I Have a Bad Feeling About This (12 page)

Erik's paint gun hadn't been anywhere near that loud. Had Max lost his already-weak grip on sanity and gone on a shooting spree?

With a sense of intense horror, Henry wondered if their ineptitude had finally been too much for Max to bear. What if he'd seen Henry walking toward the building, already out of the game, and decided to end it all? He and the other boys should have seen this coming and kept Max on twenty-four-hour surveillance.

Three more gunshots, one after the other.

If Max was trying to kill himself, he was very bad at it.

Henry decided that opening the door and strolling into the building would not be the best plan he'd ever formulated. Instead, he hurried over to the window to get a quick peek before he shamelessly fled with his arms flapping in the air. Maybe the car belonged to a friend of Max's and they were shooting up the refrigerator for kicks.

He glanced through the window.

A man lowered a smoking gun as Max dropped to the floor.

At this moment, one of the worst things Henry could do was scream. He instantly realized this and slammed his hands over his mouth to muffle the noise.

It didn't matter, though, because there were two other men in the room and they were both looking right at him.

“Rad Rad Roger?”

“Oh, hi, Henry.”

“I was refilling my popcorn and I saw you sitting there. What's wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Why are you crying?”

“I'm not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“I was just reading more of the book, and, you know—”

“What?”

“Max
died
!”

“Oh, yeah. He did. I'm sorry.”

“He was the best character! He had all the best lines! Without him, the rest of the book is going to be crap!”

“It's not going to be crap.”

“It is! I loved that guy! Who am I supposed to care about now? Stu?”

“Do you need a hug?”

“No.”

“Okay. Well, I'm going back into the movie now.”

“All right.”

“See ya.”

“Oh, Henry—”

“Yes?”

“I do need that hug.”

“Here you go.”

“Thanks. I don't know what came over me.”

The men pulled out guns of their own, moving as quickly as a magician making a playing card appear between his fingers. Henry dove to the ground as two more gunshots rang out. The window shattered, raining glass down upon his legs.

Henry decided that it was okay to scream now.

He scooted along the ground until he was away from the window and then got to his feet. Prior to the whole “bullets shattering glass” moment, he'd been willing to believe that this might be a setup by Max to test their abilities to react under pressure, but now he kind of thought that it probably wasn't.

What should he do? What should he do? What should he do? What should he do? What should he do? What should he do?

Had there been a studio audience present (which there wasn't, to the best of his knowledge, though he hadn't quite ruled out the possibility that this was a reality TV show, which would be awesome, way better than people trying to kill him), they would have offered up “
Run!!!
” as a pretty reasonable option. But Henry was a terrible runner. If he fled into the woods, being chased by three physically fit men with guns, he'd be dead. That was simply the natural order of things. Maybe a couple of bullets would miss if they got excited and started shooting before they had a completely clear shot, but still, he had about thirty seconds to live in that scenario.

He had to hide.

There was no place to hide except the barracks, and the barracks were an awful place to hide from gun-toting killers. But what choice did he have? It wasn't as if he could lie in a hammock and casually browse through a brochure promoting the best hiding places of central Strongwoods, weighing the pros and cons of each.

He dashed behind the building, desperately hoping not to trip. This would be a very bad time to trip. If he tripped, he wouldn't even feel sorry for himself. He'd just lie there, getting shot, thinking, “Oh well, that's what I deserve.”

Max was dead! He couldn't believe it! Henry had never known anybody who was now dead. Even his ancient cat, Tinkles, was still hanging in there.

Why would anybody want to kill Max? There were plenty of reasons to think that he was an obnoxious jerk, but to kill him? That was way, way excessive.

To be honest, Henry would have expected Max to catch the bullets between his teeth and then spit them back at the shooters. Okay, not honestly. He didn't really believe that. It was time to stop thinking about this kind of stuff and focus on not tripping.

“Hey!” one of the men shouted. It sounded like he was still on the other side of the building and “Hey!” was much better than
bang
! Henry ran across the space between the two buildings, expecting a volley of gunfire to shred him into dog food at some point during those couple of seconds, but thankfully, it didn't happen. He ran behind the barracks and then looped around the building, stopping quickly to peek out front.

No sign of the maniacs.

He hurriedly opened the door to the barracks, slipped inside, and closed the door behind him.

He breathed a deep sigh of relief. He was safe.

No, he was anything
but
safe. With a whole vast, expansive, tree-filled forest at his disposal, he'd shut himself in the barracks! He'd done exactly what he sat on the couch and yelled at people in movies for doing. This was worse than if he'd tripped. Where was he going to hide? Under a cot? What kind of conversation did he think they would have?

