Tim Waggoner - The Last Mile

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.