Stranger Things Read online

  “You mean you had to look at the clipboard?” Terry asked Ken. “You didn’t just know what was on there?”

  Ken’s mustache turned down as he frowned over his shoulder. “I didn’t expect to be judged here. I am psychic, always have been. But…that’s not how it works.”

  Alice was giving Terry a look that she couldn’t decipher.

  “I’m sorry?” Terry said, and found she was. “I didn’t mean it as an insult. I was joking.”

  Ken paused to consider. “All right then,” he said with a nod.

  Gloria finally made a noise. When she spoke, it was low. “You really expect us to believe you’re psychic?”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” Ken asked, putting a hand to his chest so his fingers splayed across it.

  Whether he could tell the future or talk to spirits or not, Terry decided he had a sense of the dramatic. And she sensed an opportunity to learn something she’d been wondering about.

  “Why are you all here, participating in the experiment?” she asked. “I mean besides the fact we made it in.”

  The driver steered the van out onto the campus driveway, the ride smooth.

  It surprised Terry when Gloria answered her, without hesitation. “It wasn’t my first choice.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Gloria sighed. “The dean of my college doesn’t think I should be doing the same research projects as the male students. He doesn’t even believe the university should allow someone like me to do my major. But my dad made a fuss when I was booted from the required lab. The school came up with this as a way to get the credits I need.”

  Terry started, “Gloria, I’m—”

  “It’s all right.” Gloria nodded to Alice, who’d propped her arm on the seat so she could turn around to face the other two women. “What about you?”

  “I want to buy a Firebird. We’re getting paid for this, and that means I can buy it sooner,” she said, as if it was obvious.

  There was an expectant silence then, and they all looked at Ken. When he didn’t come out with it right away, Terry prompted him. “And you?”

  “I’m supposed to be here,” he said. “I knew to show up. This is a moment. We’re all going to be very important to each other.”

  Somehow, it wasn’t a declaration to make fun of—and she wouldn’t have wanted to hurt Ken’s feelings again anyway.

  “What about you?” Ken asked her.

  “Your name’s Stacey, right?” Alice added, helpfully.

  “Well…” Terry fidgeted.

  Ken bailed her out. “It’s actually Terry, I believe.”

  “It is. Terry Ives.”

  “Huh?” Alice wrinkled her nose. “But I was sure you gave it as Stacey. I remember things.”

  They were all watching Terry now.

  “Why would you use a different name?” Alice asked. She lowered her voice. “Are you a criminal? Oh, or one of those missing kids? Were you stolen from your family?”

  The girl’s eyes were wide circles and Terry could practically see her spinning a whole slew of stories out in her head.

  “No, I’m not a criminal or kidnapped. Or a spy. Or on the lam.”

  “Figures,” Alice said, so disappointed that Terry had to smile.

  “It’s my roomie’s name. She signed up, then changed her mind. I need the extra cash. Plus…” She wanted to say she was here because a chance to do something had finally appeared, right on her doorstep. That they—all of them—might be making history. That the possibility was the reason she’d come. But she settled for a simpler version of that, the one she’d given Brenner. One she hoped they’d be less likely to find ridiculous. “Plus, it feels like this is something important.”

  Nodding, Gloria lowered her voice and said, “It does, doesn’t it? A lot of expense to ferry us back and forth.”

  Terry leaned forward and Alice shifted so Terry could rest her arms on the back of the seat. Terry spoke to the driver, wondering if he’d bothered to listen to them. “I didn’t realize there was a lab in Hawkins before this. That’s where we’re going, isn’t it?” she asked. “Hawkins?”

  “It hasn’t been there long,” he said. “Converted to a lab facility last year.”

  “What do they do there?” Terry asked.

  “Research.”

  Terry waited, but no additional information came. The driver kept his attention ahead of them, the road flat and unoccupied now that they were heading out of town, corn high in the fields stretching out alongside.

  “Your roommate doesn’t need money?” Alice asked out of nowhere.

  Wow, she’s observant. Terry had thought that part of the conversation was over.

  “Not enough to take on another job,” Terry said. “She said this felt like one.”

  “White girls,” Alice said, shaking her head and meeting Gloria’s eyes, “don’t know what work is.”

  Terry couldn’t argue with the general principle, no matter how hard she herself worked. No matter that Alice was covered in grease stains for her own part. Alice wasn’t exactly wrong.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Gloria said.

  “You didn’t have to,” Alice said and winked. “I did it for you.”

  Gloria cracked an amused smile, shaking her head. “It will be work,” she said, her voice still low. “They don’t pay this kind of money for experiments on campus. They’re compensating us for something.”

  Terry wanted to jump in, curious to get an idea of how much more this paid than a typical experiment, but the driver spoke up.

  “You probably shouldn’t talk about the experiment outside the lab,” he said. “It could alter the results.”

  They were quiet for a full five minutes. Which might be as long as Alice could manage. “Did you know there’s a new Beatles record coming out?” she asked.

  And they chattered about music and non-experiment-related topics for the rest of the drive.

  3.

