Chapter Text
HOW TO SURVIVE THE INDIANAPOLIS GOLEMS by Mike Wheeler
Once a promising destination for new families and career futures, Indianapolis now houses nightmare-ish danger. Indianapolis citizens have come face to face with creatures unlike anything they could have imagined. They are mysterious, unpredictable, and unknown; or so people think. There is hope within the danger. Hold onto it and don’t let it go.
The horror of terrifying creatures begins to fade when you 1. recognize their patterns 2. name the creature and 3. know how to act if you have the misfortune of encountering them.
After careful analysis of their patterns, there is only one name fitting for such monstrosities.
As a kid, I played Dungeons and Dragons; a combat and roleplaying game that relied on imaginative storytelling. As my friends sat around a table with our papers, pencils, dice, and minifigures, I played the role of the Dungeon Master, or storyteller. I used the rules of the game and an appendix of countless fake monsters to create imaginary battles and enemies for my friends to defeat.
As a repeat danger-dodger and an ex-Dungeon Master, I have come to learn that all people and even all monsters, fictional and real, have a pattern to their behavior. The patterns of the Indianapolis creatures strongly resemble one creature; Flesh Golems.
Flesh Golems are mindless, but hostile and violent. They thrash and attack anything or anyone that piques their interest. They reek of decaying or sickly flesh and don’t communicate or comprehend, other than a roar or bellow.
After analyzing these Indianapolis Golems’ patterns up close in battle, their behavior shows that they are drawn to big, sudden movements and loud noises. The way they attack is akin to a predator wanting to kill its prey.
This lack of strategy benefits you, the people of Indianapolis. While the pattern between their attack locations is not yet known, they have almost always attacked in the afternoon to evening. Stay safe with the following tips:
- Always be vigilant when traveling between the afternoons to early evenings.
- Safety in numbers. Find a commute buddy.
- If you encounter a Golem, you must resist our human nature. Do not sprint. Do not scream. Find a way to safely and slowly get out of its sight and earshot.
- This goes without saying, but do not fight the Golems. Leave that to the Demolitionists.
If you have unluckily provoked them, focus entirely on dodging their claws. This is where the brunt of their damage stems from.
There is still much to learn about these real-life Golems. Where do they come from? How did they begin? Were they born or engineered? Despite these lingering questions, Golem behavior is more predictable than ever and even with something as simple as naming them, their terrifying mystery has begun to vanish.
Let your fear inform you instead of compel you. What may have seemed like an uncontrollable nightmare is merely a dangerous reality; a reality that you can survive.
Don’t dwell too deeply on the remaining Golem uncertainties. This author doesn’t have all the answers yet, but I promise you, the readers of Indianapolis, that I will uncover the truth.
In the week following Mike’s first big front cover story, his optimism skyrocketed. He walked down the streets of Indianapolis and watched residents pick up copies of Indianapolis Weekly with his story and his name plastered on the front. A clear close up Golem picture attributed to Mike Wheeler sat on the cover; the first picture of its kind to reach any Indianapolis newspaper.
He visited coffee shops, grocery stores, the library, and City Hall and saw strangers with the papers tucked under their armpits, sitting on top of their briefcases, or unfolded as they sat to read the latest development in Golem news. He even overheard parents warning their kids about the “Golems”, workers discussing carpooling to avoid the “Golems”, and the name being muttered in hushed library conversations throughout the week.
He, Mike Wheeler, was the one that set the Golem name loose across Indianapolis, ranging from household discussion to workplace whispers. An entire city of civilians took his advice about dangerous creatures. They had depended on him for guidance. Now they trusted him to discover and deliver the truth. Mike was more determined than ever to get to the bottom of it all. After all, a whole city- or the ones that read the Indianapolis Weekly- looked to him.
Mike spent his day at the library, listening to his AM/FM portable radio per usual, but with a new bounce to his step as he gathered newspaper photocopies for his newest Golem investigation angle.
There were no links between victims that he could discern and no geographical patterns in the attacks. Mike determined that if someone or multiple someones were behind the Golems, then something in Indianapolis must have changed in the 3 months before the first attack happened that could be connected.
Mike pulled newspapers with articles from the three months leading up to July 28th from library archives. He scoured for any information about military, scientific, financial, or business decisions or deals. Mike had become very familiar with tall stacks of paper that felt near impossible to start digging through.
As he finally neared the end of the timeframe, reading the third newspaper of July 20, the library power suddenly went out. Murmurs filled the air and Mike took his headphones off to turn his head around, squinting in the dark for a librarian who might have an update. After a few minutes of hubbub, a flashlight cut through the darkness.
“Remain calm, everyone. This is a power outage. We just received word through the radio that part of the grid is down. Roughly covers the Central District.”
Shit, that was where Mike’s apartment was. At least he and Dustin had some flashlights and lanterns. Life in Hawkins left them prepared.
“They don’t know where the source of the outage is and what could have caused it. Please make your way home safely with a buddy before it gets too dark out tonight,” the librarian continued.
“Not again,” Mike heard someone say in the dark a couple of feet away. He wondered if power outages were a common thing in Indianapolis.
“Who said that?” Mike asked the air. Librarians placed a couple of camping lanterns on the ground for visitors to make their way out of the library.
