*WHINE—!!!*
The battered Santana’s engine shrieked like a beast flayed by whips! Its chassis bucked violently over the pitted, mud-choked track beyond the county line, each jolt slamming Zhang Chi’s body against the metal seat frame. Bones grated against unyielding steel.
Outside, the county’s final lights vanished into the devouring dark. Boundless wilderness yawned. Only the car’s twin beams clawed feebly at the ink-thick night. Icy rain-laced wind hammered the windshield—thwack! thwack! thwack!—wipers flailing madly. Vision blurred, fractured. Tires plunged into mire, hurling viscous black sludge meters high, painting the glass with worm-like filth trails.
Woo… woo… woo…
Faint. Distant. A death-rattle moan. Carried on the frigid wind through the cracked window.
The quarantin
