Bang bang bang bang—
Gunshots mingled with the monsters' heart-rending screams, echoing through every corridor of The Lab and shattering the still night. Listen closely and you'll catch a surprise: the whistle of blades weaves through the gunfire, as though together they're composing a lavish nocturne.
Joyce and her son Jonathan froze at the sound. When a canine Demogorgon lunged, Jonathan was a heartbeat too slow; the creature's claws raked his shoulder, soaking his sleeve in crimson.
Love for her son didn't cloud Joyce's judgment. Mastering her fear, she swung the shotgun and fired point-blank into the Demogorgon's skull.
Boom!
Brain matter sprayed. The beast shrieked, convulsed, hesitated—yet its limbs still twitched with rage. Eyes blazing, Joyce cycled another shell and blasted the head again. The canine Demogorgon's muscles sagged, and it collapsed.
Watching his mother fight so ferocely—no trace of the panic that had crippled him—Jonathan's respect for her soared.
"Jonathan, are you all right?" Once sure the danger was past, Joyce hurried to help her son to his feet.
Meeting her anxious gaze, he steadied himself and shook his head. "Just a scratch."
"The shots came from the basement, right?" Joyce said. They were huddled in the emergency stairwell.
Jonathan nodded. "I heard them too—someone's still down there."
Mother and son exchanged glances, readied fresh rounds, and crept downstairs.
They couldn't tell whether the person moving below was an ally. If it was Lab staff, even human, it might be an enemy who wouldn't listen—and in some ways Lab people were more dangerous than monsters.
Jonathan had barely poked his head into the basement corridor when a blood-slicked cleaver kissed his throat. He went rigid. Joyce stepped forward, trembling as she aimed at the knifeman.
"Jonathan?" The darkness flared as a dazzling flashlight lit his face; the familiar voice relaxed them both.
Richard lowered the blade. "Were you two the ones Shooting in the stairwell? What are you doing here?"
Joyce nodded. "We heard noise below and followed it."
"Whew—you scared me half to death. Thought I was about to get my throat slit," Jonathan muttered, punching Richard's solid chest.
Richard grinned. "Sorry! I figured anyone making that much noise had to be hostile. Didn't expect you."
"Forget it. I thought Will and the others would hit The Lab with you and Eleven…" Jonathan spilled how he and Joyce had ended up here, and what the reckless kids had done in Richard's absence.
Richard chuckled. "Kids—clearly they need more homework. When we get back I'll have Steve's trading-ship parents fetch some extra math workbooks from my homeland." His white teeth gleamed like a devil's fangs in the flashlight beam.
Joyce asked, "So the children aren't here? Hopper and Eleven aren't either—just you?"
"That's right." Richard nodded.
Joyce gently touched his cheek. Ever since Jonathan had told her Richard was an orphan, she'd felt protective. "You don't have to do everything alone—lean on us."
Richard smiled. "Great. Then help me find an A- or S-level access card. After that I still need to reach the server room and the classified archives."
Mrs. Baer and her son nodded at once and began, with Richard, to rummage through the pockets of the fallen corpses for ID badges—focusing on the older researchers, since their cards had the best chance of matching the locks.
Because Richard's flashlight still worked, it meant no monsters were nearby, so the group could breathe a little easier without fear of another ambush.
But when Jonathan neared a door marked "Infirmary," he froze: the floor was carpeted with monster corpses—some with bullet holes through their skulls, others sliced clean in half—blood everywhere, almost all of it theirs.
'Did Chade do this?' Jonathan's mouth went dry. Richard's combat skills were far more savage than he'd imagined; this wasn't the work of one ordinary man.
No—this didn't look like the work of a human at all.
Jonathan replayed Richard's appearance in his mind: not a scratch on him, skin smooth as ever, muscles sharply defined, not even a bruise—let alone a wound.
Stepping over the bodies, Jonathan picked up a thumb-sized glass vial labeled "High-Concentration Glucose." It was empty, as if someone had drunk it straight down.
Without dwelling on it, he tossed the vial aside, rounded another corridor, and found a bald, wide-eyed professor sprawled on the floor—red hair, a neat mustache. He yanked the badge from the man's coat and read, 'Jeffrey Iverson, Clearance Level… S?!'
'I've got it!' Jonathan shouted, unable to contain his excitement.
Moments later the other three arrived. After Richard confirmed the badge, he pulled a stack of floppy disks from his pack. 'This is the virus. Once you reach the server room, insert these in the order I've marked. It'll copy every inhuman experiment The Lab ever ran and simultaneously wipe every file tied to Eleven. After that, find the classified archive and—if you can—burn it and the server room together.'
Mother and son stared at the disks, sensing a last-will tone in Richard's orders. Jonathan blurted, 'What about you?'
Richard answered as if it were obvious: 'I'm going into The Upside Down to get that kid Troy. He's a key piece in taking The Lab down.'
'I'm coming with you.' Jonathan grabbed Richard's arm, dead serious.
Richard glanced toward Joyce; in his experience, parents never let their kids walk into danger.
'Let him go.' Joyce met Richard's gaze, smiling with complicated pride. 'And don't underestimate this old lady—I took computer classes. I can handle a keyboard.'
Richard blinked, then grinned. 'My mistake—Joyce is still a cutting-edge young woman.'
He split his weapons with Jonathan, and the two set off together, heading deeper underground toward the sealed sector.
Watching them go, Joyce felt both worry and pride, then squared her shoulders. She still had work to do, brave and clever as ever, for the sake of those kids.
Soon Richard and Jonathan reached the fabled entrance to The Upside Down: a glass enclosure littered with corpses, broken glass, and rotting monsters. At its center loomed a circular gate, dark and pulsing red.
They stripped masks from nearby bodies, pulled them over their heads, exchanged a nod, and stepped through the membrane-sealed passage. Slime clung to them, reality blurred, and after a nauseating kaleidoscope of images they pushed through a second membrane—leaving the normal world behind and entering the warped, death-soaked realm of The Upside Down.