★ CHAPTER SIXTEEN: The Sauna Test.
𝚂𝚝𝚎𝚟𝚎 𝙷𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚝𝚘𝚗 𝚡 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛
★ 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐈𝐗𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐚𝐮𝐧𝐚 𝐓𝐞𝐬𝐭.
The morning started quiet.
Sunlight filtered through the kitchen window in that pale, washed out way it sometimes did after a storm, the light dull and gray instead of warm.
I was halfway through a sandwich when the phone rang.
Not a normal ring either. It shrieked through the house like an alarm.
I glanced at it but didn’t move immediately, chewing slowly while staring at the refrigerator. Billy still hadn’t come home. Which wasn’t unusual lately, but the silence of the house had started getting under my skin in ways I didn’t want to admit.
I wiped my hands on a paper towel and pushed away from the counter.
The phone was one of those old corded ones mounted to the kitchen wall, the beige plastic yellowing around the edges from years of sunlight. The cord was stretched and twisted.
It rang again as I reached it.
I nearly dropped my sandwich.
It was Mike. His voice was frantic, high pitched in the way it got when he was convinced the world was ending again.
“What the hell are you screaming about?” I asked.
Then Mike shouted even louder.
I pulled the phone away from my ear. “You’re going to burst something.”
“Alive, last time I checked.”
“I need to talk to her right now!”
I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling.
“Max!” I yelled toward the hallway. “Your friend is having a meltdown!”
Footsteps pounded down the hallway a second later.
Max grabbed the phone from my hand, shooting me an annoyed look before turning away slightly.
“What?” she said into the phone.
I leaned against the counter, still holding my sandwich, only half paying attention. Mike’s voice came through the receiver in frantic bursts, too fast to catch every word but clear enough that something had gone wrong.
“Something happened,” he said.
“What do you mean something happened?”
I took another bite of my sandwich but listened more carefully now.
Mike’s voice dropped slightly, like he was trying not to panic but failing.
“We need you at my house. Now.”
Then something else crackled through the line, another voice.
“Fine,” she said. “We’ll be there.”
I went back to my sandwich.
She stood there staring at the phone like it might ring again, then turned and headed back down the hallway.
A moment later she returned, someone following behind her.
Eleven stepped into the kitchen quietly, her hair messy like she had just woken up.
I had completely forgotten.
Max grabbed a jacket from the chair.
I looked between the two of them.
Then back at my sandwich.
Then at the clock on the wall.
“Because Mike said something bad happened.”
“And why should I care?.”
Susan’s car keys sat on the counter beside the fruit bowl. I grabbed them.
The drive to the Wheeler house felt longer than usual.
Max and El sat in the back seat whispering to each other while I kept my eyes on the road, half listening but mostly letting my mind wander back to Billy.
The bathtub full of ice, the blood on the whistle, the way he didn’t come back home that night.
A dull ache settled in my chest. I shoved it aside.
We pulled up in front of the Wheeler house a few minutes later.
Bikes were scattered across the lawn like someone had abandoned them mid conversation.
A moment later the door opened to reveal Karen Wheeler.
She blinked when she saw Max.
Then her eyes shifted to me, recognition flickered there immediately.
For a second I thought she might say something about it. Instead she just smiled politely.
Her gaze lingered on me another second, like she was trying to place something she couldn’t quite say out loud. Then she stepped aside.
“The boys are downstairs.”
Neither of us mentioned the pool or Billy.
Max headed straight for the basement door. I followed.
The Wheeler basement had wood paneled walls and a cozy, cluttered look. A sagging couch and a couple of mismatched chairs were crowded around a coffee table buried under books and soda cans. A single lamp cast a warm yellow light over the room, and shelves along the wall were crammed with board games, radios, and random junk.
Lucas, Will, and Mike stood nearby, and all three of them turned when we came down the stairs.
Their reactions weren’t exactly welcoming.
Mike frowned immediately. “Why is she here?”
I stopped halfway down the steps, “Good morning to you too.”
“This is kind of… private,” Lucas said awkwardly.
I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I’m sorry. Should I wait outside while the secret council meets?”
