Never had he seen anything like what was happening to Hank Stransky. Red blotches formed on the skin across his face. They darkened into shiny pustules - which broke like ripe boils, discharging a gooey liquid. Hank jumped up from the barstool and span completely around like a man in some mad dance...

First a workman goes crazy in a public bar with a broken bottle... A taxi-driver murderously slams his cab into a crowd of pedestrians... A newly-wed bride slaughters her husband in a restaurant and plunges through a plate-glass window.

Three strange, violent deaths, three different cities, and all on the same day.

But these are only the first of thousands...

For something has gone terrible, horribly wrong.