"Aftermath" - Part Four

Part Four

            Rink-O-Mania was one of the most popular hangout spots for teens in Lenora Hills; a roller-skating rink that was the choice location for Angela and her friends, with Jane in tow. The parking lot itself was proof of its popularity, seeing how difficult it was for Jim to find a spot. Ultimately, he had to settle for one that was a long but tolerable distance from the entrance. “This is the place, huh?” he checked with Will.

            “Yeah,” Will confirmed, feeling uneasy about what he and Jim would find inside.

            “Pretty colors!”

            “Jeez!” Jim jolted, as did Will, when he heard someone speak out from the backseat. They hadn’t expected anyone else in the car with them, the entire ride over. But, apparently, a certain house-elf wanted to tag along.

            “Is that…an elf?!” Will gazed on Dobby in wide-eyed wonder.

            “House-elf,” Jim begrudgingly elaborated. “Who’s supposed to be back at our house!”

            His irate tone unnerved Dobby. “Dobby is ever-so-sorry. Dobby only thought Jim Hopper was taking him to Si.”

            “Si?” Will said in realization. “Oh, I get it. You’re from the wizard world.”

            Dobby nodded. “Yes, Dobby is.”

            Jim had no time for this, neither did he have any choice in the matter. “You’re coming in with us,” he told Dobby. “We can’t risk anyone seeing you in the car, any less in there.” He gestured to the Rink-O-Rama. “I know you’ve got your whole ‘invisibility’ superpower, but I’m going to suggest you keep yourself hidden in Will’s bookbag. Understood?”

            Dobby happily agreed. Will emptied his backpack of its contents, allowing Dobby the space to crawl in. He looked comfortably snug to Will and was surprisingly light, as he carried the house-elf into the building, following Jim. Half of the school was there – some sitting and eating at booths while the majority roller-skated. Eventually, they found Jane, sitting near the rink entrance and preparing to skate with Angela and her friends.

            “Jane!” Jim shouted, loud enough to be heard over the music that played throughout the establishment. Jane shot in attention when she heard her father, looking up from her skates to see him storming towards her with Will. “Take off those skates. We’re goin’ home.”

            She glared at Will. “You promised you wouldn’t tell.”

            “I had to,” he told her. “Angela doesn’t want to be your friend.”

            “You don’t know that!” Jane retorted.

            “Enough!” Jim put his foot down. “We’ll discuss this in the car. Right now, you’re taking off those skates.”

            The sound of giggling directed the family’s attention on the rink.

            Angela stood nearby, looking on them with her friends. “What’s wrong, Jane? Daddy doesn’t want you breaking a leg?” After the blatant mockery, she and her friends proceeded with their skating.

            Jane never felt so embarrassed; and yet, she centered her frustrations solely on her father. “Leave me alone!” she demanded, darting out onto the rink to skate alongside Angela and her gang. Jim and Will were powerless to stop her, lacking the proper footwear to go after her, in addition to the large crowd.

            It only got worse from there, as Angela and her group began skating circles around Jane, holding her in one place on the rink, long enough to hurl various insults at her, and finishing it by dumping a chocolate milkshake right on her chest. Jim fumed at the display. “HEY! You guys are real class acts!” he bellowed, though neither Angela nor her accomplices were intimidated. The angrier Jim got, the more amused they were.

            Jane tearfully skated off the rink. Will and Jim waited for her at the gate to help, but she brushed them off. They saw her flee to the storage room, closing the door behind her. Jim started to go after her, but he stopped momentarily to instruct Will, “Stay here…and check on our little friend, while you’re at it.”

            Will acknowledged, taking a seat in an unoccupied booth at the furthest corner and opening his backpack to check on Dobby. However, the elf was nowhere inside, which deeply perturbed Will. “Uh-oh,” he muttered, his eyes looking away from the backpack and searching the area. He remembered what Jim had said about Dobby having “invisibility” powers, figuring how much harder that made his search. The best he could do was call out Dobby’s name, a method that garnered a few odd stares.

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            Being a father to a teenager was a new experience for Jim. He never got that far with Sara, his first daughter, who died from cancer in 1978, at the age of seven. Regardless, he knew when his daughter was hurt in any way, it was his responsibility to be there for her, even if she didn’t want him to be.

