Boot Camp (16 page)

I'm stuffing stale rolls into a plastic bag when the lights burst on and alarms start to ring loudly. Time to get moving. Squinting in the brightness, I push
through a door. Outside it's not nearly as dark as before. The outdoor lights are on, creating bright spots everywhere. I try to stay in the dark. A pair of kids races past. The whoop of a car alarm catches me by surprise. Unbelievable! Someone is trying to break into a car. Shouts, cries, crazed laughter, and breaking glass fill the air. Some of these kids aren't even trying to escape; they're just going on a rampage.

The heavy scent of smoke catches me by surprise. Next comes the distant wail of sirens. Amazing! Pauly really did it. Staying in the shadows behind the buildings, I make my way toward the front gate. Ahead is the basketball court, then the flagpole rising into the darkness. Two shapes are huddled behind the bushes next to the pole.

Bodies flit through the light and shadows—kids running this way and that, enjoying a brief taste of anarchy. A loud metallic clang rings out from a building close by. No idea what it could be.

I duck down and scamper from the corner of the building to the bushes. Pauly sees me coming.

“Hey,” he whispers as I squat down with him and Sarah. “Glad you could make it.”

Sarah smiles. Even in the dark her eyes are bright with determination and hope, but her smile is tight and frightened. In the distance the sirens gradually grow louder.

“You got some food?” Pauly whispers.

I shake the bag. “Stale rolls.”

“Okay.” Pauly has a plastic bag too.

“Now what?” I ask.

He jerks his head. Fifty yards away, half a dozen chaperones, “fathers,” and “mothers” have gathered at the tall metal gate. The sirens are growing louder, and now we can see flashing red lights in the dark distance. The smell of smoke surrounds us.

“Why don't they open the gate?” Sarah whispers.

“Because they know kids are gonna make a run for it,” Pauly answers.

The sirens grow louder and the flashing lights brighter, illuminating the bare branches of trees. As soon as the first set of headlights appears down the road, the chaperones unlock the gate and push it open. A split second later a kid bursts out of the dark, running as fast as he can for freedom. A chaperone tackles him, and another helps subdue him by grabbing his arm and twisting it sharply. Next come two girls. Both are caught by male chaperones and handed over, clawing and screaming, to female group leaders.

It's like a serious version of capture the flag. Each time a kid is caught trying to escape, it takes a chaperone or group leader to drag him or her away. The number of chaperones and leaders left dwindles. With flashing lights and bellowing exhaust, the first fire engine rumbles through the gate. Pauly rises into a squat.

“They have to clear a path for the fire trucks,” he whispers. “As soon as the next one comes through, we run for it.”

The next truck is a long hook and ladder.

“Now!” Pauly hisses. As the hook and ladder rolls through, we sprint in the dark toward the gate. The
remaining chaperones and group leaders can't see us because the long truck blocks their view. I make it through the gate and keep running toward the shadowy woods. A second later I crash into the brush and through the branches, slowing so that I don't accidentally smash into a tree in the dark.

I can hear feet behind me kicking through the dry, crackling leaves. It should be Pauly and Sarah, but I'm afraid to stop and look in case it's not.

“Pauly!” Sarah cries somewhere in the dark behind us. Spinning around, I see Pauly running about twenty feet behind me. Beyond him Sarah's silhouette is coming toward us through the trees, backlit by the red and white swirling lights of the fire trucks. But she's not alone. Someone is behind her and catching up fast. It's difficult to tell in the dark, but I have a feeling it's Joe. Pauly gives me an alarmed look. If we run, Sarah will get caught. We'll get away because Joe can't possibly get us while he's holding onto her.

“Ahhh!” Less than a dozen yards away, Sarah cries out as Joe tackles her. They crash down into leaves and twigs. With Sarah on the ground, Joe quickly jumps back to his feet. But before he can yank her up, he's got company—me.

I grab his wrist and twist his arm behind him in the classic Lake Harmony restraint. To my surprise he doesn't resist.

Sarah gets up and hurries away until she's well out of reach. Pauly comes back through the dark. For a moment we stand among the tree trunks and brush. Yells and shouts filter toward us through the
woods from the grounds of Lake Harmony.

