up arguments by being rational was not something Cam was particularly good at. She continued to be shit at it, finding herself unable to split up Nancy and Jonathan's squabble.
“I was thinking, Jonathan Byers, maybe he's not the pretentious creep everyone says he is.”
“Well I was just starting to think you were okay.” Jonathan marched towards Nancy angrily.
“I was thinking, Nancy Wheeler, she's not just another suburban girl, who thinks she's rebelling, by doing exactly what every other suburban girl does.”
“Jonathan, would you quit it!” Cam ordered.
“Until that phase passes and they marry some boring one-time jock, who now works sales, and they live out a perfectly boring life at the end of a cul-de-sac. Exactly like their parents, who they thought were so depressing.”
He paused, “Now, hey, they get it.”
He strode off ahead of the girls, not wanting to be around either of them.
“What the…”
“Come on,” Cam sighed, linking arms with Nancy, pulling her along after Jonathan.
It was growing dark, and that was not helping ease the tension. Neither Nancy nor Jonathan had spoken a word to each other for hours. They were all getting tired. The darkness cast over them, amplifying their tiredness.
The flashlights they were using weren't doing much in terms of actually being able to see.
Cam turned hers off to conserve the battery. The moon was bright enough, and they didn't need a cloud to cover the moon, leaving them with their flashlights nearly dead.
“Maybe we should turn back, come back tomorrow.”
“Shh! Listen.” Nancy stopped Cam in her tracks, “hear that?”
She shook her head, “What am I listening for?
Jonathan turned around, “Are you guys tired or something?”
“I hear it.”
The sound reached Cam's ears, and it sounded like an animal or a baby crying out in pain.
Considering it was in the middle of the woods, in the middle of the night. Cam assumed it was an animal.
Nancy led the way towards the sound, leading them to a wounded fawn. It was lying on its side, whining in pain.
Nancy bent down beside it, “Poor thing, it's been hit by a car…” She reached out.
“Don't touch it, Nancy.” Cam swiped her hand away, “it could have diseases.”
She eyed the scratches down the fawn's side. There was no way it was hit by a car, not all the way out there. It couldn't have moved far with those injuries.
“We can't just leave it.”
“We’d have to kill it, Nance,” Cam placed a hand on her shoulder. “It's too close to death.”
Nancy screwed her face up, looking as if she was about to cry as she stared at her gun.
“I'll do it,” Jonathan held his hand out. It was shaking. Cam could tell he didn't really want to, but he knew Nancy wasn't going to.
“Don't worry, I will.”
She didn't want Jonathan to have to go through whatever he did before, regardless of whether or not he said he was fine.
“Okay,” They both backed away behind Cam as she cocked the gun, preparing herself for the kick. The fawn whined again.
She took aim and squeezed the trigger.
Two things happened as Cam shot the gun.
The first: she didn't drop the gun.
The second: the deer was whisked away into the bushes, leaving the bullet wedged in the ground.
All three of them backed away in horror. What the hell was that?
“What was that?” Nancy asked what they were all thinking as they stood on guard and panted for breath.
She shone her flashlight down where the fawn once lay. There was a trail of blood.
The three of them immediately began scouring the area.
“Where'd it go?”
“Do you see any more blood?”
Cam's eyes were flitting around, trying to keep an eye on everything around her.
Nancy was oddly quiet.
Then she and Jonathan realized she was gone.
“Nancy?!” Cam yelled.
Then they heard her scream.
They both bolted in the direction of the scream, finding her bag and the bat Jonathan had handed back to her on the ground.
“Nancy!”
“Nancy! Where are you?!”
Cam licked her lips, swallowing. Her mouth was abnormally dry. She tensed her jaw, clenching her fists.
"Nance!”
Her voice came out hoarse, breath catching in her throat.
Jonathan dashed off towards the sound of her voice.
“Nancy!”
Cam ran after him, trying to make sure he didn't get lost too.
As they both screamed and yelled for Nancy, they could hear her voice shouting their names right back. But they couldn't find her anywhere.
That place. Somehow, it had to be connected to Hawkins. That would explain being able to hear Nancy from where they were.
Cam was no expert in parallel universes, but she knew enough to put together a reasonable conclusion. Assuming that place was a parallel universe.
“I'm right here!”
“Follow our voices!”
Nancy's scream echoed around the woods.
“It's coming from over here!” Cam pointed back the way they came.
Following the sound of Nancy's voice led them to a tree. A tree with a hole in the trunk.
Cam's stomach dropped, “Shit.”
They must've been going in slight circles. Cam recognized this tree. A little too well.
“Nancy! Find a tree with a hole in the trunk!” She screamed instructions at Nancy, “ it has a hole towards the base!”
The bark was closing down over the hole. Now that she looked closer, she could see a pulsating light.
Jonathan and Cam stumbled back as a hand shot through the webs covering the hole.
“Cam! Jonathan!”
Nancy.
They grabbed her hand, trying to pull her out of the hole. She came free, collapsing on the ground.
She was sobbing, wet and all sticky from what was in the hole of the tree. Cam hugged her tightly, encompassing her in her embrace, trying to make everything go away.
“Look.” Jonathan nudged Cam as he watched the bark close over the gaping hole in the tree trunk.
“Holy shit.”
They took Nancy home immediately, as she was shaken and desperate to get home.
They climbed up the side of her house and in through her bedroom window.
Better not let her parents find out.
“Can you both stay?” She asked quietly, “I don't want to be alone.”
Cam nodded, “Sure, can I call my mom on your phone? I can also go and get some food, I'm sure we're all hungry.
She nodded, “Yeah, that'd be nice.”
After quickly calling her mom, Cam tiptoed down the stairs, leaving Jonathan wrapping his jacket around Nancy.
She dashed down the stairs as quietly as she could to not alert the Wheeler's of her presence.
She rummaged through their cupboards, grabbing their cookie jar and a few bananas from their fruit bowl.
She left as quickly as she came, dumping the stuff on Nancy's bed as Jonathan threw a blanket out at the base of her bed. To sleep on, Cam assumed.
She plopped down onto the floor next to Nancy's bedside table, shoving the box of bullets and the now unloaded gun underneath it. She kept her knife in her pocket.
“That place…Nancy saw…” Cam leaned her head against Nancy's bed, “I saw it too. The night Barb went missing. I also saw that monster thing Nancy described. I thought it was a man with no face. But its face opening up like a flower, seems absurd.”
“Do you not believe her?” Cam frowned at his question, munching on a cookie.
“I do believe her. I believe her. It's just all this shit is driving me insane.” She rubbed her eye, “you can't make any of this shit up.”
Just then, Nancy appeared in the doorway, her hair damp from the shower and wearing her pajamas.
“Better?”
She nodded, “A little, I can't get the images of that thing out of my head.”
Cam smiled sympathetically, “I get it. I still see the monster in my dreams. That's what we're calling it now, right?”
She glanced at the others, “I mean, it's face opened up.”
Nancy shifted, looking slightly uncomfortable.
“Sorry.”
“It's fine.”
Cam gestured at the closet, motioning to ask if she could grab a blanket.
Nancy nodded.
Cam made herself comfortable on the floor beside Nancy's bed. The Wheeler house was always extremely warm, even in the colder months, so the blanket she had found in Nancy's closet would be more than sufficient.
After she had got herself comfortable, a cushion fell on her face with a SMACK!
Cam chuckled as Nancy shifted from her bed above her.
“You'll get a sore neck.”
“Thanks, Nance.” She murmured, slotting the cushion underneath her head.
They all lay there in silence. Cam could hear Nancy's heavy breathing, the sound of Jonathan adjusting his grip on his gun.
Cam shifted on the floor. She had stopped being scared by the ‘monster under the bed’ stories for a good eight or nine years. But having her back to the gap underneath Nancy's bed made her stomach churn.
She heard Nancy let out a shaky breath, “Can you both just come up here?”
Cam sat up, watching Nancy wriggle over to make more room for her on her left, but leaving more than enough room for Jonathan on her right.
“Okay…”
She held up the blankets for Cam to wiggle underneath. They were really warm. Much warmer than the floor. Away from the ‘monster’ under the bed, too.
Jonathan tentatively approached the bed, lying down on top of the covers all the way over on the right side.
“Did you bring the gun up here?” Cam asked. She had a feeling he did. It was a Jonathan thing to do.
“Yeah,” he whispered. “Just in case.”
“Do you want the lights on?” He asked Nancy.
“On.”
Cam turned over to face Nancy, albeit with some difficulty, as their shoulders were tightly pressed together.
“You are being very brave letting me up here,” She whispered with a slight smirk on her face, trying to ease Nancy's nerves.
Nancy quirked a brow.
“I'm sure you remember how I sleep after the countless sleepovers we used to have.”
She smiled slightly, “Yeah, you used to kick me and hit out. But you'd wake up whenever someone made the tiniest noise.”
Cam grinned, “I'm still like that.”
Nancy sighed, laughing slightly.
“So if I ever kick you, or hit you. Don't be afraid to push me off the bed.”
She scoffed, trying to suppress her laughter.
“I won't need to do that. I'd just flick you on the forehead and your eyes would snap open.”
Cam let out a hissy laugh.
“That's very true.”
Nancy smiled softly and Cam grinned back at her, happy she managed to cheer her up.
Even if it was just a bit.
Worry was still etched on her face.
“It won't look for us in here.” Cam rubbed her arm comfortingly.
“Cam's right,” Jonathan spoke up.
“We don't know that.”
She sighed, shifting a tad closer to Nancy, “We'll be okay. That monster took me, too - maybe. But I got out, and I’m still here.”
Nancy nodded, but she was still unsure.
“Goodnight, Cam.”
“Night, Nance.”
“Goodnight, Jonathan.” She spoke a little louder.
“Night.”
Saturday. November 12th 1983.
Cam woke up on the floor. She assumed Nancy pushed her off the bed, but it could've also been her own restlessness.
