6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Jessica and Nancy had been in the Upside Down for a grand total of maybe twenty minutes when Jonathan's voice led them back to their world. Nancy was sobbing and had pretty much started clinging to Jonathan's neck. Jessica wasn't sobbing. She didn't feel much of anything at all besides a burning desire to get out of those woods.

"I'm going home," she said mechanically. "I have to – my brother."

Dustin and the others had gone looking for an opening. What if they'd found one? What if they'd found one and were stuck in the Upside Down right at that moment?

"You need to check on Mike," she told Nancy. "He and the others know about that place. He – they've heard Will . . . on the walkie-talkie. They went looking for him."

Jessica realized that until just then she'd always, in the back of her mind, believed that they'd only heard Will because they'd wanted to, and that maybe the thing in Nancy's picture was really just an image distortion like Jonathan had suggested at first. She couldn't believe that now.

"You heard Will?" Jonathan asked.

"Well, Mike did. Or . . . he heard a boy singing that Clash song he likes so much." She knew Jonathan probably had questions, and so would Nancy, but she couldn't stick around to answer them. "I'm going home. Come on, if you want a ride, Nancy."

With that, Jessica took the lead and she made it back to the cars before the other two. It didn't matter because Nancy got a ride home from Jonathan. That meant Jessica could just go straight home to check on Dustin. That was better, really.

On the way home Jessica had to pull over on the side of the road because even though she hadn't felt like crying before she did feel like crying then and she'd rather do it alone in her car than at home in front of her mom or Dustin. Her mom wouldn't understand, and Dustin would want to know what was wrong, and how would she explain?

It had just hit her that she could have died that night. She could have disappeared that night, and no one would have known what had happened to her. Her mother would've lost a daughter, and Dustin would've lost a sister. Steve would have lost his best friend. She would have ceased to exist in her true world, and there had been no guarantee she would have survived in the other.

She wasn't even eighteen and she'd been through one of the scariest things anyone could claim to have been through, and she was just done. Done with it all. It was interesting while it had lasted, but she was not killing herself over this. She liked Jonathan and Nancy, but they had all been stupid doing this. She understood why they had, but it had still been stupid. She wanted nothing else to do with it, and she was going to keep Dustin away from it too.

She couldn't lose Dustin the way Jonathan had lost Will.

When she got home she felt herself loosen with relief at the sight of her brother's bike in the driveway. At least he'd made it home safely.

Once inside the house she found her mother on the couch in front of the TV. Her mother glanced up at her and then went back to watching the TV before looking at her again.

"Why're you so dirty?"

"What?"

"You look like you've been rolling around in the mud."

She hadn't even noticed, to be honest, but she was filthy. Her skin, her clothes, she didn't even want to think about what was in her hair and under her nails. She hoped she hadn't brought any Upside Down germs with her. That was the last thing she needed, to come down with some incurable disease.

"I was with Nancy on the trail in the woods and I fell . . . in the mud, like you said. I'm okay. Just learned not to play in the forest at night."

"Don't forget to throw your clothes in the wash."

"Yeah, sure."

Who was she kidding? Jessica wasn't going to wash her clothes. She was going to throw them in the fireplace and burn them.

Dustin was already in his room, though he was not asleep. He was still dressed from earlier after he'd changed from the funeral clothes. He took one look at her and asked what happened.

She quickly shut the door and sat on the bed beside Dustin.

"I saw it. Tonight. In the woods. The thing that took Will."

"What?" Dustin's eyes lit up. "What did it look like?"

"I – I don't know how to describe it. An alien, or . . . I don't know, but it definitely wasn't from here. It has a human-like body except its arms are too long, and the head kind of looks like a rosebud before it opens up."

After a few minutes of Dustin asking more questions about the thing than Jessica had the answers to, she asked him one.

"How did it go with you guys?"

"We got nothing. El led us in a circle."

Dustin then went on to explain how El had been controlling the compasses earlier that day. They'd walked the train tracks for hours only to come out at an old abandoned junk yard. The only reason they'd even figured it out was because Lucas had noticed El's nose bleeding – or noticed the fresh blood on the sleeve of her jacket.

Mike defended El, which Lucas hadn't appreciated, and the two boys had gotten into a physical fight that had ended in El using her powers to throw Lucas off of Mike. Lucas had landed on the ground, but his back had hit an old, broken down truck first.

"Is he okay?"

Dustin nodded. "I think his pride was hurt more than anything else. Anyway, Mike yelled at El for using her powers on Lucas, and she took off."

"What?"