“You can't get away,” Joe snarls. I feel his chest enlarge as he takes a deep breath. Before he can yell, I clamp my hand over his mouth, muffling him. Now he starts to struggle. I twist his arm more tightly behind his back and push him down to the leaf-covered ground, pressing one knee against his back. He squirms, and I tighten my hold.

“Stop or I'll break your arm,” I warn him.

A muffled croak squeezes out from between my fingers. Sounds like, “Go ahead.”

I tighten my hand over his mouth and use my weight to press him facedown into the leaves. A woodsy scent rises into my nostrils as I feel so much repressed anger bubble up from inside. In my grip is the person who has caused me so many months of pain and agony. So many months of despair. The person who allowed me to be beaten within an inch of my life. I bend over and whisper into his ear. “You of all people ought to be more respectful, Joe. Didn't anyone ever teach you to be polite and obedient? Keep behaving like this and you'll wind up in TI.”

He squirms, and I press my knee down harder, leaning all my weight into his back. All those months wasted … agonized over … how I hated it. This anger has been building up without my realizing it. Maybe I was wrong not to let it out like the others. Hell, I wound up spending just as much time in TI as they did anyway. Mostly because of this SOB. I push Joe down even harder. He squirms.
How does it feel, you lousy miserable sadistic bastard?

Joe jerks and makes another croaking sound. I feel fingers on my shoulder and look up in the dark. It's Sarah, her face ghostly. “Easy,” she cautions. “You don't want to kill him.”

“Yeah, I do. After what he did to me.”

Joe tries to say something. I yank him up, then slam him down against the ground. “And don't give me that ‘I was just doing my job' crap either,” I tell him.

“Hey, come on,” Pauly says in a rushed voice, joining Sarah. “This isn't about revenge. It's about escape.”

He reaches into his plastic bag and pulls out half a roll of duct tape. Ripping a piece off, he presses it over Joe's mouth. We use more of it to bind his hands behind his back, and the rest goes around his ankles. Then we drag him deeper into the woods and behind a large fallen tree trunk—a place where we hope he won't be found until morning.

Pausing to catch my breath, I notice for the first time the short plumes of white vapor that escape our lips. It's cold, and the woods are quiet and dark. Way darker than any city or suburb can ever be. The only sounds coming from the direction of Lake Harmony are the loud grumble of a fire engine and the squeal of air brakes. It sounds like the uprising has been quelled.

“This way.” Pauly points in the dark.

“How do you know?” I ask. Other than a general feeling for the way back to Lake Harmony, I have no sense of direction.

Pauly points up through the bare branches at the dark glittering sky. “North Star.”

•  •  •

Eight hours later the sky is dressed in predawn gray and the woods are filled with mist. Hidden by the trees about thirty feet from the edge of a two-lane road, the three of us hug our knees to our chests, our teeth chattering softly. Our shirts and pants are damp with dew. Our feet, in Lake Harmony flip-flops, are scratched and dirty from trudging all night through the woods.

“Can't we sleep?” Sarah asks with a shivering yawn, her lips blue from the cold.

“We have to keep going,” Pauly replies with a determination that belies his frail appearance.

“How far do you think we've gone?” Sarah asks.

Pauly gives me a quizzical look. “What do you think?”

“Not that far,” I answer. “Maybe four or five miles. It was pretty slow in the woods.”

A distant rumble breaks the silence. Sounds like a truck. “Wait here.” Pauly creeps through the brush to the edge of the woods. The roar increases until a big eighteen-wheeler thunders past, rattling the dry branches of the trees and shaking loose a few dead brown leaves. Pauly comes back. “It had Ontario plates. I think we're on the road to Canada. Won't take long if we hitchhike.”

“You sure you want to do that?” I ask. “The news must be out. Anybody sees three kids hitchhiking in these clothes, won't they know exactly where we're from?”

“Not yet,” Pauly says. “Maybe never. If there's any news, it won't be out until later this morning. But I bet that's not gonna happen. Think about it, Garrett. Lake
Harmony can't afford to let parents know that kids can escape. They'll do everything they can to keep it out of the media.”

