Dedication

For my agent and friend, Kathryn Ross, whose patience knows no bounds.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

SEVENTEEN DAYS EARLIER...

Chapter One - THE HOSPITAL

Chapter Two - THE OTHER HOSPITAL

Chapter Three - THE OTHER OTHER HOSPITAL

Chapter Four - FINDING THE WAY

Chapter Five - THE SEARCH BEGINS

Chapter Six - THE THING IN THE TUBE

Chapter Seven - FACES IN THE FOG

Chapter Eight - THE DOCTOR IS IN

Chapter Nine - THE PORTER

Chapter Ten - THE SECRET HIDEOUT

Chapter Eleven - A TASTE OF HIS OWN MEDICINE

Chapter Twelve - FRIENDS REUNITED

Chapter Thirteen - A COMMON ENEMY

Chapter Fourteen - THE GALLERY

Chapter Fifteen - FROZEN WITH FEAR

Chapter Sixteen - CREATURE CLASH

Chapter Seventeen - TEN ELEPHANTS

Chapter Eighteen - CLOWNING AROUND

Chapter Nineteen - MISTAKES OF THE PAST

Chapter Twenty - FOSTERING RELATIONS

Chapter Twenty-one - CONFESSIONS

Also available in the INVISIBLE FIENDS series

Copyright

About the Publisher

Prologue

What had I expected to see? I wasn’t sure. An empty street. One or two late-night wanderers, maybe.

But not this. Never this.

There were hundreds of them. Thousands. They scuttled and scurried through the darkness, swarming over the village like an infection; relentless and unstoppable.

I leaned closer to the window and looked down at the front of the hospital. One of the larger creatures was tearing through the fence, its claws slicing through the wrought-iron bars as if they were cardboard. My breath fogged the glass and the monster vanished behind a cloud of condensation. By the time the pane cleared the thing would be inside the hospital. It would be up the stairs in moments. Everyone in here was as good as dead.

The distant thunder of gunfire ricocheted from somewhere near the village centre. A scream followed – short and sharp, then suddenly silenced. There were no more gunshots after that, just the triumphant roar of something sickening and grotesque.

I heard Ameena take a step closer behind me. I didn’t need to look at her reflection in the window to know how terrified she was. The crack in her voice said it all.

‘It’s the same everywhere,’ she whispered.

I nodded slowly. ‘The town as well?’

She hesitated long enough for me to realise what she meant. I turned away from the devastation outside. ‘Wait... You really mean everywhere, don’t you?’

Her only reply was a single nod of her head.

‘Liar!’ I snapped. It couldn’t be true. This couldn’t be happening.

She stooped and picked up the TV remote from the day-room coffee table. It shook in her hand as she held it out to me.

‘See for yourself.’

Hesitantly, I took the remote. ‘What channel?’

She glanced at the ceiling, steadying her voice. ‘Any of them.’

The old television set gave a faint clunk as I switched it on. In a few seconds, an all-too-familiar scene appeared.

Hundreds of the creatures. Cars and buildings ablaze. People screaming. People running. People dying.

Hell on Earth.

‘That’s New York,’ she said.

Click. Another channel, but the footage was almost identical.

‘London.’

Click.

‘I’m... I’m not sure. Somewhere in Japan. Tokyo, maybe?’ It could have been Tokyo, but then again it could have been anywhere. I clicked through half a dozen more channels, but the images were always the same.

‘It happened,’ I gasped. ‘It actually happened.’

I turned back to the window and gazed out. The clouds above the next town were tinged with orange and red. It was already burning. They were destroying everything, just like he’d told me they would.

This was it.

The world was ending.

Armageddon.

And it was all my fault.

SEVENTEEN DAYS EARLIER...

Chapter One THE HOSPITAL

I stood in the doorway, swaying on unsteady legs, staring down at the spot where my mum should have been.

The air around me was raw with the smell of disinfectant. It rose from every surface, thick and overpowering, as if trying to mask something too dirty to ever truly clean away.

Where I had expected to see Mum, there was someone else. This person was older than Mum. Smaller. More frail. Tubes and wires were attached to her all over, sagging limply, like the strings of a broken puppet.

Was this what Mum had looked like too? Lying there in this bed, bruised and battered from the attack by the Crowmaster? I couldn’t imagine it. I didn’t dare imagine it. Things I imagined had a nasty habit of coming true.

Like Mr Mumbles, for example. Years ago, when I was four or five, he’d been my imaginary friend. Eventually I’d outgrown him, forgotten about him, moved on.

He, it turned out, hadn’t.

Just over two weeks ago he came back and tried to kill me – or rather, a twisted, mutated version of him had come back, with dirty stitches sealing his mouth shut.

I only managed to survive when I discovered that I had a... special imagination. By concentrating hard enough – by picturing something clearly in my head – I could make it happen. I’d created fire. I’d created weapons. I’d even created a large, angry dog. And possibly a flying monkey, although the jury was still out on that one.

‘She was there. She was right there.’

Ameena’s voice sounded tinny and distant; I turned to face her. It took the room a few seconds to catch up.

‘Well, she’s not here now.’

A flicker of worry passed across Ameena’s face. ‘Are you OK? You look terrible.’

‘I’m fine,’ I lied.

‘You’ve been getting worse all night.’

‘I’m fine.’

I wasn’t fine. I was far from fine. My head was full of marshmallow and my legs were solid stone. My whole body was shaking with cold, but a thin film of sweat stuck my T-shirt to my back. My eyes felt like they were boiling in their sockets, and the five scratches I had received when the Crowmaster’s claws had dug into my scalp were burning holes through my skull.

I was sick. Maybe really sick. But it wasn’t my health I was worried about.

‘We’ve got to find her,’ I said.

‘You need to sit down before you fall down,’ Ameena told me. ‘I’ll get you a doctor.’

‘I’m fine,’ I snapped, turning and staggering out of the room. ‘Don’t worry about me. Worry about Mum.’

‘Can I help you?’

I looked in the direction the voice had come from. A tall, slightly overweight man in a white coat gradually swam into focus. His face looked like it hadn’t seen a razor in days, and the stubble that grew from his chin was flecked with grey.

‘My mum,’ I said.

The doctor raised an eyebrow and looked me up and down. ‘Sorry?’

I shook my head and cleared away some of the fuzz. ‘My mum was here,’ I explained. ‘In that room. She’s not there now.’

The doctor glanced in through the open door of the room. ‘Yes?’ he said, his tone clipped and irritable.

‘So where is she?’ Ameena asked.

