James Moore - The Haunted Forest Tour

She looked under the desk and saw nothing. Next she looked behind the two chairs. They were actually too small for him to hide behind, but it had been a while since she’d dealt with a five-year-old and anything was possible.

She was turning toward the door when she spotted Tommy, his hands up against the wall, staring directly ahead as if the paint might reveal some deep, hidden secret.

“Tommy? Honey, are you okay?” He didn’t respond to her at all, and Mindy moved closer, wondering if he’d gone into shock. He’d already seen so much death…

Mindy moved closer and put her hands on his narrow shoulders. He barely even noticed her, but his entire body was shaking.

The wall under his hands was covered with the same black mold that ran along the floorboards and her heart stuttered beneath her ribs. God! What if that stuff was just another monster in this madhouse? What if it was eating the poor boy’s hands even as she touched him?

Mindy pulled him roughly away from the wall and spun him to face her, looking at his hands to see if there were any signs that the flesh had been marred. All she saw was that the mold was crusting over his fingers and palms, little more than dirt and sludge.

Tommy sucked in a massive lungful of air and shivered, his eyes moving wildly in his head. And then he let out a loud, braying scream, not of pain, but of sorrow so deep it seemed to almost rip him in half.

“Oh, baby boy…” Mindy’s heart broke for him. None of them deserved this, but Tommy? He was a child, still with his baby teeth for Christ’s sake. Mindy squatted until she was almost his height and he wrapped his arms around her neck, still crying out his anguish. He buried his face against her shoulder, his hot breaths washing over her as the sobs continued to spill from him.

And what else could she do? She held him and made comforting lies come from her mouth, the sort that mothers always told children after a nightmare. The ones that promised everything was all right and would stay all right, even when the parent knew otherwise.

He tried to speak, but the words came out as more muffled cries and gasps. She just nodded her head and said, “I know, baby, I know.”

Behind her, on his back, Brad opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. His skin felt wrong, tight and restrictive, and his arms, oh Lord, his arms were on fire, burning and throbbing with every pulse of his heart.

Almost everything that had happened was a blur, from the time the obese, screaming missile had slammed into his seat to this very moment. He remembered Lee fixing his arms—that sort of pain, he suspected, was something he wouldn’t forget anytime soon. He remembered Tina calling his name and holding him close when she saw that he was alive. He remembered her hot tears spilling down his face and chest as she praised God that he was alive, even though he was pretty sure he was in fact dead. But all of it was muted. The colors were washed away, and even the sounds of the things in the woods and his fellow humans perishing were bleached-out echoes.

A black shadow slid across the ceiling above him, a shadow made of mold spores and rancid water. As he watched, the shadow took form, blistering the acoustic tiles and staining their lacquered finish until a lopsided face looked down at him. Funny how the mind could play tricks, wasn’t it? Here he was, aching throughout every cell in his body and his mind wanted to make pictures out of the clouds. Of course, he was inside, so the water stains would have to do in a pinch. The notion brought a weak smile to his face. It was the best he could manage under the circumstances.

Not far away, he heard a little kid crying, and the whispers of a woman offering comfort. Tommy, I think. And maybe the older lady is Mindy. Yeah, Mindy.

He slid his eyes away from the stain above him and saw Mindy’s hair, pinned as it was by the arms wrapped around her neck. Tommy’s face seemed to almost sprout from her shoulder, and that was kind of weird-looking, but also kind of nice. He understood how the kid felt. Brad felt a little like crying himself, and he might have, if he could have found the strength.

A drop of water fell down and hit his cheek. Brad looked back at the ceiling. The stain was bigger now, almost as big as a man, and shaped like one, too, if he let his imagination stretch a bit.

It would have been funny if the man hadn’t looked so sinister, with that wide, ugly smile and those splotchy patterns that almost looked like eye sockets above the grin.

The tile split right where that mouth was, and a stream of water fell down, splashing into his mouth before he could turn his head away. The water was cold, colder than he would have expected, but it wasn’t refreshing at all. It tasted like sewage, with a side of moldy bread.

Brad tried to spit it out, but the stuff clung to the inside of his mouth with the tenacity of industrial adhesive. When he tried a second time, he must have moved his muscles the wrong way, because the foul-tasting piss-water slid into his throat and trickled down into him. He wanted to gag, but nothing happened. The smell and taste of the stuff was overwhelming, strong enough to make his eyes water. Still, he couldn’t get up the energy to cough it out of his mouth and throat.

Five feet away from him, Mindy held Tommy as he cried, and Brad lifted the hand closest to them, praying one of them would notice that something was wrong.

Instead, Tommy cried harder and Mindy rocked him gently, with the practiced moves of a mom used to comforting a frightened child.

Above him the water stain’s smile grew even wider as the stream of nasty fluids poured down into his mouth and filled it completely. He couldn’t cough, couldn’t move at all, no matter how much he wanted to. He was completely powerless.

Though he didn’t swallow, Brad felt the cold water slip down into his throat, chilling his body as it descended.

What a stupid way to die.

The chills got worse, until he felt like his whole body had been filled with ice.

Up above him the waterworks stopped.

The water stain did the impossible—there was a lot of that going on as far as Brad was concerned—and grew smaller.

A few moments later it was completely gone and even the mold that had started out as a shadow receded, sliding down the wall as silently as night falls.

Brad stared at the ceiling, unable to move, and felt the new pains start in his body, pushing their way through the bitter cold and cutting like lightning strokes through every nerve in his body.

I think I figured it out , he mused, still trying desperately to get his body to move, goddamn it, and give him a chance to fight back. Yeah, I did. I’m already dead. This is just Hell. One of those fucking things got me and ate me and now Satan himself is gonna come pay me a visit and tell me how it only gets worse from here.

If he could have cried, he would have.

Instead he looked back at Tommy, who was finally calming down a little. He’d left a trail of tears and mucus on Mindy’s neck and shoulder.

Tommy could still cry.

The lucky little shit.

Brad felt his chest rise and fall, heard his own heart beat, and struggled to do anything but just stare at the ceiling while wave after wave of pain chewed away his insides.

I’m in Hell. I fucked it up good today and I’m in Hell.

His pain got even worse, while not far away, Mindy laid Tommy on the musty carpet to sleep. She turned Brad’s way and looked at him for a moment, her face showing nothing but concern for his condition.

He’d have laughed if he could. He’d have cried. Deep inside, he did both. If Mindy noticed, she never gave a clue.