In a quick motion he pivoted to the truck and ran with all his might, arms pumping in the air. He passed the aspen, tightening the rope. As the rope cinched around his waist he ran harder. The rope tightened more. He grunted and threw himself forward in one last push. Without thinking, he swung around and yanked the rope with the ferociousness of a wolverine. Then he jammed his boot heels into the soil, eyes bulging, muscles ripping.

The truck groaned and creaked.

With no more to give, Matt collapsed onto his back, panting at the night sky. Venus. Breath. Constellation. Breath. There was nothing except the sensation of moving air, and then came a thud followed by chaotic, metallic rattling that shook the orchard. His heart pounded in his throat, but he refused to look behind him.

It flipped down the bowl, didn’t it? he thought. Matt rolled onto his stomach and turned on his headlamp.

There she stood, upright, branches protruding from the cap. The truck his father had handed over to him when he first got his license. The truck they had bonded over.

The blanket pouches spilled boulders onto the ground and some of them were stacked under the passenger-side tires. The tires were full of air. Lucky.

I said I would fix you, he cried. A tear trickled down his cheek and he wiped it away with an arm made of rubber. There he sat in awe of his old truck. For days it had laid there sideways, a ghastly reminder of his predicament, a tombstone for his suffering. Now she stood tall and proud. All two hundred thousand miles.

As he expected, the ground thundered in a rhythmic pattern, each new shake louder than the last. Matt stood, goose bumps peppering his forearms. As he got to his feet he held his arms out in a Jesus pose, then was slammed to the ground by what felt like a piano from the sky. His lungs expunged all their air, and he thought he heard a low octave note well out of tune before the blackness overtook him. The last thing he saw before entering darkness was the rusted wheel well of his old truck and the gray boulders from the Black.

Day 6

DAY 6

His eyes burned as if dipped in fiberglass. He tried to think of where he was, but nothing came except a loop of neurological dead ends. What was his name? He muttered something unintelligible and listened. A familiar, buzzing sound came from the blackness . . . a chainsaw. Then came screams. The chainsaw idled out in the fog of time.

Matt’s eyes fluttered and he went to black.