by Jeff Strand
Within a few minutes, he'd broken away a couple of inches’ worth of ice over the left eye of one of the faces.
He really hoped it was just an image of a face.
He looked into the hole. There was only a paper-thin layer of ice remaining over the eye, or the image of the eye. He gently blew on his index finger to warm it up, then stuck his finger into the hole and pushed down on the eye.
His finger cracked through the ice layer and sunk to the first knuckle in warm, wet ooze.
You have got to be kidding me.
There were real people beneath the ice.
So it was no longer a case of merely needing to get out of the ice bowl to avoid freezing to death. Now he needed to get out before these frozen people came to life, broke through the surface, and lumbered after him zombie-style, moaning and shambling and devouring flesh.
Or something like that.
He quickly wiped his finger off on his pants, leaving a white streak. He got up and started chipping away at the ice wall. Get himself a nice foothold and he'd be able to leap right over. Then everything would be fine. No more creepy faces and potential zombie intruders.
A gust of wind blew past his ear.
That was okay. He could handle spooky wind.
He continued chipping.
Something moved behind him.
Christopher spun around. Nothing there.
"Go away," he told the nothing that was there.
He chipped some more, hoping that the ice wall would be considerate enough to simply collapse, allowing him to step over it and move on with his life.
Something else—or the same thing—moved behind him.
Still nothing there. But this was not a trick of his imagination, unless he'd gone insane. He was headed in that direction to be sure, but Christopher wasn't quite ready for the padded walls and comfy straitjackets yet, and there was no doubt in his mind that something had moved behind him, even if the ice bowl remained empty.
He went back to work.
The goddamn thing moved again.
Christopher spun back around. This time he did not see nothing. He saw a humanoid figure, at least seven feet tall. Its flesh was dark blue, much bluer than the ice, and it was covered with scales that sparkled with frost. It had the build of a weight lifter and wore a pair of silver shorts.
The creature's hand shot out, grabbing Christopher by the throat. Its skin was as cold as the ice.
It grinned, revealing enormous fangs that were clear, like pieces of ice in its mouth.
"Hi, Christopher."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
"It's quiet. Almost...too quiet."
Lee chuckled at Barbara's words, which was good, because that was exactly what she was hoping to achieve. A few jokes now and then, even really lame ones, helped ease the pressure.
And it was stupid, but she almost felt better when the monsters were in front of her. At least then she knew they were there. This? Shining flashlights around a musty old building and waiting to see if something was going to pop up and go booga-booga? This was suspense, and suspense always screwed her up.
They were ten minutes along, moving through dark hallways and stepping over the rubble from where at least one tree had taken out part of the building. Not her idea of a jolly good time.
"So, do you think we'll find a generator? Or even a few decent supplies somewhere in this place?" Lee looked at her as he spoke. His eyes were almost buried in the shadows, and the effect was unsettling. He was just the right age to turn into a Creepy Old Guy when the lights were off. He'd been nothing but polite and friendly, but the way the darkness gathered on his face gave him a sinister aura.
She shook the thought away and then sighed. "I don't know. I hope so. Anything positive would make me feel a lot better now, I have to tell you. Even if we just found a cookie crumb."
"I would be disappointed if all we found was a cookie crumb," Lee admitted. "I'd much prefer a full cookie, accompanied by a fresh plate of Buffalo wings with bleu cheese dressing and celery."
"Are you trying to torture me?" Barbara asked with a grin.
"Are you a Buffalo wings person?"
"Vegetarian, remember? But I do like bleu cheese dressing and celery. And cookies." She forced a chuckle, and then her grin slowly faded.
Lee looked at her for a long moment, his eyes on hers and his face almost expressionless. "You know it's not your fault, right?"
"What's not?"
"Any of this. You didn't do it."
Barbara felt the heat run through her face and knew she was probably blushing. She didn't think there was any way that anyone could know what she was feeling and then Lee nailed it in one.
"It's kind of hard not to feel at fault. I mean, there was no way I could help what happened with the tram, or the crash, but maybe if we'd handled things better when things started getting out of control—"
"You didn't do anything wrong. Neither did Eddie. He may be a bit of an ass—okay, several bits of an ass—but you've both done everything possible to keep things sane. So when this is all over, and we walk out of the woods and go home to our regular lives, don't blame yourself."
"My regular life is being a Haunted Forest tour guide."
"You know what I mean. It's not your fault."
Barbara had no idea what to say to that, so she simply nodded her thanks.
Lee reached out and touched another of the doors. This one was different from the cheap wooden ones they'd already encountered. It was metal and painted white. The knob turned easily enough, but the door itself seemed almost fused in place. Lee slammed his shoulder against it three times before shaking his head.
"Stuck."
"But of course." Barbara pointed to the base of the door. "Looks like it's blocked." A thick black substance oozed from under the doorjamb. "I think something's growing on the other side."
