Page 39 of Freak Camp
The run around the junkyard brought out a light sweat that cooled beneath his shirt.It always took a while for Truth or Consequences to cool off after summer, but he could almost feel that autumn was in the air.
He ran the perimeter first, checking that all the trip lines and traps that Roger had shown him were still in place and unsprung, and then worked his way back and forth between the cars.Roger had some sweet old beasts, many gutted and nonfunctional.Jake noted a few cars he wanted to take for a spin, if Roger would lend him the parts to get them running again.Dad was teaching him his backup job as a mechanic just so they could have the same cover.
He made the run in twenty-six minutes—no urgent need to get anywhere, not like he had anything else to do—and Roger was still behind his desk, a new book under his nose.
Jake leaned against the study doorway and panted.He’d pushed the last mile or so, just so he could feel something.
“Glad you’re back,” Roger said, still without looking up.“I was just about to go looking for you.”
Jake checked the clock on the wall.“Six minutes over.”
“Can’t be too careful.”
“God!”Jake hit the wall behind him.“Is he gonna hold that against me forever?I did the best—”
Now Roger glanced up.“I know, kiddo.Don’t sweat it.Just for a while, Leon prefers—”
“He wants me babysat.I’m fourteen, Roger, and I’m useless.”Jake hit the wall again, hard.The wood left his knuckles aching, but nothing else changed.“Are you sure I can’t help?Can you” —he waved a hand at the books— “teach me the frickin’ Japanese or something?”
Roger raised his eyebrows.“In an afternoon?No.”
“Dammit.”Jake returned to the living room, back to his weapons and the duffel that held everything Dad had left him.
“You know what, Jake?I think I’ve gotten about as far as I can get with this.”Roger stood, closing the book.“I’ve gotta talk to someone at Freak Camp.”
In two steps Jake was back in Roger’s office.“Freak Camp?Can I come?”When Roger gave him a suspicious look, he held his hands out.“Hey!Please, don’t leave me here, there’snothingto do.Please, Rog.You don’t want to just leave me here alone, do you?”
Roger sighed.“What the hell.Yeah, I don’t want to come back to find the place reduced to rubble.Grab your gear, we’re gonna be gone a few nights.”
Jake laughed, smacking the doorframe with his open palm in victory this time.“You know, I’ve never turned even a corner of this place to rubble before, but I got a suspicion I just might this time if I’m left alone.Maybe I’ll invite all the kids in T or C over for a kegger and orgy.I dunno if I can help myself.Since I am an irresponsible teenager, after all.”
“And you tell me you don’t need a babysitter.”Passing Jake on his way out of the office, Roger aimed a smack at the back of Jake’s head, which Jake easily deflected.
The drive was long.Longer because Roger insisted on stopping for naps on the way.Jake had offered to spell him driving (“Come on, it’sfour in the morning.I’ll drive the speed limit and the cops won’t give a crap”) but had been turned down.But it was all worth it when Roger’s Camaro pulled into the familiar gravel parking lot.
Jake tried to look chill.He had seen hunters all worked up when they went into Freak Camp, but Dad never was, and in all things Jake took his clues for how to behave from Dad, as a hunter and a Hawthorne.Dad had never looked anything but stoic walking through the camp’s gates.When Roger hauled from the trunk his bag full of ancient Japanese books, he also looked grim, like he wanted the staff checking them in to understand that he didn’t really want to be there.
It was hard to look sober and professional, but Jake did his best to put his stony game face on.He knew that the guards would notice any excitement—he had been here often enough to know that no matter how sloppy the guards seemed, they really did notice everything—but he hoped that Roger wouldn’t mind Jake’s eagerness.He wasn’t sure why Dad and Roger didn’t like Freak Camp when so many other hunters seemed to get a kick out of it, but Jake knew that he should at least try to imitate their attitude.He didn’t want to be seen as just another hunter after monsters for the bounties.He was a Hawthorne.He had a mission.They weren’t in it for the money—it was about saving lives so no one would lose someone the way he and Dad had lost Mom.
The guards’ attention was one reason he always took Toby to whatever hidden corner he could find, as much out of sight as possible—though the guards tended to walk around so they could check on them.They were probably just as sure as his dad was that Jake couldn’t handle himself alone.He always brought Toby out of the guards’ earshot at least, and Toby seemed no more eager to have their conversations snooped on than Jake.It wasn’t like they were planning to lead a monster uprising or to firebomb the camp or anything.
Jake brought in his own pack, much like Roger’s, but his didn’t have anything really useful for hunting—just a sandwich and a jumbo bag of M&Ms that he’d grabbed at the last gas station.
When they were alone in the camp, Jake always made sure that he was between Tobias and the guards, made sure that he was blocking any possible view the adults might have of Toby’s face, because those smiles ...those smiles were Jake’s, and he didn’t want anyone else to know about them.That was probably crazy and obsessive of him, but obsession was okay.He’d heard his dad called anobsessed bastardmore than once, and anything that Dad was was good enough for Jake.
The prefabricated metal buildings looked the same, maybe bearing a few more dents, another layer of grime.Jake knew that the monsters had to clean the buildings every month, but the heat and dust still built up.Every time he visited, Toby seemed to have another layer of dust too, a layer of dullness that burned away the more minutes he spent with Jake.
Jake loved that too.It warmed his insides like the shot of whiskey that Dad offered him on Christmas, but so much better because he’d never forgotten a second of the buzz he got from being with Toby.
He was so distracted with anticipation that he forgot to hide how impatient he was, until he saw Roger watching him.
Jake was suddenly self-conscious.Any second now, he would see Toby.A guard would spot him and bring Tobias out from wherever he was, or a monster would notice him and go tell Tobias, or Tobias would just be there.But usually by this point, Dad’s long stride had eaten up the distance to Special Research, while Jake stayed in the yard becausehisgoal, his monster, was right here.But Roger was still here, watching him, and Jake felt his momentum stuttering to a halt.
He didn’t know what he saw in Roger’s eyes, but he knew what he would have seen in Dad’s.They’d had the argument often enough that Jake didn’t push back when Dad brought it up.He just nodded and let it go and stopped talking about Tobias for a while—as long as he could help himself, before he forgot again.Then Dad would say something about how Jake had to stop thinking so much about a monster, that monsters were always dangerous no matter how innocent they seemed.
Jake was grateful that Dad couldn’t sustain an argument by himself.With someone else to fight, he could lock horns forever, and usually it ended with them getting kicked out of wherever they were, or losing another friend, another contact.More than once Jake had thought that Dad would never talk with Roger again, and he barely remembered a handful of other hunters who had seemed decent but Dad hadn’t spoken to in years.But when Jake just shut up, Dad didn’t seem able to sustain the anger or the interest.There was only one thing that Dad could lock his rage onto, and it had never been Jake.
“You looking for that monster?”Roger asked.
