What Are You Hiding? | Henry Creel / Peter Ballard / 001

Part 10 - Electric Feel (but not the song...)

Dr. Brenner motions to the men beside me, and they force me to my feet, resuming their position of holding me against the wall. "So, Miss Wheeler," he starts, "Our teams found bloody tissues in your basement trash can. These wouldn't happen to belong to Eleven, now, would they?"

"You were in my house? Did you do anything to my family?" I ask accusingly.

"Your family is fine," he waves dismissively. "However, I can make them not-so fine if you continue avoiding my questions. Your brother Mike was not at your house, and your mother said that the two of you have been hanging out a lot lately. Is he in on your little secret?"

"No."

"Uh-huh," he replies, clearly not believing me. "If he's not in on this, then I'm sure you'd have no problem telling me where he's at."

"He's at school like any other normal teenage boy," I shoot back.

He clicks his tongue disapprovingly. "Miss Wheeler, we already checked his school; he went missing around 10:30, at the same exact time that you got off the Supercom with whoever you were talking to. So, I'm going to ask you one more time; where is Mike?"

"How the hell should I know? I've been locked up in here since 10:30."

Dr. Brenner nods to each man holding me, and they release me before shoving me to the ground. I wince as I hit the cold tile, my very broken nose taking the impact. As I pull myself up, I see my blood covering where I just landed.

However, before I can do anything else, I feel cold metal hit my back followed by an electric shock. "Shit!" I gasp, collapsing to the ground as the electricity takes over my neural impulses.

I gasp in relief as the electricity leaves, weakly turning over to see one of the men pulling a metal wand away from me - it must be some sort of shocking device (and as somebody who's been tased in a science experiment, I can confirm that it's a hell of a lot stronger than a taser).

Dr. Brenner's face looks down at me, appearing upside down as he is standing by my head. "I know that you have not contacted Mike since 10:30," he states calmly. "All that I need is any idea that you may have of where he'd go."

"I don't know."

In sync, both men stab their devices into my sides. I let out a scream as I feel twice the amount of electricity coursing through me, my nerves feeling as if they are splitting apart.

"Stop it!" Henry shouts. I hear him struggling against the men holding him, but I can't even look over.

I exhale sharply as the shocking stops and is replaced by Brenner leaning over me. "Answer me or else they're turning the voltage up."

"I don't know where my freak brother hangs out!"

A scream is torn from my throat as the electricity returns, the scream unlike any scream that I have ever heard from myself. My body goes limp as I convulse against the floor, losing any control I have over my actions.

"Stop it! You're going to kill her!" Henry shouts, fighting against the men holding him. "Please, Papa, stop. You have to stop."

The men stop suddenly, and I barely react as I go limp on the floor. Holy fuck, I feel like I'm never going to regain control of my nervous system. I try with everything in me to look at Henry, but I barely manage to roll my head to the side.

I hear Brenner slowly approaching Henry. "Papa?" he quotes mockingly. "This girl matters so much to you that you're willing to call me Papa to end her suffering?"

My fingers twitch, and I look down to see that I'm able to move them. Okay, I'm finally regaining some movement here. I notice that my nose is still bleeding, and look down to see a small puddle of blood forming on the ground below it. Damn, I'm really losing a lot of blood today.

"Peter?" Brenner asks.

I quickly look up at them, realizing that Henry hasn't answered him yet. I slowly begin to roll onto my stomach, ignoring the burning sensation in my limbs. As I begin to pull myself to my knees, Brenner shakes Henry, who is staring ahead blankly.

"Monster."

"Who the hell are you calling a monster?" Brenner snaps.

Henry quickly turns to Brenner, panic in his expression. "The monster is coming. Any minute now. It's drawn to blood, and it detects Jule's blood."

Brenner looks at him skeptically. "You're lying."

"No, I'm not! Please, we have to get out of here, you know there's no surviving that thing!"

Brenner seems unimpressed.  "Lying is grounds for punishment, Peter.  Let's see... the shock devices seemed to work so well for your friend Juliette here, so why don't we let you try them out."

The men begin forcing Henry to the ground, and I quickly panic, now scrambling to my feet.  "No, stop!  He's telling the truth!"

One of the men behind me grabs me before I can run for Henry, wrapping one arm around my midsection to hold me back while using to other to threateningly hold the metal device to my throat.  I freeze, holding my arms up disarmingly since my weak ass is not about to get shocked again.

My eyes meet Henry's, time seemingly slowing down as he nods, mouthing it's okay. 

I shake my head, knowing damn well that it won't be okay and he'll be damn lucky if they stop shocking him before he's dead.  For me, they at least have information that they want so they can't kill me.  Henry has nothing.

Tears sting at the corners of my eyes as the man closest to Henry reels back with his metal device.  Goddammit, this was not how today was supposed to go.  For Christ's sake, Henry and I just had our first kiss all of a few hours ago, and now he's about to get murdered in front of my eyes!  Life is so fucking unfair.

However, before the man can stab the device into Henry's side, the lights in the room begin flickering.  Everyone pauses what they are doing, sending curious glances to the lights.  However, Henry's face goes white, and he meets my eyes.  The look in his says it all.

Shivers run down my spine.  My mouth goes dry. My hair stands up on end. Goosebumps appear along my skin. My stomach drops.

And then the lights go out.

We all stand in silence, waiting for the inevitable.  The sound of our heavy breaths echoes throughout the room.  Just seconds ago, we were on the verge of killing each other.  Now, we're fellow humans realizing that we're about to get killed by something beyond supernatural.

Just as suddenly as they went out, the lights flick back on, and simultaneously the interrogation room mirror shatters.  Through the mirror frame comes it.  Tall, lean, grey, slimy, and absolutely terrifying to look at comes the monster.  Faceless death.  The Demogorgon.

Without further ado, its head flies open, five flaps opening to reveal rows of flesh and teeth made for killing things.  Faceless fucking death.

Scratch what I said earlier about Henry getting murdered in front of my eyes being the shittiest thing that could happen today.  I'll now change that to both of us getting brutally murdered and eaten by a monster from another world.