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004. 𝘀𝗵𝗲’𝘀 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗲𝗶𝗿𝗱 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁.
𝐈𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐃𝐀𝐘, last period, when Lori’s pen tapped on the wooden desk in a sequence of three’s, along with the ticking of the clock over the bookshelves. Her leg bobbed up and down at a fast pace underneath the oak table, and her eyes flickered from word to word on the paper. Around, there was an occasional hum or loud whisper, the sharpening of a pencil at the sharpener near the windows, the tapping of pens, pencils, erasers on the surfaces of other desks, and the scratch of turning book pages. All of this filled the white noise as Lori sat in the back of the school library with her head down.
She had her headphones pressed to her ears, and the portable cassette player lying on the table next to her backpack. She was sitting alone at the last table in the room, away from the study girls and the couples and the librarian. She had Mrs. Feller’s history encyclopedia splat open before her, and she was looking at the words, but not really looking— just staring at the letters in the paragraphs that probably weren’t true, anyways. Her foot tapped the ground repeatedly. The sound of the pen ceased when she began chewing the end of it harmlessly.
She thought about her mom. Down in the centre of town, Maureen Philbin was making her way up to one of Hawkins’ main offices, a bag clutched close to her side, her black heels clicking on the pavement and the pearls around her neck shining in the cloudy gleam. It was her first day in office.
Lori tried not to think about her mom for too long because whenever her mom came to mind, it was always followed by her father. And that was something she didn’t like to think about.
When Lori looked up from the book and towards the windows, Jonathan Byers was passing by outside. He had a camera around his neck— sometimes he chose to spend his free period doing other things than sitting in the library like most— his hands shoved in his pockets, and a book under his arm. For some unknown reason, Lori stared at him with the pen pressed to her chin, at his obscure disposition that she couldn’t help but notice— even if she was sitting behind glass windows and had never talked to him before.
Lori was good at that kind of thing. Some guess that when you have no interest in making friends, it’s easy to observe people without wondering if they’ll like you or if they won’t like you. She had this sort of advantage— if she was going to cruise through high school with a low profile, observing people’s nature was going to be much easier than worrying if anyone was evaluating her own. So, with that, she watched this boy walk out of school with a camera hanging from his neck and a book under his arm, deciding that he fit Hawkins’ mysteriousness perfectly.
“That’s the Freak’s brother,” A voice spoke out.
That’s when Lori flickered her eyes away from the window.
The girl, the short one with the long black hair, that she’d seen on her first day in the office— the one who was caught smoking in the girl’s bathroom— had slid herself into the chair opposite from Lori.
“What?” Lori immediately said, only slightly taken aback for a simple moment. She took the headphones off her ears.
The black-haired girl leaned back in the plastic chair, “Him,” she pointed at the window where the boy was walking away. “That’s Jonathan Byers, the Freak’s brother.”
Lori’s eyes lingered on this Jonathan Byers for a moment, before she looked back to the girl in front of her. Why was she talking to Lori, out of all people in the library?
“Oh.” Lori simply said, not caring enough to think of anything else.
“I’m Helena Gibson,” The girl leaned forward and struck out her hand, with sort of a badass demeanour. “My real name’s Helen but no one calls me that.”
Lori stared at the hand blankly.
“Not a hand shaker? That’s cool,” she sat back down against the chair, her black hair laying over her shoulders. She was wearing a graphic t-shirt tucked into loose jeans, and black converse were over her feet—with untied laces.
“Who’s the Freak?” Lori flipped a page in the book. “Some fuckin’ geek, or something,”
Helena Gibson was slightly dumbfounded at Lori’s ability to casually continue with such a sudden interaction, and at her complete disregard for social statuses and making friends in general. Helena smiled to herself— realizing, only within the first few seconds of talking, that this girl was unusually arcane.
“You don’t know?” Helena uttered. She leaned back and folded her legs up to her chest, draping an arm over her knees.
