by Jeff Strand
“It’s not suicide,” said Henry. “I’m not saying that we should just walk out there and say, ‘Here are our heads. Shoot ’em.’ But do you really think we should leave Erik without trying to talk to them?”
“I’ve made my admiration for Erik very clear. If you think that not going back there is the same as leaving him to die, then that’s your own issue.”
“It’s not my issue! That’s exactly what it is! Not going back equals dead Erik. Do you want that on your conscience?”
“I have gifts to give to the world and that requires me to be alive. Are you okay with stealing the world’s gifts?”
“You’re a coward.”
“Gift stealer!”
“Stop it!” said Monica. “There’s nothing wrong with Stu’s cowardice as long as he’s serving the greater good.”
“Yeah!”
“Now I’m not trying to be insulting about you or egotistical about myself, but you guys need me. Big time. Not trying to toot my own horn here. I just think that I’m the only thing that stands between you guys and this camp being renamed Strongwoods Massacre Camp.”
Everybody murmured in agreement. It was sad but true.
“Stu, go find the camp. Don’t read any of my texts.”
Stu nodded and hurriedly ran off before any further guilt trips could be placed upon him.
“As for the rest of you,” said Monica in a tone of voice suggesting that if a movie camera were present, it would be doing a slow, dramatic zoom on her face, “let’s go save your friend.”
***
Jackie grinned as he sat in the tree. He couldn’t believe they thought they could draw him out with a fake voice over the megaphone. He was finally starting to get bored with the comic book, so he decided to take a nap.
***
Henry and Randy found what they hoped was a safe spot. They were close enough to see the side of the building but had enough tree coverage that the bad guys couldn’t get an accurate shot. Hopefully.
“You now have sixty seconds,” Mr. Grand said into the megaphone from the front of the building. “Fifty-nine…fifty-eight—”
“We’re here!” Henry called out.
“Fifty-seven…fifty-six—”
Mr. Grand couldn’t hear them over his own voice. This had the potential of creating a wacky, bloodstained mishap.
“We’re here!” Henry and Randy shouted together.
“Good,” said Mr. Grand. “Very good.”
He walked into view alongside the building only about thirty feet away. Erik followed, hands in the air. Chad had a gun to Erik’s back.
“I know that you have no way of calling for help,” said Mr. Grand, no longer using the megaphone. “The only weapons you have are toys. Your best bet to survive this is to give yourselves up and let us all talk this out like adults.”
“That doesn’t really work for us,” Henry called out, using his most Eh, I’m not all that worried that you’re gonna kill me tone of voice. “What else have you got?”
“How about this? Come out or we shoot your friend.”
“You’re bluffing,” said Henry. “You know that if you kill him, you’ll never see us again. So make a better offer.”
Mr. Grand chuckled. “You’re very clever.”
“That wasn’t clever at all. Don’t patronize me.”
“We seem to have ourselves an impasse.”
“Looks like it.”
“How do you propose we resolve it?”
“Let Erik go.”
“Why would I do that?”
“You might spend less time in jail.”
“Was that a joke?” asked Mr. Grand. “Do you really think that you’re intimidating me in this situation with threats of jail time?”
“Dunno.”
“Let me explain how this is actually going to work. Come out now, all of you, or we’re going to break your friend. Do you know what a bone sounds like when it snaps in half?”
“Like a snap?” Henry asked.
“So this is all a big joke now? Are you all going to sit out there and giggle while we rip his arms out of their sockets? How about I move things forward for us? Come out now or we’re going to shoot a hole through his right palm.”
Henry took a deep breath. This was the part of the plan that truly bit.
A really great plan at this point would be based on the following theory:
a) Mr. Grand would not actually harm Erik because
b) If he did, the other kids would flee.
Unfortunately, Henry was nowhere near confident enough about this theory to test it. If they refused to show themselves at all, Mr. Grant and his cronies would most likely make the assumption that:
a) The boys were never going to come out of the woods and therefore
b) They might as well kill Erik.
This was not a desirable outcome, and in fact, it would possibly lead to:
c) Mr. Grand, Chad, and Ethan, assuming that the other boys were close, would recklessly open fire into the woods, figuring that they’d get at least one more of them.
Based on this analysis, the plan of not doing anything was a poor one. So they had to work with a backup theory:
a) If Henry showed himself, Mr. Grand would not necessarily immediately blow him away.
This was a very risky theory since it assumed that a man who wanted very badly to kill Henry would not take the opportunity to do so. In fact, it assumed that all three men would behave in that manner, including one whom Henry had recently kicked in the crotch and whose mind might not be working correctly yet.
However, playing the odds, Henry felt that his immediate status after stepping out of the woods would not be to be dead. So he had to do it to save Erik based on his theory that:
a) Monica could actually do what she said she was going to do.
It was insane to think that she could. And Henry wasn’t going to lie to himself. If he didn’t have a crush on her, his reaction would’ve been “Are you kidding?” Not that he didn’t believe girls could accomplish amazing things, but when one of them assured him that she could sneak into the building, find Max’s stash of weaponry, and turn it to their advantage…well, he had to be a bit skeptical.
