Bill stopped, frozen, immobile, shocked, rigid, horrified, dismayed, and had to fight for control of his suddenly contracted bladder.
He knew that boot. He would never forget that boot until the day he died, just as he would never forget his serial number and could say it frontward or backward or from the inside out. Every detail of that terrible boot was clear in his memory, from the snakelike laces in the repulsive leather of the uppers-said to be made of human skin-to the corrugated stamping-soles tinged with red that could only have been human blood. That boot belonged to Deathwish Drang.
The boot was attached to a leg, and paralyzed with terror, as unable to control himself as a bird before a snake, he found himself leaning further and further into the compact ment as his eyes traced up the leg past the belt to the shirt to the neck upon which rested the face that had featured largely in his nightmares since he had enlisted. The lips moved.
“Is that you, Bill? C’mon in and rest it.”
Bill stumbled in.
“Have a hunk of candy,” Deathwish said, and smiled.
Reflex drove Bill’s fingers into the offered box and set his jaw chewing on the first solid food that had passed his lips in weeks. Saliva spouted from dusty orifices, and his stomach gave a preliminary rumble, while his thoughts drove maddingly in circles as he tried to figure out what that expression was on Deathwish’s face. Lips curved up at the corners behind the tusks, little crinkles on the cheeks. It was hopeless. He could not recognize it.
“I hear Eager Beager turned out to be a Chinger spy,” Deathwish said, closing the box of candy and sliding it under the pillow. “I should have figured that one out myself. I knew there was something very wrong with him, doing his buddies’ boots and that crap, but I thought he was just nuts. Should have known better …”
“Deathwish,” Bill said hoarsely, “it can’t be, I know-but you are acting like a human being!”
Deathwish chuckled, not his ripsaw-slicing-human-bone chuckle, but an almost normal one.
Bill stammered. “But you are a sadist, a pervert, a beast, a creature, a thing, a murderer …”
“Why, thanks, Bill. That’s very nice to hear. I try to do my job to the best of my abilities, but I’m human enough to enjoy a word of praise now and then. Being a murderer is hard to project, but I’m glad it got across, even to a recruit as stupid as you were.”
“B-but … aren’t you really a …”
“Easy now!” Deathwish snapped, and there was enough of the old venom and vileness to lower Bill’s body temperature six degrees. Then Deathwish smiled again. “Can’t blame you, son, for carrying on this way, you being kind of stupid and from a rube planet and having your education retarded by the troopers and all that. But wake up, boyl Military education is far too important a thing to be wasted by allowing amateurs to get involved. If you read some of the things in our college textbooks it would make your blood run cold, yes indeed. Do you realize that in prehistoric times the drill sergeants, or whatever it was they called them, were real sadists! The armed forces would let these people with no real knowledge absolutely destroy recruits. Let them learn to hate the service before they learned to fear it, which plays hell with discipline. And talk about wasteful! They were always marching someone to death by accident or drowning a squad or nonsense like that. The waste alone would make you cry.”
“Could I ask what you majored in in college?” Bill asked in a very tiny and humble voice.
“Military Discipline, Spirit breaking, and Method Acting. A rough course, four years, but I graduated sigma cum, which is not bad for a boy from a working-class family. I’ve made a career of the service, and that’s why I can’t understand why the ungrateful bastards went and shipped me out on this crummy can!” He lifted his gold-rimmed glasses to flick away a developing tear.
“You expect gratitude from the service?” Bill asked humbly.