Lori blinked at her. She was unamused at the fact that someone was talking to her, hated the fact that her favorite tape was interrupted, but didn’t say anything about it.
“Yeah, sorry, you’re new,” Helena laughed. “Some kid got lost in the forest last year, but only the sissies believe that shit.” She whisked a hand through the air, rolling her eyes.
“What’s so bad about that.” Lori had her eyes on the book, and her hand moving on the paper next to it, writing.
Helena observed this for a moment. Usually someone looks up at you when you’ve just met— especially when the subject of conversation is such a heavy story— but Lori Philbin wasn’t even bothered, or at least she didn’t make it look like she was bothered. So, on top of being weirdly unusual, she noticed that Lori Philbin was uninterested in the act of conversation, but yet, she wasn’t telling Helena to leave.
“You don’t know much about this place, do you?” Helena spoke, her eyes squinting.
“You’re saying that like we’re in a damn psych ward, or something,” Lori scribbled on the paper.
Helena looked around, “So. Will Byers, this elementary kid, got lost in the forest last year, then they found his body.” she explained, slowly. “I may just be a crippling conspiracist— but no way a kid dies, and then comes back to life a month later,”
Now, Lori looked up. “Will Byers?” She remembered the name when Claudia was mentioning Dustin’s friends. Lori wanted to ask the girl why she was telling her this.
“Yeah.” Helena nodded, picking at the threads of her jeans. “So. You going to Tina’s party tonight?” Her voice became drowned out when Lori turned her head.
Lori looked away to get a last glimpse at Jonathan Byers who was now at the end of the parking lot. She stared at him, the Freak’s brother, feeling her brain buzz as it was trying to process information. Why did she care? No, she didn’t. Not really.
“I’m sure you can meet a lot of people there,” Helena was saying, and her voice came back into Lori’s ears.
“I don’t have a costume.” Lori sighed heavily, only to herself, and tried to think of why this Will Byers shit was wanting to rack her brain. She pushed it away.
To ignore the pulse that was beating in her head, Lori looked away from the table and towards the glass study room— where she noticed the Harrington boy closing the door. Lori hadn’t seen him since their class the day before, neither did she see him that morning when Maureen made her bike to school again.
When Helena Gibson realized that Lori wasn’t listening to her costume suggestion, the costume of “just wearing the most revealing clothing you own”, she followed her gaze.
“That’s Steve Harrington,” Helena said.
Here she went again, explaining things about the town to a girl that really did not care to listen.
“Used to be an A-class asshole, but ever since the Freak came back— he’s like a new man, or something.” She put bunny ears up with her fingers. “He’s on the basket-ball team, rich, popular, nothing more.”
Lori heard, but didnt say anything.
“Oh, and his girlfriend, Nancy Wheeler,” At this, Helena rolled her eyes to the back of her head. “She’s been off her rocker ever since Barbara Holland went missing— that’s another story. I don’t know why they’re still together.”
Lori hummed, wondering why the hell this Helena Gibson kept explaining things one after another.
After a moment, Steve, behind the glass window of this study room, looked around as if worried someone was watching him and his girlfriend— they seemed to be talking about something serious. Steve caught sight of Lori and Helena watching him from the other side of the library, and he quickly closed the blinds.
“Jeez.” Helena let out a small laugh.
“How do you know so much about them,” Lori asked, still keeping her eyes on the closed blinds.
“Everyone does.” She replied, leaning her elbows on the desk. “They’re like the soap-opera of Hawkins High.”
Lori shook it off, and looked back down to her books.
“So. If you end up coming to Tina’s party, I’ll probably be by the drink table,” Helena was standing up from the chair, with her hands on the table. “See ya.”
Helena Gibson wasn’t expecting a farewell, or a smile from this Lori Philbin she had just spoken to, and she was right. What had even compelled her to speak to the new girl in Hawkins? She didn’t really know.
Lori sat facing the empty chair in front of her, her lips pressed together and her mind confounded. That was something. But she wasn’t going to dwell on it.
