Spoiler
I went back and changed the opening line from "Approximately three hours" to "Approximately ten minutes." By the end of the chapter, the reason should be disturbingly obvious 
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A long time ago, in a home that was so far away yet almost too close to Dwight’s heart, Liam Markos told his son a story. This wasn’t anything new. If you were around the guy longer than a few hours or maybe even a few minutes, you’d understand with perfect clarity that he was as natural a bard as they came. Liam hadn’t been born to tell stories; he’d been destined to tell them. To tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, there was really nothing he could do about it. It was his nature, plain and simple.
The setting: a bar down in New Orleans, a raunchy little joint called The Tick-Tock Clock. Back in those days, when he was a typical twenty-two year old with a penchant for trouble and trouble-making whose maturity (in the form of one Ms. Sally Radcliffe) still lay many years ahead, Liam had developed a habit of making the wrong kind of people the wrong kind of mad.
The players: Liam Markos, our bright and cheery protagonist, he of the blond hair and the writer’s skinny frame; his antagonist (or, as Liam had put it at the time of the telling, his nemesis) was a big, burly guy who went by the name of Truck, because that’s how damn big he was.
The moral: young Liam had learned two things that night: never hustle a guy whose bigger than you, especially if you don’t have anything to pay him with just in case he beats you; and two, “no matter how sticky the situation, no matter how desperate or dire, there always remains one viable option. Actually, make that two viable options. They’re called legs. They’ll take you wherever you need to go or get you as far away from where you don’t want to be.”
Six years after that story was told, both that home and the man who made it were gone. Only Dwight and the story’s moral remained. Now, watching almost dumbstruck as Alexander slowly came at him with the knife, Dwight thought it the greatest moral in the world.
Ignoring the pain in his back and his legs and his neck, he managed to backward-crab-walk away from the boys before stumbling back to his feet and flying down the hallway faster than the roadrunner. Wile E. Coyote and his band of acme-carrying goons were apparently after him (that much was pretty much a given), but Dwight didn’t really dwell on that. The truth of the situation was this: run as fast as you can, as long as you can. Other than that, things were pretty much in the hands of destiny whether he willed it or not.
As Dwight’s own world slowly faded back into itself, he could hear the patter of his pursuers’ feet as they raced after him. The thought occurred to him that he should let go of his backpack as a sort of improvised land mine that wouldn’t explode or do anything particular useful. If nothing else, it would let him know how close they were. He let the backpack slip off of him like an old sweater, and not half second later he heard McCauley grunt. Alexander swore at him angrily.
The reaction had been fast. They were close. Very close, yet he dared not look behind.
But that was all that occurred to him, because the next thing he knew he was flying down the stairs two steps at a time. He turned a corner at the first landing, and from here landing he could see two things: a second set of stairs that would take him to the first floor; and Alexander standing on the railing overlooking the hallway. For a second, Dwight’s heart skipped a beat and he thought to himself: no way. According to the laws of physics by Alexander, there was indeed way. He leaped down almost casually, landing with a bang and the cracking of bones. He stood up, his knees popping as he did so, and ran at Dwight like nothing had happened. Dwight was too focused on Alexander's defiance of the laws of physics to really do anything about it. Pinned between the man before him and the two behind him, all he do was lunge forward, driving himself and Alexander down the last few steps on and onto the hard floor below.
Everything went black. In a thought that wasn't really a thought but more of an assumption, Dwight had no choice but to assume he was dead.
II
He wasn't.
He was moving, wasn't he? Well, being dragged was more like it.
The wise sayings of Liam Markos were gone, replaced by the almost nonchalant banter of Alexander and his boys. A strangely pleasant breeze rocked against his face; they were outside, that much he knew. In the blackness, where all that existed were feeling and some semblance of thought, their voices were muffled at best. But he still understand more than he wanted to.
"Down in the cellar," said Alexander. "Best not to make a mess. I'll take care of him, then we'll deal with the Exorcist."
"We'll slit his throat real nice-like, won't we?" Jasper sounded eager, excited as a kid in a candy store.