‘Transferred.’

I frowned. ‘Transferred where?’

The doctor glanced at his watch. ‘That’s confidential. Now, if you’ll excuse me...’

Ameena stepped in front of him before I could. ‘He’s her son,’ she said, jabbing a thumb in my direction. ‘And I’m the one who brought her in. You can tell us where she is.’

The doctor folded his arms across his chest and leaned back on his heels. ‘The family has already been notified,’ he said, looking me up and down for the second time. ‘So, if you really are who you say you are, I suggest you check with them.’

Ameena didn’t move. She just stood there, blocking his way and giving him the evil eye.

‘Should I call security?’ he asked impatiently.

For a few long moments Ameena remained defiantly rooted to the spot. Then, although she didn’t step away, her shoulders slumped and she broke eye contact with the man in the white coat.

Keeping his arms folded, the doctor side-stepped her and carried on along the corridor. He didn’t even glance in my direction when he passed.

‘Family?’ Ameena asked as we watched him go. ‘What family?’

I laid a hand against the corridor wall, steadying myself. The paintwork was pleasantly cool to the touch, and I realised my insides felt like they were boiling. I’d gone from freezing in the cold to almost choking in the heat. I wanted to press my head against the wall and smother the fires that were burning there, but I didn’t. That would’ve taken time, and I was beginning to feel that time wasn’t something I had a lot left of. Besides, I’d have looked mental.

‘Nan,’ I croaked, letting go of the wall and forcing myself to stand up straight. ‘We have to go see Nan.’

I’d only been to the nursing home a couple of times since Nan had gone to live there, but I knew more or less where it was. We’d caught the bus. Ameena had paid for the tickets using money she got from who-knew-where, and then had half led, half dragged me to a seat somewhere near the back.

The journey went quickly, helped by the fact that I kept falling asleep. Every time I did I’d be greeted by a vision of the Crowmaster, or one of the enormous flesh-eating birds he’d sent after me.

Mum had sent me to stay with her cousin Marion for a few weeks, hoping it would help me escape from the horrors I’d encountered recently. I’d agreed because I thought it would keep her safe. I thought it would help keep everyone safe.

It didn’t.

As she left the train station, Mum had been attacked and almost murdered by the Crowmaster. I later found out he was Marion’s imaginary friend from long ago, but I didn’t find out in time to save Marion. She was dead. For all I knew, Mum might be too. I thought I could protect them all.

I couldn’t.

Ameena had nudged me awake as the bus rattled to a stop. I’d told her where we needed to get off as soon as we’d taken our seat, knowing full well I’d sleep through most of the journey.

As we stepped down from the bus the evening wind rushed to meet us. Its icy fingers snaked and probed through my dirty clothes, but my skin was so hot I barely felt their touch.

With a low rumble and a whiff of burning diesel, the bus rolled away, leaving Ameena holding on to me on a deserted residential street. A row of neatly kept bungalows stood on either side of the road. It was only early evening, but already lights were on in most of the windows, preparing for the long, dark night ahead.

‘Where to now?’ Ameena asked. Her voice was right by my ear. I could see one of her hands holding me under the arm, but I couldn’t feel it.

‘Thish way,’ I slurred, staggering onward a few steps. Ameena took my weight, probably stopping me falling. Good old Ameena. I’d only known her for a couple of weeks, but I had no idea how I’d cope without her.

‘Did you just call me “Good old Ameena”?’ she asked.

I focused my eyes somewhere in her general direction. ‘Did I say that out loud?’

‘Yes. “Good old Ameena”,’ she repeated. ‘What am I? A faithful pet dog?’

I arranged my face into something I hoped might pass for a smile. ‘Trusty sidekick, remember?’

We were moving again, shambling slowly along the pavement in the direction of the nursing home. With every step I seemed to sink further and further into the pavement.

‘Yeah, well this trusty sidekick thinks you need to sit down,’ she said, steering me towards a low garden wall.

‘No!’ I snapped, with more venom than I intended. I yanked my arm away and immediately wished I hadn’t. The sky seemed to slide sideways away from me, even as the ground raced up to meet my face.

This time I did feel Ameena’s hands. They caught me round the waist and chest. She couldn’t stop me hitting the ground, but she slowed me enough that it didn’t hurt too badly.

‘Good old Ameena,’ I mumbled, letting my head rest against the rough stone of the pavement.

She rolled her eyes, but flashed me a brief smile. ‘Woof. Woof.’

‘Help me up,’ I said.

‘Don’t you think you should wait a minute? You need to get your breath back.’ She looked me over. ‘Well, what you probably need is a blood transfusion, but a bit of a sit-down is going to have to do.’

‘No time,’ I told her, struggling to push myself up from the pavement. Try as I might, neither it nor I appeared to move. ‘Need to find Mum. Nan will know.’

‘What if your nan’s not there?’ Ameena asked. ‘You think of that? You’re killing yourself to get there, and she’s probably at the hospital already.’

‘They don’t like her being out at night,’ I said. I heard my own voice trail off and realised my eyes were closing. I forced them wide open. ‘And the doctor said they’d informed the family.’

Ameena shook her head, not understanding what I meant. ‘So?’

‘So if they had to inform her, that means they moved Mum when Nan wasn’t there. Only place she’d be is the home.’

‘Maybe, but—’

‘Ameena,’ I said, and the mention of her name cut her short. ‘Please. Help me up.’ She hesitated, still holding on to me, even though I had nowhere else to fall. ‘Please,’ I whispered.

With a sigh, she adjusted her grip and braced her legs. ‘Fine,’ she said, ‘but if you die before we get there, don’t go blaming me.’

Some time passed. I don’t know how much. The sky grew darker and the well-kept bungalows became badly neglected blocks of flats. Ameena was doing almost all of my walking for me now. Was I even moving my legs? I couldn’t say for sure. Fire burned in my head and in my throat and in my chest, while pain ravaged my brain and through my bones.

And through it all I could feel the itch on my scalp, where the Crowmaster’s claws had broken the skin. It was growing worse, and I knew that whatever he had done to me was responsible for the way I was feeling now. I thought I’d beaten him, but maybe he’d have the last laugh after all.

‘Dead yet?’ asked Ameena, not for the first time.

‘No.’

‘Good stuff. How much further?’

‘Not far,’ I told her, hoping this was the truth. The buildings looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t really be sure how close the nursing home was.

‘Thank God, you weigh a tonne,’ she said. ‘And you’re sweating like a Mexican wrestler.’

