Escape ~ S.Harrington

61} Hunt the Freak

Steve, Robin, Alice, Max, and Dustin all ran out of the Family Video to go look for Eddie. Robin turned the sign to 'Closed' and locked up, then everyone hopped in Steve's car for their road trip.
By the time they got out to Lover's Lake, it was dark outside already, but that didn't bother Dustin. He was the first to jump out of the car and stomped right up to Reefer Rick's door. Once everyone else caught up to him, he rang the doorbell. No response came within 5 seconds so Dustin started to repeatedly ring it in quick succession.

"Okay," Steve rolled his eyes, "Well, that's settled. I guess he's not here."
"Eddie!" Dustin pounded on the door, "It's Dustin!"
"Great," Steve really didn't want to deal with this any longer.
"Look, we just wanna talk, okay?" Dustin was still trying to reason, "No cops, I swear. We just wanna help. Eddie!"
While Dustin was yelling and pounding at the door, Robin and Alice started to wander around the perimeter of the house shining their flashlights through the windows.
"Rick! Reefer Rick!"
"Dustin, don't scream that," Alice shook her head.
"Rick! Hey, maybe he's just high, Alice."

Whilst this mini argument was taking place, Max had wandered off and found something.
"Hey, guys?" She tried to get their attention. It worked and they wandered over to her. Straight ahead there was a little boat house with the door open ajar and the front light on. That's where the investigation really started. Each person wandered around the exterior of the shack looking in the grimy windows with their flashlights hoping to see some sign of Eddie. Then, Robin just opened the door.
"Hello?" She said, just above a whisper. "Is anyone home?"
The rest of the gang followed behind her and entered.
"What a dump," Steve wasn't very impressed with the boat house.

As a safety precaution, Steve grabbed an oar off the wall and used it to start poking around at the tarp over top of the tiny boat sitting in the center.
"What are you doing?" Dustin jumped when Steve started to poke.
"He might be in here," Steve replied, indifferently.
"So take the tarp off!" Dustin exclaimed.
"If you're so brave, you take the tarp off."
Neither one of them did.
"Hey, look over here," Max ushered Robin and Alice over to find food wrappers. "Someone was here."
"Maybe he heard us," Robin suggested, "Got spooked and ran."
"Oh, don't worry," Dustin chimed in, "Steve will get him with his oar."
"Haha, I know you think you're being funny, Henderson," Steve was still poking around, "but considering everyone in this room has nearly died about a hundred times, personally, I don't find it funny in the slight-"

Before Steve could finish his sentence, Eddie jumped out from under the tarp Steve was previously poking at and pinned him to the wall with a broken beer bottle to his throat.
"Eddie! Eddie! Stop!" Dustin was pleading, "Eddie! Eddie! It's me. It's Dustin. This is Steve, you should remember him. Jenna's best friend. He's not gonna hurt you, right, Steve?"
"Right. Yeah," Steve started to panic.

"Steve, why don't you drop the oar?" Dustin suggested.
Steve let it fall to the ground from his hands, but Eddie decided to put the bottle closer to his throat.
"He's cool. He's cool."
"I'm cool, man. I'm cool," Steve weakly smiled.
"What are you doing here?" Eddie said through gritted teeth.
"We're looking for you," Dustin put his hands out towards Eddie.
"We're here to help," Alice said, calmly.
"Eddie," Dustin started back up again, "these are my friends. You know Robin, from band. You know Alice, she works at the arcade. This is my friend Max. The one who never wants to play D&D. Eddie. We're on your side. I swear on my mother. I- I swear on Jenna. Right, guys?"

"Yes. Yes we swear," Max quickly answered, Robin nodding along.
"Yup, on Dustin's mom," Alice added.
"Yeah, Dustin's... Dustin's mother," Steve panicked.
Eddie thought for a second, then let Steve go. He walked till he found the wall behind him and slid down.
"Eddie..." Dustin got down to eye level, "We just want to talk."
Everyone else gathered around, "We want to know what happened," Robin added.
"You won't believe me," Eddie sniffled.
"Try us," Max gave him a faint smile.
This convinced Eddie to start telling his story.
"Her body just, like, lifted up into the air and, uh... and she just, like, hung there. In the air. And her bones... Uh, she... her bones started to snap. Her eyes, man. It... it was like there was something, like, inside her head, pulling. I didn't know what to do so I... I ran away. I left her there. You all think I'm crazy, right?"