by Lyn Cote
Carly leaned closer to Lorelle. “I can’t help it if Crazy Woman picked me as her target.”
“Did she really spit in your food?”
Carly nodded.
“Gross.”
“Are you two talking about me?” Alex demanded, suddenly appearing in front of them with arms crossed.
“What we’re doing is none of your business,” Lorelle snapped.
Carly rose, her back against the wall. “What is your problem? Stay away from me.”
“You gonna make me, rich witch?” Alex raised her fist.
“Are you out of your mind?” Lorelle jumped up. “Starting a fight in the laundry? Get away from us.”
The others in the large room had stopped speaking and stared at the trio. Carly held her temper. She wasn’t going to let Crazy Woman provoke her. “I would like to know,” Carly said in the calmest voice she was able to manage, “what you have against me. You’ve been on my case since day one. What is it with you?”
Alex stared at her. “You’re the kind of witch who makes me sick. With your Calvin Klein jeans and T-shirt, your Nikes, and those diamond earrings. What are you doing here? You know you don’t belong here.”
Carly tried to take this in. “You’re mad at me about my clothes? Are you out of your mind?”
“You didn’t have to enlist in this frigging army like I did, just to get away.” Suddenly Alex’s eyes filled with tears. “You could have gone anywhere, done anything.”
Carly recognized on one level that Alex was acting out the total exhaustion they all felt; the recruits carried it around like a huge load on their backs and their emotions. But Alex hadn’t been exhausted when she’d chosen Carly as her target in the reception hall. “You are wacko.”
“You don’t belong here,” Alex said, wiping her tears away with her fingers. “Rich people have all the money, and they get all the breaks.”
Carly watched with horror as the young woman began sobbing right in front of her. Obviously boot camp had drained Crazy Woman, and she was coming undone. Carly didn’t want to be there watching it.
Across the room, one dryer stopped. Carly steered her cart around Alex and headed for it.
“Don’t you walk away from me!” Alex shouted.
“You don’t like me. We all get that,” Carly called over her shoulder. “But I have laundry to do, and I’m not fighting with you.” Carly met another soldier, a stranger, at the dryer who quickly unloaded her clothes and headed for a folding table like a woman running from a storm.
“I’ve had it with your too-good-for-the-rest-of-us attitude!” Alex yelled. She charged Carly from behind.
Carly turned in time to meet the attack.
Alex went berserk. That was the only way to describe it. She pulled Carly’s clean clothes out of the cart and threw them on the floor. She moved as if to stomp on them with her dusty combat boots. The final insult.
Carly went on autopilot. Without planning to, she assumed her fighting stance and launched herself at Alex.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lorelle’s voice penetrated the roaring in Carly’s ears. “Carly, listen to me. Stop it. Stop.”
“Is she gonna kill her?” an unfamiliar voice asked.
“No,” Lorelle snapped.
The word “kill” got through to Carly. She blinked, dissipating the red haze that surrounded her.
Then she realized that she was sitting astride Alex. She had Alex’s shirt collar twisted in her fist. Carly realized that she’d just banged the girl’s head on the floor. Shocked, Carly released her grip and slid backward till her seat hit the hard linoleum floor. Her breathing was a deep, frantic heaving.
Alex didn’t move. She lay still, faceup, as if stunned.
Lorelle was kneeling on the gray linoleum beside Carly. “Take it easy. Calm down. It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”
Carly felt sick. She rubbed her forehead. “What happened?”
Lorelle began stroking Carly’s back like a mother comforting a child. “You’d finally had enough of her. You started out with that martial arts stuff you do but once you got her down . . . you went a little berserk.”
“Is she hurt?” Carly nodded toward her opponent, feeling a fluttery, panicky regret. “Did I . . . hurt her?”
One of the soldiers that ringed the trio in the center of the room knelt down at Alex’s side. “She’s breathing. Man, we thought you were going to kill her.”
Carly hid her face in her hands. How had it come to this? A shiver shuddered through her. “I’ve never lost control like that before.”
