The trailer park was a scene of mass bedlam and carnage. There were at least ten bodies scattered around in various stages of being devoured by the swarm of Upside Down creatures flooding out from every direction. Tiny pockets of light flashed here and there as the people of the park fought back with a respectable arsenal of shotguns, rifles, and revolvers. Though it offered the least amount of defense to its people, the trailer park was the best place for this battle to have taken place because it dropped all these creatures right into hillbilly hell where everyone and their mother were armed to the teeth to protect what was theirs.
"Jesus…" said Isaac at the sight of a woman being dragged away by one hand as the other fired multiple shots from her handgun at the thing that had a hold on her.
Chrissy called into the walkie, "Max, we're here, run to the van now!"
Eddie hammered his palm on the horn and flashed his headlights on and off. His old trailer door burst open and Wayne came out, pump action shotgun in hand and a bag slung over his shoulder. Halfway to the van, he was cut off by what looked to be something hairless but feline in its predatory stalking crouch and powerful shoulder muscles. Like most creatures from the Upside Down, it had no discernible face but it did have facial properties like a double set of jaws and teeth the size of kitchen knives.
"I'll get him, you get Max," said Isaac, and then took off before Eddie could stop him. Eddie hoped for Wayne's sake that his uncle would accept the sight of his recently deceased nephew coming to his rescue.
Across the road, Max and Mrs. Hargrove were peeling out of their trailer with a flock of something airborne hard on their heels, swooping down and clawing at them. Max swung her knife and knocked one of the creatures back but another took its place just as swiftly. She stumbled and was immediately set upon by the creatures that Eddie could only describe as bats with jagged wings, piranha teeth, and three foot coiling tails. Four of them began to rip into the backpack she was wearing and while she was temporarily protected, their weight was holding her down and her mom had run on ahead, unaware that Max had fallen behind.
Eddie kicked open the van door, Colt pistol in hand, and took off toward Max. Mrs. Hargrove passed him, yelling and no doubt wondering where he thought he was going, but Eddie couldn't stop for her when Max had maybe seconds left. He had to get to her in time; he couldn't think of the alternative.
Max was squirming beneath the bats, swatting at them with her bare arms but in doing so, she exposed herself to further harm and one bat sank its teeth into her shoulder. She cried out, thrashed, and tried to run, but four bat tails ensnared her arms and neck and with incredible power, began to lift her into the air with the full intention of transporting her elsewhere to feast on her.
Eddie wasn't the best shot and had never been in a situation where accurate aim was absolutely imperative to avoid hitting something so close to his target. This also wasn't the first time he had seen Max being suspended in midair in this very trailer park and he knew her fall back to earth would be painful, but he had to prioritize here. Blinking sweat out of his eyes, he tried to steady his right arm with his left hand as he set his sights along the end of the Colt. His first shot went straight through one of the bat tails and his second hit another bat in its underbelly.
With only two bats in any condition to have a hold on her, Max fell, landing hard on her right ankle. She covered her head with her arms to deflect further attack but the bats had lost interest in her, instead circling a young couple who were cutting underneath the gazebo to try and make it to the road. Drawn in by the high-pitched cries, a herd of demodogs appeared from behind Max's trailer and to get to where the bats were pecking at the young couple, the demodogs would have to run right over Max.
Mrs. Hargrove was screaming for Max and Chrissy was both fighting to hold Max's mother back and resisting the temptation to run to Eddie. Eddie caught her eye for just a second during which she knew what he was about to do and was trying to come to terms with it. She looked away.
Eddie threw himself down on top of Max, rolled, and pinned her beneath him, preparing not for the first time to use his body as a shield against what was to come. Someone was on foot nearby, limping for cover, but as Eddie raised his head to watch against his better judgment, the demodogs brought the unfortunate bystander down and began to feast on him starting with his head. His shrieks were cut off within seconds and blood from within his brain splattered Eddie from the mouth down to his elbow. Eddie slapped his hand over Max's mouth, begging her with a silent plea to remain quiet. It was incredible that the demodogs hadn't yet seen them when they were mere inches away but perhaps the man upstairs was smiling on them enough to let them survive the night.
