Phoenix Island, page 13
Ignore the smell, he told himself. This is life or death.
He drained half of it at a gulp. It was warm and tasted awful, but it was water, and instantly, he wanted more. Slow down, he told himself. Be smart.
He sipped more water, but this time he didn’t swallow it straight away. He let it sit in his mouth. Like I’m sitting in the corner between rounds, he thought. Arthur would dig out Carl’s mouthpiece and give him only a short squirt of water in order to avoid stomach cramps. He swished it around, letting it soak into his tongue and wash away the blood, then tilted his head and gargled, soothing his throat, and finally swallowed. Only another mouthful or two remained in the bowl. He debated what to do with these. What if no one brought him more? Should he use the last bit to clean his wounds?
No. He needed the water now. If they didn’t bring more soon, he would die before infection had time to really set in.
He inspected the wide, ugly gash on his ribs and pulled from it dirt, pieces of straw, and bits of broken insects. The edges of the wound were swollen and very red, like the lips of a leering mouth smeared in lipstick . . . or blood. Carl thought again of infection, which would probably develop quickly in this climate and filth, and he wondered if his apparent fever was an early sign. He wondered, too, if bugs might’ve burrowed in and laid eggs in his flesh. He’d heard things like that, stories where bugs or ants planted eggs inside people, awful stories, the eggs hatching, the babies eating the person from the inside out.
Just thinking about it made his cuts itch and his whole body crawl with invisible insects, but he put a lid on that nonsense straightaway. No use worrying about it when there was nothing he could do. Not yet. He had to deal with what was real, not what he was afraid would happen. At a time like this, worry was as dangerous as hope. Another lesson he’d learned from boxing: if you wanted to win, you couldn’t let either fear or hope blind you. You had to see things for what they were and make the right choices and adjustments.
He had to do what he could to keep bugs and dirt out of his wounds. Tearing away the bottom of the shirt, he soon discovered his right hand was so damaged and so swollen that he had no grip, so he used his teeth and his left hand to rip the shirt. He did a clumsy job of it, tearing away more of the fabric than he had wanted. Tying it off was very difficult. It took him several tries, and in the end, he used his right arm to press the fabric up against his ribs and the left to do all the tying. The resulting bandage wasn’t nearly as tight as he had hoped, but it would have to do.
Repeating the process and covering the cut on his arm, he finally turned to eyeing the world outside his small prison.
Through the bars, he could see the barracks and the parking lot, the cattle trucks parked beside the flagpole, atop which fluttered the flag with its burning phoenix. Well, Carl thought, the unbelievable heat pressing down on him, at least they got the fire part right. He saw the fence, the gate, and, at a distance of perhaps two hundred yards, the guard towers, where a pair of soldiers stood close to each other with rifles slung over their shoulders.
He saw none of the trainees. Thinking of Ross, he felt a fierce rush of affection for his small friend. Ross had known the dangers—he’d read the journal, too—but he’d stood up for Carl anyway, first against Decker and then against Parker himself. The kid had heart. Real heart. He’d taken a beating for defending him, and who knew what he was going through now? Carl hoped he’d be okay. Octavia, too. He cursed himself for his stupidity toward her. Shutting her out over the newspaper article, never bothering to get the whole story straight from her, failing to warn her about the journal . . . he’d really messed up.
He could do nothing to help them right now. He had to keep fear and hope in check and focus on reality.
He knew he might die here. Maybe in the cage. Maybe on display, as an example, in front of Ross and Octavia and everyone else. Maybe they would release him into the jungle and hunt him like an animal.
He drank the rest of the water and dwelled on the possibility of his death for a moment. Somehow, it lacked the sting he would have expected. He did not want to die, but the thought of death neither saddened nor panicked him. It was merely fact, something to recognize, to know. It could happen.
Everything drew down tight. He thought of the journal tucked away in the book man’s closet, the stories of death and how they had started, one boy dragged out of the sweatbox and executed in front of the platoon.
By Parker, of course . . .
Well, there was nothing to do about that now. They’d had their fight, and now Carl was here, in the sweatbox, and he’d just have to wait and do what little he could to prolong his life. At least he had won. At least he had shown them.
Locked here in this sweatbox, he was completely at the mercy of the soldiers. He pictured Parker aiming a pistol at him through the bars of the sweatbox, pictured himself smiling at the muzzle in one final act of defiance. That would drive Parker crazy, denying him what he craved—the fear of others—even at the end. With this image, Carl laughed aloud, hurting his ribs, and this pain, highlighting the absurdity of laughing at a time like this, only made him laugh harder.
They can hit me from behind and beat me while I’m down and lock me in this cage, but they cannot determine who I am. They can deny me food and water, but they cannot change me. They can shoot me through the bars of this sweatbox or hang me from the flagpole or throw me to the sharks, but they cannot make me cry or beg. I will not allow them. I will determine my own self. I will not look to them for mercy. I will not show them weakness. I will stay strong. If they kill me, they will remember my strength; I will force them to live with the memory of my strength forever.
And if I live, I will escape from Phoenix Island, and I will tell the world. I will bring these people down.
