The Haunted Forest Tour

by Jeff Strand

  Thick fluid that felt like boiling grease spilled out onto her hand, making her flesh sizzle. She did feel this particular pain, but it didn't stop her from slamming her right thumb into the hellhound's other eye. This time the eyeball splattered onto her face and neck. She immediately wiped the burning goo off her cheek with her untainted fingers, smearing a sizzling path across her skin.

  The hellhound yelped like a hurt dog. The yelp was accompanied by a burst of flames that struck Tina in the chest, igniting her shirt and quickly flame-broiling the skin beneath.

  In a day that had been filled with pain, this was unquestionably the worst so far.

  She could smell her flesh burning. Everything in her mind shut down except for the one piece of advice that had been drilled into her as a little girl.

  Stop, drop, and roll.

  The stopping and dropping was already taken care of, thanks to the hellhound. She rolled to the left, vaguely aware that the hellhound slashed at her with its huge claws, but not really caring. A small burn, such as accidentally pressing her finger against a hot stove, was bad enough. This was pure agony.

  She rolled and rolled. She rolled over something living but took no satisfaction in the loud crunch its body made. When she struck a tree, she rolled back the other way.

  The hellhound staggered away from her, fluid still pouring from its punctured eyes. Fire sprayed from its mouth.

  Though she didn't feel any better, Tina's shirt was no longer on fire. She stood up and kicked the hellhound in the head as hard as she possibly could, trying to break its neck.

  It took four kicks before she succeeded.

  She was still alive. That's all that mattered. Her shirt hung in charred scraps, and what was left of the bra beneath seemed to have fused to her skin. She didn't care. She was alive. She was getting out of this forest.

  She ran.

  * * *

  "Why don't you give me the boy?" Lee asked Barbara.

  "You'll never get out of here with him on your back."

  "I'll be fine."

  "The hell you will."

  "The monsters are well aware of our presence. And the helicopter isn't going to be able to get to us from here. So maybe now is a good time to leave behind the people who don't have much of a shot, huh?"

  Barbara looked at him with shock and horror. "I'm not leaving you!"

  "Okay. Just throwing that out there to ease my guilt. Grab the boy and let's go."

  * * *

  Christopher blinked some blood out of his eye. He could handle the pain; he just wished the dizziness would fade. Part of him wanted to lie against a tree and bleed to death, while another part of him wanted to get onto that helicopter and fly away to a hospital.

  The rest of him was determined not to let Pestilence win. He didn't know how such a feat might be accomplished, but it would kill two birds with one stone: save humanity, and get revenge. His years working at Novellon had taught him the importance of combining goals wherever possible.

  Just don't keel over, he told himself. Lee is a really nice guy, but he's not going to carry you. You keel over, you're fish food.

  "I think they're circling us," Lee said. "The way they did when the tram first stopped."

  Barbara nodded. "I think you're right."

  Christopher looked around. Glowing eyes on all sides of them. "Guys, I hate to be whiny, but I'm not sure we have any place to go."

  * * *

  "Let's get out of here," said the pilot. "Dragons, remember?"

  The reporter ignored him and continued filming the ground below. "You should be brave. Everything you say is being recorded."

  When Eddie proposed that the news crew, which was there to cover the Halloween tour, help him rescue the survivors, the cameraman had shoved his video camera into the reporter's hands and told him good luck.

  "Yeah, well, you can record me saying we should get out of here, or you can record me screaming as the dragon knocks off our propeller. Nobody's down there."

  "They would've come out of the building by now, if they were still in there," Eddie said. Or at least if they were still alive in there. "Can we just fly around and search?"

  "What would we be able to see down there? Do they have a flare gun?"

  "No."

  "Then no, we cannot just fly around and search. I'm done." The pilot adjusted the controls, and the helicopter began to rise.

  "No! No, no, no! I see somebody!" Eddie shouted, pointing at the ground. Somebody came out of the woods next to the building and waved her arms over her head. It looked like the lady with the hurt husband.

