A Long Walk, With Only Chalk to Mark the Way

In "A Long Walk, With Only Chalk to Mark the Way," a widowed father considers his sick son, who will probably never leave the hospital again, and decides that he too will not leave, that he will remain at his son's side until he is well or until his fatherhood is ended. To pass their time, the father reads to the son from the mother's once-favorite book, a story of a hero and a maze, and also the monster that lives inside that maze. Soon the father and the son are reenacting that book, marching the hallways of the hospital day and night, searching for the center of the long labryinth they've found themselves in, and also what answers might be waiting there at its end.

Matt Bell is the author of HOW THEY WERE FOUND, published in October 2010, as well as three chapbooks, Wolf Parts, The Collectors, and How the Broken Lead the Blind. His fiction has appeared in Conjunctions, Hayden's Ferry Review, Willow Springs, Unsaid, and American Short Fiction, and has been selected for inclusion in anthologies such as Best American Mystery Stories 2010 and Best American Fantasy 2. His book reviews and critical essays have appeared in The Los Angeles Times, American Book Review, and The Quarterly Conversation. He is also the editor of The Collagist and of Dzanc's Best of the Web anthology series. He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with his wife Jessica,