James Moore - The Haunted Forest Tour

“Mark! Hannah!” said Booth. “I need you.”

“What’s wrong?” Mark asked. “Where’ve you been?”

“I’ve been… I’ve been trapped in the Haunted Forest.”

“You’ve what? ”

“I went on one of the trams. I barely survived. This—” Booth looked over at Eddie and sighed, “—this gentleman saved my life. He was one of the drivers.”

“We’re going to need all of you to clear out,” said the grenade soldier. “It’s not safe here.”

Eddie started to make a sarcastic comment, but decided to show some respect to the men who’d saved him, and who still had machine guns and grenades.

“I need to go back in there,” said Booth.

“I don’t think so, sir,” the grenade soldier told him.

“It’s essential!”

“Sorry. You know we can’t allow that. Come with us and we’ll take you to safe quarters.”

“No, I’ll…” Booth looked over at Mark and Hannah. “I’ll go with you two.” For a split second Mark looked a bit unsure, but then nodded.

“Wait, wait, I need to talk to him,” Eddie said.

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“He knows something.”

“He owns the company,” said Mark. “He knows lots of things. We’ll take care of him.”

“But—”

Mark took out a business card and handed it to Eddie. “You can call us with questions. For now, go with these men and get to safety.”

Eddie snatched the card and shoved it into his pocket. “Fine. Drive safe.”

“We will.”

As the three of them left, Eddie returned his attention to the soldiers. “There are still survivors in the forest.”

“How many?”

“Just a few. But I know where they are.”

“I have news for you. They’re either dead or will be dead. Nothing official yet, but I’ll be damn surprised if the President doesn’t authorize dropping a bomb on this place.”

“You mean nuclear?”

“Big enough that you won’t want to be anywhere near this forest, that’s all I can say. You made it out alive. Count your blessings. You’re lucky as hell.”

Eddie nodded and spat out some blood. “Yeah. I think you shot my little toe off, by the way.”

“I apologize for that sir. We’ll take you to safety.”

“Question for you. I got attacked by a bunch of things that looked like aliens, and I shoved a grenade in one of their mouths and blew its head off, and then all of the other alien heads blew up, too. Why do you think that happened?”

The soldier shrugged. “Hallucination brought on by trauma.”

“That can’t be it.”

“Misinterpretation of events brought on by the stress and confusion of the situation.”

“I’ll just stop worrying about it.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Hannah stared at her car with a wide-open mouth. Her little Subaru was currently perched between two very thick branches that creaked and swayed a good twenty feet off of the ground.

“Maybe we better take my car.” Mark started fishing for his keys.

“Oh, you think? ” She shot him a withering look.

“That was a joke.”

“Excuse me if I’m not in the mood to laugh.”

Mark stared at her. He certainly couldn’t pretend that he was a completely selfless individual. But to watch people get torn apart— eaten —and then get pissy about her car was cold. Damn cold.

“I’m just thinking it might get us the hell out of here a little faster at this point,” Mark explained.

“I realize that.”

“She doesn’t appreciate the joke,” Booth said.

Mark came this close to telling Booth to mind his own business before he caught himself. H.F. Enterprises wasn’t finished yet. And he needed to be on Booth’s good side as much as possible, in case they decided to find a scapegoat during the inevitable finger-pointing in the weeks to come.

In case ? Oh, there would be a scapegoat. No doubt about it. And Mark didn’t want that unlucky bastard to be him.

“Look,” he told Hannah, “if you really want to take your car we can, but I don’t think it’s gonna go well. I’m just sayin’.” Now he was just nervously babbling, stretching out a joke that wasn’t funny in the first place to an unappreciative audience. Time to shut off the mike.

God, he was a lot more freaked out than he’d realized.

He didn’t want to go to jail.

Without further comment, Mark, Hannah, and Booth headed over to his Saturn. “I’ll ride in the back,” Booth offered.

Hannah nodded, opened the passenger-side door, and got in.

“Do you think your car will be safe here?” Mark asked. “For all we know, the building might not even survive, if more trees keep popping up.”

“My limo dropped me off this morning. Very inconvenient.”

“Ah.” Mark opened his own door and got into the car. He fastened his seat belt, then realized that Booth was still standing outside, staring back at the forest.

Mark rolled his window down. “Sir? Are you okay?”

Booth sighed. “I wasn’t supposed to leave.”

“What?”

“I wasn’t supposed to leave the forest. I should’ve shot that asshole, but I couldn’t do it.”

“Sir, you should get in. We’ll get you to safety.”

“I don’t think I can go back now.” Booth looked down at the ground. “I couldn’t shoot him. If I’d shot him, everything would be fine.”

Great. Booth’s cracked. Mark unfastened his seat belt, but Booth sighed once more and got in the back seat, shutting the door.

A moment later they were off, heading for the paved road that led back to the interstate and Dover’s Point.

They drove in silence. Booth stared out the window, blankly. Mark wanted to ask him what he’d seen while in the forest, and more importantly, what the fuck he was doing in the tour tram in the first place, but he left the man to his thoughts. He had to be respectful. Stay on his good side.

Hannah also stared out the window. Under other circumstances, there would’ve been a delightful electricity in the air, with Mark desperately wanting to flirt with the woman of his dreams (second to Chloe, of course) but unable to do so with their boss in the back seat, like teenagers in the same room as their parents. But this time he didn’t even care that the top button of her blouse had popped open.

Okay, he cared a little. Just not as much as he normally would have.

The road started cracking and buckling.

He let out a soft yelp and so did Hannah. He just barely managed to swerve into the other lane and avoid being flipped through the air as the tree came up.

Mark gunned the Saturn’s engine and they broke the speed limit. The sooner they were away from the area, the better chance they had of surviving.

A mile away from the offices, new trees were still growing.

“Is it me, or are they coming up faster?” Hannah’s voice shook a bit.

“Oh, they’re definitely growing faster.” He could see the ground starting to bulge just to the right of the road, and swerved before the asphalt could crack open and spit out a new hyperactive sapling. “Lots faster.”

Mark managed to swing back to his own lane just in time to avoid the oncoming rush of police cars, complete with flashing lights and wailing sirens. They came on fast, and he honked his horn to warn them of the up coming obstacles. If they noticed, they didn’t bother with a thank you.

Hannah’s head was now moving around almost constantly, her eyes seeking any possible dangers. “Oh shit! Look!”

She pointed to the west, where they could finally see the end of the trees.

Well, sort of.

The tree line mostly ended, except for one string of new growth that pointed like an accusatory finger straight toward Dover’s Point.