You have a really good story developing at the core of this piece, but you’re hampered by a confusing structure, and a propensity to focus on elements that don’t feed into the central narrative. And the story itself needs to be developed further, allowing the existing elements to contribute to an arc of steadily mounting tension.

The most obvious problem: you confuse the reader as to who this story is about. You open with Deputy Gail Simmons as she contemplates what we assume will be the central problem of the story—her problem. As things unfold, however, she turns out to have not much to do with anything. She pukes at the end, but that pretty much it. Her primary function is to serve as a narrative buffer between the reader and the story proper. The reader never gets to simply encounter the story. Instead, they encounter Drputy Simmons listening to the story as it is told to her.

You can’t fool your readers like that. They have an unerring sense of where the moving point of the present is located; as i’ve stated on numerous occasions, stories happen NOW. Knowing where that “now” is allows us to determine what happens next. Unfortunately, in this case, the present action consists of some guy talking. It doesn’t help that you haven’t set up your transitions from present to flashback (which is what your story is), further confusing the location of the present.

Flashbacks are clumsy at best. It there was an actual story in the present that required knowledge of the past, you might justify your use of such an extensive detour. But there is no story in the present. Deputy Simmons has no story of her own and so comes woefully ill-equipped to serve as the main character. We’re expected to view the story through her eyes, but she views nothing herself. So as part of the major rewrite that you will undertake, first on your list of priorities is to relegate Deputy Simmons to the cameo status that is all she deserves, get rid of the crippling framing device that places your entire story beyond the experience of your readers, and simply allow events to unfold, from beginning to end.

It’s a good story. It reminds me of Scott Smith’s “The Ruins.” A group of friends venture into the wilds and encounter a malevolent force that is unexplained. The tension results from the the fact the unfolding events make no sense, and yet, there they are, happening even as we read.

I really liked the use of animals, but they are misplaced in your timeline. If you want to bring your reader along with you as you steadily escalate the horror, you have to steadily escalate it. You have to take them through the same process that your characters would go through as they confront and come to terms with the supernatural force that is in their midst.

Initially, evidence would simply be dismissed. “Huh. That’s weird,” would be the reaction, much as you have shown in the deer collision scene. But we don’t really encounter further questionable animal behavior until after you give us the big reveal: the finger munching scene. Anything after that is simply anticlimax and killing time. However, if you put your animals to work for you, you can take your characters through the necessary steps in their progression to acceptance. There are any number of ways you can introduce the element of menace with your animals, and actually, what you’ve done is effective—lining them up on the periphery of the camp site. Add some increasingly bizarre behavior to keep your plucky campers off guard, and you’ll have a strong context for the truly horrifying events that await them.

Of course, they will be searching for the mysterious object as well. Don’t reveal too much too fast here. Make them work a bit to find it (perhaps some animals impede their progress) and, when it is found, resist the temptation to move events to the dramatic conclusion too soon. Let them explore the object, learn things about it. Once the slicing takes place, there’s no turning back, and you’ve come up with some convincing elements as events move toward their inevitable conclusion.

Just don’t be in too much of a hurry. Your characters, and your readers, need to be led through confusion, disbelief and resistance before they’re ready to abandon their search for an explanations and finally confront naked horror. Like I said, once there can be no further doubt about the malevolent nature of what they face, things will move fast. Foreplay is everything.

Go through the story and ask yourself, of each element you introduce, would the story be measurably altered if this was removed? If the answer is no, it doesn’t belong. You go out of your way to introduce suggestions of a gay romance between two characters, and some identity issues in your real main character. Nothing wrong with this, of course, except no plot pivots arise from the situation. If you had called attention to the fact that they were, say, Catholic, or Croatian, we likewise would look for a tie-in back to the plot and would likewise be disappointed.

I think you haven’t done enough to lash your plot into a tight package. But you are close. It would definitely be worth the effort to finish it.