Eddie recognized the half-eaten man beside them as Melvin Grimsby, a longtime neighbor of his with a salty disposition who had chased after Eddie more than once and threatened to whip his backside raw if he ever again caught Eddie tinkering for spare parts around his collection of busted motorcycles. Now Eddie had Melvin's blood and brains all over him.
One of the demodogs turned away from its meal and looked straight at Eddie–or it would have if it had eyes, but its head was entirely focused on him which gave him no doubt as to what it was looking at. Eddie lifted his right arm to fire, mentally checking the number of rounds he had left in his clip and feeling a tug at his heart as he prepared to save one for himself and Max. The demodog stepped right over his legs and kept walking, bound for victims in places unknown.
"What just happ–"
"Shhh!" Eddie held a finger to his lips and then mouthed more than whispered, "I'm gonna stand up. You stand right behind me, close as you can."
Clutching his pistol to his stomach, he began to stand, moving inch by painstaking inch closer to his full height with Max clinging to him from behind. Now fully upright in the sea of demodogs with no reaction from them whatsoever, Eddie started to move one leg back and felt Max copying him as best as she could on what was undoubtedly a sprained ankle. He paused, waiting for his movement to set the demodogs off, but they were still entirely engrossed in the rapidly disappearing body of Eddie's old neighbor. Reaching back around him, he found Max's hand and wrapped it around him, then snapped his fingers in a motion that she should join her hands at his stomach to become his literal shadow.
There was still mass pandemonium around them, but Eddie kept his eyes ahead, never taking them from the demodogs until he felt hands touching his shoulders to tell him they had backed up to the van. Turning on the spot, he found Mrs. Hargrove hauling Max into the van as Chrissy stood guard with her Winchester rifle held at waist height but once the other women were safely inside, she slung her weapon back over her shoulder and began to run her hands along Eddie's neck, chest, and stomach in what was essentially a security pat-down for hidden weapons.
"I'm okay," Eddie told her when he realized that she was searching for wounds to explain the blood all over him, that she hadn't been able to watch what she thought would be his death and had therefore not seen Melvin's blood splatter him.
"Incoming!"
Isaac was sprinting for the van, pushing Wayne ahead of him and both men were being chased by another one of the feline creatures, except this one appeared more advanced in that from its shoulders sprouted four tentacles at least eight feet long that were whipping around and leaving divots in everything they came into contact with. At the last moment, Isaac threw Wayne underneath the front bumper and Chrissy brought her rifle back around to shoot the mutant feline in its throat.
Roaring its displeasure, the feline locked onto the source of gunfire and one of its tentacles struck out, slicing the very air itself in half as it just missed Eddie's face. He dodged out of the way and reached for Chrissy to pull her aside but the tentacle had a mind of its own and slashed her across the back from left shoulder to right hip. Chrissy couldn't hold in her cry of pain as her body arched away from the tendril.
Eddie watched her fall to her knees before him but in seconds, she was gone and all he could see was the feline preparing to spring upon her and finish the job. He wasn't aware of anyone who might have been calling to him, for he could only hear a strange ringing in his ears that dissolved into the maddening pumping of his own heartbeat as it beat an unsustainable cadence within him. Taking up the rifle from where Chrissy had dropped it, he loaded another bullet into the chamber as he stalked forward with deliberate footsteps.
This was reckless, this was stupid, and this was not the sort of well-conceived plan that would earn him gold stars with the rest of the party, but this was necessary, wanted, and needed. He was going to unload on this ugly bastard.
And unload he did. The rifle was out four shots but Chrissy had been sure to load it to capacity and he still had ten rounds left, all of which he emptied in the feline's mouths as both opened to snarl at him. When the rifle ran dry, he switched to his Colt and fired the remaining shots in his clip in quick succession. Now empty across the board, Eddie withdrew his machete from his belt and hacked down at the feline carcass which had stopped moving after about the sixth rifle round but Eddie needed to be absolutely certain that this thing was never getting up again. As he sliced the feline's head open and spilled acidic innards out all over the grass, he saw those damnable black veins pulsing across his right hand in response to his anger.
