by Gwenda Bond
“It was one of the first things you said that made me wonder,” Gloria said. “That you didn’t recognize some of the cars. Is it fair to say that’s unusual?”
Alice scoffed. “You could say that. I grew up with guys who treated cars like trading cards.”
“So it seemed odd to me that you didn’t recognize more than one. Do you know how many?”
Alice shook her head, frowning. “I don’t remember all the details as clearly afterward—that’s why I wanted to narrate. I’m sorry. Is that a deal-breaker?”
“It’s not. Just a data point,” Gloria said.
“Keep going,” Ken said.
Gloria did. “So remember Alice went inside and she saw a couple of different things? She described a typewriter with a screen, a plastic disk being put into it, and a giant machine the little girl was inside. Did I get them all?”
Terry still couldn’t forecast where this was going, but she was riveted. “Yes, I think so.”
“As far as I can tell, none of those things exist. A couple sound like things predicted at expos and World’s Fairs, but they haven’t been invented.” Gloria stopped, as if she’d said the most significant thing.
“Am I being dense?” Ken asked.
Terry tried to put it together, but Alice beat her to it.
“Brenner, the times I’ve seen him—he’s older than he is now,” Alice said. “I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. I think you’re right.”
Gloria grinned.
“Fill in the rest of us,” Terry said. But then the pieces connected. “Really? You think it’s—”
“The future,” Gloria said. “Alice’s visions aren’t of now. They’re of some point in the future.”
“When monsters are real?” Ken asked.
Alice made a face at him.
“Apparently,” Gloria said.
“The future,” Terry repeated. “What do you think, Alice?”
Alice shook her head with awe. “I’m going to look at it all completely differently now. But thinking back over everything I’ve seen…it makes sense. For some values of making sense.”
Terry sat back against the chair. The solidity of it helped. She took another drink of water. They had an answer, a big one. But…
The future wasn’t a great answer for actually doing something to stop Brenner. The problem had just gotten much bigger. “The question is, how do we change the future? That’s impossible. Isn’t it?”
She slid her gaze to Ken, who she expected to say that’s not how things worked. He shrugged. “Some things seem set, but others aren’t. Who can say?”
“But it’s not like we can go around shouting, ‘The future! The future!’ ” Gloria said. “That part only matters to us.”
“No,” Terry said. A certainty came to her. “It would matter to someone else. Brenner can never know that Alice sees the future. A part of his future.”
Gloria put her hand to her throat. Obviously this was a new worry for her. “Can you imagine what he’d do?”
Alice’s eyes had gone wide. “I don’t want to. I…I didn’t tell you guys, but that was much more electricity than they give me at the lab. It took that to even begin to see clearly. I can’t…”
“Never,” Terry said to reassure her. “He will never know. And you will never do that again.” She paused. “But…I found those files once. I could go back to his office again, and get more evidence. That’s all I can think— Knowing what we know about the monsters…and that he’s got some experiment going on kids with powers, we have to keep trying. It’s more important than ever now that we stop the experiments.”
“Or,” Gloria said.
“Or?” Terry asked.
“Or we could try never going back there. I’ve got a little experiment of my own underway at school to see how much Brenner will push back. I’m pretending I want to transfer. I expected him to show up as soon as I put in the paperwork, but so far nothing.”
Alice had a weirdly hopeful expression as her attention darted among the other three. Terry didn’t want to get her hopes up on that account yet.
“I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t stop him,” Terry said.
Gloria absorbed that. “I get it. Trust me. But it’d be good if we had an escape hatch.”
“We don’t though,” Ken said, softly. “We don’t leave. Not yet. I don’t know that much, but I know it’s not that easy.” He closed his eyes, then opened them. “We’re all scared. We’d be morons not to be.”
“And we’re not morons. Look what Gloria just figured out! We have each other and we shouldn’t forget that. We’re the best allies we’ve got.” Terry’s voice wavered and she hated that. Hated it. But her emotions filled her up and she couldn’t keep them inside. They had to spill over.
“Brenner’s not going to let any of us leave without good reason,” Alice said. “He’s not going to give up whatever he’s doing with the kids without it either. That’s just logical. So we need to create the reason. That means helping Terry get her evidence.”
“But then what?” Gloria asked.
Terry’s heart rose into her throat and her eyes heated. She sipped the water Alice had given her. “We’ll figure that out,” she managed. “Maybe we could get a reporter to investigate.”
“To figuring out how to be noble fools, then,” Gloria said, raising her hand as if making a toast.
Ken let out a breath. “The noblest and most foolish,” he said.
Terry would love to see inside his mind…But, no, if anything was becoming increasingly clear, it was that knowing the future didn’t fix a damn thing.
“It’s going to be harder this time, the distraction,” Terry said. “Brenner stays on top of me lately.”
Alice gnawed her lip. Then, “Would it make more sense for one of us to try to get to his office?”
