The Last Mile by Tim Waggoner Page A

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