𝐖𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐍. ˢᵗᵉᵛᵉ ʰᵃʳʳⁱⁿᵍᵗᵒⁿ ¹ - 001

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001. 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗱𝘀
𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝘂𝗺𝗽𝗸𝗶𝗻𝘀.

    𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐈 𝐏𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐁𝐈𝐍 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐄𝐃 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐇𝐀𝐖𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐒, 𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐀, was its affinity for omnipresent gloom. Nothing about the dull sky or the rows of leaden grass made her feel particularly buoyant in the middle of the October day— when she passed the town line, drifting by the Welcome To Hawkins greeting sign in all its miserable glory. Suppose that the town wasn’t bad on the inside, she would still feel the same displeasure with the salty taste of the rain on her tongue that was soon to come, and the dimness of the sky overhead. To put it simply, her first impression of Hawkins, Indiana: dull.

    The second thing Lori noticed was the clouds, dense and painfully overwhelming, and really, they were more of a singular cloud rather than many. One big, fat cloud loomed over the whole entirety of the town and mocked anybody who looked up at it. The teenage girl actually liked the rain, loved it, although not in these circumstances. Not in the circumstances where it reflected every single one of her feelings, and seemed to only be there for adding irony, unpleasant irony, on her very first day. All that she needed for this sequence of events to be complete, was a crash of lightning.

    Preferably on Aunt Claudia’s little Volvo that they were driving in.

     Small and longing raindrops landed on the window, as she sat in the backseat of her Aunt’s car. Now, her Aunt— the third thing that she had noticed about Hawkins. Aunt Claudia would’ve been one of the last things for her to notice if the woman hadn’t been standing right beside the bus station, smile beaming off of her plump cheeks and arms flailing at her sides for them to see. Her Volvo was parked next to the station, and she’d been standing beside it, simply waiting for them. Claudia was so excited that she had hugged her sister and her niece at the same time, and then eagerly helped them with their bags straight away. They’d been right outside Hawkins’ town line.

    Aunt Claudia was a peculiar thing. She was a chatty one, and talked with a sweet voice, and every time she spoke, it was almost impossible to imagine the woman ever getting mad at you. Lori simply thought such a thing wasn’t possible— this Aunt, whom she’d supposedly met when she was an infant, was incapable of rudeness, and she’d discovered that in their first few minutes of meeting. She was plumper than Lori’s mother, and although the two women were sisters, their appearance and their personalities were already quite contrasting. Aunt Claudia was just too good for her own good.

    Maureen Philbin— Lori’s mother— was, putting it simply, the opposite. Maureen didn’t have the same short bob, or the same round cheeks, neither did she have the same sweet voice or constant cheerily chatty attitude. Compared to her sister, she was evidently more governed, you could say, more punctual, more dependable, and more exquisite. She was rich, over everything. Although not as wealthy as before— but Lori thought that no one in Hawkins could possibly be so rich, anyways. Lori supposed Aunt Claudia and her mother would be quite the same if her mother never married Kent Philbin, way back when.

    The arrival scene was set. Claudia was driving the car past the Welcoming Sign, Maureen was particularly interested in the real estate pamphlet of their new home, and Lori had her headphones pressed to her ears. She wasn’t excited. Although there wasn’t much happiness in her hometown to begin with, Michigan was a much better contender than the overwhelming gloom of Hawkins. It set a peculiar feeling inside the pit of her stomach, how paralyzingly boring everything there seemed to be— but it never occurred to her that there could be a reason why everything appeared so monotonous, a reason why the sky seemed to have no colour. She just wanted to get everything over with. Breeze through senior year.

    Now, she leaned her head against the window next to her and watched her nose create small patches of fog on the glass, not because it was cold, but because the atmosphere in the car was unbearably damp. Her eyes lingered on the window crank for a long moment. Contemplating if she should risk rolling it down when a farm of cows was right on the other side of the road. She looked out at the splotches of black and white covering the field of grass. One of the fat cows caught her eye through the glass, and she stared back, until it let out a loud taunting moo and she rolled her eyes.

    Another thing— Aunt Claudia was slow at driving.

    The teenage girl pressed her headphones closer to her ears and skipped a track on her Walkman, letting the music vibrate through her brain at its full volume. She shut her eyes and leaned her head on the headrest, breathing out a stressful sigh. With a certain distaste, she imagined her new house.

