His first thought when he awoke was that he wanted to die but casual existential despair wasn't on the agenda for the day. He was sore all over, miserable, and fearful of how many ways he could be screwed over between now and bedtime. Sitting up from the sleeping bag he had dragged into Chrissy's temporary new room, he waited for Vecna or someone else who shouldn't be there to put in an appearance. He waited for something out of the ordinary to tip him off that he was still dreaming. It was ten whole minutes before he moved, but nothing happened that would give him any cause to believe he wasn't awake. Vecna liked to get right to the point and Eddie seriously doubted that he would wait ten minutes or more before plaguing Eddie's dreams.

Reaching over onto the hospital bed and prodding Chrissy's shoulder, he whispered, "Tell me something that I wouldn't hear in a dream."

Squinting at him through one eye, Chrissy pulled the covers up to her chest and mumbled, "You have dry drool on your lip."

That seemed to be as good of an indicator as any that he was grounded in reality and he made the slow climb out of his sleeping bag, crawling a few feet before using the wall to help him stand up. He checked in on himself in the bathroom mirror more as a dare to see if Vecna would try to show him another vision but only his sleep-deprived reflection stared bleary-eyed back at him looking like the figure on one of Iron Maiden's album covers.

He opened the door to the main hall and came face to face with ghosts. Jason, his eyes bloodshot, his face swollen, his throat bruised. Chance, guts spilling from his midsection. Bryce, throat ripped out from several bite wounds. Eddie stepped back to slam the door shut but Jason forced entry and, fearful of being trapped in a room with the walking corpses, Eddie rammed into the door, then dodged underneath Jason's arm to run for it. He sprinted the length of the hallway on bruised lungs and tender ribs, but for all of his desire to distance himself from this nightmare, even in the realms of fantasy, even dead, Jason was still more athletic than him. He felt himself being tackled from behind and dragged along his stomach by the ankles back toward the nurse's station.

His reflexes were infuriatingly slower in this dream, like trying to move through molasses, and even as he kicked out at Jason to try and free himself, it seemed like too little effort. He felt sluggish and uncoordinated in body even though his mind was still very much intact and working at a proper speed to process everything.

"Rise and shine, freak, we've got a long day ahead of us," said Jason in a broken, garbled voice that still held disdain for him. He flipped Eddie onto his back and Eddie had a lucid moment that nothing could hurt him here so long as he kept his head and didn't panic, something that was becoming increasingly difficult to do.

He pulled his hair down over his eyes and said in open, fierce denial, "No, you're not real. I'm not hearing this and you're not real."

"We were once," said Bryce, evidently another unintentional casualty of leaving Jason's thugs to what could and ultimately had been a well-deserved fate. "Even if we aren't now, what we can do to you is still very real."

"No, not today." Eddie slapped himself hard across the face. "Wake up. Wake up now."

Chance and Bryce hauled him upright and then threw him down across the nurse's desk. The position was all too familiar to Eddie who attempted to fight back, but these specters were far more powerful in death than they had been in life and they held him down, this time completely stripping off his jacket and shirt to leave him naked from the waist up.

Eddie heard rather than saw what they planned to beat him with this time in the form of an ominous crack and glanced over his shoulder to see what deadly weapon Jason was wielding.

"Is that–is that bullwhip?" Eddie heard himself say in a small, petrified voice.

Chance took a length of rope and tied his wrists together, pulling him flat on the desk as Jason held him from behind. Squirming under their grasp, Eddie sought to talk some sense into the corpses as if death might have made them more reasonable. He couldn't face this sort of pain and humiliation again. Last time it had almost killed him and even if this was just a nightmare, the memory of it would be more than enough to shatter him.

"Jason, please don't do this to me again," he pleaded.

"This is going to happen every day for the rest of your life, Munson. And this is only the start."

The sting preceded the second crack of the whip and Eddie felt his shoulders pull together as a slice of skin opened up across his back to join the still fresh welts that were already there. There was no concealing his cry of pain this time; he screamed at the first taste.

It's not real. Wake up.

It was the only way he could think to make it through this second dosage of injustice and agony, telling himself that he would wake up soon and find that none of it had been real.

The whip fell again.

It's not real.

And again. And again.

It was real. It hurt too much to be an illusion and unlike last time, Isaac would not come for him this time. He would have to endure alone.

He called out for someone, anyone. How was he not dead or at the very least, unconscious? Were his dreams really that cruel that they would make it impossible for him to miss even a second of this reenactment of his worst hour? Could he even be sure that this wasn't a dream? Nothing had ever hurt so badly in his dreams–apart from that one time he had died without even knowing it. He had died and he had acquired a inexplicable wound that grew over time and nearly killed him, so what was to say that these lashes Jason's corpse was delivering to his back wouldn't be present when he woke up, if he ever woke up?

What might have been blood or tears dribbled into his eyes, making them burn. Through it all, he saw a grotesque face looming over him. It was Wayne as Eddie had seen him in his last vision with half of his face gone and bits of him missing all over, sampled by UDC's.

"Help me," Eddie begged him.

"Like you helped me? Like you help everyone who ends up dead?"

As much as it hurt to admit it, this was not his uncle. He had told Max as much when the vision of Billy came to her in her weakness and said the horrible things he had said to hurt her. Wayne Munson would never blame Eddie for how things had turned out. His uncle would never say such things to him.

"You killed me, Eddie."

"I didn't," Eddie insisted as the whip cut him across the shoulder. "I told you what would happen if you came with me. I told you Vecna would target you."

"You killed all've us."

"It was never me. It wasn't my fault."

