Once in the clear, Marcus realized what the creature was doing. Though it walked with what looked like randomness, it wasn’t without purpose. Its legs swiped out at anyone near enough to reach. It shoved the people—creatures, jokers, monster, whatever—into its pocked body. What he thought were blotches were cell-like divots. Once jammed in there, the people thrashed and fought, but they were stuck. And soon they grew still. The creature passed over dead bodies, ignoring them, snatching only the living.

“It’s grazing,” Marcus said.

As if words were all he was waiting for, the thug lost it. Letting out a scream, he ran forward, Uzi blazing as he did so. He shot wildly: at the body, the legs, up at the head that turned and studied him with more disinterest than alarm. He nearly got under the monster. He tilted his weapon to unload into its underbelly. That’s when one of the legs lifted. It swiped around in a motion that started slow but morphed into deceptive speed. It snatched the man up and shoved him, still screaming and firing, into one of the pits in its undercarriage.

The amorphous head turned toward Marcus, who had slithered forward when the man attacked. The creature eased its bulk toward him, like an ocean liner making a slow turn. Marcus drew back into the casino’s entryway. He hid in the shadows, pushing his tail back into the farther dark. He waited, trying to keep his breathing from rasping too loudly. He couldn’t. The great underbelly of the thing grew closer, but he couldn’t see the head anymore. He could feel the weight of its steps making the ground tremble. He could’ve squirmed farther in, but he was transfixed. The creature shifted again. It turned and showed him its side and moved on, legs taking their slow, ghastly steps.

There were so many cells, pits like smallpox scars, each the perfect size for whatever had been shoved inside it. Each pit pulsed and relaxed, squeezed its inhabitant and then let go. Each time the people inside died a little more. One after another emaciated faces slid by Marcus. Skin shrunken to skulls. Cavernous eyes and bulging cheekbones, bare skulls as hair sloughed away. Some of them looked at him. That was the worse part. They were so desolate. Faces of people who knew the truth of the world and had been shattered by it. Marcus had seen faces like that before. Black and white images that he couldn’t place. But yes, he had seen them. He tried to remember where.

Ray and Angel met Lonnegan and Stevens, as arranged, on the lowest step leading up to Fort Freak’s main entrance, away from the trickle of traffic entering and leaving the precinct house so that they couldn’t be overheard if they spoke quietly. Which they did.

“What’s the latest?” he asked Lonnegan.

The detective shrugged. “They’re interrogating the thugs who fell from the ceiling. But they’re just dumbfucks with guns who were looting the casino. And their story is … confused. At best.” She paused. “And Norwood.”