In the merciless dark, Ben listened to the shuffling of their many bodies. They were coming for them. The firelight seeping through the wall’s weakness was suddenly blocked. The wasp’s long strides had brought him to within an arm’s reach of where they hid. There was a phlegmy growl to his every breath, like a hound searching for a scent. Not waiting for his head to crane around the corner, Ben hoisted Chloe to her feet. He could barely stand but his first instinct was to run. She was loath to enter the darkness at first, tentatively dipping her hands into the unknown, peeling aside branches as though each one held a tripwire with an orchestra of bells overhead. They felt their way along the wall, forcing through those invisible snares that toiled to tie them down.

Ben had acquiesced to the end. He had closed his eyes for what he thought was the last time. It was almost dignified. Should the villagers find and capture them, however, he knew what fate would befall him – torture, with the child responsible caressing his wounds with grubby, bloodstained fingers.

‘Hurry,’ the girl screamed from the darkness, ‘they’re getting away.’

Ben looked back just as the wasp’s head poked out from the breach. He couldn’t possibly have seen them.

‘Where are we going?’ Chloe shrieked, reaching back for Ben in the darkness.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he replied, fumbling for her hand. ‘Just run!’

There was nowhere to hide; no sanctuary from the storm of voices now thundering as one. These people knew every inch of that land. And in the absence of light, they could travel it without second-guessing a step.

Ben and Chloe dashed through the open gate. Neither looked back to see their pursuers, but there was no ignoring the glare of their flames as they crossed by the doorway.

The sudden sense of emptiness outside the churchyard was disorientating. They stepped off the world, into a lightless abyss inhabited by the horrors that called it home. It was too easy to get separated. Ben patted down Chloe’s arm and recaptured her hand.

‘Leave the torches off,’ he whispered.

‘How are we supposed to see where we’re going?’

‘Just hold on to me.’

The pathway rose and fell in ways that defied memory’s expectations. There was no knowing how far they would get before their inevitable collapse. It just had to be far enough so that the villagers would never find them.

The torches flared through the archway, merging into a living, breathing blaze of fire, chasing them like hell’s private army. The strongest legs amongst them led the stampede, their hooded silhouettes fighting forward, vying to fall upon their quarry.