"Hey, you remember what I said last year, right? We're Zombie Boy and Ghost Boy. I'm not ever gonna leave you."
"Promise?"
"One hundred percent."
***
In which Alistair fights the monster that possessed his friend alongside his friends, while trying...
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Chapter Sixty-Five: Investigating The Creel House
(The Nina Project, Pt. 2)
***
The car ride to the Creel house was silent.
Alistair held his backpack to him, looking out the window as I'm Still Standing played in a loop in his ears, feeling waves of comfort from Hugin stowed away inside. Next to him, Cami fiddled with one of her bracelets, her face grim and stoic and so not like his best friend's face, but Alistair knew not even the eternal sunshine that was Cami Martinéz could be positive with something like this and when he had nearly died yesterday along with Max. In front was Valerie in the shotgun seat and Leo in the driver's seat—this was his car they were driving in—as from the radio Everybody Wants To Rule The World played, which felt appropriate, Alistair thought grimly.
But no one spoke, their destination—and why they were heading to it—silencing them.
Finally, they arrived at the Creel house, just behind Nancy's car as she, Steve, Rowan, Max, Dustin and Lucas got out. When Leo parked, he, Alistair, Cami and Valerie also got out, Alistair pulling his headphones down and pausing the music temporarily.
Once they did, all eleven of them looked the Creel house. And Alistair immediately got the creeps.
Once, it might have been a nice house, but now it was dilapidated and decaying. Wooden boards covered up the door and windows, the white paint faded by time, exposure and the elements. Creeping plants twisted around the pillars and over the arches of the first roof, which seemed to slouch down upon them. And from it Alistair felt sharp waves of pain and death—murder had happened in this house, and it had been brutal and it had not been quick. It lingered around the house still, seeped into the walls and the floorboards. But more than that, something else about the Creel house—something that wasn't death—had shivers crawl up Alistair's spine and had every instinct screaming at him to run, as he felt unease through the bond from Hugin, the undead raven sensing it even though he was still inside the backpack now slung on Alistair's shoulders.
It was creepy as hell, and if it wasn't important to Vecna and might hold answers inside it's rotting walls, Alistair would give it the same treatment he gave hospitals, Hawkins Lab and, formerly, graveyards and other places of mass, sometimes brutal death—avoid at all costs.
Apparently, he wasn't alone in getting creeped out by the Creel house, as Steve commented flatly, "Yeah, that's not creepy at all."
That had Rowan snort out a laugh and Steve crack a smile despite the situation, but both quickly faded when they looked back at the house, holding hands, as finally their group headed up the path to the porch of the Creel house—ready to head inside.
Once they all grouped together on the rotting porch, which Alistair was confident was going to give under them any second now, Nancy, Steve and Rowan got to work on removing the large wooden plank boarding up the door and preventing them from entering, using hammers that probably wouldn't be missed by Mr. Wheeler to ply out the nails.
