Demon hitches a ride with a muddy man who turns out to be a preacher returning from a fishing trip in Kentucky. The preacher asks why Demon is heading to “Murder Valley,” and Demon says he is going to see his grandmother, Betsy Woodall, though he admits he has never truly known her and cannot be sure she even exists. Demon weighs worst-case outcomes—cops, not finding her, being lied to—but decides none are worse than staying stuck where he came from.

As they travel, Demon lies that he is “going on fifteen” and listens to the preacher’s fishing talk, which triggers memories of Mr. Peg and the Peggots that Demon now feels angry about. Because Carter Valley is remote and it is getting dark, the preacher deliberately drops Demon at an all-night truck stop, believing it will be safer and easier for Demon to find another ride.

At the truck stop, a drug-seeking, older woman approaches Demon and offers sex while asking for “ice,” meaning oxycodone. Demon tries to escape her by going into the mini-mart and then hiding in the men’s restroom, shaken and unable to move on while she hovers outside.

Inside a stall, Demon finally counts the money he saved in his peanut butter jar, imagining it as proof he is worth something when he reaches his grandmother. As Demon counts, the woman follows him into the men’s room, spies the jar, and taunts him, then physically looks over the stall. Demon bolts out, and the woman immediately screams that Demon robbed her.

The cashier and onlookers side with the woman. Despite Demon’s protests, the cashier punches Demon, seizes Demon’s backpack, finds the jar, and hands it to the woman, who falsely claims it is her “pin money” saved in a peanut butter jar. Demon, furious and humiliated, lashes out verbally and then leaves the truck stop with nothing, continuing down the highway toward his grandmother as penniless as when he started.