The Last Mile Read Online Free

was smeared with blood—a normal red, surprisingly enough. He only wished there was more of it.
    The beast came down on its front legs once more and whirled to face him. Its eyes were still an emotionless dead-black, but its chest heaved with a combination of exertion and fury, and mad froth dripped in thick white gobs from its muzzle. It stood for a moment, regarding him, as if to say, I WAS gonna make it quick, asshole, but not anymore. Now I’m gonna do you as slow and nasty as I can.
    Blood dripped from the machete wound on the deer-thing’s flank, but the cut wasn’t deep enough to slow it down, let alone stop it. Dan considered making a grab for the machete, or maybe trying to get back into the car so he could snag one of his other weapons. But he knew he was just indulging in the last wishful fantasies of a soon-to-be-dead man. There was no way in hell he could hope to move fast enough to avoid becoming a post-apocalyptic shish kebab.
    Then Dan noticed the thorn-stalks around the deer-thing were quivering, as if something had excited them. The deer-thing noticed, too. It moved its head first right, then left, then back again, and it pawed the broken surface of the road with one of its front hooves in a way that Dan could only perceive as nervous. The deer-thing seemed to hesitate and a shiver ran along its body. Dan thought the creature was going to bolt, and maybe it would have, but before it could take a step, one of the thorn-stalks shot toward it with the speed of a striking viper. The stalk slithered into the wound on the deer-thing’s flank, turning as it invaded the creature’s body, thorns acting like a miniature rotary saw and widening the hole as it sank deeper into its victim’s flesh. Blood sprayed from the growing wound, and the deer-thing threw back its head and opened its mouth wide to release an agonized bellow. But as soon as the sound left its throat, another thorn-stalk attacked, this one lengthening as it stretched toward the deer-thing’s open mouth, wriggled past its shark teeth, and continuing on down its gullet, spinning thorns shredding the beast’s insides into hamburger. Dark blood gushed from the deer-thing’s ruined mouth as its legs buckled, and then it fell with a heavy dull smack onto the broken asphalt of the road.
    The thorn-stalks’ poison began to go to work immediately. The deer-thing’s gray hide become mottled black, as if the creature were afflicted with rapidly accelerated gangrene. Its sides swelled like a balloon attached to a helium tank with the nozzle turned wide open. The deer-thing wasn’t dead, though, not yet. Its glossy black eyes darted back and forth in confusion, as if it couldn’t bring itself to believe what was happening. And then the creature’s gaze focused on Dan, and there was no mistaking the utter hatred that now blazed from those previously dead eyes.
    Dan smiled grimly. “Fuck you, too.”
    And then the deer-thing’s sides burst open as it popped like a red, wet piñata.
    Instantly, scores of thorn-stalks writhed forward and covered the grisly remains of the deer-thing, so numerous and so tightly woven that they made a domelike covering over the carcass. And then loud, greedy slurping sounds filled the air as the thorn-stalks began to feed.
    “Jesus Christ, are they eating that thing?”
    Startled, Dan turned to look back at the Olds. For a moment, he’d forgotten about the woman. He walked toward the passenger-side back door, moving slowly so as not to excite any more of the thorn-stalks. Those stalks surrounding the car that hadn’t joined the others in feasting on the deer-thing’s corpse quivered with what seemed to Dan to be excitement, as if they were eager to get in on the fun, and he didn’t want to draw their attention. He leaned in the front and saw the hunting knife and the 9mm on the floor of the car. He grabbed both, sliding the gun into the back of his pants barrel-first and holding on to the hunting knife with his left