James Moore - The Haunted Forest Tour

“Though light does get through the trees, it’s not enough to give you an optimal viewing experience,” Barbara explained. “So we have to bring our own.”

Bright lights on the side of the tram turned on, illuminating the forest all around them. The tram slowly moved along the track. The forest looked pretty normal so far, but—

“Look at that!” said his mom, nudging him harder than necessary. “In the tree!”

Several of the other tourists looked where she was pointing. There was some sort of furry brown creature, about twice the size of a squirrel, perched on a low branch, eating what looked like a bird. The creature had large fangs and paid no attention to the tram.

“Oh, yes, what you see there is a Laura. You may think that’s an unusual name for a creature like that, but an amusing piece of trivia is that many of the people who discovered creatures in the Haunted Forest were allowed to name them. The Lauras were in fact named after the ex-wife of the person who discovered them. I’m sure that’s not the way she wanted to achieve immortality, but that’s the way it goes.”

The Laura stuffed the bird’s feet into its mouth. Mindy grimaced.

“Yes, we’ve already seen one of the grisly aspects of the forest. Hopefully there won’t be too many of those, but you never know what’s going to happen… on Halloween!”

At this point, Christopher had to admit that he was ready for Barbara to speak a bit less frequently. So he tried to tune her out and watch for cool stuff outside.

There was a definite flash of movement behind one of the larger trees, but he couldn’t tell what it was.

The tram continued moving deeper into the forest, and Christopher realized that he was starting to develop a nervous knot in his stomach. The tour was exciting as hell, but at the same time, the forest was almost creepy in a bad way. He wasn’t into any of that “negative energy” crap, yet he couldn’t quite get over the feeling that, yes, this place was giving off negative energy.

“Oooh! Oooh! Oooh!” said the little kid in front of Christopher. “What’s that? What’s that?”

“That looks like a ghost!” said his father. He raised his hand. “Is that a ghost?”

Barbara glanced out the window. “I don’t see it, point it out.”

“It’s gone now.”

“Well, we’ll stop the tram and see if it comes back.” The tram came to a gentle stop. “The Haunted Forest does contain some spectral activity. You wouldn’t expect to be able to see a ghost in our bright lights, but actually they show up just fine.”

“Are these the ghosts of the people who died when the forest appeared?” the man asked.

Barbara shrugged. “Like so many things about the Haunted Forest, that’s a mystery. But it would not surprise me if the spirits of the people who were killed on that bizarre and memorable night were not at rest.”

“Can they get through the windows?” asked the little boy.

“No, they sure can’t.”

“Why not?”

“We put ghost spray on the windows.”

“Oh.”

Barbara grinned at the other tourists as if sharing a private joke. Christopher thought the little boy had brought up a darn good point. How did they keep the ghosts out?

They waited for about three minutes, but the ghost did not return. The tram slid back into motion.

The delighted tourists saw several other creatures as they moved through the forest: a humanoid whose face was ninety percent teeth, a beetle the size of a small dog, bat-like things with glowing red eyes, and a wolf with bloody fur.

“We’re now about to reach our first scheduled stop,” Barbara announced. The tram veered a bit to the right as it passed a large tree, and then the tourists let out a collective “Oooooh!” as they saw what was beyond: a large bubbling pit, about the size of an Olympic swimming pool. It looked like it was filled with molten lava. And things were swimming in it. Lots of them.

It sort of looked the way Christopher imagined the pits of Hell, except that Hell probably didn’t have souls in torment leaping out and doing back-flips.

“We have no idea why this pit is there or what those things are that are swimming in it,” Barbara admitted. “But it’s a fascinating sight, isn’t it?”

Not all of the creatures looked like they were swimming. Some were fighting. In fact, Christopher flinched as it looked like one ripped off the head of another. He was secretly glad when, a few minutes later, the tram pulled away from the pit.

“Spooooooooky, huh?” his mother asked.

As they moved deeper into the forest, the creatures became more and more frequent. They hadn’t exaggerated that element at all; the Haunted Forest was packed with monsters. Beasts with claws and fangs and tentacles and huge bloodshot eyes and every kind of grotesque appendage he could imagine. Some were recognizable, some were like nightmare versions of familiar creatures, and others bore no resemblance whatsoever to anything Christopher had ever seen.

Despite the knot in his stomach, Christopher knew how this ranked: Best. Halloween. Ever.

The tram stopped.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are now exactly two miles deep into the forest. And now, for a special Halloween scare, let’s look at the forest in its natural glory.”

Both the lights inside and outside of the tram shut off, casting them into almost complete darkness.

“We’re out here, all alone, with nasty creatures on every side of us,” said Barbara. “Can they see in the dark? Who knows? Can they smell us?”

Christopher caught a glimpse of a pair of glowing eyes right outside his window.

“Let’s just sit here quietly for a moment, shall we?”

The tourists sat silently in the dark. Christopher was surprised to not even hear nervous giggling. There was dead silence for almost a full minute.

“Okay, let’s turn the lights back on,” Barbara said.

The lights remained off.

“Lights,” she repeated.

Nothing happened.

“Sorry, we’re having a bit of technical difficulty. Nothing to worry about.”

A set of claws scraped against Christopher’s window. He couldn’t see what they belonged to.

Tommy Walker knew a fake smile when he saw one, even when it was gloomy and kind of hard to see. He liked Barbara, the lady talking to them in the front of the tram, though her voice hurt his ears a little, but he could tell that she was really upset. She walked toward the front of the tram as the things outside slithered and crawled over the exterior.

A few of the people around Tommy looked at the woman with wide, fearful eyes. For his part, he sat perfectly still and chewed on his bottom lip. Mommy and Daddy didn’t like it when he made a fuss. They weren’t here with him, because they were going through a d-i-v-o-r-c-e, but his Uncle Perry and Aunt Jean were still being pretty calm, so he hoped this meant that the monsters weren’t going to get him.

Without saying a word, Uncle Perry, who sat one row ahead, in front of Aunt Jean, reached into his pocket and took out his cell phone. They’d taken away most of the cell phones before the tour began, but Uncle Perry had shown that his didn’t have a camera on it.

Aunt Jean reached across the aisle and patted Tommy’s knee. “It’s okay, Big Tom. They’re just trying to add to the scares.” Aunt Jean was ten years younger than his mommy, and her hair was red instead of brown, but they looked enough alike that he found the contact comforting.

Tommy was the youngest person on the Haunted Forest Tour, and his eyes were wide as he stared out the window. Something was staring back at him. He couldn’t see it all that clearly with the lights off, but he could make out the hard, bony ridges around its burning green eyes and the long segmented body, held up by a series of skeletal arms that ended in hooked claws, as it scrambled over the outside and looked first at him and then at Aunt Jean.