Waiting Room | A Stranger Things Story - Eddie Munson | VOLUME II

Love Is A Battlefield | Part III

𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐈𝐬 𝐀 𝐁𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐝 | 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐈𝐈𝐈

𝐖𝐄 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊𝐄𝐃 𝐔𝐏 𝐈𝐍 𝐀𝐍 𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐍 𝐅𝐈𝐄𝐋𝐃, pretty much away from any form of civilisation as we all scrambled out of the RV, paper bags upon paper bags filled with a variety of frankly unsavoury items.

We placed them down on the ground in front of us, everyone eager to get their hands on it all.

'This should do for now to set up base and go over a plan.' Steve said, unpacking cans of gasoline and placing them down on the grass.

'We grabbed a bunch of stuff that we thought would be useful, pretty much a pick and mix of deadly weapons.' Robin continued.

'Hopefully deadly you mean.' Erica interjected.

'Yeah. Fingers crossed.' Nancy sighed, she had a broad hunting rifle on her back held in place by a black leather strap. She grabbed the material  in order to pull the shotgun away from her and over her head, placing it down on the ground as she made her way back inside the RV.

'Okay guys, grab your shit. Take what you need and don't get too excited' Steve said.
'I'm looking at you big guy.' He continued, looking toward Dustin who was eyeing up Nancy's idle weapon.

'Seriously?' Dustin exclaimed, rolling his eyes.

'Oh, we picked this up as well. It was on sale in the hunting section.' Nancy announced as she held a black Recurve archery bow and a collection of carbon hunting arrows.
'Not really sure if anyone knows how to use it, but you never know.' She continued.

'I mean, I haven't done it for years. But I used to do it competitively.' I began, taking them from her to get a closer look.
'By competitively I mean I never actually won but I probably have some kind of muscle memory if I needed to do it again. Like riding a bike, right?' I offered to which she responded by giving me a small, reassuring smile.

'You could be our Legolas!' Dustin exclaimed, an excitable grin on his face as he was met with a blank stare on my part.

'Legolas? Lord of the Rings?' He continued. But it meant nothing to me.

Eddie appeared behind him, eager to be a part of the conversation that was unfolding.

'Educate her.' Dustin deadpanned, turning to face him and pointing to me in an accusatory manner before wandering away.

'Cool, right?' I enquired, turning to face him with my newly acquired weaponry.

'Yeah, that's pretty bad ass!' He cheered, watching on as I removed one of the arrows from the quiver holding them in, feeling the cold of the metal between my fingers.

'Easy there, tiger. Hopefully you won't be needing that anytime soon.' He laughed, putting his hand over mine to refrain me from putting it to any further use.

***

Everyone had split off into their own separate groups to further their weaponry forging skills. Erica and Lucas were trying to cultivate spears from wooden poles, string and large knives. Robin and Steve were in the process of creating their own incendiary weapons with gasoline, glass bottles and fabric.

It was hard not to think of the entire scenario as somewhat insidious, given that we were just kids or just fresh out of High School. Completely dystopian.

I wandered over to Sarah who was sat alone by some tall grass, a hunting rifle in front of her that Nancy had bought for her as she fiddled around with the bullets that were lined in a fabric belt.