I turned my head to attempt an apologetic smile, and that was when I heard it.

‘What was that?’ I frowned.

Ameena stopped, and by default I stopped too. ‘What was what?’

I listened for a moment, and heard the sound again.

‘There,’ I said.

‘Where?’

‘Can’t you hear that?’

‘Hear what?’

‘That whispering,’ I said, whispering myself now.

Ameena tilted her head to one side and listened. ‘Just the wind,’ she said.

I shook my head. It wasn’t the wind. ‘I heard something. A voice. It was a voice.’

‘What did it say?’

‘Don’t know, didn’t hear properly.’

‘I didn’t hear a thing.’

‘Shut up, sssh,’ I urged.

Amazingly, rather than punch me in the face for speaking to her like that, she did shut up. We stood in silence, both of us listening for any unusual sound, but the whispers didn’t come again.

‘Maybe you imagined it,’ Ameena said.

I let her take my weight again. ‘Let’s hope not,’ I said, and together we staggered onwards into the darkness that loomed ahead.

Chapter Two THE OTHER HOSPITAL

‘She’s not here.’

The intercom on the nursing-home door crackled briefly, then fell silent. I stared at it, hoping I’d heard wrong.

‘What do you mean she’s not here?’ Ameena demanded, stepping closer to the intercom and pulling me with her.

‘I mean she’s not here. She’s out.’

‘What do you mean she’s out?’

I heard the woman on the other side of the intercom sigh. ‘Have a guess.’

‘Don’t get smart with me,’ Ameena snarled, before thinking better of starting an argument. When she spoke again her voice was measured and controlled. ‘Where is she?’

‘That’s confidential.’

Ameena looked to the sky and shook her head. ‘Is everything confidential today?’ she muttered. ‘Look,’ she began, speaking into the intercom again, ‘I’ve got her grandson here. He’s sick. Can we come in and wait for her to get back?’

There was silence from the other end for several seconds before the speaker gave another crackle.

‘Hello?’ asked a man’s voice. ‘Who is this?’

Ameena looked as if she was about to punch the intercom off the wall, but she kept it together and explained who we were and why we were there. Again. All the while I had to fight to stop myself puking on the front step.

‘So, that’s the grandson?’ the man asked when Ameena had finished. ‘He’s there with you now?’

‘Yes! That’s her grandson, and he’s—’

‘One moment.’

The speaker gave another brief crackle of static, then a click. Ameena stared at it, slack-jawed, apparently finding it hard to believe that anyone would dare hang up on her. ‘Hello?’ she said. ‘Hello?’

‘You need to leave,’ said another voice. I looked at the intercom, trying to blink it into focus, before I realised the sound hadn’t come from there. A middle-aged man with a bald head stepped out of the shadows behind us. Even through the blurriness, I recognised him at once.

‘Joseph.’

‘Joseph?’ Ameena repeated. ‘What, the guy you told me about? From the train? That Joseph?’

I nodded. The last time I’d seen Joseph had been on the train up to Marion’s house. He’d told me he was looking after me, helping in his own way to keep me safe. I still didn’t know whether to believe him or not.

The train wasn’t the first time I’d met him. He’d been in the police station Ameena and I had run to while being chased by Mr Mumbles. He’d appeared in the school and freed me from the chair Caddie and Raggy Maggie had tied me to. He was popping up all over the place lately. And now, here he was again.

‘That man you just spoke to, he’s phoning the police,’ Joseph told me. His eyes were locked on mine, never once moving to look at Ameena.

‘The police?’ I muttered. ‘Why?’

‘Someone spotted the fire at Marion’s house and called the emergency services. They found her... remains.’

I’d have felt sick, if I didn’t feel sick already. ‘They think I did it.’

‘They think you did it,’ Joseph nodded. ‘And they are extremely keen to get you in for a chat.’

Headlights reflected off the glass in the door, making us all look round. A car drove by, not slowing. It wasn’t the police. Not yet.

‘Should I turn myself in?’

‘If you go in you won’t come out,’ Joseph said. ‘You have to get away from here. Now.’

‘But I didn’t do anything!’

‘They won’t believe you.’

‘How do we know we can trust you?’ Ameena asked. She was supporting most of my weight, but she wasn’t showing any signs of struggling.

Joseph turned her way for the first time. A look of irritation flashed across his face. ‘Sorry, was I talking to you?’

I felt Ameena go tense. Her mouth opened. I spoke before anything came out of it. ‘I need to find out where my mum is.’

‘I know where she is,’ Joseph said. ‘I’ll take you.’

‘You sure about this guy?’ Ameena asked, making no attempt to keep Joseph from hearing.

‘I’ll tell you what I’m sure of, Kyle,’ he said. He normally looked quite a relaxed character. Mischievous, even. But now there was none of that to be seen. ‘I’m sure that men are coming to take you away and lock you up. I’m sure that they will try you for Marion’s murder and they will find you guilty.’

He stepped closer to me and rested his hand on my shoulder. ‘And I’m sure that, right now, I’m your only hope of seeing your mum again. One hour from now you can be in a holding cell, or you can be at your mum’s bedside. Your choice.’

He lowered his hand and stepped back. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed.

‘What’s it to be?’

Rows of orange street lights whizzed by, their glare reflecting off the windows of the car we were travelling in. I half sat, half sprawled on the back seat, my head resting against the cool glass. Whenever we hit a bump, my head would loll around for a moment, then thud against the window again. Maybe it hurt. I couldn’t say.

I slept fitfully, plagued by nightmares whenever I closed my eyes. When I woke, I’d catch snippets of conversation between Joseph and Ameena. They were both sat up front, but even through the fog in my head, I could tell they weren’t bonding well.

‘...can’t believe he trusts you. He’s got no right to trust you. He hardly even knows you.’ That was Ameena’s voice, all cocky and aggressive.

‘He doesn’t know you, either.’

‘Yes, he does! Besides, I’ve saved his life.’

‘So have I,’ Joseph said. ‘Yours too, actually.’

‘Shut up, you have not!’

‘Have so.’

They continued like that, bickering and arguing every time I woke up, until the sixth or seventh time, when I awoke to find Ameena leaning round in her seat, watching me. She smiled when I opened my eyes.

‘Dead yet?’

I tried to shake my head, but the pain was too much. ‘No,’ I said. It came out as a croak.

‘Good.’

‘How much further?’ I asked.

It was Joseph who replied. ‘Not far. Three, four minutes, maybe. Your mum’s in room forty-two. You’ll see her soon.’

