His jacket and vest protected most of his back as he passed along the forest floor like he was on the longest, darkest, most painful Slip'n Slide known to mankind. He tried to sit forward far enough to hack at the vine with his machete, but his abdominal muscles weren't strong enough to keep him upright for that long and more than once, he almost decapitated himself on a log or low-hanging branch. Deciding that it was more important to keep hold of his weapon for when he finally came to a stop rather than to risk dropping it in the scuffle, Eddie lay it on his chest and crossed his arms over it, tucking his chin down to protect his head.
The only way he knew he would ever reunite with the others was if they knew where to find him and since he wasn't one of the party members fortunate enough to be carrying a walkie, he had to make some noise which was the one thing Isaac had warned him not to do.
He finally came to a very bumpy and very disorientated halt and the vine wrapped around his legs recoiled like a tape measurer being retracted. He knew he was injured but couldn't look at the damage, even if he had wanted to, for he had been brought to a section of the woods so densely populated with vines, underbrush, and foliage that not even the endless black storm clouds above could reach him. There was no sense of direction here, no landmark to let him know how far he had been taken.
If he had ever had any real connection to his mother, he would have called for her just now. If he had ever felt that his father would come for him and save him from this pit of the unknown, he would have called for him, too. But he had never had a parent when it mattered most. He only had these past few days with the one family member who he finally knew gave a damn about him, and it was he to whom Eddie called.
"Isaac!" Even to him, his voice sounded frightened, small, and childlike, which was accurate considering his fear of the dark and his desperation to be free of it. "I'm here! Isaac, I'm over here!"
The darkness was impenetrable, suffocating him, preying on his fear of it. He tried to calm his breathing but the panic had already set in and he began to hyperventilate. Clutching his machete, he swung at nothing to ward off the unseen terrors hidden just beyond what his eyeballs could make out. The silence was absolute, leaving him nothing to listen to but his own staggered breathing and his pounding heartbeat.
Was that someone shouting for him in the distance? Was it real, or just a manifestation of what Eddie wanted to hear?
He heard a rumble, almost a gurgling sound of some massive stomach protesting a lack of intake. Fumbling in his front pocket for his lighter, he flicked the fire to life but the pinprick of yellow-white flame could not penetrate the darkness. He pulled his arm out of his jacket and vest and ripped off a large section of his shirt sleeve, wrapping it around the end of his machete and hoping it was enough to buy him maybe a minute of light. Touching the lighter to the cloth material, it caught like sawdust and lit up instantly in his face, nearly singeing off his eyebrows as he lifted his makeshift torch up to eye level.
His shriek of terror died in his throat.
The beast before him was of the same ilk as those creatures he had seen stampeding toward them on the road, the things that had become a living nightmare for Chrissy who insisted Vecna was sending something to block their way, the things that Chrissy had seen eat Eddie and the others alive. If he had to guess at its weight, he would say it was probably close to four or five hundred pounds. He could only liken the creature to a spider with between eight and twelve legs and what had to be pincers on its head except there were no eyes, no facial features to recognize. Like the drawings of the demogorgon and the Mind Flayer that Dustin had so graciously provided for them, this thing appeared to have nothing to help it pinpoint its prey apart from a sense of touch and perhaps a sense of hearing. If that was true, this thing knew exactly where Eddie was after he had spent the last few minutes hollering for his brother.
It had come, not for a fight, but for a feast, and Eddie was the main and only course.
He had his fire-tipped machete which now felt like a toothpick against a predator the size of a full grown tiger, and he had his Colt with seven rounds which were not nearly enough to make a dent in the creature in front of him. In fact, he had the feeling that he could pepper the thing with as many nine millimeter bullets as he wanted and would do nothing more than anger the spider creature.
He could run, but he had no idea if he would be running into more of them and besides, his legs, which were burning from whatever injuries he had sustained on the journey here, would not allow him to run for very long. It was the same situation as it had been with Jason and the other jocks; there was only one option for him and the end did not see him coming out a victor.
There was no better time to die.
"Alright, come on, then, you ugly fucker. Come at me!"
