And then she saw a movement. Something was rising from the pile of corpses, a body. She held her breath. It seemed to uncurl, like the speeded-up film of a plant growing, pushing up like a shoot from this mound of dead flesh. Whoever it was was covered in blood, black and sticky with it. It was twisted and misshapen, broken, but somehow still moving around.

It was Scarface.

Ella let out her breath and was just about to shout out to him when she saw another movement. Two people were coming down the ladder from the roof.

They got to the bottom and came slowly across the barn towards Scarface, said something to him. Ella couldn’t hear through the door. He shook his head slowly. Ella could see that he held his two knives in his hands. They were dark red. Louisa said something else and Scarface shook his head again. And then Ella gasped as Louisa hit him round the back of the head with her club. He fell face first to the ground. Sonya and Louisa went to his body and started searching it. Then Sonya gave a shout of triumph, straightened up. She was holding Scarface’s big bunch of keys.

They hurried over to the main doors and went out into the early morning sunlight.

Ella carefully lifted the lock of the door and slowly eased it open. She stuck her head out and checked that it was OK. Worried that she’d see the girls. Worried that she’d see grown-ups. Living ones. There were more dead ones in here than she could have imagined. They were lying on top of each other everywhere she looked. In some places three deep. She was glad of the smoke, because it did something to hide the worst smells. Of bodies ripped open.

She went over to Scarface. He was lying where he’d fallen, on top of a pile of grown-ups. She felt him, shook him, put her ear to his mouth, listening for any breathing. Then she put her hand to his chest and she felt the tiniest flutter of a heartbeat, and worried that she was only feeling her own pulse. No. His chest was moving. He was just about alive. The back of his head was badly cut and his own blood was mixing with the blood he’d been splashed with.

Ella ran over to the cabinet where he kept his medicine supplies, tugged the door open, nearly pulling the cabinet off the wall. She found a roll of bandage, unrolled it and cut off a long strip. She tied it loosely round his head, hoping to stop the bleeding. Didn’t know what else to do.

Then she remembered Sonya and Louisa. They’d taken his keys. What were they doing? She went over to the door and peeped out, scared that they would see her and come back to hit her over the head as well.