It was mid-November in Wasilla, Alaska. I had been waiting for about three hours on a rocky outcropping overlooking a small natural lake. Surrounded by endless miles of trees I listened to the soft whisper of the wind as it blew through the nothingness. I checked my watch. It was almost time. I listened through the wind, sharpening my ears against the growing howl and finally heard it. The thump, thump, thump of what sounded like an old HH-65 Dolphin. Now it was unmistakable. I could see the small dot in the distance as it drew nearer to me. My vengeance was at hand.
I had given Mr. Thomas the following:
-1 six-inch full tang survival knife
-1 parka
-1 pillowcase of raccoon jerky
With this he would hopefully give me the satisfaction I had craved since I heard "3 AM" for the first time. His bindings would be cut at the last minute, he would be lowered to a safe height, and then thrown from the helicopter. I had explicitly told the pilot to be careful, if Thomas was hurt I would personally come after him instead.
I saw the body drop from the helicopter, hit a small bank of snow and go into a controlled roll. This was it. From my vantage point on the outcropping I could see that Thomas was scared. He looked around wildly after removing the bandanna from his eyes. I raised the war-horn to my lips and blew. Boooooooorooooooo. He looked in my direction but I knew that he didn't see me. His terror was showing through his face; the chase was on.
The sky was a dusky purple. This part of the world was plunged into thirty days of darkness once a year, but the encroaching dark would be days away yet. Thomas had started running west through a large pocket of trees, away from the frozen lake. I stood from my crouched position on the outcropping, exposing my naked chest to the bitter winds. I took the blood from an earlier kill, a doe that had wandered into my hiding place, and smeared it ceremoniously in the form of an eagle across my sternum and abdomen. I screamed into the wind as I ran from my vantage point.
I could spot the tracks from a mile away. Thomas had been stumbling around randomly for over an hour. At this point he would be tired and dehydrated, perfectly ripe for the vengeance that awaited him. I am the wolf, I thought to myself as I raced through the thicket, limbs lashing my face. I took the pain, welcomed it. Like a loving mistress punishing her slave I laughed maniacally as I ran into the cold loneliness. These are the times that try men's souls. Rob Thomas' soul to be exact, and I would soon steal it away like a small gremlin, or a really smart baby who could steal things.
I came through a break in the Alaskan Pines and saw, collapsed on the ground, the body of Rob Thomas. For a moment I thought I had been robbed of my vengeance by the wild Alaskan wilderness, but I only had a moment to contemplate this. Before I knew it, the trap was sprung. My foot slid from beneath me and there was a great pressure on my ankle as I was swept off my feet and upward. What the hell?! My mind was reeling, spinning... or maybe that was just because I was dangling from a pine, caught in a snare trap. I had let myself become too cocksure about Mr. Thomas. I hung there, spinning, until finally I met the upside-down gaze of Thomas himself.
He was now shirtless and bald, having shaven all his hair off with a sharpened piece of clamshell that lay in a pocket of bloody snow. The tables had turned.
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