I Have a Bad Feeling About This (5 page)

Somebody knocked.

Larry Dexter's stomach immediately cramped up. Knocks weren't a good thing. He was never happy to see the person on the other side of the door.

He wanted to go hide in the bathroom and pretend that he wasn't home, but the TV was on, so they knew he was here. This would go a lot worse if they had to break in. He set his bowl of soggy cereal on the coffee table, brushed off his shirt and pants, ran a hand through his hair, and took a deep breath. Maybe it was just somebody selling something. He walked over and opened the door.

It wasn't Girl Scouts.

“Mr. Grand!” he said. “Good to see you, buddy!”

There were two other men with Mr. Grand. Larry recognized them but didn't know their names. Mr. Grand's associates tended not to introduce themselves.

“Are you going to invite us in?” asked Mr. Grand.

“Oh, yes, yes, of course. Come on in.”

The three men entered Larry's apartment. The last one in closed the door behind him.

“It reeks in here,” said Mr. Grand with a mild grimace. “Don't you have any respect for yourself? What kind of a man would live in filth like this?”

Larry shrugged. “Maid's day off,” he said.

Mr. Grand did not smile. Mr. Grand was not a man who appreciated humor.

Larry cleared his throat and gestured to the couch. “Please…have a seat.”

“Thank you, but we won't be sitting on your plague-infested sofa.”

“Can I get you a drink?”

“Nor will we be drinking anything that was in this disease hole. We may even make you pay for the clothes we'll have to burn after we leave here. Are you going to turn down the TV or do I have to put a bullet in it?”

Larry gave him a nervous chuckle. “I'll go you one better.” After a moment of searching, he found the remote and turned the TV off completely. “That okay?”

“It's fine.”

“Good, good. So to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

Mr. Grand was a big guy and he looked even bigger when he was angry. “Are you telling me that you're going to make me suffer through this stench
and
insult my intelligence?”

“No, not at all. The money, right?”

“Yes, Lester. The money.”

Larry despised being called Lester but wasn't about to correct him. He was sweating like crazy and really wished he'd put on deodorant this week. “Yeah, about that—”

“If you say you don't have the money, you are going to die tonight. It's as simple as that.”

“No, that's not what I was saying at all. Nothing like that.”

“Then go get it.”

“It's not
here
. I mean, my place is a dump—I'm man enough to admit that. I wouldn't hide a bunch of cash here.”

“Then take us to it,” said Mr. Grand. “We have nowhere else to be tonight.”

“Right. Thing is…my cash is tied up in investments. You know me. I'm a businessman. You've gotta make your money work for you. You understand, right?”

Mr. Grand sighed. “You're going to make us break your legs, aren't you?”

“No! You can't believe how much money I've got coming in. Soon. Real soon. I've got this thing, this survival camp for teenagers. They're crazy for it. Hundreds of kids are there. They're turning them away by the dozens. We could run these sessions all year long and not keep up with the demand. There's this guy Max who runs it, and once he gives me my cut, I can pay you back, plus interest, plus a tip. I'd take you right over there, but he's up in Wisconsin. He's the one you should be going after, not me.”

“You say his name is Max?”

Larry vigorously nodded.

“Is he a friend of yours?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure he is. Good guy, good guy.”

“So you're sending people like us after somebody you consider a friend?”

“Yeah, I mean, you want your money, right?”

“I ask again, Lester. What kind of a man are you?”

Larry's mouth went dry, and his need for deodorant tripled. “Just trying to make sure you get paid is all.”

“I see,” said Mr. Grand. “Do you want to know the only reason that I'm not going to kill you right now?”

“Okay.”

“Because if I killed you, we'd have to dispose of your disgusting body, and even though I wouldn't be doing it myself, I respect my men too much to subject them to that.”

Larry breathed a deep sigh of relief.

“We will be back soon,” said Mr. Grand. “I expect to you have the money.”

“Will do. Absolutely. You've got it.”

“If not, we will kill you. It will take a long time. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good. And clean this place up.”

Mr. Grand and his men left. Larry plopped down on the couch, had another bite of soggy cereal, and then spent the rest of the evening softly weeping.

“Hey, Henry! How's it going?”

“What are you doing in here? I thought security dragged you away!”

“Hey, Rad Rad Roger isn't gonna let a couple of muscle-bound goons keep him from his job! Using the bathroom during the movie, huh? I have to do that when I get nervous too.”

“Get that camera out of here! I'm peeing!”