“I think I’m to your left? My name is Patricia Wiseman,” she said.
“Do you want to walk out of here together?” Mike asked. He figured it was a good excuse to get some questions about this outage answered.
“Um, sure. I don’t know where you live though?”
“Do you know Rivolva Apartments?” Mike asked.
“Oh, I’m actually 3 blocks from there. Yeah, we could walk together,” Patricia said with relief.
Mike grabbed his pile of papers and stepped out of the photocopier room, waiting for her outline to follow as they pushed through the darkened library. Thank God it was only around sunset and not night. This building would turn into a cave.
They stepped out of the library doors and began walking down the street that would eventually take them to the edge of Central District. Patricia looked about 26 years old, had brown bobbed hair, wore a long black skirt, ankle boots, and a burgundy sweater with the sleeves rolled up enough to reveal a black calligraphy heart forearm tattoo.
“So have you lived here long?” Mike started.
“Yeah, 2 years so far, actually,” she responded. “You?”
“Roughly a few weeks for me,” Mike responded.
“Oh shit, you got here at a weird time,” Patricia said.
“Yeah that’s true,” Mike sucked in through his teeth. They walked for a few minutes in silence.
Mike awkwardly jumped back in. “So, um... are power outages common around here?”
“Mm, not really. I think this is the third time?”
“Like three times in the two years you were here?” Mike followed up.
“No, three times since… I think late July?”
Mike turned excitedly to look at her and say in a raised voice; “WAIT. Like July 28th?”
Patricia’s body recoiled in surprise. “Oh goodness,” she looked at him with slight scorn. “I don’t think it was the 28th. Maybe it was the 27th? I’m not sure. It happened overnight that time. I think I was asleep and woke up to an outage.”
“Where did the first outage happen?”
Patricia squinted as she tried her best to recall. “I don’t remember? It wasn't the Central District, though. This is the first time Central District got impacted."
“When was the next time?” Mike followed up eagerly.
“Maybe… sometime in September? I can’t remember exactly,” Patricia responded, weirded out by his fixation on the outages.
“Do you remember if there was a Golem attack before or after the outage?”
“Um, maybe? I can’t really remember, they happened like 2 or 3 times in September. Is there some sort of connection?”
“Damn,” Mike said, retreating back into his mind for a follow up question that could reveal if this was a coincidence or not.
Patricia looked expectantly at Mike to continue the conversation, but Mike didn't notice as his brain considered the possibilities of a connection. After two minutes of walking without any further conversation and no attention paid to Patricia, Mike was knocked out of his autopilot walking.
“Well I’d turn here to get to my apartment,” Patricia remarked with a tone of anticipation.
Mike nodded. “So we’ll split here?”
Patricia shot Mike a look of disbelief and asked slightly offended, “You’re not going to walk me to my apartment door?”
“Um,” Mike looked down at his stack of photocopies, then back up at the straight shot ahead that would bring him right to his apartment. “Do you absolutely need me to? I kind of have a lot of stuff.”
“I don’t really need you to, but it’s just the polite thing to do for a woman,” She offered, giving Mike a chance to change his answer.
Mike resisted the urge to scowl. He didn’t see the need to walk her to her door. They were strangers that just met, probably wouldn’t ever meet again, and mid-evening wasn’t a time of the day that people even had to worry about Golem attacks.
Mike disliked that this expectation existed just on the basis of her being a woman and him being a man. Besides, his hands were full with the brand new, highly important evidence he found.
“Ok, so you’re good to get back?” Mike asked.
Patricia rolled her eyes at him, muttered “asshole”, and walked away.
Mike made a beeline for his apartment, restless to put the articles and reports down to start going through them. He pushed through the apartment’s darkened staircase and corridors. He flung their apartment door open to find that Dustin had already set up a battery powered lantern in his room, based on the light coming from under his door, and one in their living room.
Mike immediately set all of his newspaper photocopies down on the floor, ensuring they were lined up in sequential order. Mike adjusted his glasses, took his notepad out, wrote down his suspicion about potential outage and Golem attack connection, then got to the real work in front of him.
Mike pinpointed the largest developments or deals in the Indianapolis area during the three months before July 28th; bullet pointing takeaways so he could dive in deeper later.
May 19, 1993 Indianapolis University awarded grant for new wildlife rehabilitation research project
- Early stages of project- bobcats and coyotes.
- New scientist brought in from out of state thanks to new grant.
May 25, 1993 US Air Forces Indianapolis sector proposes budget changes for new project
- Public Communications Liaison announced this at Press Conference among other updates.
- Details of project not named. Secret? Or just not ready for public discussion yet?
- Other worthwhile comment- Recruitment has slowed this year. They are considering methods to improve tactics.
May 29 1993- Two technology companies test out a small scale merger of two of their sub-departments
- Quantum Quality and Paradocsical
- Piloting the idea
- Quantum Quality produces mostly space exploration technologies
- Paradocsical produces mostly researches, tests, and produces medical equipment
June 1, 1993 Paradocsical opens branch in Indianapolis
- They share a building with Quantum Quality
- A big deal provider in the realm of medical equipment & tools for medical professions of all kinds.
