RUMORS•eddie munson

10

Ziggy's jacket had finally dried after being sat out on a rock all night. Eddie held her close until the sun came up, opting to go search for a way to get ahold of the group while Ziggy found herself too riddled with anxiety to move. Eddie was hesitant to leave her at skull rock all alone, but weighed his options and decided that it was the best decision.
She kept thinking back to the time he had spent alone at Rick's place. It was only when she laid beneath the large rock that she got the smallest taste of what he must have felt. There was a nagging pull at the back of her brain that was reminding her of the decision she made the year before. Had she not cut ties with him then he would have graduated. Had he graduated then Chrissy never would have gone to him for drugs and she never would have ended up at his trailer.
"If I had just sucked it up, none of this would be happening." She thought. Nevertheless, her guilty conscience was yanked out from under her at the sound of rustling leaves. Fear took over her body, yanking her legs to her chest as she cradled herself in hopes of remaining shielded from the figure creeping up on her. She held her hand over her mouth, holding her breath as their pace picked up.
     Eddie popped his head around the corner, making Ziggy jerk back with a flinch. Her sudden movement scared him, causing him to stumble back from his crouched position and fall on his ass with wide eyes. When it registered that they weren't in any immediate danger, the both of them relaxed slightly. Eddie silently waved the walkie in the air for her to see and crawled next to her, resting his back against the rock and letting her shoulder rest against his.
     "Dustin, can you hear me? Wheeler?" He rushed into the small mic in the walkie talkie, breathing heavily. Ziggy looked over at him with wide eyes, bringing her fingers up to play with her lip in anxiety. After a small beat of silence, they got a response.
     'Eddie, holy shit. Are you okay?' Ziggy's eyes widened further, a small gasp of relief filling her chest. Eddie rubbed at his eye, shaking his head in disbelief.
     "Nah, man. We're pretty goddamn far from okay."
     ''We'? Is Ziggy still with you?' She reached her hands out, gently clasping them around Eddie's larger palm that held the walkie. She pulled it to her mouth, pressing harder on Eddie's finger that rested on the button until it clicked softly.
     "Yeah, we're both here. We're at Skull Rock. Do you know where that is?" Her voice slowly trailed off, unsure if they'd be able to find them.
     'Uh, yeah that's near Cornwallace and...' Ziggy's ears twitched as his line went quiet. She held her free hand up in exasperation before his voice broke through the speaker once more.
     'We're on our way. Hold tight!' Dustin reassured as Eddie nodded his head with a scrunched up face. This caught Ziggy's attention. She pulled the walkie from his hand, setting it to the side as she turned to face him, perching herself on her knees to get a better look at him. She placed a hand on his shoulder.
     "Eddie. Hey!" She leaned in closer trying to get a him to open his eyes. They remained screwed shut as a shaking hand came up to cover the top half of his face. Ziggy said his name again, but he ignored her once more. His breathing was starting to pick up as if he were keeping himself from crying. Ziggy shook her head, placing her soft hands on his cheeks, pulling his head to face hers despite his attention remaining elsewhere. She bent down closer.
     "Eddie, baby, look at me." Her voice had gotten quieter, but his eyes shot open nonetheless. His brown eyes flickered between hers. Ziggy tilted her head in pity, rubbing her thumbs over his cheekbones in a comforting manner. Eddie's eyes were glassy. His lips trembled. It was clear that the short period of time they had spent apart had him overthinking as well. Eddie inhaled a deep breath before hissing it back out. Ziggy nodded in encouragement, not daring to look away.
     "I never should have left." He whispered. Ziggy's brows furrowed.
     "We needed to get ahold of them somehow. If you didn't leave then we-"
     "No, I never should have left your house like that." Her brows fell. Eddie's eyes were still shining as he had barely blinked.
     "I should've stayed." He whispered. Ziggy's head tilted in pity.
     "I wouldn't have let you." She whispered back. Eddie's face fell into a knowing look. He nodded his head solemnly.
     "Yeah...you would have." Her eyes flickered down, not finding the strength to verbally agree with him. They both knew that she didn't have to. Instead, she fell to her hip, wrapping her arms around him and nustling closer when she felt him do the same.
     Roughly an hour later, the group had found them despite their constant arguing.
     "Bada Bing, bada boom! There she is, Henderson! Skull Rock. In your face, man. In your stupid, cocky little face." Steve stumbled through the bushes, hands on his hips as Dustin looked down at his compass in confusion.
     "That doesn't make any sense." Dustin mumbled. Steve rolled his eyes.
     "Yeah, even with it staring you in the face, you can't admit it. You just can't admit that you're wrong, you little butthead." Eddie and Ziggy had moved out of the clearing in the time that they had been waiting for the gang to show up. Eddie had his arm wrapped around Ziggy's shoulders while she had clutched her hands onto his shirt, tightening her grip on his waist.