Before the end of day bell even rung, she was slamming the encyclopedia closed, standing up, and walking towards the exit doors with one, unusual thing in mind.
On the other campus, Hawkins’ elementary school, there were three boys walking towards their bikes. Contrasting to everyone, they were wearing Halloween costumes— Mike Wheeler, Lucas Sinclair, and Dustin Henderson were the only three students out of Hawkins’ elementary population that were fit for Halloween.
While the three boys grabbed their bike handles, Lori Philbin was walking her own shit-bike over the cracks in the elementary parking lot, approaching them from behind. Some of the high school students watched as she passed them, but Lori couldn’t care less, and kept her way towards her cousin— who she was forced to bike home with because Maureen didn’t have gas for their car yet.
“Nice costumes, boys.” Lori said, over the chattering kids in the lot. Her voice came out with a hint of amused sarcasm.
Mike, Dustin, and Lucas all turned their heads around at the same time, to see the older girl leaning her elbows on the handles of her bike, twirling her rings and watching cryptically.
Dustin sighed, and turned his head to the side. He used his pointer finger and his thumb to pull at the inside corners of his eyes, stressfully. “Guys, this is my cousin, Lori.” He said, as if his mom had made him practice many times. “Lori, meet my friends, Mike and Lucas.”
“Bonjour,” she said, looking to each one of them specifically for a moment.
“She’s French?” Lucas leaned closer to Dustin, and motioned to her with the plastic tube on his back. “I thought you said she was from Michigan.”
“Why’s she staring at us that way?” Mike looked at her weirdly.
Dustin put his hands out, huffing. “She’s just weird like that. Alright now — can we get going?” He looked to Lori.
“I bet you guys won best costumes, huh.” Lori said, monotone, as she hoped on her bike and began pedalling.
A few confused “what’s” and “huh’s” echoed behind her from the boys, as they hesitated to hop on their bikes too.
“Hurry up, Sammy and co. I wait for no one,” Lori called back, not even caring about how the high school bystanders were looking at her.
Lucas whispered to Dustin. “Who’s Sammy?”
For a while the group of four, with Lori leading in the front, rode in silence. They didn’t know why Lori was leading, but neither did they want to say anything about it, even though she never turned her head around to see if they were following— and they could’ve just ditched her. But Dustin promised he’d show her mom she was good company, so the least he could do was drop her off and hope Maureen would see. They rode through the parking lots, out into the street past all the students, and down the long road.
Once they were finally away from school, the boys discussed Halloween night. When they mentioned Will in several sentences, and Jonathan, Lori thought of the story Helena Gibson shared— and then thought about how bold Helena Gibson really was. But still, the boys talked amongst each other as they rode side by side, discussing every detail about the night before them. They were biking in a line of three with Lori a few paces in front, her hair blowing in the wind behind her.
Once again, Lori couldn’t help but notice how perfect Hawkins, Indiana fit the atmosphere of Halloween. It was like Halloween every day— as if there were ghouls mingling around twenty-four-seven and no one could see them.
When Mike Wheeler looked to his side, trailing out of conversation for a moment, he noticed that they’d been biking for longer than the usual commute. Also, that they weren’t even headed in the direction of Lori’s house.
“Hey, hey,” he voiced, “Where are we going,”
Dustin and Lucas stopped talking, and looked around.
Dustin groaned, “Lori,” he called, “This isn’t the way home!”
“Why is she the one leading us?” Lucas commented, “She probably doesn’t even know where she is.”
“We’re just making a pit-stop, losers,” Lori called back.
“God,” Dustin huffed.
Though hesitant, they still followed her because they didn’t know what would happen if they didn’t.
Just when Dustin was about to protest, they passed the trees that covered the view of the dying pumpkin patch, and then Lori stopped, and the boys behind her stopped as well.
“What are we doing here?” Dustin asked, sounding tired.
