Child’s Play 3

by Matthew J. Costello

  “I can read the report, Barclay. I can see what it says right here.” Cochrane leaned forward. “But I’m asking you.”

  Cochrane sounded angry. I’m not making any friends here, Andy thought. Not exactly getting off to a good start.

  How much time do you have? thought Andy.

  Do you want to hear about the crazy people who used the money for the foster kids to stretch their own household budget? The endless nights of Hamburger Helper while they stuffed coffee cans full with the money?

  Or how about the “dad” who believed in equal doses of the Bible and the belt.

  “I—I never felt comfortable with those people. They weren’t my family. They just pretended, and—” Andy turned and looked at Cochrane, attempting to make contact, to explain. “They were strangers.”

  But the expression on Cochrane’s face—dissatisfied, concerned—didn’t change.

  The colonel stood up. The interview, not having gone well, was coming to an end.

  Way to go, Andy thought. You’re off to a good start.

  “All right, Barclay. Listen up.” The colonel took a step to the giant windows that overlooked the parade grounds. “I’m willing to cut you some slack—you’re new, you’ve had it rough.”

  At the window, Cochrane turned. “But you’re a troublemaker. That’s clear from your file. And I’ve got a real problem with troublemakers. They don’t fit the Kent ideal.”

  Cochrane walked close to Andy. “They don’t fit the system.” He tapped Andy’s shoulder. “So, here’s my advice. And if you want to get along here, you’ll listen to it. Grow. Up. You’re not a kid anymore. It’s time for you to can those fantasies of killer dolls.”

  The colonel blocked the light, covering Andy with a shadow.

  Someone else yelling at me to forget, Andy thought.

  No—ordering me to forget.

  Which is exactly what I’d love to do. I wish it would all go away. I wish none of it had ever happened.

  Andy looked up, wanting to say: Just don’t tell me that it’s a fantasy.

  The colonel waited.

  Andy opened his mouth. “Yes, sir.”

  Cochrane patted his shoulder, satisfied that he had hammered home the day’s self-improvement message.

  “Barclay . . . ‘When I was a child, I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things . . .’ ”

  Another pat, and the colonel moved away. “That’s from First Corinthians. From the Good Book. You’ll find a copy in your dorm.”

  The colonel sat down again.

  “So look alive, Barclay. You’ve got things to do. And remember: At Kent, we take bed wetters and turn them into men.”

  Andy stood up. He saluted. Which is what he guessed he was supposed to do. And then he walked out of the administrator’s office, thinking: That’s great for bed wetters.

  But that’s not my problem.

  Tyler had his nose in his video game, even while this burly barber from hell ran a combination lawn mower-hedge trimmer over Tyler’s already short hair.

  Andy was next.

  I’m gonna look like a cue ball, Andy thought, sitting there watching.

  Tyler was oblivious of the butchery of his tight black curls.

  The barber was a burly, semibald man whose name was stenciled over his shirt lapel: Sgt. Botnick. Between runs with the electric shears. Botnick stared at a TV, watching Tiny Toons. Whistling. Laughing at the TV.

  I’m in hell, thought Andy.

  And Sergeant Botnick had a tattoo on his left arm that rippled as he cut Tyler’s hair. An eagle clutching a writhing snake.

  Botnick whipped the white sheet off Tyler.

  “Presto! You’re bald.”

  Tyler looked up from his Game Boy. His face registered complete shock. “Where’s my hair?”

  Botnick snapped the sheet. He looked over at Andy. “Next victim.”

  Tyler shook his head, rubbed it, feeling the dark peach fuzz. He looked at Andy. “It always feels so weird.”

  Andy got up. Botnick waited with the sheet.

  “Come on, Barclay. Get a move on.”

  Andy stepped through the mossy forest of hair on the floor. He sat down and Botnick swirled the sheet around him with practiced ease. Andy picked up a whiff of something stronger than the antiseptic that supposedly sterilized the combs and scissors.

  Old Sergeant Botnick was in need of a shower.

  “Now what would you like?” Botnick said, fingering Andy’s hair, pushing it off his forehead. “A page boy, a little bob, a Beatle cut?”