“We'll blur it.”

“You said this was live!”

“I'd like to ask you about Max. In the movie, he's played by Katy Perry, which seems like an odd casting choice. Care to comment?”

“Yeah, there was some retooling of his character. Hollywood, you know.”

“Was he really as crazy as he sounded in the book, or was there some creative license there as well?”

“Yeah, he was one crazy guy, and it was pretty accurate. Maybe not everything he said was word for word how it appeared in the book, but overall, yeah, that was Max.”

“I've got the book right here. Tell me, Henry. How did you know what happened when Mr. Grand and his goons came to visit Larry Dexter at his apartment? You weren't there, were you? I mean, I don't remember reading a scene where you left camp, drove all the way to Larry's house in a different state, hid in Larry's closet, waited for everybody to leave, and then drove all the way back to camp.”

“Well, I didn't write the book.”

“You didn't?”

“No.”

“I thought you did.”

“No, my name's not on the cover.”

“Oh. You're right. My bad. Anyway, when are the Games going to start? When you watch
The
Hunger
Games
, the actual Games start, like, three minutes into the movie.”

“That's not correct at all.”

“Maybe I'm thinking of something else.”

“You probably are.”

“You're right, you're right. When I was watching
The
Hunger
Games
, I kept checking my watch and going, ‘Damn, how long is it gonna take them to get to the stupid Hunger Games part?' That movie bored me silly. What'd you think?”

“I loved the movie and the book.”

“There was a book?”

“Yes.”

“How'd I miss that?”

“I don't know.”

“So let's get back to your book. Were
you
portrayed in an accurate manner in the book?”

“Yeah, I think so. The author worked with me pretty closely.”

“I peeked into the movie for a few seconds and you broke a kid's neck. Punched him right in the face and snapped his neck. I missed the setup, but the audience laughed, so I guess it was funny. Was that part accurate?”

“No, I'd be in jail if that really happened.”

“So the book portrayed you in a more accurate manner than the movie?”

“Yeah.”

“Like I said, I haven't read the whole thing yet, but in the book you're kind of a wuss.”

“I disagree with that.”

“Total wuss.”

“You're trying to get me mad on camera. Go away or I'll report you.”

“Not proving your lack of wussdom, Henry.”

“I've gotta get back to the movie.”

Henry didn't say anything about the text message. He matched five purple coins in a diagonal row but felt no real elation about this mighty accomplishment.

He closed out of the game and handed the phone back to Monica. “Thanks,” he said. “I really needed that.”

She tucked the phone back into her pocket. “No problem. Now I really do have to get back. I hope you survive the night so I can see you tomorrow.”

“Me too.”

She stood up, gave him a smile that made ninety-three percent of the feeling vanish from his legs, and then headed back on the path from which she came. Henry watched her until she disappeared completely into the darkness. He didn't like seeing her leave, but it was a spectacular view.

Monica had a boyfriend. That made sense. Girls who looked like her didn't typically have much difficulty finding a suitable mating partner.

He'd thought she was being a bit flirty, but when he replayed the conversation in his mind, he decided that she was just being friendly.

He replayed the conversation again. Yep. Friendly, not flirty.

He replayed the conversation once more because even if she hadn't been flirting, it was a very pleasant memory.

Maybe there was trouble in paradise. After all, why hadn't Bobby texted her himself? Did he not miss her enough? Was he lazy? There was absolutely no reason in the world for that lazy jerk not to be texting her himself. Except—

1. He might not own a cell phone.

2. He might own a cell phone but not have it with him at the moment.

3. He might own a cell phone, but the battery died.

4. He might own a cell phone, but because he was out too late with Monica, doing amazing things, he missed curfew and his parents took the cell phone away from him for a week.

5. He might have been texting her all day constantly, texting things that were pure poetry, using emoticons like a true artist. At some point, his thumbs had to give out.

6. It was one in the morning. Some people slept at that time.

Henry didn't like any of those. Much better reasons were—

1. Every time Bobby texted, he said something stupid, like “LUV UR BOOBIES HUH HUH HUH.” Monica was getting tired of it and told him that if he didn't have something intelligent to text, not to text her at all, so he chose not to text her at all.

2. He was such a hopeless klutz that every time he got a new cell phone, he'd drop it in a puddle of water. Right now his phone was in a bowl of dry rice, even though the dry rice trick to save a wet phone didn't actually work. Monica was getting tired of his klutziness. What she really wanted was a master archer.

