Page 6 of Freak Camp
Dad glanced at Victor, frowning.The guard scanned the yard, looking anywhere but at the Hawthornes.
“Fine,” Dad said.“It went fine.What were you doing, talking with that monster?”
Jake blanked.He had no idea what he had been doing with Tobias.But he had liked it, and it had made him feel better and more useful than anything since his last hunt.But there was no way he was tellingDadthat.“I’m researching too.Getting to know monsters so I can recognize them later, you know?”
Dad frowned, but Jake could tell that his mind wasn’t on their conversation.It was probably on whatever he had been doing in Special Research, whatever new clue he had gotten about Mom’s death.
Jake didn’t really know why Dad was still obsessed with Mom’s death.Sure, it still hurt Jake, still hurt like blessed salt in an open wound to think about how she wasn’t there anymore and would never come back, but she had been gone most of his life, and everyone in the country knew the monster that had done it was dead.
Everyone knew how Sally Dixon had died because it had been caught on TV during the Liberty Wolf Massacre.She’d been called the first casualty of the new War on the Supernatural, though that wasn’t really true.Some Secret Service guards had gotten mown down before her.
Jake knew there was a statue of her in Washington, D.C., but he and Dad had never visited.He wasn’t sure if he ever wanted to see it.
Dad had kept them safe from the asshole Dixons and all the other nosy people in this stupid country ever since.That was why they used fake names everywhere they went.
Except for today, when they’d finally come to Freak Camp.
So he understood hating the monsters, but he didn’t know what Dad was trying so hard to find out from the creatures inside Special Research.
But he didn’t need to know now.One day, Dad would know that Jake was ready, and then Dad would trust him with everything.They would hunt together, and no one would be able to stop the Hawthornes.No one would be able to sneak up on either of them.
Walking out of Freak Camp beside Dad, Jake acknowledged that that day was probably pretty far in the future.But he smiled as they reached the Eldorado and he climbed into the shotgun seat.At least now when he was bored, he could think about Freak Camp and Tobias.
***
Tobias could barelycontain himself until that evening, when he saw Becca leaving the Workhouse with a group of other monsters.He knew better than to run to her, but he walked quickly, weaving between the monsters until he reached her side.
“Becca!”
She glanced down at him, touching her fingertips to the back of his head.
“I met a real today,” Tobias whispered.“He told me to call him Jake!”
Like all the monsters in Freak Camp, Becca’s face didn’t change much, but Tobias could usually tell what she was thinking.He saw surprise followed by alarm, and his excitement shrank into almost nothing.Meeting Jake hadn’t felt like something dangerous, but Becca knew much more than him.
She stepped out of the line forming into the mess hall, and Tobias moved with her.There were rules for who went first, and Becca and Tobias were usually near the end.He was in the back because he was small and unidentified, and Becca was there because she was a witch.That was why she only had one hand.
Becca frowned at him.“Where did you meet him?”
“In the yard.Victor let him in the playpen, and then he talked to me.”
Becca’s frown deepened, but she glanced around them and straightened up.“We’ll talk later.”
After she went inside, Tobias counted to fifteen before following.He approached the slot in the wall, and a bowl slid across the steel counter.Tobias took it and found a seat on a bench with the other monster kids.None of them ever talked much, and Tobias was used to eating in silence, as quickly as possible, before someone else grabbed his food.
Tobias glanced in his bowl for just a moment before bringing it to his mouth.It didn’t taste like anything, which was all right, and there was nothing hard that needed chewing.
As they finished, each monster stood and pushed their empty bowl through a second slot to the monsters on cleaning duty.Then they left the mess hall, most heading to the barracks to rest before curfew, except those that had more work duties.Tobias followed the ones going toward the barracks.
The barracks were two long buildings with aluminum siding and roofs.Each had only one door, and the locks were on the outside.Only the guards were allowed to touch those locks.Inside were two rows of bunk beds, each bolted to a wall, and no other furniture.At the back were three toilets with barrier walls between them and swinging doors without locks.New monsters had to sleep in the bunks closest to the toilets.
Monster women and kids were all put in Barracks 1, though sometimes Barracks 2 ran out of space and some of the male monsters were sent over.Both barracks had a lot of cameras and intercoms installed, along with loud horns and strobe lights and even gas if the monsters were bad enough.That had only happened once in Toby’s experience.Becca had pushed him to the floor and against a wall, pulled his shirt over his mouth, and told him not to move or open his eyes.It had still tasted awful and made him cough and his eyes burn for weeks afterward every night.Sometimes he thought he could still smell the gas.
Most nights, though, the monsters were quiet.Only when a group of new monsters arrived did it tend to get noisy.
Becca had told Tobias that it was okay for him to come to her bunk after the lights shut off, because that was the last check the guards made to make sure they were all in their beds for the night.
Tobias counted to sixty, then slipped out of his bunk and made his way soundlessly to Becca’s, climbing in with her.She pulled her blanket up to let him in, then tucked him close between her and the wall, smoothing his hair back with her arm that ended in a stump.
