After raiding the canned goods at the supermarket, and finding several unopened bottles of water (he supposes that it makes sense that the plastic surrounding the water would be protected from the poisonous environs, just like canned foods and other non-perishables seem fine when unpackaged things have rotted to hell), Jim trudges towards his house; he feels on edge, like he's being watched, but whenever he stops walking to look around himself, there is nothing there; he doesn't even spot any Demodogs or Demogorgons, and it seems as though his only company is to be found in the ever-present vines that have apparently developed invisible eyes.
He is unpleasantly surprised by the creatures that greet him when he steps foot into the cabin in the woods. A Demodog is lurking within the confines of the walls; it is extremely territorial and defensive, and Jim finds that he doesn't want to find out if a scalpel is enough to kill the creature. He beats a tactical retreat to the decrepit old trailer that he lived in before he lured El into his life with Eggos and Jim Croce.
He shakes away the memories of El; he can't afford to get distracted here, not when there are monsters in the unlikeliest of places. Damn, though, he misses her.
Jim is inordinately pleased to find that there is nothing lurking in the shadows of his trailer. He's still pissed that there was a Demodog in the place he shared with El, but there's no helping that. Even better than the empty house is the rifle he finds in the corner, and the box of ammo sitting relatively untouched on the shelf.
It would be better if there was a flamethrower or even a box of matches lying around so that he could light up the Demogorgons – he has gotten tired of wasting bullets on the fuckers, and fire seems to be the most effective method of ridding the world of the creatures; unfortunately, the only Zippo he can find in the house won't light, and Jim has never been one to keep matches in his house or on his person – a fact that he is starting to regret.
Jim wonders if any of the kids' houses would have matches or working lighters. He figures it can't hurt to take a look; he figures his best bet is to check Joyce's houses first, since he knows she smokes; he remembers that Max's older brother – the Hargrove kid – smokes, too, so maybe that's a good backup plan if Joyce's doesn't pan out.
He wonders what time it is, or what day it is; it feels like it's late, but that might have something to do with the fact that it was night before he ended up here. Jim finds that he is exhausted, and so he looks for the least evil-plant-infested part of the trailer and tries to get some sleep. It only kind of works; he dreams of a Demogorgon – possibly the largest he's ever seen – attacking Joyce, and that quickly transitions to images of El dying, and the kids getting hurt, and that switches to memories of Sara looking pale and wan with an oxygen mask on. It is only when he hears the heart monitor stop beeping that he realizes two things: she has none of the corn-silk hair that curled around her ears before she got really sick, and she is dead.
He wakes up, his heart racing and his limbs shaking. He is filled with the sort of frenetic energy that only follows his worst nightmares. He swallows around a quivering breath and finds it within himself to be grateful that he didn't dream of 'Nam.
Even with his excess energy, the walk from his trailer to the Byerses' is longer than he expects, and he realizes that he's never actually walked there; he always showed up in his car. It turns out to be a good thing that he doesn't have his car: it always announced his arrival, and that was never an issue when it was people living in the house. Now, though, even his heavy footsteps are not enough to alert the Demogorgons– two of the beasts, all things told – of his presence; it's also lucky that he managed to clean up whatever blood was on his person back at the hospital because they don't smell him, either.
He wonders why the creatures are here; last time he was here with Joyce, there was only ever the one Demogorgon, and it spent half its time in the real world until Jonathan, the Harrington kid, and the Wheeler girl managed to kind of kill it. Jim decides to wait the monsters out; maybe if he watches them long enough, he'll figure out what the hell they're doing. And if they do leave, he'll be able to look for fire; hopefully, if they find him, his gun will be enough to kill them.
Jim sneaks around to the back of the house, and he watches through the windows as the Demogorgons mill about the rooms; their behavior is unlike anything he has seen so far: one of the creatures paces the length of the corroded kitchen before moving into the vine-covered living room, where the other one is sort of sitting on the rotted piece of furniture that Jim thinks is the couch. They chitter at each other for a moment, the sound grating to his ears, filled with squeals and shrieks as it is. Then, the Demogorgons make their way to the open front door and rush down the driveway before turning onto the street. They move too quickly for Jim's eyes to follow, and soon enough, they are out of sight.
