Stranger Things

by Gwenda Bond

  Terry wanted to resist, but that turned out to be much harder than doing what the stranger told her to.

  So Terry kept going.

  She went all the way in, as deep as she could get.

  4.

  Alice had never been in a place with so many machines that was so clean.

  She lived in a family where grease under your fingernails became a way of life. Of course, no one minded for the men and the boys. They got to wear comfortable old clothes without a fight, and could hardly be bothered with scrubbing off the worst of the dirt every Sunday for church (which Alice did because that made sense to her, showing respect). Her mother used to harp about it when she first started working at her uncle’s, how even a pretty girl like her would never catch a man with grimy half-moons at the end of her digits…But at some point her mom had given up.

  Outlasting other people’s irritation, their desire to change you: it might not be anyone’s first choice—even hers—but it worked just fine all the same.

  “Should’ve brought a wrench. Or a screwdriver,” she murmured, and realized that her tongue felt thick and she’d spoken out loud.

  The female doctor’s name was Dr. Parks. She glowed white when she turned to Alice. Dr. Parks had handed Alice a small tab of paper and told her to place it on her tongue…how long ago? Alice didn’t like losing time. The first thing she’d ever taken apart had been her cousin from Toronto’s watch. She’d been six and she wanted to see if Canadian time was different from Indiana time.

  “What are you seeing?” the doctor asked. There were two of her, two shimmery white angel selves, and Alice wasn’t sure which one to focus on. The world didn’t fit together right. She closed her eyes but zigzags appeared that confused her even more.

  She opened her eyes and stared at the angel on the right. “I want to see inside these machines.”

  Dr. Parks absorbed that. She had a controlled way about her, almost like Gloria, but not as nice as Gloria. Alice guessed if you wanted to do medicine or science for a living, you had to be that way—especially if you were a woman. Like how she had to cultivate the grease under her nails and her coveralls so people believed she’d be able to fix their machinery, when that had nothing to do with it. She understood how mechanical things worked. Engines, transmissions, spark plugs, axles…She liked fixing them and she was good at it.

  Seeing inside these machines would restore order.

  To her surprise, the doctor turned to the orderly lurking in the background. “Get us a screwdriver,” she told him.

  Alice knew her glee must’ve shown on her face, because for the first time the woman softened.

  “This should be interesting,” Dr. Parks said. “Oh, and tell Dr. Brenner, too. He might want to come by sooner than later.”

  * * *

  —

  Alice stuck the screwdriver into the head of a pulsing, vibrating screw. “Stop moving,” she ordered it.

  But then everything around the screw, wires and toothed pieces that fit together, started to thump like a heartbeat. There was only one thing to do. Disassemble this machine entirely. Then she could figure out how it was alive. Or was that the paper they’d put on her tongue? It was probably the paper, but it felt real. The evidence was right in front of her.

  The door to the room opened and Alice angled her head to see who came in. It was the main doctor, Martin Brenner of the wavy hair and smile like he’d gone to a finishing school to learn it. “What is it?” he asked, and Dr. Parks pointed in Alice’s direction.

  Alice turned back to the machine, which hummed and pulsed at her, trying to get her attention. “Okay, okay,” she said. “Don’t get jealous.”

  The nice orderly had brought a tray covered in tools. She exchanged the screwdriver for a set of pliers. They were big and clumsy in her hands and she didn’t like that, but she jabbed them into the heart of the machine and then gently twisted some wires free.

  A presence beside her, kneeling.

  “What’s she doing to the electrocardiogram?” Brenner asked.

  He should have asked her. She was right next to him. “I’m taking it apart to figure out why it’s alive.”

  “Interesting,” he said and stood. “Let’s try some electricity. I’m curious how she reacts to it.”

  Dr. Parks sounded skeptical. “This was supposed to be a baseline day…I’m not sure.”

  “I am,” Dr. Brenner said.

  He came to her side. “I’m going to need you to lay back for a few minutes while we add a new…treatment.”

  “You want to turn me into a machine,” Alice said. “But I already am one. We all are.”

  The orderly took her arm, and a chill passed through Alice. He took the pliers from her fingers and placed them on the table.

  “I don’t like this,” Alice said.

  “It won’t hurt,” Dr. Brenner said. She didn’t merit one of those smiles this time.

  He rolled over another machine. The glowing Dr. Parks had a shadow around her halo now. She attached some wires to Alice, cool sticky circles pressed onto the skin of her temples. Alice should tell them she didn’t want this—

  The first jolt turned her into a crack of lightning.

  The second sent her far inside herself. Disorienting flashes of light and dark surrounded her, and she couldn’t get her bearings. A crumbling wall in front of her, cracked and overgrown. Spores like tiny tumbleweeds drifted through the air. She tried to catch one, but her fingers closed on nothing. What was this?

  Breathe, Alice, breathe. It’s the medicine and the electricity.

  The swaying vines and crumbling concrete of the darkly beautiful ruins vanished, replaced by a sky full of moving stars.

