I Have a Bad Feeling About This (18 page)

It was difficult to ignore all of the things that Erik was saying about Henry, none of which were even remotely flattering, but he had to focus on getting the gun before Mr. Grand did. If Henry had a gun and Mr. Grand did not, these next few minutes would go much more smoothly.

Mr. Grand was closer to the weapon, but Henry was…well, Henry couldn't think of any particular advantage he had. Youth maybe, though it wasn't like Mr. Grand was in his nineties. No, wait. Henry's advantage was that he desperately needed to redeem himself for shooting Erik with the arrow. If he saved his life, Erik's avalanche of profanity would eventually stop.

Henry was about nine or ten feet away from the gun and Mr. Grand was maybe six or seven. Henry could make up that distance if he pushed himself harder than he'd ever pushed himself before. Why didn't human beings come equipped with a turbo button?

An indeterminate percentage of a second later, he was six or seven feet away from the gun and Mr. Grand was three or four. But Henry might have gained an inch or two. Erik continued to point to the arrow in his arm and say unkind things about Henry's skills, intelligence, physical appearance, and family.

Mr. Grand was going to reach the gun first.

It was too late to turn around and pretend that he was uninvolved with whatever was going on here.

If Mr. Grand got the gun, Henry didn't think there was going to be a whole lot of diplomacy being practiced.

Mr. Grand's hand reached down for the weapon.

Henry dove for it.

Henry had not done a lot of diving in his life. In those rare occasions when he ventured into a swimming pool, he was purely a feetfirst kind of guy. He wouldn't even dive onto a Slip 'N Slide because he always worried it would be a good way to make his chest go
crunch.

But he dove now. He leapt through the air, arms extended like Superman, trying to achieve more self-propelled forward momentum than he'd ever experienced.

He struck the ground. His chest thankfully did not go
crunch.
He did, however, immediately realize he should have started his dive about a second later because he was just lying on his stomach on the ground, not moving, with several inches between his fingertips and the gun.

Erik shouted something needlessly rude about his too-short dive.

Mr. Grand scooped up the gun.

Henry made another dive. Since he was lying on the ground, this dive did not have the same momentum as the previous one and was actually more of a lunge, but still, it propelled him forward those extra few inches so that Mr. Grand could stomp on his fingers.

It didn't feel good.

The weaker version of Henry would have just started screaming “Ow, ow, ow! My fingers! My precious fingers!” The new version of Henry screamed, of course. (After all, a man had just stomped on his fingers.) But he also leaned forward and bit Mr. Grand on the ankle, hard.

So hard, in fact, that Mr. Grand joined in the festival of screaming and dropped the gun.

The gun struck Henry on the head, which also did not feel good, but it gave him renewed hope that he would not be shot to death. He bit down even harder, trying to bite Mr. Grand's entire foot off even though he knew it was pretty unlikely that he'd be able to successfully do so.

Mr. Grand kicked Henry in the head with the foot that was currently not in the process of being bitten off, so Henry stopped biting.

The gun was right there, but fumbling around with the weapon was a good way to mess up his momentary advantage, so instead, Henry punched him in the knee, hoping that maybe Mr. Grand had recently had some sort of knee surgery or something.

In terms of places to punch somebody that won't make your knuckles feel like you've slammed them against a brick wall, the knee was not one of the better choices. And Mr. Grand's leg did not bend backward from the force of Henry's blow, which would have been nice. Still, he cried out in pain, and this gave Henry the self-confidence necessary to simply tackle the murderous cretin and knock him to the ground.

Mr. Grand wrapped his hands around Henry's neck.

Henry wrapped his hands around Mr. Grand's neck.

They stayed like that for a few moments, choking each other.

Henry understood that Erik had a lot to deal with right now, but a bit of help would be very much appreciated. Why not put that arrow in his arm to good use?

He was starting to feel a little dizzy. Mr. Grand was choking Henry harder than Henry was choking Mr. Grand.