  Botnick laughed loudly at his last joke.

  Andy waited for the clicking of the shears. He could watch the mutilation in the mirror. The eagle squeezed the snake.

  “Kiss it good-bye, plebe,” Botnick said. And the barber picked up a long, silvery scissors, clicking at the air. It reminded Andy of Edward Scissorhands.

  Except Edward Scissorhands wasn’t an asshole.

  Botnick snipped at the hair, randomly snipping off a clump here, a clump there. He started whistling. On TV, a junior Bugs Bunny did something funny. He hit someone with a frying pan and Botnick laughed.

  Pointing his scissors right at Andy.

  “Hey,” Andy said. “Watch it.”

  Botnick made the shears click, still laughing. Botnick went back to his pruning. “You know, Barclay, the Romans invented the military cut. Yep, that’s a fact.”

  A song echoed from the TV speaker.

  “We’re tiny, we’re looney . . .”

  “Yes, the Romans kept their hair real short so their enemies couldn’t grab it in battle and—”

  Snips close to Andy’s ear. He felt the twin blades moving.

  “Cut their throats. Makes sense doesn’t it?”

  Then—completely unexpected—Botnick grabbed Andy’s still long hair and tilted his head back. He placed the blunt edge of the cold scissors against Andy’s throat. He rubbed the dull edge back and forth.

  “See.”

  He’s crazy, thought Andy. The idiot’s cut too many heads of hair.

  Botnick let him go. “Lean forward.”

  Andy tilted his head forward. Botnick clipped at the nape of Andy’s neck. Andy could watch the brown tufts gently falling to the tiled floor.

  Great piles of it. There won’t be anything left.

  “Okay, get your head back up.” Botnick directed.

  Andy looked up at his reflection.

  It was someone he didn’t recognize.

  A Hare Krisna guy. A baby marine off to Iwo Jima.

  No, he thought, calming himself. That’s me. There were still tufts of longish hair to one side.

  Then it would be all over.

  “Oh, shit,” Andy said.

  Botnick laughed. He started in on the last longest strands. “Hey, what’s the matter? Don’t you like the cut I’m giving you?” A bigger laugh. “I’m offended. Or maybe . . .”

  Andy turned away. He couldn’t watch it anymore.

  “Maybe you liked looking like a girl?”

  Andy watched the TV. The cartoon show was ending.

  A commercial came on. Music, familiar music. Then—

  He gripped the edge of the barber’s chair. It was two cartoon Good Guys singing. Impossible, Andy thought. They don’t make Good Guys anymore. That’s all over, all . . .

  The Good Guys sang. “We’re back! We’re still the best friends, till the end . . .”

  “Hey, kid,” Botnick said. “Look this way.”

  Andy didn’t take his eyes off the screen.

  The animated stiff changed to a kid playing with a Good Guy doll. Making it stand up, hugging it.

  The song went on. “We can say three different sentences.”

  Ade due, Damballa . . .

  Andy shook his head.

  “Barclay, stay still, goddamn it. Stay . . .”

  The boy in the commercial turned the Good Guy so that he looked out at all the kids in TV land.

  “Wanna play?”r />
  Tyler said something.

  “Cooool,” Tyler squealed.

  Botnick forced Andy’s head forward. The shears snipped fast, hunting, searching for any strands.

  The jingle picked up a faster tempo.

  Then more singing. The voices were squealy Good Guy voices. “We’re back, we’re back! And we wanna play, we wanna stay . . .”

  There was a close-up of the Good Guy doll, looking out, looking at Andy.

  Andy shook his head.

  “Damn, I nearly cut you, kid!”

  Tiny Toons came on again.

  Tyler was beside Andy. On his feet.

  “Cool. Those Good Guys are excellent. I definitely want one for Christmas. I’m going to write my dad, tell him . . .”

  Andy was close enough to reach out and touch Tyler. “No. No you don’t.”

  Botnick turned on the electric clippers, ready to finish his job.

  Andy didn’t care.

