Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Mind Flayer's Plan

(The Bite)

***

Cami sat on the couch, every part of her tense as she waited for El to begin speaking of what she'd seen. As Alistair remained in the bathroom.

It had been a few minutes since El had woken up and Alistair had felt death, his powers kicking into overdrive, and then locking himself into the bathroom after commanding the shapes to fall back dead again—to wipe the blood away and wait until his eyes became normal. When he did, Cami, Max and Lucas gave Mike, Nancy and Jonathan looks, to make sure they weren't scared of Alistair now—not to El and Will, Cami was certain they would never be scared of Alistair no matter what. Cami wanted to believe they weren't scared, but Cami knew she'd been scared when Alistair had felt such brutal, constant death last year, that Lucas, Steve and Max had been too, and that Rowan's sharp look had Cami remember that no matter how terrifying Alistair's powers were, he was still Alistair. He was still the boy who would become the other half of her soul.

He was still Alistair.

Fortunately, Nancy, Jonathan and Mike got the message—especially Mike, who had looked affronted they even had to give him that look, which gave Cami hope after the initial shock he hadn't been scared of Alistair—and that had lead El, Max and Cami to sit on the couch while Will sat on the back of the couch, Hugin next to him, Mike sat in the armchair and Lucas, Nancy and Jonathan stood behind it. Max and Cami held El as she recovered from what she'd seen, whatever happened in Billy's mind—whatever encounter she had with the Mind Flayer.

A minute of silence, before Jonathan asked, "El, what happened?"

El swallowed, before she said in a shaky voice, "After... after I found the source, I thought I had woken up, but I hadn't. And... and I saw Billy. Here. In the cabin."

Silence radiated, before Max asked softly, "What did he say? Was... was it Billy?"

El shook her head. "No. I... I think it was the Mind Flayer. He... he told me..."

El paused, tears in her eyes, the words failing her as Cami held her tighter, comforting her, as Hugin cawed comfortingly and Cami said, "It's okay, El. Just take your time."

El nodded shakily, inhaling and exhaling as Cami let her go, before she said again, "He... he said that he—"

The door creaked open and every bit of conversation stopped as everyone turned to Alistair. There were a couple water droplets in his hair, and there was a faint shadow of red where the blood had been wiped away underneath his nose. And Alistair's eyes... there were still pinpricks of white in his eyes, but the brown was winning out over it.

Alistair attempted a grin as he asked, "Hey. What did I miss?"

"Nothing much. El just started telling us what she saw," Cami told him.

Alistair nodded, sitting down next to Max, right under where Will was perched on the back of the couch, Hugin immediately flapping into his lap. Cami noticed that Max tried to hide a flinch, obviously from feeling how cold Alistair was—he always got cold after feeling a lot of death. She also noticed the hurt on Alistair's face before he hid it away, as El spoke again, recounting for Alistair's sake about what had happened to her after she found the source—when she thought she had woken up but hadn't, the Mind Flayer using Billy's face to trap her in her mind as he told her his plan, and how it involved her. A plan that must also involve the Flayed—after all, why bother possessing so many people if the bastard wasn't going use them as a part of its malicious plan?

"He said he was building something. That it was all for me," El said, her face haunted by what she'd seen. Cami gave her a comforting look, even as her feeling of the Flayed being involved increased.

"Building something... is he talking about the Flayed?" Max questioned.

"He must be," Nancy said.

"I can't think of anything else it could be talking of," Cami pitched in, voicing her thoughts into being.

"So he's building an army, just like we thought," Lucas murmured as he paced around behind the couch.

"Yeah, but he's not building this army to spread," Mike pointed out.

"He's building it to stop Eleven," Will realised.

"Last year, El closed the gate on him. I have a feeling that really pissed him off," Mike said.

"Like royally," Lucas muttered.

"And the Mind Flayer now knows that, aside from Rowan and Al, she's the only thing that can stop him," Mike went on, Alistair nodding and agreeing, "Once she's gone, the bastard will probably go after me and Rowan next."

"Yeah, and if El, Rowan and Al are out of the way..."

"Game over," Lucas finished grimly.

"He also said he was gonna kill all of you," El revealed, before she looked at Alistair and added softly, "Especially you and Rowan, Al."

"Knew it," Alistair muttered as Cami buried her face in her hands, everything in her absolutely tense with fear that not only did an inter-dimensional, body-stealing monster wanted to kill her but also all of her friends—especially El, Alistair and Rowan, the only ones who really had a chance of stopping it with their powers—making some part of her shake with it, rubbing her temples as Max noted sardonically, "Yeah, well, that's nice."

"An inter-dimensional body-stealing monster wants to kill me and all my friends. That's totally not terrifying at all," Cami mumbled, sounding as terrified of that as she felt. Hugin flapped over to her, croaking and offering support, as she felt a look from Alistair.

As the grim reality set in, Nancy frowned. She stepped toward one of the windows and asked, "Do you guys hear that?"

That had Cami look up, all of them frowning as they listened, hearing nothing but the faint noise of the fireworks—the 4th of July celebrations going off at last.

"It's just the fireworks," Jonathan told her.

But Nancy wasn't convinced, turning as she questioned to El, "Billy. When he told you this, it was here, in this room?"

El nodded.

New fear chilled Cami, filling the room and sinking into everyone as now they listened, properly listened, hearing fireworks first, before they heard what Nancy had heard—crashing. Faint, but coming closer with every second.

Cami's heart stuttered with fear as Will said, "He knows we're here."

Almost in unison, they rushed out of the cabin and down the dirt road, watching the trees.

And the spider-like monster crashing through them, illuminated under the brilliant lights of the fireworks being set off in the sky, a bone-chilling roar rupturing the night just as the fireworks did. Crashing straight toward them.

Cami went frozen with terror, her eyes wide with it.

Carajo.

***

Heheheh >:)

Not a lot really happened, but I promise there will be chaos via high Valerie, Steve and Robin next chapter! And that the reunion will be soon...

Spanish translation:

Carajo: Fuck

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GhostWriterGirl out!