    Just when she’d blocked the image of the mocking cow out of her mind, she felt a breeze kiss her forehead. And then her hair flew at her sides, her eyelashes fluttered, and worst of all, an abhorrent aroma of cow manure wafted through her nose.

    Lori paused her music and shot her eyes wide open to see Aunt Claudia, in the driver’s seat, rolling down her window like nothing. Her aunt looked into the rear view mirror to see her niece staring at her with an angered look. The lady grinned, her fiftieth-thousand smile of the hour.

    “Sorry, hun!” Aunt Claudia beamed, speaking over the soft wind blowing in the car, “It’s just too hot in here! My goodness— we never get warm weather in October!”

    Lori wanted to tell her Aunt that the weather wasn’t warm because of chance, it was because of the rain— which had stopped momentarily as they passed the field of cows— and its thick, warm presence still lingering in the air.

    The smell of the cows was even worse with the slow pace they were driving at.

    “It smells like shit,” Lori frowned, not bothering to filter her words.

    “Lorraine.” Maureen, the girl’s mother, cast her a warning glance through the mirror. The faint wrinkles on her forehead glinted with disapproval.

    “Don’t worry, hun, the smell’ll be gone in no time!” Aunt Claudia hummed, and gripped her hands higher on the steering wheel. “And there’s no cows in your lovely neighbourhood,” she smiled, trying to joke with the girl, because cow fields don’t exist in the suburbs.

    “Except for the neighbours, maybe.” Lori mumbled to herself as she rose her hand up, and pinched her nostrils together to block out the horrid scent.

    “Im wondering if there’ll be a lot of neighbours, hm,” Maureen changed that subject to a positive note, her voice silky. She was wealthy, sure, but not the obnoxious kind of wealthy— she didn’t even comment about the terrible smell or complain that her hair was going to mess from the current of wind. So maybe she was, kind of, like Claudia.

    With one hand still pinching her nose, Lori pushed a finger onto the pause button, and leaned forward— causing the seatbelt to stretch. She draped her unoccupied arm over the back of her mother’s seat and rested her chin on the shoulder of it. Her hand latched on the real estate pamphlet.

    “Lovely,” Lori hummed as her eyes scanned the front page, a picture of the house. Her voice came out nasally, and sarcastic. “Very tall shrubs, huh.”

    “There is absolutely nothing wrong with it,” Maureen took the pamphlet back with a pull.

    Lori frowned, removing her arm from around the seat, but keeping her chin on the shoulder of it for a moment. “You lie like a rug.”

    “You should be very grateful that your aunt found us a place in such short time,” Maureen glanced to her sister, who smiled to herself. “She even offered for us to stay in her guest room if we needed. I should hear a thank you,” Maureen spoke reproachfully.

    Lori slouched back in her seat, eyes looking up to the ceiling of the car with her mouth agape. “Merci beaucoup, Claudie,” she mumbled.

    “My Dustin is so excited to see you, Lori!” Aunt Claudia’s eyes crinkled in the rear-view mirror. “We’ll come over tomorrow and see you guys once you’re settled in!”

    Great, she thought. She’d never met her only Henderson cousin, but when Aunt Claudia proceeded to go on about his science discoveries, his clubs at school and out of school, and his group of friends, she had a pretty good image of the kind of kid he was.

    “Mike’s got an older sister, Nancy. And then there’s poor Will,” Claudia’s lips frowned, and a genuine, sad look took over her face, “Remember, Maureen, when I called last year? Poor boy. And his mother too.”

    Maureen nodded, and pursed her lips together as if she didn’t like the topic.

    “Who’s Will?” Lori questioned. She still gazed out her window, mostly uninterested, and dug her chin into her chest.

    Claudia looked to her sister, and then rearranged the words she was about to say, “I’m sure you’ll find out sooner or later,” she said, with a noticeable undertone that hinted at something much bigger, “He has a brother in your grade.”

    So the town had secrets. How bad could it be? Lori didn’t feel like asking any further, for the answers weren’t really in her interest and she didn’t have the energy for debunking Hawkins any more just yet. But now there was a context to this gloomy town she was supposed to call home.

