Warnings: themes of imprisonment and suicide ahead.

X

Eddie

So stupid.

There was nothing that Eddie could do to make the words stop echoing around his head. They were stuck in an endless loop in his skull, and no amount of hitting his brow with the heel of his palm could stop them.

So fucking stupid.

The shed was just wide enough for him to cross in two long strides. He had done it too many times to count - walked to one end of the shed, spun on his heel, walked to the other. The inside was bare except for a few wooden crates held together by rusted, protruding nails. The crates themselves had long since been gutted, leaving them bereft of anything that could have helped him escape.

How could I be so fucking stupid?

Eddie spent the days crouched on his haunches, his clasped hands dangling between his thighs as he watched the sunlight slide back and forth beyond the string-thin cracks between the logs that made up the shed's walls. He had been able to fall asleep on the first few nights, despite his mounting nerves. Partitioning the days had been easy, then - he had marked off each one with a fingernail scratch in the wall. Then his sleep had become jumbled. First, it fell out of sync with the light beyond the shed. Then it dissipated completely, leaving him with no reprieve from the anxiety that left him breathless. He tried to stay calm, but 'calm' slowly became a weird semantically satiated mantra.

So. Fucking. Stupid.

He had tried to escape the shed many times. But the VHS tapes made it look too easy. There was no crowbar to pry apart the shed's walls, no discarded thin wire with which he could pry the lock open, there wasn't even a bottle of water to sip on throughout his imprisonment. No bucket to piss in. No scratchy blanket to pull around his shoulders when the night turned mercilessly chill. No flashlight. Not even a packet of god damn water crackers. His stomach had long ago ceased to grumble. His tongue was too dry to move, and he could feel the warm splatters of blood from his throat every time he screamed for help.

Eddie Munson: the god damned fool.

It had taken less than a day for Andrea to show her true colors. For a brief moment, he had really thought that she wanted him back - that she had orchestrated some grand scheme with Tony to have him delivered back into her arms. Eddie cursed himself a thousand times for not remembering that Andrea could be callous and unforgiving. He was her pet, and he had slighted her by running away. True to their relationship, she had only sought to retrieve him so that she could punish him.

So she had locked him in the shed with the help of several of her lackeys. At first, Eddie had laughed at the predicament. He had assumed that his imprisonment would only be temporary - a few hours, just to teach him a lesson. Then, as the days grew endless and the nights grew unforgivingly cold in the shed, he had assumed that maybe he'd be able to make some grand escape. But he had neither the brains nor the brawn to break free from the shed. It occurred to him that maybe - just maybe - Andrea was scorned enough to let him die there.

During his imprisonment, he saw only two cars pass along the dirt road adjacent to the shed. He had hammered his fists on the walls and screamed until his throat was raw. But they never stopped. The shed was too far back from the Farm to be discovered by any passerby. It was completely boxed in by heavy, green forestry on all sides. Eddie pressed his face against the cracks between the logs and watched in despair as those two cars passed him by.

So. Fucking. Stupid.

He lurched to his feet. His joints popped and cracked thunderously, a painful reminder that he had been sitting in the same position for hours. He whined as he limped towards the door of the shed. His entire body reeked of sweat and other things that he couldn't bear to think about for too long. The daytime humidity caused his clothes to stick to his body. He swore to himself that he would burn them if he escaped - after he took a hot shower and chugged enough beers to forget any of it had happened.

The heavily paneled wooden door bore three scratch marks: three days of captivity if his faded measurement of time could be trusted. Once again, he grabbed the knob and threw himself backward with all of his might. There was no use - just like there had been no use the first, fifth, and then hundredth time that he had tried to yank open the door. The faded gold upon the knob had turned a rusted color from the sweat of his palms. The center of the door bore dark, dampened patches where Eddie had kicked it.

