Say Anything | Steve Harrington |

Ch. 9 The Upside Down

November 10th, 1983
Hawkins Funeral Home

   "...It's made of softwood with a crepe interior. Now I don't know what you're kids' budget is, but over here... We have one composed of copper and bronze." The seller walked us past multiple coffins of different woods, "Can we afford this? I mean... any of this? I'm pretty sure that last coffin was like $2,000." I whispered to Jonathan as the man's droning voice carried on.

   "He deserves the best we can get." He muttered back with no emotion evident in his voice or behind his eyes. I knew this would be a hard process, for all parties involved. I mean, how could it not be? But it still made me feel sick to think that Will would be buried in a casket that we had chosen for him while Mom wasn't even present for the selection.

   Beginning to feel my stomach churn from the thought, I pulled my eyes away from the dark wood coffin in front of us and onto the front of the shop that had been decorated with cheap flowers, only to spot a strange visitor stepping into the shop. Only they stayed frozen in their place in front of the door.

   It was Nancy. She stood awkwardly by the entrance, staring at us from across the shop, tightly clutching onto her school bag, obviously debating if this was the right time to talk. Clearly, it wasn't. Clearing my throat, I jabbed Jonathan with my elbow to pull his attention away from the variety of coffins and onto Nancy.

   "If you'll excuse us... We'll be right back." Jonathan stopped the man from continuing on about the light brown coffin in front of us before we made our way toward Nancy. "Hey?" Jonathan spoke to Nancy first but seemed to have trouble making eye contact with her. "Hey..." Her response was quiet, almost as if she was regretting coming here. It wasn't hard to miss the slight guilt that glossed over her eyes as she looked between the two of us.

   "You're guys Mom said you'd be here, sorry to barge?" She looked between the two of us apologetically but continued. "Can we talk for a second?" She nodded her head towards an empty hall. Making our way out of the center of the funeral home, Nancy sat between Jonathan and me on a bench before pulling out a taped-together picture. "I just wanted to know if you know what this is in the corner? Or if you can recreate the photo?" She passed the photo to Jonathan allowing him to scan his eyes over the photo.

   "There's this too..." She mumbled to me and handed me another tapped photo. It was the picture of Steve placing his jacket on me. "Nancy, this was nothing. I-" She placed a hand on my shoulder and offered a small smile. "I know, Steve told me." I furrowed my brow and looked back down at the photo. "Told you..." I asked, my voice wavering as I anticipated her answer. Nodding, she offered me a small smile. "That you guys are old friends."

   Biting my tongue, I awkwardly nodded before looking back up at Nancy as Jonathan spoke up. "It looks like it could be some kind of perspective distortion, but I wasn't using a wide-angle." He rambled too quickly with terminology that Nancy obviously wasn't familiar with. "What's that mean?" Nancy asked me as Jonathan handed her back the photo. "He doesn't know what it is." I mumbled and looked down at the strange figure in the corner of the photo.

   "And you're sure you didn't see anything else out there that night? Either of you?" She asked and looked between the two of us. "No." Jonathan stated, bored and tired of the conversation that was currently a waste of time that we didn't have. "I didn't see anything... But I heard something... Like a growl? Or something... I don't know." I mumbled and played with the ends of my fingers as I thought back to the night of the party.

   "What? Where? Why didn't you tell me?" Nancy turned to face me but all I could offer her was a shrug. "I mean it was by Steve's place, I just thought it was my imagination and the beers." I shrugged, my answer quickly earning me a glare from Jonathan. "Beers?" He repeated with a squint of his eyes. "I won't tell Mom if you won't" I scoffed lightly as I waved the picture he had taken in his face.