The Haunted Forest Tour

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 knocking 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.

“I think you’re right, going inside sounds good. How many bullets do you have left?”

“Just two.”

“Yeah. Inside then. Let’s go.” Mindy stood up.

The bushes trembled and something burst forth from them, moving fast and panting.

Lee added pressure to the trigger and reminded himself to breathe in nice, shallow breaths. He almost pulled the trigger completely before he recognized that the shape was human.

“Stop right there. I’ve got a loaded rifle aimed at you.”

“Don’t shoot! Oh God! Don’t shoot!” He recognized her as she stepped closer. A cute redhead with a body that spoke of many, many hours in a gym, and clothes that cost far too much for her to be running around in the forest.

“You’re Tommy’s mother, aren’t you?”

“Oh God, is he here?”

“Yes, he’s inside.”

“Oh thank God! His mom would kill me.”

“You’re not his mom?” He frowned. Tommy and the woman even looked a little alike, give or take the gender and age differences.

“No, I’m his aunt.” She moved closer, heading toward them at high speed. “I need to see him, make sure he’s okay.”

Mindy stood up to let her get past, and Lee lowered the rifle again. Who would have thought anyone could survive out there without a weapon? That thought got him frowning.

“Wait a second. How are you still okay? I mean, there are things out there eating people left and right, and you’re fine?” He blocked the door as he spoke, and Mindy frowned for a second before understanding came to her eyes.

Jean looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “I’ve been trying to follow you guys. I saw the direction you went. Thanks for coming back when I called for you, assholes.”

“We never heard you.” Lee looked her over from head to toe, and she took his eyes on her as a personal affront, judging by the way she put her hands on her hips.

Her clothes were filthy, and she was drenched with perspiration. No blood, though. But it wasn’t like monsters were popping up every ten seconds. Maybe somebody could quietly sneak through the woods by themselves without any weapons.

“Okay, let’s all go inside.”

“If you’re done ogling me—”

Lee shook his head. “I’m trying to make sure that you’re exactly who you say you are.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we’re in a forest filled with monsters, and for all I know you could be a shape-changing thingy.”

“Oh, give me a break! I’ve been alone in the woods all this time and my husband is probably dead, but you don’t see me accusing people of being shape-changing thingies. Are you some kind of fucking idiot?”

“Just being careful,” Lee said, admitting to himself that it did sound kind of silly and paranoid. Her tone was annoying him, but Lee did his best to ignore it. The tensions were high enough without his adding to them. He knew better, that was the saddest part. He knew not to piss people off in stressful situations. Another survivor was a good thing. A miracle.

“Who died and made you the general around here anyway, mister?”

Mindy stepped between them. “Let’s just all calm down and see what we can do about getting you back together with your son, okay?”

“He’s not my son.”

“Good for him.” Mindy turned and headed inside. Jean followed her a second later, and Lee headed for the entrance himself when he saw movement at the edge of the forest.

His hands twitched, and he almost dropped the rifle but managed to recapture it before it could fall.

The shape coming toward him was familiar enough. He’d studied it earlier when it looked him eye to eye outside of the tram car.

The Proof Demon moved closer as the door closed next to Lee. It moved quickly, and he wasn’t sure he could aim the rifle before it was upon him.