by Jeff Strand
“I give up,” said Stu.
“‘Oh, my God, there’s a monkey driving that steamroller! That’s a definite safety hazard!’”
They walked in silence for a moment.
“Was that supposed to be a joke?” Stu asked.
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“The joke is that you thought it was going to have a traditional punch line, but instead the man just said something you’d expect somebody to say if they encountered a monkey driving a steamroller. It subverted your expectations.”
“It subverted my expectation that it would be funny.”
“Whose car is that?” Randy asked.
“I give up.”
“That wasn’t a joke setup. There’s a real car.”
“Oh.” Stu shrugged. “No idea. Maybe Max brought in a real chef for our victory dinner.”
Randy’s stomach grumbled. He always enjoyed a good meal, and by far the worst part of survival camp was that the food was only about fourteen percent edible. When camp ended, the first thing he was going to do was eat an entire sheep, wool and all.
As they walked out of the woods, Randy noticed a man standing near the building. He had a mustache and beard and had kind of an intimidating presence. Probably a friend of Max’s.
“Hi!” Randy said.
“Hello there,” said the man walking toward them. “How are you?”
“Not too good. I’m dead.”
“That so?”
“Yeah.” Randy tapped the orange splotches on his shirt. “You know about the Games, right?”
The man shook his head. “No, tell me about the Games.”
“You don’t know about them? Are you a friend of Max’s?”
“Yeah, I’m an old buddy, just checking in. Sorry—I’m Chad.”
“I’m Randy. This is Stu.”
Stu gave Chad a friendly wave.
“How many people are playing?” asked Chad.
“Now? Just four. I think. Did Henry come back?”
“Henry? Nope, not that I know of.”
“Ha!” said Stu, patting Randy on the shoulder. “That means I made the first kill!”
“Well, congratulations,” said Chad. “That’s quite an accomplishment.”
“Thank you.”
“Look, I have to be honest with you,” said Chad. “I’m here because Max had a family emergency and we’re going to take him back into town.”
“Oh, jeez, what happened?” asked Randy.
“His sister was in a car accident. So I need to gather all of your fellow campers. Any idea where they could be?”
Randy gestured to the woods. “Anywhere out there. It’s against the rules to go past the markers, so they wouldn’t be more than a mile away, but I haven’t seen anyone else since we started.”
“Which sister was it?” Stu asked. “Karen or Jenny?”
“He doesn’t have sisters named Karen or Jenny.” Chad smiled. “Good try though. You can never be too paranoid.”
“Thanks.”
“Max was supposed to announce the dead with a megaphone,” said Randy, who secretly wished that he’d come up with the idea of asking about imaginary sisters to see if the guy was telling the truth about his reason for being here. “We could use that to call them back.”
“That’s perfect,” said Chad. “Could you do the honors?”
***
Jackie flipped back to the first page and began rereading the comic book from the beginning. The X-Men were so cool.
***
“Oh, no,” Henry whispered as he and Erik very carefully made their way through the woods.
This was unbelievably bad. Randy and Stu were just standing there, having a friendly little chat with one of the psycho killers. (Okay, maybe that was unfair. Henry didn’t know for sure that the killers were of the “psycho” variety. In fact, they seemed like fairly sane gentlemen aside from their willingness to take a human life.) It wasn’t as bad as, say, finding Randy writhing on the ground with a boa constrictor around his neck, but his best friend was in serious danger.
“You’d better not be lying to me,” Erik whispered. “If that’s Randy’s dad, I will shove this gun down your throat and give you an orange esophagus.”
“I’m not lying. He’s one of them.”
“Should we just shout out? Do you know for sure that he has a gun?”
Henry looked at Chad closely, trying to see if he could detect a gun-shaped bulge under his shirt. “I can’t see it, but yeah, I know he does. And there are two other guys. If we call out a warning, they might shoot them.”
Erik chewed on his upper lip. “Think we could fake them out with the paint gun?”
“It doesn’t look real.”
“No, but if we just jumped out there and started screaming and shooting, maybe we could create an environment of confusion or something.”
“I think it would be an environment of shredded teenagers.”
“Then what? You’re the one who knows the enemy. What do we do?”
Henry closed his eyes, hoping that the schematics for an awesome plan would materialize in his brain. What would Max do? What would Indiana Jones do? What would Super Mario do?
Forget that. What would Henry Lambert do?
(He was very pleased to discover that Henry Lambert would not say, “Adios, suckers! Too bad for you!” and run off screaming into the woods, leaving his friends to their tragic fates. A small part of him had been worried about that.)
“We need to split up,” said Henry. “One of us comes out behind the building and distracts them, and during that distraction, one of us gets Randy and Stu to run back into the woods.”
“That doesn’t sound foolproof.”
“It’s not. It’s so not.”
“It’s the best we’ve got without a helicopter or a sorcerer. Do you want to be Team Distraction or Team Shoo Randy and Stu Out of Danger?”
“Which one do you think is more dangerous?”
“Team Shoo.”
“I’ll take that one. Randy is my best friend.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, we’ve known each other since kindergarten. Why? Did he say something?”
“No, I meant are you sure you want to do this?”
