James Moore - The Haunted Forest Tour

In the long run, that was the deciding factor. He’d studied every religion known to man in his quest for proof of the impossible, and one fact never changed from belief system to belief system: Demons lie. Whatever promises they make always come with too high a price.

Lee charged forward and rammed his stick into the center of the body underneath that cloak, striking air at first and then finally hitting something more solid. The thing hissed again and Lee pushed forward, driving the tip of his club into that solid spot and feeling it start to yield.

“ Lee! ” Mindy shouted.

Lee’s body no longer had its youth, but adrenaline rushed through his veins. It let him push on when all he wanted to do was run away. The tip of the stick splintered, he could hear it as well as feel it, but it also pushed in deeper at the same time, sliding past whatever sort of scaly hide the demon had and striking the meat underneath.

The limbs that had been waving in the air moved down fast and struck hard. Teeth punched into Lee’s right calf, left thigh, both hips, and just below his left shoulder blade. The pain was incredible.

Lee screamed and pushed forward again, as one of the thicker snake bodies coiled around his waist and began to tighten. He caught one more breath and then did his best not to let it out as the constriction continued with bruising force. Another tentacle of muscle caught him at the ankle and slithered up his leg.

The mouth at the end opened wide and started snapping.

Lee opened his mouth wide and started screaming.

Barbara grabbed the thing just below its jaw and pulled back with all of her weight. She was screaming too, and had never looked lovelier to Lee than at that moment.

He shoved forward one more time, throwing all of the weight he could into it, and heard the Proof Demon scream. The contractions around his waist slackened a bit and he lunged, sucking in another breath and driving his stick even deeper into the center of the thing. Every muscle in his arms and across his back wanted to twist and tear, but he kept pushing, grunting with the effort.

Barbara let out a yelp as the serpent she’d been fighting with tried to take a bite out of her arm. A second of the powerful limbs had wrapped around her as well now, and she fought hard to keep from being trapped.

Lee felt something hard give, and the serpentine extremities around his body convulsed before letting him go.

Barbara let out a sound of pure disgust and kicked at the twitching limb that had almost managed to wrap around her throat. The teeth that had been snapping for a chance to bite her flesh finally quieted, and she let the thing drop from her hands as she scrambled away from the dying demon.

Lee felt the sudden weight that gripped his branch as the thing finally died. The multiple limbs stopped moving, and the shape towering above him fell to the ground in a heap. He stared long and hard down at the shadowed face and saw the light fade from the eyes that had only seconds before seemed like beacons in the night. Dead.

At least he hoped with all of his heart that it was dead. He didn’t think he could do much more to the damned thing.

Lee stepped back and promptly tripped on one of the snake bodies. He barely even had time to notice before he was falling and landing on his ass in the dirt.

He looked down at his hands again. His temporary youth was gone. But he still had his soul.

Christopher lay against the ice wall, covered with blood. The wounds thus far were all superficial, but there were a lot of them. Pestilence had spared his face—mostly—but the rest of his body bore countless red streaks.

Pestilence crouched down in front of him and smiled. “Does it hurt?”

Christopher spat some blood at him. It was from where Pestilence had slashed his tongue. “Go to hell.”

“I bet it does. I bet you’re just wishing you could die, huh? Look in my eyes and tell me that you want the pain to go away.”

Christopher stared directly into the demon’s eyes. “I thought I told you to go to hell.”

Pestilence clapped his hands together in delight. “Just what I wanted to hear! What fun would it be if you gave up this easily? I still have body parts to sever. Organs to puncture. Eyes to devour. Eye sockets to lick clean. You would be quite the party pooper if you succumbed this early, don’t you think?”

“You’ll never get me to kill myself.”

“I might. You never know. Tell me, Christopher, would you sacrifice an innocent young boy to save yourself?”

Christopher shook his head.

“Neither would your friend Lee. He’s a good man. Better than most. A lot of people his age would’ve said, sure, kill the little brat, he’ll probably just be a vegetable for the rest of his life anyway, I want my youth back, but not Lee.” Pestilence grinned. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

“None.”

“Then let me explain. While I’ve been slicing and dicing your poor body, Lee has withstood plenty of temptation provided by one of my alter-egos. If he’d caved, I would’ve killed you quickly and moved on with my little scheme. You see, my power here is growing. The forest is growing. But I still need my willing sacrifice for the real thrills to begin, and after that I’ve got a nice little human host waiting for me to set off the grand finale.”

“Which human host?”

“Some guy. You don’t know him. Anyway, Lee would’ve been a nice sacrifice. I would’ve liked to see him offer up a helpless little kid to save his own ass. Alas, he was too strong. Hmmmm… who else do we know who’s strong?” Pestilence tapped his forehead. “Let me think… let me think… oh, I know! Your mother is strong, isn’t she?”

Christopher stiffened. “If you touch her, I’ll kill you.”

“Is that so? Then why not be proactive? Kill me now.”

Christopher lunged forward. The demon easily moved out of the way and Christopher landed on his stomach on the ice.

“So close, and yet so pathetic. Yes, yes, yes, I think there’ll be plenty of entertainment value in seeing if your mother will sacrifice herself for her son. What do you think? Will she do it? Want to put a wager on it? Hmmmm… I’ll say two-to-one odds that she goes for it. How much money do you have on you?”

“I’ll kill you,” Christopher repeated.

“Yes, I know, we’ve already established that. So do we have a bet? No? You sure? Pity.” Pestilence whistled loudly. “I guess I’ll pay Mommy a visit. I wish I could carry you along with me, but unfortunately I don’t have the power to bring passengers. So you’ll have to return to a slightly less comfortable mode of transportation.”

The giant black bird flew down into the ice bowl and landed next to Christopher.

“Remember my friend here? Bet you didn’t know it was a round-trip flight. See ya on the other side. Try not to drip too much blood onto the trees.”

The bird rose into the air again, dug its talons into Christopher’s shoulders, and carried him off.

Freedom.

Eddie could hardly believe it as the sun shone through the edge of the Haunted Forest. He’d made it.

Almost.

This was no time to get caught up in giddiness. He was still surrounded by monsters, and things could still go extremely wrong. But he couldn’t help but feel a bit of optimism. Not a “dance around and sing show tunes” level of optimism, but a “Hey, I may just get out of this without being devoured!” level of optimism.

He almost wanted to simply make a break for it, but no. Stay smart. Stay alive. Other people were counting on him.

Whoa. Where had that come from?