The spider locked onto his voice and lunged. It seemed to depend on its girth to knock Eddie over rather than attack with its many legs and with the instincts of a cornered mouse, Eddie threw himself flat. The body passed harmlessly over him and he could smell a rotting underbelly, wondering if the spider crushed its prey to death by sitting on it. He gagged and the spider whipped back around to make another pass at him but this time he stuck the flaming machete upright and felt the tip of the blade meet resistance as it sliced open the spider's stomach. He rolled, positive that any inter-dimensional spider guts were not going to leave him unscathed and he was very grateful that that thought had occurred to him as he saw the ground melting away with the acidity of the spider's blood.
Even with guts splattering everywhere, he had not killed the damned thing, but he had slowed it down. Now was his chance to run, if he could make it…
He stood up, feeling the abrasions on his legs hindering his speed and agility as he started to jog. He didn't make it ten feet when his ankle snagged on a knotted bit of tree root sticking out of the ground and rather than risk snapping a bone, he allowed himself to fall onto his back. His free hand fumbled for his pistol as he held his machete high, ready for the attack he knew was coming.
The spider bore down on him, its double sets of jaws opened to reveal a triple set of pincers and then the spider took a series of shotgun pellets right to the face. It flinched backward and was hit again, this time with the force of the pellets ripping its face in half.
Eddie saw the back of Isaac's denim coat illuminated by several flashlights behind it as his brother stalked forward, reloading his shotgun and then putting two more slugs in the spider's carcass which had begun to shrivel and bring its many legs inward as it died. Kicking at his kill, Isaac spat at the corpse and then shined the flashlight he had taped to the end of his shotgun on Eddie who was ready to sob in relief at the sight of his brother come yet again to his rescue.
Isaac shifted the shotgun around to his back by its strap, knelt beside him, and pulled Eddie's face to his shoulder. Eddie could feel him shaking and not with adrenaline from the fight. This security blanket of his brother's embrace was the salvation Eddie needed to swallow the emotions in his throat and hug him back. All those years of little to not physical contact were thrown right out the window as he held onto Isaac, eternally grateful to have this comfort from someone who could sense how much he needed it and who very clearly needed it just as badly.
"You're an idiot," Isaac reprimanded as he finally let Eddie go. "There's a time and a place to try and be the goddamned hero and that back there wasn't it. Jesus Christ, boy.."
Chrissy and Max reached him at the same time and though Max gave him a very brief hug, Chrissy punched him in the arm and nearly shouted, "Don't you ever tell me to cut the line again. That was stupid! You're stupid!" before throwing herself at him and kissing his cheek.
"Holy shit," said Steve as he, Nancy, Robin, Jonathan, and Eleven arrived to view the spider body. "Is that what was at the end of the vine?"
"Sort of," said Eddie, holding up his arm for anyone to grab hold of to help him stand. Isaac and Steve each took a limb and as they brought Eddie up vertically, the pain returned tenfold to his legs.
"You're bleeding," Robin pointed out, motioning at the red showing through the torn knees of his jeans. "Did it get you, or was that something else?"
Shamelessly, Eddie unbuckled his belt and dropped his pants so they all could get a look at the severity of his injuries. Everyone's collective wince told him all he needed to know, but he had a look for himself anyway. There were two coiling wounds starting on each of his shins and wrapping upward around his knees and lower thighs. The blood wasn't running freely, but there was enough of it for Eddie to know that he shouldn't risk losing anymore. Should he survive to return to a world with human-occupied hospitals, he supposed that he should have some sort of bullshit story on hand to explain how he had come by these injuries which were sure to leave some gnarly scars Luckily, he had already made an impression with a certain someone and wouldn't have to rely on having smooth, flawless skin (no matter the location) to impress the ladies.
"How are your pants not in absolute tatters after that?" asked Nancy.
"I've seen it happen with dog bites," said Robin. "The bite is deep enough to bruise and even break skin but the denim doesn't have so much as a strand out of place. It's nuts."
"And I am just thrilled that my jeans still only have the holes I intentionally ripped in them but my legs actually really fucking hurt right now."
"I can wrap them in gauze, but that's about all I have," Max offered, examining the lacerations carefully.
"What, did you not think to bring anything else in case of major bodily injuries?" asked Steve.
"Shucks, I think I left my ambulance in my other pants," Max snapped.
