James Moore - The Haunted Forest Tour

Mindy lost her footing and fell backward. Christopher caught her and let out a few monkey screams of his own as the mandibles chopped through the air where she had been standing a second before. The spider let out a low growl that sounded like a few thousand pissed-off bees, and as Mindy finally cleared the kid out of her view, it let out another scream.

It lunged forward, the thick claws on its feet grabbing at Mindy’s legs and slicing into her socks with ease.

It would have been less painful if she had actually been wearing socks. Mindy cried and, without even thinking about it, threw the scrambling kid toward Christopher, who caught him. If she was going down, she wasn’t taking the kid with her. That was all there was to it.

Mindy kicked hard with her left leg, taking a few layers of skin away as she wrestled free of the claw. She cocked her right leg back to land another kick, and then the spider-thing’s face exploded.

Rather than continuing to attack her, the spider shuddered and twitched and drooled a lot of purplish goo out of the stump where its head had been.

Christopher let out a muffled curse as the kid his mother had thrown him started climbing over his head. Tina caught the kid before he could fall and hurt himself, and just to make sure he didn’t go anywhere else, she wrapped her arms around his trembling body.

Down on the ground, she saw the old man from the tram, Lee, slowly lowering his rifle.

“Weren’t we going to go down to save him ?” Christopher wondered aloud.

Lee took two steps forward, and Tina dropped the kid she’d been holding as she got truly lively for the first time since they’d met her.

“ Brad! ” Her shout was loud enough to guarantee that every monster hiding in the trees around them would hear, but she was too busy scrambling down the fallen tree to even notice. Somehow she managed to keep her footing. She ran right past Lee and charged over to the man on the ground, stopping only when she could see him clearly and then hug his unconscious form.

Lee looked back at Tina with a combination of surprise and severe annoyance on his face, while Mindy scooped up the kid who was once again curling in on himself. He latched on to her and she climbed down without any incidents.

Christopher made it almost all the way down before he tripped, but he managed to land on his feet.

“You folks all right?” Lee came over to them, moving with the particular stride that seemed to be reserved for old men.

“Yes we are,” said Mindy. “Thank you!”

“Well, it was the last bullet, I think, but that thing was looking uglier than most.”

“Damn.” Christopher looked at the top of the tree. “I dropped my rifle.”

“Honey, the rifle is broken.”

“Yeah, Mom, but it’s a rifle.”

“Let’s just get Tina and her not-so-dead Brad and find that building, okay? Maybe there’s something there that can help us.”

Christopher looked less than thrilled about the idea. “Maybe there’s something there that can eat us.”

“If it’s got walls, it’s a start.” Lee smiled as he spoke. “Except for the ghosts, not too much around here that seems to come through the walls. That means we can at least get a little protection.”

“Brilliant plan,” said Eddie, suddenly stepping into view. Barbara the tour guide was with him. Eddie waved his rifle at Tina. “You. What’s your name?”

“Tina.”

“Pleased to meet you, Tina. Don’t ever scream like that again, okay?”

“I—I won’t.”

“Good. Let’s get moving.”

The few survivors of the Haunted Forest Tour walked quietly but briskly through the woods. Eddie took the lead and blew away the occasional ghastly creature, while Barbara walked just a step behind him, pointing out the occasional approaching ghastly creature that he might have missed. Mindy, holding Tommy’s hand, was next in line, speaking softly to the young boy to keep him calm.

Christopher and Lee followed behind them, carrying Brad’s semi-conscious form. Aside from the occasional loss of footing, they kept up a solid pace. Tina walked with them, stroking her husband’s hair and quietly crying.

“Hey, you—Betty, is it?” Lee asked. “Tour guide lady.”

Barbara glanced back at him over her shoulder. “Barbara.”

“Right. Sorry. Aren’t you supposed to be telling us about this place? I paid good money for this tour, and I’m hardly learning anything.”

Barbara smiled. “What would you like to know?”

“What kind of tree is that?”

“Which one?”

“I can’t point while I’m holding this guy. Any one.”

“Well… that tree to our left is tall and brown. Its scientific name is the tall, brown tree. Its primary function in the ecosystem of the forest is to stand there and be tall and brown.”

“What about the green parts?” asked Lee.

“The green parts are actually an optical illusion. If you look at them in direct sunlight, they’re actually brown.”

“Fascinating.”

“Thanks for the improv,” said Eddie. “Now that we’ve shared this lighthearted moment, I’m not scared a bit. Remember when that one lady got ripped apart and eaten? Man, that was fuckin’ hilarious, don’t you think?”

“Shut up, Eddie.”

“What about all the corpses we left back in the tram? I get giggly just thinking about it. The funniest part was all the gushing blood.”

“ Enough ,” said Barbara.

“Just relax, Grenade Guy,” said Lee. “We’re trying to make things seem like they aren’t completely hopeless. Sorry if that offended you.”

Eddie kept walking without further comment.

Brad’s body was starting to get really heavy, but Christopher didn’t want to request a break. If Lee wasn’t complaining, Christopher certainly wasn’t going to. Even under extremely stressful circumstances, he had his sense of pride.

Brad coughed, spraying a bit of blood on Christopher’s shirt. The poor guy looked absolutely terrible. In fact, though Christopher didn’t say this out loud, unless they happened to stumble upon a completely equipped medical team, he didn’t think Brad had much time left.

One more death to add to the dozens.

They walked silently for a while, interrupted only by Tina’s occasional sniffle, Brad’s occasional groan, and Eddie’s occasional gunfire blast. And then, hidden by trees so thick that they were practically right on it before they even saw it, they reached the concrete structure.

“What do you think this is?” Lee asked.

“I’m pretty sure it’s the water reclamation plant,” said Barbara. “Most of the structures in Cromay were completely destroyed when the forest appeared, but a couple of the larger ones did survive, if the foundation was strong enough.”

“So where does that put us in the forest, location-wise?”

“I’m not sure exactly. Still a couple of miles from the edge, I think.”

“Isn’t that about where we were when things became unpleasant?”

Barbara nodded. “But we can defend ourselves better with concrete walls.”

“No argument there.”

They walked around the edge of the round building, trying to find the entrance. Though Christopher couldn’t honestly say that he was disappointed by what appeared to be a lack of bloodthirsty creatures in the area, he had to admit that the silence was more than a little eerie. Anyway, just because they weren’t attacking didn’t mean that the creatures weren’t watching.

Barbara took off her backpack and unzipped the top. “I’ve only got three flashlights,” she said, “but we’ll probably need them inside.”

“Anything else useful in there?” Lee asked.