Would pretending to be dead be useful? Probably not.

“Aaacck,” said Henry.

“Guurgle,” Mr. Grand replied.

Henry tried to bite Mr. Grand's fingers, but since they were wrapped tightly around his neck, Henry couldn't get access to them. He also tried to do the “smash your forehead into the forehead of your opponent” trick, but he couldn't move his head well enough.

It would be perfectly acceptable for Monica to come rescue him right about now.

Henry tried to suggest that they call a truce, though since it came out as “Aaacck” again, he didn't think Mr. Grand got his message.

His vision was going black.

***

Carnage-a-Plenty
was not one of Henry's favorite video games and he'd probably played it for less than seventy-five or eighty hours total. But after each violence-filled level, your mentor, Splat-Tastic, would show up and give you words of wisdom to assist with the next level.

“
Two
chainsaws
are
better
than
one.
”

“
When
in
doubt, use a flamethrower.
”

“
If
facing
an
unbeatable
enemy, do the unexpected
.”

Do the unexpected.

Henry imagined Splat-Tastic hovering above him on his magical carpet of dripping raw meat. “That is right, Henry. Do the unexpected.”

“You mean give up? He wouldn't expect that.”

Splat-Tastic rolled three of his four eyes. “No, Henry, I do not mean give up. I mean to do the unexpected.”

“Like transform into a were-tiger, like on level eight?”

Splat-Tastic sighed and began to absentmindedly play with his exposed intestine. “No, first of all, you do not transform
into
a were-tiger. You
are
a were-tiger who transforms into a tiger. And we're talking about real life right now, not this undeniably great but not real video game, so you can't transform into a tiger.”

“That's disappointing.”

“Yeah, it is. But real life has better controls and more special moves than a video game.”

“I love you, Splat-Tastic.”

Splat-Tastic frowned. “Wow. The loss of oxygen is really getting to you. Time to make your unexpected move…fast! If you die, you can't just start over! Well, I mean, I'm not going to get into the potential for reincarnation or anything like that. I'm just a hallucination and don't have any insider knowledge of the afterlife. That said, I really do suggest that you figure out what kind of unexpected move you want to make and get around to making it before you lose consciousness. It's hard to defeat the bad guy when you're asleep.”

“Any other advice?” Henry asked.

“No. What more could you possibly want?”

“Well, you have to admit, your advice was kind of vague.”

“Oh, gee, gosh, excuse me for trying to help! I'm sorry that I can't give you some cheat code to get you through this, Mr. Ungrateful. I'm trying to give you the kind of help that lets you look within yourself for the true answer. But oh, no, you're all like ‘Waaaah! I don't want to have to look within myself! I just want everything spelled out for me! Waaaah! Poor, superficial me!' You players are all alike. This is why I hate appearing as hallucinations. No appreciation.”

“I'm sorry,” said Henry. “I'm just a little stressed out right now. You know, because I'm being choked to death.”

“Yeah, yeah, you guys are always offering ‘I'm near death!' excuses for your rudeness. Well, that doesn't cut it with me. Go bite a donkey.”

Splat-Tastic vanished into a puff of pixels.

“Nooooooo!” Henry bellowed. “Come back, Splat-Tastic! I need you, Splat-Tastic! You're my only friend!”

Do
something
unexpected—

***

Henry spat in Mr. Grand's face.

It wasn't a substantial loogie and the mucus-to-saliva ratio was not as gross as Henry would have preferred; however, Mr. Grand certainly wasn't expecting that.

Though he didn't recoil and go “Ew! Icky!” or anything like that, it did break his concentration for an instant, which was all that Henry needed to yank his neck free.

Then he did the “smash your forehead into the forehead of your opponent” trick. As a gigantic bolt of pain shot through his skull, he decided that it was a stupid trick that nobody should ever do.