She sat up, trying to rub out the ache in her neck. She really needed to stop falling asleep on the floor.
Nancy was already awake. She was sitting up and writing in a notebook, leaning on a textbook.
Cam climbed up onto the foot of the bed, watching Nancy and accidentally making Jonathan stir.
He too sat up. With some serious bedhead, she might add.
“Morning.”
“Morning,” he groaned. “Couldn't sleep?” he asked Nancy.
She shook her head.
“Every time I closed my eyes, I kept seeing it.”
“Me too.” Cam sighed. But unlike Nancy, she was actually sleeping, not for very long though.
The monster showed up in her nightmares instead.
She had dreamed she was back in that place, her lungs filling up with the wispy particles floating about in the air. Barbara's screams echoing in her ears, taking over her brain until she woke from sleep.
“Wherever I was…” Nancy stared at her hands, “I think that it lives there.”
“Barb was there too. When I was there.” Cam glanced up at them both.
“I'd say it's safe to assume Will is there too.”
Jonathan shifted at the mention of Will.
“It was feeding there,” Nancy had a far off look in her eyes. “It was feeding on that deer.”
Her face scrunched up, “And that means, Barbara and Will…”
“Hey,” Jonathan shifted around to sit next to Nancy, “my mom said she talked to Will. If he's alive, there's a chance Barbara is too.”
Cam felt ill. Yes, there was a chance Barb was alive. But there was also a massive chance she wasn't. Her screams backed that up. She had a sickening feeling that Barb wasn't alive anymore. But she had to be optimistic, they all did.
Cam missed Barb terribly, and deep down there was still a small shard of hope that she was still alive.
“But that means they're both trapped.”
“Nancy, we both got out. We can save them too.” Cam placed a hand on her shoulder as a means to comfort her. Though, it was less to comfort Nancy and more to comfort the nagging feeling in her own chest.
“We have to find it again.” Nancy whispered.
“You want to go back out there?”
“Maybe we don't have to…” Nancy furrowed her brow, deep in thought.
“When I saw it, it was feeding on that deer, that means it's a predator, right?”
“Right.”
She pulled the textbook out from underneath her notepad. It was about wild animals.
“And it seems to hunt at night, like a lion or a coyote. But it doesn't hunt in packs like them.”
She sat up straighter. Nothing was getting in the way of her train of thought now.
“It's always alone… like a bear. The deer was bleeding, and at Steve's–”
“Barb cut herself.” Cam finished. She had some idea about what Nancy was going on about.
Nancy nodded.
“So did I when I went out to look for her.” Cam affirmed.
Nancy flipped to another page in the book. “Sharks can detect blood in one part per million. That's one drop of blood in a million, and they can smell it from more than a mile away.”
“So you're saying it can detect blood?” Jonathan confirmed.
“It's just a theory.”
“A damn good one.” Cam snorted. “We have solid evidence.”
She paused, “But the authorities would never believe us.”
“We could test it ourselves.”
Cam paled at Jonathan's suggestion, “How? How would we do that without getting killed in the process?”
It's bizarre!
Jonathan's idea was… insane. The thought of even going back after the monster, even after the events that occurred the night before. Cam felt like she was going insane.
“Not sure. But at least we'd know it was coming.”
They all simultaneously jumped when the doorknob to Nancy's room rattled. Thank goodness she locked it. Cam eyed Nancy and Jonathan, as they had subconsciously grabbed hands.
“Honey, are you up?” Mrs Wheeler's voice rang through from the other side of the door.
“Yeah. I'm getting dressed.” Nancy lied.
“I, uh, made some blueberry pancakes.”
“I'll be down in a second.”
After Mrs Wheeler's footsteps faded away, the three all let out a collective sigh of relief. Cam watched as Nancy and Jonathan awkwardly peeled their hands apart. She rolled her eyes.
Jonathan turned to Nancy, “Your mom doesn't knock?”
“Yours does?” Cam chuckled.
“We need to buy some weapons.” Nancy cut the laughter.
Cam nodded, scooping the gun and bullets off the floor and stuffing them into her pockets.
“Wait. Now?”
“Yeah?” Nancy frowned.
“Oh,” Cam shrugged, “I just thought that maybe… you could sneak some pancakes out.”
Nancy shot her an irritated glare. Cam returned it.
Is she really about to make us forgo breakfast? Cam scrunched her nose up at the thought.
“Fine, I'll head home,” she relented, “grab some money. Me and Jonathan will leave you to get dressed.”
She turned to Jonathan, “We'll meet you at your car as soon as possible.”
He nodded.
Cam flung open the curtains and pushed Nancy's window up, climbing out. Jonathan followed suit.
“See you in a few minutes.” Cam paused.
“Nance, can you pinch some pancakes please?” She pleaded, “Your mom makes the best pancakes.”
“I'll see what I can do.”
Cam could feel her knees screaming at her as she jumped down from the one storey part of the Wheeler house that jutted out underneath Nancy's bedroom window.
Her knees continued to scream at her, when she began running in the direction of her house.
It was only a two minute walk from Nancy's. She lived a block away from her.
She let herself in the front door, creeping up the stairs.
Cam grabbed a handful of notes from the top drawer of her dresser, shoving it in her pocket.
She quickly changed her t-shirt, grabbing the top one of the pile inside her drawer, The Cure.
At least 50% of her shirts were band t-shirts.
She hurriedly went to piss and put on some deodorant, wash her face and draw on extremely messy eyeliner. She probably stunk. At least her hands smelt nice from her lavender soap.
Deliberating on whether or not to change out of her cargo pants took longer than Cam would have liked to admit. She kept them on, the pockets were handy.
“Danielle?” Mom called up the stairs, “are you back from the Wheeler's already?”
Cam checked her watch. Quarter past eight.
“Yeah! I'm going out again. I have plans.” She dug around her closet for her leather jacket.
She was not going anywhere cold again.
“But you just got back.”
“She probably has a boyfriend!” Kate yelled from down the hall.
“I do not!” Cam snapped, “cut the crap, Kate!”
“You are such a liar!”
“I'm not lying!”
“Girls! Stop arguing!” Mrs Cameron reprimanded them from somewhere downstairs. “What did I tell you about your bad language?”
“To not to!” Cam groaned. Pulling on her leather jacket, she hurried downstairs and out of the front door as fast as she could.
Jonathan's car was parked at the end of the driveway. He and Nancy were waiting for her, with no pancakes.
“Took your time, Cameron.”
“Can it, Byers, you fuckin’... wet sock.”
The car screeched to a halt in the parking lot. Cam sat up from being sprawled out on the backseat of Jonathan's car.
“Bullets, gasoline, nails, mallet or hammer...” she counted things off in her head. “Anything else?”
Nancy turned around in the passenger seat, “Do either of you guys have a lighter?”
“Nope.”
“No.”
“We'll need one of those then.”
“Maybe two, just in case.”
“Just in case what?” Nancy stared at Cam incredulously.
“We lose one?” In all reality, Cam wanted a lighter of her own. They were cool. Not that she wanted to smoke or commit arson. She just wanted to watch the flames, and maybe light paper on fire or something.
Cam was the kind of kid that tried to set things on fire with a magnifying glass. If you couldn't tell.
“Okay.” She knew Nancy didn't believe her. She knew her too well.
Cam had never been inside the Hawkins Hunting & Camping store before. She’d never needed to.
The store was empty, bar the man behind the counter.
They started piling things into the plastic shopping baskets with a clatter. That was probably mostly Cam.
“Guys.” Nancy tried to get the other two's attention.
“Yeah?” Cam asked, placing lighter fluid into her basket along with the lighters and mallets already in there. They moved to where she was pointing. Bear traps.
“Why not? Sounds fun.” Cam jested, shrugging her shoulders.
Jonathan dumped the bear traps on the counter, as Cam emptied the lighters, lighter fluid and mallets onto the counter beside them.
The man behind the counter watched dumbfounded as he watched Nancy empty her basket.
Cam shot him a nervous grin.
Gasoline, nails, more lighter fluid.
When she was done, they all stood there in an awkward silence.
“And four boxes of, uh, .38s.” Jonathan croaked nervously.
The man gave them a skeptical look before setting down four boxes of bullets on the counter.
“What are you kids doing with all this?” he asked.
Nancy and Jonathan glanced at each other.
“Monster hunting.” Cam shrugged, saying it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
The man grunted, pulling a face as if he believed her.
“Cam, can you get the trunk?”
“Yup,” She popped the trunk of Jonathan’s car open and he dumped the cardboard box of supplies inside.
“It's funny,” Nancy loaded the bear traps into the car. “Last week, I was shopping for a new top I thought Steve might like.”
“You remember, right?” She asked Cam. Cam nodded.
“I was dragging Cam and Barb around all weekend.”
Cam snorted at the not-so fond memory. Nancy had originally just asked Barb because she had said her sense of style was questionable, which, she guessed, was fair enough. Cam dressed extremely differently from Nancy. But Barb had insisted she come anyway for comedic relief.
“It seemed like life or death, and now…”
“You guys are shopping for bear traps with Jonathan Byers.”
“Funny how things just happen.” Cam laughed as Jonathan closed the trunk. “I never would've guessed I'd get to see Nancy Wheeler shoot a gun.”
Nancy slapped her shoulder lightly.
A car honked its horn, catching their attention.
A guy that seemed to know Nancy was hanging out of the passenger window.
“Hey Nance, I can't wait to see your movie!”
He laughed, and the car continued on its way.
What?
“What the hell was that?” Jonathan asked.
“I don't know.” Nancy muttered.
“Do you know him?” Cam pressed a hand to her shoulder.
“I've seen him around before, I think he's on the basketball team.”
She stared off into the distance, and then she marched off. Cam had a feeling she knew where she was off to. The movie theater, most likely.
“Nancy?” Jonathan called.
“We'd better follow her.”
