vecna's curse

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

It was dark by the time Alina and her friends arrived at Rick Lipton's house. The night was foggy, the headlights of Steve's car only managing to cut through part of the gray, and cold, too. Goosebumps swept up Alina's arms as she followed the others up to the front door, and she rubbed at them in an attempt to generate some warmth. Perhaps a part of it was the fact that she'd grown used to the weather in Lenora Hills, but she didn't want to think about that. Because that meant that Hawkins—the town she'd grown up in, the town that was supposed to be her home—had turned unfamiliar.

They all crowded onto the porch, beaming flashlights at Dustin as he rang the doorbell. Impatient at the lack of either movement or sound from within the house, he continued to jam his thumb against the button, turning the cheery two-note chime into a song of sorts. It was quick to grow tiresome for Alina.

"Okay. Well, that's settled," Steve said. "I guess he's not here."

Dustin banged on the door. "Eddie! It's Dustin. Look, we just wanna talk, okay? No cops, I swear. We just wanna help."

Alina shifted her weight from foot to foot. Around her, crickets chirped, their chorus adding an additional eeriness to the scene. A moth fluttered by, attracted to her flashlight, and a mosquito landed on her arm. She slapped it off with a little too much force.

"Do you really think he's gonna answer the door?" she asked. "I mean, murderer or no murderer, his main goal is probably to avoid people."

Dustin ignored her, slamming his fist onto the door again. "Eddie! Rick! Reefer Rick!"

"Don't scream that," Steve lectured.

"Rick!"

"He's not there."

"Reefer Rick!"

"Jesus, Dustin," Alina winced. "You're hurting my eardrums. And if the guy hasn't answered after all your screaming, I doubt he's there. Or wants to be seen."

"He could just be really high," Dustin suggested. Alina smacked a palm to her forehead.

"Is that a foot?" Steve asked.

"What?"

"No, that's just a shoe."

"Hey, guys?" Max called out. Alina turned. She hadn't even realized that her friend had wandered off. Now, she was standing at the side of the house, shining her flashlight at something in the distance. It was only when Alina joined her that she saw what it was.

A boathouse. A single bulb illuminated the front door, which was firmly shut. There were two windows, both darkened out, and a sad, sloping roof. The entire thing was made out of tin, the kind of structure that rattled when it was rained on, and it was just big enough to walk around in without feeling cramped.

It was the perfect place to hide.

Steve led the way down the small hill that led to the boathouse. There, the five of them cautiously shone their flashlights through the windows, attempting to catch some sort of sign that Eddie was there—perhaps a flicker of movement, maybe food that had not yet rotted. But it was too dark to see anything, even when Alina pressed her face to the window. They were going to have to go inside.

She thought it was going to end up being a break-in situation (honestly, it was sad how accustomed she'd become to the necessities of such things), but, when Robin tried the door, it opened easily. Alina stood behind her, watching as she tentatively made her way inside.

"Hello?" she called out. "Is anyone home?"

Alina filed in after her, taking in the boathouse's interior. If she was being honest, it was exactly what she expected. A large boat lay in the centre of the room, covered with a sheet of tarp. Several fishing poles were propped up against the wall, a yellow tacklebox lay to one side, and life jackets hung from hooks on the wall. A spider descended on a fine, gossamer web, then scuttled through a crack in the floorboards. The whole place smelled like lake water with the faintest hint of marijuana and creaked like an old woman's bones.

"What a dump," Steve murmured.

Alina headed further inside, readying herself to strike if anything came leaping out of the shadows. She made her way to a shelf cluttered with tools and ran her finger along the wood. It came back coated in dust, telling her that it hadn't been touched in ages. She wiped her hand on her jeans and pursed her lips.

Think, Detective Fairgrieves-Byers. Think.

She was just about to flip open the tacklebox to see if she could find any evidence within it when Steve began jabbing at the boat's tarp with an oar. Dustin, beside him, jumped and whirled around. "What are you doing? What are you doing?"

Steve jabbed the oar at the tarp again, then jumped back. "He might be in here."

"So take the tarp off."

"If you're so brave, you take the tarp off."