Feet pounded up the steps and into the laundry room. “What’s going on here?” a sharp feminine voice demanded.
Carly twisted around and saw that a DI, though not her platoon’s, had arrived.
A private Carly didn’t know also entered the door but hung back. It was obvious that she had run for help. Carly didn’t blame her. If their places had been reversed, she would have done the same.
“What’s going on here?” the DI repeated.
“She was askin’ for it,” another private said.
The DI glared at the speaker.
“I heard you try to get away from her,” another private said, looking at Carly. “We all did.” Others murmured in agreement.
The DI swept the room with her gaze, taking in all the faces present. Then she stared at Carly and Alex. “Fighting on base is strictly forbidden. You’re both on report. Tomorrow morning after breakfast, report to the company officer.” The DI left without a backward glance.
Carly felt the tears that she’d held back for weeks well up inside. She could hold them back no longer. She began sobbing.
Lorelle helped her to her feet and led her back over to the avocado-green plastic chairs where they’d been sitting. She pulled Carly close and Carly buried her face in Lorelle’s shoulder. The sobs wracked her body in heaving, pounding waves. Through her tears, she glimpsed someone helping Alex to her feet. Alex looked dazed and wandered outside, leaving her laundry bag on the floor where she’d dropped it.
Another soldier picked up Carly’s damp laundry from the floor, shoved it into the dryer, and fed it a quarter. Still casting glances toward Carly and Lorelle, everyone moved back to what she had been doing before the fight. An unnatural quiet hung over them all. Only the sound of the washing machines agitating and the dryers spinning accompanied Carly’s waning sobs.
After her clothing dried, Carly went through the calming motions of folding her dry clothes into the neat little piles their DI had taught them. When she was done, she wordlessly hugged Lorelle and headed back to her barracks, her duffel on her shoulder.
She felt flattened—unable to get more upset over what had happened. Someone had told a sergeant about the fight, and she was on report. So what? She didn’t have enough strength to care. She couldn’t change what had happened, didn’t want to change what had happened. She defiantly told her conscience that Alex had deserved what she’d gotten.
Francie met her at the entrance of the barracks. “I heard there was trouble at the laundry.”
Carly closed, then opened her eyes, trying to clear her head, trying to shake the disorientation she was experiencing. Well, this made it a certainty. If it had already gotten to Francie, everyone must be broadcasting it loud and clear.
“I’m bushed. I have to lie down.” Carly walked past her.
Francie squeezed her shoulder but didn’t try to stop her.
As Carly lay down on her bunk, she wondered what the punishment for fighting on base would be. She laid her head on her pillow. Her last conscious thought was, I don’t care.
But after breakfast the next morning, Carly admitted to herself that she cared very much. After turning in her empty tray, she approached her drill sergeant. An ingot of solid lead was slowly sinking through Carly’s stomach. Was she supposed to tell her DI that she had to go to the company commander’s office? Or would the drill sergeant order her to go?
Her drill sergeant stared at
her. “Do you remember where the company commander’s office is?”
So she did know. Carly couldn’t speak through her dry mouth, so she nodded.
“After your appointment,” the DI said, “you will be brought out to join us at the firing range. Be sure to bring your weapon and be prepared for practice.”
Stiffening her spine, Carly refused to be intimidated. No matter what the outcome was, she had done nothing wrong. Her chin up, Carly turned on her heel and marched out of the dining hall. Operating on pure bravado, she headed for the company commander’s office, which lay in the center of their area of the base. She heard footsteps on the sidewalk behind her but did not turn her head. Alex must be behind me.
Unhappily, Carly thought she could predict what would happen at the upcoming meeting. She had heard of Article 15. It was what the army used first to discipline soldiers who failed to obey their drill sergeants—without advancing all the way up to the military justice system. The injustice of having to report to the company commander and perhaps be threatened with an Article 15 punishment galled her.
