Kelly revved the Vespa to its max. There wasn’t a question of heading toward the Bay Bridge now, not with those things back there, so she went up the Embarcadero instead. Maybe she’d somehow get around through the Marina District and across the Golden Gate into Marin. But what would she do in Marin? She didn’t know anybody there, she didn’t even know the streets except for the way up into Muir Woods.

She moved her right hand off the throttle for a moment and touched her thigh, which produced a pain like fire. She threw back her head and screamed because she knew there was no skin on her leg, no jeans, nothing, and this had been done by the kid in the parking garage.

Now the drumming got louder and louder yet, and along with it came long, high howls that swept in echoes around her, and she saw, coming down all the streets toward the Embarcadero, bands of the strange, pale creatures.

As they came, they brought with them another sound, a great gushing welter of noise, the wrenching of metal, the shattering of glass, screams, howling engines, hisses, explosions, and a cascading roar that, as she looked up, appeared to come from what at first appeared to be a single object—immense—twisting and turning across the sky.

Above it and through its dark translucence could be seen the vague outline of the great unknown machine, which appeared to be controlling the movement of the cloud.

At the same time, she saw all around her windows flying out of buildings, roofs being sucked into the sky, awnings rising off stores, and cars and trucks and people swarming into the sky, the people kicking and clutching, dogs barking as they rose, children snatching at their parents, horns honking and engines revving, the wheels of cars casting back and forth as the drivers steered helplessly.

She felt suddenly lighter and jammed on the power and her scooter screamed down the street and right through one of the squads of creatures, tossing a couple of them aside and causing horrific shrieks and a burst of even wilder drumming.

Overhead, now, the whole great mass of people and objects was being directed by great, thudding booms from the strange machine and was churning and boiling out toward the bay.