“No.” Terry rejected it outright. “He’s already been angry at me, best to keep that away from you. I have a Polaroid camera now, after all—and I think I might be able to convince Kali to help us.” Terry didn’t know if that was true after the girl’s meltdown last time they talked, but it might help her to have something to do. Terry needed to make her understand that her freedom was in the balance, too.
In order to help Kali, she needed Kali to trust her.
Terry stood. “I have to go home and sleep now or I’ll just cry at Brenner all day tomorrow.” She paused. “Maybe I should stay up all night. He deserves it.”
“But you don’t. I’m going to keep looking for things we can use during my sessions.” Alice got up and forced Terry into another hug. The tight circle of her arms and the faint smell of grease and sweat from her work clothes was a comfort. Then Ken was there, putting his arms around them both as Alice squirmed. And, last, Gloria added her arms gracefully around the very outside of all of them. They swayed a little.
Ken said to Terry, “You’re stronger than even you know.”
Terry prayed that he truly was a psychic and this was one of his certainties. She needed all the strength she could get.
The group hug ended when Alice started humming a Beatles song, and they went their separate ways into the night.
Terry fell into her narrow dorm bed, waved at Stacey, and went straight to sleep. She dreamed of the forest and being chased through it by Alice’s monsters. She woke before she discovered whether she got away.
3.
Ken wasn’t sure who would answer his knock and how he’d explain being here. But he got lucky.
“Ken?” Andrew squinted through the screen door at his parents’ house. He’d been given his regulation army haircut. “What are you doing here?”
His eyes brightened and he looked past Ken toward the car. “Is Terry with you?”
“No,” Ken said. “
I came alone. Terry doesn’t know I’m here, and keeping it that way would be good. I got your address from Dave.”
Andrew blinked. Letting the door shut behind him, he stepped outside. “Can I ask…why?”
“You don’t even have to,” Ken said. “I’ll tell you.”
Being here was surprisingly hard. The house reminded Ken of his own family’s home. He hadn’t been there in three years. The Riches had the same kind of two-story house, a wide planked porch with a swing, the same flower beds covered for the winter and tended—he’d lay money—by the family matriarch.
“You can come in,” Andrew said. “My mom will probably fix you something to eat.”
“I’ll take you up on that, but can we stay out here for now?” Ken asked. “I wanted to talk.”
“Be my guest.” Andrew gestured to the porch swing.
They migrated to it, the swing swaying under their weight. “It feels strange to deliver bad news on a porch swing,” Ken said.
“So this is that kind of visit then.” Andrew sighed. “I don’t know if I believe you’re psychic. You here to tell me I don’t make it?”
Ken put down a foot to stop the swing from moving. There.
“No, brother, I don’t know about that.” Ken paused. “I’ve tried. To see what happens for you and Terry, but all I have is a feeling. She’s struggling.”
“Terry’s struggling?” Andrew sounded skeptical at first. But then he seemed to accept it. “She would hide it from me. What can I do?”
“That’s why I’m here.” Ken still wasn’t sure this was the right thing. “I’m not supposed to interfere—that’s what my mother always said.” But his mother wasn’t always correct. He knew that now.
“If it’ll help Terry, it’s worth a shot.”
“I think you should break up. While you’re gone. I don’t know why, I just have a feeling it might help her somehow.”
Andrew stayed quiet. Then, “You sure you don’t want to date her?”
“I’m sure.”
Andrew shook his head. “Well, if I don’t come back you have my blessing. Okay, I’ll do it.”
“That’s it?” Ken had expected an argument. One where he didn’t have much to push back with.
“I know you care about her. If this will help, sure. It only seems fair. She should be free until we see what happens. I’d been thinking that already.”
Ken stared at Andrew’s profile, trying as hard as he could to determine the future. But, still, it eluded him.
4.
A nonexistent breeze blew past Terry and the ghostly trees around her cackled, the leaves clattering together like teeth. It didn’t help that she could see through them to the cot and the tile floor and her minders.
A hand on her shoulder. “Miss Ives?” The voice of a demon. His teeth looked too big in his mouth as he spoke to her. “Terry? What’s wrong?”
“You should know,” she said, or thought she said. It was hard to be sure. Today her mind kept circling back to the forest and the monster. Dr. Brenner in front of her asking her questions didn’t help. How long had she been lost in the psychedelic woods, a transparent layer between her and the lab? Four hours? Five? It made her afraid to close her eyes.
She’d been unable to get to the void to see if Kali might be there again, talk to her. The acid made remembering why she needed Kali slippery…
The leaves clattered again around her.
“Should we give her a sedative?” the orderly asked.
Dr. Brenner slid his hand down her arm to her pulse. She tried to shrug him off, but he held fast. “Let me go,” she demanded. “Now.”
The slightest hint of a smile in icy blue eyes. “Or?”
Terry’s other hand flexed into a fist and she opened her mouth to scream—
And then he removed his hand, only to put his stethoscope in ears that seemed pointed, wolfish, and listen to her heart. She flinched as the cold metal moved to her belly. Her heartbeat thudded in her ears, and she reached up to push him away.
“Relax,” Brenner said, stepping back. To the orderly he said, “Her vitals are fine. Pulse racing, but nothing that can’t be accounted for by the stress of the hallucinogen.”