The sound of a car tire on flat soil made him freeze. It could have been the wind in the trees outside, he realized, or maybe the roar of the distant waves that he had heard on and off. His breath caught in his throat as he crouched down and peered through a crack. At first, he saw nothing but the wall of trees crowding the thin strip of soil beyond. Then, like a miracle, a flash of metallic white appeared between the trees. The car was approaching fast - at that speed, it would pass him by in less than a second. Eddie mustered his remaining strength and screamed. The chords in his throat grew taut and his head pounded with the effort as he punched the walls. The sound that escaped his throat was almost inhuman, frayed, and croaking as his desperation forced him to scream louder.

Suddenly, all fell silent. Eddie muttered an unintelligible stream of 'no's and curses as he crouched down again and peered through the crack. He feared that his worst fear had come to fruition, that the driver had driven past without ever having heard his cries for help.

Then he saw it: the white Lincoln Mark parked at the edge of the road.

Marshall.

"Marsh! Hey, Marsh! Help! I'm here!" Eddie jumped up and down and pounded at the walls until his knuckles bled. "Marshall, help me!"

"Get away from the door and cover your fucking ears," came Marshall's voice. Eddie had never been so glad to hear it in his life. He lunged away from the door and fell to a crouch with his wrists braced against his ears. There was a deafening pop that rattled his teeth, then Marshall kicked the door open. He stood there panting, staring down at Eddie and clutching a small, golden pistol in his right hand.

"Y'alright there, compadre," Marshall asked, his words slightly muffled by the toothpick between his lips. Eddie could have cried at the sight of his silk leopard print pants.

"Pretty fucking far from alright, man," Eddie croaked as Marshall roughly helped him to his feet. "In fact, I'd go as far as to say this whole situation has me fucked. That crazy bi…fucking Andrea, man. She and her goons locked me in here. Haven't had a bite to eat or even a bucket to piss in or even a god damn cigare-"

"Where's Tony?"

"What!?"

Marshall grabbed Eddie by his collar and pulled him close, unperturbed by the smell of sweat emanating off of Eddie like heat waves. "Where. Is. Antoinette?"

"I-I-I-I don't know," Eddie stuttered. "Haven't seen her since - I don't know, maybe three or four days ago? Hey, take it easy with that gun, man."

Marshall roared into his fists, then abruptly turned away. Eddie's legs felt leaden and full of pinpricks as he stumbled to keep up with him. They jumped into the Lincoln and Marshall reversed the car before Eddie could even close the door. Eddie held on to the grab handle for dear life as Marshall put steady pressure on the gas pedal, forcing the car to move at a nauseating speed that turned the outside world into a dizzy blur. He pressed the handle of the pistol against the steering wheel as he drove, the frayed toothpick bouncing upon his lips as he rolled it between his teeth.

"Wanna clue me into what's going on here?" Eddie yelped as Marshall yanked the wheel, forcing the car into a sudden turn that took them off the main path and into the thickety slope. "Did something happen to Tony?"

"Glove compartment," was all that Marshall said.

Eddie yanked open the glove compartment and frantically pushed the papers aside until he spotted the small, metallic device: Tony's recorder. Eddie could have recognized it out of thousands. He turned it over in his hands and glanced at Marshall. A sinking sense of foreboding descended along Eddie's heart.

"Got that in the mail a few days ago," Marshall growled. A rogue tree branch slapped the windshield and Eddie yelped. "Postmarked from the Farm."

"No, no, no, no, no," Eddie said. "Tony would never - I mean, this is her prized possession."

"Listen to the first recording," Marshall grunted, then yanked the wheel with such force that Eddie was thrown against the door. He fit the headphones over his ears and pressed the play button. At first, he couldn't make out what he was hearing: a muffled roar and hiss of something far in the distance. He hit the replay button and pressed the headphones against his ears, struggling to identify the sound.

"Waves," Eddie called out over the sound of tree branches hitting the windshield. The Farm unfurled below them, only a few feet below the invisible trail that Marshall had picked out between the trees. "It's waves, right? I don't understand! What-?"

