by Jeff Strand
Copyright © 2014 by Jeff Strand
Cover and internal design © 2014 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover design by Mark Ecob. mecob.org
Cover image © Michael Wong/Getty Images, Eric Isselee, Elena Yakusheva /Shutterstock,
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Sourcebooks Fire, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.
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Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter Zero
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight and a Half
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Sixteen and a Half
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Four and a Half
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Special Addendum
About the Author
Back Cover
“Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”
—Forrest Gump
“Actually, Forrest, boxes of chocolates usually have a guide on the underside of the lid that shows you exactly what you’re going to get.”
—Anonymous
“If you sprinkle
When you tinkle,
Please be a sweetie
And wipe the seatie.”
—William Shakespeare
Chapter Zero
“Hi, everybody. This is Rad Rad Roger here at the world premiere of I Have a Bad Feeling About This, and let me tell you, this par-taaay is wild! You can’t spit without hitting a celebrity! Watch—I’m gonna try it right now. Hooocccccchhhhh—patoo!”
“Hey! What the—”
“It’s Academy Award nominee Sandy Klifton! Great to see you here! Is that a baby bump?”
“No, it most certainly is not.”
“Are you suuuuuure? No, no, I’m just playing around. Celebrities wouldn’t lie about something like that. So are you looking forward to the movie?”
“Well, sure, I mean, that’s kind of why I’m here.”
“Me too, me too. Not that I have tickets. Wanna sell me yours? No, no, I’m just playing around. Who’s your baby daddy? C’mon, you can tell me. We’ll edit that part out of the live broadcast.”
“I have to go now.”
“That was Academy Award non-winner Sandy Klifton, off to have some nighttime morning sickness! And I’m Rad Rad Roger with continuing coverage of tonight’s festivities! Ooh! Ooh! Home run! It’s Henry Lambert! How’s it going, Henry?”
“It’s going great!”
“So you’re a pretty big deal. Sixteen years old and they’ve made a movie out of your life!”
“Well, I’m not sixteen anymore. I was sixteen when everything happened, but I’ve aged since then.”
“Ooooh, burn! Have you seen the movie yet?”
“They let me watch the rough cut, yeah.”
“Is it accurate?”
“Well, it’s Hollywood. This isn’t supposed to be a documentary.”
“How accurate is it?”
“It’s…uh…”
“You definitely have smaller muscles in real life.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“The commercial shows you running away from an explosion with a machine gun in each hand. Can I touch your arm? I just want to see if it could really hold a machine gun like that.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
“Oh, yeah, no way could this skinny thing hold a machine gun. Not even a small one.”
“Excuse me, sir. I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Hey, I’m Internet sensation Rad Rad Roger! I’ll leave when my viewers have gotten the full story on the world premiere of I Have a Bad Feeling About This!”
“Sir, you and your crew need to leave immediately. I won’t ask again.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Rad Rad Roger, bringing you live coverage of me being thrown out of the—okay, okay, ow, stop it! Ow! All I did was touch his arm! I Have a Bad Feeling About This is a lie! Ow! Ow! You’re scuffing up my suit! If you want the true story of what happened out there, read the book! Read the boooooooook!”
Chapter One
“Is your son a scrawny little wuss?” asked the man on the YouTube video.
Henry felt like he was getting a sunburn from the eyes glaring at him through the computer. Wuss? Nerd, sure. Geek, yeah. Dork, not since fifth grade. Not always operating at maximum courage levels, he could accept. But wuss was definitely going too far.
The drill-instructor narrator was bald, dressed in camouflage, and had biceps as big as a standard-sized human head. The camera zoomed in on his face and Henry could see the vein pulsing on his forehead, like he had an angry worm in there. “It doesn’t have to be this way!” the narrator said, his voice echoing dramatically. “We can Fix! Your! Son!”
On the screen, a line of boys walked through the woods. One of them tripped. Another one walked into a tree branch. A third started frantically slapping at something that had crawled down the back of his shirt. The muscular man stepped into the frame and shook his head.
“Disgraceful, isn’t it? It would make me want to cry, except Men! Don’t! Cry! At least not after they’ve gone through—”
There was a whoosh and then a loud clank as the following words slammed onto the screen in manly steel letters: STRONGWOODS SURVIVAL CAMP!!! The words exploded.
It was kind of a cheesy explosion. Henry could have done a much better one on his own computer. Unfortunately, he didn’t think that his dad was making him watch this video to get his opinion on the quality of the special effects.
