The Hike Read Online Free PDF

moment gets away from you, and that’s it. Doesn’t mean I ran away from you. Doesn’t mean I don’t
like
you, Ben.”
    She laid the guitar on the ground next to her and smiled at him. She looked stunning in the firelight. He leaned in and kissed her and holy shit, was she a good kisser. Soft and warm as sex. He never wanted to stop. She threw her fleecy arms around his neck and they reclined to the forest floor, his hands feeling everywhere around her. He wanted every inch of his skin to touch every inch of
her
skin.
    â€œLet’s go in the tent,” she whispered. And she got up and led him to the flap. The best part of having sex with a girl was when they led you to the sex. Ben wanted to be led forever, to some bedroom a million miles away. It was all young joy.
    Â â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢Â 
    He woke up a few hours later in the tent. Annie was gone. It was only him, barely covered by the pathetic square red blanket he had found. He looked quickly at his knee and saw the scars. Thirty-eight yearsold. Teresa. The kids. The dogfaces. They were all there. They were back. It was a dream, and yet it didn’t feel that way at all. He very much remembered Annie leading him into that tent and doing everything to him he ever wanted her to do. He remembered his hands were gripping her soft hips and she was rocking back and forth on top of him, naked and sunny and giggling. He was there for that. It made him want to throw up.
    He got dressed and opened the flap. The fire had died. Beyond the pit he saw the guitar and the empty beer cans and wine bottles. Those were all still there.
    What the fuck?
    He was still lost, and now maybe a philanderer on top of it. Bile gurgled in his stomach. He put the jerky and hot dogs and the water bottles and the blanket into the backpack, which still seemed quite light, and he ran out of the tent to pick up the beer cans and feel them, to make sure they were real, tangible objects. On top of the guitar was a little envelope with his name written in polite script across the front. He quickly opened it and found a small stationery card inside, with the same script handwriting:
    Stay on the path, or you will die.
    Off to the side, he saw two black lumps resting under the trees. There were flies buzzing around them. He only needed to take a couple of steps before realizing what he was looking at: two dead, black Rottweilers, their faces skinned clean off.

CHAPTER FIVE
COURTSHIRE
    T he flies had eaten out the dogs’ eyes and all Ben could see was a layer of white subcutaneous fat slicking their skulls. He was definitely gonna throw up now.
Yep, time to barf.
He turned away from the dogs and let out all of the previous night’s potato roll supper.
    Maybe if I smash a rock against my head . . . if I just bash the crazy out of my skull, I’ll wake up somewhere, strapped to a gurney, and everything will be terrible but at least it will make sense.
Instead, he wrapped himself in the blanket, put his filthy socks and shoes back on, threw the backpack over his shoulder, and ran away from the campground as fast as he could.
    And he screamed. Or tried to. His voice had dried to a croak.
    â€œHelp! ANYONE! Teresa? Kids?” He took out some jerky and chewed it on the run before seeing a house on the path in the distance. It looked real. It had a stick-style exterior, with jolly puffs of white smoke piping out of the chimney.
A house!
He ran so fast he barely had time to chew. Outside the cottage was a little wood fence that enclosed a lush green lawn and a garden with rows of little flowers (in November?) and gooseberry bushes and vines ripe with fresh tomatoes.Maybe it was a trap. Maybe there was a witch living there. No matter. Ben made it to the thick oak front door and pounded as hard as he could, not caring if he scared off whoever was inside.
    The door swung open and there stood a short old woman with bobbed hair, wearing a long, thick skirt and a