  A long line of chain link signaled their arrival. That and a sign marking the entrance as belonging to HAWKINS NATIONAL LABORATORY. The building itself didn’t look new, despite what the guard had said. Then again, he’d only said that the lab itself hadn’t been here long. The building could’ve been retrofitted.

  As the van passed a checkpoint staffed by soldiers and angled toward a parking lot, Terry found the reality of the situation sinking in. This was really happening. This was a five-story building big enough to have wings and guards with guns.

  Resolve settled into her bones. Becky and their Aunt Shirley always called her the most stubborn person alive when she truly set her mind to something.

  Of course, they’d probably get inside and just end up sitting in a circle and meditating or something. Stacey could be an exaggerator.

  “Terry?” Gloria asked, and Terry realized they were parked and the van door was open. It was time to get out and go in.

  “Sorry,” Terry said.

  The four of them walked forward in a nervous clump, the driver ahead but not too far. He kept checking behind him like they might make a break for it.

  The parking lot was filled with nice but not flashy cars. Well, except for the shiny Mercedes parked in the spot nearest the door. That one had been at the psych building that first day. It must be his. Dr. Brenner’s.

  Alice stopped dead as they approached the entry bank’s glass doors. She stared up at the building.

  “What’s wrong?” Terry asked.

  Alice shook her head in slow amazement. “I can’t wait to see the elevators.”

  To everyone else’s credit, they let the remark pass.

  The driver held the door open for them, and Terry waited until the others had gone in.

  “Coming,” he said, no question to it.
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  She was.

  After one deep breath, one last inhalation of outside air, Terry went inside.

  The lobby underscored how official this place was. Every inch around her screamed government building, critical business. There were more soldiers stationed at entry points to various sections of the building. A front desk with an unsmiling older woman and a thick log-in book for visitors. Not a speck of dust anywhere to be seen. The floor looked as clean as fresh laundry. Spotless, not even smudged from the dirt of shoes.

  “You’ll get badges after today, but for now, please sign in,” the driver said, leading them to the desk.

  “Don’t forget you’re Terry now,” Ken said softly.

  His face was unreadable.

  Gloria approached the sign-in book, but before she could set pen to paper a set of more elaborate doors farther inside swung open. Beyond them, a guard held a rifle straight at his side. Dr. Brenner strode through. She caught his face as he entered the lobby, how it transformed into a charming smile when he saw them.

  She smiled back.

  “Dr. Brenner!” she called out.

  “Hello, everyone,” he said. He waved a hand to the desk, not bothering to make eye contact with the woman behind it. “Don’t worry about this. We’ll get you set up to bypass the desk today.”

  The attendant pursed her lips as if to say she’d be the one to get in trouble, but nodded consent. Not that it mattered.

  When Dr. Brenner gestured and turned, they followed him. Already, they were being treated as special.

  Terry saw Alice get distracted by the soldier’s rifle as they passed into a long white hallway, and gently took her arm to steer her forward.

  Alice started to pull away, then relaxed. “Oh,” she said, realizing what she’d done. “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” Terry hurried to catch up to Dr. Brenner. “Tell us all about this place and your work.”

  The flash of surprise in his eyes told her he wasn’t used to being asked to do that.

  “What’s to tell?” he asked. “You’re about to see it all for yourselves.”

  “Right,” Terry said. “Excellent point. I’m just excited.”

  His charming smile reappeared. “Good.”

  They walked through a maze of hallways, a cleaning-solution smell in the air and still no dirt anywhere on the white tile floor and walls. Bright lights dangled along the ceiling in perfect rows. This was a labyrinth Terry knew she’d have trouble finding her way back out of alone.

  They met the occasional person in a lab coat or orderly scrubs who nodded to Dr. Brenner, ignoring their group as if they were invisible. Their driver had vanished. Dr. Brenner finally stopped at an elevator and entered a code into a keypad, which beeped an almost friendly tone in response. Then he pressed the Down button.

  Alice’s eyes were huge, watching. She bit her lip, probably to keep from asking about the technology.

  A placard beneath the keypad: RESTRICTED AREA. SECURITY CLEARANCE REQUIRED.

  Terry kept waiting for the thing that would make her assumptions a leap too far, that would prove her wrong. So far, it was missing.

  The elevator doors glided smoothly open.

  “All aboard,” Dr. Brenner said.

  On they went.

  Alice peered around the impeccably clean car as it zipped downward, but somehow managed to stay quiet.

  Apparently their experiment would take place on a sub-level. The second sub-level, Terry noted, watching as the panel of buttons went dim and the elevator stopped.

  Here, at last, were more people. Two men and one woman—the same from the campus—waited in lab coats in the subterranean hallway. They held clipboards and stepped forward to meet the party.

  One each greeted Alice, then Gloria, then Ken by name. Dr. Brenner turned that practiced smile to Terry. “I’ll be working with you.” He added, “And I’ll check in on the rest of you periodically.”

  He nodded over his shoulder to his colleagues, and Terry continued to follow him up the long hall. Glancing back, she saw the others being led through various doors. She took a look through the glass panel of the next door they passed, and saw an unmade cot, a small table, and a counter with various supplies on it.

