‘Look, there’s a bigger building.’ Carly urged the girls forward. ‘Perhaps it’s…’ Her stomach plummeted to her feet as she took in the wonky NORCROFT ARMY CAMP sign. They’d walked around in a circle.

‘Girls!’ All three of them froze as Moustache’s voice sliced through the storm. ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are,’ he sang.

Lightning flashed. Leah screamed. She’d always been scared of storms. Carly clapped her hand over her sister’s mouth.

‘Over there!’ Doc shouted.

‘Run,’ Carly growled. She shoved Leah between her shoulder blades before grabbing Marie by the wrist, forcing her feet to move. ‘Run!’

They tore through the long grass that snatched at their socks and their skirts until the blades thinned and they were slip-sliding across mud. Thunder rumbled as mutinous black clouds sucked the light from the day. Mist swirled around their rain-soaked bodies. The smell of damp earth invaded Carly’s nostrils.

‘Oh, girls!’ Despite their sprint, the voice didn’t sound any further away. If anything it was nearer.

They ran again. The buildings were scarcer, looming out of the fog as though ready to snatch at the girls, but Carly led her sisters around them. They needed to find the fence. Climb it if they couldn’t locate the gate. Once they’d reached the road she would flag down a car. Someone would stop and help, ring their parents. Her longing for her mum and stepdad was painful.

She stole a glance over her shoulder. Two yellow lights trained on the ground bobbed behind them. Her spirits dampened as she realized Moustache and Doc were following the imprints of their shoes in the mud.

‘Faster,’ she urged Leah and Marie but they were tired, their short legs unable to put enough distance between them and their hunters.

Abandoning her search for the fence, she ushered her sisters over to the nearest building. They had to find somewhere to hide until the rain stopped and the ground dried.

‘Inside.’ She shoved them forwards. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

Ignoring Leah’s soft cries and Marie’s protest that they had to stay together, Carly dashed forward, all the while seeking out the torchlight, gauging how much time she had before they were found. When she couldn’t risk going any further she dropped to her knees and wrenched off her school shoes, stuffing her hands inside of them. She ran the flat soles over the squidgy mud, obliterating their earlier footprints. Inching backwards, the cold rain streaming into her eyes, blowing into her mouth, she pressed her shoes down as hard as she could, over and over as the torchlight grew nearer and nearer. They were dangerously close now. If it weren’t for the fog they’d be able to see her.

‘Come out, come out, wherever you are,’ came the cry again but this time the voice wasn’t travelling. Doc and Moustache had reached the end of the footprint trail and Carly could sense their confusion.

‘Split up.’ One light went in the wrong direction, the other headed straight towards her.