The Haunted Forest Tour

CHAPTER TWO

The air was crisp, with just a hint of autumn that would probably fade away as the sun rose higher. It was a perfect day for a picnic. Less perfect for a terrifying tour through a monster-ridden forest, but that was okay. Mark Harper knew that the tourists would still get their money’s worth, big-time. They always did.

The people arriving on the tour bus all looked excited, even the older ones. After all, how often did you get a chance to see monsters in a safe environment? Or any environment? Though Mark’s involvement with H.F. Enterprises was entirely on the scientific research end, rather than the spook show end, he thoroughly enjoyed the idea of the Haunted Forest Tour and occasionally took a ride himself just to see their reactions.

A large banner read “Welcome to the First Annual Haunted Forest Halloween Tour” in bright orange letters on a slime-green field. The official logo of H.F. Enterprises was on each corner of the banner, as if anyone would suddenly forget where they were.

Below the banner were stacks of T-shirts, posters, coffee mugs, snow globes, monster-shaped candy, Christmas tree ornaments, ball caps, key chains, jewelry, watches, press-on tattoos, ties, sunglasses, refrigerator magnets, monster masks, and countless other examples of overpriced crap available for your purchasing ecstasy. Mark Harper had tried the Haunted Forest taffy once. Once.

Behind the banner and the displays of souvenirs was the actual office of H.F. Enterprises, a four-story affair. The large windows were reflective and cast back slightly distorted images of the various people who walked in front of them as well as the cerulean sky and just a few puffy white clouds. The forest itself, about half a mile away, was a dark, jagged shadow along the lowest edge of the glass.

Mark looked at his own reflection in the glass and straightened his tie. He also finger-combed his hair because, as always, he wanted to look his best for the woman walking up the stairs behind him.

Hannah Chambers was not his lover. She was his co-worker and damned good at her job. Mark was a happily married man who just happened to think—in a purely platonic, non-sleazy manner—that his co-worker was one of the sexiest women alive. He did not speak of these things with her, or with his wife Chloe. That would be bad. Extremely bad.

He loved Chloe and would never be unfaithful to her.

Unless he ever got really, really drunk or accidentally swallowed a few Viagra tablets and even then, the only way he would ever go through with it was if Hannah put him in a situation where he absolutely couldn’t refuse. Perhaps it was a matter of life or death, or possibly somebody’s honor was at stake, or maybe she was under such incredible stress that if she didn’t find a release she’d have a heart attack, and he couldn’t very well let somebody this important to the workings of H.F. Enterprises have a heart attack…

Mostly they just flirted, and then Mark did his best not to think of the situations in which he would willingly cheat on his wife with his peer. He could only count a few of them (if you included only broad generalities), which wasn’t so bad. And he’d probably never go through with them even if those situations presented themselves, because he was happily married. To Chloe. The love of his life.

It was best that way, really, but he still always wanted to make sure he looked his best for Hannah.

He turned away from the window before she could see him looking at himself and smiled as she moved past a crowd of tourists. There was a little tyke begging his mom for an I Survived The Halloween Haunted Forest Tour T-shirt, complete with a smiling one-eyed ghoul illustration. There were no smiling one-eyed ghouls in the Haunted Forest, of course. Not as far as Mark knew at any rate, and if anyone would know, it would be him or Hannah. It was their jobs to know.

Hannah moved closer and smiled. “Can you believe this crowd?”

“Can you believe how many of them are buying the taffy?”

She laughed and rolled her blue eyes, flipping her blond hair back from her forehead. She wore a little makeup, but only a little. She didn’t need it. She also didn’t necessarily need all of those clothes, since she would look perfectly stylish and professional in only a-

Chloe. He made himself remember his wife and look away from Hannah before he could stare at her ample chest. Chloe had a great body too. Just in a different way. Really.

The problem with Hannah was that she was just as smart and witty as she was attractive. Mark’s infatuation was totally understandable, and totally within the bounds of what was acceptable in a morally sound marriage. Though it would have been easier if Hannah had a big leaking wart on her nose.

Hannah stood up a little straighter, and that was enough warning for Mark. Two seconds later, he saw Booth coming in their direction. Most of the big guys at the H.F. Enterprises preferred to go by their first names, but Martin Booth preferred to go by “Booth.” Not Mr. Booth. Just Booth.

“How are ya, guys?” Booth smiled as he walked past, looking spry and happy. His dark hair was perfect, and the matching mustache and goatee were trimmed close to his face. That he was happy was a relief, because Mark had seen the man angry, and it was enough to create a whole row of ulcers.

