Page 51 of Freak Camp (A Monster By Any Other Name #1)

Chapter Twelve

S essions with the Director quickly became one of the most predictable and least secure parts of Tobias’s life.

Every Wednesday he walked into the Director’s office and looked down from the man’s cold, thoughtful gaze. Every Wednesday, they worked to make him an obedient monster. Mistakes were always punished, and Tobias always failed.

But that was where the predictability ended.

Sessions could take any shape, from punishments for his mistakes to recitations of hunting lore and how to incapacitate other monsters, to Tobias sitting—absolutely silent, absolutely still—in a corner of the office while the Director read reports or signed papers at his desk.

Not even the pain was consistent, though whippings and beatings were common.

Sometimes the Director punished him just because he was a monster and that was what he deserved.

Ultimately, the only thing that Tobias could rely on was that sessions would take place on Wednesdays and that he wouldn’t be able to rely on anything.

Behavior that had been complimented or ignored one day could have him strung up in the interrogation room on another.

Some Wednesdays nothing truly bad happened, and those left him just as shaken, just as terrified.

Only the Director was constant. He had taken a personal interest, and he took great pains to reinforce how grateful Tobias should be that a busy man, the Director of the ASC, a real human being, was interested in his education.

He was always there, explaining why Tobias had failed this week; listening, crop in hand, while Tobias fumbled his way through an unfamiliar Latin exorcism; filling out forms silently as Tobias kept his eyes toward the carpet while staying aware of the Director’s hands every second.

Tobias became utterly convinced that the Director knew everything. He knew what Tobias ate, who he had blown during the week, and how well he slept. He knew when Crusher made a face behind his back, and he knew if Tobias so much as breathed wrong in his presence.

Part of that, of course, was the cameras placed everywhere in the Director’s office, hidden behind reflective surfaces and in the dark wood paneling. But part of it was just who the Director was.

After two months of training, the Director began assigning Tobias to wait on him at dinner whenever he stayed over at the camp on a day that wasn’t Wednesday.

“You should be grateful that I am allowing you the opportunity to be instructed outside of the usual sessions,” he told Tobias. “Perhaps with these additional hours, you will learn more quickly how to stop being a useless freak.”

Tobias was grateful for the extra time with the Director. He was grateful for anything that would stop the pain.

During the second week of dinners with the Director, Tobias knelt at the side of the long conference table, face angled toward the Director’s feet while his eyes watched for any sign or direction. The Director sat at the head of the table eating messily, a second, empty place setting beside him.

Tobias had learned early on that he was not the one sitting at that second place.

Not that he really would have expected to eat with the Director , but the first time he had made even tentative movements toward that second chair, Karl had knocked him to the ground and beaten him until there wasn’t an inch of his back that wasn’t black and blue the next day.

That first dinner had been almost as bad as a Wednesday session.

But after he learned what was expected, for once the perfection the Director demanded was possible.

As long as he knelt silently, responded instantly to the smallest indication of an order, kept the Director’s water glass full, he was generally safe.

It wouldn’t have been bad at all, except for the hunger.

They had put the camp on half rations again, something about negative behavior.

Two rock-hard pieces of bread and one bowl of watery soup for the last two days left him feeling hollowed out and faint, like his body was consuming everything inside him.

Worst of all, when the Director was done with his meal—for a painstakingly deliberate, precise man, he ate like a monster, scraps everywhere, bits of food scattered across the napkin he tucked fastidiously into the top of his shirt—he would dump everything left into the garbage bag Tobias brought him.

Every time, Tobias tried not to flinch to see juicy, pristine pieces of meat, potato, and vegetables that he couldn’t name, but which scented the air with flavors he could just barely imagine, disappear into a black plastic bag.

Tonight the Director glanced at him in between bites. It made Tobias’s mouth dry with fear, but he didn’t move.

“Hungry?” the Director asked.

Tobias froze. There was no good answer to that. But that didn’t mean he could lie. The Director would know. “Yes, sir.”

