The Last Mile

Dan gripped the steering wheel tighter as his ancient Oldsmobile juddered across cracked and broken asphalt. He knew he should slow down, but considering what he carried in the backseat, he couldn’t afford to. There were far too many hungry things out here who’d kill—or worse—steal his prize.

C’mon, baby, just hold together for one more run… please…

It wasn’t a prayer, not exactly. Like everyone else in the World After, Dan knew there was no use in praying. If you wanted any special favors, you had to sacrifice to get them. The brand on his forehead—the scarred flesh swollen and feverish—was ample reminder of that. The heat blazing from his thrall-mark was growing more intolerable by the moment, and he gritted his teeth against the pain of his Master’s summons.

I’m on my way! Dan had no idea if his Master could hear his thoughts, especially from this distance, but the pain didn’t lessen. He knew it wouldn’t, not until he’d made his delivery. Good thing that his thoughts weren’t heard, he decided. Drawing attention to himself would probably just get him more pain as a goad to travel faster.

The road he sped along used to be Interstate 75, a major highway running through southwest Ohio, but now most people referred to it simply as the Way. Since the Masters’ arrival, the surface had become warped, the asphalt shot through with fissures. Jagged chunks of road stuck up at odd angles, and large subsidences were all-too-common hazards. Thick stalklike weeds sprouted between the cracks: ugly, distorted things, crimson thorns protruding from rough tree-bark surfaces, barbs dripping poisonous slime. Despite the speed with which he drove, the thorn-stalks managed to sway out of the path of his car, moving aside or bending down so he could drive over them. And those stalks that couldn’t get out of the way of his tires withdrew into the cracks from which they’d sprung, rising once more after he’d passed. While the thorn-stalks were by no means the worst things inhabiting the World After, Dan hated the sinuous, serpentine way they moved, and no matter how many runs he made, he didn’t think he’d ever get used to the damn things.

Though thorn-stalks grew thick on the highway, the land on either side was completely barren, the ground smooth and sickly gray, as if all life had been leeched from it. But Dan knew there was life out there—at least what passed for life in the World After—lying hidden, waiting for anyone foolish enough to come here in the first place and suicidal enough to leave the meager protection offered by the Way. If Dan were to stop the Olds, park, and step out of his vehicle here, even his thrall-mark might not be enough to save him. That’s why he traveled prepared: a 9mm, a large hunting knife, and a machete lay within easy reach on the passenger seat. He used to have a shotgun, too, but he’d lost it during his last run, and as punishment for his carelessness, his Master hadn’t allowed him to replace it yet. As punishments went in the World After, Dan thought he’d gotten off light.

The sky was filled with a sour yellow haze, like fog but not quite. Dan had once read about the pollution that choked cities during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1800s. He imagined it would have looked something like this sky—a perpetual haze that was always the same, without any variance to mark the difference between day and night. If, indeed, there was any now.

The outside air was cold, and though Dan drove with the windows up, the Olds’ heater hadn’t worked for years, even before the Masters’ arrival, and the inside of the car was chilly. But that was good: the cold helped keep him awake and alert. He hoped it would stay like this. The temperature in the World After could vary wildly at times, going from freezing to sweltering in the blink of an eye. He much preferred making a run in the cold than in the heat. The thorn-stalks grew more aggressive when it was warm, and Dan had heard stories from other thralls that, when it was really hot out, the plant creatures became frenzied and tried to puncture car tires. Dan didn’t know if the tales were true—if such attacks took place, no one had ever survived to confirm them—but he’d rather not find out for himself.

A soft moan came from the backseat, startling him. He glanced over his shoulder, and through the chicken-wire mesh that he’d erected as a barrier between the front and back seats, he saw that the girl was beginning to stir. Great. He hated it when they woke up. Making a run was hard enough without having to keep an eye on a passenger, and delivering them to his Master was far easier when he didn’t have to look them in the eye. Last time…

He turned forward to face the road once more. If he was lucky, maybe she’d lapse back into unconsciousness. But he knew he couldn’t count on luck. No one could, not anymore.

Alice was first aware of a terrible throbbing in her head, made all the worse by being jostled around. A moan escaped her lips, and she tried to retreat into the comforting darkness where there was no pain, no awareness, no anything. But despite her efforts—or perhaps in a perverse way, because of them—she found herself becoming increasingly awake. She didn’t want to open her eyes, because if she did, then she would be forced to acknowledge her surroundings, and in turn she would have to deal with whatever had happened to her. Whatever had occurred, it was undoubtedly bad, and considering just how bad things could get in the World After, she’d prefer to remain unconscious.

She opened her eyes anyway.

She saw a ceiling, a dome light, and realized she was lying on the backseat of a car. A moving car, which explained the jostling. She tried to push herself into a sitting position, but she couldn’t move her arms. She raised her head—setting off a fresh wave of pain behind her eyes—and saw that her wrists were bound with duct tape. Her knees were up so she couldn’t see her feet, but it took her only a second to try and move them, confirming that her ankles were likewise bound. She felt panic surge in her chest, and before she could stop herself, she drew in a gasping breath.

“Guess you’re awake, huh?”

The man didn’t turn around to look at her. His voice was calm, devoid of emotion, but that was nothing special. Everyone sounded like that these days. All she could see through the chicken-wire barrier was shaggy black hair spilling onto the shoulders of a brown leather jacket. She couldn’t tell how old the man was, but there was a bit of gray mixed in with the black, and she guessed he was in his late thirties to mid-forties. She had no idea who he was, nor how she’d gotten here, but she’d bet it had something to do with the pain throbbing in her skull.

A memory flashed through her mind then: standing in an alley, rooting through a trash can, searching for scraps of anything that resembled food. The trash offered slim pickings—people didn’t throw much away anymore—but she’d managed to find an apple core with a little bit of fruit left on it. She was just bringing the rotting treasure to her mouth when she heard the scrape of a shoe behind her. Before she could react, she’d been struck on the back of the head by something hard: a gun butt or knife handle, she guessed. Light exploded behind her eyes, followed by darkness.

That’s when he took me, she thought. Damn it, if I’d only been faster!

The realization that she’d been taken captive sent a new jolt of fear shooting through her. There were so many horrible reasons why a woman might be kidnapped these days, especially one still in her teens… rape and torture the least of them.

A kernel of panic began to grow inside of her, and she knew that if she didn’t stop it now, it would take root and spread until it overwhelmed her. And if that happened, if she surrendered to her terror, she’d be as good as dead—or worse. So with an effort of will, she squashed her fear, jammed it down deep inside until a calming numbness settled over her. Only then did she trust herself to speak.

There were so many questions she could ask, but the first one that popped out was, “Why didn’t you put tape over my mouth?”

Her captor didn’t reply at first, and she thought that either he didn’t hear her or intended to ignore her. But then he said, “What?”

“You taped my hands and feet, so obviously you don’t want me to go anywhere. But why don’t you care if I talk? I’d think it would be distracting, having a captive chattering away in the backseat…”

She couldn’t believe what she was saying! Was she still dazed from the blow that had knocked her out? Had she suffered some sort of brain damage? The last thing she should be doing was annoying her kidnapper!

The man paused, as if considering his reply, but when he finally answered, he sounded tired rather than annoyed. “I’m not allowed to put tape over the mouth. It… muffles the screams.”

She almost lost it then, but she bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. Pain flared bright and she tasted blood, but the panic receded once more. You can make it through this, she told herself. Just stay cool, stay smart…

It wasn’t easy bound as she was, and with a head that felt as if something with razor-sharp claws was trying to dig its way out of her brain, but she managed to sit up in the backseat, though she paid for her small triumph when nausea twisted her gut. It didn’t help that she’d swallowed a mouthful of blood from her cheek wound. Despite the chill air inside the car, she felt suddenly feverish and feared that she was going to throw up.

Careful now… you don’t want to piss him off by puking on the upholstery.

The thought that her life might hinge on whether she could choke back her vomit struck her as wildly funny, and she felt a wave of laughter building inside her. She wondered which would come out first—puke or laughter—or if she’d blow chunks the same instant that she started braying like an insane donkey. In the end, the competing impulses canceled each other out, and she was able to sit there quietly. Her head even seemed to hurt a little less.

Score one for hysteria, she thought.

She turned to look out the right passenger window to get an idea where she was, but the view wasn’t much help. Yellow-fog sky, smooth gray ground, the damn thorny weeds that seemed to sprout through every major road in the world now, almost as if they were there to make travel more difficult. She wasn’t in town anymore, but other than that, she couldn’t say where she was. She supposed what really mattered was where she was being taken.

I’m not allowed to put tape over the mouth. It… muffles the screams.

She decided she didn’t want to know where they were headed. Not yet.

“Your car doesn’t sound too good.” A major understatement. From all the rattling, chuffing, and banging, it sounded as if the damn thing was going to shake itself apart any minute.

“It’ll get us where we need to go. We’ve only got a mile or so left.” His tone was flat and emotionless as before, but Alice thought she detected a trace of doubt in his voice.

So, Leather Jacket’s car was on the verge of breaking down. If it did, that might work to her advantage, providing an opportunity for escape. But escape to where? Town was dangerous enough, but out here… She’d rarely been outside the city limits since the arrival of the Masters, and even then she hadn’t gone far. But she’d heard stories of what it was like. Everyone had. And even if only a fraction of the tales were true, she might live longer—and her death might be easier—if she remained with her captor.

Alice was still pondering what, if anything, she could do to save herself when she saw a dark blur of motion out of the corner of her eye. Something large and swift slammed into the driver’s side of the car, and Alice, unable to control her emotions any longer, screamed.

On the day that would forever after be known as the Arrival, Dan was on his way home from work and he was in an exceptionally foul mood. His boss had wanted him to stay late and work overtime because production was down, and when Dan refused, he’d gotten a royal reaming out. This place has put food on your family’s table for how many years now, Dan? Seventeen? When you started here, you were one of the hardest workers we had. Now I guess you’re nothing but another lazy-ass slob, just like all the rest, huh?

