hey guys we got some new merch in the merch store that's all linked down below where you might see some of the shop popup down below the video be sure to go check it out if you want to get some new merch we got some new designs they pretty sweet [Music] when other kids were asking for video games or football boots for their birthdays I wanted a disposable camera and the process of getting the pictures developed seemed like nothing short of Wizardry to me my passion for photography stayed with me right through Secondary School which
to my parents infinite frustration I showed very little interest in I understand why they were so stressed about my poor academic performance I didn't enjoy getting bothered by teachers every day I just knew what I wanted to do with my life and then after I left school at 16 I went off and did it I interned with a professional photographer for a year got a feel for the job and then started freelancing for just about anyone who'd pay it took a few years of building up a serious portfolio but once I had one along with
the necessary experience I was ready to apply for some serious jobs the job market for photography can be interesting to say the least and without going into too much very lurid or tedious detail there wasn't much out there that wasn't excessively seedy or excessively boring but there was one job that caught my eye so much so that I positively jumped at the chance to apply for it overseas photographer for the times one of the most prestigious newspapers in British history I applied then had an interview so Shak that I was convinced that it had slipped
through my fingers but somehow someone saw some potential in me and got the call back with good news just a few days after that job took me all over the world and it was incredible but then every so often I get a chance to go somewhere a bit dicey I went to Afghanistan in 2011 Iraq in 2012 then in January of 2014 I was asked if I wanted to go to Syria and for those that need a brief primer the Syrian Civil War kicked off in mid 2012 following a year of fiery protests and violent
government crackdowns 2013 was a year of escalation with various armed Rebel groups getting all kinds of foreign backing before taking the fight to government forces but then 2014 marked a distinct shift in the landscape of that resistance and before the end of 2013 it was mostly secular groups of pro-democracy rebels fighting under the B of the free Syrian Army but just after the new year he started hearing all about these islamist and Jihadi groups springing up some of which were supposedly connected to Al-Qaeda our team's job was to drive into Aleppo hook up with our
contact in the free Syrian Army and then establish what relationship if any the FSA had with the jihadis we flew over to turkey at the end of February spent a few days in a city near the Syrian border and then crossed over an early March it was a whole different feeling to Iraq and Afghanistan because when I visited those countries the fighting in both places has started to die down Syria on the other hand was a live conflict a war in progress we didn't fly in on a military aircraft or cross the border after having
our passports checked we crossed into Syria without permission with no safety net and without any idea of what would happen and let me tell you that felt very different after driving into Eastern Aleppo we hooked up with our Rebel contact in a place called jabal badro The journalists I was with Ben had worked with Omar on a previous trip to Aleppo back in 2012 so for them it marked quite an emotional reunion Ben had won over Omar and his unit of rebels by bringing them cartons of cigarettes and boxes of basic medicines and he did
the same thing when I was with them in 2014 appar apparently handing out paracetamol and packets of siggies makes you very popular in a war zone and so the week we spent with Omar's unit was as positive as it was productive I picked up a bit of Arabic partied with the rebels and got at least half a dozen shots that I considered some of the best I'd ever taken but that first week was little more than a climatization both physically Christ was a hot and mentally because we planned on spending our second week with another
group of rebels who unlike Omar's group were much more connected with the Jihadi group known as NRA front the NF as I'll call them from now on for the sake of ease were actually connected to Al-Qaeda at one point and their madman and chief was based in Iraq for a number of years he was actually sent into Syria in 2011 with the goal of exploiting the chaos of the Civil War to gain a footo hold among the populace but once he was there and he got a taste of power well he didn't quite fancy letting
it go the nf's madman and chief was just that mental but he wasn't stupid they knew that snatching journalists and cutting their heads off was a really bad look and that if they wanted to keep getting their hands on the weapons that the US and EU were feeding to the larger less scary looking Rebel groups they better stay on their best behavior knowing we weren't going to be actively hunted was probably the only reason we felt even remotely safe traveling anywhere near NF have controlled areas but even so we had no desire to connect with
the group its leaders or its Fighters and the only trouble was fate had other plans finding your way around the city especially if you don't know it all that well can be difficult at the best of times but then imagine almost everything you use for reference be it street signs landmarks or places of business are suddenly destroyed all of a sudden even people people who knew Aleppo were having trouble finding their way around I'm not just talking a few bullet holes or craters either entire streets have been leveled by air strikes and aside from all