The Director smiled, and another piece of meat fell off his fork and onto the table beside his plate. “The scraps from the children’s dinner,” he murmured. Then he deliberately brushed the meat off the table and onto the floor. “If you are hungry, eat.”

Cautiously, sensing the trick but unsure how to avoid it, Tobias reached forward. He shouldn’t be doing this, he knew it, but he could not look at that scrap, hear the invitation, and ignore it.

When his fingers were over the meat, the Director kicked him in the head.

Tobias fell away, pretending to be hit harder than he was, even though the Director probably knew to the ounce of pressure how hard he had actually kicked.

Tobias curled up to protect his head and kept watching the Director, waiting for the next blow, but the Director didn’t look angry.

“Eat it properly,” he said, “for what you are.”

Tobias understood what he meant immediately. Some deep part inside him was terrified at how easy it was to understand. But that was not the part of him that kept him alive. It’s true, you are, he thought. Just do it.

He rolled back to his knees, leaned forward, and picked the meat off the floor with his teeth. When he glanced up, the Director was smiling. He deliberately pushed another piece of food off the table.

“Good boy,” he said. “Smart boy.”

That Wednesday, the Director had Crusher punish Tobias because he had not thanked him for the meal.

***

T he Director’s sessions generally lasted two hours, but even that wasn’t certain.

One session only took enough time for Tobias to recite a Latin exorcism—he knew he had done it right because the demon chained in the Director’s interrogation room had writhed, flowed out of its host’s mouth, and vanished through the drain—while another session had gone past midnight, and Crusher had hosed him down in the interrogation room instead of Tobias trying to make it to the showers.

Every Wednesday, Tobias learned how he had failed to live up to the Director’s expectations, studied how they could work together to make Tobias a less useless monster, and which punishments would best achieve that goal.

Sometimes lessons came before pain, sometimes after, sometimes during, and the lessons ranged from general knowledge of supernatural vulnerabilities to knife work.

Tobias absorbed the lessons quickly. His memory had always been good, and now it was a survival skill.

He couldn’t hesitate, he couldn’t be distracted.

He had to correctly interpret every single cue the Director gave him and perform the task swiftly and without error, or he would receive one of the Director’s punishments, which were unlike any interrogation he’d endured before.

If Tobias was lucky, the Director would give him the instructions, step by step, and let him ask questions.

Other times, he would simply tell Tobias to repeat what he did three Wednesdays ago.

Mistakes or hesitations were punished. The Director showed him a picture of a sigil once for exactly ten seconds, then told him to reproduce it in chalk on the floor.

He watched Tobias fumble over the details, then had him repeat each piece until he got it right, this time as Crusher applied hot coals to the back of his calves.

The next week, Tobias drew it perfectly the first time. Then he was given another task.

After three months of Wednesdays, when Tobias walked in after hearing the Director’s curt “Enter,” he saw another man sitting at the table across from the Director.

The man had a beer and the remains of a good meal in front of him—Tobias felt his stomach twist a little, but breakfast had been edible, and soon enough he wouldn’t want anything in his stomach anyway—while the Director drank his iced tea.

Tobias stepped to his usual position at the side of the door. He didn’t know if this was a test or if their session would be delayed, but it was best to behave as though it were a test. If it wasn’t yet, the Director could make it one at any time.

The Director might drink alcohol when he was home, but Tobias never saw him drink anything but tea or water.

The Director believed that imbibing any kind of influence while working with monsters was tantamount to walking in naked, lying on your back, and baring your neck.

If a guard failed a Breathalyzer test at the beginning of his shift, he was immediately terminated.

The guest at the table looked Tobias over and snorted. He was a large man, his suit pristine, and his watch and rings flashed gold. “So this is the monster? So well-trained you could snap and he’d do anything you wanted?”

The Director smiled. Tobias saw the expression in his peripheral vision, but he kept his eyes on the Director’s hands.

As the Director had explained, he was often too busy to waste time speaking to filth like Tobias when a gesture could suffice.

Tobias saw the two-fingered twitch, and he knelt gracefully.