1986

The quiet sound of spoons gently clinking against cereal bowls sounded through the Munson family trailer, accompanied by the soft snores of Wayne attempting to sleep off a long shift at the plant from the night before. While Maggie set the dishes in the sink, hardly making a sound after years of practice, Connor busied himself making sure his trumpet was neatly in its case, and Penny moved quickly between rooms to make sure her things were packed and ready for school, as well as the belongings of a very absent Eddie.

"Shouldn't he be here by now?" Connor whispered to Maggie, their eyes darting over to Wayne's sleeping form to make sure he was still out before looking back at one another. "It's almost seven-thirty."

"Any minute now," Maggie confirmed. "Are you ready for school?"

Connor nodded, and Maggie let her eyes dart over to the digital clock radio on the table between Wayne's mattress and the couch, a bright 7:26 illuminated in red, and nearly sighed in relief as the sound of tires crunching under gravel came from outside, stopping just short of their trailer. Penny emerged from the bedrooms, a backpack slung over each of her shoulders as she came to stand next to her siblings.

"Right on time," Penny mused, her eyes landing on her older sister. "Mags, that's your cue."

"Yeah, yeah," Maggie sighed, tiptoeing to the door and opening it just wide enough for her to slip out and shut it behind her.

In the driveway sat a police cruiser, with Chief Powell opening the backseat to let Eddie climb out into the sunlight, still clad in his Hellfire Club shirt from the day before as well as his leather jacket and jean vest. Next to the police cruiser sat Eddie's van in its usual spot, after Maggie had to go retrieve it from the station in the middle of the night. Eddie shot a grin at his younger sister while she stepped down from the porch, moving her gaze to where the police chief looked at her expectantly.

"Chief Powell," Maggie greeted with a cheery smile. "How are you on this fine morning?"

"Good morning, Miss Munson," Powell greeted, his gaze falling back to the closed trailer door. "Is your uncle inside?"

"Yes, sir," Maggie confirmed. "He just got to sleep after another night shift. You know how those go."

"Unfortunately I do," Powell agreed, his eyes moving back to Eddie with a disappointed expression. "You're going to actually stay out of trouble this time, right Mr. Munson?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, Chief." Eddie said, the shit-eating grin finding its way back onto his face as Powell shook his head, opening the driver's side door of the cruiser.

"Goddamn kids," Powell murmured as he continued to shake his head, climbing into the car.

"Have a great day, Chief!" Maggie bid him goodbye as the cruiser backed out of the parking lot, and Maggie looked back at the trailer window, the blinds separated by a pair of fingers as the twins watched from inside, but they disappeared from view, the blinds snapping shut again before the trailer door opened once more, revealing the twins carrying all four backpacks with them along with Connor's trumpet case.

"I think these belong to you," Penny said, tossing Eddie the keys to his van, which he caught before beginning to spin the keyring around on his finger with a satisfied smile.

"And here I thought we were about to break a record." Connor teased his older brother as they headed for the van. "What was it, three weeks?"

"Almost four, if I could've gone one more day." Eddie confirmed, and the sound of a trailer door shutting from next door pulled their attention to a blonde head of hair rushing towards them, a backpack of her own slung over her shoulders.

"What's the damage this time, Munson?" Stephanie Coleman asked, climbing into the backseat of the van with the twins while Maggie climbed into the passenger seat next to Eddie behind the wheel.

"Apparently you can get arrested for smoking in the park if the cigarette is marijuana and not tobacco. How bogus is that?" Eddie asked, feigning innocence as he turned the key in the ignition, the engine sputtering to life. "You try to smoke plants that are better for the environment and they want to punish you for it. I was just trying to do my part."

"I don't know how you do it." Steph mused, lighting a cigarette and rolling down her window before taking a puff. "If Powell caught me for half the shit you do, I'd be sent off to some military school somewhere, or they'd just keep me behind bars."

"Powell's all bark, no bite." he shrugged. "Although, a good night's sleep in the slammer gave me some time to think about the campaign tonight. It's going to be a brutal finale, my adventurers. Are you ready?"

"Hell yeah!" Penny exclaimed while Maggie began to smile, and Stephanie shook her head before taking another drag of her cigarette.

"Nerds," she mused, fighting off a smile.

As the van reached the parking lot of Hawkins High School, it was already flooded with students chatting excitedly about the upcoming pep rally. As Eddie pulled into his usual spot towards the back of the lot, Connor hurried out of the backseat, trumpet case in tow as he ran to get ready with the marching band, and Stephanie stubbed out her cigarette on the ground with the heel of her shoe, the rest of the group slowly making their way inside.

