Almost Kings - Preview: The First Six Chapters

by Max Doty

With their father lost in anger and self-loathing, James "Truck" Wheeler has raised his younger brother Ted as best as he could, considering he's just a teenager himself. In return, Ted idolizes his brother.

Now, during their one year of high school together, Ted will realize there are troubling aspects to Truck and his friends, The Kings. When the boys assign numbers to each girl at school and begin a dark contest, Ted will be caught playing a game that targets his best friends, including the girl he Kallea Whitney.

The original novel that inspired the award-winning film, Almost Kings is a gritty, powerful story of the choices that bring two brothers together and tear them apart.

26 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 23, 2012

About the author

Max Doty is a veteran game-writer who served as the Head of Content for Choices: Stories You Play and Surviving High School for which he also wrote two spin-off novels. His screenplay “Almost Kings” won Netflix’s inaugural “Find Your Voice” award and was made into a feature film.

Max regularly contributes to reddit’s NoSleep forum as scarymaxx, where his works often appear at the top of the charts.

He holds a BA and an MA from Stanford University as well as an MFA from Arizona State University.

His debut horror novel The House that Eats the Dead will be published by Tor Nightfire in the UK and by Bantam in the US in August 2026.