the debris our drivers said it was the thin layer of dust on everything that really threw them off and made all the winding streets of Eastern Aleppo look the same I'm sure you can see this coming a mile off already but I'm a photographer not a writer so I'll just leave all that structuring to the professionals and just get on with my story so on our way to meet up with this other less frightening group of rebels we took a wrong turn and we didn't even realize that we' taken a wrong turn until the people
we thought had been sent to meet us suddenly aimed their guns at us and ordered us to kneel we literally had no idea what was happening or who they were so initially we thought it was this other group of pro-democracy rebels just being a bit over cautious when it came to their security they were all terrified of spies everyone was but later we found out that we hadn't been rather rudely welcomed by some paranoid soon to be friends we've been taken prisoner by a different group one with strong ties to both NF and another Jihadi
group that hadn't quite made a name for itself yet once it was clear that we've been taken prisoner our driver who had been captured along with us began immediately trying to negotiate our release we figured all they wanted was money and they were promised a ton but according to the group's leader a guy called Abu Khaled they'd get a shed load more money by selling us to another much wealthier group of militants who operated out of a place called rqa we asked what would happen to us there but Abu Khaled said that he neither knew
nor cared all he cared about were the vast stacks of cash the Rocka group was offering for any British or American prisoners it was a grim moment accepting we were probably going to be held hostage for a very long time both me and Ben trusted both our governments and our employers to work towards securing our release as well as that of our driver athman and to us it was just a matter of time before we were released because at that stage of the war it was all about getting backing or funding from outside the country
it made very little sense for any armed group to just kill us in fact that we thought that we were more in danger of being caught and executed by government loyalists than any group of rebels jihadists included there was just too much money to be made ransoming off two British journalists so even though this mysterious group were willing to pay our captor 40,000 USD for the both of us it was an investment they could make millions from it must sound a bit mental to some people I mean it sounds mental to me just writing it
all these years later but being a prisoner wasn't all that bad the group that took us prisoner just wanted to make some money and they hated the government loyalists far more than they could ever hate us so after a few days our guards started to warm up to us a bit they had to feed us and keep us safe because this other Jihadi group said that they wanted us alive and unharmed but after a few days of being regular fixtures around the compound they occupied they took our restraints off invited us upstairs from the basement
they were holding us in and then basically just let us hang out they told athman if your lot try and run we'll kill you but other than that just behave yourselves we could roughly converse with the Jihadi blos in our crappy Arabic but if we wanted any serious dialogue we'd use our driver athman as a translator the group holding us weren't Frontline Fighters their only job was to guard us and seeing as they were actually pretty all right fellas who' just been sucked into the malstrom of the country's Civil War we got talking about this
and that they were very very curious about our lives back in London and I am deadly serious when I say they must have asked us a thousand questions over the course of those nine days in captivity they wanted to know what London was like what kinds of things we ate back home and what kinds of places we lived in but Abu was clearly the most senior guard among them seemed particularly interested in what football teams we supported Ben wasn't into football much he went to a private school and was more into his rugby but for
me my passions were photography first then football second and I had still have a particular love of my local side Queens Park Rangers I know I'm going to get stick from my fellow fans for this but QPR aren't a big team and assuming Abu only follows the top League I didn't expect him to know them but then when I told him I was a QPR fan his face lit up and he launched into a massive speech to athman who was acting as our translator I could recognize the odd word here and there and he kept
saying QPR in his accent over and over so I knew he was talking about the football club but then athman turns to me and in so many words this is what he said Abu says he's a great admirer of your Moroccan attacking midfielder ad Del wrapped and my jaw dropped but othman continued Abdu says th's contribution of 19 goals 16 assists to qpr's 2011 season was a huge achievement for a player of his age but he thoroughly deserved to win the championship's player of the Season award and you know what abom was exactly right as
a a DieHard QPR fan I loved Adele and I still do he was absolutely phenomenal during that 2010 season and I cheered for every single one of those 19 goals through athman I asked Abu if he remembered the goal thop scor on boxing day of 2010 Abu jumped up off the floor with this big smile on his face and started mimicking the exact movements of what came to be known as the Christmas cracker he intimidated trop's cheeky back heel to trick one player then minded tapping the ball through another player's legs before acting out the