Lee's face pulled into a wrinkled look of disgust. He was handsome in a grandfatherly way, and the expression added ten years to his apparent age. She was tempted to tell him to stop pouting, but she resisted.
"I think we can get it open, but how about we try a few more doors first and come back here if we have to, okay?"
It took her a second to realize the words were aimed in her direction. Barbara wasn't really used to the idea of people asking her opinion, especially people who were a good deal older.
"Um, okay." What else could she say? There were still plenty of doors they hadn't looked through yet.
Lee smiled again, and the added decade slipped away from his face. "I have a quarter that says we'll have to check it anyway, but now I can let my shoulder have a rest before I try again." He winked. "Never does me any good to have a pretty girl knowing I'm as old as I am, you know." He slumped his shoulders and pushed his belly out in an impressive imitation of a man twenty years his senior. "The body goes to hell after fifty."
While Barbara was still chuckling, he opened the door to one of the rooms. There was no natural light at all. There were no windows, apparently. Given the circumstances, that was a plus and a minus. No windows probably meant no monsters, but then again, no light meant anything could be hiding inside.
Lee shone his flashlight into the room, which was actually a small storage closet. Nothing interesting. A couple of folding tables propped up on their sides and a stack of plastic chairs. He moved forward and sniffed the closet. After a few seconds he shook his head and stepped back.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing, but the room smells funny."
"Funny how?"
"Chemical funny. Like cleaning supplies."
"After five years?" Barbara frowned. Even if someone had left a bottle of bleach out with the lid off, the smell would have faded eventually, wouldn't it?
"That's why I don't like it. Especially since I don't see any cleaning supplies in here."
"Good point." She eyed the door dubiously.
Lee walked down the hallway and tried the next door. It was locked. Barbara was beginning
to feel like she was stuck in one of her younger brother's Dungeons & Dragons games.
The door opened easily, and Lee backed away from the foul odor that escaped it. Light spilled in from above due to a collapsed ceiling. More of the same black substance they'd run across at the metal door covered the floor.
Lee gagged.
A large pile of bones rested in the corner of the room. Several human skulls were clearly visible.
Lee hurriedly pulled the door shut. "I think we know what happened to all the people working here."
"Big surprise."
"It shouldn't still smell like that, though. Those skeletons are long-decayed. I think I'm gonna—" Lee slapped a hand over his mouth and turned away.
Barbara watched him for a long moment.
Lee turned back around and removed his hand. "Okay, I avoided puking in front of the young lady. That's one point of dignity in my favor."
They moved on, checking door after door. If they were locked, they were ignored. Most of the doors were locked, or maybe just wedged shut by years of unrelenting humidity.
"So what do you know about the town that used to be here, Barbara?"
"Not much, really. There were some survivors, but near as anyone can tell, the entire town was destroyed inside of an hour."
"The trees grew that fast?"
"According to one of the people who made it out, the trees came out of the ground so fast they seemed to be fully grown."
"And the monsters came with them?"
"Nobody knows if they were waiting inside of the trees or if they came afterward."
Lee scratched at his chin for a moment. "I can't imagine they were hiding in the trees."
"Well, there are a huge number of things we can't explain about the forest. Why don't the creatures ever leave the perimeter? How come so many of them seem designed for other than forest climates? And, starting today, how come they all turned bloodthirsty when previously they only looked scary?"
Lee nodded his head. "True enough." He smiled. "I remember when the forest first popped up, all the news on the television and all the theories that came out of it. I think my favorite was the one about a writer who claimed to have written a book just like that, and wanted to sue the town and the state for stealing his ideas."
Barbara laughed at that one. "I remember that! You know what? He couldn't even find the manuscript he'd allegedly written when the time came for a court case. He said it had been stolen by goblins or some such and tried to prove that the Haunted Forest was all the evidence he needed."
"Please tell me he lost the case."
Barbara nodded emphatically. "Oh, yes. He lost. Then he came down to the actual forest and spent two months carrying a sign around that claimed the monsters inside were plagiarists."
"Seriously?"
"Hand to God." She crossed herself and lifted her right hand in a salute to heaven.
"Whatever happened to him?"
Barbara shook her head and smiled despite her desire to be serious. "I think he got an actual book deal based on the publicity."
"Bastard."
"Yep."
"Well, at least he was dedicated in his dementia." Lee was about to say something else when they heard the sound of something moving its way down the darkened hallway. He held up one hand, made a shushing gesture, and shut off his flashlight. Barbara did the same.
Whatever was heading in their direction had a breathing problem. The sounds it made were phlegmy and strained. Barbara's cousin Amelia had asthma, and the worst attack she'd ever witnessed sounded mild in comparison to the noises coming from down the hallway.
Lee urged her back against the wall and she followed his lead, moving out of the hallway to give whatever it was coming their way plenty of space. Of course, she also made sure that her pistol was in the right position and that the safety was off, just in case whatever came along was hungry.
