Chapter 16: The October Tension
October arrived with cold mornings and anxious nights.
The basement heavy bag took a beating. Six hours daily, hands wrapped in tape that frayed and bloodied, Fight Master pushing me through techniques that should take years to learn. Muay Thai elbow strikes. Krav Maga pressure points. Eskrima stick patterns adapted to baseball bat.
My body transformed week by week. Muscle density increasing beyond normal training results. Bone structure adapting. Reflexes sharpening to near-prescient levels.
Robin found me one night, 2 AM, hands bloody from splits in the tape.
"What are you preparing for?" she asked from the basement stairs.
I didn't stop. Jab, cross, elbow, knee. Flow state. "You know what."
"No. I know something's coming. But this?" She gestured at the blood-stained bag, my shaking hands, the obsessive intensity. "This looks like you're preparing to fight God."
Close enough.
"Just want to be ready."
"Steve. You're destroying yourself. When was the last time you slept more than four hours?"
"Sleep when it's over."
"That's not—" She stopped, recognized the futility. "Fine. Destroy yourself preparing. But when you collapse from exhaustion, don't say I didn't warn you."
She left. I kept training.
Fight Master at Phase 2, 45% progression. Multiple martial arts at brown belt equivalent. Proficiency with any melee weapon. Enhanced reflexes that let me perceive attacks before they fully developed.
Becoming something between human and weapon. And October marched forward.
Chrissy
Chrissy Cunningham watched her boyfriend disintegrate with controlled precision.
Steve trained constantly. Checked his strange devices hourly. Gathered his odd friend group for meetings that ended with everyone looking frightened. The countdown on his calendar dropped day by day—October 15, October 10, October 5.
She'd promised to wait until November 6th for explanations. But watching him deteriorate—the bloody hands, the exhaustion, the way he looked at his friends like he was memorizing them before they died—made waiting torture.
"I'm scared," she admitted one night when he walked her home.
"Of what?"
"Of losing you. To whatever this is."
Steve stopped walking. October wind cut through the street, leaves skittering across pavement. "You won't lose me."
"How can you know that?"
"Because I've prepared for everything. Because I know what's coming and I'm ready."
"But what if you're not? What if whatever happens on November 6th is worse than you think?"
He didn't answer. The silence said everything.
Chrissy made a decision. "I'm coming over tomorrow night. We're going to sit down, eat actual food, and you're going to rest. No training. No checking devices. Just... being human for a few hours."
"Chrissy—"
"Non-negotiable. You're burning yourself out. When whatever's coming arrives, you'll be too exhausted to handle it."
Steve studied her face, then nodded. "Tomorrow night. Okay."
She went home and cried into her pillow, terrified of November 6th and what it would reveal.
Steve
Tina's Halloween party was crowded and loud and deeply surreal.
Everyone in costume—zombies, vampires, cheerleaders dressed as devils. Music pounding. Fake cobwebs. Plastic tombstones. Celebrating horror while real horror grew underneath Hawkins Lab.
I attended because Chrissy insisted. Because maintaining normalcy was part of the strategy. Because disappearing completely before the crisis would raise questions I couldn't answer.
But the detector stayed in my car, and I checked it every hour.
"You okay?" Chrissy asked, dressed as a cat, face paint making her look younger.
"Yeah. Just need air." I slipped outside for the third time that night.
The detector showed elevated readings—not critical, but higher than baseline. The compass pointed northeast with insistent urgency. Something was accelerating inside the lab.
Twelve days. Twelve days until it opens.
"Steve Harrington, skulking in the dark."
I turned. Nancy Wheeler stood on the porch, watching me with those analytical eyes. Barb Holland hovered behind her, uncomfortable in the crowd.
"Nancy. Barb."
"You've been disappearing every hour," Nancy observed. "Checking something in your car."
"Phone calls. Parents are in London, time zones are weird."
"Right." She didn't believe me. "You've changed. Everyone says so. You used to be King Steve—popular, carefree, kind of an asshole. Now you're... intense. Focused. Mike says you've been training him and his friends. What's that about?"
Mike talks too much.
"Mentorship program. Keeping kids active and safe."
"By teaching them combat?"
I met her eyes. "The world's more dangerous than people think. Better they know how to protect themselves."
Barb spoke quietly: "You sound like you're expecting something specific."
