I ran back down and through the gate, and for the first time saw what I had missed on the way up: a single set of prints crossing a patch of snow just metres from my front door. I had entirely failed to see them.

My blood froze as I wondered again how long they had been watching me. I needed to hide, to go to ground. I had a cache of supplies hidden in a church in Wembury; everything I would need to leave this place forever.

And there was Alice again, by my side as always.

‘We need to head for the village,’ I said. ‘At least until we know who we’re dealing with.’

‘It can’t be Red Harvest,’ she insisted. ‘Not after all these years. Maybe—’

I raised a hand to stop her. ‘These people committed genocide. We can’t take any chances!’

‘But what if you’re wrong, and they’ve come to rescue us? Then we’ll never be saved!’

I looked towards the house, feeling panic’s black tide prepare to pull me under again. There was no time to retrieve anything. I had to move now.

But what if Alice was right . . . ? What if we could be saved, and there was some place out there that had escaped Red Harvest’s murderous attention? Somewhere with people in their dozens or hundreds or even – dared I imagine it? – thousands.

Some part of me, I knew, would welcome even a death squad intent on torturing and killing me, so great was my desire for human contact. But the saner part of me drove me to make my way around to the other side of the house, where a second gate gave access to a stream skirting the side of the hill. The stream was lined with trees and bushes that could give me cover as I made for the denser woods on the hill’s far side. But where was—?

And then Alice was beside me, her feet crunching in the snow as we ran. I was so badly out of shape that my lungs soon began to ache. I splashed across the rocky stream, then followed an ancient bridle path that would lead me deep amongst ancient stands of oak and birch, their roots thick with concealing briars.

I stopped for a moment, to fill my heaving lungs, and in that moment glanced back. Was it only my imagination that made me think I had seen something moving at the top of the hill, where I had been only minutes before? Or . . . ?

I dived in amongst the trees and kept running, despite the growing numbness in my thighs. How could I have let myself get so unfit? I peered ahead as I pushed through the dense undergrowth until finally I came to a road leading into Wembury.

‘Do you hear that?’ asked Alice, looking all around.