Lee leaned against the wall next to her, and the fact that he was trembling was oddly comforting. If he'd been steady and calm, it would have meant she was either the only one of them that was weak and cowardly, or the only one that was human. Either way, having him with her and just as nervous made her feel a little stronger.
Whatever was coming their way was also dripping fluids. The sound of the liquid splashing along the tiled floor was very distinctive. It was also loud enough to tell her that the thing was very, very wet.
It stopped moving. The noisy breathing calmed down and the constant trickle of water came no closer.
Barbara had the sudden need to sneeze. Her nose tingled and her sinuses felt clogged. Her eyes started watering and she resisted the urge to sniff as best she could while her whole face seemed determined to build into the sort of sneeze that would blow down walls.
Lee twitched next to her and sniffled faintly. It seemed he was having the exact same problem.
The stalled trickles started moving forward again. She looked past Lee and saw nothing at all. Not so much as a shadow moved, but she still heard whatever it was in that area.
Lee's hand moved slowly over to hers and tapped lightly at her wrist. Because she knew he was there, she managed not to scream. She looked away from the empty hallway and over toward him. When she finally saw Lee in the darkness and moved her hand to let him know, he took his fingers from her wrist and pointed upward.
Barbara looked and saw the thing slithering across the ceiling. All she could really make out was the uneven shape in the darkness and the oversized eyes that glowed very dimly.
Neither of them moved, and though the stuck sneeze kept threatening a rebellion, Barbara eventually won out. Lee watched the ceiling right along with her until the big-eyed monster was out of sight. It slithered along the tiles until it came to a hallway, and then turned left, into the area they hadn't yet explored.
Barbara no longer wanted to explore it.
Lee must have been reading her mind. He leaned in close and whispered, "Screw this. Whatever else we can say about that first office, it's safer than anything we're going to find down here."
"Yeah," she agreed. "And at least we know the way out of the building if we need to run."
Slowly, reluctantly, they headed back the way they'd come, checking every door and the ceiling above them to make sure nothing was waiting to pounce.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Mark shook his head as he watched the four Security Detail trucks drive single file into the Haunted Forest. He wanted to see what was about to happen. Part of him wanted to know that the good guys were winning the battle. Another part of him—a part that did not make him proud—wanted desperately to see some of the Haunted Forest's denizens in action. Seeing a creature, marking its height, probable weight, and body structure and listing large conjectures on what it might be capable of doing, that was all good and well, but to actually have visual documentation of the damned things in action...that he wanted to see.
Not that he'd get to. Along with the complete communication failure, none of the cameras in the Haunted Forest were working. It was as if the equipment, trams, and people inside had simply ceased to exist.
The trucks would have to stay near the tram track, since that was the only area cleared out enough for a vehicle to drive through. Hopefully the tourists were just sitting patiently in their trams, awaiting assistance.
"Absolutely bizarre, isn't it?" asked Steve, who Mark hadn't even realized was standing behind him. "How the hell did something take out power to the entire line of cameras?"
"Should've been impossible," said Mark, turning around to face the man who, until Booth returned, was responsible for the whole operation and did not look happy about it. "They're on different feed lines."
Steve nodded. "Yeah, near as we can figure, either we had a catastrophic computer failure, which we didn't, or something out there destroyed a lot of cameras all at once."
"There's over a hundred camera feeds out there. There's no way one thing could have done that."
Steve looked him in the eyes
and nodded again. "I know. That means it was a lot of things working together."
Working together? In all of the time since Mark had taken the job and started observing and making notes on the different creatures in the Haunted Forest, he'd never run across a case where any of the different creatures out in the woods worked in unison. Well, okay, there were packs of gigglers working together, because that was how they hunted, but none of the creatures he'd ever seen in the woods worked with other life forms to do anything.
"That's crazy," said Hannah. She'd been standing there the whole time, and not once had Mark thought about her breasts. This was a bad, bad situation.
Steve shook his head. "No, that's scary."
Several of the people at the windows let out a unified gasp, and Mark, Hannah, and Steve all turned as one and moved over to see what was happening.
The entrance to the Haunted Forest was monitored constantly by the now-defunct cameras, but it was also easily seen from the control center. The heavy armored bay windows—the entire facility was built to withstand unexpected visits, even though nothing had ever visited—showed a clear view of the forest and both the entrance for the tram cars and the exit a hundred yards away. Aside from the rails that ran into the woods and the carousels where the trams were stored and turned to be sent back into the forest, there was nothing to see on most days but the almost impenetrable wall of trees that stood taller than should have been possible.
Fifty feet into the thick woods, the tracks vanished into shadows. Beyond that, they'd always depended on the cameras.
Something was different this time. There were flickers of light coming from the depths of the forest. They couldn't hear anything, because the heavy windows were virtually soundproof, but they could see the flashes of activity that made it quite obvious that the security team in their armored vehicles had encountered something already.
Mark pressed himself up against the window and blocked out the lights behind him with his hands, the better to make out the details of what might be going on down there. Hannah did the same thing next to him, her body pressing against his as the crush of people increased.
