She gave it a quarter turn with her free hand, but the problem was that her head was out the window and the man's grip was too strong for her to pull back inside the car. Frantically she clawed at the hand. A finger passed over her open, screaming mouth. She clamped her teeth on it with all her might. The thing let out an inhuman howl and momentarily relaxed its grip. She yanked her head back inside and closed the window on his hand. He roared again and pulled his hand out of the window before her last turn on the knob clamped him irrevocably.
Marion clutched at her throat and gasped for air. She was momentarily safe, but an instant later she had her hands full at the window on the passenger side. The inmate, still on the roof, had struck the window with shattering force, and the window's protective glass had cracked into a thousand geometric splinters that adhered to each other for the moment but would fly into the car next time he struck it. The thing peered upside down into the car, and Marion saw a ghastly rain-soaked creature made even more horrible by the spiderweb pattern of the cracked window.
Now, in blind panic, she stepped full on the gas pedal. The tires keened on the wet pavement, then took hold and the car lurched forward. Marion tore around sharply from left to right to left again. The car swayed and skidded, but the thing, clinging to the windshield wiper and a door handle, somehow managed to hold on. The rain cascaded down the windshield and she couldn't see a thing; she certainly didn't see the parking lot curb when she struck it at forty miles an hour. The wheel tore out of her hand and her chin struck the rim. The station wagon spun wildly out of control, hurling her across the seat to the passenger side. Then it struck another curb broadside, and from that moment on Marion remembered nothing until she was being helped to her feet by Loomis. She lay on the soaked grass of an embankment, a violent ringing in her ears, the nerves in her scalp throbbed from the pain of her hair having been violently pulled
