Stranger Things

by Gwenda Bond

  Andrew shook his head, and Ken could tell he didn’t fully get it yet. “I’m so sorry,” Andrew offered. “Mine’s been there for me, even though they think I was an idiot. That must hurt.”

  “It did. Less now,” Ken said. He gave a sad smile. “Well, as long as I don’t think about it.”

  “What happened?” Andrew asked.

  People never understood that being psychic didn’t mean you were right all the time. It didn’t mean Ken had all the answers. It didn’t mean he never messed up. People could disappoint him, just like anyone else. But he might as well keep being honest.

  “I told them I was dating a guy—we broke up, afterward, but I know I fall in love someday. And that will be with a man, too. I think I meet the person I fall in love with at Hawkins.”

  “I had no idea. I mean, I’d never have known…” Andrew had a panicked air about him.

  “I suppose I should take that as a compliment.”

  “I’m being an asshole,” Andrew said. “What I mean is that’s fucked up, to lose family over who you love. I’m sorry, brother.” He smiled. “Is that why you’re really at Hawkins then, doing all this? To meet your guy?”

  Ken smiled back. When trust worked out, there wasn’t a better feeling. “That, and what I told Terry and the others. I do think we’re all important to each other. It was something I knew I had to do.” A pause. “But it doesn’t hurt to be looking for Mr. Right.”

  “No candidates yet, I take it?”

  “Slim pickings. But I’ll know,” Ken said. “At least I hope I will.”

  The waitress returned with Andrew’s milkshake, tall and foamy and delicious-looking.

  “Thanks,” Andrew told her.

  “Hey, have you ever dipped French fries in your chocolate shake?” Ken asked him.

  “No,” Andrew said. “What wizardry is this?”

  “You haven’t lived,” Ken said. He waved the waitress back over and ordered some fries. “How’d Terry take it?” he asked when she’d bustled away.

  Andrew gave a half smile. “She didn’t make it easy.”

  “No shocker there.”

  Andrew hesitated. “I don’t want to know about me, but Terry—will she be okay?”

  “I don’t know,” Ken said. “About either of you. That’s the reason I called you. I just…felt like things might be better for her if you were on a break while you’re gone. I can’t explain it any more than that.”

  The French fries arrived. Andrew picked up a fry, his wince proving how hot it was. He dipped it in the milkshake and took a bite. “That’s amazing. Hot and cold, salty and sweet.”

  Ken reached across the table for a fry, too. “I promise I’ll do whatever I can to make sure she’s okay. Good enough?”

  “No,” Andrew said, pressing the plate to the middle of the table and scooting his milkshake forward. “But you can’t always get what you want.”

  The wisdom of the Rolling Stones. Ken replied in kind. “Sometimes you can’t even get what you need.”

  4.

  Terry was like a sleepwalker suddenly woken up. The world felt strange, but also not so far away as it had the past few weeks. Even at the Hawkins lab. Telling Andrew she felt like his going was her fault had lifted away guilt she hadn’t even realized she was carting around with her.

  Dr. Brenner entered the room and sat a small cup of pills on the table beside her, along with another cup filled with liquid. “Vitamins,” he said. “I can tell you aren’t taking the ones I sent home. That’s water.”

  She sipped the water with care until she was pretty sure it was only water. Then she threw back the vitamins despite…

  “No, I haven’t been taking them. But something you’re giving me is messing up my metabolism, my weight,” she said.

  “Your boyfriend complaining?” he asked.

  She didn’t have a boyfriend anymore, not technically. She’d survived the goodbye. She still said a prayer for Andrew that morning and would again that night. Her worry for him was a constant. She no longer burst into tears at every sappy song on the radio. Was this what “carrying on” felt like? She didn’t like it, but it was better than the misery of waiting for a shoe to drop. Better than having kept a big secret from him.

  She still chose to ignore Brenner’s question. “What’s causing it?”

