Just Call My Name (And I'll Hear You Scream): Prologue

A Stranger Things Fanfic

Trigger warning: mentions of child abuse and alcoholism

Prologue

Dr. Martin Brenner was a patient man. When Project MKUltra produced less than desirable results, he continued working, altering the conditions and carefully recording every result in books upon books, files upon files, until he began to notice patterns.

When he discovered the children of his test subjects tended to develop abilities more similar to 001’s than their parents, he altered the job description to target young women and waited. A few years made no difference to him, and children were easier to work with anyway.

And when Carol Munson dropped out of the program, running off with her new husband shortly after discovering she was pregnant with the child Brenner hoped would become 007, he searched for years, certain he would find her eventually. (Even when he found Mrs. Prasad’s daughter first, he gave instructions for her to become 008, leaving space for the prodigal son he was sure would one day return.)

He was right.

Larry Jones did not like his new neighbors. The thin walls of his apartment let arguments bleed through like ink on a tissue, and the scuffling steps outside his door let him know exactly what time Walter Munson got home every night and what state he was in.

Larry told himself it was none of his business, but that was hard to remember as he watched their kid skip down the sidewalk every morning, backpack bouncing as he hummed to himself.

Things only got worse when the wife died.

Larry started inviting the kid to sit in his barbershop after school, handing him a lollipop and letting him fiddle with the radio. When the shop closed up, Larry walked the kid home, and if there wasn’t supper on the table when he got there (there never was), the pair would walk next door and Larry would fix him something to eat.

Some of his regular customers jokingly called the kid Larry’s shadow, until Al came home from college and little Eddie found someone new to follow.

“I like your hair,” Eddie breathed when Al joined him at the supper table his first day home. Larry groaned, and Al threw back his head and laughed. Larry had been begging to cut Al’s hair for years. His son could make his own decisions, of course, but it didn’t seem right for a man to have hair that long, especially if his father was a barber.

“I want hair like that someday,” Eddie continued.

“Then do it,” Al said, ruffling the boy’s neatly trimmed hair. “No one can stop you.”

Al earned his number one fan that day. Eddie stuck with him every chance he got, and Al welcomed the company, teaching him what he called the “fundamentals” of rock and metal music and letting him play with his old guitar.

The kid picked it up quickly, according to Al. (Larry never could tell. All that stuff his son called “music” just sounded like noise to him.) When he learned his first song on the guitar, Al and Larry were his only audience. Al said it was terrific, and Larry could at least pick out a tune, so there was that.

The kid became a staple in their lives, a presence as regular as the sun.

Until the day he disappeared.

007 was loud. That’s what everyone said. And yes, compared to the other children who stood in their neat line and only stared, that was true. The adults didn’t speak much either, except for Papa, and his voice was always calm, quiet, slow.

It was unnerving.

Everyone said 007 was loud, but he disagreed. He spoke, yes, but he never yelled. Never screamed. Never threw things. He had cried the first week, but that stopped quickly when he was met only with eyes of disdain.

But 007 liked to talk. He liked to learn new information and share it with the world. No one wanted the information, though. They all watched him with bored or blank expressions and waited for him to stop.

Papa encouraged him to talk. At least, that’s what he said, but he didn’t seem interested at all to hear about how snakes unhinged their jaw to swallow their prey whole, or that keeping every room that clean is actually bad because then your body doesn’t get used to fighting off bacteria like it should, or that maybe the other kids wouldn’t get so many headaches if everything wasn’t white because white reflects all the colors of light, so it’s brighter than all the others, even the neon ones.

(007 didn’t tell Papa the other things he knew. Like how the tired, dark-haired man let his keycard stick out of his pocket a bit and stumbled like he’d had a little too much to drink. Or how locks had five pins inside, and if you pushed each one up just right, the lock would open. Or the way 008 always kept her narrowed, dark eyes on 011 when anyone else stepped too close.)

(He noticed the guards too, constantly watching. The other kids thought they were more teachers. He knew better.)

007 was good at noticing things.

One day in the rainbow room, he watched 008, 014, and 010 push toy cars around, steering each inside one stripe of the rainbow on the floor. He stuck his bare toe into the blue stripe 008 was using. (The floors were cold, and he had asked for socks, but everyone ignored him. He stopped asking.)

008’s car ran straight through his toe, then stopped. 008 stopped as well, fixing those hard eyes on him. “What?”

“You’re different.” He poked the car with his toe, enjoying watching it slide right through. “Everyone else pushes things. You make them.”

She shook her head. “They’re not real.”

007 shrugged. “So? They look it.”

008 sat back on her heels and studied him. “You’re different too.”

“Me?” He pushed things too. Smaller things, and it was harder for him, but Papa said he just needed more practice.

She nodded sagely. “You know things.”

And 007 couldn’t help it. He grinned.

One day, 011 didn’t come to the rainbow room, and 008 was angry. 007 watched because angry people did things, even if they were quiet, even if they liked to hide.

008 didn’t do anything that day (the things she made were bigger, though, and Papa praised her work, saying she was improving), but the next day, she did do something, walking up to Papa and asking where 011 was. He told her it didn’t concern her. 007 thought he must not realize how upset she was.

That night, 007 couldn’t sleep. (He often couldn’t. Everything was too quiet, which just made his mind louder.) He heard a slight shuffle outside his door and sat up. No one except the guards came around this late, and they wore heavy boots that squeaked against the tile floor.

Another sound came–a timid knock.

It was a gamble. He would be revealing himself fully and there would be no more secrets. On the other hand, it could be an opportunity.

He walked over to the door and sat cross-legged in front of the lock. He tilted his head and imagined the first pin sliding up slowly, slowly–and there–a slight click. The other four pins followed, then the door swung open. He wiped the blood from his nose and saw 008 standing in front of him, eyes wide.

She had gambled too, and it seemed they both won.

She stared at the door, then the blood on his hand and raised her chin. “You know things.” 007 nodded, though it hadn’t been a question. She stared at him, eyes penetrating as though she were reading his mind. He briefly wondered if she could.

Her voice broke into his thoughts. “Do you know how to leave?”

007 smiled.

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