Dan had wanted to say, No, I’ve put food on my family’s table by working my ass off for you the last seventeen years, you unappreciative sonofabitch! But he gritted his teeth and said nothing. He knew from long experience in the machine shop that talking back to the boss only made things worse. But he’d held his ground on the overtime demand, and in the end he’d won, simply because he’d worked there longer than anyone except the boss himself, and the shop couldn’t afford to lose him.

Dan was thinking for perhaps the thousandth time about taking night classes at Adkins State Community College to train for another career so he could quit the shop when he turned onto his street. He was less than a quarter mile from his house when it happened. The sky grew instantly dark, as if a sudden storm were approaching. The air was tinged bruise-purple and it seemed to ripple, as if waves of heat were pouring off the surface of the street. Once, back when he was single and living in an apartment complex, Dan had been walking outside, carrying a load of laundry to his car. He’d forgotten that a solar eclipse was supposed to happen that day, and when he stepped out into the strange purple-blue light and saw weird crescent-shaped shadows on the ground, for an instant he’d imagined that he’d somehow crossed over into another world. He had that same feeling now.

He braked, put the Olds in park, and stepped out of the car. He wasn’t sure why he stopped, especially since his house was so close, but he wasn’t surprised to see other people up and down the street reacting the same way, coming out of their houses, standing at the windows, eyes wide and frightened. They’d all felt it: something was happening, something important. The rippling in the air grew more pronounced, and was now accompanied by a dizzying buzz that seemed to come from within his ears. Vertigo washed over him, and he had to lean back against his car to keep from falling. He felt no fear. What was happening was so different from anything he’d ever experienced before that his mind didn’t know how to react to it yet.

The ground groaned beneath his feet, as if the earth itself had suffered some manner of injury. Tiny fissures appeared in the asphalt, like cracks in black ice, and began to widen and spread. The neighborhood dogs began howling then, a high-pitched wail that sounded more feline than canine. Dan looked at the lawns across the street and saw the grass turn white, the blades curling downward like a mass of dying insects drawing in their legs. He sensed movement off to his right, heard a soft plap as something hit the street. He turned and saw a robin lying on the asphalt, legs quivering, streams of blood running from where its eyes had been. Another bird—a cardinal—fell from the sky, followed by a second robin, then a sparrow. Dozens more fell out of the wounded sky, all dead or dying, all bleeding from empty eye sockets. Dan covered his head with his arms to protect himself from the rain of dead birds, but the thought of getting back into his car never occurred to him. It was as if he were in the grip of some powerful instinct, a need to stand and bear witness to what was happening.

The dogs’ howling rose in pitch until it sounded as if the animals were screaming with one terrified voice. Still Dan wasn’t afraid… not until the sky opened a million eyes and gazed down upon him with alien hunger.

Alice shook her head, trying to deny what was happening. Dead birds littered the parking lot around her, the ground beneath her feet trembled, and eyes filled the dark-bruise sky. Dead eyes, insect eyes: cold, calculating, and hungry. Eyes that didn’t blink, that took in everything and gave back nothing. She felt scrutinized in a way she never had before, as if every one of those eyes was fixed on her, analyzing her down to the subatomic level and finding her wanting. She wore a white blouse, black pants, and black shoes—the standard uniform for servers at the Pasta Pavilion. She’d been on her way to work when everything began to change, and while she knew it wasn’t the greatest job in the world, she’d liked it well enough. But now, standing beneath the pitiless gaze of those alien eyes, she understood what a joke she really was. She was a subservient cow in a world full of near-mindless cattle, carrying platters of food to overweight carb-addicts so they could stuff their bloated faces and grow even more obese than they already were.

This realization forced Alice to her knees. Her left knee crushed the head of a dying starling in the process—staining her black pants with blood—but she barely noticed, so overwhelmed was she with despair. She bowed her head as tears ran down her face and deep sobs wracked her body.

“No more…” she pleaded.

But there was more. Much.

Dan spun the steering wheel in a frantic attempt to maintain control of the Olds. Whatever had broadsided them had started the car fishtailing, and while that would’ve been dangerous enough on a smooth road, the broken surface of the Way made correcting for the impact a nightmare—and the woman screaming in the backseat didn’t do anything to help his concentration. The car slid, shuddered, bounced, and at one point threatened to tip over. A loud chunk! came from the rear, and Dan was thrown forward as the Olds ground to a stop. His forehead hit the steering wheel, forcing his teeth together with a painful clack and catching the tip of his tongue. Sharp pain lanced from the wound down to the root of his tongue, and Dan’s mouth filled with blood as his head jerked back and slammed into the headrest. The Olds’ airbags had been activated months ago, during one of his earliest runs, and without any way to have them reinstalled, he’d simply removed them. In all the time since, he hadn’t had an accident, but now he wished he’d tried harder to find a way to make the airbags work again.

The woman was still screaming, and Dan spun around to glare at her. He tried to tell her to shut up, but what came out was Thyutt uhh! along with a spray of blood. It splattered onto the woman’s face and greasy blonde hair, and the shock of it did what perhaps his words wouldn’t have: she stopped screaming.

Before Dan could say or do anything else, a large object collided with the driver’s-side door, spinning the Olds around and sending him crashing back into the steering wheel. Pain blazed between his shoulder blades, and he reached out with both hands and grabbed onto the chicken-wire barrier to steady himself. The woman had been thrown down onto the backseat once more, and while she looked shaken, she appeared uninjured. Dan was relieved; she was worthless to him dead. Still holding tight to the chicken wire, Dan turned to look over his shoulder, ignoring the resultant flare of pain in his back. He wanted to get a look at whatever was attacking them so he’d have some notion of how to fight it. He knew they just couldn’t stay inside the car and hope it would get tired and go away. Everything was a predator of one kind or another in the World After, and none of them ever gave up.

A large form stepped in front of the car—four legs, long neck, narrow head, curved antlers, armored hide… The creature regarded Dan for a moment, its moist black eyes filled 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 redesigned—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 tough hide. This deer-thing was perfectly adapted for traversing the Way.

Dan wondered then why none of the other deer-things he’d seen had ever tried to attack him before. Maybe he’d been traveling too fast to make good prey on his other runs, and his Olds had finally gotten so beat-up and slow to attract this one’s attention today. Or perhaps there was no reason at all. There often wasn’t in the World After. Things—almost always bad things—just happened because they happened.

Dan’s thrall-mark still blazed with the heat of his Master’s summons, and he stood still, allowing the deer-thing to see the brand on his forehead. It was impossible to say how intelligent the creature was, but the deer-thing didn’t have to be a thinking beast to recognize a thrall-mark. The question was whether it would be deterred by the sight, or if it were hungry enough to try to kill him anyway and risk a Master’s wrath.

“I’m not worth the trouble,” Dan said. His voice was distorted by his injured tongue, and blood dribbled past his lips as he spoke, but that didn’t matter. The bulk of the message would be carried by his thrall-mark.

The deer-thing cocked its mutated head as if considering Dan’s words. But then from the backseat of the Olds the woman, who had managed to pull herself into a sitting position again and was staring at the deer-thing with wide, disbelieving eyes, said, “What the fuck is that?”

The deer-thing looked at Dan and gray-hide lips pulled back from its shark teeth in an obscene parody of a smile. The creature might be willing to forego one meal to keep from angering a Master, but two? The hell of it was, Dan understood. If their places had been reversed, he’d have made the same decision. The creature let out a cry that sounded like a baby’s scream, its fetid breath misting on the cold air. Then it lowered its antlers and came rushing toward Dan.

Dan stood close to the open passenger door, and as the creature ran at him, he feinted right, then moved left. The deer-thing was moving too fast to correct its trajectory, and it plunged antlers first through the open passenger door. The sharp prongs sliced into the upholstery of the seat, and the woman’s shriek rose to an ear-splitting pitch. Dan didn’t wait for the deer-thing to begin freeing itself from the upholstery; he slammed his shoulder into the door, smashing it into the creature’s side. The deer-thing howled in pain. Tough as its hide might be, but armored it wasn’t. Dan shoved his weight against the car door again, putting even more muscle into it this time, and the antlered monstrosity gave forth a cry that matched Dan’s captive for sheer volume. Dan was about to slam the car door into the creature again, but the sound of ripping fabric warned him that the deer-thing had freed itself. He moved out of the way as the beast extricated itself, the door swinging violently outward as the deer-thing backed away from the car.

Dan didn’t know if he’d injured the creature or merely annoyed it, but either way, he couldn’t afford to give it another chance to attack. As the thing rushed backward, Dan lifted his machete high and swung it back down with all the force he could muster. The blade bit into the beast’s right flank, but the thick pebbly hide prevented it from penetrating more than an inch. Even so, the impact sent pain jolting up through Dan’s arm and into his shoulder, but he didn’t release his grip on the machete’s handle. He leaned forward, pressing down on the weapon, hoping to cut farther into the deer-thing’s leathery gray skin. Dan knew he needed to do more than just hurt the creature if he wanted to survive; he had to hurt it bad.

The deer-thing reared up onto its hind legs, the motion yanking the machete from Dan’s hand. The blade remained stuck in the creature’s hide for a second before dislodging and falling to the broken asphalt with a metallic clatter. Dan was gratified to see the blade 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 hand. He turned and cast a longing gaze at the machete, but it lay too close to the mound of feasting thorn-stalks, and he wasn’t about to risk retrieving it. He’d make do with what he could salvage.

He unlocked the back door, opened it, then stepped back just in case the woman should get any cute ideas about trying to attack him. But she just sat there, staring up at him with an expression that was equal parts fear and irritation.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Cut me loose and let’s get the hell out of here before something else tries to kill us!”

“Daddy… is it still out there?”