  They went on.

  “We’ll be in here,” Dr. Brenner said, stopping to indicate an open room. Inside was the orderly who’d driven them.

  This was larger than the room she’d looked in, with a cot covered by plain white sheets against one wall, along with a table, several chairs, and a variety of machines. A blue and white gown lay on the bed.

  “You can get changed and then we’ll come back in,” Dr. Brenner said.

  “Into a hospital gown?” she asked with a nervous swallow.

  “Yes. It’ll be more comfortable.” He paused, his eyes settling on her. “You do still want to participate?”

  Terry’s mouth had grown too dry to speak. She nodded.

  “Don’t be nervous,” he said. “Just poke your head out into the hall when you’re finished.”

  He spoke as if all this was so normal. The orderly left with him, the door shutting with a solid click. She almost tried it, to test if it was truly unlocked, but then shook her head. Why would they lock her up? She was supposed to open it and call them back in…

  She tried the knob anyway. It swung open easily.

  “Problem?” Dr. Brenner asked. He and the orderly were conferring about something across the hall. Where they’d been waiting to give her privacy.

  “No,” Terry said. “Sorry.”

  She shut the door.

  The gown was of the usual hospital type, thin and scratchy as paper. Terry had always been healthy so she’d never been admitted to a hospital, but her mother had appendicitis when the girls were in middle school. Their father had parked them by her side for the two days she had to stay at the hospital. Her mother had refused to get out of bed until they were leaving, because of the gaping opening at the back of her gown. “Designed by men,” she’d said, a rare comment of the type.

  Terry hadn’t asked what she meant. Now, as she slipped out of her slacks and blouse and pulled the gown over her head, she got it. She left her underwear on.

  The men weren’t visible through the small window in the door, so she circled the room to see what she could see. The machines’ uses were mysterious to her; the clipboard left on one of the tables had lots of blanks to be filled in with various measurements and readings. There was a small row of cups and an unmarked bottle.

  Walking back to the door, she opened it and waved for the men to come in. Her legs and arms were already getting cold, her feet blocks of ice against the floor. She shouldn’t have left her shoes off.

  “Would you like some water?” Dr. Brenner asked.

  “Sure,” Terry said.

  He filled one of the small cups using the bottle. So that’s what had been in it.

  She accepted it and took a sip. “Thanks.”

  Dr. Brenner motioned to a chair. “As I said, there’s no reason to be nervous. We’ll be with you the whole time. We’re going to take some blood and measure your vital signs now. Then, I’ll ask you to relax on the cot for a bit and talk you through an exercise.”

  That seemed straightforward enough…if weird. Terry took a seat.

  The orderly drew two tubes’ worth of her blood. Dr. Brenner shone a light into her eyes, bright enough to cause her to wince. He pressed a cold stethoscope against her heart, and it pounded so loud in her chest she imagined they both heard it. He brought over a machine and pressed some buttons, put a monitor on her finger.

  Terry watched as a line zigzagged across a screen in red, mesmerizing. Her heart was still beating so hard.

  Dr. Brenner stepped back, and Terry tried to follow him wi
th her eyes. But the room around them seemed to go fuzzy. So did he. Everything blurred, shifting, moving…Or was it Terry shifting and moving?

  “It’s kicking in,” the orderly said.

  Terry tried to make sense of the words, and then she did. Stacey hadn’t exaggerated. “You drugged me?”

  “We’ll be right here,” Dr. Brenner said. “We’ve given you a powerful hallucinogenic. We have evidence it can open the mind to suggestibility. Please, lie down, and try to stay calm as it takes effect.”

  Easy for him to say. Terry started to laugh. Because it couldn’t be easy for him to say. Not when his face was melting.

  He and the orderly stood her up and walked her to the cot. Why did his face melting make her laugh? She didn’t know. She eased down onto the white sheets, flailing a little, still laughing. They backed away once she made it to horizontal, and she searched for and found the monitor and that red line.

  I’m okay as long as the line’s steady. She wasn’t laughing anymore. The cot felt soft and hard. How could it be both? She wanted to get up.

  “Now, Terry,” Dr. Brenner said, his voice so calm she wanted to hold on to it, “relax. Try to be open. Let your consciousness be free.”

  She shook her head no.

  “Look at me, Terry.” He held up a small, shiny object between his fingers. “Now I want you to look at the crystal, focus on it alone.”

  The doctor stared down into her face like he wouldn’t stop until she did what he said. She found the red line on the monitor one more time, realizing that to follow his directions she’d have to give up her heartbeat. She watched it spike red and then transferred her attention to the pale crystal he held. Bye-bye, heart.

  “Now, close your eyes. Let the room fall away.”

  Spots bloomed behind her eyelids. Every color, like she was looking through a spray of water droplets from a garden hose as the sunlight turned them into rainbows.

  “Pretty,” she whispered.

  “That’s better. Stay relaxed,” a man’s voice said, and she couldn’t remember whose it was anymore. Did she know him? She didn’t think so. “Go deeper.”