But it was too late now.
Actually, no, it wasn’t. There was still time for a wuss-out. Still time to decide that noble behavior was way overrated. Still time to tell his grandchildren “Yep, I was there on that dark day, and though Grampy Henry beat a quick retreat, that’s why he’s still got a lap for you to sit on.”
Henry gave Randy a look that he hoped was meaningful enough if it turned out to be his last one (a brave face yet with a touch of sorrow) and then stepped out of the woods.
“What a complete dumbass,” said Chad, incredulous.
“Shut up,” Mr. Grand told him. To Henry, he said, “Where are the others?”
“They’re watching.”
“Tell them to come out.”
“No, you wanted to talk like adults, so let’s do it. Here’s how we’re going to solve our problem: We want to get paid. A hundred grand each. We will keep quiet for forty-eight hours after you get out of here, and if we get our hundred grand, then we’ll stay quiet for another thousand a month.”
“Each?”
“Yes.”
“That price seems a bit steep.”
“To conceal a murder?” Henry honestly didn’t have any idea what the standard blackmail rates for this kind of thing were.
“Why not a make it simple? A flat payment of a hundred and fifty grand each?”
Henry pretended to think that over. “We can do that.”
“Then how would I know you wouldn’t turn me in as soon as you got your money?”
“Well…that’s why I suggested the ongoing payment plan.”
“Hmmmm.”
Hmmmm was the last comment for a few moments. Henry hoped that his sheen of perspiration wasn’t blinding anybody.
“Now, you understand that if you take the money, this makes you an accessory, right? If you take my cash and turn me in, you’ll be in the cell next to me. And then my men will find your family and they will die glacially slow deaths. Do you understand this?”
“I do.”
“Hmmmm. You know what, Henry? We may just have a deal,” said Mr. Grand in what was one of the most transparent lies Henry had ever heard.
“Awesome,” said Henry.
WILDERNESS SURVIVAL TIP!
If you forgot to bring water purification tablets (which you probably did. I mean, who leaves the house and says “Better not forget my water purification tablets!”?) a few Tic Tacs are an acceptable substitute only if the Tic Tacs are mint flavored. Fruit-flavored Tic Tacs won’t do squat.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Monica’s parents liked to say that she was born without the fear gene. She did have fears, but they were more about “What if I’m friendless?” than “What if I get shot by criminals?” Though putting her life in this much jeopardy was extreme even by her standards, it had to be done.
Okay, there were three bad guys. Mr. Grand was busy talking to Henry. Chad was busy pointing a gun at Erik. Ethan had been busy getting rid of the dead body and hopefully would continue being busy with that. So unless there was another bad guy unaccounted for (and Monica thought that Henry had probably counted correctly because three was a pretty low number), all she really had to do was move quickly and hope that Ethan didn’t come back inside.
Oh, yeah, and she also had to hope that the back window was unlocked. Henry said that he remembered opening it when they burned a microwavable burrito and it hadn’t been locked then, so it most likely wasn’t locked now. If it was, she’d have to dive through it, which Monica didn’t think you could do without getting a concussion and about seven thousand cuts. If at all possible, she wanted to avoid a plan of action where she got shredded.
She darted out of the woods, moving like the ninja she’d always known she could be. She reached the window, which had approximately eighty-three thousand dead bugs on the sill, and gently but quickly slid it open.
With either the skill of a mighty Olympian or a sneaky burglar, she climbed through the window and then leapt down off the kitchen counter onto the tile floor, landing almost silently.
Nobody was in the kitchen to shoot her. This was a good start.
Though she had no time to waste, she thought it would be a fine idea to take a few seconds to scavenge a weapon or two just in case she had an unexpected visitor. She pulled open the first drawer. A butcher knife. Perfect. You could mess somebody up with a butcher knife.
She opened a cabinet. Plastic glasses. Less useful than the butcher knife. There was also a frying pan, which was not typically stored next to glasses, but whatever. So she grabbed that. It had a thick layer of brownish fossilized-looking gook on the bottom. They actually ate things that had been cooked on this? Vile.
She hurried out of the kitchen, making sure not to step on any of the food (?) that littered the floor. She shifted the frying pan to her left hand, the same one that held the knife, as she went over to the closet door. She turned the handle. Locked.
If she’d had a paper clip and a few extra minutes, she thought, she could pick the lock. But she didn’t have either of those, so she hurried across the room toward Max’s office.
Oh, jeez, there was still blood on the floor. She stopped, momentarily dizzy. Monica had caused her brothers to have many bloody noses in her life, but actually seeing blood from a murdered human being made her queasy.
Suck it up, girl, she thought. No, not the blood. Power through this. You don’t have time to be sick to your stomach.
She ignored the blood and rushed into Max’s office. A key ring dangled from a hook next to the door. She grabbed the keys and left the office, thinking that this was going pretty well so far.
