Page 50 of Freak Camp
Bentham tensed.He didn’t know what Hawthorne was reacting to—he’d heard the guy could get damn right sanctimonious if rubbed the wrong way—so he proceeded carefully.“There’s a kid at the freak facility.They call him ...”Baby Freak,yeah, not going there.“89UI ...something like that.I’ve heard that you’ve ...you know, shown an interest.”
Hawthorne snorted.“Oh,Tobias.”
That surprised Bentham.Most hunters, if they called the freaks anything, used the guards’ nicknames.“You know his name?”
“Jake talks about him.”Hawthorne scowled.“Don’t know what he sees in the freak, no matter how human it looks.If I had my way, I’d put a bullet, stake, or a fucking axe through every one and leave ’em for the turkey vultures.”
“So,” Bentham said slowly, “you don’t care about the kid?You don’t have ...a plan for him?”
“What the hell would I do with a monster?All these fucks who want to study them, want to get close to them, make my skin crawl.Right up there with perverts who get off on little kids.”Hawthorne threw back the latest shot.“I see a freak, I kill it.End of story.”
Bentham was relieved he hadn’t talked more about the freak.If Hawthorne hadn’t gutted him for implying he was fucking a monster ...well, the guy clearly didn’t share any of the private interests Bentham held in common with some of the camp guards.
But this opened up opportunities for guys like his friend Victor.And maybe for himself, if he played his cards right.
“So you don’t have any interest in that damn monster,” Bentham repeated, just to be safe.“It’s just your kid, Jake?”
Hawthorne nodded.“And he’d better fucking grow out of his stupid obsession before he gets himself killed.I keep telling him.”
Bentham ordered another shot and somberly clinked glasses with the hero.“Here’s hoping.”
***
Tobias had only beenin the library for half an hour that morning, researching accounts of international crop circle activity and their relative connection to recorded demon activity outside the North American continent, when Victor appeared in the doorway.
“This is a special day for you, Baby Freak.”He twirled in his hand an ugly, heavy lead line—the kind they used to drag big, defiant monsters around.
Tobias went very still before he tucked his paper into the book and closed it, so carefully it made no noise.He pushed the book to the center of the table with both hands, then stood up and kept his eyes on the floor as he walked over to the guard.
“Hands out.”
Tobias extended his wrists, keeping them limp as Victor slid the zip tie cuffs over them and yanked them tight.
But when Victor clipped the stiff lead line onto his collar, Tobias’s well-honed composure broke.The floor tilted underneath him, his vision swam until he closed his eyes, and an audible keen—that he knew was a mistake, he could have told any other monster that—rose through his throat.When Victor gave the line its first jerk, his legs almost gave way.
“Aw, what’s wrong?”He tugged again, and Tobias nearly stumbled against him, just catching himself in time.“Not used to being on a leash?You’ve been pretty privileged until now, haven’t you?Our little spoiled monster.Those days are over, freak.No more special treatment.”
Tobias could barely walk out of the room.The lead provided no slack, just a few links between the snap hook and stiff metal rod, enough for it to rotate in the guard’s grip.He couldn’t remember the last time he was put on a leash.It might have been when he first arrived, but that was so long ago, he barely remembered anything of those days.Even Becca’s face was dim.
Now, with Victor ruthlessly yanking him along, shoving him ahead an extra step or hauling him back, all of Tobias’s coordination was off.He stumbled repeatedly into doorways and walls, despite all the times he’d watched monsters on leashes and thought how they should just cooperate to make things easier.There wasn’t any way to make it easier.He’d never been so conscious of his collar—not since he’d been fitted for a new one a few years ago—but now it seemed to shrink around his neck.He would be strangled before they got to wherever Victor was taking him.
And where else could they be headed but Special Research?
Tobias had last seen Jake two weeks ago.Jake, who had given him a sandwich and then found him a bottle of good, cold water from inside Reception.Who had smiled at him so openly, gently, looking fully relaxed again, and hadn’t hesitated to brush Tobias’s hair out of his eyes and rest his hand on his shoulder.Jake hadn’t known that would be the last time.Would he be upset when he next came and they told him 89UI6703 had expired?How long would it be before Jake forgot about him, about that pathetic little freak he used to visit?
Tobias’s shoulder cracked hard into the next doorway, and he couldn’t hold back a wretched moan that wasn’t about the pain.
“Come on, freak, I ain’t got all day,” Victor snapped, hauling him forward.Tobias lost his footing, slamming to the floor.Though the leash jerked in Victor’s grip, Tobias’s weight still caught on his collar before he struck the floor with his forearms, and he choked, struggling to breathe, before Victor hauled him up again.
Tobias’s legs nearly gave out again when they reached the stairs at the end of the corridor, but Victor made him go first, holding him steady enough with the lead line that even when Tobias would have lost his balance, he couldn’t fall forward.
At the first-floor landing, instead of turning for the door to outside and across the yard to Special Research, Victor dragged him deeper into Administration.Tobias couldn’t make sense of it, but his feet kept stumbling along.
Then Victor stopped, jerking him to a halt, and swung open one of the steel doors—solid but for a small window set at the height of a man’s face—before pushing him inside, where Crusher and a hunter were waiting.
This was Tobias’s first time in an interrogation room.
“Took you long enough,” Crusher said.Tobias’s eyes had dropped to the floor, fixing on the hunter’s steel-tipped boots the moment he crossed the threshold, but he didn’t need to look up to know how Crusher was staring at him.
