I'm Going Back To Hell For The Man They Left For Dead

The nightmares always started the same way. The Upside Down’s blood-red sky, the air thick with floating spores that burned his lungs, the metallic shriek of the demobats. He was running, always running, his legs burning, but he was never fast enough. He’d see Eddie, a defiant silhouette against the lightning, spear in hand, a makeshift shield strapped to his arm. A king in his crumbling castle.

And then they would descend.

Steve would scream himself hoarse, but no sound ever came out. He’d watch, paralyzed, as the swarm enveloped Eddie. He saw the flash of Eddie’s teeth in a pained grimace, the dark spray of blood against the side of the trailer, the way his body finally, finally fell. The crunch of bone and the wet tearing sounds were the only things Steve could ever hear, a private soundtrack to his own personal hell. He always woke up then, tangled in his sheets, his heart trying to hammer its way out of his chest.

But lately, the dream had started to change.

Tonight, just as the bats swarmed, the scene flickered. The red sky dissolved into a deep, unending twilight. The shrieking faded into a low, humming static. The bats were gone. And Eddie… Eddie was still on the ground, but the blood, the horrific wounds, were gone too. He pushed himself up slowly, his movements stiff, his dark eyes searching the gloom until they found Steve’s.

He looked thin, worn down to almost nothing, his leather jacket hanging off his frame. He was still in that dark, twisted version of his trailer park, a place of shadow and decay. He opened his mouth, and this time, a sound did come out. It wasn’t a scream. It was a whisper, carried on a cold wind that didn't exist in Steve’s bedroom.

Steve.

His own name. A desperate, pleading breath.

Steve’s eyes flew open. The ceiling of his room was solid, bland, and blessedly normal. He was slick with sweat, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to erase the image of Eddie, alive and trapped in that terrible place.

It wasn’t real. It was just his brain, fried from trauma and grief, trying to rewrite the ending. It was a hallucination born of guilt, of the million things he’d left unsaid. It had to be. Because the alternative—that Eddie was alive, suffering, and calling for him from that nightmare dimension—was too monstrous to consider.

He had to keep it together. For Dustin. The kid was a ghost of himself, cycling through anger and a profound, silent sadness that Steve didn't know how to breach. He was supposed to be the adult, the one who held the line. He couldn't afford to be the one seeing ghosts in his sleep. He had to be strong. He had to be sane. But as he swung his legs out of bed, the echo of that whisper clung to him, a chilling promise that sleep would offer no escape.

The days that followed were a blur of forced normalcy. He drove the kids where they needed to go, bought groceries, and tried to ignore the hollowed-out feeling in his chest. He needed a distraction, something mindless and physical to shut his brain off. Cleaning the BMW seemed like a good place to start. The car was a disaster zone, littered with empty Coke cans, crumpled fast-food bags, and a fine layer of dust and grime from their frantic drives around Hawkins.

He started with the passenger side, pulling out old maps and trash. His fingers brushed against something hard under the seat. He pulled it out. A cassette case. The insert was a crude, hand-drawn skull with a guitar neck sticking through its eye socket. In Eddie’s familiar, jagged scrawl, it read: Corroded Coffin - PURE FUEL.

A lump formed in Steve’s throat. He remembered Eddie tossing it onto the dashboard weeks ago, grinning. “For your education, Harrington. Time to graduate from whatever pop garbage you listen to.”

Steve had rolled his eyes, but he’d never thrown it out. He held the tape in his hand, the plastic warm from the sun beating down on the car. His thumb traced the label. On a whim he couldn't explain—maybe a need to punish himself, maybe a desperate desire to feel something other than the dull ache of grief—he leaned into the car and pushed the cassette into the stereo.

He turned the key in the ignition, and the engine rumbled to life. The speakers crackled for a second before a wall of sound erupted into the small space—furious, distorted guitars and pounding drums. It was loud and abrasive, pure chaos. It was pure Eddie. Steve leaned his head back against the seat, closing his eyes, and just let the noise wash over him. For a minute, he could almost pretend Eddie was right there in the passenger seat, headbanging, his rings tapping out the rhythm on the dashboard.

Then it happened.

The music sliced off mid-shred, replaced by a loud hiss of static. Steve’s eyes snapped open, his first thought a flash of annoyance that the tape was chewed up. He reached out to eject it, but stopped. The static wasn’t just white noise. It had a rhythm, a cadence. It crackled and popped, then coalesced.

