Hell Comes To Hawkins

Chapter 7

PART 7

Callie made it home without incident. It was still a bit early to go to bed just yet. Even if she had been up earlier than normal this morning. She sat at the desk in her room catching up her homework. Besides, her parents were both home tonight, a rare occurrence. She wasn't about to make them curious about her. As long as she kept her grades up at school and the house was still standing, they usually never bothered her.

She found she was struggling to focus on her work, another rare occurrence. She put her pencil down beside her notebook, went over to her cassette player, found her favorite tape and inserted it into the tape deck.

She closed her eyes as the familiar intro to Rainbow in the Dark filled the room. That was better. Feeling too relaxed now to work on homework, she grabbed her pencil and notebook and set it beside her on the nightstand before laying back to listen to the rest of the cassette. Next thing she knew, Callie was in a familiar place.

UPSIDE DOWN-

The sky let out a rumble of thunder as a bolt of lightning spiderwebbed across the ruby sky. Callie looked around her. She was not at Skull Rock this time. This time she was standing just outside the high school. She walked up toward the doors as another bolt of lightning lit up the sky again. Just as she reached for the handle to let herself in, something touched her shoulder. Callie spun around ready to fight. She stopped when she recognized Eddie.

"Hey sweetheart!" he said, a mischievous smile spreading across his face. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." he winked.

"Asshole!" she yelled, but smiled back at him. "I almost decked you one."

"Nah, you would've missed, or hurt that pretty hand." he answered, reaching to take it. She allowed it, though she wasn't sure why. She just knew that she was safe with him.

"Hey, before I forget, Dustin said to tell you... the sheep are well tended. Whatever that means. He's a great kid, but a little strange."

"Actually, that's not strange at all for Henderson. It's an inside thing between him and I. He's the first person I want to see when I can escape from this hellhole."

"That's sweet. He's looking forward to seeing you too. But let's table that for now. We have bigger fish to fry than to stand here talking about how adorable Dustin is. You said on the Lite Brite that you have a plan to get you out? Fill me in."

"Well, I control the demobats now-" he began.

"I'm sorry, demo-what?!" Callie interrupted.

"Demobats. They are the creatures that turned me from good ol metal head freak Eddie Munson, to Kas, Vampire King. See, Vecna doesn't know that I am going to escape. He doesn't know that I'm a double agent. He doesn't know that there are ties keeping me from completely being owned by him.

I control the demobats. All we have to do is kill Vecna. Which we came really close to doing last time. I can keep the demobats at bay. while you guys come in guns blazing. He's going to want Wheeler's girlfriend. He tried to kill her and Max Mayfield both last year. Meanwhile, the rest of us got the jump on him and nearly killed him. But it wasn't quite enough. We need to pack more of a punch. If we can do that, then hopefully that will undo this," he gestured to himself in a sweeping down motion, "and I can come home." he finished.

"Eddie, I think that mostly, that is a very good plan." Callie said after a moment. "But what if killing Vecna doesn't cure you? What if by killing Vecna, we lose you, all over again? I don't think Dustin could take that heartache. I don't think I could take it either." She said, looking away from him.

Eddie grabbed her chin between his thumb and forefinger and gently lifted her head so she was looking into his chocolate colored eyes with her amber ones. The look he was giving her, she wondered if he was going to kiss her, he definitely looked like he wanted to. She had to admit, if only to herself, she wanted him to. There was a sense of longing deep in the pit of her belly whenever she thought of him. She almost wished her parents had moved here before the gates opened up, so she could have known Eddie for real.