"Yeah. She's gone. Mike didn't mean to yell –"

"He shouldn't have yelled. She probably got scared because he was mad at her. Wherever she came from, I can almost promise that nothing good ever came from someone being angry at her."

Dustin nodded, as if he understood. He probably did. He was pretty perceptive for a boy his age.

"It's just we thought she was trying to help us find Will."

"Yeah. You guys quit that. It's not safe."

"That's what El said."

"She would know. Maybe she took you in a circle because she was trying to keep you safe."

Jessica sighed and turned to face her brother fully. She placed her hands on his shoulders. She needed Dustin to know how serious she was.

"Dustin . . . you can't do this anymore. I . . . I found an opening tonight, Dustie, and I went through it. I went through it, and that thing was there. It was feeding on a deer. I could've died. Everything's dead over there, Dustin."

Even though she hadn't wanted to cry in front of him she began to cry anyway. She knew it made him uncomfortable because she was his sister. He wouldn't just treat her as one of the guys, but he didn't know how to comfort her either.

"Are you . . . okay?"

"No, I'm – I'm terrified. I went to another world and if – if I hadn't been with Nancy and Jonathan, I probably would've been stuck there. It was dark and empty, like Will said. There was nothing there but that thing."

She dropped her hands to her lap. "I'm sorry about Will, Dustin, but unless we can find an opening near where he is over there . . . I don't think we'll be able to get him back."

She wrapped an arm around his shoulders and he allowed her to ruffle his hair when he laid his head against her. She stayed with him for a few minutes to let everything sink in, but then she went to take a very hot and cleansing shower.

The jacket she'd been wearing was filthy, and there was a rip in the arm. She didn't know when it had happened or how, but now it almost made her cry because it had been her father's jacket, and it was the only thing she had of his. It was about two sizes too big, but she loved it. Now she would probably have to trash it. It did make her cry once she was in the shower, warm water soothing out the knots in her body. Physically she felt okay, but emotionally she was a wreck, and she found herself just wanting Steve there even though he knew nothing about what was going on – or maybe because of it, she didn't know. He would make her feel better, though. Sure, he would want to know what was wrong, but he would also just goof off with her until she was smiling again – or at least not close to tears.

Not long after her shower she got a call from Nancy, who claimed she couldn't sleep. Jessica probably wouldn't be able to either, but her hair was still wet so she hadn't tried.

Jessica had a phone line in her room that she almost never used because she almost never talked about anything she didn't want anyone else to hear, but that was not the case this time. She closed the door to her room so no one could hear, especially Dustin.

"I was thinking about what you said about Barb."

"Hey, I shouldn't have said that. I was just trying to get you to leave." She really did feel bad about saying what she had even if she did think that it was true.

"If she's not dead, then she's trapped in that place. We have to find that thing again."

"What? And do what? Almost die again? I'm not going back out there. Neither should you."

"Maybe we don't have to. It's a predator, and it hunts at night like a lion or a coyote, but it doesn't hunt in packs like them. It's always alone, like a bear."

"Okay . . ."

"Sharks can detect blood in one part per million, that's one drop of blood per million, and they can smell it from a quarter mile away."

"So, you're saying it can detect blood?" That was definitely not Nancy's voice. That was Jonathan's voice.

"Nancy, why is Jonathan still at your house?"

"I didn't want to be alone. Anyway, the predator thing is just a theory."

"We could test it, but if it works . . ."

"At least we'll know it's coming."

"How exactly do you plan on testing this out? It's not like one of us is going to cut open a vein to draw it out."

When Jessica was met with silence, all she could say was, "No way!"

"This thing hunts at night, right?" Nancy asked. "Well, tomorrow night we'll look for Will at his house. He's communicated there plenty of times. Maybe we can get him out."

Of course they had to play the Will card, and of course she would help if there was a real chance to find him. She'd freaked out earlier and backed out because . . . well, it was the smart thing to do, wasn't it? She still didn't want Dustin anywhere near it. Besides, if they could get rid of the thing, maybe they would be able to find Will and Barb without having to worry about it.

"I'm so gonna regret this, but . . . okay. I'm working tomorrow from two to eight, so wait until I get off and I'll meet you at the house."

"Meet us in the morning at the supply store. We can get a few things we may need to face this thing."

"Like dynamite, maybe?" Jessica asked, only half joking.

"Hey, we are not blowin' up my house," Jonathan said, causing Jessica to realize that he hadn't only been listening to Nancy's side of the conversation.

