Stranger Things

by Gwenda Bond

  Terry sat and thought about each stage of the plan and how easily it could not work, and how perfectly they’d have to execute it. She thought of Andrew and what his last minutes must have been like and if she’d ever find out for sure. She vowed to finish her book when she got out of here and find out what happened to the Ring, and Frodo and Sam.

  She wondered if Gloria was prepared. If Ken was. Alice.

  They had to get this right.

  But they needed Kali for it to work at all. Please let her be there, this one last time.

  Getting to the nowhere-everywhere place took no time. Terry closed her eyes and took a step inside her mind and darkness surrounded her, her feet splashing soundlessly.

  Kali appeared immediately. “Terry! I’m happy to see you!”

  Terry had to laugh. The words were delivered in such a tone of surprise.

  “I’m glad to see you, too. I need to talk to you about something very important. I need your help and so does Alice. And we want to help you.”

  Kali was suspicious. “Does Papa know?”

  “He can never know. I’ve said that before, but this time I mean it.”

  Kali pursed her lips.

  “Papa wants to hurt me and my baby.” Terry patted her tummy.

  “You’re growing a baby?” Kali’s expression was awed.

  “I am, and he wants to hurt her. He’s also going to hurt Alice—he could do great harm to her. Mess with things he shouldn’t.”

  Kali looked up at Terry and her bottom lip trembled. “Because of me,” she whispered. “Because I told.”

  “You didn’t mean to, I know.” Terry bent and put an arm around the child. “But this time, no one can know. It has to be a secret. Forever. We have to keep Alice safe. The future safe. Agreed?”

  Kali nodded.

  “Good. I need you to do an illusion…But only if you think you can control it. It’ll just be small.”

  “I can try.” Her voice was soft.

  “Okay. That’s good.” It was a gamble, but what wasn’t. “Do you think you can go to Alice’s room? And make it look like she’s deep asleep, so deep she’s not even breathing. No matter what happens, can you keep it up?”

  Kali hesitated. Then she stomped. “But I don’t want Alice to go!”

  “You can come with us. Leave your papa and be free.” Terry had no idea how she’d react to the suggestion, but she’d like nothing more than to take Kali with them, if there was any way to do it.

  “I can’t.” Kali was solemn. “There are monsters coming here. I can’t leave my friend.”

  Her friend, the one who Brenner had promised her. Terry put her hand on her belly. He’d promised her Terry’s child as a friend. Oh, how did she not see it before now? The little girl in Alice’s visions with 011 on her arm.

  No, it can’t happen that way.

  “Please, Kali? We’re your friends.”

  The girl looked near tears. “I can’t leave. Papa won’t allow it.”

  Terry had been afraid of this. She’d have to go on with the plan and come back for Kali, much as it hurt her heart to leave the girl behind. Even briefly. Jane kicked inside her. “I’ll be back for you. Okay? As soon as I can. So you think you can do this?”

  “But Alice won’t come back, will she?”

  Terry stared into the little face. “No, she can’t. Alice will have to be gone. Forever.”

  “I want her to stay!” Kali stomped her foot again.

  “Kali,” Terry said, “I understand. I want her to stay, too. But you don’t want her to be hurt and neither do I. Right?”

  “Right.” But it was grumbled.

  How could she make the girl understand?

  “You know how you remember your mom? How she’s inside here?” Terry put her hand to her head, then her heart.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s because she’s your family. Friends are like your made family—and so you keep them with you even when you’re not together anymore. Even if you forget parts of them, because you get older…We hold our friend-families close. But we don’t have to be with those people for them to be a part of us. We carry them with us all the time.” Like she did Andrew.

  “So Alice will always be with me?” Kali asked, after thinking it over.

  “And so will I.”

  “I’ll help you. And I won’t tell. I’ll protect you.” Kali smiled. “We’re family.”

  Terry bent to kiss her forehead. To her surprise, Kali let her. “I won’t forget about you,” Terry said. “Ever. I promise. Now go. Remember, make it look like Alice is deep asleep. Not breathing. But don’t let on it’s you doing it, no matter what.”

  “No matter what!” Kali capered away into the black, and not a moment too soon. Terry followed a sound out of the darkness, back to the exam room. An alarm.

  Gloria.

  It was time.

  4.

  Gloria had wanted to at least put one over on Dr. Green, but he’d phoned it in even more than usual. After giving her a tab of acid—which she did not take but pocketed—and a sheet full of coordinates to memorize, he left. No orderly with her, nothing.

  This was her big chance to live out some adventure. She was going to play her comic-book moment to perfection. She even got to pick the lock, using the methods Alice had taught her.

  She went into the hallway, and found the fire alarm. Then she pulled it.

  Nothing happened.

  This fire alarm was disabled? So Terry had been right about the eavesdropping on her room.

  But they couldn’t have disabled them all. Not even mad scientists would risk something so foolish in a facility like this. A fire could destroy everything.

  And so Gloria’s heart pounded, blood drumming in her ears, as she got her wish for a more difficult task. She hurried up the hall looking for another alarm to trigger. The hunt took precious minutes—she worried she was messing up the timing of everything—but finally, at last, she saw one up ahead.