“Couldn’t be much better.” Mark smiled and tried to look relaxed. Booth owned the company, yet had little to do with the actual running of it. In fact, Mark rarely saw the man. Seeing him out here, acting all chipper, was just plain weird.

Booth patted his shoulder. “Glad to hear it. Big day today, yes indeed. Should be interesting to see what everyone has to say about the new extended tour.”

Mark and Hannah had both traveled the new route several times and were still impressed by it. Hannah nodded emphatically, and Mark noticed Booth’s eyes checking her out. He managed to avoid bristling at the visual undressing. First, it wasn’t his concern, since he was a happily married man who was completely devoted to his wife Chloe and would never cheat, and second, Hannah would probably club him over the head if he acted like a teenaged boyfriend around her.

Booth smiled again, obviously enjoying the mental image he had drawn up of Hannah’s nakedness. Mark wondered how closely it matched his own. And how closely his own image matched the real one. “Well, I’m gonna go make sure everything’s set up properly,” Booth told them. “You guys be on your best behavior, okay? The press is swarming this place. Oh, and Happy Halloween.”

He headed on his way without waiting for a response.

Mark watched him go and from the corner of his eye he saw Hannah watching as well. Her eyes weren’t aimed at the back of his head, but substantially lower.

She caught him looking and smiled. “What?” She blushed a little. “He’s got a nice butt.”

“Can’t say I ever noticed.”

“It’s firm and shapely and probably inflexible to the touch, just the way I like them.” Hannah punched him playfully in the arm. “Anyway, let’s get inside. It’s lecture time again!”

“Can I have one, Aunt Jean?”

Tommy Walker looked up at his aunt and put on his most effective wide-eyed expression. It didn’t take much work, because he already had wide eyes and a face that bordered on pretty. At least that was what his uncle always said. His uncle always said weird things like that. Aunt Jean said it was because he worked in Hollywood and liked to find new ways to look at things. Mommy always said it was because Uncle Perry was a pervert.

He had no idea what a pervert was, and Mommy wouldn’t tell him, but he figured it had to be something funny, because Mommy always laughed when she said it.

He liked hearing Mommy laugh. It didn’t happen all that often.

Aunt Jean looked at the Day-Glo shirt in his hands and shook her head, but she was smiling when she did it. It seemed like there were a zillion things he wanted at the stands around them, from the neat shirts to the candy and even the books with pictures. He was in six-year-old heaven.

“Maybe when we’re done with the tour, okay, honey?”

Tommy frowned. He already knew enough of his aunt’s code to understand that meant he wasn’t going to get the shirt.

Uncle Perry was nearby on his phone, talking to somebody in a loud, angry voice. Tommy knew that he was working on a deal, and it was supposed to have been finished two weeks ago, but things hadn’t worked out right. Tommy didn’t completely understand what was going on, but Uncle Perry was pretty mad about it, and Aunt Jean was mad that he was talking on the phone during their vacation.

He hoped that Uncle Perry’s deal didn’t make them miss the tram. He wanted to see the monsters. Real ones, not like the ones in Harry Potter. He was a little scared, but Aunt Jean was there with him and she always protected him. Even when Mommy and Daddy yelled at each other, it was Aunt Jean who came over to take him to her place to sleep for the night. He spent a lot of time with his aunt.

Sometimes Uncle Perry was there, too, but a lot of times he was out of town and making movies. Tommy set down the T-shirt and pointed to the candy bars.

“Can I have one of those?”

Aunt Jean looked at the array of Haunted Forest Tour confections and sighed. “Okay, but just one. We have lunch after the tour and we don’t want to spoil it.”

Uncle Perry closed up his phone and walked back over to them. “Stupid. Stupid, stupid people. God, I hate stupid people.”

“Did he back out?”

“He’s trying to. Stupid idiot moron jerk.”

As Aunt Jean sighed, Tommy tried not to pout. He definitely wasn’t going to get a T-shirt after the tour.

Mark stood at the podium and watched Hannah as she stacked her papers together. She brought the same papers with her every time they did the lecture, but she never referred to them. He sometimes suspected they were there strictly for show and merely contained half-finished Sudoku puzzles, but either way, watching her shuffle them around and then put them back into a neat stack was always fun. Her body had the most interesting way of shaking when it came time to get the messy heap into an orderly shape.

Chloe. Right. Back to work.

The group came in as a mob, and he could tell that the auditorium was going to fill up quickly. That sounded impressive as hell, but the room only had 160 seats, enough for exactly four tram cars’ worth of people.