"Why not? We find this thing and kill it, we'll probably make enough money that you'll be able to buy a new one," Jessica teased. "Anyway, see you guys in the morning. Is ten okay?"

They all agreed it was.

Dustin was already gone when Jessica awoke the next morning. She figured he'd gone to Mike's. She hoped they had a plan to find El, and that Mike and Lucas would work things out. Mike needed to understand that Lucas was probably jealous. Mike had never really had a crush on someone before, and now he was paying a lot of attention to El, someone he had met only a few days ago. Lucas probably felt as if he were losing his best friend.

Lucas and Mike had been friends before Jessica and Dustin had even moved to Hawkins. It had been Mike, Lucas, and Will for the longest time, but they had allowed Dustin to join their circle fairly easily once they found out that they had so much in common, science-wise.

So, yes, Lucas probably felt jealous and a little hurt, and Mike needed to realize that. But Lucas needed to realize something too. Mike could like a girl and still be friends with him.

Jessica left her house around nine-thirty, grabbed an apple from the kitchen on the way, and reached the Supply Store at the same time as Nancy and Jonathan.

Jessica's eyebrows rose as she wondered whether Jonathan had spent the night at the Wheeler's, in Nancy's room. It wasn't her business, so she didn't ask, but she still wanted to know – mostly because Nancy was with Steve, so she shouldn't have had another guy in her room.

"Hey," she said.

She noticed that Nancy had dark circles around her eyes. It appeared she hadn't slept very well even after having talked on the phone.

"Hey," the other two said.

"This shouldn't take long," Jonathan added.

"Good."

Inside the store, right inside the door, was the head of a bear, its mouth open in a roar. Jonathan went past it and headed straight for the aisle where the gas cans were on display.

"So we can't blow his house up, but we can set it on fire?" Jessica quipped, and Nancy grinned.

"It's for the thing."

"Right."

Jessica followed Nancy, who picked up a handful of huge nails and a hammer.

"I don't think you want to get close enough to hammer nails into this thing."

"They're for the bat."

"Hm. I don't want to get close enough to use a bat either."

"Yeah." Nancy stopped walking and turned to face her. "We're all scared, Jess."

"Right." Jessica's eyes began to burn with unshed tears. "It's just . . . whatever this is . . . this thing, it's not supposed to exist, and here we are planning to lure it out and kill it, and we can't tell anyone. And we're just teenagers, and Dustin's just a kid and he was planning on going after it too. What if he had found the opening last night instead of us? What if Mike had?"

"But they didn't," Jonathan said from behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Besides, we know there's a way back now. If they had found a way in . . . we would have gotten them back, just like we're gonna get Will back."

Jessica nodded, sniffled, and took a deep breath.

"A'right. I hear you. I'm just a little freaked out."

They picked up a bear trap and some lighter fluid. Jessica added a machete to their supply list. On the way to the checkout counter, Nancy picked up a high-powered flashlight. They had lost theirs the night before in the woods. At the counter, Jonathan picked up four boxes of .38s.

The guy behind the counter asked what they were doing with the stuff they were buying, and Nancy actually said they were monster hunting. The guy basically rolled his eyes and then rang them up.

"Monster hunting?" Jonathan asked as they took the stuff to his car and put it in the trunk.

"You know, last week . . . I was shopping for a new top I thought Steve might like. It took me and Barb all weekend. It seemed like life-and-death, you know? And now . . ."

"You're shopping for bear traps with Jonathan Byers."

"Yeah."

"What's the weirdest part? Me or the bear trap?"

"You. Definitely you," Nancy said almost immediately, but there was no malice in her voice.

"What I find weird is dressing for someone other than yourself," Jessica said. "I've never given a second thought to what anyone thinks about my clothes."

Just then a guy in a red Mustang drove by and beeped. He shouted at Nancy – something about a movie.

"What was that?" Jonathan asked.

"I don't know," Nancy said, but Jessica heard the worry in her voice.

Nancy looked in the direction she would have to go if she were going to the theater and then began running towards it.

"Nancy, wait!" Jonathan said, and began to follow.

Jessica sighed and took off after her two new friends. Why was there so much drama in her life? She used to be so good at avoiding it, and now . . .

She passed a doughnut shop and a furniture store, and then crossed the street to reach the theater. Nancy was staring up at the marquee, which showed the name of the new movie playing that week, All the Right Moves, in black letters. Underneath that, in red spray paint, were the words Starring Nancy 'The Slut' Wheeler.

