Stranger Things: Beyond the Silver Rainbow

[29] (Jonathan)

Jonathan looked up to the haloed flashlight moon for an answer to a question he couldn't articulate. A simpler one replaced it: "If this works, will it send me back?"

"Maybe."

While he kept his hopes low on purpose, practicality reigned. "Don't go into my room like you used to. Not unless the music's on―loud, on the stereo. I have to be by myself most of the time. It's not personal, it's just me, okay? Promise?"

"Promise. Don't tell Will. Or Mom. Secret."

"Promise. And it's okay if you mess up."

Elle's throat rattled. "No it's not."

"Listen."

She understood that what Jonathan meant by 'listen' was 'look at me.'

"Are you sorry? Do you really mean it?"

"Yes."

"Then it's okay if you mess up. Do your best."

She nodded, put her hand on him and waited for him to scare himself.

"Will it hurt?"

"Yes."

The thing churned out a cicaida's call at that, so Jonathan embraced it. It weakened. She had probably just lied to scare him anyway. It died out completely. "This could take a while," he said.

The spring he was eight, Jonathan had found a cloud of squirming tadpoles in a flooded ditch far from his house. When he reached into the water they bumped jelly kisses all over his curious hand, so he played a while, making friends. He wanted to take some home to watch them turn into frogs but he didn't have anything to put them in, and as he sat there pondering his predicament he spotted their mother―at least, he imagined it was their mother, and he imagined that although she was only the size of a bottlecap she would still make a cool pet. He took off his sock to use it as a bag and nudged her into it, and tucked the cuff of the sock into his back pocket with the toe dangling out so she wouldn't get squished. Then he rode his rusty bike home and headed straight for the shed to find a bucket.

In the shed, he took the sock from his pocket and pushed the toe up into the cuff to check the inside. Something had gone wrong. A pink veiny jelly ball the size of the frog's head had gotten stuck to the fibers near her mouth. Her eyesockets were empty. He buried her in the woods. Nine years later he was still ashamed.

Jonathan put himself inside the sock, where he knew Elle's best would not be good enough. She was just a nervous kid, not a surgeon, more likely to turn him inside out than help him. She was going to rip his throat out in ragged strips. Jonathan was about to die spewing bloody geysers onto this rotting nowhere-floor, ushered away to nothingness by the sobbing of a young girl forever changed by an innocent mistake.

At least you know it's coming.

Nancy's arm shot out from the forest porthole so Jonathan grappled with the memory, seizing the opportunity to fight the tug of war all over again. He crushed Nancy's slimy little hand in his. He cracked her shoulder. The closing burrow pinched in, strangling her around the middle, so he pulled harder, so hard he snapped her spine, tore her in two, dumped her intestines into the dirt and fell back holding her, half of her, her torso lighter than a toy, her blood like hot soup spilled in his lap, her stuffing strung up to what was left of her in the hole, entrails melding into meaty moss and biosludge.

He couldn't apologize to her. She didn't even know she had been wronged. As the confusion in her eyes turned to glass the monster in his middle surged to an uproar, which was a promise that Elle could save his life, which meant he might have a chance to wrap Nancy up tight in his arms and legs and keep her safe and whole again someday, which filled him with a shining silence purer than kindness.