by Jeff Strand
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 kid
s,” 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.
“It’s just me,” Henry insisted.
Ethan snickered. “Then why did five of the cots have people’s bags on them?”
It was, Henry had to admit, a superb question. “They’re on a field trip.”
“To where?”
“An indoor shooting range.”
“Bzzzz! Sorry, Henry. That doesn’t match what your uncle Max told me. He said camp was out. I think both of you were trying to mislead me.”
“What I meant was—”
The man held up his palm. “Don’t talk. Tell me…have you ever heard of somebody named Mr. Grand?”
“No.”
“Well, you wouldn’t have, since I assume you’re not familiar with the players in the criminal underworld. But Mr. Grand is me. If I didn’t want to preserve your youthful innocence for a few more seconds, I could tell you some of the things I’ve done. For simplicity’s sake, let’s just say that I don’t mind getting my hands messy. To be more descriptive would be impolite.”
Ethan snickered again. Mr. Grand glared at him and then continued. “What I’d like you to take from this conversation, Henry, is the observation that I am a very bad person who has done a great many bad things. Our whole problem is that you’ve seen me do one of those bad things, which is information we can’t let you give to the police, and yet I’ve just told you my real name. How does that make you feel, Henry?”
WILDERNESS SURVIVAL TIP!
In case of an avalanche, don’t despair. You’re doomed, but c’mon, how many people get to say they died in an avalanche?!? That’s wicked cool.
Chapter Eighteen
Henry’s stomach lurched and his last meal, which until now had done a surprisingly good job of remaining inside his body, ceased being a victim of the digestive process and shot back up into his throat. He slammed his hand over his mouth and instinctively bolted for the bathroom, even though there was no bathroom in this building.
Ethan howled with laughter.
Henry’s vision blurred and he realized that it was blind luck that kept him from slipping on the blood, or worse, tripping over Max’s dead body. He stumbled forward, desperately trying to keep from spewing all over the place. He wasn’t sure how that would make his situation worse, but he wanted to avoid the humiliation if at all possible.
Then a very clear thought: Work with this! They hadn’t shot him and yet he was up and running around when he wasn’t supposed to be. If they spent a few more seconds thinking he was a laughable buffoon, he could get into Max’s office and crash through the window!
He bolted for Max’s office, ran inside, slammed the door behind him, and locked it.
It had worked! It had actually worked! He was just like an action hero!
Then he finally threw up, which made him feel less like an action hero.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and quickly glanced around the tiny office. The first detail that he noticed—and it was an important one—was that there was not a window. Somebody on the other side began to violently pound on the door. It was probably not the cavalry. Since the building itself seemed to be on the verge of falling apart, Henry didn’t think the door was going to provide much protection against large men with guns.
Henry frantically looked around for something that could help him, such as the entrance to a bomb shelter. You’d think that a guy as paranoid as Max would at least have a panic room, but nope, it seemed like a regular office.
Where were the machine guns displayed on the wall? Where was the pile of emergency dynamite? Where was the ceremonial samurai sword? Where was the tank? This was all just papers and stuff.
He opened one of the desk drawers. Inside were three bottles of whiskey but no weapons. If they weren’t in here, then the big black bag of weapons must be stored in the closet next to the kitchen, which didn’t do Henry a whole lot of good right now.
The pounding on the door turned into a kicking and the door shook on its rusty hinges. That thing was going to burst open any moment now, and in the battle of Frightened Teenaged Kid with a Whiskey Bottle v. Two or Three Big Men with Firearms, Henry thought that he had a good chance of losing.
The only thing that even looked like a weapon was a joke grenade on the corner of the desk. A tag with the number three was attached to the pin, and a sign read, Please Take a Number. Henry thought his dad had the same gag in his office.
Henry knew that Max, may he rest in peace, would have wanted him to turn a phony grenade to his advantage.
He grabbed the grenade off the desk and yanked off the three just as the door flew open, coming half off its hinges. Henry suddenly had two guns pointed at him by two extremely angry looking men, but he raised the hand with the grenade and tried not to panic.
“Get out of my way!” he shouted. He felt that harsh profanity would be appropriate here but worried that he might not be able to pull off the necessary attitude, so he left it out. “Get out of my way or I’ll blow us all to bits!” Without even waiting to see if his bluff was going to work, Henry strode for the doorway, praying that they would step out of his way.
They did. Mr. Grand and Ethan didn’t give him a lot of clearance, but Henry was able to push past them, trying to hold the grenade like he meant it.
“Don’t mess with me!” he warned them, moving toward the main door to the building. “I’ll blow us all up! I’ll do it!”
Ethan cackled with laughter. That was not a good sign.
“You don’t even know how a fragmentation grenade works!” he said. “You don’t blow people up with it. Don’t they teach you anything at this camp? Man, if I paid to come here, I’d demand my money back.”
Henry tossed the grenade at him.
Ethan’s smile disappeared like…well, like somebody had tossed a grenade at him. His gun fell out of his hand as he scrambled back out of the way. For part of a fraction of a split second, Henry thought about going for the gun, but he’d never be able to grab it before Ethan did, so instead, he rushed for the exit.
He made it.
He sprinted for the woods.
Made it there too.
A gunshot rang out, and though he didn’t feel a bullet whoosh past his ear, he thought it came pretty close. He kept running, pumping his legs as fast as he possibly could.
Another gunshot. A leaf popped off a tree in front of him, but that might have been a coincidence.
Don�
��t trip, don’t trip, don’t trip, don’t trip—
Don’t hit a branch, don’t hit a branch, don’t hit a branch—
Don’t die of a heart attack, don’t die of a heart attack, don’t die of a heart attack—
A third gunshot, but this one sounded a bit farther away. Maybe the shooter wasn’t actually chasing him. You couldn’t shoot very well when you were running.
If Henry didn’t trip, hit a branch, or die of a heart attack, he might actually be okay! The trees were definitely too thick now for somebody to get a good shot. In the face of mortal danger, his running abilities were way better than he ever imagined possible.
A true action star would turn around and shout something clever, but Henry felt it was best to skip that step. He kept running.
No more gunshots.
He wondered how mad they were about the fake grenade. Probably very.
He wanted to quickly glance over his shoulder to see if anybody was chasing after him, but he didn’t want to give them an unfair advantage by falling and breaking his legs, so he just kept running and running and running.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been running before, completely exhausted, he had to stop. Maybe as long as ten minutes but probably something lamer like five. He stopped, braced himself against a tree, and tried to catch his breath.
Henry looked back. There was no evidence that anybody was pursuing him.
He was safe. He’d actually gotten out of that situation without Batman breaking through a window and rescuing him. If Max really did have hidden cameras set up, that would be the most awesome thing imaginable.
Then Henry felt guilty for thinking about the awesomeness of his accomplishment when Max was dead. Max didn’t deserve to be shot in the chest. He was strict and insane but well meaning, and given the opportunity, Henry might even try to avenge his death. Not one of those deals where you spend your entire life searching for the target of your revenge at the total expense of anything resembling a social life, but if convenient vengeance ever presented itself, he’d definitely take it.