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Your name is Richard Harrington. You are in Chicago, in an expensive hotel room. You've just slept with your secretary, and your wife is out with her tittering society friends. You are buzzing from the thrill of a recent big deal. You are loosening your tie, slumping back on the bed.The hotel phone rings.It's your lawyer, who has somehow bullied reception into patching him through. Leon Paterson is a blunt man, and he gets straight to the point."I couldn't find any other way to reach you," says Leon."Been busy," you reply absently, pouring yourself a glass of scotch, "You know how it is. Big things are happening, Leo.""The police have been trying to get ahold of you, Rich."You freeze. "The—the police? Why the hell—?""It's your son," says Leon, says the man who is perhaps the closest thing you have to a true friend, "It's Stephen. Richard, I'm so sorry, but—"Your name is Richard Harrington. Your son is dead.You go home. To Hawkins. Hawkins never felt quite like home, even when growing up there. You always felt like you belonged to other places. Bigger, better places.But it is still home. And your son is dead, so you go home.Dorothea weeps what must be a river the whole time. She drinks, which isn't a surprise. You don't, which is.You are shown the body. It doesn't even look like him. He looks older than when you'd last seen him. Hair longer. Paler. Colder.He looks like a doll. Porcelain. Asleep.Your son has never slept peacefully. He had night terrors as a child, would pester you and Dorothea awake in the middle of the night, far beyond the appropriate age. He was always a weepy, unsettled child.Your son looks peaceful now. Wretchedly, you wish he weren't.You are left to plan the funeral on your own, because Dorothea is having one of her turns again. She'd shrieked aloud when met with your son's body, clawing at your shoulder for support."That's not my son!" she'd yelled, looking at you with wild eyes. Your son’s eyes. "Rich, Richie—that's not Steve. His. His face, it's wrong. Where are his little moles? His—Richard, something's wrong, that's not our boy—"And so on.She hasn't had one of these since your son was just born, when she'd been struck by a melancholy that lasted years.It had all come to a head, those first, harrowing years, when she'd simply watched, eyes blank, as Stephen toppled down the stairs. And then gone to bed, leaving him wailing at the bottom.She's better now, of course. But she'll still have. Moments.So you plan the funeral on your own.You don't do anything about Dorothea. You don't have a son to worry about anymore.Stephen has been too old to worry about for some time, now. Of course, you know now that this is wrong. After all, the boy is dead.He'll never wake you up in the middle of the night again.You set about cleaning out his room. The funeral is being planned. It's under way.You have been told that he died in an earthquake. Hawkins doesn't really get earthquakes. There have been two in the past year.You remember coming home, a week after the last one.Your son had been tired but cheery, running around volunteering with that new girl of his. The house had been untouched. He'd been fine.There was nothing in the news about an earthquake in Hawkins. But it's easy to see the effects of it, even now. There are roads split open.Buildings crumpled. The sky seems permanently overcast, which isn't relevant but seems fitting.Your son was once afraid of thunder. You sat up with him one night as he shook, and told him why he shouldn't be afraid. That the thunder doesn't hurt anyone.That he was old enough now to have grown out of that fear. He hasn't been listening, you know. He'd been content to curl up next to you and sleep.There isn't much to clean out in his room. No memorabilia. No photos on the wall. You can't find his trophies, his varsity jacket.You can't find his keys. You can't even find his car. Not even his clothes had been spared.The rest of the house is untouched.The day before the funeral, you are in the grocery store, and you see a small redheaded girl on crutches wearing a Hawkins Tigers jacket. HARRINGTON is emblazoned on the back. You see it, and your heart stops.She catches your eye. One of her eyes is milky, sightless. She still manages to look disgusted at you.You go back home. You don't know why. The funeral is miserable.Dorothea has to be dragged there, because she's still convinced that the corpse in the coffin isn't her son.Your son's friends are a strange group. Among them is a familiar young woman you recall as his ex-girlfriend, and Jim Hopper, who you were reasonably certain was dead.Also among them: a shaking, pale young woman you recall from your last visit to town, who Stephen had been driving around. A young man with wild curls in a ponytail. Several young teenagers, among whom is that baleful little girl from the grocery store.That Joyce Maldonado, and two boys who look uncannily like her.After the service, you give your condolences to the shaky blonde girl. Stephen's last paramour, if you aren't mistaken.She doesn't answer at first. Just stares at you, with wild blue eyes. You feel flayed open, judged. Found utterly, irrevocably wanting."Fuck you," she says, when she gathers herself."Excuse m—""Fuck you," she hisses, and actually spits on the floor at your feet. "Where the hell were you? Where the hell were you when he fucking needed you?""Robin," says the other girl, the one with the perm. She tries to pull her