The Foul Mouth and the Cat Killing Coyotes (The King Henry Tapes)

by Richard Raley

  Jason waited on me, twirling left then right. I came up behind him, slow. Remember . . . he thought he might get attacked by some furry ass creature looking for buttsex. I thought I was just getting screwed in the ass by the Asylum like usual. I was ready, but I was even more suspicious.

  I wasn’t looking for threats.

  I looked for tricks.

  But there was no sign of either.

  No sign of Samson too.

  The camp was empty of movement, everyone still inside their tents but us fucktards. The fire was well dead. The benches were in just the same spot, looking like no one ate at them the night before. The lake was oddly peaceful. Nothing had really changed . . . except for the blood.

  Blood was everywhere.

  You could smell it. Got right up inside your nose like some girlfriend ain’t buying you want to break up, clinging, whiny, annoying you. Iron and salt. Strong odor, knock you down if you aren’t used to it. Poor Jason scrunched up his nose, tried to cover it with an elbow. Me, I’d smelt it some. Done so much fighting I’d cut and been cut. I knew the smell . . . just never so much of it.

  More than the smell there was sight. Red fluid splashed around the camp in more than five places. Across tents, down trees, droplets melding with the dirt and sticking to stray blades of grass.

  “Ain’t a doctor but I think this is too much for one guy, specially a pruned up bastard like Samson,” I said, not bothering to stay quiet.

  No one here. This is bullshit.

  For once, Jason didn’t slam my ass across the camp for talking. “He killed some of them ‘fore they took him down, what you bet?”

  “If you say so,” I muttered. Turning towards the tent I motioned with my stick. “Come on out, it’s clear.”

  Pocket was first.

  For being better than everyone, Welf sure didn’t want to be the first into the gap, did he?

  “Dude!” Pocket said over the blood.

  “Disgusting,” was Welf’s comment.

  “Hey, fuckers! Get out of your tents and quit being punks,” I yelled.

  Zips sounded across the camp.

  [CLICK]

  After everyone calmed down and a few people stopped throwing up, the thirty of us gathered to the side of the camp, circling one of the largest trees like some Indian powwow. Except without any psychedelics.

  “We need to choose leaders,” Welf decided for us. Wonder who he has in mind? “A legislative body never does well in a situation like this, much less thirty people voting their own interest at every fork in the road . . . or path. We need a leader who can keep us together. One vote, right now.”

  “I vote we don’t play their games,” I interrupted, earning my usual response of rolled eyes and groans. “Chill out by the lake, get a fire going, cook us up some fish. Samson will eventually get bored and come get us.”

  Debra Diaz, sitting next to her boyfriend Estefan Ramirez with his arm wrapped around her shoulders, spoke for the class: “You really are retarded, aren’t you? I’d wondered if you just played at it . . . but . . . that’s a pretty retarded plan.”

  “It’s a trick,” I said, very firm in my conviction.

  “You heard the werewolves!” Debra’s an electromancer, same as Estefan. Electromancers got this weird thing where they all get along; with them they became a couple the first week, dated their whole time at the Asylum, and married the moment they graduated. The most stable couple in the class, maybe the school. “We all did!”

  Some people laughed. “Maybe wolf, but there is no such thing as a werewolf,” Asa Kayode huffed. “You westerners and your love of fables . . .”

  Hope Hunting stared daggers. “Heinrich, forget a vote; they’re too stupid to save, we should just go. They don’t even know about Weres.”

  “It wasn’t a werewolf,” I tried again. “Samson is screwing with us.”

  “Samson got lunched up,” Jason Jackson muttered, still eyeing all the blood.

  “Werewolves are real?” Asa’s dark face actually had a touch of brown to it for once as she paled.

  “Of course they are,” Welf said to try to get people focused back on him. “But don’t worry, if they Switched last night, then they won’t Switch today . . . it would be too dangerous for them from what I understand.”

  I barely contained a string of obscenities beyond my usual favorites. “Miss Dale told me that werewolves are in Montana or some shit. She also made it sound like they weren’t tough and if she can take them, then Samson can take them. Thus, screwing with us.”