Dan knelt on the couch and pushed the blinds open a crack so he could peer through the picture window. All that remained of his lawn were scattered patches of dead grass; otherwise, the ground was bare and lifeless, the soil gray as potter’s clay. The yard was far from empty, though. Bone shards, tufts of fur, and bits of rotting flesh were scattered across the ground, the remains of those animals that had died during the Arrival—birds, cats, dogs, rabbits, squirrels… It had only been a few days, but little was left, thanks to the predators that inhabited what Dan was already coming to think of as the World After. Predators like the misshapen thing standing on the other side of the picture window, watching him with eyes that shone with far too much intelligence.

It was part bovine, part human, a woman’s head hanging upside down where an udder should’ve been, her tongue lolling, matted black hair dragging the ground. It possessed a long serpent in place of a tail, the head curled underneath the main part of the creature’s body so its forked tongue could taste the udder-head’s ear. The cow body was scrawny, its dry, leathery brown hide stretched tight across bone, so tight that the flesh had torn in numerous place, revealing glimpses of the yellowed skeleton beneath. The cow head looked as if it had been dipped in acid, for it was nothing but a skull—except for the eyes. They remained untouched, and they stared at Dan with what he interpreted as malign amusement.

He took his trembling hands away from the blinds and let them fall back into place. It did no good, though; he could still feel the creature’s gaze upon him whether he could see it or not.

“I’m afraid so, honey.” He got off the couch and walked over to the chair where his daughter was sitting. He sat on the arm and looked at her. Lindsey was almost twelve, and she resembled her mother so much that it brought a lump to his throat whenever he saw her. Curly black hair, round face, full lips, lean torso, long arms and legs, a heartbreaker in waiting for sure. She sat with her legs drawn to her chest, arms wrapped around them, gently rocking back and forth for whatever slight comfort the motion might bring. She wore the same clothes she had on during the Arrival: black soccer shorts and an Eeyore T-shirt. Yesterday, he’d suggested she might want to change into clean clothes, but that had set her to screaming at the top of her lungs for the better part of an hour. After that, Dan had decided to let her go grubby for as long as she wanted.

“I’m glad you didn’t lie to me,” Lindsey said. She stared straight ahead, not looking at him. She hadn’t made eye contact since the Arrival. “Adults always lie to kids to try and protect them. I’m glad you’re not like that.”

Dan wished he could lie to her, but how could he possibly convince her that everything was going to be okay? They had no electricity or water, but he could come up with any number of lies to explain that. But how could he ever explain what Lindsey could see for herself simply by looking out the goddamned window? How could he explain what had happened to her mother? He didn’t tell Lindsey the truth out of any moral principle; he didn’t have any other options.

“How are you doing, honey?” he asked. “You hungry or thirsty?” His daughter had barely taken any nourishment since the Arrival, and what little she did eat or drink, she did so only because Dan forced her.

She shook her head. “No. But even if I was, it’s not like we have anything.”

“We have food.” But even as he said it, he knew it was, if not exactly a lie, a refusal to acknowledge the complete truth. They’d been in need of a grocery run before the Arrival, and since… well, once Dan had made it back to his house, he hadn’t unlocked any of the doors, let alone set foot outside. He doubted any of the stores were open anymore, or ever would be again, but even if they were, he knew he wouldn’t survive long enough to cross his yard, not with that abomination standing out there watching. For the foreseeable future, they’d have to make do with what they had, and that wasn’t much. Some stuff in cans that they couldn’t heat up and a couple liters of diet soda that they couldn’t chill. And once that was gone… How long could a person survive without eating or drinking? A couple weeks without food, but only a few days without water. He planned to ration the soda, but even if they could survive on a drop apiece each day, he knew it wouldn’t last long enough.

He leaned down and gave Lindsey a kiss on the top of her head. She flinched as his lips touched her hair, but she didn’t pull away, and for that Dan was grateful.

He stood. “I think I’ll go check on your mother.” He didn’t ask Lindsey if she wanted to come. He didn’t want her to. She hadn’t seen her mother since a few hours after the Arrival, and Dan intended to keep it that way.

Lindsey didn’t reply, didn’t do anything to acknowledge he’d spoken. He considered telling her not to peek through the blinds, but she rarely left the chair since the Arrival, and he didn’t want to remind her of what was waiting outside. He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile but felt more like a grimace. Not that it mattered since she wasn’t looking at him. Then he turned and left the living room, and though the blinds remained closed, he nevertheless felt the cow creature’s unsettling gaze upon him as he walked past the couch.

They lived in one-story ranch. A nice home, nothing fancy and not huge, but big enough for the three of them. While it was the most house they could afford, they wouldn’t have been happy with anything bigger, for they were a close family and liked spending time near each other. At least, they used to.

Dan walked down the hall, his nose wrinkling as he passed the closed door of the hallway bathroom. Without running water, they had no way to flush the toilet, and since it wasn’t safe to go outside—or even open a window to dump the contents of a makeshift chamber pot—the stink was starting to build up. He knew he was going to have to do something about the toilet soon, but he didn’t know what. Plus, there was another problem. The filthy toilet was beginning to draw insects. Roaches, Dan figured, though he hadn’t actually seen them. The last time he’d opened the bathroom door, he’d shined a flashlight inside and heard the scuttling of what seemed like hundreds of tiny legs as the scavengers fled the light. Shuddering, he’d kept the flashlight turned on while he pissed, but when he finished, he’d heard a soft ululating sound, as if a multitude of tiny voices was singing. The tone had struck Dan as one of gratitude, as if the singers were thanking him for providing them with more nourishment.

Dan had rushed out of the bathroom, slammed the door, and hadn’t opened it since. The next time he’d had to urinate, he’d gone out into the garage and pissed in a corner.

He thrust the thought of the roaches’ singing from his mind—he was getting real good at not thinking about things, especially bad things—and continued down the hall to the master bedroom. This door was shut, too, though it wasn’t locked. Across the hall, the door to Lindsey’s room was open, just as it had been on the day of the Arrival. Lindsey hadn’t been back inside since, but Dan had gone in once to get a sleeping bag out of her closet. He slept on the couch at night, and he spread out the sleeping bag on the floor for Lindsey, though she preferred to remain in the chair. Whether she slept, he didn’t know. She was awake when he nodded off at night and awake when he opened his eyes in the morning. Dan slept in the living room to keep an eye on Lindsey, but mostly because he couldn’t bring himself to sleep next to his wife. Not anymore.

He opened the bedroom door, stepped inside, then closed the door behind him with a soft click.

The curtains were drawn, but the room was illuminated by the blue-white glow of the television set atop Caroline’s dresser. Despite the fact that they had no power, the TV still worked. It had turned itself on a couple hours after the Arrival, and no matter what button Dan pushed, it wouldn’t turn off. He’d even pulled the plug from the outlet, but it made no difference. The screen displayed nothing but dancing white-and-black static, but instead of the loud crackling that usually indicated the lack of a signal, a susurration of whispers filtered out of the speaker, sibilant, liquid syllables spoken in a language that Dan didn’t recognize, but which hurt his ears to hear.

Caroline lay naked on top of the mattress, pillows stacked beneath her head so that she could see the TV screen. Lying next to her was the utensil drawer from the kitchen. When she had first seen the flickering static and heard the whispering voices, she’d stared at the TV for several moments before going to the kitchen, removing the utensil drawer, and bringing it back to the bedroom. Dan, having heard the clattering of metal as she pulled the drawer free, had followed her down the hall to their bedroom, asking her what was wrong, what are you doing? But she hadn’t answered. She’d placed the drawer on the bed, taken off her clothes, then climbed onto the mattress, slid her feet toward her ass to raise her knees into the air, let her knees fall to the side to spread her vagina, then reached for a fork.

Dan had yelled at her to stop, had rushed forward to grab her hand, but she turned on him, snarling like an animal, and jammed the fork into the back of his wrist with surprising strength for such a petite woman. Blood welled forth, he shouted, “Fuck!” and cradled his wounded hand against his chest. He stood in shock for a moment, staring down at his wounded wrist, while Caroline put the fork to another use.

Now Dan watched as his wife furiously masturbated with a pie server. She thrust the spadelike object in and out of the ragged ruin of her genitals with sickening moist squelching noises. She hadn’t removed the comforter when she first lay down several days ago, and the bottom half of the bedclothes was covered with blood both old and fresh—wet crimson splashed over a layer of brown crust. She should’ve died soon after beginning her masturbatory marathon, Dan knew that, but no matter how much she injured herself, how much blood poured from between her quivering legs, she grew no weaker, no paler. Despite the copious amount of blood she’d lost, she didn’t appear to be in danger of death, which was good since Dan doubted that, even if they had phone service, anyone would respond to a 911 call. At least, not anyone they wanted to respond.

The horror of Caroline’s condition was more than ample proof that the rules were very different in the World After… if there were any rules at all.

The bedroom stank in a different way than the hall bathroom, but the stench was no less rank: the sour-gamey odor of blood, sweat, and cunt, mixed with the burning ozone smell of hot electronics. But though the stink should’ve sickened him, for some reason he found it less offensive than the bathroom. His stomach didn’t roil, his gorge didn’t rise, and—most disturbing of all—his penis grew partially erect.

This was the reason he didn’t want Lindsey to see her mother… that, and the fear that she might succumb to the awful whispering coming through the television. Like mother like daughter, right? Why he should be resistant to the foul influence coming through the set, he didn’t know. Maybe it was because he was male. Or maybe it was because whatever force that was behind Caroline’s self-mutilation required that she have an audience. (He had yet to learn about the Masters, though he would, and soon.)

“Caroline? Sweetheart? Is there…” His gaze strayed to the utensil drawer, and he saw that the spoons, forks, and knives were all neatly arranged in their proper slots, and they were all covered with blood. Some of it fresh, most of it not. His bile did rise then, and he had to swallow to keep from throwing up. The fact that he’d eaten little the last few days helped. “Is there anything I can do for you?” he finished.

