“Were you telling the truth earlier?” she asks. “You want to live so you can kill Commander Vosch? You’re smarter than that.” In the tone of a mother scolding a very young child.
“You’re right,” I answer. “I’ll never get that chance. But I’m going to have the opportunity to kill you.”
She looks startled. “Kill me? Why would you want to kill me?” When I don’t answer, she says, “I don’t think you’re going to live through the night.”
I nod. “And you’re not going to live out the month.”
She laughs. The sound of her laughter causes bile to rise into my throat. Burning. Burning.
“What are you going to do?” she says softly. She yanks the towel from my forehead. “Smother me with this?”
“No. I’m going to overcome the guard by smashing his head in with a heavy object, and then I’m going to take his gun and shoot you in the face.”
She laughs through the whole thing. “Well, good luck with that.”
“It won’t be luck.”
66
CLAIRE TURNS OUT to be wrong about me being dead by morning.
Nearly a month later, by my reckoning of three meals per day, and I’m still here.
I don’t remember much. At some point they disconnected me from the IV and the monitor, and the silence that slammed down after the constant beeping was loud enough to crack mountains. The only person I saw during that time was Razor. He’s my full-time caretaker now. Feeds me, empties my bedpan, washes my face and hands, turns me so I don’t develop bedsores, plays chaseball in the hours when I’m not delirious, and talks nonstop. He talks about everything, which is another way of saying he talks about nothing. His dead family, his dead friends, his squad mates, the drudgery of winter camp, the fights borne of boredom and fatigue and fear (but mostly fear), the rumors that when spring comes the Teds are launching a major offensive, a last-ditch effort to purge the world of the human noise, of which Razor is very much an active part. He talks and talks and talks. He had a girlfriend, her name was Olivia and her skin was dark like a muddy river and she played clarinet in the school band and was going to be a doctor and hated Razor’s dad because he didn’t think Razor could be a doctor. He lets it slip that his given name is Alex like A-Rod and his drill sergeant named him Razor not because he was slender but because he cut himself shaving one morning. I have very sensitive skin. His sentences are without periods, without commas, without paragraphs, or, to be accurate, it’s all one long paragraph with no margins.
He shuts up just one time after nearly a month of the verbal diarrhea. He’s going on about how he won first place in the fifth-grade science fair with his project about how to turn a potato into a battery when he stops in midsentence. His silence is jarring, like the stillness after a building implodes.
“What is that?” he asks, staring intently into my face, and nobody stares more intently than Razor, not even Vosch.
“Nothing.” I turn my head away from him.
“Are you crying, Ringer?”
“My eyes are watering.”
“No.”
“Don’t tell me no, Razor. I don’t cry.”
“Bullshit.” A tap on the blanket.
Tap-tap on the railing. “Did it work?” I ask, turning back to him. What does it matter if he sees me cry? “The potato battery.”
“Sure it worked. It’s science. Never a doubt about it working. You plan it all out, follow the steps, and it can’t go wrong.” Squeezing my hand through the blanket: Don’t be scared. Everything’s set. I won’t let you down.
It’s too late to go back now anyway: His eyes wander to the food tray beside the bed. “You ate all the pudding tonight. You know how they make chocolate pudding without chocolate? You don’t want to know.”
“Let me guess. Ex-Lax.”
“What’s Ex-Lax?”
“Seriously? You don’t know?”
“Oh, so sorry I don’t know what Ex-Lax-who-gives-a-shit is.”
“It’s a chocolate-flavored laxative.”
He makes a face. “That’s sick.”
“That’s the point.”
He grins. “The point? Oh God, did you just make a joke?”
“How would I know? Just promise me nobody slipped Ex-Lax into my pudding.”
“Promise.” Tap.
I last for a few hours after he leaves, long after lights-out in every other part of the camp, deep into the belly of the winter night, before the pressure becomes unbearable, and then, when I can’t take it anymore, I start shouting for help, waving at the camera and then rolling over to press my chest against the cold metal railings, pounding my fist into the pillow in frustration and fury, until the door bursts open and Claire charges in, followed closely by a big bear of a recruit, whose hand immediately flies to cover his nose.
“What happened?” Claire says, though the smell should tell her all she needs to know.
“Oh, crap!” the recruit burbles behind his hand.
“Exactly,” I gasp.
“Great. Just great,” Claire says, throwing the blanket and sheet onto the floor and motioning for the recruit to help her. “Fine job, missy. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”