CHAPTER 1

Saturday

5:41 PM

AS I STRUGGLED TO GASP FOR AIR, the tight, crudely made hangman's noose around my neck made breathing almost impossible.

I could feel the crisp, cold October air on my face as if a thousand pins were piercing my skin simultaneously. My cheeks must have appeared bright red as the frosty cold northern Minnesota wind blew upon them without ceasing.

As the sullen evening quickly approached, the musky-sweet smell of the fallen Autumn leaves on the ground around me penetrated my nostrils as I breathed in their familiar scent for perhaps the last time in my life.

With each labored breath, I saw the frosty air streaming out of my mouth as my warm breath mixed with the frigid air around me.

My three executioners stood about twenty feet away, directly in front of me, quietly watching as I stood helplessly on that old wobbly yellow plastic chair, a chair that was once on the back porch of my house; they were just waiting to pull it out from under me at any moment, ending my life instantly.

My lovely wife, Vera, Pastor Mike, and Deputy Roy all sneered at me, their eyes alight with anticipation. Each of them had a gleeful look on their faces, taking in the moment as if they had just reeled in a trophy-winning marlin and wanted to savor every second of their catch.

A long piece of tacky gray duct tape bound my hands firmly behind my back; I had already lost most of the feeling in both hands. My outcome at this point seemed inevitable: I would die badly.

Once the sun goes down, it's cold in northern Minnesota in mid-October. I can see my olive-green hooded military coat lying on the muddy ground beneath me, marked by their muddy shoeprints. That old coat would feel so good if it covered my shivering body right now, but there was no hope of that; they took pleasure in watching me helplessly teeter side to side on that flimsy old chair in the icy cold Minnesota evening air.

I was about to hang from an old white pine tree in Cook County forest at the end of a long-abandoned logging trail—the same old dirt trail I used to hunt deer on each year. This old logging road hadn't been used in over fifteen years, and I had no hope anyone would come down it tonight. I was on my own.

Cook County forest is unforgiving, with over 700,000 acres of thick, uncut forest, rock-face cliffs, dangerous, fast-running streams, bears, wolves, cougars, and some of the most rugged terrain anyone could ever encounter.

I grew up close to here; I knew this forest like the back of my hand. It does me good now, though.

Over the last 120 years, 73 hikers, hunters, and backpackers have mysteriously gone missing in this part of Cook County's forest, never to be found alive again. They had simply vanished without a trace.

Three years ago, they did find Ben Sedlander's Weatherby Vanguard rifle on the bank of Porcupine Creek, a popular trout fishing stream at the bottom of Bear Ridge Mountain; over eighty percent of the gun was blood-stained, and it was still fully loaded. Ben was nowhere to be found, no body, no footprints, nothing, ever; he had just vanished.

Tonight, it looks like I'll be one of those who mysteriously disappeared up here, never to be seen alive again, just like old Ben Sedlander. What a way to die, cold, alone, and hopeless.

CHAPTER 2

I LOOKED OVER AT THE MAN I knew as Pastor Mikey, as my wife, Vera, lovingly called him; I guess since she was sleeping with him, she could call him anything she wanted.

At 53 years old, he was the Pastor of a tiny, worthless, 28-member country church located at the edge of town, right next to the sleazy triple X adult bookstore known as Judge Boner's Adult Heaven, where I'm sure he was a regular customer.

I could see why his church congregation hated him; he fucked many other men's wives from that tiny church; my wife was just another pair of worn-out panties he added to his collection. Fucker.

Rumor had it that he came from the far west side of Montana after he was facing charges for fondling women in his church there. He high-tailed it out of town in the middle of the night in his rusted-out 1975 AMC Pacer, a dud of a car for a dud of a man.

He stood off to my right side, less than twenty feet away, with his hands tucked in his pants pockets, apparently trying to keep them warm from the icy air around us. His eyes looked at me sheepishly; when I returned the glance, he looked away, either out of shame or because he was a total piss ant coward.

The same piece of shit who was sleeping with my wife for over 4 months was now one of my executioners. Life can really seem fucked up sometimes.

Please, Pastor Mikey, walk over here for just one second so I can kick your teeth in before I hang. I think to myself.

"Hey, Rex, you're shivering like a little church mouse. It's kind of cold out here, isn't it?" Pastor Mike Treacher said. His weak, shaky voice dripped with sarcasm as he openly mocked me, grinning slightly.

Dressed in his cheap thrift store clothing, down to his worn-out khaki pants, with yesterday's breakfast staining the front of the washed-out beige shirt he had on, he was a poor example of a Christian pastor, hell, a poor example of a man. A worthless tragedy of a human being.

"Don't call him by his first name, Mikey; I hate his name, Rex Reeper; it sounds like a hero in a movie; he's not a hero, just a worthless piece of shit husband who will shortly become a dead, worthless ex-husband," Vera said. "Just call him by his last name, like I do, Reeper, just call him Reeper!"

It was true; she never liked my first name; she always made fun of it, so to her, I was always just Reeper, or as she would constantly say to me, "You are my grim reaper, honey, my angel of death," after we would finish fucking our brains out all night. But I was the one dying today, not her, at least not yet; I still had a few vengeful heartbeats left in me.

Never trust a pastor who wants to sleep with your wife, I would always say. I had good reason for saying it.

CHAPTER 1

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