  “Mr. Samson,” Debra said to me like my IQ was about sixty-five, “was very old. He saved us last night . . . you shouldn’t disparage his legacy like you are.”

  Before I could continue my theory, Welf interrupted, “Everyone who votes for the Foul Mouth’s plan of doing nothing . . . please raise your hand.”

  Not even Pocket was with me. The only one who did was Jesus and on account of him not speaking much English he wasn’t following all of the conversation. Might have thought we were voting to tie me up and shove a gag in said foul mouth.

  “What happened to all that big talk about how people voting on stuff doesn’t work, Welf?” I complained.

  “And you bring me back to our dilemma,” Welf smoothly dove-tailed, “a vote on who should lead us.”

  “And what to do,” came from a new place. Ronaldo Silva was friends with Estefan and Miles Hun Pak. They were into soccer and sports and stuff. Silva was from Brazil, spoke with a surprisingly high voice, and had warm brown skin. He was a cryomancer just like Hope Hunting. No idea if he also had a frozen twat.

  “I think that’s rather obvious.” Instead of frowning like most would upon hearing some other point of view Welf had a habit of giving a small placating smile. “There’s a road half-a-day away, we only have to reach it and eventually we’ll find civilization.”

  “Are you in the same place I am, Nazi?” I asked. “This ain’t anywhere near civilization. See all the fucking trees? Smell them?”

  “We’re in California, not Africa,” Welf laughed.

  “And what do you have against Africa?” Asa asked, very nationalist about Nigeria.

  I winced. “Think you just lost a vote, Welf.”

  “We should stay here,” Debra decided. She got some nods of support. “The teachers know we’re here.”

  “So do the werewolves,” Hope pointed out, petite nose wrinkled in disgust that we were arguing and not doing. “We’d have to worry about them, fight off the wild beasts . . . just like Africa.”

  “No one makes fun of Africa again or I show you what I’ve learned from my continent,” Asa told us with a smile not so friendly.

  “We could get weapons,” Estefan supported his girlfriend, “build barricades.”

  “And food, water?” Welf asked. “Staying will take longer; the teachers won’t even learn we’re missing until tomorrow night. That means two nights here instead of one.”

  Estefan shrugged. “We have the lake for food and water, as long as we manage a fire. Just like King Henry said.”

  Welf bristled at my name. “This is exactly why being a group is such a horrible idea; we need to vote for a leader.”

  Miranda Daniels raised her hand. Being about as ginger as you can get, Miranda took worse to the outdoors than I did. She looked on edge. Didn’t help that she’d thrown up from all the blood or that her glasses gave her trouble over all the rough terrain. “I agree about a vote but I think the leader should have to give us an idea about what their plan is, like a political platform. Majority rules.”

  Welf nodded to her, all civility. “Finally a good idea . . .”

  “Who’s running then?” a new voice, Curt Chambers. He sounded more wheezy than usual. Curt was usually in charge of the gamers and grunge kids.

  “I nominate Estefan,” Debra was first.

  “Then I nominate Heinrich,” Hope was next.

  You’ve already heard the ideas so I’m going to skip over the rousing speeches of Tea
m Barricade and Team Road.

  “That’s it I suppose,” Welf said, finishing up.

  “Show of hands should work,” Curt agreed. He’d taken on the middle ground as a kind of peacekeeper.

  I thought our situation over.

  Stay or go. I wanted to stay, but I wanted to stay and flip off the woods and let the teachers know I’m onto them. Are you doubting me too, kiddies? Maybe you should . . . maybe I’m wrong and my plan would have gotten us all killed.

  I wanted to stay . . . but the ones voting to stay weren’t into flipping off the woods. They wanted to clean the tents and build barricades. That sounded like a lot of work. Besides, if I couldn’t have my way, why not make Samson track us through the damned forest?

  Only I wasn’t about to vote for Welf.

  “I nominate Pocket,” I said.

  “We already nominated people!” Welf hissed at me.

  “Why you doing this to me, dude?” Pocket asked, in freak-out mode over the idea of leading the class.

