𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐀𝐁𝐋𝐘 𝐍𝐔𝐌𝐁 | 𝐄𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐌𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧

☆ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 18

        

                           THE WOODS stared eerily down upon the five as they made their way deeper inside. Somehow Nancy and Robin ended upfront, talking about God knows what and Steve few feet behind Eddie and Sam who were, unsurprisingly, walking side by side.

Sam's eyes kept eyeing the sky, worried the demobats would come unexpectedly or even Vecna might show up. Other than the fear for the monsters that literally stopped them from going inside the gate and out of The Upside Down, Sam was worried that Vecna might attack her again. She left her headphones and cassette player in the boat and even though she had another copy of her favorite song in her backpack, she didn't have another pair of the headphones and another cassette player. She wasn't so sure if she would be able to get them back from the boat seeing as there was no way they could swim back up in Lover's Lake.

"Can I ask you something, Sammy?" Eddie suddenly said.

For a while it was silent, then they talked about some random stuff like music and their guitars and school life before silence fell onto them again. Only now to be broken by Eddie.

"Sure, go on." Sam shrugged. "If it's about another embarrassing D&D game character you want to know about, then forget it."

Eddie chuckled and shoot his head. "I'll save that for Henderson. I bet he'll tell me everything." He pointed out. "Although you just admitted there's more than that Joe Keery guy you were supposed to cosplay."

"Oh shut up." Sam snickered.

Eddie chuckled again and shrugged. "What can I say? I'm a curious person."

"Sure, Munson, sure." Sam rolled her eyes. "And anyway, you were supposed to ask me something."

"Oh, yeah," Eddie nodded. "If you feel like you can't answer it, you don't have to. That's like, totally, perfectly okay with me."

"Eddie," Sam sharply said, turning to glare at him. "Stop panicking and just ask."

"Okay, yeah, dude, I'm getting to it." Eddie snickered back. "So, um, your dad, Jim Hopper, he didn't die in a mall fire, right?"

Sam stopped for a second, freezing in her place and tensing up.

"No," she replied, looking away to stare off of in the distance. "Remember the mother gate we all keep talking about?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, the big scary gate that's, like, absolutely bigger than the one we came through." Eddie replied.

"Yeah well, last year the Starcourt mall was a cover up for the Russians to build an underground base and try to open the gate." Sam explained. "Steve, Robin, Erica and Dustin got stuck there and those fuckers managed to survive and come back up where the rest of us met them."

"Damn," Eddie commented, seemingly out of words.

"Yeah and well, at that time we were running away from a meat-looking Mind Flyer that definitely wanted to kill my sister and my dad ordered us all to go to Murray's house but well, shit happened and we got stuck in the mall without a way out." She continued, watching as the shadows around them hissed and glared at the group. "We got stuck with the Mind Flyer while Joyce, Murray and my dad went down the elevator to close the gate."

"Oh," mumbled Eddie, sounding like he knew where this was going. "You don't have to tell me, you know. It's okay, I get it."

"No, it's fine." Sam reassured him even though her voice cracked a bit. "Joyce said there was no way my dad could go back to her and that he asked for her to close the gate. I didn't see him die but Joyce did and the look she gave me when I screamed for my dad after the police and all those assholes arrived, I think that look will haunt me forever."