He almost dropped the machete as the horn blared behind him and he heard Isaac shouting at him to come back to the van. Turning away from his kill, Eddie trudged back to the driver's side where Max was trying to help Chrissy through the sliding doorway. There was a thin but nevertheless very visible line of blood across her back and at the sight of it, Eddie scooped her up in his arms and deposited her right behind the driver's seat. He ran his thumbs over the apples of her cheeks as he examined her face which was awash in tears of pain but quickly withdrew as he saw that the black webbing was still present on his skin. Shaking both hands as if trying to wave off a burn, he climbed into the driver's seat and pulled the door shut with enough force to rattle the window in its frame. He wrung the wheel in his hands as he listened to the screams of those who could not escape. There were too many people to save, too many spawn of the Upside Down to fight…
"Eddie, let me drive," said Isaac slowly. When Eddie didn't budge, Isaac tugged slightly on his sleeve in suggestion and with some awkward exchange, they switched places as Isaac climbed over him and Eddie sidled under his brother to take shotgun.
Wayne and Mrs. Hargrove were having a competition as to who could swear the loudest right behind Eddie and the noise was about to set him off. He never had had problems with sensory overload before but he sure as hell was experiencing it now and if everyone didn't shut up, he was going to break something valuable like the window or a neck.
"Get us out of here," urged Max and as Isaac watched the rearview mirror as he drove backwards to the main road, she snapped at her mother and Wayne to shut up. "We'll explain later but right now you both need to keep a lid on it because this shouting is not helping."
God bless you, Max.
"This is Dustin, reaching out to all parties," came Dustin's voice from both Eddie and Max's radios. "I am with Steve and Robin. All of our parents have gone to the hospital safehouse. Winthrop southbound is blocked by a major pileup after about twenty cars slammed into each other when the creatures broke out. There's no current route to the lab, so we'll be regrouping at Steve's house while we try to think of a different strategy in the meantime. Sound off."
"This is Hopper. I've got my group and we made it to the lab, standing by to hear from the rest of you."
"This is Nancy. I have Mike, Lucas, and Erica with me and we and our parents are at the high school until we can make it through the pileup."
Eddie was still in a state of partial paralysis and made no move to grab the walkie, so Isaac called in their status. "This is Isaac. We have Wayne, Max, and her mom, heading back to the house now. Trailer park is overrun."
"What about Eddie and Chrissy?" asked Dustin.
"I said 'we', didn't I?" said Isaac waspishly.
Eddie felt both as if he were coming out of a stupor and like he had just come down from the most intense sort of adrenaline rush. He couldn't figure out what to do with his hands which felt like they needed to be fiddling with something so he dug at a nonexistent itch on his neck until he felt a cut or two open up underneath his fingernails. Hoping for relief, he reached blindly behind Isaac's seat until his fingertips came into contact with Chrissy's shoulder and she grasped his hand.
Both of them held on for dear life as they left the trailer park behind for what Eddie knew would be the last time.
/ /
Steve, Robin, and Dustin had beaten them back to the house and were waiting in the living room when Eddie and the others staggered in looking like they'd just returned from a ten-day battle.
"Whose blood is that?" asked Robin immediately at the sight of Eddie's clothes.
"Old neighbor," said Eddie listlessly. "I'm gonna go change–again."
"Wait, you were close enough to get someone's blood on you and you're still alive? I feel like there's a major plot point that you're leaving out."
"Eddie was trying to protect me when the demodogs came," Max explained. "There were at least five, maybe six or seven. They took down a man right next to us and I mean right next to us. I could have touched him if I reached my hand out. But the demodogs didn't even see us or if they did, they weren't interested. They completely ignored us, even when we stood up and backed away."
"Same thing happened to me when I grabbed Wayne," said Isaac. "It was one of those spiders like the one that Eddie fought in the Upside Down. Bowled right over us, but didn't try to attack. The only reason that other thing with the tentacles was chasing us was because Wayne shot at it."
"Maybe those creatures could sense that you and Eddie were like them?" Chrissy suggested. "If you have a part of Vecna in you, they wouldn't try to hurt you because they would just be hurting themselves and Vecna, right?"
"Built-in camouflage," said Dustin approvingly. "That's awesome."