I struggled into a slightly more upright position and looked out through the windows. Tower blocks stood like giants on either side of the road. There was a lot of traffic about, but it didn’t seem to be slowing us down. We crossed a bridge, passed a corner shop, a restaurant, a pub. I didn’t recognise any of it.

‘How do you feel?’ Ameena asked.

‘Been better.’

‘You’ve looked better,’ she said, studying my face. ‘The whole pale and sweaty thing isn’t really working for...’

Ameena stopped talking and just stared at me.

‘Whoa,’ she eventually whispered. ‘That was freaky.’

‘What?’ I asked. My lips felt cracked and dry. I licked them, but there was no moisture on my tongue.

‘Nothing, just a trick of the light or something,’ Ameena said.

‘What was it?’ Joseph asked. ‘What did you see?’

‘Nothing. It was just... For a second there it looked like I could see right through his head.’

Joseph swore loudly and slammed his hands on the steering wheel. ‘No, no, no, not now,’ he hissed. ‘Not already. It’s too soon.’

We both turned to look at him. ‘What?’ asked Ameena. ‘What’s too soon?’

Joseph didn’t take his eyes off the road. I felt the car beneath me speed up. ‘He’s slipping away.’

Ameena’s eyes went wide. ‘What, you mean... he’s dying?’

‘I’m dying?’

Joseph shook his head. From here I could see his hands on the steering wheel. The knuckles were white. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Something worse.’

‘Worse?’

Joseph didn’t answer.

‘You seem to know a hell of a lot about all this,’ Ameena growled. ‘What’s going on? What’s wrong with him?’

‘He’s infected.’

‘Infected? Infected with what?’

‘No time to explain,’ Joseph said. He sounded irritated. ‘We need to get him to the hospital.’

Ameena turned to look at me. Her head moved as a series of jerks. Her face looked blurred and hazy. When she spoke, her voice was muffled and faint. ‘Is there... Can they help him?’

He may not have spoken, but I couldn’t miss Joseph’s reply when he glanced over at Ameena. It was written all over his face.

‘You holding on in there, Kyle?’ he asked, looking at me in the rear-view mirror. My mouth was too dry to speak, but I managed to hold up a thumb for him to see. ‘Good lad,’ he said. I was jostled sideways as the car pulled round a corner and on to a much narrower road. ‘Not long now, it’s just up— No, no, no!’

‘What now?’ asked Ameena. Before Joseph could reply she said, ‘What happened to the engine?’

The car rolled slowly and silently to a stop. ‘They’ve killed it.’

‘Who has?’

‘I don’t know! Someone!’ Joseph roared. His voice was so loud it made even Ameena jump. ‘We need to get him in there,’ he said, a little more quietly. He nodded ahead, to where the hospital stood. ‘It can’t happen out here.’

Ameena began to speak, but he cut her off. ‘When I say, get out of the car and help Kyle up. We’ll both carry him. No arguments, we need to move fast.’

After a quick glance at me, she nodded.

‘OK. On three. One. Two.’

‘Three!’ Ameena cried, throwing open her door.

My door flew open next, and hands reached in for me. They caught me by the front of my jumper and dragged me out into the chilly night air. The blast of cold cleared away the cobwebs a little.

Now that I was a bit more alert, some of what had been said in the last few minutes began to sink in. I suddenly felt scared – a feeling that wasn’t helped when Joseph and Ameena hooked my arms round their necks and began hauling me along the darkened road as quickly as they could.

The large building ahead of us wasn’t, in fact, a large building at all. It was a collection of smaller buildings, every one of which seemed to come from a different period in time. Shiny glass and metal stood beside moss-coated stone. A low, squat grey granite structure lurked in the shadow of a red brick tower block. The hospital must have started off small, then been gradually added to over the years since then.

From what I could see, the buildings all seemed to be interconnected, but every single one of them looked out of place. It wasn’t like any hospital I’d ever seen before.

So why had they moved Mum here?

I was about to ask Joseph when I heard the whispering again. The same whispering I’d heard earlier in the night. It was louder this time, audible even over the laboured breathing of Joseph and Ameena as they ran with me towards the hospital entrance.

‘Voices,’ I said, the word coming out as a squeak. ‘Hear voices. Whispering.’

Joseph swore again. ‘How close?’

‘Close.’

‘He said he heard something before,’ Ameena chipped in.

‘What are they saying?’

I listened. The whispering came from every direction at once, hundreds of voices, all overlapping and tumbling together.

‘Kyle, can you hear what they’re saying?’

The closer we got to the hospital, the louder the voices became. They weren’t whispers now. They were more like a series of murmurs – low at first, but becoming higher pitched all the time. In moments the night was filled by their excited, hyena-like squeals.

‘Y-yes.’

Joseph gave a grunt of effort as he tightened his grip on me. ‘Well? What is it?’

‘Hungry,’ I croaked. ‘They’re saying hungry.’

I was pulled sideways as Joseph suddenly picked up his pace. ‘Move, move, move!’

‘What? He’s hallucinating, right?’ I heard Ameena say. She sped up too, but struggled to keep pace. ‘Tell me he’s hallucinating.’

‘He’s not hallucinating. We need to get him inside now. If it happens here he won’t stand a chance.’

Hungry. Hungry. Hungry. They were screaming it now. Their voices came from the left and right, from behind me and from up ahead. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry.

Some of them were close. Closer, even, than Joseph and Ameena. A voice screeched right by my ear and I felt a blast of warm breath on my face. But when I squinted through the dark, I saw nothing there.

‘Wha’s happ’ning?’ I slurred. Pain clawed through my skull like five fiery fingers, beginning where the Crowmaster had scratched me and reaching all the way down into my chest.

The hospital wasn’t far ahead – I couldn’t tell how far, exactly – but I suddenly felt that we weren’t going to make it.

Hungry hungry hungry hungry! The voices had been whipped into a frenzy, screeching and howling like wild animals. Ameena and Joseph showed no signs of hearing them, but Joseph made sure to shout when he next spoke.

‘Listen to me, Kyle,’ he bellowed in my ear. ‘When we get inside, there won’t be long before it happens. The Crowmaster infected you with a virus and it’s about to kick into top gear.’

‘What does that mean?’ a voice asked. I couldn’t even say if it was mine or Ameena’s.

‘It means you’re going to slip through into the Darkest Corners,’ Joseph told me. ‘Those voices you hear, they’re from over there. Those... things must know you’re coming. They’re waiting for you.’

Hungryhungryhungryhungryhungry.