  “Pocket has the same idea as Welf, except he actually knows what he’s doing.” I stood, giving a speech for my friend that I admit . . . had a lot in common with throwing someone off a building. “You see him build the tent? Welf’s never been camping before, he screwed up like all of us did with the fire, why should we follow him? Pocket’s been camping. All the time. He rocks at it. He can get us to the road in no time. Shit . . . with Pocket leading us we might even have a shot at showing up at the Asylum on time, forget getting rescued.”

  “But,” Hope growled, her hands bony, whitened fists, “you wanted to stay here!”

  “Only I’m not into barricades; it’s not the zombie apocalypse, is it? Which brings me to my next point: Welf’s a necromancer, Pocket’s a floromancer. Trees is what this fine son-of-a-bitch does. You see his stick?” I asked. “Look at that stick. Big ol’ stick. Bet you ask nicely he’d let you touch it.”

  Pocket blushed crimson.

  Thank the Mancy for Valentine, she’s the only one who laughed.

  “Foul Mouth,” Welf kept hissing, “I’m going to hurt you.”

  “But he has a point,” Raj Malik logically supplied. “If we are to trust the Mancy, then a floromancer would be the obvious person to lead us.”

  “Yeah!” Naomi Gullick agreed, floromancer herself. Have I mentioned there’s like five floromancers in Class ’09? That, kiddos, is what we call a political base.

  [CLICK]

  Pocket won.

  Nineteen to eleven.

  Welf didn’t get a single vote.

  Yup, that felt good.

  Excuse me while I generalize and do some bad ol’ telling for this next part of our story. I don’t really want to waste time I don’t have to on it, because, as always, it’s the destination that matters, not the journey itself, no matter how many wordy son-of-a-bitches tell you fucking otherwise. I’ve got a shop to set up, little assholes, I don’t got the time to wonder about how many ways I can talk about even more little assholes walking through the woods. Sure, Jethro Smith would be ashamed, but he’s a necromancer: he don’t get no opinion.

  So . . . the group of us huddled over into the camp and packed up. Pocket told us to forget the tents; it would waste too much time to clean them. Instead we settled for sleeping-bags. He also had us lighten our backpacks by throwing out our extra pairs of shoes, some of the pans, utensils and the like. We were told to keep as much water as we could and quickly realized our meals for the next few days were going to be beef jerky and trail mix.

  There are worse meals than beef jerky. Actually . . . I think every meal might be a worse meal than beef jerky . . .

  At a half hour Pocket called a stop, told us to gather up in a line, then he went about mixing us up. Unlike Samson, he put us in twos. Also told us to keep an eye on each other and to never leave our partner. “Even going to the bathroom,” he told us.

  I got the front spot beside Pocket. Jason and Welf were told to bring up the rear. This wasn’t Pocket going for payback like I would have. He seemed to trust Jason to fight off anything that might go bump in the night. Why did no one believe my Asylum-Has-Samson-Fucking-With-Us theory?

  For the rest of the order, Pocket went straight up political on our asses. He put the kids who had voted to stay at camp in the middle of the class and surrounded them with kids who had voted to find our own way out. In one move, Team Barricade was forced to go wherever the group went and not cause a fight or complain. Mostly Team Barricade was Estefan’s guys, Debra’s girls, and then Curt’s slacker group, who seemed to be worrying about his asthma, bastard wheezing like a mute mockingbird.

  We set out.

  Walking.

  Trees.

  Same trail as before.

  Wait . . . I feel adjectives coming on . . .

  . . . Nope, just gas.

  [CLICK]

  The road where our bus stopped was our destination and we made it in the same time as the day before. Pocket didn’t push us like Samson had, we even had a pair of breaks, but the time we hiked was better spent. Our packs were lighter and our feet were driven by the possibility something in the woods was after us. Even doubtful little fourteen-year-old-me kept up, not wanting to get yelled at for goofing off.

  I didn’t give much a shit about looking good for myself but I could make an impression for Pocket’s sake. He seemed to really care about doing a good job now that he’d been forced into a leadership position. Friendship, I was just learning the in-and-outs but I figured this was one of those times to man-up.

