It could be all over the county. The country. The world, for all she knew.

Ellie took a deep breath; her throat was raw and the cold air made her cough. She covered her mouth to muffle it. For now, it didn’t matter what was happening in Matlock, or Manchester, or Mombasa. That could wait till tomorrow. What mattered was surviving the night. Hopefully the things would go when the sun rose: they hated light, after all. But living things were adaptable; maybe they could tolerate it, given time. But if daylight brought a respite, however brief, there’d be time to make better sense of the situation and develop a strategy beyond immediate bare survival, assuming anyone was left alive in Barsall come morning, or indeed anywhere else.

Survive the night. That was what mattered, for now.

The flames sounded like bones being gnawed.

“What now?” said Ernie. “We can’t stay here.”

He was right. Already the roof was growing hot from underneath. At least the things had cut the gas off as well as the power. Suddenly Ellie was no longer either numb or tired, and sat up straight. “Okay. We need somewhere to hole up till dawn. And light. Or even better, fire.”

“Definitely fire,” said Milly. “Or if those things don’t get us, this lovely little thing called hypothermia will.”

Madeleine got to her feet. “What d’you think they did? Knocked out one of the pylons?”

Ernie shrugged. “Sounds about right.”

“No heat, no light,” said Madeleine. “Just like that. This time of year – long, cold nights. And we’re helpless against both enemies. The cold and... them.” She turned to Ellie. “Which reminds me.”

“Yeah?”

“Like I said, I was going through parish records before – looking for anything that rang a bell with any of this. Found a few things –”

A loud, alarming crack, a muffled bang, and sparks billowed up into the sky. The house beside the surgery had caught fire.

“No offence, Mad, but it’s gonna have to wait. We need to move.”

“All right. But hang on. Here.”

Madeleine lifted her sweater and pulled a wad of papers in a clear plastic wallet from her waistband. “Managed to print this stuff off before I came out. So, anything happens to me –”

“Got it.” Ellie stowed the wallet in an inside pocket and zipped her jacket up. She could feel the waves of heat from the flames. “We need heat and light,” she said. “Since the power’s out, most of the buildings here are liabilities, not assets. We need a big fucking fire that’ll stop us freezing and keep those things back. Can’t do that inside a house. Suffocate if we tried. Our best chance’ll actually be in the open. Build a fire there.”

“That’ll take time,” said Ernie.

“We’ve got the flares,” Charlotte chipped in. “They don’t like light. Right? So the flares’ll keep them back for a bit.”