by Jeff Strand
Something enormous came into view a moment later.
Mark couldn't see the creature clearly, but it was, what, fifteen feet tall? It looked like it weighed as much as one of the trams. It was the biggest thing Mark had ever seen inside the Haunted Forest...and it looked like it was coming out.
Nothing anywhere close to this big had ever been seen this close to the edge of the forest. Even the smaller creatures never actually came out of the forest. Not ever.
More flashes of light and the creature backed up, its impossibly large mouth open in a wide scream of rage. Then it stepped forward and lashed out at the source of the light. Bright, tacky outfits or no, the security guard was barely visible in the heavy darkness. Only the flash from his weapon's muzzle gave him away.
A half-mile worth of open dirt and sand separated the forest from the offices; a tempered piece of nearly indestructible translucent acrylic almost a full foot thick was an added barrier. Mark would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that he heard the soldier scream when the creature tore him limb from limb. But consciously, he knew that the only thing he heard as the soldier's blood painted the monster was the sound of people around him squealing in panic. Not that he could exactly blame them, as he was seriously considering a good solid shriekfest of his own.
The creature walked closer, and Mark finally got a good look. He recognized it immediately: an ogre. But an ogre that was a hell of a lot bigger than the one he'd sliced up on his autopsy table.
This was bad.
It got worse when the second ogre came into view. And then the third. And the fourth.
The security detail had armor and weapons. The ogres had their own bodies and their teeth. Mark hoped it would be an unfair fight, advantage going to technology over nature, but there was so much pure rage on the hideous faces of the ogres that they looked like they might take a direct missile hit and keep coming just out of malice.
The security team was good. And they should have been well prepared. But it seemed like for every bullet that landed, another soldier got pounded into the ground. One ogre fell. The other three—that he could see—remained standing and angry.
Several people staring out the window moved away to be sick. For every person that left, someone else was more than willing to come over to get a better view of the carnage. Mark didn't move. Part of him wanted to, but the professional cryptozoologist in him refused to budge. Hannah was the same way. His inner chauvinist felt the need to protect the pretty girl from the horrors they were watching, but he managed to control the impulses to gently usher her away.
At least fifteen soldiers came running out of the forest, hauling ass with all of their energy, and Mark followed them with his eyes until he saw why they were moving so fast. Two additional ogres hurled one of their trucks after them. The truck was on fire, and barely recognizable as an American-made automobile.
The flaming truck bounced awkwardly and then rolled after the soldiers, who scattered before it could finally land. Not that it did them much good, because the gas tank exploded on impact and sent a fireball and debris sailing everywhere. Mark couldn't tell who was merely stunned by the impact and who actually took shrapnel.
And then the ogres emerged from the forest in hot pursuit.
Mark's stomach felt like it had become one giant ulcer. Was it just these particular creatures that were defying four years of "no creatures leave the forest" tradition, or were the camera and communication problems related to some sort of horrifying free-for-all?
More people moved away from the window as the ogres got serious about their carnage. Mark kept watching, wondering how many of the tourists had suffered the same fate. He had no doubt that he would be looking for a new job in the very near future, because all the insurance in the world wouldn't save the company when the lawsuits started coming in.
He made a mental note to start copying all of his files and smuggling them home. Somebody should have all of the information that the courts would probably demand be locked away or handed over to national security for the purpose of wiping out the forest. Also, he'd been meaning to write a few articles for a while now, and if the company couldn't defend itself from the lawsuits, he'd need all the money he could get. The Weekly World News would pay a fortune, he was sure.
"Jesus, those bastards from CNN are recording all of this." Steve's voice was asthmatically weak.
"Oh yeah, we're boned." Hannah had suddenly developed a tendency for stating the obvious.
Mark looked out the window.
"Why the hell are some of those reporters still out on the field? Get them out of there!" He couldn't believe how stupid some people were.
Steve laughed bitterly. "Yeah, yeah, I'll get right on that."
"No, seriously, Steve. How much more added litigation can we handle?"
"Shit." Their acting-boss jumped toward the closest phone, but it was already too late. A cameraman below was actually walking toward a pair of the ogres. The results were exactly what Mark expected, and when they were done wishboning the bravest little moron on the planet, two of the ogres charged the remaining news people.
Fortunately, not all of the security team had headed into the forest. There were still a few posted discretely in bunkers around the perimeter. Mark had to give H.F. Enterprises credit. They'd understood just how bad it could get if anything from the woods ever came out to investigate. The cement and steel bunkers were never without at least a few heavily armed guards. The combination of firepower from the bunker guards and the remaining security team members on the field felled the two ogres before they could reach the news crews, though it was close enough that the second ogre nearly fell on top of them.
The reporters were apparently not suicidal. They ran like hell for the safety of the building. They made it. One more ogre died in a hailstorm of literally hundreds of bullets, but the rest proved that they had some survival instincts and took off for the forest.