"No, Dustin, we do not refer to the infection of an inter-dimensional demon within the bloodstream of a loved one to be awesome," said Isaac irritably with the patience of a parent explaining yet again to a child that coloring on the walls with Crayons was not a good thing. "It's convenient, but we can't keep this infection in us as a defense mechanism, even to protect you all. I wouldn't ask any of you to keep it in you to defend us."
"Well, until that roadblock gets cleared up to the lab, we're gonna be stuck with that auto-equip camo, so we might as well make the most of it. In the meantime, somebody fill Wayne and Susan in on what's happening out there. We'll be back."
Eddie led Chrissy by the hand to his bedroom where he closed the door and then guided her to the bed. He stripped off his bloody shirt but didn't bother to find a replacement as he dug into his emergency pack for the medical supplies he had thought to buy. It was little more than a first-aid kit, but it had antiseptic cream, gauze, medical tape, and painkillers amongst other things. Giving a slight tug on her sleeve to ask her to remove her shirt, Eddie helped Chrissy gingerly lift the fabric up over her shoulders until her wound was thrown into greater relief.
It was deep, jutting from shoulder to hip just as the tentacle had cut, but apparently the feeler had been barbed as well, for there was a jagged quality to the wound, not at all in a uniform line. The barbs had severed her bra which was only still upright by the straps on her shoulders. Chrissy hugged Eddie's pillow to her chest to cover her front as Eddie removed the remnants of her bra to make way for the cleaning and bandaging process.
"Bad news is, we can't save the bra," he told her as he began ripping the gauze into manageable strips. "Good news is that it's not as bad as I thought it would be, though you might wanna sleep on your stomach for a while until we can get an actual doctor to look at this because if I'm being totally honest with you, I have less than no idea what I'm doing."
Chrissy was a model patient for him which most likely attributed to the sense of accomplishment he had when he leaned back to examine his handiwork some fifteen minutes later. It wasn't hospital-grade, but it would do until they could get to the lab, at least. Eddie offered her two tablets of Ibuprofen which she knocked back sans water and then he carefully put his arms around her from behind, kissing the bare skin of her shoulder.
It hadn't occurred to him until now that though they had had sex some nine or ten times and though Eddie had been completely naked for at least three of those encounters, he had not yet completely seen Chrissy strip down and this was the wrong time to be having those thoughts with her gaping wound all but staring him in the face. Still, he hadn't even seen her without a shirt on, as she always stayed clothed from the waist up (most likely as a result of her discomfort with her own body, a fact that Eddie had not breached with her), and he couldn't resist admiring her bare shoulders right down to the v-shaped birthmark below the left shoulder blade.
Chrissy gently leaned back into him and craned her neck sideways to kiss him behind his ear. Goosebumps erupted down his spine and he felt an ache of longing in both his chest and his crotch, but there was some rather concerning and possibly upsetting business he needed to air out first.
"Chris, I'm gonna ask you something and I want you to be completely honest with me, even if you think it might hurt my feelings. Have you felt me pulling away from you lately?"
"No," answered Chrissy a little too quickly for which Eddie spared her a reprimanding look. "Well, maybe a little. But I didn't think you were doing it intentionally. Now, I don't think you knew you were doing it at all."
"Then what did you think I was doing? You couldn't have suspected I had a bit of Vecna inside of me all this time."
"I just thought that this might have been a rough patch and it's not even that rough. I still see you making an effort, even if you're distant. I signed up for this, remember? Emotional baggage and all. It makes sense now, to put together a timeline of when I noticed the change and when that scar started growing but before we found out, I thought that maybe this was just who you were now. I didn't completely know you like I used to when we started hanging out again, so there was a possibility you could have changed between middle school and high school and you weren't the boy I thought I knew. Not that that's a bad thing."
"I did change, but not until after Vecna. I've noticed it without being attuned to what it was but now that I do, I feel like I owe you an apology for pushing you away sometimes. I realize now that what Vecna planted in me is messing with my emotions in regards to everything and that's made me deny you without even knowing I'm doing it. I'm not trying to be a dick but especially now that I know I'm infected, I'm afraid to be too close to you, that I might hurt you or that Vecna will be able to use me to hurt you somehow. I want to be with you, but I'm not–safe."
"You'd never hurt me," said Chrissy carefully. "And I'm not afraid of you."
Eddie turned her around to face him. "I know I would never hurt you, but that's not exactly on Vecna's agenda, is it? I can't risk something happening to you."
