Hell & Back

Chapter Twenty

"Get up babe. Come on, you told the girls you'd take them to school." He heard Chrissys voice say. Why was she here? He opened his eyes to see her smiling down at him. She looked older but still breathtaking. He smiled up at her and than noticed that she was clearly pregnant. "What? What's going on?" He asked alarmed. "Another bad dream?" She said turning to see who had come in the room. 

He looked over to see two little girls standing there. One had dark curls around her face with brown eyes, she had to be at least seven while the other looked to be around five. The younger girl had light brown hair but it was straight her eyes though were like looking into a mirror. He seen both himself and Chrissy in the little girls. It was all a nightmare than...Vecna was a nightmare, this was his life. His family. 

"Come on you two, let's give your father a minute to get dressed." Chrissy said ushering the girls out the door. "Chrissy, I love you." He said and watched as she turned and smiled at him one last time before leaving the room. Eddie jumped out of bed and riffled through the clothes picking whatever was on top to throw on. He wanted to see his... his kids again. 

He looked in the mirror quickly. He had clearly aged and his hair was pulled back into a low ponytail while it was shoulder length now. His bangs had grown into his hair so they no longer fell into his eyes. He was still thin and his style seemed not to have changed much, he thought looking at the Ozzy shirt he wore. 

He walked out of the room and into the hallway. This house was big and he actually owned a house, a nice house. He started walking down the stairs, looking at all the pictures on the wall. Family pictures, him holding a little baby with Chrissy beside him, them together at their weeding, holiday photos, parties with all their friends. He smiled to himself as he finished walking and entered the kitchen calling out to Chrissy.

When he walked into the kitchen he let out a scream. The girls were sitting at the counter with their limbs broken and faces down in bowels of cereal but he knew what they looked like, the others Vecna had killed. Chrissy stood pined to the wall as Vecna stood in front of her laughing as he hoisted her into the air and Eddie watched as her bones snapped and she died begging him for help. 

"You can't escape me." Vecna said laughing as he let her fall to the floor. Eddie ran over to her with tears in his eyes. He held her as the seen changed and they were inside the Creel house. "Kill me." Eddie said in a broken voice. Vecna laughed as he repeated it over and over. "Just kill me you bastard." Vecna walked over to him and knelt down meeting his eyes "Now where's the fun in that." He said and laughed again

Eddie woke up to find Daniel/Vecna staring at him with a smirk on his face "Bad dreams?" He asked tilting his head to one side. "Stay the fuck out of my head." Eddie said breathlessly. He was covered in sweat and breathing hard. He got up and walked to the back of the house and through the door leading to the back yard. He sat down on the stairs, making sure to test them first and lit a cigarette. "Don't be like that, roomie." Vecna said standing in the doorway. Eddie put his head in the palm of his hands and tried to stop the annoyance flooding through him. 

Chrissy was already at Nancy's by the time her parents woke up. Chrissy couldn't sleep, she tossed and turned and woke up crying every two hours. As soon as she seen sunlight she raced out the house and biked to Nancy's. Everyone had stayed over there the night before so thankfully Nancy was up. 

"Okay so I think we have something. We have to find the gate opening, even if it's just a small one and close it. We already know that one will be where they found the dead girl. But that's not the one he is using to mess with Eddie. We have to find that one. El and Mike are going with Arglye to close the door. Will thinks he may know where the other one is so Robin, Johnathon and I are going to go with him and look for it. Dustin, Max and Lucas will stay with Chrissy and Steve since Vecna has now targeted them two." Nancy said to everyone. 

"You want us to just stay home and wait?" Chrissy said annoyed by the thought of just sitting around while Vecna played with Eddie's mind but they all parted ignoring her question. "No we aren't, we are going to try and get into contact with Eddie." Steve said "I know what songs to play to keep Vecna out of his head. We find him, we play the songs and we let him tell us his plan without Vecna listening." Steve finished his plan. "How do we know he's not listening now? Like right now." Dustin said looking around paranoid.

"That's his plan. Keep Vecna away while  we come up with a plan. That's it. He's being a distraction." Max said piecing it all together. "I know where he is." She said looking down at the drawings Will had made of what Nancy saw. "He's at the house, and I think he has Vecna there with him. Trying to keep him busy."

"Than we can't give it away." Steve said "Chrissy, you said he took his guitar right?" Dustin said and she nodded not wanting to remember watching him leave "Every time he plays he's thinking but Vecna can't hear it. Maybe El can get to him than." He continued. "Tell him our plan." Max finished "But how will we know when he's playing?" Lucas said stopping all the excitement.

Steve started pacing around the room while the others all sat down thinking. Chrissy held onto the pick he had given her. "Wait I have an idea." She said "This." She held out the pick for them to see. "We leave this on the porch, he will know It's his, we write play on it and send El." She finished. "Okay but how do we get it on the porch?" Lucas asked. "I'll do it." Max said "I'll skate by and throw it at the door." She said sounding confident.

Chrissy sent up a silent prayer that Eddie would be the one to open the door and not Vecna. She slowly unhooked the necklace from around her neck and handed it over. Eddie had given it to her so long ago that her neck felt bare without it. She stopped herself from snatching it back. "I told you we wouldn't be sitting here doing nothing." Steve said smiling. "Now to fill in everyone else." Dustin said getting on his radio.