Alina sighed and continued her investigation. The tacklebox yielded nothing useful—just old lures and hooks that didn't appear to have been used for a decade—and neither did the cabinet she had to force open. It held nothing but a can of dripping blue paint and a small frog.

Then Max called out to the group. "Hey, look over here."

When Alina crossed the room, her heart began to pound. Perched on a rickety old table was a scattering of wrappers and two beer bottles. Based on the lack of dust there, as compared to everywhere else, this had been recent.

"Someone was here," Max breathed.

"Maybe he heard us," Robin suggested. "Got spooked and ran."

"Don't worry," Dustin said. "Steve will get him with his oar."

"I know you think you're being funny, Henderson," Steve said, "but considering the fact that everyone in this room has nearly died about a hundred times—Alina, probably two-hundred—personally, I don't find it funny in the slight—"

Before he could finish, something sprung out from the tarp Steve kept assaulting and rammed right into him. Steve screamed as he was forced backwards, his arms pinwheeling, then slammed against the wall. The figure—which was a boy who seemed about Steve's age with long, curly hair—pinned him there, holding a broken beer bottle far too close to his throat.

Alina, who didn't recognize him in the slightest, nearly passed out, but Dustin advanced forward. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, Eddie! Eddie! Stop! Eddie! Eddie!"

Apparently, they'd managed to find Eddie Munson. Given the fact that he was currently threatening to slit Steve's throat, though, it was clear that he didn't have good intentions. Alina immediately surged towards him, twin balls of red forming in her hands. "Get away from him!"

Eddie's eyes—wild, deranged, almost like a rabid animal—swung towards her. They widened when they saw the power curling from Alina's hands, but he made no move to back off. In fact, he just pressed the beer bottle closer to Steve's throat—close enough that Steve almost whimpered.

"Alina, stop!" Dustin shouted. "Eddie! It's me. It's Dustin. This is Steve. He's not gonna hurt you, right, Steve?"

"Right. Yeah," Steve breathed.

"I will, if you don't let him go right now," Alina snarled. Maybe it was a bad idea, showing her powers to somebody she certainly couldn't trust, but her need to protect Steve outweighed her concern about her own secrets. "You have five seconds."

"Al. Not helping," Dustin snapped. "Put your lights out. Steve, why don't you drop the oar?"

Steve dropped the oar. Eddie hissed and pressed the beer bottle even closer to his throat.

"He's cool. He's cool," Dustin protested.

"I'm cool, man. I'm cool," Steve gasped.

"She's cool, too, even with her lightshow," Dustin added. Alina still hadn't let her energy go. "Al. Seriously."

"What are you doing here?" Eddie snarled.

"We're looking for you."

"We're here to help," Robin added.

"Eddie, these are my friends. You know Robin, from band."

Robin imitated playing a trumpet. Eddie tilted his head.

"This is my friend Max. The one who never wants to play D&D." Max waved. Dustin continued, "This is Alina. She's my friend, too. She's just—she's just fiercely protective over her other friends. I swear, she's actually harmless when you get to know her."

"Not really," Alina murmured. Dustin shot her a withering look.

"Eddie. We're on your side. I swear on my mother. Right, guys?"

"Yes. Yes. We swear," Max said.

"On Dustin's mother," Robin added.

"Yeah, Dustin's... Dustin's mother," Steve choked out.

"Sure," Alina said. A thin stream of blood leaked from her nose. "Unless you kill Steve."

The hand holding the beer bottle to Steve's throat trembled. Alina held her breath, keeping her gaze locked on it. One wrong move, and she'd strike. If Eddie even sneezed, she'd blast him to New York.

Then Eddie stepped away. Steve slumped against the wall.

"Jesus," he murmured, trying to catch his breath. Robin immediately made her way over to him, trying to see if he was hurt. Eddie sank to the floor. The beer bottle was still in his hand.

"Alina," Max whispered. "I think we're okay about the powers."

"All right," Alina said. Balling her fists, she let the energy bob above her head, then sink back into her skin. As usual, a rush of adrenaline went through her as her vigor was restored. "But I've got my eye on him."