  She could stay awhile, in this quiet, confusing place in her mind where images tumbled into one another. Walls into stars into grass. She could hide here beneath reality until Dr. Brenner and his bad electricity left her alone.

  5.

  The rainbow stayed with Terry for a long while, but eventually it faded and in its place: darkness. A pit. Or…no, like the inside of a cloud at night and then brighter. Everything around Terry held possibility. It was within her, it was outside her, it was everywhere. It was everything. Invisible stars pulsing with energy seemed to surround her. What a strange way to think of it, but every thought seemed equally strange…

  How alive her senses were here, deeper, wherever deeper was.

  An acid trip, that’s where it is.

  She felt pressed forward by invisible hands. There was no smell here. No sense of time here.

  Was she afraid? Maybe.

  Every so often she heard something. A voice from far away. A stolen piece of conversation. Nothing in front of her, nothing behind her.

  Everything in front of her. Everything behind her.

  A soothing voice spoke to her.

  “Terry, where are you now?” the man asked. “Can you hear me?”

  “Deeper,” she said, automatically. “Yes.”

  “I want you to clear your mind…Now, what do you see?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Good, that’s good. Now, Terry, it’s very important that you do as I say. Do you understand?”

  “I do.”

  “I want you to imagine the worst day of your life. I want you to tell me what happened. Be there inside that moment again.”

  The memory rose up before she could stop it, but she pressed it back. “I don’t want to.”

  “I’ll be there with you to keep you safe.” His voice was as steady as a boat on a calm lake. “This is important. Can you tell me about it?”

  A hazy, brilliant white appeared in front of her. She had to imagine that she walked right up to it before she knew what she was seeing.

  The doors were wooden, painted whi
te, crosses carved into grain. She’d last seen them the day of her parents’ funeral. It was held at the church where they’d gone one out of every three or four Sundays, every two if her father was feeling guilty about not attending more often.

  “Tell me what you see.”

  Terry placed her palm against the church door and pressed. “I forgot something in the car and I had to go back. Becky’s already inside.”

  “Inside where?”

  “The church.”

  “When is this?” he asked.

  “Three years ago.” Terry took a step up the center aisle and it creaked under her step. The pews passed around her as she moved forward. Light poured in through stained-glass windows the church had raised money to have put in. Jesus with his arms outstretched. A lamb and a haloed light. Jesus on the cross with bleeding hands and feet…

  She wanted to turn and run, just as she’d wanted to that day. But she kept walking. Her throat was tight, her eyes red from days spent crying.

  Becky turned and gave her a watery smile. “They look nice,” she said. “He did a good job on Mom.”

  The altar had been moved aside. Terry looked at the caskets, modest polished wood, side by side. Becky had gasped at the cost in the funeral director’s office, but they had no choice. Her mother and father were peaceful, eyes closed like they might be sleeping.

  “But they’re not sleeping,” Terry said. “They were in an accident…a car crash. We went to the hospital, but…they were already gone. We weren’t sure at first we could even have a viewing.”

  “And this day was the worst?” the man asked. “Not the day of the accident?”

  A sob pushed out of Terry’s chest and she collapsed against her father’s casket. “This…This because then it was real. The funeral. I hadn’t seen them…We knew…Then I believed it. They—they were never coming back to us.”

  “I see.”

  A moment of quiet in which she cried and Becky patted her back and she felt selfish because Becky must feel the same awful hurt…

  The man continued. “I want you to take everything you feel in this moment, remembering, and put it in a box. Tuck it away. When you come out of this state, you will remember the loss, but not the pain. The pain will be gone.”

  That was impossible. Terry missed them less now, but still every day something reminded her. “I…”

  “Do it now. Imagine a box, and put the feelings inside and away. It will help.”

  Terry did as he said. “Okay,” she said, feeling heavy and light at the same time.

  “When you awake, you will remember only what you saw, not what I told you to do.”

  “Okay,” she said again, but panic surged. “Where am I?”

  “You’re right here in the lab. Terry Ives, I want you to wake up now. You’re safe.”

  She ran toward the promise in his voice, her feet touching nothing as she pounded toward the words and then, gasping, she bolted upright. Her fingers gripped thin white sheets. Her skin was slick with sweat.

  The room in the lab was fuzzy, blurry, but not dark. Filled with cool light. Her vision got clearer.

  She was having a trip. That was all, right? The government had sent her on an acid trip.

  She located the red line on the heart monitor and watched as her heart returned to a steady rhythm. Dr. Brenner sat down beside her, placing a hand on her arm. He made circles, comforting ones, just like her mother used to make.

  “I’m fine,” Terry said, convincing herself.

  “Get her some water,” Dr. Brenner told the orderly.

  “No!” she protested.

  “Just water this time,” Dr. Brenner said. “I promise. You did a very good job. Now, let’s get you calmed down and then I have some questions.”

  Terry had some, too.

  6.

