The Last Mile (7 page)

* * *

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.