  I saw the road first, since Pocket had a habit of watching backwards down the line. I yelled out, “Road!”

  Thankful gasps behind me.

  Pocket grinned. “We made it, dude!”

  “Think this was the easy part, man.”

  “Yeah, but now it’s out of the way, so we don’t have to worry about it.”

  Right. Why did I befriend the optimist again?

  The thirty of us spread out along the road. It wasn’t wide. Barely enough space for two cars and tight at that. Didn’t deserve to be called a highway or a freeway or much of anyway, but it was paved asphalt and a sign some part of civilization was around here. Roads had cars and cars had people. Unbreakable logic, right?

  “I could kiss the ground,” Naomi Gullick squealed, bouncing up and down in a girlish hop, her fists pumping like a cheerleader.

  “She could kiss me too,” I whispered not-so-quietly to Pocket.

  He covered his mouth to hold back a laugh.

  “Come on, that’s funny . . .”

  Naomi heard it all, walked past me with a glare, and gave Pocket a kiss on his cheek before he could think about resisting. “Good job,” she told him with a smile. “You made your fellow Forestplanters proud.”

  Pocket stayed silent, blushing maroon until she strolled down to her giggling group of friends.

  “Man, you owe me so much for today,” I told him with a shake of my head at the unfairness of the world.

  Miranda Daniels came running up to us, bouncing in a completely different way than Naomi had.

  I gave her a leer. “You going to kiss him too?”

  She wasn’t interested in boys though. Not in that moment. Maybe not ever. Never been sure about what team Miranda plays for . . . or if she just don’t play at all. “Valentine’s not here!” she screeched. Her face was flushed; her green eyes darted side to side behind fogged over glasses. Miranda looked near panic, like she might scream and then tear out some of her fuzzy ginger hair Old Testament style. “She’s not here!”

  All the chitchat quieted down to nothing.

  I frowned; the words didn’t seem to want to work through my brain. “What?”

  “She’s gone, you idiot!” Miranda yelled in my face. “She was right beside me a minute ago and now she’s disappeared!”

  Every single kid in class looked to the woods.

  “Valentine!” Pocket yelled, hands cupping his mouth.

  “Valentine!” we too
k up the call.

  Nothing.

  “Where is she?” Miranda went full on panic now, attacking her fingernails. Her arms and head shook together.

  “Hope’s gone too!” another girl screeched, probably Jessica Edwards again, being friends with Hope. And a bit of a screamer . . . not personal knowledge this, but . . . curtains.

  “So’s that Jesus kid!” said a guy’s voice.

  Suddenly, Miranda wasn’t the only one in Old Testament panic land.

  We all were.

  Maybe I was wrong about Samson fucking with us . . .

  Maybe monsters are out there . . . .waiting to pick us off . . .

  In the sky, the sun moved further towards twilight.

  Tighten up, little assholes.

  Session 117

  Sometimes I wish I actually liked math.

  I hate numbers. A pain in the ass . . . the whole system. Puzzles, I can’t stand puzzles either and that’s all number problems or math as a whole really is. I’m a Gordian Knot kind of guy. Think around the problem, cut away what you don’t need. If that don’t work . . . cheat.

  But sometimes . . . like all that time I spent on a bench waiting for T-Bone to show up . . . I wish I actually liked me some math.

  Statistics being the thing. Like every boy I learned about statistic through free throw percentage and batting average, then when I got into MMA I guess you could add on striking percentage.

  Statistics tell us the likelihood that something is going to happen. Get really simple and you got yourself a coin flip . . . get a little more complicated and you got yourself some dice. Get very complicated and you got my question I wish I had some numbers to answer.

  What are the odds I run into JoJo like that?

  She has to choose that specific grocery store. I have to decide on grande whatever-the-fucks. Suit goes full asshat with the lady just as I’m walking back. It’s a puzzle, ain’t it?

  JoJo is good with numbers. Up until middle school she was a straight-A student. Believe that? It’s true. Then . . . I don’t know what. Mom hit a tipping point I guess. Hormones came into play. Something changed quick. Then . . . fighting and more fighting . . . and she’s gone not long after Susan.