His nose, lips and fingers tingled. He could hear his breaths rushing in and out, like a hacksaw cutting through wood. A hard knot of nausea rose in his gut. He opened his mouth, tried to suck in air. A string of drool hung from his lips. His stomach clenched. He tasted bile at the back of his throat. Gagging, he spit, threw up on the grass. Inhaled puke and gagged again. He didn’t care.

Intellectually, Tomasetti knew what was happening. He knew this was a panic attack. He knew he wasn’t going to die. That he should breathe deeply, count backward from one hundred, and tell himself it would only last for three minutes if he calmed himself down. None of that knowledge helped.

The next thing he knew his cheek was pressed against the cold, wet ground. He had mud in his hair. Dirt in his mouth. The rank aftertaste of vomit. He was lying on his stomach in the bar ditch in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the fucking night. He’d blacked out. . . .

Cursing, Tomasetti slowly got to his feet. His nerves jittered beneath his skin. The muscles in his legs twitched. Fatigue was a black hole he was about to fall into. The fact that he’d survived gave him the strength to bend and pick up his keys.

He’d pulled over in a forested area south of Killbuck. The chorus of frogs and crickets was inordinately loud on the deserted stretch of road. At some point, it had begun to rain. Not a storm, but he could smell it coming. He could hear thunder, see the lightning above the treetops ahead.

Ten feet away, the Tahoe sat at a cockeyed angle in the bar ditch. It looked wrecked out, but it wasn’t. Tomasetti hoped the damn thing wasn’t stuck. He looked down at his clothes, wondering how he was going to explain the mud. He’d helped a motorist who had been stuck. He’d hit a deer and fallen when he’d gotten out to check the vehicle. On second thought, fuck it. He didn’t have to explain. All he wanted was to get to Painters Mill. To Kate.

Opening the door, he slid behind the wheel and backed onto the pavement. The township road would take him to Clark, which was about twelve miles away. Painters Mill was another five. With a little luck, he’d be at the Zook farm in fifteen minutes.

I dream of death. Blackness is all around me. Inside me. Like hot tar that covers and burns and smothers. I fight for air, but I can’t breathe.