by Jeff Strand
"Aw, crap," Christopher whispered as an entire flurry of bats zoomed at him. The creatures bashed into him, reminding him of all of the dodgeball horrors he'd endured in elementary school.
His right hand, slick with blood, popped free of the rope ladder.
A bat struck him right in the ear. The dizziness returned.
"Come on, Christopher!" Barbara shouted above him. "You're almost there!"
He wasn't. He was only halfway. But her encouragement was appreciated. He grabbed the ladder again with both hands and pulled himself up one more rung.
A hundred more feet. No big deal. Then he could take a bath in hydrogen peroxide so that he didn't become an infected, pus-dripping freak from all of these exposed wounds.
He climbed another rung, gritting his teeth as more bats struck him. At least they weren't vampire bats trying to suck his blood at the same time. Thank God for little favors.
He glanced back down at Lee, who was now having similar bat problems. He was still at the fifty-foot mark and no longer climbing.
"Keep going!" Christopher shouted.
Three bats struck the old man at once. He lost his grip on the ladder, waved his arms frantically in mid-air for a split second, and then fell to the ground.
He didn't make a sound as he hit.
Before Christopher could even react, the helicopter rose into the air. In seconds, Christopher was dangling over the tops of the trees, holding on for dear life.
"No!" he shouted. "We can't leave yet!"
What the hell were they doing? Hadn't they seen what happened to Lee? Lee had steadfastly refused to leave anybody behind, and now they were going to leave him behind?
Something was flying toward the helicopter.
Something huge.
Something that was breathing fire.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
"I told you!" the pilot shouted. "I told you! I told you! Dragon!"
"I see the goddamn dragon," said Eddie. "Get us away from it!" He flipped open the cell phone he'd borrowed from the reporter and punched in the number on the card.
* * *
Mark's phone rang. Unknown number. He hoped to God it was Chloe calling from somebody else's phone. "Hello?" he answered.
"Mark Harper?"
"Yeah." Please don't be a lawyer or reporter...
"Eddie Turner. We met earlier. You gave me your...oh, shit! Pull up! Pull up!"
Mark heard somebody on the other end shout at Eddie to shut the fuck up and let him fly.
"What's going on?" Mark asked.
"You're a biologist, right?"
"Cryptozoologist."
"Well, forget that. Forget everything you think you know about the forest. You still got Booth with you?"
"Yeah."
"Don't let on what we're talking about. You think it's strange that our boss was on the tour, and wanted to run back into the forest even though just about everybody else got slaughtered? Pull down! Pull down!"
"More than a little, yeah."
"Okay, you're going to have to give me some big-time trust on this one, but when you hear what I have to say, keep in mind that trees are popping up everywhere. This ain't science or technology. It's magic. Really bad magic. Wanna save the world?"
"Uh...sure."
"Booth is the key to all of this. He's the host. If you don't want this forest to keep growing forever, you need to take care of Booth."
"Kill him?"
Hannah glanced over at him and raised an eyebrow.
"No! That would be bad."
"Okay, good."
"You have to torture him until he kills himself."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Swerve left! No, right! No, left! Fuck!"
Mark almost asked what was going on, but decided that he didn't want to know.
Really bad magic. Yeah, he was a man of science, but he also was not a complete idiot. Though they studied the forest and its inhabitants as scientific phenomena, it was understood by all that a forest did not sprout up fully formed in a matter of hours without something else going on.
There were ghosts, for Christ's sake.
It was haunted.
It was magic.
"You still there?" asked Eddie.
"Yeah."
"You need to stop whatever you're doing, and make our boss want to kill himself. You need to do it fast. The entire town of Dover's Point has been consumed—"
And Chloe along with it...
"—and more are gonna follow. Make him want to die. Make the host want to kill himself. You can't just kill him, he has to want it. Understand?"
"I'm not—"
"Oh shit, don't let it—!"
The phone went dead.
Mark pulled over to the side and turned off the car's engine. "Who was that?" Booth asked.
Mark looked at his boss in the rearview mirror. His boss who'd been on the tram for no reason, on the very tour where everything went to hell. His boss who had to be forced out of the forest at gunpoint. His boss who'd been talking to somebody who wasn't there.
He'd never met Eddie before today. The guy could be a complete whack-job. Or he could be the one responsible for all of this.
Mark turned around to face Booth. "Are you the host?"
There was a flash of concern on Booth's face, and then he frowned. "What are you talking about?"
The flash was all Mark needed. He leaned over and punched his ex-boss in the face, as hard as he could.
* * *
Tears streamed down Lee's face as he lay on the ground in a crumpled heap. He'd landed feet-first, and if the bones weren't shattered into a million pieces, it was at least a thousand.
They'd left him behind to die.
Not that he could blame them. You couldn't get an old man with two broken legs up a two-hundred-foot rope ladder.
So this was how he died. Alone in the forest, easy pickings for the ravenous inhabitants.
