#heather cooper

Mr. Davis’s features stretched into a concerned frown. He sighed, looking away and rubbing his temples. “Look, Officer, if this is about the Munson kid–”

“No, no,” Callahan interrupted, shaking his head vigorously. He wasn’t going to open that can of worms right now. “Not about the Munson kid. Unrelated. But I need to speak to Dee immediately, and in private.”

The frown on Mr. Davis’s face only deepened, but after a moment of consideration, he swung the door open, stepping out of the way so the deputy could make his way inside. He led the man to the kitchen table, in the room directly after the entrance room. “Have a seat, sir. I’ll go get her. But I have to warn you, she’s… she’s not doing so well right now. Hasn’t said a single word since she got home earlier.” 

Callahan took a seat, nodding silently in response to the man’s words and pulling a pack of cigarettes out from his breast pocket as Mr. Davis left the room, climbing the stairs in the living room. To be quite honest, he was surprised the girl was even home; he’d been trying to contact her all week, to no avail. Too busy hiding the Munson boy, he was sure of it.

He glanced around the kitchen as he pulled out a cigarette and lit it, also dragging the ashtray at the other end of the table closer to himself as his eyes wandered. The kitchen was small, with yellow paint and a single wallpaper accent on one end. The room was sparsely decorated, but clean. A single pink apron hung over the doorknob to what Callahan could only assume was a pantry door, obviously belonging to the very girl he was here to see. He knew that only she and her father lived at this house regularly, with her troublesome older brother only visiting over the holidays.

After a few minutes of silence, save for the ticking of the clock above the stove and the sound of his own inhaling and exhaling of his cigarette, he heard the distinct noise of footsteps coming down the stairs. He looked in the direction of the doorway Mr. Davis had exited through, and as Dee Davis herself came through the doorway, he couldn’t help but stare, open-mouthed.

The kid looked like she’d been through hell and back.

Normally, when he was around her, she was covered in layers of oversized clothing, hidden in her own form of armor, making snide comments with a mischievous glint in her eyes. There was no hint of that girl here. She wore a giant t-shirt, of some rock band that Callahan didn’t recognize, and oversized pajama pants. Her face was bruised and cut to shreds with shallow scrapes, as though she’d been slashed over and over by… something. She also sported a large bruise circling her entire neck, as though she’d been strangled. Continuing to look over her, he noticed the same circular bruising around her wrists as well.

The thing Callahan noticed that hit him the hardest were her eyes. The usual glint in her eyes was gone, replaced by a haunting hollowness. At least, until she looked up to see Deputy Callahan sitting at her kitchen table.

The fire briefly returned to her, but it was far more intense than it had ever been. She always looked at him like she wanted to slap him upside the head, but this… was different. This was rage. She looked like she was out for blood.

After everything that had happened with the Munson kid, he couldn’t say he blamed her, but that didn’t make the situation any less awkward.

He cleared his throat, nodding to Mr. Davis, who was standing behind Dee, a protective hand on her shoulder. “Like I said, I need to speak privately with her.”

Her father glanced down at her, squeezing her shoulder. “You gonna be okay, kiddo?”

She didn’t respond with words, didn’t look back at her father, merely gave a curt nod. Her murderous gaze never left Callahan. With her acknowledgement, the man awkwardly backed out of the room, retreating to a nearby door and closing it behind him.

There was a pregnant pause as the two stared each other down. Dee silently walked to the edge of the table opposite him, her gaze piercing daggers into him, steps making no sound. If looks could kill, the deputy would have been long dead by this point. Normally he could barely keep her gaze on a good day, excusing himself as she stared him down, daring him to speak to her, but this time he didn’t flinch away. He stared right back at her, eyes sympathetic and pleading.

“What the hell do you want,” she spat out finally, her lip curling into a snarl as she spoke. She looked as though she was seconds from spitting the words directly into his face. Her sentence wasn’t a question, but a demand. 