The Darkest Corners. It was the place all imaginary friends went when they were forgotten about – an alternate reality filled with pain, suffering and unimaginable horrors. A bit like my last visit to the dentist, but without the free sticker at the end.

I’d been to the Darkest Corners a few times and had barely survived each time. Fortunately, I was able to flit back and forth between here and there just by concentrating hard enough, so an escape route was never far away.

‘He can come back, though. He can just come back. Can’t he?’

‘Not this time. It doesn’t work like that,’ Joseph answered. ‘It’s the virus. When he slips over, he’ll be stuck there. He’ll be trapped in the Darkest Corners.’

I felt my head spin faster as the enormity of Joseph’s words sunk in.

‘Trapped,’ he added, hammering the point home. ‘With no way back.’

Chapter Three THE OTHER OTHER HOSPITAL

I didn’t notice the door flying open at Joseph’s boot, didn’t even realise we were inside the hospital until Ameena staggered and fell to her knees, and we hit lino instead of concrete.

Joseph was beside me right away, turning my face so I was looking up at him. The five stabbing pains clawed all the way down into my stomach and a shock of agony shook my whole body.

An indescribable sound burst across my lips – not a scream or a howl, but something from deeper within than that. Something I didn’t even recognise as human. From my head to my toes, my muscles went rigid, amplifying the hurt a hundred times over.

‘Help him! Do something!’

My jaw was wrenched open and a leather wallet shoved in. My teeth clamped round it, stopping me biting my tongue off.

‘There’s nothing we can do.’ That was Joseph’s voice. He sounded a long way away. ‘It’s too late.’

‘There’s got to be some kind of cure!’ Ameena cried. ‘This can’t be it. It can’t end like this.’

They were talking about me as if I wasn’t there. Outside, I could hear the other voices still screeching. Hungryhungryhungry. Hungryhungryhungry.

‘Not here. Over there. There’ll be a cure there, if he can find it.’

Ameena’s face suddenly filled my vision. Sparks of blue flickered like fireflies around her head.

‘Did you hear that, Kyle? There’s a cure over there. There’s a cure in the Darkest Corners. Find it, OK?’ I closed my eyes, but she shook me until they opened again. ‘Find it and come back to me.’

‘You’ll be better there,’ said Joseph urgently. ‘Not like this. The hospital will be barricaded, so you’ll be safe from the things outside. At least for a while.’

He nudged Ameena aside and leaned in close to me. His face was a mess of flickering sparks. They scurried across his skin like insects.

‘But it’s not what’s outside you need to worry about, it’s what’s inside. There’s someone in the hospital. Someone worse than anything out there. Worse than anyone you’ve had to deal with so far. You’ve got to stay away from him. You hear me, Kyle? You’ve got to stay away from—’

I never caught the end of the sentence. The entrance hallway exploded in a shadowy spray of blacks and greys, and a tumbling torrent of electric sparks came crashing down on top of me.

The last thing I heard before I passed out were those voices, louder and clearer and more excited than ever before.

Hungry, hungry, huuuuuuuungry!

The clanking of metal woke me. I leapt to my feet, startled, no real idea what was going on. The wallet was still wedged in my mouth. I spat it out, and realised at once that my body no longer hurt.

I prodded gently at my head. The Crowmaster’s scratches were still there, but there was no pain. Nothing. In fact, other than a dull ache where my knees had hit the hospital floor, I felt in perfect health.

Relief made me snort out a laugh, but another metallic crash soon wiped the smile from my face.

The sound was coming from the door, or rather, where the door should have been. Sheets of heavy corrugated iron covered the entrance, wedged in place by thick metal poles and thicker wooden beams. Rolls of barbed wire were strung across the entire barricade, cupping it like a sling and keeping it pressed against the door.

Everything – the metal, the wood, the wire – shook as the creatures on the other side of the door hurled themselves against it. I could make some of them out through gaps in the blockade, battering against the small windows with clawed, misshapen hands. The glass looked to be long gone, but a wire mesh and half a dozen strong bars stood in its place, keeping everything outside from getting in. Everything except their voices.

They giggled and shrieked. They spat and swore. They hissed and howled and hollered like all the demons of hell. And all the while, the barricade shook and the chanting continued:

Hungry, hungry, hungry!

I turned away and tried to get my bearings. A putrid, mouldy stench caught me right at the back of the throat, and I had to pull the neck of my jumper up over my nose to stop myself being sick.

I was in a long corridor that stretched away into the distance, ending in shadow. Fluorescent strip lights hung from the ceiling overhead. Most of them didn’t seem to work, but four buzzed and flashed erratically, casting a cold, flickering glow along parts of the corridor.

Those bits of the corridor I could see were in bad shape. The tiles on the lower half of the walls were filthy, cracked, or crumbled away completely. Above them, on the top part of the walls, it was impossible to tell what colour the paintwork had once been. Damp had seeped through it, marbling the surface with shades of black and brown. Large flakes of the ruined paint had peeled off, revealing patches of raw brickwork below.

Doors lined each side of the corridor. Some stood open. Others hung in pieces, the wood rotten and decayed. More light flickered from beyond some of the doors, suggesting this corridor wasn’t the only one to have power.

Dark puddles covered parts of the floor, fed by the constant drip-drip-drip of water that leaked through the decomposing ceiling tiles. At least, I hoped it was water. The rest of the floor, where the puddles didn’t reach, was a mess of debris and junk.

Soiled bandages and dirty syringes lay scattered around my feet. The half-melted head of a plastic doll stared up at me from within a nest of surgical gauze. I swung back my leg and booted the thing as far along the corridor as I could. I’ve found you can never be too careful when it comes to creepy-looking dolls.

Hungry, hungry, hungry! the voices behind the barricade screamed. Hungry, hungry, hungry!

That was it. I’d seen and heard enough. I had missed some of what Joseph had told me, but I remembered him saying I wouldn’t be able to get back. It was time to put that to the test.

I’d become pretty good at flitting between the Darkest Corners and the real world. It didn’t take much effort now. I used to have to really concentrate, but now I could make the jump just by thinking about it for a few seconds.

Still, I was taking no chances this time. I shut my eyes, tried to block out the crashing and howling from the entrance, and focused like I’d never focused before.

It happened in a heartbeat. The decaying walls around me appeared to heal, as the real world rushed in to replace the festering wound that was the Darkest Corners.

The sunlight that came streaming in through the windows burned away the stuttering shadows. I looked around. The barricade was gone. The filth and the rot were gone.

