She stops wiping, and smiles again. I try to look at her eyes without looking like I’m looking at her eyes, and it makes me sick to think about it, but I know what I’m expecting to see: black – lots of black, like an alien worker; or even worse, the yellow rings of a bug-eyed hunter. But they’re the usual brown. If she’s been body-snatched, there’s nothing to show it.

‘Night, Mum,’ I say, realising that there’s not actually much left of the night now. Maybe an hour or two until the church bells ring, and then I can get out of this house. I turn and walk, as calmly as I can, back up to my room, my mind spinning totally out of control. I don’t know what’s happened, but I need to make sense of it. There’s one thing I am sure of, though: whatever that thing was in the kitchen, it definitely wasn’t my mum.

4

Kat

I don’t go back to sleep. I sit in my room going over everything I know, trying to add it all up into something that makes sense. Obviously my thoughts turn to Crater Lake, and I wonder if it’s possible that something nasty followed us home from that awful place. There are similarities – my mum’s sudden personality transplant being the main one – that make me think it’s a possibility. But how could she have been infected by alien spores? And if she has, is she a worker or a hunter? At Crater Lake there were two kinds of alien enemy – the workers who were mindless drones, working away at jobs to help the swarm; and the hunters, who took charge of the workers, and of turning all humans into bug-eyes. Her actions in the kitchen last night didn’t fit either type. There’s also the matter of her eyes, which looked reassuringly human. All I can come up with are questions and 40more questions, so it’s clear to me what I need to do next.

I stay up in my room until the church bells ring, then I make a break for it, sneaking down the stairs and towards the front porch. When I bend down to put my trainers on, there’s not a sound in the house, so it’s yet another jump-scare when my mum’s voice rings out, way closer to me than she should have been able to get without me noticing.

‘I hope you’re not going out, Lance. We should be at home together today.’

I keep tying my laces. Don’t look up. ‘But you’re feeling so much better, Mum. And I really want to go check on the cat.’

‘The cat is used to being outside. It will be fine.’ She’s standing at the porch door now.