Shutter [Jonathan Byers] Stranger Things I

XLVII: Dread

dread

verb

anticipate with great apprehension or fear.

The week, aside from the day after Will went missing, had been a gorgeous one. Each day was sunnier than the last, as if staving off the oncoming winter as long as possible. Clinging to the summer sunshine, but offering no real warmth, the weather was beautiful, but that was it. Inside the car, Emilia rubbed her nervous hands together within the wool mittens she had borrowed. They were Will's, she'd been told, but they fit her hands just right. Atop her head was a black toque, also wool, and it hugged tighter on her head than the mitts did on her hands. The tightness made her thick hair look huge as it poofed out just below her ears. Her cheeks had paled in the cold, and reddened again in the warmth of the car.

Sitting next to her was Jonathan, and in his hands was the gun that he had stolen from his father. Emilia had never shot a gun, and she knew that her mother forbid her father from owning a gun. Although their lives had not been perfect, and they rarely got along at the best of times, she had that say over it. Emilia wondered what it would have taken for her mother to convince her father that owning a gun would do them no good. Statistics on accidental child death? Or statistics on a spouse killing the other mid-argument because a gun was easy to access? Either way, Emilia saw no reason for a gun, and even now, she had a gut feeling that it would do no good against that monster. At best, startle it. At worst, make it mad.

"Alright, got the cans?" Jonathan asked.

In her lap was a box of cans that Jonathan wanted to use for target practise. She nodded, and they got out into the brisk November air. When it was all set up, Emilia stood back, peering through the sides of the clearing in search for Nancy. She hoped that she would find the spot, and not end up shot in the process. The last thing they needed was for an accidental shooting of their friend. Emilia nibbled her lip at the thought of Nancy as a friend.

What would she consider me?

After Jonathan had unloaded the gun and missed every can, Emilia saying nothing because she knew her own aim would probably be the same, Nancy came out of the forest. Hands tucked in her red jacket with light-brown wool on the inside, she raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You're supposed to hit the cans, right?"

Jonathan was quick to retort, almost playfully. "No, actually, you see those spaces in between the cans? I'm aiming for those."

"Ah," Nancy made eye contact with Emilia, and they both smiled at one another, stifling a laugh.

"Have you ever shot a gun?" Jonathan asked her.

"Have you met my parents?"

He hadn't, but he understood. "Yeah, I haven't shot one since I was ten. My dad took my hunting on my birthday. He made me kill a rabbit."

Although most people would have seen this as trivial, or good father-son bonding, it made Emilia feel sick and it had nothing to do with the fact that she didn't eat meat. The thought of a parent forcing something on a young child like that, Emilia understood. The roles that were so expected and thrust upon kids at such a young age, Emilia didn't agree with them. Someone like Jonathan, he didn't have it in him to kill something and he said so himself when he announced that he cried for a week after killing it. But Emilia suspected that he would try to kill this monster, no matter what, because the rabbit had done nothing. The monster stole Will.