  He studied her, moving in with that stethoscope, and somehow she kept from flinching when he pressed it against her chest. The cold metal a sting against her skin through the gown. He shifted it down to listen to her belly.

  “You look alert. More than you have recently.”

  She’d warned the others, with a quiet signal on the van to the lab, that she intended to try again to talk with Kali. Would the girl finally show up in the void? They were running out of good options.

  “You’re feeling better today?” Brenner prodded.

  “I feel good today.” A grudging admission.

  “That’s what we give you working.” He said it in a way that made it clear he did not expect her to challenge the statement.

  “Or not.”

  He gave her a long look. “Miss Ives, if you can’t do what’s best for you, then…”

  Oh, she wanted to push back harder. She wanted to demand he finish that sentence, which sounded an awful lot like the beginning of a threat. But.

  She remembered how he’d shown up at Gloria’s, how rattled she’d been when she told Terry about his visit. He’d charmed her parents. They had to play this cautiously.

  “I took the vitamins,” she said. “You just saw me.”

  “Good,” he said. “Now this.”

  A small tab of acid appeared between his fingers and she plucked it away.

  Terry placed the hit on her tongue and, ignoring Brenner’s presence, closed her eyes to wait. She didn’t open them even when she heard someone come in. The orderly joining them, no doubt. She recalled that first day here, watching the heart monitor, and conjured that red line—spike, spike, then steady, steady—in her mind.

  Before long, or so it seemed, she went deeper. The water rippled around her feet, the void around her.

  She waited. She felt strong, awake.

  Kali’s arms were crossed in front of her when she strode out of the darkness.

  Terry almost fell to her knees in relief.

  “I couldn’t come,” Kali said. “I was too sleepy. I’m not sure these are dreams.”

  “Were you sick?”

  “I felt sick. Papa came to see me every day,” Kali said. “I hope Alice isn’t sad I haven’t visited her. I promised Papa I’d be a good girl.”

  Terry’s heart spiked. She forced it to calm. “He doesn’t know you met Alice, though?”

  Kali shook her head no.

  “Do you think you can still manage to distract him? It won’t get you in trouble, will it?”

  Kali tilted her head and considered. “It needs to make him come see me, you said?”

  “Whatever you did the other day worked out great. I just need some time alone.”

  “He got mad about that one, but I have another idea,” Kali announced. And then she disappeared.

  Back in the lab, Terry opened her eyes and pretended to stretch and yawn. “I may lay down,” she said. “Not feeling so good after all.”

  Brenner lifted his hand in the general direction of the cot. Was it possible to be sarcastic without saying a word? If so, he’d mastered the art.

  Terry shuffled over, acting as tired as she possibly could. She poured herself onto the thin mattress and rolled onto her side with her arms up to cover her face.

  The PA speaker mounted high on the wall crackled. “We have a ‘Code Indigo,’ ” said a man’s voice. “Paging Dr. Brenner to wing G for a ‘Code Indigo.’ ” />
  Dr. Brenner’s face tightened with what looked like rage. His body was drawn like a bow as he started forward. Terry swung her feet around, disconcerted.

  “What’s happening?” she asked, innocently. She worried about that expression and Kali.

  “None of your concern.” He waved for the orderly to follow him into the hall as the PA repeated its summoning.

  Terry went to the window and looked out into the hall. She couldn’t allow Kali’s effort to go to waste. She waited until they were out of sight, then slung her bag over her shoulder and darted into the hallway. This time, she didn’t make any wrong turns.

  The new code Alice had memorized worked like a charm, letting her bypass the keypad on her way to Dr. Brenner’s office. There was a disturbance up the hall that went to Kali’s room—shouting voices and Brenner’s commanding tone. Terry looked, expecting to see people and instead found a wall of flames that looked real but couldn’t be. There was no heat.

  Kali was making an illusion for her distraction.