"I've been to the coast plenty of times," Marshall grumbled, then tossed his chin at the ocean expanse beyond the tree line of the farm. "That's the last place where she was, and she wanted us to know it."

"Why-?!"

"Use your fucking head, kid," Marshall screamed. "And hold on tight to somethin'!"

Eddie grabbed the seat belt at the last possible second. He curled into himself as the car bounced and then skidded across the gravel of the Farm's parking lot. Eddie's heart jolted as if electrocuted as he leveraged himself against the dashboard. The sight that greeted him filled him with horror. Several SFPD police cars were parked around the lawn. Officers in uniform stood idle by the cars, as members of the Farm huddled in gaggles beneath the awnings of the yurts. Marshall vacated the entirety of his lungs in a single, sudden gust as Eddie leaned out the window and shielded his brow with his palm.

"This isn't good, man," Eddie said in a shaking voice. "This is really fucking bad - fuck!"

"What the hell happened here," Marshall called to one of the Farmworkers. The woman drifted towards the Lincoln as if in a daze, then reached through the window to grab Marshall's shoulder.

"It's Tony," she whispered urgently. Her gaze flickered towards Eddie. "She-"

"She what?" Eddie and Marshall said at the same time. The woman placed her hand over her mouth and shook her head wildly. Her cheeks turned red as simultaneously tears spilled along her fingers.

"She jumped," she said. The two men followed her gaze as she pointed a stiff finger towards the coast. "Off the cliff-"

"Huh," Eddie shook his head. The woman clasped her hands over her mouth and shuddered as she was overtaken by a fresh wave of tears. Eddie scrunched his hair between his fingers. Though he had heard her clearly, her words had yet to find a foothold in his mind.

"What - what?"

"Andrea was there when it happened." The woman was struggling to speak. She thumped her hand against her chest as if attempting to wake herself up from a nightmare. "She and Tony were taking a walk and - and then Tony just - she jumped. Off the cliff. Andrea said she was drunk and incoherent and she just-"

"But Tony doesn't drink-"

Eddie was suddenly yanked back into the car. The door flapped violently along its hinges as Marshall shoved his foot against the gas pedal. Officers and workers alike jumped out of the way as the Lincoln tore across the lawn, grass flying like shrapnel from his wheels. Eddie screamed and clung to Marshall as they flew past the treeline and onto the sandy path curling around a rocky cliff. The car bounced hard, causing the top of Eddie's head to collide with the ceiling. He heard a succession of thunderous 'pops' and knew that the tires had been shred to shit against the jutting boulders. Before them sat a ledge bordered by bushes, its bend so sharp and sloped that it was completely invisible beyond the bushes. The car whined as the needle of the speedometer climbed steadily towards one hundred.

"You're gonna fucking kill us," Eddie cried. He reached for the wheel, prepared to yank it to the left when suddenly Marshall seemed to have a change of heart. He clutched the wheel with both hands and put his entire body into turning it. Something beneath the hood of the Lincoln exploded as the car swerved in the opposite direction, its right-side wheels aligned perfectly with the precarious ledge.

"Fuck," Eddie screamed as he kicked the door open and threw himself onto the ground. "Fuck, fuck, fuck! Tony! Tony!"

His voice was drowned out by the sound of cars skidding to a stop behind them. He turned in time to see the officers tumble out of their cars, their red and blue lights swirling across the land. Moved by impulse, Eddie threw his hands up and backed toward the Lincoln.

"Wait, wait!" Eddie pleaded. "Hold on! Y-y-you don't understand. She was my friend-!"

"Step out of the car," one of the officers called back. It took Eddie a moment to realize that they weren't talking to him. He turned and watched in trepidation as Marshall unfolded from the driver's seat, all six feet of him seemingly eclipsing everything around them. There was a slight sneer on Marshall's face. He raised his hands slowly, and it was then that Eddie noticed that he was still holding onto the golden pistol.

"Marsh, no," Eddie croaked. Marshall glanced at him over his shoulder. His grin broadened, and Eddie was reminded of the days that they had spent working on cars and drinking beers in his makeshift shop.

