Suspicious Minds (Stranger Things Novels #1)(55)

“Good,” Gloria said.

“So that’d be the north side,” Ken said, and she scribbled a note.

“It has keypad access from the outside. Doesn’t look like many people use it,” Alice said, voice dreamy. “Okay, I’m inside now. Long hallway, the same tile as ours. I feel like everything is fading. I don’t know how long I have.”

“Look in the rooms,” Terry said. “Try to find the children.”

Alice nodded, eyes still closed. “There are men in this room—it’s a big office suite. They’re working at…some kind of strange machine I’ve never seen before—like a typewriter with a big screen attached. Lit up, a display with…words.” She paused. “There’re these little yellow pieces of paper stuck on everything…The man just put a black plastic square into the machine.”

Gloria scribbled. “Can you read the screen?”

“No,” Alice said, “it’s too faint. I’m starting to lose it…”

“Keep going,” Terry said.

Alice gasped.

“What is it?” Terry asked.

“The girl,” Alice said, upset. “She’s…in some kind of machine. Brenner’s running it.”

“What kind of machine? Which girl?” Gloria looked up from her note-taking.

“It’s bigger than anything I’ve seen.” Alice scrunched her face in concentration. “It’s like a round tube and she’s on a flat surface in the middle. Lights are going around her. Brenner just told her to hold very still. She’s obviously scared.”

“Is it Eight or Eleven?” Gloria asked.

Funny, Terry had never thought of Kali or the mystery girl that way.

“Eleven,” Alice said. “She moved and Brenner got mad. He’s sending her away.”

“Follow her,” Terry said, and Gloria gave her a nod.

Alice went quiet. “I can’t. I’m losing it. They’re gone.”

“Where is she going?” Terry asked. “Do you see any other children?”

“I can’t see anymore. I don’t know. I’m sorry.” Alice rocked back and forth, distraught.

Terry moved to comfort her only to be interrupted by a sweep of lights from the direction of the lab. The sound of a man calling to another: “Is this the right sector?”

“That’s where the light was supposedly sighted,” said another.

“Probably just some damn kids getting high.”

“We’ll scare them straight.”

A glow approached through the trees.

“We have to go. Kill the light,” Terry said, low.

But Gloria already had. Terry pulled Alice onto her feet. “Do we take the machine?” Terry asked.

“I can’t carry it,” Alice said. “What’s happening?”

“Someone’s coming out here,” Terry said.

“Leave it,” Alice said. “If you touch the wrong place, it might still be hot enough to burn you.”

“It won’t.” Ken grabbed the blanket and draped it over the machine, then picked it up with a grunt.

“Gloria, lead the way,” he said.

The voices and lights were getting louder. Terry waited for an alarm to follow, but none did.

Terry held on to Alice’s hand and dragged them both as carefully as she could through the trees in the darkness. Ken’s steps were heavier behind them.

“Wait,” he said, low. And they paused.

“I thought I heard something,” one of the men’s voices, closer behind them, said.

Terry could barely breathe. What would happen if they got caught out here?

Alice bent and Terry saw her close her hand over a rock. She threw it hard to the left through the trees. It connected against something with a loud thump.

The sounds of the men went that way.

Gloria turned and put her free hand to her lips telling everyone to stay quiet, and they walked out to Terry’s car as quickly as possible. She managed to fit the key in the lock of the trunk for Ken, and was grateful she’d left her door open. They got the machine and themselves inside, and Terry pulled onto the road just as headlights emerged from the lab’s driveway.

None of them spoke until it was clear they weren’t being followed.

“We made it,” Terry said, breathing hard.

“Barely,” Gloria put in from the seat behind her.

“You did great, Alice.” Ken, beside Gloria.

Alice sighed in the passenger seat. “I didn’t see enough. Not nearly enough.”

The last thing Terry wanted to do was agree. And so she said, “We made it. That’s what matters.”

She hoped it was the truth.

But they were all quiet, and Terry assumed it was because they were as deflated by what felt like a defeat as she was. What had they learned that was new?

It seemed like nothing.





1.


Terry missed having the relative privacy of Andrew’s place to retreat to. Especially times like now, when she stood in the busy dorm lobby at the wall phone—where she could have ten minutes max before someone else who needed to use it gave her the stink-eye.

“Hello,” a woman said.