They ended at a double bed. For a moment I thought it was occupied, but so far as I could see from the corridor the quilt was emptily humped up. When I ventured into the room a face swelled at me like a worm out of the darkness. It was mine once more, faintly illuminated by the beam. Something pale reared up much closer to me – my breath. A shiver travelled through me to the flashlight, and as shadows swarmed up the walls to nest beneath the ceiling, I made for the bed.

The footprints ended near the headboard, where the pillows looked as if they’d been kicked out of shape. From beside them I could see under the quilt, which was raised like the entrance to a burrow. When I shone the beam under the grubby stained material, the hollow it revealed put me more than ever in mind of a lair. It was empty apart from a collection of objects at the far end. I leaned reluctantly closer while shadows leaned closer to me. The glinting items were jars that housed samples of earth.

The sight brought me near to a kind of uncomprehending panic. From the position the quilt retained, I could tell that the jars had been stored there by someone crawling head first into the burrow, and I couldn’t help fancying that she slept there in that fashion. Discovering the jars had revived the clamour of names in my skull. I pressed my lips together so hard that they ached, but perhaps I didn’t need to utter any syllables, because I glimpsed movements at the cornices around me – a suggestion of several scattered objects fluttering like masks in a wind. When I peered up without raising the beam, I had the impression that they resembled tethered balloons, imperfectly inflated and nodding as though windblown, unless they were repeatedly attempting inflation only to deflate afresh, not least their eyes. I was about to shine the beam at them in the hope that it might banish them when I wondered if it could attract them instead, drawing them to cluster around me if not on me. The prospect almost made me drop the phone as I fled.