Red Soul | Eddie Munson

𝕀𝕍. 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔽𝕒𝕔𝕖𝕝𝕖𝕤𝕤 𝕄𝕒𝕟

"Now the stage has all been
set and the nights are
growing cold."
╰── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╯

"I don't know how we're going to pay for this," Jonathan sighed.

We left Joyce and went straight to the funeral home. The funeral director kept spouting out prices every time we even glanced in the direction of another casket.

"I'll get a job," I told him. "Will deserves something nice."

"Is that Nancy?" he suddenly asked. I looked up from the thousand dollar casket we were looking at to see Nancy Wheeler standing in the doorway.

Nancy is Mike's sister, who was Will's best friend. If she was there to give her condolences, it was kind of a bad time.

"Could you give us a second?" Jonathan asked the funeral director.

"Of course," he said, stepping aside.

We followed Nancy out into the hallway. She gave us a sheepish look. "Your mom, uh, said you guys would be here. I just... Can we talk for a second?"

"Not like we're doing anything more important right now," I grumbled. "What's going on?"

She pulled a stack of photos out of her bag and flipped to a page with a strange, almost inhuman-looking thing on it. "I know you're good with cameras, Jonathan. What do you think this could be?"

"It looks like it could be some kind of perspective distortion," he explained. "But I wasn't using the wide angle."

Jonathan took those pictures? How did they end up in the hands of Nancy? I crossed my arms and looked at the photograph, ignoring my confusion. Goosebumps crawled up my arms the longer I looked at it.

"And you're sure you didn't see anyone else out there?" Nancy asked.

"No," Jonathan answered. "And she was there one second and then, um, gone... I figured she bolted."

"The cops think that she ran away. But they don't know Barb." Who was Barb? "I went back to Steve's and I thought I saw something. Some... weird man, or I don't know what it was." Nancy paused. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come here today."

"What'd he look like?" Jonathan inquired. "The man you saw in the woods?"

"Oh, I don't know. It was almost like he... he didn't—"

"Didn't have a face?" Jonathan and I asked at the same time, looking at each other.

Nancy's face scrunched up. "How did you know that?"

I could feel every hair on my body stand up. Joyce wasn't crazy. Will was not lying dead in the morgue like everyone wanted us so badly to believe. He was out there, somewhere, alive.

★・・・✘✘・・・★

Jonathan dropped me off at home while he and Nancy went to try to brighten the picture and see if they could discover anything else.

I burst through the front door and ran to Joyce, who looked at me with confusion. I immediately hugged her and she hugged me back.

"Sweetie, what is it?" she asked over the loud music she was playing. It was Should I Stay or Should I Go by The Clash, Will's favorite song.

"I think we believe you," I told her. "That Will is alive."

"You do?" She was in disbelief.

As if on cue, we suddenly heard whimpering coming from right outside the wall. Joyce walked up to it and I followed behind her.

"Mom?" Will's voice sent chills down my entire body. He was here.

"Will?!" she screamed.

"Mom!" Will screamed back. "Please!"

"Will!" Both of us were screaming his name over and over. Joyce ran outside with me right behind her. We expected him to be out there. He sounded like he was right on the porch, but there was nothing but the furniture.

Joyce ran back inside with me on her tail. She began tearing off the wallpaper. "I'm here! I'm here!"

I helped her tear it off. Will continued yelling for Joyce as we yelled back, but the next thing he said stopped me dead in my tracks. "Mom, it's coming!"

"Tell me where you are! How do I get to you?!" she asked frantically.

"It's like home, but it's so dark. It's so dark and empty. And it's cold! Mom? Mom!"

My head spun. If this is what Joyce had been dealing with this entire time, I now understood why there were lights strung up in the house with our living room furniture thrown everywhere.

Joyce screamed for Will to run, then grabbed the axe she had earlier and began chopping into the wall. I gasped. I was frozen in place. Birds chirped outside as she busted straight through. There was nothing.

"I don't understand. I don't understand!" she sobbed.

She fell to the ground. I had no idea what to do other than sit next to her and hold her as she cried. We sat there on the floor for hours until it turned dark.

We were blinded by lights coming through the hole in the wall and Joyce slowly made her way outside to check it out.

"Lonnie!" I heard her sob.

Her ex-husband and Will and Jonathan's father. I walked to the door and watched them hug for a second before heading to my room.

I laid on my bed, holding one of my pillows in my arms. I felt numb. There had to be something I could do. I didn't know where Will was, but if he could get there, then so could I.

My thoughts were interrupted by tapping on my window. I sat up and saw Eddie looking at me through the glass. He waved.

I wiped my face dry of the tears I didn't realize had been flowing and walked over to the window. I lifted it up.

"Were you standing me up?" he asked, a grin on his face.

I couldn't find the effort to smile back at him. "Shit, Eddie, I'm sorry. It's been an awful day."

"Is everything okay?" He shook his head. "Horrible question. Of course everything isn't okay."

I stared at him, ultimately deciding I would not confide in him about everything that just happened. He would either not believe me and think I've lost it just like Joyce, or, even worse, he would absolutely believe me and put himself right into the middle of it all. Something in my heart told me it would be the latter, and I couldn't do that to him. He was just an innocent guy trying to make a girl having a terrible time feel better.

He waved a hand in front of my face. "Think I lost ya for a second."

I sighed. "I don't think I'm in the mood to hang out tonight, Eds. I'm not trying to blow you off; today has just been... different."

"Yeah, I get it," he said, tapping the bottom of the windowsill with his hands. "Should I come back in the morning?"

"Eddie..." I trailed off.

"I understand, Jules," he said, although he sounded sad. He started to turn, then looked back at me. "If you change your mind about hanging out, you know where to find me."

I nodded and he walked away, shoulders slightly hunched. I felt bad about turning him down, and I wanted nothing more than for him to crawl into my bed and comfort me. But right then, I had bigger things to worry about.