- Maybe the merger was just an idea born from using the same building space?
June 8, 1993 Lawsuit filed against BioStar research facility
- Between 3 former researchers.
- Citing inadequate and irresponsible conditions in quality assurance and quality control in one of their chemical research projects.
June 12, 1993 Indianapolis biology professor hired for new project at Peacewise Healthcare
- Dr. Pierre Farrior
- Rumors that he was about to be fired at university due to pending investigation of student mistreat-
A knock at the door interrupted Mike, forcing him to look up from his sprawl for the first time in- the digital clock they kept by the front door read 11:12 pm- 3 hours. Mike looked towards Dustin’s door. Light no longer bled from under it. He rushed to the front door quietly through the floorboard creaks, hoping Dustin didn’t wake up.
“Who is it?” He whispered, just loud enough for the person on the other side to hear.
“Will,” he answered hesitantly. Mike whipped his head back to look at his papery carpet that covered almost the whole living room.
“Um, give me a second.” Mike speed-tiptoed over to the photocopied papers, scrambling to half-assedly stack them and just throw them in his room for later.
Mike opened the door slowly. “Why are you-” Mike didn’t even need to finish his sentence.
Will stood there with his arms crossed, a duffel bag on his arm, and a tired, yet worried look on his face. It was a look that even after 4 years of not seeing it, the countless times that Mike had ensured the expression would always be burned into his mind.
“Nightmares?” Mike asked quietly.
“Yeah,” Will answered. “Do you… mind if I crash on your couch? Sorry, they haven’t happened in a few months but-”
“Come in,” Mike offered immediately, opening the door. Even if things weren’t the same between them, he would never refuse Will, especially when he was like this. Will stepped in, clearly nervous about asking for this when their relationship wasn’t the same anymore.
“My power is out, so the apartment was just… really cold,” Will added as Mike finally noticed he was trembling on and off. Mike immediately motioned for Will to go to the couch, then retrieved the comforter from his bed. When Will sat down, Mike handed the comforter to him. Will bundled himself up quickly.
“You came here?” Mike started, still whispering. “Couldn’t you... just go stay with your boyfriend?”
“He’s not really my boyfriend yet. We’re still just seeing each other. I didn’t… I didn’t want him to see this and then scare him away.”
“Oh,” Mike said, hiding his pride that Will chose him over that stranger. On the other hand, he didn’t get the “just seeing each other” comment.
The way Mike understood dating was you either are or you aren’t. Was the process of choosing someone to date more complicated in your 20s? Or more complicated when you’re gay? He met El. He thought she was cool. She liked him. So he picked her. Maybe the process was different for gay people.
“I assume you like him a lot if you want things to go well,” Mike prodded.
“Yeah he seems promising so far,” Will continued, eyes half closed. Just promising? Nothing else? Then what was so great about this guy? And only “so far”? Will clearly didn’t even feel comfortable when he’s at his most vulnerable to go to this not-boyfriend-boyfriend for support. This stranger shouldn’t stick around if Will was so worried about scaring him away.
Stop.
Mike needed to stop getting so unnecessarily distracted so late, which meant he needed to drop this conversation. He should just go finish his notes in his room and sleep under his spare blanket.
“Cool,” Mike said, trying to hide how much secondhand frustration he got by thinking about how mediocre this man might be.
“Well… You can sleep here whenever you need to,” Mike added.
Mike stood up from the couch and tried walking back to his room, but Will grabbed his hand.
“Wait,” Will said. Mike turned back around. Will let go once he had Mike’s attention.
“You wrote an article recently,” Will started. Mike fought a smile half-successfully. After 4 years, Will was paying attention to Mike again, even if it was in a small, distant way.
“You liked it?” Mike asked, expecting praise.
“I don’t think you see it the way I did,” Will chose his words carefully.
Mike was more curious than anything. “How did you see it?”
“I think you think it was clever and maybe even brave? But you just put a massive target on your back,” Will explained after a yawn.
“What? I should be fine. After Hawkins, I know how to take care of myself.” Mike’s tone wasn’t angry, but he forgot to keep his voice quiet with Dustin in mind.
“In Hawkins you learned how to run into danger headfirst. I think you’re doing it again,” Will’s voice was slightly louder and raspy. He blinked slowly.
“In that article you said ‘where do they come from’ then ‘were they born or engineered’ and finally, you provoked. ‘This author doesn’t have all the answers yet, but I promise you, the readers of Indianapolis, that I will uncover the truth.’”
Dustin’s door opened as his puffed, sleepy eyes looked out. “Uh Mike- oh- hey Will. Is everything good?” He leaned his head against his doorframe tiredly.
“Yeah I was just having an impossible time sleeping,” Will explained.
“You’re welcome on the couch, but can you guys stop talking or go to Mike’s room to talk? I have a big presentation tomorrow morning.”
“I was just on my way back to my room anyway,” Mike said.
“Okay,” Dustin said while turning back into his room in a trance and closing the door.
Mike whispered even quieter. “Ok, Will. Maybe… I didn’t fully think through my ending, but it’s out there now so, there isn’t much I can do-”
“You need to-” Will said it like Mike was the source of all frustration in the world. He stood up and walked to Mike’s room, dragging Mike along with him by the hand and closing Mike’s door. The volume of his voice raised slightly.