"Okay, smartass, then what are we supposed to do about the gaping wounds in his legs?"
"Just keep them clean."
Eddie regarded her filthy face and knew his had to look ten times worse. "Clean, right. Shouldn't be a problem."
Max used up all four rolls of gauze she had brought and supplied a few safety pins to keep them in place. It did almost nothing to help in any way, shape, or form, but Eddie appreciated the notion all the same. He gave Max a pained smile to spare her feelings. Hitching his pants back up, he was just buckling his belt again when he heard the return of that deafening whispering that had followed them for a good portion of their run into the woods.
"More are coming," said Eleven apprehensively. "We need to keep moving."
"Can you run?" Isaac asked Eddie.
"Absolutely not, let's go."
It hurt like hell and he swore every step of the way, but Eddie was able to maintain something of a speed walk with Chrissy and Robin keeping pace with him as they set off in a random direction. They would have to come to some sort of vantage point to get their bearings because they had no idea of their location in a place where compasses didn't work and anything familiar was overgrown with spawn of the Upside Down. Gradually, Eddie noticed the ground starting to slope upward and tried to think of all the steep hills that existed in the woods around Hawkins. He could think of three: one about a mile from and overlooking the Hawkins Lab, one leading down into Lover's Lake, and one as the send-off point for a local dump site behind the trailer park. They would have had to have crossed back over the road at some point to be near the dump site but the other two seemed equally likely, though he hoped they were not near the lab because that would tack on an additional three miles to the Creel house.
Max was at the front and called out when she reached the top, "I see an old house, and it looks like the storm is brewing right over it."
"That should be it. Not many houses would be the center of all evil in a place like this," said Robin excitedly.
Coming up onto the hill crest, Eddie saw the house in question, a dilapidated ruin of a place the size of his thumbnail judging by the distance. The red storm did indeed appear to be swirling over the building but never had there been a clearer "x marks the spot" indication than that. It sent a splash of cold discomfort down Eddie's spine to see the house in person as he had in his nightmares. It was the destination at which he never wanted to arrive, the place he had hoped to never have to see with his waking eyes. Had he seen the future there? Had all those glazed-eyed bodies been a precursor of what was to come, or had that only been to scare him? If so, it had worked because he had seen Isaac's body there, seen it taken by Vecna's curse before it vanished into nothing.
"It's happening!" cried Max suddenly and Eddie looked over to see Isaac frozen in place with his flashlight still pointed down the other side of the hill. He was not staring ahead as he had been when Eddie found him on the radio with Nancy. He was with Vecna. His eyes were soulless, empty, and white.
"...l's doing some…all white and…ear us…" came a panicked, cut-off voice from the radio in Chrissy's pack.
Jonathan pulled out the walkie and responded, "Dustin, Mike, what's happening? Is Will okay? Tell me Will's okay!"
Somewhere in their world, Eddie knew, Will Byers was not okay. This was what Max meant; Vecna would not play by the rules and wait to take two brothers this time.
An awful, choking gargle came from Isaac's throat and his head tilted back, face open to the sky above. His unoccupied hand had curled into a fist at his side while the one that held the flashlight was making an indent in the metal. Then, his head whipped sideways like he had been struck and Eddie saw a red gash appear on his cheek. His lax, gaping mouth suddenly tensed, his teeth ground together, and another cut opened like someone was carving it painstakingly into his skin except this one ran from his right ear down to his jaw.
Everyone except Jonathan–who was shouting into the walkie for Will–were bellowing Isaac's name.
Eddie didn't know why it took him so long to react but when he finally was able to move, he stumbled into Isaac and grabbed his face. When it mattered most that he yell, that he holler for the entire Upside Down to hear because it was the only thing he knew for certain would reach his brother, his voice failed him. All he could do was stare into those white orbs and will them to turn back to brown.
What an absolute fuckup he was. Never once had Isaac hesitated to come to his aid, never once had he faltered or been unsure of what to do where Eddie was involved other than to give his everything and his all to put himself between Eddie and the danger. Isaac was born for this life and this role while Eddie could only try, only hope that what little effort he put in was enough. This right here was the moment where Eddie alone had the power to save his brother, but he knew he was bound for failure before he began because the opposition was too much.
