by Jeff Strand
Having nobody else to turn to now that her husband was dead, Tina had apparently decided that Mindy was her life support. Mindy thought she could've made a much better choice of a protector, since Mindy's only weapon was her patented "Stern Mom Look." That only worked on Christopher, and one man who'd been trying to slide closer to her on one of the rare occasions she went to a movie by herself. Stern Mom Looks, scary as they might be, were nothing compared to the faces of a few of the things she'd already seen in the last hour.
There were several monsters lurking nearby, which was an obvious source of concern. The good news seemed to be that most of them were already engaged in eating their latest meals. If she didn't dwell on what they were eating, it was possible she'd get through the search for her son without breaking into hysterical laughter and awaiting the arrival of a tour tram with padded walls.
She heard Christopher before she saw him. He was currently pinned under what looked for all the world like a four-eyed, scaly chicken of epic proportions.
"Honey, are you okay?"
"Mom, I can't really breathe here."
Tina reached down and grabbed one of the thick, muscular legs on the chicken-thing and pulled with all of her might. Mindy joined in and a few seconds later they'd managed to move the thing enough for Christopher to climb out from under it.
Mindy looked him over from head to toe the same way she had whenever he'd come home from school when he was younger. Everything that was supposed to be attached to him was there and mostly intact. His eyes were wide and a little wild, but that was perfectly understandable under the current circumstances.
"Thanks for coming back for me." He managed a quick smile and gave his mother a one-armed hug.
Tina looked at them both blankly for a moment and then said, "Maybe we should go now? Before we lose everyone else?"
"Yeah, or before anything else comes along to eat our faces." Mindy looked down at the remains of the chicken-thing and shook her head.
"It looked a lot scarier when it was alive." Christopher sounded embarrassed, as if being pinned under a monster that he'd killed instead of being swallowed by the same thing was somehow a reason to feel ashamed.
"Honey, believe me, it's plenty scary right now, too."
"It looks like a scaly chicken now. It looked more like a Chinese Dragon when it was coming for me."
"Either way, it's a giant scaly chicken and more than scary enough. I've seen some mean chickens in my time."
Tina started walking again but called over her shoulders, "Geese are worse. And swans. They may be cute, but they're mean as all hell."
Mindy and Christopher—now once again carrying his empty rifle, because any weapon was better than none—followed her. Tina plodded along, her eyes mostly focused on her feet. Her new friends watched for the things in the woods, several of which had almost finished their meals.
After almost five minutes of walking through the dark woods, Mindy heard the sound of a boy crying. Not a man, but a boy. It was a sound she and countless other mothers knew very well, and she stopped the other two in their tracks and told them to wait a moment.
She looked around the area carefully. There was a tree down, and she could tell just by looking at the path of destruction from where it dropped that it was newly felled. In front of it the ground was blackened and the air smelled of blood and worse. Behind it, she could hear the sounds of the child crying.
"Wait right here and keep a look out," said Mindy. It wasn't a request. Where the safety of children was involved, there were no requests.
There was just that one little obstacle, the tree. She had to climb it if she wanted to get to the other side, or she had to go around it. She thought briefly of going under it, but she'd have to dig to find a spot big enough and didn't really like the idea of being trapped under the tree if something came along to devour her. Climbing would probably be safer. Anything could be hiding on the other side.
Mindy climbed carefully. It wasn't the biggest tree she'd ever seen, or even large in comparison to some of its neighbors, but scaling the thing wasn't easy with all of the tall, thick branches in the way. It was nice that the branches gave her plenty to hold on to, but pushing through them was nearly impossible, so she was doing more climbing than walking. Once at the highest point, she saw a lot more than she expected to. First, she saw the little boy, maybe five years old, maybe a little older. She also spotted Lee and Brad a short distance away.
Lee spotted her, too. He waved carefully, looking around first to make sure he didn't get any unwanted attention.
She waved back just as carefully and then held up a finger, telling him silently to give her one minute. He nodded and maneuvered around again, his rifle held close to his body.
Off in the distance, Mindy saw a shape that didn't belong in a forest. She couldn't make it out clearly, but it looked like a building. Real walls, and solid if they had lasted the last few years.
She started the task of climbing down the other side of the tree. After only a couple of missteps, she was next to the tyke who was curled up into a fetal position and crying to himself.
"Hey, come on, let's get you out of here, okay?"
The boy looked at her with frightened, tear-stained eyes and nodded silently. He didn't protest when she picked him up, and his arms instinctively wrapped around her neck. She started moving almost immediately, climbing over the branches and marveling at how little the boy seemed to weigh. She'd seen him with the group earlier, firmly attached to a redhead who was nowhere to be seen.
He didn't weigh much, but having him wrapped around her neck and waist made the already-difficult climb a lot harder. When she finally reached the highest point a second time, she waved Christopher and Tina over. They were both looking everywhere around them, and it took a few seconds to get their attention.
"Where did you find him?" Christopher started climbing and stopped halfway up the tree.
"Well, my other son is starting to get too old for spoiling properly..."
"Ha ha." He smiled.
