The Clearing - Tapa blanda

Following a rough breakup, Lawrence Stubbs finds himself drunk, broke, and nearly homeless. Luckily for him, his friend Brett has a plan to help them both gain a solid financial foothold. Working against their favor is the fact that Brett’s moronic plan involves the two of them heading into an eerie section of a national forest simply known as the clearing. Based off of the strangely true story of the Aokigahara forest in Japan, The Clearing follows a young man as he struggles to cope with the consequences of an action he knew was wrong from the start. Soon after cashing-in on their misadventure, eerie hallucinations start playing out in his head. The fine line between reality & fiction is blurred and it isn’t long before these thoughts manifest into his reality. Lawrence initially writes off the strange happenings as circumstance, possibly even stress from the risqué lifestyle to which he has turned . Eventually, the coincidences become too great and the haunting becomes too blatant to ignore any longer. By this time, it could be too late. He and his best friend since childhood could very well be doomed to a life of hell on Earth. Something that is a near guarantee without deliberate action on their parts. Especially given their newfound affinity for cocaine. Will Lawrence be able to maintain his tenuous grip on sanity and kindle a new romance with an evil spirit lurking around every corner? Or will he become just another of the clearing’s countless victims?

The Clearing is the first novel from writer Benson Jacob Hyler. Less macabre titles from the same author can be found under the pen name Bertrand James Hampton.