New York Times bestselling author Christopher Rice brilliantly conjures the shadowed terrors of the Louisiana bayouwhere three friends confront a deadly, ancient evil rising to the surfacein this intense and atmospheric new supernatural thriller.Its been a decade since the Delongpre family vanished near Bayou Rabineaux, and still no one can explain the events of that dark and sweltering night. No one except Niquette Delongpre, the survivor who ran away from the mangled stretch of guardrail on Highway 22 where the impossible occurredand kept on running. Who left behind her best friends, Ben and Anthem, to save them from her newfound capacity for destructionand who alone knows the source of her very bizarreand very deadlyabilities: an isolated strip of swampland called Elysium. An accomplished surgeon, Niquettes father dreamed of transforming the dense acreage surrounded by murky waters into a palatial compound befitting the name his beloved wife gave to it, Elysium: the final resting place for the heroic and virtuous. Then, ten years ago, construction workers dug into a long-hidden well, one that snaked down into the deep, black waters of the Louisiana swamp and stirred something that had been there for centuriesa microscopic parasite that perverts the mind and corrupts the body. Niquette is living proof that things done cant be undone. Nothing will put her family back together again. And nothing can save her. But as Niquette, Ben, and Anthem uncover the truth of a devastating parasite that has the potential to alter the future of humankind, Niquette grasps the most chilling truths of all: someone else has been infected too. And unlike her, this man is not content to live in the shadows. He is intent to use his newfound powers for one reason only: revenge.