her eyes rolling into the back of her head. "you wouldn't happen to know any soft pop on guitar, would you, eddie?"

eddie shook his head. "no, man."

the group all moved into eddie's room, leaving erica and steve with nancy in case she started to levitate like max had. "what exactly are we looking for?" lucas asked, flipping through multiple tapes and cds of metal bands he'd never even heard of.

"steve says you need to hurry!" erica then yelled, barging into the room.

"yeah no shit!" dustin yelled back, still on an adrenaline high from watching his sister go through the same thing.

"we're trying, we can't find anything!" max agreed as she looked through some vinyls.

robin, who was on the floor, turned to eddie. "what is all this shit?"

"what are you even looking for?" he asked, pacing his own room.

robin shuffled through the cassette tapes in her hands, all of which were bands nancy never would've heard of. "madonna, blondie, bowie, beatles?" she suggested. "music! we need music!"

eddie grabbed the cassette from her hands. "this is music!" he yelled.

meadow wanted to laugh, and she probably would have if the situation hadn't been so dire. "in what world is nancy wheeler bumping it to dio, munson?"

"then i don't know what you want me to do!" he practically screamed back.

"hey, losers!" erica yelled, making everyone stop yelling and look at her. "she's awake."

nancy had collapsed to the floor, and steve had lifted her head up onto a pillow to let her come back to reality. she was shaking, understandably, but overall okay. "we need somewhere to talk that doesn't have.. that." meadow said, glancing up at the hole in eddie's ceiling.

"my place is across the street." max suggested.

everyone was feeling quite somber, but meadow found herself looking over at eddie, who was the newest to all of this. "hey, munson." she called, watching as he stumbled over his own foot before walking by her side. "thank you."

"for what?" he asked.

she scoffed. "saving my life, dipshit."

he smiled, gesturing to his trailer with his thumb. "what, that old thing, no biggie." he then laughed. "how'd you know it was me?"

meadow shrugged. "i didn't think dustin was playing fade to black, no."

"did it sound good?" eddie asked. "i mean, like, in the upside.. whatever."

she laughed. "yes, it was super metal."

"was it? i thought it was pretty metal."

"the most metal." she agreed, laughing again. "you know, when all this is over, you and me should hit up a metallica concert together. maybe see 'em in chicago." she shrugged. "who knows, maybe we can convert steve into a metal head."

eddie smiled. "that would be really fun, henderson."

meadow and eddie caught up to steve and dustin, who were walking in front of them. while eddie and dustin started talking, meadow turned to steve. "sorry for trailing behind, i was just thanking him for-"

"hey," steve shook his head, turning to look at her, "you don't need to explain anything. i get it. i get that i'm.. overprotective of you, and that i get jealous easily. but.. but i trust you. and i know you trust me, too. you don't need to tell me when you're talking to another guy."

her brow raised, and her lips came to a smirk. "why the change of heart, harrington?"

"i almost just watched you die." he deadpanned. "and i know that, with everything going on and all this.. all the upside down shit.. we're never promised to get the forever that i want to have with you. and there isn't enough time in one lifetime for me to waste it being insecure and jealous. all i want to do while we're here is just love you, and let you see how much i love you."

meadow looked up at him, and hadn't even realized that they'd fully stopped walking, just standing in the grass between eddie and max's trailers. "i love you." she said. "when we finish all this, you tell me what you want to fill the rest of our lifetime doing and i'll do it. we can.. move to hawaii, or go skydiving, i don't care. as long as you're in my future, it's the future i want."

steve grabbed one of her hands and held it up to his mouth, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. "i love you so much. i'm sorry i've been difficult with my whole.. macho man jealousy thing."

she laughed, moving closer to him. "i love love you. but, right now, we're standing in the middle of someone's lawn." she said.

he laughed as he pulled her even closer to press a kiss to her forehead before settling on just grabbing her hand and walking with her into max's trailer.

once everyone was seated, nancy relayed to them everything vecna had shown her, including that he had been an experiment just like eleven, and that he had become corrupt and she had thrown him into the upside down as a child.