absolute rocket of a kick that even the goalkeeper's gloves couldn't put a stop to I was in raptures or to raptures you might say and I asked if Abu remembered tup running over and literally hugging some random QPR fans in celebration of his goal and stuff like that was why he was so popular he loved us and we loved him and neither of us was afraid to show it Abu did remember the hug and then that was it we launched into what must have been a 2-hour conversation about football with almost everyone gathered around for
the entertainment and the whole thing was just crazy there I was having an in-depth football talk with a man that had taken me hostage it marked a sort of High Point in our time in captivity because for a brief moment it was like we weren't prisoners anymore it was like we were among friends and although I wasn't to know it at the time I think it was that chat about terupt that saved Our Lives we spent another 2 Days in abu's compound and those were probably the best two days we spent there we were given
generous portions when invited to sit and eat with the rest of the rebels after which they shared cigarettes and sweets with us then after dinner they had a hundred more questions for us about our lives back in London how however after about an hour of chatting Abu asked if we could have a word in private and by private he meant me him and of course othman we walked over to a quiet corner and through our driver turned translator I asked him if there was any news on the hostage transfer I made it clear that I
wasn't making any demands on him I was just anxious about being in the dark regarding when and where we'd be transported Abu looked at othman then at me then after a sigh and in a moment of thought he started feeding his reply to othman for translation and as I watched him talk I watched the color slowly drained from mothman's face he turned to me and more or less this is what he said Abu says he's hesitant to sell us to the group in raqqa othman said and initially I thought it was because Abu thought that
he was being stiffed and the idea of selling us to the other group for pittance so that in turn could make millions had probably left a pretty bad taste in his mouth and that's not what was bothering him he said he could live with the prospect of selling us to someone who'd eventually release us but that's not what this other group intended to do this other group went by a few different names at the time the mujahadin shur Council the army of the Victorious the congregation of monotheism and Jihad but the name they'd been given
in the months that followed is one that'll live in infamy Isis the group that wanted to buyas were just months away from officially renaming themselves the Islamic State and the reason they wanted us alive is because they wanted to decapitate US Film it and then turn our executions into Sleek propaganda videos that had end up online and by the time othman finished telling me that that is everything except their ensuing change of name I must have looked as pale as he was I then begged Abu not to sell us to those people that we could
guarantee them tens of thousands of pounds if they ransomed us instead of selling us on they told us it was too late and that Isis were already on their way to collect us they'd be at the Swap location a few miles outside of Aleppo in less than 48 hours and if we weren't there to collect there'd be trouble and by then athman had taken over in terms of leading the discussion and after a few more minutes of talking he gave me the gist of what had been said Abu was going to escort us back to
our contact Omar and then tell his bosses and the Isis guys that we'd managed to escape during an attack by the government soldiers and he only had two conditions the first was that we got the hell out of Aleppo immediately if his boss has got wind to the fact that he just let us go he was a dead man so that was n to negotiable the second thing however was that I gave him the little QPR supporters Club card that I kept in my wallet and so he could have something to remember me by I
gave it to him in a heartbeat then just a few hours later we were on the move again back towards Omar's group who we'd spent our first couple of days with 48 hours later around the same time we should have been handed over to our Isis executioners we were waiting in h airport for our ist B transfer and then after that we were headed home Ben ended up writing the story he'd been asked to write and he used plenty of my pictures too but he made no mention of the kidnapping in his story and the
pictures I took of us in our hostage takers have never seen the light of day I wanted Ben to be able to thank Abu and his story but we knew that wouldn't be possible without putting his safety at risk following a prolonged and intense battle the Syrian Army retook full control of Aleppo in December 2016 Syrian State media then announced that they had fully secured the city after an evacuation deal for the remaining Rebel Fighters and civilians was reached meaning there was a slim chance that Abu managed to get out alive I know he technically
wasn't on the right side of that conflict as they say but if you knew it I don't think you could call any group from that conflict the good guys and not choke on those words I don't know what else he did during the war but Abu saved our lives and for that I'll be forever grateful I sometimes wonder if he's still alive and if he ever made it out of Syria so if you just so happen to hear this Abu and you inwhere near Loftus road then reach out so we can go to a game
