Call it quits |Eddie Munson|

THIRTEEN

Everyone quickly turned around at Dustin's scream. Julia and Eddie slightly flinched, they were still very much on edge.

"Boom! Bada... bada... boom." Dustin pointed at Steve as if to prove a point. Steve just shook his head confused.

"I was right." Dustin continued. "Skull Rock was north."

"Seriously? You're serious?" Steve asked in disbelieve.

"Mm-hmm."

"This is Skull Rock. Okay?"

"Mm-hmm." Dustin enjoyed Steve's defense, because he knew he was right.

"You're totally, absolutely, 100% wrong. Right now."

"Yes... And no."

"Oh my god." Steve said as he grabbed his head questioning all his life decisions.

Dustin held up the compass. "This worked correctly when we left the Wheelers'. It was correct when we got in the car on Curly. But it stared to slip the further east we went. Now it's way off."

Slowly some head in the group started turning.

"When I was leading us here, I wasn't wrong. The compass was."

"So you're using faulty equipment. You're still wrong." Steve tried.

"Except it isn't faulty."

"You use a true north compass. A compass with a magnetic needle..." Julia thought out loud.

Dustin nodded her way before continuing. "Lucas, remember what can affect a compass?"

"An electromagnetic field."

"Yep." Dustin grinned.

"I'm sorry. I must've skipped that class." Robin said confused.

"In the presence of a stronger electromagnetic field, the needle will deflect towards that power. So either there's some big magnet around here, or..."

"There's a gate." Lucas finished Dustin's sentence.

"We're nowhere near the lab." Nancy stated.

"But what if, somehow, there's another gate? A gate that we don't know about."

Everyone finally realized what was going on.

"It'd have to be smaller. Way less powerful." Dustin said.

"A snack-size gate." Robin mumbled.

"How? Why?" Steve questioned.

"No idea. All I know is that something is causing this disturbance, and the last time we've seen anything like it. It was a gate." Dustin said. "And I sure hope it is because then we'd have a way to Vecna, and a shot at freeing Max from this curse."

"And clearing Eddie name." Julia said as she turned to him.

Eddie smiled at her. "And yours."