Bone shrank down, peering between the front seats at Mallian as he turned a slow circle. The headlamps would prevent him seeing into the cruiser, and perhaps he’d simply leave now that his job was done. Slipping lower, holding his breath, he wasn’t ready for the object that slammed against the driver’s door.

Of course, the shape we saw just before, one of the infected Kin sent by Mallian to distract the cops, make his revelation even more mind-blowing, and now it’ll rip the doors off and come inside and there’s nothing I can do. All my fault. I let them out. I let my father out when I should have killed him.

The driver’s door opened and the sheriff dropped into the seat, her breathing short and panicked, hands shaking as she reached for the keys. She didn’t seem to remember Bone was in the back. He said nothing.

Starting the car drew Mallian’s attention again, and he heaved the other half of the corpse at the vehicle. It slammed into the windscreen and slid down, leaving a slick trail on the glass.

The sheriff crunched her foot on the gas and reversed, twisting in her seat, catching Bone’s eye then looking past him as she steered the car backwards away from the blood-soaked giant. Dane’s body dropped from the bonnet and Mallian stepped on it as he came for them.

He didn’t run. He took long, loping steps, grinning, and Bone couldn’t help thinking he was performing for the dash-cam. He won’t stop us, he thought. I’m not going to die at his hands just yet.

Maybe tomorrow.

The sheriff was a good driver. She slid the car into a spin, pushed it into drive and then powered away, keeping her eyes on the road and only on the road. Not on the beast that had stopped downhill, a few huge steps out of the grey and into the green.

Bone turned in his seat and watched Mallian recede behind them, his daunting shape revealed by the bloody dusk. He couldn’t help feeling that the two of them locked eyes.

In the front, the sheriff began to groan with each breath.

“Can you send images from this thing?” Bone asked.

“Huh?”

“Can you send dash-cam images from the cruiser? To phone or email or something else?”

“Huh?”

“Pictures of Mallian.”

“What’s a Mallian?”

“That thing.”

“It has a name?”

“Can you do it?”

She drove, weaving between trees and bouncing along abandoned tracks. The cruiser’s suspension creaked and cracked, and Bone pressed one hand against the ceiling to prevent smacking his head.

“Sheriff! Lily!”

“Huh?”