PROLOGUE : through the trees

( pre — the vanishing of will byers )

————

november 1, 1983

RAIN BEATS DOWN ON the leaf-covered ground of the woodland surrounding Hawkins, Indiana. The pitch darkness of the night, just barely past the witching hour, is illuminated only by the pale glow of twinkling embers from a teenage girl's hand. She's shielded herself from the rain under a canopy of branches by the side of a muddy road, desperately trying to figure out where to go and what to do.

     She's never been this far from the Lab before. She's never been outside of the Lab before. Everything is new to her — the cold rain pelting against her forever-warm skin, the squishing of mud between her toes, the twigs and stones digging into the soles of her feet.

     Zero didn't leave Hawkins Lab with an actual plan — that was her first mistake. Her second was not taking a moment to study the fence surrounding the large building that she'd been trapped in for sixteen years. Her palms, shins, and the backs of her thighs and buttocks sting with fresh cuts from climbing up and over the flimsy barrier, not realising that the top of it had been lined with razor wire. By the time she figured it out, she was already halfway over. It wasn't worth turning back to find a better way. And her third mistake was not making sure that she wasn't being followed.

     She was.

     Despite the harsh winds howling all around the trees, and the drops of ice-cold water dripping onto her battered, bruised, and bloody form, Zero remains unfazed. She had always had an unnaturally high body temperature. She considers it a welcome side effect of her Lab-gifted abilities, and for that, on this freezing morning where her breath turns to fog in front of her, Zero is grateful.

     What Zero can feel is her body succumbing to exhaustion. She'd only been running for fifteen or so minutes, but for someone who hadn't needed to run since the Massacre of '79, it was a lot. Her legs threaten to give way with every step, and even the fire dancing on her fingertips intermittently sparks and sputters — like a television succumbing to static for a moment before returning to a clear broadcast. Blood drips from her left nostril, trailing its way between her parted and chapped lips.

     Her tongue darts out to catch the blood and clean it up.

     The taste of the iron doesn't bother her anymore.

     All she wants is to find somewhere to hide. Someplace where the scientists, orderlies, and guards who had imprisoned her in her room all this time won't be able to find her. And she needs to find that place fast because she knows that they're hot on her trail with metaphorical pitchforks and a literal shock collar. Zero had followed the road up this far, another five minutes wouldn't kill her.

     And, if the road does kill her, it'll be a much kinder fate than returning to the Lab.

     She knows that she's close to civilisation, she can see the warm orange glow of streetlights shining through the trees. She just needs to get there. So, she sets off again, physically pushing her body off the tree she had been leaning against with her free hand, leaving behind a bloody handprint for the rain to clean up, and begins running up the side of the road. Her bare feet slip on the mud and it takes all of her strength to stay upright, but she soon makes it to a fragile wooden fence. There are houses just past here, she can see them. She's nearly free.

     The fence's pale yellow paint chips off under Zero's fingers as she grabs onto the planks and hoists herself over the top, where she lands in a field full of trailers, cabins, and cars. She stumbles on impact, dropping to a knee, and allows herself a moment of reprieve, staying in that position long enough to catch her breath. The fire in her hand finally burns out as she stands, lifting her wrist to her face to wipe the blood off of her upper lip. With the street lamps lighting the area, she has no use for her flames anymore.

     The girl begins to walk towards the trailer park's main road, still trying not to trip over again on the muddy terrain. The lights are off in each of the homes except for one. Zero can faintly make out the silhouette of a person moving around inside through a large window, shielded by a thin curtain. The figure shrugs on a jacket and disappears out of sight behind a wall.

     Then one of the doors swings open, the one under the sturdy porch roof, and a tall, shaggy-haired boy steps out into the night. He takes a breath of the cold, wet, late autumn air before lifting an already-lit cigarette to his lips.

     Zero finds herself frozen to the spot as she watches the boy sit down on the steps leading down from the deck. The rain mats her auburn hair down against her mud-and-blood-spattered cheeks and she shudders as she feels the water run down her throat and through the neck hole of her shirt.

     The shirt is all she has on, a crisp white button-down she'd stolen from the orderly's laundry room earlier in the week. It's too big on her, the hem brushing her mid-thigh, and all she has on aside from it is a pair of underwear and a flimsy bra. Her only other choice had been her white, patterned hospital gown, her grey training uniform retired years ago. She'd thought the plain shirt would allow her to better fly under the radar.

    She chances another look at the boy. His cigarette has been forgotten. He's staring back at her, brows furrowed in... is that concern? Or disgust?