“Yeah.”
They followed after Nancy as she broke into a jog. She came to a stop in front of the movie theater. There was big red lettering painted onto the board out front that displayed the movies on. As Cam got closer, she was able to read what it said.
Her mouth fell open in horror.
After the black lettering of ‘All the right moves,’ there was bright red letters sprayed underneath: ‘STARRING NANCY THE SLUT WHEELER’
It was a small town, most people knew, or had at least heard of someone's name or surname. Cam could see people staring at Nancy, whispering about her.
“Piss off, assholes!” She yelled, “if you really have nothing better to do than gossip about teenagers, then get a fucking life!”
People scowled in her direction, not a fan of the colorful language.
Nancy's face screwed up. She looked as if she was about to cry. She pressed her lips together, the red letters like iron branding across her forehead.
“Nancy.” Cam croaked, “The authorities will get it cleaned up, don’t worry. They’ll find who did this, someone must’ve seen.”
Steve Harrington most likely. Proving to be a shit person as usual.
“We should ju–”
Nancy ignored her, dashing off somewhere.
“What happened?” Jonathan asked, finally catching up to them.
Cam pointed to the sign, “Use your eyes, Byers.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah, holy shit.”
Chapter 6: Roadblocks
Chapter Text
Cam and Jonathan both chased after Nancy, turning the corner into an alleyway, just in time to see her deliver a stinging slap to Steve Harrington's face.
“Holy shit.”
They approached slowly, taking in the scene.
Nancy was standing in front of Steve, Tommy, Carol, and Nicole - another girl that sometimes hangs around with them, she didn't say much. At least not when Cam was there.
Carol was grinning like a school bully that had found their latest victim.
Nicole was snickering behind her sleeve.
Steve had an unreadable expression etched into his face.
Tommy was standing on a brick ledge, with the words ‘Byers is a perv’ spray painted into the wall behind him.
Well that solved the mystery of the red letters.
“Speak of the devil,” Tommy grinned when his eyes fell on Jonathan. He hopped down from the ledge, taking a drag of his cigarette, “Look, the oddball's alive after all.”
Oh yeah, they haven't seen me since the party. Cam realized.
“You came by last night.” Nancy scowled, piecing the parts together.
“Ding ding ding!” Carol chirped cruelly. “Does she get a prize?”
Cam scoffed, “Can it, you knock off Barbie.”
So Steve came by Nancy's house last night?
Cam bit her lip. He must've seen Nancy and Jonathan together and assumed the worst.
Nancy whirled around to Steve, her brown ponytail swaying back and forth.
“I don't know what you think you saw, but it wasn't like that!”
Cam narrowed her eyes, Why haven't I been pulled into all of this yet? Did Steve just not see me?
A light turned on in her head.
He must've come by when I had gone downstairs to grab some food. Since it was only the two of them he must've just assumed the worst.
“What you just let him in your room to…” Steve cocked his head to the side, “Study?”
Cam shivered at the venom injected into his words.
“Or for another pervy photo session,” Tommy slung his arm across Carol’s shoulders, smirking around his cigarette.
“That's enough!” Cam cut in.
She was tired of this going on for longer than it needed to.
“None of that happened! I was there too, we were–”
“Ew!” Carol laughed, “Were you having a threesome?!”
“Are you seriou–”
“Imagine what freaky shit she does in the bedroom.” Tommy shivered, laughing.
Carol snorted, giggling along with her boyfriend.
“We were just…” Nancy trailed off.
Jonathan stood there silently, as if he didn't understand what was going on around him.
“You were just what? Finish that sentence.”
Steve stepped closer to Nancy in an attempt to be intimidating.
Holy shit, he was pissing me off. They all were.
“Finish the sentence.”
“Just drop it, Harrington!” Cam yelled, “She didn't do shit!”
“Oh, and you’ve got the oddball covering for you!”
Cam's lip quivered in rage, her fists clenched, creating little ridges in her palms.
“Go to hell, Nancy.” Steve spat, turning away.
“Come on, let's just go,” Jonathan finally spoke up, holding his arm out to move them away.
“You know what? Byers,” Steve turned back towards them as they retreated away. “I'm actually kinda impressed. I always took you for a queer, but I guess you're just a screw up like your father.”
He shoved Jonathan's shoulder.
Cam's blood boiled.
She took two quick strides over to Steve, delivering him a swift punch to the face.
His flippant use of the word made her feel ill.
Steve groaned, clutching his jaw. He wasn't hindered for long, continuing his verbal assault on Jonathan.
Tommy grabbed the collar of Cam's jacket, pulling her away.
“Careful Tommy, you might catch something,” Carol jeered.
“Let go, asshole!”
Cam cursed the way her voice cracked, and the ragged gasp she let out as Tommy shoved her against the wall.
She sunk to the ground, catching her breath and rubbing the base of her neck.
“Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,” Steve kept going, shoving Jonathan again, “yeah, that house is full of screw ups. You know, I guess I really shouldn't be surprised, there's a bunch of screw ups from your family.”
Jonathan stopped in his tracks. Cam scrambled to her feet, pushing past Tommy and catching up to Jonathan and Nancy, cradling her shoulder in her hand.
“Jonathan, just leave it.” Nancy pressed.
“Your mom - I'm not even surprised about what happened to your brother.” Steve ranted.
“Jonathan, ignore it.”
“I'm sorry I have to be the one to tell you–” The annoying buzz of Steve's voice continued and continued.
Everyone else was just staring with smirks on their smug faces.
Cam took a deep breath. Anger bubbled up inside her, like when a pot of pasta boils over the top of the pot, splashing all over the cooker.
“But the Byers…”
“Steve! Shut up!” Nancy shot.
“Their family is a disgrace to the entire–!”
SMACK!
Steve was cut off by Jonathan's fist connecting with his face.
“Shit!”
Steve was forced over onto a rundown piece of pipework, gasping for air.
He quickly darted over to Jonathan, tackling him into the car sitting in the alleyway.
Steve hauled Jonathan off the car, shoving him into the ground.
“Steve, stop it!” Nancy cried.
Jonathan flipped them over, pushing Steve down.
“Knock it off, you guys!” Carol called.
“Kick his ass, man!” Tommy yelled, encouraging Steve.
Carol shot him an incredulous look. For once, Cam agreed with her.
“Quit it, guys, you'll end up getting arrested!” She barked out.
Steve got up first, but Jonathan punched before his face was out of the way, knocking him down again.
“Get in there, he's going to hurt himself.” Carol shoved at Tommy.
Tommy shoved Jonathan backwards in an attempt to aid Steve, but he was shoved back by the latter.
“Hey! Get outta here! Get outta here!”
“Stop it!” Cam yelled again.
Nancy's face was screwed up in distress, gasping for breath.
Jonathan took another swing at Steve. He dodged, punching Jonathan in the face, to which he promptly returned.
Steve stumbled backwards as Nancy yelled out to Jonathan.
“Jonathan stop!”
“You're gonna hurt him!”
“Stop!” Cam cried, even though she knew it would be no use.
Jonathan shoved Steve onto the ground, punching him in the face over and over again.
The sound of flesh hitting flesh, clamoring, and screaming, and sirens filled Cam's ears.
Sirens.
Shit, shit, shit, shit!
“Get up! It's the cops!”
A police car rounded the corner, the sirens growing louder.
“Jonathan, you have to stop!” Nancy begged.
“Just go, Carol!” Tommy yelled after his girlfriend and Nicole, who had begun to retreat from the scene.
“Jonathan stop!” Cam tried to pull him away from Steve.
“He’s had enough dude!” Tommy snarled, trying to shove Jonathan away, only to get shoved himself. “I said he's had enough!”
“Hey! Break it up!” The officer's voice breaking through the hubbub, brought all of them back to reality. Apart from Jonathan, who continued to hit Steve like his life depended on it.
Cam turned to see Officer Powell and Officer Callahan come up behind them, attempting to break up the fight.
“Stop it!” Cam screeched, pulling Jonathan off Steve with little success. Jonathan getting arrested would massively hinder their investigation.
“Jonathan!”
“Ah! Boys, boys, boys, boys, boys!” Callahan ran up to them trying to restrain Jonathan. Cam doubted he was expecting to receive a punch to the face.
“Ah, my nose!”
She groaned at the patheticness of it all. With a pained look on her face, Cam stood back, watching Powell and Callahan finally manage to get Jonathan off of Steve. Tommy helped Steve up so they could both make a break for it, running after Carol and Nicole at the end of the street.
“Hey Steve, go, go, go, go, go, go!”
“Uh uh!” Callahan yelled, chasing after them. “Come here little guys! Come here!”
“I've got this one!” Powell yelled, pressing Jonathan onto the hood of the police car, as Callahan dashed after Steve.
Cam let out a scream of frustration. Nancy looked as if she was about to cry.
“What the hell just happened?”
Nancy ran her hands through her hair.
“I…” She sighed, a defeated look painted onto her face.
Cam was ticking off her list of places she'd never been before, but Hawkins police station wasn't nearly as exciting as she had hoped. Jonathan was silent, sitting in a chair in the main room of the station. Nancy was chatting to the receptionist, Flo, trying to get some ice for Jonathan's bruises.
Cam ended up wandering around the station and getting into an argument with a police officer because he tried to confiscate her ‘swiss army knife,’ as he called it. He made it sound far more dangerous than it actually was.
Wait until he finds out about the gun in her pocket. Hopefully he didn't. She would be in deep shit then.
Cam sidled up to Nancy and Jonathan. She was holding an ice pack wrapped in a tea towel to his face. His handcuffs looked like they were digging into him.
“Hey.” Cam hauled herself up onto the desk they were sitting at, swinging her legs.
“Nice of you to finally join us.” Jonathan shot her a small smirk, “Have fun on your escapades?”
Cam shook her head.
“Honestly, it was kinda boring.” She fiddled with her jacket collar.
