I made all the trips in a whirr of panic. You know when your head is focusing clearly on your task, but the rest of what you see is all blurry? I was in that state of adrenaline. But it was only on the last trip, when I’d already taken all the curtains, and ten of the cans, and even the matches, that I looked up at Lana and Kate. They were out of range of the tentacles, sitting there, staring at us. The pretence of the casual magazine-reading was over, and they were just watching, silently. I could see from their positions that they were riddled with tension. They had a rope tied to their boat, and the other end was tied to ours, because we’d had this mad idea that they could just pull us to safety. Even as we’d tied the rope on I think we’d all known it wouldn’t work. But just then, I realized something that might.

‘Cut the rope,’ I shouted.

Their faces scrunched up in confusion.

‘Cut the rope!’

‘No,’ Lana shouted back. ‘Bog off.’

‘Cut the rope,’ I repeated. ‘I’ve got an idea.’ I could see Kate starting to cry. ‘I think I can use it for something to save us,’ I shouted.

Lana reached up, and I think her hands must have been shaking because it took her a few attempts to untie the rope. It fell, and quickly I gathered it in through the curious feelers. I shoved it straight into one of the cans of petrol. Some of the petrol sloshed out, over the edge, but I made sure that all of that rope was submerged before I ran back over to James.

Around him, there were piles of melting, oozing, translucent flesh, reforming themselves back into the Jellyfish. There was also a low, trembling vibration. It was constant now, a hum that you could feel right inside you. I scooped some of the piles of flesh away, throwing it back towards the sea.

James was standing inside a pit of Jellyfish blubber. The walls around him were leaning in, and were running with slow trails of glutinous liquid. A ripple ran across the surface. From the corners of my eyes, in that adrenaline fog, I could see the angry swishes of the tentacles crashing through the air. ‘We’ve got to do it now, James.’

‘Just one more.’ He looked up. His hair was wet with sweat, and there was a sheen of slime over his T-shirt.

‘No. Now,’ I said. I passed him the machete.

He took it, and sliced in deeply, leaning down and pulling firmly through the flesh. There was another sudden rippling wave of jelly across the surface, just where I was standing. Above me, the shadow of one of the larger tentacles passed overhead, so close I felt its wind.

James jammed in his spade, levering the flesh apart. ‘Now,’ he said.