Well, not that easy. Eddie had given him a pistol and some clips of ammunition. He could fend off the monsters for a little while longer, anyway. He'd shoot them until he had no bullets left, and then he'd throw his empty gun at them, and then he'd throw goddamn leaves at them until they finally got the better of him. It might be a pathetic fight, but Lee was going down fighting.
His legs didn't even hurt all that much. He wondered if that was because he was dying.
* * *
The helicopter veered sharply to the left. The rope ladder trailed behind it like a flapping tail on a kite. Christopher clenched the rope so tightly that he thought his knuckles might burst. There was no way he could climb right now, so he just had to hold on.
And do a lot of screaming.
The dragon missed the helicopter by less than ten feet. It was moving so quickly that it sailed past its target and kept going.
Above, he could see Barbara and Tina struggling to pull up the rope ladder. They didn't seem to be making much progress, but every inch helped, assuming that the dragon were to miss him by a single inch, which seemed unlikely.
The dragon, which was hundreds of feet away, flew in a half-circle and then headed toward them again, wings flapping vigorously. Huge bursts of fire jettisoned from its mouth.
It was going to be upon them in a matter of seconds.
The helicopter abruptly veered upward, and the dragon sailed underneath Christopher's feet, missing by quite a bit more than an inch but not by nearly enough to keep him from wetting himself.
He screamed some more.
* * *
"What did you do?" Hannah screamed, as Booth slumped over onto his side. "Why the hell did you punch Booth?"
"Do you trust me?" Mark asked.
"Well not now!"
"I need you to trust me, because things are going to get more fucked up than you can imagine." Mark got out of the car, opened the passenger seat and dragged Booth out.
"Have you gone mad?" Booth asked.
Mark punched him again, knocking him against the car. One more
punch to the face and Booth dropped to the ground, stunned.
"Mark! What's going on?" Hannah had gotten out of the car, and she rushed over as if to stop him.
"Don't come near me, Hannah," Mark warned. "Not until you hear me out."
He told her, quietly so that Booth couldn't hear.
Her reaction was predictable: "What the fuck?"
"It all makes sense," Mark said. "Well, no, no, it doesn't make sense at all, but there's something going on, and this is the only solution that makes any sense whatsoever, even if it makes no sense. Am I making sense?"
"No!"
Booth rubbed some blood from the side of his mouth. "He's gone insane, Hannah. You'd better run."
"Tell her that you're the host," Mark said. "Tell her what's going on."
"Nothing's going on."
"Then why were you on the tram?"
"I wanted to see the tour."
"Why did you want to go back into the forest?"
Booth was silent.
"Listen to me, Hannah, I realize this is one big-ass leap of faith, but we don't have anything else except a forest that's growing and that probably—" his voice cracked "—killed Chloe."
"I'm sure she's fine."
"I'm sure she's not fine!" Mark pointed to Booth. "And it's his fucking fault!"
"I did nothing! Hannah, don't listen to this madman. Get away from him. For your own safety, get away from him."
Hannah looked at Booth, and then she looked at Mark.
"Okay, Mark, what do you need me to do?"
"Get me some things out of the trunk."
* * *
The helicopter dove down to avoid another dragon attack. The lower half of the rope ladder slapped against the treetops, and Christopher sincerely hoped that one of the rungs wouldn't get caught on a branch and snap the whole thing off.
Above, Barbara and Tina were still trying to pull him to safety. Now only fifty feet separated him from his ridiculously precarious position and a "still not particularly safe considering that there's a fire-breathing dragon in hot pursuit but still substantially better than what he had going on at the moment" position.
The helicopter dipped lower, and Christopher's legs bashed against the treetops. It hurt a lot worse than when the bird had made this happen. He focused every bit of his attention on maintaining his grip on the rope.
Then he lost it.
* * *
Mark looked at the man in front of him, now tied up with nylon rope, and contemplated how to proceed. He'd never tortured anyone before. Once, as a child, he pulled the legs off a grasshopper, but got so upset over what he'd done that he'd ran inside and tearfully confessed everything to his mother.
He looked in the toolbox again and pulled out a socket wrench. Really not what he was looking for.
Tire gauge? No.
Tape measure? No.
X-ACTO knife? That had potential.
Hannah paced nearby. Now and then she'd stop and look at him for a moment and then she'd go back to pacing. She didn't seem particularly cool with this whole idea, but that was okay, because he wasn't particularly cool with it, either.
But it had to be done.
God, how he hoped that it truly had to be done, and that he wasn't just about to commit the worst atrocity of his life for no reason.
He picked up the X-ACTO knife, walked over, and crouched down next to Booth.
Then he threw up.
* * *
Lee shot something that looked like an emaciated child—but with fangs—between the eyes. His best shot so far of the two clips of ammunition that he'd used up.
Too bad there wasn't a photographer around. If he survived this, the image of him on the ground, legs twisted and mangled, a gun in his hand, would make quite the author photo for the back of his next book.
The helicopter flew overhead, and for a split second he thought they'd returned to save him. Maybe they'd gone to get a stretcher.
Nope. It flew past, moving too quickly for him to believe that they'd even considered making a stop to pick up ol' Lee.
A moment later, he realized that a dragon was in pursuit.
