I Have a Bad Feeling About This (19 page)

Henry sits in the theater, large popcorn in his lap, Monica to his left, Randy to his right. Stu, Jackie (now purple-haired), and Erik (who has almost but not quite gotten over his rage) also sit in the row with him. Henry's parents are in the theater, but they sit a few rows back so as not to cramp his sweet style.

“We need to work together,” says Henry, though this is the Henry on-screen and not the real Henry. He has a low, gravelly voice and is played by a twenty-three year-old actor. On-screen Henry tosses machine guns to the Hollywood counterparts of Randy, Jackie, Monica, and Peter. (Erik and Stu have been combined into one character for the movie.) “We're not going to let them push us around anymore! We've all been saying that we have a bad feeling about this and I agree. We have a bad feeling about this…because of what's going to happen to
them
!”

Everybody raises their machine guns in unison.

“They killed Max and they killed Frank. And they killed Hector, and yes, they even killed Old Mr. Winkerston. But they aren't going to kill us!”

A gunshot rings out. Peter clutches at his chest, gives a heart-rending six-minute soliloquy that will get him nominated for a People's Choice Award, and then dies.

Mr. Grand, Ethan, Chad, and the thirteen other assassins leap out of the forest, their own machine guns blasting. Seventeen minutes of nonstop action follow, with computer-generated blood spraying everywhere.

Monica (the real one) snuggles closer to Henry as the on-screen Henry throws a boomerang at Ethan. Ethan drops to the ground, neck broken, as the boomerang returns to Henry's hand.

There are lots of explosions.

Henry leaps onto a motorcycle and starts the engine. Monica leaps on behind him, facing backward so that she can take out more assassins with her machete. As they race down the dirt road, the assassins on their own motorcycles drive up beside them, swinging maces and wrenches at them, but they are no match for Monica's machete.

Henry spins the motorcycle around, tires squealing, and then races back toward camp.

“What are you doing?” asks Monica. “Safety is in the other direction!”

“There can be no safety while those madmen still live,” Henry tells her. The real Henry doesn't think that they'd be able to hear each other that well over the roar of a motorcycle motor, but that's no big deal. This is the movies.

As Henry speeds down the road, he is joined by Randy and Jackie, also on motorcycles. (How they got behind him is not entirely clear. Henry hopes that after the premiere, they'll tighten some of the editing.)

Mr. Grand and his few remaining assassins are also on motorcycles, speeding right toward them!

Movie Henry slams his fist down on the turbo button, and his motorcycle shoots forward. Real Henry likes to believe that had motorcycles been available to him at that particular time, he would have done the same thing.

In super-slow motion, Henry's motorcycle collides with Mr. Grand's. Yes, it is somewhat reckless of Henry to do this when he has a passenger, but no doubt Monica can handle herself in a 120-mile-per-hour head-on motorcycle collision.

The three of them are catapulted into the air by the force of the crash. The motorcycles explode beneath them.

Henry thinks it would be seriously cool if the movie counterparts had an extended fight sequence on the way down, but that isn't the kind of reality-based entertainment this motion picture was about. They hit the ground first and
then
begin their extended fight sequence.

“You killed my mentor,” Henry growls. “But you won't kill anybody else!” He punches Mr. Grand in the face three times, a bucket of blood splashing with each blow.

Randy leans over to Henry and whispers “I thought this was supposed to be PG-13?”

“What are you talking about?” Henry whispers back. “This has had the F-word about two thousand times.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

They go back to watching the movie. In the exciting finale, Henry and Mr. Grand battle each other with their bare hands, delivering more punishment than anybody who isn't a character in an action movie could possibly take until Henry finally grabs Mr. Grand's nose and gives it a devastating twist.

“Hey, that's a bunch of garbage!” Jackie says, standing up. “I'm the one who did that!” His mom tugs him back down into his seat.

Henry gives Mr. Grand's nose one final twist and it comes off. Mr. Grand howls in pain, dousing Henry in red, and finally drops to the ground, dead.

Monica throws her arms around Henry, clearly not worried about getting bloodstains all over her clothes.

“I don't know about you,” says Henry, “but I have a good feeling about this.”

“I do too,” says Monica. “A very good feeling.”

They kiss.

On the movie screen, the picture fades to black, followed by these words:
Dedicated
to
the
memory
of
Max. You were the wind beneath our wings.

As the lights come up and the audience gives a standing ovation, Henry puts his arms around Monica and kisses her like the action hero he always knew he could be.

***

Henry stands in front of thirty campers. “Okay, everybody, welcome to Strongwoods Survival Camp, under new ownership. If you've seen the movie, you saw what it did for me. And now I'm going to do the same for you!”

“That's right,” says Randy, wearing a camouflage shirt. “Don't think this is going to be an easy two weeks for you. We will test your skills like they've never been tested before!”

“But it will be fun too,” says Monica, also wearing a camouflage shirt. “Before we begin, are there any questions?”

One of the campers raises his hand. “Does this camp have an arcade?”

Henry, Randy, and Monica exchange a weary look. This is going to be a long two weeks.

In a true wilderness survival situation, Jeff Strand would last maybe fifteen minutes—half an hour tops—though he is proud to say that he wouldn't be all whiny while he died. His previous novel for young adults was
A
Bad
Day
for
Voodoo,
which was called “The greatest book ever written in the entire history of human existence,” by somebody, somewhere, hopefully. Those who said that
Voodoo
was “really, really, really stupid,” are likely to say the exact same thing about
I
Have
a
Bad
Feeling
About
This
. Jeff Strand lives in Tampa, Florida (about an hour from Disney World!). You can e-mail him at [email protected] and visit his glorious website at
www.JeffStrand.com
.

A BAD DAY FOR VOODOO

Jeff Strand

When your best friend is just a tiny bit psychotic, you should never actually believe him when he says, “Trust me. This is gonna be awesome.”

Of course, you probably wouldn't believe a voodoo doll could work either. Or that it could cause someone's leg to blow clean off with one quick prick. But I've seen it. It can happen.

And when there's suddenly a doll of YOU floating around out there—a doll that could be snatched by a Rottweiler and torn to shreds, or a gang of thugs ready to torch it, or any random family of cannibals (really, do you need the danger here spelled out for you?)—well, you know that's just gonna be a really bad day…

PRAISE FOR
A BAD DAY FOR VOODOO
:

“For a reader intentionally seeking a wacky horror/comedy, this book delivers.” —
VOYA

“Jeff Strand is the funniest writer in the game, and
A Bad Day for Voodoo
is wicked, wicked fun. Dark, devious and delicious!” —Jonathan Maberry,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Rot & Ruin
and
Flesh & Bone

STUPID FAST

Geoff Herbach

I AM NOT STUPID FUNNY. I AM STUPID FAST.

My name is Felton Reinstein, which is not a fast name. But last November, my voice finally dropped and I grew all this hair and then I got stupid fast. Fast like a donkey. Zing!

Now they want me, the guy they used to call Squirrel Nut, to try out for the football team. With the jocks. But will that fix my mom? Make my brother stop dressing like a pirate? Most important, will it get me girls—especially Aleah?

So I train. And I run. And I sneak off to Aleah's house in the night. But deep down I know I can't run forever. And I wonder what will happen when I finally have to stop.

PRAISE FOR GEOFF HERBACH:

“In the tradition of Holden Caulfield and Eric ‘Moby' Calhoune comes Felton Reinstein.” —
VOYA

“Deep, moving, LOL funny and completely original.” —
School Library Journal