Chapter Ten: The Interrogation of Bubba Joe

 

Chapter Ten: The Interrogation of Bubba Joe

            “So…it’s Doctor who exactly?” Joyce brought herself to ask as she, Hopp, Jonathan, Nancy, and Steve followed the Doctor through the woods. The night atmosphere was almost unbearable – humid, flies buzzing everywhere, and dark. The light of the full moon, in addition to the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver device, allowed them to see the path ahead.

            “Yeah, I was wonderin’ the same thing,” Jim followed up on Joyce’s inquiry. “Where exactly are you from, Doc?”

            “And how do you know Si?” Steve inquired, holding back his jealousy.

            “Oh, there are many ways that I know her,” the Doctor answered Steve, singling out Joyce and Jim’s questions. “Once I met her when I had white hair and she was a towering, muscular middle-aged woman…then we met again when I had floppy black hair and she was a young Asian woman…and again after that when I had poofy white hair and she was a young Englishwoman…and yet again when I had curly hair and a long scarf and he was—”

            “Alright, we get the picture,” Hopper stopped him, visibly exasperated. “You ‘Time Lords’ are people with many faces. But I believe what Harrington asked was what Si is to you?”

            “A friend,” the Doctor said after a brief pause. “One of my greatest, in fact.”

            The conversation ended once the group came to the third Type-Z TARDIS, situated in a clearing, its shiny marbled structure glistening in the moonlight. The Doctor bypassed the bio-lock again and permitted himself and his group to enter a console room that Jim, Joyce, Jonathan, Nancy, and Steve found to be vastly different from the one they had seen in Si’s TARDIS. It was less roomy with only a few chairs around the console platform to sit in. There was also a large viewscreen across from the platform.

            At the time they arrived, they noticed a teenage boy in a red hoodie standing in the middle of the room and holding Si’s pet Mogwai, Gizmo. “Who are you guys?” he asked the Doctor and his group. “And how did you get into Maureen’s TARDIS?”

            “Maureen…” the Doctor pondered on the name for a while, mentally sorting through his convoluted collection of memories. “So that’s the version of Neas who owns this TARDIS.” He then added with a hopeful smirk, “It seems the odds of success have increased in our favor.”

            Suddenly, the door to Maureen’s TARDIS shut behind them. One of the levers on the console flipped entirely on its own, activating the dematerialization process. The ship transported them to another location in a mere second before the door opened again and allowed a young brunette to enter with Ben Tennyson, Newt Scamander, and a little potbellied, bushy-haired African American boy. Ben, Newt, and the brunette worked together in carrying the unconscious, rotund body of a mustachioed Caucasian man in overalls and a bowler hat into the TARDIS.

            The brunette saw all of the new faces standing in the TARDIS and exclaimed in furious bewilderment (accompanied with an English accent), “Where did you lot come from?!”

            Hopper leaned in close to the Doctor and sardonically whispered, “Have fun explaining all of this.”

----------------------------

            Mike couldn’t believe he was with Eleven again. In the short time that he met her last Halloween, she was the first girl he ever fell for. She impressed him even more with her unique powers, which included having control over Si’s TARDIS. He couldn’t believe she had been with one of Si’s previous incarnations within the last year. When he questioned Si about it, all she could tell him was, “I didn’t know it was her at the time.”

            As frustrated as Mike felt, he managed to understand Si’s situation. Her whole life was one enigma after another, and Elle became wrapped up in it after sacrificing her place in reality to rid Hawkins of the Demogorgon. All that mattered now was that Eleven was back in his life.

            While Mike and Eleven sat in Amos Crook’s shack and caught up on things with Dustin, Lucas, and Will, Si had returned from her brief journey back to her TARDIS for a wardrobe change. The wardrobe-in-question that she changed into was a fancy black dress with a skirt that stopped mid-thigh.

            Dustin whistled in admiration of her attire. “That’s what you’re wearin’ to the party?!”

            “I sure am,” Si proudly proclaimed. “I should blend in with every stuck-up guest that’ll be there.”

            “How come we can’t go with you?” Mike asked.

