The Freaks - Eddie Munson

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Wheeler

It was dark under the water. The only light radiated from the gate at the very bottom, shining a bright red light up and out into the lake. I closed my eyes as I swam through the gate, emerging from the other side. It occurred to me that as many years as I've been assisting the kids with all of this Upside Down business, I'd never actually been there. It scared the shit out of me. I emerged from the other side, the lake dried up in the Upside Down. Red lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating Steve, Eddie, Robin and Nance fighting...bats? I picked up an oar that was near me and prepared myself to help. Steve struggled to breathe on the ground, a bat strangling him with its tail, Robin and Nancy doing their best to get it off of him. Eddie, meanwhile, was swinging like a madman, hitting any bat that came his way. We made eye contact for a split second, his eyes wide with worry before he yelled my name in warning. I turned to see one of the creatures flying towards me. I readied my oar, hitting it directly in the head. I turned to see Steve off the ground, digging his own oar into the neck of the bat that had choked him, spitting blood out of his mouth. Nancy attempted to detach one from Robin's hair, pulling frantically. Before I knew it, Eddie was next to me.

"I told you to-"

"Stay in the goddamn boat, I know. I wasn't going to let all four of you have all the fun without me." I looked up to see him holding back a smile. He was trying to stay pissed at me and it wasn't working. A bat flew onto me without warning, latching onto my neck. A scream ripped through my throat, the pain unbearable. Eddie's eyes widened as he gripped the tail of the creature, pulling as hard as he could.

"Eddie it hurts!"

"Get the fuck off of her!" he yelled, hitting it repeatedly with his fist. The bat detached from my neck, latching onto Eddie. These things were impossible to kill. Nancy rushed over to help me pull it from his neck. It finally budged after a few seconds, and Nancy swung it into the air, bringing it down on the ground and finally killing it. We all looked around, realizing they were all gone.

"Jesus H Christ!" Eddie yelled, tossing his oar to the ground. He ran his hands over his face, feeling his neck carefully to see how bad his bite was. As if just now remembering I'd been bitten too, he let out a tiny gasp, turning to my shapely and taking my face in his hands.

"Are you okay??" he asked urgently, searching my body for more wounds.

"I'm okay, Eds." I assured him with a small smile. We all turned to see more bats flying toward us. It was an entire herd.

"Shit." Eddie whined, running his hand through his hair.

"The woods!" Nancy called out. "Run!" we all followed Nance as she ran towards the shriveled up woods a few yards away. She continued to run until we found suitable cover.

"C'mon Steve. Let me wrap that up." she pointed to the gash in his side. The bats had taken out an entire chunk of flesh.

"I should look at that." Eddie said, taking my hand. I shook my head.

"Eddie, I'm fine-"

"Just let me look at it." he guided me to a log, where he sat me down, sitting next to me. "May I?" he asked, pointing to the wound on my neck. I nodded, tilting my head so he could get a better view. He brushed my hair out of the way, his fingers brushing against my skin. He took one look at it and ripped away the bottom of his hellfire shirt.

"Don't do that!" I gasped. He shrugged.

"Dustin has like 50 more in a box somewhere. Besides, the session the other day was one of our last." it made me sad for some reason. He was finally graduating, but I knew deep down he didn't want to leave his little sheep behind. He held it up to my gash, pressing lightly to absorb the blood. He brushed more of my hair out of the way.

"You have blood in your hair." he whispered, his hand lingering on the back of my head.

"It's fine." he nodded, his eyes locked on mine. They were the color of dark chocolate. I felt guilty about what had passed between us not long ago at the house. I didn't know how to explain to him, or even myself what it meant.

"Eddie-"

"I wanted to thank you." he cut me off. My eyebrows furrowed. "For...not letting me kiss you back at the Creel House." he broke eye contact with me, his eyes on the cloth which he held to my neck.

"Why?" it barely came out in a whisper.

"Because..." he said, swallowing, "if I had kissed you I wouldn't have been able to stop." his eyes reached mine again. "We'd have been in some deep shit." he let out a chuckle, like I was already forgiven.

"I'm so sorry." I whispered. "I didn't want you to think we were-"

"More than friends?" he inquired.

"That's not what I meant."

"There's no need to be sorry." My heart sunk. But I knew as soon as we got close I'd just push him away. Better to do that sooner than later. But I wanted him. And it scared me, but part of me thought it didn't matter that I was scared.

I wanted more than anything for him to hold me, to need me. No one had ever needed me before. That was the thing about Eddie Munson. He was too much like me.

"It's your turn." I said, taking the cloth from his hands, gesturing for him to move his own hair out of the way, pressing the cloth to his neck. He hissed slightly, his hand flying to my leg and squeezing. He removed it quickly.

"Sorry." he gave me a weak smile, which I returned.

"One of these days we'll stop stitching each other up." he smirked.

"How is that, by the way?" he gestured to my stomach, where he'd patched me up earlier.

"Better, thanks to you." he reached over slowly, lifting my shirt until he could see the bandage.

"Hey, I did a good job." he laughed. I nodded in affirmation, the cloth still soaking up the blood on his neck. He brushed the bandage on my stomach with his thumb, lifting his hooded eyes to meet mine. He really needed to stop doing that. His eyebrows furrowed, looking down at his hand on my wound. He moved it to my leg, rubbing is thumb back and forth in comfort.

"We would have been in deep shit." he repeated in a whisper, as if warning himself not to try to kiss me again.

"Deep shit." I whispered. I watched as my hand came up to cover his, running my thumb over his ring. Our eyes met once again. And suddenly, I knew if he kissed me, I wouldn't stop him.

"Maybe we should go down to the police station downtown." we heard Robin say, "We can get guns, grenades, anything we need to blow those bats out of the way of the gate." Eddie and I stood up to join the conversation, tossing the bloody cloth aside.

"We don't need to go all the way downtown for guns." Nancy added thoughtfully.

"I have two in my room back home. They should still be there, even here."

"You," Eddie began, "Nancy Wheeler have guns...plural...in your bedroom?"

"Full of surprises isn't she?" Robin laughed.

"What are we waiting for?" I offered, "Let's go home."

We all lost our balance when the earth began shaking, almost like an earthquake. Eddie grasped my waist tightly, holding me as we fell to the ground, riding out the earthquake. I looked up to see Steve holding Nancy, Robin grasping a tree.

The shaking suddenly stopped, and we heard the bats screeching in the distance.

"No it's fine, I'm okay, no one needs to help me steady myself or anything." Robin called out to us. Eddie looked up into the sky and sighed.

"Yeah, guns seem like a good idea."