Henry nodded. “Yes.”
“All right. Good luck. Wait for my move.” Quickly but with admirable stealth, Erik hurried back through the woods.
Henry watched Randy and Stu carefully. Couldn’t they see the murderous glint in Chad’s eyes? Couldn’t they see that he was a ferocious predator, a barely human monster who would think nothing of murdering socially awkward kids before they’d had their first slobbery tongue kiss?
Erik stepped out of the woods. Henry’s insides clenched. He hadn’t expected Erik to leave the safety of the trees.
“Hey, mouth breathers, get your fingers out of your noses, stop your drooling, and come get me! Come on, you sloped forehead simpleton goons! Quit saying, ‘DURRRRRR,’ and show me what you can do!”
Chad glanced over, successfully distracted, but in that instant, Henry knew that simply shouting a warning wasn’t going to be enough. If there was even a moment of Randy and Stu thinking Huh? What’s going on? Why is Henry shouting at us in this odd manner? Chad would have time to whip out his gun and blow them away.
Henry had no other choice. He had to attack.
WILDERNESS SURVIVAL TIP!
Stay away from butterflies. They’re death machines.
Chapter Twenty-One
Items Henry felt would have been useful when he was rushing out to attack a gun-wielding madman: a pitchfork, a pickax, a lightweight lawnmower, a Doberman, a ceiling fan attached to a power source with a cord he wouldn’t trip over, ninja stars, an automobile with iron spikes on the front grille,
a voodoo doll of Chad, a cow to use as a shield, three machetes tied together, a wheelbarrow filled with broken glass, Jackie Chan, a fully charged Taser, a shockingly vicious gerbil, a water pistol that contained acid instead of water (but not acid that would eat through the gun itself, which would be inconvenient), an aerodynamic wrench for throwing, a backup wrench for bashing, bottle rockets, a chainsaw that would start on the first three tugs, a gun, rotten eggs, Excalibur, a baseball bat (wooden or aluminum—no preference), a shaken-up can of Mountain Dew, one of those metal things you used to poke at burning firewood, an artificial limb (to use as a bludgeoning device, not for locomotion), better shoes, a bullwhip, a bull to whip, some variety of rocket, Captain America’s shield, Thor’s hammer, Black Widow’s costume for Monica to wear, a reliable flamethrower, a spear, an electric razor (which would do no real damage but might cause Chad to stop and think Why is he running at me with an electric razor? which could prove to be a deadly lapse of concentration), a potted plant, an orangutan, something with poison on it, a laptop computer that he didn’t mind breaking over somebody’s head, the power to control space and time, a lengthy screwdriver, a totally badass-looking piece of wood covered with razor wire and rusty nails, roller skates, a tire iron, a javelin—come to think of it, the roller skates wouldn’t be very helpful on this uneven dirt ground, so he cancelled that wish—a Model 1881 Gatling gun with the Bruce-style feed system (U.S. Patents 247,158 and 343,532), a pocketknife, a shark, and/or a scimitar.
Sadly, he had none of these things. The only thing close to a weapon that he had access to was a branch and he remembered how well that had worked out in the past.
So when he rushed out of the woods, he had no weapons or protection of any sort, except his fingers, which were curled up in a way that he hoped might resemble bear claws but which he knew didn’t resemble them all that much.
A very small portion of his brain was occupied with the notion of “Oh, crap, we could be dead three seconds from now!” That portion of the brain was making a checklist of regrets and deciding if he wanted a somber eulogy or an amusing one and wondering if his parents would eventually demand their money back from Strongwoods Survival Camp or if they’d just let it go because it seemed tacky to stop grieving long enough to demand a refund.
A slightly larger portion of his brain believed that he would live much longer than three seconds but that his last minutes of life would be spent lying on the ground, filled with bullets, choking on his own blood. That part of his brain was a total jerk. Not that you could deny the practical nature of what it was saying, but still, Henry didn’t want to hear from a whiner right now.
The rest of his brain was operating on pure instinct.
“Run! Run! Run! Run! Run! Run!” he screamed at the top of his lungs as he rushed toward Chad. He hoped that Randy and Stu would realize that he meant for them to run and not Chad.
He bashed into Chad with a force that didn’t quite match that of a professional football player. In fact, it felt like much of the upper half of his body shattered.
Henry didn’t care. Though he would have preferred an outcome where Chad immediately fell to the ground with a great big “Oooommmmphh!” Henry was cool with what did happen. Chad wobbled for a moment, lost his balance, and fell to the ground with Henry on top of him.
“Run!” he screamed again. He tried to punch Chad in the face; however, Chad was shouting something unintelligible at him and Henry’s fist half-went into his open mouth. It was an awkward, off-balance punch and didn’t seem to hurt the thug at all.
“Run! Run!” he continued screaming because he was terrified that Randy or Stu would try to help him subdue Chad. Though he wouldn’t mind having some assistance, if they didn’t get back into the cover of the woods, they were going to get shot by Mr. Grand and Ethan, which would invalidate his own rescue effort.
Randy and Stu ran.