She hadn’t responded to him before, and he had no reason to think she would now. But he had to ask, had to try to make contact. Whatever had happened to Caroline, whatever had possessed her, she was still his wife, and he loved her. He waited several moments, but she continued to ignore him, staring at the snow on the TV screen and stabbing the pie server into the ragged ruin of her sex.

He turned to leave, but as he reached for the doorknob, Caroline spoke for the first time since she’d taken to their bed.

“Owwwww…”

He turned back to face her, hope and fear surging through him in equal measure. Hope that she might at last be coming out of her awful trance, and fear of what she might say.

She didn’t take her gaze off the TV, but the hand that worked the pie server slowed, as if she couldn’t talk and mutilate at the same time.

“Owwww… siiiiiide.”

Dan frowned. “I don’t understand.” He took a step toward her, intending to climb onto the bed and lean close to her mouth so he could hear her better, but then he stopped himself. He loved her yes, as much as ever, but he didn’t know if he could bring himself to get that close to her the way she was. And what if she decided to put that pie server to another use? Like stabbing him in the eye or slicing his carotid artery? Hating himself for it but unable to do anything else, he remained close to the door.

Caroline’s face twisted into a mask of frustration, and for the first time since she’d taken hold of that first fork, she stopped violating herself. Her brow wrinkled as she concentrated. With great effort, she forced the words to come.

“Go… owt… side!”

An icicle of fear lodged in Dan’s spine as he realized what she was saying. Go outside.

“I… I can’t, sweetheart. If you knew… if you saw…”

Caroline turned her head a fraction toward him, and he could tell from her eyes that she was looking at him. More, she was actually seeing him.

“Outside.” She spoke through gritted teeth, as if the effort of speaking clearly was almost more than she could bear. “The Masters… wish it. Help us. Help… ME!”

This last word came out as a shrill cry, and Caroline’s head snapped back to face the TV once more, and she yanked the pie server out of her bloody cunt, sending an arc of blood splattering onto the screen. Then with a howl she plunged the pie server back into herself and returned to ravaging the red-raw hamburger that Dan had been inside so many times, the gateway through which Lindsey had entered the world. Even if the rules were different now, how much of this could Caroline withstand before her body finally couldn’t take anymore and her mind shattered into a thousand screaming shards? Assuming, that is, the latter hadn’t already happened.

Dan opened the door, stepped out into the hallway, then closed the door softly behind him. Moving with slow, deliberate motions as if he were a robot on autopilot, he headed down the hallway and turned left at the foyer. A few steps more and he was standing at the front door.

From the living room, Lindsey called out, “Dad?”

Dan wanted to answer her, but his voice wouldn’t come. He kept hearing Caroline’s words echoing through his head, the horrid whispering of the television serving as an eerie background chorus.

Outside. The Masters… wish it. Help us. Help… ME!

Dan reached for the deadbolt, turned it. Unhooked the chain. Gripped the doorknob. Started to turn it.

He heard Lindsey running toward him, shouting, “No, Daddy! Don’t do it! Don’t leave me!”

He watched, little more than a passenger in his body, as he turned the knob all the way and shoved the door open. He heard Lindsey’s bare feet slapping on the foyer’s tile as she ran toward him, undoubtedly intending to stop him, but without hesitation he stepped onto the porch.

The nightmarish conglomeration that had been standing on his lawn in front of his picture window now stood at the end of his porch. Impossibly, its exposed jaw grinned as it reared up on its hind legs. The udder-head looked at him, smiled, and said, “Moo.”

And then she opened her upside-down mouth wide and vomited forth a stream of greenish yellow milk that struck Dan full in the face.

You CAN’T get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant, she thought, for the simple reason that there wasn’t much left. She sat at one of the Pasta Pavilion’s back booths, leaning forward, arms and hands flat on the table, fingers interlocked, chin resting on the point where her two middle fingers connected. She’d sat in the same position for hours, and her lower back hurt like a bitch, but she didn’t care. What did it matter anymore? What did anything matter?

After what everyone was calling the Arrival—though how they’d all come to agree on that term or even exactly what it meant, she had no idea—Alice had managed to get inside the restaurant, which was a damn lucky thing because it seemed as if half the fucking town had the same idea. So many people had wanted in, wanted to escape the dying birds and the horrible scrutiny of all those goddamned eyes that Jordan, one of the managers, had finally locked the doors, locking everyone else out. Unfortunately, the flip side was true as well: he’d locked them all in.

Sometimes she wondered how her parents and younger brother were doing. She’d tried calling them on her cell not long after Jordan had locked the doors, but the phone was dead—just like her family probably was, too. She knew she should grieve for them, but then again, she didn’t know for sure that they were dead, did she? Besides, it wasn’t as if she really liked them all that much. They were pains in the asses, mostly, her brother especially. The only good thing about the Arrival happening when it did was that she hadn’t ended up stuck at home with them.

There was no electricity in the restaurant, probably none anywhere, she figured. What light there was came from the windows. Jordan had put the blinds down, but the slats were angled partially open to allow some illumination in. There’d been some argument about that initially. The others who made it inside before Jordan locked the doors—Alice didn’t think of them as customers, since she sure as shit wasn’t going to serve any of them—were uncomfortable with leaving the blinds open even a bit. One man, a fat middle-aged guy with thinning red hair who’d been gorging himself regularly at the Pasta Pavilion ever since Alice had started working there, summed up the group’s feelings quite succinctly: We don’t want to let everyone else know we’re in here, do we? And by everyone else it was clear he really meant all those fucking THINGS out there!

And then Fatty had put his fleshy hands on the rolls of flab insulating his hips as if to say, What do you have to say to that, Mr. Man?

Jordan had looked at Fatty as if he’d like nothing better than to sink his fingers into the doughy skin of the man’s neck, feel around until he finally got hold of the asshole’s windpipe, and squeeze the life out of the stupid fat fuck.

But Jordan had more class than that. He was, after all, the manager. In a calm voice, he’d said, “Those windows aren’t fortified, sir. Anyone could break through them if they wished. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to sit here in the dark, wondering what the hell might be sitting next to me.”

In the end, the group voted to let Jordan keep the blinds partially open during the day, and at night… well, it didn’t matter since the sun hadn’t set since the Arrival. So the blinds stayed partly open all the time. Alice admired Jordan for not taking any shit from Fatty and the rest, but she wasn’t sure she was happy with the way things turned out. The restaurant was still pretty damn dark inside, and from time to time people—at least, Alice hoped they were people; she didn’t look too closely—came up to the windows and peeked inside. Everyone made sure to stay well away from the windows then, huddling in the shadows at the back of the restaurant, even hiding under tables sometimes. Shit, some of the people had crawled beneath the tables right after the Arrival and had stayed there ever since. No one, Jordan included, could coax them out, not even to go to the bathroom. They’d been pissing and shitting in their pants, and the air in the restaurant was getting pretty goddamned rank. And the fact that none of them had been able to bathe since the Arrival didn’t help the place smell any better. What she wouldn’t give to take a shower now, even a cold one!

Alice didn’t shift her position, didn’t raise her head as she moved her gaze slowly from left to right, checking out the restaurant’s interior for the bazillionth time. Every booth was filled, as was every chair, and for each person that had a seat, two more were stuck sitting on the floor. In the gloom, the people looked like shadows, only their differences in height and weight giving them any individuality. No one spoke, no one moved. They just sat. Partly to conserve energy as there was little food left. Most of the restaurant’s supplies had spoiled not long after the electricity went out, and since there was no way to cook without power, ingredients like flour and spices were useless. Hell, the kitchen didn’t even have regular can openers, just electric ones, making it a bitch to open cans of stewed tomatoes and the like. But opened they’d been, then rationed out—thanks to Jordan—and devoured. Now there was nothing left but salt, pepper, and packets of artificial sweetener. The water was gone, too, and while they still had a few bottles of wine, Jordan was hoarding those for “an emergency,” he’d told her, though considering what had already happened to the fucking world, she wondered just what the hell would have to take place for him to consider it an emergency.

But another reason—probably the main one—everyone sat quietly was because they were all waiting. Alice, too, though she wasn’t sure what for. But she sensed that things were happening out there in the world… the World After, Jordan had taken to calling it. Though when she’d asked where he’d come up with the phrase, he’d just shrugged and said, “I don’t know. It just seems to fit, you know?” Things were changing outside, and when they were finished… well, that was what they were all waiting for, wasn’t it?

Someone whispered her name, so softly that it was little more than an exhalation.

“Alice.”

She turned her head to look up, the motion sending a jolt of pain down her stiff neck and into her spine. She grimaced, but when she saw that it was Jordan standing next to her table, she smiled. Jordan was twenty-six, seven years older than Alice, and he had an aura of confident maturity that she found sexy. He had a trim body, not too skinny, and broad shoulders. He was taller than she was, but just a little. That was good; she didn’t like it when guys towered over her. Though she knew it was dumb of her, she equated physical distance with emotional distance. Jordan had high cheekbones, a strong chin, and the cutest puppy-dog-brown eyes she’d ever seen. She’d always thought he was cute, but she’d never had the hots for him before. But seeing how he’d taken charge since the Arrival, how he did things while everyone else just sat there—including, too often, her—how everyone listened to him, as if he were a natural leader… she didn’t know if she could legitimately call what she felt for Jordan love, but it was a serious case of like, no doubt.

She sat up, her back pitching a bitch at being forced to move after being stuck in one position so long, but she ignored it.

“Hey,” she whispered. “What’s up?” Not something wrong, she hoped. More wrong than things already were, anyway.

“Could you come back to the kitchen with me?”

She couldn’t detect any hint of what he wanted. His voice was calm, his words without any particular inflection. Nevertheless, she felt a little thrill upon hearing them.

“Sure.”