  "You're right! Drop the ladder! Drop the ladder!" shouted the reporter.

  Eddie kicked the rope ladder over the side. It fell to the ground and the lady, Tina, quickly rushed over to it and started to climb.

  Something flew out of the woods and made a beeline for her.

  It was a giant bat. These days, Eddie was not impressed by a giant bat. He took careful aim with the semi-automatic rifle and opened fire. It took a few shots, but he struck the bat's wing and sent it spiraling down to the ground.

  Several dozen bats emerged from the woods to take its place.

  * * *

  "Oh yeah. This ain't good," Lee noted. He stopped walking, as did the others.

  "They probably smell blood," said Christopher.

  Lee held up his bloody half-finger. "Probably."

  "Maybe...maybe I could distract them." Christopher bit his lip. "If I run the opposite direction, wave my arms and make a lot of noise and stuff, they might all go after me."

  "And then they'll kill you," Barbara said.

  "I'm not saying the plan is in my best interest. But my mom's sacrifice was for nothing. Mine wouldn't be. Unless you all got eaten seconds after me. You wouldn't, right?"

  "Can't go for that idea, sorry," said Lee. "No more sacrifices."

  "Not your call."

  Christopher raised his hands over his head and turned to run. Then a wave of dizziness struck him and he promptly pitched forward, landing on his face.

  * * *

  Tina tried to climb faster as she saw the swarm of bats coming right at her. Above, Eddie was shooting at them, but she was pretty sure he wouldn't be wiping out a whole swarm of bats before they got her.

  Which was going to be in three...two...one...

  The bats struck her like baseballs. They weren't even trying to bite her; the damn things were just bashing into her at full speed. Her left hand slipped off the ladder. She was about halfway up, meaning she had a nice hundred-foot fall to look forward to if she lost her grip.

  She slammed her left hand back on the rope and tried to pull herself up another rung, as the bats slammed into her again and again. Several of them struck her burnt flesh, sending almost unbearable bolts of pain through her body.

  As she screamed, a bat pushed into her open mouth.

  * * *

  Christopher was in a wonderful dreamland, where elves danced and fairies flew and leprechauns spoke in charming accents about their pots of gold, and where old men nudged him very hard with their foot against his bloody—

  He looked up.

  "Get up!" Lee said, extending a hand.

  Christopher couldn't possibly have been out of it for more than a second or two, but the glowing eyes and shadows were definitely getting closer.

  * * *

  "Up! Up! Up!" Eddie shouted.

  "Why?"

  "The bats may not follow us up! Go higher! Hurry!" He set down the gun and picked up the megaphone. "Hold on!"

  * * *

  Tina crushed her teeth down on the bat's head.

  She spat it out as the helicopter did such an abrupt rise that she nearly lost her grip with both hands. But she held on. She vomited over the front of her shirt, a reaction sparked by both the sudden upward acceleration and the whole "biting off the head of a bat" incident from a couple of seconds ago.

  More bats bashed into her. But fewer than before.

  She res
umed climbing as quickly as she could as the helicopter continued rising. A couple more bats hit her, but she could handle that, no problem.

  Eddie reached down for her. Tina grabbed his hand and let him pull her up into the helicopter, letting out one last yelp from the pain in her burnt fingers.

  "Anybody else alive down there?" Eddie asked, shoving her into a seat.

  Tina nodded frantically.

  "Bring her down," Eddie told the pilot, as he began to pull up the rope ladder.

  "Why are you doing that?" Tina asked.

  Eddie grinned. "I'm no longer out of grenades. I don't want to damage the ladder when I damage the bats."

  Despite everything she'd been through, Tina managed to grin as well.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  "I could try again," Christopher offered.

  Lee frowned at him. "Don't bother."

  "You think Tina made it?" asked Barbara, adjusting Tommy's position on her back. He was getting heavier with every passing second.

  "Do you want my honest answer or the answer meant to be comforting in our final moments?"

  "Comfort."

