The Three-Day Mark

Arrival

After spending hours of sitting in the cramped back seat of the taxi, Walter Makin was fed up with smell of tobacco and liquor emitting from the fat taxi driver. What made it worse was the recently spilled coke bottle on the already sticky seat and the piles of boxes forcing Walter against the side window of the car.

As he grew closer to his destination, the feeling of overwhelming despair overtook him. Though, as much as he wanted to tell the taxi driver to turn around and to take him as far as he can go, he couldn't. He had already reached the entrance of the forest Purgatory, and just beyond that was the small town Paradise, his destination.

"Are you sure this is the place?" The rough, deep voice of the driver shattered the silence of the car as Walter stepped out of the cab, holding his backpack with one hand, and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper with the town's name Paradise and a pair of longitude and latitudes written in crude red handwriting, as if it were written in blood. Looking down at the parchment confirming that this was the right place he replied with a 'Yes'.

After carefully counting the dollars, he handed the 160 dollars to the driver and waited till the taxi drove away into the night. Shivering, Walter took in his surrounding.

As if he were in a horror film, the wind howled and blew a bitter chill past the dying trees of the forest; it danced with the leaves and dragged them away unwillingly from the autumn ground. The floor was damp and stagnant with the odour of decomposing wood, diamonds pierced the black sheet held up above and looked down with vengeance. The forest seemed to never end; tall silhouettes shadowing the ground. A paranormal presence lurked in the essence of the devil's grasp, shadowing each living organism with dire precision.

Wiping his sweaty hand on his jeans, heart pounding hard in his chest, Walter hiked his backpack on to his shoulder, pocketed the paper and approached the forest's entrance with unsteady legs.