back, to no avail.Robin, it seems, is on the warpath.She curses you, and your wife. Tells you that you're the scum of the earth. Tells you that Stephen deserved better than to be left so alone. That Stephen is dead, and you weren't there.You don't say anything in response. You cannot.All of this is true. Stephen is dead. You weren't there.After she's done, she just stands there, trembling. Chest heaving with grief. Eyes spilling over.You have not cried yet, over your dead son."I hope you enjoy the photographs you have of him," you tell her. "I'll have copies made of his childhood photo album and send those over. My wife, you understand, wants to keep the originals."Now, they're all staring at you in bafflement.You don't really know what to do about that. So you leave.That night, you don't cry about your son. You are not woken up in the middle of the night, because Dorothea has drunk herself into a stupor.Also, your son is dead.Stephen used to phone you at odd hours, because he had a terrible understanding of time zones. Often, these calls were commandeered by your wife, who has always had a terrible understanding of time in general.He'd say, Dad, I miss you guys. When're you coming home?And you would say, Sometime next week, son, or I don’t think we can make it for Christmas day, buddy, or Soon, kid. Soon. Sometimes, they’d end the call with Steve saying, Love you guys! And Dorothea would say, I love you too, sweetheart.You don’t remember if you answered. You don’t remember the last time you told him. The thought turns your stomach, haunts your every waking moment.So instead, you sleep.You sleep uninterrupted, because you have no son to call you. And because you are at home, with no son to celebrate that.The next week goes like this. Dorothea has started inexplicably collecting Christmas lights. She talks to the lamps. She has somehow burned the telephone.You understand, in theory, that you should be alarmed by this behavior. But you are doing a lot of uninterrupted sleeping.One day, Dorothea wakes up, and cleans the house. Takes down the lights, dusts everything. Doesn't even talk to the lamps.She even makes dinner. Lasagna."What's all this for?" you ask, leaning against the door."It's Stephen's favorite," she says. She looks over at you with bright, frantic eyes. Your son's eyes. "I want everything to be perfect.""...for what?" you ask."For when he's back," she says."What," you say."He's coming back tonight, Rich," she says, "Our baby boy's coming home."You don't know what to say. You walk away. Go back to sleep.You stay in bed past nightfall. You understand, in theory, that you're no better than your wife. That this is her ever-present melancholy, leeching its way into you.You wonder if she's downstairs waiting for Stephen. You wonder if this will finally make reality sink in for her.You fall asleep. You dream of nothing.You wake up to someone scratching at your bedroom door. Blearily, you pull yourself up, just as it creaks open."Dot?" you groan."Dad," says the figure at your door, and your blood freezes in your veins.Because that's your son.Stephen smiles at you brightly, and he looks nothing like the boy on the examination table. For one thing, he looks alive.His hair is still a bit too long. You think, wildly, that you'll never ask him to cut it again. He looks perfect. Your beautiful, perfect boy.Even his Nikes are pristine. As though nothing bad has ever happened to your son."Stephen," you say, scrambling unsteadily to your feet. "Stephen, you. You're alive.""Sure am," Stephen says, still smiling. "In the flesh, even."You rush forward, and pull him into a hug.He is cold, your son. You imagine that being dead must be freezing business. You remember the chill of the mortuary.Then you remember that you were wrong. That your son was never dead at all."We buried you," you say, and you are shaking. Your son is holding you. "Who—Stephen, who the hell did we bury?""It was a decoy," says Stephen, and there is a moment, when he opens his mouth, that you think you see rows of teeth. "Someone really wanted me to look dead, Dad."You nod. That makes about as much sense as anything.There's a flash of light from outside. You see, for a split-second, that your son's shadow is wrong. Your son's shadow has ragged wings, a crooked spine. Your son's shadow isn't holding you up, it is looming over you.There is a clap of thunder. Your son doesn't flinch."You know, your mother made lasagna? Your favorite," you tell him.Close up, you can see that his eyes aren't quite his mother's. Almost, not quite."I know," he replies. "Just ate."You nod. Another flash of light. The shadow has twisted over, head hovering near your throat."Stephen," you ask. "Where's your mother?"Your son looks at you in the eye. He looks almost apologetic.You feel hot air by the side of your throat."She's downstairs," says your son."Is she asleep?" "Like the dead," says your son. Then, wryly, "You know how she is."You do. Your wife has always slept fitfully. That's where Stephen gets it."I do," you say.Stephen smiles at you. There's too many teeth."It was really great seeing you, Dad," he says. Digs his fingers into your shoulders, hard enough that they dig in, bite through flesh."I love you," you tell him, because you've been sick with misery about it. About not remembering the last time you told him this."I love you too, Dad," says your son, tenderly. He's always been the touchy feely type.You nod. Close your eyes.You don't flinch when the teeth find you.