But Ameena was there. Ameena and Joseph. Her face crinkled into a grin when I appeared beside them. Joseph’s expression barely changed – just a raising of his eyebrows in the middle, and a slight widening of his eyes. It wasn’t a look that suggested he was pleased to see me.

From that look alone, I should have realised something wasn’t right, but I didn’t. I smiled cockily back at them, telling myself that Joseph was just unhappy at having been proved wrong—

A bomb went off behind my eyes and I saw blood splatter on the floor at my feet. The pain crippled me, making my body go limp. I dropped to my hands and knees, my muscles spasming, rivers of red flowing from each nostril and down over my mouth and chin.

I tried to scream, but the blood was flowing down my throat. I coughed, spluttered, hacked – choking on the stuff, drowning in it.

The second jolt of pain was worse than the first. It hit me like a hammer-blow to the side of the head. The force of it took my arms and legs out from under me.

I landed, face down, in a grimy puddle.

Hungry, hungry, hungry. Hungry, hungry, hungry!

The pain eased off and the blood stopped flowing. I coughed up a wad of dark red and left it floating in the water. I didn’t move for over a minute, just knelt there, staring at my bloodied reflection flickering off and on in the puddle. There one second, gone the next.

I didn’t have to look to know the barricade was there. There had been no flashing sparks, no sensation of movement – nothing to signal I was flitting between worlds. But I was. I had. I was back in the Darkest Corners. And it looked like I was stuck there.

At long last, I stood up. I looked at the spot where Ameena had been standing. Where she was still standing, a whole world away. She’d be shouting at Joseph now, demanding to know what had just happened. The thought of it almost made me smile. Almost.

The corridor went dark. For a few seconds I could see nothing. The crashing of metal and the screeching of the creatures outside sounded louder and closer in the sudden darkness, but I didn’t dare run. With no light to see by, I could bump into anything, and I didn’t imagine there was anything good to bump into in here.

Then, as I’d begun to wonder if the lights would ever come back on, they did. All four of them resumed their random blinking and flashing, offering me at least a partial view of the corridor.

I kept my back to the barricaded door. Going that way was out of the question. The only route open to me, it seemed, was down the corridor, further into the hospital.

I peered along it, at the filth and the rot and the dark pools of shadow. More than anything I did not want to go that way. More than anything, I knew I had to.

Ameena and Joseph had mentioned a cure – a cure that could only be found in the Darkest Corners. Was that why Joseph had brought me here? Was the cure here in the hospital? It made sense, but that was what worried me. Nothing about the Darkest Corners normally made sense.

But still, if there was a cure, then I would find it. What other choice did I have? Being stuck here – being trapped for ever in the Darkest Corners – was unthinkable.

I took a few big, bold steps along the corridor, then stopped. What was I doing? Joseph had also said there was somebody in the hospital. Somebody worse than anyone I’d crossed paths with before.

I thought of Mr Mumbles, Caddie and the Crowmaster. I couldn’t believe there could be anyone worse than those three. But what if Joseph was right? If there was something even half as bad as any of the monsters I’d faced so far, I was in real trouble. Back there, back in the real world, I could do things. I could stop them. Here, I was just a kid. Here, I was powerless.

Here, I was as good as dead.

Ameena would know what to do. She’d come up with a plan and find a way to make it work. But Ameena wasn’t coming. No one was coming. I was trapped in a big scary hospital in a big scary world, and I was on my own.

Squeak.

Squeak.

Squeak.

The sudden sound made me jump, and I gave a little yelp that only reminded me how scared I was. The squeaking had come from... where? Somewhere along the corridor, I thought, but it had an echoey quality, suggesting it might have come from further away.

I stood still, listening, not daring to make a move. Even the things outside had fallen silent, and were no longer battering against the barrier. The sound didn’t take long to come again – a high-pitched squeak-squeak-squeak like some sort of machine badly in need of oiling. There was another sound too, behind the first one. It took me a moment, but I soon identified it. Footsteps, slow and steady, clack, clack, clack.

Joseph was right. I was wrong. I may have been trapped in a big scary hospital in a big scary world, but now I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I was definitely not on my own.

Chapter Four FINDING THE WAY

Ilistened again for the squeaking and the footsteps, but heard them only once. They were further away this time, somewhere deeper within the hospital, and I decided it was finally safe to... to...

To do what? I was at a loss. From what I’d seen of it from the outside, the hospital was enormous. Finding a cure – if there even was one – would be virtually impossible. Would it be a pill? A drink? An injection? Some kind of machine? How could I look for it when I didn’t even know what it was, let alone where it was?

Why hadn’t Joseph given me more to go on? Why hadn’t he told me anything useful? Time had been running out, but that hadn’t stopped him before. On Christmas Day, when I’d been running from Mr Mumbles, Joseph had somehow slipped a note inside a Christmas cracker and left it for me to find. Why couldn’t he have done something similar this time? Why had he left me to...?

My gaze fell to the leather wallet on the floor. He had wedged it into my mouth to stop me biting my tongue, but was that his only reason?

My pulse quickened, but I didn’t dare move. If I moved – if I grabbed the wallet and looked inside – I might be disappointed. Better to leave it there, to not look, and hold on to the hope for a little longer.

But hope wasn’t going to cure me. And hope wasn’t going to get me home. If there was something in the wallet that could help me, I had to get it. If there wasn’t, I had to deal with that and figure things out on my own. Either way, I had to know.

I stooped and picked up the wallet. It felt light and flimsy in my hands. I did nothing but hold it for a long time, unable to bring myself to look inside. Overhead, the closest light flickered – on, off, on, off – buzzing angrily, like a trapped insect.

The barricade was still silent, but I could hear other noises out there, off in the distance. Roaring. Screaming. Howling. I turned my back on the world outside, trying not to listen. My hands shook as I unclipped the stud fastener on the wallet, and carefully looked inside.

There was no money, that was the first thing I noticed. No notes, no coins, nothing.

In the bit at the back, where the notes should go, there were four photographs of different sizes. The pictures were in colour, but scuffed and scratched. One of them was scorched down the right-hand side, half of the image completely obscured by a mess of black and brown.

I flicked through the first three pictures. A waterfall. A sunset. A mountain – Fuji, I reckoned, in Japan. All nice, scenic images. All completely useless to me.

Then I came to the fourth photograph, and suddenly nothing in the world made any sense.

This one looked even older than the other three. Fold marks and scratches criss-crossed it like a road map. It was a different shape to the others too – square, with a white border that was yellowing round the edges. It looked like the ones Mum used to take with Nan’s old Polaroid camera.