She winced. What a stupid thing to think. It was the perfect cue for the door to open.
The door opened.
Her first instinct was to hide, but the only place to hide was under Max’s desk. No matter how agile you were, there wasn’t much damage you could do to an opponent while crammed underneath a tiny desk. If they made even the most halfhearted effort to search the place, they’d find her, and the best she’d be able to do is let out a girlish little giggle and hope to charm the killers, which was not a fantastic strategy.
So she had to go on the offensive.
She rushed at the door, resisting the urge to let out a primal yell since primal yells tended to alert others in the general vicinity to your presence.
Monica knew that the correct move would be a butcher knife to the throat since the noise would be “Auuck! Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle!” instead of the loud “Clang!” of a frying pan to the skull. But deep inside, she knew she was not prepared to stab somebody in the neck. It just wasn’t part of her personality profile.
She dropped the knife and kept the pan.
As Ethan’s eyes widened at the sight of a sixteen-year-old girl charging him (probably not a sight he’d expected at this particular moment), she flipped the pan around and smacked him in the face with the sticky side.
There was a definite clang, but it was a muted clang.
Ethan dropped to his knees. The pan stuck to his face.
He clutched at it and tried to pry it off, but the pan remained firmly stuck there. “It burns!” he wailed.
Monica kicked the door shut and locked it. She should have locked it in the first place, but oh well, she’d know that for next time. Then she kicked the pan, which made Ethan thrash around a bit less.
She couldn’t see his gun. Maybe he didn’t have one. Better to stick with her plan than to waste time searching for a gun that might not be there.
She sprinted for the closet. There were six or seven keys on the ring, none of which were helpfully labeled “This is the key to the closet that has the big black bag full of useful weapons,” so she tried the first one, which didn’t fit.
Somebody began to pound on the main door. It shook on its hinges. Monica hoped it didn’t bring the entire building down.
Ethan stood up, still wailing about how it burned and still trying to tear the pan off his face.
The second key didn’t fit.
A gunshot. From…oh, about twenty feet away. So Ethan was packing heat after all. Fortunately, he was still blind and was apparently just shooting in random directions.
The third key fit. Monica opened the closet door just as a bullet put a hole through it. There it was—a big black bag. She picked it up—it was way heavier than she’d expected—and hurried into the kitchen, trying to keep herself from toppling over from the weight of the bag.
Ethan kept pulling the trigger, even though his gun was now just clicking.
She glanced back at him. What if she made Ethan into her hostage? They could do a trade.
No, hostages were more useful when somebody cared about them. Mr. Grand would probably just shrug and say, “He’s yours. Use his head as a flowerpot.”
Ethan ripped the pan off his face. Monica had never had a wax job, but her understanding was that it was not a pleasant process. Ethan, who’d suddenly had the equivalent of a wax job on his mustache, goatee, and left eyebrow, seemed to agree with that assessment. He bellowed in pain.
The pounding on the front door continued.
Monica ran for the window.
She tossed the bag on the counter, hoping she hadn’t just given herself a hernia. As she leapt up there, Ethan let out a primal yell. She could hear his footsteps squeak behind her as she shoved the bag out of the open window.
There was a clatter, a yelp, an even louder squeak, and a thud. Without having
seen any of this, Monica thought that he’d probably tripped on the butcher knife and then slipped on the blood and then fell on his butt.
She jumped out of the window. She grabbed the black bag, hurting her shoulder in the process, and then raced into the woods.
***
Ethan lay on the floor, not sure if he was looking at his left foot or if his right foot was twisted wrong. He’d tripped on a butcher knife that he hadn’t expected to be there, slipped on the blood that he should have known to avoid, and fallen on his butt. He wasn’t sure if the pain or the shame was worse.
He was definitely looking at his right foot, so the pain was worse.
The door burst open, the top hinge popping right off. “What happened?” Chad asked.
“What do you think happened?” Ethan said, hoping that Chad would not draw the conclusion that he’d been defeated by a teenage girl.
Chad ran over and looked in the closet. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know!”
“Is he still here?”
“I don’t know!”
“What happened to your facial hair?”
“It was horrible!”
Chad looked into the kitchen and then back at Ethan. “He must’ve gone out the window! Who was it?”
Ethan wondered if a lie would come back to haunt him. He suspected that it would but decided it was worth the risk. “A great big kid! Giant kid! Maybe not even a kid!”
Chad cursed. “We need to forget about the kids and get out of here.”
***
Randy slammed Monica’s pocketknife into the second tire of Mr. Grand’s car. He, Henry, and Monica had been worried the men would just leave, taking Erik with them, but this would put a stop to that.
***
“What’s going on in there?” Mr. Grand called out at the sound of a clang.
Ethan didn’t answer.
Mr. Grand, Chad, Henry, and Erik listened carefully, with Mr. Grand and Chad hoping there wouldn’t be any more surprising noises and Henry and Erik hoping there would be all kinds of them.