Nancy had tears in her eyes and Jessica tensed as a red, hot anger filled her. Tommy and Carol must've decided to get at Nancy about sleeping with Steve even though it wasn't any of their business. Had she made them angry or something? Not that they should have done this at all, but there had to be a reason, right?

"Nancy, don't – don't look at it. It doesn't matter. It'll wash, and other people will forget about it the next time someone does something worth talking about."

The reason Jessica had said other people would forget was because she knew Nancy wouldn't. Tommy and Carol were –

A laugh came from the alley beside the theater, so Jessica headed that way, along with Nancy and Jonathan. She hadn't expected to find Tommy and Carol. She really hadn't expected to find Steve there. Nicole was along for the ride.

Tommy was using a spray can – caught red handed, so to speak. Jessica hoped Steve had only just arrived, and that he didn't have anything to do with what was written on the theater marquee. She almost prayed he had nothing to do with it, while already trying to brace herself for that fact that he probably had.

"You're writing is terrible," Carol told Tommy.

When Carol noticed their presence she said to Nancy, "Hey, there, Princess." Tommy added, "Aw, she looks upset."

Jessica noticed that Tommy had been spray painting 'Byers is a perv' on the alley wall. He'd been doing that, and Steve had let him. That just added weight to the thought that he'd let Tommy write about Nancy too.

Nancy, who had stomped right up to Steve, now slapped him right in the face. Jessica felt no desire to come to his defense. She felt he deserved whatever Nancy threw at him.

"What's wrong with you?" Nancy demanded.

"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with you? I was worried about you. I can't believe that I was actually worried about you."

"What're you talking about?" Nancy asked.

Jessica shared a look with Jonathan, who seemed upset for Nancy, but also confused. It seemed all three of them were at a loss. The others knew something they didn't.

"I wouldn't lie if I were you," Carol said. "You don't wanna be known as the lying slut now, do you?"

"Steve?" Jessica spoke up. "What's going on? Why are those words up on the place where I work? By the way, vandalism is a crime, you know? Hate to have your parents have to come back into town right after they just left last night, especially after they had to come back once already because you couldn't keep your crap together."

She hated bringing that up, but if her boss called the police and she was asked about it, she wouldn't lie just to protect Steve, not when he was actually guilty.

Steve seemed wounded by her comment and she hated having brought up his parents even more, but she wouldn't take it back.

Nancy figured it out before Jessica or Jonathan did, and she asked Steve, "Did you come by last night?" When Steve just continued staring at her, Nancy continued. "Look, I don't know what you think you saw, but it wasn't like that."

"Yeah, I'm sure you let him in your room just to . . . study."

"Or for another pervy photo session," Tommy said.

"We were just –"

"Just what?" Steve asked. "Finish that sentence."

The thing was . . . Nancy couldn't honestly finish the sentence. Jessica could see how Steve had jumped to the conclusion he had, especially if he'd seen Nancy and Jonathan together the night before. And he had a thing about cheating, anyway. It was one of his insecurities, because he'd grown up knowing his dad cheated on his mom. He still had no right to do what he'd done, even if Nancy had done what Steve seemed to think she had, which she hadn't.

"Finish. The. Sentence," Steve said again, staring Nancy down. When she couldn't, he turned away from her. "Go to Hell, Nancy."

"Come on, Nancy. Let's just go," Jonathan said, and grabbed her arm to gently pull her away.

"You know, Byers, I'm actually a little impressed. I always took you for a queer, but I guess you're just a little screw-up like your father."

Steve pushed Jonathan, not hard enough to make him fall, but enough to make him stumble a little.

"That house is full of screw-ups." Steve pushed him again. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I mean, a bunch of screw-ups in your family. Your mom . . . I'm not even surprised what happened to your brother."

"Steve! Stop!" Jessica shouted. She didn't want to hear the words coming out of his mouth. She couldn't believe he was saying them, not her Steve. He wouldn't, but Tommy's and Carol's would. "Please stop."

"Why? Because you're asking me to, Golden Girl?"

Her breath caught in her throat painfully – he'd never called her that in a derogatory way, in an insulting way until just then - and she whispered, "Yes."

"Well, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the entire Byers family is a disgrace to –"

And with that Jonathan had had enough. He threw a punch that landed on Steve's jaw. It was powerful enough to make Steve lose his balance and have to catch himself on the wall. It wasn't powerful enough to make Steve fall down, though, and he quickly tackled Jonathan to the ground and they both began wrestling, neither guy really landing any blows at first.

It wasn't until Carol and Nancy started screaming that Steve tried to get up, and Jonathan punched him again. This time Steve did fall, and Tommy tried to get involved. Steve wasn't really hurt, however, and he really wanted Jonathan for himself, no help from the others, so he told Tommy to stay out of it.