  7

  “You know your way around here, eh, Tyler?” Andy said, shifting his bulky duffel bag higher up on his shoulder. He looked down at the nearly bald kid, carrying Andy’s uniform—crisp and neat—in his outstretched arms.

  The little kid’s looking for a family, Andy thought, instead, he gets a military school.

  Tyler looked up at him and smiled. “I know all the secret places in Kent, Barclay. Stick with me.”

  Then Tyler started laughing.

  “What?” Andy said. “What’s so funny?”

  They passed other cadets in uniform. Andy felt them looking at him. Checking me out, Andy thought.

  And he had to wonder: What kind of welcoming ritual does the teenage gestapo serve up here? Is there any special initiation ceremony for new plebes? Drinking chicken’s blood? Cold showers?

  He felt the cadets staring, their eyes burning into him.

  New meat.

  Tyler was still laughing, giggling.

  “What are you laughing at?” Andy said.

  “Nice haircut, dude!” More giggles.

  Andy grinned back at Tyler. “Go stuff it, skinhead.” He reached out and rubbed Tyler’s nearly bald head.

  They came to an intersection of corridors, a crossroads in this mini Pentagon.

  Tyler handed Andy his uniform. “Well, Barclay, this is it. Your room is right down there.” Andy glanced down a long corridor. More cadets were standing around, talking outside their rooms. A damn gauntlet, Andy thought.

  He nodded.

  “And I’m in 205. If you need anything, that’s where I’ll be.”

  “Thanks.” Andy turned, and started toward his room. He looked back over his shoulder. “See you around, Tyler.”

  Andy walked down the long corridor.

  Andy heard the sound his steps made on the floor. He heard the buzzing of voices, the swell of laughter and indistinguishable comments. And—always—he felt everyone looking at him, studying him.

  He had a thought. Perhaps I should have tried to get along with that last family. The Pastuks. Mr. and Mrs. Pastuk, with four of their own children and three foster children.

  They had a teenage son. His name was John. But John, who wore Queensryche T-shirts and studded wrist bands, didn’t call himself John.

  He called himself Slash.

  Nice name, thought Andy. Kind of has a ring to it. Slash. And John Pastuk, aka Slash, lived up to his billing. He had knives, so many knives. A knife for every job. Slash was well-equipped for just about any knife emergency.

  And not a day passed without Slash sticking one in Andy’s face and saying, laughing, that Andy had better watch his ass.

  The Pastuks didn’t seem to note anything particularly demented in old John-boy’s behavior. Oh, he did have an incident or two at school. Some intimidation of John’s math teacher, followed by a four-week suspension.

  But Slash came back properly chagrined. He promised he wouldn’t bring his knives to school.

  At least, no one would see him bring his knives to school.

  Andy remembered thinking: It’s only a matter of time before something bad happens to me here.

  So he left. He ran away.

  Just to force the Illinois Children’s Welfare Bureau to do something.

  And Kent Military School is what they did.

  Andy kept walking, thinking: out of the frying pan . . .

  Into the damned fire.

  He heard a sound.

  Lost in his thoughts. He didn’t see the other cadets, quieting down, pressing against the wall.

  The sound of shoes, heels clicking against tiles. Andy, looking down, was thinking and not paying any attention to the sound. Until he bumped into someone.

  “Excuse me,” he said even as he looked up. “I’m . . .”

  He thought he had bumped into a cadet. But this was an officer, his chest dripping with tiny colored ribbons. He glowered at Andy, his face rigid, his skin taut.

  He doesn’t like what he sees, thought Andy.

  “I’m sorry . . . sir. I—”

  The other cadets, the veterans, the ones in the know, were plastered against the wall.

  Andy backed up a step. He read the name just above the colorful field of medals. Rawlings.

  A name that I’d better remember.

  Andy started to say something. But he looked at the other cadets, their butts pasted to the wall, looking straight ahead. And—boing!—it finally dawned on Andy what he should do.

  He moved to a narrow blank spot on the wall.

  Only then did Rawlings move, the staccato clicking of his heels starting up again, slowly bringing calm and reassurance to the cadets.

  Andy watched the other cadets move away from him.

  As if I have the black death, he thought.