"You're not breaking up with me over this, are you?"
"What? No, that's not what I'm–no, I don't wanna break up. I just want you safe and I don't know how to make that happen when I'm essentially a ticking time bomb."
Chrissy scooted forward until the only space that remained between them was occupied by Eddie's pillow which she was still using to cover her bare upper body. "Nothing that Vecna has done or can do to you will ever change who you really are."
"But Will said–"
"I heard what Will said and this is different. It's similar, but different and I mean this in the nicest way possible, but you're stronger than him. You've both fought the same battles and ended up in the same situations, but you've come out on the other side the same as I remember you. Even with Vecna inside of you, I still see the person who wanted to help me when no one else could see that I needed it. I know you're trying so hard to be what everyone else needs or wants you to be, but I don't want you to think that you have to do any of that for me."
If only everyone could be as understanding, open-minded, and passionately forgiving as Chrissy was. She was almost too perfect for this world, but she still didn't understand the danger she was in just by existing as his girlfriend.
"Chris, what I'm trying and failing to tell you is that I'm afraid of losing you to this. The first time I thought I'd lose you to Vecna and you'd end up like one of those broken bodies but I'm starting to see exactly how powerful this infection is and what it can make me do and I would never forgive myself if I lost control with you. It doesn't matter if you think I'd never hurt you; Vecna would, can, and will, and after seeing how I handled that thing that hurt you at the trailer park, after seeing how Isaac went after Jason today, I know that unless we can get this out of me, there'll come a day when I won't be able to hold him back anymore. And what if you're the one who has to pay the price for that?"
"It's not going to happen, and I'm not just saying that to be optimistic. I know we're on a time crunch and we need to get you and Isaac healed fast, but that roadblock out there won't be there forever and as soon as it's clear, we'll be at the lab and in a position to help you and Isaac. We could have the procedure set up and waiting the second we get there."
"But what if it doesn't even work? What if we can't burn it out?"
"That's not an option."
"Baby, I know you're trying to stay positive for me, but I'm absolutely serious."
"So am I and after all the good luck heat and fire has given us and the others in the past, I know it has to be the fix-all for this too. It worked for Will; it'll work for you and I'll believe that until it actually happens. Then I'll say 'I told you so' and accept a full apology from you for ever doubting me. I'll fight for you, Eddie, and I'll keep fighting until this is over because it took me six years to get you and I'm not giving you up after only four months."
"Has it really been that long?" asked Eddie, trying to do the math in his head. Yes, if they had met in middle school with him in eighth grade and her in sixth and he had failed senior year twice, that would make a grand total of six years. Time flies when you've been shunned by society.
"Six years," Chrissy confirmed. "And even with everything you've gone through since then, you're the same boy you used to be."
"Wait, are you quoting Winwood at me?" he demanded, remembering the lyrics to one of her favorite songs.
"Maybe," she giggled playfully.
Eddie seized her face and kissed her fiercely, longingly. His wants were so immediate right now that he had half a mind to crawl on top of her, have wild, passionate sex, and worry about the repercussions later, but he had not rolled the proper number with the dice given to him to be doing that tonight. "We can't," he said at last, hating himself. "I can't do this knowing that he's inside of me. Whether or not it can affect you, I just–I can't until we burn him out of me. It's killing me to tell you no right now because I want you so badly but it doesn't feel right. I'm sorry. Can I just–just let me hold you, please."
Chrissy pulled out one of his clean shirts from the hamper next to his bed, slipped it over herself, and then lay down on her side, opening an arm to accept him into her embrace. He maneuvered himself onto his back and carefully pulled her on top of him to where her head was resting against his chest, her stomach against his lower torso to protect her back from chafing. She was disappointed, he could tell, but both of them knew that she was not physically in a position to be having sex and he wasn't emotionally or mentally, so they would have to settle for cuddled sleeping for now.
Neither of them were hungry and they trusted that Isaac, Max, and the others could properly bring Wayne and Mrs. Hargrove up to speed, so they opted to remain in Eddie's room for the remainder of the night. Eddie ran his fingers tenderly through Chrissy's hair and stroked the back of her neck, trying to convey an apology to her but he knew she didn't want one. She respected that he didn't feel safe enough to be with her on a physical level, and he loved her for that. She deserved so much more than he was capable of giving her right now.
