Chapter Nine: The Waking of Will Byers

“Harrington!” Captain Guffman barked from the back office. “My office. Now.”

“Ooooooh,” Reed chuckled, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Cap is calling. Better hurry!”

“You too, Reed,” Guffman amended. “You’re in this too.”

“Damn,” Reed sighed. “What did you get me into this time?”

“No clue,” Steve shrugged, standing up from the table and leaving the newspaper behind. “But it cannot screw up my weekend.”

They made their way into Guffman’s office, a small backroom in the station with a desk, a filing cabinet and two uncomfortable chairs crammed in to make conversations short and to the point.

“We got new recruits, so you two are getting a new assignment,” Guffman announced. He leaned against the desk and read off the instructions from a clipboard. Reed took one of the chairs and relaxed as he sipped from his coffee, leaving Steve to lean in the doorway. “Harrington, I figure you’re a good match to mentor Brown because he’s from Indiana, too. Did I remember that right? You’re a Hoosier?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Steve said, nodding. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the two fresh faces loitering in the hallway with backpacks. “Do we have to start today, sir? I have to be on the road by five…”

Captain Guffman nodded and waved his hand dismissively.

“Yeah, I know, that’s why genius is in here with you,” Guffman nodded towards Reed in his chair. Reed looked up at the silence that loomed in the tiny space. He grinned and slurped his coffee cheerfully.

“So, I get to introduce the new guy to the station and then…leave, right?” Steve asked carefully. This was the weekend he couldn’t skip. Guffman knew that.

“Yes, Harrington,” the Captain sighed. “You get to take the kid on a few calls today, show him where to hang his ‘I Heart Indiana’ flag and then leave him in the ever-so-capable hands of Reed here.”

“Sucks to be him,” Reed grinned.

“Look, I just need to make sure he knows he’s welcome here,” Guffman shrugged. “I thought about telling you to cancel your big plans, but Reed here said you’re headed back home to visit someone in a hospital?”

“Yeah, it’s a…long story,” Steve nodded. “I know you hate those.”

“Sure do,” Guffman smiled coldly. “So, let’s get that kid in here, I’ll make the introductions and then you two take him on whatever calls that come in today.”

“So, wait, wait, wait,” Reed sat up, looking concerned. “You’re saying…I get to be a mentor? Like, a big brother? For the whole weekend? Two whole days?”

“Three, asshole,” Steve corrected. “I have Monday off, too.”

“Wow, three whole days to be a big brother,” Reed murmured in awe. “I sure hope I can live up to the golden aura that Harrington exudes in his every step….”

“That’s enough,” Guffman stood. He looked to Steve. “Mentor the new kid enough to withstand anything Reed shits in your wake.”

“Got it,” Steve nodded. He turned to see the fresh faces in the hallway staring at him. Reed pushed past Steve with a chuckle as Guffman groaned to his feet.

“Let’s go meet your new recruit,” the captain muttered, leaving the office and heading towards the two backpacks. Reed was already heading back to the kitchen, so Steve simply followed Guffman, who waved to one of the new recruits.

“Brown, meet Harrington,” he said with a forced pleasantness. “Mathews, follow me. Harrington, where did Faraday go?”

“Faraday lost the bet,” Steve reminded the captain. “She’s on a grocery run.”

“Right,” Guffman smiled. “Okay, Mathews, let’s go…sit in my office until Faraday gets back.”

“I hope you brought a book,” Reed muttered to the recruit as she hurried after the captain. Steve shook his head for the new kid’s benefit. She smiled briefly and continued on her way.

“Hi, you’re Harrington?” a pink face with bright eyes appeared in Steve’s path. He nodded. “I’m Brown. Mitch, actually, but if you need to just call me Brown until you’re used to me, that’s fine. I get it. But all my friends call me Mitch.”

“Great,” Steve nodded. “This way to the rig, Brown.”

“The rig, right,” the kid nodded and his face got even pinker if possible. “I always called it an ambulance, but I guess it’s a rig when you work on one, right?” Steve nodded briefly, walked on and felt the recruit following. Reed caught his eye and chuckled softly as they made their way to the ambulance bay. “Captain Guffman said you’re from Indiana, too, right? So, where in Indiana are you from? I’m from Hammond, do you know it? It’s about an hour or so outside Chicago…”

“Hawkins,” Steve answered automatically. “Go Tigers.”

