THE STINK HIT King first—a mixture of copper, feces, and something unidentifiable but equally grotesque. Before he saw the disemboweled corpse, he knew it was there. A man wearing a baseball hat and a camera around his neck lay ten feet away. His body had been folded backward—head resting on heels—and his gut had split open. King drew his weapon and surveyed the parking lot.

Bodies were everywhere, torn apart and crushed. King had seen a similar scene before and recognized the work of a merciless golem. Several cars burned. Screams rolled over the hills from the distance. People were still alive, but given the high pitch of their screams they were either being killed or expected to be at any moment. “Let’s go!” King said, running into the lot and heading for their car.

Before reaching the vehicle he could see something was wrong. The driver’s side tire was bent at an odd angle. When he reached it, he found the whole front end imploded. Something huge had crushed the car.

The ground shook.

Something was still out there.

King closed his eyes in dread. “He wouldn’t…”

“What is it?”

King didn’t answer, he just ran for the tunnel that led beneath the road. He entered the tunnel at full speed, made his way through, and rounded the ramp on the far side. At the top he saw his fears realized.

Stonehenge was missing.

Circles of large pits were all that remained of the ancient monument. Knowing a golem constructed from the bluestones of Stonehenge wouldn’t be hard to find, King spun around and found the giant much closer than he expected. Standing thirty feet tall, the gray giant was as large as it was featureless. But even without a face of any kind, it glowed with malice. And right then, the target of its rage was a ruby red, double-decker tour bus.

Lauren.

Not only was the bus in mortal danger, but it was also their best chance of escape. Realizing this at the same time, both men hopped the chain-link fence and waved down the bus. It screeched to a halt next to them and the doors opened.

“Get in!” Lauren shouted.

As Alexander leaped up the steps into the bus, King said, “Let me drive.”

Lauren complied immediately, closing the doors as King took the driver’s seat, threw the bus into drive, and gunned the gas. Looking in the rearview he could see the golem nearly upon them and gaining. His only chance of escape was to outmaneuver the behemoth.

Right, King thought, I’m going to outmaneuver this thing in a double-decker bus.

The bus gained speed quickly as they headed downhill, and maintained it at the bottom, but King saw a new problem ahead. The tunnel they had followed from the Durrington Walls to the tomb hidden beneath Stonehenge had collapsed, creating an impassable sinkhole that stretched the distance.