Boot Camp (21 page)

As we drive through the dark, I wonder where Pauly and Sarah are. I'd like to think they've found a friendly, sympathetic doctor who's taken them in and
fixed their ailments. I picture them huddled in warm wool blankets, sitting at an old wooden table feasting on steaming bowls of hearty soup and recounting the incredible story of their escape. It would make a nice movie. There's a happy ending, the good guys get away … well, two out of three good guys, at least.

Harry looks in the rearview mirror and sees the twisted smirk on my face. “What's so funny?”

“I don't know. The irony, I guess.”

“What irony?”

“That I'm here all over again,” I explain. “In the backseat of a car with you guys. My hands cuffed behind my back and going numb. Needing to use the bathroom and knowing you'll never believe me. It's like nothing's changed.”

“Just wait till you get back to Lake Harmony, partner. Plenty's gonna change for you,” Harry says ominously. Rebecca looks over the seat at me, then turns to Harry. “Are you sure we're doing the right thing?”

“Don't start that again.”

“He saved us.”

“Lucky for us and too bad for him.”

“You know it's not right.”

Harry doesn't answer. We ride in silence down the straight, dark, two-lane road, the endless stream of yellow dashes disappearing in front of us.

It's the middle of the night when we return to Lake Harmony. Harry drives through the front gate and up to the administration building. While he's parking the car, Joe and the troll come down the steps. Without
saying hello to Harry or Rebecca, Joe opens the back door, reaches in, and yanks me out.

“Welcome home,” he growls, and punches me in the stomach as hard as he can.

“Success at Lake Harmony requires renouncing your former life.”

“We believe she's in Canada.” I'm facedown on the wooden floor in the lobby of the administration building when I hear these words come through the closed door of Mr. Z's office. “No, that would be considered crossing international boundaries for the purpose of kidnapping, Mr. Sundwald. No, no, that was different. Let me explain. You may remember that you gave us written permission to enter your house and take Sarah. We can't do that now. Canadian law prevents it.”

The wooden floor smells lemony. My hands are still cuffed behind my back. A few feet away, Joe and the
troll sit in chairs. My stomach is sore from the punch Joe delivered. Mr. Z's voice continues through the door.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Sundwald, but our hands are tied by law. Yes, she was here a long time. We did the best we could. Some children resist more than others. No, if you read the contract, you'll see that it clearly states that we can't be held responsible for her actions. It was her decision to escape. Well, I can't stop you from doing that, but you'll discover that our contract holds up very well in court. If that's your decision, Mr. Sundwald. Good-bye.”

The crash of the telephone comes in unexpectedly sharp contrast to the calm tone of Mr. Z's voice while he spoke to Sarah's father. A torrent of curses follows. Chair legs scrape against the floor. The office door swings open, and I see a pair of black shoes and the cuffs of gray slacks.

“Well, well, if it isn't our very own Harry Houdini.” The bottom of a shoe presses down slowly and painfully on the back of my neck. “You've been a very bad boy, Garrett. I imagine you think you're some kind of hero, but you're about to learn that no good deed goes unpunished.”

The pressure on my neck continues to build until it feels like my spinal cord might snap. Despite my best efforts not to, I squirm, and a groan of agony escapes my lips. “You are a first, Garrett. Until you and your friends, no resident has ever left Lake Harmony without permission for longer than a few hours. Certainly never for as long as a day. Not only have you changed
that, but it appears that your friends may never return. Paul Vetare is in a hospital in Toronto. It seems that his parents are so concerned about his physical condition that they've decided against having him come back here. Sarah Sundwald has disappeared.”

Mr. Z's shoe presses down even harder. The pain is hideous. “Please, sir,” I hear myself beg. “Stop.”

“Feeling uncomfortable, Garrett?” Mr. Z asks, almost sadistically. “Believe me, this is nothing compared to what you're in for. You've created a real problem for us. Not only with the parents of Sarah Sundwald and Paul Vetare, but with the rest of our residents as well. Clearly, for something like this to occur, there must be an unacceptable level of defiance throughout the entire resident population. The only way to deal with a situation like this will be on a global scale.”