"Eddie," Dustin was saying, sinking down beside Steve's attacker. "We just want to talk." He tried to take the beer bottle out of Eddie's hand. He jerked it back. "Okay?"

Robin knelt down, too. "We want to know what happened."

Eddie sniffed, shaking his head. "You won't believe me."

Alina would have laughed in any other situation. You won't believe me was practically the catchphrase for everything she'd been through in the past four years. She was a fifteen-year-old girl with superpowers who had been possessed by a monster from another dimension. Saying any of that out loud was a cue for people to chuck her into Pennhurst Asylum.

Max raised an eyebrow. "Try us."

"First, I need... I need to know what the hell she was doing," Eddie said. He pointed at Alina, who was beside Max, her arms crossed. "What was—what was that?"

"Something that you won't believe," Alina said. "If you think whatever happened to you was crazy, then you'll think I'm certifiably insane."

"Eddie. Please just tell us," Dustin urged. "We'll explain everything after, I promise. We just need to know what you saw."

Eddie took in a shuddering breath, hunching in on himself. A shiver wracked through his body, violent enough that his head shook. His hair swung in front of his face. "It... um. It started when I invited Chrissy to my trailer. She—and I know how this sounds, but I swear to God I'm telling the truth—she wanted something... she wanted something stronger than just weed. She was always... you know, straight as an arrow before this, but I kind of got the feeling she was... she was going through some shit."

"You were dealing to her?" Alina asked. Eddie nodded.

"Yeah. And, um. I didn't remember where I put my good stash, so I left her in the living room while I went to find her. I wasn't—I wasn't long. Maybe five minutes. But when... but when I came back, there was something wrong with her." His voice broke. "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 whimpered, closing his eyes. "Her bones started to snap. Her eyes, man. It... it was like there was something, like, inside her head, pulling. I... I didn't know what to do, so I... I ran away. I left her there."

All of the breath seemed to leave Alina's chest, escaping like the air out of a leaking balloon. She crossed her arms over her midsection, protecting it, imagining bones snapping and eyes being yanked into skulls with a shudder. Whatever this was... well, she'd never heard anything like it before. But... but... it wasn't natural. This wasn't something that was supposed to happen. Bones didn't snap out of nowhere. Girls couldn't float with nothing to hold them up.

It wasn't something that was supposed to happen. And when it came to things that weren't supposed to happen—from a shadow monster who could take over bodies to alien creatures with mouths like deadly, poisonous flowers—the Upside Down was usually a culprit.

Please, no. Alina couldn't do this again. She didn't want to do it again.

She'd have preferred if Eddie was a murderer.

Her eyes closed. Max set a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Meanwhile, Eddie was scoffing. "You all think I'm crazy, right?"

"No," Dustin replied. "We don't think you're crazy at all."

"Don't bullshit me, man! I know how this sounds."

"We're not bullshitting you," Max said.

"We believe you," Robin added.

Alina's lip trembled.

"Look, what I'm about to tell you might be a little... difficult to take," Dustin began.

"Okay," Eddie said.

"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."

"Like ghosts and shit?" Eddie asked.

"There are some things worse than ghosts," Max said.

"Way worse," added Alina, thinking about the Mind Flayer.

"These monsters from this other world... we thought they were gone," Dustin continued. "But they've come back before. And that's why we needed to find you."

"If they're back again, we need to know," said Max.

"That night, did you see anything?" Robin asked.

"Dark particles, maybe?"

Eddie shook his head.

"It would almost look like dust, swirling dust," Dustin elaborated.

"No, man, there was nothing you could see or, uh... or touch."

"Okay. Okay."

Eddie buried his head in his hands. "You know, I tried to wake her, man. She couldn't move. It was like she... she was in a trance or something."

"Or under a spell," Dustin breathed.

"A curse."

Dustin's jaw clenched. "Vecna's curse."

"Who's Vecna?" Steve asked.

"An undead creature of great power."

"A spell caster," Eddie added.

"A dark wizard."

Alina trembled. Not the Mind Flayer, she thought.

Something even more deadly.

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