The Haunted Forest Tour

by Jeff Strand

  "Yes."

  "You're too kind. Flattery will get you everywhere." Pestilence winked at him. "It may have crossed your mind to wonder why you're standing on a patch of ice in the middle of a hot forest. Then again, it may not have. It's sometimes difficult for me to understand the human mind, despite its simplicity. So, were you wondering about the ice?"

  "Uh, yeah."

  "You're not just saying that so I think you're more inquisitive than you really are, are you?"

  "Are you going to kill me?" asked Christopher.

  "At some point, I suspect that your death is a strong possibility," said Pestilence with a shrug. "In the meantime, I'm just in the mood for some scintillating conversation. So be scintillating. If you're not scintillating, I'll kill you sooner rather than later, and then you'll be dead and nobody will converse with you ever again."

  Christopher had no idea what to make of this demon. His best theory was that the last time he slipped on the ice, he'd cracked his head and was now seeing a very realistic, very demented hallucination. One realistic enough that his neck still felt frostbitten from where the demon had clutched it.

  "So...what's with the ice?" he forced himself to ask.

  "I despise hot weather," said Pestilence. "These scales really soak up the sun, and once it hits seventy, eighty degrees, I'm dying. You can tell by my blue color that I was built for colder climates. And, hey, I may not be all-powerful, but I'm powerful enough to bring along some ice, so there you go. I hope it's not too cold for you. Is it too cold for you? I could procure a sweater."

  "No, I'm, uh, fine."

  "Good. We're both comfy, then. So how has your tour been so far? Worth the money? See anything interesting?"

  "Yeah, I..." Christopher trailed off. "Sorry, this is very weird for me."

  "Talking to a demon? Why's that weird?"

  "I've never done it before."

  "Well, you've probably never stapled a carrot to your nose before, and that wouldn't be weird. Okay, it might be a little weird, but weirder things have been done in your universe, I assume?"

  "Yes."

  "I thought so. So, Christopher, how was the flight over? Sufficient leg room? No mechanical delays, I hope."

  "You mean the bird?"

  "Yeah, I mean the bird. Don't be such a dumb-ass. How about you answer me this question: Why do you think you were brought here?"

  "I have no idea."

  "I know you have no idea. But you've got to have a guess, right? Even if it's something like 'I was brought here because I'm a snazzy dresser.' If you truly have no idea, then your mind must be blank, and even though you're limiting yourself to short, uninteresting sentences I'd be very surprised if your mind was completely blank. Why were you brought here? Go on, guess."

  "To...negotiate?"

  "Ooooh, good one. You were brought here to negotiate for the lives of your fellow survivors. I like that. It's wrong, but I like it. Actually, the truth lies more along the lines of you being, y'know, a sacrifice."

  Christopher nearly lost his footing, but somehow managed to keep himself upright. Pestilence chuckled.

  "Yep, a good old-fashioned sacrifice. Also, here's another trivia fact that you might find interesting. You know my charming personality? It's really just to lull you into a false sense of security."

  Pestilence punched Christopher in the side of the head, hard enough to make his ears ring. This time Christopher did fall. As he struck the ice, Pestilence kicked him in the side of the leg. Christopher slid across the ice, his teeth clacking together on his tongue as he bashed into the far wall.

  An instant later, Pestilence hovered over him again. "Did that hurt? I hope it hurt. I do so enjoy causing pain and suffering." The demon grabbed Christopher's foot and flung him across the ice again. He slammed into the wall, almost certain that he'd broken a few bones this time.

  This time Pestilence walked toward him in a casual stroll. "Yep, Chris, things aren't going to work out well for you, I'm afraid. Being a sacrifice for a demon? Not fun. Too bad you're not my human host. That's a fun gig. But you'll be dead before I get to that part."

  Christopher sat up against the wall, the cold biting into his shirtless back. "Why me?" he asked.

  "No good reason. I sent my birdie to grab somebody and you were the closest. I know, I know, it's a disappointment, isn't it? You were all excited thinking that you were the Chosen One or something like that. For what it's worth, of all the people who've died on this lovely Halloween, your death will be the messiest, and that's saying something."

  Christopher spat out some blood.

