Page 201 of Deliverance

The void devours the last bit of oxygen trapped in my chest and my mind swims. Helplessly, I fling my limbs, not really directing them at Rhys because I can’t see him. My vision is spotted, filled with tiny dots.

My palm slaps the disturbed ground, the tips of my fingers coming across a dull foreign object.

A knife.

Summoning the little energy I have left, I dig in and grab it. I grab the handle and shove the blade into the space above me, into the blurry shadow holding me pinned to the ground.

I don’t know where I hit him, but it’s somewhere vital, because the knife goes into his flesh with a nauseating sound, the kind you’d hear in a butcher shop, and hits something on the way. Rhys curses, but the words and their meaning are lost on me. My gag reflex twists my insides. A sharp, coppery smell tinges the air and seeps into my screaming lungs when the hands leave my neck.

I use this moment to my advantage and slash him again.

A furious stab.

I hate you.

And again.

I hate you.

And again.

I hate you.

My wrist hurts. I don’t know how much longer I can hold the knife, but my rage and adrenaline have seized full control of my brain and body.

The blood is now everywhere, on my lips, on my chin, on my chest, on my forearms. It’s sticky and warm and the slick feel of it makes me want to retch up all the food I ate earlier. His body, large and stiff, topples over, his nose landing into the soiled snow next to my ear.

I expect more. Another blow. Or a slur. But nothing happens. He’s quiet and unresponsive, his arms spread out on either side of me at a strange angle, his beard scratching the side of my face.

I buck underneath his weight and release the knife, blade still buried in his sinew. A bolt of pain cuts through my shoulder, its echo lashing through my leg.

Get up, Drew.

My eyes water.

Blinking past the moisture, I stare up at the patches of sky between the thicket of branches above my head and the sea of fresh snowflakes twirling among the trees.

Something inside my chest knots and a sob rips past my mangled throat and into the silence of the forest.

Finally, tears begin to roll down from the corners of my eyes, leaving hot, stinging trails in their wake.

31 Zander

By midnight,I’ve visited two cabins owned by Matthew Dirks.

The first one is occupied by a young couple who stare at me like I’ve come from a spaceship when I bang on their porch window. Initially, they refuse to talk to me face-to-face and threaten to call the police, but eventually, my powers of persuasion work.

The door cracks open and I’m greeted with a shotgun.

The second cabin is harder to find.

I have to stop several times to reset the GPS. The reception in this shithole of a town proves to be spottier than in an underground parking garage in a small Croatian city where I once got stuck while we were on tour, high and in the company of the venue merch girl where we’d played a show earlier that evening.

That story tops mymost fucked-up moments of my twentieslist.

When the directions lead me to an empty lot, I panic, and after a few minutes of raging, I decide to ask the locals for help.

I cruise down the street, following the dumb navigation, and spy anOpensign on the front door of the inconspicuous-looking building. The only building that actually seems alive out of all the other buildings I’ve passed. It’s a small, run-down convenience store.

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