He smiled and held out his hand to help her up. She didn’t need any help, even with her sore back, but she took his hand anyway. And after she was standing and Jordan didn’t release her hand, she made no move to take it from his gentle grip. Slowly, he led her through the maze of shadowy figures sitting silently on the floor. Some of them looked up as they passed, a few even asked what was going on, but Jordan didn’t answer and no one pressed him. As they neared the kitchen, Alice realized she was trembling, and the crotch of her underwear was damp. She’d seen movies in which people got incredibly horny in dangerous situations. Something about the stress excited them, she supposed, the knowledge that they might die any moment driving them to experience life intensely one last time. She wondered if that was what was happening now between Jordan and her. She imagined him leading her through the swinging doors and into the kitchen, turning around, grabbing her waist, pressing his mouth to hers and kissing her passionately. She imagined tasting him, feeling the wet warmth of his tongue circling hers, hearing his passionate breathing, his pelvis pressed against her, his cock growing hard…

He escorted her through the swinging doors just as she’d pictured, but once they were on the other side, he made no move to embrace her. Instead, he let go of her hand. There were no windows in here, so she couldn’t see anything, but she heard a rustle of cloth that told her he was reaching into his pants pocket. She heard him take something out, fiddle with it for a moment, and then she heard the sound of a striking match, followed closely by the orange-white flare of flame. She squinted as light stabbed into her eyes, and she turned her face away from the burning match—

—and that’s when she saw the body.

Fatty’s bloated corpse lay naked atop a counter next to a cold, useless oven. He’d been cut open from chin to crotch, skin peeled back, ribs sawed away, the glistening-soft secrets that he’d carried hidden within him since before he was born now revealed in all their squishy-wet glory.

She turned to look at Jordan. He looked suddenly shy and uncertain.

“I know… it’s kind of gross, right? But we have to eat something. And the human body’s like, what? Ninety percent water or something? So we can get liquid from him, too.”

Alice continued to look at Jordan for close to a full minute without speaking. When did he lure Fatty back here? How had Jordan killed and… and butchered him without anyone hearing anything? Of all the questions swirling through her mind, though, the one she asked was “Why him?”

“Well, he’s fat, so I figured we’d get the most meat from him.” He shrugged, looking embarrassed. “Besides, he pissed me off. We have to eat him raw, though, since the ovens don’t work. And we have to eat soon so he doesn’t spoil. Soooooo… what do you think?”

Alice smiled, her growling stomach answering for her.

“You’re a thrall, right? You got the mark.”

Dan damn well knew he had the mark. It had appeared on his forehead soon after the cow-thing had vomited its rancid milk on him: a scar-tissue design of spirals and intersecting lines that never seemed to be in the same exact configuration whenever he examined it in the mirror. And even when it didn’t burn—and it was blazing like a motherfucking house fire right now—he could always feel it, as if it were a living tattoo whose ink flowed beneath his skin like a slow but constant tide.

The two of them walked alongside the road, the dead-gray ground giving slightly beneath their weight as if it were formed not of soil but rather some spongelike substance. Dan, 9mm in his right hand, hunting knife in his left, walked several paces behind the girl. She was of medium height and didn’t look all that strong, but you didn’t willingly turn your back on anyone in the World After. Not if you wanted to survive a few minutes longer. He’d cut the tape around her ankles, but he’d left her wrists bound. If they ran into more trouble like that deer-thing, she wouldn’t be able to fight, but he couldn’t risk freeing her hands. She’d turn on him to save her own skin or try to make a run for it. With her hands bound, she’d be less likely to attack, and if she tried to take off, she’d be unbalanced and awkward. She’d have to run slow or she’d trip and fall. Either way, she wouldn’t escape him.

Of course, his reasoning assumed that she was sane, and these days, that was a mighty big assumption, one that could easily get you killed. But he didn’t have any choice. His thrall-mark burned like acid, a constant, agonizing reminder of his Master’s impatience. Dan had to deliver the girl and soon, or else… Well, he didn’t know what else, not precisely, but he knew it would be bad. Damned bad, in the truest sense of the adjective.

The World After was chock-a-block full of delicious little ironies like that, he thought.

As they continued walking, Dan swept his gaze back and forth, alert for any sign of a threat. After a bit, the girl looked over her shoulder at him.

“Where are you taking me?”

Dan didn’t want to talk; his tongue still hurt like a bitch from when he’d bit it. He glanced to his left, saw thorn-stalks waving in the breeze. Except, of course, there was no wind. The air was still and stale, like the inside of a closet that hadn’t been aired out for years. At least the goddamned things couldn’t reach them here. They were ten feet from the road, and Dan had never seen a thorn-stalk stretch that far. But then again, that didn’t mean one couldn’t reach them, not if it really wanted to. He sighed. Life had never come with any guarantees: that much at least hadn’t changed.

“If you don’t answer me, I’ll sit down and refuse to move,” the girl said without turning to face him this time.

Despite himself, Dan responded. “I’ll just carry you.” His speech sounded a little funny due to his wounded tongue, but his words were understandable enough.

“All the way to wherever it is you’re taking me?” She sounded amused. “Even if you were still eating regular, I bet you wouldn’t be strong enough to carry me that far.”

Dan knew she was baiting him, hoping to stall and learn what she could so she could use it to save herself. Even so, her cavalier attitude was beginning to get on his nerves. “I eat just fine. So does my family.”

“That’s right. You’re a thrall.” She emphasized the word as if it were some sort of disgusting insect that should be stepped on immediately and ground into the earth with as much force as possible. “You get food, water, and electricity, don’t you? All for serving your Master.”

“Yes.” Food—canned goods, and even fresh fruits and vegetables—was delivered to his home once a week by another thrall driving a battered pickup truck. Where the food came from, especially the produce, Dan didn’t know and didn’t ask. And as for the utilities, they just worked, presumably because his Master willed it. But he’d gotten so much more than the conveniences of modern life restored. Caroline had returned to her senses after his thrall-mark appeared, and her ghastly self-inflicted wounds healed—to a point. They’d never be able to make love again, but at least his wife was sane. And the return of their conveniences—including regular television, though only one channel that showed randomly selected reruns of old shows—had helped Lindsey come out of her near-catatonia. Life wasn’t back to normal, how could it be? But his family had it a damn site better than most people in the World After, and Dan intended to keep it that way.

“And what does your Master want now? Me?”

Dan didn’t answer. He couldn’t. The girl was dirty, her white blouse dingy and splotched with all manner of stains, many of them blood, he guessed. She was an adult, but only just. Not that much older than Lindsey, really. Biologically speaking, he was old enough to be her father, if he’d gotten married young and started a family right away. The thought of what his Master would do to her…

No, don’t go there, he warned himself. Look what happened last time. You got to stay cold, stay hard. For your family.

They didn’t have that far to go. Less than a mile now. He could do this, had done it plenty of times before. He’d only failed once, and he wouldn’t fail again. He couldn’t.

“Tell me something,” the girl said. “Why is your Master all the way the hell out in butt-fuck Egypt? I mean if he—or it, or whatever—wants you to make like Domino’s and deliver, wouldn’t he have picked someone who lived closer?”

A good question, and one that Dan had pondered on more than one occasion. The best answer he could come up with: because it amused his Master to make his thrall travel.

“Shut the fuck up and keep walking” was the answer he gave the girl instead.

Good going, kiddo. Piss him off any more and he’ll put a couple bullets in your back.

Probably not, she decided. His Master obviously wanted her alive. Still, that didn’t mean the thrall couldn’t get rough with her if she mouthed off too much. But she just couldn’t help herself. She’d always been one to talk before she thought, and she’d only gotten worse since the Arrival. More than just the physical world changed that day: the people had too.

We’re all a little crazy now, she thought. She glanced over her shoulder at the thrall. Some of us more than others.

She faced forward again and marveled at how different the highway looked. This was the first time she’d been so far out of town since the Arrival, and I-75 looked nothing like she remembered. The asphalt on both sides of the highway was cracked and broken; that much was the same as in town. But the large weeds sprouting up from the fissures—thorn-stalks, she’d heard them called—were different. The streets in town might be broken and difficult to travel on, but they remained passable. But she’d seen what the thorn-stalks could do. By the time she and her captor had made it to the side of the road, they’d reduced the deer monster to an empty bag of pebbly gray hide. Even its bones had been liquefied and absorbed. It seemed the Masters had no objections to humans moving about freely in town, as long as they didn’t stray past the city limits.

It’s like we’re pets in a cage, she thought. No, more like animals in a holding pen, waiting our turn to be led to the slaughterhouse.

The mental image sent ice water surging through her veins, and she wondered again what her captor and his Master had in mind for her. Whatever it was, she knew it wouldn’t be as merciful as a quick death.

Live in the moment, she reminded herself. That was the only way to maintain even a margin of sanity in the World After. She thrust aside all thoughts of where she was being taken and what would happen to her there and refocused her attention on her surroundings. She’d grown used to the absence of grass and trees in town, but out here, with no buildings to break the sameness of the smooth gray ground, it seemed as if she was walking across the alien landscape of another world. She supposed that, in way, she was. Between the hazy yellow sky above and the gray barrenness surrounding her, Alice felt both isolated and exposed, and she suffered a touch of vertigo, as if her body was having difficulty telling the difference between up and down. She walked with extra care, concentrating on each step, placing her feet precisely to maintain her balance.

Though many people thought of the Midwest as having flat plains stretching from one horizon to the other, southwest Ohio showed the mark of the glaciers that had made their torturously slow procession across the state thousands of years ago, and the Arrival hadn’t changed that. The highway rose and fell, twisted and turned, melded to the hilly terrain it wound through, as if it were always a part of the land, just as it had before the Arrival. There were other things that had survived intact, though not many, and Alice saw one now off in the distance: a billboard on their side of the highway advertising a twenty-four-hour Starbucks.

She couldn’t help it; she started laughing.

“What’s so funny?” her captor demanded, his voice tense, as if he feared she were losing it.

She momentarily forgot her hands were bound and tried to point at the sign. When she couldn’t, she said, “The billboard. You want to stop off for a cup of coffee? My treat.”