HE AWOKE when a bug crawled into his ear. He roared at the feel of it, tried to pick it out with his damaged right hand, failed, and used his left to pull it free and crush it to paste between his fingers.
At some point, without even knowing it, he’d passed out and slid onto the floor, and now there were bugs on him again. Forcing himself to remain calm, he swatted, brushed, and plucked them away, then smiled grimly to find his homemade bandages had protected the cuts.
It was late in the day. The corrugated metal overhead clicked and pinged as the air outside cooled, yet it still felt like a microwave inside the sweatbox.
Where one leg had lain against the bars, the ankle was red as rare steak and bubbled with blisters. He pushed down his pant leg and forced this new complication from his mind.
The quad remained quiet. He wondered where everyone was. Probably off training. Or maybe in the mess hall. Or getting smoked because of him. He hoped Ross was okay. He hoped Octavia was okay. He hoped Campbell was well on his way back to Texas.
His mind drifted briefly into possibilities: Campbell reaching home, getting in touch with the right people, raising the alarm . . . helicopters landing, journalists and police and soldiers—good soldiers—filling the island, freeing the kids, freeing him . . .
But he shut down this line of thought. It could happen. Could. But could was dangerous right now. Could led down the dark path of hoping for things he didn’t have enough reason to hope for. He had to stick to the facts, had to remember his plan.
Which was . . . ? He wasn’t quite sure. Wait. Keep his wounds as clean as possible. Look to escape. And above all else, show no fear.
He was very thirsty.
His stomach growled, too, but with the great heat and his fever, the pain and the damage they’d done to his mouth and jaw and ribs, he had no desire for food. Only water.
As daylight died, a great whining rose from the jungle. Carl gripped the bars of his tiny cage and knew . . .
He was trapped in the sweatbox, and the mosquitoes and biting flies, rising with the coolness of dusk, would eat him alive.
A mosquito landed on his arm. He slapped it, wincing at the pain. He felt another on his neck. Another on his face. More on his lower back where he’d torn away part of the shirt. Heard a buzzing in his ear . . .
And then he was slapping as fast as he could with his left and using his demolished right hand to brush at his skin.
It was no good. Insects swarmed to his cage, covered his flesh, and attacked every bit of exposed skin, no matter how small, biting and stinging and sucking his blood. They packed his ears and his nostrils, whining and biting. They flew into his mouth, and he spit and screamed and breathed through clenched teeth. He swatted his arms, his neck, his face, crushing them by the hundreds, but no sooner had he cleared a patch of skin than they would descend upon him again, covering it, biting, sucking, taking. Finally, he rolled into a tight ball on the floor and covered his head with his arms, and they ate him alive for what seemed like an eternity.
He rolled in the straw trying to crush them and slammed up against the bars of his cell, making his ribs feel like they were breaking all over again. The pain in his head grew worse and worse so that after a while he just fell to the floor and brushed himself in a mindless repetitive motion. The mosquitoes became a living blanket, and Carl rolled onto his front and howled with rage and frustration in the filth and straw at the base of his cage. How long this went on he didn’t know—after a time, the unrelenting mosquitoes pitched him into a kind of madness—but then it was full dark, and all at once, the mosquitoes and flies disappeared. He returned to his mind, rolled over, and sat up. His skin burned with their bites, his head burned with fever, and his throat burned with thirst.
With the hard darkness of night, the jungle became a madhouse of sounds: cries and squawks, squeals and snorts, hoots and gibbers—something large bellowing deeper in the woods. And under it all, the constant, deafening chorus of insects pulsed with noise, and this peeping, bleating rhythm was to him the heartbeat of night in the jungle, wild with hunger and menace.
RAIN WOKE HIM.
It fell gently, pattering overhead, a soft sound like mice running across marble. He sat up, awake at once, ignored the several bugs he felt crawling over him, and instead patted the darkness until he found the bowl, which he pushed out between bars.
The rain was cold and good on his throat, and as he washed his cuts and bites and wiped away at least some of the grime covering him, he said a silent prayer of thanks.
He believed in God and feared him, and tried to believe in heaven, hoping one day to see his parents again. But, despite his faith, he could not bring himself to wholly believe what others said about God, and he certainly didn’t think he could know the mind of God. He often said prayers of gratitude, but long ago, he had stopped praying with any real conviction for favors or protection. Life had not prepared Carl to believe in the power of those sorts of prayers. Nonetheless, he offered a sincere prayer of thanks, and the rain continued to fall, and Carl drank his fill and cleaned himself and then poured handful after handful over his head to battle the fever.
After a time, the rain slackened, and in the soft rhythm of its fall, Carl slipped once more to sleep, like sand before the tides.
HE DREAMED OF THE PAST.
His father, before the tragedy. Walking together, dirty snow flecked in cinders flanking the sidewalk. The old neighborhood in winter. The cold, the wisp of their winter jackets, his father’s height. Happiness.
Older boys, gathered around a shape on the ground. Mean laughter.
His father’s voice, loud and strong. The boys scattering, gone.