“You need to stop looking into the Golems. Take your own advice. Leave it to the Demolitionists. You’ll stop, right?”
“I…” Mike had become so determined to solve this mystery that he couldn’t drop it without losing his mind. He couldn’t let Will know all the details of a secret assignment anyway. “I can’t say.”
Will’s head tilted back in annoyance and accidentally hit the door.
“Shit,” Mike said, instinctively reaching towards, but not touching Will. “I think you need to go to sleep.”
“I’m fine, I’m just worried, Mike,” He said, looking at Mike tiredly. “And I have enough to worry about.” Will sighed, but it turned into another yawn.
“Do you understand what you admitted in written- typed- evidence? You admitted that you suspected someone might be behind the Golems and you promised to uncover the truth. If you’re right- which you always want to be- they’ll come for you.” Will’s eyes had woken up slightly to convey the worry that plagued him.
“So can you promise to stop?” Will’s head leaned back to rest against the door, his eyes now barely managing to convey an ounce of the pleading that Will wanted to express.
Mike paused, looking from Will’s lips to his eyes. “I-” He couldn’t promise Will that. Not when he was this determined to finish what he started. Not when Will’s worry meant he had Will’s attention. Still, he shouldn’t cause Will too much worry.
“I’ll consider it.” It wasn’t a lie and it wasn’t a promise.
“I guess that’s better than nothing,” Will said in defeat. He turned around, opened Mike’s door, and collapsed onto the couch.
Mike tore his eyes back to the pile of papers he had thrown on his floor earlier. Might as well keep working on them. It was still the 11 o’clock hour and tomorrow was a Saturday. Besides, before Mike got interrupted he had found a groove with his process of skimming the articles and summarizing takeaways. If he found that groove again, the work wouldn’t take as long.
Mike kept his door cracked open in case Will needed Mike and took a flashlight out of his closet, settling on his room’s floor to continue working.
June 15, 1993 Paradocsical welcomes new leadership
- Director and Assistant Director.
- Seems like the past ones were let go or demoted or something? Why the change when they just moved to Indianapolis?
June 19, 1993 Someone quietly hired at BioStar research place for Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA & QC)
- In response to lawsuit, a new lead scientist responsible for overseeing QA & QC
June 26, 1993 A technology business declared bankruptcy then bought out
- GigaGadgets filed for bankruptcy a month ago, but Quantum Quality absorbed them
July 4, 1993 US Armed Forces opens a new training base in Indianapolis
- Operates out of an old building getting refurbished.
- Expected to home some larger conferences or potentially Indiana Armed Force strategizing eventually.
Mike raised his craned neck up and looked at his desktop clock. 12:40 am. Not bad, given how tired he grew. There were only two or three articles left; the next one being for July 19.
Mike heard a mumble or sleep muttering come from the living room. He walked to his door to check on Will.
Will laid on his side on the couch, bundled in Mike’s comforter. His eyebrows were furrowed. His hand trembled slightly. When he had nightmares or flashbacks as a kid, Will always slept better when someone was in the room with him or near him. Will liked knowing that he wasn’t alone.
Mike scratched the back of his head in contemplation. He wouldn’t be able to focus on the final articles, let alone sleep if he knew Will slept this poorly.
Mike grabbed his spare blanket then carefully tiptoed over to the couch, sitting at its side. He laid the extra blanket on Will in an attempt to banish any cold that Will felt.
Mike laid his cheek down on the empty couch space by Will’s torso, looking at Will’s hand as it hung a couple of inches off the ledge, now twitching only periodically. Even though they were in their 20s now, Will’s hand still held remnants of how Mike remembered it from their childhood.
Will’s dominant hand had a little bump on the inside of his middle finger where his pens or pencils sat. Some of his fingers held traces of paint or ink stains in the creases. The faint remnants of a big grey graphite splotch from sketching stretched from the outside of his pinky to the beginning of his wrist.
Will was asleep, even if he was uncomfortable. With his eyes shut, he couldn’t see and therefore couldn’t know that Mike was there, but Mike could show him that he was there the way he did when they were kids.
Mike reached out, pulling Will’s hand towards him, and rubbed the top of Will’s knuckles with his thumb. Will's skin was still as soft as it was four years ago. Mike placed his elbow on the side of the couch and rested his chin on his free hand, monitoring Will’s expressions as he held Will's hand.
Though Will didn’t wake, Mike saw that Will knew he was there. After a few seconds, the periodic twitching stopped. Will’s body untensed. His breathing became more rhythmic. His eyebrows unfurrowed. Mike laid his head back down, but kept his hand on Will’s and his eyes on Will’s face as if he were personally responsible for his peaceful slumber. Mike’s body soon felt the slight chill of a powerless apartment, but he refused to take his spare blanket back.
Will was right about his childhood not being the same as Mike’s. Mike always knew that was the truth, but he wished so intently for Will that it wasn't. He knew even more certainly that wishing isn’t enough to make something reality or undo the past.
Even four years later, the cold triggered something unbearable for Will. So if Will couldn’t bear the cold, then he would have warmth. Mike could bear the cold for him.