together and talk about football in peace instead of War [Music] in April of 2016 my friend Tony and I were on our way to a birthday party in our hometown of Baton Rouge it was the 23rd birthday of a mutual friend and to celebrate the occasion her parents allowed her to throw a party at their house in Santa Maria I remember being incredibly excited for the party and part of the reason we were so excited was that Santa Maria is home to some truly beautiful homes and therefore some incredible places to throw a party the
only trouble was neither of us knew the neighborhood very well I was at the wheel while Tony was there in the passenger seat he had his phone in his hand trying to figure out exactly where we needed to go whilst being the incar DJ for our pre-party tunes and so while he was Adept at picking bangers to get us all turned up he wasn't the best Navigator I could have asked for Santa Maria is divided up into four distinct sections and between them is the Santa Maria golf course we ended up finding the right one
but the real trouble came when we had to find the correct Street a text from a friend said that we wanted some number on man check so we were looking for something like manack Road or a manack Avenue but then after turning on the manshack Lake Drive which we figured was the one we wanted we were suddenly faced with manshack Way Avenue manshack Trace Avenue in manshack Crossing Avenue four different streets all named manshack meaning we had no idea which street the party was on I asked Tony to give one of our friends a call
just to confirm the address but when we finally managed to get a hold of someone the music was too loud for us to get any coherent answer out of her she said that she'd double check with our friend to get the right address and would call us back but she didn't and we ended up driving up and down man Shacks trying to work out if it was the number they gave us at manshack way or the same number on another man Shack and we tried looking for Clues things like cars lined up outside the house
groups of people chatting on the porch or maybe this sort of faint thumping of Base in the distance things would have been easier if the party was actually inside but part of the agreement to use her parents' place was that the party be centered in the backyard and pool area that way the house wouldn't get trashed but that also meant that both both those numbered houses looked almost identical they were all dark on the outside neither had any obvious signs of activity and both houses had a bunch of cars lined up outside and so in
the end we decided to turn down the driveway on one of the manshack other places and because we figured the worst thing that had happen is that we'd have a very confused homeowner tell us that it was the other one and so I drove us up the driveway stopped the car then Tony and I sat there in silence for a moment I remember the silence the total complete silence of being in that driveway and how I got a really strong feeling that we were not at the right address the house was dark and the curtains
seemed like they were drawn but then suddenly a flicker of movement near the curtains started to catch our eye we knew someone was home but if this was where the party was at I doubted that they had been hiding in a front room taking Peaks out at cars in the driveway I told Tony that I didn't think it was the place but he insisted on knocking on the door just to make sure I told him I wasn't sure that was a good idea then the last thing he said to me was what's the worst that
could happen before my windshield suddenly shattered shards of glass rained down on us as gunshots rang out and I remember seeing flashes coming from the darkness of an upstairs window I remember my heart thumping in my chest as my mind caught up to what was happening then the next thing I was ducking down hunching over and gasping for breath as the Stark reality hit me that we were being shot at time seemed like it was slowing down I could feel each bullet smashing into the car and I felt Frozen with Terror then suddenly it was
like I heard this voice in my head yelling put the car in Reverse or you're both dead as raw Panic distilled into the need for Action I remember fumbling with that gear stick before quickly throwing the car into reverse the tires spun slightly as I Slamm my foot down on the pedal causing the tires to squeal before a sudden jolt backwards I heard Tony Yell something but I couldn't make out what I was too busy looking into the rear view to see if anyone was behind us then we put the car in drive and we
sped off into the night air rushing into the car from where the windshield was gone I remember this mix of relief but fear washing over me as we drove away from that danger but I was still Wired from all the adrenaline and I was halfway to shouting something like oh my God we made it when I noticed he'd been shot I pushed the car's engine to its absolute limits speeding like a crazy person as the world outside became a blue of street lights and shadows and I remember looking over to Tony and seeing how pale
he looked and how much pain he seemed to be in and then the fear of losing him Came Crashing Down on Me like a wave I kept yelling at him to hold on that we were headed to a hospital and that we'd be there in no more than a few minutes cuz all I had to do was keep my foot down stay on the interstate and take the exit ramp as soon as we saw that Baton Rouge General I had no idea how many times Tony had been shot and I figured that I might have
