Death Scene | Stories That Take Place at the Moment of Death

Book excerpt: And then he was sliding down, down, leveling off briefly, then down again, and he couldn’t help but notice that the people he had planned to rule were fleeing now, and that the Nano-T had broken off its engagement with the tiger long enough to snap at them and give chase, and that in its absence the great feline had turned its mighty head to face the bottom of the slide and opened its maw, which was mottled pink and black, and that he was helpless to do anything but continue sliding toward it—until his kicking feet and legs were trapped between its terrible, curved fangs and its central incisors bit mercilessly into his abdomen (which crunched and splattered and was ripped in two as his bowels exploded outward and his heart and lungs and spleen steamed on contact with the air) and blood erupted from his mouth only to gurgle back inside and choke him. And then the darkness engulfed him completely and he felt himself slithering between its throat muscles and down its gullet—into the burning blackness of its stomach, where he saw by a brief and inexplicable light the dead face of the man the cat had eaten earlier in the day, and knew at last that he walked the earth no more.