Home (Reddie fanfic)

Chapter 9

Thursday 10th September 1989, 15:34 pm

The rain from the previous morning had started back up again, the weather in September really couldn't decide how it wanted to act, a light drizzle falling down from the clouds above, pitter pattering on the ground forming small puddles, and softly tapping on the hood of Eddie's green coat. The small boy walked slowly along Brunthorn street, gripping the straps of his backpack tight, trying to think of a detour or a longer way to get home.

On one hand he wanted to get out of the rain, but on the other he was dreading the possibility that the school had already phoned in, and his mother would begin asking him questions upon questions, half of them to which he never had an answer to, and she would always assume something was wrong with him, or that he needed more prescriptions of pills, and he really didn't know how he'd be able to get out of that.

Turning into one of the alleyways on his left, he thought it would be best to take the route through the park. It was a secluded one, in the far corners of the park, leading right onto the road his house was on. He'd taken it a lot throughout the years, knowing that there wouldn't be any unwanted bullies, or creepy people waiting for him. 

The only thing Eddie didn't know was the reason why people avoided the path, having only thought of it as a quick road home and nothing more. He'd never bothered to glance between the trees that lined it, and never noticed how there were no animals or flowers along it. No one but Eddie would willingly walk down there, for what he didn't know was behind the large oak trees he would pass, there was a very small and winding lane, that led directly into the yard of Neibolt house.

The abandoned house, haunted house, call it what you will, but there was one of these houses in every small town, a place that people avoided like the plague because of its history, it was a well-known fact, though not talked about, that there had been many deaths, over the course of the years, which had coincidentally been at Neibolt, in some way or another, it would all lead back to the house. It wasn't as though the house had a label, it wasn't the place where murderers would bring their victim's dead bodies to hide, no, it was just seen as a bad omen.

A really bad omen.

The strange deaths and occurrence's, the sightings some of the crackheads of Derry had seen were always linked to that house. Sure no one believed them, but no matter how much they denied it, there was still a small part of them that was scared, a part that wondered whether what these people had seen could be true. 

Logic and reason often shut this out, but fear can fool even the wisest of men, and so, they stayed away. Eddie was just unfortunate enough to never realize that the path he had taken more than hundreds of times could be dangerous. Could be that is, not definitely. So, without a care in the world, he strolled down it, unbothered and unfazed.

He didn't want to keep worrying about his mother, and so kept his eyes on the scenery, trying to occupy himself by counting the clouds in the sky, which was near impossible seeing as they were all clumped together. They kept moving because of the wind, and Eddie concentrated as hard as he could, trying to find the outline of each big grey lump, but then, out of the blue, he saw something. It wasn't anything that unusual, but it certainly stood out against the many shades of grey, appearing from behind a tuft of cloud- a bright red balloon.

Floating.

Eddie watched as it bobbed along, wobbling a little as the gentle breeze pushed against it, slowing it slightly but still letting it float quite steadily to the west, and then disappearing over the large oak trees. After a few seconds, he heard a faint pop, and the rustle of leaves, sounding like the birds had been scared away, but Eddie didn't give it too much thought, after all, it was just a balloon that a child had probably let go of by accident, at a birthday party or a fair. He continued to walk, drops of water tipping off of the hood his coat and onto the ground, he gave up counting clouds and decided to count raindrops instead.