She didn’t look back to check the expression on his face, in case her laughter had made him jumpy. She didn’t want to get a bullet between her shoulder blades for making a stupid joke.

“I’d forgotten that sign was even there,” he said. “I guess I’m always too busy watching the road when I pass this way.”

“Watching for things like that deer, you mean.”

He didn’t respond. He didn’t have to.

She gazed up at the sky. “Do you think they’re still up there? The eyes?” The yellow haze that choked the sky began to coalesce almost immediately after the Arrival, and it hadn’t broken since. No sun, moon, or stars anymore, yet somehow there was light enough to see by, as if the yellow mist gave off its own kind of illumination.

“Oh yes. They’re still there. Sometimes I think they always were, and we just couldn’t see them. Not until they wanted us to.”

The thought that those eyes—eyes that she was sure belonged to the Masters—had been watching them all this time, maybe watching forever, disturbed her more than anything she’d experienced since that day in the parking lot outside the Pasta Pavilion. Until now she’d had her memories of the World Before to comfort her, but her captor’s words forced her to consider the possibility that there never had been a world without the Masters. Never had been a world that was safe, free, and most of all, sane.

The notion filled her with such despair that she didn’t want to resist her captor, didn’t want to escape. Maybe it would be better to let him sacrifice her, or whatever the fuck it was he did. At least then it would all be over, and she’d be free of this nightmare her world had become. She probably deserved whatever was going to happen to her, no matter how awful it might be. Considering the things she’d done since the Arrival…

Alice jumped as the silence of the gray wasteland was broken by the sound of an engine rumbling to life. The rumble grew to a roar, and a motorcycle came speeding out from behind the Starbucks billboard.

Her abductor stepped in front of her, gun in one hand, knife in the other.

“Stay behind me,” he warned.

Alice would’ve taken off running if there’d been anywhere to go. Instead, she remained where she was. Who knows? Maybe the motorcycle rider would turn out to be a knight of the road and save her.

Yeah, right.

As the biker approached he kept to the shoulder where the thorn-stalks didn’t grow. The plants quivered as he passed, and a few made token grabs in his direction, but none came close to touching him. He throttled back and slowed as he drew near. The biker wore no helmet and Alice clearly saw the thrall-mark on his forehead, similar to her captor’s.

The biker’s head was shaved, and he sported a black goatee. He wore only a tan leather vest, and almost all of the skin displayed was covered with tattoos. He was a stout man, with thick arms, a broad chest, and a layer of belly fat that somehow made him look tougher than if he had six-pack abs. He gripped the handlebars tight, knuckles pronounced, the skin covering them red and scarred. Alice guessed those knuckles had seen a lot of hard use over the years. She didn’t recognize the type of bike he was riding—she’d never been into motorcycles, never even ridden one—but it wasn’t the sort of bike that the Born to be Mild crowd rode. The kind that was big, awkward, and slow, pieces made out of colorful plastic as if it were a child’s toy that had been zapped by a growth ray. Mr. Goatee’s bike was the real deal: lean and mean, all metal and built for speed. The wooden stock of a shotgun rose over his right shoulder, and Alice guessed he carried the weapon in some kind of holster, though she didn’t see any straps under his vest. Maybe the holster was part of the vest. Was that possible?

Very observant, she congratulated herself. Now what about the fact that he doesn’t have any legs?

Alice had left that little detail for last because she hadn’t wanted to deal with it. But it was true: the biker had no legs. At first she thought he was a double amputee who’d somehow rigged the bike’s controls so he could do everything he needed with his hands. But if that was true, then how could he stay seated on the bike without slipping off? The answer turned out to be quite simple. He didn’t have to worry about falling off the bike because he was part of it. His waist had somehow been merged with the bike’s leather seat, making him some sort of mechanical centaur.

The biker rolled to a stop and the kickstand deployed by itself, keeping the motorcycle from toppling over. Mr. Goatee let go of the handlebars and crossed his arms over his chest, covering the spot where Alice’s captor trained his gun.

“You don’t see too many folks walking out here these days,” Mr. Goatee said.

Alice expected the biker’s voice to be husky from too much booze and too many cigarettes. But he spoke in a clear, smooth voice. Deep, but not menacing. He’d be perfect for radio, Alice thought. If there still was radio.

“I’m on a run,” her captor said. “Had a little accident a ways back. Hit a deer, or something that had been a deer once. Damn thing was so strong it wrecked my car.” He sounded friendly enough as he talked, but Alice noticed he didn’t lower his gun.

Mr. Goatee nodded. “They’re nasty, all right. Lucky I can outrun them.”

He made no move that Alice could see, but the bike engine revved once to underscore his point.

“You ought to ask your Master to set you up with a sweet ride like I got,” Mr. Goatee went on. “Beats holy hell out of the busted-up Olds you’ve been driving.”

Alice could only see her captor’s back, but she heard the sudden tension in his voice as he said, “You’ve been watching me.”

“I’ve seen you drive down the Way a time or two, yeah,” he confirmed. “That billboard makes a great hiding place. No wonder cops used to use them, huh? I know where your Master’s lair is, too. Great choice, by the way. Between you and me, your Master’s got a great sense of humor—more than mine, that’s for sure. Mine lairs out in the boonies, in the basement of an old farmhouse. I mean, shit, how clichéd is that?”

Alice’s captor paused a few seconds before saying, “Nice shotgun.”

Alice expected Mr. Goatee to reach for his weapon, but he kept his arms folded across his chest. “Sure is. Got it off some fat schmuck I found wandering around out here last week. Can you believe my luck? Asshole took a shot at me, but he missed by a country mile. Guess he was nervous. That, or he never actually fired a gun before. Idiot. Easiest prey I ever took down. One punch and he folded like an old lawn chair. Must’ve had a glass jaw or something. He came to just before we reached my Master’s lair and did the usual begging-for-his-life routine.” The biker’s mouth formed a sly half-smile. “He had an original spin, though. He claimed that another thrall had been bringing him to his Master, but for some reason the thrall—who’d been driving a piece-of-shit Oldsmobile—had pulled over and let him go. The thrall even gave him a shotgun to protect himself and then he asked the feeb to crack him on the head with the gun butt. The guy didn’t know why the thrall asked this, but he did it—hit him a good one, or so he said—then took off running. I figure the thrall wanted to make it look like the guy escaped so he wouldn’t get in trouble with his Master. What do you think?”

The entire time Mr. Goatee had been talking, Alice had been slowly edging out from behind her captor. She had a bad feeling that the two men were going to start shooting at each other soon, and she wanted to make sure she was out of the crossfire. She had a better view of her captor now, and she saw him slowly begin to squeeze his gun trigger.

“I think you must have a pretty strong death wish to be telling me this without a gun in your hand.”

The shotgun holstered on the biker’s back swiftly spun around until it was pointing barrel up, and then it rolled forward over his shoulder and clicked into place, now pointed directly at her captor. It was double-barreled—over and under, Alice thought it was called. Each barrel could be fired separately if the shooter wished.

The biker grinned. “Who needs hands?”

The shotgun was held by a chrome mount that protruded from the man-machine’s shoulder. Small metal rods, almost like fingers, were attached to both sides of the shoulder mount and reached to the gun’s trigger.

“Nice,” her captor said with grudging admiration. “But what makes you think you can kill me before I can get a shot off?”

“I don’t,” Mr. Goatee admitted. “You wouldn’t have survived out here this long if you weren’t handy with a gun. But if I wanted to shoot you, I’d have done it when I first rolled up. I’m here, like the old game show, to make a deal.”

“I’m listening.”

“The Masters are powerful, but they’re not all-powerful. If they were, they’d know what their thralls were thinking all the time. But they don’t.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“Are you kidding? You know how many times I cussed out my Master in my mind? Not once has she ever made a move to punish me.” The biker chuckled. “Believe me, if she knew the things I’ve thought about her, I’d be dead right now.”

“Let’s say you’re right. What’s your point?”

“My point is that I know where your Master’s lair is, remember? I’ll ride straight there and tell him that you set your last offering free… unless you agree to help me out from time to time.”

Alice saw her captor’s jaw muscles bunch, and for an instant she thought he was going to start firing on Mr. Goatee. But he said, “What kind of help are we talking about?”

“I don’t know why you wussed out on your last run, and I don’t care. I see you brought a tasty little morsel this time. You let me have her for my Master, and from now on you bring two offerings whenever you come through. One for your Master, and one for mine. You do that, and I’ll keep my mouth shut. Believe it or not, I’m not doing this because I’m a bastard. Well, not only. It’s getting harder to find unmarked people out here, and while I love my wheels, it’s hard to sneak up on folks when I roll into a town.”

Alice spoke without thinking. “I bet it’s a bitch to get inside a building too. Not to mention chasing people up stairs.”

Mr. Goatee glared at her. “Who asked you, shit-for-br—” He didn’t get the rest out, for as soon as he turned to face Alice, her captor hit the ground and fired his gun.

The biker jerked back as blood exploded from his right shoulder, just beneath the shotgun mount. The finger rods twitched and the shotgun roared as it let loose with one of its barrels. Alice screamed and threw herself to the ground. She lay flat to make herself the smallest target possible, but she didn’t cover her head. She had to watch what was happening.

Mr. Goatee’s first blast must’ve missed her captor, because the man showed no signs of injury. He crouched on one knee, gun pointed at the biker. He braced his wrist with his other hand to steady his aim and control the recoil, and then fired again.

This time it was her captor’s turn to fire wide. Mr. Goatee didn’t wait for the other thrall to get off another shot, though. His engine roared, his kickstand flipped up, and his wheels spun out gray dust. His bike jumped forward and Alice knew the man intended to run her captor down. She experienced a strange urge to leap to her feet, rush forward, and try to knock the biker down. But she remained lying where she was. She had no connection to the man in the brown leather jacket, knew that he’d captured her with the intention of offering her as a sacrifice to his Master. The best outcome for her would be if the two thralls ended up killing each other, leaving her free to make her way back to town. There was a good chance—excellent, really—that she wouldn’t survive the journey, but at least it would be some chance, however small.