been shot too but I just couldn't do anything about it cuz I had to keep my eyes on the road while I was weaving in and out of traffic and that was probably the worst part about the whole thing for me person personally the thought of how if I passed out at the wheel at those speeds both of us would probably be dead I thought I could feel blood in my stomach and legs because it was very warm and wet down there but like I said I couldn't look or it' be game over for the
both of us I remember nearly crashing into another car as I swerved onto the exit ramp and then nearly crashing a second time as I skitted into the parking lot of the hospital I stopped almost right outside the doors jumped out of the driver's side and then ran around to Tony's side while calling out for help I opened up his door kind of hopeful because of how quick we made it but when I saw Tony's face I panicked he was wet as a sheet he was struggling to breathe and there was blood everywhere and his
eyes looked almost glazed over like he was just minutes away from Death I kept yelling at him to stay with me shaking his shoulder while telling him help was on the way then the next thing I know no there's a bunch of paramedics rushing over to get Tony out of the car and into the hospital as they wield Tony away on a gurnie I mentioned how I thought I'd been shot remember I told you about feeling very warm and wet in my pants well it wasn't blood it was piss and while we were getting shot
at I straight up peed my pants and struggled with the shame of that for some time before I just came to terms with it I had a marine who served in Afghanistan tell me that some of his squadmates used to always need to pee real bad anytime they got into a shootout they'd be lying down someplace like on their stomachs shooting at the bad guys and this one Marine would roll onto his side pull his wiener out and then just start pissing right there where he laid the pisser said he'd rather show off his 2-in
Wonder to the rest of the squad than soak his underwear and the Marine told me how not a single one of them considered him a coward I met the guy in a group therapy session maybe 6 or S months after that night and when I mentioned the pissing myself thing he just laughed I was kind of offended at first and he said he was just laughing at the idea that I considered myself a coward he'd heard my story already and he considered me one of the ballsiest mfers he'd ever met he told me I'd done
the exact right thing to the letter in terms of going into action mode and zooming to that hospital just being able to back out of a driveway while Under Fire was impressive to him but not crashing on the way to the hospital was what made him think that I'd make a fine Marine if I ever wanted to take that path in life and I managed to keep it together all the same and just told him thanks dude it means a lot but when I got back to my car I cried like a baby and I
mean ugly cried too not some cool single tear rolling down my cheek like in an action movie hero situation it didn't just mean a lot that meant the entire world to me and for the first time since sitting in that hospital Hospital waiting room I didn't feel like a total piece of trash Oh and speaking of the waiting room I guess I kind of got diverted there for a minute or two and let me get back on track sitting in that waiting room felt like I was in another dimension time was slowing down the place
was full and I never felt so alone and I felt like I was trapped between wanting to hear some news about Tony and then dreading whatever the news might be it was hellish and I mean that in the truest sense of the world if there is a hell it probably feels a little like that waiting room in Baton Rouge at least before the fiery Parts anyway my mind kept replaying what had happened in that driveway and checking my phone became almost like a ritual something to break up my thoughts while letting our friends know what
had happened I looked up every time the nurse walked in thinking this is it only for it not to be they'd call someone else or just walk right through sometimes I felt like I was watching myself in a bad dream a nightmare where everything smelled like antiseptic and the lights were so bright I felt like they were stinging my eyes after what felt like forever a doctor stepped into the waiting room and finally called my name he then sort of ushered me into a quiet section and gave me the news and when he told me
Tony was alive and that they were optimistic about his recovery i' never felt relief like it before I had to put my head in my hands because I thought I was going to burst into into tears and then after pulling myself together I listened as the doctor continued he explained that although a bullet had entered Tony's chest it had missed his heart along with all of his major arteries however the bullet did collapse a which is why he was struggling to breathe by the time we pulled into the hospital's parking lot and to fix it
the doctor performed a procedure that involved inserting a tube into Tony's chest which reinflated his lung and allowed it to expand properly the bullet also broke a rib but while that would be very painful it had heal over time and the most important news though was that Tony was stabilized and had been moved into the Intensive Care Unit where his pain would be managed and he could be monitored he wasn't completely out of the woods yet though but seeing how young fit and healthy he was the prognosis was good I could either go home and
