The Haunted Forest Tour

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

As he walked through the forest, Eddie felt bad about leaving the others, but not too bad. They’d be better off hanging out at the water reclamation plant, and he definitely didn’t need them slowing him down or doing anything stupid that would get him killed.

Tina had scrambled down the tree, screaming that Christopher had been carried off by a giant bird. That sucked. It really sucked. But it didn’t suck any more than what happened to the dozens of other tourists, so Eddie found it hard to get all choked up over this new development. Tina had been wailing, “We have to go after him! We have to go after him!” but that was ridiculous. What the hell were they going to do, sprout wings and fly after him? Swing from tree to tree like Tarzan? Jump really high? Jesus. If Christopher got out of that mess, great, Eddie would give him a high-five. If he was dead, well, it wasn’t like their situation was all that much worse.

Now, if Christopher had been carrying the last grenade when he got carried off, that would have been cause for panic.

He’d wasted a couple of valuable minutes trying to calm Tina down, and then sent her back to the office where the old chick, the kid, and the half-dead guy were hanging out. Then he set off on his own. H.F. Enterprises would send help, and that help was coming on the tracks. So he’d return to the tracks and follow them until either the cavalry showed up or he wandered out of the forest on his own.

As long as the others stayed put, he’d send the frickin’ Justice League of America in to get them out of there. If they were dumb-asses, well, they deserved whatever they got. Shouldn’t have gone on the stupid tour anyway.

The forest was quiet. Almost peaceful. If Eddie had his iPod, this could’ve been a nice, pleasant walk.

Okay, okay, he had to admit that he did feel bad about accidentally shooting Christopher. That wasn’t very cool. But when you’re up there climbing trees like an idiot, you can’t expect completely proficient gun coverage, right? The guy was lucky he didn’t get shot in the head.

Eddie stopped walking for a moment. Had he heard something?

He listened carefully.

Nothing.

He resumed walking. He was moving at a fast pace but resisted the temptation to run. Running would make it difficult to remain totally aware of his surroundings, and the last thing he needed was for something with lots of teeth to jump out at him when he wasn’t paying attention.

Okay, okay, he would feel bad if something happened to Barbara. She was a nice girl. He’d definitely do her, if the opportunity presented itself. In theory, the opportunity could present itself back at the water plant, if he tried the old “Gosh, we could die at any time, I wonder what we could do to make our last hours on Earth more enjoyable?” trick, but that would greatly increase the chances of something with lots of teeth getting him while he was distracted.

She probably didn’t put out on the first date anyway, regardless of impending doom.

A monster stepped out from behind a tree, maybe a hundred feet away. It kind of looked like the traditional descriptions of aliens, the “grays” or whatever the hell they were called, except that it was sort of a sickly yellow color. But it did have that weirdly-shaped head with the big eyes.

Eddie stopped and pointed his rifle at it. He wouldn’t waste the bullet if he didn’t have to, but he’d sure blow that yellow alien away if it took a step toward him.

The alien-thing looked at him and tilted its head, as if trying to figure out what sort of creature Eddie was. It regarded him for a few moments, then turned and walked away.

Good. That’s what he wanted the forest creatures to do. Walk away. If he could keep that tradition going for the rest of his little stroll, they’d all get along just fine.

He wondered if Barbara was okay.

Sure she was. She had that old guy to protect her. Larry or something. Lee? Yeah, Lee. Cool guy.

Something moved to his right. Another yellow alien-thing stepped out from behind a tree, about the same distance away as the other one had been. That probably wasn’t good. Eddie pointed his rifle at that one as well, ready to put a bullet right between its oversized eyes if it tried anything.

It stared at him for a long moment.

Better move your yellow ass if you want to live long and prosper, Eddie thought. His finger tightened on the trigger.

The alien-thing turned and walked away.

Eddie resumed his brisk pace, feeling extremely uncomfortable. What if there was a whole bunch more of these things, setting up an ambush?

Well, then they’d be very unhappy to see his grenade.

He wiped some sweat off his forehead. What a horrible way this would be to die. Alone out in the woods. His body probably never to be found. Nobody to mourn him at home.

Eddie’s parents had died when he was ten, in car accidents. Separate car accidents, within a week of each other. On a Thursday, Eddie was pulled out of class so that the school nurse could tearfully tell him that his mother had been struck by a drunk driver. The son of a bitch was on the road drunk at ten in the goddamn morning. His mother died instantly. The drunk guy lived out his last few years as a vegetable.

Eddie’s father had cried a lot (he’d never before seen his father shed a single tear) and promised Eddie that they’d be okay, that they’d get through this. He barely even remembered the funeral, except that a whole bunch of people had told him how brave he was being, as if he were just the most precious little thing for not bawling his eyes out.

The following Thursday, his father died. Not a suicide drive, where he decided that he just couldn’t live without his wife and did eighty in the wrong direction on the freeway. Nope, he was on his way to the grocery store, three blocks away, to pick up some charcoal so they could grill some burgers to distract themselves from their loss. Stopped at a red light. Guy in a truck behind him lost his brakes. Slammed into the back of Eddie’s father’s car. Smashed him against the steering wheel. Severe internal bleeding. He’d died three hours later.