“Oh, wow!” Brown breathed, stopping in his tracks. “I thought I had the title on worst tragedy associated with hometowns, but Hawkins? Man. You win, man. Wow.”

“Yeah,” Steve sighed. “Wow.” He began the orientation tour almost automatically, rattling off details without thinking. Well, without thinking about the stationhouse. His thoughts were, as they tended to on days leaving up to a specific hospital visit, on Hawkins.

It had been five years since Steve first left Hawkins. It hadn’t been an easy decision by any means, but Robin and Dustin had made it easier on him by moving away – first to college, then on with life from there. Robin had found a home in the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Steve had driven her, of course, because Vicky was “going through some things” and Robin couldn’t wait any longer to get to her dorm. Even stopping at every rest stop so Robin could call Vicky hadn’t made anything easier. He did a lot of driving to the sound of Robin’s angry ranting or her tears. Vicky hadn’t been the same since she learned Robin wasn’t a drug addict. Everyone honestly thought that would have been a good thing to discover, but, well…Vicky felt differently. Dustin, of course, got into any college he even considered applying to, so when he chose MIT, Steve had helped box up electronics, clothes, and more than a few books on something called cryptozoology and drove Dustin out east to Boston. Dustin’s mom hadn’t been able to drive through her tears, so she sobbed in the backseat while Dustin reassured her he would call every night and come home at every opportunity.

Steve knew that if Nancy had gone to school like she had planned, there would have been tears on that drive, too. But…well…things had gone differently for her.

Steve had tried to stay in Hawkins, but something always felt off, especially after Robin and Dustin had left. He joined the volunteer fire department and did well there, which is how he got talked into pursuing a career as a paramedic. Taking that up meant moving to Indianapolis for a year, then taking the job in Gary for two years…eventually he did get back to Hawkins, but when this cross-training opportunity popped up, he decided to apply for it. Apparently, his supervisors felt he did well mentoring others and learning new skills as they arose, so they all recommended him for it each time it came up. He didn’t mind.

As they walked through the station and Steve gave the grand tour, Reed innocently asked what tragedy had befallen Hammond only to discover the history of circus trains. When he could take no more, he interrupted Brown to ask for an immediate inventory of needles. Brown hurried to the inventory at the back of the storeroom where they were standing to count, leaving the two mentors in peace.

“Rookies,” sighed Reed in disgust.

“We were all rookies once,” Steve shrugged, watching Brown clumsily go through drawers to find the sterile packets of needles.

“Yeah, but you never went on about the history of earthquakes,” Reed pointed out. Steve smiled and kept his silence. They could hear Brown counting aloud and exchanged tired looks. It was going to be a long day for Steve; a long weekend for Reed.

“It’s funny,” Reed began, his tone curious. “You don’t talk about that earthquake much unless someone else brings it up.”

“That’s funny?” Steve questioned. “You don’t talk about, I don’t know, pizza unless someone brings that up. Is that funny?”

“No, because pizza is delicious,” came the rapid response. “Earthquakes don’t happen in Indiana. And I don’t recall the U.S. Army rolling into town any time San Francisco gets a fresh one.”

“Exactly,” Steve shrugged. “They’re common in San Francisco, but they’re rare in Indiana, so the Army wanted to make sure it was natural and not the Commies trying out some new super weapon thing. But there is a plate under Indiana that shifted and…Hawkins suffered.”

Dustin and Lucas had been helpful enough to tell Steve about the deep fault line under Indiana. To be fair, they hadn’t told him directly, but they had been arguing about earthquakes and fault lines while Steve was in earshot of their bickering. Some things stick.

“Yeah, sure,” Reed nodded. Brown reappeared and proudly announced the needle inventory was at the maximum required. Then, he looked to Steve in that same awestruck wonder he had displayed before the needle inventory had been demanded. Steve turned and walked to the back stairway. Steve continued the tour; Reed smiled to himself and waited.