rest or stick around the hospital and I'd be able to see him in a couple of hours I still had glass and blood all of for me so I told the doctor I'd return in a few hours after a shower and a change of clothes and at home I talked to a bunch of people who had been at the party like mine and Tony's mutual friends and I agreed to pick a few of them up on the way back to the hospital we had to wait for almost an hour before we were allowed in but
when we were two groups of us went into to see him one group of two and one group of three I went in with our friend cherry and walking down the corridor to his ICU room with was like the longest Walk Of Our Lives I remember coming to the door embracing myself for what I was about to see I knew he was probably going to be okay but it was still daunting as hell walking towards that door and then when I walked into Tony's room it was a very huge mix of emotions I was more
relieved than I'd ever been in my whole life to see Tony alive but he barely looked any better than he did when I first got him to the hospital it was really shocking to see him in such a vulnerable position but the thing that really sticks with me is just how happy Tony was to see us he was still weak and couldn't move at all but he had just enough energy after waking up from surgery to talk to us a little before the nurses shooted us out of the room saying Tony needed his rest but
before we left Tony and I had something of a moment together he told me I saved his life but I told him he was wrong about that dead wrong it was he that had saved my life because if I had driven to that party on my own I have no doubt in my mind that whoever shot at us would have aimed for me and not him he hadn't opened up his door yet so the lights in my car didn't switch on but what Tony did have was his phone on full brightness held at chest height
which from the shooter's point of view probably lit him up like a Christmas tree the guy was a terrible shot and only landed one direct head on us but I have no doubt that he used the light of Tony's phone as sort of a reference point on where to aim and if he hadn't been there then it would have been me that took the shooter's one lucky shot and then I definitely would have passed out on the way to the hospital if I wasn't killed instantly by that shot and in so many words he took
the bullet that was meant for me Antony was in the hospital for just over a week and strangely enough that was the same day the man who shot him pleaded no contest to charges of attempted manslaughter I got downgraded after that instead of murder because apparently in the last year alone this dude's house had been targeted in two home invasions by two different groups one group ended up going to prison and apparently one of the guys told our shooter that his homies were going to get him so when we rolled up to his driveway in
a car that he didn't recognize he opened up on us before giving us a chance to identify ourselves his attorney said that he was so scared that he didn't want to take any chances but even with it being his first conviction the judge called him a danger to others and gave him 3 years in prison I would have liked to have seen him given more time but there was a period where we thought that he might get no jail time so having him get at least some time was a pretty huge relief Tony has since
made a full recovery and has somehow managed to find it in his heart to forgive the guy who shot him I guess that's the kind of Grace that I should have expected from him but for me it's a hell of a lot harder to Simply forget forgive and forget not when both of us came so close to [Music] death for our second anniversary my boyfriend and I arranged a weekend stay at a luxury Log Cabin we've been going to the same coffee shop for a few months when I accidentally knocked his ice Lotte all over
him like a total clut Rob was so so nice about it then the next time I bumped into him I offered to pay his dry cleaning Bill he said he'd rather I paid him back by taking him out to dinner and since we totally had some Chemistry Between Us I accepted and now cut to about 2 and 1/2 years later and we're flying down to Nashville to spend a few days with Rob's parents before heading off into the hills of Monroe County way out near the North Carolina state line when he first suggested the idea
over dinner I was dead against it Rob and his family loved all things outdoors related and they were hardcore about it too and so at first I was scared his cabin would be some one room hunting Shack and it'd be dinners of raw deer meat for all three nights now Rob assured me that that wasn't the case then when I was still skeptical he showed me the website the cabin he picked out looked incredible it was set onto a hillside with a large deck overlooking what looked like a stunning view there was a fire pit
a hot tub for soaking under the stars and that was just outside the inside had an open floor plan with high vaed ceilings and exposed wooden beams there were also leather sofas state-of-the-art appliances and a whole kitchen complete with a farmhouse sink and breakfast nook but I think the thing that really caught my eye was the old stone fireplace because I could constantly picture me and Rob curling up together in front of it after a long hike through the woods and that's all after a couple's shower in the bathroom that I kid you not had
heated floors I've never stayed in the hotel room that fancy let alone a Shack in the middle of but love and nowhere so after seeing the cabin's website I went from Super skeptical to super excited and we stayed 4 days with Rob's mom and dad who are just the sweetest people ever and then on Friday morning we loaded up the rental car with our stuff and then got on the road towards a place called Coker Creek every everything was going fine and we even stopped in Chattanooga to grab some food because we were ahead of
