And finally: Ellie, it’s Stan; then a long silence, and: call me back. Nothing else, because you didn’t tell your wife your child and hers was dead in an answerphone message. And worst of all there was no-one to blame. An aneurysm, caused by a birth defect: no-one’s action or inaction had played a part, no-one’s malice or error. No negligence on the school’s part, the paramedics’, or the hospital’s. Nothing anyone could have done would have changed the final outcome in the slightest.

Nobody to blame, unless you believed in God. Milly had never pushed her faith on Ellie, so they’d rarely discussed the topic, but late one night when very drunk Ellie had challenged Milly to justify a God who allowed a child to die at the age of seven from a time-bomb planted in his skull at conception. What was the point of that? What purpose did it serve? Why allow so vicious an absurdity to take place? And Milly had looked back at her, eyes full of sorrow and compassion, and said It’s a fallen world, Ellie, love. A fallen world. As good an explanation as any, or none at all.

Ellie looked at her phone: two hours had passed. She was almost surprised the things were taking so long to work their way through Barsall’s population. Weapons were useless against them; only light seemed to deter them. Maybe a few people still had light sources, forcing the attackers to find ways to extinguish them, or to wait till candles burned out and batteries were drained. Or perhaps they were toying with their prey, like cats with mice: making them suffer, drawing out their game.

Fire was a possible defence, even a weapon, but what good was that to them here, hiding indoors? For now they would just have to wait.

Another hour went by. The Robinsons huddled together, hands clasped; Ernie Stasiolek, thumping his fist against his thigh, eyed the door longingly. Some men would already have run outside, attempting to get back to Chapel Bank, heedless of the danger to themselves or others: Ernie at least was clear-headed enough to recognise he couldn’t help his family dead. Marzena Stasiolek was every inch as tough and level-headed as her husband, and would if necessary die to protect their children. The best course was to get through the night and hopefully find them whenever it was safe. Even so, it could only be a torment to wait helplessly while his neighbours screamed outside – screamed, and eventually fell silent.

And he wasn’t the only one: Milly was silent too, hands over her mouth, but her eyes were brimming and Ellie knew better than to approach her now; Milly was holding things together by the thinnest and most tenuous of threads with Noel out there in the night, quite possibly adding his screams to the rest.