It sounded like a begging child, believed to be innocent by no one.

Wayne bent over to look Eddie in the eye and Eddie watched the visage of his uncle melt away to reveal Henry, smirking with false pity at him. He held up his hand and the whipping came to a halt, if only momentarily, as Jason's cadaver obeyed.

"It was always you, you poor, oblivious, selfish fool. You blame me for those deaths, but it was all you. Your uncle, your bullies, Jason–"

"I never touched Jason. That was you, goading Isaac to do it."

"We've been through this before and I told you then that your brother just needed a little extra push to kill Jason. I provided the tools he needed, but that was a conscious decision that he made to end another individual's life, not me. But you could have stopped that before it ever happened. You're as much of a murderer as he is. You knew what he was about to do and you could have said something, done anything, but you didn't. You let your brother kill that boy. His blood is on your hands. All of their blood is all on your hands."

Even as Henry said it, Eddie could see rich, sticky scarlet blood staining the skin along his bound hands. What's more, he could sense that it was Jason's blood, Chance's blood, Wayne's. He could feel the life seeping out of them as their blood ran freely over him. He felt their final thoughts as if they were his own: Jason, silently hoping that Eddie would call Isaac off to save his life; Chance, trying to convey to Eddie that he wanted a bullet in the brain to end his suffering; Wayne, wondering if he had just given his life for nothing if Eddie was still frozen in the driver's seat. Eddie's kills, Eddie's fault.

"You get it now, don't you?" said Henry as if he were consoling him by placing a tender hand upon Eddie's head. It held no warmth and felt as cold and slimy as Vecna's claw but it was still Henry that Eddie saw. "You're starting to understand that this is all your fault. Eleven came to terms with what was her fault a long time ago, but you've proven to be much more difficult in persuading. You're more stubborn than she is."

"Why don't you just kill me?" Eddie asked quietly. Why go through all the trouble of making those around him suffer when it would just be easier to kill him for all the vexation he had caused? Eddie still did not understand what made him special enough to draw Vecna's personal ire. He was no threat alone; he always had help in foiling Vecna's plans, yet he was always the one singled out.

"You're doing just fine taking care of that yourself," said Henry. "You're so close now, Eddie."

Eddie wanted to ask "to what", but he already knew. There was only one answer in a situation like this and Eddie was an idiot for not seeing it from the start. In a way, it was a relief to know that this was definitely the answer and he could stop worrying about what it might be. By no means was it the answer he wanted, but it did give him some closure, however horrible.

"I'll be seeing you very soon," said Henry as if promising to catch up with an old friend and offer unwavering support. It was a seductive voice, an endearing look, the most sincere form of bullshit Eddie had ever seen.

He was gone, Chance and Bryce were gone, and as Eddie strained to look around for Jason, he saw that his former bully had also disappeared. In his place was Isaac with the bloodied bullwhip in hand and murder in his eyes. It was the same look he had reserved for Chrissy before he attempted to kill her both in Eddie's previous vision and in real life.

Eddie's first thought was to go for his gun, but he was unarmed. He had unwittingly put himself in a situation where he was unable to kill his brother before Isaac could commit an unforgivable act. Another failure.

But Isaac wouldn't kill him here. Henry had just told Eddie that no one and nothing would be responsible for Eddie's death but himself, so that had to mean that Isaac's hands would remain clean at least on this front. That, or Eddie had gravely misinterpreted Henry's words.

The whip cracked in warning.

Not yet, Eddie demanded. It's not time yet.

He could feel the air pressing in against his mutilated back as the whip drew near to carve another line of flesh out, but the leather never struck. Instead, he saw the water damage on the ceiling as he awoke in his sleeping bag with his back aflame and the rest of him drenched in sweat. There was a mad scramble to wriggle out of his sleeping bag and make it to the bathroom before he puked.

Chrissy had awoken at the sound of him bashing into the walls in his haste to get to the toilet and was calling for him, but could not unhook herself from the machines or climb out of the bed unassisted and she had one wrist cuffed to the bed railing to prevent her from being able to grab anything to harm herself. Eddie could hear her starting to grow more panicked when he didn't respond to her, but he was busy being horribly sick into the bowl. Still with her increasing calls in his ears, he flushed the toilet after he had emptied the contents of his stomach and turned his back to the mirror, lifting his jacket and shirt with tentative fingers. Every single strip of white bandages were soaked through with red.

"Christ…"

Not a dream, but a warning and a promise.

A heavy pounding on the door alerted him to someone else knowing about what had happened to him, so it was no surprise when he saw Eleven and Isaac both standing between the door to the hall and the open bathroom doorway with concerned expressions. Eleven had a line of blood trickling down from one nostril and Isaac still had handcuffs on but they were no longer attached by a chain in the middle.

"Did you…tell me you didn't break out because of me," moaned Eddie at the sight of Isaac's broken restraints.

"I could tell you that, but it would be some bullshit," said Isaac, turning Eddie to face away from them. He rolled up Eddie's shirt in the back, and swore.

"How do you know?" Eddie asked.

"I saw it happening in the void," said Eleven. "I was looking for Henry, but he found me instead and showed me what was happening to you. He told me that we're close to it now and that the worst was still to come."

"It being Judgment Day, I take it," Isaac guessed.

"Did Vecna not let you in on that little secret?" asked Eddie. He hadn't meant for it to sound so testy, but he was having difficulty keeping the harsher tones out of his voice just now when his back wounds felt as fresh as they had the night he first received them.