How dare you show your face here, was the silent implication behind it.

Callahan sighed once more, ashing his cigarette. “Look, Davis. I know I have no right to ask you this, but…” He swallowed. “I need your help.”

That was clearly not what Dee had expected.

Her brows shot up in surprise and confusion, her mouth dropping open of its own accord for a moment. A strangled laugh came out, as her eyes widened. 

“You need my help?” She repeated back to him, stressing the last word. She laughed again, no humor behind it. “You,” she pointed to him, “need my help?”

He didn’t respond right away. She slammed her hand down onto the table suddenly, causing the man to jump in his seat.

“You ran a hate campaign against my boyfriend, for murders you damn well know he didn’t commit, that no normal person could have possibly committed, and you have the audacity to ask for my fucking help?” Her voice raised as she spoke, and she couldn’t help but continue to laugh incredulously at Callahan’s request. 

“You and that other idiot Powell let that piece of shit Jason Carver turn the entire town against him, let him form a lynch mob to try to hunt him down, and did nothing to stop him, and you want my fucking help? Instead of doing anything to stop that crowd, you decided to instead arrest a group of innocent teens in the woods and question them about Eddie’s whereabouts, while he was being hunted down by an entire town, and you want my goddamn help? How dare you?”

Callahan was finally unable to meet her intense, wide-eyed stare, moving his eyes down to the table he was sat at. This was going about exactly how he expected, he thought to himself bitterly.

“You have no right to ask me for anything, Callahan, you useless, cowardly sack of shit,” she lowered her voice back to a venomous hiss, leaning forward to make sure he could hear her perfectly clear. “Get the hell out of my house, or I swear to God, I’ll–”

“It’s Heather.”

Those two words gave her pause. Her expression faltered, and she backed away, looking at him not with the white-hot rage of before, but concern.

“...What?”

Callahan couldn’t mask the anxiety in his voice as he spoke. 

“Heather. She’s missing, been missing since that earthquake that tore up the entire town. I’ve spent hours looking for her, and-” his voice cracked as he continued, “and all the other officers keep telling me they’re too busy to help find her. I know something happened during that earthquake, and I know she’s in danger, but I can’t–”

He broke off for a moment, to collect himself. He looked back up at Dee. She was watching him, her expression tinged with something like fear. He took a deep breath before continuing.

“I can’t find her on my own. And I know you and the other kids you hang out with know what’s going on with all this crazy shit happening, you all know way more than I do. Than anyone at Hawkins PD does. And… If there’s any chance of finding her alive, I need your help. I know I have no right to ask, after everything that happened this past week, but… I need your help to find her, Davis. Please.”

Dee didn’t immediately respond. She stared at him for a moment longer, unmoving, until finally, she ran a hand through her dirty blonde hair, looking away to the clock above the stove.

“...Fuck.”

Callahan just nodded in reply, looking down to the mostly spent cigarette in his hand. “Yeah. Fuck.”

She closed her eyes, exhaling deeply, both hands now in her hair. She stood there, deep in thought, before opening her eyes again. She looked down at him, not with anger, or fear, but with determination in her gaze. “Wait here,” she commanded him, as she turned and began to walk out of the kitchen, to the stairs in the living room. 

“Wait– What do you mean wait?” Callahan responded, starting to rise from his seat. “Where are you going?”

“Upstairs, I need to change, and, uh, grab some things. Give me ten minutes, I’ll be right back down, okay? Don’t fucking move,” she threatened, pointing a finger at him as she looked back over her shoulder. He obeyed, sitting back down with a confused expression as she ran up the stairs.