"Good morning, Margaret!" a voice exclaimed, and Maggie turned to see the school guidance counselor, Ms. Kelley, excitedly greeting students outside, ushering them into the building. "Eddie, Stephanie, Penny, nice to see you. To the gym, everyone! To the gym!"

"They're really going all out for this, huh?" Stephanie mused as they wandered into the gymnasium, already filled to the brim with students waiting for the event to start.

In one corner, the marching band was getting ready, kids emerging into the room in their uniforms with their instruments and taking their place in the bleachers. After a few minutes, Maggie saw Connor join them, his curly hair just visible under the hat of his uniform as he took a spot with the other trumpet players. In the middle of the room, the cheerleaders were beginning to perform a routine, and the students already milling about in the stands began to cheer.

"There they are," Maggie murmured to Penny, Stephanie, and Eddie, gesturing to the top of the bleachers where the other members of the Hellfire Club resided, still seated rather than standing with the rest of the student body and looking at the cheer routine with bored expressions.

Maggie climbed the bleachers, taking a seat in the top row next to Cynthia Tucker, who was deep in conversation with Gareth Emerson, their voices raised to be heard over the sounds of the band. As the band's music eventually came to an end, two of the cheerleaders held up a banner at the opposite corner of the gym, decorated with a giant paw print and Hawkins Tigers All the Way! scrawled across it in green paint.

"Let's hear it for your Tigers!" a voice sounded from the loudspeakers, the room erupting into cheers as the basketball team emerged through the banner, ripping it in half as they all gathered in the center of the room.

As the music came to a stop, the captain of the basketball team, Jason Carver, rushed up to the microphone placed in the center of the room, lifting it up from the stand. "Good morning, Hawkins High!" Jason shouted, the gymnasium erupting into even louder cheers from before. "First off, I'd like to thank each and every one of you." he said as the cheers finally began to die down. Without your support, we wouldn't be here. Give yourselves a big hand!"

"We're so supportive," Cynthia muttered sarcastically to Maggie, who smirked in response as the crowd erupted in cheers once again.

"And of course, of course, I have to give a special shout out to the best and the prettiest fans of all time. The Tiger Cheer Squad!" Jason continued, pointing to where they sat at the foot of the bleachers, his eyes coming to rest on the head cheerleader sitting at the center of the group. "Chrissy..." he said, reaching up to pat his heart. "Chrissy, I love you, babe." An aww rose from the crowd as she blew him a kiss in return.

As Jason took a few steps back, the smile slowly faded from his face, the happy expression replaced by a much more serious one. "You know..." he trailed off, "I think I can speak for all of us when I say that it's been a tough year for Hawkins. So much loss. And sometimes I wonder, how much loss can one community take? In dark days like this, we need something to believe in. So last night, when we were down ten points at half to Christian Academy, I looked at my team, and I said, 'think of Jack. Think of Melissa. Think of Heather. Think of Billy. Think about our heroic Police Chief, Jim Hopper. Think about each and every one of our friends who perished in that fire.'"

At his words, Maggie could feel Stephanie tense up next to her. While Maggie had looked for a summer job elsewhere than the new mall that had opened in town the year before, landing her current job cooking at The Hideout, Stephanie had gotten her summer job in the food court at Burger King, and had been scheduled to work the night of the fire, getting off at closing mere hours before the fire had taken place. The two of them exchanged a brief look before looking back at Jason as he continued speaking.

"'What did they die for?'" he continued. "'So we could lose to some... some crap school? For us to head home with our heads hung low in defeat?'"

"I'm pretty sure they didn't die so you could win," Stephanie whispered to Maggie, who shook her head in agreement as the crowd seemed to eat up every word Jason spoke.

"'No!'" he yelled. "'Let's win this game! Let's win this game, for them,' and that's exactly what we did! We embarrassed those candy-asses in their own house, and now tonight, tonight, we're gonna bring home the championship trophy!"

The crowd erupted again into cheers as Jason's speech finished, and the band began to play once more as the basketball players were ushered back out of the gym to end the pep rally. As the cheers finally began to die down, the teachers began to usher the rest of the kids from the room and towards their first classes for the day, which still had around twenty minutes for the occupants to daydream, their minds on frivolous things such as the championship game and the upcoming spring break rather than whatever their teachers would have to say that morning. As Maggie took her usual seat in biology, her lab partner was already seated, still clad in his basketball uniform and waiting for her with an expectant grin.

"Munson," Matthew Hudson greeted, lifting two fingers in a wave as she slid into the seat next to him.