Nancy smiled knowingly, “It didn't sound boring.”
Cam scoffed, “He was trying to take my knife! What was I supposed to do? Let him?”
She rolled her eyes, “You have a really bad habit of arguing with anything that breathes.”
“Do not.” Cam grumbled.
Nancy gave her a pointed look.
“Okay, point proven.”
“I meant to tell you, Jonathan,” Cam grinned, “you beating the shit out of Harrington was really fucking cool.”
Nancy coughed loudly as Officer Powell passed them, disguising their conversation.
“We're in a police station, watch what you say!” She hissed.
“He made him bleed.” Cam said matter-of-factly, “I've been wanting to do that since I met the asshole.”
“You did,” Jonathan chuckled, pointing at her hand.
“I did?” She inspected her palms, flipping them over when she found nothing.
Sure enough, there was dried blood smeared all over the back of her right hand, staining her knuckles red.
She nodded slowly, “So I did.”
“Normally I don't condone violence but,” Can lowered her voice, “that shit he said and did to you both was inexcusable.”
Cam hopped off the desk, “Anyway, I'm gonna go and…”
She trailed off as she noticed Joyce Byers and someone who looked like the chief of police, Jim Hopper. As they got closer, she could see that it was.
“Jonathan?” Joyce spluttered, “What happened? Why is he wearing handcuffs?”
Joyce looked appalled and ready to go apeshit at the officers keeping Jonathan here.
“Your boy assaulted a police officer.” Callahan stood forward.
“I don't blame him.” Cam said monotonously, “it's taking every fiber of my being not to punch you right now.”
Can you get charged for threatening a police officer?
“Take them off now!” Joyce demanded. Her outburst luckily enabled Cam to dodge being reprimanded.
“I'm afraid I cannot do that.”
“Take them off!”
“You heard her, take ‘em off.” Hopper ordered.
“Chief, I get everyone's emotional, but there's something you need to see.” Powell spoke up.
Hopper, Powell and Callahan left the station. In the meantime, Cam trudged to the bathroom to wash Steve's blood off her hand.
She had half a mind to store some, so they wouldn't need to cut themselves when they actually fought the monster.
But that was probably too weird. Storing the blood of your best friend's ex-boyfriend to use for an experiment. Assuming they weren't together anymore, Cam doubted they were, after all that earlier.
She returned to see Hopper dump a cardboard box of something on the table, whatever it was rattled around inside. Cam moved around the desk to see, peering over Joyce's shoulder.
Well shit. They raided Jonathan's car.
She backed away slightly, going to stand behind Nancy instead, so hopefully she wasn't questioned.
Can you get charged for spitting mild verbal abuse at a police officer? Just in case…
Inside the box were all of the weapons they had purchased at the camping and hunting store. Or the hunting and camping store. Whatever, it doesn't matter.
“What is this?” Joyce queried.
“Why don't you ask your son, we found it in his car.” Hopper responded.
“What?”
“Why are you going through my car?”
Cam shifted, trying to gauge everyone's reactions.
“Oh, my God.” She muttered.
“What are we going to do?” Nancy hissed.
“No clue, but there's no way we're going to be able to leave with that box.”
Nancy shook her head, agreeing. “Definitely not.”
Cam warily glanced back up at the Chief and Jonathan, eyeing the former's expression.
“My office. Now.”
“Yeah, no chance.”
“You say blood draws this thing?” Hopper asked.
They were all piled into his office: Cam, Nancy, Jonathan, Joyce, and Hopper.
Explaining everything they had discovered wasn't even the hardest part. The hardest part was getting Joyce and Hopper to believe them.
Jonathan had shown them the image he had magnified in the dark room.
They seemed to believe them, for the most part.
“It's just a theory. We haven't been able to confirm or rule out anything.” Cam rubbed her chin.
“Jonathan, can I speak to you outside please?” Joyce asked her son, leaving Hopper's office with Jonathan in tow.
“What’s going to happen to us now?” Cam asked Hopper, “You gonna send us home?”
“To keep us safe.” She added, with a slight drawl to her voice.
“Watch your tone, kid.” Hopper scolded.
He clasped his hands, leaning forward, “But that depends, are you all going to stay put where we ask you to?”
“Oka–”
“No.” Cam interrupted Nancy, “Definitely not.”
“Then there's your answer.”
Hopper marched to the door of his office, “You three will stay with me and Joyce, where we can keep an eye on you and make sure you don't get into any more shit.”
The door snapped shut with a slight bang.
Nancy rounded on her friend, “Are you serious?”
“What?” Cam groaned.
“Of course we aren't going to stay put.”
She stood up, “But we don’t tell them that.”
“But if we are transparent about our intentions, they might give up and let us help with… whatever we decide to do about the monster.”
“We've already shown them all our cards,” Cam continued, “they don't need us. They might decide it's too dangerous for us, we're only teens.”
“Right,” Nancy slumped back into the chair, “sorry.”
“Don't apologize. How the hell are we supposed to navigate a situation like this?”
Not sure.
Cam wasn't sure anyone would be sure if they were in their shoes. The past few days had been such a mess. Cam was surprised that she hadn't spontaneously combusted yet. She was sure she would soon. Hopefully after they smoke that son of a bitch monster, get Barb and Will back. Then she could combust.
“Where exactly are we going?” Cam moaned.
“Can it, kid.” Hopper grunted.
“Y'know I’m just gonna keep asking until you answer.” She gestured with her hand, indicating how she wasn't going to stop talking.
“And I'm not answering.”
“Where are we going? Where are we going? Where are we going?!”
Hopper groaned, “You are acting like a toddler.” Cam could see his eyes twitching in the rearview mirror.
“That makes two of us. I will drive everyone in this car insane, including myself, so you might as well answer, Chief. Or you'll find out what the height of pettiness looks like!”
She raised her voice to accurately punctuate how she was feeling at that moment. Pissed.
And slightly distressed.
Nancy and Jonathan sat either side of her, worried and sullen looks on their faces respectively.
Joyce and Hopper had bundled them into the back seat of Hopper's car, not explaining anything; where they were going, or why.
“Kid! Can you just shut up while I drive?!”
“No.” Cam said defiantly. “I swear, Hopper, I will press kidnapping charges if you don't tell us where we’re going. I will start screaming.”
The car ground to a halt. Cam had been so focused on arguing with Hopper, she hadn't realized where they were.
They were parked a little ways off from the Wheeler house. There were about a dozen cars parked outside. They looked like government cars. People kept going in and out of the house, all wearing similar black suits.
“What the hell?” Nancy got out of the car to get a better view of her house. Cam stood up beside her.
“Holy shit.” She murmured.
Hopper was leaning on the driver's side door, peering through some binoculars.
Joyce had got out of the car too.
“I have to go home.” Nancy stared at the cars, aching to be with her parents for whatever was going on.
“No you can't.” Hopper sighed, not taking his eyes off of the cars.
Nancy spluttered, “My mom, my dad are there.”
“It's gonna be okay.” Hopper said reassuringly, lowering his binoculars.
Nancy ignored him, striding towards her house.
“Nancy don't!”
“Hey, hey, hey, hey.” Hopper stopped her, grabbing her arm.
“Let go! Let go!” Nancy demanded, trying to pull her arm away.
“Listen! Listen!” Hopper tried to get Nancy to calm down. “The last thing in the world we need is for them knowing you’re mixed up in all of this.”
He gestured to the government cars.
“Mike is over there!” She gasped, on the verge of hyperventilating.
“They haven't found him, not yet at least.” He pointed to a helicopter circling around in the sky.
“For Mike?!”
“Come on, get back in the car.”
Holy shit! Holy shit! Why was the government after Mike?
Cam pulled herself back into the car, shuffling over to the center to make more room for Nancy.
Hopper and Joyce turned around in their seats.
“Look, we need to find them before they do,” Hopper surveyed them.
“Them?” Cam pointed to the parked cars, “The government?”
“Yes,” Hopper confirmed, “do you have any idea where they might've gone?”
“No, I don't,” Nancy shook her head.
“Me neither,” Cam chewed her lip, ”Kate hasn't hung out with them in years.”
“We need you to think.”
“I don't know,” Nancy squirmed, “we haven't talked a lot… lately…”
She opened and closed her mouth, trying to form coherent words.
“Is there any place that your parents don't know about that he might go to?” Joyce pressed.
“I don't know!”
Cam rested a comforting hand on Nancy's shoulder, trying to calm her down.
“I might.” Jonathan finally spoke. He was staring out of the window, squinting at the scene in front of them.
“Where?”
“I don't know where he is, but I think I know how to ask him.”
“Holy shit, Jonathan! You're a goddamn genius!”
Cam’s excitement was clearly visible on her face as they all stumbled into the Byers house.
Her jaw dropped as she registered her surroundings. The inside of their house was extremely different from when Cam was last there.
Chairs were tipped over inside, there was a clumsily patched up hole in the wall at the front of the house. Christmas lights were strung around the house all over. On the wall behind the couch there were strings of lights with the alphabet painted underneath some of them.
“Whoa!” Nancy gasped.
They all followed Jonathan into Will's bedroom. Rummaging through is stuff to find his walkie-talkie.
The plan was to find the walkie to try and contact Mike, Lucas Sinclair, and Dustin Henderson, assuming they were all together. From what Cam had heard, they usually were.
Lucas and Dustin were two of Mike's friends, the three of them and Will always called themselves a ‘party.’ Cam was sure it was something to do with their D&D games.
Neither Joyce nor Hopper had explained what was going on, or why the authorities were after him in the first place, so the three teens followed their lead blindly.
“I got it!” Joyce called, crawling out from underneath the bed, producing a walkie talkie.
“You use it, he'll probably listen to you.” Joyce handed the walkie to Nancy.
Pressing the button on the side, Nancy began talking into the walkie.
“Mike? Mike, it's me, Nancy. Are you there?”