     "I concur; you, Dustin Henderson, are a total butthead." The group turned to look at the pair in surprise. Dustin smiled at the sight of Eddie.
     "Jesus, we thought you were a goner." Dustin took a step closer, freezing once he noticed the way that Ziggy and Eddie were holding one another. Ziggy unraveled herself from Eddie, lightly nudging him forward so that Dustin could give him a much needed hug. Eddie patted the shorter boy on the back.
     "Yeah, me too, man. Me too." Steve and Eddie shared a knowing look and the group gathered around, ready to ask questions. Eddie wandered back to the rock and sat on the forrest floor. Ziggy found herself wrapping her arms around herself uncomfortably. She stood behind the group, practically isolating herself from the situation. Before Eddie could start the story, he found himself scanning the people in front of him, looking for the familiar set of eyes he had just gotten used to seeing again. When he found her staring down at the ground, he decided that he should be the one to take the lead.
     "When Ziggy left, Jason attacked her-"
     "He did not attack me." She rejected. The group turned to look at her with wide eyes, backing up slightly so that she was included in their little circle. Ziggy adjusted her foot stance awkwardly, looking back down at the ground.
     "He showed up at your house and hit you with a door. That's an attack in my book." Eddie paused for a moment, expecting a response from her. When he didn't get one he continued.
     "So when she got back, we were on high alert. The next day he and his friends showed up, so we hopped in the boat and started paddling, but they saw us. We only got a few yards out and Jason was already swimming right behind us." Eddie started to get slightly shaken by the memory of the night before, but Nancy was rolling her shoulders in anticipation and Dustin kept staring him down with that curious look of his.
     "So, then Jason attacked Ziggy again and almost fucking drowned her-" Eddie stopped, remembering what happened next in vivid detail. Clearly, so did Ziggy. Her eyes stayed on the ground, never blinking as they welled up.
     "It was Patrick. The exact same thing Eddie described with Chrissy. He just-" she stopped abruptly, swallowing the lump in her throat before continuing. "-he was right there." A tear rolled down her cheek before she squeezed her eyes shut, tightening her fists around her jacket that she clutched to her body.
     "When we got to the shore I tried calling you guys, but our walkie was busted; drenched. So, I did the thing that I do now, apparently. I ran." Eddie let out a sarcastic chuckle after taking a sip of the water that he had been given. Ziggy's glare on the ground had lifted to watch Dustin pace back and forth in front of her. She scanned his confused face, furrowing her brows.
     "Do you remember what time this was? The attack?" Nancy questioned. Eddie pulled at the strap of his watch.
     "Yeah, no I-I know exactly what time it was." He dangled the jewelry in his hand with a frown.
     "The walkie wasn't the only thing that got soaked." He tossed the watch at Nancy, to which she could it with ease. She looked down at the numbers with a nod of her head.
     "9:27"
     "Same time our flashlights went kablooey."
     "Which means what, exactly?"
     "That that surge of energy was from Vecna attacking Patrick." Nancy, Robin, and Steve explained respectfully. Ziggy looked back over at Eddie as he caught the watch that was thrown back at him.
     "Well, we're one step closer. We know how Vecna attacks." Robin reasoned.
     "And where he attacks from." Lucas piped up.
     "So now we just need to sneak into his lair in the upside down and drive a stake through his heart."
     "If he even has a heart."
     "A stake? Is he like a vamp? Is he a vampire?" Steve asked. Ziggy's head shot up, raising a hand in confusion.
     "Vampire? I thought he was a wizard?" She questioned. Max shook her head.
     "It was a metaphor." Ziggy's eyes shifted to the side in thought.
     "Wait, I'm confused. Was the wizard the metaphor or the vampire?" Steve pouted sending a small nod her way.
     "Pretty sure the vampire was the metaphor and the spell caster thing was real-"
     "A bullet should work on him, right?" Eddie interjected with an annoyed tone.
     "I say we chop his head off." Lucas suggested.
     "I say all of the above, but we can't do any of that until we find a way into the upside down." Nancy reasoned, raining on their parade with the undeniable reality of their situation.
     "We need El to get her powers back." Max complained.
     "Everything was, like, way easier. We had this girl. She had superpowers-"
     "Superpowers. Yeah, you mentioned her. Hey, uh, Henderson's not cursed, is he?" Eddie cut Steve off, directing their attention to the curly headed boy who was still pacing.
     "Cursed? No, he's fine. Mental? Absolutely." Steve joked.