He is mine, vowed a voice that wasn't his in Eddie's head, in his gut, in his very being. They all will be mine, and you will see it happen.
He shook his brother so furiously that Isaac's collarbone was in danger of snapping.
"Eddie, talk to him!" Chrissy pleaded.
His voice cracked, sending him back into the prepubescent era of when his voice was even higher than it was now. "Isaac, you're not going anywhere. You don't get to do this to me. I need you here right now. Right fucking now, dammit! Isaac! Isaac!"
"Move," said Eleven authoritatively from behind him and Eddie instantly obeyed as he watched her raise her hand at Isaac, center her gaze on him, and begin to pull as if an invisible thread connected him to her. Isaac's head pitched forward and a tiny expression appeared by the pulling together of his eyebrows. Two tiny trails of blood were leaking down from each of his nostrils, and from Eleven's as well.
She was going to do it, Eddie knew. He cupped his hands underneath Isaac's armpits, ready to catch him as Eleven gave a hard wrench of her hand before thrusting it forward and Isaac's full weight fell onto Eddie. He was prepared for it, but it still put him on his ass as he heard his brother panting for breath and saw him grasping for something in the now. Chrissy and Max were there to take hold of his hands while Eddie cocooned Isaac's upper body with his arms.
"I could hear you, but I couldn't move," said Isaac shakily. "I heard an echo of your voice, but he had me frozen."
"What happened?" Chrissy questioned.
"He grew…more limbs," said Isaac in recollection. "And each one ended in a claw. I was in the house and he had me pinned to the wall and he kept cutting me with–" Raising a hand to touch his face, Isaac glared at the blood on his fingertips in a very pissed off manner. "Son've a bitch."
Eleven took a knee in front of him and some sort of understanding passed between them during which Isaac spotted the blood under her nose as well.
"What did you do?" Steve asked her.
"I took him back," Eleven answered simply. "Him and Will. Vecna was trying to take them both. He knew I would try to stop him and it would make me weaker to save them."
Blindsided by the attack on his brother, Eddie only now realized the cost of getting him back. Vecna truly was an intelligent, malicious piece of shit to deliberately go after two of their own, knowing that Eleven would want to help them and that the only reason she would use her powers before the final confrontation would be to save them. They had made a deal from the beginning to do the heavy lifting upfront to conserve Eleven's energy but now, she was going into this fight at half power capacity.
"We can just wait a little while, right?" asked Jonathan. "Let her rest here while she builds up her strength again. Or we can carry her to the Creel house."
"No," said Eleven firmly. "He will keep trying to take Will and Isaac and the others the longer we wait and I will not be able to save them every time. We have to get to him now while I still have any strength at all."
"You shouldn't have had to waste any of it on me," said Isaac. "I promised you that we would get you to him without using your powers but that didn't happen. So you're going to let me carry you from here to that house and you're not going to lift a finger to help."
"But you can't–"
"Watch me."
Unlike Eddie, Isaac had a generous sprinkling of pride when it came to admitting that he was weak or incapable of doing something and not even having his soul almost consumed by a demon could deter him from that. Ignoring the cuts on his face and the blood still dribbling from his nose, he stood up, preparing to swing Eleven over his shoulders fireman style if necessary when a thunderous crash from behind them announced the arrival of multiple spiders starting to swarm the hilltop.
Jonathan took Eleven by the hand and jumped. With the exclusion of the never-ending network of vines, the hill was soft and bountiful in a mixture of grass and dead leaves, which made for a lighter impact as they rolled on the way down. In rapid succession, the others followed until predictably, only Eddie and Isaac were left, but Eddie's fear of further injuring his legs kept him rooted in place.
"You've gotta do it," said Isaac. "Unless you have a better idea, you have to jump now!"
"Jesus Christ, why?" Eddie wailed even though he knew exactly why.
"Because we're gonna die if we don't, now jump!"
Isaac had already thrown himself down the hill and the spiders were nearly upon Eddie. He tore out a chunk of his hair and yelped, "Goddammit, why? Fucking why?" before launching himself into space. It was better to keep his eyes clamped shut to avoid the nauseating sight of scenery folding in on itself as he tumbled head first down the hill but a minute later when he felt his body come to a grinding halt, his head was still spinning and he felt just as ill as if he'd kept his eyes open.
