Early September
Eddie was woken up by the sounds of someone yelling. The grogginess he normally had disappeared instantly as he threw off the covers and ran down the stairs. Ellie stood in the doorway in her sleep shirt and shorts. They had a routine, she woke up first and started the coffee then he got up once it was done and would make breakfast. Normally cereal.
Screaming was not part of it.
"I told you before he doesn't live here!" She shouted, backing away and grabbing the bear mace off the key hooks. He saw she already had a hammer in her other hand, it was hidden behind her back. "You need to get off my property!"
Eddie had always missed when his father would show up to the house, Ellie usually got the brunt of his nonsense. His father had given up on going to his uncle's after his uncle had walked out with a shotgun.
Wayne had never liked Eddie's father; he wasn't there after his mother had died and anytime he allowed him to see his son it ended in tears or scrapes on his nephew. The man might've been his brother but the way he treated Eddie repulsed him. Elle had been told tidbits during their Sunday dinners and it was evident how she felt as her green eyes bored a hole through Edward Sr.'s thick skull. Her knuckles bone white as she gripped the hammer.
Eddie stood at the top of the stairs.
"I just want to see my son," he pleaded. "I haven't seen him in years."
"Considering this is the fifth time you've shown up on my door I've got a fucking feeling he doesn't want to see you," she said through clenched teeth. "He is not here; I'm the only one who lives here."
The man looked like Eddie and it pissed her off even more, those brown eyes staring down at her were not the ones she saw in Eddie- they were darker and more intense. He leaned against the doorframe and eyed the van in the driveway.
"So you have two cars?"
"I don't see why it's any of your business," she snorted, positioning her thumb over the nozzle of the mace. Eddie walked down the stairs. The man's eyes lit up as Eddie stood behind her.
She turned around to the footsteps behind her and looked at him with pleading eyes. He could've stayed upstairs. She already called Wayne and he would be here soon.
"Look at how big you've gotten," his father said. He looked awful, his teeth the darkest shade of yellow and his hair looked like it had fallen out in clumps. Bald patches littering his head. He looked like he had gained weight, his stomach round; almost like he was bloated? Eddie wasn't sure what that was about.
He could see the veins under his sallow skin, deep eggplants and marrons. "I followed your van; I'm so happy you're finally coming down to see me-"
Ellie stepped forward from the doorway and closed off the distance. "You're leaving now." She said with an even tone.
"Eddie, tell your girl to calm down."
"It's not Eddie's house- it's mine and you're not welcome in it." Eddie said nothing, his whole body was taunt like a bow, ready to be sprung.
"I want you gone," his son choked out.
"That's not you talking, Eddie, it's your uncle and this broad-"
Everything craved in when Edward Sr. grabbed her shoulder, and tried to push her out from between the two of them. A gutteral noise echoed somewhere in the back of her throat.
She lunged at him with the hammer, her mace falling to the floor.
All she saw was that back alley and Janis and her body screamed at her to run again. There was to be no grounding like she did when she got stressed or scared or angry.
They both fell off the steps and landed on the ground, the hammer was embedded into the dirt next to his father's head. His eyes wide as he looked at the hammer to the side of him and the girl on top of him. Eddie dove in when she began punching him like she had done with the drunks at the bar, trying to pull her off. His father flipped her over, punching Eddie away, and she started kneeing him in the crotch, his hand in her hair to pin her.
All she saw was a bald man with tattoos above her.
Eddie saw in her eyes that she was not there. She was animalistic in her movements, snapping like a snake with her teeth. Her short black nails dug into his face and shoulders, leaving lines of red. He was punching her face and stomach. Eddie wasn't in the same place she was but he saw red as he grabbed him by the waist and hair as he tried to rip him off of her. Clumps of inky har fell into his hands.
Eventually she kneed him hard enough that his grip on her hair faltered and Eddie pushed him to the ground. He grabbed Ellie by the shoulder and pulled her up before she could react. Her right side was purple and her nose looked crooked. Her green eyes looked sadly at him, her brain switching back to the reality of the situation.
"Get in the house!" Eddie shouted at her and she darted into the house. Edward Sr. was already getting up. She ran to the phone and dialed Wayne again.
Eddie was pushing his father into the backyard, wrestling with him. His bare feet in the gravel and grass as he tried to push the older Munson back. He felt something in his ankle snap but was too focused to give it much attention.
The line went to voicemail and she hung up the phone.
"Eddie!" She called, running outside. She beelined for the backyard as she saw Wayne pull up. Eddie was screaming, his father had him in a headlock. Wayne jumped out of the car with his shotgun in hand.
He shot off a warning and his brother released Eddie. Eddie's left eye was purple and swelling by the second, nose bloody but not bent, thankfully. He had held his own.
"Wayne, we were only rough housing. Baby Ed and me," he brother started. "I didn't want to have to fight her but the girl is fucking crazy-"
Eddie punched him, hitting his jaw. "You fucking grabbed her!" His father fell backwards.
Wayne looked down at Ellie, she could've come straight out of a zombie movie. The right side of her face bloomed purple and black. Blood was pouring down from her nose and it bent to the left, her hand was under it in a bad attempt to keep it from slipping out. He was sure it was broken. Her breathing was erratic like Eddie's, adrenaline still coursing through them like a river. Eddie walked over to his uncle and Ellie while his father rubbed his jaw.
His brother was the roughest of the three, gashes on his face and patches of bruising beginning to form. He was limping as he reached over to them.