  "Oh, yeah, definitely," said Lee. "She's on that helicopter relaxing with a glass of champagne and a personal masseuse."

  "Good for her."

  "Is she really?" Christopher asked.

  Lee and Barbara stared at him.

  "I was kidding," said Christopher. "I'm not that far gone. So does anybody know any good death songs? We could sing our way to the grave."

  "Are we going to die?" Tommy asked, his voice so small and scared that Barbara's heart immediately broke.

  "No," she told him. "We're not. We're going to get out of here, and then people are going to come in and kill all of the bad monsters."

  "Good."

  There was a loud explosion coming from the direction of the water reclamation plant.

  "What do you think?" Lee asked. "Good explosion or bad explosion?"

  Barbara smiled. "Sounds like an Eddie explosion."

  Another explosion followed. Some of the glowing eyes and shadows scurried away.

  Moments later, gunfire. Lots of it.

  Moments after that, Lee could see the flashes of gunfire as well as hear them.

  "Heads up, kids!" Eddie said through the megaphone. "Cover your ears!"

  The third explosion knocked Christopher off his feet, although that was not a particularly difficult task. Creatures of all sizes and shapes fled all around them.

  Eddie came into view, lowering the megaphone. "Hi. Did you guys think I was going to leave you to die?"

  "I did," said Barbara.

  "Me too," said Christopher.

  "The idea did occur to me," Lee agreed.

  "Well, I've got guns, grenades, a helicopter, and a friend of yours. Let's get the fuck out of this shithole, shall we?"

  "That is a wonderful idea," said Barbara, hurrying forward.

  "You wouldn't happen to have the human host, would you?" Christopher asked.

  Eddie frowned. "Say what?"

  "Just wondering. You missed it, but there's a demon involved here. Spells and stuff."

  "But what do you mean by human host?"

  "Dunno, to be honest."

  "Would this human host be protected? I mean, would the things living in the forest not want him to come to harm?"

  "What are you talking about?" Lee asked.

  "Let's chat while we walk," said Eddie, pulling revolvers out of his belt and handing them to everybody. He shot another hellhound and started walking back toward the water reclamation plant. "I got out of the forest because monsters weren't trying to eat the owner of this place."

  "You mean Pestilence?" asked Christopher.

  "No, Booth. Martin Booth. Owner of H.F. Enterprises."

  "He sounds human."

  "He is. He was in the other tram, and he didn't want to leave. Weird as hell."

  "Well, I don't know about the rest of you," said Lee. "But that sounds like human host behavior to me. Do you know where he is?"

  "I know who has him. Why?"

  "I think we can use him to stop this."

  "How? Kill him?"

  Lee shook his head and fired at something he couldn't quite see. Since the trigger finger on his right hand was missing the piece that would actually pull a trigger, he had to use his left hand, and his aim was bad. Barbara made up for it. He actually questioned the wisdom of giving Christopher a firearm in his current condition, but didn't say anything.

  "Killing him won't work. We need to mix up the spell. The demon got his tram full of sacrifices. He also got his willing sacrifice."

  "Who the hell was that?" Eddie asked.

  "Mindy."

  "Mindy...?"

  "My mom," said Christopher.

  "Oh. I'm sorry."

  "Now he just needs his human host. But if we fuck up the ritual, cross-wire it, if you will, I think we can stop this."

  "And how exactly do you know this?"

  "I don't know it exactly. But there was this, this—"

  "Vulcan mind-meld?" Christopher asked.

  "It wasn't a Vulcan mind-meld. I'm not sure what it was. But Pestilence isn't in complete control of his powers out here, and when he read my mind, it...I don't know, it's hard to explain, but I got a flash inside his mind right before he murdered Mindy. I think we can mix up the ritual. That's all I know."

  Eddie held up a hand. "Hold that thought." He pulled a pin from another grenade and threw it out in front of them. They all ducked and covered their ears as the explosion cleared out the monsters ahead. "So how do we mix up the ritual?"