In a truly fantastic world, Henry would grab Chad’s gun. He’d love to have Chad’s gun now. But in the real world, Henry knew that he was about a sixth of a second from having Chad punch him in the face—a punch that would be significantly more effective than Henry’s had been—so he needed to join his friends in their fleeing.
He got up and realized that Chad had foolishly left himself open to the worst kind of kick a human male could receive. The kind of kick that would turn even the mightiest of men into a squealing, whimpering infant. There was no honor in this kick, but these were not honorable times.
Henry kicked him right in the fork in the road.
Chad howled. The sound he made would haunt Henry until the end of his days. Ancient man hearing that noise would have spoken in hushed voices of a creature who had suffered unspeakable tragedy, whose spirit would forever roam these lands. Songs would be written and passed from generation to generation.
Chad clutched at his groin with both hands and emitted a stream of profanity so vile that every baby animal within earshot would be forever corrupted.
Finish him! Henry thought. One more kick and Chad would be no threat to anybody ever again. He’d live out his life in a wheelchair, endlessly weeping, hair permanently white.
But…no. That was a good way to get shot. Instead, Henry ran.
Just as he reached the woods, a gunshot rang out.
He didn’t fall to the ground with a bullet hole in his leg, so that was good.
Another gunshot. And another. Henry sprinted, with Randy and Stu running ahead of him, and as long as he didn’t do anything ridiculously stupid, Henry thought he was going to escape.
He ran for five seconds without doing anything ridiculously stupid.
And then ten seconds. Still nothing ridiculously stupid. More gunshots.
He wanted to stop and shout, “Ha! Too bad you losers don’t have bullets that can weave around trees!” but that would have been ridiculously stupid.
They kept running.
After they ran for thirty seconds, Henry began to believe that he wasn’t going to screw this up. He had saved his friends and helped ensure that Chad would not produce more criminal spawn.
Wow. He was a hero.
Then, of course, because he was Henry, he tripped.
But all things considered, it wasn’t all that bad of a fall. Randy and Stu glanced back at the sound of Henry hitting the ground with an undignified thud and then hurried back to help him up.
“You okay?” asked Randy.
“Yeah,” said Henry. He’d crushed a centipede with his elbow, but he’d mourn its passing later.
All three of them looked back. It didn’t seem as if they were being chased.
“That guy wasn’t really there to deliver news about Max’s sister, was he?” asked Stu.
Henry shook his head. “It’s three of them. They killed Max.”
“What?”
“I’m serious! Max is dead! They shot him!”
“Max can be punctured by bullets?” Stu asked.
“This isn’t something to joke about.”
“That wasn’t me joking. That was me being stunned.”
“So you saved our lives,” said Randy.
“That’s not important right now,” said Henry, even though, yeah, it was important and he hoped they’d seen it all and were prepared to share the story with others. “We just need to find Jackie and get out of here.”
It would be a long, miserable walk, but if the five of them were safe, they could eventually find their way back to civilization. Or at least survive long enough to send up a signal to the helicopters that would eventually be searching for them. Henry now believed not only that they could survive but that they wouldn’t accidentally blow up the helicopter when it circled. That was the old Henry. The new Henry was awesome.
“Any idea where Jackie is?” asked Henry.
“No, did anybody see which way he ran?”
Randy and Stu said that they hadn
’t. Henry cursed. With their luck, Jackie could be wandering toward camp right now.
***
Jackie sat in the tree, wishing that they’d quit shooting so many blanks. It was distracting him from his reading. He adjusted his position to make himself more comfortable and then started reading the comic book again, wishing he had a digital edition.
***
“I think we should shout for him,” said Henry.
“Won’t that give away our position?”
“It might be worth the risk. We can’t just let Jackie go back there.”
“Shhhh!” Randy said. “Did you hear that?”
Everybody silently listened.
“What did you hear?”
“Shhhh!”
Off in the distance, a bird chirped a song.
“Is that your bird?” Stu asked.
“No, I don’t think it’s a bird at all. Doesn’t that kind of sound like somebody imitating a bird?”
They listened some more. It did indeed sound like an imitation of a birdsong.
“Is that Jackie?” Stu asked.
“Why would Jackie be doing birdcalls?”
“I don’t know. I don’t understand the inner workings of Jackie’s mind. Maybe he thinks he’s a bird.”
“Why would he think he’s a bird?”
“I just got through saying that I don’t understand how that weirdo thinks! I didn’t say, ‘Oh, that must be Jackie, because it makes perfect sense that he’d be making bird sounds!’ All I’m saying is that if we don’t think it’s a real bird, there aren’t that many other options besides Jackie.”
“That’s fair,” said Randy.
The birdsong repeated.
“Make a birdsong back,” Randy told Stu.
Stu thought for a moment and then let out a loud…something.
“Not like a chicken! Do it like the one we’re hearing!”
Stu chirped out another birdsong.
“You’re still doing a chicken!”
“So you do it!”
“Guys, stop it!” said Henry. “Do you really want to get killed because you were arguing about chicken noises?”
“Yeah, knock it off for cluck’s sake,” said Randy. He looked down at the ground. “I’m sorry. That was very inappropriate. We just needed something to relieve the tension.”