"We'll slit both their throats really nice," said Alexander. "McCauley was right, though. Best to do it in the cellar. Best not make a mess. We'll leave his body here with the other. Maybe we can nail some Poker cards in their hands, some sunglasses, do em up Bernie style."
Jasper giggled stupidly.
"You got the key, numbah three?" said Alexander. He sounded a mite impatient. "Hurry up, let's get this done."
"Thought you liked the guttin' part?" asked McCauley, a bit of distaste hanging in his words. "Spilling the blood and stuff?"
"I like it fine," said Alexander. "Key?"
"Yeah, I got it."
The sound of metal rattling around, followed by the squeaky turn of a key into a lock. Then more rattling. Wherever they were going, it sure as hell was locked up nice and tight. As feeling returned to him, a cold pain began to grow in his stomach. He could have thrown up if he wanted to. And God, he wanted to.
God. Jesus Lord God, he was really going to die, wasn't he? All his plans, all the things he wanted to do wiped out in an instant by three kids with authority problems. After all this, after all the studying and writing and praying that things would turn out all right, all it added up to was him being a special on CNN. And that was if anyone ever found the body, and he suspected they wouldn't. School had been out for almost an hour; no one was here, not even the janitors. Everyone was gone, there would be no one to hear his screams.
He thought of the note he'd left on the bedside table, the one where'd he firmly declared his intentions to run away. Whether Dwight had to will to actually run away was another matter entirely, but the fact remained that the note was there. Last place they'd look for him would be the school. He'd go down in history as a runaway, as some punk kid who decided to see the world and probably ended up in a ditch somewhere or hell, maybe even living it up in Vegas as an Elvis impersonator. After a while, people would stop looking, and that would be the end of it.
Try as he might, he couldn't help tears from welling up in his eyes. It was like some screwed-up horror movie, except the only survivors to walk away into the sunrise would be the villains. And no one, he thought, would know the real ending.
He heard the rusty creak of doors as they turned open, and as Dwight Markos opened his own eyes, he saw a flight of wooden stairs leading down into what he assumed was the school's cellar. The fact that the school even had a cellar was a new bit of info to him, and he figured most kids at Saint Michael's would be in the same boat as him.
They were behind the school, behind the high, barb-wired fences where only the janitors were allowed to go, and that was to throw trash into the dumpster. He'd always wondered what was back here, and now he knew. Virtually no one came back here, except, apparently, Alexander and his cohorts of idiocy. How many bodies were down there, dead and broken all because of Alexander's gang? How many people had known? Who the hell had given them a key?
He turned his head to the sky. Who knew? It was probably the last he'd see of it. What he saw wasn't the bright blue sky he had once loved, not the gray, stormy sky he had grown accustomed to since moving here. No, what he was a sky filled with black smoke. Individual, almost human-shaped-and-sized clouds of black smoke, all ascending into the sky above the school. Dwight knew without being told that these clouds were the shadows that had haunted his every move since he had arrived at Saint Michael's. Whatever they were - ghosts, aliens, demons from another world - didn't matter.
What mattered was this: the shadows were fleeing. How he knew that, he didn't know and almost didn't care. What he did care about was why. The thought hit him that maybe he was crazy, maybe the madness had finally peaked in his final minutes of life. But that thought didn't stay long, and it shouldn't have. This was real, simply because he wanted it to be real. And if he ever wanted to know the why of it, the truth behind everything then he supposed it wouldn't do too well to let Alexander go all Friday the 13th on his throat, now would it? Screw that.
Screw that to hell.
The urge to cry subsided, and the urge to kick ass took over.
The two boys on his opposite sides - McCauley holding his right arm and Jasper his left - began to lead him down the stairs and into the cellar. Even with his muddled vision, he could see that there were at least twenty steps before they would hit the landing. Perfect. The boys were content to let his feet drag down the steps. Obviously they thought he was more out that he actually was. More perfect.