“He means I’m having a bad trip,” Terry said to the minion over Brenner’s shoulder, and tossed her head from side to side. “I want you to leave me alone.”
“We’ll be here while you ride it out,” Brenner said. Was that a note of enjoyment in his voice? Or was it her mind playing tricks?
Whichever, Terry closed her eyes and, inside, she began to run. She had found a focus, finally. It was not wanting to be anywhere near Dr. Martin Brenner. And eventually she escaped the grim forest and room. The void surrounded her. Her feet splashed through the pool of water she associated with this nowhere-everywhere place.
She opened her eyes to the serene dark in all directions. She was breathing hard, still upset.
She’d grown calmer when Kali appeared in front of her.
The girl skipped toward her, splashing through the darkness.
This poor child had been through more than Terry could imagine. Sure, Terry’s classwork in theory prepared her to deal with children. In practice, at least on acid, coming to talk to Kali after their last conversation felt like walking across a field peppered with landmines while wearing a blindfold. Kali’s outburst about Terry having so many friends, and then the fierce hug. She ached for the angry, sweet, lonely girl.
Terry tried to hide how relieved she was that Kali was here. She didn’t want to spook the girl.
“Hello!” Kali said. “I asked for a calendar and they gave me one! I mark every day, and Thursdays are your days.”
She said it shyly.
Terry bent to be at her level. Kali didn’t really seem to like being touched unless it was her idea, so she resisted the urge to smooth a stray hair behind the girl’s ear. “Does your calendar have pictures?”
Kali gave a little hop. “It has a different animal for every month! February is a tiger.”
“Tigers have big teeth,” Terry said.
“Tigers go roar.” Kali made a growling noise and prowled around Terry. All of a sudden the girl stopped moving. “My mom used to make that noise and tell me a story about a tiger! I was named after a goddess. She wore a tiger skin and was fierce in battle.”
So the girl had a mother somewhere. “Where is your mother now?”
“Gone.” Kali’s joy evaporated. She kicked at the water. “Gone, gone, gone.”
“Mine is too,” Terry said.
Kali shrugged.
“Kali, how long have you been here?” But Terry realized that wasn’t the question. “How long have you been with Dr. Brenner?” Still not right. “With Papa, I mean.”
“I didn’t have a calendar before. I don’t know.”
“You said they gave you a calendar—who is they?”
“My minders,” Kali said. “Papa’s helpers.”
Terry tried to keep her voice steady. “So you stay here?”
“Home for now.” Kali shrugged.
Yes, just for now, Terry wanted to say, but didn’t. “Does Papa ever get mad at you?”
Kali nodded. “All the time. He gets so mad!” The girl giggled, truly joyous. “Sometimes he gives me candy to make me be good. That’s how I got the calendar.”
Terry didn’t want to ask Kali to do anything that might make him mad at her. A terrible thought occurred to her. “Does he…hurt you? When he’s mad?”
Kali considered. “Not really. He just lies. I still don’t have my friend.” She paused. “Other than you. But he swears I’ll have one someday soon.”
So that sounded like a no. Which was odd…given what Alice had seen him do to the future girl, the way she’d been sent a
way in punishment.
But Kali wasn’t prone to lies. The little girl was honest. He must not hurt her, not in that sense. Just in the sense that he’s making her live here.
Terry decided to go on. “I told you about my other friends the last time I was here, remember? There’s Alice and Ken and Gloria. And he does hurt them—us. He makes us take medicine we don’t want to. We don’t want to come here anymore.”
“You’re going to leave me?” Kali asked.
“We want everyone to go.” Terry wondered what would seem like a symbol of the outside to a five-year-old. “Would you like to go to a zoo someday? See a real tiger?”
“Yes,” Kali said. “I want to meet your friends, too.”
“Someday you can,” Terry said. “I want to try to get you out of here. To get all of us out of here.”
“Papa won’t allow it,” Kali said.
“Maybe we can make him.” She said it with care, gauging Kali’s reaction. “To help my friends—all of them, including you—I need to go to Papa’s office the next time I’m here. Do you think you could come up with a distraction? Nothing that would make him too mad. I just need him and everyone else to leave me alone for a few minutes.”
Kali took this in. She was in no rush to respond.
Then, when Terry had nearly given up hope, she said, “I can do it. Papa deserves pranks for the lies he tells.”
“Yes.” Terry couldn’t agree more. “He does.”
“Okay! I gotta go!” Kali skipped away before Terry could even attempt to hug her.
Why did she feel so unsure this would go right? She’d specifically not asked Kali to use her powers, because that would make her no better than Brenner.
She had a week to worry about whether it would work. For now, she walked back through the void, making soundless splashes. She imagined that phantom tigers lurked in the shadows as she went.
5.
They’d been in Hawkins for hours and hours already and Alice knew soon they’d get to leave. Not soon enough, but she held on to the fact. The electricity was done for today. So she sat on the edge of the cot and waited for the entire marathon day to be over.
