The Kept

Some forests are simply quiet. This one is patient.When four experienced hikers enter an unmarked stretch of wilderness in the valley outside Briar Hollow, they carry everything they need to come back out. Maps. Compasses. Years of hard-won experience in places that punish mistakes. What they are not prepared for is a forest that does not behave like a forest. Time shifts without warning. GPS and watches tell different hours. The light fails in the middle of the morning and returns without explanation. And from somewhere deep between the trees, something has begun to learn their voices.One by one, they disappear. Not into darkness. Not into danger they can name or fight. Just gone, taken between one breath and the next, leaving behind no tracks, no struggle, no sound.The Kept is a slow-burn horror story about four people who believed preparation was protection, and a place that understood them better than they understood it.

Pages: 65, Paperback, Independently published