It was another of those masks, but shoved right up against the glass. Even like that, you still couldn’t see anything behind the eye slits. Was someone just holding it there? No, there was clearly a body out there too. Spatley leaned closer to examine it. They sold these outfits online; some of them were the proper ones, so called, and some of them were cheap knock-offs. The Chinese were shipping them over. Capitalism in action, on the back of the anti-capitalist movement, straight from the Communists. Anything could mean anything nowadays. The top hat this figure wore was pushed up against the window too. Whoever wore it was almost acting as if he could push his way into the car.

No, wait, was that…? This wasn’t possible. Was he dreaming again?

The mask was somehow … forcing the glass inwards around it, the brow of the hat pushing ahead of it, bending only slightly with the pressure, the window becoming a viscous liquid. Was it some sort of chemical?

There might be genuine danger here. Spatley looked quickly to Tunstall, but he was oblivious, hitting the horn again. ‘Brian!’

The man looked over his shoulder, looked right at the face slowly pushing through the glass, and it was suddenly, horribly evident to Spatley that the driver couldn’t see anything unusual. ‘They’ll get bored. You hold on.’ He sounded less certain now, nervous even.

‘But…’ Spatley looked between the two faces. He didn’t know how to say that he could see something that Tunstall couldn’t.

Oh. This must be what having a stress hallucination was like.

He turned back, trying to control himself, to watch as the face shoved itself through the glass, the head almost completely here now. He was thinking about Ann giving birth to Jocelyn, he realized. Was this some sort of dream sign, that he should accept this protest movement or whatever it was into his … his car…? No, no. That was weakness.

Below the head, something was pushing through the material of the door itself. Of course. If glass could do that, so could metal. Spatley watched it form. It was going to become a hand, he saw. It was holding something, metal flowing all around it. Then the object heaved its way right through the door and into clear view.

The hand was holding a cut-throat razor.

Spatley yelled and ripped off his seatbelt. He shoved himself across the seats, scrambling to get his back to the far door. ‘Brian!’ I’m awake, he wanted to yell, I’m awake! ‘Let me out!’

‘What is it?’ The driver had turned to look again. He was looking right at where a second hand had pushed its way through the door. The thing’s upper body was now joining the head as it snaked into the car.

‘Can’t you see it?! You have to let me out! They’re … they’re getting in!’

‘What are you talking about?’