     "Are you crazy?" he calls out. The voice startles Zero, causing her to jump what feels like eight feet in the air. Nobody raises their voice in the Lab unless it's to admonish another. "It's pouring out here."

     She says nothing, staring at him like a deer in headlights. He stands up from his perch on the front deck of the trailer, dropping his cigarette to the wet ground to extinguish it under his boot, not that the rain wouldn't have sorted that out on its own in due time. The end of the cigarette still faintly glows red, spitting its surviving embers onto the porchstep. Zero locks onto it and blinks, and the fire goes out.

     Against the boy's better judgment, he steps out of the protection of the porch and into the rain to get closer to the redhead. As he approaches, Zero's muscles tense and she inches backwards. The speed at which he registers her fear is confusing to her. The orderlies never cared. Why should they? But with this boy, it's like an animal instinct. He takes a step back from her, his hands raising in surrender.

     "Hey, I'm not gonna hurt you, or anything," he says, his voice dropping quieter as if speaking too loudly might scare her away, like a wounded little creature in the forest. "Are you okay?"

     Zero takes a second, taking a breath to steady herself. "Not really." The words come out croaky and weak. Her mouth is dry. When did her mouth get so dry? And when did her hands start to tremble? When did her knees start to buckle under her?

     The boy can see, plain as day, the way she's shaking like a leaf and he reaches out to stabilise her by lightly holding onto her bicep. Zero flinches under his touch, a gasp leaving her chapped lips. She tries to wrench her arm back but she doesn't have the strength to move more than a centimetre. The boy's eyes — deep brown, wide with concern, rainwater weighing down his lashes so that his lids can't stay fully open — bore into her blue ones. He pauses, thinking, then shudders. His red flannel shirt, white singlet, and black sweatpants are doing nothing to shield him from the elements. He knows he must be doing a whole lot better than the girl. though. "Do you wanna come inside? Get dry? Warmed up?" he asks.

     Zero hesitates. Probably against her better judgement, she nods. "Please."

     He introduces himself as Edward — Eddie — Munson as he leads her inside, a gentle hand placed on her upper back. The warm, dry air of the trailer is a very welcome change from the outside. Zero shivers at the temperature change, closing her eyes momentarily in peaceful bliss.

     "What about you?"

     Zero's eyes snap open. "What?" she asks. Eddie's no longer by her side. Instead, he's at a closet down the hall, digging around for something. Tea towels and washcloths fall onto the floor, until he finally, victoriously, produces a fluffy, brown towel from the closet's depths. He tosses it at the redhead and she catches it before it smacks her in the face, slowing its path ever-so-slightly so that she has a chance to force her muscles to release the tension keeping her statue still. Her nose threatens to bleed again.

     "You got a name?" Eddie questions.

     She nods weakly. "Allison," she tells him. She'd read it in a book somewhere, maybe a magazine, and grown attached. Eddie raises his eyebrows and nods expectantly. Shit, he wants a last name too? She hadn't prepared a last name yet. Her eyes dart around the trailer, trying to find inspiration, and it comes in the form of a tape lying on the small dining table next to her. She looks back at Eddie. "Allison Floyd."

Now, Eddie is many things, but he isn't stupid. He knows Allison is lying, at least about her last name. Uncle Wayne had left that Pink Floyd tape out before he went off to work and Eddie'd been walking past it for hours now, meaning to put it away but never actually doing it.

     He lets it go, though. There are a million reasons she could be using a fake name. He doesn't know her story.

     "Well, Allison Floyd. Uh, the bathroom's just there," he points at the door to his left, "if you wanna take a shower, and I'll find some dry clothes for you, make up the bed, all that stuff."

     "Oh, I can take the couch, I don't mind," Allison says.

     Eddie shakes his head. "Nonsense." He couldn't deny this tortured girl a good night's rest, and she's got no chance at that on their lumpy couch or in Wayne's chair. Plus, when Wayne gets home from work, the presence of some stranger sleeping in his chair may just send him spiralling.

     "Thank you," she says. And she smiles her first real smile in a very, very long time.

————

a/n:
she's back! my baby is back! for real this time after the false alarm earlier today! man, i've missed this story, and everything about eddie and allison.

i really have nothing to say here that i didn't cover earlier in the intro notes. i just hope you guys love allison as much as i do, she really is like my firstborn child.

thank you for reading!!

published: august 1, 2022
re-published: july 12, 2024
word count: 1.9k