Mike was startled awake by the loud beeping of a pager. He briefly felt the sensation of a hand resting on his head before the shock of the beeps made him jerk up; eyes and face puffy as he frantically looked around, rubbing his eyes. He had fallen asleep slouched against the side of the couch with Will. As Mike sat up, a soreness from the position he had passed down in, and apparently maintained the whole night, shot down his left side.
“God,” he groaned in pain.
Will shot up just after Mike did, immediately grabbing his pager and reading it as he sat up, eyes puffy but trying to blink themselves alert.
The digital alarm clock by the front door read 1:09 pm. Mike briefly worried that he was late for work, then relaxed when he realized it was a Saturday.
“Holy shit, did I just sleep more than 12 hours?” Mike mumbled, his hair a jumble on one side from the night’s sleep on the couch.
“Fuck, I gotta go,” Will said in a raspy morning voice. Will was somehow far more alert than Mike was. He stepped up from the couch and grabbed his duffel bag.
“What?” Mike asked. “Why don’t we -um-”
Thinking was hard this early. Wait- it wasn’t early. Thinking this was har- Thinking hard was- Thinking was hard when he had just woken up.
Mike wanted Will to stay longer, disappointed that his first time hanging out with Will in four years might get cut so abruptly. Mike, maybe selfishly, allowed his hopes to raise that he could miraculously repair their friendship.
“Shouldn’t we talk or hangout or-”
Will slipped his shoes on at the door.
“Mike I really gotta go. Thanks for letting me stay here, talk to you later!” Will rushed out the door and closed it behind him quickly. How the hell could he move that fast?
“What the fuck just-” Mike rubbed his face. It dawned on him that this was the first night in at least two weeks that he got more than 5 or 6 hours of sleep.
Mike got up at the pace of an old man with back problems and walked to the living room light switch, flicking it up. The power was back. He could go back to the library and get the last articles he needed. He’d need a caffeine stop along the way, though. Mike brushed his teeth and his hair.
He threw on a black shirt, plaid blue flannel, trenchcoat, jeans and black converse, his glasses, then grabbed his messenger bag and walked towards the holy grail of energy that he craved.
On his walk to the Daily Drip, he vaguely recognized a duo as they exited the downtown transit station with a weekend bag and a suitcase.
One woman had feathered auburn hair with bangs, a black blazer with the sleeves hiked up, stacked bracelets, patterned pants, and a peach shirt. Walking alongside her was someone with short red hair, a newsboy-ish chic hat, a floral shirt, and jeans. As they walked and talked, their elbows and hands brushed periodically. Mike thought that it was strategic; a subtle romantic gesture that was their safe, secret version of holding hands.
His tired brain finally pinpointed that it was Robin and Vickie. Did Robin and Vickie live here too? It was shocking that so many people from Hawkins moved here. Mike was never close to Robin, but he remembered she was close with Will. Maybe Will talked with her about him. Mike could learn through Robin what Will really thought of Mike. Learning indirectly might even be the less daunting option.
“Robin?” Mike asked as he approached. Her head turned to look at him.
“Mike?” She responded once she recognized him. Vickie gave Robin a subtle glare that Mike couldn’t identify.
“Do you live in Indianapolis too? Seems like everyone moved here,” Mike started.
“We... live close enough. Mostly here to hang with Will on a little near-home vacation for a week,” Robin said, like she wasn’t super interested in talking with Mike or there was something about him that she didn’t like. Robin tried to keep walking past. Vickie walked alongside her.
“Do you… talk with him a lot?” Mike wondered out loud, hoping to stop them.
Robin turned back around to him, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes at him with a cold glare. Oh. She really didn’t like something about Mike. Still, Mike was desperate to learn what Will said about him in the past four years. How could he repair a friendship if he didn’t learn, from other people’s perspectives, what went wrong or how to make it better?
“Why do you want to know?” Robin asked pointedly.
“We didn’t think you guys were friends,” Vickie added. Her approach was a little… gentler than Robin’s.
“Um I just wanted to- I thought I could make friendship work again and… maybe I could learn how to make it better? Learn about what was wrong in the first place?”
Robin’s eyes lit up as she exchanged another glance with Vickie. Robin was elated, but Vickie looked as if she were cautioning Robin.
“You want me to tell you what you did wrong?” Robin asked Mike in an energetic tone, eyebrows raised. “I can absolutely do that,” she continued.
“Might take a while though,” Vickie muttered to Robin, just barely loud enough that Mike caught it.
Robin turned towards Vickie, closing the distance between them with just the right amount of space so that their conversation was intimate enough to be just for them, without strangers paying them unnecessary attention. They turned their backs slightly to Mike and kept only a few inches between their faces. Their conversation could masquerade to passersby as a hushed aside.
“Could you go ahead and check us in?” Robin asked softly.
“I mean… I’d love to see this conversation too,” Vickie looked down at Robin’s lips in a way that said she knew how to convince Robin to want Vickie to stay. Robin tilted her head to the side, entirely understanding what Vickie meant.
“Our check in is soon and I think we should drop our stuff off,” Robin gently reminded her, briefly and delicately squeezing Vickie’s hand in hers.
