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Eleven hungrily tears into the food the man has put in front of her. She has never had anything like this before—a hamburger, the man said, even though it is made of two things so she is not sure which of it is ham and which is burger.
It is good. Papa never gave her anything like this. Only tasteless grey… something… that he says is good for her.
The hamburger man, now sitting across from her, is talking away, but Eleven is barely listening, too hungry to care about anything but the hamburger.
Suddenly, the hamburger is plucked from her hands. Her head shoots up, staring at the man as she tries to hastily chew what is left in her mouth. She tries to savour the lump of food, but her stomach hurts, and she is hungry, so before she knows it, it is gone.
“I’ll give this back, all right?” the man says, holding up the hamburger. She could yank it back, but the man gave it to her first, and if she tries to grab it he might take it away for good. “You can have as much as you want. All right? Maybe even some ice cream. But you’ve gotta answer some of my questions first, all right?”
Eleven does not say anything. She does not like questions.
She does like burgers.
“We got a deal?” the man continues. She does not know what a deal is. She is pretty sure she does not have one. She only has this yellow t-shirt the man has given her. She had had the hamburger, but now the man has it, so she does not even have that anymore.
She frowns. The man might take the t-shirt too, and she does not want that. It feels much nicer than the gown she wears.
The man keeps talking. “Alright, let’s start with the easy stuff. My name’s Benny. Benny Hammond.”
Benny Benny Hammond is a long name. Papa went by Dr. Brenner, so maybe only the first name is the one she is meant to use.
He reaches out a hand. She must make a face, because he softens and says, “See? Like this, here,” and takes her hand in his. “I got you. Don’t worry, it’s okay.”
His voice is soothing. Eleven likes him.
“Nice to meet you, yeah?” he continues. “And you are…?”
She stays quiet. She’s Eleven. Just Eleven. She does not know what he wants her to say.
Benny reaches out and turns her arm, exposing the 011 tattooed on her wrist. Abruptly, she yanks her arm away.
“Eleven,” Benny says, and his lips move down at the corners, like Papa’s do when he is mad. She does not want him to be mad. He still speaks in that gentle way, so maybe he is not mad? She does not know. “What’s that mean?”
She cannot tell him what the number means. Eleven is her. She is Eleven.
He looks at her like he is waiting for something. She does not like it.
“No,” she says.
“Well, I’ll be damned. She speaks!”
Eleven does not respond to that. She knows she speaks.
“‘No’? No, what?” When she does not answer, Benny makes a funny clicking noise with his mouth. “All right. I guess no more food, then.”
He gets up, the food in hand, and Eleven panics. “Eleven.”
“Yeah. What’s it mean?”
She points at herself. “Eleven,” she repeats.
Benny’s eyebrows raise, but he nods. “Alright, then.”
The food is slid back to her, and she eagerly starts shovelling it back down.
“Here you go,” Benny says, and he laughs softly. “Take it easy, take it easy.”
Eleven does not know what that means, but he does not try and take the food again. She forces herself to slow down, nearly choking as she swallows a particularly big lump.
“You got any family?” Benny asks, watching her. “A mom, a dad?”
Eleven keeps chewing.
“I got a little girl of my own,” Benny continues, and his voice changes, a smile growing on his face. He sounds happy as he talks. “She must be a few years older than you. Here, I got a picture.”
Benny fumbles in his pocket and produces a black square thing. It opens up, and Eleven cranes her neck, interested.
He pulls out a picture of two people. One of them is him, sticking his tongue out and holding two fingers above the head of the other person, a young girl. The girl is grinning widely, her hair light brown in two long, pretty, twisted lines. Her face is full of little dots that she’s never seen before.
“My Hummingbird,” Benny says proudly.
Eleven studies the photo, her head tilted. She doesn’t see a bird. “Humming…bird?”
He laughs softly. “My daughter. Her name’s Robin, like the bird. I call her Hummingbird ‘cause she’s always flitting around.”
Eleven peers at the photo again. Papa never let her have long hair. She wishes she had hair like that.
Benny looks at the photo, smiling. “She must’ve been around your age when this was taken. She’s a teenager now. Matter of fact, it’s her birthday this week.”