The walkie was silent.
“Keep going Nance.” Cam whispered.
“Mike? If you're there, please answer.”
Silence.
“This is an emergency, Mike. Do you copy?”
Nothing. Cam sighed, turning away.
“Mike, do you copy?!”
She groaned, “We need you to answer. We need to know you're there.”
Hopper grabbed the walkie off Nancy, “Listen kid, this is the Chief. If you're there, pick up. We know you're in trouble, and we know about the girl.”
“Uhhhh, no we don't!” Cam argued, “because you haven't told us anything.”
Hopper pressed the button on the walkie again.
Cam scoffed, snatching the walkie-talkie off of him.
“Listen dipshits, if you don't pick up the goddamn walkie-talkie right now, when we find you, I am going to kick your asses so hard–”
With that, Hopper snatched the walkie-talkie back out of her hands.
Nancy and Joyce were both shooting her similar looks from their seats on Will's bed.
Cam shrugged.
“What am I supposed to say? She hissed.
“We can protect you, we can help you, but you gotta pick up. Are you there? Do you copy? Over.”
Nothing. Complete radio silence.
“Those pieces of shit.” Cam muttered.
Hopper set the walkie down on the dresser.
“Anyone got any other ideas?”
“Maybe the walkie's not on the right channel?”
The walkie-talkie buzzed.
Maybe not.
“It's Mike. I'm here, we're here.”
“Yes!”
From there it was easy enough to get their location from them.
The four of them being Mike, Lucas, Dustin and the girl Hopper mentioned earlier.
Apparently she was the one the government was after, because she had telekinetic powers and they deemed her as dangerous. As bizarre as it sounded, it took long enough to weasel an explanation out of Hopper and Joyce. So Cam believed it. It wasn't the craziest thing she'd heard that week.
They had all taken shelter inside a bus at the junkyard. Cam had to admit, the bus was a smart play considering the junkyard was extremely exposed to the air. They would've been spotted from the chopper by now.
Hopper ordered the rest of them to stay put at the Byers house while he went to retrieve the kids from the junkyard and bring them back to safety.
Cam ran a hand through her hair with a sigh. The rabbit hole kept getting deeper.
Chapter 7: Salt, Bathtubs and Fairy Lights
Chapter Text
Hopper was gone for a while. Cam couldn't help the nagging feeling that something had happened to them. She busied herself by playing with a knife she found in the Byers kitchen drawer.
She was zoning out whilst haphazardly spinning the knife across her fingers.
Now that she thought about it, she probably shouldn't have been messing around with an item that could draw blood. Luckily she didn't cut herself, it was starting to get dark and taking the chance of the monster tracking them just because she was fooling around with a knife wasn't the best idea.
Cam set it down, slightly bored of it.
The sound of a vehicle pulled up outside the house, the lights glaring through the front windows.
The four of them darted outside to see Hopper slam the driver’s door of his police van.
Out jumped Mike, Lucas, Dustin and a girl with a shaved head.
She was wearing a pink dress and a blue jacket. She looked rather grubby, similar to the rest of them.
Mike ran to hug Nancy, her ruffling his dark hair, scolding him for worrying her.
Dustin came up to Cam, poking her in the arm.
“You're Nancy’s friend, right?” He asked. “You're also, um,” he thought for a second, “Kate's sister, aren’t you?”
He stood as if it was an interrogation, his hands on his hips, showing off his Artichoke Farm t-shirt. Geez, this twelve year old is really something, Cam thought.
Cam raised an eyebrow at the question, “I’ve been Nancy's friend for years. You've met me before.”
“What's your name again?
She rolled her eyes, “Cam.” She turned to the house, where everyone was seeking the warmth, “Cool shirt by the way.”
She nodded towards his artichoke farm t-shirt.
Dustin gave Cam a gummy smile, “Thanks. You too.”
He pointed at her The Cure t-shirt.
The girl's name was Eleven, but the boys seemed to call her El. She didn't really talk much, whether or not she could or just didn't want to was out of Cam’s knowledge. She seemed like a sweet kid.
Oh yeah.
El also apparently had telekinetic powers. So that's cool. Very useful.
It was like something out of a fucking comic book.
Mike, Dustin, and Lucas began launching into a whole explanation of what the monster was, (a ‘Demogorgon,’ they called it) and what the strange place was (The kids had named it the ‘Upside Down’). They had definitely been busy.
They tried to explain to everyone about the Upside Down using an analogy about a flea and an acrobat. Essentially, what Cam picked up from their speech, was that they were the acrobat, unable to walk on the underside of the tightrope. The tightrope being the divider between worlds, the underside of the tightrope being the Upside Down, and the upside of the tightrope was Hawkins. The flea, however, could travel along the underside of the tightrope.
The flea represented Barb, Will, and the monster - the Demogorgon.
Mike had drawn out a diagram onto a piece of paper, showing the acrobat, flea, and the separation, between Hawkins and the Upside Down.
“This is the Upside Down,” Mike explained, pointing to the bottom half of the paper. “Where Will is hiding.”
“Mr. Clarke said the only way to get there was through a tear in time and space.”
“A gate,” Dustin clarified.
“That we tracked to Hawkins lab,” Lucas added.
“With our compasses.”
“Time and space…” Cam murmured, “like a black hole?”
“Not quite.”
“Okay so, the gate has a really strong electromagnetic field, and that–”
“Can change the direction a compass points to!” She finished.
“Yes!” Dustin grinned gleefully, jabbing a finger in Cam’s direction.
She was sitting on the floor in between Nancy and Lucas on the couch and armchair respectively. Cam felt like a small child again, getting a thrill from sitting on the floor.
“Is this gate underground?” Hopper speculated.
“Yes.” El answered promptly. It was the first time she had spoken since she got here. She was sitting on the floor beside Mike, gingerly leaning on the table.
“Near a large water tank?”
“Yes.” She nodded slowly.
“How do you know all this?” remarked Dustin, turning his head towards Hopper with a look of disbelief.
“He's seen it.” Mike realized.
Cam widened her eyes.
How has he seen it? What the fuck has Hopper been up to?
She would ask him, but the son of a bitch probably wouldn't tell her.
“Is there any way that you could reach Will? That you could talk to him in this…” Joyce trailed off.
“The Upside Down.” El corrected.
“Upside down…yeah.”
El nodded.
“And our friend Barbara,” Nancy gestured to Cam, “can you find her too?”
El nodded again, slower this time.
El plopped down at the seat at the end of the table as the rest of the group crowded around it.
Mike fiddled with a few knobs on his walkie, so static emitted from the device. He placed it on the table, creating a makeshift white noise machine.
“Quiet.” Eleven instructed, her soft voice not making it much of an instruction and more similar to a question.
She closed her eyes, seemingly trying to concentrate on the white noise. El sat there as they all observed her silently. After a few minutes the light above the table began to flicker, and Eleven’s eyes snapped open.
She gazed at Joyce, a despairing look on her face.
“I'm sorry.”
Joyce's eyes widened, “What?” She spluttered.
“Sorry? Why?”
“I can't find them.” She responded gloomily.
Joyce screwed her face up, leaving the table, Jonathan going to comfort her.
“I'm sorry.” El murmured, tears pricking her eyes.
Cam gently placed a hand on her shoulder, “It's okay sweetie.”
She tried to hide her unsettlement through a plastered on smile.
“You've got a little nosebleed there,” Cam gestured to her own face. “Come, I'll show you to the bathroom, so you can clean yourself up.”
As Eleven slid down from the chair, Cam held her arm out behind her as if to guide her.
She didn't want to put her hand on her back in case she made her uncomfortable with Cam touching her again. She had noticed El’s flinch when Cam had touched her shoulder, so she promptly removed it.
“Thank you.” Eleven uttered, closing the door to the bathroom behind her.
When Cam returned to the main open plan room of the house, everyone else was gathered around the dinner table discussing any other plans. Apart from Hopper.
He was leaning against the countertop, listening from afar.
“Is she okay?”
“I think so, she’s just cleaning up.”
Cam picked up the knife she discarded earlier, toying with the shiny silver blade in her hands.
“You are one strange kid.” Hopper stated.
Cam scowled, “How?”
“Playing with knives, not caring at all if you get into bother, carrying guns about in your pocket.”
Cam snapped her head up to look him dead in the eye. “How did you know about that?”
“Kid, I'm not stupid. Not many objects make that shape, I can see the outline of a gun in your left pocket.”
“It's only one gun. I don't know where you are getting ‘guns’ from. Are you going to take it off me, Chief?”
“I have half a mind to do just that.”
“Fair enough.”
They were all snapped from their conversations when Eleven entered the room, coming back from the bathroom.
“You okay now?” Cam asked.
“Bath.”
“What?” Joyce questioned.
“I can find them in the bath.”
“Like the water tanks at the lab. A sensory deprivation tank.” Hopper leaned off the counter.
They all sat and watched as Dustin phoned Mr Clarke. Because Dustin believed that their middle school science teacher would know how to build a sensory deprivation tank.
He might. Cam didn't know.
The phone rang once, twice, thrice, then he seemed to pick up.
“Mr Clarke, it's Dustin.”
Dustin pursed his lips.
“Yeah, yeah, it's just, I have a science question.”
The curly haired boy wrinkled his nose.
“Do you know anything about sensory deprivation tanks, specifically - how to build one?”
Dustin sucked on the corner of his lip, listening to Mr Clarke's answer.
“Fun.” Dustin answered hurriedly.
Oh god. Cam would bet 20 bucks that she knew what question Mr Clarke just asked - it was probably what they were doing that needed the use of a sensory deprivation tank.
There was a pause.
“You always say we should never stop being curious, so always open any curiosity door we find,” Dustin continued. “Why are you keeping this curiosity door locked?”
Cam chuckled to herself. Dustin was now her favorite twelve-year-old.
He quickly got a pad and paper and started writing stuff down, materials for building the tank, Cam assumed.