SCARY GUN MAN #1: Gosh, I have no idea where that rascal might've gone! He's outwitted us but good!

SCARY GUN MAN #2: I'm so tired of these clever folks making us look like common dullards! Maybe we should check that building right there.

SCARY GUN MAN #1: You haven't got the sense that the Lord gave a headless donkey. Do you think he's just sitting in there, eating a bowl of grits? I should knock you on your fool head for saying that.

SCARY GUN MAN #2: Why do you always ridicule me so? I was just thinking that it would take maybe nine or ten seconds—eleven at the most—to take a look in there. I wasn't suggesting that it become the focal point of our pursuit, just that—

SCARY GUN MAN #1: Hush your mouth before more ignorance spews forth from it. He isn't in that building and we aren't wasting nine to eleven seconds proving a theory that we already know to be incorrect. Give me your head so I can whup it.

SCARY GUN MAN #2: Ow! It wasn't necessary to whup me that hard! That hurt more than the corn on my little toe!

SCARY GUN MAN #1: Shush it. Now let's go find that rapscallion and don't let me hear your flapping lips speak any more stuff that doesn't have any smarts in it.

That scenario was unlikely.

And yes, he was going to have to hide under a cot.

***

“What do you think you're doing?” Mr. Grand demanded.

“A kid saw us!” said Ethan.

“That doesn't mean you should start shooting out windows! Show some common sense for crying out loud! I don't pay you to act like psychos!”

Mr. Grand tapped Max's body with his shoe to make sure he was dead, not that there was any real doubt about the matter. There was a time when he would have felt bad about having to kill an innocent man like this—somebody who didn't turn into a sobbing baby, blubbering and begging for mercy. Those days were long gone. Baldy shouldn't have mouthed off to him.

“Go get the kid,” he told Ethan and Chad, dismissing them with a wave.

“Kill him?” Chad asked.

Mr. Grand shook his head. “No, I want to talk to him.”

“But he saw us.”

“Are you questioning me? Shoot him in the leg if you have to, but bring him back alive. Go!”

Ethan and Chad hurried out of the building. The guys were good muscle, but Mr. Grand couldn't believe how dense they were sometimes. You catch the kid, find out what he knows, and
then
kill him. This wasn't rocket science.

It had been brain surgery once, though not surgery with the intention of
fixing
the brain. That one got out of hand. Everybody had felt kind of awkward during the cleanup. He probably wouldn't let that happen again.

***

Henry lay under the farthest cot, wishing he had a better plan than hiding under a cot. They'd see him for sure. In fact, it might be better to just greet them in the middle of the room, hands in the air, a friendly and nonthreatening smile on his face.

They had no reason to kill him, right?

Sure, there was the whole “witnessing a murder” issue, but they could work that out. They might think that a sixteen-year-old who was dumb enough to hide under a cot in the next building would be an unreliable witness in front of a jury.

What would a real action hero do in this situation? Besides already know martial arts?

Maybe he could smack them with a cot.

The door swung open. Henry's entire body tightened. He could feel internal organs that he didn't even know he had constricting.

He could see the feet of one of the men stepping into the barracks. Just one man. That was good. If they'd split up, then they didn't know for sure where he was.

The man walked farther inside, the floor creaking with each step. Henry did not recall the floorboards creaking any of the other dozens of times he'd heard people walking across them. Apparently, those jerk floorboards just wanted to make the experience scarier.

“Hello?” the man said.

Henry wisely did not respond.

“Helloooooo? Anyone in here?” There was a mocking, cruel tone to the man's voice, but Henry wasn't sure if he'd actually been seen or not. Best to just remain perfectly still.

He felt a cough coming on…and a sneeze…and a hiccup. His body was really being a creep right now.

“Helloooooo? I understand that there's a naughty little boy hiding in here.”

Naughty little boy? Seriously? Henry knew that he looked young for his age, but how old did this guy think he was?

The urge to sneeze intensified, probably from the dust underneath the cot. The urge to cough also got worse. The urge to hiccup mercifully faded, which was nice because it would really suck to die because of an uncontrollable hiccup.

And now he was getting a leg cramp. Next, an alien would probably start to burst out of his chest.

“Whatever shall I do?” asked the man. “I just don't know where that naughty little boy might be hiding. Perhaps I should start shooting the beds one by one and see what's underneath?”

