The Last Mile Read Free Page A

with hate, and then it charged.
    “Fuck!” Dan shouted, misting the inside of the windshield with blood. He let go of the chicken wire and reached for one of his weapons, but his hand found the passenger seat empty. His gun and blades must’ve gotten knocked onto the floor during one of the creature’s previous attacks. With no other recourse, Dan threw himself down onto the passenger seat as the antlered beast mounted the hood and lowered its head at the windshield.
    Another impact and the muffled sound of safety glass cracking. Antler points white as bone protruded through the glass, but the windshield remained in place. But then the creature hauled its head back, taking the panel of safety glass with it, and cold air rushed in through the space where the windshield had been. Dan knew it would only take the beast a few seconds to shake free the remains of the windshield, then it would attack again, and this time there would be no barrier to stop it from skewering him.
    Dan reached for the front passenger door, hoping it wasn’t too damaged to work. He gripped the handle, pulled, and for a terrifying instant it seemed as if the door wasn’t going to budge, but then it sprung open. Dan gripped the seat and pulled himself forward, and half-fell, half-rolled out of the car. He looked back in time to see the creature’s antlers spear through the open windshield and pierce the fabric of the front seat.
    “Don’t leave me!” the woman in the backseat shouted, her voice panicked and more than a little accusatory.
    Dan didn’t have time to reassure her. The beast had attacked with such force that the tips of its antlers were stuck in the car seat’s upholstery. But strong as the thing was, Dan knew it would only take a moment to free itself. He reached back into the car, keeping his eyes on the creature as he felt around on the floor of the passenger seat for a weapon, any weapon. His fingers closed around the hilt of the machete, and he was about to lunge forward and strike at the rough, pebbly hide of the beast’s neck when he felt something brush his pants leg. Without thinking he spun around and sliced the blade through the thorn-stalk that had been rubbing against his jeans. Thick crimson gore spurted from both halves of the stalk, and Dan sensed more than heard a high-pitched sound, as if the plant had shrieked a death cry. He turned back to the car and saw that the antlered creature was no longer stuck in the upholstery.
    Dan leaped to his feet and spun around. There, standing amidst a mass of waving thorn-stalks and regarding him with black-marble eyes, was the deer.
    At least, that was the name the animal had gone by in the World Before; as far as Dan knew, it had no name in the World After. It still possessed the general shape of a deer, though it was larger and more muscular, like an elk. Its multipronged antlers were fashioned from thick bone, the tips needle-sharp and angled forward, obviously designed—make that re designed—for impaling prey. Its mouth was larger and filled with triangular, serrated teeth that resembled those of a shark. A long black tongue that reminded Dan of a giraffe’s emerged from the mouth and moistened its rough-hided snout, as if the creature was so eager to taste its prey that it couldn’t wait and had to taste something , even if only itself. But perhaps the most striking change was its skin. Instead of a deer’s tawny coat, the beast’s hide resembled that of a rhinoceros: gray, thick, wrinkled. Dan had seen the creatures before, of course, standing alongside the Way and watching with baleful, hungry gazes as he drove past, but he’d never seen one step into the road before. He’d assumed they were afraid of the thorn-stalks, but now he saw that he’d been mistaken. The stalks brushed against the beast’s flanks, caressing and stroking its gray skin, smearing thorn poison on its rough flesh. But the thorns, sharp as they were, could not penetrate the creature’s