James Moore - The Haunted Forest Tour

Christopher was almost giddy.

Scratch that. He was completely giddy.

He was slightly less giddy when the alarm went off at four-thirty. Even during one of his sixteen-hour days at Novellon, he got to sleep in later than this. But a hot shower and Godzilla-sized cup of coffee put him back in an excited frame of mind.

His mother stood outside waiting for him as he pulled into the parking lot of her apartment complex. Mindy Brummit looked at least ten years younger than her real age of fifty-seven. In fact, the only time Christopher had seen his mother looking her true age was at his father’s funeral.

He parked and got out of the car. Not surprisingly, she’d packed three large suitcases for a two-day trip.

He gave her a tight hug. “You know, they only let you check two pieces of luggage.”

“Two each. How many suitcases did you bring?”

“One.”

“See? Problem solved.”

Christopher unlocked the trunk. His mother had curly red hair that she insisted was her natural color. Of course, she’d insisted that last month’s brunette shade was her natural color, along with the bleached blonde look of last year. She wore a blue and green Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and sunglasses, a strong contrast to the slacks and white dress shirt that Christopher was wearing.

“At least you didn’t wear a tie,” she said, reaching up to adjust his collar.

Though she was a small woman, she was anything but frail. Christopher often joked that she could beat the crap out of him in a bar fight, but he secretly wasn’t entirely certain that it was a joke. She worked full time as a receptionist at a law firm, and devoted her spare time to gardening, gourmet cooking, pottery, bicycling, swimming, “power-knitting” (racing against her friends to complete a sweater in the fastest time), and karate.

How’d she end up with such a boring son ? he wondered.

He put her suitcases—which weighed approximately eight thousand pounds each, or so he told her—in the back of the car, and they left for the airport.

“Thanks, Mom,” he said. “I really appreciate this.”

“Remember that when it’s time for my nursing home. I want the place where they don’t harvest your internal organs in the middle of the night. At least not the important ones.”

“Gotcha.”

“Are you ready to be scared out of your wits?”

“Absolutely!”

The air was crisp, with just a hint of autumn that would probably fade away as the sun rose higher. It was a perfect day for a picnic. Less perfect for a terrifying tour through a monster-ridden forest, but that was okay. Mark Harper knew that the tourists would still get their money’s worth, big-time. They always did.

The people arriving on the tour bus all looked excited, even the older ones. After all, how often did you get a chance to see monsters in a safe environment? Or any environment? Though Mark’s involvement with H.F. Enterprises was entirely on the scientific research end, rather than the spook show end, he thoroughly enjoyed the idea of the Haunted Forest Tour and occasionally took a ride himself just to see their reactions.

A large banner read “ Welcome to the First Annual Haunted Forest Halloween Tour” in bright orange letters on a slime-green field. The official logo of H.F. Enterprises was on each corner of the banner, as if anyone would suddenly forget where they were.

Below the banner were stacks of T-shirts, posters, coffee mugs, snow globes, monster-shaped candy, Christmas tree ornaments, ball caps, key chains, jewelry, watches, press-on tattoos, ties, sunglasses, refrigerator magnets, monster masks, and countless other examples of overpriced crap available for your purchasing ecstasy. Mark Harper had tried the Haunted Forest taffy once. Once .

Behind the banner and the displays of souvenirs was the actual office of H.F. Enterprises, a four-story affair. The large windows were reflective and cast back slightly distorted images of the various people who walked in front of them as well as the cerulean sky and just a few puffy white clouds. The forest itself, about half a mile away, was a dark, jagged shadow along the lowest edge of the glass.

Mark looked at his own reflection in the glass and straightened his tie. He also finger-combed his hair because, as always, he wanted to look his best for the woman walking up the stairs behind him.

Hannah Chambers was not his lover. She was his co-worker and damned good at her job. Mark was a happily married man who just happened to think—in a purely platonic, non-sleazy manner—that his co-worker was one of the sexiest women alive. He did not speak of these things with her, or with his wife Chloe. That would be bad. Extremely bad.

He loved Chloe and would never be unfaithful to her.

Unless he ever got really, really drunk or accidentally swallowed a few Viagra tablets and even then, the only way he would ever go through with it was if Hannah put him in a situation where he absolutely couldn’t refuse. Perhaps it was a matter of life or death, or possibly somebody’s honor was at stake, or maybe she was under such incredible stress that if she didn’t find a release she’d have a heart attack, and he couldn’t very well let somebody this important to the workings of H.F. Enterprises have a heart attack…

Mostly they just flirted, and then Mark did his best not to think of the situations in which he would willingly cheat on his wife with his peer. He could only count a few of them (if you included only broad generalities), which wasn’t so bad. And he’d probably never go through with them even if those situations presented themselves, because he was happily married. To Chloe. The love of his life.

It was best that way, really, but he still always wanted to make sure he looked his best for Hannah.

He turned away from the window before she could see him looking at himself and smiled as she moved past a crowd of tourists. There was a little tyke begging his mom for an I Survived The Halloween Haunted Forest Tour T-shirt, complete with a smiling one-eyed ghoul illustration. There were no smiling one-eyed ghouls in the Haunted Forest, of course. Not as far as Mark knew at any rate, and if anyone would know, it would be him or Hannah. It was their jobs to know.

Hannah moved closer and smiled. “Can you believe this crowd?”

“Can you believe how many of them are buying the taffy?”

She laughed and rolled her blue eyes, flipping her blond hair back from her forehead. She wore a little makeup, but only a little. She didn’t need it. She also didn’t necessarily need all of those clothes, since she would look perfectly stylish and professional in only a-

Chloe. He made himself remember his wife and look away from Hannah before he could stare at her ample chest. Chloe had a great body too. Just in a different way. Really.

The problem with Hannah was that she was just as smart and witty as she was attractive. Mark’s infatuation was totally understandable, and totally within the bounds of what was acceptable in a morally sound marriage. Though it would have been easier if Hannah had a big leaking wart on her nose.

Hannah stood up a little straighter, and that was enough warning for Mark. Two seconds later, he saw Booth coming in their direction. Most of the big guys at the H.F. Enterprises preferred to go by their first names, but Martin Booth preferred to go by “Booth.” Not Mr. Booth. Just Booth.

“How are ya, guys?” Booth smiled as he walked past, looking spry and happy. His dark hair was perfect, and the matching mustache and goatee were trimmed close to his face. That he was happy was a relief, because Mark had seen the man angry, and it was enough to create a whole row of ulcers.