Chapter Eighty-Two: Runnin' Up That Hill

As soon as my body hit the ground, the hard concrete floor of the Criminal ward was replaced with grass.

I furrowed my eyebrows, suddenly having gone from completely unconscious to fully aware within a matter of seconds.

"Riley?" I looked up to see that I was laying on the ground in a dark, shadowy cemetery, and sitting beside me a few inches away, was Max. I moved up onto my hands and knees, glancing at the headstone that she was sitting in front of. It read Billy Hargrove.

"Max." A deep and eerily familiar voice called. I quickly stood up, grabbing Max's hand and pulling her up with me. Through the fog several feet to our left was a shadowy figure that was slowly making its way towards us. "I've been waiting to hear those words, Max. Waiting so very long."

Max swallowed nervously as the figure emerged from the fog, revealing itself to be a very bloody Billy Hargrove.

"Hello, Blondie." He greeted, glancing at me.

"We're not doing this," I yelled, glaring at him, "Not this time! YOU CAN'T HAVE HER!"

"You can't stop me," He said, continuing his approach before looking at Max again, "It wasn't the full truth, was it Max? You know, I think there's a part of you, buried somewhere deep, that wanted me to die that day. That was maybe even relieved."

"Of course there wasn't," I said, turning my head to her, "He was still your brother, and I know you loved him, in spite of everything you two went through."

"Billy no, that's not true." She agreed tearfully.

"That's why you stood there, isn't it, Max?" He questioned. "Its ok, you can admit it now. No more lies, no more hiding."

"Billy that's not true, I swear its not true."

"Max, it isn't really him." I assured her, reaching back and sliding my hands into hers. He was getting closer, so we both started backing away from him.

"That is why you feel such guilt."

"No."

"Why you hide from your friends."

"No."

"Why you hide from the world."

"And that's why, late at night, you have sometimes wished to follow me." I slowly turned around to look at Max. She looked at me with tears streaming down her face, shaking her head.

"I am right here." I told her. "You are not alone right now, ok? I'm here."

"Follow me into death, that is why I am here Max, to end your suffering, once and for all."

The chiming of the clock started up again, and the closer Billy got the more Max began to back up until she reached the edge of his burial plot. She fell but I caught her with my grip on her arm, pulling us both onto the ground just as Billy disappeared and transformed into Vecna. We both turned away from him, taking off into the cemetery as fast as we possibly could.

"It is time, Max." He called. "Time for you to join me."

We both ran until we reached the end of the graveyard, pausing behind a raised wall and hitting the ground in an attempt to catch our breath. 

"Just hang in there ok?" I called. "I think we know the way out of this, I'm just praying that Nancy and Robin were on the same wavelength as me, which I guarantee you, they are. They're geniuses, the both of them, so you are not gonna die today, ok?"

"You cannot hide from me, Maxine."

"Maxine?" I asked. "Ok now he's just being a douche."

We took off running again, only to come to a screeching stop when the area in front of us transformed into a blood-red haze. 

"Does that usually happen?" Max asked. I took a second to look behind me before facing forward again.

"Not in my experience, no," I replied, "Which hopefully, is a good sign."

I led the way into the Red fog and she followed after me, allowing me to slip my hand into hers once again.

"I know you didn't have much of a choice," She said as we looked around the haze, "But thank you for being here."

"I'd be here, even if it was up to me." I assured her.

As we walked, the ground beneath our feet became squishy and wet...it was a texture that I remembered very highly.

"Its like the Upside Down." I reported. A flash of white lighting went off, drawing our gaze forwards towards a spiky forest in the middle of a thunder storm. It looked very similar to Will and I's visions of the Mind Flayer, and the closer we got to the center of the forest, the more I began to recognize the floating debris as Victor Creel's house.

The clock was flying through the air above our heads, and my eyes instantly zeroed in on the stained glass rose door.

"What are you doing in here?" Vecna's voice questioned.

"Shouldn't you know the answer to that?" I called. "I thought you were calling the shots."

Something squished under Max's shoe, and we both looked down to see dozens of Spider egg sacks. Max had stepped on one, and Spiders suddenly began streaming out from it all around our feet.

"Come back to me."

We backed away from the spiders, only to have my back run into something hard. I slowly turned around to see that directly behind me, tied to some kind of weird tree with freaky Upside-Down Vines, was the distorted, mutilated body of Fred Benson. I gasped, turning my head to see that Max was standing beside Chrissy in an identical situation.

"How do you like them, Max?" We both turned around to find Vecna on the other side of us. I rushed forward to stand in front of her, but Vines began to slither up from the ground, wrapping around my feet in order to hold them in place. More shot out, wrapping around my wrists and pulling my arms back.

"MAX, GET AWAY FROM HIM!' I screamed.

"Would you like to join them?"

She tried to run, but with a wave of his hand, another vine caught her around her foot and tripped her, knocking her down into the much. 