"He doesn't tell me things," replied Isaac just as coldly. "I don't even know if he knows that I'm aware of what he's feeling, but I can sense his moods and I'm like a mine canary when it comes to warning people that he's close or that some shit's about to go down. Just because I'm dressed up as his frontman doesn't mean he sends me daily updates on what he plans to do hour by hour. I just sensed excitement from him and I blacked out and could hear you screaming, then I woke up and I'd broken my cuffs and met El just outside."

"Great, that sounds just fantastic that Vecna's excited and told El we're close. That means no more waiting; the apocalypse is finally upon us," said Eddie, throwing up his hands in mock celebration and instantly regretting it as his shirt rubbed against his leaking bandages.

"Yeah, it's finally happening, but if you want to be an active participant in fighting whatever's about to come storming the castle, which I know you do, you're gonna have to finally let someone with actual medical expertise patch you up," said Isaac in that I'm older, so I'm the boss sort of tone that Eddie hated. "Remember, those were the terms you agreed to when I found you out by Lover's Lake. You're gonna sit your ass down and get yourself properly taken care of and you're gonna like it or I will make you like it."

Eddie had no intention of being confined to the medical ward while Vecna unleashed hell upon the lab, so as much as he was against the idea of letting others finally see what Jason had done to him (now in the void as well as in reality), he would have to let it be.

"El, tell Hopper to start getting the soldiers ready. I don't know exactly when, but something's coming tonight. I'll get Eddie taken care of and then have the Party meet in the conference room in say, half an hour?"

Isaac followed Eleven out into the hall to go and grab a nurse while Eddie moved back into the main part of the room beside Chrissy's bed and told her in a little white lie that Vecna had reignited his wounds in his dream which turned out to be real. She didn't need a firsthand account of what happened; she'd find out soon enough.

In just a few minutes, Isaac returned with a doctor who had overseen Max's surgery to seal her stab wound, Doctor Hummel. She was on a one-sided first-name basis with Eddie and prompted him to show her his wounds, but to her credit, she didn't ask him where they came from. She had tended to enough supernatural nonsense in the past few days to not question the injuries the Party had accumulated. Whatever she was doing to Eddie's back stung far more than anything Isaac had done to treat the lacerations and Eddie had to take off his belt and bite down on it to not wake up everyone in the lab who was heading off to bed since he had again slept through the day following his argument with Brenner and awoken at about ten minutes to ten.

"That should do it," said Doctor Hummel several minutes later. "I would tell you to take it easy and not do any strenuous activity but I know that's virtually impossible with you, so my best advice is to try not to completely ruin all my hard work."

"I always try, doc," said Eddie earnestly.

"So what happens now?" asked Chrissy when Eddie had put his shirt and leather jacket back on and armed himself once again with his weapons.

"Now, we prepare for battle," said Eddie in a projected superior voice. "But 'we' unfortunately doesn't include you, Chris."

"So you want me to watch from my window?"

"That would probably be a bad idea."

"Then what am I supposed to do?"

"You just gotta sit the bench on this one, Chris," said Isaac from the doorway. He had stood outside while Doctor Hummel tended to Eddie, sticking to his promise to remain far from Chrissy for her own protection. "It sucks, I know, but you know there's nothing you can do without making things worse for someone. But you won't be the only one who isn't out there. I'll make sure one've the boys comes and sits with you as a contingency plan."

"That's reassuring," said Chrissy savagely. "Good to know that at least someone else will die with me if the UDC's kill everyone out in the parking lot. I can't just sit here, cuffed to my bed. I'll lost my mind knowing everyone who's able is out there–"

"Exactly, everyone who is able will be out there. You are not only a danger to yourself, you're also wounded, which means you are not able. The boys don't have battle experience, so they are not able. I'm a pipe bomb waiting to go off, so I am not able. By all accounts, Eddie shouldn't be able either, but I don't think anyone here can stop him when we're already shortstaffed. It's just the roll of the dice, hon, and there's not much we can do about it except throw our support behind those who have to fight."

Chrissy, for all of her attributes, did not like being left behind and especially not where Eddie was concerned, so while she pouted and made a bit of a fuss about not being able to help as she wanted, she also knew there was no point in arguing. Eddie thought of what he should say to her as he prepared to march off to war, but he wasn't going far, and he would be in constant communication with her via walkie, so he couldn't find the words to bid his fair maiden farewell. Instead he kissed her forehead and followed Isaac out, passing Mrs. Byers who was on her way in to sit with Chrissy.

Eddie and Isaac participated in a somewhat embarrassing speed walk as they hurried to the conference room where Eleven was supposed to have gathered everyone but on the way, Eddie noticed that Isaac had found himself another set of handcuffs and was now handing Eddie the corresponding key.

"If I get loose, he's gonna send me after you or Chrissy or Max, so someone besides you needs to be on alert to do what needs to be done if it comes to that. I've asked Nancy to–"

"What d'you mean you asked Nancy?" asked Eddie, pulling Isaac to a full stop hard enough that they both left black scuff marks on the floor. "What the hell, dude? After all that business of you demanding that I give you my word that I would do it, you suddenly change your mind and ask her? If anyone, you should've asked Hopper but you don't put this shit on her or anyone else. We already agreed that I'd be the one to do it."

"You can't do it if you're the one I'm trying to kill. If I get that close again, someone else will have to put me down and I know Nance can. Hopper probably could too, but he doesn't know the signs as well as she does. I'm just trying to prepare for every scenario here, including one in which you aren't conscious or coherent enough to put a bullet in my head."

Eddie winced at the harsh and blunt delivery. "I don't like how easily that rolled off your tongue."