She does not know what a birthday is. She also does not see Hummingbird anywhere. She looks around, as if Hummingbird might pop out from a counter, and Benny chuckles.
“She’s at school right now. Besides, she lives with her mother. It’s only the weekends she gets to stay with me.” He pauses, looking proudly down at the photo. “Her mom’s got her this weekend, but next weekend I’m gonna treat her. Got a whole trip planned out. Want to make the most of my time with her before she’s too old for dear old dad.”
Benny’s saying a lot of words she does not understand. He seems happy to talk about his little girl, though, so she lets him keep talking, because he smiles when he talks about her.
All too soon, she runs out of hamburger. She looks down at the empty basket in dismay, as if it might reappear somehow.
Benny shakes his head. “Listen to me, waffling on. You still hungry?”
Eleven nods, because she is.
“I’ve gotta make a quick phone call and then I’ll cook you up some more fries, alright? Sit tight.”
He stands, leaving the photo on the table. Eleven inspects it closely, focusing on the happy expression on Hummingbird’s face. Slowly, she touches her own face, then her buzzed hair, and imagines having dots on her face and hair like Hummingbird does.
“Pretty,” she whispers.
Benny returns with the fries, and she turns her attention elsewhere.
*
(When she hears the gunshot, Eleven thinks, briefly, of Hummingbird. She feels a tightening in her chest, a strange, uncomfortable squirming in her gut that she’ll later come to recognise as guilt.
Benny is dead. The bad men killed him—killed him for helping her.
She does the only thing she can think to do.
She flees.)
*
El’s sipping her soda, leaning against Hopper, when her eyes land on the girl sitting on the counter. She’s dressed in a sailor uniform, arms hugging herself.
Steve’s friend, she realises. The sailor girl he works with.
She hadn’t noticed her before, though now she distantly remembers Steve talking to someone when she’d been dizzy with pain.
She’d only caught a glimpse of her before, when Steve had been serving her and Max their ice cream. Now, though, she takes the time to look at her properly. She doesn’t remember her name—she hadn’t really been paying attention when she’d been trying to pry the creature from her leg.
Steve’s friend is pretty, her hair changing from a light brown to blonde. El likes the bracelets she has.
Then she turns her head, looking over in Steve’s direction, and El gets a clear view of her face for the first time. She stills in Hopper’s arms, her heart sinking.
Light brown hair, a face full of freckles, and a face so hauntingly familiar that she knows immediately just where she’s seen it before.
“Hummingbird,” she whispers, horrified.
Mike, sitting close to her, turns his head to her. “What’s that?”
“Hummingbird,” El repeats, swallowing hard. She nods in the direction of the girl. “She’s…”
He must misunderstand her, because he turns to look in the direction she’s looking and says, “Oh, that’s Robin. She works with Steve.”
“Like the bird.”
“I guess?” Mike tilts his head. “You okay?”
No, is the honest answer. No, she is not okay, because Benny Hammond’s daughter is sitting just a few feet away from them, and she should not be here.
El swallows again. “Why is she here?”
“I dunno.” Mike turns again, nudging Dustin, who is next to him. “Hey, how come Robin’s here?”
“Robin?” Dustin’s eyes light up. “She’s a genius. She cracked the secret Russian code, I told you.”
“Yeah, and you didn’t tell us what Russians, or what code.”
“Oh! Right. Uh, well, you see, there’s this underground bunker that the Russians built, and they were broadcasting this secret code that I caught on my cerebro. Steve and I tried to translate it ourselves but Robin asked to help out and then she translated it and worked it out, like, a day later, and then she and Steve stayed behind to hold the door when the Russians came after us so Erica and I could escape, and…”
Dustin’s voice starts to fade around her as she stares at Robin, her heart in her throat. She looks so much like Benny, even with all the different features she has.
Benny’s face flashes up in her mind. Warm smile, gentle eyes.
She looks at Robin, and all she can hear is the sound of the gunshot.
“El?” Dustin says, and she blinks, bewildered. He’s staring at her—he and Mike both are, concern etched on their faces.
“Yes,” she says, even though she has not heard a word she has said for the past few minutes.
Dustin frowns. “Are you okay? …
... You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”