Chapter Summaries
Chapter Summaries
Chyna and Laura were in the car on the way to Laura's parent's house. Whenever they arrived Laura’s parents were very welcoming after they arrived they didn't say or do much. As Chyna was in her room she heard a scream but she didn't think that much of it because she was deep in her thoughts after she heard the second steam she hid under her bed. The killer came into her room and searched everywhere but where she was. As soon as the killer went downstairs Chyna went into the rooms to find Laura's parents dead laura was alive but not for long.
Chyna saw the man eat a spider alive and she was shocked to be alive because he had been standing right there. Next thing she knows she enters the next room to find her friend on the bed still breathing. Laura and her talk for a good minute about where to find a gun in the house. Since they don't keep guns in the house she gives up and grabs a knife. Chyna suddenly hears the front door shut and Laura is gone, she runs out the front door without the killer noticing her, and she gets into the motor home where he had just put her friend. Then she hears the engine start and feels the home start to shake. They were on the move.
Chyna was in the bedroom of the motor home while they were moving and she was thinking of plans on how to hurt him long enough for her to escape the moving vehicle. She decided she wasn't going to try to escape she was going to hide in the dining room of the motorhome but if he saw her moving around she would never be able to make it out alive. As Chyna moved throughout the vehicle she found a spot where she could hide for a little while. As she was rethinking everything the motorhome started to slow down to a stop and Chyna thought that maybe he saw her in the rearview mirror and was going to come kill her but instead, they just sat there and stopped.
Finally, the killer ( Vess ) stands up and puts on his coat with a shotgun in it. Vess steps out of the motorhome and starts walking toward the glass door of the gas station. He admires one of the cashiers that he thinks a girl in his basement would love, he talks to a redhead cashier about paying for his gas and how much he would need to pay. While he is talking to the cashier Chyna is trying to escape from the motorhome and when she gets out she drops her knife. She tries to get the knife back but the killer walks out of the store and sees the knife and picks it up. After he gets the knife he goes back up into the motor home but Chyna is under the home so she runs into the store and the killer does not see her, she tells the clerks not to tell him she is there. The killer comes back in and sees something off about the clerks so he starts telling what is going out in that area. Vess says “She is the most beautiful thing you'll see on this side of paradise” Then he says “Don't get me wrong I have not touched her yet she locked in my basement” After he said that the clerks reached for a gun and he shot them. After he shot them he paid for his gas got some of his food and left.
Chyna finds a car in the gas station parking lot and she sees it has the keys in the ignition so she gets in the car and drives after Vess. Chyna then sees that this car has a gun in it so she keeps it in her hand while driving. Chyna is now following Vess and she is trying to make it not obvious that she is following him. Then Chyna sees that her gas is really low and she has less than a mile until she is done. So she speeds up the car the fastest she can and speeds past Vess. Vess notices that she is driving that fast and he keeps what she is wearing in his mind. Chyna speeds past him and saves herself a couple of minutes of time so she runs the car into a tree three times to make it look like it was horribly damaged, she parks the car in the middle of the road so he will have to stop. Then Chyna jumps out of the car and runs into the nearby forest. She watches Vess look for her and see if she is okay. While Vess is searching for her, Chyna runs into the motorhome and goes to the bedroom where there are dead people. Vess sees her run in there and thinks she might have brain damage from the crash so he drives off with her into the bedroom
When Chyna was in the bedroom they drove off onto Highway 101. About one hour later Chyna woke up from her slumber and was driving up a huge hill that had some gates at the beginning of the hill. Chyna then saw A house on the hill where she assumed the killer had lived. vess parked the car got out and entered the house with the dogs greeted him. Vess entered the house and came up with a plan to go upstairs to the bathroom and turn on the shower. Chyna was still in the car and when he got out of the shower he saw Chyna getting out of the car so he kept the shower on to make it seem like he was showering so then she would think she was safe. Whenever she was walking all the way down the stairs Vess came up to the basement stairs and watched her but Chyna did not notice him standing there. Vess then let her Explore was down there, He didn't think she was at the gas station. Whenever Chyna was downstairs she still heard the shower running so she thought she had more time. So she came upstairs and Vess cornered her with his gun. then he hit her on the side of the neck and she blacked out
Vess was letting out the dogs and about to take a real shower. Chyna woke up while Mr. Vess was in the shower and waited for him to come and when she was waiting she looked around the house. Then Vess came downstairs and walked right over to the table and sat down in the chair across from Chyna then vess started asking some questions about why she was there and who she was. She said she didn't want to tell him anything so he threatened to see her face. After that, she told him that her name was Chyna Shepherd and she also told him that she had been at the gas station she was at that house she was everywhere that he was. Vess was confused about how he could not feel that she was there he said “You were like a spirit I can't feel you”.Vess then said now it makes a lot more sense about why you have been repeating China Shepherd untouched and alive because that was her name. Then China starts asking questions about who he is if he was ever abused and why did he turn out this way. he replied I was never abused I was a loved child I just didn't like my parents. But Vess remembers Chyna's shepherd untouched and alive.
