The Trail

The Trail is a genre-bending novel-in-progress about three strangers who find themselves drawn together on “The Trail”, a sort of Twilight Zone or Welcome to Night Vale like reimagining of the Appalachian Trail, full of ruined cities, warring literary cults, monstrous demon birds, and fascist politicians. The novel deals heavily with politics, gender identity, and sexuality all framed by the surreal landscape of The Trail.

The story follows three strangers who meet on The Trail: a queer teenager, named Mars, kicked out of their home by their fundamentalist father; a woman, known simply as The Woman, escaping a loveless marriage; and Therse Defarge, a self-made detective trying to track down the evil Mayor who killed his husband and destroyed his city.

Each of these three have to deal with their personal issues as well as the socio-political landscape of The Trail, encountering rogue mayors, cult leaders, demons, and many more along the way.

Something snapped in the distance—whether it was a neck, a thankless schoolteacher, or, in fact, a tree branch, I couldn’t say.


The forest rustled faintly. A small dirt footpath wound and wound and wound off to the north of the clearing, overlooked by sinister, looming, sneering trees. There were a few birds perched precariously, but they were strangely quiet—ominously, heart-wrenchingly, deathly, strangely, thunderously quiet. Their eyes gleamed with forbidden wisdom, and their nests gleamed with forbidden candy wrappers, secret buttons, and arcane gas station receipts from another world.

A rusting sign with a once-white border and corroded text was bolted to an elderly red cedar. Some moss had started to encroach upon the ancient lettering, almost obscuring it entirely. What could be made out, however, was the large print at the top of the sign that simply read “The Trail.”