Boltedfruit Archive

When the gate split the town in two and made a pit into hell, Steve fell like everyone else. It may have taken him a while longer, may have been after more friends died without him there to help, may have shown him just how pointless he really is.

But he fell, finally. After long enough he got tired of waiting.

He expects to fall into the jaws of a beast but instead finds himself trying to survive again, just in a land of red instead of green.

It’s been a few months. He’s the only one left.

And after a few days in the Upside Down, truly unleashed in all its grotesque fury, he’s caught.

–

It was always a suspicion of Nancy when she’d still been alive. What was about to happen to Steve. It’s not the ending he would have hoped for.

He’s bound by wriggling vines, prodding and squeezing at his wrists and ankles like the undulating bellies of snakes. He shuffles on, one in many in a long line of food.

Because that’s what they are. What he is now.

Food. For the creatures.

The beasts feed on the population of Hawkins and beyond. Maybe because they hunted everything else down here into extinction besides themselves. Maybe they don’t even need to eat.

It takes a long time. Miles spent trudging on, led by monsters, the soles of his feet splitting and cracking apart into slivers of hard, dried scabs. He’s limping, pain nearly unbearable by the time what looks like black towers appear in the distance.

They reach the towers by nightfall, his feet numb and calves aching as their line is finally pulled to a standstill.

The twisted demogorgons break away from the line of humans, jaws flipping open as if they’re speaking to one another, their faceless heads nudging against one another. Like cats.

He thinks of Dustin. Fights the memories down.

Between the towers sits a slab, black and polished, and wholly unlike anything else down here. It’s slicked in blood. Stray limbs are spread around its base, fingers black and stiff, flesh torn and missing in places where bone peeks out white and sharp.

A creature screeches. A bat swoops in and nips at the woman first in line. Makes her startle forward. She’s shaking, whimpering as she’s attacked again and again, always pushing closer to the slab.

A large shadow erupts from behind it, ink in fog, pointed edges materializing into the tips of wings so large and monstrous Steve almost gasps.

It’s something new, this beast. Its wings spread out, casting shade even under the red sliver of moonlight above them. A head lifts from the black void of its center, and when Steve sees its face—

He does gasp then.

It’s Eddie.

He’s white as a corpse, black veins spreading across his exposed skin, skin that disappears into the hem of the same ripped black jeans Steve remembers. His eyes are red, hooked on the woman forced to his table. He reaches out when she steps too close, not realizing he’s there, screams when long, dark claws close around her shoulders. Screams and writhes when she’s lifted above the table.

Goes silent, gagging as Eddie’s face splits seamlessly open to sink a thousand teeth along her side.

Steve watches, mesmerized, as the arc of white ribs are exposed in one easy tear, flesh and muscle vanishing into his red, red throat. He swallows pieces of her down one by bloody one, lets her intestines slip messy and loud to the ground, where strays scramble to fight over scraps. One of the demodogs gets too close for Eddie’s liking and he roars, snapping down at the thing. It cowers, runs away.

Eddie slams the woman’s lifeless body on the slab and buries his face against the mess of her insides. Uses his spindly fingers to break apart her ribs before a set of claws descend on her remaining breast for balance. He tears off her limbs next, throws them to the monsters, lets them have their share. Steve sees him bite into her heart, and suddenly those red eyes lift, snap to his.

Eddie chews, the blossom of his mouth returning to normal. Chews like he took a big bite of a hamburger.

He swallows.

Steve gets it now.

They’re being presented. And like Nancy had suspected, eaten.

A feast, for whatever the hell the Upside Down did to Eddie Munson.