"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-Nine: On The Shoreline
(The Dive, Pt. 3)
***
Alistair's heart thundered against his ribs, his breathing harsh and his legs burning. His headphones and backpack bumped against him with how fast he'd been running the past few minutes, and he felt Hugin's irritation at being jostled inside, but he hardly cared as he half-ran, half-walked after Dustin to where the new gate supposedly was. It had lead to day slipping into night and making those who brought flashlights turn them on, but Alistair hardly cared, hope for a gate being at the end fuelling him and making him forget the general pain and exhaustion of walking for hours—that he could have run for hours more with that hope of a way into the Upside Down, of being able to kill Vecna, free himself and Max from the curse, and it all being finally over after three years of trauma, pain and loss.
Dustin stopped, making them all stop as well as Alistair panted, feeling Cami lean against him for support as everyone briefly recovered, before Dustin said excitedly, "Something's happening," and began running again.
"Dustin? Can you slow down? Dustin!" Eddie called out as they began running again, Alistair trying to ignore his muscles protesting against it and Hugin's muffled caws and annoyance, because they had to be close to the gate, they had to be.
"I think we're getting close!" Dustin shouted, affirming Alistair's thoughts as they kept running—until Rowan yelled, "Dustin, stop!"
Alistair paused, trying to think why Rowan would yell that before he saw the thinning trees and, more alarmingly, the sound of lapping waves as Dustin sprinted out of the trees—and nearly into the lake if Eddie hadn't grabbed him in time.
"Watch your step, big guy," Eddie warned as the rest of them stopped, grouping about on the shoreline, water lapping calmly at it. Near them, a tarp-covered boat was beached in the sand—a boat that Alistair realised must have been the boat Eddie used to escape last night—and in front of them, stretching for miles, was the endless black surface of the lake. A very familiar lake.
"Oh man. You gotta be shitting me," Steve groaned when he realised where they were.
Rowan barked out a laugh. "That's an understatement."
"Yeah. I thought these woods looked familiar," Eddie commented grimly.
"Lover's Lake," Robin said as they all stared at the broad expanse of the lake. At night, the water was pitch-black, a void that swallowed up the light of the moon and stars as they tried to shine through its waters. In its abyssal depths, anything could be hiding within it.
Including a gate to the Upside Down.
"The lake. Of course it's in the lake," Leo muttered.
"This is confounding," Dustin breathed, looking at the compass, then back at the lake.
