When the men slipped out of view, Jack gripped the knife in his fingers and unfolded the blade. Behind his back his tied hands felt deadened, indelicate. Spasms sent him shaking uncontrollably, and his teeth chattered. The needed thing was calm. A plan.

Calm. Don’t drop the knife.

He sawed at the twine. Hack, cut, tug. Call if I’m not back by dark. When the twine at his wrists broke, he set to freeing his ankles. Chest thudding. They’d be to the trucks in minutes. What to do? Try to stop them? Hide and let them leave? Soon the temperature would fall below zero. If they left, he’d probably die.

Stop them.

Hide.

Either choice was awful.

Twine snapped. He stood and abruptly fell in snow. Dizzy. He could not feel his legs. Weakened parts of him rushed away, like torrents of icy water beneath a frozen stream, surging downward to deep black. Mostly he was scared of this dullness in his head, making him simple. Think.

Stop them is better than hide, because you might live.

Stop them, then.

With a truck he could get to Matty.

A feral cry swept across the dark and shot him to his feet, wavering. A coyote or a wolf. He peered into the trees with his good eye, knife in hand, quivering. Black branches. Rustle of wind. His left wrist dripped blood from where he must have cut himself. How to stop them? How?

Draw them back. Maybe.

Check the camper.

Staggering, he crashed through snow on bare feet to the camp trailer and flung open the door. Cough and suck of air. In the unlit gloom, his fumbling hand found a kitchen drawer’s handle and ripped it open. Rifling through, his fingers closed on what he wanted: the lighter. When he flipped a dial on the stove burner, the propane gas clicked once, clicked twice, and hissed on. Rancid smell of propane. At the bed he thrust the knife into the rotting mattress, slashed, pulled free a handful of the insides. It was dry, and it would burn. Lurching to the stove, he formed a wick a few inches long and laid it on the counter, trailing away from the burner. Knife: fold, tuck in waist of underwear. He pressed his fumbling thumb down on the lighter. Get ready. You’ll need to run.

Out there in the night, an engine roared to life.

Gripping the lighter, he pressed and pressed again until a flame erupted. He lit the wick, pushed back from the stove, turned, stumbled for the door.

Three steps outside and the camper exploded. Jack was tossed through air, traveling sideways until he collided with the snow-covered ground. Air whooshed from his lungs upon landing. A great noise boomed and the dark sky burst open with orange flames, and his ears rang with buzzing noise. An instant later, the heat was on him.