My friends are assholes.

 
They’d been talking smack about this trip for the past six weeks. But when we met up in the parking lot, they were still big round bags of floppy dicks. They clearly hadn’t done anything to get ready. Me, on the other hand, I actually dropped six pounds. Started running every day. Well, at first it wasn’t running. More like slow jogging. But after two weeks I could run two miles without stopping. After four weeks I could go four at a pretty good clip,less than eight minute miles.
 
 

After the first two miles, they’d realized there’d be no way they could keep up. And now way I was going to slow down. We’d planned a forty mile backpacking trip, six days of six or seven miles each. Most of it up and down some steep ass hills.
 
 

The first day was the hardest. You can drive up and park where all the other assholes park. But once you make the hike over the first pass, it’s nothing but wilderness. The only people you run across are like us. Dudes who carry their shit away from the lazy people too scared to go far from the comfort of their cars.
 
 

The third day in was when I ran into trouble. The trail had flattened out, and I was jamming along, like usual, way up ahead. Half a mil at least, maybe more. But the big wide open meadow we were going across had slowly morphed into a forest. I had checked it on the map before we left. Halfway in, the trail kind of veered off to the right, and then slowly started switching back and up the side and over into the next valley. But I ended up walking next to a shallow and very slow moving stream.
 

 

I’m no mountain man, but I check for obvious things like streams, forests, lakes. I should have anticipated this, my friends being too out of shape to keep up with me, and bought my own map. But I didn’t. And there I was next to a goddamn stream. That wasn’t supposed to be there.
 
 

No problem, I thought. I’ll just turn around and retrace my steps. Find out where the trail veered off. Or walk up ahead until I see (or hear) my friends, take my pack off and just chill like I’d planned it all along. Only I didn’t see where the trail disappeared. I didn’t see any trail. I kept walking and walking, at least an hour and I was still in this forest.
 
 

I tried looking around for any kind of hill or something to get a better vantage point, but I noticed something. Something really messed up that I’m almost embarrassed to tell you. Every direction I tried to go, back where I thought I came from, or back in the direction I was going, was slightly downhill.
 

 

I know, I know. That doesn’t make any sense. The stream right? How could I be going down hill both directions when the stream clearly had to only go down. Doesn’t that mean I’d be walking down hill while the fucking stream was going uphill? That’s the thing. The stream just kind of vanished. I mean not like disappeared like some weird special effect. But as I was walking, it was something I’d just noticed. There was just no stream.
 
 

I went back, and the further back I went, the more freaked out I got. No stream in sight. Just this messed up forest that went down hill in all directions. I don’t know when, but I started to worry that I’d be trapped here until dark. After that, I’d be screwed. I’d already been checking my cell, but no reception. I also didn’t have a tent. I did have a stove, thought. But my other buddy had all the food. We’d had this lame idea that one guy would carry the freeze dried food, another guy would carry the tent, and I’d carry the stove, and the fuel. I had my sleeping bag, but I was sure as shit going to get thirsty.
 

 

This is when the real freaky shit started happening. Just when I’d started getting worried. I swear this sounds batshit crazy, but I’m pretty sure I saw this woman up ahead. Which meant I was near another one of those parking for the lazy people who like to pretend their camping while playing it safe.
 
 

Only she didn’t respond when I yelled at her. She was way up ahead, and looked like she was alone. I tried to hurry, but I was really starting to get tired. Walking around lost, with a forty pound backpack, while you’re starting to freak out will do that to you.
 
 

Then I saw her once more, and she turned and looked at me. I’m positive she was fucking with me. I ran up ahead, and saw what looked like a clearing. Through the clearing I saw something that definitely didn’t belong in the woods, like a flat something that was painted gray. But when I got closer, it was a house. In the middle of this meadow. No cars. Not even a parking lot.
 

 

I stopped and realized that there wasn’t even a road or anything. Just this house. Maybe some crazy prepper mountain family lives here. At the very least they may have some water. This something else really weird happened. When I first the house, it was about fifty yards away. But when I walked closer to it, the house didn’t get any bigger. I mean it sort of got bigger.
 
 

Only it didn’t get bigger like a normal house did.
 
 

By the time I was right up in front of it, it was only about five feet high. And perfectly square. Like a kids playhouse or something. I guessed it to be sometime in the afternoon, but worst case was I would just fucking sleep here. I through off my pack and went inside, and almost fainted.
 

 

There was this doll inside. But it was propped up, and sitting in the corner. Facing the corner. I wanted to turn it around, just to see, but something told me that was a big mistake. But Jesus, it was just a doll, so I leaned over and nudged it with my foot. It was like it was stuck to the floor. So I slowly reached down, freaking out like an idiot like it was going to jump up and bite me. The doll didn’t budge, but it’s head turned.
 
 

I mean I grabbed the doll’s head, and tried to lift it, but its body was nailed to the floor or something. But its head kind of turned, so I slowly turned it. And I swear to fucking God that when I turned it, it was a normal doll. Then its eyes moved. And it smiled.
 
 

I spun around, thinking I’d grab my fucking pack and just fucking run until I fucking dropped, but there was no door. I thought maybe I’d made a mistake. I turned back around, and now that doll was sitting facing me. No smile, no eyes, but it was pointed right at me.
 

 

I passed out. Never done that in my life. Just got slightly weak, slightly dizzy, and then BAM. I woke up on the floor, not knowing for how long. When I remembered what had happened, I started kicking the walls.
 
 

But they were not made of wood like I thought. I kicked them and kicked them and they didn’t budge. There were these tiny windows, but not nearly big enough for me to crawl out of. But big enough to know I’d been out until dark.
 
 

I collapsed onto the floor, and started crying.
 
 

That was seventeen days ago. Every time the light changes from night to day, I make a mark on the wall.That’s the only thing I’ve got. My pocketknife. I don’t know why or how I’m not dead yet. I figured if I started getting so thirsty I couldn’t stand it, I’d just slit my wrists and go to sleep one last time.
 
 

But that’s the thing. I haven’t gotten thirsty. Or hungry. Or even sleepy. I just sit here, me and that fucking doll that I’m too fucking afraid to look at. Wanting desperately to slip my wrists.
 
 

But one thing is stopping me.
 

 

What happens if I do slit them, and it doesn’t work?
 
 

What the fuck will I do then?

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A boomtown on the edge of economic liftoff. An evil lawyer with inescapably psychotic power. When Marcus Canfield, an underachieving bartender realizes his gift has been reawakened, only to have the girl of his dreams snatched away, he knows he must stop the horrific threat to both her and the entire United States before it's too late.

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