Shock wipes out the rest of his thought. Alfie gapes stupidly. The coffee-maker is
as spotless as everything else in the Chat 'n Chew, the stainless steel cylinder
bright as a metal mirror. And in its smoothly bulging convex surface he sees
something as unbelievable as it is hideous. His customer, someone he sees every
day, someone everyone in Tarker's Mills sees every day, is changing. The customer's
face is somehow shifting, melting, thickening, broadening. The customer's cotton
shirt is stretching, stretching ... and suddenly the shirt's seams begin to pull
apart, and absurdly, all Alfie Knopfler can think of is that show his little nephew
Ray used to like to watch, The Incredible Hulk.

The customer's pleasant, unremarkable face is becoming something bestial. The
customer's mild brown eyes have lightened; have become a terrible gold-green. The
customer screams ... but the scream breaks apart, drops like an elevator through
registers of sound, and becomes a bellowing growl of rage.

June