But Mike was already pacing. “Will, tell them.”
Will stepped forward slowly. His face looked pale, almost sick. “I didn’t want to believe it at first,” he said quietly. “But I’ve felt it several times now.”
“When your body goes cold,” he continued. “And it’s hard to breathe.”
“I felt it before,” he said. “When the Mind Flayer was close.”
El spoke next. “I closed the gate.”
Then he hesitated. “What if the part that was attached to me and mom took out last year… is still out there?”
Mike’s voice cut in immediately. “We have to assume the worst.” He looked around the room. “The Mind Flayer is still out there. And it wants someone new to attach to.”
Max crossed her arms. “How do you tell if someone’s a host?”
I leaned against the wall, listening quietly while the conversation spiraled around me.
Mind Flayers, hosts, possession. It all sounded insane.
Finally Mike said, “We need to check the pool.”
That got my attention. “The pool?” I repeated.
Mike nodded. “To see if Billy is the host.”
I stared at him. “Billy?”
Max stepped in. “He’s been acting weird.”
“Weird doesn’t mean possessed,” I said flatly.
Will looked uncomfortable. “I felt something yesterday.”
“You ‘felt something’ and now we’re accusing my brother of being possessed?”
Max folded his arms. “He was sitting in a bathtub full of ice.”
My stomach tightened again. I pushed it away.
“The Mind Flayer likes it cold,” Mike said.
I opened my mouth to dismiss the whole thing again.
Then, I looked at Will, something flickered across his face.
Fear, not the dramatic kind the others were throwing around. The quiet kind.
And suddenly I remembered the blood, the ice, the way Billy looked at me the other day, the way he grabbed my arm and something cold slid down my spine.
I exhaled slowly and pushed away from the wall.
“I’ll drive you to the stupid pool.”
Mike blinked. “Wait, seriously?”
“But if this turns out to be another one of your weird conspiracy theories,” I added flatly, “I’m leaving all of you there.”
The Hawkins Community Pool shimmered under the sun.
From the outside it looked completely normal.
Kids splashing in the shallow end. Lifeguards watching from their tall chairs. Parents lounging on plastic chairs with towels draped over them.
Max, El, and I stood near the fence watching the pool.
He sat in his lifeguard chair. He was wearing a long sleeve shirt and a towel covering his legs.
I frowned. “He looks pretty normal to me.”
Lucas snorted behind us. “Normal? How many times have you seen him with his shirt on?”
Max frowned. “He’s lounging at the pool,” she said. “That’s the least Mind Flayer thing he could do.”
Will shook his head slowly. “No. The Mind Flayer hides. It waits until it needs you.”
Mike crossed his arms. “He was sitting in a tub full of ice.”
Max sighed. “So we just wait?”
“No,” Mike said firmly. “What if he kills someone?”
“Kills someone?” I said sharply. “Okay, you guys are officially going too far.”
Mike opened his mouth to argue.
Then suddenly he stopped. “I have an idea.”
Lucas leaned forward. “What?”
Mike glanced at us. “Boys only.”
He gestured toward Lucas and Will.
The three of them walked toward the inside of the community pool building, whispering.
Max watched them go. “Seriously?”
El tilted her head. “Why do boys do that?”
I shrugged. “Because they’re idiots.”
I watched them go, then I looked back at Billy, he hadn’t noticed us yet. Good.
He was adjusting his sunglasses and leaning back in his chair. From here he looked like the same person he had always been.
“God,” Max whispered. “I hope it’s not you.”
I shook my head. “It’s not.”
But the words didn’t sound as confident as I wanted them to.
Hours later, the pool closed.
The sun dipped lower, turning the sky orange and purple.
We slipped into the locker room quietly, the building was mostly empty now.
Mike gathered us near the showers.
“Here’s the plan.” He explained quickly.
Force the Mind Flayer to reveal itself.
I stared at him. “You’re serious.”
My stomach twisted. But somehow… I didn’t walk away.
Because part of me wanted answers too.
Because Billy had been acting strange.
Because I needed to know why.
A shower shut off somewhere nearby.