I didn’t notice these details until later. Right then, all I could see was the image printed on the paper.

There were three figures in the picture, huddled round one side of a circular table in what looked to be a run-down old pub or restaurant. I recognised two of the people; the other I had no idea about.

The one I didn’t know was a boy of around four or five years old. He was on the right-hand side of the picture, kneeling on a chair and laughing so hard a little bubble of snot was popping out from one of his nostrils. His eyes were closed and his mouth was open in a wide, gap-toothed smile. A wispy white cloud in front of his mouth suggested the room – wherever it was – was icy cold.

Next to him, in the middle of the picture, was a much more familiar figure. He was leaning back in his chair, his arms folded across his broad chest. He was scowling at the camera – scowling at me – and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck bristle as I stared back into his dark, soulless eyes.

The collar of his overcoat was up round his ears, and the wide brim of his hat curved downwards, almost to meet it. Mr Mumbles looked just like he had when he’d come after me, but for two details.

His lips were unstitched, that was the first thing. My eyes had instinctively gone there, checking for the dirty lengths of thread that had kept his mouth sewn shut for most of our encounter. The scars were there – two rows of dark dots above and below his lips – but the stitching itself was gone.

The second unusual thing about Mr Mumbles’s appearance was his nose. It was as large and as hooked as ever, but in this picture a long, pointed icicle hung from the end, reaching all the way down past his chin. It was this that the boy on the right seemed to be finding so hilarious.

Seeing Mr Mumbles there came as a surprise, but it was the last figure that really shocked me.

He sat off to the left of the image, half out of shot. He was looking across at the boy and smiling – not laughing like the boy was – but smiling, definitely smiling.

His clothes were dark and coated with dust and grime. Across his chest were two small metal trays, attached by straps to more metal on his shoulders, like a crude, homemade suit of armour. From the dents and scratches in the metal, the armour had seen its share of battles.

His face was thin and drawn. A scar ran down the length of it, from above his right temple to below his mouth. The scar wasn’t fresh – a year or two old at least, I guessed. But... how was that possible?

I pulled the picture closer and studied it in the flickering light, searching for anything that would show it to be a fake. It had to be some kind of trick. It had to be, but I could see nothing to suggest anyone had tampered with the image.

I looked again at the third figure. His face was the one I knew best of all, the one I’d recognise anywhere.

Because it was mine.

The third person in the picture was me.

Except it wasn’t. This version of me looked older, taller, with a lean, muscular frame. So, not me, but someone who looked almost exactly like me. And who was having his photo taken with Mr Mumbles.

Did I have an evil twin? Was that it? I’d only recently found out that my dad was imaginary, so discovering I had a brother I knew nothing about wouldn’t really be that strange by comparison.

But... he looked so like me. And the photo was so old. And where were Mr Mumbles’s stitches? And who was the kid on the right?

The picture threw up several questions, but it provided nothing in the way of answers, and answers were what I needed now. I quickly shoved it back inside the wallet with the other three photographs, and looked through the other sections.

Empty. Aside from the pictures, there was nothing else in there. I closed the wallet with a snap. What a waste of time. I was even more confused now than I had been a few moments ago. I was getting nowhere.

I was about to slip the wallet into my pocket, when a tiny triangle of white caught my eye. It poked out from the seam at the wallet’s edge, like a little shark’s fin cutting through the stitching. I studied it more closely. The stitching along one side of the wallet was loose, as if it had been unpicked and then hurriedly sewn back up. My heart skipped a beat. The wallet had a hidden compartment!

It took a few tries to catch hold of the triangle between the tips of my fingers. It was plastic, a little thinner than a bank card. On the other side – the side facing away from me – I could feel a little bundle of paper, just two or three sheets, maybe. They seemed to be attached to the plastic, because when I moved it, they moved too.

I gave the triangle a tug. The stitching held it in place, and my grip slipped off the smooth plastic.

Kicking through the rubbish on the floor I searched for something to help me get the thing out. Bandages. A clipboard. Some rotten grapes. I found nothing useful until my toe pushed aside an old, torn magazine and revealed a surgical scalpel hiding below.

I slipped the tip of the scalpel inside the seam of the wallet, and split the stitches open.

I let the scalpel drop to the floor and hurriedly wiped my hand on my jeans. The plastic card slipped out easily. I shoved the wallet in my pocket and carefully unfolded the paper that was attached to the piece of plastic. It was a map. A map of the hospital. The kind they might give to visitors or patients to help them find which part of the building they needed to go to.

It wasn’t big – about the size of an A4 sheet of paper when fully unfolded – and there wasn’t a huge amount of detail on it, but I didn’t care. It told me everything I needed to know, because there, in one of the smaller hospital buildings off to the left of the main one, was a circle of red ink. It had been scrawled heavily round a rectangular room in the middle of the building. The writing was small and hard to make out in the erratic light, but if I held the map close I could just make out the text printed in the middle of the room.

For the first time in days, I laughed. Actually, properly laughed out loud. Had Joseph been with me I’d have kissed him. He had left me a message, telling me the cure was there in that room circled in red.

In that room marked “Ward 13”.

It took me a little longer to find where I was at the moment. I’d assumed the door we’d come through was a main entrance, but I was wrong. It wasn’t even marked on the map as a way in at all, so I guessed it must be for staff or emergencies only.

I was so happy at finding the map I wasn’t even discouraged by the fact that I was just about as far away from Ward 13 as it was possible to be in the main building. If I stayed inside the hospital I had a maze of corridors and wards to get through until I got to where I needed to go. If I went outside, I’d be eaten alive. It was no contest, really.

Memorising the first few twists and turns of the route, I refolded the map, shoved it way down deep in my back pocket, and set off along the shadowy corridor in search of Ward 13.

Chapter Five THE SEARCH BEGINS

Every one of the doors along the corridor led into offices of various sizes. Some were little more than large cupboards with just a single desk and chair in them. Others were big, sprawling things with bookcases, filing cabinets and tables too.

Regardless of their size, all the rooms were in the same condition. The furniture was toppled or broken. Books and papers were scattered across each filthy floor. The walls were decaying and the ceiling was damp and the windows – all of them – were blocked with planks of wood, sheets of metal and rusted lengths of barbed wire.

Computer equipment was smashed, chair coverings were torn, and the whole place stank like a sewer. It made me all the more desperate to find Ward 13 and get out.