Down below, he could see the reporters enter the building, or at least reach the overhang that stopped him from seeing the front doors. For all he knew they were locked out and the people inside were making faces from the other side of the glass.
Hannah tapped Mark on the arm and leaned in close, so that no one else could hear her. "So," her voice was as soft as a lover's first tentative caress, "when are we going to duplicate all of the files? And where are we going to hide them?"
Mark gave her a grim smile. "I think there might be time right now, actually." Neither of them planned on doing anything with the files as long as H.F. Enterprises was in business, but if it went under, that was a different story. There's a difference between loyalty and stupidity.
Besides, someone needed to know what they'd been doing, needed to understand the wealth of information they'd accrued. Also, it was about the best hope either of them had for getting another job that paid as well.
Mark and Hannah looked at each other and headed for their offices. They'd made it out of the control room before the first tremors shook the building. The vibrations weren't epic, but they could be felt. The ground beneath their feet shivered slightly and every window in the building rattled. Being much stronger than the average panes of glass, none of the windows broke, but the rattling noise was enough to catch everyone's attention.
Hannah looked his way with wide eyes and shook her head. "What now?"
"I'm not sure I want to know." It took a hell of a lot more than a gentle breeze to rattle this building. The foundation was made with four feet of solid concrete and extra layers of rebar, just in case any new trees ever tried to sprout.
The miniature earthquake stopped for the moment and both of them moved faster, heading for their shared office. They had to get this done as quickly as they could. If something was coming that could damage the building they needed to have all of the data and be on their way to whatever safety they could find.
Neither of them said what was on their minds, which was that anything down there big enough to cause a tremor in this very
well-fortified building was larger than anything they'd ever encountered.
There was no time to lose if they wanted to get their research to safety, because even the backed-up information was kept in the facility. No data ever left H.F. Enterprises. And if the threat was as serious as they suspected, there would be no second chances to get what they needed and get the hell out of Dodge.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Mindy looked at Tina, and any pretense of cheer slowly fell from her face as she mulled over what the younger woman had said.
Just to make sure she'd heard correctly, she repeated Tina's statement in the form of a question. "A big bird swooped down and snatched Christopher from the tree?"
She realized that she must have been staring bloody murder at Tina just then, because Tina flinched and nodded silently.
"Yes, ma'am."
"I want to make one hundred percent sure I heard you right, Tina." Mindy was trying to discuss things in a logical and sane manner, but her ears were ringing and she was feeling a bit dizzy and she wasn't really sure if she was doing a good job being logical or sane. "A big black bird zoomed down out of the sky and snatched my baby boy like an owl grabbing a mouse. All this after Eddie accidentally shot him. Is that right?"
Tina nodded her head and did her best to hide behind something while standing perfectly still. Mindy closed her eyes and tried to imagine her son being stolen away by a gigantic bird with blazing red eyes. Despite everything that had happened, it wasn't as easy to do as she would have expected. Not because she had any trouble dealing with the idea of a giant black bird, but because it was impossible to imagine her world without Christopher in it.
He was more than just her son; he was her best friend and the one person she could always depend on. When her husband Thomas died, it was Christopher who took care of the funeral arrangements and stood by her side and gave her strength. She could remember seeing him in his suit, looking like a little boy playing dress-up for all the sorrow that he was drowning in, but he still managed to handle all of the details and arrange for the viewing and the wake. Christopher was stronger than he knew and, damn it, the idea of a world without him for moral support was a bleak one.
In a much smaller voice, Mindy asked the question she dreaded the most: "Is he dead?" She kept her eyes closed, because if she opened them the tears would start. She didn't want to cry in front of these people. They were strangers, really. The man on the ground, the boy now once again sitting in front of the computer and drawing on the desk, and the woman who'd just witnessed her son being ripped away from her life, her world.
Tina shook her head. "I don't know." Her voice came in hitches, and Mindy opened her eyes to see the woman cover her face to hide the tears.
Mindy nodded her head and rose from where she'd been sitting near Tina's husband. Brad seemed to have recovered a bit from his earlier troubles, and though he wasn't speaking, at least he didn't seem to be suffering quite as much. Good for him. Good for Tina. Peachy, really. But at this moment Mindy couldn't stand the idea of being around either of them. Call it sour grapes, call it whatever the hell they wanted, but she needed to get some space.
Mindy brushed past Tina and walked as calmly as she could out of the office and toward the entrance to the reclamation building. She needed fresh air in the worst possible way, and the scent of mold and mildew was so thick that she couldn't even remember what fresh air smelled like.
The door was closed, but she had no trouble opening it. The forest greeted her with heavy shadows and not nearly enough actual light to help warm her from the chill she'd developed. Somewhere out there, Christopher was probably dying or—more likely—already dead. She'd seen enough people torn apart since the day started to know that his chances were almost nonexistent.
Still, she didn't want to think about her son being dead. There was an old saying of her grandmother's that stuck deep inside of her and echoed up to her conscious thoughts: "No parent should survive their children."
Truer words were never spoken.