He whiled away the hours leading up to midnight by listening to faint conversations drifting in from the living room and only when Robin poked her head in to announce that she would be on watch duty for the next four hours did Eddie realize he'd never put a shirt back on. Robin seemed to take absolutely no notice of this, but Eddie was still flushed with embarrassment to be caught half-naked by the other female of the house. He and Chrissy tried to be as discreet as possible when Steve and Robin were around but it never made the morning after any less awkward and for Robin to walk in on him and Chrissy in such a compromising position, he hoped it didn't make things more awkward than they already were.
Sometime around two in the morning, Eddie realized how very dry his throat was and his newly discovered intense dislike of anything dry and warm made him carefully wriggle out from underneath Chrissy, don a t-shirt, and make his way to the kitchen. A quick glance into Chrissy's room showed him that Max and Mrs. Hargrove had taken up residence there with Robin's permission and the blanket and pillow on the living room couch told him that either Isaac or Wayne were kipping there with the other and Dustin sharing the basement space with Steve.
Eddie made a left to turn into the kitchen and found that Isaac was already there, standing at the kitchen sink with Eddie's pistol in hand and staring at his partial reflection in the window. He had been the one to instill gun safety in Eddie from the very first time he took him out to practice in the woods behind their house and the number one rule Eddie learned was to never put your finger on the trigger unless you were preparing to fire. Isaac was not adhering to that rule now.
"Hey, what're you doing up?" Eddie asked somewhat cautiously. "Robin's on watch right now."
"D'you get the feeling that he's seeing through us?" Isaac asked in a tone that sounded warped and uncertain.
"Come again?"
"Vecna. D'you feel like he's watching everything we do, listening to everything we say, because he can see through us?"
Eddie didn't know whether he should call for help, reach in and snatch his pistol away, or try to talk his brother down from doing anything rash. He didn't trust Isaac's sanity one bit right now. "Uh, no, I can honestly say that that thought hadn't occurred to me until you brought it up. But Will said when the Mind Flayer was starting to take over, he gradually lost his memories, forgot where he was, couldn't remember long stretches of time, and I remember everything. I haven't yet felt like I wasn't in control or that something else was making me do anything."
"I have," said Isaac darkly. "You've seen it. In the hospital with Brenner, and with Jason. I wasn't in control and I wasn't me. It got me thinking–what if that happens around someone who can't protect themselves? What if I go after one of the kids next time? What if I start to lose control and hurt someone or kill someone? What do I say? That it wasn't my fault? That Vecna made me do it? I can't risk that."
"Isaac, give me the gun," said Eddie slowly, seeing where this was going.
"He'll try to protect me if anyone else tries to hurt me but I can do it while I'm still in control," said Isaac, speaking as if he hadn't heard Eddie.
"Isaac, give–me–the–gun," Eddie tried again, this time in a stronger voice.
A flash of lightning outside and Eddie saw the nozzle spring up to Isaac's temple and his finger was still on the trigger. "I'm the only one who can do it."
"Whoa, what happened to the 'I don't have to die' mentality that you had just a few hours ago at the hospital?"
"That was before Jason. I didn't know I was capable of going after someone like that and I felt myself ready to hurt you to get to him. Where's the logic in that? What's the point? I won't become a puppet for Vecna. I can't exist like that, trapped in a body that isn't mine anymore."
This was not the man Eddie knew. Isaac was not the suicidal type, nor the type to doubt himself and his own capabilities. He did not give in until the end, fighting with everything he had. This man in front of him now had none of those bold, unwavering characteristics.
"You won't be," Eddie promised, feeling that it was safer to speak than to act just now with the gun pointed at Isaac's head. "I won't let that happen to you. I'll do it for you if I have to."
Isaac looked away from the window, bathed in the eerie half blue, half red moonlight from the last of the natural sky trying to break through the overbearing storms of the Upside Down. There came a roll of thunder and he scoffed in that raspy voice that wasn't entirely his. "You." The way he said it made it sound like all those kids in gym class who picked Eddie last for their team, doubtful of his abilities and reluctant to place any trust in him. It was soul-destroying to hear that tone in Isaac's voice, hear his vote of no confidence in his own brother. "You don't have it in you to kill me. If the time came and I asked you to do it, you couldn't."