3. Bobby did not exist. Upon seeing Henry, Monica had contacted one of her friends and said, “There's a really cute guy here, and I want to make him jealous. Send me a text that makes it look like I have a boyfriend.”

4. Bobby was in prison. His nickname was “Mad Dog Bobby” and he was currently serving a fifty-year sentence. He'd killed a man just to finger-paint a picture of a duck with his blood. Monica wanted to be true to him, her first and only boyfriend, but deep inside, she knew that she was simply waiting for her dream man to show up. Yes, when Henry turned sixty-six, he knew that he'd have to deal with Mad Dog Bobby's desire for revenge, but he'd worry about that later.

5. Bobby was a total snob who felt that texting was only for the illiterate. He communicated with Monica only through the things he wrote upon a cloth scroll with a quill dipped in ink. Monica was getting tired of it.

6. Bobby was a lazy jerk.

Henry was cool with any of those scenarios. Perhaps number four was a bit unlikely, but the others—

Okay, he knew that she was a beautiful girl with a (probably) nice boyfriend who (probably) adored her and who she (probably but hopefully not) adored in return. Guys like Henry did not have girlfriends of her caliber unless they were in a band and guys like Henry were not usually in a band. But somehow, he had to be able to win her over.

She liked long hikes in the dark scary outdoors, so she was a woodsy type. If Henry
dominated
survival camp, if he showed that he knew his way around a campfire and whatever else the great wilderness threw at him, if he won the Games, it might impress her.

That was it. For the next week and six days, he'd devote himself to being the ultimate survivalist. When they got to the big competition at the end, Randy, Erik, Jackie, and Stu would all fear him.

This he vowed.

***

When he woke up, an armadillo was about three inches from his face, staring at him. Henry screamed.

***

Breakfast sucked.

***

“In a survival situation, a shelter is of maximum importance,” said Max. “You cannot defend yourself against hordes of vampires—and I, of course, am speaking completely hypothetically—if you have already frozen to death.”

Jackie raised his hand. “Sir?”

“Yes?”

“Are we likely to freeze to death in June?”

“I'm about to ask you something, Jackie, and I want you to be completely honest with me: Do you believe that was an intelligent question?”

“I didn't think it was that bad.”

“It was. It was very bad. You know that old saying ‘The only stupid question is one not asked'? It's the saying itself that is stupid. You are always welcome to ask questions here, but I encourage you to spend one or two seconds appraising the question first. Otherwise, you might ask something that implies that you believe that the only possible time in the entire world that you could ever find yourself needing a shelter is in June. When it's only seven thirty in the morning and I've already heard a question that I know will be one of the top three dumbest questions of the day, it depresses me.”

Jackie hung his head. “I'm sorry, sir.”

Jackie really wished he hadn't asked his question. It had seemed like a smart question when he asked it. Not smart like Einstein asking a question about physics but smart enough to prove to Max that he was paying attention. As soon as Max started griping, he'd realized that, yeah, it wasn't the best question he'd ever asked, but by then, it was too late to un-ask it. And now everybody thought he was that green-haired kid who asked dumb questions.

It would've been different if they thought of him as that
weird
green-haired kid. If he was going to be an outcast, he wanted everybody to think he was an outcast because of his fashion choice. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to think that his green hair was all that strange.

Sure, his grandmother hated it. “Why would you disfigure yourself like that?” she'd ask. But it didn't count if it only upset your grandma. His parents had the attitude of “Well, at least he isn't holding up convenience stores or setting fire to anything” and even bought him the green stuff.

He hated being an outcast. Yeah, the other boys were all pretty nice to him. But his plan to win them over via his possessions had been ruined, and last night, he hadn't felt like he was contributing his share to the conversation about whether or not everybody thought Henry would be dead by morning. Jackie knew he was an outcast, even though they were letting him be a full member of their social group.

He would still ask questions. But Max's rule about thinking about them for one or two seconds beforehand seemed reasonable.

“Anybody else have any questions?” asked Max.

There was silence for a moment. Then Erik raised his hand.

“Yes, Erik?”

“You mentioned vampires. Would vampires really be an issue in a cold-weather environment? I know there was that one movie based on that one graphic novel, but if we were in a place where we were worried about freezing to death, I don't think vampires would be much of a threat.”

“Vampires don't exist, Erik. You realize that, right?”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

There were no other dumb questions, at least none that were spoken out loud.