“Two weeks at Strongwoods Survival Camp is all it takes to turn your cowardly lion into a fearless panther! He will learn how to stand up for himself…and how to survive! Whether it’s school or the zombie apocalypse, our graduates fear nothing!”
A small caption read “Disclaimer: Zombie apocalypse
s are fictional and not part of the Strongwoods Survival Camp curriculum.”
“We teach archery!” A shot of an arrow hitting a bull’s-eye.
“Hand-to-hand combat!” A kid punched a bigger kid in the face, apparently knocking him unconscious with one blow.
“Water transport!” A fearless kid rode a canoe through violent rapids.
“Hunting!” A kid strangled a deer, though a caption read “Re-enactment. Do not attempt.”
“And more! More! More!” The camera zoomed way too close to his face. “Strongwoods Survival Camp!” the man shouted, getting a bit of saliva on the camera lens. “Register your scrawny wimp of a son today!”
Henry’s dad turned to face him. “So what do you think?”
Henry stared at the screen for several seconds before he spoke. “This is a joke, right?”
“No, it’s real, and we think it would be good for you.”
“See, I was kind of thinking the exact opposite. Literally. The exact opposite. One hundred and eighty degrees.”
“You mean three-sixty.”
Henry shook his head. “One-eighty. Three-sixty brings you back to where you started.”
“Oh, you’re right.”
“Maybe you need geometry camp.”
“Maybe you need to stop being a wise guy. Your mother and I just want what’s best for you. This could be a life-changing experience.”
“More like a life-ending experience.”
“This could turn you into a man. How were you planning to become a man?”
“I just kind of thought my body would keep growing.”
“Henry, you’re a good kid. You’re smart, your grades are fantastic, and we’re proud of you, but there are gaps in your life skills. This will help fill some of them.”
“I’m sixteen,” said Henry. “I’m way too old for summer camp. That’s for little kids.”
“This isn’t summer camp. This is survival camp. Your mother and I don’t expect you to become captain of the football team or even demonstrate mild competence at bowling, but wouldn’t it be nice if bullies didn’t kick sand in your face?”
“Nobody has ever actually kicked sand in my face.”
“And do you know why? Because you never go to the beach. And do you know why you never go to the beach? Because you’re afraid of sharks.”
“So? That’s a good fear! It keeps me from getting eaten!”
“But it’s not just sharks. You’re scared of jellyfish—”
“Which sting you!”
“Barracuda—”
“Monsters from hell.”
“Lobsters—”
“Well, duh.”
“Seahorses—”
“I’m not proud of that.”
Okay, Henry did have a fairly long list of fears, but still…wuss was too harsh. It wasn’t like he slept with a night light or peeked under the bed for tentacled monsters. He just had a healthy fear of nature’s vicious predators. And seahorses.
“Halibut—”
“I never said I was scared of halibut. I said that the way they’ve got both eyes on the same side of their face was creepy. I didn’t want to swim directly into one. What’s wrong with that?”
His dad sighed. “The thing is…you could overcome these fears.”
“Going out in the woods is going to conquer my fear of jellyfish?”
His father sighed. “Look, Henry, I can’t force you to go. Actually, I can. That’s the whole point. If you went to this camp, then nobody could force you to go to camp ever again. Don’t you want strength? Don’t you want self-confidence?”
Actually, Henry wanted both of those things. Though he would never, ever, ever admit this to anybody, he was always envious of the guys who could easily talk to girls or who could play team sports without embarrassing and/or hurting themselves. Not that he wanted to be a jock or anything—that would be ridiculous. Still, he was pretty sure that girls would like him once they got to know him. It would be nice to have the self-confidence to say, “Hi, I’m Henry. Wanna get to know me?” (He wouldn’t say it in quite that manner of course. That was just the general concept of what he’d say if he had self-confidence.)
But he didn’t want to acquire those skills at a camp with that guy in the video bellowing at him for two weeks. Henry was short, skinny, and nerdy/geeky—the ultimate prey for a noisy bodybuilder.
“Are you sure Mom wants me to go?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are we talking about it when she’s in Delaware for the week?”
“Your mother may not be quite as sold on the idea as I am, but she definitely agrees with the general concept…in theory.”
“Do I still have to scoop ice cream when I get back?”
“Yes. Anyway, I’ll give you some time to think about it, but you should go with Randy.”
