Chapter Text
Why, one might ask, was Eddie Munson trudging his way through forests thick and damp, when he could have been warmly tucked in his trailer, pouring over lore and stories and plots yet to be hatched, strumming on his guitar, or basically doing anything else other than walking through nature? Don't ask that question, because he wasn't going to answer it, mostly because he wasn't going to even think about the reason he was out there.
Some thoughts didn't bear thinking and Eddie's had always seemed a little loud for his head. Probably unimportant.
Somewhere, floating in the quarry, was a corpse. The nightmares said so, at least. The waking ones.
Eddie didn't actually have regular dreams. They were nightmares or nothing else, and the worst ones happened while he was awake. His uncle called it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and tried to get him to talk about everything that triggered those moments. The problem was that Eddie couldn't ever remember what triggered those moments. Partly because he didn't want to, partly because he simply couldn't. After the moment was over, it was as if the seconds—sometimes even minutes—leading up to the moment just vanished.
In any case, Eddie was kept up three nights in a row with horrible nightmares of a body in the quarry. It was pale and floated, there were bright lights flashing.
Eddie had no reason to think it was anything other than his mind doing its usual bullshit, but when he heard the whispers that a party was being held by the quarry, his ears had metaphorically perked up. He was not invited to the party, because of course he wasn't, but Eddie was a firm believer in "Ask forgiveness, not permission" and decided he'd pleasantly surprise them by relocating his living body from his trailer to the party at roughly halfway through its duration—that being, at midnight.
Driving was out of the question. His uncle was in that night, dead to the world, so it was easy enough to sneak by him, but Eddie didn't dare try to start up the vehicle. . . .
Right next to the trailer, that was. He walked a few paces down the street and knew there was no way in hell he was walking that distance.
Desperate times called for desperate measures.
As it turned out, pushing his uncle's car was easier than anticipated. He pushed it down the driveway, turning the steering wheel so it would slide silently onto the street, taking it a far enough distance that he was certain the engine revving up wouldn't wake Uncle Wayne.
Eddie turned the keys in the ignition, the engine kicking to life. The grin that spread across his face was born from pure thrill—a mix of pride and elation buoyed by the fact he had the audacity to do this. Eddie usually made an attempt to listen to his uncle. Wayne seemed to have good reason to keep Eddie under the wraps, if the way Eddie was bullied so ferociously had anything to say about it. Perhaps Wayne had taken a look at him and immediately realized Eddie was born with a target on his back or something.
In any case, Eddie was out of the trailer, in the car, and down the road. He hadn't technically passed his driving test. Wayne had made him stop the car and swore never to let him drive again, though Eddie knew it was dramatics.
Once he arrived at the quarry, it was clear the party was in full swing. They were set up at the edge, right at the top of the quarry, a long plummet to the water below them. Ice chests of beer lined the quarry edge—"Great place to put those, it's like daring fate to kill you."—while a boombox was playing whatever was popular on the radio.
Eddie's eyes narrowed when he spotted Steve Harrington in the mix. He was loud, chugging down beer after beer, smashing cans on the ground. A girl, hanging on his shoulder for balance, reached around his neck and pulled him into a kiss, after which they both broke into giggles. Other people were dancing, a mess of movements. Eddie's gaze strayed away from the party at one point, to the quarry. The water was dark and still, but reflected the lights from the party.
A shriek pierced the air and Eddie nearly gave himself whiplash seeking out the cause: a girl had tripped, falling into a senior's arms. He let out an exhale, rolling his eyes.
Eddie had left the vehicle down the road, planning on checking up on the party briefly and leaving—well aware the entire thing was already strange to say the least—but he couldn't get the image out of his head. There was a body in that water, somewhere.
He crept to the edge of the quarry. From this point, he could see the party and the water directly below where they were stumbling around and drinking. Nothing floated there.
"This is stupid," he whispered to thin air, knocking his fingertips on his scalp several times, trying to center himself. He paced a few lengths. His beloved—the electric guitar his uncle gifted him—was waiting for him.
Time to leave.
The decision came easily. It was late and if Wayne woke to find him missing, he'd be pissed.
That was before laughter echoed through the quarry again. Steve Harrington was leaning against a friend, hand on his chest, laughing so hard he could barely stand upright. Something about the sight of it prompted Eddie to move forward, peering through the leaves, head slowly cocking to the side as he considered the view. On any other day they were rude and judgemental, but that was an undulated joy on Steve's face that Eddie would not disparage.
He leaned a hand against a tree—and pulled it away abruptly, hissing when he felt sticky sap.
"Oh, bullshit," he muttered, looking for something that wasn't his clothes or covered in even more sap to wipe clean his hands.
Another cry rang out—this time, chorused by many others.
Eddie looked up to see Steve tipping over the edge of the quarry, reaching out for nothing. The surrounding teenagers were all too tipsy and stunned to even think about moving to help him. He fell back with a brief shout that was cut off by shock.
"SHIT!"
Eddie lunged, too, as if he could do anything, as if he could stop it, reaching out with both hands. He wanted nothing more than for Steve fucking Harrington not to be the body in that quarry pool.
At once, everything seemed to freeze. Eddie didn't react to it, arms still outstretched. Steve wasn't moving, hanging suspended a few feet above the water. Nothing about that was believable, but in the moment it made perfect sense to Eddie. As the seconds wore on, it began to make significantly less sense.
Steve flailed his arms around, yelling incoherently in fear—and then dropped the final distance to the water.
Eddie's hands fell to his sides.
He skidded down the quarry, reaching the edge of the beach, watching as Steve painstakingly swam his way to safety. A few cars were almost making it down the quarry, taking the road. Though they moved faster than a human could ever wish, Eddie found it amusing that they arrived after he did—confined to roads, a set path, they could only go so fast as the road would let them. Unless they wanted to crash, of course.
By all accounts, Steve should have died. The drop was too far to expect any human to survive. Yet, despite the odds, Steve was sloshing his way to shore. He was rattled and confused, but already regaining his boyish charm, grinning and firing off some comment that had Tommy H howling and Carol cackling into her palms.
Maybe the wind had given Steve just enough of a buffer that he didn't die on impact.
Eddie was swaying on his feet, thinking it over, and didn't notice when he stepped on a branch. Classic horror novel protagonist mistake, he could have scolded himself had he the time—alas, the teens in the quarry had heard the noise.
He thought, confident, They can't see me here. It's too dark.
That was when Tommy H pulled out a giant-ass spotlight-esque that blasted a shaft of pure light into the forest-line, directly at Eddie. There was no way they could see exactly who he was, but they knew someone was in the forest.
Out of the passenger's side door, Tommy H pulled out a bat.
"Hey there!" he shouted, approaching the forest despite Steve's hissed protests. "Come on out, don't be shy!"
Eddie, obviously, took that as his queue to leave. He wasn't interested in talking to those people.
Naturally, Steve and Tommy took up the chase. Eddie managed to outrun them by sheer luck, though not before he lost one of his handkerchiefs in the wild. He was muttering words of accolate to the handkerchief, which had seen him through many-a bad days at school, as he tore down the road in his uncle's car. As he was driving out of the quarry, Steve broke through the forestline, possibly anticipating that the "perpetrator" would try to drive away in that direction.
Eddie couldn't say whether or not Steve saw his face beyond the front headlights, but he could say for certain that he was in deep shit either way: Uncle Wayne was awake when he returned.
Why did he leave? Eddie couldn't say.
What he could say was that powerful winds were blowing around the quarry at midnight. Also, the dry air had given him a nosebleed and a killer headache.