  Terry hurried forward. They must have security cameras everywhere. Her only hope was that they didn’t review the footage as aggressively as they should. She let herself into Brenner’s office and took one moment for a deep victory breath.

  Not victorious yet.

  “Right,” she murmured. She set her bag on a chair, pulled out the tidy black and gray camera, and placed it on Dr. Brenner’s desk. Wait a second.

  The photographs needed context.

  She circled the desk to take a picture of the nameplate. DR. MARTIN BRENNER. Mentally she added: evil genius. The camera whirred and spat the photo out the front.

  In this silent room, the noise echoed…she prayed it was only in her head, the acid talking. She placed the picture on the desk, starting a stack. Only seven left until she ran out of film.

  She placed the camera on Brenner’s desk and went to the file cabinet. I should’ve looked at a clock so I’d know how long I’ve been gone.

  Followed by: Too late now.

  Yanking open a drawer, she paged through in search of the children’s folders. The ones with PROJECT INDIGO typed at the top.

  Bingo.

  She shuffled through until she found what must be Kali’s. 008. Five years old. She skimmed the contents, a narrative of experiments and findings: Child shows gifts that require isolation from those who might weaken her…Constantly asks for family and to be called by given name…Has stopped asking for her mother…Sustained a believable illusion of an ocean for five minutes, but without exercising control. Potential growing by the day…

  Terry selected two pages and photographed them, one after the other, with more echoing whirs. She confirmed the files ended with 010, not 011. Then she took another photograph of the row of documents, in case she could convince a reporter to look into this.

  But what about their experiment?

  She tried another drawer and saw PROJECT MKULTRA along the tops of these folders. Was this it? Flipping a file open, she realized it was hers.

  You need Alice’s.

  She dropped hers back in and flicked through the rest. Alice Johnson…There was one sheet that just recorded acid and electroshock dosages and dates. A narrative from Dr. Parks that started with: It’s impossible to say if the electroshock yields results or traumatizes the patient…

  Brenner had initialed a handwritten note that said: Increasing the wattage should clarify…

  Terry photographed that page. She checked the next one and it was a memorandum setting out a proposal for the MKULTRA experiment subjects to reside at the lab. A stamp on it said PENDING. NEEDS FURTHER STUDY.

  That can’t happen.

  Too much time had passed. She had to go.

  She tucked the Polaroids into her purse, and the camera, too. She hung the strap over her shoulder and practiced the stoned lie she would tell about following Dr. Brenner into the hallway and then wondering if he might be in his office.

  The disruption in the hallway was gone, all quiet there.

  She made it all the way back to her room unnoticed. Or uninterrupted, at least.

  She didn’t feel as strong anymore, but still better than she had been. Should she go to Kali’s room? She should. The girl might be in trouble. That Brenner hadn’t come back couldn’t mean anything good.

  Terry couldn’t allow anything to happen to her because of this. So she stepped back out into the hallway, shadows at the edge of her vision as she got more paranoid. But, again, no one stopped her. She saw not a soul on the way.

  When she reached Kali’s room, Dr. Brenner stood outside it, waiting. “I’ve seen you now,” he said. “There’s no point in turning around, Miss Ives. You want to check on her. I’m sure she’d love to see you.”

  Terry didn’t understand what was happening. But she opened the door to Kali’s room anyway, needing to see her.

  Kali reclined on the top bunk, crying as she fisted her hands in the sheets. She was bathed in sweat. Even from here, Terry could see it had soaked through her gown.

  “Kali, are you okay?” Terry asked.

  “Will you get in the bottom bunk?” the girl asked, coughing a sob.

  Terry nervously looked to Dr. Brenner, who’d followed her inside. He raised his eyebrows. “It’s fine with me.”

  This was the opposite of anything she should do. She should run. She’d gotten evidence. But abandoning Kali before ensuring she’d be all right wasn’t an option.