Turns out Mr Clarke did have all the answers.
“Uh huh… uh huh. How much? Uh huh. Yup, alright. We'll be careful. Definitely. Alright, Mr Clarke, I'll see you on Monday. Bye.”
Beep.
Dustin put the phone down, turning to Joyce, “Do you still have that kiddie pool that we bobbed for apples in?”
“Uh, I think so, yeah.”
“Yeah.” Jonathan confirmed.
“Good,” Dustin smiled, “we just need salt, lots of it.”
“How much?” Cam asked, picking at her fingernails.
Dustin checked his list.
“1500 lbs.”
“Where are we gonna get that much salt?” Nancy scoffed.
“Pinch it from a restaurant?” Cam laughed anxiously.
“Not funny.”
“I was being serious.”
Turns out, the school. More specifically, the middle school. According to Hopper, they have a bunch of de-icing salt stashed in the back shed somewhere. They packed the kiddie pool into one of the two cars they were taking to get there. It was weird being in the middle school at night. It was certainly a lot eerier
They'd set the pool up in the assembly hall. Cam, Dustin, and Lucas were tasked with that. Jonathan and Hopper were grabbing the salt. Joyce was preparing Eleven for the tank. Nancy and Mike were getting the equipment to fill the pool.
The three of them unwrapped the pool from the cord it was tied in, spreading it out.
The walls of the pool kept flopping inwards no matter how hard they tried to get it to stand up properly.
“How does this even work?” Dustin groaned.
“Not sure, it's a shitty design.” Cam tugged at one of the sides. It flopped back down.
“Try that side,” Lucas instructed.
Cam took to the side of the pool in between Dustin and Lucas at either end.
The unoccupied side flopped inwards.
“Son of a bitch!” Dustin cursed.
“Pull it back on either side.” Lucas urged.
“Dustin, you move over a bit, so we're evenly spaced out.” He moved to the right, and Cam did too, so they were spaced out evenly around the circumference of the pool.
“Okay, pull back, pull back.”
They did so. The sides fell down again.
“Shit!”
“Maybe we just fill it with water and hope for the best.” Cam suggested, ready to give up.
Lucas wrinkled his nose at her, “Seriously?”
She shrugged. Not a fan of being patronized by a twelve-year-old.
“Try again!”
“3, 2, 1, pull!”
At once, they all pulled back on the sides.
“Keep going, make sure the floor of the pool isn't wrinkled.”
The three of them stood back and the pool didn't fall in.
“Yes!”
“Whoo-hoo!”
“Take that you son of a bitch!” Cam laughed with glee, sticking both her middle fingers up at the kiddie pool. A weird sense of accomplishment flooded through her at the achievement of setting up a kiddie pool.
Dustin and Lucas both guffawed at her celebration.
They all shared high-fives at their triumph, just as Nancy and Mike came back from outside with hoses to fill up the pool.
Nancy shot Cam a look. She had clearly watched at least a quarter of all that. Including her verbal assault of the pool.
Cam jabbed a finger at the monstrosity of a child's plaything, “It was being a dick.”
“COLDER!” Lucas yelled, checking the thermometer he had in the water.
“WARMER!” He yelled again as the red line dropped.
Nancy was at the other end of the hoses, turning the faucets on and off.
Cam was keeping an eye on the pool, making sure it didn't cave in again.
“RIGHT THERE!”
By the time the tub was full, Cam wasn’t sure 1500 lbs of salt would fit inside without it overflowing.
She helped Jonathan and Hopper fill the pool with salt, while Lucas, Dustin, and Mike used an egg to check its buoyancy in the water.
The satisfaction of the egg floating on the water was the second best thing she'd felt all day.
First was punching Steve Harrington in the face.
Mike set up his walkie-talkie to emit static, placing it on a metal trolley that had seemingly appeared from nowhere.
Eleven took off her shoes, socks, and watch. Handing the latter to Mike, who fastened it around his wrist.
Joyce handed her a pair of safety goggles that were blacked out with duct tape.
Eleven put them over her eyes, wading into the pool before sitting down.
They all gathered around the pool as El lay down in the water, floating like the egg did earlier.
Almost immediately, the lights began to flicker.
She started turning her head back and forth in the pool, as if she was looking for something.
She spoke quietly. “Barbara.”
Nancy and Cam clutched at each other’s hands at the sound of their friend's name. Cam’s breath picked up in anticipation. Barbara.
Eleven started breathing quicker as the lights flickered and turned off.
“What's going on?” Nancy asked, looking around.
“I don't know.” Mike replied, sounding worried.
“El, is she okay?” Cam spluttered.
Nancy gripped her hand tighter. “Is Barb okay?”
Eleven was quiet for a few seconds before she started muttering one word over and over. Getting louder each time.
Gone.
Cam let out a sob, pulling Nancy into a hug. She squeezed back, burying her face into Cam’s jacket.
Barb was gone. Barb. Their friend Barb. Barb, who didn't give a shit about what other people thought about her. Barb, who always knew what to say. Barb, who didn't follow the crowd.
Barb was dead.
“Gone! Gone!”
Eleven screamed, reaching her arms out to grab something, flailing around in the pool.
Joyce and Hopper each grabbed one of her hands to comfort her.
“It's okay, it's okay, it's okay.” Joyce murmured, rubbing her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. “It's okay, it's okay, we're here, we're right here.”
Her breathing quickened, “We're right here honey.”
“Don't be afraid. I'm here with you.”
Joyce kept telling Eleven soothing words, calming her down gradually.
She stopped flailing and lay in the water, calmly floating.
“Castle Byers.”
Joyce glanced at Jonathan at the mention of Will's hideout.
El was silent. Her breathing was shaky.
“Will?” She called out.
Cam could feel Nancy's heart thumping against hers, each in tandem with the other
Joyce and Jonathan both leaned forward, Joyce letting out a little gasp.
“You tell him, you tell him that I'm coming, Mom is coming.”
“Hurry.” Will's voice echoed out of the walkie-talkie. He sounded tired, and weak.
“You, you tell him to stay where he is. We're coming. We're coming, okay?”
There was a couple seconds of silence from El until she started yelling out Will's name. The walkie-talkie filled the air with cries.
With a start, El sat up, pulling the goggles off of her eyes. Joyce trapped her in a comforting hug from behind. They were both gasping for breath.
Eleven was crying, blood streaming from her nostrils.
Cam sat with Nancy, leaning against the wall outside of the assembly hall. Neither of them had said a thing since they found out about Barb. They just sat there in silence.
They didn't need to talk. They found comfort in the other’s presence.
Eleven was in the assembly hall with the boys, wrapped up in a towel to try and keep her warm.
Joyce and Hopper had set out for Hawkins Lab. In hopes of finding Will in the Upside Down.
Cam didn't even notice Jonathan until he sat down next to her and Nancy.
“Hey.”
“Hi.” He shifted against the wall.
“We have to go back to the station.” Nancy breathed.
“What?”
“Jonathan, your mom and Hopper are just walking in there, like bait.” Nancy spat out the last word, drawing her knees closer to her chest.
“That thing is still in there. We can't just sit there and let it get them, too. We can't.”
“You want to find it.” Cam murmured.
“I want to finish what we started.” Nancy stated. “I want to kill it.”
“Then we kill it.” Cam agreed, “We avenge Barb.”
It seemed as if a fire had been stoked under Nancy. She was filled with determination.
Desperate to kill the Demogorgon.
Barbara was dead. She didn't deserve it. Cam wanted to give her justice. She wanted to ensure the Demogorgon ended up six feet in the ground.
Unfortunately for them, they had to walk back to the police station to get Jonathan's car and all of their weapons. Outside in the freezing cold wasn't very pleasant, plus it was dark so even the slightest sound had their guards up.
Sneaking into the station was easy. Hardly anyone was about, and the only officer they could see was too busy smoking and playing cards with himself.
The box was exactly where they had left it, in Hopper's office.
Jonathan grabbed it, and they left for the car. Nancy stole a fire extinguisher off the wall as they passed by. Which surprised Cam, to say the least.
They sped over to the Byers house, haphazardly grabbing the stuff out of the trunk and hauling them into the house.
They conjured up a plan in record time. Setting it up, ready to enact it.
Their first task was screwing all the lightbulbs on the Christmas lights back in. For some reason, they were all screwed off of the wire, and since fairy lights are made using a series circuit, they had to screw in every single one in order for them to work.
They had to know when the Demogorgon was coming, it was crucial. That's what Jonathan said anyway.
Whilst Nancy and Cam reloaded their guns, Jonathan hammered nails through the end of the baseball bat, creating a deadly weapon.
They set up the bear trap in the hallway to Will's room, Nancy making a trail of gasoline from the trap to the main room and to Will's room, while Cam tied a yo-yo string to the bear trap, slinging the end over a chair in Will's room, making sure the string was pulled taut.
Cam filled up the lighters, handing one to Jonathan and pocketing the other.
Her heart pounded in her chest. They were really about to kill this thing. It didn't fully sink in until they were standing in the main room, knives in their hands, ready to draw the monster out.
“Straight into Will's room,” Nancy recited.
“Don't step on the trap,” Jonathan added.
“Wait for the yo-yo to move,” Cam continued.
“Then…” Jonathan flicked his lighter on, before turning it off and stuffing it in his pocket.
“Ready?” He asked.
They each held a knife to their palm. Ready to cut through their skin. Cam stared at the knife, ghosting it over her flesh. Cutting through her hand brought back uncomfortable memories.
Memories of flicking a knife back and forth across her forearm, slashing long, thin gashes in the tissue. Memories of gripping a scissor blade so hard it tore through the skin on her hand.
Memories she didn't want to recreate.
Memories she wanted to keep as memories.
Cam pushed the feeling down. Just one more time then she wouldn't have to put a knife to her flesh again.
“On three.”
“One.”
“Two.”
