A few others came to join us, everyone gathering as they left the houses. Most of them looked smarter, and healthier, and more attractive just by wearing these new, unfamiliar clothes. It was amazing the difference it made. Stinky, in particular, looked . . . great. His ratty beard was gone and, well, he didn’t look clean exactly, but people were happily standing within a metre of him now.

James came striding out, waving a box of matches at me and grinning. He put them in his pocket. Everybody was here now, though Soldier John started pointing at people and counting them.

‘Shall we just quickly blow up the Jellyfish before we go?’ said James, with a laugh. He pointed his fingers at it in a gun shape. ‘Pow, pow!’

We laughed. A few people laughed more than the joke was worth, really snorting for breath and clutching each other to stop themselves falling over, it was so funny. I think they were hysterical really.

‘Bollocks,’ said Lana, which I think expressed it best. No way were any of us going back out there again.

We turned, as a still-grinning group, and headed towards Long Street. We were going to be safe! And warm! And fed! And live happily ever after in a castle and be beautiful and have it easy and never have to worry again!

But it was then that we saw them. A shadow, moving strangely at the bottom of the road.

‘Oh,’ said Dr Jones, ‘I think . . .’

‘NO!’ said Soldier John. ‘RUN!’

Chapter 32

32

‘RUN!’

Where? We were trapped by the cliffs. I grabbed James’s hand and ran towards the white house. Behind us, there was chaos. Shouts, splashes, sounds of panic.

‘Kate! Lana!’ I screamed. I pulled at Kate’s hand as I passed, half-dragging her at first, desperately. But then she ran.

We sped in through the door, pulling it shut behind us.

‘The curtains, quick,’ I said. ‘Quick. Pull them across. Then upstairs.’

I could feel my panic, the cold and warm trickles of terror inside my stomach. Next to me, Kate and Lana were panting and pale, their backs pressed firmly against the door. James peered round the doorway into the front room. He ran to the windows.

‘Do the other rooms,’ he called, sliding the curtains across, ‘nothing’s out there yet.’

Lana and Kate were frozen in their fear. The edges of my eyes were blurred and foggy. I wanted to run, to move, to get away. But there was nowhere to go. And they would be faster than us.

I ran into the other room, and pulled the curtains across. Behind me, I could hear the swoosh of the curtains being drawn in the kitchen. There was comfort in the darkness now; we were less exposed, less visible. Hidden.

I scrambled up the stairs, to the top where the others were crouching.

Outside, we could still hear the shouting, the frantic calls. But no screams of pain. And nothing coming closer.