     "Boom!" Dustin screamed, making Ziggy let out a small yelp. She clasped her hand over her mouth in embarrassment, watching with wide eyes as Dustin stalked towards the rest of the group dramatically.
     "Bada bada boom." He whispered.
     "I was right! Skull Rock was north." He pointed up at the rock making Steve roll his eyes. Ziggy dropped her hand, sending the boy a small glare at his seemingly immature behavior.
     "Seriously? You're serious?"
     "Mhm." Dustin nodded.
     "This is Skull Rock, okay? You're totally, absolutely, 100% wrong right now."
     "Yes...and no." Steve slapped his hands over his face as Dustin continued.
     "This compass worked correctly when we left the Wheelers. It was correct when we got in the car on Kerley, but it started to slip the further East we went. Now it's way off. When I was leading us here, I wasn't wrong. The compass was."
     "So you're using faulty equipment. You're still wrong!"
     "Except it isn't faulty. Lucas, do you remember what can affect a compass?" Dustin pointed to his friend in questioning.
     "An electromagnetic field." Lucas said in realization. Ziggy tilted her head. Her advanced classes in science gave her a better understanding of what they were saying. Robin looked at them in confusion.
     "I'm sorry, I must've skipped that class."
     "Compasses point towards the Earth's North magnetic pole. So, if his compass isn't pointing towards that magnetic pole, then it's being drawn to something else with a stronger magnetic field." Ziggy explained. Dustin pointed to her dramatically with a bright smile. She nodded in understanding.
     "So either there's some super huge magnet around here, or-"
     "There's a gate." Lucas finished Dustin's explanation with a breath of realization.
     "But we're nowhere near the lab?" Nancy wondered aloud, allowing Dustin to answer her question.
     "But what if, somehow, there's another gate? A gate that we don't know about? It'd have to be smaller. Way less powerful." Dustin waved his arms around dramatically. Ziggy's back straightened as things were finally making sense to her.
     "A snack sized gate!" Robin suggested.
     "How? Why?"
     "No idea. All I know is that something is causing this disturbance and the last time we saw anything like it, it was a gate. And I hope it is, because then we'd have a way to finding Vecna. A shot at freeing Max from his curse."
     "And clearing Eddie's name." Ziggy added. Dustin turned and stalked past Ziggy, walking down the trail.
     "Hey! We haven't cleared his name yet! We can't just go hiking in the woods." Steve rested a hand on his hip, gesturing to the older boy next to him.
     "I'm sorry, is the plan right now seriously to just...enter this dimension you've all been so freaked out over? Because that sounds like a pretty dogshit plan to me." Ziggy dropped her hands from her stomach and glared at the group in front of her. Steve nodded his head in understanding.
     "This little steel capsule may be the key to saving both Max and Eddie." Dustin tried to reason with her.
     "Yeah, it may be! But it very well may not be. We can't just slither through this portal-"
     "Gate."
     "-whatever the fuck you wanna call it! We're going in blind! We could all die or something." Her voice raised an octave. Ziggy's hands were shaking as her breathing was heavy. Dustin turned to Eddie.
     "What say you, Eddie the Banished?" He asked. He was right; it was Eddie's call. So, Ziggy turned to him with a pleading look. Eddie held his jaw in his hand as he stared at her for a moment.
      "I say you're asking me to follow you to Mordor. Which, if I'm totally straight with you, I think is a really bad idea." Ziggy let out a shallow breath, nodding her head. Eddie glanced at her for a second, letting out a deep breath before looking up at the sky. Her face slowly started to fall.
     "But the shire- the shire is burning." Dustin started jumping up and down. Eddie slapped his hands on his knees, pushing himself up from the ground.
     "So Mordor it is." She tilted her head to the side in a rage. The group apart from Ziggy started to follow Dustin. Eddie grabbed his things in a hurry. As he moved to trail behind them, he stopped when he noticed Ziggy standing still. Eddie reached out to grab her by the hand, to which she yanked it out of his grip. He flinched at her hard glare.
     "Ziggy, come on-"
     "You're gonna get yourself killed, Eddie." Her hands were shaking as she clenched them into fists at her side. Eddie's shoulders slacked.
     "We have to go. I have no other choice."
     "Yes you do! We can-"
     "We can what? What can we do, sweetheart, because I'm open to suggestions." Ziggy looked around frantically, hoping she'd find the answer in the trees. She licked her lips.
     "We can run away or something! I don't know!" She desperately took a step closer. Eddie looked down at her in disbelief.
     "I'll tell you what; if this fails, that can be our backup plan." Ziggy whimpered in defeat. Eddie brought his hand up to her neck, rubbing beneath her jaw with his thumb.
     "I need you to back me up on this." Ziggy was ready to shake her head, but he cut off her thoughts.
     "You owe me."