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CHAPTER FIVE | QUIET TALKS
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she is water: soft enough to offer life, tough enough to drown it away
-rupi kaur
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Friday, December 23, Jackie was charged with babysitting Lucas and all his little friends. She'd been wanting to go to Shelly's house but she wasn't gonna pass up five dollars an hour for each kid (it added up to twenty dollars an hour, for five hours — so $100 in all ). There would be other parties, but not many other opportunities like this.
So, here she was, spending her Friday night curled up on her reclining chair, reading an old Stephen King book as four twelve-year-olds yelled at each other over mythical creatures.
"Do you want to play?" Will asked, looking over Dustin's head.
Will, Jackie realized, was Jonathan Byers' younger brother. And Mike was Nancy's younger brother.
"Maybe next time," Jackie said, smiling at him. "You guys hungry? I can order pizza."
They all chorused out a loud 'yeah!' Nodding, Jackie threw herself out of the chair and tapped Lucas on the head as she walked by him. She made her way to the kitchen and, predictably, her hand went right through it. Sighing, Jackie squeezed her eyes shut and reached out. Once more, her hand passed through all solid objects it neared.
She took a step back and stared at the phone with gritted teeth. As she stood, picturing her hand moving to the phone and pulling it off the hook, the phone flung off the wall and clattered to the floor with a loud bang.
"Are you okay?" Lucas' voice yelled.
"Y-Yeah!" Jackie called back, feeling not very okay.
Trembling, Jackie reached down at held her breath, exhaling only when her fingers wrapped around the handle.
After taking far too long to call for pizza, Jackie walked back into the living room, rubbing at the sweater covered spot she knew the number 010 was branded onto her skin.
"You were the tenth experiment, and the first true failure," Dr. Owens had told her.
"What about the others?" Jackie had asked.
"They failed in other ways. Most died."
"And the ones that lived?"
"I don't know," Dr. Owens had confessed. "They disappeared."
The memory of the conversation sent a chill down Jackie's spine. Biting down harshly on her bottom lip, she watched as the boys argued and laughed loudly.
"Jackie," Lucas said, drawing her out of her thoughts. "You're bleeding."
Until then, she hadn't felt the warmth of the blood dripping from her left nostril down her cheek. Hand trembling, she reached up and touched the blood. Sure enough, her hands were coated in sticky red.
