‘I think this is the right way. If we keep going straight, we have to come out somewhere, eventually.’ She crossed her fingers as she spoke. ‘As fast as you can.’

Carly could hear Leah softly crying, the shuffle of the twins as they crawled, and something else.

Rats?

It seemed to take forever, palms pressed into dampness, knees sinking, but in reality it couldn’t have been more than five minutes before the tunnel grew wider, and then she saw it.

Pale light.

The moon. Carly nodded her head furiously, affirming to herself that yes, they were nearly outside.

A sharp blow to the nose, sprang tears to Carly’s eyes.

‘Why have you stopped?’ she whispered crossly to Leah, trying to shove her forwards again.

‘Marie can see Doc’s boots. He’s out there.’

Carly felt angry. Helpless. Scared.

‘Back up,’ she hissed. She retreated, patting the walls, desperately trying to locate one of the pockets they could hide in. Her heart hammered in her chest. She knew if Doc crouched down and shone his torch in the tunnel it was all over.

At last found what she was looking for. She shuffled back even further, ushering the twins inside the cramped space, before she curled herself around them. A comma once more.

They waited.

From outside a shout.

‘I’ve found something! An opening.’

A light sweeping left to right in the tunnel. Carly screwed her eyes tightly closed.

Please don’t spot us. Please don’t spot us.

And then darkness.

Silence.

‘Has he gone?’ whispered Marie.

Carly wanted to scream, ‘I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers.’ She knew that was unfair, but still. She didn’t know what to do.

‘I think so but let’s wait a while.’

She pressed her fingertips over the walls, over the low ceiling. She found something smooth and hard, a large stone. They weren’t too far from the outside. Could they burrow out a different way? Potentially Doc and Moustache were waiting at the exit, ready to grab them when they emerged. If they could slip out somewhere else they’d have a chance to reach the road.

Was it silly to try to dig? Could she somehow cause the tunnel to collapse? But knowing that freedom was so tantalizingly close drove Carly to prise her nails under the stone and drag it out of the damp earth.

Suddenly they were all screaming as a deluge of insects poured down on them. Tiny, sharp feet scuttling over their skin. One fell in Carly’s open mouth. She gagged as she flicked it off her tongue. They were crawling over her scalp, tangled in her hair. Slipping down the neck of her shirt. She could feel them everywhere, but she couldn’t see them. She screamed again as something hard and solid rammed into her eye. The elbow of one of the twins who were flailing their arms. She slapped at her shoulders, pushing down on hard shells.

Beetles.

She tried to calm herself, tell herself she wasn’t scared of them but no matter how violently she smacked them away, they wouldn’t die. She could still feel the movement of their legs. Hear them scurrying manically under them, above them, on them.