The Hike by Drew Magary Read Free Book Online

pushed himself. He was running and climbing himself to death. After a few minutes, he finally made it to the top and felt like an out-of-shape tourist. The top of the stairwell gave way to an observation deck that surveyed the entirety of the forest surrounding him in every direction, nothing but trees and gently rolling hills. No yellow lights. No roads. No towns. He peeked over the stone guard wall and saw the two dogfaces standing still, looking up at him.
    â€œWhat do you want?!” he asked them from above. They said nothing. “I didn’t do anything! I wanna go home to my family! That’s all!”
    â€œWe’re going to kill you.”
    â€œMaybe we could talk about this.”
    â€œWe’re going to kill you.”
    He ducked back behind the wall and reached into the pouch, his hands shaking. Then he dropped one of the seeds and watched it plummet, bounding off the side of the tower and landing hard on the cold ground.
    Two red wolf eyes stared up at Ben instantly.
    The wolf set upon the killers and began to tear them apart, taking its time to hunt both of them down and burrow through their guts. The dogfaces howled in agony as Ben sunk back down behind the guard wall and covered his ears. He couldn’t stand the sound. His body sagged and now he was lying on the floor of the observation deck, sobbing with grief as the wolf ripped and tore away at the monsters below.
    When the screams finally subsided, he looked back over and the wolf was staring up at
him
. Still very hungry. It began pawing at the door, and then attacking it, aiming to finish what the dogfaces started.
I wish the
door
had been made out of iron. Big design flaw.
The wolf gnashed and wailed. Like the dogfaces, it had some mystical power that would prevent it from ever tiring.
    â€œWolf!”
    The wolf stopped, looked at him, and then went back to clawing.
    â€œCan you talk, wolf?” It was a reasonable question at this point. But no, the wolf couldn’t talk. It could only kick ass on that door with maximum aggression. Ben ran back down the spiral staircase and eyed the front door.
And the third, a wall of flame.
Ben took out the third seed and slammed it down in front of the door. But nothing happened. The seed stayed a seed.
    He picked the seed back up and turned to the second door. This one was iron. The wolf wouldn’t get past that. Of course, who knew what would be on the other side of that door: another wolf, another dogface, the Land of Oz.
    Ben turned the mighty knob of the iron door, peeked into the thick darkness, took one step in, and promptly fell down a very deep hole.

CHAPTER SEVEN
THE BEACH
    H e fell asleep while falling. Passed out from terror, really. He screamed and cried out in midair for Teresa and the kids, and then he blacked out. No dreams.
    When Ben woke up, he was on a beach. One side of his face was buried in the cool sand, little grains of it stuck to the corner of his mouth. He had left a small pearl of drool down on the sand that looked like a tiny jellyfish. The waves were crashing in twenty yards away and the sky had a very thin cover of sheet clouds, the kind that would anger you if you wanted a full day of hot sunbathing. Behind him, the sun shone opaque through the sheer cloud cover. A series of rolling, grassy dunes provided cover for a single row of houses.
    Houses.
    He got up and beheld them. In front of him, two long lines in the sand ran parallel along the beach, as far as he could see, never turning into any of the houses.
The path? The path. Screw the path. Those are real houses.
    The dune grass was sharp and lashed against his ankles as he sprinted toward the house closest to his landing spot. It was a bluehouse with white shutters, and it stood up on stilts for protection from high tides. Ben waved his arms and stared into the windows.
    â€œHello! Hello! Can anyone help?”
    As he drew closer to the house, he saw a worn-out dirt road behind it that stretched