“I heard there was a radiation leak that mutated some animals after that earthquake,” Brown finally let loose his excitement. “And the timber wolves population plummeted because of that and now they have to do extra testing on all water that any wildlife comes in contact with or they could suffer the same consequences. Did you see any deformed wolves? My cousin swears he saw a picture of a hairless dog that had a jaw that opened up like a seam from the lip to –“

“What?” Steve interrupted. “No, no, that’s not – your cousin was probably drunk or…look, that wasn’t…maybe a hairless dog, but only from…I don’t know, a stupid prank? Or something like that. I never saw a mutated…dog…in Hawkins. You’ve got to stop getting your news from drunk cousins and the Weekly World News. Was Elvis flipping burgers in your cousin’s story, too? That’s…no.”

“Every time,” Reed chuckled to himself. Steve ignored him.

“My cousin doesn’t drink,” Brown insisted. “And he said there were all kinds of weird things going on in Hawkins. Like, especially when that cult leader – what’s his name, Ed Munster? Munson! Ed Munson had this group of high school kids under his spell and they mutilated—”

“Let’s get something straight here, okay?” Steve bit out, turning to face the fresh-face of Brown directly. “Eddie Munson wasn’t a cult leader. He was framed and he died trying to save other people in town. And no one wants to believe he didn’t do anything wrong because he made poor choices until then and his friends weren’t jocks. But Eddie never led a cult.”

“Did you know him?” Brown asked, his voice soft. Steve nodded curtly.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “And I wasn’t the best friend to him in school, but I learned what kind of person he was before he died. And he didn’t deserve what they did to him.”

“Oh,” Brown managed. Reed looked back at his coffee cup. Steve resumed the tour, getting them to the breakroom with the good TV – the one with the good sound system and subwoofers that made it feel like you were watching a movie in a movie theatre, when Brown looked like he was going to ask a new question about Hawkins and mutated dogs. Reed interrupted like a pro.

“Did you listen to that CD I lent you yet?” he asked Steve, pointedly changing the subject. “The new Ozzy? You know he retired after that show, right? Man, I wish I got to go to that…”

“Ozzy?” Steve blinked, glancing at his partner in a momentary fog.

“Ozzy Osbourne? Black Sabbath? Any of this sounding familiar?”

A night swim from long ago; an impromptu barefoot walk through the woods…a discovery of frozen time and interdimensional communications…bats and bikes and floating specks in the air…the moment passed. He was Steve Harrington, paramedic, wandering through the station with his partner Marcus Reed and the new kid…something Brown…on patrol.

“Right, right,” Steve nodded, clearing the confusion as he did so. “Bit a bat’s head off…”

“Yeah, but not recently,” Reed chuckled. “Did you listen to the CD or not?”

“No, not yet,” Steve admitted. “It’s in my car, though, so if you need it back, I can get that to you before I head out tonight.”

“If you don’t mind,” Reed said.

“Sure, man, no problem,” Steve nodded.

“I know it’s a long drive back to Hawkins, but my buddy asked if he could borrow it. He wants to use one of the songs for a mix tape for his brother.”

The conversation continued around him – Brown had never listened to Black Sabbath and mistakenly admitted that, leaving Reed to go on his tirade about good music never being appreciated in the time of the artist. Echoing in the back of his mind, Steve could hear Eddie screaming at Robin about what music is while she demanded Blondie and Madonna in order to get Nancy out of her trance.

Echoes of memories, freshly stirred up, wrestled for attention in a seemingly endless day.

The shrill bell sounded, literally saving Steve from more memories as he and Reed raced back to the ambulance bay. Steve shouted for Brown to be on his tail or else and heard the kid’s footsteps chasing behind him. For a brief moment, those footsteps combined with Reed’s sounded unnatural and he fought the urge to glance behind him, knowing what he would see and what he wouldn’t see.

Of course he would see the pink faced kid. Of course he wouldn’t see the open red mouth of teeth on sickly skin flaps and a humanoid clawed hand reaching for him…

He got to the ambulance first and pulled himself into the driver’s seat, leaving Reed and Brown to fight over shotgun and radio chatter. Reed won, of course, and insisted Brown sit in the bucket seat of the back while the address and expected emergency need would get rattled off through static. Steve drove.