Taking three steps at a time, Seb fled down the stairs. As he descended, his last glimpse of the shadow repeated maddeningly inside his mind. That sense of a figure dropping to the floor, then rising to all fours. It groped about as if more capable, and in possession of a much longer reach, when positioned low to the ground like a stalking animal. As the shape had moved fluently about the room there had been a swishing sound, reminiscent of a heavy cloth sweeping floorboards.
The muttering that followed him down the stairs was human-like, though much reduced, before it degraded into something canine.
Seb reached the foot of the stairs and turned for the ground floor. He would have kept going had the last flight of steps not looked so impenetrably dark. He was also certain that the darkness down there swelled and bustled with a curious energy of its own.
As he hesitated, the back of his neck tingled afresh, in anticipation of both an attack from below and a blow from behind. One glance over his shoulder was sufficient for him to notice movement on the staircase wall. What could have been human limbs commanding an unnatural extension, struck out and snatched at the air, and in a manner uncomfortably similar to that of a magnified insect. And if those were the shadows of hands, then the nails extending from the digits were long enough to qualify as claws.
The scream that followed was reminiscent of the distant shrieks of the apes in Paignton Zoo, which could be heard miles away on a still day, as faraway territorial disputes were conducted on the contoured cement of their enclosures.
Seb pounded down the passage and threw himself inside his bedroom. Using what felt like a superhuman strength, he raised one end of his antique chest of drawers and hauled it across the floorboards, scraping the skirting-board paintwork. He dropped the heavy article part-way across the door.
At the windows he tore open the curtains.
His shaking fingers began a futile clawing at the window locks. He turned the steel security key backwards and forwards, momentarily forgetting that the key required a simultaneous press and turn to release the window. By the time he remembered this, he’d become paralysed with terror at the sound of what moved through the passage beyond his bedroom.
A shriek outside was followed by a heartfelt sobbing and a string of muffled words intoned in some kind of entreaty for mercy or succour. The piteous whimpering of a grown man had recommenced, and directly outside his door. A sound that passed inside his room to inhabit his nerves.
When the crying ceased, a nasal whine shook Seb enough for him to make another attempt to unfasten the window lock, while knowing that the drop from the first floor was too great. Two broken ankles. He was trapped.
The whine passed away in the direction of the stairs.
Not breathing, Seb listened and received an impression that the intruder was conducting a search, albeit blindly.
It entered the empty bedroom on the other side of the wall. A grumble whined into a bestial snarl. With horrible clarity, Seb imagined an old mouth that opened too widely. One filled with yellowing teeth.
Shouts of distress issued from Ewan’s room, further down the passage. Such was the strength of Ewan’s bellow his cries passed through several walls.
Seb crouched under the window and hugged his body into a ball.
Ewan flung wide the door of his own room and shouted, ‘No! No! Get away! Get away! No! No! I’m trying to help. I’m only trying to help!’ This was swiftly followed by the sound of Ewan’s feet slapping towards Seb’s bedroom.
Seb watched the door handle being snapped up and down from outside. Ewan was trying to get in, and desperately enough to employ his feet, knees and hands to bang at the door, shaking it in the frame.
‘Let me in,’ Ewan whimpered, his words near breathless.
‘No!’
Ewan made a narrow gap through which one of his arms, whisking in an anorak sleeve, came through to swipe about inside as if he was trying to push Seb away from the other side of the door. When Ewan’s hand found the obstacle, the chest of drawers, he slammed his shoulder against the door, lower down and closer to the door handle. The barricade rocked back and forth.
Around Seb, the air swelled with an unbearable anticipation.
Ewan spoke again, though not to Seb. He seemed to be talking to someone else, out there, in the corridor. It was hard to understand all of what he was saying, but the childlike tone of his voice surprised Seb. ‘No. You can’t . . . Don’t.’ Ewan was pleading. ‘I’m doing what he wanted. Get away!’
Ewan resumed hurling the full weight of his body against the wood until the barrier jolted forwards. Soon after, he was inside the bedroom. He slammed the door and turned round, his ungainly body wedged behind the chest of drawers. ‘Here,’ he said, panting, but as if to a room full of people.
Seb had never seen Ewan so witless, so blanched and jittery, his eyes so wide and the yellow teeth bared horribly as his fear chattered out. ‘They know. They followed. They know. They know.’ Ewan’s muttering then became inaudible.