The Milchberg Gazette

A 1981 Mississippi flood washes away four years of mud and exposes a buried car — the Hill automobile, lost in 1977. Something sealed in its trunk taps against the lid, then rises into the night.

City Manager Duke Reardon is found dead, a single conical wound through his eye. Sheriff Oates is certain: Andy Boyd took Duke's own chrome pool cue. A second bloodless body appears at the old dump.

Dr. Roberta Fields arrives in her '82 Mustang looking for a quieter life and finds a town in the grip of its first killings — and a sheriff who does not want her there.

Roberta and Biagio find mucopolysaccharide — an anticoagulant — in the wounds, and identical bites of growing size. The weapon is a proboscis. One mosquito. Getting larger with every host.

Oates raises a posse to hunt Andy. Out in the swamp, the real predator hunts them all. A yard-long shadow crosses the headlights, and the buzz grows louder with every mile.

Blood-soaked blankets on a towering wooden screen. Bare copper wire. A single switch. Patty, Roberta, and Andy rig the old drive-in into a trap — and wait for the buzz to find them.