Steve and Robin were lugging him to his feet, urging him to run, and where the strength to do so came from, he couldn't say. He could only see Chrissy, Max, and Jonathan ahead of him by about ten yards and in the lead, Isaac with Eleven riding piggyback just as he had promised. It would have been a mercy to stop, but they couldn't, not until they were certain that they had put enough space between them and the spiders that they were safe to walk the rest of the way. That feeling of safety did not come for another two miles where they all collapsed and lay in grievous silence for some time to regain their breath and wait for the feeling of having their lungs ripped apart steadily subside.
Robin was the first to recover and distributed one of their two remaining water bottles around, though no one felt much like drinking. Everyone just wanted to rest, to curl up and never have to walk another step, but they couldn't. Almost in a zombie-like state, they clambered back up and set off once again single file with Eleven still riding on Isaac's back. All nursing injuries from the rough and tumble manner of descent down the hill, they made for a sorry bunch of heroes limping toward the Creel house in the not-distant-enough distance. Eddie thoroughly expected another attack or twelve on Isaac, Chrissy, or Max, but their luck held. He expected for the spiders to catch up to them and force them into another painful marathon, but Vecna appeared to have grown bored with torturing them in such a fashion.
Their arrival at the Creel house was positively uneventful, which made it that much more tempting to tuck tail and run their asses back the way they had come to the nearest gate while the Upside Down seemed passive enough. Eddie had never been to this place in his own world, as the town rumors and the house's history were enough to keep even the most daring believers of the ether world out. He had only been to the Upside Down creation of the house in his dreams and that had been more than enough to dissuade him from ever wanting to see the place up close and in person, yet here he was.
It was not like something out of a Scooby-Doo cartoon, animated and hiding something that could be either sinister or unexpected. Eddie knew exactly what was in that very life-like house and had no desire to venture closer.
Overhead, the storm had all of their hair standing on end, yet no lightning struck now that they were in the eye of it. Taking this as the best sign that they could hope for, they wordlessly split into teams and groups to distribute tasks. Steve, Jonathan, and Nancy were setting the trap and preparing to sprinkle leaves over it to hide it from view. Robin was positioning the containers of gas at four different strategic points in the yard near cover areas. Chrissy and Max were keeping watch on the front door like an alarm, ready to go off if triggered.
Isaac had Eleven stationed behind a tree closest to the wrought iron gate and farthest from the front door. "You stay back until we've got him in the trap," he told her severely. "I mean it. If you try to take him while he still has full mobility, he'll kill you before you ever get a chance. No matter what he does to the rest of us, you don't come out until we've got him in that trap. Nod if you understand."
"I understand. Don't miss."
Eddie followed Isaac back up the walkway, checking the rounds in his magazine and feeling his extra ammunition in his pocket with every step. "Seems a bit odd that Vecna's known we're here this whole time but hasn't tried to stop us from setting this up, almost like he's inviting a challenge," he mused.
"He knows we're here, but he doesn't know what we're doing. Everyone, you know your jobs, hold your positions and get him in that trap. Eleven won't stand a chance unless we can pin him down. Don't be shy with your ammo and please, don't shoot anyone else in the ass."
"He's coming," said Max suddenly and it wounded Eddie to see her, the youngest of them, just a human with no powers, armed with a revolver and a fire poker. This should not have been what her life amounted to. Eddie somehow felt responsible for it, felt the need to apologize for what had happened and what was about to.
"Max," he began, but Steve was already pulling her away to hide and Eddie took Chrissy's hand to lead her to the base of the large maple growing off to the left. They had just ducked behind it when Eddie heard the presence of that groaning inhale that he had first heard as he approached Penny on the trampoline. He set his hand over his chest, just to ensure that his soul was still rattling around in there and hadn't been sucked out.
The front door opened on its own with the most drawn out creak and an unnatural fog seeped out of the house, preceding the humanoid figure of their collective worst nightmares. There was nothing ethereal about him as he walked. He didn't glide or float out on the fog, he just walked with booming, resounding footsteps that shook the earth.