Through the hiss, a sound emerged. It was thin, tinny, and warped, like it was being played from a million miles away. But it was unmistakable. A simple, six-note guitar riff. A melody that made the air leave Steve’s lungs in a single, sharp gasp.

He knew that riff. He’d heard it in the Munson trailer, the day before everything went to hell. Eddie had been hunched over his Warlock, fingers flying across the fretboard, a rare look of intense concentration on his face. “Just a little something I’m working on,” he’d said, looking up at Steve and Dustin with a proud smirk. “Gonna be our masterpiece.”

Steve’s heart hammered against his ribs. It couldn’t be. It was impossible. His mind was playing tricks on him again, taking a random burst of static and twisting it into something he wanted to hear. He jabbed the rewind button, his hand shaking. He waited ten agonizing seconds and pressed play.

The aggressive assault of Corroded Coffin filled the car again for a few seconds, then cut out. The hiss returned. And then, once more, clear as a bell through the noise, the six-note melody played, a ghostly echo in the quiet afternoon.

Steve didn't even bother turning the car off. He yanked the key from the ignition, grabbed the cassette, and sprinted from the driveway. He drove with a reckless urgency that felt unfamiliar, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tight his knuckles were white. He didn't know what he was doing, only that he couldn't be the only one to hear it. He needed Dustin. He needed him to be the voice of reason, to tell him he was crazy, or—and this was the thought that made his breath catch—to tell him he heard it too.

He found Dustin in his bedroom, hunched over a mess of wires and circuit boards on his desk. The room was dark, the curtains drawn against the afternoon sun. When Steve burst in, breathless and holding the tape out like a holy relic, Dustin just stared at him with hollow eyes.

“What do you want, Steve?” he asked, his voice flat and devoid of its usual energy.

“You have to listen to this. It’s Eddie’s tape. Corroded Coffin.” Steve’s voice was ragged. “There’s something on it.”

Dustin’s expression hardened. He looked from Steve’s frantic face to the cassette in his hand, and a flash of raw pain crossed his features, quickly followed by anger. “Are you kidding me? What is wrong with you?” he snapped, standing up. “You think it’s funny to come in here and wave that in my face? To remind me? I don’t want to listen to his music, Steve. I don’t want to think about it.”

“No, Henderson, it’s not that. Just listen,” Steve pleaded, his desperation mounting. “It’s not the music. It’s… something else. In the static.”

“In the static?” Dustin scoffed, his voice thick with disbelief and hurt. “You’re losing it, man. You’re hearing things. It’s grief. It happens. Now get that out of my face.”

“Five minutes, Dustin. That’s all I’m asking. If you don’t hear it, I’ll leave. I’ll throw the damn thing away. I’ll check myself into Pennhurst. Whatever you want. But you have to listen.”

The raw sincerity in Steve’s voice must have cut through Dustin’s anger. He stared at Steve for a long, tense moment, his jaw tight. Finally, with a heavy sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the whole world, he gestured to the small boombox on his shelf. “Fine. But this is cruel, Steve. You know that, right?”

Steve’s hands trembled as he put the tape in and pressed play. The room filled with the familiar cacophony of guitars. They both stood frozen, waiting. Thirty seconds in, the music cut out. The hiss filled the silence. Steve held his breath.

And there it was. The six-note riff.

Dustin’s head snapped up, his eyes wide. He took a step closer to the boombox, his skepticism warring with the evidence of his own ears. “That’s… that’s his new song,” he whispered, his voice barely audible. “How is that possible? A magnetic anomaly? A signal bleed from another recording?”

“Just wait,” Steve breathed.

They listened as the riff played through a second time. The static swelled, crackling loudly, and then, through the noise, a voice. It was distorted, stretched and warped by its impossible journey, but it was a voice. And it said one, unmistakable word.

Steve.

Dustin staggered back as if he’d been physically struck, his face ashen. The sound hung in the air between them, a ghost in the machine. The hope that had been a dangerous spark in Steve’s chest now ignited, fierce and terrifying. He looked at Dustin, and saw the same wild hope reflected in his eyes, mingled with utter fear.

“Cerebro,” Dustin said, his voice trembling as he broke the spell. He scrambled toward the corner of his room, pulling a dusty tarp off the familiar, oversized ham radio. “The signal is weak, like a distant radio wave. If we can amplify it… if we can boost the receiver… we might be able to hear him more clearly.”