The Lost Hunter

We open up with Jeremy Doyer, the troubled protagonist, who in contradiction to his friend's suggestion decides to go on a hunting trip for isolation. Doyer is troubled because he figured out his girlfriend he was going to propose to was seeing another man behind his back. In his understandable frustration he takes off on a hunting trip in order to escape his problems at home. He finds a place that promises a successful hunting trip along with a nice warm cabin to eat and sleep in. He then meets up with the owner of the land and Cabin and they both go to the isolated land in the middle of nowhere. The first day is a day of preparation and settling in, however the next morning the hunt is canceled because of the storm. The owner, Mr. Dean is a creepy mysterious old man and over the next few days of being rained in Doyer starts to question Dean’s sanity as well as his own. Dean tells Doyer of a story about a lost hunter who roams the woods and kills those who get lost in the woods. He eventually kills Dean in a heated argument and then disposes of him in the woods making it look like a hunting accident. Doyer gathers his things and then leaves the cabin only to find that the dirt road he is on only leads him back to the cabin in one giant circle. Out of ideas and out of energy, Doyer goes back to the cabin in order to get some food and maybe rest. Doyer keeps seeing and hearing things, eventually Dean comes up on the security cameras. Doyer tries to search for Dean but when he goes outside Dean isn’t there. Doyer’s madness and paranoia starts to get to him. He panics and starts to stay up days without sleep. Eventually he falls asleep and Dean -alive or dead, Doyer does not know- is there to awake him. When he awakes there is confusion. He knows not where he is or how he got there until he looks around. We figure out that Doyer was imagining and hallucinating his whole trip. And that in reality Doyer killed his girlfriend and her new lover in the woods. But who is to say what is reality. What narrative is Doyer imagining? Doyer is walking around the woods and ends up running into what he believes is the lost hunter. The lost hunter starts to walk towards Doyer. Out of exhaustion, Doyer cannot outrun the Hunter and can hardly keep on his feet. Turns out the hunter is Doyer’s friend who told Doyer not to go on the trip. The lost hunter then turns into Paul Dean, the owner of the land. Doyer now becomes the lost hunter, trapped in the woods.