Run anyway - and then keep running. Think later. The car would break through the gate soon. Perhaps it already had. I forced my feet back into action, fixing on the path ahead and trying to block out the pain as I scrambled down the bank. I outstretched one arm to protect me from insects and branches, and kept the other hovering low in case I slipped. As I pushed aside some large fronds, glossy and greeny-black in the moonlight, I sensed something in my peripheral vision, and turned to see a blurred ball of dark matter propelling straight towards my head. As I leapt away from it, I realized it was a mammoth insect - perhaps a dragonfly? - but that was as far as I got because I landed on something sharp, which cut into my right calf and shredded my trouser-leg so a flap of it now hung loose, leaving the wound exposed to the cool night air: a feast for the mosquitoes.

I tried to right myself and felt something solid pushing down on my head. I looked up to see a pair of gleaming blood-shot eyes: Gunner! What the hell was he doing coming back for me? His mouth was moving urgently, shouting something behind the screen between us. I gestured at my ears and shook my head, and he pushed my shoulders down roughly. I followed his lead and flattened myself against some muddy roots.

We looked up the hill. Flickers of red and yellow light flashed over the rim, and I guessed that the Ferret was heading down the road.

They hadn’t seen us.

We lay there for a few minutes, or perhaps it was only seconds - time was getting harder to judge - and then I turned to see that he had gotten up and had started running back down the mountainside.

With a mighty effort I stood up and leapt after him, pounding my feet every step of the way. It was excruciating, but if I pounded hard enough, I could ‘hear’ the pulse reverberating through my body - not as a sound but as a physical sensation. Somehow it seemed comforting, so I concentrated on making it happen, again and again, all the while watching Gunner’s silhouette ahead, weaving through the plants.

As the slope finally started to flatten out and we waded across a narrow rivulet of swamp water, I felt a closer shuddering. Had they changed their minds? Were they coming down the hill? I didn’t dare look back, and at some point I realized that these new vibrations were coming from inside my own head - my teeth were chattering.