In this thrilling Stranger Things novel, Nancy Wheeler and Robin Buckley must expose the corruptive forces sinking their claws into a desperate Hawkins.

Autorentext

Caitlin Schneiderhan is a TV writer and novelist, whose work can be seen on Netflix's hit show Stranger Things. She hatched from a cocoon of Terry Pratchett novels when she was 13 years old, and her love of fun, genre-focused storytelling runs deep. Originally hailing from Silver Spring, Maryland, Caitlin now resides in Los Angeles. She still has a full shelf of Terry Pratchett paperbacks.

Klappentext

Following the events of Stranger Things: Season 4, Nancy Wheeler and Robin Buckley are hot on the heels of a new mystery—and they won’t stop until they solve it.

Hawkins, Indiana, is in recovery. It’s been two months since Vecna’s earthquake tore through the town, and its residents are still reeling from the devastation. Nancy Wheeler has spent every waking minute on the hunt for Vecna, but he’s continued to elude her. How can she head to Emerson for college in the fall if Hawkins is still under the influence of the Upside Down?

When fellow classmate Joey Taft starts acting shifty at graduation, Nancy is convinced Vecna’s found his newest victim. Joined by fellow amateur sleuth Robin Buckley, Nancy doesn’t waste any time questioning Joey. What the girls discover leads them down the path of a bigger story than The Hawkins Post could ever have assigned Nancy. Why are people around town suddenly getting sick? Why is there a strange man tailing Nancy as she investigates? And, most important, does this even have anything to do with the Upside Down?

Together with Robin, Nancy embarks on a dangerous quest for the truth. The deeper the two dig, the further Nancy finds herself drawn into a web of intrigue that threatens to trap her in Hawkins . . . forever.

Leseprobe
Chapter One

On the bright side, dying in a funeral home meant that cleanup and transportation would be easy, at least.

Nancy Wheeler refused to voice this thought as she stood in the wreckage of what once had been the Farrier Family Funeral Home lobby, the beam of her flashlight taking in the toppled velvet furniture, the thick layer of dust, and the rubble of the collapsed far wall.

Robin did not share Nancy’s restraint. “If we die in here—­”

“Convenient,” Steve chipped in.

“Small blessings,” Robin added. The pair of them moved past Nancy, pacing out onto the ruined green carpet.

“They’re a couple of rays of sunshine,” Jonathan muttered. He was scanning their surroundings with an appropriate level of wariness, considering the fact that the four of them had disregarded at least five condemned danger, caution danger, or do not enter danger signs on their way into the building.

“Come on,” Nancy said. “This way.”

Together, they picked their way ­toward the heavy oak door that hung off its top hinges just past the lobby. A bronze plaque gleamed anemically under a thick layer of grime, but Nancy didn’t need to wipe it clean to know that it marked the room beyond as the funeral home’s main office; the sturdy desk opposite the twin cushioned chairs made that obvious.

Jonathan padded to a stop behind her, walking carefully so his footsteps wouldn’t echo off the somber, bare walls. “Flashlights?” he whispered.

“Flashlights,” she agreed. Together, they flicked off their flashlights—­

And waited.

Waited. Nancy had been doing a lot of waiting in the two months since Vecna’s “earthquake” had torn through Hawkins. Countless buildings like this one, which stood within spitting distance of the spiderwebbing Rift, had been partially or completely destroyed in the disaster. Countless lives had been destroyed as well.

The days that had followed had shaken the town even further. A quarter of Hawkins’s population had cut its losses and fled, even as the U.S. Army had rolled in to take their place, establishing an impassible perimeter under the guise of “quarantine.” Crossing that perimeter was nearly impossible, achievable only for the select few—­supply deliveries, case-­by-­case approvals, and, very recently, humanitarian aid.

And if the town’s borders were rigorously protected, then the blockade around downtown Hawkins was practically draconian. What had once been the town’s bustling hub was now a military no-­fly zone. Within moments of their arrival in Hawkins, the military had zeroed in on the epicenter of ­Vecna’s destruction, the spot where his four Rifts had intersected. A radius of a few blocks had been drawn from that point, sketching out the circumference of what would become the military’s own personal black hole. Whatever happened within that perimeter was a mystery to everyone in Hawkins, including Nancy.

All that security. All that destruction. And despite everything—­there hadn’t been so much as a whisper of Vecna since Nancy had shot him in the disgusting, decaying head.

He can’t hide forever, she told herself. We’ll find him. I’ll find him.

It sounded good, as affirmations went. Nancy had given it a workout, put it through its paces. But affirmations were just words if you didn’t put in the work to back them up.

Which was why she, Jonathan, Steve, and Robin had broken into this half-­collapsed funeral home in a disaster zone at ten p.m. And it was why she was now blinking into the darkness, watching her unlit flashlight for the tiniest flicker of a glow.

Was this the first time she’d found herself in a situation like this? No. Was it the first time she’d found herself in a situation like this this month? . . . No. But if she was going to find Vecna—­and she was—­then she wasn’t going to be able to do it by sitting around and waiting for him to walk through her front door. If there was a tip, a hunch, a whisper—­she was going to hunt it down.

She just wished that her friends shared her conviction.

“Nancy . . .” Jonathan’s disembodied voice whispered out of the dark from somewhere on the other side of the room.

“Shh.” He can’t hide forever.

“Nancy. He’s not here.”

Nancy resolutely studied her flashlight. There was a kernel of something empty growing in the pit of her stomach. She willed it down. We’ll find him.

“Nancy—­”

I’ll find him.

“Hey guys.”

Nancy could feel the beam of Robin’s flashlight as it sliced through the dusty air, practically piercing her corneas. She flinched backward, shielding her vision. “Ah—­Robin—­”

“Look what I found. Oh shit. Sorry, Nance.” She lowered her flashlight, far enough that it wasn’t stripping out every rod and cone in Nancy’s eyes but not so far that Nancy couldn’t make out the bouquet of white roses in Robin’s other hand. “The storage room is full of ’em.” Robin gave the bouquet a shake. Dust fell from the leaves and petals in a shower. “They’re all fake. Did we know the Farriers were using fake flowers?”

“Could be a scandal,” Steve commented from somewhere in the dark behind Robin.

“I think this town’s got bigger fish than a couple of plastic flowers,” Jonathan said.

Nancy waved her hand through the plume of dust, trying not to inhale. “Did you guys find anything real out there?”

“Nada. Zilch,” Steve said. “Receptio…