Chyna was in the chair as Vess was taking care of the dogs and letting them go outside and play. It was now becoming night time and Vess told Chyna he is leaving soon to go to his second life working as a normal person. Vess told her that he would be back a little past midnight. Whenever Vess leaves Chyna looks out the window and sees an elk like she saw in the forest when she crashed the car, when she sees the elk she starts thinking about her mom and how her life has gone so far. When she dazes out into the world the elk runs off and then when thinking about the elk she thinks about how she needed to escape so she tries really hard to flip over the table because she was chained to the bottom and she could take it off if she flipped the table over. When she was attempting to slip over the table a Doberman came out of the dark and was watching her flip the table over. Chyna finally flipped it over and got her legs to escape after 30 minutes of trying. Then the next stop was to try to find something to undo her hands from the chair and chains, while she was doing this the dogs stared like they knew she was trying to escape. Next thing you know she blacked out.
Chyna had woken up from the dreamy land she was in and she was in the living room. The first thing Chyna did when untangled from the chair was go upstairs and look around. Chyna looked for anything that could help her escape from Vess’s house without being killed by the four Dobermans. Chyna then looks around Vess’s office and tries to find anything he is hiding. Chyna looks in the drawers and finds pictures of murdered people and handcuffs on all of them but Chyna doesn't know why. Chyna then went into the basement and got Ariel out of the trapped room, Ariel's eyes looked into another place or universe. Chyna led Ariel all the way up to the the 2nd floor where Vess’s bedroom was. Chyna tries to get Ariel to focus but she can't because she is so zoned out, so Chyna tells her what to do while she is zoned out and what Chyna told her was. Grab this drill and put it in the keyhole of my cuffs. Ariel did what she told her to do and got the cuffs off. After she got the cuffs off Chyna led Ariel downstairs into the warm chair where she hugged herself while chyna put on dog training gear that she found in the cabinet.
Chyna then went outside and tried to unlock the car but then the first dog came running at her and tried to attack her but she used a spray that she made and sprayed it at the dog's eyes. Then the Doberman ran away pawing at his eyes. The second Doberman tried to pull her down but failed so Chyna tried to spray the dog in its eyes but missed and hit his snout. The doberman ran away yelping and pawing at his face. Chyna had still not got the key in the car and then the 3rd Doberman came and pushed her to the ground chyna could not get up and that's when the 4th Doberman came they worked together to claw at her gear and the 4th one bit her foot and it started bleeding. Chyna found the strength sprayed both dogs and got into the motor home. Chyna then cut a hole through the roof and climbed out of it onto the unlocked master bedroom window. She ran downstairs, grabbed Ariel, and brought her upstairs to the window but then Chyna heard a crash and realized the dogs were in the house on the way upstairs so she blocked the door and ran out the window with Ariel. The dogs had gotten onto the window sill and jumped onto the car and Chyna jumped inside and drove off. She saw a cop car so she honked and the person who came out of the car was Eldger Vess.
They drove off but Edgar Vess opened fire. then China started backing up trying to hit him with the motorhome but he ran out of the way and started shooting with his shotgun then he saw Ariel in the car and realized that she was trying to escape too. China and Ariel started Heading for the woods whenever they jumped out of the car best had other plans. he ran after them and started shooting at them. China then realized that she was covered in gasoline because he had shot at the engine and gasoline started leaking into the motorhome. Dustin took a shot at China's leg and she fell. The gasoline spred on the ground and Chyna grabbed the lighter from the gas station and lit it. Vess lit up in flames and the girls got away safely.
Chyna and Ariel often go to the beach and Chyna notices this cute guy so she starts talking to him. They grew close and started talking a lot more. Chyna met the guy's son and his son looked up to Ariel and he thought she was beautiful. The whole family started going to dinners and more. Chyna took Ariel to the woods where she saw all the elk and Ariel said This is beautiful.