Mindy's expression turned serious. "There are two more people on the other side of the tree. One of them looked unconscious. Why don't we get together with them and see if we can find our way out of here?"
"What about all of the other survivors."
"Christopher, I don't know if there are any other survivors."
He looked at her and nodded, his brow drawing in like a gathering storm. "Okay, good point. Lead on, Mom."
Christopher helped Tina after he was done climbing over the branches of the felled tree, and all four of them maneuvered around carefully. They looked first at the stone structure Mindy had discovered, and then let out a few startled screams as the demon-spider dropped down from above them.
It wasn't really a spider. Mindy could have probably handled one of those; she'd squashed quite a few of them in her time. No, this had more legs and a longer body. Also, it had twelve glossy green eyes in a perfect circle, just above the mandibles that tried to cut the kid wrapped around her body in half. Tommy was now wide awake and let out a few screams worthy of a rhesus monkey as he started scrambling over Mindy's head in an effort to get away from the thing.
Mindy lost her footing and fell backward. Christopher caught her and let out a few monkey screams of his own as the mandibles chopped through the air where she had been standing a second before. The spider let out a low growl that sounded like a few thousand pissed-off bees, and as Mindy finally cleared the kid out of her view, it let out another scream.
It lunged forward, the thick claws on its feet grabbing at Mindy's legs and slicing into her socks with ease.
It would have been less painful if she had actually been wearing socks. Mindy cried and, without even thinking about it, threw the scrambling kid toward Christopher, who caught him. If she was going down, she wasn't taking the kid with her. That was all there was to it.
Mindy kicked hard with her left leg, taking a few layers of skin away as she wrestled free of the claw.
She cocked her right leg back to land another kick, and then the spider-thing's face exploded.
Rather than continuing to attack her, the spider shuddered and twitched and drooled a lot of purplish goo out of the stump where its head had been.
Christopher let out a muffled curse as the kid his mother had thrown him started climbing over his head. Tina caught the kid before he could fall and hurt himself, and just to make sure he didn't go anywhere else, she wrapped her arms around his trembling body.
Down on the ground, she saw the old man from the tram, Lee, slowly lowering his rifle.
"Weren't we going to go down to save him?" Christopher wondered aloud.
Lee took two steps forward, and Tina dropped the kid she'd been holding as she got truly lively for the first time since they'd met her.
"Brad!" Her shout was loud enough to guarantee that every monster hiding in the trees around them would hear, but she was too busy scrambling down the fallen tree to even notice. Somehow she managed to keep her footing. She ran right past Lee and charged over to the man on the ground, stopping only when she could see him clearly and then hug his unconscious form.
Lee looked back at Tina with a combination of surprise and severe annoyance on his face, while Mindy scooped up the kid who was once again curling in on himself. He latched on to her and she climbed down without any incidents.
Christopher made it almost all the way down before he tripped, but he managed to land on his feet.
"You folks all right?" Lee came over to them, moving with the particular stride that seemed to be reserved for old men.
"Yes we are," said Mindy. "Thank you!"
"Well, it was the last bullet, I think, but that thing was looking uglier than most."
"Damn." Christopher looked at the top of the tree. "I dropped my rifle."
"Honey, the rifle is broken."
"Yeah, Mom, but it's a rifle."
"Let's just get Tina and her not-so-dead Brad and find that building, okay? Maybe there's something there that can help us."
Christopher looked less than thrilled about the idea. "Maybe there's something there that can eat us."
"If it's got walls, it's a start." Lee smiled as he spoke. "Except for the ghosts, not too much around here that seems to come through the walls. That means we can at least get a little protection."
"Brilliant plan," said Eddie, suddenly stepping into view. Barbara the tour guide was with him. Eddie waved his rifle at Tina. "You. What's your name?"
"Tina."
"Pleased to meet you, Tina. Don't ever scream like that again, okay?"
"I—I won't."
"Good. Let's get moving."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The few survivors of the Haunted Forest Tour walked quietly but briskly through the woods. Eddie took the lead and blew away the occasional ghastly creature, while Barbara walked just a step behind him, pointing out the occasional approaching ghastly creature that he might have missed. Mindy, holding Tommy's hand, was next in line, speaking softly to the young boy to keep him calm.
Christopher and Lee followed behind them, carrying Brad's semi-conscious form. Aside from the occasional loss of footing, they kept up a solid pace. Tina walked with them, stroking her husband's hair and quietly crying.
"Hey, you—Betty, is it?" Lee asked. "Tour guide lady."
Barbara glanced back at him over her shoulder. "Barbara."
"Right. Sorry. Aren't you supposed to be telling us about this place? I paid good money for this tour, and I'm hardly learning anything."
Barbara smiled. "What would you like to know?"
"What kind of tree is that?"
"Which one?"
"I can't point while I'm holding this guy. Any one."
"Well...that tree to our left is tall and brown. Its scientific name is the tall, brown tree. Its primary function in the ecosystem of the forest is to stand there and be tall and brown."
"What about the green parts?" asked Lee.
"The green parts are actually an optical illusion. If you look at them in direct sunlight, they're actually brown."
"Fascinating."