There was a sign that very clearly stated that Monster Biology 101 was not for the squeamish and was not recommended for younger children.

The thing about cryptozoology was that it was mostly speculative. The thing about the Haunted Forest cryptozoologists was that they got to do a shitload more hands-on work than any of their peers. Mark smiled when he thought about that. He and Hannah were the envy of damned near everyone working in their specialty. They got to play with monsters.

Well, the dead ones. He wasn’t so keen on the idea of actually trying to dissect a live one. People lost fingers and throats that way.

He checked his remote control to make sure it was on as the crowd settled in. Then he looked over at Hannah. She was straightening her skirt and looking at the crowd. For one moment he allowed himself a daydream, in which he got to play with her skirt the same way.

Chloe. Right. Back to work.

“Happy Halloween everyone!” His voice came through the PA system without any extra feedback. The microphone never had feedback. It was actually kind of unnatural and disturbing.

The audience gave an enthusiastic “Happy Halloween” right back.

“Welcome to the Haunted Forest Tour! Actually, welcome to what I like to call Monster Behavior and Biology 101. My name is Dr. Mark Harper. I’m one of those obnoxious people who put Dr. in front of their names without being medical doctors. The lovely lady to my left is Dr. Hannah Chambers, who is equally obnoxious. We’re both cryptozoologists. We get paid to study unusual life forms and to discover them whenever possible. Now, most of the people in our line of work might run across a new form of fish or even get lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a Sasquatch if they spend their entire lives hunting for it. Technically, cryptozoology is a new science, but really it’s just the name that has changed. There have been people looking for new types of life as long as there have been people, and there have been people for a long time.”

That line never got a laugh, but Mark was going to continue to use it until it did.

“The difference for us is that we get to work here, right at the edge of the Haunted Forest.”

Hannah stepped forward with a dazzling smile. “What that means is we get paid a very mediocre salary to find out about everything in there.” Several people chuckled. A few of the men looked at Hannah with decided interest. “We’ve had a few delicious encounters with the things in the Haunted Forest, and we’re going to show you a few slides of the things we’ve encountered. But, again, we do not recommend this part of the tour for anyone who is squeamish, and we also don’t suggest that any children sit through the presentation.”

Hannah looked out into the audience, first at where a tyke sat with his mother and father and then where a couple of preteens could be seen. The people took the hint and the little kid left with his mother and father. One of the preteens stayed, but the other left with her father.

“The reason for my warning is that a big part of what Mark and I do is perform autopsies on the creatures that live in the Haunted Forest.”

Mark smiled as he stepped back up to the microphone. “I’m sure you’ll all be disappointed to hear that we won’t be performing an autopsy in front of you.” The audience groaned in mock disappointment.

“Unless any of you volunteer to lie on the table, of course,” said Hannah.

I’d love to have you lie on the table, thought Mark, which was the same thing he thought every time she used that joke.

Hannah’s joke earned a few chuckles from the audience. It was easy to work with them, because they were there to be amused. They were hyped as hell and excited about the trip they were about to take.

Given what they had paid to be here, keeping the visitors happy was extremely important.

It was also a good chance for Mike and Hannah to strut their stuff.

Mike stepped back and let Hannah do the talking. She took care of the main speech, and they took turns handling the questions afterward.

“We’ve been investigating the Haunted Forest since shortly after it first showed up. That’s right, long before we allowed a tour into the dark and scary woods, we started investigating and cataloguing everything we could find. And believe me, there’s been a lot to find.”

Hannah pointed to Mike and he flicked the ON switch for the projection screen. The first image showed up, an extreme close-up of an ogre’s mouth, all of the teeth in full display. The gums were black, and the huge teeth were put into perspective by a ruler that clearly showed the smallest of them was over four inches in length.

They’d had the fortune to run across a decomposing ogre a couple of years back. The body was still in cold storage, and from time to time, just to scare himself, he read over the autopsy notes and reexamined the facts. Muscular density was four times what it was for a human being, and the bones were almost as dense as petrified wood. A creature that should have already weighed in at close to a thousand pounds, the ogre corpse was closer to a ton. When you counted in the missing limbs and decomposition of the body, that was pretty damned scary. When you added in that the corpse belonged to an adolescent ogre, it was terrifying.

The good news was that they had never run across a living ogre. Mark suppressed a pleasant shiver at the thought.

Mark and Hannah continued the half-hour presentation, stopping on several occasions to answer questions even though they usually asked people to hold their questions until the end. It was one of the most excited, interested crowds they’d ever had.

It was going to be one fun Halloween.