With the monsters gone, at least briefly, he scours the house for anything that will allow him to light a fire; the vines haven't tried to grab him and choke him yet, but Jim has vivid memories of the ones that traced the tunnels beneath Hawkins; he knows that the repulsive plants will eventually come for him, and that is without taking the Demogorgon infestation that seems to be running rampant into account. So. His first order of business is finding matches, or a lighter, or a flamethrower as quickly as possible.
There is a half-empty box of matchsticks in one of the drawers in the kitchen, but other than that, there is nothing to help Jim in his endeavors; he notices a bowl of rotting fruit on the counter, and there is more putrid food in the fridge, which he notices is unplugged. There are tiny little vines coming out of the outlets and wrapped around the metal prongs of the plug, so he figures that can't be helped. It makes him wonder, though. What would happen if the fridge was plugged in. Would it work?
He keeps the idea in the back of his mind; maybe it'll help him get out of here in the future, but right now he needs to focus on surviving this accursed place. With his box of matches safely in his pocket, Jim makes a swift getaway; he doesn't need to tempt fate by staying here any longer than necessary, not when he knows that Demogorgons live here.
He stops by the Hargrove house, hoping he might be able to find something fiery there; when he arrives, though, there are two Demogorgons and a Demodog haunting the place. He sighs in exasperation and decides to try one of the other kids' houses.
Jim doesn't know much about their families, he realizes. He knows Henderson's mother is a doting parent, and that his dad is outta the picture; he thinks that Sinclair's got a younger sister and both parents, and he knows his mother's a doctor at Hawkins Memorial Hospital. Wheeler's also got both parents and two sisters; he knows that Karen doesn't smoke, but he's not sure about Ted. Either way, he doesn't hold out much hope for finding matches or a lighter in any of their houses, which leaves Harrington's house.
He knows even less about Harrington than any of the other kids; what he does know is what everyone in town knows: Harrington's parents are never home, and Harrington himself used to be a douche but has reformed in the past year and a half. He thinks Harrington used to smoke, and knows the kid'll probably still have that nail bat that Henderson has talked about to Wheeler who told El who told Jim. He supposes he might as well snag that; god knows the third and fourth-hand praise he's heard about it makes the monstrosity appealing.
Jim makes his way to Loch Nora, which is a ridiculously far walk from Old Cherry Lane, and it brings him past the Wheeler and Sinclair houses, so he makes a half-hearted attempt at looking for fire starters, but the former has five Demogorgons in residence, and the latter has four, so neither place is really worth his time.
Harrington's place is ridiculously large, and there is only one Demogorgon inside. Jim manages to sneak up on it and use one of his matches to burn it to the ground. The fire has the added effects of burning away some of the vines and warming up the dead air of the Upside Down enough that Jim is no longer shivering constantly.
He ransacks the house and is pleased to find a frankly massive stash of canned goods and bottled drinks in the pantry; several boxes of matches in one of the kitchen drawers; the nail bat in what he assumes is Harrington's room; and, amazingly, a flamethrower hidden in a dark corner of the basement.
He makes a mental note to thank Harrington for being so well stocked when he gets out of the Upside Down; he doesn't know why the kid has all this shit in his house, but it has increased his chances of survival drastically.
Jim decides to stay put for the time being; as far as he can discern, he is safe from Demogorgons here, and there are enough weapons, food and water to last him for a while. There's no point in giving up a good thing, and this is probably about as good as it gets in the Upside Down.
There isn't a lot to do down here. Jim finds himself bringing his wares into the pantry, which is the smallest room in the house, but is still large enough to be fairly comfortable. It's easy to defend, too. Jim collects some old clothing from Harrington's bedroom and uses one of the matches to turn it into a torch of sorts; he does his best to burn the vines away from the floor and walls of the pantry and shuts the door against them.