Smart. Both of them too smart.
"Just generally prepared." I moved toward the door. "Enjoy the party."
Nancy caught my arm. "If something's wrong. If there's danger coming. People should know."
"What would you tell them? That monsters are real? That reality can tear open? They'd think you're crazy."
"So you do know something."
I pulled free. "I know the world is stranger than most people believe. And I know being prepared is better than being a victim."
I left them on the porch and returned to the party. Found Chrissy dancing with her cheer friends, pulled her close, pretended everything was normal.
But every hour, I checked the detector.
And every hour, the readings climbed higher.
November 1st. Five days.
I called the meeting at my house—The Party, Robin, Eddie. Everyone who'd been training and preparing and trusting me blindly for months.
They assembled in the basement, expressions ranging from excited (Dustin) to terrified (Will) to grimly determined (Lucas).
"Whatever I've been warning about—it starts this week," I said without preamble. "Early November. Maybe as soon as the 6th. The dimensional activity is spiking. The gate is preparing to breach."
"Gate?" Mike asked.
"Opening. Portal. Whatever you want to call it. A tear between our reality and the dark dimension. And when it opens, things will come through."
"Things," Eddie repeated. "Like monsters?"
"Like monsters."
Silence. Then Dustin: "What do we do?"
"Stay together. Stay smart. If something happens, rally at the nearest cache point. Don't investigate alone. Don't trust anyone from the lab—they're either part of the problem or victims of it. Trust each other. Trust the preparation."
"Are we going to die?" Will asked quietly.
The room held its breath. Everyone staring at me. Waiting for reassurance I couldn't honestly give.
"Not if I can prevent it," I said finally. "Everything I've built, everything I've taught you—it's all to keep you alive. To keep everyone alive. But I need you to listen to instructions. No heroics. No stupid risks. We work as a team."
"What about you?" Robin asked. "What stupid risks are you planning to take?"
"Whatever's necessary."
"That's what I thought."
The meeting lasted two hours. Emergency protocols. Communication plans. Cache locations reviewed again. What to do if separated. What to do if adults don't believe them. What to do if I'm not available.
By the end, they were as ready as twelve-year-olds could be for the impossible.
Eddie lingered after everyone left.
"You're really doing this," he said. "Preparing kids for actual combat. For monsters."
"Yeah."
"And you've known this was coming for how long?"
"Three years."
Eddie absorbed that. "That's insane. You've been carrying this for three years. Planning. Training. Waiting."
"Didn't have a choice."
"Everyone has a choice." He grabbed his jacket. "But I get it. Someone had to prepare. Might as well be you. Just... don't die, okay? Would really fuck up the D&D campaign."
He left. The basement felt enormous and empty.
Five days until November 6th.
Five days until everything changed.
Chrissy came over that night, like she'd been doing all week.
She found me checking the compass for the hundredth time, detector readings on my desk, calendar circled in red marker. The obsession visible and ugly.
"Come to bed," she said softly.
"Can't. Need to review—"
"Steve." She took the compass from my hands. "You've reviewed everything twenty times. You're as prepared as you can be. Now you need rest. Because if you collapse from exhaustion when this starts, all the preparation was worthless."
She was right. Objectively, logically right.
But stopping felt like surrender.
"What if it's not enough?" The words escaped before I could stop them. "What if people die because I missed something? Because I wasn't ready enough?"
"Then you tried your best. That's all anyone can do."
"That's not good enough."
"It has to be." She guided me toward the bed. "Because you're human. And humans have limits."
We lay in the dark, her arms around me, my body shaking with exhaustion and anxiety. The countdown ticking in my head.
Five days. Five days. Five days.
"Whatever happens," Chrissy whispered, "I'm here. You're not alone in this."
But I was. Ultimately, I was. Because she didn't know the whole truth. Because no one did.
Because I'd seen the show. Watched Will disappear. Watched Barb die. Watched Bob sacrifice himself. Watched the Mind Flayer possess Will and Billy.
And now I had to prevent it all or watch people I'd grown to love die in front of me.
Five days, I thought as Chrissy's breathing slowed into sleep. Five days until the test. Until I find out if three years of preparation was enough.
Please let it be enough.
The compass pointed northeast, unwavering. The detector readings climbed. The calendar counted down.
And I waited for the world to end.
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