Phoenix Island (14 page)

Carl glanced at the others, gauging them. The other three would jump in, but it would boil down to Carl and Decker. If this was going to happen, Carl knew he had to show them all. This had to be decisive. Otherwise Decker would become a slow bleed in his life. This was it.

“We’re trying to motivate him,” one of the kids said.

Somebody laughed. Decker just kept staring, a terrible amusement playing across his face. It was a cold humor Carl had seen in other bullies. The toughest ones. The ones with real confidence. Counselors and
teachers told you bullies were insecure and cowardly, and, sure, some were. But guys like Decker, guys who got that look in their eyes, were neither insecure nor cowardly, and they weren’t just acting out for attention. Guys like Decker were confident and tough and mean to the core, and they hurt people because they liked causing pain. He’d been pushing Carl for weeks, trying to get something out of him, but Carl hadn’t fallen for it. Now this. Decker’s eyes shone with interest.

Meanwhile, Medicaid looked at Carl with pleading eyes. His mouth twisted into weird shapes, and his face was red and wet with tears. A natural target. Carl didn’t like the kid, had no reason to like him, but he couldn’t just let these guys ruin him like this.

Decker grinned. “What do you care, anyway? You don’t like him, either. I can see it in your eyes.”

Decker wasn’t stupid. He was just mean. “Look,” Carl said. “We’re all in this together. They’re trying to break us. We don’t need to work on each other.”

Decker straightened. “I’ve been wondering when you were going to step up.” He gestured toward Medicaid. “Come on over and have some fun. Medicaid’s gonna imitate a monkey.” He took a step in Carl’s direction.

Carl stepped back. Decker was a wrestler—Carl had seen him pin guys in the back bay—so Carl wanted to keep his back to the open space, wanted plenty of room to move. He didn’t want Decker to get ahold of him.

Decker smiled. “Easy there, Hollywood. Little jumpy, aren’t you?”

Kids laughed, gathering around. Davis and his buddies came into the room, hooting with their eyes sharp. Ross stood nearer, shaking his head.

Decker turned to his friends. “Ever see somebody so jumpy?”

One of Decker’s toadies, Stroud, started walking toward Carl.

Carl put out a hand. “Hold up, Stroud.”

“Here, let’s shake on it,” Decker said. He took a step closer and stretched out a thick arm, the hand looking boxy and strong.

“No thanks,” Carl said. If he shook Decker’s hand, he’d be on the floor in about half a second. He’d seen this routine with wrestlers before,
and it didn’t play to his strengths. “Just leave the kid alone. And leave me out of it.”

“Ooooo,” someone said.

“
And leave me out of it
,” Stroud mocked, making his voice go all high.

Carl ignored him, keeping his eyes on Decker. “Look, you know I’m right. If we fight, the sergeants will flip. They wait for something like this, then crucify everybody.” Carl gave the rest of the barracks a quick glance. Then, to Decker, he said, “You and me, we’ll get it bad. They’ll turn us into examples. But everybody else will get it, too. Parker will smoke us all, take away our privileges, keep us in Red Phase. You know I’m right. If you want to do this, let’s do it later, just the two of us, someplace where everybody else won’t get in trouble. I don’t—”

“You talk too much,” Decker said. “I think you’re all talk.” He nodded, and a hand grabbed Carl’s arm, and Carl reacted instinctively. He dipped low, stepping back, and snapped his arm free.

Stroud lunged.

Carl sidestepped and flicked out a jab, caught the kid on the point of the chin, and spun his head around. Then, instead of drilling Stroud with a right hand, he stiff-armed him in the chest and tossed him into Decker, who was coming for him at last.

Low to the ground and moving fast, Decker blasted through Stroud like a nose guard gunning for a quarterback. He flashed his eyes up to Carl and clapped his hands high, a kind of feint, and shot low, reaching for his legs, meaning to take him to the floor.

Carl jumped.

Decker whooshed underneath him.

Carl turned, and the side of his head exploded. Instinctively he got his hands up, drove his shoulder in, and buried a right hook into the gut of his attacker. Stroud oofed and folded.

