INSTANT REPLAY | REDDIE

- 01 | INSTANT REPLAY

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It was a bit chilly for what was supposed to be a summer day. That was Eddie's first thought as he sat there watching the trains go by. He could hear the faint shouts of the kids playing baseball on the field down the street. He vaguely reminisced about the day that the drunken driver of one of the trains had thrown a box at his head and told him to bring it to his mother. He hadn't wanted to touch it, but what he wanted even less was to let his mother down, so he had found a piece of scrap rope and tied in around the box to drag home with him. There had been lobsters in that box, and his mother had been mighty angry when he refused to eat them for dinner, but he had escaped without much more than a slap on the wrist.

Today was different, though. Eddie had heard of how homeless people liked to come and go off of the trains, but he had never actually seen one before. His mother had warned him about them, so he tried to only hang around the train yard when it was light out enough for him to see them before they saw him.

However, today that was not the case. Eddie had been poking around at the ground with a stick when he heard a shuffling sound against the dirt behind him. His chest had already begun to tighten when he heard it, but he could hardly breathe at all when he turned around to see a hobo at least twice his size and missing a chunk out of one side of his nose sliding out from beneath the porch of number 29 Neibolt Street. Eddie's breaths became raspy, and he had to concentrate to get all the air into his body as the thing got closer and his features became clearer, much to Eddie's horror.

"Hey, kid. Come closer. I'll blow you for just one quarter!" If Eddie had thought this man's appearance was bad, the voice was much worse. It sliced through Eddie's brain like a sheet of ice, and he found himself rooted to the spot and stuttering almost as bad as Bill Denbrough.

"I - I.. Um.. I don't have a quarter." The look on the hobo's face when he registered Eddie's response was what finally had the young boy backing up towards his bike. Fear weighed his stomach down like a ton of lead. He allowed his gaze to sweep up and down the thing's figure, pausing on the puke-stained pants for a brief moment.

"I'll do it for a dime," the man croaked, shuffling towards Eddie slowly. The brunette would have preferred it if the 'bo ran, because at least that would have given his body the signal that he needed to leave. But no, he was stuck standing there and watching in pure horror as the scabbed and wrinkly hand reached for the zipper of those stained green pants and started to reach inside. He was too far away to reach Eddie yet, but the brunette could already imagine the feeling of those clammy hands on his hips, pressing him down against the asphalt and wandering where his mother said no man's hands should go on another man's body.

"I... I don't have a dime, either!" He insisted, voice breaking. He had a sudden thought, and cold terror gripped his heart in it's icy claws.

'Oh my God he's got leprosy! If he touches me I'll catch it too!'

His control snapped, and he ran. The sound of that shuffling walk becoming a lurching run echoed in his ears and it was louder than anything else. He couldn't hear the kids playing baseball anymore. Hell, he could hardly hear his own breathing. He wasn't even sure that he was breathing.

"Come back here, kid! I'll blow you for free! Come back here!" The fury in the hobo's voice drove a stake of terror through Eddie's heart, as if he wasn't scared enough already, and he leaped forward onto his bike. It took an agonizingly long few seconds for him to get going, legs burning with the effort, and he was sure he could feel the hot breath of the 'bo fanning across the back of his neck until he finally started to move.