James Moore - The Haunted Forest Tour

He wondered what he was going to do for a job after this.

Assuming he didn’t die out here.

Alone.

Something moved behind him. Way too close. He spun around, expecting to see another one of those yellow alien-things.

He did.

Then there was movement on all sides of him.

Several more alien-things stepped out from behind trees. At least six or seven of them… no, make that eleven or twelve. Not good. Not good at all. And he particularly didn’t like that they were smart enough to hide themselves. Eddie much preferred the “dumb animal” variety of creature opponent, thank you very much.

One of the aliens spoke in what sort of sounded like a series of clicks. Other aliens responded with more clicks.

Eddie didn’t have enough bullets to take them all out. He could use his last grenade to clear a nice path, but he wanted to save that for an absolute I’m-totally-screwed situation, and he wasn’t quite there yet. The alien-things were kind of skinny. Maybe he could beat them in a fistfight.

The first alien who’d clicked began to click again, much louder. It raised its arms in the air. This had the potential to be very, very uncool.

The aliens—and now there had to be at least twenty—all ran toward him at once. Their mouths were open wide, and all of them were clicking.

Eddie fired twice in front of him. Two aliens took chest hits and fell. He sprinted in that direction as fast as he could, leaping over their bodies, which were still very much alive, and—

—immediately collided with another alien as it stepped into view.

The alien dropped to the ground as Eddie bounced off it and slammed into a tree. His entire right arm went numb as his shoulder hit, and the rifle fell out of his hand.

The clicking was becoming almost maddening.

Eddie reached down for the rifle with his other hand, grabbing it by the barrel. Another alien-thing collided with him and slammed its mouth against his lower arm.

The pain was incredible, as if his flesh were being twisted to the breaking point, like the mother of all hickeys. He punched the alien in the face, hard enough that it felt like the bones in his hand had been shattered into splinters. It let go of his arm, leaving a ghastly red and purple welt.

Eddie spun around in a quick circle. He was completely surrounded by aliens.

He adjusted his grip on the rifle and opened fire. One alien’s face exploded at close range, spraying yellow gook all over the weapon. He fired again, right through that alien’s destroyed head, and got the one behind it.

He pulled the trigger again. He couldn’t hear it over the other clicks, but the rifle had made a clicking sound of its own.

Another alien latched its mouth onto his arm, getting him in almost the same spot. The pain was even worse this time, and as Eddie screamed he dropped the rifle once again.

He kicked an alien out of the way. Two more took its place. Where the hell had all of them come from? The bastards were everywhere now.

He frantically kicked, threw punches, and even tried a head-butt, but it was only seconds before the aliens pulled him to the ground.

One of them latched its mouth onto his ankle. As Eddie screamed, he pulled out the grenade. This was definitely an I’m-totally-screwed situation.

If he had to die, he was going to take out a shitload of these aliens with him.

But he really, really didn’t want to die.

An alien reached for the grenade. Eddie yanked it out of the way just as another alien pressed its open mouth against Eddie’s cheek.

Another alien grabbed the grenade and tugged on it.

The pin popped out.

The sudden pain in Eddie’s face was so incredible that it provided a split-second distraction from the fact that he was now holding a live grenade with nowhere to throw it.

He really should’ve offered to help Tina follow the giant bird.

Christopher sailed about five feet above the treetops, the bird’s talons digging painfully into his shoulders, which already hurt from being shot by that prick Eddie. This was definitely a “lose-lose” situation for him, or even what his mother would call (in one of her rare bad moods) a “You are in infinite trouble!” situation. He was pretty sure that the giant bird was not carrying him off to a sunny beach populated by nubile nymphomaniacs; more likely, it was going to drop him into a nest of giant baby birds that would peck him to death. Of course, lots of birds ate their prey and then regurgitated the remains into the mouths of their young, so he might even have that to look forward to.

That was the “lose” part.

Unfortunately, though his destination was unlikely to be pleasurable, he also couldn’t try to free himself from this bird, because otherwise he was going to enjoy a nice plummet to the forest floor and go splat. Sure, maybe he could grab a branch and save himself, but more likely he’d find himself impaled from rectum to cranium. Not good.

So, basically, he had to let the bird finish up its flight pattern and hope that wherever his travels took him, it wasn’t immediately fatal.

You know, you did pay for this vacation, he thought. It’s a beautiful view, and despite the agony of the whole business with the bird talons puncturing your skin, maybe you should just try to enjoy the moment. Let out an excited whoop or something. After all, how many people have ever been flown around by a giant bird? If you’re lucky, maybe somebody will snap a picture.

Christopher did not let out an excited whoop, since he knew quite well that his line of thinking was strictly intended to keep him from going completely insane. It didn’t feel like it was working.

At least I’m not airsick.

As if reading his thoughts (hell, maybe it had ) the bird swooped down so that Christopher’s feet scraped the tops of several trees, then swooped up high again, making his stomach lurch.

So much for that positive element.

Just up ahead was a small clearing in the forest. Though he wasn’t high enough to get a true sense of exactly where they were, he was pretty sure that this clearing was somewhere in the middle.

A couple of minutes after the flight-o-terror began, the bird swooped down into the clearing. Instead of the dirt floor Christopher was expecting, he saw… ice.

The bird set him down, much more gently than anticipated, and then flew away.

Christopher stood there for a moment, trying to process the fact that he was now standing on a makeshift ice rink in the middle of the forest. Then he slipped and fell on his ass.

The ice floor was circular and just a little smaller than a hockey rink. The edges sloped up about eight feet into the air, effectively putting him inside a giant ice bowl. The ice had a blue tint, like the Alaskan glaciers he’d seen on television.

He placed his palm on the ice to push himself up, then quickly winced and pulled away. It was cold , much colder than standard-issue ice.

He managed to get himself back up to a standing position. In theory, the ice bowl should not have weirded him out this much. After all, an entire freakin’ forest had sprouted in the middle of a desert, and was filled with dozens (Hundreds? Thousands? Millions?) of bizarre creatures, many of whom had killed his fellow tourists. In the grand scheme of things, the ice was a minor oddity, barely worth a raised eyebrow and the word “Hmmmm.” But for some reason the ice creeped him out. It was just… unnerving somehow.

He took a step forward and ended up on his ass again. As a child, he could just barely ice-skate successfully when he was wearing regulation skates and his mother was holding his hand, and there was no reason to believe that his skills had improved.