The Bad Weather Friend by Koontz Dean

Author:Koontz, Dean
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2024-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

LEAVING THE PARTY OF THE CENTURY, BENNY REMEMBERS THE HORROR IN THE HEADMASTER’S HANGING GROUND

So after an intense evening of Coca-Colas with aspirin and the crafting of dollar bills into origami animals, having arrived at an understanding that they had a moral obligation to put an end to the suffering of Prescott Galsbury, now also known as “Bugboy,” Benny and Jurgen—and Mengistu Gidada in his private room—were awakened the following night by excited but distant voices and two muffled sounds that might have been shotgun blasts. After hardly more than an hour of sleep, they erupted from their beds and flew to their windows, from which they glimpsed several flashlight beams sweeping the night in the vicinity of Catherine Baneberry-Smith’s laboratory.

With uncanny synchronization, they threw on dark clothes and unlatched their windows and arrived simultaneously at the massive, spreading pine that stood fifty yards from Felthammer House. The sky was ornamented with a crescent moon, as on the previous night, but this time it seemed, to Benny, less like the sneer of the Cheshire cat and more like a harvesting blade. The four or five searchers had receded beyond the laboratory and now their lights carved the darkness across the last of the meadow, moving toward the grove of silver firs known as the Headmaster’s Hanging Ground.

Mengistu said, “I do not delude myself that we are in no real danger. We are in mortal danger. One of us might die this night.”

“One or all,” said Jurgen Speer.

“Or none,” Benny said. “We might all live long and prosper.”

“I believe that to be highly unlikely,” said Mengistu. “I am not a fatalist, Benjamin, merely a realist. Which is why I brought with me this pressurized can of Spectracide insect killer that I liberated earlier today from the janitorial-supply closet in our dormitory. The nozzle is set on STREAM rather than on SPRAY and promises a range of twelve to fifteen feet. I do not expect that it will kill a human-insect hybrid of Galsbury’s size. However, if the unfortunate creature should attack with the intention of devouring us, I have some confidence this will repel it and allow us time to flee with our limbs and virtue intact.”

“Ten months ago,” said Jurgen, “I managed to steal this chef’s knife from the kitchen and conceal it under a loose floorboard in my closet. I didn’t know what the hell I’d need it for, but I knew sooner or later my survival would depend on having it. I just didn’t figure it would be anything as weird as Bugboy.”

“Should the Spectracide fail to deter the creature,” Mengistu said, “it will fall to you, Jurgen, to use your cutlery to slash at whatever seems the most vulnerable part of the hybrid’s anatomy. You have an opportunity to be most heroic, but I do not envy you enough to trade my insecticide for your knife.”

Their faces mostly shadowed in the dim moonlight that found them through gaps in the pine limbs, Jurgen and Mengistu regarded Benny expectantly.

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