first group, the one in front of Carly, was herded into the room that had windows so she and everybody else could see
what was going to happen to them.
Great
. Panic reared its ugly spiked head.
I’ll go crazy
. Wouldn’t that look good on her record? What would they do if she just ran out of the room screaming? She clenched her fists
at her sides, trying to stiffen her resolve to conquer this new test of her fortitude.
Carly stared with unbelieving eyes into the small chamber da> of them as another drill sergeant, also wearing a gas mask,
leaned over and uncorked a canister. She saw the gas, like a white angry cloud, begin to fill the chamber. She heard the muffled
command to take off masks. The brave souls inside obeyed. Within seconds, they were all coughing and gasping.
Carly’s throat tightened sympathetically.
Open the door. Open the door
. Her pulse raced in empathetic panic. Now she knew why the gas mask and chamber were shaking her so much. The scene was so
similar to the amorphous, shadowy menace of her nightmares. The door opened and the first group staggered outside, coughing,
gasping, sobbing, gagging.
“Next group,” the DI ordered from the doorway through her gas mask, “don masks.” Each group in turn went in and came out,
and Carly kept working her way to the back of the platoon.
“Last group, don masks.”
Carly froze in place, but the remaining group around her moved her forward, crowding together as if for protection. She stumbled
and caught herself. With numb fingers, she pulled on the mask, positioning it so that she could see what she was going to
suffer. The group carried her along into the gas chamber.
Why is this so frightening?
she asked herself. It was just a rubber mask and a few moments of tear gas—nothing more. But Carly felt as if she were smothering
and gasping already. In her mind, she felt again the sensations that she had felt the day she had been kidnapped, pulled into
the car by strange men. Someone bigger had roughly taped her mouth shut and her eyes shut. The gas chamber exercise stirred
the same horrible helplessness she relived in each nightmare. A scream, a plea for help stuck in the middle of her throat.
She was ten years old again—without her mom and without hope.
“Masks off!” the DI shouted.
Carly tried to pull off her mask, but she couldn’t force herself to obey. Her arms felt like overcooked spaghetti. The DI
reached over and yanked off her mask. Carly gasped for air, and suddenly her lungs were on fire. She wheezed and choked. She
pushed her way toward the door that the DI barred. Her last bit of control and caution stopped her—just before she screamed
incoherently, before she shoved the DI out of her way. Then the DI stepped aside and opened the door. Carly charged out and
fell to the ground, gasping, shaking, tears pouring from her eyes. Her skin tingled and her throat burned.
All around her, her fellow soldiers swiped their streaming eyes. Most were still standing, but they were bent over with their
hands braced on their knees. Carly looked up into Alex’s red eyes. “That was awful.”
Bent over, Alex nodded, wheezing.
“Now,” their DI explained, “you can have confidence that your gas mask will protect you from whatever poison might be emitted
into the air. Those of you who kept your heads, stayed calm—you minimized your contact by breathing as little as possible.
Those of you who are experiencing a marked reaction to the CS should learn from those who handled the situation better.”
Carly stared at the woman and hoped that never again would she be in the situation where she would have to put on her gas
mask. It was too much like all her childhood fears tied up into one terrible lump. But pride flickered for a moment. She hadn’t
had a bad dream for weeks, and today, she had survived. Once again she’d survived.
Carly couldn’t believe that basic training was coming to an end. In
Jessica Conant-Park, Susan Conant