  Right past an orderly with a cleaning cart.

  If we’re doing this, we’re doing this.

  She shoved him out of the way with an “Excuse me!” and then pulled the alarm. There was a half-second of silence when she thought she’d failed again, but then the blissful sound of obnoxious sirens filled the air.

  I did it. Just like Jean Grey.

  The orderly had recovered and grabbed for her, but Gloria was too quick. She ducked his arm and raced back the way she’d come. Her work wasn’t done.

  It turned out that Alice had given them the more covert entrance they needed in her electroshock wanderings. And so Gloria made for the rendezvous point on the north side of the building to meet Ken. She hoped her alarm would work as expected, confusing the reaction to his grand entrance.

  Which should be happening any minute now. Any minute.

  She laughed a little as she ran. She’d never realized it before: Superheroes were insane.

  5.

  Ken had never considered himself a car guy. He’d grown up around them. His dad was a car guy, and had wanted to go to auto shows and discuss prices and spoilers and paint jobs. But it wasn’t Ken’s thing.

  Although he’d enjoyed their trip to the Brickyard enough. Alice and Gloria’s interest in the cars had almost been strong enough to transfer, like rubbing a pencil over an object to imprint it.

  If Ken had been a car guy, he doubted he’d have felt even a hint of regret for Terry’s poor car as he drove closer to Hawkins. It wasn’t much of a car—a not insignificant reason for its being made into a sacrificial lamb.

  But because he was Ken and decidedly still not a car guy, he told the old Ford how sorry he was that it had to end this way. “You’re a good car that has served Terry well. You’re not showing
off. You’re not too speedy. But you’ve done your job with dignity. And now? You will be a warrior chariot.”

  For Ken was driving it into battle.

  The chain-link fence appeared on the left, floodlights within, and Ken grinned. He wasn’t all that good a driver either, due to the lack of being a car guy, and so he said a silent prayer of thanks for the certainty that today was not the day he died.

  The gate came closer and he took the turn toward it at a screech, gunned the engine, and hit the horn. The soldiers didn’t move fast, but they were out of the way by the time he plowed into the gate and took it down.

  The car shook off its remains and kept going.

  “Good job, Nellie.” So what if he’d named Terry’s car? It was a good car. On Ken went, up the drive toward the lab, blowing through the wooden barrier at checkpoint two, honking the horn madly the whole time.

  Sirens had started up almost immediately and people sprang into action, but they were amassing behind Ken. Not in front of him.

  He drove around the side of the building to a sub-level entrance that Alice had seen in her visionary explorations, and screeched to a stop. Gloria burst through the door and stopped, holding it ajar.

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  “Coming,” she said, propping something against the door to keep it open. “Right behind me, I hope! I’m headed down. Shouldn’t be long.”

  As the first men with guns showed up, Ken hoped so, too.

  6.

  Brenner perked up when a person’s shadow approached his office door. An alarm echoed at a sanity-destroying volume throughout the building. It was about time she made it up here. “Why, Miss Ives, what a sur—” he started, but dropped off when he saw the new security officer instead. “What is it?”

  “We, ah, have a situation, sir,” the man said, speaking loud to be heard over the alarm.

  “Which is…” Brenner got up, taking his jacket off the arm of his chair and putting it on.

  “We’ve got a fire alarm and a threat outside the building.”

  Ken had come after all.

  “Shut down the alarm, neutralize the threat.”

  “He’s a civilian, sir,” the guard continued. “But the most worrisome thing is Miss Ives—she was on her way to your office, like you said she would be, but she, ah, saw something. She saw something and stopped. She’s in Alice Johnson’s room. I—you better come. She’s upset. It’s, ah, Dr. Parks is upset, too. And subject Eight.”

  Brenner had been prepared to gloat at how they’d known and foiled Terry’s plans. He wanted her upset, but he didn’t want her in Alice Johnson’s room. Something had gone very wrong indeed for her to abandon her plan.

  He followed the security officer.

  There was nothing Brenner hated more than surprises.

  Nothing except losing.

  7.

  Terry took a step closer to Alice, holding off Dr. Parks. Alice was slumped on the floor beside the electroshock machine in her exam room. Not moving. Not breathing.

  Kali cried beside her, as she had every time Terry had seen her do an illusion. “She’s not moving!” the child wailed, and Terry watched as she wiped a stream of blood from one side of her nose. Her upset was real, but so far, her illusion was simple and it held. Good girl.

  “Alice,” Terry said. “No, not Alice!”

  Electrodes were still fixed to Alice’s temples where she lay, the dial on the machine cranked way up…Terry had changed back into her street clothes, which had allowed her to stash a kitchen knife she’d smuggled in from home in her pocket. She would wait until it was needed.

  Terry had figured the illusion had to be significant, but nothing that Brenner would see coming. Or that would be so big he’d realize they intended to fool him. He didn’t believe that Kali was capable of control, but Terry knew that no one understood their capabilities until they had to. Especially not a child. It was a small thing for her, so much smaller than the flames. But it wouldn’t last forever.