Erik, of course, did not believe in vampires. He did, however, believe that there were people who believed in vampires and it concerned him that Max might be one of them.

Erik was, deep in his heart, a nerd. A closeted nerd. His handsome face, athletic build, and above-average skills at physical activities made him feel that he should hide his true nature, but he knew he was a nerd. He longed to join a
Dungeons
& Dragons
club. Dreamt of going to a science-fiction convention in costume. Dreamt of somebody saying “Hey, nice
Doctor
Who
costume!” so that he could give them a derisive snort and say “
Doctor
Who
is the name of the show, not the character. He's just ‘The Doctor.' Any true fan would know that.”

He loved monsters. Vampires, zombies, mummies, wolfmen, Bigfeet, swamp creatures, ghosts, witches, carnivorous pugs, dragons, orcs, possessed children, chupacabras, koala bears with fangs—he loved them all. Loved them so much that it really bothered him when other people took these monsters too seriously and ruined it for everybody else.

Erik wanted to learn useful survival skills, but he didn't want to learn them from a nutcase who thought vampires were going to bite them while they built a shelter. He thought Max might actually have a zombie apocalypse preparedness plan worked out for real and those were the kinds of people who made Erik feel that he had to try out for the football team, even though he secretly wanted to play chess.

Max rolled his eyes. “Can we discuss the actual construction of shelters now?”

Everybody nodded.

“Stu,” said Max. “If your plane crashed and you found yourself stranded out here, what resources could you expect to obtain from the woods?”

Stu considered that. “Well, I guess I'd start by seeing what I could get from the plane wreckage.”

“The plane wreckage doesn't count. Natural resources only.”

“You mean I'd just leave all of the plane stuff behind?”

“Yes.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because our topic for today is how to build a shelter out of the resources you find in the wilderness.”

“Yeah, but if there's a whole plane's worth of stuff, I'd use that before I started knocking down trees.”

“The plane exploded on impact, scattering burning chunks of metal for miles. You're lucky to have survived.”

“I'd still be more inclined to search for useful pieces of wreckage.”

“The other passengers were so annoyed by you that they voted in favor of opening the door in midflight and throwing you out. The two or three people who were sucked out with you and plummeted to their deaths felt it was worth the sacrifice. You survived, but the plane and its useful components are long gone.”

“Am I injured?”

“Do you want to be?”

“No.”

“That's smart.”

“Okay, so if I was trying to use natural resources to build a shelter, I guess I'd start with…wood?”

“Yes. Wood is a fine place to start.”

“I'd get a bunch of wood. Branches, those are a good source of wood. Maybe a log that somebody else left there. Leaves too. They're probably already on the branches, so you'd just have to remember not to start taking them off. If it started raining, you'd want to have leaves because water doesn't go through leaves. I don't think you'd need rocks. Would you need rocks?”

“Probably not.”

“Yeah, that's what I was thinking. If you wanted to make a path to your shelter, maybe you'd use rocks, but that would be something for the second or third day. You wouldn't start with that.”

“No. You wouldn't.”

“Bones. If you found some bones, they could help. You could use them to prop up the structure. Not bird bones, but if it was something big that had bones, you could use them sort of the way you'd use the wood, except that it would be stronger. You couldn't cut it as easily, so you'd keep them in their original shape. Like if you found ribs, you'd keep them shaped like ribs. You wouldn't break them or anything. Or maybe you would. I guess if you broke them into tiny pieces, you could use them to make a path to your shelter, but like I already said, that wouldn't be a priority. And you'd need to make sure that everybody in your party had good shoes because you wouldn't want to walk on broken bones without good shoes.”

“Of course not.”

“A tarp. Not a naturally occurring plastic tarp but something in nature that you could use as a tarp. I guess that's what the leaves would've been for. I don't know what else you would use. Sunlight? I don't know.”

“Are you finished?” Max asked.

“Yes, sir. I do want to clarify that I wouldn't start looking for bones first thing. I would use the branches and leaves first. It would be more that if I
found
some bones while I was looking for the other stuff, I would try to put them to practical use, not that I would instantly start digging for bones as soon as the plane crashed.”

“Good to know.”

“That's basically my answer.”

“I got it.”

“If it's not the answer you wanted, I can change it.”

“No, I think we're okay, Stu.” Max stood there for a few moments, looking sad, but then he composed himself. “For this shelter-building exercise, you will be divided into two teams.”

What Max said next was like a roaring chainsaw of pure fear in everybody's heart, except maybe Erik's.