    Her nose ached from pinching by the time they reached actual human civilization, coincidentally right at the moment Aunt Claudia finally rolled her window back up— due to the start of rain again. They were driving through the main part of town, past the grocery stores and the newspaper offices, all decorated with Halloween decorations and pumpkins in every window. The whole way, Claudia was pointing each building out as if she were a tour guide, and Maureen nodded and wrote little notes down on the back of her pamphlet with a stray pen. Lori thought it was ridiculous, because how could you forget the location of the only three grocery stores in the whole of Hawkins.

    They drifted by the Sheriff’s station, and Claudia waved to a tall, bearded, chief-hat wearing man in uniform, although he did not wave back. She explained that a lot of stuff had gone on the year prior— but gave no further detail about it— and that the man, Chief Hopper was growing more tired every day. Lori wondered why in the world her Aunt wouldn’t simply tell them why.

    The adolescent was barely listening as they drove past furthermore bland buildings, past the middle school and the high school where she’d be attending and then finally swerved (ever so slowly) into the suburbs for a more detailed tour. Cul-de-sacs, picture-perfect American houses, green and trimmed lawns. Lori had established Hawkins’ environmental colour palette when they made it to Aunt Claudi street— grey, brown, washed red brick, and the occasional green on the rich lawns. The sky was still a dark silver.

    Then there was the pumpkin patch. Lori sat up in her seat, finally taking real notice in something at the end of a long street they’d been driving on. Her eyes trailed over said-pumpkin patch— although it couldn’t even be called a pumpkin patch. Moulded, rotting, and decaying pieces of once beautiful large pumpkins lay scattered all over the field, with flies swarming the air above them. Thank god Claudia had her window rolled up, or else the smell of the corroded pumpkins would’ve killed the teenager on her first day.

“Holy shit,” Lori exclaimed, bewildered. “What ha—”

“Lorraine, language, please!” Maureen scolded her, ignoring her daughter’s concerns.

    “Your house is just a few streets up,” Aunt Claudia payed no mind. Somehow, the two women hadn’t noticed the rotting pumpkin patch.

    Lori slouched back in her seat and tried to ignore it, although she’d never seen something like that before. But the town seemed to have its secrets, so she stayed quiet. Suppose she wasn’t done with her list of noticing just yet, because she added zombie pumpkin patches to her list of things weird about the town.

Soon enough, Claudia Henderson’s car rolled up on the slicked pavement of a driveway. They were on a long street, still always filled with gloom, and had passed by mansions varying from exquisitely large to moderately medium. Tall trees surrounded every residence, making it hard to see the next.

The front of the new Philbin house — a tall, wide-windowed, two story house with a sizeable yard that had a ‘SOLD’ sign forced into the end of it. It had little to it, came out as quite dull and iridescent to Lori’s eyes, although its grandeur was certainly a noticeable factor and it made the teenage girl wonder if her mom was really able to afford it on her own. It weighed the same as her old home and looked similar, but this one, like the rest of Hawkins, had a dreary aura to it.

“It’s quite plain,” Lori voiced from the backseat, scrunching her nose up. “Looks like false advertisement to me.”

“But it’s so wonderful!” Claudia admired, and she pushed open the driver side door once the cars engine ceased. Her and Maureen stepped out of the car.

Maureen placed her hands on her hips and gazed up at the house from the driveway, studying it with a small smile. “It is wonderful. And I mean, look at this yard,” she motioned to the supposedly green— but appeared quite grey— grass.

    Lori looked at her mom for a moment, standing there in the driveway. She didn’t want to think about her father— but she couldn’t help but imagine both of her parents standing in the driveway instead of just one.

Lori stepped onto the pavement with a small grimace to her lips and a heavy head. There was a small breeze outside, but it only prickled her arms just a little bit.

“What do you think, Miss Lori,” Aunt Claudia glanced to her niece. Aunt Claudia was so welcoming even though this was basically their first time meeting.

Lori shifted on her feet and crossed her arms, “Very picturesque.” She said, sardonically.

Claudia whisked a hand through the air, “I dont know that you mean but i’m sure you’ll get used to it.” she smiled brightly, all teeth showing, stepping over to the girl.

“And why’s everything is this town so…” Lori looked around repellently, “Dark.”

Claudia didn’t hear her, and wrapped an arm around her niece’s shoulder. She nuzzled her close, and warmly. “Guess what,”

Lori stared at her new house, arms crossed and expressionless. “What.”