Jonathan caught sight of Nancy's face. It was scrunched up in fear.
“You don't have to do this.” He murmured.
“Jonathan stop talking.” Nancy muttered.
“I'm just saying–”
“Three.” Cam cut him off, quickly dragging the tip of her knife across her palm with precision, releasing a stream of blood across her skin.
She wanted to get it over and done with so badly, she didn't even flinch, she was biting down on her tongue the entire time.
Cam had overcome harming herself for a couple years, but that didn’t make her like mild pain any less.
It was all such an emotional burden on her family, knowing what she was doing to herself, even after the passing of her father. Her mom didn't let anyone outside the household know, bar her therapist.
Most of that was behind Cam now. She said most, she still picked at her scabs, pressed her bruises, and scratched at every tiny spot on her skin. Baby steps.
The three of them stood in a circle, each with bloody hands.
“Which wall did your mom say the monster came out of?” Cam asked, squeezing her hand into a fist, letting the blood pool.
“That one.” He gestured to the wall with the patched up hole.
Without missing a beat, Cam marched over to the wall, pulling her hand across the wall, smearing a dark red arc on the wallpaper.
Cam toyed with the bandage around her freshly cleaned cut, watching Nancy wrap gauze around Jonathan’s hand. They were all on edge, the slightest creak making them twitch.
Adrenaline was still pumping in her veins.
“Did you hear that?” Nancy breathed.
“It's just the wind,” Cam assured her, sauntering over to stand on the other side of the table from them.
“Don't worry,” Jonathan whispered. “My mom, she said the lights speak when it comes.”
“Speak?” Cam voiced, “like flickering? Like what happened when we were copying the posters?”
He nodded, “Think of them as alarms.”
Cam turned away uncomfortably as Nancy and Jonathan tenderly held each other's hand.
A loud knocking snapped them back to reality, a familiar voice echoing through the door.
“Jonathan? Are you there, man? It’s… it's Steve!”
Cam shot Nancy a look of disbelief, which she matched.
“Listen, I just want to talk!”
Cam marched over to the front door, opening it a crack.
She gasped quietly at the sight of Steve. He had blood all over the left side of his face, a split lip, and a gash across his nose. Jonathan really kicked his ass.
“Piss off, Harrington. Now’s not the time.”
“Cameron? What are you doing here?”
“Harrington, you need to go. I'm not playing around.”
“I'm not here to start anything.”
“I'm serious, you need to leave.”
Nancy joined Cam by her side, “Steve, you need to go. You can't be here.”
Cam stepped behind her to let her talk to him.
“No, no, no. Listen, I messed up, okay?” He was talking hurriedly.
“I messed up, I messed up.”
“Really, please. I just want to make things right.”
“Then make things right another time!” Cam snapped, “Harrington, you can't be here!”
He wasn't listening to her. So she wouldn't listen to him either. If he wanted to reconcile, he'd have to wait until they weren't on the cusp of mortal danger.
And ultimately, it was Nancy and Jonathan's decision to forgive him.
“Please…”
He stammered, catching sight of Nancy's hand braced on the door.
“Hey, what happened to your hand?” The inner parts of his eyebrows were pulled up in genuine concern.
“Nothing,” Nancy pulled away. “It was an accident.”
“What's going on?” Steve frowned, “Wait a sec, did he do this to you?”
“No.” Nancy pushed back on the door, trying to stop him from entering.
He caught sight of Cam’s also bandaged hand.
“What happened to you guys?”
“Nancy let me in.”
“No. No! No, Steve!”
Her attempts were in vain as he pushed past both of the girls into the house.
His gaze flitted around, taking in everything going on. The bat on the table, Cam’s blood on the wall, the lights strung up, the guns, the stink of gasoline.
“What is… what is this?”
“You need to get out of here,” Jonathan pushed him backwards towards the door.
“Whoa. What is all–”
“We're not asking you, Harrington!” Cam spat. “Get out!”
His nose twitched, “What is that smell? What?”
“Is that gasoline?!”
A gun cocked, “Steve. Get out!”
Nancy stood by the coffee table, pointing her gun at Steve.
“Wait. What? What is going on?!”
Jonathan took a step back from Steve, out of Nancy's firing range.
“Nance, are you insane?! Put the gun down!” Cam screeched.
“You have five seconds to get out of here.”
“Okay, is this a joke? Stop. Put the gun down.”
“I'm doing this for you.”
Cam gasped, the lights catching her attention at the corner of her eye.
“Nancy.” Jonathan warned.
“Nancy the lights!”
Her head snapped around as the flashing became more violent.
“Holy shit.”
The three of them stood back to back, weapons raised, circling around, ready to attack.
Steve kept shouting and yelling for an explanation. There was not enough time to give him one.
The gun was slipping in Cam’s grip, her sweaty hands sliding against the metal.
“Where is it?!”
“I can't see it!”
“Keep watch, keep watch!”
“What the hell is going on?!”
“There!” Cam yelled, firing at the monster as it tore through the ceiling next to the wall with her blood on it.
The bullets ricocheted off its skin.
“Go! Go! Go!”
Nancy and Jonathan turned and bolted down the hallway, jumping over the bear trap.
Steve stood there in shock, Cam grabbed his sleeve, pulling him down the hallway.
“Jump!”
“Holy shit!”
“Oh my god! Oh my god!” Steve yelled.
She pulled him into Will's room, and Nancy shut the door with a bang.
“Jesus! Jesus! What the hell was that?! Steve hollered.
“Shut up!” Nancy and Jonathan both yelled in unison.
The three of them stood by the door, poised to attack. Cam’s heart was beating dangerously fast, faster than it ever had in her entire life. Her blood pressure was probably skyrocketing.
I'd rather stick with low blood pressure than feel like this.
The Demogorgon groaned, and it sounded like it was fighting something.
“What's it doing?” Nancy asked.
“Not sure.” Cam stared at the yo-yo that wasn't moving, its yellow smiley face staring back at her.
Silence.
Jonathan opened the door slowly, venturing out into the hallway. His bat was raised.
Cam tiptoed out after him, holding her gun up.
Nancy and Steve moved out of the room after them, glancing down the hallway.
They moved out slowly, anticipating an attack. Aside from the wreckage, there was nothing in the main room.
The lights had stopped flickering a couple of seconds ago. The house was still.
“What was that?” Steve spluttered, “This is crazy. This is crazy. This is crazy. This is crazy! This is crazy! This is crazy!”
He snatched the phone off the wall, beginning to dial a number.
Nancy grabbed the phone off of him, throwing it to the floor, ignoring his cries.
“It's going to come back!” She shouted. “So you need to leave. Right now.”
He glanced at each of the others in turn before flinging the door open and shutting it behind him.
“Good riddance.” Cam murmured, reloading her gun.
It worried her that she had managed to use all six bullets in the revolver so quickly.
She bit her lip harshly. There's no chance I'll have time to reload when it comes back. Six shots. Twelve including Nancy's. We better not waste them.
They arranged themselves back in a formation, circling around, waiting for the Demogorgon to come back.
The lights suddenly began flashing even more than before, making it difficult to see anything.
“Where is it?” Nancy gasped.
“Come on. Come on, you son of a bitch.” Jonathan grumbled.
“You see it?”
“No. Where?”
“Come on, come on.”
“Where are you?”
The lights ceased their flickering, engulfing them in darkness.
A low growling sound came from behind Jonathan. The monster emerged behind him, standing up tall.
Nancy and Cam both screamed as Jonathan took a swing at it. He missed, getting pushed to the ground, his bat rolling away.
Neither of them could shoot at the Demogorgon's head without the risk of catching Jonathan in the crossfire. Cam shot at its body twice, the bullets bouncing off.
It roared, opening its mouth over Jonathan.
“Go to hell, you son of a bitch!” Nancy yelled, as they both shot at the monster from behind.
The Demogorgon stood up, turning towards Cam and Nancy.
They both kept shooting at it, before Cam’s gun jammed. She had used her six shots.
“I'm out of ammunition!” She shrieked in pure terror. Nancy fumbled with her gun, crying out in panic when she found that she was out of bullets too.
From nowhere, Steve bursts back into the house, grabbing the discarded bat off the floor and delivering a hard swing, piercing its skin.
“Steve?!”
“Get back, Nancy!” Cam screamed. Pulling her out of the way as the Demogorgon rounded on Steve.
He hit it again, dodging its swing. The lights were flickering as hard as ever, making Cam squint and shield her eyes.
The Demogorgon groaned, stumbling backwards. Steve twirled the bat in his hand before delivering a two-handed swing to the monster.
It growled, falling backwards.
Snap!
A howl in pain.
“It's in the trap! Harrington, get back!”
“It's stuck!”
Cam fumbled for the lighter in her pocket, but Jonathan was quicker, flicking his lighter open and dropping it into the gasoline.
The flames were blinding, Cam squinted, shielding her head with her arm, pushing her face into her shoulder. She felt a hand linger there, just Nancy.
The Demogorgon writhed in the trap, howling in agony, The noise and the heat swirled around, making Cam feel nauseous.
The lights flickered so violently that she thought the bulbs would burst.
Smoke engulfed the hallway as the flames licked the wallpaper.
Cam dashed back into the main room, grabbing the fire extinguisher.
“Get back!” She screeched. Releasing the CO2 out of the bottle with a hiss.
Clouds of carbon dioxide billowed out of the canister, smothering the flames.
They were all coughing as she dropped the canister to the floor, Jonathan waved his arm, clearing the air slightly.
Nancy trembled, “Where did it go?”
“It has to be dead. Surely?”
The trap sat closed in the middle of a huge scorch mark. Demogorgon meat sizzling in the trap. Steve gagged.
“Any of you guys hungry for hamburgers?” Cam quipped. “Well, Demo-burgers.”
“That's vile.” Nancy scowled.
The tension in the atmosphere had dispersed slightly, Cam relaxed her shoulders, taking in a deep breath.
