James Moore - The Haunted Forest Tour

Far below him he spotted Duchess’ shadow racing along the ground, made tiny by his range. He reached for the radio to call Steve and let him know about the new tree and the potential problems it signaled, but before he could speak, he saw a second shadow closing in fast on the ’copter.

Not wanting to take any chances, Emery dropped down a few hundred feet and turned as quickly as he could to see what might be following behind him.

There was nothing to see. Nothing at all. Maybe it was a passing cloud he’d spotted. He scanned the sky one more time to be sure.

The dragon came into view.

It came barreling down from above him, massive leathery wings held out and back in a power dive, its mouth open wide and its teeth bared.

Emery didn’t think; he just reacted. The helicopter cut hard to the left as the reptilian nightmare ripped through the air, just barely missing Emery and his flying machine.

Emery let out a long, loud scream of panic and fought hard to keep enough altitude to avoid the trees below.

“ What the hell was that? ”

The long serpentine body was curling around and coming back for another try.

A dragon. He and Duchess had not signed on to engage in aerial combat with a fucking dragon. This was way, way beyond the scope of his contract. He could handle funky trees, but not giant mythical flying creatures.

The dragon came closer, wings cutting the air as it approached.

Emery shook his head and called out a whirlwind of profanities as he tried to veer off a second time.

When he looked up again, the dragon was right on him. Emery was smart enough to know that he was officially Fucked Up Beyond All Repair.

Rather than try to make an impossible escape, Emery angled the rotors at the dragon and closed his eyes. The thick blades of the helicopter met up with the heavily armored body of the dragon.

In a perfect world, the blades would have cut the dragon into confetti, and Emery would have returned home with a great story to tell his buddies at Ricky’s Bar. The dragon was right above me! I thought I was a goner for sure, but at the last second, I angled the rotors and chopped that son of a bitch up into dragon steaks. Ate one myself for dinner that night. Tasted like salmon.

This was not a perfect world. The blades broke off against the thick scales, though they managed to hack a trench into one of the massive wings.

The dragon let out a roar.

Emery let out a scream.

The dragon lifted away from the helicopter and began to angle around for another approach.

Rather unobligingly, the helicopter dropped like a rock toward the forest below.

Not one to let a helicopter get in the last word, the dragon breathed out a massive plume of flames that completely engulfed Emery and the helicopter alike.

Though he took some small comfort in the fact that he and Duchess were dying together, Emery screamed all the way down to the ground.

Lee saw a bright flash of light and watched for the two seconds it was visible above the trees. Whatever it had been, wherever it had been, it was gone almost as quickly as it showed itself.

Didn’t look like a shooting star.

Looked like something on fire.

Either way, as long as it wasn’t a meteorite bearing alien blobs, it had been a nice distraction for a moment.

They were still together, but as a group they’d moved away from the reclamation plant. Much as the desire to be near a real building or even in one was strong, after a brief discussion everyone agreed it was best to leave behind the worms and other dangers. They didn’t need anybody else in their group to get taken over by possessive mold.

At least out in the open they could get a little more ambient light. Until sundown. Which wasn’t far away.

They walked slowly, headed the same way Eddie had gone, back toward the tracks. It seemed like a much better idea than heading blindly through unexplored territory. Though Barbara clearly wanted to pick up the pace, she was stuck with a pair of old folks, a distraught widow, and a nearly comatose young boy who she carried piggy-back style.

The woods were almost quiet. Almost, because Lee had heard several things moving nearby. Big things, little things, wet-sounding squishy things and at least one thing that was big enough he could see the silhouette moving through the trees at a height of at least thirty feet. The good news, so far, was that none of them had come looking for dinner.

The bad news was that sooner or later one of them would.

They had no real weapons. Lee had broken a four-foot-long branch off a tree with a ridiculous amount of effort and used it as a walking stick. The wood was dense and the stick weighed in at close to ten pounds. Not bad, but he’d have preferred a really big gun with a few thousand rounds of ammunition.

The Proof Demon slithered up beside him.

He didn’t see it or hear it first… he felt it. One second there was just the night and the next the odd collection of serpentine limbs was next to him, its eyes faintly glowing inside the hood that surrounded its face.

The thing contemplated him from just out of range of his trusty stick.

Nobody else acknowledged it. They continued their slow, half-dead walking pace.

Lee contemplated the demon right back. Somehow he doubted that its tentacles or multiple tails were knocking anywhere as hard as his knees wanted to.

“ You seem to be in something of a predicament .” He heard the cold voice very clearly in his head. His ears remained unaffected.

“What do you want?” Lee spoke out loud, having no sort of telepathic abilities that he knew of.

Not only had they not heard the demon, the others didn’t seem to have heard Lee, either. Even Mindy, who was only a couple of feet away, didn’t react to his question.

“ You amuse me. You who spent your life waiting for miracles and instead found us .”

“With all due respect, you can shove your amusement where the sun don’t shine, mister.” If he ever did write a book about his adventures in the forest, he’d give himself a better response. It wasn’t like Mindy, Barbara, Tina, or Tommy could hear him.

“ And that is why you amuse me, Lee Burgundy. You are decrepit, your heart is weak, and your body is frail, and yet you stand here ready to fight me to protect the others. Why ?”

“It’s the right thing to do.”

“ There is no right or wrong, old man. There is only what brings us pleasure .”

“What do you really want?” Lee tightened his hands on the staff as the Proof Demon slid a few inches closer. He wondered if the others could see him at all.

“ I have decided that I can help you. I can give you much, if you desire it .”

“Like what?”

“ You sound dubious .”

“I’m not in the habit of trusting snake tails and freaky eyes in a cloak. Sorry.”

The demon slithered closer and rose in height, stretching its body until it towered two feet above him. The eyes within the hood glittered brightly and pulsed with an odd rhythm. Lee caught the pattern immediately, because he could feel the rhythm inside his head. He’d spent his life debunking every kind of supernatural claim and that included telepathy. He’d have bet good money that what he felt was the equivalent of fingers rifling through the paperwork of his mind.

“ You would be correct, Lee Burgundy. I am reading you .”

“Why?”

“ To gain an unfair advantage .”

“I’m surrounded by five miles of hungry monsters. I think you already have that.”

“ More than five by now, I think. Still, it helps to know what one has to bargain with .” The thing had no shoulders, not in the traditional sense, but it shrugged them anyway.