Footsteps echoed on the tile.
“Showtime,” he whispered.
He raised the walkie to his mouth and pressed the button.
His voice came out sharp through the speaker. “Billy.”
The name echoed through the locker room.
Mike smirked slightly and pressed the button again.
“Billy,” he repeated, louder this time.
Footsteps stopped somewhere down the hall.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “That got his attention.”
Then Mike leaned closer to the radio and said quietly, “Come find me.”
Billy’s voice echoed through the locker room before we even saw him.
“What are you little shits doing in here?”
The words carried easily over the tile and concrete, that familiar bite of irritation. For a moment it almost felt normal, like any other afternoon at the pool when some kids had stayed too late and Billy had to kick them out.
Mike’s shoulders straightened beside the lockers.
“Hey, Billy!” he called, his voice deliberately mocking.
The rest of us waited in a dim hallway near the sauna, pressed against the tiled wall.
Billy stepped into view from the locker room hallway, hair still wet from the shower. His expression twisted into annoyance the second he saw the CPR dummy standing inside the sauna.
Mike’s voice crackled through the radio again. “Come and get me you piece of shit.”
Billy frowned, glancing around. “Real funny,” he muttered, walking toward the voice.
Every step he took echoed through the corridor.
I felt my stomach tighten with each one.
Something about this felt wrong.
Not the prank itself, Billy would have fallen for something like this any other day, but the tension sitting in my chest like a warning I couldn’t quite understand.
Billy reached the sauna door.
The radio crackled again.
That was when Eleven moved.
She slipped through like a shadow, hand lifting slightly, and the second Billy turned his head toward her he was thrown backward into the wall with a heavy thud.
The sauna door slammed shut.
Metal clanged outside as Mike and Lucas shoved a pipe through the handles and wrapped the chain around it.
Billy stared at the door in disbelief.
Then he looked up. And saw me.
For a moment his face just… froze. Confusion flickered across it.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
The words came out slower than usual, like his brain was trying to catch up with the situation.
His hand slammed against the glass, the sound echoed through the room.
I stepped forward instinctively.
“We need to let him out,” I said immediately, grabbing the chain. “This was a bad idea. Why did I follow you little shits into this?”
The metal links rattled in my hands.
Behind me Mike said something about the temperature dial.
The sauna heater clicked on with a low mechanical groan.
Billy frowned. “What is this?” he demanded.
The heat started building almost immediately.
He wiped his forehead and glared at the door again. “Open it.”
I pulled harder on the chain.
“This is stupid,” I muttered.
But the lock didn’t move.
Behind me someone said something about waiting, like Billy was some kind of experiment.
The sauna thermometer crept higher.
Billy’s expression shifted slightly. “What the hell are you doing?” he said again, louder now.
His voice echoed through the glass. No one answered.
Sweat started running down the side of his face.
Then suddenly his hand caught the bench as his knees buckled beneath him.
The sound of his body hitting the floor inside the sauna made my stomach drop.
“Billy!” I stepped forward instinctively.
He stayed there for a second, hunched over, one hand pressed to the floor like the room had tilted under him.
Then slowly, painfully, he looked up.
And the expression on his face made my chest tighten.
Because for the first time since this started, he looked scared.
“Okay,” I said sharply, turning toward the others. “That’s enough.”
I grabbed the chain again. “Seriously, open this.”
But before anyone could respond Billy laughed.
“You really fell for this crap?”
“You think this is helping?” he said.
The words hit harder than I expected.
“What are you talking about?”
Billy leaned forward slowly. “You left me,” he said quietly.
The accusation slid through the glass like a blade.
“You left me alone with him.”
“What? Billy…,” I said quickly. “I had never left you and never will.”
Billy laughed again, but there was no humor in it.
“And why am I alone here?” His voice rose.
The heat inside the sauna climbed higher.
Steam fogged the glass between us.
Billy wiped his face again, his breathing getting heavier.
Then suddenly his anger collapsed into something else entirely.
He was now on his knees. His hands pressed together like he didn’t know what else to do with them.
“Please,” he said. The word barely made it out.
