The Hike

Ben is a suburban husband and father on a work trip to a rural Pennsylvania inn. Before dinner he heads out for a short walk on a wooded trail, and he never returns to the inn. The path will not let him leave it.

A disembodied voice gives him the rules. If he strays from the path, he dies. If he stays on it, he may one day find his way back to his family. So he walks, with no idea how far it runs or who laid it down.

The world around the trail is surreal and impossible: man-eating giants, talking animals, two moons and clouds that kill. Ben is searching for the Producer, a mysterious figure who controls the path and may hold the answer to getting home.

This is a fantasy quest that turns the fairy-tale form inside out. The pace is headlong and episodic, the tone profane and funny in places and truly frightening in others. It builds toward a twist in the style of The Twilight Zone, one that casts the whole trek in a different light.