else, and I'd be rid of this knife as soon as I could find our resident exorcist.
Then I could rest easy to night. I hoped.
In the meantime, I lowered my sunglasses, stretched out my legs, and leaned back in my chair. "Wake me when you catch the big one."
"You're the Sleeping Beauty of the swamp."
I sank back, becoming one with the chair. "Just as long as I'm sleeping."
Our roommate, Marius, had left his German club music on inside the footlocker that doubled as his daytime coffin. Again. And even if I lowered the light-blocking shades, it's not like I was really up for cracking the lid and waking the vampire to make him to turn it off. I could still hear the thump-thump techno beat from our tent at the far end of the swamp.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to turn a deaf ear. "How does Marius listen to that junk?"
"Got a few pennies? We can have Horace blow his speakers."
The warm sunlight seeped into my skin. "I'm done offering Horace pennies," I said, refusing to move a muscle.
"Well, I'm not going anywhere near those speakers," Rodger mused. "It seems like every creature with a nose has been able to scent me lately."
Yes, well, love is not telling your friend that he smells. "I don't know why you even bother fishing for sea serpents," I said, changing the subject. "They taste worse than mess hall food."
"They make cute pets."
If you liked scraggly, nibbly little dinosaurs. Rodger had at least six. I shuddered to think what would happen if Marius ever caught on. If I were a psychologist, I'd say the wee beasties were an unconscious replacement for the four pups and a wife Rodger had left behind in California.
We weren't allowed to keep pets—or ship them home. Not since a sea serpent got loose in Loch Ness.
Colonel Kosta, our camp commander, was a real hard-ass. The old Spartan liked to sleep on a plank of wood and ran the camp with ironclad efficiency. He was squarely on the side of duty and order. I was on the side of whatever kept us sane.
Rodger's chair squeaked as he leaned back. "Nice job on the kraken in the shower, by the way."
"Oh, it wasn't my kraken. I just moved it." Kosta had already showered. Ugly sucker—the kraken, I meant. Well, Kosta, too, come to think of it. "Whoever did it needs to pay attention to the colonel's schedule." He was long gone by the time they'd dumped the adolescent sea monster into shower stall three.
We had a bet going to see who could prank Kosta first. It started off with just me and Rodger, then the nurses, then the motor pool. That's when the stakes went way up.
"What's the pot up to now?" Rodger asked.
"Three weeks, one day, six hours, and twenty minutes." Army money was useless unless you were headed to the officers' club. So we bet what really mattered—time away from this joint.
Rodger whistled under his breath. "You don't want to know what I could do with that."
"Make more pups?" I asked. I couldn't resist.
He grinned. "Mary Ann and I wouldn't mind trying."
His face fell and I knew he was thinking about his wife. There was nothing I could say to make it better, so I kept my mouth shut. Sure, I missed my old life in New Orleans, but Rodger had a wife and family. He'd been here for three years with no hope of ever seeing his kids again.
The army granted each soldier twenty minutes topside for every year served. That meant in the last three years, Rodger had earned an hour of vacation. Regulations prevented anyone from cashing in leave until they had a week. It would take more than five hundred years to get that kind of break.
So if we couldn't spend it, we bet it. Pretty much everybody in camp had put their leave minutes into the pool. Whoever succeeded in pulling one over on Kosta would get the whole pot.
Kosta knew it, too. That's why he was so hard to get.
I listened to the bubbling tar and focused on the warm sun against my face. I was nearly, maybe, possibly asleep