Harry, why the hell did you stab Man Bun? What were you going to achieve with half a dozen armed thugs in the room? … And now I’m alone for the rest of my life. Which might not be long …

Rosie and Vern’s place got blasted too, as the Jeep hit the highway. Tools and junk rattled, and Charlie was face down, wrists bound so tight her fingers were numb. Feeling every bump as they sped along the highway.

It took twenty-five minutes to reach Las Vegas’s outer suburbs. Charlie’s shoulder joint crunched when a superhero yanked her arm, scraping skin off her legs as he dragged her over a bare concrete floor and slammed her in the back of a battered delivery truck. Ed was pulled out of Harry’s Porsche, tied and gagged. Patrick came last, barely conscious, with blood oozing from a split lip.

Man Bun and another guy got in the front, while a huge female superhero sat on a bench in the rear compartment and put the sole of her boot in Charlie’s face. She’d walked through Vern’s cow shed and seemed amused as the stench made Charlie retch.

The sun was coming up as the second leg of Charlie’s ride ended. Man Bun opened the rear doors, with an emergency wound kit strapped tight round his bloody leg. He slashed the cords on Charlie’s wrists and ankles, and dragged her out. She recognised the tall pearl-coloured towers and rusted monorail track overhead as part of UrbanScape.

The trendy four-thousand-room hotel and casino had had the misfortune to open right before the first SNor outbreak and had gone bust in less than two years.

Man Bun limped to an anonymous grey door and tapped an entry card. Patrick was starting to come round, and Charlie reached across to cuddle him.

‘We’ll be OK,’ she mouthed softly.

Ed stayed silent. His expression was difficult to read, but was possibly guilty for not obeying the order to get down into the shelter. Charlie was worried he might have a fit, which was the last thing she wanted with a psycho like Man Bun on the scene.

‘I want my mom back,’ Patrick whimpered as Charlie followed Man Bun up bare concrete stairs.

At the top, Man Bun tapped his pass again and they entered UrbanScape’s deserted main floor. Charlie’s bare feet were cold on the marble in a grand check-in area, full of giant chrome sculptures and lifeless video screens.

The air-conditioning hadn’t run in years, leaving hot, dead air. Man Bun knew his way, expertly navigating the vast casino. Passing roulette wheels and endless banks of slot machines, lit only with emergency lighting and chinks of daylight.