CONNECTING THE DOTS
March 22nd, 1986
⏰ 9:45 pm, 📍Hawkins, Indiana
༺♥༻ After hours of driving around, Steve, Robin, Max, Stephanie, and Dustin finally pull into the supposed Reefer Ricks driveway.
The five exit the car, grab their flashlights and start to head towards the front door of the house.
Dustin rings the doorbell and waits for an answer.
No response.
He rings it again. And again, again, and again.
"I don't think he's here." Stephanie snaps, grabbing Dustin's arm, immediately tired of the noise.
Dustin will not take no for an answer. He starts pounding on the door and yelling, "Eddie! It's Dustin!"
Stephanie decides that she's not going to stand around and wait, so she creeps around the side of the house, shining her flashlight up and down the walls. She stops only when she sees a shed on the water, a perfect place to hide from the cops...not that she has before.
"Hey, guys?" Stephanie yells, waving the others towards her.
The four follow Stephanie, intrigued to see what she could've found.
After a few moments of silence and Steve's heavy breathing, Robin speaks up. "Should we check it out?"
"I think we should." Stephanie sighs, not actually wanting to check it out.
The kids head towards the shed and shine their flashlights into the windows.
Stephanie takes a deep breath as she turns the doorknob and walks in.
"Hello?" Robin speaks up from behind her, shining her light around the perimeter of the walls. "Is anyone home?"
"God, this place is a mess." Stephanie says, noticing the broken beer bottles littering the floor.
Stephanie also notices boat oars hanging on the wall. "Hey, Steve." She snaps her fingers and points to the oars. "Use one of those to check in the boats." Stephanie whispers, if Eddie were there, not wanting him to hear.
Steve nods and grabs an oar off of the rack. He hits the wadded up tarp in the boat.
"What are you doing?" Dustin whisper yells to Steve, startled by the sudden noise. "What are you doing?"
Steve keeps hitting the tarp. "He might be in here."
Dustin throws his hands into the air. "So take the tarp off!"
"If you're so brave, you take the tarp off." Steve scoffs, turning to Dustin.
Stephanie steps to the side of the boat, across from Steve. "Jesus Christ, I'll take the tarp off."
"Go ahead." Steve mumbles.
Stephanie bends down to try and get a good look of what is under the tarp before Max's voice distracts her. "Hey, look over here." She picks up various food wrappers. "Someone was here."
"Maybe he heard us." Robin offers, leaning over Max's shoulder. "Got spooked and ran."
"Don't worry, Steve will get him with his oar." Dustin points out, with an obvious sarcastic tone.
Stephanie walks back to the boat and takes a deep breath before slowly peeling the tarp back while Steve berates everyone for probably no reason.
Just as Stephanie pulls the tarp off enough, someone — Eddie jumps out of the boat. He jumps onto Steve and pins him up against the wall.
Stephanie jumps back from the boat and runs to Max's side. She finds Eddie holding Steve to the wall with a broken beer bottle to his neck.
Through the screams, Dustin tries to get Eddie's attention. "Woah, woah, woah!" He yells. "Eddie! Eddie, it's me! It's Dustin." Dustin gestures to Steve, who's trying not to breathe. "This is Steve."
"He's not gonna hurt you, right, Steve?" Stephanie adds, feeling like she needs to protect her brother in someway. "He won't hurt you."
"Right." Steve nods, trying to lean farther away from the bottle. "I won't, man."
"Steve, why don't you drop the oar?" Dustin advises, sticking an arm out as an attempted barrier.
Steve let's go of the oar, which thuds when it falls to the ground. Somehow this made Eddie bring the bottle closer to Steve neck, making Steve press himself deeper into the wall.
"He's cool! He's cool!"
"I'm cool, man. I'm cool." Steve whispers.
Eddie looks between Dustin and Steve. "What are you doing here?"
"We're looking for you." Dustin says, taking small steps towards Eddie.
"We're here to help." Robin adds.
Eddie turns his attention to Dustin as he tries to reason again, "Eddie, these are my friends." He points to the three girls behind him, not taking his eyes off of Eddie. "You know Robin, from band."