  "Now, now, don't waste it. Waste not, want not, that's what I always say. Well, not really, but I should start. There's wisdom in those words, don't you think?"

  Christopher spat out some more blood. "Fuck you."

  The demon stopped. "Oooooh, now we're getting feisty, huh? I didn't expect to hear the F-word pass through your lips. I like your spark, young man. How about this? Look at me really sternly and tell me that you're gonna kill me. Go on, do it. As stern as you can."

  Christopher used the back of his hand to wipe some blood off his mouth, but said nothing.

  "Oh, c'mon, be a sport! Give me a mean ol' look and tell me that you're gonna kill me! Do something that'll send a chill down my spine and make me think 'Oooooh, this guy is a bad-ass, I'd better be concerned for my personal safety!' Scare me. Go on. Make me tremble."

  "I'm not playing your games," said Christopher, with approximately twenty-five times more courage than he actually felt.

  "I wouldn't call this a game," said Pestilence, resuming his stroll. "Games are supposed to be fun for both players. This is more like amusing torture. You're not gonna try to intimidate me, huh?"

  Christopher didn't respond.

  "That's fine, that's fine. We'll just get right down to business." The demon gracefully slid across the last ten feet of ice, and grinned at Christopher. "What part of your body would you miss the least if I sliced it off?"

  "Fuck you."

  Pestilence frowned. "Now you're just being redundant. I hate redundancy. It's a waste. And now that I think of it, the human body has a lot of redundancy. Two eyes. Two ears. Two arms. Two legs. Hell, you've even got two kidneys. What's up with that?"

  Pestilence crouched down next to Christopher. He held up his clawed hand and waved it in front of Christopher's face. "I could slice your nose off before you could even sneeze. You're aware of that, right? Of course, your nose isn't redundant, but the twin nostrils are. I guess I could slice your nose in half. What do you think of that?"

  Christopher was absolutely petrified, and he was pretty sure that at any moment he might vomit, lose control of his bladder, cry, or all three. Instead, he forced himself to stare directly into Pestilence's cold blue eyes. "Touch me and I'll kill you," he said.

  Pestilence threw back his head and laughed. "Now that's the kind of spark that entertains me! Yeah! Your personality isn't a complete void after all." Pestilence quickly swiped his claw across Christopher's cheek, slashing him from ear to chin. "Did that hurt? I hope it hurt, because that was my intent."

  "I swear I'll kill you."

  "Oh, now you swear you'll kill me! Even better! Here, have another painful slash." The demon sliced Christopher's other cheek.

  "I don't want to build up your ego too much," Pestilence said, "but you look really cool with those slashes on your cheeks. Like some macho warrior or something. Believe me, if I weren't the powerful demon ruler of this forest, I'd be intimidated as hell."

  Pestilence clapped his hand over his mouth. "Oops! Did I let that out? You were just supposed to think I was some common hooligan, not the big bad guy. But, hey, it's out there. I'm the leader. The boss. The video game villain at the end of the level. The guy you love to hate and hate to love. Hard to believe that there was a time when you thought that the bird was your biggest problem, huh?"

  "You're lying," said Christopher.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Do
I need to repeat it?"

  "So you're getting into the tough-guy act. Cool. I encourage that. You think I'm full of shit, huh?"

  "Yeah."

  "Well then, let's discuss that interesting point of view. Is it okay if I slice and dice you while we're conversing? Good."

  Pestilence slashed a line across Christopher's chest. "Tell me, Chris—oh, hey, is it okay if I call you Chris?"

  "Nobody calls me Chris."

  "Fair enough. How about I call you Prey? Or Plaything? Or Poor Bastard Who Is Going To Die A Horrible Gruesome Blood-Spurting Death?"

  "Whatever."

  "Okay, Poor Bastard Who Is Going To Die a Horrible Gruesome Blood-Spurting Death, what do you know about inter-dimensional travel?"

  "Not much."

  "I didn't think so. Let me explain it in a way that won't hurt your brain too much. Look around you. Go on, look around you."

  Playing along, Christopher glanced to his right and to his left.

  "Everything that you see is part of your dimension. A dimension is very vast. It goes way past the stars and all that stuff. With me so far?"

