She enters the house to find a catatonic Ariel locked in a room in the basement. Vess watches as Chyna leaves the motor home. Eventually, they arrive at Vess's remote house. Fascinated, he decides not to kill her immediately, wanting to see what she will do. However, unbeknownst to Chyna, Vess glimpses her. While Vess gets out to investigate, Chyna sneaks on board the motor home. Chyna passes Vess while traveling through a state park and intentionally crashes her car into a redwood tree. She feels compelled to follow Vess and help free Ariel, taking a clerk's car. Chyna secretly watches Vess boast to the gas station clerks that he is holding a young girl, Ariel, prisoner in his basement, before he kills them and drives away. When Vess stops at a gas station, she sneaks out of the motor home and looks for a payphone. Before she can escape, Vess drives away.Ĭhyna hides in a back room, planning to escape at the earliest opportunity.

Unaware Laura is dead, Chyna sneaks aboard the motor home and finds her friend's corpse. Chyna hears Laura screaming and runs upstairs, intending to attack Vess with a knife. Before she can intervene, Vess kills Laura and takes her to his motor home. After discovering that Laura has been tied up and raped, Chyna leaves, promising to return. This comes to a violent end when serial killer Edgler Vess breaks into the house in the night and methodically kills all of the occupants except Laura and Chyna. Chyna, who was abused and neglected by her mother as a child, finds that the Templeton house provides something she has yearned: acceptance. Chyna Shepard is a college student visiting the family of her friend, Laura Templeton, for a long weekend.

Intensity by dean koontz