Frames flung himself away from the animal, his left hand wrenching the steering wheel. The Charger lurched as the car behind came up fast and blared its horn. He glanced over his shoulder at the road and swerved into his own lane as the other car flashed by.

The animal wedged itself through the seat top and broke forward. Its rumbling snarl filled the car. Frames frantically shielded his face. In the dark, he couldn’t see what the thing was.

He looked at the road, then back at the animal. It was closer now. He could just make out a dog’s short, black muzzle. The body was compact and muscled, under a smooth coat. Some kind of bulldog or mastiff. The animal’s claws tore at the seat’s steel frame and foam stuffing. The dog growled again, then let out a short, explosive bark. It stretched toward Frames.

Could he shoot it? The angle was bad, and in an enclosed car, the bullet could bounce around.

All at once, the dog burst forward. Its jaws grabbed Frames’s right forearm, teeth digging into flesh. Jerking in pain, he squeezed the trigger on the Glock and fired a bullet that blasted out the passenger window. He heard himself screaming, “Fuck! Shit. Fuck. Shit.”

With the animal’s head six inches from his face, Frames could see its eyes were frantic and wild. The animal was shaking. Something was wrong with it. The body smelled of wet fur and urine.

The dog lunged forward again, aiming for the dashboard. Its front paws ripped across the console, jamming the shifter into second. The tachometer redlined as the engine let loose a deafening squeal. Frames braked to cut the speed and tried to pull his arm free to reach the gear knob, but the dog’s teeth sank further into his forearm and locked tight.

He felt the slipperiness of the blood under his shirtsleeve. Past the dog, his right hand still gripped the gun, his fingers unable to let go. The wind whistled through the open passenger window.

He looked at the road. Two lanes to reach the shoulder. In the passenger-side mirror, the high, bright headlights of an eighteen-wheeler rushed toward him. He accelerated to get ahead of it. The car now at eighty in second gear, the engine shrieked like a giant metal wire stretched tighter and tighter.

Frames pulled into the next lane. The truck’s air horn blasted, its tires skidding. The Charger flooded with the truck’s lights, and as he looked back into the blinding glare, Frames saw another animal leap from behind the rear seat. The second dog, a twin of the first, tangled with the hind legs of its mate, and they growled and kicked at each other.