I began fighting against the vines harder than I ever had before, tears welling up in my eyes out of pure fear that I was about to watch one of my kids die and I would once again be powerless to stop it.

The vine pulled her backwards, backing her up to one of the trees and beginning to secure her there, just as Freddy and Chrissy were.

"NO!" I screamed. I ripped an arm out towards her, and much to my surprise, the vine that was attached to it was yanked from the ground. Vecna looked at me in shock and the other vines tightened around my limbs. I brought my free hand to my other one, using it to pull the dethatched vine off of my wrist.

I looked up again as I heard Max begin to choke, one of the vines wrapping itself around her neck. Vecna took his attention off of me, moving to stand in front of her. 

I grabbed my trapped fist in my free hand, using the strength of both of my arms to pull the one free. The vines fought back twice as hard, but surprisingly, it didn't matter, because the vines snapped free again, leaving both of my arms unobstructed. I tried to run forward, onto to fall on my face due to my still trapped feet.

"MAX, I'M COMING! JUST HANG ON MAX!" I shouted, kicking wildly at the vines. My right foot broke free and I began crawling towards her, digging my fingers into the ground, when suddenly music began blaring through the place. I instantly recognized it as Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill.

"Max!" I heard Steve's voice yelled.

"Max, wake up!"  Dustin added. Vecna turned around, and I looked over my shoulder to see that a hole had opened up in the mist and we could now see the Cemetery. Max was sitting on the ground, surrounded by Dustin, Lucas, and Steve. 

"Max look!" I shouted. "Its your friends! They're trying to save you1 Think of your friends! REMEMBER!"

As soon as the word left my lips, echoing across the field towards Max, my other foot broke free and the air surrounding me was suddenly surrounded by hundreds of images. I saw Max and Eleven laughing hysterically at the mall, and a young version of her skating circles around a baby Mike Wheeler. For whatever reason, I could see Max's happiest memories laid out in front of me. I jumped towards the closest on to me, holding my hand out in front of me. By pure instinct, I waved it in Max's direction, causing the memory to fly away from my hand and go barreling towards her.

It flew over to her, disappearing in a puff of smoke as it reached her face. I continued sending the memories towards her, dragging happy images of the people her love her most to the forefront of her brain. Despite the physical motion of throwing the images at her I could feel it...something inside of me reaching into the depths of her mind and pulling the best memories she had to the surface.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Vecna screamed at me. I just smirked and he turned back to Max. "They can't help you, Max. There's a reason you hide from them. You belong here, with me."

"You're not really here." She choked out.

"Oh, but I am, Max. I am."

He lifted his hand to her face, just as he had with all of the others, and I spotted one memory that seemed to glow brighter than the others. I grabbed it, waving my hands across it so that it filled the space that surrounded us, as if I were projecting the memory onto a movie theater screen.

Lucas was standing across from her in the cemetery.

"I don't want a letter," He told her, "I'm right here. I'm right here."

The memory then morphed into the two of us, standing in the Hawkins High Parking lot.

"I get it Max, I really do, and when it comes to loss like this, no one is going to understand how you feel better than I do, but I can't force you. I just wanted to give you the option, ok? Because I care? Because I'm your friend, and I see you as a sister just like El, and I don't want you to have to be alone in this. Because I was, for a long time, and it sucked so just...know that I'm here if you need me, ok?"

"You have people like that too, you know," I assured her, "You have all of us. We're not gonna leave you alone, you know that, right?"

"You're not gonna die," I told her, "You're actually not difficult to care about, and anyone whoever made you think that is going to have me to deal with." 

The visions of me faded and were suddenly replaced with even more happy glimpses of the past few years. I saw her and Lucas slow dancing at the Snow Ball, Laughing along with the boys in their Ghostbusters costumes on Halloween.

The image faded and Max reached up, yanking a vine out of Vecna's neck, causing him to wince and the other Vines to drop her off of the tree. She got up, taking off towards me and I held my hand out to her.

She grabbed it, pulling me along with her and we both started making a beeline for the portal.

Debris began raining from the sky, and I managed to pull Max out of the way of one just in time, only for others to start crashing to the ground behind us. We both slipped, further coverin out clothes in dark goo. I shoved her to her feet, crawling to mine behind her and taking her hand again.

"COME ON, RUN!' I screamed. "WE'VE GOT THIS, MAX, WE'RE GONNA MAKE IT! HANG ON!"

The music still blared overhead, so loud it was almost enough to drown out the sounds of this nightmare collapsing around us.

"And If I only could, I'd make a deal with God, and I'd get him to swap our places. I'd be runnin' up that road, runnin' up that hill. No problems. Say, if I only could, I'd make a deal with God..."

The closer we got, the bigger the portal and the image inside of it became. Max was floating, and Steve, Lucas, and Dustin were all screaming at her.

"Max!" 

"Max, wake up!"

"MAX!"