"he showed me things that haven't happened yet." nancy said. "the most awful things. i saw a dark cloud spreading over hawkins. downtown on fire. dead soldiers. and this.. giant creature with.. a gaping mouth. and this creature wasn't alone. there were so many monsters. an army. and they were coming into hawkins. into our neighborhoods. our homes. and then he showed me my mom, and holly. mike. and they.. they were all.." she took a shaky breath, recalling everything vecna had showed her.

meadow frowned from her seat on the couch between steve and eddie, who both seemed still on edge. steve shook his head. "okay, but.. he's just trying to scare you, nancy. right? i mean.. i mean, it's not real."

"not yet." she replied. "but there.. there was something else. he showed me gates. four gates. spreading across hawkins. and these gates, they looked like the one outside of eddie's trailer, but.. they didn't stop growing. and this wasn't the upside down hawkins. this was our hawkins. our home."

dustin turned to his sister. "did you see any of this shit?"

meadow shook her head. "no. no, but i'm not sure why. he seemed like he wanted to get me, like what he was doing to max. i know he was just getting in my head, but why did he tell you his plan?" she asked, looking to nancy. "he scared you pretty good, but he didn't actually want to kill you. so why did he show you all of this?"

"he wanted me to tell eleven." nancy replied. "he said so himself. he said to tell eleven everything he'd shown me."

the oldest henderson sibling fell back on the sofa in defeat. "okay, shit, that's great."

"how come he didn't kill you, then?" dustin asked, his hands on his hips as he paced about. "why tell nancy everything but then still try to go after you?"

meadow shrugged. "i have no idea. maybe he just wanted to ask me out for brunch or something, dustin."

"that's not funny." he replied.

"four chimes." max piqued. "vecna's clock. it always chimes four times. four exactly."

nancy nodded. "i heard them, too."

"he's been telling us his plan this whole time." max said.

"four kills." lucas realized. "four gates. end of the world."

dustin shook his head. "if that's true.. he's only one kill away. maybe he was trying to rush and get to meadow before we could stop him."

"no, no, he didn't seem like he was rushing." meadow said. "he seemed like he was perfectly at ease, like he knew he'd already won or something. he didn't really.. seem like he was running after me or anything when i tried to leave, either. so maybe the asshole was going to show me what he showed nancy, but you guys got me pulled out of there in time."

"let's just focus on the bright side, then." dustin said. "you're still alive."

she shook her head. "no, let's focus on the facts. yeah, i'm alive. but if he opens one more gate, then what nancy saw might come to fruition."

eddie's head dropped into his hands. "oh jesus christ, jesus christ."

steve sighed, gesturing to the phone. "try 'em again, try 'em again." he watched as max called for the byers' house, and then put the phone back down.

"anything?" dustin asked, still holding onto hope.

max shook her head. "no. rang a few times, then went to busy signal."

"maybe you punched it wrong." steve suggested. "try again."

"i didn't punch it in wrong."

he held his hands up in defense. "well, i don't know."

dustin shook his head. "dude, i think she knows how to use a phone."

"i'm just saying, she could've typed it in wrong."

she called again, only to put the phone back on the wall in defeat. "same shit."

lucas frowned. "how is that possible?"

"i told you," dustin said, "joyce has this telemarketer job. she's always on the phone, mike won't stop whining about it."

max nodded. "yeah, but this phone's been busy for, what, three days now? that's not joyce. no way. something's wrong."

"she's right." meadow agreed. "nothing can be a coincidence anymore. and if this vecna asshole knows about eleven, that puts her and everyone else in california at risk."

nancy, who had been looking out the window, turned around. "we have to go back in there. back to the upside down. we have to kill it."

steve immediately protested. "whoa, no, no, no. what?"

eddie also shook his head. "nope."

"let's think this through." steve said, standing up,

"what is there to think through?" nancy asked.

"we barely made it out of there." steve argued. "you saw what happened! meadow got attacked by that thing, and i got these.." he gestured to his bandages. "this!"

nancy nodded. "yeah, because we weren't prepared. but this time, we will be. we'll get weapons and protection. we'll go through the gate, we'll find his lair, and we'll kill him."

