Kesh Read Free

couldn’t go home, but he wouldn’t be able to stay out here either. It would be best to keep on the path and cut through the park to Evan’s house.
    He shivered again as a cool mist settled over him. A light rain coated his skin, and a long howl rose up in the distance. The middle of town and Ontario Drive now felt very far away. The howl came again, seeming closer now. He walked along more quickly and began to wonder if something, or someone, was watching him from the woods. As he went deeper into the park, the rain intensified moment by moment, until it drove down hard and soaked through his clothing to his skin.
    Lightning flashed above him, illuminating the billowing black clouds. He kept moving. The thunder roared and the electrical storm threw a blinding white light on the leafless trees ahead and the rushing rain-swollen river to his left.
    After each flash he counted, “one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three…” He watched the sky, anticipating the next jolt of sound and light. His neck grew tense and ached with the cold. The intervals grew shorter, until the sky cracked open in one terrifying explosion, and Kesh’s insides shook with the force. He ran in panic, moving farther and farther into the woods as the thunder and lightning drifted into the distance. Then the rain eased to a dull drizzle, and the air grew calm.
    Kesh stopped and gasped for breath, looking all around him. In the daylight, Kesh knew the park well enough to know where he was and where his house would be. Now, the bright familiar paths and neatly arranged maple and birch trees felt strange and ominous. His thin clothes provided him no protection from the driving rain and cold, and his jaw shivered in spite of his trying to make it stop.
    He looked around trying to find his bearings – to figure out where he was, and where he had come from, but in the darkness and weather, the world seemed eerily strange and unfamiliar. A chill surged through his body, and he began to run again, along what he thought was still the path.
    Even in the near blackness, he could sense the thick trees off to the side. His fingers were stiff, and icy streams trickled down his back. He stopped, his heart thundering in his chest, and he panted for breath. He stood gathering his thoughts and, under his breath, reassured himself. “Okay, Kesh, you’re not really lost. It’s just the park. You’re going to be okay.” He corrected himself. “I’m going to be okay. I just need to get out of the rain until I can figure out where I am.”
    Kesh had read about people suffering from exposure where the body temperature dropped until, in the worst cases, they died. He felt much calmer now and, in spite of the danger, he moved slowly, scanning the trees as he went. He noticed he was no longer shivering and the woods and path were brighter, clearer although dawn was many hours off, and the sky remained shrouded in dense black clouds.
    He could make out the leaves of the trees, and even the outline of neat little picnic areas arranged just off the road in neatly manicured camping areas seemed almost illuminated.
    The rain now seemed to roll off his back and he felt much warmer than he had. It was as if the barrier between his skin and the atmosphere, the air and water, had disappeared. He scanned the area for one of the small utility shacks he had remembered seeing that summer.
    His nose caught a familiar odor, and he glanced to his right where a small, narrow shed was set back from the path off of the road. At this point, he would willingly spend the night in a dry outhouse, but that hope was dashed when he saw the padlock on the wooden door. He circled the building looking for a way in, but the door was securely latched and locked and the windows were covered by a thick steel mesh.
    He sniffed again. Then he padded back to the main trail. He looked up to get his bearings and a new, different shiver went