"I think it's time for you to go," Wayne huffed. "The kids look tired and I'm sure she's been telling you to fuck off all morning."
Eddie looked him dead in the eyes. "I want nothing to do with you. Uncle Wayne is the father I needed when you chose everything over me."
He looked over at his nephew. People could say whatever they wanted about Eddie but Wayne knew the person he was and in this moment he was proud of him. The last time Eddie had seen his father he was a child who wanted to be acknowledged.
Now he knew he didn't need him.
"You wouldn't be here without me boy!"
"Your fucking point?" Eddie said, extending his arms. "I wouldn't be here without Wayne!"
Ellie watched as his father hung his head low. He limped off her property with a look of complete defeat. Wayne told them to get inside and clean up; he'd make sure his brother left.
They both were on the couch with bags of frozen vegetables. Ellie had thrown up in a nearby dead plant, her stomach a black pit when she pulled her shirt up. Eddie looked at her giving her his bag of frozen carrots.
"You shouldn't have done that," he said.
She blinked with her good eye, the other side twitching. "I didn't want to- something just snapped in my head and I didn't realize what was happening until you grabbed me." She winced when the cold touched her stomach. "He touched me and I just went away I think."
He nodded, understanding. Eddie knew she did stuff when she was upset normally, feel a texture on her clothes then describe it or take deep breaths and count out the minutes. Even what they had done in the bath. There hadn't been time for that.
"I don't want you doing stuff like that," he said. "I'm bigger, let me take the hits."
She nodded. Wayne came into the house and evaluated them. Eddie watched as he snapped Ellie's nose back in place. She vomited into the plant for a second time. They stuffed rolled up paper towels into her nose.
She laid on the sofa, her head in Eddie's lap.
"May I?" His uncle asked her, pointing to her stomach. She nodded and looked up at Eddie. Wayne's hand felt around her torso and her ribs. She scrunched up her face when he touched the ribs on her right side. "That's broken," he muttered. "You're only like a buck and some change?"
She weighed about that and nodded. Wayne chuckled and looked at Eddie. "She's a keeper; I'm not pissing her off."
Ellie snorted and immediately regretted it, her nose feeling raw. She groaned and they chuckled.
He looked over Eddie next and while his nephew was in good condition he decided they both needed to go to the hospital. She was going to need x-rays and he wanted to air on the side of caution with Eddie. Both of them had dilated pupils but knowing of their activities he didn't know what to make of it.
They crawled into the backseat with frozen vegetables and a paper bag. The minute he drove onto the road Eddie's stomach went, hurling bile into the bag. All of the windows were immediately rolled down
He stayed at the Creel house that evening, they couldn't sleep from their concussions and both of them had called out of work. She had two broken ribs, luckily the doctor said that it did not look like they would puncture any organs and should mend themselves. Her nose was broken but Wayne's quick fix had avoided any further complications.
Eddie had a sprained wrist and twisted his ankle, he was surprised to learn he had also broken a rib. He was trying to walk and was unsteady, using the walls as support to get to the bathroom. Ellie laid in the oversized recliner in the corner of the room; she had moved the dead plant outside the second they had gotten home. Wayne sat on the couch, flicking through the channels and static.
He stopped at a rerun of Elvira's Movie Macabre, knowing Eddie liked to watch it. Ellie's eye flickered open at the sound of the woman's voice. She had a black beehive hair-do, makeup that was very similar to what Ellie wore, and her dress' v-neck went to her belly button-exposing her breasts to the camera.
"I love her," Ellie swooned.
"You just like her rack," Eddie cracked as he came back into the room. Ellie shrugged. Wayne shook his head, ignoring them. He made them a box of Mac n' Cheese with cut up hotdogs. They devoured everything on their plates and then the rest of what was leftover.
Eventually they had both moved to the couch and fell asleep, Ellie rested on top of him. Both of them struggled breathing but didn't wake. Wayne decided he would take the recliner and found blankets in a hallway closet, he covered the kids up.
He heard noises coming from upstairs, grabbing his gun he went to check.
It was probably his brother, he thought to himself. The floors creaked under his work boots, light filtered through the trees and made the hallway black. He peered into their messy bedroom and then the other rooms.
There was nothing. Old pipes or a strong wind he guessed could've done it.
"Uncie Ayne?" A small voice said behind him. He stopped in his tracks.
"Eddie? You okay, boy? You haven't called me that in-" He turned around and saw nothing but the stairs leading to the first floor. "-years."
He heard a child's laughter and the sounds of tiny feet running away.
"Edward!" He shouted, following the noises. He saw a short messy head of dark hair at the end of the hallway by an open window and amber eyes lit up by the light of the moon as he pivoted towards it. There was a faint outline of his nephew's favorite stuffed bear in his hands. Wayne remembered this.
"Uncie, I'm going off to Neverland!" The boy giggled and began crawling up the window. Wayne ran after him, throwing down the gun. He remembered this; he knew how it ended.
"Stop! Eddie, stop!" The boy's feet landed on the windowsill. He was so far away.
He jumped.
He felt a hand on his shoulder as he looked over the ledge of the window.
"Uncle Wayne," a full-grown Eddie said, his hand shaking him.
He turned around and hugged his nephew, squeezing on the broken rib and making him wince. Ellie stood at the top of the railing, watching with a concerned eye.
He pulled away from him. "I'm fine- it's just this old mind playing tricks on me." He looked at them both with a hand up, he itched his nose with his thumb. "Just get some sleep."