Josh's respiratory system would never get a chance to repeat its normal in-out function. The chain whipped around his throat from behind the tree and pulled tight. Too tight to let him scream. He could only produce a futile groaning sound from deep down in his belly that would never carry on the breeze.

By the time he knew he was being garroted by the sharp chain that keeps the components turning inside a motorcycle wheel, it had bitten deep into his throat. It was a messy process, but whoever held the chain had such a tight grip that it had cut straight through his trachea. His windpipe cut in two, choking on his blood, Josh couldn't call for help. Only the tears that welled suddenly from the corner of each eye attested to his unbearable terror.

Some claim that if a blade is able to make a clean enough decapitation, and the body dies instantaneously, then the head may remain conscious for several seconds after leaving it. That's how they would know that Joshua Logan did not die quickly. By the time they found him the next morning, his head and his lower neck were still connected by solitary strips of flesh and gristle, pinned tight against the tree by the motorcycle chain.

   Friday the 13th: Hell Lake, chapter 1

It made him sick that some stupid people demanded he take these claims seriously. But it was also disconcerting that, whenever something like this took place, there were always inexplicable loose ends. Forensic tests on the discarded, bloodied bike chain had apparently ruled Leblanc out of suspicion. The fingerprints were assuredly not his. In fact, it was hard to see how they could be anybody's. They had a curiously deformed quality that the crime lab could only compare to a corpse gradually losing its identifying characteristics.

Casey had read about audacious offenders who had played tricks with their identifying characteristics, like partially obliterating their fingerprints with acid. But this wasn't one of those, so the lab had said. They compared it to a "floater"—a body that had been in a river long enough to decompose, its deterioration aided by the different chemical processes that would beset it in saltwater rather than on dry land.

   Friday the 13th: Hell Lake, chapter 3