The Flayed

This article is about the Mind Flayer's victims. For the episode, see The Flayed (episode).

The Flayed
Members	Billy Hargrove † Heather Holloway † Doris Driscoll † Tom Holloway † Janet Holloway † Bruce Lowe † Adam † David † Jack † Melissa † Rats Other unnamed Hawkins residents
Situated at	Brimborn Steel Works

"The Flayed" referred to various men, women and children of Hawkins - as well as swarms of rats and possibly other animals - who became possessed by the Mind Flayer in the summer of 1985.

After a new gate to the Upside Down was secretly opened beneath Starcourt Mall, the Mind Flayer's psychic link to the human world was reestablished, allowing the entity to reawaken a piece of itself that lay dormant at Brimborn Steel Works. Through this piece, the Mind Flayer possessed swarms of rats, melting them down and using their bodies to create a core proxy form, which the entity too possessed.

The Mind Flayer repeated the same process on a larger and more complex scale with human beings, possessing Billy Hargrove and others; these possessed humans came to be known as "the Flayed". They were led by Billy and Heather Holloway, and had their minds hijacked by the Upside Down's hive mind. Some of these individuals (and rats) had their bodies melted down and reconstituted into flesh-thralls, creatures consisting entirely of bone and cartilage.

Eventually, most of the Flayed, and all the flesh-thralls, were summoned to the Steel Works to be melted down and absorbed into the core proxy form, a creature sharing the spider-like silhouette of the Mind Flayer's true form.

History

Background

In 1984, a piece of the Mind Flayer from the Upside Down latched itself onto Will Byers in Hawkins, Indiana. Through the efforts of Joyce Byers, Jonathan Byers, and Nancy Wheeler, the particles inside Will were removed through heat. Upon the closing of the Mothergate at Hawkins National Laboratory by Eleven, these particles fell dormant at Brimborn Steel Works.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union, aware of the Mothergate in America, commenced attempts to replicate it using machines in a facility in the Kamchatka Peninsula. However, the operations in Russia failed, prompting them to turn their interest towards Hawkins.

1985

The gate opening underneath Starcourt Mall.

The Russians struck a deal with Mayor Larry Kline, who leased land to Starcourt Industries to create a mall as a cover for the Russians' new base of operations. There, the Russian scientists managed to begin opening a new gate to the Upside Down, due to the fabric of space-time already having been weakened.

As the new gate began opening, the piece of the Mind Flayer at Brimborn Steel Works regained connection to its counterpart in the Upside Down. It began possessing rats, forcing them to consume chemicals in order to form animate biomass. One such rat was caught by Mrs. Doris Driscoll, who was later infected by the rat and became "Flayed". She also consumed fertilizer in order to create a chemical reaction in her body which would break her down into biomass.

Tom and Janet Holloway being Flayed.

On June 29th, Billy Hargrove crashed his car into an creature made of the rat biomass. He was dragged by it into Brimborn Steel Works, where he was Flayed. However, despite becoming one of the Flayed, Billy did not consume chemicals, instead being directly used by the Mind Flayer. The next day, Billy went to work at the Hawkins Community Pool, where he kidnapped fellow lifeguard Heather Holloway and had her Flayed at the steel works. Later in the evening, the two also brought Heather's parents Tom and Janet Holloway to the steel works to be Flayed.

On July 3rd, Nancy and Jonathan went to the Hawkins Memorial Hospital to visit Mrs. Driscoll. However, they did not find her there; instead, they were met by Tom and his Flayed coworker Bruce Lowe. The two men chased and fought Nancy and Jonathan before they were both killed, and melted into biomass which conjoined to form a creature made of their biomass. As this creature attempted to kill Nancy, it was flung out of the hospital by Eleven. It then escaped through the drains, and eventually joined the large proxy body that the Mind Flayer had been creating for itself.

The Spider Monster having absorbed all of the Flayed except for Billy.

On July 4th, the Mind Flayer melted the remainder of the Flayed except for Billy, including Heather, Janet, and Mrs. Driscoll, to enlarge the Spider Monster. Billy continued to be used by the Mind Flayer to bring Eleven to it, but eventually managed to rebel against the Mind Flayer, protecting Eleven. This led to the Spider Monster killing Billy, before dying due to the gate being closed by Joyce.

Legacy

The United States government covered up the deaths of the Flayed as casualties of the Starcourt Mall fire. In 1986, the Hawkins High School basketball team's captain Jason Carver paid tribute to some of the Flayed, including Heather and Billy, while addressing his school. Meanwhile, Billy's death had a traumatic impact on his sister Max Mayfield.