But despite all this, she couldn’t help hoping that Leather Jacket won.

“You’re shitting me, right?”

The man was short and pudgy, with curly black hair and several days’ growth of stubble. His gut pushed out the hem of his Jimmy Buffet T-shirt, revealing a portion of snail-belly-white flab. Dan had no idea how the man had managed to stay fat given how hard food was to come by. Maybe he had a secret stash or something, or maybe he’d been so obese before the Arrival that he had lost weight, and it was just hard to tell.

Once more Dan held out the shotgun.

“I’m serious. Take it.”

The man—who Dan thought of as Jimmy because of his shirt—reached out with trembling chubby fingers and took hold of the gun barrel. Dan knew he was taking a chance that Jimmy might turn around and shoot him, but Jimmy didn’t seem like the type. Dan wondered how the man had managed to survive since the Arrival.

They stood on the shoulder of the highway, the Olds parked behind them, doors open, engine still running. They were less than a quarter mile from where Dan’s Master laired. He could see the site from here. He prayed his Master couldn’t see him.

Dan let go of the shotgun, and Jimmy held it out in front of him, as if now that he had it, he didn’t have the slightest idea what to do with it. Dan had cut the man free from the duct tape binding his wrists and ankles, but Jimmy hadn’t pulled the pieces off, and they still stuck to his flesh, like some sort of bizarre World After fashion statement.

Jimmy looked hard at Dan, his gaze filled with confusion, fear, and a growing glimmer of hope. “Why?” he asked.

Dan had found Jimmy wandering down a sidewalk only a few blocks away from his neighborhood. The man had been carrying a T-ball bat and a plastic garbage bag filled with the carcasses of three cats, all of which had their skulls bashed in. Not all animals had died during the Arrival by any means, but those that had survived had been changed in grotesque ways. These three cats, Dan saw when he examined the trash bag’s contents later, looked normal enough, but they were joined by coils of intestine that protruded from their sides, linking them one to the other.

When Dan pulled up to the curb in his Olds, he didn’t bother asking Jimmy what he was doing because he didn’t give a damn. He’d leveled the 9mm at him through the open window and said, “Get in the backseat or I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

From the scared-child expression on Jimmy’s face, Dan thought the man was going to cry, piss himself, or both. But Jimmy did as he was ordered, and Dan trussed him up, knocked him out with his own T-ball bat, then pulled away from the curb and headed out of town. He didn’t care if anyone had seen him. There was no law anymore save that of the Masters, and of course the most ancient law of all: survival of the strongest, swiftest, and cruelest. Besides, Dan had a thrall-mark. In the World After, that meant he had a license to do whatever he wanted, as long as it was in service of his Master.

The drive south along the Way was uneventful. The thorn-stalks stayed out of his way as they usually did, and he saw no sign of anything nasty lying in wait for him alongside the road. But then Jimmy had the bad manners to come to before they reached their destination. He immediately started pleading with Dan to let him go, that he hadn’t done anything to anger the Masters, he was just out trying to find some food, for fuck’s sake—hence the Siamese triplet felines. But then Jimmy had said the magic words.

You can’t kill me, man! I got a baby at home! I was just trying to take care of my family, you know?

Dan knew.

“None of your fucking business why,” he said. “But I’m going to need you to hit me in the head before you go. You think you can manage that?”

Jimmy looked at him as if he were crazy.

“You want me to do what?”

“What do you think we should do?”

Alice looked at Jordan. He sat across from her in a booth next to the window, blinds down, slats angled partially open. They were the only two people left in the Pasta Pavilion.

Jordan was staring out the window. Not that there was much to see. People didn’t go outside unless they had to, and the only things that regularly walked the streets now were, well, things. But except for abandoned cars, the parking lot outside the restaurant was blessedly empty.

According to her watch it was 3:20, but whether that was p.m. or a.m. she didn’t know. Like it mattered.

What did matter was that they’d run out of food—again. After Jordan had showed her his solution to their first food crisis they’d both eaten their fill and then some. After they’d finished, Alice had gone back out into the restaurant and—mouth and hands smeared with Fatty’s blood, the front of her blouse drenched with the stuff—she’d grinned at the people gathered and said, in a cheery voice, “Dinner is served!”

The refugees of the Pasta Pavilion then decided en masse that outside was suddenly a less dangerous place to be than inside, and in less than five minutes, the restaurant was empty. Except for Alice and Jordan.

“Pussies,” Alice had muttered.

The two of them had lived off Fatty’s carcass for the next couple days, but without any way to keep the meat cool, it had gone bad. They’d still tried to eat a little more, just to stave off their hunger, and they’d both ended up puking out their guts for hours afterward.

Jordan didn’t respond to her question, so she tried again.

“We need food, Jordan, and we’re not going to find it in here. I think it’s time we went outside.”

Jordan didn’t turn to look at her, but at least he spoke this time. “You know we can’t do that. You’ve seen the creatures that are out there.”

“I don’t see any now,” Alice pointed out. “We can arm ourselves. There are plenty of knives in the kitchen.”

“I know.” Jordan said this so softly, Alice almost didn’t hear it.

“I understand that it’ll be dangerous, but we don’t have a choice. Sure, we might die out there, but we’ll die for sure if we stay in here. We’ll starve.”

Jordan turned away from the window at last. He looked at Alice, eyes filled with sorrow.

“I won’t,” he said, a tear rolling down the left side of his face. His hands had been at his sides the entire time since Alice had sat down. Now he started to bring his right hand up.

Moving far more swiftly than Jordan, Alice brought her right hand up from beneath the table and slashed out with the butcher knife. Jordan’s eyes widened in surprise as the blade sliced open his throat. His blood sprayed the air, splattered onto the table, hit Alice, adding fresh gore to the front of her already bloodstained blouse. Jordan slumped back against his seat, eyes glazing over, crimson still jetting from his wound but less strongly now, for his blood pressure was dropping rapidly. His fingers went slack and the knife he’d been holding clattered to the floor.

Alice watched the blood fountain dribble off into a slow-running trickle, then she brought the knife blade to her mouth and—careful not to cut her tongue—began lapping blood off the metal.

Dan knew he had only a split second to get out of the biker’s way. He leaped to the left but he was too slow, and the motorcycle’s front tire clipped his right foot. The impact spun him around, and he hit the ground hard as the biker roared past. The breath was driven from his lungs, and he gasped for air as he struggled to get back on his feet. His ankle hurt like hell, and he wondered if it was broken. He feared the ankle wouldn’t support his weight and he’d have to finish this fight hopping on one foot like a child playing some sort of surreal and deadly game. Fortunately, the ankle held as he stood, but then he realized he had another problem: his hands were empty. He’d dropped both the 9mm and the hunting knife when he’d fallen.

The biker’s momentum had carried him onto the Way, and Dan hoped the thorn-stalks would detect the man was wounded and attack. But the biker bore a thrall-mark, and the thorn-stalks moved aside as he braked and swung his back wheel around, preparing to make another go at Dan.

How the man could maneuver like that without legs to steady himself, Dan had no idea, but the fact was he could and did. Eyes wild, mouth stretched into a maniacal grin, the biker hit the throttle and popped a wheelie as he surged forward.

“Here.”

Dan heard the girl’s voice in his ear, felt the cool metal of the 9mm as she pressed the gun into his hand. Without pausing to question, Dan raised the weapon, took aim, and started firing. The biker’s shoulder-mounted shotgun let go with its other barrel, and Dan felt hot agony erupt in his left bicep. He cried out as he staggered backward, but he kept hold of his weapon and discharged the rest of the clip. The biker’s grin vanished in a burst of blood and shattered teeth, and the bike wobbled, swerved, and crashed to the ground. The man-machine carved a furrow in the barren gray soil as he skidded to a halt. The engine cut out, and the man lay limp as the front wheel of his bike slowly spun to a stop.

Dan stared at the dead biker for a moment, the only sounds the ticking of hot machinery as it began to cool and the ragged wheeze of his own breathing. His entire left arm felt as if it were on fire. He examined the shotgun wound and saw shredded meat and a glimpse of bone through a ragged hole in his leather jacket.

Fuck. He really liked that jacket.

He remembered the girl then, and remembered that he’d dropped the hunting knife the same time he’d dropped the 9mm. He spun around and pointed his weapon at her, even though he wasn’t sure if he had any ammo left. She stood several paces away, gripping the knife handle tight, holding it easily, as if she knew how to use it. He wondered if she’d been in the process of sneaking up on him when he’d turned around.

“Drop it.”

The girl glanced at his wound then met his gaze, defiance in her eyes. “No.”

“I suppose you’re thinking about just standing there and waiting for me to bleed to death, huh? That’s not going to happen. I need to provide my Master with a sacrifice, but it doesn’t have to be you. If you don’t drop the knife, I’ll shoot you and leave your corpse out here for scavengers to feast on. I’ll bandage my wound as best I can, walk the rest of the way to my Master’s lair, and ask to be healed so I can procure another sacrifice. I’ll also ask for another car while I’m at it.” He smiled. “I probably won’t get it, but what the hell? Like my mother used to tell me, the worst they can say is no, right?”

The girl looked at him for a long moment, and Dan hoped she hadn’t been counting the shots during his battle with the biker. A minute passed, maybe two, and then the girl relaxed her grip and the hunting knife slipped from her hand and fell to the ground. Dan moved forward, gun trained on her the entire time. He switched the 9mm to his left hand before bending down to pick up the knife with his right.

“I want you to stand very still now. I’m going to cut off your blouse.”

She looked at him incredulously, then burst out laughing. “After all this you’re going to rape me?”

Dan snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself. I need to make a bandage for my arm.”

“Oh.” She gave Dan an embarrassed look. “Okay.”

