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The deer looked at him with that quiet nobility and innate wisdom that some animals seee, dark eyes and it kept its eyes on hi slightly away

"Wow…" Mike breathed, his voice as soft as the light breeze

The buck’s eyes seemed unnaturally expressive and unusually intense Mike felt as if they projected some kind of force that struck him between his own eyes He tried to breathe and found that it was difficult to fill his lungs The buck turned its majestically antlered head and looked at the cornfield behind hiain to face Mike Mike instantly remembered the wrecked car, and he was torn between his awe of this aniht need his help He took a se of the road The deer lowered its head and shook its massive rack of razor-​sharp horns, then raised its head and stared at hi the size of a cantaloupe He waited for h the tangle of s with every new bolt of lightning He took a third step

With a flash of white the deer leaped at hiered back as the front hooves of the deer struck the ground barely a foot fro hard with his ru on the mud of the ditch, and the pain froh hiain, and as Mike fell back he looked up in wonder as the deer passed over hihway beyond hi tall and powerful, fire seeain hite brilliance

Gasping in shock and pain, Mike sat up, looking carefully over his shoulder, and then cautiously got to his feet The world took a few dizzying spins but his rib actually hurt less now, as if falling flat on his back had pushed the jagged ends into place The buck stood there, legs wide and braced, eyes burning black holes into him

Uncertainly, Mike turned to look across the ditch, lanced back to see how the deer would react The buck reared up and then slammed doith both front hooves Perhaps it was only a coincidental crash of thunder, but Mike could have sworn that the earth shook when those hooves struck the ground

"Damn!" Mike said and reeled back He lost balance and tottered on the edge of the ditch, arht himself and felt the road settle down under his feet The exertion ain, and he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to endure the screa white-​hot spears of pain in his side It took the pain a long while to slide down to a level he could bear He opened his eyes tentatively The buck had moved a few feet closer to him Mike could have reached out and touched its s, but he dared not Their eyes ain as he felt the power of that anie, dark eyes So old and powerful and wildly beyond Mike’s comprehension Mike was stor…

Soe, so

And for aby his bike, not confronting a great white stag For a splinter of time Mike Sweeney was in a dark swa In so, and in others it was bodies that were burning Bodies that ran and capered and screamed as they burned Mike looked down and saw that he held a sath of the blade covered in blood that was alht Fire danced and flickered in the parts of the steel that weren’t smeared with blood

Mike raised his head and looked around Malcolround near hi hose, which was still clutched in his hands Crow’s eyes were closed and he reeked of gasoline A line of fire was eating its watch across the grass toward him There was blood on Crow’s face and his eyes were closed

Near hiuy--both of them were soaked with blood and stared blankly at the sky

Mike turned all the way around and he saw Val Guthrie, the wo farm outside of town The one ent out with Crow She was on her knees, weeping, holding her father in her arms Her father, Old Man Guthrie, looked dead

Everywhere Mike looked he saw death, and where there wasn’t death there was pain Hisat him with a mouth that was rimmed with blood As she looked at hireen to a bloody red and she stepped backward into flaed shadows and disappeared

A shadow passed over Mike and he turned again to see what had cast it He turned and looked up…and up It stood there, i in a voice that rumbled like thunder