Leaning his weight on his one good leg, he unstraps the shotgun and hefts it to his shoulder.

But we’re swimming in darkness again, and the rain is torrential so it’s hard to make anything out or to hear anything. We wait, battered by the elements and poised for an attack. Liam grips the gun tightly, rainwater cascading down his face in waterfalls.

The next moment a fork of lightning spears a tree not far ahead of us, and it’s as though we’re standing beneath floodlights.

I see him at once. He’s standing still, staring right at us. Liam sees him at the exact same time. He swings the shotgun in his direction and pulls the trigger, but nothing happens; there’s no blast, no recoil. I look at Liam. He takes aim again, trying to focus through the rain, but the man has dissolved into the black. Liam fires anyway, into the void, but once again there’s no bang, no crack of a bullet. The gun isn’t working.

Liam snaps open the gun’s twin barrels. He tips the shells out. ‘Give me another shell,’ he shouts.

I put my hands in my pockets but as I do, I catch a streak of movement coming our way.

‘Liam!’ I scream.

Liam turns to where I’m pointing, bringing the gun up and swinging it over his shoulder, ready to use it as a club. But nothing happens. The darkness is full. The ghostly echoes of the lightning are burned on my retina and I blink several times, but I feel as though I’ve been blinded. ‘He was right there,’ I say to Liam. ‘Right in front of us. About fifteen feet away.’

I stand frozen, clinging to the oak tree beside me as though it’s a rocky outcropping in a storm-tossed sea – the only thing keeping me from drowning. I don’t dare move an inch, but I sense Liam stepping away from me and moving forwards. I try to reach for him, but my hand clutches at air.

‘Liam?’ I whisper, struggling to make my voice loud enough to be heard over the wind.

Liam doesn’t answer. But then I hear a godawful, ear-splitting scream of agony as though someone is being eaten alive by wild beasts. I pull out the torch from my pocket, no longer caring about giving myself away, and with fumbling fingers I switch it on and swing it in a wide arc around the wood.