  Dr. Martin Brenner wished he could see inside the minds of the subjects. No messy conversation to extract what they might or might not have seen, how effective the hypnotic techniques had been. No unreliable witnesses of their own experience.

  No lies unless he told them.

  The young woman in front of him, Theresa Ives, had piqued his curiosity. Rare enough these days, especially in adult subjects. The way she’d sensed an opportunity and shown up suggested potential—hers would not be an easy mind to crack. The challenge would make their findings more meaningful. She didn’t seem afraid of him. He approved of that quality…at least when it wasn’t in a young charge who didn’t know how to take no for an answer.

  “Better?” he asked as she sipped the water his aide had provided.

  She nodded and handed the glass back, smoothing soaked hair away from a cheek shiny with moisture. Tears and sweat both. Extremely susceptible to the drug cocktail, by all appearances.

  “On a scale of one to ten, how strongly do you feel you’re still experiencing the effects of the medicine?”

  Her eyes were clear for the answer she gave. “Eight.”

  “Can you tell me what you saw?” he asked, keeping his voice kind.

  A hesitation. But a brief one. “My parents’ funeral. In the church before it.”

  “Yes, good. Do you remember anything else significant? How do you feel emotionally?”

  She adjusted the hospital gown to more fully cover her legs. “I feel…” She hesitated. “Lighter somehow. Does that make sense?”

  Brenner nodded. He’d taken a great pain from her, locked it away. She’d feel much lighter. The first stage to creating a mind susceptible to greater manipulations. And he’d have a tool to use for leverage in the future if he needed it. The key was to make sure she wasn’t aware of the change until then.

  “And you don’t know why?”

  “No.” She eyed him nervously. “Can I ask you something?”

  He nodded again. “Of course.”

  “What’s the purpose of this? Is it as important as I think? What do you want me to say?”

  Before he could formulate a response to her three questions, she surprised him by shaking her head and giving a dry husk of a laugh. “Never mind, I’m sure that would violate the experiment rules. Like us talking on the way over here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He told us not to talk about the experiment.”

  He looked at his aide, who studied the floor. That hadn’t been any direction of his. As long as the man took careful note of what was said, the participants could say anything and everything that popped into their minds.

  “You should talk about whatever you want on the drive,” he said.

  The aide nodded acknowledgment but didn’t look at him.

  “Did you experience anything else of note in your trance state?” Dr. Brenner asked.

  Terry heaved a breath. “All kinds of crazy shit. I’m so tired. I’ve never done that before.”

  Ah, that explains some of the strong response.

  “But when you answered your questionnaire…?” He waited.

  This time, she had the grace to look guilty. “I said I had dropped acid several times. I thought you might want that.”

  Potential. She was bursting with it.

  One of the other test subjects, Alice, had responded interestingly to the electroshock, though she had little to say afterward. This was a promising crop of subjects. But of course they were. He’d hand-selected them.

  Strong-willed, but not stronger than his will.

  “Was I right?” Terry asked. “Was that what you wanted me to say?”

  “Smart girl,” he said, almost forgetting she wasn’t Eight.

  Terry’s head swung up and she smiled, still nervous. “Can I get dressed now?”

  She pretended at fearlessness and might have convinced someone less observant.

  “Plea
se do. We’ll go deeper in your debrief next time.” Mostly, he wanted to see her response to the idea of a next time.

  He didn’t get one.

  “Thank you,” she said and rose shakily to her feet.

  His aide already had the door open. Which meant Brenner had no elegant way to continue the conversation. And so he exited.

  “Never rush me,” he said, once they were in the hallway.

  “I’m sorry, sir—”

  The apology followed Brenner as he made his way up the hall to check the progress of the others. Everyone else had made it through well, baselines set for their responses to the drug. Progress would be slower than he preferred, but they would make it. Patience, the greatest virtue in science, didn’t come easily to him.

  Why he thought going to visit subject Eight would have a curative effect, he didn’t know. But he unlocked the door to her room and stepped into it.

  Brenner waited in the center of the room. Her bunk beds were neatly made. As a result, he’d yet to discover whether she’d taken the bottom or the top one. She protected it like a secret, had made him promise not to ask the orderlies. Little did she know, he didn’t care enough to bother.

  She sat at her play table, working on the latest in a series of angrily scrawled drawings. She’d already colored the black crayon down to a nub. She’d need a new one. Art, the psychologist here claimed, could be vitally important for creative children.

  Eight was definitely creative.

  She ignored his presence, which she knew irritated him.

  He crossed his arms one over the other. “It’s almost time for your supper and I thought you might want to go with me to the cafeteria.”

  The cafeteria that he and the staff ate in, on a lower level. No one else could be permitted to see the children. And Eight wasn’t allowed to know there were other children here. They were all ordinary so far. He worried they’d infect her.

  She continued to ignore him.

  He took a step forward, and another. Discipline was good for children.

  But…his colleagues were still keeping a close eye on him. He didn’t need a staff revolt. Soon enough, he’d have their loyalty.