"Me neither," Isaac admitted. "But I don't like mostly anything that I am or have done lately."

He and Eddie had to cut their discussion short as he stepped into the conference room where the Party excluding Max, Mrs. Hargrove, Chrissy, and Mrs. Byers were present. It was no coincidence that most of the female population of the Party were being excluded from this. Doctors Owens and Brenner were in attendance but Eddie gave Brenner a wide berth and made sure Isaac did the same.

They did not even have time to pull up seats before Hopper rapped on the table for attention and took command of the floor.

"El tells me some major shit's about to go down tonight, so I won't be hearing any arguments to what I'm about to say," he said in that commanding tone that Eddie appreciated for occasions such as this where everyone looked extremely capable of arguing. "All staff and anyone not prepared to fight will be on the second floor or higher. Two guards at the top of the staircase for anything that might make it past us on ground level. Those ready, able, and allowed to fight, you know who you are, so get to your positions. Those who aren't, stick with Chrissy and Max. No one comes down to the main floor until I personally give the all-clear. If for some reason I can't, you wait to hear from Nancy, Murray, or Steve, in that order. Don't open that staircase door for anyone else. Any questions and by that I do mean questions and not complaints."

This last bit was directed at Dustin, Lucas, Mike, and Will, but the boys finally seemed to grasp the fact that they would find no loophole that allowed them to participate in this battle.

Eddie had no questions, but his pride stung slightly that Hopper hadn't put him on the list of individuals who could sound off the all-clear, not that Hopper didn't have good reason. Eddie had been demoted from wall guard duty so of course he wasn't mentally sound enough to give such an order if he was the one person constantly being fed Vecna-vision. Still, not being given an authoritative position upset him slightly, which was actually far more concerning since Eddie had never wanted authority before.

The only consolation was that he had still been issued an automatic weapon while Nancy, Steve, and Robin were only allowed the standard issue rifles and shotguns. His experience did count for that much, at least.

Now, there was only one problem left to solve.

"I'm not the only one who noticed that he didn't mention a plan for dealing with Isaac, right?" Eddie voiced aloud to the others.

"I thought we were just gonna stick him back in the closet," said Steve. "What're you doing out of the closet anyway, man?" He looked Isaac up and down as if trying to figure out how it was possible for a handcuffed man to become uncuffed.

"I broke out," said Isaac without shame, and then shared the events that led up to him freeing himself while giving as little detail as possible. He explained how Jason and his thugs had ambushed and beaten Eddie with almost no description other than to say that Eddie had wounds on his back. He then fibbed and said that Vecna had shown him Jason, Chance, and Bryce's corpses beating Eddie again rather than fessing up to the truth of how he knew Eddie was suffering. As far as everyone else was concerned, Isaac had liberated himself from the supply closet because he had been shown his brother in pain which sounded like a far nobler reason than because having Eddie in pain excited Vecna who shared that sensation with Isaac.

"So, in other words, a supply closet isn't gonna do it this time," Robin concluded.

"Not in the slightest," affirmed Isaac.

"You broke out because you wanted to see what was happening to Eddie and the infection aided you in doing that. So if you're so focused on having a front row seat to the action that you can snap handcuffs, all we have to do is put you somewhere that won't cause that knee-jerk reaction," said Dustin brightly. "Easy fix, we're all happy."

"No, Dustin, we aren't happy about this. This isn't a good thing," said Isaac wearily. "If I can snap handcuffs and break down a closet door, it's gonna take a lot more to hold me down this time, especially if Vecna sends his full force to attack the lab. If he makes me join the fight batting for the opposite team, that's kind of a major problem."

"No, see, you can be chained up in plain view of everything happening in the parking lot so you know what's going on and you're close enough for everyone to keep an eye on you and gauge you for what's happening with Vecna. You're still tied down, but close enough to the action that you won't need to make a break for it to see what's going on. You can't hurt anyone, but you can be sort of like our radar. Everyone wins. Say thank you."

"I have one nerve left and you're dry humping it, kid," said Isaac through his teeth.

/ /

If Eddie's experience with Vecna had taught him anything, it was that the guy liked to operate in the dead of night as if he knew how much spookier he could make things by having them occur at the quite literal darkest hour. As Eddie's watch beeped two in the morning, he felt wide awake and more on edge than ever since he knew something was bound to happen at any moment. The entire parking lot was standing on that edge with him with hands wringing weapons, eyes combing the surrounding woods, and limbs shaking in anticipation of an unbeatable enemy.

In an effort to better secure the weapons supply, a barrier had been constructed around the stockpile with metal supports welded to the ground and a gate only accessible by key to ensure that no one could be caught off guard in another Chrissy-type situation. In addition to this, there were firepits stationed every forty feet or so with kerosine-dipped spears at the ready for those who were not lucky enough to be carrying flamethrowers which were in short supply here. The hospital and school had about twenty-five of those weapons apiece but somehow, the lab had drawn the short stick and only secured six, so until transportation could be arranged to acquire more, they would have to resort to good old fashioned fire starting.

To avoid any further incidents like the one of Eddie being manipulated into chasing after a demodog, only soldiers were allowed on the walltops, but Hopper, Steve, Nancy, Robin, and Murray were still patrolling at the bottom of the scaffolding structures, all armed with a shotgun or rifle, a pistol, and either a bludgeoning weapon or a blade. Eleven was pacing along beside Hopper, ears ever attuned to the goings-on outside the perimeter.

