‘Let’s look at this.’ Einstein had joined Ollie and was studying Seamus’s face. He peeled back the bandage that covered his bad eye. The eye was missing and the socket was filled with more growths and boils. Einstein prodded a growth with a biro and then shrank back as it burst and some sort of grey jelly bubbled out.

‘Nice,’ said Achilleus. ‘That’s dinner sorted.’

Einstein leant closer.

‘It’s moving,’ he said.

‘You’re joking.’

‘No, no …’ Einstein was furiously scrabbling in his backpack for something. Finally he pulled out a plastic box with a peel-off lid. He wrenched it open and poked some of the jelly into it with his biro.

‘Sorry to interrupt your picnic,’ said Jackson, backing towards them. ‘But aren’t we forgetting about the monsters?’

‘We don’t know they’re monsters,’ said Ollie. ‘That’s just what Seamus told us, and he obviously wanted us to kill them before we found out what they really were.’

‘Doesn’t mean they’re not still monsters,’ said Jackson. ‘I mean, did you see that thing?’

Blue walked to the edge of the group and shouted into the shadowy depths of the warehouse.

‘Hey! Come on. Whoever you are. Show yourselves.’

For a moment nothing happened.

‘We passed your test!’ Ollie shouted. ‘We’re here and you’re going to have to deal with us.’

Achilleus wandered over to a shelf and put the sharp point of his spear against a box.

‘Come out or the box gets it!’

Paddy laughed.

‘Can you understand us?’ Blue shouted.

‘We’re kids like you,’ said Ollie. ‘Didn’t you want us to come in here?’

‘Come out, come out, wherever you are!’ Achilleus called out in a sing-song voice. ‘I warned you – the box dies in five!’

At last they had a reply. A voice from out of the darkness, a boy’s voice, starting to break so that it was a little croaky.

‘How do we know you won’t attack us?’

‘We killed the grown-ups, didn’t we?’ said Blue. ‘Isn’t that what you wanted?’

The boy’s voice came back out of the shadows.

‘I’ll warn you. We’re watching you. Anything weird, anything we don’t like, and we’ll attack. We haven’t lived this long by taking risks. We’re hidden all around you.’

Blue sighed and quickly glanced up and down the aisles of shelving. He could see nothing. There were a thousand places to hide. The shelves were high, going right up to the ceiling. It would be easy to have people perched above them, armed with God knows what.

‘Do you want us to drop our weapons?’ Einstein shouted and Blue hissed at him.

‘Don’t be a dick. We ain’t dropping our weapons. You heard what the man said. We ain’t lived this long by taking risks either.’

‘We don’t want to hurt you,’ said Jackson.