  Not even here one day and already I’m making my mark.

  His room was just ahead. He took a breath and walked into the empty room, glad to have the stares of the cadets behind him.

  The room was a fitting end point for the day so far. Stone walls, painted a pale puke green. Two bunks that looked as if they were designed for discomfort. Two modular closets, two small desks. A trunk at the foot of each bunk.

  Where’s the TV? My phone?

  One bunk had books and papers scattered on it, so Andy tossed his duffel bag onto the other bunk.

  He walked to the window. It overlooked the quad, an open area surrounded by the dorm buildings. He saw a few cadets standing outside.

  He turned back to the room. The bunk with books on it looked messy. Not up to snuff, not if old Brigadier General Rawlings pays a visit. Andy grew curious about his roommate.

  He unzipped his duffel bag. Not much there. Some jeans, a copy of Cold Fire, the new Dean Koontz book, socks, shirts, underwear.

  Not much.

  He heard a thump.

  “What?” he said, turning around.

  Another thump.

  Andy stood up. The sound came from inside the room, it came from . . .

  THUMP!

  The closet.

  And then it was there. Something he kept a close watch on. Something inside him that he watched real carefully.

  It was one thing to be scared by scowling cadets and pretend officers who looked like they wanted to chew you right up.

  It was another to be scared.

  Of other things.

  Of small spaces, where small things could hide.

  Under beds, in basements . . . in the backseats of cars.

  It never goes away, he thought. No matter how much time passes.

  Thump!

  Something was moving in the closet. He walked to it slowly, thinking, what could it be? A prank? Of course, something got stuck in there. A dog. A cat. A skunk.

  Thump . . . Thump!

  Louder. No, it’s too big for that, way too big. It’s something big.

  “Jeez,” Andy said. He reached out and grabbed the handle of the closet.

  He heard voices outside; the cadets. Waiting for me to do this, waiting for the prank
. . . ready to run in.

  Spray me with shaving cream. Give me a pink belly.

  Get me out of here.

  Andy took a breath. Then he pulled down on the handle.

  And a fat kid tumbled out. He fell to the floor. There was a horrible smack that made Andy wince. Fat or not, the kid made a bad landing, his head crashing against the tiled floor. Andy stood there a second.

  The kid was bound tight, his hands tied behind his back, his legs tied together. His mouth was covered with metallic duct tape.

  His eyes looked horrible. All wide with terror, anger. Bug-eyed.

  This is my roommate, Andy thought. He quickly crouched next to the pear-shaped kid and slowly peeled off the tape.

  “Oouch,” the kid said as a small opening appeared. “Ow—take it easy.”

  Andy pulled at the tape even more slowly.

  “Are you okay?”

  The kid looked at him. His hair was pasted to his head by sweat. With the tape off, Andy moved to untie the knot holding the kid’s hands together, it was tight, and it wasn’t going to come undone easily.

  “Oh, I’m just great. Don’t I look great? Tied up and gagged? Never had a better day.”

  The kid licked his lips as if the adhesive were still there, still sticky.

  “Those bastards, those damn bastards.”

  The knot started giving way, and then Andy’s roommate’s hands were finally free.

  He undid the rope around his ankles himself.

  Andy sat back, while the kid kept repeating, “Bastards. I hate their guts, the goddamned . . .”

  “What happened?” Andy asked during a momentary break.

  The kid—probably the same age as Andy even though he looked younger, with his puffy cheeks and a belly that stretched against his uniform shirt—looked at Andy as if he had just arrived from Mars.

  “God, what does it look like happened? Shelton, that’s what happened. Shelton and his goons, his lackeys.”

  The kid stood up.

  There were snickers outside.

  Andy nodded. The kid’s embarrassed, he thought. Nice way to meet your new roommate.

  The kid started to cool down. “But hey—thanks for helping me. I could have been in there for hours if you didn’t come along.”

  “Don’t mention it.” Andy stuck out his hand. “I’m Andy.”

  Now the kid laughed, a bitter sound. Andy’s hand stuck out in the air, waiting to make a connection. Did I do something wrong? Andy thought.