Henry rolled off of Mr. Grand, wishing that his head didn't hurt quite so much. He was no doctor, but he was pretty sure that repeated head trauma was not the best way to avoid brain damage.

The gun. It was best not to forget about the gun.

He lunged for the gun just as Mr. Grand kicked it out of the way. Henry hoped that Erik would rush over and grab it, but then it occurred to him that Erik was no longer shouting horrible things about his ancestry. Erik lay on his back, breathing but not otherwise moving.

Bummer. Blood loss ruined everything.

Mr. Grand dove at Henry, doing a much better diving job than Henry had been able to accomplish. Henry got sort of smooshed into the ground, with Mr. Grand on top of him, but he managed to roll back over and throw a punch that missed.

“I'm going to tear your eyes out!” Mr. Grand shouted, clawing at Henry's eyes. He pinched some of Henry's eyelashes between his fingers and plucked them out.

Henry's reaction was not mild.

***

Monica stared at the unconscious man on the floor, wondering how he could remain unconscious like that when a bird was pecking away at his face. She thought perhaps she should shoo the bird away and then decided not to. She closed the door, giving them their privacy.

Randy emerged from the woods, holding a large branch.

“Did you find the other one?” Monica asked.

Randy nodded. “I've never seen that much fear in somebody's eyes. I guess we really scared him.”

“What did you do to him?”

“Whacked him with a branch. He went down pretty easy. What about your guy?”

“Bird got him.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“My bird?”

“I don't know what your bird looks like.”

“Can I see it?”

“We should probably help Henry.”

Henry screamed, sounding like somebody had ripped out some of his eyelashes.

Monica and Randy rushed off to help.

***

Mr. Grand reached for Henry's other eye. Henry slapped him away. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”

“You're dead!” Mr. Grand snarled, even though “dead” was not an easy word to snarl.

Henry had to admit that he was getting tired of this. Who did this guy think he was, plucking out his eyelashes like that? There came a time when every man—and Henry felt that he qualified, if only barely—had to say, “Enough!”

Nobody attacked his friends and got away with it.

Nobody killed his insane counselor and got away with it.

And nobody—
nobody
—ripped out his eyelashes without getting punched in the face as hard as Henry could do it.

Henry threw the punch. Before it even connected with Mr. Grand's jaw, he thought,
Oh, yeah, this is gonna be a good one
.

And it was. It was not the mightiest punch ever thrown in the history of human punching, and if the recipient were a professional boxer instead of an exhausted criminal, the outcome would have been much different. But Henry's fist connected with a satisfying
smack
and Mr. Grand made a satisfying
uuggh
. And his head made a satisfying
boiiinnng
as it struck the ground, though that last one might have been in Henry's imagination.

He'd done it!

He'd delivered a final blow that had knocked his opponent unconscious! He'd defeated the evil Mr. Grand! He'd won the battle!

He quickly looked around for witnesses. Nobody had seen it.

Darn.

Oh, well. He still felt pretty good.

Vincent “Foamer” Dansky, Glenn “Hatchet-Man” Thielbar, Quentin “Shredder” Hansen, and Karl “Die Die Die” Moore drove through the dirt road in a black van.

“We'd better get to kill some kids,” said Foamer. “Last time we didn't. That maddened me.” He cackled with laughter for no reason except that sometimes Foamer liked to cackle with laughter.

“Shut up,” said Hatchet-Man. He was talking to Shredder, not Foamer. Hatchet-Man liked to tell people to shut up who weren't talking.

“I'm just saying I brought my best knife, and if I don't get to kill anybody with it, I'm going to be—”

“Shut up,” said Hatchet-Man, this time talking to Foamer. “Mr. Grand said that the situation will probably be resolved before we get there. We're just emergency backup.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Foamer picked at his gums with one of his knives. “How much longer?”

Die Die Die, who was driving, didn't answer because he was distracted by the sight of a teenaged boy running across the road, maybe a hundred feet up ahead. He slammed on the brakes.