            “Listen, kid,” he said to Jane through the storage room door. “This whole thing is my fault, and I’m sorry. I forced you to come to this town, thinking I was protecting you from danger…though it never occurred to me there’s still danger, even in our new life.” With a heavy, guilt-ridden sigh, he added, “I promise you, with all my heart, no matter what, I’ll always protect you and be there when you need me…just like I’m here right now.” For a long moment afterwards, he didn’t receive any response from Jane. He assumed just to leave her in the storage room, waiting close by until she was ready to come out.

            Thankfully, he didn’t have to wait long.

            Jane stepped out, her face still wet from her tears and clothes stained from the chocolate milkshake, but nonetheless grateful for the comforting words of her father. The first thing she did was hug him and tell him, “I want to go home.” Those were the words Jim wanted to hear.

            They were on their way out before Angela, flanked by her posse, strode up and blocked them. “Going so soon, Jane?” she teased.

            “Alright, enough’s enough,” Jim asserted. “You and your goons had your fun.”

            “Oh, but the night’s only started, sir,” Angela condescended. “Jane knows it was just a joke…right, Jane?”

            “It wasn’t funny,” Jane reproached. “I thought we were friends.”

            Angela smirked. “You thought wrong, hon.”

            While Angela’s attention was on belittling Jane, she failed to notice something everyone else around her did: a three-tier birthday cake levitating directly over her head. It floated there for a few seconds before splatting right on Angela, covering her long blond locks with white frosting and chunks of chocolate cake. She let out a long, maddening wail of misery, receiving little help from her friends, who just stood and exploded with laughter.

            Jane laughed herself, but Jim was less than amused. He quickly forced her to leave the scene, lassoing Will along as soon as they came across him. Will tried to explain Dobby’s sudden disappearance to him, but Jim was too disgruntled to hear him out. Once they were all back in the family car, he told Jane, “We agreed no powers!”

            “I didn’t do it,” Jane said.

            “Do what?” Will asked. “What happened?”

            “Your sister dropped a cake on that Angela girl,” Jim filled him in.

            “But I didn’t do it,” Jane repeated, more defensively.

            “Dobby did it.” The house-elf’s voice spoke once again inside the vehicle, startling everyone. Jane curiously witnessed him emerging beside her in the backseat. “Dobby couldn’t watch such injustice happen and not do anything about it, so Dobby took it upon himself to punish the Muggle girl. Did Dobby do bad again?”

            Jim was prepared to reprimand Dobby for what would have been the hundredth time that day. But he considered the circumstances, smiling in approval. “Nah. You did good, Dobs.” He started the car and set off for home.

            Learning of Dobby and his remarkable deed, Jane told him, “Thank you.”

            Dobby smiled at her. “It’s a pleasure for Dobby to help his new friends.”

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Meanwhile, back at the abandoned Hawkins National Laboratory…

            Using every bit of nuage power she had in her TARDIS, Si tried to close the Mothergate. Her best course of action was to counteract the vines attached to her ship, in the hopes that they would retreat back through the gate. Somehow, the vines were feeding on the nuage energy rather than repelled by it.

            Mike, Dustin, and Steve watched from the safety of the observation/control room with Bob, Murray, and Robin – who were baffled of the whole ordeal, in spite being brought up to speed on Si’s story with Hellboy. That’s when they heard screaming from outside that caught up to them inside the room. It was Eddie, who was accompanied by Erica, frantically crying, “They’re dead! THEY’RE DEAD!”

            “What’s the matter with him?” Steve asked Erica, who just shrugged.

            “Eddie, calm down,” Dustin instructed. “Who’s dead?”

            For a brief moment, Eddie was calm enough to explain his frenzy. And then he glanced through the observation window, seeing Si’s TARDIS, Hellboy, and the pulsing Mothergate. He would have verged on yet another freak-out had Dustin not told him, “Eddie, look at me! Look at me! It’s O.K.! Everything’s O—”

            Dustin was cut off, just as the entire area vibrated around them.

            Si ramped up the power of her TARDIS, an act that overloaded the ship’s energy. Sparks and smoke billowed out through the opened doorway, with Si and Hellboy still inside. The humming and grinding of the TARDIS engines rang, as the ship itself dematerialized all of the sudden, taking its two passengers along with it. The Mothergate closed; but, unbeknownst to everyone there in the abandoned laboratory complex, another gate opened outside…near the twisted corpse of Chrissy Cunningham.