Free Take the Long Way Home by Brian Keene

throat was cut, her nipples, nose and ears sliced off, and her eyes gouged out. She was young and, despite the horrific mutilation, she was beautiful—even in death.
    Frank and I both tried our cell phones again, but there was still no service. Meanwhile, after he’d thrown up again, Charlie stripped off his shirt and laid it over the dead woman’s face. Then he stood up again, and tucked his undershirt into his pants.
    “What are you doing?” I asked.
    “Covering her up,” he replied. “It seems wrong, leaving her out here like this. Don’t want the animals getting at her.”
    Frank grunted. “Looks like they already did.”
    I stared at the young woman’s body, her upper half now concealed beneath Charlie’s shirt. There was a dark purple bruise on her blood-caked thigh, next to a small tattoo of a dolphin jumping through a peace symbol. More blood pooled between her legs. She’d been somebody’s daughter, maybe someone’s girlfriend or fiancée. She’d been alive. Had hopes and dreams. Now she was fodder. Road kill. Another unlucky casualty, left behind in the dark and never going home again. I wondered who was waiting for her at home. Was there somebody who missed her, or had they disappeared?
    Unable to tear my eyes away, I glanced at the damage between her legs. The space between them was no longer recognizable as a part of human anatomy, and I quickly turned my head.
    Frank was right. The animals were on the loose tonight, hunting in packs.
    I thought of Terri, home alone and probably scared to death.
    “I’m coming, honey,” I whispered. “Just a little while longer and I’ll be home.”
    Charlie looked at me. “You say something?”
    “Nothing. Just tired.”
    We walked on. A burning car lit the highway. We made sure to give it a wide berth.
    An hour later, we saw flames burning several miles ahead of us. It looked like the entire horizon was on fire, just like the other horizon behind us where the city still burned.
    Frank pointed. “What the hell’s that?”
    “I don’t know,” I said, shrugging. “Forest fire, maybe? That’s Exit 26, and there’s nothing around there but fields and woods.”
    As we got closer, we realized that we’d have to walk around, because Exit 26 was gone. The off-ramp, highway and fields on both sides had been obliterated in a plane crash. A section of fuselage jutted up from the mud, its sides scorched and blackened. Smoking wreckage and bodies were scattered throughout the area; it was like walking into a slaughterhouse. The stench of burning jet fuel and oil and flesh grew thick as we approached it.
    Frank gaped. “My God . . .”
    Charlie coughed. “Wonder what brought it down?”
    “Maybe the pilot disappeared,” I said. “And the co-pilot.”
    “Don’t they got those auto-pilot things?” Frank wheezed.
    My eyes began to sting. I breathed through my mouth to avoid the smell.
    “Sure.” I wiped the water from my eyes. “But you’ve still got to have somebody to land the plane.”
    We cut through the woods, avoiding the sections that were on fire, and came out onto Old York Road, which ran alongside the interstate from Harrisburg to Baltimore. The road was quiet and deserted, free of abandoned or wrecked cars. It was darker here. No houses, businesses or even a traffic light. An owl called out from a tree limb, and a rabbit darted through the undergrowth along the bank. Somewhere in the night, a dog howled. The surrounding forest blocked out the moonlight and the glow from the fires on the nearby highway, but we could still smell the smoke and I wondered if the stench had gotten into our clothes. Then I noticed that the wind had changed direction and was blowing it through the trees. We started down the road and rounded a curve.
    “Shit,” Frank said. “We should have walked this way to begin with, instead of sticking to 83. There’s no traffic at all.”
    Charlie stopped and pointed. “Except for him.”
    A county police car sat on the