Another fight had broken out a few feet away. Ross was down on the ground, wrestling with one of them; another bully hovered, looking to kick him.

Carl started for them, but then someone had him by the legs. A high-pitched voice squealed, “I got him! I got Hollywood for you!”

It was Medicaid.
Medicaid
of all people. . . .

Ross yelled, “Look out!” and Carl was lifted off his feet.

It was a hard tackle. He jarred to the floor, most of the wind leaving him, and before he could roll away, Decker wrapped one arm around Carl’s legs, controlling them, and then proceeded to climb up him, clamping his strong arms around Carl as he went, like a boa constrictor wrapping its prey.

The crowd howled with delight.

Decker said something Carl couldn’t make out. Carl propped onto one elbow, and Decker lurched into the air over him, his big fist drawn back. Carl didn’t even try to block the punch, and he didn’t bother throwing one of his own.

Instead, as Decker’s fist came crashing down, Carl tightened his stomach muscles, yanked his upper body upward, and snapped his head forward as hard as he could.

The punch grazed his ear.

The top of his head slammed square into Decker’s face, nailing him like a ball-peen hammer right between the eyes.

The head butt stunned Decker and opened a cut on the bridge of his nose. Carl lurched the rest of the way up and twisted the bully to the floor, reversing the position. He longed to drill punches into Decker’s stupid face, but he didn’t want to cut or break his knuckles, so instead he grabbed him by the ears and slammed his head into the tile floor, hard, once, twice, three times. It was too late to stay out of trouble. All he could do now was to teach them, make them understand. It was all he had.

The crowd yelled on, cheering for blood.

“I told you to let it go,” Carl said, and he picked up Decker’s head again. This time, instead of slamming it back down, he held it by the ears and blasted it with another head butt. Decker’s eyes rolled back in his head. His nose was a fan of blood.

Rage consumed Carl. He got to his feet and lifted Decker off the floor. Decker reeled, barely conscious.

Carl shook him. “Still think I’m all talk, you stupid redneck?”

Decker raised a fist.

“Ha!” Carl shouted. “You’re going to punch me?” He turned his whole body with an uppercut that snapped Decker’s head back and launched him over the nearby cot. Decker fell on the other side, his feet up on the bed, and lay still.

The crowd stopped yelling.

Carl turned to face them, vaguely aware of Stroud running off, shouting.

Carl had to work fast, then, had to leave his mark, had to show everyone. It was too late for anything else. The remaining two toadies—Funk and Chilson—backed away, hands high. Carl saw Davis watching with keen interest, smiling. The rest of the crowd watched with wide eyes, backing away themselves.

Squaring himself with the toadies, Carl yelled at them, “Why do you always have to push?” He brought his left arm around with blistering speed and blasted through Funk’s pitiful guard. This time, Carl left his hand open, and his palm cracked loudly off the kid’s face. Funk cried out and stumbled. “How do you like it?” Carl threw three rapid-fire, hooking slaps with his left,
wap-wap-wap
, then slapped so hard with the right that Funk dropped.

Carl’s palms burned. He grinned at the pain.

Chilson ran. Ross threw himself low underneath him, and the bully tripped, sprawling onto the ground. Carl jumped over Ross, lifted Chilson by the back of his shirt and his pants and rammed his head into a footlocker with a loud crash. He drove a kick into his gut, and Chilson gave a high-pitched squeal.

Carl faced the rest of the platoon. “Any of you want to bully somebody,” he said, and he was breathing hard now, not from fatigue but from rage, “you bully me. Got it? If I catch you bullying anybody, I’m going to beat you worse than this.”

He searched out Davis and stared him in the eyes. “We have anything to settle, you and me?”

Davis shook his head and displayed a wry grin. “We’re cool, baby.”

Carl turned and pointed at Medicaid, who was crying again. “And you. You’re a pitiful piece of crap, that’s what you are. Grabbing hold of me when I was trying to help you? I ought to shove all your teeth down
your throat. But you’re not worth it. No heart. Just a punk, punking out for the bullies.”

Then a deep voice thundered, “What’s going on in my barracks!” Drill Sergeant Parker stepped into the bay, carrying something that looked like a woman’s curling iron. He glanced at the kids on the floor, then at Carl. Stroud was behind him, talking rapidly.