The sole of his shoe crushes down even harder. I squirm and beg him again to stop. Finally he does, and says to Joe and the troll, “Take him to TI. You know what to do.”

I am beaten on and off for the next twenty-four hours. The rule against leaving visible marks is temporarily suspended. My lips are swollen and split, my eyes blackened, my nose raw from bleeding.

“Time to eat. Let's go, smart guy,” Joe finally says. Bloodied, bruised, exhausted, I start to rise.

Smack!
He slaps me hard in the face. “Did I tell you to stand?”

How else can I go to the food hall?

“On your hands and knees,” he orders.

With Joe following, I crawl into the food hall.

“Good dental hygiene protects more than your teeth,”
an RL blares.
“Recent studies suggest a link between oral inflammation due to bacteria and clogged arteries and blood clots …”

No one is listening. They're all staring at me. Now I understand why the rule against leaving marks was ignored. They want everyone to see what I look like. I am a warning in case anyone else is entertaining ideas of escape.

Joe makes me crawl all the way to the Dignity table, where Adam grins with delight at my return.

“Daily brushing and flossing ensure your teeth will last a lifetime—”

The RL stops abruptly. Some brief, loud static pierces the air, and then Mr. Z gets on the public-address system: “As you all know, we recently had a major breach of security here at Lake Harmony. Rules were broken, facilities were damaged, and in the process there were numerous attempts by residents to leave the grounds without permission. After considering the situation, I have come to the conclusion that stern measures must be taken to guarantee nothing like this ever happens again. I also believe that while certain of the guilty parties have been identified and severely punished, it will be impossible to know for sure who else may have participated. Therefore I have decided that the entire resident body must bear the responsibility. As of this moment, every resident will be immediately demoted one entire level.”

A collective groan rises from the food hall, but it is immediately silenced by shouts of “Shut up!” from the “mothers,” “fathers,” and chaperones. The crowd quiets, and the motivational tape resumes:
“An added benefit of good dental hygiene is clean, fresh-smelling breath …”

But the drone of the tape isn't punctuated by the usual dining sounds of spoons on plates. All around the food hall kids are staring with frowns, sneers, and other angry expressions—at me.

The first attack comes during study. I'm sitting in a carrel when Adam, Unibrow Robert, and David Zitface pass. A bolt of stabbing pain shoots up my left arm. I yank the thing out. It's the handle of a plastic spoon scraped down into a needle-sharp point, now red with blood.

The next attack comes when we line up for lunch. A sharp kick to the back of my leg makes my knee buckle, and I fall. By the time I get up, it's impossible to tell where the kick came from. It could have been any of half a dozen kids. Joe is standing a few feet away. Our eyes meet, and the slightest smile flits across his lips. He knows who did it.

At lunch, while the staff patrol the aisles between other tables, someone smacks my head from behind hard enough to knock me sideways. The blow leaves me dazed. None of the staff seem to have noticed.

The attacks continue throughout the day. Frequent and without warning. By dinnertime I'm on edge, paranoid, constantly looking over my shoulder, never
knowing where the next blow will come from. By Shut Down I'm totally exhausted. In the past four days I've probably gotten less than twelve hours' sleep total. I can hardly keep my eyes open as we march down the hall toward the dorm.

“Garrett, step out,” Joe barks.

Now what?
my sleep-deprived brain wonders.

“Come with me,” he orders, while the troll leads the rest of Dignity into the dorm. In a daze I follow Joe down the hall. He pushes through a door to the outside. The air is crisp and cold, the grass stiff under my bare feet. I brace myself for another beating.

“I hear you like spending the night outside, smart guy,” Joe says.

I'm too tired to search for the hidden meaning behind this statement.

“Don't move.” Joe bends down behind me. Something hard and cold clamps around my ankle, followed by a loud, metallic click. I look down and see that I've been chained to a stake.

“You must demonstrate your loyalty by policing fellow residents.”

I spend the night curled up on the cold ground, trembling and unable to sleep for more than a few moments at a time.