  "Make the host sacrifice himself. But it has to be a willing sacrifice."

  "Oh. Well, that's easy. We'll show him flash cards of the people who died and make him feel bad. C'mon, that's no solution. The guy is obviously a moral black hole. If he's willing to cause the deaths of all these people, how on Earth would you get him to sacrifice himself?"

  Christopher gestured to his chest. "Do you all see what the demon did to me?"

  "Hard to miss."

  "A willing sacrifice doesn't have to be selfless. If the host wants the pain to go away badly enough, maybe he'll kill himself."

  Eddie gaped at him. "You mean torture him until he commits suicide?"

  "Pretty much, yeah."

  "That's fucked up."

  "Pretty much, yeah."

  "He's right, though," said Lee. "Cross-wire the ritual. Kill the host, and things will keep on going the way they are. Turn the host into a sacrifice, and the spell collapses upon itself."

  "You're sure?" asked Eddie.

  "No."

  "Good enough for me." He patted his pocket. "I've got the phone number of the host's babysitter. Now let's get into the air so I can make a call and...aw, shit!"

  As they stepped into the clearing outside of the water reclamation plant, they looked into the air and saw that the helicopter was gone.

  * * *

  "Where are you going?" Tina demanded.

  "I'm done with this," said the pilot. "Dragons. There are dragons out here. I don't mess with dragons."

  "You can't just leave them!"

  "Turn around," said the reporter. "There are innocent people on the ground."

  "Do you know how to fly a helicopter? No? I do. Are we in a helicopter right now? Yes. That puts me in charge. And I say, we get the hell out of here."

  "Turn this fucking helicopter around!" Tina shouted. "If you don't go right the fuck back to where the fuck we left my fucking friends I'll rip your fucking throat out and drink your fucking blood!"

  The pilot looked back at her.

  "Okay," he said.

  * * *

  The helicopter came back into view, returning to its original hovering spot. The rope ladder dropped in front of Eddie. He reached for Barbara.

  "Here, sweetie, I'll take the kid."

  "I hate when you call me sweetie," Barbara told him, lowering Tommy to the ground.

  "I'll
keep doing it then. C'mon, kiddo, climb on to your Uncle Eddie."

  Barbara thought it seemed like a cruel thing to say, since Tommy had lost his aunt and uncle today, but Tommy didn't react. He just climbed onto Eddie's back.

  "Watch out!" Lee shouted, pointing to a double-sized wolf as it rushed out from the trees. Lee, Eddie, Christopher, and Barbara opened fire, bringing the wolf down several feet before it could maul them to death.

  "I'll save the kid first," said Eddie. "The rest of you follow close, okay? Watch out for the bats. They suck."

  Eddie grunted at the strain of his new passenger, but quickly began to scale the rope ladder. Up above, Tina waved her encouragement.

  Barbara followed right behind him.

  "You first," Lee told Christopher. "You're bleeding more."

  Christopher grabbed the first rung. "Thanks."

  Eddie was making excellent time, even with Tommy on his back. The bats made him their first target, bashing into him again and again, but he kept climbing.

  Christopher's dizziness had faded, replaced by the excitement of finally being saved. Every single cut on his body felt like it was splitting even wider as he frantically climbed the ladder, but that was okay. Chicks loved scars.

  Barbara cried out as a bat bashed against her kidneys, and for one horrifying second Christopher thought she was going to lose her grip. Though her ass would be a pleasant final sight as it plummeted toward him, he preferred that she not fall.

  As he made it halfway up the ladder, he glanced down to check on Lee. The old man wasn't doing very well. He'd only made it a quarter of the way up the ladder, and had stopped for breath.

  "Come on, Lee!" Christopher shouted down at him. "Rest inside the helicopter!"

  Lee looked up as if he wanted to say something but merely nodded and reached for the next rung.

  Christopher heard a whoop of joy up ahead as Eddie made it to the helicopter. Moments later, Barbara joined him.

  Three saved. Two to go.