And all the while, Eddie remained where Hopper had stationed him near the glass doors so he could have a clear view of Isaac just inside, trying his damndest to stay awake when the physical toll on his body was clearly the stronger pull. Eddie tried to give his brother some sort of reassuring smile, but his facial muscles had stopped working and in any case, Isaac would know Eddie was just blowing smoke out of his ass.

As it had been seemingly a lifetime ago when Eddie made Chrissy check in every half hour over the radio to make sure she hadn't been taken by Vecna, he was doing the same now even though she had no access to anything she could use to potentially hurt herself and she was being watched by Mrs. Byers and Will. It gave both her and Eddie something to do and Eddie hoped it made her feel like she was contributing somehow.

"How's it looking out there? How's Isaac?" asked Chrissy just as Eddie was considering asking Hopper for a smoke.

"Quiet and tense, just like it's been all night," Eddie responded. "And Isaac's fighting a losing battle trying to stay awake. Poor guy went months with no sleep in the Upside Down and now that he's back, Vecna's being an asshole and waking him up every time anything from the Upside Down sneezes or scratches its nose or farts. He's exhausted."

As if he knew what Eddie was saying about him, inside the lobby, Isaac's head perked up off his chest and he gave Eddie a feeble thumbs-up.

"How are things up there?" Eddie asked Chrissy.

"Same. Will and Mrs. Byers keep looking out the window and it's driving me nuts that I can't just stand up and do it too."

"It's better that you can't see what's going on, not that there's anything to see right now."

"But when there is…" Chrissy trailed off suggestively.

"Happy thoughts, please. I'll expect something disgustingly optimistic from you at the next check-in thirty minutes from now."

Eddie set his walkie down on the snack table he was currently sitting on as Eleven presently joined him, squashing a box of fruit snacks as she hopped up beside him.

"Did you tell him?" asked Eleven with a nod at Isaac who was pinching the brim of his nose until he bled to try and wake himself up. She didn't need to elaborate on the meaning of her words, as Eddie knew that she would have seen everything he had seen if she had been in the void. It wasn't her place to share what she had seen and she hadn't, but since she was the only one who knew what had gone on in Eddie's nightmare vision and the only one who could claim to know Henry (unlike Brenner), Eddie valued her insight on the matter.

"What good would it do to tell him? It's not like it would change anything," said Eddie morosely. "Last time it was him telling me that sometimes, you just gotta deal with it when it happens and he won't appreciate me turning that back around on him, so what he doesn't know can't hurt him–yet. Which reminds me…"

Eddie dug into his back pocket for his wallet and pulled out a very wrinkled ten dollar bill which he placed in Eleven's hand.

"That should be enough for two, maybe three strawberry smoothies."

Staring at the money and piecing together what he was trying to tell her, Eleven attempted to push it back on him. "No, I want you to be there to get a smoothie with me."

"I know, and I wanna be. That's just–just for in case, okay? I like to have my bases covered."

"I don't want it because you're going to be there with me," said Eleven sternly. "Henry knows how to scare people, trick them into thinking what he wants them to think. He knew what to say to scare you and make you do what he wants, just like he did to me once. Don't believe what he says, Eddie. He tried to scare us last time and we killed him. We can do it again. We have more help this time and I'm stronger now."

"I know you are, kid, but he's not exactly targeting you, is he? Who's he gone after since he's come back? Your dad? Will and Mrs. Byers? He's not trying to hurt you this time. Or maybe he is and he's just saving you for last, but until he's done with me, he won't be worrying or focusing on you. So, not to put any pressure on you or anything, but try to use that to your advantage if you can, okay? Come at him while his attention isn't on you."

It wasn't easy to forget that Eddie still had Eleven on his side but somehow, he always temporarily displaced that fact when he considered how bleak the prospect looked for him. If Vecna was a big enough dumbass to also forget that Eleven was a viable threat while he was instead focusing on tormenting Eddie, that could be the one advantage Eddie needed to ensure that he would be there in person to buy that smoothie for Eleven. He wanted to believe her when she said that Vecna was a master manipulator and that he relied on his victims' fear of the unknown to make it a reality, but there had been too many close calls, too many hits close to home for Eddie to believe that Vecna was just bullshitting in the hopes of scaring him.

Eleven left him to follow Hopper on another rotation of circling the parking lot and Eddie ejected his MP5K magazine to count the rounds for the fourteenth or fifteenth time. He concluded yet again that his magazine was full when he heard the glass door opening behind him and spun around expecting to see Isaac somehow free of his restraints sneaking out but instead he saw Dustin.

The teen had evidently stolen a soldier's helmet and was wearing it now along with hockey pads strapped to his shins and forearms and a baseball catcher's breastplate cover. He had one of those kerosine-soaked spears in hand and the last of his fireworks tucked into his backpack, ready for use.

"No, absolutely not, Henderson. Take that ass right back inside. This isn't a playground," snapped Eddie.

"You're out here," Dustin protested.

"I'm authorized, I'm an adult, and I have more experience. You must be this high to ride the Dirty Dozen train." Eddie held his hand level with his eyes. "That, or you must be over eighteen, neither of which applies to you, so beat it."

"If I'd listened to you the last time you told me I couldn't be out here, Isaac might have killed some reporters and Chrissy might not be alive. Hopper said I could be out here, just not armed."

"That was before. We're expecting a frontal assault at any time and I can't be yelling at you to get your butt inside when shit's going down."

"I think I have enough common sense to do that without you telling me. You can't stop me, Eddie. I'm only four years younger than you."

"Five," Eddie corrected. "I'm gonna be twenty-one before you're sixteen. That puts me at legal drinking age and you just old enough to be driving with adult supervision. We are not the same."