“Well maybe if I stay then we could go back together-” Vickie leaned in to whisper in Robin’s ear. Robin’s head turned back quickly to look at her as she raised her eyebrows and released a “hmm” in acknowledgement. Her head pulled back slightly, as if resisting temptation.
“Or, you could go ahead and wait for me there,” Robin offered in a tone and with a gaze that contained a secret proposition that only they knew.
Robin reassured Vickie, “And I swear I will spare no detail of what you missed. We really should drop our stuff off. Please do that? We made plans later."
Vickie sighed in recognition, then moved her head back, breaking the conversation off to turn back to Mike, opening the conversation back up to him. Robin did the same.
“You two have fun talking,” Vickie said, as if the message was mostly meant for Robin. She stacked Robin’s weekend bag on her suitcase, waved at Mike, and walked away. Robin watched Vickie in admiration, then released a sigh, turning back to Mike.
“So where are we going to talk?” Robin asked. Mike started walking and Robin followed. “A coffee shop I visit pretty often? I was on my way there anyway.”
“Damn, it’s almost 2 and you need coffee?” She asked.
“Yeah… I kinda had a long night. Well actually not necessarily a long night, because I stayed up late but then I slept like… 12 hours,” Mike responded.
“12 hours? Shit, is that normal for you?”
“No, I’ve been busy with work. Sleeping 5-6 hours on average for the past couple of weeks. I think last night, maybe I finally felt relaxed enough to get sleep that I had missed?”
They reached the Daily Drip. Mike ordered his americano. Robin ordered a chai tea latte. They found a table and sat down across from one another. Mike sat at the booth side and Robin sat in the chair across from him.
“About Will-” Mike started hesitantly. Robin’s voice cut him off, not even registering what Mike said. There was a slight eagerness to her voice.
“You wanted me to tell you what you did wrong. Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” Mike responded a little hesitantly. “I mean, if I want to be his friend again I think I need to learn.”
“Ok,” Robin said. “Because from what I’ve heard, you don’t like when people tell you the truth about your asshole behavior and you start behaving defensively, weirdly, or-”
“I don’t think it’s that bad-” Mike interrupted. Robin held a hand up and gave him a stern look.
“Stop. You just proved my point. First lesson: If you want a chance at friendship with Will, you need to prove me wrong throughout this whole conversation. Just listen and sit with whatever shit you’re feeling. Got it?”
Mike nodded. God, he hoped he didn’t bite off more than he could chew.
“Ok. How in depth do you want me to get here? Because you’ve demonstrated your attitude issue pretty well already. I could honestly launch into a goddamn 1-person town hall on this topic, but I don’t think you could handle that. I so badly want to do that but I think if we want this conversation to be efficient at all, then I need to strategize filtration. So on a scale of like… 1 to 10, 1 being blunt and 10 being cautious, how easy should I go on you?” Robin leaned back and crossed her arms.
“Um,” Mike considered it for a moment as he sipped his americano. The “I don’t think you could handle that” comment made Mike want to take on the challenge, prove how durable he was, and tell her to give it to him straight.
Another more logical part of Mike reminded him he didn’t know Robin very well. He didn’t know if “blunt” to her was the same “blunt” to him. He told her that he wanted to repair friendship with Will and he meant it. He should play it safe if he really wanted to ensure this conversation was successful.
“How about… a 6?” Mike suggested.
Robin released a sigh, clearly disappointed that she couldn’t just fly off the handle. “Fine. I can do that,” she responded. She closed her eyes and took a breath, entering the mode she needed to unlock for this.
“How much… do you know?” Mike asked.
“Let’s just say I’ve been friends with Will for 5 years. That’s 5 years of potential time for Mike conversations.”
“So he talked about me a lot?” Mike asked, hopeful in a very pathetic way that this was the case, even if it meant Will was shit-talking him. It still meant that he was on Will’s mind and that there was a chance to revive their friendship.
“I know a lot, Mike. Even dating back to when you were kids,” Robin added. Robin leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table.
“Ok where do I start,” She said with a pause and wrinkle of the lips.
“Alright. Here. The biggest area that you went wrong is your blindness to a core part of Will- he’s gay.”
“But I didn’t reject his gayness or any-” Mike asked in confusion, but unable to finish as Robin raised her hand at him again and furrowed her eyebrows.
“I wasn’t done Mike. Remember what I said before? Prove me wrong. You didn’t reject his gayness outright, Mike. You made it clear, though, that you only tolerated him. There’s like this spectrum of attitudes towards lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender people. It ranges from ‘I hate these people, I reject them from my life’ to ‘I embrace and love your differences as part of who you are’. Somewhere lingering around the middle there are the attitudes that you fall in line with. ‘I tolerate you. I like you despite your differences or flaws. You just happen to be gay, it’s not anything meaningful. Gay people are fine when they’re not loud about it’. That whole area of thinking is where you sit. Will had finally started to accept himself and having a best friend who existed in that part of the spectrum was holding him back.”
“Oh,” Mike said. Now that Robin laid it all out, he understood why his attitude hurt Will so much as a semi-openly gay teenager. On the other hand, he didn’t know how to get over to the “I embrace you, I love you” part of the spectrum.