Robin imitates playing her trumpet to which Stephanie stifles a laugh.
"This is my friend Max." He points to the girl standing barely inches away from Stephanie. "The one who never wants to play D&D. And-and Stephanie, you know her. She wouldn't hurt you, Eddie."
Eddie gives a glance at Stephanie who is looking at Steve with gallons of fear flooding her body.
"Eddie. We're on your side. I swear on my mother! Right, guys?"
"Yes. Yes. We swear." Stephanie stutters, giving a look to Max.
"Yeah, on Dustin's mother." Robin agrees, nodding her head.
"Yeah, Dustin's...Dustin's mother." Steve chokes out.
Everyone holds their breath as they look between Eddie and Steve. Until finally, Eddie let's go of Steve and leans against the wall, sliding down as he's visibly holding back tears.
Steve let's out a sigh of relief as he rubs his neck to make sure there weren't any cuts.
Stephanie goes to check on her brother who's probably being more dramatic than he needs to be.
Dustin crouches down to be eye to eye with Eddie. "Eddie...We just want to talk. Okay?" Dustin reaches his hand out to Eddie's but he flinches at Dustin's touch.
The other four begin to take notice.
"We want to know what happened." Robin says, copying Dustin's previous motions.
"You won't believe me." Eddie whispers, looking over his shoulder at Robin.
"Try us." Max answers, a smirk growing on her face.
He takes a deep, shaky breath before he starts to talk. "Her body just, like, lifted up into the air and, uh...And she just, like, hung there. In the air. And her bones...Uh, she..." He pauses. "Her bones started to snap. Her eyes, man. It...It was like there was something, like, inside her head, pulling."
Stephanie leans closer, listening more than she probably ever has in school.
"I...I didn't know what to do, so I...I ran away. I left her there. You all think I'm crazy, right?"
"We don't think you're crazy at-" Dustin starts.
"Don't bullshit me, man!" Eddie interrupts, not wanting to hear Dustin pity him. "I know how this sounds!"
"We're not bullshitting you." Stephanie shakes her head, seeing at Eddie look up at her, mixed with emotions she couldn't decipher.
"We believe you." Robin nods, giving a look to Stephanie.
"Look, what I'm about to tell you might be a little...difficult to take." Dustin starts, watching how Eddie reacts with each word he says.
Eddie nods. "Okay."
"You know how people say Hawkins is...cursed? They're not...way off. There's another world. A world hidden beneath Hawkins. Sometimes it bleeds into ours."
Eddie shakes his head, probably not believing a word Dustin says. "Like ghosts and shit?"
"There are some things worse than ghosts." Max gives a look to Stephanie, like she's about to cry. Stephanie puts her arm around Max, attempting to comfort her.
"These monsters from this other world...we thought they were gone. But they've come back before. That's why we needed to find you."
"If they're back again, we need to know." Max shudders under Stephanie's arm.
"That night." Robin starts. "Did you see anything?"
"Dark particles, maybe?" Max offers.
"It would almost look like dust, swirling dust." Dustin elaborates.
"No, man, there was nothing you could see or, uh...or touch. You know, I tried to wake her, man. She couldn't move. It was like she...she was in a trance or something."
Dustin nods. "Or under a spell."
"A curse."
"Vecna's curse."
Steve looks around. "Who's Vecna?"
"An undead creature of great power." Dustin answers without turning to Steve.
"A spell caster." Eddie adds.
"A dark wizard."
Once again, the cold dark feeling returned to Stephanie, telling her that something bad will happen and it'll be worse than anything they've ever dealt with.
༺♥༻
heyyyy sorry this took so long i've been super busy this week but i'll probs be back on a regular posting schedule.
anyways i've figured it out and decided that season 4 will finish sometime near september. but i'll still have bonus chapters and a special thing i'll do involving season 3 😈😈. and maybe i'll do season 5 but we'll have to wait and see how it plays out.
ps. i started watching outer banks and john b is kinda 😍😍
6/22/23