"or he'll kill us." he pressed. "the only reason you survived is because he wanted you to. and we still don't know why he let meadow live, so it isn't safe for her or any of us to go down there. he isn't afraid of us."

robin, who had been quiet up until this point, stood. "and for good reason. we were wrong about vecna. henry.. one.. sorry, what are we calling him now?"

"one." lucas and dustin immediately replied.

erica disagreed. "vecna."

"henry." nancy said as if it was obvious.

robin looked to all of them. "right. we've learned something new about vecna/henry/one. he's a number, like eleven, only a sick, evil, male, child-murdering version of her with really bad skin. but my... my point is, he's super powerful. he could turn us inside out with a snap of his fingers. it's not a fair fight."

"who said we were going to fight fair?" meadow asked, seeing everyone's heads turn to her. "you're right, robin, he's like eleven, which means he's insanely powerful. but even eleven has weaknesses, we've seen them."

steve turned to her, his arms crossed. "you're buying into this?"

dustin, who'd been on the same train of thought as his sister, nodded. "when el remote-travels, she goes into this sort of trance-like state. i bet the same is true of vecna."

"that would explain what he was doing in that attic." lucas said.

"bingo." meadow smiled.

"when he goes to take his next victim," dustin said, "i bet you he's back in that attic, physical body defenseless."

"defenseless?" steve mocked. "yeah, what about the army of bats?"

dustin then nodded." right, true. we'll have to find a way past them. distract them somehow."

eddie leaned around erica, who was now sitting on the other side of him, "and, uh, how do we do that, exactly?"

"no idea." dustin replied, and eddie immediately sat back down, dejected and annoyed. "but, once they're gone, he doesn't stand a chance. it'll be like slaying sleeping dracula in his coffin."

robin nodded. "that all sounds good in theory, but there is no pattern to vecna's killings. i mean, at least, not one that i can decipher. we don't know when he's going to attack next. we don't even know who he's going to attack."

max shook her head. "yeah we do. i can still feel him. i'm still marked. cursed. i ditch kate bush, i draw his focus back to me."

lucas frowned. "max.. you can't. he'll kill you."

"i survived before." she replied. "i can survive again. i just.. i need to keep him busy long enough that you guys can get into that attic. then you can chop his head off. stab him in the heart.. blow him up with some explosive dustin cooks up. i honestly just don't care how you put this asshole in his grave, just.. whatever it is.. whatever you do, try not to miss."

steve looked over at meadow. "what do you say?"

she tilted her head to the side in confusion. "what do you mean?"

"you're the babysitter." he explained. "we'll go on your call."

eddie, who was still sitting next to her, nodded. "you're probably the most level headed of us, so. your word, and we can go."

meadow rested her elbows on her knees as she sat up. "we can't let that asshole take anyone else. we're gonna need some ammunition, though."

eddie nodded again. "i got just the thing." he grabbed a newspaper, throwing it onto the table. "check this out. the war zone. i've been there once. it's huge. they got everything you need for, uh.. well, killing things, basically."

"you think fake rambo has enough guns there?" robin asked. she then pointed to a picture on the advertisement. "is that a grenade? i mean, how is any of this legal?"

eddie smiled. "well, lucky for us, it is, so.."

"welcome to indiana." meadow agreed.

"this.. this place," eddie continued, "is just far enough outside of hawkins. as long as we steer clear of the main roads, we oughta be able to avoid cops and, uh, angry hicks."

"welcome to indiana." meadow repeated, her tone more agitated.

erica nodded. "if we're trying to avoid angry hicks, maybe we shouldn't go to some store called the war zone."

nancy shrugged. "normally, i'd agree, but we need the weapons. so i think it's worth the risk."

"me too." lucas agreed."

dustin looked between them. "but is it worth the time? it'll take all day to bike there and back."

"who said anything about bikes?" eddie asked.

steve furrowed his brows. "what, you got some car we don't know about?"

eddie stood. "it's not exactly a car, steve." he smiled. "and it's not exactly mine. but, uh.. it'll do."

"and so it begins." meadow said.

eddie ignored her, turning to look at max. "hey, red, uh, you got a ski mask or a bandana, something like that?"