"I know you're here," he taunted. They were the words he had said to Eddie in his last nightmare and Eddie had run for the front door to escape the house, but what could he do now that he was already outside? Running was no longer an option once he stepped foot on the Creel lawn.
The vines strewn across the lawn started to move, brought to life by their master's anticipation and excitement at the close proximity of his prey. Already, Eddie and the others were made to be on defense to evade the vines that drove them from their hiding places and forced them into plain view of Vecna who was standing at the bottom of the front porch.
Vecna spread his arms almost invitingly and Eddie felt the absence of Chrissy's presence beside him. He dreaded what he would find when he turned to look at her, but he knew he had to. It was a sight he knew well by now but one that never failed to make him feel like he had just taken a dive into a bucket of ice water. Her eyelids were flickering and her Walkman was not on.
"Chrissy!"
But before he could do more than say her name, he saw bodies snapping into rigidness around him. It wasn't just Chrissy; it was Nancy and Jonathan, it was Max, it was Isaac. All stuck in the void, all lost to any attempts to save them, all a representation of Eddie's nightmare come to fruition.
Only Robin and Steve were immune to Vecna's pull. Them and Eddie.
He heard the screams of the damned in his ears, heard Isaac and Chrissy and Max as if he were inside their heads, listening to Vecna ripping them apart. Their souls were cast out into the wastelands of the Upside Down, forever trapped, forever out of his reach.
He couldn't bring them back on his own, there were too many. He couldn't call on Eleven to save them. He would have to watch them all die and hope he, Steve, and Robin were enough to push Vecna to the brink even though he knew they could never be enough. Nothing he did was ever enough to stop everything from happening to him again and again. His resilience had only proven that his fall would be that much more devastating when he shattered and failed. Fighting back, trying to win, trying to be anything more than the shit he was and always had been, was useless.
And he had a whole box of useless nine millimeters in his pocket, so he drew his Colt and shot the bastard in the head. His accuracy astounded him enough that he heard himself laugh aloud in his short-lived victory. The bullet didn't kill Vecna, but it did wound him enough to distract him and Eddie saw Nancy come back to the present with a shake of her head.
"Steve, Robin, shoot him!" Eddie commanded.
Turning their projectile weapons on the demon, Steve and Robin opened fire. Steve was an abysmal shot and Robin fair, but they were enough to draw Vecna's attention. He started toward them when a giant hole was blasted into his cranium by Nancy's rifle. Then a bullet hole opened in his chest, blown into existence by Isaac's shotgun.
Gunfire erupted from everywhere as with every bullet, one of the party broke from Vecna's hold. Then, they heard Lucas saying something over the radio which had been left in Max's bag across the yard from where she was now. Eddie understood something about Will and knew Vecna still had one potential victim at his disposal.
Max ran to retrieve the walkie, cutting behind Vecna's back as she tore across the lawn but he heard her and closed a fist in midair which seemed to activate a vine from beneath him that ensnared Max's ankle and cut her off mid-stride. She struck her chin hard on the walkway and her hands tore up tufts of grass as she tried to anchor herself but Vecna summoned the vines to him, drawing in the weakest and the youngest of them to use as a shield against them.
Eddie had been in the process of reloading his clip when he saw Max fall and he abandoned that process to shove the magazine back into place and open fire on Vecna. Three bullets hit Vecna's shoulder but as he rounded on where Eddie had been a few seconds before, Eddie was already beside Max, bringing his machete down to cut the vine from her ankle. He should have ducked or drawn back or done something other than stare stupidly at the vine as it shrank back momentarily but then he saw the severed tip elongating into a sharpened point and draw up to eye level with him. It struck, ripping a lesion across his chest as it tore away cloth and skin.
Eddie's back arched over and he supposed that to those watching, his fall was somewhat graceful. When his tailbone hit the ground and sent shock waves up his spine to the base of his skull, he wondered what degree of a concussion he had just sustained. He was quite shocked to find himself still alive when the absolute fire on his chest told him that he should have been sliced open but as he touched two fingers to the wound with morbid curiosity, he found that it was actually rather shallow. The blow had not been mortal, unlike the next blow that was about to come as Vecna prepared to send another vine to skewer him through the stomach.
"Hey, asshole!"