It’s not fair. I’ve tried everything I could to fit in and to succeed. What could I have done differently, when it was always Alex who started something?
Frustration burned inside her breast as she approached the company commander’s door. Up three steps, Carly opened the door and entered. Alex had caught up with her and went through the door right behind her. The company commander’s secretary greeted them and asked them to sit on the black upholstered chairs along the wall in the wonderful air-conditioning until the commander could see them.
Carly kept her eyes straight da>. She didn’t trust herself to look at Alex’s face—no doubt Alex’s sneering face. Certainly her self-elected tormentor must be gleeful now. What she had evidently wanted since the very first day was happening: Alex had finally gotten Carly into deep trouble.
The door to the inner office opened. A tall woman wearing the insignia of a captain stared at them. “Gallagher, Carlyle? Reseda, Alex?”
Belatedly Carly jumped to her feet and snapped off a salute to the officer. Beside her, Alex did the same.
“Inside, please.”
Carly entered the room, tightening her defenses, prepared to face and survive a humiliating interview. I will show no emotion. I will not disgrace myself. The two of them, she and Alex, stood at attention, facing the commander who had taken her seat behind an imposing, absolutely neat desk. The first sergeant of their company, a thin, middle-aged woman, also stood beside the commander’s desk.
“This is an unpleasant task,” began the commander, an attractive woman with red hair pulled back in a tight bun. “You two have been under close scrutiny since you arrived at the reception hall. Your drill instructor has discussed both of you with the first sergeant repeatedly and a certain disruptive pattern has become evident. Your drill instructor tried to force the two of you to make peace by making you battle buddies. This strategy has failed. Both of you have also been punished with extra physical training in an attempt to persuade you to cooperate. This, too, has failed.”
Carly was a bit confused. She had expected to be reprimanded over the fight the day before in the laundry. Learning that her drill instructor had been discussing her behavior in the past four weeks was distinctly disturbing. The awful thought that she might be facing more than an Article 15 breathed through her like a cold chill. Perhaps she faced military charges or being discharged from the service. The thought brought a cold sweat to her brow. She’d survived four grueling weeks of boot camp. Would it all be for nothing? The thought made her nauseated. No!
“Private Reseda,” the captain said in a stern voice, “for some unknown reason you have chosen to carry on your own private war against Private Gallagher. This must end.”
Carly felt her mouth drop open.
“But yesterday she jumped me in the laundry!” Alex accused.
“Quiet!” the first sergeant ordered.
“Private Reseda, among many incidents,” the commander said, looking down at a list in front of her, “you have spit into Private Gallagher’s food. You have tripped her on various occasions. And yesterday you threw her clean clothes to the laundry room floor—direct provocation. Do you think we did not see what was going on here?”
Carly closed her mouth. She tried not to look too happy. Gloating, Nate had taught her, was always unattractive. Besides, it was still too early for gloating. Time after time, she had been disciplined for situations Alex had created.
“Private Gallagher, it has been noted that you obviously have had track and serious martial arts training.”
“Yes, ma’am. Nearly seven years.”
“It would appear, Private Reseda,” the commander said, looking directly into Alex’s eyes, “that you chose the wrong individual to harass. Private Gallagher can outrun you, outfight you, and has displayed extraordinary fortitude in the face of your harassment.”
“The rich witch wins again,” Alex sneered. “I’m not surp—”
“Shut that smart mouth, soldier,” the first sergeant snapped.
The company commander tapped a stack of papers on her desk top. “Fighting is not permitted on base. And for violating that, Private Gallagher will be disciplined. But Private Reseda, you will be scheduled for counseling sessions over the next four weeks. Also you will be encouraged to visit the chaplain to discuss how you can change your self-destructive behavior. It is not our goal here to end military careers. Our goal is to train soldiers for successful military careers.”
“But—” Alex objected.
“Silence!” the officer commanded. “This meeting is finished. If there are any further incidents between the two of you, Private Reseda, you will be facing an Article 15. You two, return immediately to your barracks, get your weapons, and join your platoon. Dismissed.”