"Argue all you want, but I'm staying out here," said Dustin stubbornly.

"Why? What d'you have to prove to me or Steve or whoever you're doing this for?"

Eddie had only known the kid for about eleven months but he had lost all of that baby-face pudginess that had made him look like some poor little lost soul when Eddie first spotted him in the school cafeteria. He'd grown up in the past year–they all had, but it was more jarring for Eddie to see visible proof of that in watching these young teenagers become young adults. If this was what it was like for parents having to cut the umbilical cord with every major life event that their kids attended, Eddie wanted no part of it. Dustin and the others were Eddie's and he was not prepared to watch them arm themselves and fight when there was the option not to. He, Steve, Nancy, Robin, and Chrissy had more or less been forcibly rocketed into fighting, but with a handful of youngsters in their company, they had to make that decision to be the adults. No one was making Dustin, Lucas, Mike, and Will be the adults here but Dustin still wanted to be and for the life of him, Eddie could not figure out why because like him, Dustin just enjoyed being a kid.

"Maybe there doesn't have to be a reason," said Dustin in response. "Maybe I just wanna be out here with you guys. You and Isaac and Hopper all use the excuse that we're kids and we are, but we can do more than you give us credit for and we've proven that time and again. Age has nothing to do with it. You hear of these kid geniuses going to college and what kind of environment is that for a kid? Same thing applies here: it's a warzone, but I've been in that warzone four times already and you've been in it once. I'm not legal age? Arrest me. Oh, right, you can't because the law doesn't apply anymore. I know you wanna protect me, Eddie, but that works both ways."

"Okay, for argument's sake, let's say that I let you fight. You don't know how to use a gun which is the best weapon you can be wielding right now. I don't have time to teach you and you could seriously injure or kill someone if you go waving one around without any idea how to use it. In this precise battle, gunfire is unavoidable and since you can't participate in that, you can't be here, not this time."

"I'm not waiting for whenever the next time is, dammit. What if there isn't a next time? What if I'm meant to help out here, right now?"

Eddie was no longer listening, for he had just seen Isaac stand up inside the lobby and turn his full attention to the south side of the building. He looked completely aware of himself and his surroundings, which told Eddie that this was it.

"To the south!" he called.

As one, everyone in the parking lot pivoted to their left, raising their guns in preparation to fire. Eddie shoved Dustin behind him as an all-too-familiar dinosaur-like sound echoed across the woods. Planting himself into a defensive stance but fighting the urge to run for it, Eddie placed his middle finger on the MP5K trigger.

In a spectacular display of both strength and agility, a demogorgon sailed clean over the wall and landed near one of the fire pits which was the only reason they got a leg up on it because those few seconds spent retracting from the heat were all they needed. Half of the wall guard turned to shoot it while the other half kept their attention on the other UDC's that were starting to batter forward in an attempt to topple the walls.

"Blast him!" ordered Hopper, and one of the soldiers with a flamethrower attached to his back doused the demogorgon from head to toe. Still lethal and now angry on top of deadly, the demogorgon swiped at anything within reach. Warning everyone to stay back, Hopper took his axe in hand and swung wide, slicing through the demogorgon's neck with one clean sweep. No sooner had the creature's body dropped, twitching and smoldering, that four demodogs breached the wall.

"Here they come!" shouted Nancy.

Eddie readied his automatic and glancing skyward at the dozens of attack packs beginning to form, he swore. He took a knee to present less of a target and tilted his gun barrel up, blasting at least four or five bats out of the sky as they began to swarm in groups of ten and twenty from all directions, blinding the defenders to whatever else was emerging from the woods. If the defenders didn't clear the air, they all ran the risk of shooting each other in the confusion.

"Dustin, airborne fireworks now!" Eddie hollered.

The sound of something fizzling behind him alerted him to Dustin already complying and with a grunt of exertion, Dustin pitched a firework as high into the air as he could where it exploded and shot sparks in all directions. Bats fled the scene in droves to avoid the heat and the light and soldiers began to turn their weapons upon the retreating fluttering of wings until it was quite literally raining bat bodies.

So focused on the bats were they that no one had noticed two displacer beasts climbing the walls until one of its tentacles cracked just like the whip in Eddie's nightmare and skewered a soldier through the chest, flinging him backwards and out over the wall where–if he wasn't dead yet–more UDC's made quick work of ensuring that he would be. One beast began wreaking havoc by seizing whatever was in reach with its tentacles and throwing it every which way until half the parking lot fighters were scrambling for cover.

To the surprise of all except those who knew her, Nancy stomped forward with her shotgun nestled comfortably into the crook of her shoulder and fired straight into the beast's eye-less face. Robin followed up with driving a flaming spear tip into the beast's side and then she and Nancy alternated between shooting and stabbing the damned thing until it lay still upon the ground.

Eddie was about to shout a celebratory whoop for the ladies' benefit when a demodog barreled right through Nancy, mouth stretched wide, and latched onto Robin from behind where it sank its layers of teeth into her shoulder. Robin's cry of pain and terror was cut off as she smacked her face on the pavement and Eddie saw her go cross-eyed from the impact. As the demodog ripped through Robin's jean jacket and tore off a piece of flesh in the process, Nancy drove the butt of her shotgun into its face to almost no effect other than to get its attention.

"Nancy, get outta the way!" Eddie warned, lifting his automatic scope up to his eye.

Throwing herself flat, Nancy covered her head as Eddie held down the trigger to his automatic and peppered the demodog with bullets until it keeled over and collapsed across Robin's back. Eddie and Dustin reached her at the same time, kicked the corpse off of her, and began to drag her toward the glass doors.