"Thanks for the improv," said Eddie. "Now that we've shared this lighthearted moment, I'm not scared a bit. Remember when that one lady got ripped apart and eaten? Man, that was fuckin' hilarious, don't you think?"
"Shut up, Eddie."
"What about all the corpses we left back in the tram? I get giggly just thinking about it. The funniest part was all the gushing blood."
"Enough," said Barbara.
"Just relax, Grenade Guy," said Lee. "We're trying to make things seem like they aren't completely hopeless. Sorry if that offended you."
Eddie kept walking without further comment.
Brad's body was starting to get really heavy, but Christopher didn't want to request a break. If Lee wasn't complaining, Christopher certainly wasn't going to. Even under extremely stressful circumstances, he had his sense of pride.
Brad coughed, spraying a bit of blood on Christopher's shirt. The poor guy looked absolutely terrible. In fact, though Christopher didn't say this out loud, unless they happened to stumble upon a completely equipped medical team, he didn't think Brad had much time left.
One more death to add to the dozens.
They walked silently for a while, interrupted only by Tina's occasional sniffle, Brad's occasional groan, and Eddie's occasional gunfire blast. And then, hidden by trees so thick that they were practically right on it before they even saw it, they reached the concrete structure.
"What do you think this is?" Lee asked.
"I'm pretty sure it's the water reclamation plant," said Barbara. "Most of the structures in Cromay were completely destroyed when the forest appeared, but a couple of the larger ones did survive, if the foundation was strong enough."
"So where does that put us in the forest, location-wise?"
"I'm not sure exactly. Still a couple of miles from the edge, I think."
"Isn't that about where we were when things became unpleasant?"
Barbara nodded. "But we can defend ourselves better with concrete walls."
"No argument there."
They walked around the edge of the round building, trying to find the entrance. Though Christopher couldn't honestly say that he was disappointed by what appeared to be a lack of bloodthirsty creatures in the area, he had to admit that the silence was more than a little eerie. Anyway, just because they weren't attacking didn't mean that the creatures weren't watching.
Barbara took off her backpack and unzipped the top. "I've only got three flashlights," she said, "but we'll probably need them inside."
"Anything else useful in there?" Lee asked.
Barbara shook her head. "Bug spray."
"Big-bug spray?"
"No. Mosquito repellent. I think it was a joke. But at least we have flashlights."
"Here we go," said Eddie, taking one of the flashlights as they came upon a small staircase. Christopher watched as he cautiously disappeared up the stairs, then called out, "We're cool!" a moment later.
The survivors walked up the flight of stairs (getting Brad up them was a real bitch) and followed Eddie into a small room. It had a desk, some computer equipment that was covered with a thick layer of dust, and a couple of chairs. Somebody's office.
As Barbara shut the office door and waved her flashlight around, Christopher and Lee carefully lay Brad on the floor. Tina cradled his head in her lap.
"This seems reasonably safe," Eddie noted. "Everybody take five and then we'll figure out what to do."
"What are the chances of a rescue party finding us here?" asked Christopher.
"Unless we can find a way to contact headquarters, I'd say it's pretty much non-existent. The only way they'd find us is if we stayed near the tracks. But, of course, if we stayed near the tracks, we'd all get eaten."
"So what do we do?"
"Me, I'm going to rest up here for a while, then I'm heading back."
Christopher gaped at hi
m. "Are you serious?"
Eddie nodded. "Hell yeah."
"Why would you come all the way over here, and then go all the way back?"
"We had a feeding frenzy going on. Think of it like sharks. You can float around in the ocean for quite a while without getting bothered by them, but if you're swimming with somebody who cuts their finger and those bastards smell blood, you're screwed. There are monsters chowing down on whatever's left of the tourists right now, but once they finish their meal, they'll wander off. I'm not saying it's gonna be safe, but it shouldn't be anywhere near as bad as it was before. Anyway, it'll just be me."
"Let's not split up just yet," said Lee. "Maybe we can contact somebody. I'd much rather hang out here than in the forest." He flipped on the power switch to the computer. Nothing happened.
"You didn't really think that was going to work, did you?" asked Eddie.
"No, but we would've felt pretty stupid if we waited here for two weeks and then found out we had a live high-speed Internet connection available."
"Touché."
"Do we really want to just wait for help?" asked Mindy. "It seems to me like we'd be better off doing what we've been doing, and see if we can just walk out of here."
"Well, see, that's another possible plan," said Eddie. "Our opportunities are limitless. The whole world is in front of us, if we just hitch our wagon to a star."
"You're a very obnoxious young man."
"An obnoxious young man who saved all of your asses."
"An obnoxious young man who put our asses in danger to begin with."
"I beg your pardon? Are you trying to blame this on me?" Eddie stepped forward, looking way too pissed for Christopher's comfort.
"Hey, whoa, everybody settle down," said Christopher, stepping between Eddie and his mother. "We're supposed to be taking a break. Let's just catch our breath, gather our thoughts, and figure out how we're going to get out of this mess."
"Here's what we're going to do," said Lee. "We're going to go around the room, and everybody is going to share one unusual thing about themselves. We'll start with our driver."
"Screw you."
"One unusual thing. Let's hear it."