Both Carly and Alex saluted, turned, and exited the room. Carly didn’t want to speak to or look at her adversary. She began jogging toward their barracks. Alex began running too. Carly increased her speed. Alex followed suit. Carly poured on the gas. She left Alex far behind.
“You witch!” Alex called after her, “I hate you!”
Carly raced to the barracks, intent on reaching the firing range before Alex. Even though she still faced punishment for fighting, vindication was sweet, very sweet. But it left a sour aftertaste. Why did any of this have to happen in the first place?
A week after the incident at the laundry, Carly, along with her platoon, waited in a large gymnasium to go into the gas chamber. She couldn’t remember a time when the mood of the whole group had been this tense and somber. Even Alex, who always tried to appear unconcerned, looked petrified. And why not? They’d just endured a full-day training session on biological and chemical warfare. Carly hadn’t been aware of all the horrible means people had devised to kill other humans.
Each of them in the platoon had been given an NBC—a nuclear biological chemical defense suit. It was a two-piece suit that felt rubberized, with gloves, boots, and a gas mask that made her feel as if she had been trapped in a nightmare. Fortunately, they hadn’t been ordered to wear the full defense suits there in the heat of the day. Each of them carried merely the mask. That was bad enough. Carly tried to keep a distance between Alex and her. She didn’t want to think what Alex might try if they hit the gas chamber at the same time.
“Now,” the DI barked, “in small groups each of you will enter the gas chamber. The door will be shut behind you. Tear gas, CS, will be released in the chamber. On command, you will remove your gas mask—”
Carly’s mind stuttered at this. Remove my mask? They were going to gas . . . to gas them?
“You will remain in the chamber until the door opens and you are ordered to leave.”
Well, even though Carly had scrubbed her whole barracks bathroom with a toothbrush, her true punishment for fighting had come. And in a way, it was more dreadful than she could have predicted. Surely the gas chamber test was intended for more than i
nstruction; it had been designed to defeat her. Just donning the gas mask panicked her. She tried to think why this was true, tried to protect herself. Get a grip.
The first group, the one in front of Carly, was herded into the room that had windows so she and everybody else could see what was going to happen to them. Great. Panic reared its ugly spiked head. I’ll go crazy. Wouldn’t that look good on her record? What would they do if she just ran out of the room screaming? She clenched her fists at her sides, trying to stiffen her resolve to conquer this new test of her fortitude.
Carly stared with unbelieving eyes into the small chamber da> of them as another drill sergeant, also wearing a gas mask, leaned over and uncorked a canister. She saw the gas, like a white angry cloud, begin to fill the chamber. She heard the muffled command to take off masks. The brave souls inside obeyed. Within seconds, they were all coughing and gasping.
Carly’s throat tightened sympathetically. Open the door. Open the door. Her pulse raced in empathetic panic. Now she knew why the gas mask and chamber were shaking her so much. The scene was so similar to the amorphous, shadowy menace of her nightmares. The door opened and the first group staggered outside, coughing, gasping, sobbing, gagging.
“Next group,” the DI ordered from the doorway through her gas mask, “don masks.” Each group in turn went in and came out, and Carly kept working her way to the back of the platoon.
“Last group, don masks.”
Carly froze in place, but the remaining group around her moved her forward, crowding together as if for protection. She stumbled and caught herself. With numb fingers, she pulled on the mask, positioning it so that she could see what she was going to suffer. The group carried her along into the gas chamber.
Why is this so frightening? she asked herself. It was just a rubber mask and a few moments of tear gas—nothing more. But Carly felt as if she were smothering and gasping already. In her mind, she felt again the sensations that she had felt the day she had been kidnapped, pulled into the car by strange men. Someone bigger had roughly taped her mouth shut and her eyes shut. The gas chamber exercise stirred the same horrible helplessness she relived in each nightmare. A scream, a plea for help stuck in the middle of her throat. She was ten years old again—without her mom and without hope.