Immediately, the car swerved. But he held on—and then there was a shock, the scream of metal, a flash in his eyes, and he was sliding along the road as if swimming. He felt his clothes tearing, but then pushed and was on his feet and running at breakneck speed.

He leaped again, soaring so high that a sudden silence and dank grayness was around him, and then he was looking down on swift clouds.

What was this?

He shot downward again, heading toward the car’s lights.

Again he crashed into it, but this time he controlled his fall, twisting and turning, shifting his weight. Even so, the hood shot up at him, and he smashed into it and bounced and went through the windshield, the glass cracking and splintering into shards around him.

The driver kicked at him, its voice high with terror, its hands clawing at him, and he pulled out his knife and thrust it into the creature.

The legs hammered, the head pitched back, and Mark turned away. Why look?

Mark grabbed the wheel, but the creature had more life in it than he’d realized, and it fought and the car went out of control and the next thing Mark knew, they were tumbling over and over, and he was contending with the remains of the creature, now loose with death, bouncing and striking him.

The car stopped. Stunned, he pulled himself out from under the body. The quickly intensifying odor of hot rubber and hot gasoline told him he needed to get out right now.

He had been running, the world had blurred—and here he was with a hybrid in pieces around him.

Deep red glowed beneath the dashboard.

He had to get out.

The glow became a curtain of red all around him.

He kicked at a window, kicked again, did it again, and finally crawled into the gravel and brush along the roadside. The car was upside down, its radiator hissing faintly, smoke coming off the base of the engine compartment, and the passenger cabin filling with fire.

From back in Willoughby, the drums were even wilder, the crackling laughter mixed with dreadful, abandoned shrieks.

He ran toward the town, his thumping boots the only sound in the dead-quiet night.

What he needed here most of all was more bodies, and not just Delta Force, not anymore. He needed Special Forces, Rangers, anybody with sufficient skills and equipment to have some sort of chance.

He thought of that lair nestled up in that hillside. It was vulnerable to a bunker buster, but how could a man Washington was trying to kill communicate anything to them? He no longer had his satphone, it was long gone. In any case, using it would likely just bring down another air strike on his own head.

One after another, the infestations they had been tracking had disappeared. It was now clear why. They had been going underground.