At this point, Henry had a pretty good idea that the man knew where he was hiding. He went ahead and succumbed to the sneeze, which was such a violent sneeze that he smacked his forehead on the wooden frame of the underside of the cot. Nice. Apparently, he'd been in danger of not feeling enough like an idiot.

Now that he was in a situation where he really
might
die, Henry wished he hadn't spent so much of his life thinking that he was going to die in nondangerous situations. He could have swam in the ocean. It would've been fine. No sharks would have bitten him in half. He could have ridden that roller coaster. It wouldn't have fallen off the track during the loop-de-loop and dropped onto another coaster that was following too close behind because the ride attendant wasn't paying attention to what he was doing. He could have pet that—Well, no, the poodle was vicious—

“Come out of there,” said the man.

Coming out of his hiding spot seemed like a truly terrible idea, but it was either that or kick the cot from beneath, sending it flying across the room and into the man's face.

Henry slid out from underneath the cot. He wasn't going to start pleading for his life quite yet. He'd be polite and yet convey the message that he really did not want this man to shoot him.

“Stand up,” the man said. He raised his voice. “I've got him!”

“I didn't see anything,” Henry said, slowly and carefully standing up.

“Nothing? You sure? Because there was a big bloody corpse right there. Hard to miss.” The man grinned. Henry wondered how he got that scar over his eye. Probably a broken-bottle fight. “Hands in the air.”

Henry put his hands in the air.

“You packing?” the man asked.

“What?”

“I asked if you were carrying a gun.”

“Oh…no.”

“Too bad for you. Guns are handy. Anyway, don't freak out on us or anything. We just want to ask you some questions. Nobody's going to hurt you.”

The lie could not have been more obvious if his nose had suddenly shot forward eighty feet, stretching out long enough to break through the back wall. They were absolutely going to hurt him.

“I won't say anything,” Henry promised. “Not a word.”

“Good. That will make things easier.”

“I mean it.”

“And I believe you. It's nice that you're so willing to cooperate with us.”

The man who'd killed Max stepped through the doorway, still holding his gun. Unlike the other guy, this man was not grinning.

“You've created a bit of a problem for us,” he said.

Henry shook his head. “I'm not a problem for anybody. I'm no threat. Believe me, I'm really, really lame. You have nothing to worry about. Honestly, having me testify against you would probably
improve
your case because I'm so…you know, bumbling.”

“Don't talk yet. Ethan, bring him over to the other place so we can sort this mess out.”

The man walked out of the building. Ethan strode toward Henry with the confidence of somebody who knew that this skinny kid wasn't going to cause him any trouble. His confidence was justified. He got behind Henry and twisted his arm up behind his back. Henry cried out in pain but didn't struggle as Ethan quickly walked him out of the barracks and into the other building.

Henry squeezed his eyes shut as soon as he caught a glimpse of Max's dead body on the floor. He knew that he should keep his eyes wide open, searching for any possible opportunity for escape, but he just couldn't look.

“Chad, keep an eye out for more of them,” he heard the man who'd shot Max say. “Ethan, what are you doing? Having a wrestling match? Sit him down.”

Ethan jerked Henry's arm up, sending a bolt of pain through the entire right side of his body, and then slammed Henry onto the bench.

“Open your eyes,” said the man.

Henry reluctantly opened his eyes but turned away from Max.

“I don't like to kill kids,” the man said. “But you're old enough that I won't think of you as a kid, so make no mistake, if you don't answer my questions, you'll end up like your counselor.” He gestured toward Max with his thumb. “How many more of you are here?”

“None,” said Henry. He was more terrified than he'd been in his entire life, but no matter how scared he was, nothing would make him say something to cause these men to send a hunting party after his friends.

“None?”

“Just me.” Why would there only be one kid at the camp? Henry thought quickly. “Just me and my uncle Max.”

The man stroked his chin. “Hmmmm. What's your name?”

“Henry.” No reason to lie about that at least.

“I had a stuffed walrus named Henry once. Lost my temper over something or other and ripped him apart, tusk to tail.”

Henry wasn't sure how he was supposed to respond to this anecdote, so he said nothing.

“Let me clarify this for you, Henry. If you tell me who else might be out there, we'll round them up, ask them a couple of questions, and then everybody can go on their way. If you don't answer my question honestly and we see your friends, I promise you we'll shoot them on sight. Is that what you want?”

Though Henry had done nothing to give the impression that he was intelligent, he couldn't help but object to being treated like he was stupid. If you were trying to hide a murder, you didn't round up people in the area and ask them questions.