My throat tightened immediately. “Billy…”
“I didn’t mean to,” he whispered.
Tears streaked through the sweat on his face.
The words cracked apart halfway through.
“It hurts,” he said quietly.
“I’ve done things,” he whispered. “Really bad things.”
The shift in his voice made my chest ache. Tears burned behind my eyes. “Billy…”
“It’s like…” Billy struggled for the words. “Like a shadow.”
I had never seen my brother like this.
But now he looked shattered.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said quietly.
I didn’t even know if I believed it, but I needed him to hear it.
Billy lifted his head again and looked straight at me.
And the next words shattered something inside.
“You were supposed to protect me too. You left me.”
For a second I could almost see him again.
Not the thing wearing his face but my brother.
I took a step closer to the glass without thinking.
His eyes lifted to mine again.
And for one moment they looked exactly the way they used to when we were kids and he had gotten hurt but didn’t want anyone to know.
His voice came out quieter than before.
“Please don’t leave me with it.”
Behind me someone shouted my name.
Because for that one terrible second I believed him.
“I feel him,” Will suddenly whispered behind me.
The words snapped the room back to reality.
Mike’s voice cut through the tension immediately.
“Get away from the door!”
The warning came a fraction of a second too late.
Something flashed in his grip.
The small glass window exploded outward as he slammed the broken tile against it.
“LET ME OUT YOU BITCH!” he roared. “I’M GONNA GUT YOU!”
The words slammed into me like a physical blow.
For a second I couldn’t even move.
The lights flickered violently overhead.
Billy’s veins darkened beneath his skin, spreading like ink under the surface.
Something inside him was waking up, something horrible.
I stepped in front of the kids without thinking.
Billy slammed his shoulder against the door.
The pipe bent, the chain snapped and the door burst open.
The impact sent splinters flying across the tile.
Billy stumbled out into the room.
His face looked wrong now. His eyes too wide, his skin slick with sweat, black veins spreading across his neck and chest like something crawling beneath it.
With a sharp gesture she lifted the barbell from the corner of the room and slammed Billy against the wall with it.
The metal pressed across his throat.
For a moment he struggled, his hands clawing at the bar as he tried to force it away from his neck.
With a sudden burst of strength, he shoved the barbell upward. The metal clattered violently against the floor.
Billy lunged forward, he crossed the distance in seconds.
Before anyone could react, his hand shot out and grabbed her.
His fingers wrapped around her neck.
Eleven gasped as he lifted her slightly off the ground, her feet scraping helplessly against the wet floor tiles.
His face was inches from hers now, his expression twisted into something cold and wrong.
Then something snapped inside me.
I grabbed the first piece of metal I could find, a broken piece of pipe, and swung it as hard as I could.
The metal cracked against Billy’s skull.
He released Eleven immediately.
She dropped to the floor gasping.
Billy turned toward me slowly.
His eyes locked onto mine.
For a moment the room felt very small.
But he caught it mid swing.
His grip twisted the metal from my hands like it weighed nothing.
The pipe clattered across the floor.
I backed up until my shoulders hit the wall.
For a second I thought he was actually going to hit me.
Then suddenly his body jerked upward.
He rose into the air. Behind him Eleven stood with her arm extended, her face tight with concentration.
She turned him around to face her.
The anger in Billy’s eyes burned like fire.
Billy crashed through the brick wall in an explosion of dust and debris.
The impact shook the entire building.
For a moment no one moved.
We just stared at the hole where the wall used to be.
Outside, Billy pushed himself to his feet.
The silence that followed felt suffocating.
I slid down the wall slowly, pressing my hands against my face as the reality of what had just happened crashed down on me all at once.
Max knelt beside me almost immediately.
Her arms wrapped around my shoulders.
I didn’t even realize I was crying until she pulled me into the hug.
“He’s still in there,” I whispered hoarsely. But even as I said it I wasn’t sure anymore.
We ended up back in the Wheeler basement later.
I barely remembered the drive.
I sat in the corner of the couch staring at the floor while the others talked quietly around the room.
Max and Eleven eventually pulled me to the bathroom to clean up.