            “And by ‘we’, he means everyone except Lucas,” Max teased, though Lucas wasn’t entirely amused.

            “Because it’s too dangerous,” Si explained. “The Malfoys are actual wizards.”

            “You mean like Dungeons & Dragons?” Will comprehended.

            Si smirked at his comparison, having played a few campaigns with the boys every weekend in her TARDIS (she was usually classed as a “Paladin”). “Something like that,” she told Will. “But these wizards aren’t the type that’ll heal you while fighting a Thessalhydra. They’re the ones that’d work with the Thessalhydra.”

            “Ugh, you know you’re losing your cred by talking like them, right?” Max remarked, nodding in reference to Mike, Dustin, Will, and Lucas.

            “So, these wizards – the Malfoys – they’re helping the Cthulhu monster?” Mike gathered. “That sounds like all the more reason we should go with you. What if you were to run into the Cthulhu itself?”

            “I’ve handled plenty of monsters in my lives, Mike,” Si said. “You kids have only dealt with one. Trust me. The boonies are the safest place for ya’ll to be.” She set her sonic screwdriver down on the rickety wooden table where they were sitting. “Here, I’m leaving this with you, so the Doctor and the others can find you.”

            She heard the front door to Amos’s shack creak open and turned to see Skeeta and Amos himself walk in. “Amos was kind enough to let us borrow his truck to drive to the manor,” Skeeta told Si. “You really sure you wanna go through with this, hon?”

            “I’m one-thousand-percent sure of it, Pop,” Si verified, her tone was firm.

            Amos watched both Skeeta and Si head out of his shack and into his jalopy of a pickup truck, driving away from the boonies with a few other residents witnessing their departure. Of the bizarre father-daughter relationship between the two, Amos quietly observed, “Dere goes one strange family.”

--------------------------

            Samuel saw things in Maureen’s TARDIS that not very many little boys his age (or from the early 20th century, for that matter) had the fortune of seeing. The room he stood in with the group of strange adults he only just met was brighter than what he was used to, having worked in the catacombs beneath Malfoy Manor for most of his preadolescent life. He saw blinking lights that reminded him of the Christmas trees he would see the Malfoys put up on the holiday but was never allowed to go anywhere near them (he tried once and received a few lashes for it).

            He went for the lights blinking on the hexagonal console at the center of the room, nearly touching one of the switches before Maureen stepped in. “No, no, sweetheart,” she gingerly moved him away. “You don’t wanna send us flying away into another dimension – at least, not yet anyway.”

            Samuel understood. The gentle smile on Maureen’s beautiful face reassured him that he wasn’t in any serious trouble. This woman, whoever she was, didn’t mean him any harm. In fact, next to Harris, she was the nicest adult Samuel had ever met.

            “Double B,” Maureen called to the teen in the red hoodie. “How ‘bout you and Ben take our new lil’ friend here to the kitchen and find him something to eat.”

            Billy knew this was a cue for him, the new kid named Ben Tennyson, and Samuel to leave the room while the adults decided what to do about the fat guy with the mustache that Maureen brought into her TARDIS. “Sure, we’ll take him,” he agreed on his and Ben’s behalf.

            As the three boys left, Joyce couldn’t help but notice the scars on Samuel’s back – obvious signs of abuse. “Poor thing,” she uttered. “What have those monsters been doing to him?”

            “I dunno,” Maureen composed herself. “But, if I were to guess, I’d say they had him working as a slave like it was still the Civil War era. The only one who can tell us the whole story is that lard-butt we brought in earlier. He has a connection to the Malfoys.”

            “And to Cthulhu, judging by the circumstances by which they arrived in 1929 Louisiana,” the Doctor added.

            “They have Alicia,” Newt brought up. “Lucius ordered her to be brought down to his cellar. That could be where they’re keeping Cthulhu.”

            “Give me ten minutes with this ‘Bubba Joe,’ and I’ll get ‘im to tell us what’s goin’ on,” Hopper volunteered, his fists clenched.

            “I’ll have him singin’ in five,” Joyce overstepped him.