Steve hit Jonathan again, not enough to fell him, and then Jonathan just started waling on Steve, hard enough that Steve couldn't get up between hits.

"Jonathan, stop!" Nancy screamed. "You're gonna hurt him."

It was true. And though Jessica hadn't liked how Steve had been acting, and even though he'd deserved a punch or two, she didn't really want him hurt. She didn't actually want to get involved either, though, because she could get hurt if she got between them.

Someone must've seen the fight and called the police, because Jessica suddenly heard sirens. Tommy suddenly grabbed Jonathan and screamed, "He's had enough, he's had enough!"

Since Tommy had Jonathan, Jessica quickly went to Steve to help him up. He was able to stand easily enough, and she pulled him to the side so he could lean against the wall. His lip was busted, and there was blood coming from his eyebrow. There were other bruises and cuts, but his lip and brow were the worst of it.

"You deserved some of that," she told him. Even so, she touched his cheek – the one that had taken the least amount of damage. "You owe Nancy an apology. She's not sleeping with Jonathan, and there was a reason he was with her last night."

"You knew?"

"Not until . . . I mean, I knew he was over there last night, but I didn't know he'd spent the night until this morning."

"How do you know what they were doing last night? I thought you were going to be with Dustin all day yesterday?"

"I – I was, but he wanted to spend time with Mike and Lucas, so I hung out with Nancy and Jonathan."

"Yeah, and since when are you friends with Nancy?" He was being so defensive, she really didn't know what to do.

"Um . . . two days ago? Maybe. I don't know. I'm helping her with something, and we may not even be friends after that, but she's okay. And not a slut."

A cop car pulled into the alleyway, parked, and two cops got out. Tommy, Carol, and Nicole took off, grabbing Steve on the way, so that only Jessica, Jonathan, and Nancy were left behind. In the end, Jonathan was taken in because he pushed an officer away when the guy began checking him over. Jessica didn't really think it had anything to do with the officer being pushed. It was more to do with the fact that the police officer escorted them back to their cars to make sure that the others didn't come back, and each of their cars had to be checked. The cops found the supplies in Jonathan's trunk and had some serious questions for him.

Because Jessica and Nancy had been with Jonathan, they got taken in too. Jessica was going to kill Steve the next time she saw him, she really was.

"I gotta go home and change for work," Jessica told the dispatch woman at the police department. Jessica was pretty sure the woman's name was Flo. She was a sweet black-haired lady.

"Work can wait," she said.

Jessica thought it really could. If she went in, she would have to help wash those stupid words off of the marquee, and she didn't want to be responsible for that. Every time she thought of the red paint and the words they spelled out she felt a surge of anger unlike anything she'd ever felt before.She couldn't believe Steve had allowed Tommy to do what he'd done. She really couldn't. She also couldn't believe that she'd been craving Steve's company the night before. When had he become this person? This guy who would allow his friends to disrespect his girlfriend that way?

"How long are we going to have to stay here?" Nancy asked after they had been there for almost an hour.

Chief Hopper wasn't in the office at the moment and Jonathan would have to wait to talk to him before he could leave. The cops who had brought them in – Jonathan in a cop car, Jessica and Nancy in their own cars – didn't want Jonathan leaving until Hopper got to look at the supplies from Jonathan's trunk.

They'd been waiting anyway, so Hopper could get statements from all three of them, but it didn't look like he was going to be back any time soon, so now Flo was fixing some ice for Jonathan, whose cheek was beginning to swell.

"You guys will be able to leave as soon as you fill out a formal statement about what happened. It shouldn't take more than a half-hour." To Nancy specifically, she said, "Your boyfriend, however, is being held for assault on a police officer."

"He's not my boyfriend."

"Well, you should tell him that. Only love makes you that crazy . . . and stupid."

Jessica sighed. "He didn't even hurt the guy, he barely touched him."

"He still pushed a police officer."

Flo handed Nancy the ice, which was wrapped in a towel, and then took them back into the main room of the police department so they could write up their statements. Jessica was pretty sure they were supposed to have parents present but was glad no one had been called.

Jessica didn't lie on her report, but she held back a little. She did put that Jonathan threw the first punch, but Steve provoked him verbally and physically

She regretted threatening to get Steve in trouble now that she really was filing a report against him. She regretted even more bringing up his parents. They would probably be called now that the police were getting statements about how he started all this crap, and he was going to really get it if his dad had to come back after having just left.