Her voice was a siren's song, luring and intoxicating and oh, so enticing even to a demon as Vecna turned his eyes on Chrissy who had come within mere feet of him to establish the very best shot she could. Jonathan and Max had taken hold of Eddie's arms and started to lug him back toward one of the contact points with the gas canisters but Eddie could still see Chrissy quite clearly, alone and unafraid. She stood there, pistol in hand, and shot Vecna dead center between the eyes. His head whipped back but revolved back slowly so he could leer down at her and she lowered her gun, arms hanging loosely at her sides as her fear became reality in front of her. She looked so small and frail before this warped, muscular body before her and it was no wonder that she had been unable to escape him on her own the first two times.
"Chrissy, don't look at him!"
But she was locked in, transfixed by the resonating, horrifying pull of power that emanated from the skeletal body stalking toward her. There was only enough of a conscience in her to take small, measured steps backward. She was quaking, dry sobbing in panic as she retreated bit by bit, but Vecna was taking his time with her, enjoying prolonging her terror. She stumbled slightly but was back up in an instant and Eddie could see that she had come to a halt just a few paces back from the inconspicuous pile of leaves where the bear trap was concealed.
You brilliant, incredible woman.
She was baiting Vecna, and as the greedy, despair-mongering piece of shit he was, he bought into every fake tear. His measured strides would place his right foot directly on the trap in the next four steps.
"Get ready," Eddie told Jonathan and Max.
Vecna's foot activated the trap and the metal jaws closed around his ankle. He looked down more out of annoyance than pain and tried to pull himself free, but for all of his mental strength, his physical prowess was still that of a man and he was sealed in tight.
"Now!" Eddie hollered and he, Jonathan, Steve, and Max rushed in with the spray nozzles ready, coating both Vecna and the immediate ground around him. Max unscrewed the spray attachment to her canister and dumped the entirety of it at Vecna's feet. Those spider-like legs were sprouting from Vecna's back, preparing to stab and impale whatever was close enough.
"Back!" shouted Chrissy, and Eddie saw the small light in her hands. He dropped his canister and threw himself and Max away from the impact zone as Chrissy tossed the lighter into the pool of gasoline.
Vecna lit up like a dead tree in a forest fire and an unbearable shrieking made everyone in close proximity to him clap their hands over their ears. His multiple extensions had mutated into five-fingered claws and struck the ground around him, leaving twelve inch divots.
The voice over the radio was coming in at its clearest yet and Eddie could hear the voices of Dustin, Lucas, and Mike still calling for Will. The boy was the last one, the only one Vecna still had a hold on and the bastard was going to kill him even if it was his last act.
Jonathan whirred the chainsaw to life and rushed Vecna in the bravest, stupidest devotion of sibling love that Eddie ever could have fathomed. The elder Byers brother leaped right into the flames, slicing a clear line through at least a quarter of Vecna's neck where a centrifugal collection of vines broke apart like veins bursting. Jonathan landed on the other side of the roasting pit and wheeled back around to have another go. Roaring in pain, Vecna's many arms thrashed and one went clean through Jonathan's thigh, pinning him down as a second hovered just over his face.
Nancy was shrieking for him, firing the last of her rounds uselessly at Vecna's back.
The claw descended onto Jonathan's face and the nails sank into his skin at five different entry points, the middle being his brain. He stopped moving almost immediately, as the center claw had penetrated deeply enough to kill him on impact.
"Will's always gonna need you," Eddie had told him. If Will was still alive, it was thanks to the actions of his brother, his brother who had just died for him. Eddie would have to go back to that poor boy and tell him how his brother had died, that he would now have to try and live without that comfort, try to pass through each day with that aching, wrenching pain of knowing that his brother was dead because he had loved Will enough to lay down his life to save him.
Eddie knew a pain in his heart at the loss of this man who he had befriended just hours ago, who he shared a common bond with, who had walked arm in arm into hell with Eddie knowing full well he might not come out. This death was one he had not expected, and perhaps that was why it hit him so hard.
Vecna was feeding on his anguish and the pain of those around him, those who grieved for Jonathan Byers. This was what made him stronger, made him impossible to defeat while he had the diet of human emotions to thrive on.