The mirror showed a version of me I barely recognized. Red eyes, dried sweat on my skin, dust from the broken wall still clinging to my clothes.
From the basement we could hear the boys talking.
“…why are they taking so long?” Mike complained.
We exchanged tired looks.
Then someone knocked upstairs.
“Not now, Mom!” Mike shouted.
But the footsteps that followed sounded heavier.
Nancy and Jonathan came downstairs a moment later.
The bathroom door creaked open and the three of us stepped out.
Nancy’s eyes moved quickly over our faces.
“What happened?” she asked quietly.
Mike started talking immediately, words tumbling over each other.
“It's Billy. The sauna test worked, well, sort of, it didn’t work but it did work because he’s definitely possessed.”
Lucas jumped in. “And he broke the door and tried to kill us.”
Nancy’s expression darkened.
Jonathan stepped forward slowly. “We found something too,” he said.
That got everyone’s attention.
Nancy took a breath. “At the hospital.”
She explained about Mrs. Driscoll, the rats, the black veins, the way she talked, how she wasn’t really herself anymore.
The room grew quieter with every sentence.
“If Billy and Mrs. Driscoll are both hosts,” Nancy said slowly, “there could be more.”
Eleven suddenly spoke. “Heather.”
Nancy’s head snapped up. “Heather Holloway?”
Everyone started moving at once.
“Billy’s still out there,” Lucas said suddenly. “And Dustin isn’t answering the code red.”
Nancy turned toward Jonathan. “Can you go warn Steve and Dustin?”
And suddenly the thought of sitting in that basement another minute felt impossible.
Before heading upstairs Nancy paused beside me.
She studied my face for a moment.
Then she said quietly, “We brought Will back once.”
“He was gone,” she continued softly. “We all thought he was gone.”
Her eyes held mine. “But he wasn’t.”
“We didn’t give up on him.”
The meaning was clear. Billy might still be in there
The words stuck with me as I walked out to the car.
The drive to the mall felt endless.
My hands shook on the steering wheel.
Sometimes I drove too fast.
At one point I had to pull over because I couldn’t breathe.
For a moment I just sat there, hands still gripping the steering wheel, my knuckles white against the worn leather.
Billy’s voice echoed in my head.
And suddenly it felt like screaming was the only thing left inside me. Like if I didn’t let it out, my chest would split open from the pressure.
The scream that tore out of me didn’t sound human, my lungs burned by the time it stopped and for a few seconds the only sound left was my own shaking breath.
My hands trembled so badly I had to press them against my thighs to steady them.
The air still felt too tight in my chest. Like I was suffocating inside the car.
“No, no, no,” I muttered under my breath.
My eyes darted to the glove box.
Before I could even think about it, I leaned over and yanked it open.
Everything inside spilled out at once.
Old receipts, napkins, a pair of sunglasses, a cassette tape.
I dug through it frantically, tossing things onto the passenger seat and the floor.
“Come on,” I whispered hoarsely.
My fingers finally closed around a pen.
Relief hit me so suddenly my chest hurt.
I pulled my hand into my lap and uncapped the pen with shaking fingers.
Then I drew a small star on the skin between my thumb and index finger. It was what Billy and I always did when things got too big, when we needed something to focus on besides whatever was happening.
The lines came out crooked because my hands wouldn’t stop shaking, but the shape was still there.
I stared at the ink on my skin until my breathing started to slow.
Until the pressure in my chest loosened just enough to take a full breath.
My throat still hurt from screaming.
But the star sat there on my hand, dark and steady.
After a few minutes I wiped my face, started the car again, and kept driving.
The mall parking lot was nearly empty when I pulled in.
Neon lights from the Starcourt sign flickered across the windshield.
I couldn’t get Billy’s voice out of my head.
The worst part wasn’t what he had said in the sauna.
The worst part was the moment before that.
When he had sounded like himself.
And I hadn’t known if it was real.
Or if the thing inside him had just been pretending.
I forced myself to breathe.
Then I pushed the car door open and stepped out into the warm night air.
The mall glowed in front of me, like nothing had happened at all.
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