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the slightest of sensations along his ankle, a breath of air, the shudder of a leaf against his skin, no more.
    His body threw the knife; he didn’t. His arm sent it rocketing straight down at a speed of over sixty miles an hour.
    There was a liquid sound, like a stone dropping into mud. Then there was something like a gasp, very precise, as if a machine had been surprised.
    A scratching sound followed. It got louder, more frantic. A thud followed, against the distant ground.
    He dropped down fast. Taking just an instant to glance at the spidery, inert form on the ground, he returned his knife to its scabbard and dashed toward the house.
    An enormous creature came toward him, a bear. But it was no Eastern black bear. It wasn’t even a grizzly. As it lumbered closer, he recognized it as a North American short-faced bear, twelve feet tall, a monster that had been extinct for thousands of years.
    Before he could turn away, it reared up, looming over him, roaring with a voice like thunder.
    It drew back a massive paw.
    He kept running, straight toward it.
    The huge claws slammed into him … and kept going right through him.
    It was more impressive by far than the snake, but it didn’t slow him down. Over months of dealing with the aliens, he’d seen many different apparitions, creatures of legend, monsters out of his own mind, you name it.
    The front door splintered as he burst through.
    Things now moved at blinding speed. One alien leaped at him from the balcony overlooking the great room. It came like a huge bat, its thin arms spread wide, its very lethal claws glowing like blood in the firelight.
    He drew the Bull and fired a single shot that lit the room with white light and roared like a demon. The bullet separated head from body, but even as the head tumbled past his shoulder, the body gripped him with steel arms and steel legs and pinned him as surely as if he had been caught in a vise.
    The third alien, still in possession of all its powers, touched him with the electric tip of a short wand that it carried. Immediately, incapacitating waves of energy surged through his nervous system. He staggered, frantically trying to close his teeth on the cyanide.
    Still completely conscious, but also completely helpless, he fell to the floor.
    It stood over him, staring down at him with eyes like cruel windows, dark with infinity. Its tiny mouth was opened in a neat O, and it rocked its head from side to side. He had the thought that it was mocking him.
    As it continued to watch him, he began to feel his nervous system coming back to life. His heart was thundering, his blood roaring in his ears, his lungs sucking.
    Still, it watched him, its head lolling from side to side, its mouth open in that strangely empty and yet ominous O.
    His arm flashed out and he grabbed its leg, yanking it off the floor.
    It swooped backwards, and he found himself holding the leg of the largest spider he had ever seen. Reflex caused him almost to jump away, but he stopped himself. He tightened his grip.
    The thing was chest high, its compound eyes glittering with hundreds of reflections of his own face, the features contorted with disgust and fear. Its huge black abdomen was striped with yellow, like a tiger. There was a burning chemical stench to it, which he thought might be venom.
    What the hell had just happened here? Had the creature actually changed form? Because this was no illusion.
    Effortlessly, it broke his grip and leaped up to the cathedral ceiling. It hung there, watching him. When he glanced toward his gun, its whole body stiffened. From here, he could see the stinger in the tail, a black dripping scimitar.
    It began to crawl across the ceiling, heading for the upstairs bedroom, where Eve and her lover presumably lay in the strange coma the aliens could induce, assuming they were alive, assuming they were still here.
    Leaping across the room, getting the gun in his hand, and firing a shot accurate enough to penetrate