Gradually, the gloom began to lift, ever so slightly, and I saw the concrete floor below. When I reached the bottom, I looked back, unsurprised to find that there were, at most, maybe ten steps in all leading up to the open door.

The house was playing tricks on me.

Navigating my way round the stacks of piled-up junk was like being caught in a maze. I didn’t remember there being this many stacks, and I didn’t remember them being this high. It was the house again, growing and widening, adding more twists and turns to the journey. Playing its games.

There were shouts in among the stacks, but shouts from far away. Something else, too. Like distant gunfire.

I entered a clearing of sorts, getting my first real impression of just how big the basement had grown. It was massive, as big as the warehouse. Maybe it was the warehouse. Maybe the bright light had hypnotised me into confusing the two. But the warehouse hadn’t had all this junk, and along the walls it didn’t have all those wooden steps leading upwards.

Someone emerged from the stacks on my right.

“Chrissy!” I hissed.

She jumped, covering her mouth with both hands, stifling a yell. Then she hurried over, clinging to my right arm.

“We’re in his house,” she whispered.

“I know,” I said. “Stay close to me.”

We moved onwards, through the clearing and back into the stacks. We approached a low table on which sat a dollhouse. As we passed, a light switched on in one of the small windows.

“That’s mine,” Chrissy said softly. “I used to have that. That exact one.”

We stared at it for a few more moments. Another light turned on. Chrissy let go of my arm and stepped towards it.

“What are you doing? Chrissy, don’t.”

She looked back at me, her face strained. “I have to,” she said, and reached out, fingers hooking into the exterior wall of the dollhouse. She pulled it open and all the lights came on and she stepped back with a cry of disgust. Cockroaches skittered over the toy furniture, burrowing under the thin blankets on the beds to get out of the sudden light and pushing over the plastic plates on the kitchen table. Some of them had got on to her hand and Chrissy cursed, swiping at them as they tried to scuttle up her sleeve.

I pulled her away and the lights in the dollhouse went out, though we could still hear the cockroaches spilling over the edge of the table and hitting the ground.