The laughter cackled again.

He turned the torch back on the fuse box, and again reset the tripped switch.

This time the lights stayed on. For a few seconds.

They clicked off.

Darkness.

Another cackle.

‘We can’t stay here,’ Emily said. ‘We have to get out, now.’

The same malevolent voice rang out. ‘No one ever leaves.’

Emily clutched Jason as a strong gust of wind blew through the room. The door slammed shut behind them.

A scream rang out.

A baby cried.

Another gust of wind, even stronger.

Jason pointed his torch beam at the fuse box and pushed the switch back up.

It clicked straight back down.

A child screamed, followed by another child. Screams of terror.

Then a roaring, crashing, rumbling that sounded like falling masonry.

‘Jason!’ Emily shouted in terror, clutching him.

‘It’s OK, Em.’

‘IT. IS. NOT. FUCKING. OK.’ Emily gripped him even tighter.

They stood still for some moments.

Then everything went quiet. There was a click, and the lights came back on.

Jason looked at the fuse box. The switch that had tripped and had been down was now back up.

Their eyes met. Frightened eyes, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Both trying to find something in each other’s expression. Some explanation. Some comfort.

Jason had a thought. ‘Come with me.’

He raced through to the kitchen and over to the command box. It was plugged back in. On the wall, the television was on. A loud cackle came from it. The camera cut to a petrified young couple, as an old woman, in a blue dress and yellow shoes, with a hideously wrinkled face, glided, like an apparition, towards them.

A child screamed, followed by another child.

From the TV, there was the sound of falling masonry.

The couple onscreen turned and fled.

The old woman following them cackled, ‘No one ever leaves!’

On the screen, the couple reached the front door. It would not open.

The sound of falling masonry grew louder. Louder. The petrified couple looked up and around them.

An instant later they were buried in an avalanche of rubble.

Emily looked at Jason. ‘That was the woman.’

‘The one you saw?’

Looking numb, she nodded. ‘Did she switch the command box back on? Put the plug in?’

Jason had no answer. ‘Maybe one of us did – without realizing it?’

‘Oh sure, I do things without realizing it all the time, don’t you? Come on, get real. Neither of us plugged it back in.’

‘So, the lady on the screen did?’

‘She was standing behind me. Maybe she did.’

Jason looked at his wife. She claimed she hadn’t seen the Reverend Fortinbrass. She had no memory of the police officers turning up. Nor of so much else. Was there something seriously wrong with her? Could it be a brain tumour? Making her act oddly, imagining things – and forgetting so much?

Or was it him? Was he going mad? Was he the one who was imagining things? The accident on the building site? The meeting with the Bishop?