Okay.
Hmmmmmm.
Maybe the broken old man lying on the ground and using up all of his ammunition was going to be the final survivor of the Haunted Forest Tour after all.
* * *
The first incision he made simply cut open Booth's pant leg. The second drew a line of blood down Booth's actual leg, from his knee to his ankle.
Booth let out yowl of pain.
"Oh, God, I'm sorry!" said Mark before he could stop himself. Pretty hard to project the image of a cold-hearted torturer if he apologized to his victims for hurting them.
Hannah stepped back away and gagged.
Mark didn't figure there was much chance that Booth was ready to end his own suffering yet, so he grabbed the ridiculously expensive shoe off his left foot and then sat down on both of the man's legs to keep struggling to a minimum.
"What are you doing?" Booth sounded justifiably worried.
"Saving the world. I hope."
"Don't do this, Mark! I can make you a very powerful man!"
"I'll pass." Mark pulled off the sock on Booth's left foot and noticed that every toe was perfectly manicured. That was a little annoying, because he was still suffering from two ingrown toenails, himself. Considering the current state of his employment, he'd probably have to live with them for a while.
"You killed my wife, Booth. This is going to hurt."
"I didn't kill anybody!"
Mark ran the blade into the bottom of Booth's foot and held on tight as the man tried to kick and escape. Just to make sure he'd gotten his point across, he carved a second line into the sole, closing his eyes so he wouldn't have to look at the blood.
Ironically, Mark was completely against the idea of the United States using torture to gain information from its enemies. But he wasn't trying to gain information here. He was trying to counteract a spell that spawned a haunted forest and released giant wyrms. When magic and wyrms were involved, he had to switch to a slightly different set of core values regarding the subject of torture.
Booth kicked like a fish desperate to get off the hook and back into the water, but Mark held on. He moved the blade down again and drove it deep into the fleshy pad of the heel as Booth cursed God several times.
"I don't think calling Him names is gonna help you right now."
Booth flailed around some more.
Mark opened his eyes and saw the damage he'd done. The bottom of the man's foot looked like he'd gone skating on razor blades.
He threw up again.
He looked away and saw Hannah staring at him.
"I don't know if I can keep doing this."
"It's either you or me, Mark, and I know I can't do it."
Mark returned his attention to Booth. "So what if I offered you a way to make all of the pain go away, forever?" Until you end up in hell, you son of a bitch.
"Fuck you!"
"I was afraid of that." He started sawing away at the big toe. Just think of it as an autopsy. An autopsy on somebody who isn't dead yet. But a "save the world" kind of autopsy.
He worked the meat most of the way off the bone, but there was no way in hell the thin little blade was going to cut through the remaining digit. Booth was screaming so loud that it was literally painful to be next to him, although certainly not as painful as to be him.
Hannah reached into the tool chest and pulled out a pair of pliers and a large set of toenail clippers he'd been looking for since last July.
"Would these help?"
Mark looked them over and finally nodded. "Yeah."
Her hand shook a bit as she handed them over. His hand shook, too.
"You're doing fine," she said. "All things considered."
He opened the pliers and placed them against the bloodied ruin of a big toe.
Booth screamed.
* * *
Tina had to a
dmit that she felt kind guilty about forcing the pilot to stay in the air despite his dragon-related concerns.
Still, until the beast let loose with a blast of flame that instantly melted the helicopter's propeller, he'd been doing a pretty good job of keeping them out of harm's way.
The helicopter went down, leaving a trail of black smoke.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
A wave of revulsion and self-loathing struck Mark with such intensity that he dropped the pliers.
"Suddenly decide to become human?" asked Booth, the sarcasm obvious even though his voice was barely a croak.
"Shut up. Just shut up."
"Mark, you have to see this through," Hannah insisted.
"I can't. It's not worth it."
He wiped the perspiration from his forehead. That was it. He couldn't do this anymore. Let Eddie hire a professional if he was so damned sure that this was the way to go. Mark didn't have it in him.
Nevertheless, he went to his trunk, opened the gun case, and took out a pistol. Then he returned to where Booth sat and crouched down next to him.
"Open up."
"No."
"I said, open up."
"Just gonna kill me now? Hide the evidence of what you've done?"
"No, Booth. I'm going to let you in on a little secret. By taking your own life, you can save the lives of thousands, maybe millions of people. You can stop this forest infestation and the killing machines that come with it. One life for a million. Your life. I think it's worth it."
"Why don't you blow your own brains out, Mark? Put yourself out of your misery."
"I'll find it in myself to keep going. I'll slice your leg until there's nothing left of it. I'll find ways to create pain so excruciating that you'll beg me to let you put this gun into your mouth. Why go through that, Booth?"
Mark pressed the barrel of the gun against Booth's closed lips.
"This is your last chance to make the pain go away."
Behind him, Hannah screamed.
Mark had wanted Hannah since the day he met her. Chloe was his wife, but Hannah was his love. Only cowardice, and the self-delusion that he was an honorable, devoted husband, is what kept him from leaving his wife for his co-worker.