“Stay here,” Lori stayed looking forward at the ‘Pick Your Own Pumpkins’ sign down the dirt road. “I’ll be right back.”
“What is she doing,” Lucas spoke, as they watched her pedal down the path, away from them.
“Who knows.” Dustin sighed, and leaned his elbows on his handle bars. They couldn’t see the dying pumpkins from where they were, but Lori recognized the sign and the familiar road, the sign of the dying pumpkin farm.
Lori had her eyes searching around the pumpkin patch and the Hawkins PD car parked in the middle of the tire-engraved path. The smell was putrid and abnormally strong, but she tried not to think about it as she pedalled by the barb wire. The air was thicker in this area, but she brisked through it, eyes staring down at the decaying pumpkins that oozed of flies and some sort of sticky goop.
She stopped pedalling. With one foot on the ground and one leg still over the bicycle seat, she stood there in the wind, staring down at the pumpkins.
This was something. Back on the days her mother announced they’d be moving to some boring, dull, Indiana town, Lori had her mind set on just existing. She was not planning on engaging in anything, making any friends, or stimulating her mind with cryptic mysteries like this one. She was not planning on immersing herself into curiosity.
But there she was, standing along the edge of a dying pumpkin patch because she just could not get her mind off of it. It angered her that something was giving her this much pang, that something was causing her mind so much curiosity that she just had to see it close for herself. With her own eyes. She was there, looking down at the crumbling pieces of orange that were sinking into the ground, underneath the dull grey cloud. There was something about Hawkins, that she knew, and there was something about this damn field of pumpkins that didn’t make sense— and it royally pissed her off that she was so engaged.
“The pumpkins are not for sale.” A man’s voice spoke out behind her.
Lori barely jumped, but still turned her head around quickly to see the man with the chief hat— Chief of Police, Jim Hopper, that grew more tired every day. He was standing, tall, with a cigarette between his fingers, his big boots and a jacket covering his uniform.
“Did you not hear me? I said this place is out of business.” He said again, as if many moments had passed. In fact, many moments did pass, Lori just hadn’t realized cause she was too busy staring.
“Well, obviously,” she said, her tone coming off unbothered.
Hopper pressed his lips into a tight line, emitting that he was waiting for her to leave.
“Could you tell me what happened to these pumpkins?” Lori questioned, looking from Jim Hopper to said-pumpkins. Her voice was filled with a sort of demanding tone, not one you’d ever use talking to a grownup.
“They were poisoned.” Hopper simply replied, but his tone of voice was double-toned, he knew something that she didnt. “Now let’s go, there’s another field down the road.”
“There was a pumpkin patch back in my old town that got poisoned,” Lori said, keeping her voice still. “The pumpkins didn’t look like this, the most that happened was a bad smell and some weird spots all over them. Are you sure this is—”
Jim Hopper squinted his eyes at this teenage girl he’d never seen before, wondering why she was so concerned about the pumpkins. He knew that they weren’t purposely poisoned with some sort of pesticide, but this girl didn’t need to know that, she really did not need to know that.
“The sun’s going down,” He interrupted her, speaking blatantly, “I’m sure you better get home.” He took a drag of the cigarette.
Lori narrowed her eyebrows, hard, and sternly, “I’m telling you, these pum—”
“Go home.” He said, seriously.
Lori stared at him for one more second, her eyebrows still narrowed hard. She never followed orders, never liked to follow orders— especially from men— but this time, she found herself hopping back on her bike and glaring at this man, before furiously pedalling past him down the dirt road.
Anger was rising in her veins, she didn’t like being told, and so that anger replaced her curiosity greatly— and suddenly she was focused on other things.
“What was that about?” Dustin rose his head from previously having it resting on his folded arms over the bike handles.
“Nothing.” Lori breezed past them, her voice low. “Go on without me. I’ve got a party to sneak out to tonight.”
𝙅𝙐𝙇𝙄 !
hopper <3
this is long, i apologize
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