James Moore - The Haunted Forest Tour

Above, Barbara and Tina were still trying to pull him to safety. Now only fifty feet separated him from his ridiculously precarious position and a “still not particularly safe considering that there’s a fire-breathing dragon in hot pursuit but still substantially better than what he had going on at the moment” position.

The helicopter dipped lower, and Christopher’s legs bashed against the treetops. It hurt a lot worse than when the bird had made this happen. He focused every bit of his attention on maintaining his grip on the rope.

Then he lost it.

Mark looked at the man in front of him, now tied up with nylon rope, and contemplated how to proceed. He’d never tortured anyone before. Once, as a child, he pulled the legs off a grasshopper, but got so upset over what he’d done that he’d ran inside and tearfully confessed everything to his mother.

He looked in the toolbox again and pulled out a socket wrench. Really not what he was looking for.

Tire gauge? No.

Tape measure? No.

X-ACTO knife? That had potential.

Hannah paced nearby. Now and then she’d stop and look at him for a moment and then she’d go back to pacing. She didn’t seem particularly cool with this whole idea, but that was okay, because he wasn’t particularly cool with it, either.

But it had to be done.

God, how he hoped that it truly had to be done, and that he wasn’t just about to commit the worst atrocity of his life for no reason.

He picked up the X-ACTO knife, walked over, and crouched down next to Booth.

Then he threw up.

Lee shot something that looked like an emaciated child—but with fangs—between the eyes. His best shot so far of the two clips of ammunition that he’d used up.

Too bad there wasn’t a photographer around. If he survived this, the image of him on the ground, legs twisted and mangled, a gun in his hand, would make quite the author photo for the back of his next book.

The helicopter flew overhead, and for a split second he thought they’d returned to save him. Maybe they’d gone to get a stretcher.

Nope. It flew past, moving too quickly for him to believe that they’d even considered making a stop to pick up ol’ Lee.

A moment later, he realized that a dragon was in pursuit.

Okay.

Hmmmmmm.

Maybe the broken old man lying on the ground and using up all of his ammunition was going to be the final survivor of the Haunted Forest Tour after all.

The first incision he made simply cut open Booth’s pant leg. The second drew a line of blood down Booth’s actual leg, from his knee to his ankle.

Booth let out yowl of pain.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry!” said Mark before he could stop himself. Pretty hard to project the image of a cold-hearted torturer if he apologized to his victims for hurting them.

Hannah stepped back away and gagged.

Mark didn’t figure there was much chance that Booth was ready to end his own suffering yet, so he grabbed the ridiculously expensive shoe off his left foot and then sat down on both of the man’s legs to keep struggling to a minimum.

“What are you doing?” Booth sounded justifiably worried.

“Saving the world. I hope.”

“Don’t do this, Mark! I can make you a very powerful man!”

“I’ll pass.” Mark pulled off the sock on Booth’s left foot and noticed that every toe was perfectly manicured. That was a little annoying, because he was still suffering from two ingrown toenails, himself. Considering the current state of his employment, he’d probably have to live with them for a while.

“You killed my wife, Booth. This is going to hurt.”

“I didn’t kill anybody!”

Mark ran the blade into the bottom of Booth’s foot and held on tight as the man tried to kick and escape. Just to make sure he’d gotten his point across, he carved a second line into the sole, closing his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at the blood.

Ironically, Mark was completely against the idea of the United States using torture to gain information from its enemies. But he wasn’t trying to gain information here. He was trying to counteract a spell that spawned a haunted forest and released giant wyrms. When magic and wyrms were involved, he had to switch to a slightly different set of core values regarding the subject of torture.

Booth kicked like a fish desperate to get off the hook and back into the water, but Mark held on. He moved the blade down again and drove it deep into the fleshy pad of the heel as Booth cursed God several times.

“I don’t think calling Him names is gonna help you right now.”

Booth flailed around some more.

Mark opened his eyes and saw the damage he’d done. The bottom of the man’s foot looked like he’d gone skating on razor blades.

He threw up again.

He looked away and saw Hannah staring at him.

“I don’t know if I can keep doing this.”

“It’s either you or me, Mark, and I know I can’t do it.”

Mark returned his attention to Booth. “So what if I offered you a way to make all of the pain go away, forever?” Until you end up in hell, you son of a bitch.

“Fuck you!”

“I was afraid of that.” He started sawing away at the big toe. Just think of it as an autopsy. An autopsy on somebody who isn’t dead yet. But a “save the world” kind of autopsy.

He worked the meat most of the way off the bone, but there was no way in hell the thin little blade was going to cut through the remaining digit. Booth was screaming so loud that it was literally painful to be next to him, although certainly not as painful as to be him.

Hannah reached into the tool chest and pulled out a pair of pliers and a large set of toenail clippers he’d been looking for since last July.

“Would these help?”

Mark looked them over and finally nodded. “Yeah.”

Her hand shook a bit as she handed them over. His hand shook, too.

“You’re doing fine,” she said. “All things considered.”

He opened the pliers and placed them against the bloodied ruin of a big toe.

Booth screamed.

Tina had to admit that she felt kind guilty about forcing the pilot to stay in the air despite his dragon-related concerns.

Still, until the beast let loose with a blast of flame that instantly melted the helicopter’s propeller, he’d been doing a pretty good job of keeping them out of harm’s way.

The helicopter went down, leaving a trail of black smoke.

A wave of revulsion and self-loathing struck Mark with such intensity that he dropped the pliers.

“Suddenly decide to become human?” asked Booth, the sarcasm obvious even though his voice was barely a croak.

“Shut up. Just shut up.”

“Mark, you have to see this through,” Hannah insisted.

“I can’t. It’s not worth it.”

He wiped the perspiration from his forehead. That was it. He couldn’t do this anymore. Let Eddie hire a professional if he was so damned sure that this was the way to go. Mark didn’t have it in him.

Nevertheless, he went to his trunk, opened the gun case, and took out a pistol. Then he returned to where Booth sat and crouched down next to him.

“Open up.”

“No.”

“I said, open up.”

“Just gonna kill me now? Hide the evidence of what you’ve done?”

“No, Booth. I’m going to let you in on a little secret. By taking your own life, you can save the lives of thousands, maybe millions of people. You can stop this forest infestation and the killing machines that come with it. One life for a million. Your life. I think it’s worth it.”