schedule but then once we passed Coker Creek and turned onto the back roads to locate our cabin our progress slowed down dramatically this was back in the late 2000s so while we did have an early model of GPS in the rental it was about as useful as a glass Hammer up in those forested Hills we had a sheet of printed directions in the paper map but we first realized the directions were no good when we hit our first dead end with no luxury cabin in sight and long story short we retraced our path about four
times but each time we got deep into the woods we got so disoriented that we ended up going around in circles before we finally found our way back to a highway and from there we try again getting more and more frustrated each time until finally we drove down a road that had a house at the end of it instead of just another dead end it was Rob's idea to stop and ask for directions the house looked old really old so we figured anyone inside had been living in the area for quite a while in which
case they probably knew of the cabin we were looking for it was a small single story home with faded peeling paint that might once have been white but had since become worn away to reveal spots of rotting wood missing sections of shingle caused the roof to Sag in places while patches of moss covered up whole CS of it as we got out of the car and walked towards the porch we could see it was barely holding together there were gaps in the floorboards the banisters were splintering and I remember as Rob put his boot up
onto the first step the whole thing creaked so loudly that it could have doubled as a doorbell the second the porch steps started creaking we heard movement from inside the house all the windows were either shuttered or covered with cloth or newspaper so while we couldn't see inside the house house we knew someone was home Rob knocked on the door expecting someone to answer right away because we were 99% sure that there was someone right on the other side of the door but it took them until Rob politely asked if they could give us directions
for them to acknowledge our presence only then did the door open just a crack and a woman of around 50 appeared in the Gap she was short had a very thick accent and didn't look remotely pleased to see it when she opened up and asked us what we wanted Rob repeated that we were hoping to get some directions but the woman told us that she couldn't help her husband was off running errands and he knew the area infinitely better than she did so we could either get back into the rental car and try her luck
with the Maze of back roads again or we could take a seat on the porch and wait patiently and hope her husband planned on getting back before dark the lady said that she didn't mind us waiting and that she was sorry that she couldn't be of more help so we thanked her and then took a seat on an old porch swing after thoroughly dusting it off we waited close to an hour killing as much time as we could by reminiscing about the two years we've been together it was our way of staying positive there didn't
seem to be any point in worrying or complaining as we were sure to find the cabin at some point but then at one point I made a very rough comment about how we've been sitting on this lady's porch for like half an hour hour and she didn't invite us inside so much for southern hospitality I said and honestly it was mostly intended as sort of a joke but then Rob stepped off the porch took a look at the house and then said something like I guess they must really value their privacy and then motion for
me to come look at something all four downstairs windows and all five upstairs windows were covered by either these gruy looking curtains canvas sheets or plain old newspaper and as I looked at it the house started to really give me the creeps but I also knew exactly what Rob would say if I aired my thoughts he'd say that these were just some poor simple folks who valued their privacy in their Solitude sure it was a world away from Manhattan but these were good Sal ofthe people who'd probably be more than happy to help us especially
if it meant giving them back their privacy and so I just kept my mouth shut I knew he was thinking a little of what I was thinking I mean he had to be but it was either wait for some directions from that lady's husband or potentially get lost in these Backwoods for a fifth time and not be able to find a way back to that house to ask those directions so we stayed put after just less than an hour of pacing back and forth and grabbing snacks from our car we heard the sound of a
vehicle coming up the road behind us we were sitting on the old couple's port forch swing when we heard it and the sound lifted our Spirits immensely if anyone knew where our luxury cabin was located it was this pickup driving appalachin old-timer who'd probably been living here long before our cabin had ever even been built and we stayed put until we saw the guy's truck coming up the trail and then Rob got up and said something like I better go make myself known he's going to wonder whose car that is referring to our rental we
stepped off the porch and then started waving at the oncoming truck as he jogged towards the rental pointing and sort of gesticulating as if to say that's ours and we come in peace the truck stopped just shy of the rental as Rob kept walking towards it then as an older man opened the door and stepped out of his cab Rob began talking to him he was wearing a denim shirt and a canvas jacket with jeans boots and a cap with some kind of logo on it and appeared to be listening intently to Rob as he