“How can they stop it?” Sarah asks.

The irony of the answer makes me grin. “Crisis management. It's what my mom does for a living. She keeps bad news out of the media.”

“Right,” Pauly agrees. “They'll tell the employees not to talk. There will only be a rumor that there was some kind of disturbance last night. But we still have to book as fast as we can.”

“I still don't see how we can hitchhike,” I tell him. “Who's gonna pick up two guys and a girl?”

Pauly smiles impishly. “You'll see.” He tells Sarah to stand by the side of the road with her thumb out while he and I crouch in a ditch nearby. And wouldn't you know, the first vehicle to come along is a bright red pickup with an expanded cab. The driver is about Joe's age, with a red plaid shirt and a long brown ponytail, his broad belly pushed up against the bottom of the steering wheel. At first he looks more than a little annoyed when Pauly and I pop up out of the ditch. But then he shrugs and mutters, “Should've known.”

“Where you headed?” Pauly asks, holding the passenger door open.

“Alexandria Bay,” the driver answers.

“That north?” Pauly asks.

The driver studies him for a moment. “Not from around here, huh?”

“Is it toward Canada?”

“Yeah, it's toward Canada,” the driver says.

“Great.”

Sarah and Pauly climb in the back and leave the front passenger seat for me. The driver rolls his eyes slightly, as if to say the least we could do was let Sarah keep him company in the front. The pickup pulls back onto the road. To our right the predawn sky slowly brightens as the sun prepares to make its daily appearance. Pauly has already warned us to let him do most of the talking. Suddenly I become aware of chattering teeth behind me. Must be Pauly and Sarah. The driver hears it too and turns up the heat.

“So, where you kids from?” he asks in what I assume is the standard “I'll give you a ride if you'll give me conversation” opening.

“Miami,” Pauly says.

“Salt Lake,” answers Sarah.

“New York,” I add. “City.”

“No kidding? What are you all doing up here?”

“Uh, following a band,” Pauly says, giving his prefab answer to the question he knew we'd be asked.

“Which one?” the driver asks.

“A jam band you probably haven't heard of,” Pauly said. “Called Fudge.”

“You kidding me?” the guy says, clearly pleased. “I know Fudge. After Jerry died and Phish broke up, who the hell else you gonna listen to? I'll say this, friend, you got good taste in music.” He goes quiet for a moment, then adds in a puzzled way, “Only I'm pretty sure they're doing a West Coast tour right now.”

Silence. Things looked good until Pauly got caught
in that lie. Now what? The driver glances at me with a slightly hurt expression on his face, as if it's not fair that he'd give us a ride and we'd lie to him.

“So, uh, guess that's not why you're headed to Canada,” he says, looking again in the rearview mirror. Only now I'm pretty sure he's noticing that Pauly and I are wearing identical clothes, and that I have bruises and black and blue marks on my face. Next he glances down at my feet, no doubt inspecting the flip-flops.

“I know a guy who works over at that school in Lake Harmony,” he says. “The one with the double fence running around it. Know the one I'm talking about?”

“The smallest gesture of disrespect will result in demerits.”

No one answers.

“They send spoiled rich kids there,” the driver continues. “Most of 'em have drug problems or are just plain troublemakers. There were plenty of kids like that when I was growing up. Only nobody had the money to send them to fancy schools. Usually they just got kicked out of the house. Parents said they'd be welcome home once they learned how to behave. Most got back in line pretty quick, but a few left town and we never saw them again.”

We ride along without talking. When the scattered clouds to the right begin to turn pink, I know that we are indeed headed north. After that cold night in the woods, the warmth of the pickup's cab is soothing, and I'm glad we're covering so many miles this way rather than on sore feet in flip-flops. But now a new sensation
begins to take hold: hunger. There are rolls in my bag, but after that sleepless night, I'd do anything for some coffee. For the first time in almost seven months, that's not just a fruitless dream. It might actually be possible.

A sparkling gold sun rises in the east. The scattered clouds go from pink to white as the sky turns a lighter shade of blue. In the warm cab, with the steady rumble of the engine, my eyelids feel heavy, and I slouch down and let the back of my head rest against the seat.