Grandma Malikum, when she was still alive, loved to talk about death. “When you’re gone, what the ravens won’t take, the worms will have. Oh yes! They bury what’s left of you in the scaffields and what fine compost your tiny bones will make!” As she cackled, her whole face one big wrinkle of crumpled paper, the younger Ark shivered by the hearth, his mind filled with wriggly, segmented nasties.

Nothing to laugh about now. The glowflies threw every detail of the tunnel into sharp relief, from the zigzag of metallic ore cutting across the walls to the root fronds dangling like pond-weed from the roof. And there in front of them, the mealworm, squeezing through the twenty-foot-high tube, a pulsating monster with rotating teeth about to pulverize a trio of rather tasty little morsels.

Joe was busy muttering to himself in the split second before eternity came knocking.

Mucum merely stood there, goggle-eyed. A weapon. That’s what he needed. A dim memory suddenly made him reach down to the pouch on the left leg of his suit. Flipping fungus! His hands came up empty. The ride down must have loosened the flap. He turned to Ark.

Joe had had the same idea. “Give it over, boyo!” he shouted.

Ark obliged, ripping the harpoon from his rubber trouser leg and handing it over.

Mucum wondered if they were too late. The monster was so close that he could see the gobbets of slime trickling from its teeth.

But Joe was fast and his sight was true. He raised the shining tube, tucking it into his shoulder as his fingers closed around the trigger. “Come ’ere, yow big baba! Come and taste something sharp! I ‘ope it sticks in yow guts!” And as Joe focused, he pulled tight on the trigger.

Nothing. Or rather, only a click. “Hmm!” said Joe, as if it was a mere technical problem. “Could be the damp down ’ere. Ah well! That be that, then.”

“You what?” shouted Mucum. He couldn’t believe his ears. Their last chance gone and Joe was shrugging his shoulders. Death as an inconvenience. He was tempted to try and punch the creature’s lights out. Maybe not. His fists would simply be swallowed in that giant maw. Time to beat a hasty retreat. Using legs to sprint very, very fast. Screaming was also an option, though Mucum didn’t do screaming as a rule. This time, he’d make an exception. Only problem was that his legs were not cooperating, sticking him to the spot like a statue.

Ark thought of his family. He’d let them down. He’d let down the whole country, stuck here deep under the earth while an overgrown slug finished them off. He could smell the thing — a stink of earth and rot and dead rat.