He didn’t love Will in a gay way. But, it was normal to love friends right? He could describe his relationship with Lucas and Dustin as one of platonic love… Actually he didn’t want to use that word for them either. He didn’t want them to get the wrong idea either.
“Love” was the word El wanted Mike to use so badly with her. Even with someone that he was supposed to use the word with, he couldn’t say it to her until she might have died if he didn’t. Even then, he couldn’t say it until Will encouraged him and supported him in the moment.
His hesitance to use the word and uncertainty about where it fit in his vocabulary was an issue for later. He needed to focus on Robin right now.
“You also… how do I say this gently?” Robin considered. “You use your feelings as a tool to misunderstand what other people are actually saying.”
Mike’s face contorted, lips parting.
Robin lifted off her chair slightly, eyes wide and finger pointing at him, “You’re about to do it right now!” She exclaimed, as if it were a perfect aha moment for him. Mike pressed his lips together again and tried to control his expression.
“So you should practice by trying to actually hear what people tell you. The principle ‘don’t hear what I didn’t say’,” Robin explained. Mike squinted, trying to do exactly what she said but not entirely understanding Robin’s suggestion for practice. He did listen when people spoke and heard what they said. The suggestion felt either vague or intangible.
“Next, you lash out at people when they hurt you, whether by accident or not-” Mike looked past Robin, struggling to pay attention in the moment.
He had started to get overwhelmed by the mirror, even if it was a mirror he asked for. His eyes settled on the window behind Robin, watching as two news vans drove eastward and a small crowd of people trickled by. Mike hovered out of his seat briefly. Robin turned to see what he was looking at.
“What’s up?” She asked.
“Was there another Golem attack?” he asked.
“Oh right! You named those things, huh? Loved the nerd angle. But yeah there was one earlier today. Just two Golems, though. Back to-”
“Shit,” Mike said, grabbing his messenger bag and raising out of the booth. “Must’ve happened when Will was over,” he muttered.
Robin grabbed Mike’s sleeve, looking up at him with disappointment.
“You missed the attack, though. It’s over. Sit down,” Robin started, waiting for Mike to obey. After a couple of seconds feeling her intense warning eye contact, Mike sat back down.
“You asked for this conversation and now you’re trying to leave? Wait, hold on. Roll the tape back. What did you just say?”
“About the Golem attack?” Mike asked, still looking longingly at the hubbub on the streets that he desperately wanted to be a part of, but missed. Mike didn’t realize that it wouldn’t have mattered if he did hear about the attack earlier. He didn’t have his camera and might have forgotten his notepad on his desk.
“No, not the Golem. You said something about Will?” Mike watched as the last person of the crowd left his line of sight-
“HEY-” Robin said, snapping in Mike’s face. He startled back to focusing on Robin’s very unyielding facial expression. “I’m trying to have a conversation here. What did you say about Will?”
“Um, nothing, just that the attack probably happened when he was over at my place,” Mike added casually.
“You two met up?” Robin asked, mostly concerned. “Oh shit, how did that go?” She traced her eyebrow.
“Fine, he just wanted to stay over at my place-”
“You spent the night together?” Robin asked in shock, unaware of how loud her voice was. Mike looked around. A few patrons had turned their heads to look. Mike ducked his head in response as if that would help hide him at all.
“Shh, Robin. It wasn’t like that, he was just having nightmares so I let him stay over,” he mentioned.
“Oh fuck,” Robin said, calmer. “He had them again? It’s been months. I’ll check on him when we meet up.”
“Yeah. I wish I could make them stop,” Mike remarked wistfully.
“I wish he didn’t have them either,” Robin added before straightening up, realizing something after hearing Mike’s statement. “Wait, what was your reason for wanting friendship with Will again?”
“I just…” Mike paused, unable to put into words how he felt with Robin. His knee bounced and his fingers rubbed against each other. The fact that he didn’t know Robin well and that she was close to Will felt like a brick wall barrier. If she was this close to Will, being honest with her felt too close to telling Will the truth about missing him directly, which made Mike overwhelmingly nervous. Robin noticed Mike’s uneasiness.
“Did you miss him?” Robin asked matter of factly.
“I was- I did alright without him- I mean Hawkins wasn’t exactly the same but-” Robin leaned forward to watch every detail of his unease more intently, confused why he acted like this.
Why couldn’t Mike just admit out loud that he missed Will? He felt it and he knew that was the case, but muttering it felt like a shameful admission. He missed Lucas and Dustin. It was normal to miss friends so he should just-
“Yeah! Of course. He was my best friend. I missed Will,” Mike said it with a scattered inflection, forcing himself to finally lock eyes with Robin.
Mike watched as Robin’s demeanor changed like a tidal wave. Realization washed over her eyes first. Robin’s head drifted back, aligning her in a straightened posture. Her fingers raised up to her temples.
“Are you-” She asked in monotone shock.
Robin stood up as if under a spell, shifting her eyes between staring out into the distance and looking back at Mike with an “is this really true” glare. Her hands went between resting on her hips, raising up to trace her lips, then running through her hair as she went through an internal monologue of theorizing.
“What?” Mike asked, confused. “What’s happening?”
