The wasp paced over to the hammer. He was seething over the near miss and his scowl lingered on the one who had relinquished her arm. Only when he held the tool did he take notice of the creeper’s fascination with it. He looked to Chloe, held down on all sides, defenceless. And then he returned his attention to the creeper, crouching beside him as though consoling an upset child.

‘Do you want this?’ he asked, presenting the hammer as a gift.

The wasp closed the creeper’s fingers around its handle, securing them in place. The bones cracked like brittle branches. He drew his hands away cautiously, like a father watching his son cycle for the first time. The hammer stayed. Those long, gnarled fingers had clamped around it. The creeper’s eyeballs almost popped out of his skull. The tool was seen to quiver as he turned to face Chloe, her arms spread wide, feet held together.

‘No,’ Chloe screamed. ‘Ben! Please.’

The meaty arm around Ben’s neck choked even harder. He could feel the blood gathering around his eyes and thought he might pass out. He couldn’t get to her. Ben couldn’t do anything to stop what was happening.

‘Now,’ the wasp said, standing back, ‘do it!’

The creeper towered over Chloe, raising the hammer high with those monstrous arms. She screamed from fear and for mercy; for the help that wasn’t coming. Ben watched it all, as the wasp had wanted him to. With an ear-splitting shriek the creeper brought the hammer down on Chloe’s face, again and again, until blood and broken bone were all that remained. The horror of it was so savage, so brutal, so sickening to accept as real that vomit seeped through Ben’s words as he called out for her. But she was dead from the first blow. Everything that followed served only to destroy the beauty and life that was now no more.

She was dead, and the night was alive with the screams of those responsible. Adults and children, they had all watched the bloody spectacle. They had done nothing to prevent it. Ben stared in nauseous repudiation at the bloody fur of Chloe’s hood. The chorus of their voices was deafening but Ben didn’t hear it. If he was still being held aloft or strangled in place, he was oblivious.

Chloe was lathered in that black, slimy mud. She didn’t look like herself. Maybe it wasn’t her. There were no short, silvered hairs. No bright eyes or big smile. There was only that thing astride her body, flailing those hideous arms in the air to riotous applause.

It was over.

Kill me. Just kill me now.

There was no alternative. Not anymore. Since Alec Sparling’s email pinged in the coffee shop, their fate’s trajectory was hurtling them towards this horrific finale. They were his sacrificial pawns. And their time on the board was up.