            Needless to say, Hopper was as surprised by her “tough gal” attitude as he was annoyed by it. “Since when are you so hardcore, all of the sudden?” he asked her.

            “Did you see the marks on that poor child’s back?” Joyce said. “I wanna leave the same marks on that guy’s face!”

            “And you don’t think I’d want to take a crack at him first?” Hopp retorted.

            “And leave me with the leftovers? Ha! No way!” Joyce refused.

            “Guys!” Maureen finally ended the quarrel between the two. “I appreciate your optimism, but leave him to me.”

---------------------------

            Bubba Joe’s head felt like it had been caught in a vice, the moment that he awakened inside of a dark room. “What’s goin’ on ‘ere?!” he shouted. He tried to move his arms and legs but neither would budge. “Hey! Whoevuh you are, you best untie me or else!”

            He looked down at the straps pinning his arms and legs down.

            “What duh…?”

            The straps weren’t ordinary ropes or even leather. They were designed out of some sort of material that was nothing more than light. It was the only thing irradiating in the darkened room.

            “You like ‘em?” a British-accented voice said in front of him. “They’re a gift from the Amazonians of Themyscira for helping them stop a madwoman that brainwashed them for her personal gain. They’re made from the same material that powers Wonder Woman’s lasso of truth – and I’m hoping they’ll have the same effect on you.”

            Bubba Joe saw the speaker to be a young, attractive English brunette…the same English brunette who he remembered knocking him out with a punch to his face. “You lil’ witch!” he yelled, struggling under his restraints.

            “Oh, darling, struggling will just make it worse,” Maureen taunted.

            “I’ll teach you tuh clock me, you devil witch!”

            “The only real devil ‘round here is the one you’re workin’ for: Lucius Malfoy. What has he been keepin’ down in his cellar?”

            The illuminated ropes around Bubba Joe’s legs and arms glowed brighter. Beads of sweat developed on his face as he resisted the urge to speak truthfully. “You devil witch,” he cackled. “I ain’t tellin’ you nuttin’!”

            Maureen nonchalantly shrugged. “The hard way it is then.”

            She took out her sonic screwdriver and waved it left to right. The chair Bubba Joe sat in suddenly glowed brighter than the ropes and electrified, delivering a painful jolt throughout his entire body. “What is this?!” he cried. “You got me in some sorta electric chair?!”

            “A modified electric chair,” Maureen said. “Try to keep up – not that you’ll be able to.”

            The entire interrogation was being viewed by the Doctor, Jim, Joyce, Jonathan, Nancy, Steve, and Newt back in the console room. The live feed was broadcasted on the viewscreen across the console platform. Maureen’s method of questioning perturbed the Doctor. Nevertheless, he trusted the Gladiator of Gallifrey to get the job done.

            “I’m gonna ask you again, and each time you refuse, I’m gonna shock you!” Maureen warned Bubba Joe. “What has Lucius Malfoy been keepin’ down in his cellar?”

            Having put up resistance for close to two whole minutes, Bubba Joe valued his existence more than his loyalty to the Malfoys. He told Maureen, “Dey came to Baton Rouge two years ago, but dey didn’t come alone. Dey arrived with a man I’d only seen once – and dat was by accident. Dey threatened me nevuh tuh speak ‘bout it again, if I valued my life, which I do!”

            “What did this man look like?” Maureen asked.

            Bubba Joe refused to answer until another small dose of electricity provoked him into giving the description: “He was a pale, bald son-of-a-gun! He didn’t even have a nose!”

            Maureen stiffened. There was only one individual she knew of who fit that description.

            “Lord Voldemort,” she muttered.

            “He’s duh whole reason the Malfoys are even ‘ere,” Bubba Joe said. “He been tellin’ dem to feed dat beast dey keepin’ unduh’neath dere mansion…until dey can find sum poor soul for it tuh live in.” Maureen, and even the Doctor (from his position inside the console room), recognized the beast Bubba Joe referred to was undoubtedly Cthulhu itself. The Malfoys had been feeding the entity with the workers they enslaved.

            That included Alicia.