And then Parker pointed at Carl with the short rod. “Now you’re going to pay, Hollywood. Get ready to ride the lightning.” He flicked the rod he held, and an arc of blue electricity crackled at its end. “This is my bug zapper. Five hundred thousand volts. I carry it for hotshot punks like you, smart meat brig rats who think they can come in here and do things their way.”

Screw that,
Carl thought, looking at the cattle prod. “They started it, Drill Sergeant.”

“I didn’t ask you a question, Hollywood!” He walked toward him. “Parade rest!”

Carl obeyed the command, spreading his feet and folding his hands one on top of the other at the small of his back, but spoke out of turn, too, saying, “You ripped up my pictures, didn’t you?”

“Shut up, Hollywood,” Parker said. He advanced slowly. The stun gun sparked and crackled.

“Drill Sergeant,” Carl said, snapping into protocol, “Private Freeman requesting permission to speak, Drill Sergeant.”

“Permission denied,” Parker said—and Carl had never seen a more wolfish grin. This guy was the ultimate bully, a man who’d made a fulltime job out of hurting people. Carl knew teen boot camps filled their ranks with bottom-rung drill sergeants, guys who’d washed out of the army or the marines. Whether they’d washed out for being too cruel or just washed out, they were so pissed off about it, they wanted to spend ten or twenty years hurting kids. Whatever the case, Carl knew then and there that Parker was the rock star of these bottom-rung monsters, these professional bullies, and he was about to have himself a good time. And something else, too—Carl could see it in his eyes—Parker didn’t just want to hurt Carl; he wanted to kill him.

“Now we’ll see how tough you really are, Hollywood. If you can stay
at parade rest while you ride the lightning, I’ll zap you once, and we’ll call it a night.”

Carl’s muscles tensed.

“You cry out, though, or break parade rest? Well, then you ride the lightning all over again.”

“Drill Sergeant—” Carl began.

“Denied!” Parker said. He was right in front of Carl now, glaring into his eyes.

Carl forced himself not to eyeball the man, forced himself not to break parade rest. Picturing the torn photographs, he wanted to nail Parker with a hook hard enough that he’d hit the wall before that Smokey Bear hat of his even had time to drop. He didn’t, though. This was a crucial moment. If he messed up here, Parker would kill him—literally end his life.

Parker raised the cattle prod between their faces. It snickered, flashing blue.

Carl stared straight ahead.

“You afraid, Hollywood?”

“No, Drill Sergeant.”

“Bull. Why are you shaking, then?”

“I’m angry, Drill Sergeant. This whole situation is unfair, and I don’t deserve to be punished, Drill Sergeant. You destroyed my—”

“I don’t want your life story, Hollywood!” Parker shouted. “I just want everyone here to understand what happens to hotshots who don’t follow rules. Remember: you break parade rest or cry out, you get it again. And again. And again. Until you die or I get bored. And don’t go pissing in your pants, either. That’s what most of them do.”

“This is stupid!” a voice behind Parker called. “Freeman didn’t do anything wrong, Drill Sergeant. Decker started it.”

Ross. Carl saw his small friend standing there, his nose bloody, his hands spread, looking nothing like a soldier. The little guy had guts, but Carl wished he’d just shut up before he got himself hurt, too. A guy like Parker, all he wanted was pain, and once he’d flipped the switch, the only place to go was up. More pain and more pain and more pain.

“Drop and give me thirty, Ross!” Parker said.

“This is absurd. We’re not really in the army. And—”

“Make that fifty push-ups, Ross! You will
not
speak again unless spoken to.” Turning to Stroud, he said, “You, Tattletale, make sure he does all fifty, and if he cheats, kick him in the ribs.”

“Yes, Drill Sergeant!” Stroud said, and he turned toward Ross, who was getting into front leaning rest position.

Turning back to Carl, Parker said, “And away we go.”

Carl steeled himself.
Don’t cry out,
Carl thought.
Don’t break parade rest
.
And don’t hit him
.
Whatever you do, don’t hit him
.