Summary: Byers convinces his two best friends to go on a roadtrip and they end up stranded in a town that Langly knows from his past and also hates.
"I can't believe you actually took that guys advice. I told you we should have just stuck to the path we had marked out on the map. Now we're lost." Byers was saying to Frohike, who just continued to drive.
"Look, how was I supposed to know that we'd get lost? The guy at the roadstop said it was a shortcut, would cut at least three hours off of our trip. Besides this whole thing was a complete waste of time." Frohike said.
Byers didn't respond to that, instead he just stared out the window, contemplating the things that had happened on their little roadtrip. He had thought they needed a vacation, and the trip sounded good at first. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all. Considering all of the things that had gone wrong from the start.
"Great. Just great." Frohike said, pulling the old van to the side of the road as smoke began to billow out of the hood. Muttering to himself, he reached behind the front passengers seat and grabbed his coat off the floor, noticing that Langly hadn't woken up just yet.
"What now?" Byers said aloud, more to himself than anyone else. He got out of the van, not bothering yet for his coat and followed Frohike as he went to check under the hood.
Inside the van, Langly was just now waking up, wondering where he and everyone else was. He yawned once and went to look out the back window. Almost immediately he thought he knew where they were, but couldn't be entirely sure. Outside he heard the voices of Frohike and Byers arguing. Apparently they had gotten lost and the van had broken down. Frohike must have taken that short-cut when Byers had told him not to, he thought to himself.
Shaking his head at the unexpected delay on their way home, Langly sighed and bent down to look for his jacket under the pile of bags in the back of the van. He noticed that the clouds outside looked pretty dark and the weather report had mentioned rain for the evening and early afternoon for the day. Looks like the weather's actually right for once, he thought to himself as he continued his search for his jacket.
He found it just as Byers opened the front passenger side door to retrieve his jacket as well. Langly looked up as the door opened and saw that Byers shirt was slightly wet, it seemed the rain was just now starting.
"Glad you're up. The van broke down and it looks like we're lost. We saw a sign just before we broke down, but the nearest town is ten miles away. But we may be in luck. There's what looks to be a ranch or camp not too far from here. It looks pretty old, but if we're lucky we can find a pay phone, or caretaker, or something." Byers said as he grabbed his jacket.
"What ranch? What was it called?" Langly asked. Langly looked back at Byers, he hoped it wasn't the one he had originally thought it was.
Byers turned to the younger man and stared at him for a moment. There was something in the younger man's voice that didn't sound right. It almost sounds like he knows where we are, Byers thought. He quickly shook the thought away.
"Sunny Side Ranch, I think. It looks really old. Frohike thinks its abandoned or out of business." Byers told his friend. He remembered the sign was hard to make out, and the paint looked to be cracked and fading.
"Are you guys coming or..." Frohike peeked in behind Byers and saw Langly just standing in the back of the van, staring. What the heck is wrong with that kid now? he thought and tapped Byer's shoulder to get his attention.
Byers looked up at Frohike as his friend gestured to Langly. He looked over at Langly, apparently he hadn't moved since Byers told him about the ranch they saw.
"Langly, are you all right?" Byers asked.
Langly just stood there. Unconsciously he found his mind going back nearly twenty years, to when he had first visited the ranch and his great-uncle George and his wife Carla. He remembered the little town, Rocky Creek. Langly hated that ranch and that town.
His parents had sent him there to help his great-uncle when the ranch first opened up, he was to spend the whole summer there. It seemed from day one that everything that could possibly have gone wrong did, from getting picked on by the local town bullies to accidents on the ranch itself.
Unconsciously Langly found his hand reach up to his neck and feel for the little stone necklace his great-aunt had given him. It was a small stone with an odd symbol carved on it, she told him it meant protection. Langly didn't really care much for it at first until he got back home and did research on the symbol. He really didn't know why he had kept it so long, maybe because it was different, maybe because he didn't want to hurt the old woman's feelings.
In the front of the van Byers and Frohike watched Langly curiously. They had only seen the necklace a few times and Langly never commented about it. He simply refused to talk about where he had gotten it and why he always wore it. Even when they did see it it was on rare occasions, because Langly usually kept it tucked under his shirt, to avoid comments about it.
"Langly? We need to get going, it's going to be dark soon. We have a long walk to town if that ranch doesn't have a phone or something we can use." Byers called out to his friend in an attempt to bring him back to reality.
Langly continued to stand still for another few minutes before finally looking over and nodding to Byers that he'd be coming in a minute.
How could you let yourself go back there? After all of these years you'd think you would know better, its over. You shouldn't be thinking about this place, about what happened. Dammit Ringo, you're a grown man, this place shouldn't scare you anymore, he thought to himself. But for some reason it did.
In those few minutes he spent remembering the ranch he had almost let the other memories flood his mind. The legends, the accidents, and worst of all the deaths that had taken place there. But that had all happened years ago, it was over now. It should not have any affect on him now, but it did. It just still did and he didn't know why.