Page 83 of Freak Camp
Tobias had learned early on that he was not the one sitting at that second place.Not that he really would have expected to eat with theDirector, but the first time he had made even tentative movements toward that second chair, Karl had knocked him to the ground and beaten him until there wasn’t an inch of his back that wasn’t black and blue the next day.
That first dinner had been almost as bad as a Wednesday session.But after he learned what was expected, for once the perfection the Director demanded was possible.As long as he knelt silently, responded instantly to the smallest indication of an order, kept the Director’s water glass full, he was generally safe.
It wouldn’t have been bad at all, except for the hunger.They had put the camp on half rations again, something about negative behavior.Two rock-hard pieces of bread and one bowl of watery soup for the last two days left him feeling hollowed out and faint, like his body was consuming everything inside him.
Worst of all, when the Director was done with his meal—for a painstakingly deliberate, precise man, he ate like a monster, scraps everywhere, bits of food scattered across the napkin he tucked fastidiously into the top of his shirt—he would dump everything left into the garbage bag Tobias brought him.Every time, Tobias tried not to flinch to see juicy, pristine pieces of meat, potato, and vegetables that he couldn’t name, but which scented the air with flavors he could just barely imagine, disappear into a black plastic bag.
Tonight the Director glanced at him in between bites.It made Tobias’s mouth dry with fear, but he didn’t move.
“Hungry?”the Director asked.
Tobias froze.There was no good answer to that.But that didn’t mean he could lie.The Director would know.“Yes, sir.”
The Director smiled, and another piece of meat fell off his fork and onto the table beside his plate.“The scraps from the children’s dinner,” he murmured.Then he deliberately brushed the meat off the table and onto the floor.“If you are hungry, eat.”
Cautiously, sensing the trick but unsure how to avoid it, Tobias reached forward.He shouldn’t be doing this, he knew it, but he couldnotlook at that scrap, hear the invitation, and ignore it.
When his fingers were over the meat, the Director kicked him in the head.
Tobias fell away, pretending to be hit harder than he was, even though the Director probably knew to the ounce of pressure how hard he had actually kicked.Tobias curled up to protect his head and kept watching the Director, waiting for the next blow, but the Director didn’t look angry.“Eat it properly,” he said, “for what you are.”
Tobias understood what he meant immediately.Some deep part inside him was terrified at how easy it was to understand.But that was not the part of him that kept him alive.It’s true, you are,he thought.Just do it.
He rolled back to his knees, leaned forward, and picked the meat off the floor with his teeth.When he glanced up, the Director was smiling.He deliberately pushed another piece of food off the table.
“Good boy,” he said.“Smart boy.”
That Wednesday, the Director had Crusher punish Tobias because he had not thanked him for the meal.
***
The Director’s sessionsgenerally lasted two hours, but even that wasn’t certain.One session only took enough time for Tobias to recite a Latin exorcism—he knew he had done it right because the demon chained in the Director’s interrogation room had writhed, flowed out of its host’s mouth, and vanished through the drain—while another session had gone past midnight, and Crusher had hosed him down in the interrogation room instead of Tobias trying to make it to the showers.
Every Wednesday, Tobias learned how he had failed to live up to the Director’s expectations, studied how they could work together to make Tobias a less useless monster, and which punishments would best achieve that goal.Sometimes lessons came before pain, sometimes after, sometimes during, and the lessons ranged from general knowledge of supernatural vulnerabilities to knife work.
Tobias absorbed the lessons quickly.His memory had always been good, and now it was a survival skill.He couldn’t hesitate, he couldn’t be distracted.He had to correctly interpret every single cue the Director gave him and perform the task swiftly and without error, or he would receive one of the Director’s punishments, which were unlike any interrogation he’d endured before.
If Tobias was lucky, the Director would give him the instructions, step by step, and let him ask questions.Other times, he would simply tell Tobias to repeat what he did three Wednesdays ago.Mistakes or hesitations were punished.The Director showed him a picture of a sigil once for exactly ten seconds, then told him to reproduce it in chalk on the floor.He watched Tobias fumble over the details, then had him repeat each piece until he got it right, this time as Crusher applied hot coals to the back of his calves.
The next week, Tobias drew it perfectly the first time.Then he was given another task.
After three months of Wednesdays, when Tobias walked in after hearing the Director’s curt “Enter,” he saw another man sitting at the table across from the Director.The man had a beer and the remains of a good meal in front of him—Tobias felt his stomach twist a little, but breakfast had been edible, and soon enough he wouldn’t want anything in his stomach anyway—while the Director drank his iced tea.
Tobias stepped to his usual position at the side of the door.He didn’t know if this was a test or if their session would be delayed, but it was best to behave as though it were a test.If it wasn’t yet, the Director could make it one at any time.
The Director might drink alcohol when he was home, but Tobias never saw him drink anything but tea or water.The Director believed that imbibing any kind of influence while working with monsters was tantamount to walking in naked, lying on your back, and baring your neck.If a guard failed a Breathalyzer test at the beginning of his shift, he was immediately terminated.
The guest at the table looked Tobias over and snorted.He was a large man, his suit pristine, and his watch and rings flashed gold.“So this is the monster?So well-trained you could snap and he’d do anything you wanted?”
The Director smiled.Tobias saw the expression in his peripheral vision, but he kept his eyes on the Director’s hands.As the Director had explained, he was often too busy to waste time speaking to filth like Tobias when a gesture could suffice.Tobias saw the two-fingered twitch, and he knelt gracefully.
Tobias had wondered distantly how the man had the balls to sneer at the Director.Even guards who called him a teetotalling prude were careful to say it behind his back (so far behind his back that they wouldn’t even say it in front of Tobias anymore, afraid he might spill something during an interrogation that would get them a private session of their own)—but now the man’s head snapped to Tobias, and then he looked back at the Director.
“Did you tell him to do that?”
“I did.With some work, 89UI6703 has become reliable in several ways.”
“Make him ...make him do something else.”
