Hawkins Unraveling

CH 10 : Skull Rock

It all felt like a hazy, terrifying hallucination.

One moment Patrick was in the water, swimming furiously to help Jason drag June and Eddie back to shore, and the next he was in the air, his body tense and shaking like he was in a trance. It was exactly like what had happened with Max, except this time there was no music to pull him out of it.

When Patrick's limbs began snapping in terrible, unnatural directions without any logical explanation why, June's fear heightened, especially when Jason looked at her, aghast. "What the hell are you doing to him?"

Patrick's body, entirely distorted and now lifeless, crashed back into the lake at the same time that Eddie fisted a bunch of June's shirt material in his hand, drawing her back against his chest. "We gotta go."

Her head was still spinning as she watched Eddie shimmy ungracefully over the side of the boat, just barely managing to hang onto the side as he flopped heavily on the bottom. A few accelerated heartbeats later and he was reaching over the edge for her, grabbing at her arms and pulling her up until she could drag herself up with the action, too, and then she collapsed on top of Eddie, entirely spent and exhausted. Eddie gave her a moment of reprieve before he pushed them both into an upright position, and then he passed her the remaining oar, which had somehow managed to stay within the boat.

"You've gotta help me, Junebug," he said, and she could hear his own fear and exhaustion in his tone. "We've gotta go."

Nodding, June took the oar and pushed it through the water, trying her best to make most of the effort given that Eddie had only his hands to work with. Slowly but surely the boat began to move, angled now back to shore a slight distance away from where they had left, but unlike before Jason was no longer in pursuit. He had turned back in the direction of his friend, and now June could see him trying to carry Patrick's body and paddle back to shore at the same time. Andy stood yelling questions in shallow water, terrified of what he had seen with no context, but he made no effort to go in the water after Jason.

It gave June little comfort to know that this incident would slow the remaining jocks down enough for her and Eddie to disappear again.

Eddie, on the other hand, was beginning to spiral. Each new stroke of his hands through the water became more and more panicked, and June could hear the terror in his voice when he began to voice his fear. "Jesus," he muttered. "Jesus, shit, fucking-"

"Eddie." June dropped her oar in the bottom of the boat, clambered across on shaking, wobbly legs, and placed her hands solidly on his back. "You're fine. We're fine. We're okay. We're-"

He pushed her away, staggering to the side. The abrupt movement rocked the boat, jostling them both. June dropped to her knees, fell blindly and harshly onto her hands. "We're not fine," he panted, pointing wildly back in the direction of the jocks, who were still yelling in the dark. "That was not fine. That was– We're going to–" His voice cracked, and she knew he was about to lose it.

June scooped the oar off the boat's bottom and shoved it into Eddie's chest. "Get us to the shore," she told him. "We're almost there."

Eddie drew in a sharp, hiccuping breath but did as she asked, turning his back to her once more to paddle. June turned as well, using her hands this time to slice through the water. Her arms were burning by the time the boat bumped the ground in shallow water, but that didn't stop her from climbing over the side and dragging herself up the embankment. Eddie was there right beside her, rolling to his side with his hands over his face just out of the water's reach.

"It happened again," he moaned into his skin. "Like Chrissy, it-"

"I know," June said, unsure of what to make of all that she had just witnessed. How many times would this happen? Was she next?