Callahan lit another cigarette, and then another as the minutes crept by. Ten minutes turned into twenty, and he briefly considered going upstairs to check on her, but thought the better of it. Almost half an hour crept by, and he began to wonder if maybe she’d snuck out of her own house to look for Heather on her own, when he heard the sounds of her descending the stairs, also hearing her voice. “I repeat, this is a Code Red, anyone in range please respond, over. I repeat, this is a Code Red,” he heard her repeating the same phrase as she came into the kitchen, speaking into a walkie-talkie. She was in proper clothing now, but it was… battle-worn, he supposed, was the best way to describe it. A nondescript gray T-shirt was layered under a leather jacket, the latter completely covered in claw marks of some kind. Her jeans, rolled up at the bottom to reveal combat boots underneath, were torn in several places, and spatters of what looked to be dried blood and other assorted muck decorated the worn denim. Around her waist, he could see a utility belt of some kind, carrying a pistol(did she even have a permit for that?), a few cans of… something in an aerosol bottle, and a bottle of clear liquid with a rag sticking out, obviously a makeshift explosive. 

What the hell were these kids getting up to this past week?

Callahan squinted in visible confusion as he continued to look the teen over. He also saw a backpack slung over one shoulder, and in the hand not holding the walkie, she carried a leatherbound journal. Seeing Dee with something to write in was never an usual sight, as she always had something on hand to write in, but this was easily the nicest quality journal the deputy had ever seen her with. Normally, it was just basic school composition books.

Dee completely ignored Callahan’s bewildered stare as she set the journal down atop the table carelessly, still repeating the same phrase into the machine in her hand.

“I repeat, this is a Code Red, anyone in range please respond over,” she droned, her voice getting a stronger edge of agitation each repetition. “I repeat, this is a goddamn Code Red, can one of you please pick up, for God’s sake–”

“Hello? It’s Nancy, what’s going on, Dee?”

The voice of Nancy Wheeler cut through Dee’s rant, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

“Finally! I’ve been trying to reach someone for like ten minutes now! Listen, my friend is missing, I’m going to try to find her and I need–”

“Dee? Are you okay?” Another voice speaks, one Callahan didn’t recognize. Another girl. 

“Robin! Listen, I–”

“Hello?” came the voice of Steve Harrington. Callahan definitely knew that voice.

“Can you all please stop interrupting me? Christ! Where have you all been?” Dee yelled into the receiver, gripping the walkie as if she wanted to throw it against the wall. 

“An earthquake just happened, our parents are all freaking out over us,” a fourth voice spoke up, audibly younger than the others. Dustin Henderson. One of the kids the deputy had found out in the woods. One of the ones that ran away from his questioning. He didn’t sound as worried as the others, his melancholic tone reminding Callahan of the haunted, dead-eyed stare Dee had on her face before she saw him.

“Okay, that’s fair,” Dee responded, running a hand through her hair, clearly exasperated. “Look, Miss Cooper from the local clinic is missing, and it’s likely with everything that’s going on that she ended up in the Upside Down. I’m going to look for her. Can any of you guys meet me there and help out?”

…The Upside Down?

There was an uncomfortably long silence, and Dee cursed under her breath, without her hand on the button, so her peers couldn’t hear. Finally, Steve spoke.

“Dee, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. We just got back, and there’s probably a lot of people missing right now. I know you’re upset about Eddie, but… Maybe we should wait.”

So something did happen to the Munson kid. That explained a lot.

“All right, maybe I didn’t make myself clear,” Dee spoke through gritted teeth, clearly annoyed. “I didn’t fucking ask if I should go back or not, Harrington. I’m going. I’ve lost too many people today already. Eddie’s gone. Max is in the hospital, and nobody knows if she’s going to wake up. Heather Cooper is my friend, and if there’s any chance at all that she’s still alive out there, I’m going to take it, and I’m going to find her. Spare me with your bullshit concern, okay? If you don’t want to go, that’s fine, but don’t you dare tell me what I should and shouldn’t do. It’s a simple yes or no question, are you in or not?”

Another uncomfortable silence followed. Callahan picked up quite clearly on the thick emotion in the girl’s voice.

“I’m in,” Dustin said, a hint of finality in his tone.

“Not you, Henderson,” Dee responded immediately.