  Alice had to disappear. If this worked, she would. Because Brenner would believe she was dead…until he didn’t need to anymore.

  This had to work. Terry knew he’d never let any of them go otherwise.

  “You have to let us take care of her,” Dr. Parks said.

  “I said leave her alone,” Terry commanded. She stood over Alice and gently brushed her hair behind her ear. The illusion maintained. “She’s dead.”

  When she caught Kali’s eye, the girl sobbed harder. By all appearances, genuine. Oh, Kali, I’ll come back for you.

  If Terry hadn’t known that what she was seeing was fake, she’d have gone out of her mind. When she’d passed Alice’s room, then doubled back, the view was tragic. Dr. Parks was crying, too, and trying to pry Kali away from Alice’s form.

  “What is this?” Dr. Brenner said as he walked in, but even he stopped short.

  “She changed the setting on the machine,” Dr. Parks said quietly. “It was too much.”

  “You did this!” Terry stood and leveled a finger at Dr. Brenner, and put every accusation she had against him into her voice. “You’re the reason Alice is dead. You killed her.”

  “Calm down,” Brenner said. “Maybe she can be revived.”

  He didn’t believe it. She could tell.

  “She’s dead! She’s not coming back, and—and we’re not staying here. We’re not doing this anymore.”

  Alice stayed where she was, playing dead and limp.

  “Why?” Dr. Brenner asked. “Why not just have a nice sedative?”

  “I planned to take files from your office, but I think Alice”—she choked on a sob—“is all I need to make sure you never hurt my child or my friends again. I’ll talk to her family. They’ll keep it quiet, as long as you leave us all be. You can try to keep us here, but we’ll know the truth. I won’t rest until I escape this place—and I will make sure the world knows you killed her, knows everything you’ve done here. We’ll make sure of it.”

  “Terry, be careful. Think of your child.”

  “I am.” Terry removed the knife from her pocket and showed it to him, gleaming and silver. “Now, I’m leaving here with Gloria and Ken and you are not going to follow. You killed Alice. And if you don’t want everyone to know, you will stay where you are and let us go. You know I’m stubborn. You also know you can’t risk hurting my child. If anyone lays a hand on me, I’ll use this…” She waved the knife. “On myself if I have to.”

  Brenner stood uncertainly and blood roared through Terry’s head. What did they do if he wouldn’t let them go? What then?

  “I loved Alice. Let them go, Papa,” Kali said through sobs.

  Terry hadn’t expected that, but she’d take it. “Get out of my way,” she ordered.

  Brenner still didn’t move. “It’s too bad about her,” he said, nodding to Alice. “Such lost potential is always sad. There’s so little of it in the world. We may still learn from her yet.”

  The two of them were at a standoff. Terry facing-down Brenner. Him standing his ground.

  What did she do if he refused?

  “We’re going,” Terry said. His words made her feel sick, but what they implied was exactly what they’d planned for.

  “Fine,” he said, and then he stepped aside. “Don’t hurt the child.”

  Terry didn’t wait for a change of mind. She stumbled past him gripping the knife handle, expecting at any moment he’d reach out and grab her.

  But he didn’t.

  “Let her go!” he called to the officers in the hall, who backed away instantly. “Tell everyone to let them go.”

  Gloria met her halfway up the hall dressed in orderly scrubs and with longer than usual hair.

  “Did it work?” Gloria asked.

  “It�
�s working,” Terry said. “Kali did a good job. Ken ready?”

  “Like the cavalry,” Gloria said. “Be right back.”

  Terry didn’t turn around to see Gloria go ahead for the last phase of the plan.

  8.

  Gloria had hidden a gurney up the hall from Alice’s room, and she retrieved it now. She’d even brought a wig from her mother’s special occasion closet to better disguise herself. She needn’t have worried.

  Dr. Parks was in tears, and Dr. Brenner was already gone. Kali too. Gloria didn’t have much time.

  Motionless on the floor, Alice looked…dead.

  “Ma’am,” Gloria said, lowering her voice’s register, “I’m here to take the body to the morgue for dissection.”

  The word “dissection” made her want to throw up.

  Dr. Parks waved a hand for her to do what she must.

  Gloria had trouble heaving Alice up, so it was a good thing Parks was distracted. Corpses didn’t usually help get themselves onto gurneys. Gloria pulled a sheet over Alice and rolled the gurney into the hallway…

  Where she immediately sped up. “Hang on,” Gloria said.

  She saw Alice’s fingers grip the sides of the table under the sheet. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Out of this place.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Alice said.

  Just as they’d planned, Ken had backed the car up to the entrance. Terry had left the door propped wide open.

  “Stay down,” Gloria said, pushing the gurney toward the door. “Okay, now you can get up. The car hood will hide you. Get in the trunk.”

  “The trunk?” Alice said, slipping off and to her feet in a crouch.

  “It’s not for long.”

  Alice sighed and did as she’d been told. Gloria shut the hood and climbed into the back. Ken and Terry were playing up their distraught reactions to Alice’s supposed death.

  Security officers had made a perimeter, but they were staying back. Ken gunned the motor and she heard someone calling, “He said let them leave! No one shoot!”