"Hudson," Maggie returned, looking up to where Mr. Kaminski stood at the front of the room, the shrill sound of the bell ringing overhead as the last few students took their seats.

"Good morning," Kaminski's voice rang out in a dull, monotone fashion as he surveyed the students, half of whom were already beginning to stare out the window. "For class today, please take time with your lab partners to go over your hypotheses for your final projects. I expect a fully written report after break outlining the experiments you will be doing over the course of the final quarter. You may begin."

The room faded to a dull buzz as students began to converse with their lab partners about anything but scientific hypotheses, and Maggie scooted her desk closer to Matt's to get closer within earshot.

"That was quite the team sendoff." Maggie started in an attempt to make conversation. Despite being Matt's lab partner for the better part of the last semester, she still didn't know much about him aside from basketball, and though the two got along fairly well, she sincerely doubted they had much in common to talk about, as she herself could barely dribble a ball during gym class and he didn't seem the type to know how to roll a twenty-sided die.

"Jason gets a little... passionate about these things, you could say." he said with a slight shrug. "Are you coming to the game tonight? I know your brother's in band,"

"I can't," she said, a little too quickly, gesturing down to the black and white Hellfire Club shirt adorning her body. "It's Hellfire's final campaign tonight, and Eddie would kill me if I went over to the 'dark side,'" she explained, using air quotes as Matt began to chuckle.

"Ah, that's right," he said. "I think Sinclair said something about that club once."

"Well, I'd say you should come see a night of epic adventuring during the finale, but it seems you have other plans." she offered, and he began to smirk.

"So she can joke," he mused.

When the bell finally rang, signaling the end of class, she bid Matt goodbye, grabbing her bag to rush to her locker before history. When lunch finally came around, she was nearly buzzing, eager to get any hints out of Eddie for the night's campaign that she and her friends could manage, as she and Penny had both been banned from going into his room for the past week, with the exception of Penny having to pack his things for school that morning. Although, when she took her usual seat between Cynthia and Jeff Stevens, she could instantly feel the tense mood at the table, even before Gareth began speaking.

"I mean, can you believe this shit?" he asked, passing a copy of Newsweek to Eddie, who sat at the head of the table. "Page twenty-five."

Eddie picked up the magazine, thumbing through the pages before his eyes began to scan over the words on the page Gareth had been pointing out, and he began to chuckle humorlessly. "The devil has come to America," he began to read aloud from the page, narrating in a deep voice. "Dungeons and Dragons. At first regarded as a harmless game of make believe now has both parents and psychologists concerned. Studies have linked violent behavior to the game, saying it promotes satanic worship, ritual sacrifice, sodomy, suicide, and even..." he paused, slapping the magazine down onto the table and sticking his tongue out. "...murder!"

The others began to chuckle as he spoke, and Maggie looked over at the sight of three newcomers approaching the table as Penny set her lunchbox down, along with two of her classmates, Dustin Henderson and Mike Wheeler. Penny's eyebrows furrowed together in confusion for a moment before Eddie passed her the magazine and crossed his arms over his chest in annoyance, and she began to scan through the article.

"Don't they have anything better to write about?" Maggie asked, rolling her eyes.

"Society has to blame something." Todd Hart said. "We're an easy target."

"Exactly," Eddie said, looking over at him. "We're the freaks because we like to play a fantasy game. But," he shrugged, uncrossing his arms as he began to climb up onto the table.

"Oh, there he goes," Stephanie muttered from the other side of Cynthia, the blonde girl the only one at the table lacking a Hellfire shirt as Eddie began to strut across the table, stepping around everybody's lunch trays.

"As long as you're into band," Eddie spat venomously as he walked, effectively pulling the attention of everybody milling about at the other tables in the cafeteria. "Or science, or..." he shuddered. "Parties." he stopped, looking straight at the table housing the basketball team before cupping his mouth with his hands to amplify his voice. "Or a game where you toss balls into laundry baskets!"

Maggie looked over at the basketball team, where Matt sat next to an angry Jason, who instantly rose from his seat, shooting Eddie a threatening glare. "You want something, freak?" Jason called back, daring Eddie to make his next move.

Eddie stared at Jason for a moment before he began to make a spluttering noise, as if he was choking, but instead his hands came up on either side of his face, fingers raised to imitate devil horns as he stuck out his tongue, his eyes never leaving Jason's. At his antics, Maggie began to laugh, along with the rest of the Hellfire Club, who watched the scene above them in amusement.

"Prick," Jason said, finally turning his attention away before taking his seat between Matt and Andy McConnell, the former's eyes twinkling in slight amusement before looking back at his friends.