A quick glance around and Eddie was able to see that they were losing this battle. Hopper and Murray were back to back, shooting at cat-sized but centipede-shaped UDC's that appeared to have armored heads and could only be killed by shots to their underbellies. Eleven was engaged in combat with a demogorgon whilst attempting to keep more UDC's from scaling the walls. Soldiers were running for cover, abandoning their posts, being reckless with their aim.

"Go help, I've got her," Dustin assured Eddie, pulling Robin's upper back to his chest and beginning to hobble backward with her.

Eddie found that his magazine was empty and quickly reloaded while on the go, jogging over to where Steve was whacking with his bat repeatedly and ineffectively at one of the giant spiders' sides.

"Go for the head!" Eddie advised as the spider rounded on Steve with its double set of pincers snapping and clicking menacingly.

Steve brought his bat up overhead and then smashed it down on where the spider's eyes would have been, if it had been designed to have any. The spider shrank back from Steve's bat, but the victory was short-lived as one of the spider's many legs cut Steve's legs out from under him in blind defense. Remembering how Isaac had downed a spider by a couple of well-placed shots to its head, Eddie snatched up Steve's fallen rifle, held it at waist height, and fired several rounds into the spider's skull until its legs curled inward in a clear sign that it was dead or dying.

Offering out his hand to help Steve up, Eddie was in the process of giving back the rifle when he watched a tentacle lock around Steve's midsection and haul him backwards with Eddie's hand still grasping Steve's. They both went flying, as Eddie had no intention of letting go of Steve when he knew what was on the other end of that tentacle. Before the displacer beast to which the tentacle was attached could sink its claws into either of them upon their hard landing at its feet, Eddie unsheathed his machete and cut clean through the tentacle that was still pinning Steve down. He fumbled with his MP5K, dreading the moment when he realized he was not fast enough to save both himself and Steve, but there was no one else to put between themselves and the UDC.

"Eddie, down!"

He shouldn't have heard that voice outside, but he did. He only had time to glance back and see something aflame before dropping down to kiss the ground. Lifting his head, he saw Isaac with his wrists cuff-free which told him someone had freed him and since Eddie still had the only key to any cuffs holding his brother, that someone had to be Eleven. Isaac hurtled whatever was in his hand at the displacer beast on Eddie's tail and with the sound of shattering glass, the fiery something exploded, setting the beast aflame.

Isaac dropped to his knees, clawing at his own body as if trying to swat off fire that wasn't there. He and the beast seemed to be competing as to who could scream louder with one going up in flames and the other experiencing the sensation but being unable to see or touch it. As the displacer beast began to shrivel and leak acid onto the asphalt with a dying shriek, Isaac ripped a gash on his own cheek. He threw himself flat on his back with his hands scrabbling at his chest as if he were trying to rip his own guts out and the sounds–the sounds he was making were enough for Eddie to clap his hands over his ears and screw up his face to blot them out. He had been entirely focused on blocking out Isaac's cries that he hadn't noticed when they stopped or how Isaac had suddenly made it to his feet and was staring him down through empty black eyes.

Eddie had no time to run as Isaac lunged for him–but Steve got there first. He pressed the bat handle across Isaac's windpipe and both of them went down on the pavement. Isaac was stronger in his delirium, but the human limits of this mortal host to Vecna's power meant that he had to focus his energy on combating Steve rather than attempting to get to Eddie. Perhaps it was a trick of the firelight, but Eddie swore he could see Isaac's canines growing into points as he bared his teeth and tried to ram his head backwards at Steve.

Steve crossed his ankles over Isaac's middle in an effort to contain him and spat at Eddie, "Beat it! He's trying to get to you, so get out of sight!"

But he couldn't take cover now when there was nowhere to go and nothing to be gained. His place was right here to either wait for Isaac to come back to himself or to shoot him in the head if it looked like he wasn't going to come back. And in any case, he didn't like Steve's chances against Vecna's puppet for much longer, as Steve had never been one to boast victory in single-handed combat.

More UDC's were flooding onto the compound and Steve and Isaac were too exposed out here to be having this scuffle. Even with Eddie standing guard over them, they were by no means safe. They needed a quick solution to get Isaac back in his right state of mind or someone needed to smack him with enough blunt force to render him unconscious without causing interior bleeding.

Eddie saw the smoking tail of a live firework go soaring over him, aimed at Isaac, and in the shower of sparks that exploded right over him, Isaac surged upward like he was being exorcized. He tried to draw away from the heat, but Steve held him fast and then Dustin and Nancy appeared, both clutching a firework and a lighter. Eddie ran to the nearest firepit where a piece of metal scaffolding had fallen in and the tip was glowing yellow-white with the heat. He snatched up the metal tube and then–hating himself–he plunged it straight into Isaac's side.

Isaac's drawn-out monstrous screams continued for a solid twenty seconds until Eddie heard his brother's voice break through.

Yanking the metal tube away, Eddie saw Isaac collapse against Steve as the fight went out of him but Steve–simpleminded as he was at times–knew better than to let go of him just now.

Dustin stood over Isaac with his firework still held aloft threateningly but asked in a would-be cheery voice, "Isaac, you okay there, bud?"

For a second or two, Isaac said nothing, then his hand lashed out and grabbed Dustin around the ankle, but it was not an act of violence but rather of warning. "Run," he gasped. "Everyone…gotta run."