"Don't worry, mi amigo," Marshall said, his voice dripping in either sarcasm or joviality. "I'll find Tony and it'll take more than a few pansies in uniform to stop me. Let's kill that bitch Andrea when I get back, yeah?"

Several things happened at once. Eddie ducked right as the 'crack' of Marshall's pistol rang out. Flecks of paint exploded from the Lincoln as the officers shot back. Eddie crawled on his hands and knees toward the fender of the Lincoln, deafened and disoriented by the cacophony of gunfire and yelling. He glanced up in time to see Marshall momentarily swathed in sunlight, his armed hand crooked by his side as he glared back at the officers. Then he jumped from the ledge - the entirety of him gone in a mere fraction of a second. Eddie screamed his name and rushed towards the ledge. There was nothing beneath it but the rocky cliff face dotted by scraggly bushes. And below that, froth-lined waves of the Pacific Ocean.

Marshall was gone.

"Marsh!" Eddie screamed as two hands fell onto his shoulders. He fought and squirmed and kicked as he was dragged away from the ledge. "Tony! Marshall! No!"

The officers were unsympathetic to his cries. They dragged him kicking and screaming into their vehicle and held him down against the seat until he was too weak to fight back. Eddie buried his face into the lining of the backseat as he cried the same names over and over again until they turned into that semantically satiated mantra, jumbles of letters that made no sense at the moment but would leave a heated impression in his heart for the rest of his life.

Andrea

Andrea stood upon the balcony cradling a cup of chai tea. She had watched Marshall and Eddie drive through the Farm, their faces slack with horror as they listened to her employee relay the unfortunate news of Tony's demise. The employee had been trained well and could recite her lines better than any A-list celebrity. As instructed, the woman had delivered the news with teary eyes and flushed cheeks. And Eddie and Marshall had fallen for it. Damned bleeding-heart fools, Andrea thought to herself with a chuckle. She blew across the rim of her teacup, shrugged her silk robe higher along her shoulders. It really was a beautiful day on the Farm. One could almost say it was perfect for murder.

One day - maybe soon, maybe later - her poor, little Thumper would come to his own conclusions. He was a smart kid when he wanted to be, he was bound to assume that Andrea had had a hand in Tony's unfortunately timed death. Maybe Eddie would even assume that Andrea had given Tony a little push off the cliff - now, that was a decadent and delicious idea! So scandalous! Damn near worthy of its own movie. He could cry to the police all that he wanted, but no one would believe him. Eddie was, and would always be, a freak in the eyes of society. Besides, she had dirt on almost every police department in the entire state. No one would dare to point a finger her way.

"You're a good girl," Andrea cooed, then took a sip of her lukewarm tea. "I hope this whole thing hasn't been too uncomfortable for you."

"You know the deal," said the young woman behind her. "Leave Eddie alone, and I'm all yours."

"Oh, of course, sweetie. It's a shame that he thinks you're dead now. You two would have made a lovely couple! Much better than you and Marsh. I should have made you marry Edward instead!"

Andrea sighed and relaxed her shoulders with a smile. She turned to face the young woman and found herself pleased by what she saw. The girl looked as small and unobtrusive as the first day that Andrea found her. She flinched as Andrea knelt before her and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. The girl's hair was getting long again. Andrea decided that she would cut it again that very night.

"Oh, Tony," Andrea whispered as she rested her head against the girl's shoulder. "My sweet, little pebble."

X

Thank you for reading The Small, Gray Pebble! I would definitely love to give this one a sequel - maybe one where Eddie survives season four and meets Tony again when they're adults and she's in control of the Beacons of Righteousness cult. But that's all for now.

If you want to read another one of my Eddie Munson fics, I just posted the first chapter of my new fiction 'CREEP!' On AO3: a dark, twisted fanfiction in which Eddie the stalker becomes Eddie the stalked. Feel free to check it out!

Love y'all, and happy new year! :3