spoke I remember being startled by the sudden sound of the lady's voice coming from my right and she said my husband's home with this wide unsettling smile stretched across her face it seemed I remember looking at her for a moment thinking what are you up to and then as I turned to look at Rob I saw him suddenly back away from the lady's husband he raised his arms and started shouting no no no and then the man aimed a a pistol and shot him I had no time to react because right as Rob fell I
heard a screech coming from my right the lady had burst from her front door with a hatchet in her hand and was rushing down the porch toward me I ran the opposite way jumping off the porch and then darting around the corner of the house the whole time I was thinking about the guy with the gun and how I needed to put solid objects between us to keep from being shot and that's what I did his wife was really no threat to me at all and these days it gets a kind of Ry smile out
of me whenever I think about that dumb tripping as she followed me off their porch and crashing into the dirt with a very pathetic sounding grunt but it took me a long long time to be able to think of it that way I knew the guy would be coming for me he just shot my boyfriend of two years in front of me so there's no way he intended to let me get away but the thing that made me feel like I could have sprinted for days was the thought of what he'd have in store for
me if he caught me my sister was something of a true crime offici anado completely hooked on A&E in investigation discovery so whenever I stopped by her place for a few glasses of wine after work she'd inevitably regail me with a tals from the latest True Crime show that she'd been watching I won't go into too many gory details but one of the things that really creeped me out was when my sister told me something to the effect of they kill the guy you're with right away so they can take their time with you and
that's all that was running through my mind as I sprinted through the trees away from the house away from the rental car and away from Rob I ran and I ran and I ran some more I ran until my lungs hurt until I could feel my pulse thumping in my head until my thighs achd from the Mindless terrifying exertion of running from my very life I ran further than I needed to way further having visions of some ex-marine Sniper being able to pick me off through the trees and at distances I assume were safe I
ran until I felt like I was about to pass out and then when I stopped I puked up all the water and snacks me and Rob had eaten our final meal together and hadn't even known it I think I must have run for about a mile before I came to a road and then after I followed that for a while I saw a fire lookout which turned out to be empty and after that I must have wandered through the hills and woods for at least four 5 hours before I came across any signs of civilization
it's strange to think about it now I was so exhausted and the situation was so surreal that I must have seemed unusually calm to the people whose doorstep I am ended up on I remember asking them politely too if I could please use their phone because my husband had just been shot they thought I was talking about some kind of hunting accident or something but when I told them it had been murder they naturally were very alarmed they asked where it happened if the shooter was headed this way but I told them that I've been
walking for miles and had no idea how to get back to the house by Road I think if I had known Rob might still be alive I'd have been much more frantic in my Pursuit maybe I'd have wanted to go back holding out hope that he could still be saved but I had no hope I saw where he'd been shot I saw the way he fell that man wanted him dead Rob most probably Flatline by the time I stopped to puke and so instead I called the cops and then waited in those nice folks home
until they arrived they asked me to show them where the house was on a map and I said that I only knew the rough area but I showed them as best I could they searched for days but the house was nothing but a smoldering ruin when they finally located it and Rob's body was nowhere to be found his parents kept him on the missing person's register for a few years in the hopes that if someone found his remains it would make the identification process easier but about 18 months ago Rob's mom and dad completed the
process of having him declared legally dead we held out some degree of Hope for a while but at some point we had to face the facts Rob wasn't never coming home he was gone and he was gone forever we held an official funeral for him the following month and since I can't think of any other way to finish this I'll just end with the eulogy that I read out at his funeral Rob was more than just a partner he was my best friend the person I could turn to for light when days seem dark he
lived with a spirit that embraced every moment that found beauty and meaning in small things his kindness and generosity touched everyone he met and his love made my life richer than I ever thought possible though our time together was cut far too short I am grateful beyond words to have loved him and Been Loved by him he's not just with us in memory he's in every laugh and every act of kindness and every Adventure that we take in his honor so thank thank you rob for every precious moment I will carry you with me always
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