A deep, thunderous heartbeat set the ground pulsing but far from being something about to emerge from the earth, the sound instead came from the treetops in the surrounding forest. It was the beat of hundreds, maybe thousands of wings flapping and a dark, shapeless mass rose, rapidly growing in size as it approached the lab like a storm cloud invoking the wrath of a titan.

"Oh, fuck," Eddie whispered.

"Everyone hit the deck!" Hopper roared and the survivors dropped in unison as if they all had simultaneously taken a bullet to the brain.

Eddie covered his head with his arms as he felt the very air press in on him, clogged with winged bodies all searching for anything that stood out, anything they could swarm and attack if it showed even the slightest sign of life. Peeking through a gap in his arms, Eddie thought he had momentarily gone color-blind, as all he could see was the black asphalt upon which he lay and countless gray shapes darting every which way. He could hear Dustin swearing, Nancy trying to shout out some sort of half-assed game plan, other soldiers yelling and shrieking.

Then he heard an explosion and dared to lift his head a fraction of an inch to see multicolored bursts of light falling from the rooftop high above. Someone up there was chucking more fireworks down into the tornado of demobats and Eddie had a very strong suspicion of who that someone might be. Sure enough, he saw three vastly different hairstyles appear at the edge of the roof for just a moment and though he was inwardly cursing those boys, he had to be thankful as well.

As the bats began to break apart in form and scatter into smaller groups, Eddie sat up another inch or two and saw to his horror that Nancy was being dragged across the blacktop by her ankle as at least ten bats combined their effort to lift her. She was doing everything in her power not to make a sound, lest she draw more bats to her, but she had no way to defend herself and if someone didn't do something to help her in the next five seconds, there would be no Nancy Wheeler in another twenty.

Eddie sat up on his knees and sprayed the bats above Nancy with gunfire until it appeared that large gray raindrops were falling from the sky and leaving misshapen puddles where they landed. Nancy lay still when the last of the bats released her and Eddie was about to call out to her when something sharp slapped around his throat and cut off his cry before it could be born. He dropped his automatic and reached for his machete as his left hand tried to work his fingers under the cordage around his neck. He watched two more tails curl around his wrists, preventing him from using his arms at all as his limbs were pulled in opposite directions. Like the displacer beasts, the bats had barbs along their tails and Eddie felt them cutting into his skin at all points of contact. He tried to swallow, tried to yank his arms back in toward his torso, but for something roughly the size of half a Labrador retriever, the bats were incredibly strong.

Tiny, razor-sharp teeth bit into his forearm as the bats set upon him and decided to make a feast of him right there. He would have screamed as he felt small bits of skin being ripped from his bones, but he couldn't make a sound with the tail wrapped so tightly around his throat.

In a wild and displaced train of thought, he counted the windows along the lab's second floor and found the one to Chrissy's room, wondering if she was up there watching him die…

Then, one of the bats that had a hold on his arm gave a yelp like a beaten animal and released him. Another made the same sound and let go, and another until all the pressure and teeth were gone from his body. He felt someone give him a hard shove between the shoulder blades, pushing him forcibly down, and then that someone crawled on top of him to shield him from further harm.

Only one person could have any impact on making the bats suddenly forget Eddie was there. He heard Isaac's ragged breathing above him and a word or two warning him to stay down this time. They waited for what seemed like an eternity for the bats to disperse further, but the fireworks had only made them space themselves out and had done nothing to actually drive them off.

Eddie and the others were pinned down, unable to help themselves…at least until Dustin unleashed hellfire on them with the flamethrower he had acquired from the body of the last soldier who had used it. Where he had learned to operate one of those things, Eddie had no idea, but it was an incredible sight to behold as he watched Dustin wave the ignited tip of his new weapon in an arc over his head. The flamethrower had an impressive reach and the bats were now giving it a wide enough berth that Eddie and the other Party members were able to look up and collect themselves for one last counter-attack. The skies were clearing, the Upside Down's forces were falling back, and all that remained was to send them packing.

Then a solid wall of bats rushed Dustin from behind, colliding with him hard enough to disarm him and send him sprawling. At least thirty bats latched onto his legs, his arms, his shoulders, and as one, lifted him straight up into the air. He could hardly move, immobilized by the numerous tails wrapped around him, but he did cry for help.

"Steve! Eddie, Steve, do something!"

"DUSTIN!" Steve screamed from somewhere behind Eddie.

Eddie was sitting up, pushing Isaac off of him, and picking up his fallen MP5K. He lifted his gun to fire, but he only had a handful of bullets left, not enough to even make a dent. Switching to his Colt, he fired until he heard the gut-dropping click that meant that magazine was empty as well. He raged and hollered, but the bats paid him no heed as they bore Dustin away.

The kid was still screaming, loud, clear, and terrifying in Eddie's ears even now that he was several dozen yards away. Eddie's chest was on fire, but not from any physical hit, not from any influence of Vecna. It was collapsing in on itself as his heart shattered at the sight of Dustin growing smaller and smaller in the distance.

Gasping for breath, refusing to believe he had failed his friend, Eddie staggered to his feet in a desperate attempt to run after him and keep running for however long it took. The bats would have to land somewhere eventually, right? But even as he started to propel himself forward, Eddie knew he would never catch up, that nothing could catch up in time.

He felt several sets of hands pinning his arms to his side and drawing him back. Isaac, Hopper, and Murray had taken hold of him and not ten feet from him, Nancy had her arms around Steve to prevent him from doing as Eddie wanted in going after their friend who did not have the luxury of a fail-safe as Chrissy and Max had. Somehow, Eddie's own screams for Dustin were drowned out and all he could do was listen to Steve's wracking sobs that were magnified tenfold in the enveloping silence.