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"Tainted Love"

You don't really want any more from me

To make things right you need someone to hold you tight

- Soft Cell

Outside their cell—which was also outside, a particularly nasty touch Hopper had to appreciate—a guard lit a cigarette. The smell drifted in their direction, and Hopper thought about how nice it would be to have a cigarette right now. Something to do with his hands, as much as anything else.

Antonov seemed to be thinking of that, too, because he went to the bars and whispered at the guard, calling his name, until he came up the stairs and stood in front of them. The two of them spoke briefly in Russian. Hopper couldn't follow the words—wasn't really trying, in his current shape—but he could tell from the tone and body language that Antonov was trying to cozy up to his former comrade, and the other guard was having none of it.

Then Antonov spoke in a new tone, and the guard stopped in the act of walking away and came back. Hopper heard something about himself. "Tell him, American," Antonov said in English. "Tell him how you will make him rich."

Hopper didn't move. It was over. There was nothing left for him. He had lost his last chance, lost everything. Let Antonov talk his way out. Hopper was just going to sit here and wait to die, which was what he deserved.

Antonov sighed wearily and the other guard walked away, taking the smell of his cigarette with him.

"You're a real help, American, you know that? A real help." Antonov looked sharply at Hopper, raising his voice. "Hey." He clapped his hands in front of Hopper's face. "You want to die in here? You want to die? Is that it?"

"That's what we've been brought here to do."

"So that is it? You give up, then?" Antonov came and sat down on the hard bench next to Hopper. "What about your woman, hm? She is captured, yes, but still alive. We can still save her."

His naivete was almost cute. Hopper managed a tight smile. "'Save her'," he echoed.

"That is … amusing to you?"

"You don't get it, do you? You don't get it. The closer I get with Joyce, the more danger she's in."

"You're not thinking straight, American."

"No, I think I am. Yeah, for the first time in my life, I think I'm thinking straight." He paused, considering his next words. "I used to think I was cursed. Ever since I was eighteen. Get some letter of induction in the mail, Uncle Sam wants me to go fight some war in the jungle. Charlie's moving south like a plague, 'cause of Commie bastards like you, and … You know, I'm happy enough to go. Prove to my old man I'm not the piece of shit he thinks I am." There'd been nothing left for him in Hawkins, no future. Might as well go to war. "I get over there, I must test well, and they put me in the Chemical Corps. There I am. I'm just … a kid, you know. I'm eighteen years old, eight thousand miles away, and I'm mixing up these … 55-gallon drums of Agent Orange. With just these kitchen gloves, you know? We used to clean out these buffalo turbines after a run, and just be inhaling the stuff. No masks, nothing. 'It's not chemical warfare. It's just herbicide, to kill plants,'" he quoted. The official propaganda. Lies. To the public, yes, but mostly to the people making it. "'Harmless.' That's what they told us."

Antonov was staring at him, silenced.

Hopper continued, speaking as much to fill the space as to tell Antonov anything. "And then I got back to real life, and these guys I worked with, the ones that made it back, they started trying to get back to normal, you know, having families, and then things started going wrong. Kids born stillborn, dead in the womb. Crooked spines, eyes popped out. The horror … followed us, clung to us." He put a hand over his face, not wanting to continue, to get to the next part, but unable to stop himself now that he had started. "My wife Diane, she wanted a baby. I did, too." Oh, Sara. His little ray of sunshine. His happy girl. "We had a baby, and she was, um … she was born healthy, she was perfect, you know. Sara. And then she died."

It was so vivid in his mind, that hospital room, that moment of awfulness, knowing that it was his fault, that he had poisoned his girl before she had even been born.

Into the silence, he kept talking. "It wasn't an easy death. She … suffered. I knew the risks, but I, um … I hid them. And then Diane left me. She didn't blame me. Not with words. After that, I was just … I just hid myself in drugs and alcohol. And then people started coming into my life. This girl El, and Joyce, just happened, and I told myself they needed me." Their faces were still so clear in his mind, their smiles, their laughs. "But that wasn't true. That's a lie. They didn't need me; I needed them. I needed them." He didn't glance at Antonov as he finished. "You were right, what you said last night. I knew the risks, breaking out of here, but I did it anyway. The minute I sent for Joyce, the minute I sent for her, I sentenced her to death. Just like I did with Sara." He put a hand to his head, grimacing to try to hold back the tears. Tears were for the living, and he was as good as dead. He had no right to emotion. "Everyone I love, I hurt. See, I was wrong this whole time. I wasn't cursed. I am the curse."

Before Antonov could reply, they heard a sound, like a beast snarling, from somewhere far below them. So, Hopper thought, sitting there as Antonov got up to investigate. That was to be the way it ended … torn apart by some wild animal the Russians kept for sport.

"I've heard rumors of a monster," Antonov said as the sounds continued. "From America." He turned to Hopper. "I don't know if what you say is true, American, if you're truly a cursed man, but you're right about one thing—we are going to die in here."

Hopper tried to care, but couldn't quite manage it. Death was what he deserved.