He needed both hands to do the job, so he tucked the 9mm into the back of his pants, then pressed the tip of the knife to her right shoulder and began cutting.

Sweat dripped off Dan’s face, but he shivered as if caught in the grip of a winter wind. He’d wrapped the girl’s blouse tight around his bicep, but crimson had already soaked through the white fabric, and he knew he’d only slowed the bleeding, not stopped it. He walked behind the girl, limping on his injured ankle. It hurt like a motherfucker with every step he took, and he didn’t know if he was going to be able to make it to his Master’s lair. He’d considered taking the biker’s motorcycle, but seeing as how the sonofabitch was merged with the machine, the only way Dan could think of to get him off the bike was to cut him free. There were a few problems, though. One, Dan only had a hunting knife to work with and right now he didn’t think he had the strength to do the job. Two, just because the motorcycle looked like a normal motorcycle didn’t mean it was. It was entirely possible that the machine wouldn’t work with its human half cut free. And third, it would be awkward as hell trying to carry the girl with him. Given the injury to his arm, he didn’t think he could manage her unconscious body as he drove the bike, and he sure as hell wasn’t about to risk riding with her conscious. She had every reason to keep him from reaching his Master and would undoubtedly do her best to wreck the motorcycle to stop him. Sure, there was a good chance she’d be injured in the crash, too, maybe even killed. But that would be preferable to what his Master would do to her.

Since the girl’s hands were still bound by duct tape, he’d had to cut the rest of the blouse from the sleeves and then undo the buttons to get it off her. The girl now wore only a purple bra and black pants… and her cutaway blouse sleeves, of course. It was an odd look, but somehow it seemed to suit her, was almost sexy in a way. Haute couture for the World After.

Dan was beginning to regret not at least attempting to remove the biker from his motorcycle. The mark his Master had given Dan didn’t grant him any special powers beyond providing him a certain amount of protection from predators—and letting him know when his Master hungered, of course. Dan possessed no special strength, no preternatural healing abilities. His Master might heal his injuries after Dan delivered the girl, but he’d receive no aid until then. He was a thrall, and it was his job to serve his Master, not the other way around. And if he failed once more…

He remembered coming home after the last run, after letting Jimmy go and lying to his Master about what had happened. Caroline had met him at the door. She’d smiled as she held up a wooden meat tenderizer, the blocky head covered with her blood. She was naked and red wet smeared the insides of her legs.

I’m glad you’re back, hon. My hand was getting tired. Would you mind?

Caroline had returned to normal after a couple hours, but the message was clear. If he wanted to enjoy the blessings of his Master, he’d damn well better deliver from now on.

That was easier commanded than accomplished, though. With the amount of blood Dan had lost, he feared he might pass out at any moment. If that happened, the girl would be free—and if she was smart, she’d take his knife and cut his throat before running off. The thought of dying didn’t bother Dan, but he couldn’t bear to think of what would happen to Caroline and Lindsey when he was gone. For them he kept picking up one foot and putting down the other, ignoring the pain in his ankle, the fire in his shredded bicep, the blackness nibbling away at the edge of his vision.

“Holy shit, is that where you Master lives?”

Without realizing it, Dan had been staring down at his feet as he walked, as if he were forcing them to continue moving through willpower alone. Now Dan looked up, startled by the girl’s voice. The Way sloped downward here, and they stood at the highest point of the highway. Less than a quarter of a mile downslope, set back a few hundred feet from the road, a gigantic figure reached upward toward the sour-yellow sky. It was visible from the waist up only, as if it were some manner of ancient subterranean giant that had awakened and clawed its way to the surface, stopping for some unknown reason when it was only partially free. It rose a hundred feet into the air, its surface a dingy white, bearded face turned skyward, its expression of beatific joy marred by the empty black hollows where its eyes had once been. In front of the figure a fountain streamed upward, liquid arcing back down to splash into a man-made pond. Once the fountain had sprayed clear water, but now jets of red crimson rose into the air. Behind the figure were the ruins of a building that once stood two stories high, but had been reduced to a heap of broken white brick and shards of shattered stained glass during the Arrival. Once, this had been a church, and the behemoth rising out of the earth was the image of the god worshipped here. But that had been in the World Before.

Dan remembered something the biker had said. Between you and me, your Master’s got a great sense of humor—more than mine, that’s for sure.

“Yes,” Dan said in answer to the girl’s question, his voice breathy and weak. “We made it.”

“So where’s your Master?”

Dan and the girl stood on the smooth gray soil at the edge of the blood pond. Dan held the hunting knife with a trembling hand, the point dimpling the skin between the girl’s shoulder blades just above her bra. The blade was sharp, and his shaking caused the tip to dig into her flesh. A bead of bright blood welled forth, but if the girl felt it, she gave no sign. The blood in the pond was darker than hers, he thought. Much darker.

“You’re looking at him,” Dan answered. He felt light-headed, dizzy, and the vision in his left eye had gone blurry. His throat was dry, and his mouth had a strange metallic taste in it. He wished the pond had real water in it; he could use a drink right now.

“What, you mean the statue?”

Dan looked up at the visage of the empty-eyed god looming over them, raising white hands coated with years of car exhaust skyward, as if to beseech the heavens.

My Father, why hast thou forsaken me?

Dan thought it was a damn good question, and one he’d asked more than a few times himself.

To the girl he said, “The fountain.”

The girl glanced over her shoulder and gave him a skeptical look. “I’ve seen some weird-ass things since the Arrival, but do you really expect me to believe that a goddamned fountain—even one that sprays blood—is a Master?”

“Believe whatever you like. I don’t give a shit.” Dan stared at the fountain, listened to the thick, heavy plaps of blood drops falling back into the pond. His thrall-mark burned like fire now, and he could feel blood pulsing through the swollen flesh of his forehead. His Master was eager for the sacrifice, and Dan could feel his patron’s hunger as if it were his own. Old, this hunger was… older than the stars, older even than the concept of stars… It was the hunger for which the universe had been created and allowed to grow, until existence itself was ready to be plucked like a ripe fruit and finally, after unimaginable eons of patient waiting, bitten into with razor-sharp teeth and devoured, the blood of infinite multitudes dribbling down the chin like sweet, sweet nectar.

The girl turned to look forward again. A line of blood now ran down her back from where the shaking knifepoint had pierced her flesh, but still she didn’t react, even though she had to be feeling it by now.

“What next?” she asked. “You just… throw me in?”

That’s exactly what Dan usually did—when his offerings were bound hand and foot. But the girl was awake, and her feet were free. He supposed he could try to shove her in, but his bones felt watery, like half-melted ice, and he didn’t know if he could summon the strength for even a single shove. If only his Master accepted dead sacrifices. Dan had spoken to another thrall once, an elderly woman whose Master inhabited the waste treatment plant just outside of town. Not only did her Master like its offerings dead, the more rotten they were, the better. Lucky bitch.

A wave of vertigo washed over Dan as his vision went gray, and he took several stumble-steps backward. He could feel nothingness rushing in to take him, and part of him wanted to let it bear him away on its dark, dead wings.

Caroline… Lindsey…

He had a job to do, family to provide for, and he couldn’t give up… for his wife and daughter, if not for himself. Dan concentrated and fought to push back the darkness. For an endless moment, nothing happened and he thought he’d failed. But then slowly his vision began to clear.

He found himself looking at the girl’s grinning face. On her forehead was a thrall-mark, and in her hands—hands no longer bound by duct tape—was his hunting knife.

“Your Master regrets to inform you that your services are no longer required,” she said, and then slashed the blade in a vicious arc across his throat.

Dan’s own miniature blood fountain sprayed from the newly created opening above his Adam’s apple. The girl dropped the knife, grabbed his arm, and swung him toward the pond. He stumbled forward, his feet splashing in the gore. He pressed his hands to his throat in what he knew was a futile attempt to staunch the gushing red flood. As he had seen many times before, tentacles emerged from the surface of the pond, slender serpentine limbs formed from blood itself. Half a dozen in all, the tentacles lashed toward him, wrapped themselves around his arms, legs, waist, and then began pulling him downward.

He glanced back and saw the girl standing at the pond’s edge, watching with wide-eyed fascination. Remnants of duct tape were still stuck to her wrists, the ragged edges where her bonds had been torn dripping dark blood. Blood left by the tentacle that had reached out to free her when he had almost lost consciousness, Dan realized. His Master hadn’t given him a second chance after failing to deliver a sacrifice on his last run. His Master had sent him to find a replacement.

Dan tried to cry out the names of his wife and daughter, but no sound emerged from his wounded throat. An instant later, pond blood rushed in to fill his mouth as his Master’s tentacles dragged him beneath the surface. And then Dan learned the dark secret that all offerings learned when they became one with the Masters, and he wished his vocal cords still functioned so he could scream.

Alice stood at the pond’s edge as the dark-red surface became still once more. She thought she was going to like being a thrall, but she was sorry to see her captor go. Not because she felt any sympathy toward him, but because he’d looked so tasty. If only she’d been faster back in the alley when he’d sneaked up on her, if only she’d managed to grab hold of the butcher knife she’d stashed in the garbage can before he’d struck her on the head. She’d lured several delicious meals that way, but then she supposed her successes had made her overconfident, and she’d gotten sloppy. Then again, she shouldn’t complain. After all, if she had managed to kill and eat the guy, she’d never have ended up here, would she?

Still, it was a long walk back to town, and she was hungry. It would be nice to have something to tide her over. She wondered if Mr. Goatee’s body was still back there or if it had been claimed by a predator by now. If she hurried…

She felt her thrall-mark tingle as an object came flying out of the blood pond and landed at her feet with a wet smack. It was her captor’s right forearm, so fresh the fingers on the hand were still twitching.

Yep, she was going to like her new job just fine.

Licking her lips, Alice retrieved the hunting knife from where she’d dropped it, knelt down next to the arm, and began cutting.