Blue and Achilleus had already piled into the group of adults to the right. Ollie switched his attention to the smaller group, fired off a shot too quickly, without really taking aim. Ebenezer was about to throw one of his javelins when the incoming kids got in the way. This was not the right terrain for ranged weapons. There was really nothing Ollie could do now except hang back and try to stop any grown-ups who tried to make a run for it. His eyes had at last grown used to the lower light levels and he watched as Jackson cut down a pair of emaciated mothers.

He moved to a better position in the aisle and stumbled on something. It was a young girl from the museum. He hadn’t known her long enough to learn her name. She looked quite peaceful, almost as if she was asleep. There was another girl lying next to her, however, whose face was screwed up in fear and pain. He knelt down to check her pulse, just in case. Nothing. She was already cold, her flesh hard and solid.

He closed his eyes, wishing he was somewhere else. Fighting back tears.

‘Look out, Ollie,’ Ebenezer shouted.

Ollie looked up just as three fathers came hobbling down the aisle towards him. They had got away from Jackson and were moving fast. They were very close together, as if they had their arms round each other, and then Ollie realized that the father in the middle didn’t have any arms at all, and the other two only had one each. They appeared to be working as a single unit. And they’d been busy. The lower half of the face of the father in the middle was painted thick with blood and his teeth were stained pink.

As Ollie struggled to pull his knife free, someone stepped in between him and the attacking fathers.

It was Trinity.

The three fathers stopped dead in their tracks and stared, mesmerized. A hideous, distorted mirror image of Trinity.

Trinity’s arms were in the air, hands extended. The middle father began to whip his head from side to side as if trying to shake something loose. The other two hissed, but wouldn’t attack. And then Jackson’s war party stormed over and chopped them down from behind.

Ebenezer came over to Ollie.

‘That’s twice you nearly bought it, Ollie,’ he said. ‘Maybe we should get out of here. We’re just in the way.’

‘Yeah.’

The fight looked to be nearly over anyway. The grown-ups, bloated from feasting on the kids, had been surprised and quickly swamped.

Ollie felt breathless and dizzy. He’d been more scared than he’d known, and the shock of finding all the kids slaughtered was getting to him. There was a stink of blood in here, and human waste, rotting flesh and fresh meat all mingled in a foul stew.