And even though Alexander was behind him, most likely holding the switchblade in his hand right now, he figured he might as well give it a shot. With all the strength he had left (well, he hadn't had much to begin with, but now wasn't the time for self-pity), he suddenly braced his feet at the edge of one of the wooden stairs and before McCauley or Jasper could do anything, he pushed back against the stair with all his might. All three boys flew forward. Alexander swore, but it wouldn't do any good. In a moment that contained an eternity, Dwight found enough time to shield his face and brace for impact. The other two, unfortunately, did not.
They fell in a tangled heap, tumbling down the stairs. Dwight, who hadn't taken the narrowness of the stairway into account when he'd concocted this brilliant plan, found there was more than enough room for him to make a clear and managed to stay stair-bound. As much as it hurt (as much as his whole body was hurting now), he didn't think he'd broken anything. He'd be bruised tomorrow, but the fact that there still may be a tomorrow gave him a reason to stand up. But first, there was Alexander to deal with.
He was running down towards Dwight, knife in hand. Engulfed by the sunlight of the outside world, all Dwight could see of Alexander was a silhouette. But still, based on his movements alone, Dwight could tell he was good and pissed. On the floor below, he could hear the other two moaning. He doubted they'd come out of this without anything broken, and almost smiled.
Alexander came at him, only a few steps above Dwight, who stood up as best he could and began down the stairs as fast as he could. He hit the ground, taking care to jump over over the still-moaning bodies that were McCaulley and Jasper, and realized how deep the darkness of the cellar was. He ran away from the beam of light offered by the outside world, into the cellar's darkness.
He couldn't see, not even ground beneath his feet.The thought occurred to him to pull out his cell phone. It would make a good light, wouldn't it? But then again, it would do the same for Alexander, and it wouldn't be a good idea to pull out a small spotlight. Might as well pull out a lantern and yell "Fish outta water!" Maybe he could call someone. Who? 911? His mom? What good would that do? Alexander would have him bleeding like a stuck pig before he had a chance to dial the digits. No, the cell phone would stay in his pocket.
He hit a wall, and felt his way along it. He turned and saw, several feet away, the place where the light spilled out from above. At the stairs' end, McCaulley and Jasper lay wounded and groaning, but still breathing. He was glad of that, in spite of anything. No matter how desperate he became, he never wanted to become like them. Killers. Murderers.
Looking at their broken bodies, and how small they were to him, he realized just how damn big this cellar was. Alexander's footsteps echoed about the room, though Dwight had no idea where in it he could be. Could be anywhere. He figured his best chance would be to hide in the corner until he could think of a better plan.
He did, settling down and trying to keep his breathing quiet. His heart was beating a thousand miles an hour, and the injuries he'd sustained today were beginning to wear on him. Slowly, he began to inch his way across the wall. He would get as close as he could to the light, and then make a break for it. He couldn't take Alexander, not when he had the knife and maybe not even in a fair fight. He'd seen the way he'd leaped off the railing and landed like it was nothing. There was something else going on here, something -
The lights turned on, and Alexander was staring at him. Only it wasn't Alexander. The glasses were gone, the skin even paler than normal. His jaw hung open, not in surprise but in horror. His eyes - oh God, his eyes - were still and lifeless and dead. A gash ran across his throat, though no blood fled from it. His clothes were ragged and worn, almost disintegrated. It was like looking at a zombie, only it wasn't a zombie. It was a corpse, and a damn old one at that.
A yell caught in Dwight's throat, but before he could scream he was yanked up to his feet and slammed against the wall. Alexander glared at him, rage in his eyes. This was the Alexander he'd come to know and hate, the pale skin, the glasses, the bad breath. He held the knife at the edge of Dwight's throat, ready to get to the cutting he'd been wanting to do all afternoon.
"Well, well, well," he said casually. "Looks like you found my body."
Dwight said nothing. In the corner of his eyes, he could see Jasper and McCaulley standing up. McCaulley glared at him, and even from here he could see that his eyes were as red as the fires of Hell.
"Slit his throat!" screamed McCaulley, and the voice that escaped him was not human, wasn't even close to human. "Slit his throat and spill his blood all over the place!"
Alexander smiled.
"With pleasure."