  She climbed onto the bunk and stared up at the bottom of the mattress above her, the wood beams holding it in place. Desperately she wished for the void, to be able to have a hidden conversation with the little girl.

  “I told him,” Kali said, “that we talked.”

  Too late for privacy then. Terry wanted to look at Brenner, gauge his reaction. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  But when he moved, off to the side, she turned her head and got out of the bunk. Afraid…of what? She didn’t know.

  He’d only leaned back against the wall.

  His smirk told her he knew he’d won that point. Terry looked over at Kali.

  “What did you tell him?” Alice’s face hovered in Terry’s mind. If he knew about her visions of the future, there’d be no stopping him…

  “She told me the truth,” Dr. Brenner said. “That you asked her to distract me.”

  Terry’s pulse pounded like a drumbeat.

  “She told you that I…I…,” Terry stammered. Fear kept her rooted in place. She hated being afraid of this man. He didn’t deserve it. But how could she not be? Did he know about the void? “I don’t…”

  “We don’t lie to Papa,” Kali said softly. Kali turned her head to Terry and, as Brenner watched Terry, lifted her finger to her trembling lips in the symbol for keeping a secret. He didn’t know, then. “He always finds out.”

  Dr. Brenner took a step closer to the bunks, turning his attention back to Kali. “That’s right.”

  He clapped his hands together. He was smiling. “I can’t wait to see how you perform next month. I suspected as much, but today’s conflagration confirms it. You are getting stronger. Very promising.”

  Funny. That wasn’t how Terry would describe this feeling.

  “What’s next month?” she asked, proud of how steady her voice stayed.

  “A surprise for Kali,” Dr. Brenner said. “And for you.”

  Terry closed her eyes. You bastard.

  5.

  Dr. Brenner escorted her back to her room. The orderly had deposited the contents of her bag on a table, including the camera and the Polaroids from his office. Oh, and the giant sanitary pad and belt she always kept on hand these days.

  “Have you been menstruating regularly?” Brenner asked.

  “God, buy a gi
rl dinner first,” Terry spit out. Her cheeks flamed. This was not exactly a usual topic of conversation.

  “Have you?”

  “Yes, not that it’s your business.”

  “I’m just checking for side effects from your medication. Is it once monthly?”

  He waited, eyes lasering into her.

  “No, actually. On and off,” Terry said, cheeks still burning. “Constantly. That’s why I have that in my purse. You may not know this, but spotting happens to lots of women. Especially when we have stress. Would you like to hear more? I have so much to say about cramps.”

  Brenner coolly picked up the stack of Polaroids, unbothered by her trying to embarrass him the way he had her. He went through the photos with slow deliberation, considering each.

  “I’ll keep this one,” he said, showing the one of the nameplate on his desk. He replaced the rest of the stack. “You can have the rest. It’s impossible to make any but stray words out. Sorry your plan didn’t work out. Better luck next time…Except there had best not be one.”

  Terry still felt the effects of the LSD like the room was vibrating. “Are we done?”

  “Almost.” Dr. Brenner watched her. “Terry, you and your friends are part of very important research. As is Kali. I know it may seem cruel to you, but it’s very humane. Other countries do much, much worse in their quest to expand the bounds of human knowledge.”

  Shadows appeared around him. Or maybe the acid just let her see them. Maybe Dr. Brenner always walked ringed in shadows, like a Black Rider galloping off the pages of her book.

  Terry couldn’t pretend not to see what he was. “Really? Do they keep a five-year-old girl isolated from other children for purity’s sake? Do they have children living in cells in a place like this? In hospital gowns? Shut off from the world and what being a kid is?”

  “Those children might be the only advantage we have.” He went silent for a moment. When he spoke, he wore a faint smile. “In a recent intelligence update, I was told that the Russians have developed a theory that mothers and their children have a mental link with each other. Do you know how they tested this theory? They bred rabbits, and then they put the mothers and their offspring in different rooms and killed the babies to see if the mother felt it.”