"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 Seventy-Nine: Last-Minute Preparations
(Papa, Pt. 6)
***
The clang of nails being hammered into trash can lids rang throughout the empty silence of the field.
Alistair's eyes were narrowed in concentration as he hammered in nails into the garbage can lid, sending grateful smiles to Hugin as the raven held nails for him to hammer into the garbage can lid. Across from him, Dustin and Eddie did the same—making shields that, along with spears, would ward off the Demobats if they broke through the barricades they'd put over the Munson trailer in the Upside Down. Hopefully.
Worst come to worst, they'd book it through the gate and wait on the other side until the others came back from killing Vecna and putting the bastard in his grave. Alistair would make good on his promises and not do anything stupidly self-sacrificial tonight.
If Vecna doesn't get me first.
No. He was going to survive. He and Max and everyone else was going to survive. Eddie and Dustin would call in Elton the instant he went under the trance and Lucas would do the same for Max when she began to float. They would all be okay.
Alistair couldn't accept a world if they weren't.
A sawing noise rang out over the field and Alistair glanced over to see Nancy sawing off the barrel of her shotgun as Max and Cami held it steady—to make it shorter, to guarantee she wouldn't miss. Beside her, Rowan was tying a bandana to the belt, making the sword more secure. Alistair looked at Max, his stomach twisting in knots over how she was in so much danger tonight even with her plan and Lucas there to make sure she'd be okay, before he looked back, hammering a nail into the lid more viciously than he had with the earlier ones.
This would work. They would all make it out to the other side—the world would be saved and he and Max wouldn't die. No one would die.
They were all going to make it.
In front of him, Dustin and Eddie seemed to be satisfied with the amount of nails they'd hammered into their shields as Eddie stood on the crate he'd been sitting on, swinging his shield in the air as Dustin asked, "How's she feeling?"
"Light. But durable," Eddie answered, giving it another experimental swing. "Deadly. But reliable."
"That's good to hear," Alistair said as he hammered in a final nail, his own shield done. That was when he noticed Rowan had joined them, standing on the sidelines with her arms crossed and a fond smirk on her face, as Eddie stood on a crate and declared in the dramatics Alistair knew were purely Eddie Munson, "Hear me now. There will be no more retreating... from Eddie the Banished."
"Hey, you're really ready for bat-tle," Dustin joked.
As one, Alistair, Eddie, Rowan and Hugin turned to Dustin, who grinned and chuckled before elaborating, "You get it? 'Bat-tle.' B-A-T."