  "Yeah."

  "Good. I think your chest would look good with a checkmark." Pestilence slashed a checkmark-shaped line on Christopher's chest. This one cut deeper than the others and he grimaced.

  "What the overwhelming majority of you humans don't realize is that all of the vastness around you is just part of one dimension. Let's call it Dimension #1. Meanwhile, in another plane of existence, there's Dimension #2. This dimension isn't quite as nice as yours. Most of the denizens aren't very polite at all. It's also much smaller than your dimension and a lot more crowded. Still with me?"

  Christopher nodded.

  "Good. How about a smiley face next?" Pestilence slashed a large smiley face into Christopher's chest.

  Christopher spat blood into his face.

  "Okay, now you're taking the macho thing too far," said Pestilence. The demon grabbed Christopher's leg and flung him across the ice, much harder this time. Christopher struck the opposite wall with such force that his vision went black.

  "Stay with me...stay with me..." said Pestilence, shaking him. "You fall asleep, the skin-flaying begins. You won't like the skin-flaying."

  Christopher looked up at the demon and said something, but he wasn't sure what.

  "Anyway, I'm a powerful guy, but the kind of project I wanted to accomplish required a lot of resources. And by resources, I mean sacrifices. Those sacrifices just piled up, believe me. Body parts everywhere. But it was worth it, because I then was able to push Dimension #2, mine, into Dimension #1, yours. That's where the forest came from. Never knew that, did you?"

  Christopher forced his mind and vision to focus. "So you did all this just to give tours?"

  Pestilence laughed. "No, no, no. I found a human and he struck a deal with the devil. Or a deal with a demon. Whatever. The people running your little vacation may think that they're just in the business of giving tours, but their real boss has much more nefarious intentions. It took a while to set the whole thing up, but hey, I'm a patient demon. But believe you me, Chris, it won't be long before your whole precious dimension turns into our own personal tourist buffet."

  Pestilence licked his lips. "In fact, why don't we get started with that little sacrifice I mentioned earlier, huh?"

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  "Did you ever lose anyone close to you, Lee?" Mindy's voice was laced with sorrow, but as much as he longed to comfort her, he didn't move forward. It would be inappropriate, all things considered.

  "Oh yes." He looked past her for a moment and stared out at the well-kept lawn a story below and the bright stars that shone down from above them. He felt almost suave in his tuxedo, a rental, and she looked stunning in the strapless black affair she was wearing. Thirty other people milled around in small groups on the marble balcony, moving with the casual pace of folks just having a good time. Not far away from her, Barbara was looking his way, almost begging for his attention.

  "I lost my wife, Angela, to cancer almost fifteen years ago. I lost my son, Jeff, to Operation Desert Storm." He sighed and looked back at Mindy. She shook her head in sympathy, the loss of her own son still fresh in her eyes, even six months after everything that had happened on that damned forest tour.

  "How did you ever cope?" Her voice faltered and almost broke, but she held herself together.

  "It wasn't easy, of course. I'd been with Angela for close to thirty years. I woke up with her every day and went to bed with her every night." He felt the sting of tears start at his eyes, but did nothing to stop them. "I spent every minute I could with her, because she made my world a brighter place. Even when she was dying, when the chemotherapy failed to stop the cancer and I knew she was in agony, she made my world better."

  Barbara nodded from off to the side and moved closer. Tina wasn't far behind her. Tina's losses were just as fresh as Mindy's and both of them looked at him as if he could somehow offer them the wisdom to survive losing a loved one. There was no wisdom to offer, of course. Condolences, yes, but he'd learned nothing of how to grieve painlessly. He still suffered from the losses every day.

  "You're a very brave man, Lee. You've been through so much." The redhead, Jean, Tommy's aunt, was the one who spoke now, moving in on the other side of Mindy. Four beautiful women, dressed to the nines, and all of them with him at the remembrance of the fateful events that occurred half a year earlier. It was also the debut of his account of the affair. The publishers had pushed hard to get the book ready as quickly as possible, and Lee had delivered. He knew how to write a fast book, and in this case the story was easy to research. He'd lived it, after all.