"I already did," said Eddie, trying not to sound wounded. "You told me to let you go at the portal and I did."
"That's not the same thing as pointing a gun to my head and pulling the trigger. You had to let me go at the portal or you would've been sucked in too. That was a choice you made to save yourself, not me. If I shoved this pistol into your hands right now and told you to cap me in the head, you couldn't do it because that would require selflessness on your part. You don't have the balls."
"You're trying to goad me into this and it's not gonna work. You can't make me upset enough to kill you for a stupid reason."
"No?" Isaac shoved him. "You can get just as upset as I can now, boy. I saw it after that thing attacked Chrissy. You don't have control over it anymore than I do, so what makes you think that you'd be in any position to kill me if I needed you to, begged you to? You're just as fucked as I am. Only difference is that you can't cope with it happening to you because you're weak as shit."
Eddie tried to force himself to remember that the words being spoken to him now were not of Isaac's doing, but he was far too angry himself to be thinking rationally. "You look me dead in the eye and say that to me again," he dared.
"You're a bitch," said Isaac, and he sounded amused, which set Eddie's blood boiling.
This was what Eddie had been afraid of when Isaac approached him in the hospital. Isaac had insisted that he had come back, that he was still the man Eddie loved and respected, still his big brother. But not entirely. So desperate to have his brother back he had been that Eddie had been willing to ignore the signs of danger and the possibility of finding out that something worse had come back in his brother's stead.
The question was: what had come back? Because this–this thing that was insulting him, hurting him, and enjoying it, was not his brother.
"Isaac, give me the gun now."
"Come and take it."
"No, we're not doing this. This isn't a scenario where you can dangle what I want out of reach and tell me to jump for it one, because we're adults and that's not how we do things anymore and two, I'm taller than you, so I don't have to jump anyway."
"You are half an inch taller than me."
"Damn right I am, so give it to me."
A moment passed during which another bolt of lightning lit up the sky outside and Eddie could see Isaac's dilated pupils turn momentarily white. In that split second, Eddie lunged across the open space between them and wrestled the pistol out of Isaac's hand. The thunder concealed the sound of the pistol falling to the hardwood floor, but Eddie and Isaac remained locked in a furious but silent battle as both fought to overpower the other.
For being the stronger of the two earlier with the Jason incident, Eddie definitely wasn't of the same caliber now which made no sense to him but he had no time to contemplate it, as he was rapidly losing this fight. He didn't even know what he was fighting for, what he was trying to prevent or what Isaac was trying to gain. Another flash of lightning and he saw that the whites of Isaac's eyes were bloodshot, his irises blackened out. That anger Eddie had seen twice before was now directed at him and Isaac had no control over it, no idea that he was in danger of hurting Eddie without ever being aware of it.
Eddie felt his knees bending as Isaac used Vecna's power to begin to force him down and Eddie did not want to find out what would happen once he was pinned. He had one hand closed around Isaac's right wrist but the other was free and he fumbled for one of the overhead cabinet knobs, smacking Isaac in the eye with it as he forced it open. The resounding "ow" that followed was decidedly human and, knowing he only had seconds, Eddie threw his weight against Isaac, forcing him over backwards until his head was hovering over the sink. Eddie turned the cold water tap, praying the sudden burst of icy water would shock Isaac back into his senses.
He held Isaac's head there as water went up his nostrils and down his throat and he could see those telltale veins branching out across Isaac's face. Finally, Isaac choked, "Cut it out, goddammit!" and Eddie turned the faucet off but didn't relinquish his hold on his brother, just in case.
Spluttering and soaked, Isaac swatted at Eddie and growled, "What the hell were you waterboarding me for?"
"You called me a bitch," Eddie returned.
"When?"
"What d'you mean when? Five seconds ago, or don't you remember?"
Judging by the bewildered expression Isaac was giving him, he evidently didn't remember, which was far more worrying than anything he had actually done in the past three minutes. Eddie let go of him and Isaac sank down to the floor, still gagging and spitting up water. He rubbed at his eyes and then took in his surroundings as if just now realizing he was in the kitchen. Eddie could see him piecing two and two together and the look of calm that passed over his face was unsettling, for it revealed resignation that Isaac's worst nightmare had happened.