For the first time since he ended up here, Jim feels almost safe: there are no Demogorgons in the house, and there are no vines lying in wait to strangle him in his sleep. He opens one of the cans of food, scoops the contents out, and shovels it into his mouth with his fingers; then he cracks open one of the water bottles and drinks half of it before coming up for air.
It's interesting, and he hadn't noticed it before, but the amount of ash in the air seems to be less concentrated the longer he is in here. There is certainly less of it than there ever was in the vine-infested tunnels, where the Upside Down spilled out into the real world.
Having consumed some food and water, Jim finds himself relaxing into one of the corners. He feels more exhausted than he has in a long time, and he wonders vaguely if that's because of all the walking he did today, or if the lethargy is just a side-effect of being in the Upside Down for an extended period of time. He remembers that Will had been out cold when he and Joyce found him, but Jim doesn't know if that was the week in the Upside Down taking its toll, or if it was due to the Mind Flayer getting its greasy, eldritch vines all up in Will's orifices.
He closes his eyes, and the barrier of his eyelids against the outside world doesn't make things much darker than they were before; he lets the cold, lifeless air of the twisted world he's found himself in drag him into unconsciousness.
"'She died of fever when I was just three months old. I do wish she'd lived long enough for me to remember calling her mother. I think it would be so sweet to say 'mother,' don't you? And father died four days afterwards from fever too,'" he reads quietly. His eyes flick up to the little girl laying, half propped up, in the bed perpendicular to him. Her eyes are wide with intrigue, and he feels himself drowning in them.
He wonders about her sometimes. She is so innocent, with her big eyes and her pointed chin and her downy curls; it is hard to believe that she has suffered so much. It is hard to believe that, at the tender age of seven, she will be lost to her parents. It is hard to believe that, at the age of thirteen, she has never known her mother because she was spirited away from the woman the moment she was born. It is hard to believe –
He pauses and looks at the girl in the bed. He cannot tell the color of her hair: is it blonde or brown? He cannot tell the color of her eyes: are they blue or brown? He cannot tell her name: is she Sara or El?
He looks down at the book in his hands, but it is gone, and his fingers are long and curved and gray. They are tipped with talons that look as though they are made for killing.
He returns his attention to the girl in the bed, but she is no longer propped up. She's not there. She is flat on her back, a clear mask over her mouth and nose, tubes protruding from her fragile body; her curls are gone, and there is a machine behind her with a flat green line splitting its face. He hears the monotonous beep, but the sensation of it is dulled by the scent of blood.
He looks back down at his hands. They are still wrong. The clutching claws are dripping with blood. He pushes himself to his feet and chances another glance at the girl.
Who is she?
It doesn't matter. What matters is that she is dead; he tore her apart. He tore both of her apart, and there is blood spilling from her still forms. He can smell it, and he shrieks with joy.
He wants to devour her.
He lunges for her, but she stops him. Her hand – small and fleshy and human – is outstretched; it shakes in the dead air surrounding them, but she stares him down and holds him back.
"No," she says, her eyes dark and determined. Red stains her hands, pours from her chest, like her heart is bleeding for him. "No," she repeats, and she looks straight at him.
He can see himself in her eyes: tall and emaciated, a featureless face. He is a fearsome creature, and he roars with the joy of it. His face opens into five parts, revealing a gaping maw edged with thousands of sharp teeth. He lunges for her again, consumed by his hunger, unable to deny his desire to have her.
He roars again, this time in frustration, when the vines that are laced along the walls and floor untangle themselves and wrap around her upper arms, dragging her back and away from him.
She screams, and he thinks that at least she is afraid.
He turns and leaps past the blood-stained bed where she once lay and claws his way through a wall; it seals up behind him, leaving him in a dark place, infested with vines, and scorched air, others like him.
He is home, but that does not quell the hunger and fury that coils within him, waiting for a moment to strike.
He will find the girl, and he will kill her, and he will destroy her.
Jim wakes up, trembling, and whispers into the dark, dead, suffocating air: "I need to get out of here."