Then all of a sudden, the faint tinkling sound of the fairy lights brought them to attention.
One by one, the fairy lights lit up in a trail across the hallway.
Steve stood out in front, holding the spiked bat, ready to swing.
They backed away slowly as the lights got closer to them at the end of the hall. Slowly, they receded, turning back the other way.
The four of them followed the lights all the way to the front door.
Jonathan gazed up at them, “Mom.” He murmured, “Is that you?”
Jonathan jogged outside. The other three followed him, unsure.
The street lamp closest to the house began to flicker.
Nancy sighed, “Where's it going?”
“I don't think that's the monster.”
“What?” questioned Steve. He was still holding the bat, resting it on his shoulder. The blood stained tip of the bat was far away from his clothes.
Nancy barely had a hair out of place.
“Do you want to follow the lights?” Cam ran her fingers through her hair, trying to flatten it.
She was way too hot and sweaty with her leather jacket on. She slid it down her shoulders, exposing her upper arms to the cool night air.
Jonathan shook his head.
“We should probably head back to the school.”
“Wouldn't it be safer to stay here?” Asked Nancy.
“What about the boys and El?” Cam gabbled.
Nancy groaned, “You're right.”
“Let's go then.”
“Whoa, Whoa!” Steve yelled, “Where the hell are you going?”
They stopped in their tracks.
“Ah, shit.” Cam grumbled, glancing at Nancy and Jonathan.
The former took a deep breath in and turned to Steve.
“Go home.”
“What– No. I need to–” Steve pinched his lips together, processing his words in his head.
“Look, Nance, I'm really sorry - about everything. I messed up royally, and I– Shit. I just–”
He paused, “Nancy, you have to tell me what's going on.”
“Steve,” She sighed. “We can talk later. I'll call you.”
Her voice was so soft that Cam barely heard her over the fuzziness of her brain.
“For now… just go home, okay?”
The middle school parking lot was flooded with all kinds of authorities. There were at least half a dozen fire trucks and several police cars.
They were taken in by the authorities pretty much immediately. They were all driven to the hospital to meet with Hopper, Joyce, and their parents.
Cam’s mom wasn't there, but it wasn't really that surprising. The Chief then revealed to them they'd retrieved Will from the Upside Down.
Everyone was all sitting in the waiting room nearby Will's room, waiting to see if he'd be okay, if he had woken up.
When he did, Mike woke up the other boys from their sleeping positions on the chairs. They all jumped up and ran to see Will. Jonathan followed suit.
The reunion was joyous, for most. It felt like only Nancy and Cam gave a shit about Barb.
She was gone, leaving behind a hole in her heart.
Chapter 8: As Time Passes
Chapter Text
Nothing would ever be the same ever again.
Cam later found out from Dustin and Lucas that the Demogorgon had shown up at the school after Eleven had killed a bunch of government officials. She had then sacrificed herself to kill it. Mike said he couldn't find her afterwards and she was presumed dead by officials.
That's why she wasn't at the hospital. She was dead.
It didn't sit right with her, she was so young. Cam was glad they found Will, but what would happen concerning everyone who died? What about Barb?
She didn't doubt the authorities would handle the whole situation awfully.
Turns out they did. The following Monday, they released a report covering the whole thing up, saying Barb was still missing. It was utter bullshit. The fact people bought it was absolutely ridiculous.
Steve made up with Nancy, she forgave him and they got back together. Much to Cam's dismay.
She still didn't like him, even after he saved their asses. She just hated him less, quite a bit less. They would be dead if he hadn't shown up.
But when Nancy saw Cam’s scathing look at seeing them back together, she explained what Steve told her happened after the fight between Jonathan and Steve. That he had argued with Tommy and Carol then had gone to help clean up the graffiti sprayed into the movie theater sign.
Cam was still deliberating on whether or not she believed that story. It was extremely out of character for Steve. But for Nancy's sake, she begrudgingly believed it. Maybe Steve was undergoing some ‘character development.’
Cam's mother grounded her for two months for lying to her and getting into a fight. Even though it wasn't even her. Even though Can didn't even know how she found out. The only time she was allowed out of the house unsupervised by her was school, and when she volunteered to help clean up the Byers house. Joyce was just a tad bit disgruntled when she found out about the state of her house.
When Christmas arrived, it wasn't as quiet as it was usually. Cam's family went to the Wheeler's for Christmas dinner. Afterwards, Cam felt like she could sleep for a week. Far too much socializing.
This is also when Cam started a photo album. She found out that she really enjoyed snapping pictures on her shiny new Christmas present polaroid camera from her mom.
Jonathan had taught her how to use it and gave her some tips for producing a good shot.
Surprisingly enough, she actually managed to retain the information.
The two went out into the woods to take pictures a couple days after Christmas. Jonathan with his very expensive camera as a Christmas gift and apology from Steve.
In Cam's opinion, Steve didn't owe him it. Yes, an apology for the things he said right before the fight, but no, for getting annoyed at Jonathan taking a picture of his girlfriend taking her clothes off while they were having sex.
Cam judged that as a perfectly valid reaction, and if she was there when the camera smashing happened, she likely would've backed up Steve. Maybe not the destruction of property, but the verbal beatdown and tearing up the photos - yes, 100%.
Cam's life was stampeding on faster than she had realized, and she wanted to capture each and every special moment and keep old ones alive. Like ones with her Dad and Barb.
She had spent days rifling through boxes of photographs, adding them to her book.
Nine-year-old her, Nancy and Barb sitting peacefully sprawled out on a picnic blanket; the three of them striking ridiculous poses at their middle school graduation; Cam as a small toddler in her dad's lap; her lying on the floor next to Kate as a baby; her mom and dad dancing together one year on holiday.
It was all so bittersweet, so fleeting.
Summer rolled around extremely quickly. Cam was preparing to lounge about all summer, occasionally hanging out with friends.
She and Scarlett made it their goal to annoy Cherri and Mckayla at their graduation. So they did. Cam took lots of pictures. They then went out for dinner and Scarlett nearly got into a fight with a person who was almost definitely stoned out of their mind.
They had to drag her away before anyone got injured, or arrested.
Cam's relationship with her mom was growing strained. She was convinced that she was lying to her all the time, about what she was doing, where she was going, her grades. She wouldn't get off her back.
Cam didn't know whether it was because of Will and Barb's disappearance (and her temporary one), or if it was just because she wanted her to keep her toes in line.
It bothered her, her mother treating her like a child, even though she was seventeen by then.
Eighteen in about six months.
Her mom spent far more time with Kate than she did with Cam. Cam didn't exactly know why, but if she had to guess it would be because she couldn't control her the way she wanted, she wasn't able to mold to her standards anymore - or it was the fact that she was a perimenopausal mother with two jobs to support her daughters, and having two jobs greatly overworked her, but because of the gender pay gap she had to have two jobs in order to comfortably support her family.
Cam tried to understand that, but she really couldn't until it hit her twenty, twenty-five years down the line, if she ever decided to have kids. Which she doubted she would change her mind on. She did not want them.
So Cam just kept out of her way, she really didn't want to upset her, she was her mother, and the fact that every third conversation they had was an argument just makes her feel shitty.
In the end, it all just reminded her that she was a shitty daughter and a shitty person.
Saturday. August 11th 1984.
“What mixtapes did you bring?” Nancy relaxed down on her bed, playing with her hair.
Nancy had recently cut her hair to just below her chin. She had been unsure at first, but it ended up really suiting her.
“Depends…” Cam shrugged, “Will you ask me to change it if you don't like it?”
Nancy rolled her eyes, the corner of her mouth curled upwards, “Perhaps.”
“I also rented Grease.” Cam produced the VHS tape from her bag, watching as Nancy rummaged through her music tapes.
“Wuthering Heights?” She grinned, wafting the single in Cam's face. “I'm surprised.”
Cam deadpanned, “Really? Is it that surprising that I listen to Kate Bush?”
“It really is.”
Cam scoffed, “Okay… Grease?”
“Yeah.”
“Alrighty then!”
“I love this whole sequence.”
Cam sighed wistfully, resting her head on Nancy's shoulder, her eyes glued to the TV as she watched Sandy snuff out her cigarette with her foot.
Nancy chuckled, smoothing Cam’s hair, “I know you do…”
Cam grinned, “Remember when you, me, and Barb used to–”
Her breath hitched at Barb’s name, tears pricking her eyes. Her name had slipped out of her mouth out of habit. She pinched her lips together as if that would close the flood gates to her onslaught of tears. She should've known by now that that would never work.
“Hey, hey, it's okay…” Nancy carded her fingers through her friend's hair, in an attempt to soothe her. “Well, it's not okay, but we've got each other.”
“That's all we have, each other.” Cam sniffed, “We are two of the very few that know the truth, Nance.”
She curled up into a tighter ball, wrapping her arms around Nancy's waist.
Nancy wriggled out from Cam's grasp, hopping up from the couch.
“Come on! Get up!” She grabbed her hands, gently tugging Cam towards her.
“Up!” Nancy instructed more firmly as Cam just sat there staring at her blankly.
She let her pull her out of her seat, into a haphazard version of the song choreography.
They stumbled around the floor giggling almost hysterically. It was like time had rewound to five years ago.
Nancy wrapped her arms around Cam's neck and Cam gently placed her hands on her waist as they mimicked Sandy and Danny dancing in the shake shack.
Cam felt instantaneously better, like she was shaking off all of the misery and stress.
Nancy's grin was bright and calming. She could tell it was for the both of them. She was hiding just as much pain behind her smile.
Maya (Guest) on Chapter 1 Wed 10 Dec 2025 11:42PM UTC
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Avain_3vilQueen on Chapter 6 Sat 13 Dec 2025 09:23PM UTC
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monarch_chrysanthemum on Chapter 6 Sun 14 Dec 2025 12:04PM UTC
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