“What the hell, Dee!?” “Look, normally I’d have no issue with you coming, but you’re still hurt. You can barely walk right now with that leg dislocation. If we run into something dangerous down here, you’re a sitting duck. Stay up here and help from topside, okay? I’ve got my walkie and extra batteries, I’ll stay in touch.”

Dustin grumbled something barely audible from his end, obviously unhappy but in agreement.

Steve sighed into the receiver. “I’m not letting you go back in there by yourself, Dee. I’m in.”

“Me too,” Robin chimed in. “We might be able to help out other people too. And the town is definitely going to need all the medical professionals it can find.”

“I’m coming too,” Nancy added.

“Let’s do this,” a fifth voice spoke out of the blue, startling Dee, but Callahan recognized it immediately. Erica Sinclair. The young girl who’d slashed Powell’s tires.

“Erica? Where have you even been? No, absolutely not,” Steve started, but Dee spoke over him.

“Yes, Harrington. She’s not some helpless little girl. She helped save Max’s life.”

“Thank you,” Erica responded snidely to Dee. Callahan sighed, rubbing his temples. This was already a mess.

“What about Lucas?” Dee asked the young girl.

“There’s no way he’s leaving Max’s side. He’s still right there next to her, passed out,” the younger Sinclair relayed, her tone taking a melancholic turn.

“That’s fine, I didn’t think so.” Dee turned to the deputy, finally speaking to him. “So, Callahan, where was she last? You know that, at least?”

“Wait, Callahan? As in, Officer Callahan? The cop?” Robin asked, nervous.

A quiet “oh shit” came from both Erica and Dustin. Dee sighed.

“Yeah, he’s in on this too. I’m not happy about it either,” Dee narrowed her eyes directly at Callahan as she spoke, “but we don’t really have time to debate about it. Where was she last seen?” Callahan blinked, not expecting to be put on the spot like that. “Um… She was walking home from the clinic?”

“You don’t sound too sure about that,” Erica pointed out.

“That’s fine. It’s enough to work with, at least,” Dee spoke over whatever response the deputy was going to come up with. “We’ll meet up at the clinic, follow her path home. I’m willing to bet that we’ll find part of the gate there, and that’s where we can go in and start looking. Harrington, you pick up Buckley. Wheeler, you’re closer to the hospital, so swing by and pick up Sinclair. I’ll ride over with Callahan. Everyone, bring whatever weapons you have. And if anyone has any extra cans of hairspray, bring them for me.”

“Why?” Steve asked.

“Because, Harrington, aerosol cans and a lighter are what kept the demobats from eating me. It’ll help, trust me. Henderson, you stay nearby and we’ll keep you posted, alright?”

Dustin sighed. “Fine,” he grumbled, not happy with not being included.

“See you guys in a bit, okay?” Everyone responded with a quick affirmation, and then the walkie went dead. Dee turned to a very confused Callahan, still sat in his chair at the Davis kitchen table. “Come on, Stringbean, stop sitting there with that dumb look on your face. Time to go.”

The deputy frowned, but complied, pulling out his keys as he stood, putting his cigarette out in the ashtray before making his way toward the door. “I have… so many questions.”

“I’m fully aware,” Dee murmured as she grabbed the leatherbound journal on the table, following behind him. “I’ll fill you in on the way. We need to stop by the station first, though, if it’s still standing. Gonna need more than that dinky pistol, and I know you guys have bigger weapons there.” Callahan wanted to point out that she also had a dinky pistol, but thought the better of it as he unlocked the car door, sliding into the driver’s seat as Dee sat in the passenger’s side. “Look, I don’t know what weapons you think we have. This is Hawkins, not some big-name city police department.”

“You have to have something more than just standard-issue,” she stressed, as the deputy put the keys into the ignition, starting the car. “I’ve been to most of the town halls here, I know you guys have some extra budget. Now shut up and drive. I have a lot of shit I need to explain to you before this all goes down.”