Cruel goddamn joke.

He went to live with his grandparents. They weren’t mean people, but they’d already raised their children and they had no interest in starting the process over again. Eddie got a roof over his head and food in his belly, but that was about it. They didn’t care about his grades, so neither did he. He finally flunked out his sophomore year in high school, moved into his own apartment, and got a crap job washing dishes. Eventually he worked his way up to a crap job waiting tables.

He had some beer-drinking buddies and a few short-term girlfriends, but that was about it. On his thirtieth birthday, he did a rough estimate of all of the tables he’d waited on in his life, cursed several times, and then quit his job the next day, giving the finger to every person he walked past on his way out of the restaurant.

He spent a couple of years moving from one crap job to another, hating them all. Then he got a job washing tour buses. This job sucked. A few weeks later, he was driving the bus with a license that wasn’t necessarily 100% legal. This job sucked substantially less. He didn’t much care for listening to the exact same spiel from the tour guide every single day, but he did enjoy driving the bus.

This led to a job driving a bus with a much better company, and an actual legal license.

Which led to him meeting Cindy, who was extremely impressed with Eddie’s bedroom skills, and who was in charge of hiring drivers for this top-secret project.

And so, after weeks of intense training, Eddie found himself driving a tram on the Haunted Forest Tour. Cindy took another job and moved out of the country shortly after that, but Eddie didn’t mind. He was finally sort of content. It was easy work (there wasn’t actual “driving” involved, since of course the tram just moved along the track) with lots of cool, new stuff to see every day. The training was only in case everything went to shit.

He wondered what he was going to do for a job after this.

Assuming he didn’t die out here.

Alone.

Something moved behind him. Way too close. He spun around, expecting to see another one of those yellow alien-things.

He did.

Then there was movement on all sides of him.

Several more alien-things stepped out from behind trees. At least six or seven of them… no, make that eleven or twelve. Not good. Not good at all. And he particularly didn’t like that they were smart enough to hide themselves. Eddie much preferred the “dumb animal” variety of creature opponent, thank you very much.

One of the aliens spoke in what sort of sounded like a series of clicks. Other aliens responded with more clicks.

Eddie didn’t have enough bullets to take them all out. He could use his last grenade to clear a nice path, but he wanted to save that for an absolute I’m-totally-screwed situation, and he wasn’t quite there yet. The alien-things were kind of skinny. Maybe he could beat them in a fistfight.

The first alien who’d clicked began to click again, much louder. It raised its arms in the air. This had the potential to be very, very uncool.

The aliens—and now there had to be at least twenty—all ran toward him at once. Their mouths were open wide, and all of them were clicking.

Eddie fired twice in front of him. Two aliens took chest hits and fell. He sprinted in that direction as fast as he could, leaping over their bodies, which were still very much alive, and—

—immediately collided with another alien as it stepped into view.

The alien dropped to the ground as Eddie bounced off it and slammed into a tree. His entire right arm went numb as his shoulder hit, and the rifle fell out of his hand.

The clicking was becoming almost maddening.

Eddie reached down for the rifle with his other hand, grabbing it by the barrel. Another alien-thing collided with him and slammed its mouth against his lower arm.

The pain was incredible, as if his flesh were being twisted to the breaking point, like the mother of all hickeys. He punched the alien in the face, hard enough that it felt like the bones in his hand had been shattered into splinters. It let go of his arm, leaving a ghastly red and purple welt.

Eddie spun around in a quick circle. He was completely surrounded by aliens.

He adjusted his grip on the rifle and opened fire. One alien’s face exploded at close range, spraying yellow gook all over the weapon. He fired again, right through that alien’s destroyed head, and got the one behind it.

He pulled the trigger again. He couldn’t hear it over the other clicks, but the rifle had made a clicking sound of its own.

Another alien latched its mouth onto his arm, getting him in almost the same spot. The pain was even worse this time, and as Eddie screamed he dropped the rifle once again.

He kicked an alien out of the way. Two more took its place. Where the hell had all of them come from? The bastards were everywhere now.

He frantically kicked, threw punches, and even tried a head-butt, but it was only seconds before the aliens pulled him to the ground.

One of them latched its mouth onto his ankle. As Eddie screamed, he pulled out the grenade. This was definitely an I’m-totally-screwed situation.

If he had to die, he was going to take out a shitload of these aliens with him.

But he really, really didn’t want to die.

An alien reached for the grenade. Eddie yanked it out of the way just as another alien pressed its open mouth against Eddie’s cheek.

Another alien grabbed the grenade and tugged on it.

The pin popped out.

The sudden pain in Eddie’s face was so incredible that it provided a split-second distraction from the fact that he was now holding a live grenade with nowhere to throw it.

He really should’ve offered to help Tina follow the giant bird.