Biology

The Flayed were part of a hive mind, much like the native life forms of the Upside Down, with the Mind Flayer at its heart. The Flayed were known to display the same intense aversion to heat shared by both the Mind Flayer and everything else connected to its hive mind. When one Flayed was hurt, all the Flayed felt the pain, which was perhaps one of their weaknesses.

When needed, the Mind Flayer could infuse the Flayed with supernatural strength beyond the average human. This change was signaled by the veins under their skin appearing black due to a tar-like substance coursing through their body. An infused Flayed additionally had an invulnerability to damage that would kill or seriously injure the average human, such as being thrown through a wall or intentionally hit by a speeding car.

Becoming a Flayed caused a radical dietary change in both the "diseased" rats and in humans, as the Mind Flayer forcibly overrode normal bodily wants and dietary palates in favor of the desire to consume chemicals, most often poisonous ones. This was first observed with the rats' consumption of Doris Driscoll's fertilizer, and later shown to carry over to humans, as both the infected Driscoll herself and the infected Holloway family were shown to be consuming chemicals (Doris was eating her fertilizer and the Holloways were "guzzling" cleaning products). The members of the Party theorized that the cause of this chemical consumption, a behavior noted to have been absent from Will Byers during his possession by the Mind Flayer, was because of the now-isolated monster's desire to induce some sort of a chemical reaction inside of its hosts in order to make a new substance. Another theory proposed, this time by the older teens, was that perhaps the reason the Flayed were capable of subsisting on poisonous chemicals was because they were only poisonous if the consumer in question was human. It is also highly likely that caustic reactions associated with this chemical consumption by the Flayed either caused or aided in their violent explosive transformations into the amorphous blobs of biomass which this portion of the Mind Flayer would use to create his new physical form.

The Flayed retained higher brain function, due to being possessed humans, but were not as resistant to the Mind Flayer’s control and influence as Will Byers was in 1984, being almost completely subservient to the entity, with only an exaggerated version of their previous personality remaining. However, Billy Hargrove, at the very least, was noted to have an "activated" and "deactivated" state, which former host Will was able to feel due to his ability to sense the Mind Flayer’s presence, and to also be able to show a degree of restraint, as he warned Karen Wheeler to stay away from him and attempted to convince his stepsister Max to release him from the sauna and pleaded with her that he was being used, prior to being activated amidst this pleading and attacking her. The Flayed also developed an intense psychological attachment to the location of Brimborn Steel Works, the lair of the Mind Flayer, with Doris Driscoll showing symptoms of distress when separated from it for an extended period of time, and the infected hosts being shown to congregate there when not blending in with their previous normal lives.

List of Flayed

• Billy Hargrove
• Heather Holloway
• Doris Driscoll
• Tom Holloway
• Janet Holloway
• Bruce Lowe
• Adam
• David
• Jack
• Melissa
• Rats
• Other unnamed Hawkins residents

Behind the scenes

Trivia

• The deaths reported in the Starcourt "mall-fire" are likely a cover story used to hide the Flayed's existence.
  • In "The Hellfire Club", Jason Carver mentions a 'Jack ' and a 'Melissa' who apparently died in the mall-fire along Billy and Heather, and were presumably among the Flayed.
• Variants of the Flayed called "kuklies" appear in The Vanishing, a non-canon crossover mission from the first-person shooter Far Cry 6.

Theories

Some fans speculate and/or argue that Will Byers, who became possessed by the Mind Flayer in Stranger Things 2, counts as one of the Flayed:

• Arguments for Will being one of the Flayed:
  • While under the Mind Flayer's influence, Will and Billy both experienced disturbing visions and hallucinations, and were forced to act in accordance with the hive mind.
  • The Mind Flayer could speak through Will, just like "he" could speak through Billy and the other Flayed.
  • Will displayed an unusual aversion to heat, similar to the Flayed (and the wider hive mind).
  • In "The Upside Down", Will was found in the Upside Down with a vine extending down his throat. Similarly, the Spider Monster pumped organic material into its victims' faces using a strange tentacle, which seemingly caused them to become subservient.
• Arguments against Will being one of the Flayed:
  • The Flayed were forced to consume cleaning products and other toxic chemicals, which seemingly aided their internal biological transformation; their bodies could also be reconstituted into fleshy thralls, if the Mind Flayer so desired. Will, on the other hand, never consumed chemicals in the same way, and seemed incapable of fully transforming into another type of creature.
  • When surveying the aftermath of the Holloways' abduction, Will insists that this is "something new".

It should be remembered that "flayed" is ultimately a made-up and imprecise term, one of several used by the Party to make sense of the supernatural phenomena they encounter.