Of course, Gramma was still very much alive, and after today might very well have survived her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
Mindy sat on the highest stair and stared out into the gloom, fully aware that there might be any number of creatures staring back at her. Then she cried. Soft, quiet tears of desperation, and she prayed as hard as she could to whatever gods might listen, begging for her son's safety.
* * *
Lee walked along the corridor as carefully as he could, and told himself that the tightness in his chest was just simple anxiety, nothing more. If he could convince himself that his ticker was just fine, it might do him a little good. On the other hand, in a worst-case scenario, he could always go for the nitro tablets in his pants pocket.
He thought about his next book. This one was going to be very different. A cautionary tale. Don't Go on Tours into Haunted Forests, Dammit. Solid advice for the new generation.
Thinking about his next written endeavor was a great distraction to keep him from screaming like a little girl or putting one of his remaining bullets in his own head. Two bullets were left in the rifle, and Barbara had told him she only had one shell left for her pistol. If he thought about the sheer volume of nasty things lurking inside and outside of their shelter, he wasn't completely sure he could keep moving. His childish glee from before was officially history. So instead he thought about what he could write when the nightmare was over. How exactly would he describe that giant head on the tracks?
His musings helped, but not a lot.
Barbara looked his way again and tried to smile. It wasn't very effective. She was a pretty little thing, but the stress she was under stretched her smile into an entirely different, somewhat ghoulish expression.
"Are we ready for this?" He tried on a smile of his own as he asked the question, but it felt wrong so he got rid of it.
Barbara looked at the door to the room where they'd left the others and chewed on her lower lip. It might have been a fetching gesture under different circumstances. "Yeah, let's do it."
Lee opened the door carefully as Barbara held her pistol at the ready. They were prepared for trouble, but they didn't get any. Instead, they saw Tommy writing on the dust that covered the desk and Tina sitting Indian-style on the floor next to Brad, her hand stroking his forehead as she looked in their direction.
"Did you find anything?" Tina's tone held a slight warble of desperation, as if they might have somehow run across a fully functioning emergency ward and a staff of doctors to help her husband.
Lee shook his head solemnly. "No, I'm afraid not. There's not much beyond this room that I'd feel comfortable calling safe."
Tina took the news poorly. He couldn't really blame her, but when she started crying, it made him feel like the worst kind of heel.
Barbara saved him from the awkward situation, moving past where he stood and looking down at the husband and wife. "How did it go? Did you see which direction we need to head?" Her voice was almost as desperate as Tina's had been and Lee knew the answer before the young woman spoke.
"We're in deeper than we thought. It's at least two miles."
"Is Christopher out scouting a path?"
"No." Tina looked down at the musty carpet beneath her feet. "He got carried away by a giant bird."
Barbara looked at her for a few seconds before answering. "Oh."
Lee coughed into his hand. "Where's Mindy?"
Tina managed to look even more wretched when she answered. "She went outside. I think she needed to get away from me."
Lee nodded slowly and double-checked his rifle, hoping that a few more bullets had magically appeared. They had not.
"She shouldn't be out there by herself," he said. "I'll go check on her."
Barbara looked his way, worried. "Be careful."
"My dear, I am far too old to behave any way but careful." With that, Lee headed for the main entrance a level below and tried to talk his knees out of violently kno
cking together. He wasn't much into dying, and the notion of getting anywhere near the front door seemed like a pretty good way to get himself killed. On the other hand, he certainly wasn't into the idea of watching someone else die, especially when it could be avoided.
He found Mindy sitting on the stoop, her elbows on her knees and her hands holding up her tear-streaked face as she looked out into the forest. Lee stood silently and watched her for several moments, alternating between trying to find the right words to say and making sure that nothing was waiting out in the darkness.
Mindy spoke before he could find the right words. "I'm fine, Lee." She looked over her shoulder at him, her lower lip trembling a bit. "I just need to think for a while."
"Might be safer in the stairwell, Mindy." He thought about it for a second. "Maybe not a lot safer, but still..."
"I don't think Christopher is dead." Her voice was small, smaller than at any point he'd heard her speaking before.
"Well, I didn't get all of the details." What else could he say? The chances that Christopher was still alive were about as good as the chances that Lee would suddenly grow a poodle tail and win a dog show. This didn't seem like a wise point of view to share at the moment.
"Tina said he got snatched by a giant bird. She didn't say anything about him being dead."
Lee nodded his head. "It's always possible. I mean, really, for all we know there's something more to what's going on than just a bad case of hungry creatures." Even so...
Mindy shook her head. "I dunno. Maybe. Or maybe the damned thing wanted to feed my boy to its young. Who knows?"
Something shuffled through the woods, low to the ground by the way it sounded, and Lee could see a few leaves shivering in the gloom not too far away.
Mindy noticed it too. Her head turned in that direction and her entire body tensed up. Lee lifted his rifle and sighted into the woods, aiming where the bushes and undergrowth rattled the most.