"You always knew you could not win," said Vecna. "His will not be the last death to happen here. Everything you are, everything you ever have been or ever will be, is mine."
Eddie shot him twice in the mouth. "Bite me, motherfucker!"
He suspected that he may have taken things too far but Vecna did not have eyes for him any longer. He had rotated on the spot, still burning, still stuck in the trap, to see the last of his opponents coming to finally face him.
Eleven had stepped in front of Chrissy, both arms extended, fingers curled. Vecna raised one arm and brought his nails together to form a ripping claw motion, but whatever he had been expecting to happen, didn't. He took his attention off of Eleven for a moment, searching for one of them whose misery and fear was potent enough to fasten onto and feed off of. He might have tried Chrissy first, but Eleven stood between the two of them. His eyes glanced over Steve, lingered on Robin for a moment, and found Nancy whose face was still awash in tears for Jonathan, but she returned his gaze with such ferocity that he could not maintain a hold on her. Eddie gave him no chance to come for Max, stuffing her behind him, daring him to try.
That left Isaac who locked eyes with Vecna, held the gaze while he loaded a single buckshot into his shotgun, and then blew out the fucker's left eye.
Now with nothing to combat Eleven except his own draining power, Vecna regarded her with the utmost loathing as if irked that she had brought backup that he had severely underestimated, as if the thought of-in Robin's own words-puny mortal humans being able to withstand and overcome his power was unthinkable.
Floating just an inch or so above the ground, Eleven was holding him at bay–and winning. Her screaming was worse than anything Eddie had heard from Vecna thus far to the point that he had to grind his teeth together and curl his body inward to try and escape the sound. His eyes watered as he watched the cut left by Jonathan begin to extend across Vecna's throat, growing, growing. Vecna was still fighting back, but between the burning, the shooting, and Eleven, he was finally, finally outmatched. With a deciding slice of her arms, Eleven completely severed his head from his shoulders and Isaac tossed more gasoline onto the still flaming head where it had come to rest some fifteen feet away. Max had acquired Steve's bat and beat it down onto the skull until it caved in under the impact.
A rip in time and space burst before them, washing them all in a brilliant white light. The vines beneath and around them were folding and twining, drawn to the light like it was their life source. Isaac pulled Max well out of the way of the light's path and not a moment too soon, for Vecna's still burning head was suddenly sucked right into the portal with the horrifying sound of some grotesque animal dying.
Eddie saw Steve and Nancy lifting Jonathan's body to safety, away from the pull of the portal. He saw Vecna's decapitated body hovering in place as it was still chained to the ground by the bear trap and being beckoned by the white light. And he saw the exact moment that the vines released their wrath upon the loss of their master. They lashed out, felling the long-standing tree nearest to them.
Chrissy was struggling through several unsuccessful attempts to stand up and flee from the vines' fury but the earthquakes were ceaseless now and she couldn't hold her position for more than half a second. She was only a dozen feet or so away and Eddie let the natural wobbliness in the back and forth tilt of the ground take him to her. His hands were wrapped around the hood of her jacket, he was heaving her upright, he was shoving her between the shoulder blades to get her moving.
"Go, Chrissy!"
He struggled to make his legs cooperate, to follow her into cover, away from the portal, but they had finally given out on him and refused to work for one second longer. The vines were flailing now, grabbing and striking anything within distance and one hooked onto Eddie's already maimed left leg, dragging him toward the white eye-slit portal. His fingers scrabbled uselessly for purchase on the ground. He felt a cry of terror rising in his throat…
The pickaxe came down on the vine that was attached to him. Isaac's face was a ruddy mess from a combination of effort, blood, and shock. He brought the pickaxe down again with a fearsome cry of both utter exhaustion and irrevocable outrage and the force behind the second blow severed the connection.
Isaac was ordering him to get up, legs be damned, and to run and almost as if someone else were in control of them, Eddie's legs obeyed. He was up, he was staying up, and he saw one of the regenerating sharpened vines whipping around wildly behind his brother, unseen and deadly, and Isaac's attention was drawn to Eddie, leaving him unaware.
"ISAAC!" Eddie screamed, but the honed tendril pierced Isaac through the space between his chest and upper right shoulder and as his brother's blood rained down on him, Eddie felt his heart fall away within him.