Robin snapped back into conversion with Mike, still standing but talking much more enthusiastically. “Ok that’s what I’m trying to figure out- oh my God I have to tell Vickie this- nevermind. So you said that Will had nightmares and came over last night?”
“Yes.”
“As in the ‘first time sleeping more than 5-6 hours’ last night? The 12 hour one?”
“Um, yes? That’s the only one.”
Robin muttered to herself. “And earlier you said-” Her eyes went back down to Mike.
“Nooo-” Robin said with slight doubt, but intrigue. “No!” She said louder and much more enthusiastically through a smile, hands resting on her knees as she bent over slightly, looking very intensely at Mike.
Mike clammed up and looked around the Daily Drip. A couple of customers looked at Robin again. Mike’s hand lifted up to the side of his face to shield himself.
“You’re kind of scaring me right now-” Mike said through wide eyes and a confused grimace. Robin quickly sat back down and gestured emphatically with her hands.
“Ok, ok. So this conversation is not at all going how I thought it would. But I think I know how to wrap it up.”
Mike’s body untensed, relieved that the uncomfortable mirror would disappear and so would Robin’s very erratic, strange behavior.
Robin delivered her conclusion with a smirk. “I honestly don’t know if you and Will can be friends anymore. That depends on what happens- actually- it entirely depends on you. You said you weren’t sleeping well recently?”
“Yeah I’m just so swamped with work recently. It’s eating into all of my time and it’s all I can think about,” Mike explained.
“Is it all you can think about?” Robin asked in a teasing tone, before snapping back into action. “Scratch that. Forget I said that. You’re overworked or a workaholic, hence the coffee. I get it. Been there and done that. Some non-Will advice you should take is that you shouldn’t bury your head in work all the time. You need to schedule breaks and then maybe you won’t have sudden nights with 12 hours of sleep and miss important work stuff,” Robin continued.
“Wait, is this the conclusion?” Mike asked, suspecting that she might dive into a long tangent.
“Well I was getting there, my point is…” Robin leaned back with a smug satisfaction. “There’s this place that I think you should check out. Just… go there with no expectations. Take everything in and let yourself notice how you feel. From the outside it’s an unassuming place on 76th and Adams, but it's real fun at night and… Just go, try to have fun, see how you like it. You can leave if you don’t. It’s called ‘The Handlebar’.”
Mike looked at her with a squint. “Is it a club?”
Mike didn’t like going out all that often, but if he did go out for some “fun”, he only ever went out to bars in Hawkins with college or work friends. He didn’t find bars all that fun. Mike didn’t think clubbing was a great use of time. If the Hawkins friend group were still close and they weren’t busy adults, he’d just want a day to play DnD together.
“Well, yes it’s a club, but it’s a themed one! If you do go, I think you should keep it a surprise because that’s part of the fun,” Robin suggested, failing to keep her smile under control.
“Um, thanks?” Mike said uncertainly. He knew she meant well, but Robin clearly didn’t know the hobbies or pastimes that Mike enjoyed.
“Sorry to be so abrupt,” Robin said while standing up and grabbing her wallet, “But I suddenly really want to get back to Vickie and um… plan our trip out. So I’ll see you around? And good luck with Will. You can trust that I won’t tell him we talked. That’s your… situation to figure out,” Robin patted Mike’s shoulder in support.
“Sure, thanks Robin,” Mike remarked. Their conversation was enlightening for Mike, but his mind was so preoccupied with missing a Golem attack that he couldn’t absorb Robin’s advice in full.
Sure, Mike slept for 12 hours and felt the most relaxed last night that he had in weeks. On the other hand, allowing himself to relax yesterday made him miss coverage of a Golem attack today. Mike rubbed his forehead. Even 12 hours of sleep didn’t fix the tiredness that he was now acutely aware of.
Technically, Mike didn’t need to chase Golems this week. He had his regular weekly reviews. There were also the Puppetmaster interview notes that he hadn’t even drafted into an article yet. The Puppetmaster interview article didn’t seem nearly as enticing when he remembered that the whole reason he left the apartment and got caffeine was to retrieve the final few articles from the library that he couldn’t bring home in the power outage last night. He needed to finish what he set out to do.
One part of Robin’s final advice stuck in Mike’s mind. Robin wasn’t the first person to tell Mike that he needed to take breaks from work. Dustin had also told him that in the past 20 days. Now that Mike had seen overworking could result in fumbling work responsibilities and a second person had reminded him to relax, he finally realized the importance of time off.
It was settled, then. After he went to the library later today, he would force himself, maybe with the helpful enforcement of Dustin, to have a “normal” week. For Mike’s next work week, he would do only the bare minimum sleuthing and his review article. Then next weekend he would treat himself to some type of reward, relaxation, or do something new.
Relaxation was a luxury when Mike’s brain ran the way it did. Maybe scheduling time to explore Indianapolis Golem-free and Puppetmaster-free and following through on his plans would force it to screech to a halt. People can't force relaxation, but this plan seemed like it might coax it out from wherever it hid within Mike.
After all, Mike’s weeks in Indianapolis were spent chasing or standing in the elusive shadows of the Golems. He should step out and see the city he now called home in a bright new light.