Throwing his face into his hands, Isaac asked, "Did I hurt you?"
"No," said Eddie, not accounting for emotional damage. "What's the last thing you remember?"
"Going to bed, turning the lamp off next to the couch," said Isaac through his fingers. "I don't know how I got here. What did I do? What did I say?"
"A lot of bullshit," said Eddie, sitting down beside Isaac and resting his forearms on his knees. "None of it sounded like anything you'd ever say, not to me. You had a gun for Christ's sake. You had it pointed at your head."
"I'm sorry you had to see that. I'm sorry you had to listen to–whatever I told you–and I'm sorry if it hurt you. That wasn't me."
"I know."
"I was in there for too long, Eddie," and it sounded like pleading–sounded extremely humane. Eddie knew he would never fully be able to appreciate the strength, the courage, and the resilience that Isaac must have had to be able to come out of the Upside Down alive, even with Vecna attached. It was a miracle that his mind hadn't shattered, that he could still form coherent words and sentences, when anyone else would have wound up at the local Pennhurst Asylum as a vegetable, condemned to spend the remainder of his days in a padded cell. To have to face everything alone, it would have driven most men past the point of insanity and now that Isaac was back, he was still fighting for every moment of awareness within his own body and mind. And he was losing.
"You're here now," Eddie told him resolutely. "You're here with me and we're far from done, bro. We're gonna get this out've us, I promise. You're not stuck like this forever."
"Unless we get it out soon, I don't think we have forever," said Isaac forebodingly.
Eddie was exhausted on all fronts. He had nothing left to spare, but he couldn't leave Isaac here on the kitchen floor in a puddle of water for the rest of the night, so he dragged Isaac to his feet and then picked up his Colt which had slid under the small dining area table.
"No offense, but for everyone's safety, I'm gonna keep the guns with me from now on."
"I wanna sleep with a cuff on," Isaac insisted. "Cuff me to the handrail going downstairs or whatever you need to do, but I can't be trusted on my own, obviously, so we need to take precautions."
"I don't think handcuffs were on the list of essential items we thought to pack."
"Then I'll stay up the rest of the night."
"Can we make due with rope tonight? I'll tie you to the front door and give you enough slack that you can reach the couch."
It was not a good note to end the day on in binding Isaac's wrists together and attaching the rope to the doorknob, but Eddie needed rest and had no other way to secure his brother for the night, so he was left optionless. Making Isaac promise to shout for help if he needed it, Eddie walked in a zombie-like state back to his room, stumbled into the master bathroom and splashed cool water onto his face, shaking.
This wasn't happening to him, it couldn't be. What the hell had just gone on in the kitchen? Had Isaac really lost all hope in just one day of being back that he had been pushed to the brink of suicide? Had Eddie really just had to talk his brother down from shooting himself in the head? Or was that entirely Vecna talking? The line was blurred now to where Eddie couldn't tell where one began and the other ended.
He had just lived a lifetime in the space of a few short hours. He had woken up from the hospital after believing he would die from his stomach wound and been informed that his brother was alive. He'd been told that Hawkins was entering the apocalypse and been sent to collect supplies before heading to the lab. He had fought with and against his high school bully in the hospital parking lot. He had driven to his old neighborhood and battled beasts of the Upside Down, nearly losing Max and Chrissy in the process. He had seen his neighbors being eaten alive in front of him. He had admitted his doubts to his girlfriend and confessed his ultimate fear of losing her. And he had just fought tooth and nail against his own brother who had zero awareness of his own actions during the entire thing after listening to Isaac berate, insult, and provoke him.
It was enough to age a person twenty years in ten hours. Staring at his reflection, Eddie figured he looked about as alive and sane as Isaac had only that afternoon when Eddie saw him for the first time. The face looking back at him was not the same face that had been so eager to graduate high school and start this next chapter of life. This face was older, weaker, and more desperate.
The thunder rolled overhead and a heavy, deep voice hung on the air in its wake, calling out to Eddie tauntingly, "I see you, Eddie."