“Wait a minute—Randy’s going?”
***
“It’s gonna be the greatest thing ever!” Randy shouted, forcing Henry to hold the phone a couple of feet away from his ear. “Two weeks of awesome sauce!”
“It looks like two weeks of torture sauce,” Henry said. They’d been best friends since kindergarten and Henry was used to Randy being extremely enthusiastic about things, but these things were usually related to Facebook posts rather than physical exertion. Randy got out of breath if he ate corn on the cob too quickly.
“Are you kidding me? Did you even look at the website? There are going to be survival games just like The Hunger Games in real life!”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah!”
“Well, that might be kind of cool,” Henry admitted.
“This’ll be the best summer of our lives.”
“You understand that there won’t be any girls there, right?”
“So?” Randy asked. “What difference does it make if there are zero girls at survival camp or eight hundred girls here that we don’t talk to?”
“Good point. Good, depressing point.”
“Anyway, there is an all-girl camp somewhere around there, although I think it’s more about music and less about violence.”
“Well, that’s encouraging,” said Henry. “Maybe we can get more dates if we ask at crossbow point. So we’re really going to do this, huh?”
“I don’t know about you, but I am.”
“All right, all right. Then I guess I am too. But I have a bad fee—”
“Sorry, gotta go. Talk to you tomorrow.”
***
“Do you realize it’s two thirty in the morning?” Henry’s dad asked, walking into the living room, fastening his bathrobe.
Henry kept his attention on the TV screen. “Yeah.”
“Have you considered going to bed?”
“It’s going to be two weeks without video games. I have to play enough now to sustain myself through that time.”
“That game actually looks kind of cool.”
“It is. And it’s helping me build my survival skills before camp.”
In this game, mummies had taken over the world, and the player’s job was to kill them. It was kind of astonishing how many ways there were to kill a mummy. Though Henry could safely say that there would not be any mummy-killing exercises at camp, the dexterity and problem-solving skills he was demonstrating now would help him in real life, right?
“All right. Whatever. Have fun.”
WILDERNESS SURVIVAL TIP!
Ninety-seven percent of our nation’s ponds are filled to the top with piranha, which can skeletonize a cow in seconds. If you value your cow, don’t shove it into a pond.
Chapter Two
Henry didn’t much like the outdoors and there was a lot of outdoors out here. Randy sat next to him in the backseat of the car, looking giddy. He was too old to say, “Are we there yet? Are we t
here yet? Are we there yet?” but Henry could tell that he was saying it in his mind. Randy had talked about nothing but Strongwoods Survival Camp for the past ten days, and Henry had to admit that his enthusiasm was infectious. It might be kind of cool. It might even be fun. He might even put in a solid twenty-third-place showing in the Games, assuming that there were twenty-six or twenty-seven other players.
Henry still didn’t like the outdoors, though.
They’d been on a dirt road for the past fifteen miles. The car made a THUB THUB THUB sound, and Henry kept glancing out the rear window to make sure that useful pieces weren’t being left behind. After the road had degenerated to the point where you could no longer accurately refer to it as a road, they reached a sign that said, “Welcome to Strongwoods Survival Camp.”
“I think that sign is written in blood,” said Henry.
“Oh, it is not,” said his mother.
“Randy, doesn’t that look like blood?”
Randy shook his head. “It’s too bright. Blood’s brown when it dries.”
The woods seemed to suddenly get darker and spookier. This place could be the hunting grounds for at least seven or eight different serial killers. Coming here was such a bad idea. Henry was going to look like a total idiot when he wound up dismembered.
“Oh, well,” the chief of police would say, “that’s what you get for ignoring a sign written in blood.”
Finally, they reached the camp. It consisted of two small buildings, both of them brown and nondescript. The one that was slightly less nondescript had a black truck parked in front of it. There was also a flagpole that didn’t look like it could support the weight of an actual flag.
Henry’s dad shut off the car. As they got out, the front door to one of the brown buildings opened, and the bald, muscular man from the video walked out. He was wearing the same camouflage outfit, unless he owned more than one.
“Welcome to Strongwoods Survival Camp,” he said. “My name is Max.” He looked at Henry. “You must be Randy Cakes.”
“I’m Henry Lambert. He’s Randy.”
Henry suddenly wondered if he’d made a terrible mistake by correcting the man. Maybe he and Randy should have just switched identities for the next two weeks.