  "What will you do now, Lee?" It was Mindy who spoke again. Or at least he thought it was. It could have been Barbara, or even Jean. They all sounded a lot alike, really.

  He frowned at that. No, they didn't sound that much alike. Not when you got down to it. Jean had a California non-accent, and Barbara sounded like she was from Arizona. And Mindy? Mindy was pure southeast, one of the areas where other accents had merged and diluted the gentrified southern accent, but definitely from that area. They didn't sound much alike at all, at least they hadn't before tonight.

  Mindy put a hand on his arm and smiled up at him. She was a beautiful woman, no two ways about it. She opened her mouth to say something...and then screamed instead. Part of her face exploded away from her skull, leaving a cavernous hole where her left eye had been.

  The women in front of him shimmered and the world around the balcony where he stood celebrating his literary victory grew blurry.

  Lee shook his head again and looked at Mindy. She was gone. He could still feel her hand on his arm, but she was gone. He looked at his arm and saw the wriggling mass of serpentine fingers that gripped his shirt and sank into his flesh. The pain hit a second later.

  "Ow! Damnation!" His voice was a dry croak, and his ears were ringing.

  "Get away from him!" Mindy was back, only this time she was covered in sweat and dirt and her clothes were disheveled. She'd never looked lovelier.

  Without a legitimate weapon to use for attack, she'd resorted to swinging a metal hole punch she'd found somewhere inside the office up one flight of stairs. Not far away from her, Barbara was aiming her now-empty pistol at the ruptured cowl of the Proof Demon, which still held onto his arm with its wicked talons.

  Lee yanked his arm back and lost a generous portion of skin along with his shirtsleeve. The sting from where the sharpened nails had dug in was like a slap in the face and helped knock the cobwebs out of his head.

  Mindy swung with her makeshift weapon and struck the mostly undamaged side of the cowl covering the demon's face. What passed for blood spilled out of the ruin on the opposite side of the monster's head and it stepped back, hissing. Several shapes moved under the hood, and the entire form under the draped cloth shivered violently.

  Mindy moved in to swing again but the creature was too fast, slipping away fro
m where it had been a second before and rearing up in front of Lee with all the speed and grace of a cobra.

  "We...will...meet...again...Lee..."

  Lee didn't need that. The Proof Demon's voice was creepy enough without adding "Lee" to the end of the sentence. He really didn't need that.

  The brown cloth and everything under it fell backward and dropped over the side of the small stairwell, landing in the darkness below.

  Lee grabbed for his rifle and tried to aim, but by the time he was ready to draw a sight, the monster was gone.

  * * *

  "We can't just sit here."

  Barbara looked at Tina and tried not to sigh with exasperation. Tina was right, of course. No one would find them anytime soon if they stayed in the water reclamation plant, and it wasn't like they had any supplies to keep them alive during a long wait for the search party. They didn't even have an aspirin to help Brad, whose face was far beyond simply being "pasty." Barbara didn't say anything, of course, but the man looked absolutely terrible.

  "We have to, at least for now." Barbara leaned in and spoke as calmly as she could. "Eddie is out there trying to get help for us, and there's just no way we could get out of here with Brad. When Eddie does bring help, he's going to bring it here, not to some other random location in the forest, so we need to stay put. And it's going to start to get dark soon. It's dangerous enough when we can see. The flashlights aren't going to keep us from getting ambushed."

  "Well, we can't stay here forever," said Jean.

  "I'm not suggesting that we stay here forever. We'll wait until tomorrow morning, sunrise, and then we'll go. Maybe we won't have to wait all that long. Maybe Eddie will come back with reinforcements before then. For now, we have shelter, and it's best not to leave it."

  Jean slid her arm around Tommy, who was staring at the wall again, fascinated by whatever he was seeing. There was nothing on the wall, of course. Tommy's only reaction to his aunt's touch was to blink and look back at Brad where he rested on the ground.

  "I realize it's still very early, but I think we all could at least use a nap." Lee spoke softly, his face haunted. The encounter with the Proof Demon, as he called it, had obviously rattled him badly. He wouldn't even look at anyone else. "When assistance does arrive, it may not be an armored tank. We may still need to be awake and alert, so now is a good time to get some rest. I propose a watch."