He was born monstrously deformed, a freak of nature. Possessed of supernatural strength, he committed his first murder at the age of five and escaped the institution to which his mother had abandoned him.Terror swept through the town of Silverleaf, as the citizens scoured the countryside in a desperate search for the missing child, hoping to capture him before he killed again - and again.But he had retreated to the swamp, the place of his birth, where amid the mire and the reeds lay a secret so horrifying, so astonishing, that it could well change the ultimate destiny of the human race...