Blue Lips

1

Eddie sighed, tapping his fingers along the edge of the counter; his rings making soft clinking sounds against the metal edge. He glanced at the clock for what was probably the fifteenth time in the past five minutes, willing it to be 4:30. He wouldn't be off until 5:00, but he knew that Liz would make her usual pit stop after work, and when he got off, he would give her a ride home. 4:01.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered, silently cursing whatever gods still existed, that time couldn't move a little bit faster. He just wanted to see her, just for a minute. The bell above the door let out a loud shriek, and he spun around, finding himself face to face with a tall man in a trench coat. He was older, with stark white hair that was disheveled, and a long, white scar above his eyebrows, clear across his forehead. His eyes simultaneously seemed to be glossed over, dull, and bloodshot. The glasses on his nose were slightly crooked, and his trench coat was tied far too tightly around his torso to possibly be comfortable. The man's hands were hidden in his pockets, and he didn't say a word; he just stared blankly at Eddie. A cold chill sent shivers down his spine, and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Somehow, he was freezing and sweating at the same time. Who was this guy?

"Welcome to Samon's grocer, is there anything I can help you find, today, sir?" he asked, and even he could hear the impatience and anxiety in his own voice. Yikes. The man seemed to be sizing him up, silently looking him up and down before cocking his head to the side. Eddie felt his eyebrows arch, as he mirrored the man's actions and cocked his own head. The man let out a soft grunt and started to make his way towards the back of the store, slipping down an aisle and out of sight. Eddie let out the breath that he had been holding in since the man had looked him over, and reached for the nail-bat that he kept stashed under the counter. Last year's nonsense had made him paranoid, and everything seemed to scare him, lately. Pathetic. He glanced at the clock again. 4:21. "Shit," he whispered to himself, silently apologizing to all of the gods that he had previously cursed, begging them to keep Liz out of the store until the creep left. He heard a loud clunk coming from the aisle that the man had gone down, and sighed. It wasn't ever really going to be over for him, was it? There was always going to be something going on in this god-forsaken hell-hole of a town. He reached under the counter again, finding his walkie-talkie, the one that Dustin had given him, telling him to keep his eyes and ears open and call if he'd heard, seen, or found anything suspicious. But this old guy wasn't really suspicious, was he? Maybe he was just weird. Besides, Eddie had never seen him around town before, so surely he was just passing through Hawkins, making a pit stop on his way to some important weird-old-guy meeting in Indianapolis, or something. Right? ...Right?

Clunk. Okay, one clunk he could pretend was his imagination. Two, he could ignore, but if he heard one mor- CLUNK. "Oh, God-dammit," he whispered to himself, pulling the antenna of the walkie talkie up, and tuning it to Dustin's channel. "Henderso- Dustin! Dustin? Can you hear me?" he said into the walkie talkie, barely above a whisper. He was not about to die in this god-forsaken store. Especially not when Liz would be here any minute. He didn't want her to see him dying and bloody. Been there, done that, kept the tattered t-shirt. "Hey, Eddie! I never thought you'd ever use that thing, I was about to ask for it back! What happened?" Eddie cursed as he shot a glance over his shoulder, hoping against hope that the creepy-old-man-zombie hadn't heard Dustin's crackly voice. "Dude, someone - or something- just came into the store. I'm not trying to be paranoid, but uh - if I'm totally leveling with you, it seems like our kind of creepy, if you catch my drift." There was a long pause, followed by another loud CLUNK. Eddie felt his shoulders tense up as the sound echoed through the store. "Eddie! Eddie - DON'T MOVE - I'm on my way. Two blocks!" Dustin's voice was crackly as if he was riding his bike and using the walkie at the same time. Eddie heard shuffling footsteps behind him. He turned and saw that the man was now towering over him, unnaturally tall, and his skin looked as though it had somehow become even more pale than it had been before. His beady, half-dead eyes were staring right through Eddie's soul. He pressed the button on the walkie, hoping that Dustin wasn't riding too hard to hear him. "Uh- yeah, Henderson? I gotta go hide. Find me when you get here." And he bolted.