Chapter Text
“A big part of who I am,
is who I’m not anymore.”
Peach Creek went quiet the day Double D was carried out of his house.
However, for the utmost part, the day had started perfectly loud and normal.
Someone's lawn mower had coughed itself awake shortly after eight that morning, sputtering furiously, before settling into a steady mechanical growl that carried between the houses.
Jonny’s shepherd dog barked three houses over.
Somebody's mother shouts at their child to get their shoes off the couch.
A basketball struck pavement in the cul-de-sac with the familiar, rhythmic thump, thump, thump of another Saturday morning, with nowhere particularly important to be.
It was late spring.
Warm enough that windows had been thrown open, but not yet hot enough for everyone to retreat indoors beneath rattling air conditioners. Sprinklers clicked lazily over bright green lawns. Garage doors stood open. Bicycles had been abandoned wherever their owners had lost interest in them.
Peach Creek was awake.
And Peach Creek had never learned how to wake quietly.
“ED!”
Eddy's voice ripped through the morning with enough force to send a pair of birds scattering from a nearby telephone wire.
“GET YOUR FAT HEAD OUTTA THERE!”
“I HAVE DISCOVERED THE LOST CITY OF ATLANTIS!”
“You're in a trash can!”
“ATLANTIS HAS GARBAGE DAY!”
A metallic crash followed.
Then laughter. Then another crash.
Nobody looked.
That was simply the Eds.
Kevin didn't even bother lifting his head from the bicycle overturned in front of him.
He sat cross-legged in the driveway with a wrench in one hand, and grease smeared across his knuckles, glaring down at a chain that had decided sometime yesterday; that remaining attached to his bike was apparently optional.
Across the street, the Pendleton house stood exactly where it always had.
White siding. Dark shutters. Painfully trimmed hedges. Not one weed brave enough to grow between the cracks in the walkway. The place always looked like somebody had gone over it with a ruler. Which made sense.
Double D lived there.
Kevin glanced up only when Eddy's voice grew louder. “I'm tellin' ya, Sockhead's gonna flip when he sees this!”
Kevin snorted. Whatever this was, he gave it approximately six hours before somebody's parents demanded compensation. Maybe four. A tall figure came barreling around the corner of the house next door, with a garbage-can lid balanced on his head.
Ed.
Eddy chased after him, carrying what appeared to be half of a wooden chair. “Give it back!”
“I AM KING OF THE REFUSE PEOPLE!”
“It's part of the scam!”
“YOUR KING DEMANDS PUDDING!”
Kevin shook his head. “Dorks.”
Eddy heard him. Of course, Eddy heard him. “What'd you say, Shovel Chin?!”
Kevin finally looked up. “I said you're dorks.”
“Oh yeah?!”
“Yeah.”
“Why don't you come over here and say that?!”
“I just did.”
Eddy's face twisted.
Kevin grinned.
Ed lifted the garbage-can lid from his head. “Kevin has defeated you with words, Eddy.”
“SHUT UP, ED!”
Another perfectly ordinary Saturday in Peach Creek.
Kevin smugly went back to fixing his chain. Somewhere farther down the street, Sarah was yelling at Jimmy. Jimmy was yelling back for once. Rolf had been awake since dawn, doing something incomprehensible to a patch of earth behind his house; and occasionally shouting phrases nobody understood.
Nazz passed on her bicycle sometime around ten, waving at Kevin as she went. He waved back. Eddy immediately made kissing noises. Kevin threw the wrench at him. He missed.
Unfortunately.
The morning crawled toward noon.
Nothing happened.
That was the part Kevin would remember later.
Nothing happened.
There had been no thunderstorm. No strange feeling in his stomach.
No ominous silence.
No mysterious warning from the universe that this particular Saturday would eventually divide itself into two distinct pieces of his life:
Before.
And after.
There had only been sunshine.
Noise.
Eddy being annoying.
Ed being Ed.
And the house across the street, sitting quietly beneath the spring sun.
Kevin had looked at it dozens of times that morning. That was something else he would remember. He'd looked right at it. Once when he went inside for a soda. Again when Nazz rode past. Again, when Eddy nearly crashed into the Pendletons' mailbox, and caused Kevin too laugh so hard, soda came out of his nose.
He had looked at Double D's bedroom window.
The curtains were closed.
Kevin hadn't thought anything of it. Why would he? Double D was weird. Everybody knew that.
The guy probably had his nose buried in some thousand-page book about microorganisms or quantum whatever-the-hell while the rest of the world enjoyed being normal. Besides, Double D didn't exactly spend every waking second with the other two Eds anymore.
None of them did.
They weren't little kids.
Thirteen had brought schoolwork, clubs, sports, and parents suddenly became obsessed with phrases like responsibility and your future.
The Eds were still the Eds.
Mostly.
But sometimes Eddy and Ed did something without Double D. Sometimes Double D did something without them. Kevin certainly didn't keep track. Why would he keep track of Sockhead?
He didn't.
At twelve thirty-seven, Eddy hammered on the Pendletons' front door.
Kevin knew the time because he happened to glance at the cheap digital watch strapped around his wrist when the knocking started. Later, he would hate himself for remembering that.
“DOUBLE D!”
Bang. Bang. Bang.
“OPEN UP!”
Kevin rolled his eyes from across the street.
Bangbangbangbangbang.
“C'mon, Sockhead! We need ya!”
Nothing.
Eddy knocked again.
“Double D?”
Ed appeared behind him carrying an enormous cardboard box.
“Perhaps Double D has been abducted by mole people.”
“Nobody's been abducted, Ed.”
“They come from beneath.”
“Shut up.”
Eddy tried the bell.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Nothing.
Kevin looked down at his bike again. He fitted the chain around the gear. His fingers slipped. “Dammit.”
Across the street, Eddy knocked again. This time there was no yelling afterward. Kevin looked up. Eddy was staring at the door. Ed had put down the box. Something about that caught Kevin's attention. Maybe because Ed almost never put anything down voluntarily. Maybe because Eddy wasn't talking. Maybe because, after years of living across the street from the Pendletons, Kevin knew one thing about Double D, whether he wanted to admit it or not.
Double D answered the door.
Always.
You could show up while the dork was eating.
Studying. Cleaning. Probably sleeping.
Didn't matter.
Sooner or later, that door opened and there stood Sockhead, already halfway through some ridiculously polite complaint about knocking too loudly. Eddy knocked again. “Double D?”
Nothing.
Kevin slowly lowered the wrench.
Eddy tried the doorknob.
It turned.
The door opened.
Kevin could hear Double D's voice in his head already.
‘Eddy! Entering another person's home without invitation is a gross violation of both privacy and basic social etiquette!’
Eddy hesitated.
Then stepped inside.
Ed followed.
The door remained open behind them.
Kevin stared at it.
He didn't know why.
For years afterward, he would try to remember exactly how long it was.
Thirty seconds.
A minute.
Maybe two.
Memory would become unreliable after that. Some things would remain horribly clear. Others would disappear completely. Kevin would remember the wrench in his hand. He would remember grease beneath his fingernails. He would remember a sprinkler ticking somewhere nearby. He would remember a cloud passing briefly over the sun.
And he would remember Eddy screaming.
Not yelling.
Kevin knew Eddy yelling.
Everybody in Peach Creek knew Eddy yelling.
This wasn't that.
This was a sound Kevin had never heard come out of another human being before.
“ED! GET HELP!”
The wrench hit the driveway.
Kevin was already running.