"It's forced conformity," Eddie continued, turning his attention back to the club members as he began to walk back down the table, breaking off into a run to jump back onto the ground. "That's what's killing the kids!" he shouted, effectively scaring a group of girls before pausing to let a few cheerleaders by and turning back to his friends. "That's the real monster," he said with a satisfied smile, taking his seat and turning to the bag of pretzels sitting in front of him.

"So, uh, speaking of monsters." Dustin spoke up nervously, getting Eddie's attention. "Lucas has to do his, uh, balls in laundry baskets game. So..." the younger boy trailed off, chuckling nervously. "He's not going to be able to make it to Hellfire tonight." At Dustin's words, Eddie's smile failed, and the eldest Munson sibling exchanged a look with Penny, who shrugged in response. "And I know there's no way we can beat your sadistic campaign without him, so me and Mike were talking, shootin' the shit, and we were thinking that maybe we might..."

Mike sighed. "Postpone," he spoke up, causing all hell to break loose at the table.

"Postpone?" Gareth exclaimed. "You can't just drop this on us!"

"Here we go," Maggie muttered to Cynthia, who nodded in agreement.

"Over my dead body!" Todd shouted.

"Shut up!" Eddie yelled, effectively silencing the other boys sitting around him. "You're saying Sinclair's been taken in by the dark side?"

"Something like that," Mike confirmed.

"Something like that?" Eddie asked, flicking a pretzel in their direction.

"Jesus Christ," Dustin muttered, flinching.

"And rather than find a sub for him," Eddie continued, "You want... you want to postpone the Cult of Vecna?"

"I... I don't want to postpone it, we don't want to postpone it." Mike stammered as Eddie got up from his seat again, beginning to pace. "It's just that, you know, most of the subs will be at the championship game."

Eddie spun back around. "Oh, it's the championship game?" he asked.

Mike was silent for a moment, staring back at the older boy in confusion. "Yeah,"

"Can I level with you?" Eddie asked. "Jeff, Maggie, and Cynthia graduate this year. Gareth's got, what, a year and a half? Me, I am army crawling my way toward a D in Ms. O'Donnell's. If I don't blow her final," he said proudly, "I'm gonna walk that stage next month. I'm gonna look Principal Higgins dead in the eye, I'm gonna flip him the bird, I'm gonna snatch that diploma, and I'm gonna run like hell out of here!" he exclaimed as the younger boys began to laugh.

"Didn't you say that last year?" Gareth pointed out.

"And the year before that?" Jeff added.

"Yeah, yeah, and I was full of shit," Eddie agreed. "This year's different." he pointed to where Maggie sat towards the opposite end of the table. "It's like I've been saying, Maggie just wasn't ready for me to graduate yet so we were going to do it together." he joked. "This year's my year. I can feel it." he smiled proudly, turning back to the rest of the group. "Eighty-six, baby. You know what that means?"

"No," Mike and Dustin muttered, shaking their heads.

"It means you boys are the future of Hellfire," Eddie explained, crouching down between them with a hand on each of their shoulders. I knew it the moment I saw you when Penny first brought you over, looking like two little lost sheep." he smiled proudly at Dustin. "You were wearing a Weird Al t-shirt, which I thought was brave."

"Thank you," Dustin murmured in response.

Eddie then turned to Mike. "Mike, you were wearing whatever shit your mommy bought you from the goddamn Gap."

As Jeff and Gareth began to laugh, Mike and Dustin joined them, their guards being let down just long enough for Eddie's smile to fall away as he grabbed their shoulders, pulling both boys up with him as he began to push them forward. "And we showed you that school didn't have to be the worst years of your lives, right?"

"No," Mike agreed, panic lacing the boy's tone.

"Well, I'm here to tell you that there are other little lost sheepies out there," Eddie explained, "who need help. Who need you. And all you guys gotta do is get your Bo Peeps on, and go and find one!" he exclaimed, shoving the boys forward as they nodded frantically, hurrying off in search of a substitute for that evening. As they retreated, Eddie looked back at Penny. "Pen, why don't you go help 'em out? I think Henderson's about to piss himself again."

Penny nodded with a chuckle. "On it," she said, grabbing her lunchbox and hurrying after the boys.

As Penny disappeared after Mike and Dustin, Eddie finally took his seat back at the head of the table, a satisfied grin on his face. "I think that went well," he mused.

"Oh, go easy on them." Maggie chided her older brother.

"Nah," Eddie said, the shit-eating grin returning to his face. "They'll be fine."