“I don't think it's resolved yet,” he said.

The boy, a skinny little nerd, looked over at the van. He stood there, looking back and forth between the forest and the van, as if unsure whether to run from them or approach the vehicle.

Die Die Die opened the door and got out, hoping that the nerd couldn't see his tarantula tattoos from over there. “Hey, kid! You need any help?”

The nerd hesitated, still unsure, and then ran off into the woods.

“Hatchet-Man, Shredder…you two go after him. We'll keep driving to the destination.”

Hatchet-Man nodded and slid open the side door of the van. He and Shredder got out and hurried down the road. “Hey, come back!” Hatchet-Man shouted. “We're not going to hurt—
yikes
!”

It was the only time in his life that Hatchet-Man had actually said the word “yikes.” In any other circumstances, he would have been prepared for relentless teasing from his associates. However, right now he felt that they all understood how he was feeling, since there was a gigantic bear running down the road toward them.

Hatchet-Man and Shredder each fired off two ineffective shots and then ran back for the van, screaming. Die Die Die, who was not a man who placed great value in loyalty, had already put the van in reverse and was speeding away. But he couldn't get back around the corner without slowing down, so Hatchet-Man and Shredder were able to get back into the vehicle and slam the door closed.

“Forget this,” said Die Die Die. “Grand didn't say anything about bears. He can deal with this himself. Everybody agree?”

Everybody except Hatchet-Man agreed, but he always liked to disagree just to cause conflict.

The reinforcements drove away.

***

“You're a terrible person,” said Erik.

Henry nodded. “I know.”

“You're the worst person I know and the worst person I've ever met, and if anybody tries to say that you're some kind of hero because of this, I'm going to set them straight,” said Erik.

“Fair enough.”

Mr. Grand, Ethan, and Chad were tied up and being held at gunpoint by Randy. Monica had done the actual tying of knots, so they didn't have to worry about any of them freeing themselves.

All three of the bad guys had cell phones, so they sent Jackie off in search of a signal. He'd come back half an hour later, saying that the police were on their way.

Henry did the best job he could on Erik's wound. He regained consciousness—angrily—after Henry applied the antiseptic and had remained in a foul mood ever since; however, it was clear that he wasn't going to bleed to death and Henry felt that he could eventually convince him that girls were really into guys who'd been shot through the arm with arrows.

Stu returned to camp, out of breath, and hid in the barracks until the others were able to convince him that if a bear
had
been following him, it at least was not doing so any longer.

“Nice job,” Monica told Henry. “Not all of it, but most of it. I'm impressed.”

“Thanks,” he said.

They sat in silence for a moment. Henry felt that this was the opportunity to say something important…but could he handle the rejection?

Sure. Why not? He almost got killed today, so having his heart crushed would be nothing.

“So, Monica…?”

“Yes?”

“Do you want to…do something…sometime?”

“Are you asking me out?”

“Yeah. I mean, not if you already have a boyfriend. I'm not trying to horn in on Bobby's action or anything.”

“Bobby?”

“Bobby. I saw the text where he…uh, said he misses your…misses you. Is he your boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Seriously?”

“Ex-boyfriend. He's having trouble with the ‘ex' part. But we're not together.”

“Is this something that you're heartbroken over?”

“Not anymore.”

“So did you want to do something sometime?”

“You know that we live in different cities, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And that you're not my usual type?”

“I figured.”

“And that you've caused me a huge amount of trouble since we met, including but not limited to an injured shoulder and people trying to kill me?”

“If you go out with me, I promise that nobody will try to kill you on our first date,” said Henry, hoping he wasn't lying when he said that.

“That's very romantic.”

“Thanks.”

“How about we just kiss and take it from there?”

“I am completely okay with that.”

They kissed.

Then they smiled at each other and kissed again and the fireworks in Henry's mind were so vivid and glorious that they drowned out the sound of Erik repeatedly telling him he was a complete jerk.