The lump, a man—old Cobbie, the drunk—his father helping him up, walking him down the street to Rose’s Diner. Seating Cobbie at the counter, handing Rose money. Telling her, “Coffee and a sandwich.”
Back out on the street, Carl asking what had happened. His father crouching down, placing his big hands on Carl’s shoulders. His father’s eyes, staring into his. His father telling him, “This is what I do, Carl. And someday when you grow up, it will be up to you to protect them, all the people who can’t fend for themselves. A good man won’t give in to fear when there’s work to be done and someone needs him. Will you do it?”
His own voice: “Yes. I promise . . .”
CARL WOKE IN THE HEART of the night, still crouching. The dream had been lucid, like a window on the past. He brushed at his wounds and listened to the sounds beyond his cage. Dripping leaves. Jungle sounds, quieter now, birds calling back and forth, sounding somehow lost and mournful. A light breeze rustled the palm fronds and shed a patter of raindrops. The flag clasp dinged rhythmically against the metal pole, like a distant bell tolling a funeral.
He sat back against the cage bars and stretched out his stiff legs.
A deep voice said, “Carl Freeman.” It was not a question.
DEEP IN THE NIGHT, Octavia scratched the toothbrush across the bathroom tiles, pressing not the bristles but the plastic handle as hard as she could into the floor.
Periodically, her nerves got the best of her, and she stopped and rushed to the toilet. And each time she vomited, she hated herself for her weakness. She had to be strong.
Strong like Carl.
They said he’d fought Decker and three others all at the same time. Beaten them. Then beaten Parker.
She thought of his hands. The big knuckles, the scars. Thought of his square jaw and slightly crooked nose and the light scars around his hazel eyes. Remembered the way those eyes had pleaded with her the last time they’d talked.
And she’d turned on him.
Now she wished she could take it all back.
So what if he’d flipped when he’d seen the article? Of course he had—anybody would have, not knowing the story, just seeing the headline.
She remembered the night she’d set her house afire. Remembered the things her stepfather had done—again—and remembered how he’d looked, passed-out drunk, remembered the strength it had taken to spread the gasoline and strike the match. Counselors and psychiatrists and even the judge had urged her toward remorse, and she’d lied and told them she was sorry, but she was glad she had stopped him, glad she had killed him. After all, hadn’t he done his share of killing? He had driven her mother to suicide, and he had so completely killed the innocent girl Octavia had once been that it was difficult now even to believe she’d ever existed as a happy child; it was as if, in destroying her innocence, he’d killed some sweet sister she once had. He was a monster, just as Parker was a monster, and it was not with remorse that she remembered his screams in the fire but with pride.
She just prayed she’d have the strength to slay another monster tomorrow.
It was too late to do anything else. Too late to explain herself to Carl or apologize for flipping out. Too late to really get to know each other.
Back and forth she scraped the brush, back and forth.
They said Carl’s fight started because he wouldn’t let Decker bully Medicaid. Then Parker came in and tried to break Carl with a stun gun, but Carl wouldn’t give in. He didn’t let Parker have it until Parker hit Ross.
Oh, Carl . . . they’re going to kill you for being decent.
She couldn’t stop them all, but maybe she could stop Parker. Maybe then Carl would see who she was. Maybe he would see what she really thought of him. And maybe they both could spend their final moments in the comfort of knowing what could have been between them. In a place like this, where there could be no hope or mercy or justice, what more could one really want?
She paused at her work, not because of the cramping in her hand—she could grit her teeth through that—but to check her progress.
Good.
The end of the toothbrush handle now formed a crude point, still too blunt for her purposes but recognizably dangerous. She brushed away the fluffy shavings of scraped plastic, then got to work again.
Back and forth, back and forth.
By morning, she would finish, even if she needed to stay up all night. By morning, she would have a killing point and, God willing, the strength to use it.
FOR ONCE, CARL’S PAIN AND fatigue were a help, as he managed not to jump at the unexpected voice. He would show them no fear. He would give them nothing. He would die with honor.
“That’s me.”
A pair of eyes shone in the darkness. “And how are you, Mr. Freeman?”
Carl shrugged. It hurt. “You’re looking at it.”
“Indeed.”
Carl studied the darkness around the eyes. The shape of a man, crouching near the cage. Clothed in black. Face painted the color of night. A large man. Very large, Carl realized.
Not that that mattered. Locked in a cage, he was helpless. A six-year-old with a sharp stick and a mean streak could do him in. All Carl could do was wait and see . . . and show no fear.
The deep voice spoke again. “ ‘To tell the secrets of my prison-house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, thy knotted and combined locks to part and each particular hair to stand on end, like quills upon the fretful porpentine: but this eternal blazon must not be to ears of flesh and blood.’ Do you know Shakespeare?”
“Nope.”
“World War Two? The presidents? Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, ‘A soldier’s pack is not so heavy a burden as a prisoner’s chains.’ ”
“Well, good for him.”
“Perhaps you’re more attuned to the wisdom of another president and military man, John F. Kennedy. ‘Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.’ ”
Carl said nothing.
“They were both right, of course,” the man said.
Carl slapped a bug. “Look, let’s get down to it, huh? Are you here to kill me?”
