James Moore - The Haunted Forest Tour

In the seat directly behind the driver’s, an old man dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt looked out the window and smiled, showing discolored teeth as he watched the things that kept creeping closer in. A baseball cap covered the top of his head. His skin was pasty white and his hands trembled, but he looked like he was happy while almost everyone else was nervous. Tommy kept staring at him, glad to see somebody smiling in the darkness.

Something wet and black oozed across the window near Aunt Jean’s head and caught his attention for a moment. Whatever it was, it left a dull red smear on the glass as it slipped past.

Eddie Turner looked at Barbara and sighed as he set down the radio. “Nothing. There’s got to be some major power failure in the tram. I can’t even get a signal on the radio. And the handheld is battery operated. I should be able to get through on that if nothing else.”

“Jesus, Eddie, what are we going to do if we can’t get contact?” She tried not to sound nervous. There had never been an incident of something getting inside the tram on one of her or anybody else’s watches, not even the ghosts. Though they’d suffered the occasional technical glitch, nothing like this had ever happened. The Haunted Forest Tour was one hundred percent safe.

Barbara loved her job. The benefits rocked her world and the pay was good enough to cover her college bills, but she had to admit that some of the things she’d seen along the way were disturbing enough to guarantee her nightmares from time to time. The first time she’d seen a giant spider—not an original name, but accurate enough, even if the thing did have ten legs and an unsettlingly human face—she’d almost peed her pants.

The idea of the tram being stuck without power was not at all comforting. “Wait, Eddie, please tell me there’s some power left on this thing.”

“I would, but I try not to lie to people I’m not dating.”

“No power at all?” Her heart sped up a bit inside of her chest.

“None.”

“So the electromagnet is fried, too?”

“As far as I know. I flipped the switch, so I guess in theory it could be working.” Eddie looked a little worried, but he was holding it in pretty well. “The only good thing is I haven’t seen anything big enough to be a real threat so far.”

“Listen, Eddie, we can’t sit out here until night, and if we do, we need to be armed.”

“I think it’s way too early to worry about that, sweetie.” Eddie chuckled and Barbara gritted her teeth. She hated being called “sweetie” by him. They were friends but sometimes she couldn’t decide if the older man was trying to flirt with her or adopt her. Either way, it was a little creepy and a lot annoying. Still, she held back from making any comments. “It’s gotta be just a freak power failure. We’ll be running again any second now.”

“Well, to be safe, we should look into opening the weapon chest.”

“Are you kidding me? Jeez, you’d think this was your virgin voyage. Relax, sweetie. If it comes down to that, we’ll open it, but I don’t think that’s anywhere close to necessary yet.” He looked at the people in the seats behind them. “The last thing we want to do is start these folks panicking, and if they do start panicking, the last thing we want is for them to be packing heat.”

“Yeah? The last thing I want is to end up as dinner for something with eight mouths.” She had to keep herself from yelling. Eddie was a nice enough guy, but sometimes he was condescending as all hell and right now she wasn’t much in the mood to be talked down to.

“Don’t worry your pretty head, Barbara. If it starts getting ugly, I’ll protect you. There’s lots of weird stuff out there, but they’re harmless. How many workers died clearing out trees and laying out those tracks? Zero. How many got injured? Three. How many of those were injured because of monsters? Zero. I know you’re paranoid about getting eaten, but people in this forest don’t get et. Just doesn’t happen. Go take a bong hit or something to calm yourself down, and let me do my job.”

“You don’t have a job right now. You can’t drive.”

“Go away, sweetie.”

Before she could tell him off, the tram rocked harshly and a few of the passengers let out gasps of surprise. Something big had just bumped into them, and big in this case meant hefty enough to rock the four-ton vehicle.

“Okay,” said Eddie. “Electromagnet definitely not working.”

Eddie let out a gasp as something covered the entire windshield. Whatever it was, it seemed intent on getting inside. Thick claws scraped across the windshield and the tram shook a second time.

The passengers were definitely starting to panic. Barbara looked back to where the people who trusted her to maintain order were all staring out of the windows and either recoiling or pointing.

A lot of creatures were moving in for a closer look.

Everyone around them talked in whispers, the same sort you expected in a church. Brad Landry barely noticed. He was too fascinated by the things outside of the tram. Monsters, demons, and God alone knew what else. Brad had his face inches from the glass and stared out at the things in the woods. Some of the things stared back.

A creature with four arms and warty skin looked right at Tina and licked its chops. Definitely an image she could do without. Still, it was almost worth the nightmares to see Brad so happy.

He worked so hard. Both of them did, but with Brad it was almost an obsession. He wanted them to have the American Dream, and he’d get it for them if it killed him. So it was especially nice to see him having a good time, even if that meant she had to deal with things like the ghost that was shifting and glowing as it moved past the window.

Oh yes, this was going on her long list of places to avoid in the future. Brad was the one that liked horror movies and comic books. He was still a big kid in a lot of ways, but only after he’d finished his duties as The Man Of The House. It wasn’t unusual for him to spend ten hours at work, come home and do the monthly bills, and then settle back on the sofa with her to watch one of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. She was okay with those, because even with all the blood, the plots were thin enough to see through.

Brad looked back over his shoulder and pointed at something moving in the distance. She didn’t know what it was, but it pushed a tree hard enough to make it sway. Giving it a little thought, Tina decided she was perfectly fine never actually seeing whatever was large enough to knock around a seventy-foot oak tree.

“Did you see that, honey?” Brad’s voice quivered with excitement.

“Are we supposed to be waiting this long to move forward? What’s taking so long, Brad?”

Brad must have heard the worry in her voice. He smiled and leaned closer, his thickly muscled arm moving around both of her shoulders as he grinned. “Don’t worry. I’m betting you they set this up for the extra scares. Remember, this is the Halloween special, right?”

And just like that, some of the tension left her body. Her shoulders relaxed and her chest stopped feeling like it was going to collapse on itself.

“I never even thought about that.”

“Trust me.” He smiled and nodded knowingly. “If I was the one running this show, that’s exactly what I would be doing. Five minutes from now, we’re on the way and moving again.”

Tina snuggled in closer to her husband of five years and closed her eyes for the moment. Let him have his fun with the weird things lurking outside. She’d had enough. It was better just to think about being back home, where she would be safe and sound.