‘We’re almost out of here,’ she whispered. ‘We’re right by the road and once we find it we can go home.’

‘Will Mum and Dad be cross?’ The whites of Marie’s wide eyes were bright in the silver moonlight that pushed through a gash in the roof.

‘Of course not,’ Carly said. ‘They’ll have been horribly worried but this hasn’t been our fault, any of it.’ But even if that was the truth it felt like a lie. She blamed herself endlessly. If only she hadn’t let the twins play with the ball in the garden, if only she had been the one to shut the gate.

If only, if only, if only.

‘Come now.’ Marie and Leah both slipped a hand inside hers, their palms slick with fear. They padded across the room. The rain slipped inside the building and puddled on the ground, but Carly barely noticed as her socks absorbed the water.

They were going home to dry socks. Dry clothes. Food.

Love.

At the doorway she hesitated. Which way? If she turned left she could lead them out the way they came in, but was that the way the men had gone? Unlike the other buildings Carly hadn’t seen any windows that they could climb out of, which was a shame. But they could fit through spaces the men couldn’t. Carly didn’t know if there was another exit and she didn’t want to waste time searching. She retraced their steps, all the while her chest painfully tight, her throat clogged with the scream she kept trying to swallow back down, but her mouth was so dry. They were tantalizingly close to freedom but still light years away.

‘We’re nearly outside,’ she whispered and the thought was both terrifying and reassuring. Fingers tightened around hers as they passed through the corridor where the roof was intact – the blackness swallowing them – and then they were in the shower block. The shower heads bent towards them cackling – you’ll never escape-you’ll never escape. For a split second the room was bright with fluorescent light. Soldiers in the showers rinsing off blood, stumps where their arms should be, crimson water trickling towards the drain…

Carly whimpered.

‘Are you okay?’ Marie’s whisper yanked Carly back to the now where there were no wounded soldiers, no blood, but the fear – the threat of death – was just as real as though it had hung suspended in the air for years, waiting to be reignited.

Waiting for them.

‘Move.’ Carly’s panic lent her feet a sense of urgency. If she had to spend another minute in this place the strands of the past would reach out and wrap around her neck, slip down her throat, trapping her here for eternity. She wouldn’t become a ghost.

A full stop.

She was a comma.

This wasn’t the end, although in that moment it felt like it.

Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

They were almost at the exit. She could make out the door.