She turned, gripped the bat tighter. But a tail like a python whipped out and knocked her feet from under her. She landed on her back, gasped as the ground gouged at her through her jacket. Next second, a Ratt was straddling her, its hideous face pushing out from the hood of matted fur and flesh. Ace slammed the base of the bat handle into the side of its head, knocked it clear and rolled over onto it, using its hairy body as a springboard. She came up in time to confront another Ratt, and belted it under the jaws so hard it hurtled backwards in a clumsy somersault.

Now the first Ratt was scrambling up. Ace turned on him, panting, got ready to bring the bat down on it. Too late she saw a spike of glass and metal in its claws, and the arc of energy that crackled from its tip. Her body went into spasm like she’d been tasered, the bat tumbling from numb fingers. The power shut off and Ace was about to drop, helpless – when a third Ratt scurried up and caught her by the throat before she could fall.

‘Get … off me,’ she hissed, as the claws tightened on her neck. Desperately she looked over to where Kim and Chantelle were continuing their ragged stagger across the plain. Neither of them had heard her; they couldn’t even know that she was there. No one else had turned at the sounds of the struggle either. Was everyone under some kind of mind control?

The Ratt’s tangled whiskers twitched as it pushed its horrible snout towards her. ‘You’re not going to processing like everyone else,’ he hissed. ‘The big boss wants to see you.’

The first Ratt was back on its misshapen feet. ‘Sensed something different in you.’

‘Something the same,’ the third corrected.

‘Big boss?’ Ace managed to croak through the choking talons, her throat burning. But she knew already, the big boss was the thing she’d glimpsed at the end of every nightmare. The face in the sky.

She felt its image forming above her, a constellation growing three-dimensional features. Four burning red eyes in a demonic face that was more wrinkles than features. Ears like gigantic bat wings unfolded from the bald, clay-grey head. The thing had a skeleton’s nose, two pits drilled above the awful mouth, a huge smiling sickle of a mouth with protruding teeth. All the terror of her nightmares bore down on her as the Ratt held her body in its choking grip.

Then the face in the sky spoke in a deep, sibilant whisper, like distant thunder. ‘Bring her to me. I would know this one again.’

‘Again?’ Ace whispered.

‘Personal invite. Ain’t that nice?’ said the Ratt, dragging her over the sand.