“Wake up,” someone says.

I open my eyes from a brief, shivering dream. Joe is standing over me wearing a dark-green down vest over a gray hoodie. White mist escapes his lips when he exhales. I'm shaking uncontrollably, and my teeth chatter with such force, I fear they'll chip. I've never been this cold in my life. Joe crouches down and unlocks the shackle from my ankle.

“Get up.”

Trembling, I slowly try to rise, but my legs are stiff, and it's difficult to find my balance.
Wham!
Before I've even straightened up, Joe smacks me on the side of the head and I tumble back to the ground.

“Get up,” he snarls.

Dizzy and dazed, I try again. But before I can get to my feet, he hits me.

“Get up.”

My head throbs and feels like it's going to explode. I try to rise, then lose my balance and fall.

“Get up!” Joe shouts.

But I can't. Not because I don't want to follow orders, but because I'm too dizzy.

“I said, get up!” Joe shouts.

I manage to get to my hands and knees. Joe kicks me in the stomach and I roll over, gasping for breath.

“Get up!”

What's the point?

“I said, get up!” Joe shouts.

I curl into a ball and remain on the cold ground, shivering and cowering, waiting for the next blow.

“Bet you wish you'd never gone back to save those transporters, huh, smart guy?” Joe taunts. “How stupid was that? You could be free right now. Instead you had to be a hero.”

On the ground, eyes squeezed tight, body tense, I wait for the next blow, only it doesn't come. Instead I hear something snap. Joe has gone over to a tree and broken off a long, thin branch.

“Know what the word ‘breakage' means, smart
guy?” Joe asks, scraping the twigs and dead leaves off the branch.
Whap!
He whips the stick against the bottoms of my bare feet. The sudden, searing pain makes me cry out and curl my toes. But balled up on the ground like that, there's no way I can protect my feet.

“In case they didn't teach you in your fancy private school, allow me to explain.”
Whap! Whap!
He whips the stick down again and again. “In business, manufacturers know that any time they ship a product, a few pieces are going to be damaged on the way. That's breakage.”

Whap!
“In every crate of eggs, one or two will break. Same with every truckload of bottled beer, and every train car filled with cattle. There's always going to be some breakage.”
Whap!

“By now you've probably figured out where I'm going with this. Here at Lake Harmony we expect some breakage too. Not every resident who comes here gets to go home. Despite our best efforts it just seems to happen every now and then.”

Whap!

Later they make me run barefoot, carrying a car tire in each arm. If I drop a tire, they hit me. If I trip and fall, they hit me. My feet go numb with pain. Finally, when I can't take another step and even the blows can't make me get up, they make me crawl to TI, where they cuff my hands behind my back. In my exhausted state I actually welcome the thought of being able to lie down, even if it's with my face on the floor.

Adam and the troll are waiting for me. Adam shouts, “Kneel!”

“Huh?” I'm so tired and dazed, I don't understand.

“You heard me.”

“But…”

“I said, kneel!” Adam yells. I drop to my knees. My eyes are so heavy with exhaustion that it's impossible to keep them open.

“Open your eyes!” Adam orders.

I try, but I can only get them partway open before the heaviness begins to force them back down again.

Smack!
Adam hits my face with an open hand.

“Good, Adam,” the troll says. “You're on your way back to Level Five.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The sting of Adam's slap becomes a hot, fading memory, gradually replaced by the overpowering drowsiness. My eyes start to droop again.

Smack!
“Wake up, you piece of crap!” Adam shouts. “No one said you could close your eyes.”

The troll leaves Adam with orders to not let me sleep. He slaps my face, stamps on my bare feet, pinches and pokes. But despite all that, I often drift off into a kneeling dream state the second the pain stops.

The door opens, and Mr. Sparks comes in carrying a paper plate with a sandwich. Adam removes the handcuffs, and I reach up, but the plate falls out of my hands. The bread separates and a few thin slices of mystery meat flop onto the floor. Adam starts to say something about that being my tough luck, but my eyes are already closing.