Infatuation | Eddie Munson

26- Upside Down

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Nancy rushed straight over to Steve as he began to stumble backwards, looking as if he was going to faint as he examined his wounds.

"Are you okay?" Nancy said, grabbing his arm as she spun him around to face her, gasping at the sight of his torn-apart stomach.

"Well, they took about a pound of flesh... But other than that, yeah, never better," he said, looking up to make eye contact with the girl.

"Uh, do you guys think these bats have, like, rabies?" Robin spoke up as she examined one of the dead bats.

"What?" Steve asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

"It's just that rabies are, like, my number one greatest fear and I think we should probably get you to a doctor like really soon, because once the symptoms set in, it's too late. You're already like dead."

We all stared at her baffled but were quickly interrupted when a loud roar of chittering could be heard in the distance, causing us all to turn our heads towards the noise.

I gasped as a new flock of bats began soaring our way, landing around the glowing gat as I positioned myself slightly behind Eddie. "All right. There's not that many. We can take 'em," Steve said hesitantly as he heavily breathed. "Right?"

Another swarm began to loudly chitter in the distance. "You were saying?" Robin gulped.

I looked up towards the sky in fear as I took a deep breath. "The woods," Nancy suddenly said. "Come on!"

Without warning, both Steve and Nancy began to run, followed by Eddie, leaving Robin and I standing as we watched.

"Great," Robin said, spinning the torch and catching it. "More running."

"Shit," I whispered as I followed behind, my leg in excruciating pain. I began to fall behind, wincing in pain as I tried to pick up my pace. There was no time to pause as we ran through the forest, vines stretching all along the ground, red thunder continuously flashing from behind the overcast clouds. We finally came to a halt as skull rock eventually came into view. It looked like it was deteriorating with cracks all over, and dark vines covering the surface.

We immediately ducked underneath it, the bats soaring over us and back into the distance. As we waited for the noise of the bats to disappear, we watched in anticipation, our breath heavy.

Once the coast was clear, we walked out front underneath the rock hesitantly.

"Oh... okay..." Robin said, being the first to break the silence. "That was close."

"Yeah, too close," Eddie agreed, his voice shaky.

I tried to walk properly, but I winced in pain as I put pressure on my leg, sitting straight back down as I threw my head back in despair.

At the same time, out of the corner of my eye I could see steve collapse into the wall beside him. "Oh sh-shit."

"Steve? Jesus," she said, rushing over to him.

"I'm fine. I'm fine," he said dismissively.
"No, no, no. You're not. You're losing blood. Come on, sit. All right?"

As Nancy and Robin averted their attention to Steve, I locked eyes with the long haired boy as he looked over to me with concerned eyes. He rushed over to me, "Florence, you okay?"

He crouched down next to me as I averted my eyes to my open wound, my jeans torn, blood seeping through the material. "I'm fine," I said dismissively as I covered the wound with my hand. "It's not me we should be worrying about," I whispered, signalling to Steve as Robin began to ramble.