But I knew if I wasn’t prepared I might never make it to Ward 13 alive. Back in the real world, my abilities gave me at least a fighting chance against the horrors that came hunting for me. I could conjure up a weapon, or a shield, or, or... something. But my powers didn’t work in the Darkest Corners, as I’d discovered when I’d tried using them to attack my dad.

My latest encounter with him seemed like an age ago. Could it really have been only yesterday?

I needed a weapon. Something to fight with, in case anything came after me in here. A gun would’ve been nice, but I’d have settled for a sword or an axe – something I could do serious damage with if I found myself cornered.

The best I could find was a snooker cue. It was half pinned below a heavy wooden desk in one of the larger offices. The desk weighed too much for me to lift it, so I spent three or four minutes puffing, panting and swearing below my breath as I wiggled the cue free.

It wouldn’t have stopped Mr Mumbles, or an army of living dolls, or a flock of flesh-eating crows, but I felt safer with the cue than I had without it. It had a heavy end for hitting and a pointy end for stabbing. It’d do until I could find something better.

About half of the offices had working lights. Most of them buzzed on and off like those in the corridor, but a few remained on constantly. It was the first time I’d been to anywhere in the Darkest Corners that had electricity. It had come as a surprise, and made me wonder what else I didn’t know about the place.

And about the person Joseph told me was in here with me.

I held the cue in both hands, heavy end pointing upwards and tried not to dwell on who – or what – might be lurking in the hospital. Getting to Ward 13 was all that mattered. Edging up to the office door I glanced out, scanning the corridor for any sign of movement.

Nothing.

I crept out into the flickering lights of the corridor and pressed on. I stuck close to the wall, barely glancing into some rooms, stopping to search any that looked like they might hold something useful.

None of them did. Just more broken furniture, more smashed computer components, more rot and filth. Sometimes I’d come across a family photograph – the smiling faces of wives, husbands and children – trapped behind dirty, broken glass.

Those pictures, I think, creeped me out more than anything else. Those smiling faces, those loving hugs, they were so out of place – a captured moment of happiness, lost in hell. And they reminded me of the other photograph too. The one that made no sense. The one that was still in the wallet in my pocket.

But I wasn’t dwelling on that, either. Now that I had a weapon and somewhere to head towards, I was feeling much more positive. It might be a long road to get there, but at least I now knew where “there” was.

And it was all thanks to Joseph. I wondered why he didn’t just tell me where to go, or about the map in the wallet. Why had he hidden it? Had someone been watching us even back there in the real world?

I gave myself a slap. I could ask questions like that all day and not get any answer. Now wasn’t the time. I had to concentrate on getting to Ward 13, getting the cure, then getting back to Mum.

I was almost at the end of the corridor. It ended in a T-junction, joining another corridor that ran off in both directions. Before the junction, though, there was a final door. It was undamaged, unlike the others, and, also unlike the others, this door was closed.

What to do? Part of me – a big part – thought I should keep moving, leave well alone. There could be anything behind that door, after all.

But another part was intrigued. Maybe I’d find a better weapon in there. Or something else I could use.

There could be anything behind that door, after all.

Pressing my ear against the wood, I listened. I could hear the thudding of my heart and the buzzing of the nearest fluorescent light, but from within the room itself there wasn’t a whisper.

The door handle was cold. Moving slowly, so as not to make a noise, I pushed it down and gave the door a nudge. It thudded softly against the frame. I tried again, using my hip to shove the door harder this time. Again, it didn’t open.

‘Locked,’ I muttered, out loud. That was that, then.

I turned and walked away, but stopped after just a few steps. Why was it locked? What was in there?

It shouldn’t have bothered me. I shouldn’t have given a damn. But the room was locked up for a reason, and I wanted to know what was inside.

The door was flimsy and flew open with one kick. I hadn’t expected that. Unbalanced, I followed my foot through into the room, only stopping when my momentum ran out a few paces later.

The office I found myself in was as dark and as cold as the grave. My breath rolled away in little clouds, before being lost to the blackness. From out in the corridor, the flickering light spat blurry shadows on to the wall, but otherwise did nothing to brighten the gloom.

I felt for the light switch, not holding out much hope. To my surprise, two wall-mounted lamps came on, chasing the darkness from the room. The light didn’t make the place feel any warmer, though, and I felt myself shiver as I stepped further in and looked around.

The room was in a better state than the others. Everything in it was just as wrecked, but it looked as if someone had tried to tidy some of the debris up, or at least sweep it into a pile at the back of the room.

The window was barricaded, just as all the others had been. Over in one corner, a desk lay on its side. It had been pushed right into the corner, so its four legs were pressed against one wall. Within the little square space between the desktop and the skirting board lay a crumpled hospital blanket. It must’ve once been white, but now it was a dark rainbow of dirty stains.

There was a lump about the size of a football beneath one corner of the blanket. I watched it for a while to make sure it wasn’t moving, then gave it a prod with the point of the snooker cue to be doubly certain.

Satisfied that whatever was under there wasn’t alive, I hooked the cue tip beneath the blanket and flicked it away. A small bundle of packets and boxes was revealed. I squatted down to examine them.

There was a bag of cashew nuts, half empty, and two packets of crisps, both unopened. Beneath them was a bashed box of expensive chocolates. The top layer was empty, but there were still three pieces left in the bottom tray.

My stomach gave a growl, urging me to get stuck in. I realised I couldn’t remember when I’d last eaten. Had it been that meal I’d picked at in Marion’s kitchen? How long ago was that? One day? Two? Suddenly I felt very hungry.

I popped one of the chocolates in my mouth.

Then spat it back out again on to the floor. Coffee Cream. I wasn’t that hungry.

A small satchel lay open and empty on the floor beside the overturned table. I took it, stuffed one of the bags of crisps inside, then slung the satchel across my chest.

The second crisp bag crackled as I opened it. A vinegary smell wafted from within and my mouth began to water. I grabbed half a dozen crisps in one go and crammed them into my mouth. They were stale, and didn’t actually taste much of anything, but I didn’t care. I chewed hungrily, spraying crumbs everywhere.

The second handful of crisps was out of the bag before I’d swallowed the first one. I chewed faster. My stomach ached sharply as the full force of my hunger made itself known. Gulping the crisps down, I raised the next load to my mouth.

A sound from the doorway made me stop. I opened my hand, letting the crisps fall. Holding the snooker cue like a fighting staff, I spun round.

A boy stood in the corridor, just beyond the door. But not just a boy. The boy. The boy from the photograph.

He was small, but the way he was hunched over made him look even smaller. His face was caked with dirt, with two tracks of clean leading from his eyes and down his cheeks.

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