Maureen, her pearls around her neck, was searching around the only ferns outside the front door. “We need to get some pumpkins.”

“I think I know a pumpkin patch around here,” Lori called.

“There’s a bunch of families right down the street, only a few steps actually, and they’ve got some boys and girls your age,” Aunt Claudia continued, and rubbed the girl’s shoulders encouragingly.

“Do they, now,” Lori was still staring, barely paying attention to her aunt.

“They’re rich people, them, and probably famous around school,” Claudia began to guide the two of them over to the doorway.

Lori wasn’t really listening— rather, she was trying to figure out how to sneak out from the upstairs window, which seemed to be her room, without falling to her death.

“Why don’t you go meet them, maybe someone can show you around the school tomorrow,” Claudia suggested, always happily.

“I’ll be dead by the time I get around to making friends with the popular kids, Auntie.” Lori said, adding the ‘auntie’ for effect. Claudia really was a nice aunt, the teenager just wasn’t in the mood.

“I’m sure you’ll find someone to hang around with!” Claudia sighed and patted her niece’s shoulder lightly. “Turn that frown upside down, hun.”

Lori wasn’t going to explain the notion of coasting through senior year with a low profile, because anybody over the age of thirty just simply didn’t understand that kind of thing anymore. She didn’t want to befriend the popular kids, neither did she want to acquaint the nobodies. She wanted to glide through high school in the middle class where nobody really knows what you are or who you are, while they also simultaneously not “give a shit” because of how painfully normal and boring you seem to be. The kind of person that isn’t weird enough to be picked on, but not cool enough to be cast a glance in the hallway during passing periods. Lori Philbin at her finest.

Maureen and Claudia brought in most of the boxes from the trunk straight away, while the younger girl trotted up the flight of stairs. The floors were sleek, and the interior of the house was bare but spacious and much more vivid compared to the exterior. The moving truck was going to come soon, and the house was going to be filled with their beloved furniture soon enough, and maybe it would feel more like home— if home was even a place anymore. The flight of stairs, smooth and shining, carried on to a second floor where the walls rose to quilted ceilings and spiraled with classic eighties wallpaper. She stepped on towards the first open door.

Silently and solemnly, Lori crowned it as her room, mainly for the fact that a wide glass window framed the main wall and spilled light throughout the room— although the light really was just a rainy-day gloom. It also had a wide closet to the right, and the walls were a simple dark beige with frills on the baseboards, minimalistic and wanting of album posters plastered on them. She could envision her bed sloppily made in the corner and her books scattered along a shelf beside it, her record player under the window and her dresser with its haphazard drawers and hinges, and a rug on the floor where she’d throw her shoes.

What she didn’t see upon choosing the room, was the house peeking over the top of the shrubs across from hers. Technically, it wasn’t close enough to call it “across from hers” because the rich, wide yards were lavishly immense and left a lot of space between neighbours. It was a tall grey mansion, with panelled exterior walls, much bigger than her new home, and she could see the peek of the roof and a little bit of the wall. A turquoise pool shimmered between the spaces of the shrubs. She ignored it.

Eagerly, she grasped her hand on the window latch, and pushed— but it wouldn’t open. She tried again, though nothing budged. So much for sneaking out any time soon.

“Is this the one you’re picking?” Maureen appeared in the open doorway, with a smile on her face at the sight of her daughter in the middle of the empty room. Her straight rows of white teeth shimmered— Maureen was always beautiful.

“The window’s broken,” Lori turned around.

“The real estate manager said something about that. Hopefully it’ll be fixed in a few days. Come on downstairs and get your bags,” She grinned to her daughter, shimmying her shoulders only a little bit.

    Lori listened to her mother and her aunt’s voices echo on the bare walls of the stairs corridor, smoothing together like wind. She cussed under her breath at the window and squinted at the grey paneled house beside hers, before exiting the room.

    Claudia was beaming at the bottom of the stairs as Lori neared. “And I’m telling you, Maureen, the neighbors are great here. The Harrington’s next door are some fine people, at least that I know of.” She looked up at her niece and smiled, “Cmon, hun, I’ve got a bike outside waiting for you.”

𝙅𝙐𝙇𝙄
i <3 u Claudia

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