Jeremy was running and running and running.
It was raining and raining and raining.
He was running, frightened, in the rain.
The rain was loud and bright.
The rain was loud and bright and something was chasing him.
He had to get away.
He was crying.
Crying and afraid.
Of what he didn't know.
Except that he sort of did.
He was running away from the voice that said Jason wasn't coming back.
Mama was gone, and home, and now Jason: there was only rain and light and noise.
Tears and shadows and shouting.
Somehow, there was hope for home and Jason, and that was where he was going.
There was no hope for Mama. He understood that now.
But home was still there if he could get there. Even if it was bad to go there, it wasn't. Home was never bad. Never ever. (Maybe going there was bad, but being there wasn't.)
And Jason.
Even the monster had said Jason could come back if he gobbled. (Groveled, some other thing that was himself corrected the word, but he'd never heard that word before had heard gobbled.)
Jason was gone and done, the monster said, unless he came back and gobbled and kissed the dirt beneath his father's feet, like a good, obedient son should do. (of course, tonight he'd probably have to drink the mud.)
Jeremy wasn't sure why the monster wanted Jason to kiss dirt and eat it. He'd never heard of that before. Sometimes they – monsters, or witches, or ogres, or even magic fairies – would tell people to wash with dirt or build stuff or hide in it, and then it would turn into gold or coins or something. But it wouldn't do no good to eat gold, except maybe give you a bellyache. Did the monster want Jason to have a bellyache?
It didn't make no sense.
Nothing didn't make no sense, not since Mama went away but was still there.
Until they put her in a box and buried her in the ground. Then she wasn't there anymore.
Raining and running and raining and running, and 'it' was getting closer no matter how much he runned. (Ran, the other he corrected his word again.)
He could hear 'it,' calling him an imp from hell and a torturer of the dammed. He didn't want to find out why or how about torturing the beavers. (Hey, he was only five years old and his life had been turned upside down for the third time in the last few months. He didn't know there was any other kind of dammed – damned. Five year olds were kinda dumb.)
"When I get my hands on you…!"
The small boy whimpered, slapped his hands over his mouth, and dived into the gnarled roots of the first gnarled-root tree he saw. He dove for an opening, but before he could wiggle his way in, the monster grabbed his legs and pulled him back out, roaring at him and shaking him so hard the light was brighter on and darker off, and it was all whirling around and the noise was making his head vibrate.
Jeremy woke up abruptly, his hands over his mouth.
Abruptly but silently. The he he had been just a moment ago had been terrified into silence as the lightning, thunder, and monster all shook him dizzily in many different ways.
The walls and windows of the town cabin were still vibrating from the very close lightning strike and the resulting rush of thunder.
The rain poured down like a waterfall in flood.
Frantically, Jeremy gathered up his clothes and shoes, and was glad he didn't have to worry about the fire.
He needed Jason: he needed to find Jason; to see Jason; to be with him. He had to find him.
He had to hold onto him.
When he stepped out on the porch, it was still raining so hard that he couldn't see past the edge of the porch. He also had grabbed neither his coat or his raincoat, and it was getting colder.
He went back inside to grab both, and returned to the porch to put them on. That gave him time to think.
Jason would not like it if he ran out in the cold and wet. Jason had made a plan for him if he ever didn't want to be there by himself,(even if they said for other reasons), and it wasn't to go running looking for him in bad weather in the middle of the night. It was to go to Lottie's.
Plus there was the thought that if his dream had any basis in reality – a half-remembered memory – that action hadn't worked out too well for him, had it? Running out into a rare thunderstorm?
Not that he was sure how it had turned out for him. His last memory/dream moment was being dragged out of the tree's roots and shaken and roared at. After that, everything was blank.
When the rain eased, he went to Lottie's, where she welcomed him, dried him off, and put him to bed.
It wasn't as good as Jason (and/or Josh), but it was good.